Dear Hearts and Gentle People

I was shopping for cologne at my favorite pharmacy Friday, like I do maybe once a month or so, and Nancy and April, my personal scent assistants were kindly squirting and sniffing along with me in search of the perfect fragrance.

About ten minutes of that and the perfume counter was smelling like a congregation of streetwalkers on lower Broad. [Hint: If other people can smell you before you arrive and after you leave, you're wearing too much cologne.]

After we'd tested about a dozen scents the combined smells began to make me dizzy. The prices made me dizzier. Little bottles of colored water aren't cheap anymore.

I've been fascinated with perfumes and colognes since the 1950s when my father ran the downtown drugstore, City Pharmacy. When I'd work there after school I always managed to make it my job to keep the perfume counter dusted and organized. I'd sample scents from colored glass vials named "Evening in Paris, Ambush, Heaven Sent, Woodhue, Tigress, and the ever-popular My Sin."

True story. I remember a lady coming in the drugstore one day and asking my daddy if he had any "My Sin" for a dollar. Daddy smiled at her and said, "Nope, but I've got some "My Mistake" for fifty cents." He was a card, my daddy.

I absolutely adored the jewel-toned bottles and their unusual shapes and sizes. I collected them and lined them up on my dresser like trophies. And it didn't matter if the cologne inside the bottle smelled like the south end of a northbound mule, if the bottle was pretty and shiny I had to have it.

Remember girls, when we used to "mist" all the letters to our boyfriends with cologne? I remember scenting all mine to hubby with Windsong. We found the box of letters recently in his mother's house, opened it and I swear, after forty years, you can still smell the cologne. With today's aromatics you're lucky if you get past lunch without having to reapply....and that at triple the price.

Since the beginning of time women have had a love affair with perfume and have used everything from vanilla flavoring to fresh fruit to make themselves appealing to the opposite sex. Beating out flowers, candy, and lingerie, it continues to be the second most popular choice in gifts given to women by men. Jewelry, of course, is first.

"You can't go wrong buying smellgood for a girl," said a young man who was in the drugstore Friday looking for a birthday gift for his sweetheart. He has a point.

The problem is, just how much money does one spend on the perfect gift of "smell-good?"

Dear hearts, I can not believe the prices of some of today's colognes! Fifty and sixty dollars for just over an ounce of cologne, with perfumes even higher. Dang. I just want to buy the cologne, not the company.

Owning expensive colognes has become a luxury most of us either can't afford or simply won't pay for. Still, it's an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds and one that has become, quite frankly, ridiculous in its advertising techniques.

Celebrity cologne fads are spreading like kudzu. First it was Elizabeth Taylor with White Diamonds, Diamonds & Emeralds, Diamonds & Rubies, and Forever Elizabeth. Now it's Celine Dion with Celine Dion Notes; Jennifer Lopez's J-Lo; Paris Hilton's Just Me, and Britney Spears....I forget hers. Umm, what was that? Scent of a ...?

Men are caught up in the scent scene, too. There's Michael Jordan's Jordan and Derek Jeter's Driven.

C'mon now, do men really care about cologne fragrances, you might ask. Obviously they do. Gone are the days when there was "just something about an Aqua Velva man." Colognes for men now range anywhere from $50 to $100.

Thank goodness, I'm married to an old-fashioned guy who bonded with Old Spice in high school, still wears it, and wouldn't think of wearing anything else. Smells pretty good too, and still a bargain at $7 a bottle.

Even cartoon characters are getting in the act. Miss Piggy has a fragrance out called Moi; Dora the Explorer has her own scent; and Barbie alone has six different fragrances.

A home fragrance company called "Demeter" offers a perfume called Dirt. Yes, dirt. It "smells of damp soil with a slight edge of leaf." Some other goodies made by the company include Gin & Tonic, Rain, Play-Doh, Laundromat, Apple Pie, Fig Leaf, and Black Pepper. My farm boy would probably go for Eau de Cow Pasture if they made it.

Of course, this is the best one yet. According to an article in Great Brittain's Telegraph, cheese-makers have created a perfume that evokes the smell of Stilton cheese. Eau de Stilton will, apparently, "re-create the earthy and fruity aroma of the pungent blue cheese in an eminently wearable perfume." (The test mice loved it.)

Wouldn't you like to be sitting for a long time next to someone who reeks of blue cheese?

One fella was asked that question and he replied, "I would certainly prefer wearing it to anything marketed by the likes of Britney Spears, but of course, it could come in handy when searching for a seat on the bus."

A ladies perfume maker in the U.S. carried out a survey among men to determine what their favorite odor was and found that the smell men liked best was "new car smell." So, the fragrance is now widely available at Halfords, a leading retailer of car parts in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

There you go ladies. Splash a dash of this fragrance behind your ear and see if that gets his motor running. If it doesn't turn him on at least you won't be smelling like a piece of cheese.

New car smell, huh? What about the hunters who wear bottled deer urine or skunk scent when they're setting traps? How enticing is that? Frankly, I don't think men care very much about the way they smell and, truth be known, we probably shouldn't either.

After all is said and done maybe we all make too big a deal about "smelling good." Forget the latest perfumes from Paris. Save your money. Buy a bar of soap and be done with it. We weren't meant to smell like roses or a pine forest. We were meant to smell like people.

Which reminds me of a joke.

A young, beautiful woman gets into the elevator, smelling like expensive perfume. She turns to an old woman and says arrogantly, "Giorgio, Beverly Hills, $100 an ounce!"

Another young beautiful woman gets onto the elevator and also smells of expensive perfume. She arrogantly turns to the old woman and says, "Chanel No. 5, $150 an ounce!"

About three floors later, the old woman has reached her destination and is about to get off the elevator. Before she leaves, she looks both of the women in the eyes, turns around, bends over, passes gas and says, "Sweet potatoes, 49 cents a pound!"

Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.