Jungle Gardenia (original) (1950)
by Coty

I think this is the right one, the bottle said Tuvache, not Coty.

It didn't smell a bit like gardenia to me - or on me, but I think the previous reviewer's characterization of it as "excruciatingly sweet and cloying," and "scary stuff" describe it much better than I ever could.

Nevertheless, I miss it. With no offense to anyone's mother who wore it, I remember it as being the fragrance of choice of twelve year olds who, it was hmmphed, were "trying to grow up too fast."

But Jungle Gardenia was much more than that. It was what even the nicest girls from the finest families wore to sneak out, to skip school and ride in cars driven by children without licenses. It was the only perfume that could be counted on to camouflage cigarette smoke.

It was the go-to perfume for steamy, hormone-and-stolen adult beverage-saturated nights of clandestine summer vacation resort rendezvous, when secret things happened that no one would ever, ever tell.

Because as strong as it smelled, it would wash right off, and you could spray your Good Girl Ambush back on and smile and be polite to all the grownups and hear them boast about your grades as you quietly excused yourself and went up to "study," washing the Ambush off with Sweetheart soap and reaching down under your awful schoolgirl knee-socks in the third drawer of some venerable and giant carved thing, and lift her out almost reverently, because in that long long ago of near and far and east and west and secrets and meetings of twains in city after continent, she loved them all, did Jungle Gardenia, loved to come out of the drawer at night, to play and make more memories, keep more secrets, forever...

16th May, 2010.

Horrifyingly strong stuff. My mother liked (still does, but it's easier to deal with these days) perfume that would knock you down. Among her various faves was this scary stuff. Back in the 70s I would practically pay her not to wear it. Yeah, it was Gardenia all right. Like a baseball bat to the nose! Excruciatingly sweet and cloying.

1st January, 2007.