It was the early 90s and along with school discos, New Kids On The Block, pink converse hi-tops and Body Shop lip balms, body sprays rocked my world. I was probably only 12 or 13 when I got to grips with my first bottle of Impulse Zen (Impulse who, incidentally, are still selling body sprays by the truckload a mere 20 years on). At first it felt alien. Locked in the upstairs bathroom, the last bastion of privacy for a teenage girl in a house full of adults, the spray was startlingly cold on my bare skin. But the lingering scented haze had a magical, ethereal allure that marked a coming of age in my beauty education - my first tentative foray into the big wide world of fragrance.

Now, body sprays are back, albeit it new, luxe incarnations by the likes of high end fragrance houses such as Tom Ford and Carven, and I for one am elated.  As my 13 year old self packed canisters of Zen into her PE kit, so my 33 year old self tucks Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino All Over Body Spray into her yoga kit for post shower spritzing. It’s a lighter, more diaphanous version of his bestselling scent - reminiscent of traditional Italian cologne, days spent sunbathing and the nightly ritual of rinsing the salt and sand from your skin as you analyse your tan marks. Body sprays like this are the lightest touch, the barely-there chiffons of the fragrance world and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they make me feel that first flush of fragranced youth and teenage whimsy all over again.

In the UK, compared to say the perennially scented territories of France, we have quite a reserved take on fragrance. Maybe that’s another reason this renaissance of understatement pleases me so greatly. Because body sprays, even the term sounds apologetically British, are also the antidote to what I can only refer to as fragrance OD.

"Where strong scents project out, so body sprays invite only the closest passing individuals into their olfactory confines"

You know, the people who smell, not like themselves anymore, but like a bunch of chemically-engineered flowers instead. It’s a huge turn off and goes against any natural laws of chemistry and pheromones. It also begs the question that if somebody is so overtly scented, what exactly are they trying to disguise? Where strong scents project out, so body sprays invite only the closest passing individuals into their olfactory confines. Yes, it’s sensual stuff considering these are, or started out anyway, as starter scents for teens.

There was a less glamorous, functional side to body sprays, the fogging into armpits of tops that had started to smell a bit funky, that it would be disingenuous not to mention. That’s not where my new Tom Ford will end up.  I have Fabreze for that now.

It is, of course, really a rather canny move to revive these featherweights of the fragrance world for the present day. Not only are the perfume behemoths managing to target the limited disposable incomes of discerning teenagers seeking an entry level luxury fragrance, they’re also reaching out to the second time around body sprayers (that’s us) who are whipped up into a frenzy of nostalgic midriff spraying every time we see those two words next to each other on a label.

For the heady perfume addicts, no doubt these new breed body sprays will bounce off their fragrant force fields without making so much as a dent. But for the subtle, nuanced scent lover like me who, especially as the weather warms up, likes to smell like themselves, albeit it a fresher, more attractive version, body sprays are to be welcomed back into open arms (and naked midriffs) across the land.

Click through the gallery to see our pick of the new breed body sprays for grown ups.

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