White Tea and Ginger

I bought it on a whim. While in Bath & Body Works one day, something drew me to this particular bottle of body spray in the clearance section. I’m sure I was there to purchase a gift for someone, but unbeknownst to me, I also walked out with a time capsule disguised as “fine fragrance mist.”

The scent was named White Tea & Ginger, but it might as well have been called Camp Counselor & Summer because as soon as the aroma hit my nasal cavity, I was standing in my cabin at Sky Ranch Summer Camp. It was no longer 2024. The year was 2004, my last summer of college, and I was a camp counselor deep in the heart of Texas. While this present-day body of a middle-aged mom stood in a suburban bathroom, in my mind, I was a twenty-one-year-old “mom” to middle-school-aged girls standing in the bathroom of a rustic cabin. 

It’s an awfully powerful spritz that can transport you back two decades in one breath. I would soon learn, to my great relief, that this was not some kind of voodoo magic potion, but a scent included in a Flashback Fragrance campaign. 

Flashback, for sure. Bygone summer days in a bottle. Scents of adolescence; of all things simple, nostalgic, wonderful, and full of wonder. 

A fine fragrance mist with notes of wet grass while running through sprinklers, creekbed mud, and rope of a hammock. 

Roadtrip daydreams, homemade pudding pops, weed pulling, car washing, blueberry picking, Walkman tunes, after-dinner family walks, and boiled peanuts.

Chlorine-green hair and sea-salted sunburned skin, Clarks Hill Lake slalom skiing, and Blackwater River tubing.

Cousin backwoods forts, un-netted trampolines, and figs right off the tree.

Thrilling motorhome adventures across the country and familiar comforts of a 1950s rancher in the country. 

Florida thunderstorms, South Carolina peaches, Georgia bike rides, and Texas marching band practices. 

Slumber parties, Sun In, mission trips, and church ice cream fellowships. 

Dial tones, dial-ups, early-morning cartoons, late-night swim meets, 35mm film, Blockbuster, and books made of paper.

Barefoot-induced sole calluses, chiggers, and splinters. 

Sister shenanigans, wild summer camp games, cicada sonatas, and out-of-control laughter.

I wish I could bottle it all up and pass it to my kids. But the truth is, they’re filling their bottles with their own summer fragrance notes. And one day, years from now, they’ll too catch a scent that transports them back to these simple summer days. 

In the meantime, watching them fill their bottles fills mine to overflowing.

Well done, Bath & Body Works. A mighty fine fragrance, indeed. 

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