One of the fragrances mentioned in the Top Ten Discontinued Men’s Fragrances article is Helmut Lang Curion Pour Homme (2002), not the one I mistakenly bought, Helmut Lang Eau de Cologne. I wasn’t familiar with the brand (I suspect not many people do), and when I saw a bottle in my local discount store, I felt so lucky, I almost immediately bought it. In my head, I had already bought it, but I tried to act rational and asked for a sniffing first. It was stunning. (If you check the in-store anti-theft video footage, you can tell I was blind at that moment) It had one of my most favourite notes, baby powder. It opened up with a typical lemony scent, and then came the baby powder big bang, and little baby powder planets subsequently formed and started orbiting around me…
However, being an impulsive buyer, I surprised myself that I didn’t buy that last bottle. The reason? It’s a 50ml bottle. Yes, I have decided to buy only 100ml bottles. I know that in the future, when I’ve become old, I will sell my collection on eBay one bottle at a time. (No, I am not giving them away to my relatives, especially my brother, who has received a deodorant stick as a Christmas gift from his coworker.) People who collect stuff want the bigger bottle, and its original packaging, so I am trying to maximize my chance of getting a better price. There is some logic in this illogical thinking, isn’t it?
So I bought a 100ml bottle from eBay, and went back to that article and re-read the good things that it talked about. That’s when I realized that I bought the wrong bottle. But it really didn’t matter, because Helmut Lang Eau de Cologne has become my most favourite cologne.
Life with Perfumes 