Fire and Ice (1994): High school. Going out to eat at night. My other favorite accessories were a faux emerald and diamond jewelry set and a nail color called Iced Cappuccino that I think was one I see online by CND, but the bottle design doesn’t look familiar.
Crabtree & Evelyn Violet Toilet Water: This was more of a private fragrance compared to Fire and Ice, which I wore more for school and outings. I associate it with writing historical romance stories, summer, dreaming, and thinking about the Victorians. I bought two bottles from The Joy Shop, a shop in Beaumont I used to visit with my grandmother.
Celine Dion (2003): I got this from Bealls right when it was released. Didn’t try it beforehand but absolutely loved it. I moved to an apartment, and this fragrance is part of that confusing but memorable time of having my first full-time job and living on my own.
Isabella Rossellini Manifesto (2000): I loved Isabella Rossellini all through high school and was dimly aware that she had come out with a fragrance line, but I never saw it in stores. Then, a lot of it came in to Big Lots, and I bought at least two gift sets, possibly more bottles. I know I used up at least two bottles of it. The fragrance soundtrack to my moving to Arlington and finding my next job here in Arlington, working on night shift.
Lovely (2005): I got this right when it came out. I may have smelled it beforehand in a magazine ad. I loved it. It’s absolutely iconic. I associate it with being in my prime and feeling like I had come into the world. Glamorous with dresses, high heels, and salon hair. Working in Dallas and also going out to Dallas a lot at night.
Bright Crystal (2006): I still have a little of this one but I did abruptly stop wearing it when I quit my last full-time job and went to grad school, so I feel like it belongs to this last working era of mine, more in an industrial district in Fort Worth. When I smell it, it’s like I smell blankness, and I feel this void.
Amarige (1991): This is the only grad-school signature that has caught on for me. I wanted this perfume really badly in high school after smelling it in a magazine ad strip, but never saw it in person. I found a miniature of it in an antique shop in Austin a few years ago and found the scent to be rich and beautiful. So I got a full-size bottle of it and wore it as my daily fragrance to work and school before the pandemic.
Throughout the pandemic, I have really fallen in love with scents again and spent a lot of time thinking about them and wanting to go back to the past through scents, which is what I embarked on with Amarige. I have bought a lot of miniatures from antique shops and online, collected samples and magazine ad strips. I have gone back to the past to revisit Jessica Simpson and Taylor Swift scents that didn’t work out for me the first time around. I’m also trying to stay to either cruelty-free or used scents.
I also have had a couple of nail polish signatures over the years, since Iced Cappuccino. One was O.P.I.’s Suzi Sells Sushi by the Seashore. That is definitely my mid-20’s polish, just like my Urban Decay Sell-Out Face Case is my mid-20’s makeup. Another was O.P.I’s Most Honorable Red. In my 30’s, I strongly favored the warm, orange-y nail polishes. O.P.I’s A Roll in the Hague is one. Another is Revlon’s Siren. Along with those, my signature 30’s lipstick was Lime Crime’s My Beautiful Rocket. (20’s being either Urban Decay Gash or the lip colors from my Victoria Secret Very Sexy Lip Palette, which I have not found the same set online even to reference, though there are many variants).
Post-pandemic, re-entering the world? Who knows. I favor the brick rose or metallic rose colors for lip colors and rose gold, glitter, silver nail polishes. However, nail polish-wise I actually use Dr.’s Remedy now because it is helping eradicate my toenail fungus. The polishes are so expensive I have to buy the really basic colors and just keep wearing the same one for a long time. So it’s hard to say I have found a signature, but maybe once I work through these two basic red shades (bought in a set to save money) I can try to get one that is more personal.
Now that my hair is dyed black with indigo, the warm and orange-toned makeup doesn’t work for me me anymore. I prefer green, blue, and silver for my eye shadow and rose lip and nail colors, preferably with some shimmer.
Sunlight-Colored Roses 