Smells like septuagenarian spirit

Well, seventy. This birthday hit last summer, and though I feel no different from sixty-something (or forty-something on a good day), I find surprises sprung all the same.

One concerns fragrance. I've loved fragrance ever since my big sister, Jane, spritzed me with her Emeraude when I was ten. Through my teens, Jane passed along the bottom of her bottles, and treated me to quarts of Jean Naté at Christmas. At university, I'd scrape together the money for Menley and James' Love, whose suggestive shape was completely lost on me.

Feigning a bit more sophistication, I then wafted for some years in Aqua Manda's spice souk. Once I had a job, an unfailing thrill involved a payday and the capture of a new bottle. For fifty years, scent has provided as reliable a pleasure as a cup of good coffee, clean sheets, a child's chortle.

But sometime over the past three years, Mother Nature gave me a new 'nose'. Like my hair colour, it's a faint version of the original. I can no longer smell certain notes that once strode downstage, mainly musks and the subtler white flowers.

I didn't realize that sense had diminished until I started reading references to the loss of smell and aging. On perfume blogs, some women said they could not smell particular fragrances, or discern a specific element, like hay or bergamot.

(I'm not referring to anosmia, a medical condition that is sometimes temporary and may be caused by other medical conditions, or to olfactory fatigue, usually addressed by a "fragrance vacation" of a week or two.) A diminished sense of smell due to aging is not treatable. Like the erosion of hearing, when at first you think, Why are people mumbling?, you eventually must face that it's you. Jo Malone was only pretending to move her lips.

I had already noticed my return to more assertive products, and in eau de parfum strength instead of cologne, never mind the wan eau de toilette. Two years ago, I started buying the patchoulis and pungent orientals of my bell-bottom days, thinking only that I "liked them again".

The perfumed penny dropped when I applied a lavish spritz of Nuxe's Parfum Prodigieux from a tester, and thought, "Huh, nothing there after ten minutes." A full five hours later, Le Duc, who evidently has full olfactory firing, said, "New perfume?"

Has this happened to you?

Olfactory erosion is probably the reason why grandkids have memories of granny's signature cloud of Rive Gauche: she over-sprayed because she couldn't smell the intensity. For those who can't tolerate scent, this woman is as welcome as foie gras at a vegan potluck.

The guideline that fragrance should be noticed only by those within your personal space is difficult to gauge when you can't smell it on yourself. So where once fragrance pleased me, now I accept that it's like wearing earrings: I can't notice, but it's satisfying anyway.

Aging seems, to borrow from the title of Donald Hall's essays, "A Carnival of Losses". There are still many attractions to enjoy at this carnival, and if I can't smell the caramel corn from way down the midway, I can still line up for a treat. This is my excuse for ordering decants regularly: to learn which fragrances still deliver.

Those whose molecules slip through intact tend not to be the lighthearted and delicate charmers. (Breath of God, by Gorilla Perfumes (sold at Lush), is a tenacious beast of weird wonder. Malle's Le Parfum de Thérèse sill sings its enchanting aria, thank goddess.)

If you're hunting too: Kay of perfumeniche.com has sent a new list of frugal frags, and those will be in the windows next week!