Perfume review - Cartier Declaration - Jean-Claude Ellena; 1998

Back in the 80s, in the UAE, a soap was launched onto the market. Little did we know that it came from a brand that had actually been established in the early 1950s, but there you go: the apparent newness of everything was part of the excitement of living in the Middle East in those days. The soap was called Zest — if memory serves, there was a green one and a yellow one — and it was accompanied by what was then considered a persuasive TV advert. I can’t remember what was shown in it: I suspect it was little more than images of people lathering themselves up while sporting those inane, toothy smiles that were de rigueur in all commercials in those days. I’m fairly certain the music was catchy and dynamic; again, another hallmark of that era’s advertising. But I think the most striking aspect was the colours. They popped out of our small, non-HD screens with a vividness that made thousands of us go out and buy the stuff. I think, in our house, it ended up being in regular rotation with Fa and Cussons.

One thing I do remember about the soap very distinctly is that I absolutely loved it, and I always asked my mum to make sure she bought a bar of the yellow variety whenever we went shopping. It was exactly what I wanted a soap to be: invigorating, lemony, tangy, tingly and very foamy. I expect its perfume was full of synthetics (wouldn’t it be amazing to find out who composed it?) but of course I knew nothing about such matters in those days and I thought that using the stuff was the perfect way to start the day.