eau de detergent

I've mentioned before my love affair with scents... and the harsh reality that my all time favorite perfume has had to sit largely unused during the last 8 months in order to make it last the whole year. 

Well, let's be honest. It's kind of weird to go to the gym smelling like an expensive bottle of perfume. It's weird to throw on some old clothes to clean the house and smell like that either (although I don't mind - I suppose it's unnecessary)... for those instances, I prefer the smell of detergent. Really... good... detergent. 

When I was a kid a lot of my friends lived in "new" houses. They were often the first occupants. We did not.
Our houses were the "fixer uppers".
We were the family that always sought out bent cans at the grocery store, dug through the "remnant" pile at the fabric store, and bought our detergent in 20 gallon buckets from who knows where.
It was smell-less. My mom only cared about how white our whites were (which came from her trusty bleach concoctions) and that we didn't look "dirty". A certain scent??? that's a bunch of hooey she'd say. We can do a load of laundry for 6 cents! 

As a kid I wasn't too aware of our differences from other families in many of these ways, until my school uniform never smelled like the other kids. 

Junior high saw yet another move for my family, I think it was #5 or 6. It was my first time going to a private school and my first uniform. Thanks to my parents thrifty ways....With mom at work that first day the nuns handed me a very faded and 3 times too big navy sweatshirt with our school name on it, a 'peter pan' collared shirt and a plaid skirt that hit my shins. My teeth were crisscrossed in front of each other and my mother had only recently agreed to let me grow out my permed mullet and bangs.
(Thankfully I had the spelling bee champion title from my old school under my belt - or perhaps it was that I spent more time hanging with my friends parents that kept me from getting beat up.)

She didn't think it was necessary to pop for the brand new, dark navy, brand new smelling sweatshirts... the old ones would do just fine. (come to think of it, she was starting this whole not being wasteful thing... right? why manufacture a new sweatshirt when there was a perfectly wearable, although faded and worn out one right here for 1/3 of the price.)

If that wasn't enough, at my first sleep over I became very aware that apparently we were one of the only families that cooked at home... or... that our home was so small, our clothes smelled like we cooked in our closets. 

All the other girls' uniforms and sleeping bags carried the most incredible aromas I'd ever smelled. They weren't all the same, but they were all incredible. And their houses! They had these pretty little rooms we weren't allowed to play in, where dried potpourri wreaths hung on the walls, and in bowls. And their laundry rooms emitted those aroma's I'd smelled at school...It was like a dream. That's where I vowed to get a good job so I could afford the luxury of the expensive detergent.

It soon became my job at slumber parties... sniffing out our identical uniforms and placing them with their rightful owners. The twins mom used Tide with bleach, so did Tanya's mom (They were probably the kids who came home with more grass stains). That was kind of tricky, but I basically lived at the Twins house so I just knew which ones were theirs.
 Gina's mom used All,  and so did Tiffany's but Tiffany's mom had all that potpourri so hers had a tinge of dried flowers. While two of the Stephanies both used Cheer, one of them spent a lot of time with her grandparents and they smoked so that's how we could tell them apart.
It was fascinating to me.

I was happy to always be the sniffer because then no one had to sniff mine... which would likely tell you that my mom had a love affair with bleach and drank a pot of coffee a day, my father loved to pretend he was Italian and our house was so small that when mom decided to use the smoke detector as her timer... the smell permeated all 1,100 square feet. Including the closets.

Needless to say, when I reached an age where I was purchasing detergent for myself I would spare no expense on price. At first I thought being able to afford Tide meant I had finally made it.

It was good, but after the initial bottle I realized there were so many smells out there! Now, I stand in the aisle removing lids and sniff each bottle.  Even their cleaning power doesn't really factor in. Isn't that sad? My mom would be so disappointed... but my true love... is smell. As far as I'm concerned people won't notice if my whites aren't as white if they're mesmerized by how good I smell... maybe I'm wrong, but living in clothes all day long that continually emit the most amazing scent, is where it's at for me.

For awhile I was all about Gain - the Red bottle - Apple Mango

But I really love the Febreeze Spring Renewal... and then I noticed they had mixed that smell with detergent... so I had to buy it...

I figure it's cheaper than perfume... and I can't really buy it used... so my new favorite "perfume" the one that comes with cleaning power and costs anywhere from $.20 - $.70 a load - so be it.

So thanks mom and dad for helping me learn how to cook, and the importance of good working smoke alarms... And of course the appreciation of a hard earned dollar saved by being a good shopper and resourceful and useful in the kitchen because now... I can splurge on detergent rather than costly perfume.

I love the smell of detergents.

P.S. pie plate made it home. Crisis averted