Perfume and children.

According to me there isn´t anything that smells as good as babies. A copple of days ago we where babysitting our youngest grandson. Just to sit with him in my lap and smell on his little baby hair is pure bliss. Usually I try to avoid stronger fragrances when I´m around babies, something my husband don´t seem to worry about. So when it was time to feed the little one after he had sit with his grand pa for a while I noticed he smelled of Black Aoud! And belive me, he smells much better without. Black Aoud is heavenly on my husband, but not on babies.

One of my readers asked for my opinions about children and perfume. And that is something worth thinking about. in some countries is totally OK and even quite common to perfume one´s babies. I don´t really understand why, because I´m almsot certain that even Italian, French or Latin mothers also think their babies smells best in the whole world. Usually the fragarnces used for infants are alcoholfree and with really soft notes like camomille, talc and vanilla, but still. I wouldn´t have dreamed about to perfume my kids when they where babies. What do you think? Readers that have kids, have you ever put on your infant (younger then 1 year) perfume or perfume body products to make your baby smell more? If you come from a culture where it´s more common and even expected to perfume babies, what do you think about that tradition?

I´m aware that Sweden don´t have much of a perfume culture at all. In a country where most of the grown up populkation don´t want to smell anything but clean it´s out of the question to start perfuming infants. But, why it is considered worse then to put a bow in a small baby girls tiny curls? Or a bowtie under the many cheeks of a little baby boy?

When is it OK to put perfume on kids? Small children from the age around 3 is usually very curious about anything adults do, and they copy adult behaviour into their play. Dressing up in daddys och grandpas shoes is so fun or to borrow grandmas purse and pretend to be a lady or mummys lipstick. Why should it be wrong to spray on just a little perfume in such a play? maybe, you should wait until the kid asks for it, but as long as it is a part of having fun, why´s that wrong?

A kid from a home with perfume interested parents would of course become more curious then a kid from a home with vefry sparse use of perfume. If you´re afraid of your childrens delicate skin to get hurt, you can spray on the sweater.

Older kids understands the connection between perfume and smelling good. And make up and looking better. Pre-teens like to own a bottle of -celeb- scent, to seem more adult. during this phase, perfumes can be used to tell whom hot and not. "All" the girls should have their own purse filled with make up and a bottle of perfume. Those who don´t are considered immature or geeky.

My 13 year old is quite indoctrinated when it comes to perfume. She is quite self acting when it comes to perfumes now and have some favorites. Vanilla seem to be popular and she loves anything from Jessica Simpson´s Fancy to Indult´s Tihota. I let her try most of my scents, but try to keep her away from the most animalic, erotic one´s. Maybe a girl in her age should just be contempt with having a bottle of Fancy and not drewling over Tihota? Anyway, I´m looking forward to follow her perfume development. But maybe she´ll revolt at 15 and start to refuse wearing any perfume at all?

When, if at all is it OK to let your kid use perfume? And which fragrances are OK to use? Is it cool to let my 13 year old borrow my Lolita Lempicka but not Frederic Malle or serge Lutens? When did you start use perfume regularly? I strarted to have "Date" cologne spray during pree-teens, most of the girl in my class prefered the blue version, while I loved the red one with a Russian name like Nadia.

Pic: Gustav Klimt