Let me tally. At this point, I own I think five - now six, bottles, various formulations. I try to keep track by the packaging but mostly I know by the smell.
This one from the drugstore, probably dating to the early 2000s. It isn't as insistently bright and austere as the latest version. It isn't glorified grape bubblegum like some of the others.
I see Poison out in the world and sometimes I'm overcome and though there are five, now six, bottles back home, home isn't instantaneous enough. I add to the pot. Something about that green shimmery box; it starts before I even get the packaging open, before I even uncap the bottle. What Poison means starts when I see the box and the memory of the smell and what I know it will do to me and my mood kicks into gear. It focuses my thoughts. No small feat on any given day.
There's a list of perfumes from around Poison's time that I obsessed over at the fragrance counter as a teen. Poison heads that list. So getting it, even the sixth or seventh bottle, without thinking much of it, without thinking at all, is a powerful thing. I thought so much as a teen back then - about how I might get a bottle, keep it on hand to smell, even if I couldn't wear it. I thought about it but it was forbidden. I looked forward to the next time I could pass through the mall and pretend I had a girlfriend who wanted it as much as I did. That porn of talking to those sales associates is a vivid memory - inevitable, protracted coos about how special it would be to receive Poison as a gift, as if I didn't know.
So it does something massive to me now, walking in, seeing it, throwing it in the cart, taking it up to the cashier and out to the car. It means some things will always be out of reach, but not this.
When I asked the drugstore associate to unlock the perfume cabinet for me she asked as they always do which bottle I was wanting to see. I said Poison and she laughed. Is that what it's really called, she said. You want Poison? Loads of laughs. It meant nothing to her. She'd never even heard of it.
5 comments:
You either love it or hate it...there's nothing in between. I've been trying to come up with a name for my perfume, and when I mentioned it to a friend, she said, "It sounds too much like Poison, that awful perfume." "Bite your tongue!" I said. I LOVE Poison...!
Fiend!
I just jumped on the Poison bandwagon. I got a 1.7 @ Costco for $50. Love!!!
Barbara might be right about the love-hate thing... I used to hate this stuff, when I was in college (1986-90). I truly did. People wore sixteen spritzes of it TO CLASS. They wore it on the bus. Entire dorm halls contained enough of it that you could lean on the smell.
And then a couple of years ago I wanted to shock my kids, so I grabbed a sample of the edp and dabbed it on - just a touch. Just a bit.
My oldest nearly fell over when she opened the minivan door (HEY. No judging. YOU try picking up three kids, four backpacks, a dog and a trombone case in your cute little car. Or, for that matter, try to get three car seats in the back seat of a sedan. Cannot be done, unless you're driving some Lincolny monstrosity, and at that point you might as WELL get a Caravan.) to get into it after track practice.
"WHAT," she said, her eyes bugging out, "is that SMELL?"
"It's me," I told her. "Poison. You like it?" Because, I have to admit, I was digging it on me.
She didn't answer. She was too busy literally holding her nose with her fingers.
But The CEO followed me around the house all afternoon. "You smell good. I like that one. Come here, I want to sniff you..."
I had never worn it myself, back in the day. I should have. It's lovely. BWFs with deep plummy richness and that sultry thing underneath. Now I own a small bottle (ca. 1999, according to its previous owner).
Poison has been through so many reformulations, each tweaking just a shade. Big differences I guess between early and recent, including the bottle, which within the last years plumped up like a piece of fruit on steroids. The older bottle is shriveled in comparison. I remember a lot of girls wearing Poison, and I never got sick of it, unlike Giorgio - I loved Giorgio but it took over in a way Poison didn't somehow. I'm surprised now when I wear Poison that it doesn't last as long as I remember, even the older bottles I have.
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