Mothers have a special scent. They smell like comfort, reassurance and tenderness. The scent of mothers and their babies help them bond and although scent is not the strongest sense of the mammals of our kind, they can recognize each other by their scent only a short while after the baby is born. If you ever smelled a baby before you will notice how fragrant they are - especially their head - a scent that is irresistible for a stranger, let alone a mother! Yet it is very delicate, and requires close contact and caring for the baby in order to be noticed and enjoyed. The mother’s body odour acts in a similar way on the baby and the young child. And lest we forget that mommies in our early life actuallyl mean, amongst other things… food!

And so, I wanted to dedicate this post to scents that remind me of my mother and also to wonder a bit about our differences when it comes to perfumes and the sense of smell…

My mother did not wear perfumes, ever. In fact, my mother has an hyposmia – which means that she can’t always smell. She tells me she can get a whiff, sometimes, of a nice flower when passing by, but for the most part her sense of smell is limited. As a child, I always helped her determine when food was spoiled. I could tell that it is just about to go bad when other members of the family still thought it was edible. And that was a very useful skill to have in a household with no refrigirator! (there was no electricity in the village where I grew up in, due to ideological reasons of the founders of the village, which I can still not quite understand).

But besides the practice of quality assurance in the kitchen, my mother has taught me and allowed me to practice many skills that ended up all leading me to do what I do now. She cultivated a passion for the medicinal properties of plants, including the most strangest smelling of all – such as ruh and yarrow. And so she taught me that each plant has a secret – something it can do to make us feel better and be happier people, even the ones that don't have very pretty flowers... Her favourite of all teas was aniseed tea, and to this day anything from the licorice family reminds me of my mother. Besides, she always gave me licorice root to chew on. It had the most incredible aroma and was intensely sweet even though there was no real ugar in it. My mother also baked whole wheat bread and the earthy scent of baking filled our little home with anticipation for the delight of munching on the warm crust...

My mother taught me how to sew and make my own clothes – and basically passed on to me the attitude that I can do most (if not all) things, myself. When I left for Vancouver, my mother gave me her special indigo coloured hooded-blouse which is made of the most slippery and soft velvet ever. She loves velvet, and just as soft as a velvet and a mother’s hand is, I created a perfume for her (which she can get a whiff of from time to time, and even asked for a refill before my last visit, which made me super-happy): Indigo. Indigo has plenty of aniseed, just like the syrupy thick tea my mother loved to drink, and also bread-like notes of caraway. It has an overall herbal and mysteriously cool spicy aroma which softens later into a violet heart, with boronia, jasmine, carnation and orange blossom and than fades into an incense and amber base, just like a warm blanket as the night deepens… It just feels like an indigo velvety night…

My mother danced with me when I was little, and sang to me every night. From her I got my love for music and art and flowers. And just as she came back to playing her music and living up her dreams after her children grew up a bit, I learned to insist on following my dreams too and never give up on what is most dear to me.
Her imagination guided me to follow my passions and listen to the language of flowers…

p.s. Tell me what scentual impression your mother left on you, or just stop by to say hello. Your comments will generate $1 per each commenter to be donated by myself to FINCA International. Your readership and comments are much appreciated!

p.s.s. Amongst all commenters today there will be a blind draw and two of you will win a bottle of Altruism!

p.s.s.s. I would like to take this opportunity to also draw your attention to SmellyBlog's super-fun contest - The Scented Ribbon Contest - send me a picture of what you think is the best use for the scent ribbons that are gradually replacing the blotter cards - and enter to win a perfume from my collection as well as a pair of handmade, super-comfy and sexy undergarments!

First of all – Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers of the world! And of course to the children of the world who made them mothers (hey, that means all of us)!

As you probably already know by now, if you leave a comment here today, you will be raising money for FINCA International, an organization that provides loans to low-income micro entrepreneurs, focusing especially on women.

For each person that will post a comment on SmellyBlog on today, I will donate $1 to FINCA International. This way I hope that there will be more small businesses to make the business world more diverse and help more women gain independence – financially and otherwise.

I also encourage you to visit and leave a comment on the other blogs that participate in this project “Benevolent Blogging”. These bloggers which will donate from their own personal money to the charity of their choice are:

• Beauty Addict for Orphan
  Foundation of America


• Blogdorf Goodman for
  FINCA International


• Brain Trapped in
  Girl's Body for FINCA International


• A Girl's Gotta Spa for Orphan
  Foundation of America


• MonkeyPosh for Humane Society
  of the United States and Muscular Dystrophy Association


• Mother Hen’s Place for Aga Khan
  Foundation Canada


• Legerdenez for Orphan
  Foundation of America


• One Child Left
  Behind for Heifer International


• Perfume Posse for Orphan
  Foundation of America


• Perfumery for FINCA
  International


• Perfume-Smellin'
  Things for Orphan Foundation of America


• The Scented
  Salamander for Orphan Foundation of America


• Scenteur 7 for Orphan
  Foundation of America *Participating May 10th through the 15th!*


• Scentzilla! for FINCA
  International


• SmellyBlog for FINCA
  International


• The Soap Blog for UNIQUE


• That Obscure Object of Desire
  for FINCA International


• Urban Chick for Womankind
  Worldwide *Participating May 12th 'til she returns from holiday in a few
  weeks*


• Victoria's Own for FINCA
  International


• Yankee Family goes South
  for Orphan Foundation of America

You are more than welcome to leave comments on any of the posts for today, Sunday, May 14th, 2006, and I will count you in!

Hugs,

Ayala

To all the millions of readers of my humble SmellyBlog, Happy Spring Holidays - whether if you are celebrating Passover, Easter or any other holiday, may it be wonderful and peaceful and grand.

I will be going away for the next week for my annual pilgrimage to the primitive village where I grew up and harvesting thorny bushes and enjoying the spring flowers which I haven’t seen for seven years. I will be away from any decent internet connection (my sophisticated, snobby laptop doesn’t do dial-up). I sure will miss you all, but I will be back soon with interesting fragrant stories, musings and reports.

In the meantime, don't forget the Scented Ribbon Contest! By the time I am back I excpect my mailbox to be full of fabulous photos of the creative uses you found for all those scented ribbons you found in your house during spring cleaning!