BYLINE: QADEEM ZIEMAN
I was browsing through a shop for a mat when I fell for two no-brand, so-called “eau de parfum” fragrances from India, which had either a very light scent or no smell at all. Both lasted mere seconds, which infuriated me.
The man tried to con me into paying RM10 more because he thought I was an Arab foreigner (I wonder why and how…), but I calmly told him that I was Malaysian, with both my parents being half Pakistani and Punjabi. We ended up becoming friends, but that didn’t seem to make the perfumes last any longer.
So, there I go again… this time at the Arab store, looking for a “strong” and uncommon scent.
I rambled amongst the clearance trays of opened testers nearing their expiry dates and found one that I liked, but it was almost 60% used, so I got something less strong, but still within the woody profile.
I got back home to rest, only to go back to the mall to get the same perfume — but I didn’t. I got something else that was fuller.
I loved it, but soon, I felt “lost”.
Soon, it questioned me: “Do I want attraction or connection?”
I wanted something very strong, overpowering, and perhaps even intoxicating and attractive to go with my daily appearance, but perhaps what I really needed was something fresher and softer for my own use, that I would eventually share with those whom I trust to be around me - like powdery white florals and musk, with hints of woodiness.
ATTRACTION TO CONNECTION
You attract people differently than you want to keep them. You know why?
Because you attract people through what is immediately compelling — mystery, beauty, confidence, intensity, sensuality, presence.
When you talk - the choice of words, the accent, and the tones. The way you move. That is all in the attraction.
Attraction says, “I want to know you.” But connection says, “I want to stay.”
You keep people through what becomes apparent with time — character, consistency, warmth, trust, depth.
Therefore, the person who walks into the room and commands attention isn't necessarily the same person you would want to have around.
FRAGRANCES AND PERSONAS
Elizabeth Taylor, the pioneer of celebrity fragrances, once said, “The beauty of fragrance is that it speaks to your heart and hopefully someone else's,” while those who were close to her said that she believed everyone should have a single, distinct signature perfume that was “very overpowering,” matching her own intense and glamorous personality.
I indeed find that true, and I will always remember my mother with her perfumes.
She had a whole lot of them, mostly designer brands, and she never got tired of collecting.
Oh, and I remember the bottles and names: Trésor, Trésor Midnight Rose, Manifesto, Opium, Viva La Juicy, La Vie Est Belle, Poison, Angel, and many more.
She often layered them on, and it would be very — and I mean very — overpowering.
She could leave the room, visit the kitchen to make sure we had food to eat, walk along the halls, wait in the foyer, enter the cab, and still have her scents lingering in the air ten minutes later, and treasured between the pillows by the time she reached the office to call us.
She had two distinctly different characters — one was spicy, and one was simply… home.
Both reflected her lives as a career woman and a woman of her stature.
At work, my mother was a woman of charisma and power — she was the editor, the celebrated journalist, and her words made the careers of the top entertainers.
For that, she had the intoxicating Poison by Dior to introduce her as she walked in, and the room got a whiff of who she was — Zieman of The Star — strong, demanding, intoxicating, and irresistible. Something that said, “I want you to know me.”
Her status, and the fact that she was married to nine men, should be enough to reveal who she was.
She was no supermodel, yet men who had the models would eventually fall for her.
For her wit, her brains, and her mystique — her history.
I used to follow her on dates, and the first few dates still smelled the same intoxicatingly glamorous way, until she decided they deserved something different.
Somewhere around the third or fourth meeting, it would change from a command to a quest.
When they came to visit us at home, everything would be sweeter, but not young.
Something simpler to collide with the dining space overlooking the green gardens.
A “cheap” lavender-scented Yardley talc and eau de toilette from the pharmacy down the road in Old Town PJ, and her appearance would also change from silks and diamonds to cotton batik caftans and a simple, worn-out gold-plated necklace and earring set that one of her previous husbands had gifted her.
Her designer handbags would be exchanged for something simpler - with me by her side.
Her hair would be put up in a bun with a black rose clip that matched her hair colour, as a poetic way of telling her position as a mother, a daughter, a sister, and overall, a lady.
“I once was a rose, but now I am comfortable being secluded.”
The powdery, sentimental, classic, and timeless elegance gently changed the demand for respect into a quest for them to stay — if they still wished to — after finally revealing how she was at home.
She had a placard emblazoned on the entrance wall that said: “My house is small — no mansion for a millionaire — but there is room for love, and there is room for friends. That’s all I care.”
That is the true beauty of being attractive: when you are free, and you let others be free to choose you — or not.
And there is nothing more attractive than the mystique of the perfumes that you wear to be desirable… or not - it paints a hypothetical portrait of what one may have to unveil.
Qadeem Zieman (mrshaher.official@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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