Hot Flash Friday: Hawaiian White Ginger

Did your Mom ever order from the Avon catalog? Remember the Avon lady? She came around door-to-door with brochures and samples (usually a neighbor trying to earn extra bucks). I always loved the Hawaiian White Ginger.

What is this fragrance? On-line it is described as containing notes of citruses, green grass, jasmine, rose and ginger. I’m not sure it’s something found naturally in nature or was spawned in a laboratory. It’s something only myself and a grandmotherly-type person would like. Thus this classic fragrance as well as the Avon lady have long been retired.

Yet just the other day I was reminded of this when an odor wafted by me. That smell! And immediately the rhythms of onomatopoeia, the surfboard balance of the words: Hawaiian White Ginger came over me. I remembered exactly what it was like to wear it and how it felt. Comfortable, gracious, light and airy, like an exotic flower opening up on a dewy evening. All that in one whiff.

Right now, using your sense of smell, utilizing your sense of nostalgia, write about a smell that encapsulates your youth, something specific to an event in your past—or simply reminisce about the Avon lady, the homely woman you practically felt sorry for and ended up buying sacks of crèmes, lotions, and sprays that sat around in your bathroom vanity for years. Until you emptied out the house after Mom died. Go back, return to Hawaiian White Ginger.