Marie (not her real name) is a 44-year-old history professor in Virginia, married, and a mom of two boys, aged nine and five. So far, she sounds like a lot of us.

Her perfume history sounds familiar, too. Her first perfume was a sample of Nina Ricci Nina she sent away for in a magazine when she was 10. As an adult, she dabbled in the 1980s “Holy Trinity” of Calvin Klein Eternity, Christian Dior Poison, and Giorgio.

Where Marie diverges from many perfumistas is in how she stores fragrance, and, more interesting, her awareness of why she enjoys perfume…

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Christy doesn’t know the name of the perfumer who developed her favorite fragrance, and she’s not geeky about notes and structure. She’s heard Chanel No. 5 is nice, but it’s never crossed her path. At the same time, she loves perfume and makeup, and she’s loaded with style. I couldn’t wait to talk with her about her perfume collection.

When I caught up with Christy, it was late Sunday night, and she was ironing school uniforms for her daughters. Christy is a single mom in Georgia with three girls between the ages of two and nine, plus a full-time job. Not surprisingly, she lives on a budget. She’s more likely to buy perfume at the mall than toss down her credit card for the latest $400 niche bottle…

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For this episode of Inside the Perfume Cabinet, we get a peek into Now Smell This contributor Erin’s perfume collection and hear about how her interest in fragrance began. Usually, I interview people by phone and summarize it in a post. This time, I give you Erin’s words directly:

As far as early scent memories go, I’m afraid I’ll have my perfumista card revoked, but I think my interest in fragrance started in Grade 2 or 3 when I used to walk over from school during the lunch hours with my friend Shoba — who now lives in California and is still my best buddy, three decades later — to a gift store called “Fruit & Stuff”, which was focused on “stuff”, as we remember it, and specifically, Yankee Candles. I remember sniffing through all the votive scents, such as Bayberry and French Vanilla and Honeydew Melon. I recall my favorites were Pine and a grey one called something like Fireside. Shoba gave me a gift of sandalwood soaps from British chain Marks & Spencer for my birthday around that time, and they were treasures. The first scent I ever purchased by myself was a squat, deep blue glass bottle of Yardley’s English Blazer, a fougère, possibly in aftershave concentration, and that turned out to be prophetic…

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In talking to Jessica — yes, our Jessica — about her perfume life, I tried to squeeze out a juicy story. Maybe her love of roses had to do with an ex-lover who brought her a dozen lipstick pink rosebuds every Tuesday? Or, maybe it’s because she won the Miss American Beauty pageant at the horticulture society? But no. The best I got was that her first rose-centered perfume was Avon Roses, Roses, and it came in a pink bottle shaped like a pig with a screw-off head.

Jessica’s path to perfumistahood will probably sound familiar to a lot of us. She grew up in suburban New Jersey with a quiet mother who wore dramatic fragrances, such as Rochas Femme and Guerlain Shalimar, and a grandmother who wore Caron Bellodgia and gave her Avon perfume in figurative bottles, including the pink pig…

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For this episode of Inside the Perfume Cabinet, I bring you a creature rarely spied at Now Smell This: a regular guy who doesn’t know Guerlain from Garry Shandling. Andrew Shayde has been wearing scent since he was fifteen years old — so, for twenty years now. He likes fragrance and can’t imagine not wearing it. But to Andrew, words like “flanker” and “niche” draw blank stares. In other words, he’s like most of the scent-wearing public.

First, a little background. Andrew is from Kentucky, and his father is a minister. (Some of you might have seen him and his father competing on The Amazing Race.) He’s a handsome, laidback guy with an easy smile…

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