Guest Post from Hot Cross Mum

I'm delighted to have a guest post from Hot Cross Mum about the fragrances she has worn and loved. Many thanks for sharing your perfume past with us! The sweet smell of motherhood...
Smells are extremely powerful. They can immediately transport you to a specific place and time in your life. Writing this guest post has made me realise just how much specific scents and smells are attached to periods of my life.
I’ve been through many favourite scents over the years but I think my first real perfume was Anais Anais. It smelt of endless amounts of flowers and as a teenager it made me feel like a proper, grown up. A big step away from my Impulse spray. For my 18^th birthday, I was given a bottle of Estee Lauder’s Beautiful and then I felt really mature!
In my 20’s, I experimented with scents such as Amarige, Paris and Obsession. My favourite perfume changing as often as my hairstyle.
For my 30th birthday, when I was a young, free and single girl, living the high life in London, I received a bottle of Ghost, a smell which will always remind me of that period of my life. I then met my boyfriend (now husband), moved to Dublin and was married to the smell of Coco Mademoiselle.
But, above all these, I have another favourite smell. It doesn’t come in a nice bottle. Or in fancy packaging. You can’t buy it, but if it could be bottled, I think it would become a best seller. What is it? It’s the smell of a baby. No, not those smells, the other smells. The smell of their hair, their plump little legs and arms, the smell of baby lotion, all wrapped up in a tiny little gurgling bundle. These smells are virtually impossible to describe, but which any new mum will breathe in again, and again and again.
As a mum, I don’t really wear as much perfume as I used to. Maybe I sub-consciously save it for special occasions so I can distinguish between my days at home and a rare night out! My fragrance du jour is Dolce & Gabbana The One. A bit of a departure from my usual style of fragrance, and perhaps the sign of a more mature me as I head towards my 40^th next year. And it remains to be seen what the fragrance of that particular milestone will be (hint hint husband if you’re reading!).