M y first perfume — one that wasn’t just the lingering fruity-lily pong of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific! shampoo — was Intimate by Revlon, snagged from my mother’s dressing table. When I revisited it recently, I was shocked — it smelled so ‘adult’. Proper, triple-X adult: complicated and tear-stained, seasoned with sex and hard-earned smarts and hope against hopes. This was Intimate, its blend of overripe florals and swaggering animalics built to seduce one’s future second ex-husband.
Mad Men-era Intimate was dated by the time I’d filched it in my mid teens, carefully dabbing it behind my ears and in the hollow of my throat as I’d seen my mother do. But all I knew was that I felt nympho-hot when I wore it — and judging from the tiger in his tank, my boyfriend agreed. Thanks to my military dad’s steely-eyed vigilance against his daughter’s unauthorised friskiness, baloney pony action was out of the question. But that wasn’t Intimate’s fault.
