Hunting Down an Old Favorite

In 1983, my Dad allowed me to accompany him on a trip to London. He had business to attend to; I wanted to play tourist. While Dad sat through boring meetings with British Telecom (though I suppose he didn't consider them boring), I wandered along Carnaby Street--gawping at the mohawked and safety-pinned punks--and in and out of high street shops. I was just getting into exploring fragrances beyond the youthful scents I wore in high school, and was intrigued by ambers and spice. I was also pretty sure I didn't like perfumes that were too heavily flowery. Imagine my surprise when I fell for a floral fragrance called Camellia that I sniffed at Boots. It had a lovely light apricot quality to it, not unlike osmanthus, and was not even close to the Germaine Monteil Bakir that I had recently started wearing. 

A few years later, I went to London on my own and found that while Boots no longer carried that line of fragrances, Marks & Spencer had a camellia scent that, to my nose, was exactly the same. On both trips, I purchased the body powder and lotion, and perhaps the EDT at M&S, but honestly I don't remember. It's been 35 years at this point! 

Today, a whole lifetime later, that lovely camellia scent came to mind when I saw that Monotheme Venezia has a camellia fragrance. Alas, it is not the same at all. I posted my reminiscences to the On the Scent podcast group on Facebook in hopes that someone remembered the M&S scent, or even the line to which it belonged. Suzy Nightingale suggested that I contact the Marks & Spencer archive, which might be able tell me more about the scent, perhaps give me a list of notes so I can better hunt for something similar. Within a few hours, I heard back from someone at the archive. While she couldn't help me with the notes in Camellia, she was able to provide an image of a gift guide from 2001 that included the fragrance line. Had I been able to get to the UK in the decade after my last trip, I could have stocked up! 

photo credit: eBay
newyorkcityboys

The archivist also supplied a link to eBay search results, and after poking around a bit, I found an image of a can I recognized. It is, of course, not the same scent at all, but the packaging is the same though Camellia's can was a peachy color. I thought it would be helpful to know that the brand behind the fragrance line was called St Michael, but I was not able to find anything substantive about it. Only that they also made clothing and that they were planning to go back into production in 2021. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but I am only interested in their fragrances, so I didn't look any further.

I also found a half-full bottle of St Michael for Marks & Spencer Camellia eau de toilette on eBay, from a seller in the US. Though the seller assures me that the scent still smells fine and that she doesn't believe that it has "gone off," I think $39.99 is a steep price to pay for something that might end up going directly into the garbage can, so I am going to pass. I did create an eBay search alert, however, just in case a full bottle, ideally in original packaging for less $, comes on the market. We can dream.

We all have favorite scents that have been discontinued. Leave a comment and tell me about yours.

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks