Red Door Perfume

Recently, in a local grocery store, a lady walked passed me and I caught a whiff of the fragrance she was wearing.  It was Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door perfume.  I know that scent so well, as my Mom wore it for the last few years of her life.  Immediately, a flood of memories came back to me, all of them linked to that distinct fragrance.

When Mom first discovered Red Door perfume, she loved its smell and wore it all the time. She realized how strong the scent was and so she always carefully put only a few small dabs on herself.  She always had a gentle smell of Red Door floating around her.  As the years went by, I (and no doubt, many other people) noticed that she was layering the perfume on a little thicker and I tried to explain to her that she had to be careful so that the smell was not too strong.  She always countered by saying that they just were not making Red Door like they used to, and she had to use more of it in order for the scent to be noticeable. 

As a result, she began to go through many bottles of the fragrance.  Whereas a bottle had in the past lasted for a year or more, it was now only lasting a few months.  It seemed to me that “Red Door perfume” was always on Mom’s shopping list.  

I came to identify the scent of Red Door with everything that was my Mom.  When she gave me a hug, I could smell it on myself for a long time after.  Many times when going to her apartment, as I stepped off the elevator, I would catch that scent and I would know that Mom had been in the hallway in the not so-distant past.  Her bedroom always had a trace of Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door perfume in the air.

It was only when I actually stayed by her side when she was purchasing the perfume that I realized what was going on and why Mom’s favorite perfume had a weaker smell to her: Mom was losing her sense of smell.  That realization dawned on me as I watched a very patient clerk at one of our local pharmacies go through sample after sample of Red Door Perfume: eau de toilette, spray, non-spray, perfume, lotion.  Each time Mom would shake her head and say that it just didn’t have a scent.  She lamented to the young clerk that she used to love the scent of that perfume and she wondered why they had changed it, why it was now such a weak scent.  Finally Mom decided that the perfume bottle which she usually bought would be the one she would purchase because “at least, that one still has a bit of a scent”.   So, we would return to her apartment, her prize in her hand – the red bottle with the gold coloured lid.

I explained to Mom that day that the reason her favorite perfume had lost its fragrance was not because of anything Elizabeth Arden had done, but rather because Mom’s sense of smell was not quite as keen as it used to be. She just rolled her eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking and said that she was not, in fact, losing her sense of smell and that all she had to do was put a thick layer of perfume on and she would smell it,  and that was because they had changed the way they made her perfume. 

When Alzheimer’s disease took away Mom’s independence, she finished her last bottle of perfume in her new home.  By then, her disease had progressed to the point where she no longer remembered to buy a new bottle and soon after that she forgot all about her signature perfume. 

I know that most public places ask that perfume not be worn, but I’m glad that lady wore Red Door perfume to the grocery store that day.  It brought Mom back to me, even if for just a few seconds.  A special scent which brings back special memories . . . it’s a good thing!