Impure White Linen And Heat Related Environmental Havoc

Today I did intend to write about the scented side to the latest Bonkers Road Trip, but it has been unbearably hot in my office. Indeed the heat sparked off a whole new perfume crisis this morning, and fuelled this impromptu post.

You see, I decided to wear Pure White Linen today, which is the "casual" signature scent of my cousin's wife. I offered to find her younger daughter (aged 24) a new perfume, as she doesn't like anything she has tried in the shops and defaults to borrowing her older sister's CK IN2U instead.

The only other thing I know about my relative's fragrance preferences is that she considers Pure White Linen to be "nice", but a bit "old". I think I know where she is coming from with this comment, as Estee Lauder as a house has a bit of a preppy, deck-shoe-and-Chino's-kind of a vibe, which a 20-something person might understandably construe as "old".

So I sprayed on some PWL in order to understand exactly what kind of "old" I should avoid in my fragrance recommendations. But to my dismay I discovered that my mini of it had gone off. Instead of that bright, breezy, slightly soapy floral I remembered, there was dead flower water and a nasty alcoholic tang. It has not been long since I spotted that my mini of Agent Provocateur had gone the same way, so I started to suspect the recent heatwave was taking its toll.

For though - exactly a year ago - I invested in a small beer chiller for the bulk of my collection (well, probably 60% by volume), that still leaves a fair few bottles, minis and samples languishing in dark (but currently decidedly warm) drawers!

So I spent the morning clearing out all the perfume from the bedside units and re-homing it in the storage room behind the garage, which is not cold as such, but is a few degrees cooler at least.

This is the room where Mr Bonkers stores some of his gear, so it was not long before he came across the interloping carrier bags of perfume in the middle of the floor, and inquired whether this was a permanent move. He seemed satisfied by my assurance that it was only an interim measure, and we got to talking about our plans for the day.

"Well" he began, "obviously I am going to watch the England match, and I could really do with some kind of fluid, but I am too hot to move."

"To move where?"

"Er...to the shop, for example."

"Okay, I don't mind going, and I'll pick up some fresh food while I am there."

By way of background, no one has done a proper supermarket trip since before I went away some five weeks ago, and just this weekend, I caught Mr Bonkers contentedly scavenging off family-sized tubes of Pringles and a packet of caramel digestives.

"Fresh food?" he exclaimed, his voice quivering with alarm. "But that might disturb my delicate ecosystem!"

In the end I coaxed him into eating an egg/cheese/hummus salad, with new potatoes and baby corn on the cob. (I cannot bring myself to use the term "cobette".) Mr Bonkers ate with relish and remarked that his ecosystem appeared to have emerged relatively unscathed by the sudden influx of nutrients.

I wish I could say the same for the now Impure White Linen and the other casualties of my "them and us" curating system. For in the unequal ecosystem I have devised for my perfume collection, the scents stored at ambient temperatures are left to take their chances when it gets really hot at the top of the house.

I guess the overspill could just colonise the kitchen fridge. When I got home last weekend it only contained milk, margarine, beer and a single onion (I had put there). So there is just a chance that Mr Bonkers will never notice...