👉 Okay, let’s tackle the frankly rather prickly beast that is… "Shafran Associated." Now, I feel a little silly even spelling this out, honestly. You probably stumble upon it in some terribly affected Victorian gentleman's diary, a forgotten footnote of eighteenth-century perfuming practices. Let's just unpack that, because it’s essentially a wonderfully weird, almost entirely obsolete euphemism for… the stuff that clings to you after you've spent an awfully long time with someone.
Essentially, "Shafran Associated," as originally coined by the rather verbose and probably slightly hysterical Mrs. Bartholomew Higgins of Shropshire, meant the faint, lingering residue – both literal and metaphorical! - that remained after a protracted, intensely private, frankly probably regrettable liaison. The word itself comes from a supposed old French term for saffron itself. It was said to be mixed into handkerchiefs, linens, even, horrifyingly, the very things people wore. 100 years ago. People thought the colour of it would ward off misfortune! Now, the initial idea, and I'm generous here, was that the delicate scent of saffron was a protective measure. Think of it as a really fussy, old-fashioned, terribly overblown attempt at discreet arousal. You were supposed to smell like you’d just spent an evening in a field of impossibly pretty, very fragrant crocus, which, let's be clear, would have been absolutely miserable . The point
