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Post by Poodle
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Once upon a time in the 80’s there was a girl who loved perfume. She really believed perfumes were magical. She saw the ads in the magazines and thought she had found her secret potion. It said that the nicest things happen when you wear it. The photo suggested if she wore it she’d soon be dancing cheek to cheek with a cute boy. The silly girl was me and I simply had to have Love’s Baby Soft. If I had it my teenage crush would notice me. I just knew it.
Love’s Baby Soft by Dana 1974
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Geranium, lavender, jasmine, rose, patchouli, vanilla, musk
Like many others I was wafting clouds of Love’s Baby Soft when I was a tween and young teen. I believed that it would transform me from dorky, shy wallflower to the girl the cute guy I liked would ask to dance. Sadly, it never seemed to work but I still kept spritzing and hoping.
(The ads for Love’s Baby Soft in the 70’s were actually rather creepy and I’m glad the ones in my Seventeen magazine were more about school girl crushes than pedophiles and Lolita. Honestly, I’m not sure what the heck they were thinking with those older ads. Who was the target audience for those? But I digress…back to crushes and magic potions.)
Love’s Baby Soft was that first perfume lots of girls got in their Christmas stocking. If you haven’t guessed from the name, Baby Soft is powdery. It’s a fluffy, flowery, pink cloud of a perfume. It seems almost silly to try to review it and pick apart the notes even though it’s a pretty scent. There’s rosy powder, soft florals, a bit of clean musk, and a slight plasticky note which makes me think there’s some heliotrope in it.
Photo Stolen Flickr
If you like Flower by Kenzo or other powdery florals there’s a chance you were a Baby Soft girl at some point. It’s familiar and comfortable. Compared to the fruity stuff aimed at today’s youth, Love’s Baby Soft smells far more grown up even with that baby powder note. I think it’s got a powdery feel similar to vintage scents but is by no means of the same quality. It’s cheap and fun. I still wear it and especially like to wear it to bed. If it were repackaged and renamed I think it would have a lot of fans. I think a lot of people secretly like it but hate to admit it because they think they’re too old for it. I say, wear what makes you happy.
Further reading: Now Smell This and The Awl
FragranceNet has $3.50/15ml
Love’s Baby Soft made me think perfumes could be magical even though I didn’t get that dance I’d hoped for. Sometimes I think I was just young and silly. Sometimes I think not much has changed. Perhaps there’s part of us that always seems to be searching for that perfume that transforms us and makes us feel stronger, prettier, confident. Did you have a magic potion when you were younger? Do you still wear it?
Poodle X
Australian Perfume Junkies 
Ah Poodle, what a lovely post. I’ve never smelt Loves’s Baby Soft and am guessing it never got to the UK, but it does sound actually a lot better than an awful lot of modern perfumes.
I think I still expect my perfume to weave a spell of some sort, even if it is one of cloaking me with confidence or happiness when I am feeling down. In a way, it works – it enhances my life and that’s certainly magic!
There isn’t one special potion for me, but then as any good witch will tell you, you need different spells for different results!
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Fun point, Jillie, about the spells! What’s your favorite spell for feeling gorgeous?
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Favourite spell for gorgeousness ….. light candles scented with sandalwood, rose and incense, breathe deeply and imagine you are Cleopatra or The Queen of Sheba. Then spritz Ormonde Jayne’s Ta’if all over lightly and SMILE!
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Thank you, Jillie. I completely agree that you need different spells and potions. It’s nice to have things to enhance our lives too, even if it’s just a spritz of fragrance.
Hugs.
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Thank you!
x
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Thank you, Jillie. I agree, it’s good to have many potions. I tell my hubby that everytime a package comes in the mail with yet another bottle. It is nice that something so simple as perfume can do so much for us isn’t it?
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So the reply I tried to post earlier which never posted just appeared when I redid it. Sorry to sound repetitive but the first one was lost in space somewhere. Ahh, technology.
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There was a jasmine oil sold at a local headshoppy sort of place that I adored when I was 14. Even in retrospect, it was pretty good stuff, and I was sure that any male attention that I received was directly because of it. Today I’m more likely to wear A La Nuit or Sarrasins, but the principle of jasmine=desirable and attractive hasn’t changed much.
BTW, I actually remembered the tag line “Because innocence is sexier than you think,” but didn’t remember the full creepiness of the picture that went with it. No highly sexualized little girls in advertising, please!
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There was another ad that was worse. The ones I remember were the girl and the boy dancing at a prom and the girl and boy sitting on the couch and in the series of photos he gradually gets closer to her presumably because she smells so good. Yeah…that never worked for me.
I love jasmine and find it spellbinding too. It’s one of my favorite notes. I need to sniff those two perfumes. I’ve heard lots about them.
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What a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing it, Poodle.
My first and everlasting love was for a grown-up perfume (Climat by Lancôme) and I still wear it. I don’t believe in potions any longer, I wear perfumes just for me and doubt that anybody notices anything most of the time. But the way you described your thoughts and feelings about perfume in your earlier years were exactly how I felt about my perfume usage. It never worked 😉
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Thank you. I’m glad to see it wasn’t just me. Lol. Even if it’s not quite magical anymore I’m happy that you still wear and enjoy Climat. Definitely much more grown up than mine was. The only grown up scent I had back then was Blue Grass which my aunt bought me because it had either a Pegasus or unicorn on the bottle (I forget which) and she knew I loved them. That one didn’t work either.
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Hey there Poodle,
I always loved fragrance but never thought it would be the thing that pushed me into a boys arms. I love that you thougt that though, it’s a really cool story.
Thanks for sharing.
Portia xx
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I was painfully shy and us shy girls needed all the help we could get. Smelling good was easier than trying to win anyone over with sparkling conversation.
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Poodle, thanks for reminding me of this scent. I think it may have been my first perfume. Funny, back then I loved it and felt very grown up wearing it. Today, anything too powdery gives me a vicious headache. Maybe that’s just a reaction to my misspent youth (although I was just a tween at the time). 🙂
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I understand the headache thing. Sometimes I think our noses change and scents we once liked all of a sudden are stomach turning. It’s the same with food too. If I ate some of the junk I used to I’d be sick for days. Good thing there’s lots of other stuff to choose from.
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