Perfume has been around at least since the days of Pharaohs, maybe even earlier than that. And perfume (actually all scents) are closely linked to the memory sections of our brains.

This means that most of us have scented recollections of our childhood, our school days, and the time of our youth. Many of us remember particular perfumes.

While some perfumes have had remarkable marketplace longevity, many have disappeared off the shelf. The perfume industry is part of the fashion world, and fashion is notorious for fads. Perfumes that were once wildly popular may be all but unavailable today.

So how can you find a fragrance that your mom liked from way back in the 1950s?

• It's not a bad idea to start in a department store or any place with a large perfume display. Some perfumes are still around. Chanel No. 5 was introduced in 1953 (before I Love Lucy was in re-runs) and is still very much available today. White Shoulders, Youth Dew, and some others "old-timers" are still on the market, although they may be on the back shelf.
• Search online. There are some big online perfume "warehouses" that stock a lot of obscure stuff. Drug stores and smaller department stores may shy away from all but the "top sellers."
• Ask around. There are some perfume blogs and message boards. Sometimes the people who frequent these places know about unusual places to find rare perfumes. (And rare in this caes doesn't necessarily mean expensive, but it does mean "hard to find.")

You can also ask catalog companies or online sources if they can track something down for you. Now realize not all of them will do this, so don't be offended if the company does not think it's worth its while to spend hours hunting down something for a single sale.

But some places will comply. Take The Vermont Country Store (vermontcountrystore.com), which features a lot of nostalgic products. A reader asked about a perfume called Evening in Paris. This perfume, which originated in France, was wildly popular in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, but grew unpopular. Nobody carried here it here anymore.

The weird thing is that Evening in Paris was a phenomenal perfume. It was invented by Ernst Breaux, the legendary nose who created Chanel No. 5 (among others). It was absolutely beloved in its heyday. And--here's the kicker--it was still being produced and sold in France.

Today, you can buy Evening in Paris from the Vermont Country Store and get it in the original cobalt blue bottle. It's not even particularly expensive.

Sometimes, it just pays to ask!

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