Sights and Smells Around the Madeleine

Paris has some unique smells and this walk took me around the sights and smells of the Madeleine.  After the terrible scent of the metro, the walk started with a nice scent, the smell of fresh flowers because there was an outdoor flower market next to the Madeleine Church.  Then it was into Laduree to treat my nose to another sweet scent, pastries.   

After, the walk led me to a perfume museum that delightfully welcomed my nose.  I had the chance to smell a bunch of different perfumes and overwhelm my nose with all sorts of smells.  There was a wide range of perfume some floral, some citrus, and some woody.  In the Paris Walk book, it talked about the three stages of perfume and how the scent changes over time.  I didn’t even know about this but found it so interesting.  Paris is a huge capital for perfume and so it is explainable that it would have many perfume shops and even a perfume museum.  So if they have such good perfume available, why do some people still stink?  Not everyone has the money to afford buying expensive perfume but also the deodorant in Europe is different than in America.  In addition, people in America bathe much more often than Europeans.  In the medieval times, French wouldn’t bathe for months so it is in the French culture to not bathe very often.  Also, water is very expensive so they are very conscious at conserving their water which also means they don’t do laundry as often as Americans.  A combination of these reasons result in the French people not always smelling pleasant and since Americans aren’t used to this it is easy for them to pick up on the repulsive smell.  In general, I think Americans notice these weird smells around Paris more so than the French, whether it's body odor or the stench of the metro, American noses do not like it.