Is this the end of Ebay perfume sales?

"On Monday, June 30, eBay was ordered to pay a record fine. The on-line auction site will have to pay almost €40 million ($60 million) in damages to 6 brands in the LVMH luxury group – Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior Couture – and 4 fragrance brands: Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain, for violating their excusive distribution network".

You can read the rest of the ominous Osmoz article as well as the concerned testimonies of perfumephiles using Ebay on Perfume of Life forum by clicking the links.
So not good!

New from Kenzo: Power for men

Kenzo is fond of flowers and thus in an unexpected twist he bases his latest fragrance for men on their image. Specifically he has envisioned the abstract tulipe sauvage: wild tulip, which Olivier Polge has materialised into Kenzo Power, a fragrance that encompasses the notes of bergamot, coriander, cardamom and cedarwood in a fresh woody composition which incarnates the new man according to Kenzo.
Power rhymes brilliantly with Flower, the bestseller for women by Kenzo, which also focuses on an imaginary vision of a flower: poppy, this time. Flowers for men have seen a resurgence lately, after the gignatic flop of Incense by Givenchy which attempted to break the mould and offer just that: a floral for men. The rise of metrosexuals however signals a new lease for life for this genre and already Farhenheit 32 and Fleur du Mâle with their abstract synthetic orange blossom, as well as Dior Homme with its rooty iris by the same nose as Power, have paved the path for a braver stance on the masculine-aimed shelves of the average department store.
Power doesn't sound too flowery, admitedly, but they promise a concept of assured power, masculinity and poetry as well, encased in a metal bottle that is inspired by the Japanese Saké bottles. First impressions talk about an overdose of spices for the fresh, biting effect, a powdery feel reminiscent of Dior Homme, aldehydic accents like Farhenheit32 and a salty aftertaste. It sounds like it should be an eminently fit to be shared between the sexes fragrance! Ladies take note!
We can but wait: the new fragrance comes out in 20 August in an Eau de Toilette spray 60 ml retailing for 53 €.
In the meantime I am leaving you with the artsy Japanese make-up and look of the Flower by Kenzo commercial from a few years ago.

Info and pic (photo Patrick Guedj for Kenzo) via aufeminin.com. Clip originally uploaded by SmokeyEye87 on Youtube

When a Perfectly Good Scent is Ruined by Association

I remember Amarige like I remember physical catastrophes I have lived through or heard through the retelling of elders, almost since the dawn of time. I remember Amarige with the abject horror we reserve in the farthest pockets of terror we keep in our innermost chthonian thoughts, ripe for sowning on a hot summer's day when the pending coming of the Antichrist doesn't seem too far away. I remember Amarige like the miasma of a horde of Attila the Hun sweeping through Asia and Europe till he is abruptly stopped by his own debauchery bedding a 16-year-old.
What prompted this tirade of evil reminiscences? Simply put, a timely comment by one of our readers, Sarah G, who asked if I had any recollection of having a scent completely "ruined" by associating with someone. Do I have one!

Amarige by Givenchy is a typhoon, no doubt about it, and it has earned its fair share of detractors through the years, as much as admirers. What however irrevocably sealed its fate for me was having to smell it spritzed five times under each armpit on the otherwise pristine shirts of someone close to me. The strange ritual was founded in the received knowledge that antiperspirants based on aluminum block sweat glands and therefore discouraged by doctors, who prompted to offer an alternative suggested a mist of cologne on clothes for a refreshing feeling. Little did they know they had opened the sacks of Aeolus! Amarige must have some redeeeming quality, yet refreshing cologne it isn't, by any stretch of the most perverse imagination. But to someone who is enjoying the suffocating chemical tuberose emanations, it must have smelled like the first day of summer. Alas it was my destiny to be around and it was its destiny to lose what advantage it might have had over my epithelium. Thus Amarige has been for ever associated with doom for me...Not that I consider it a good scent. But you get my point (it could happen to anything, even my beloved Lutens or vintage Guerlains!)

The matter of association is of the utmost importance when it comes to scents: we associate our mother's smell with comfort, our dad's with security, our loved ones' with feeling appealing and alive, our enemies' with displeasure; of warm bread out of the oven with satiety and of cold steel with fear entering a doctor's office for a much dreaded medical exam; of cut hay with the promise of summer vacations and of putrid water with disgust and anihillation. Scent poses its own universe of subconscious reality from each we often cannot escape. With every breath, with every quivering of the nostrils, we catch subtle or not so subtle wafts of essences which volatilize into holograms of all too real fantasy.
And it is most disappointing when those negative associations have to do with fine fragrance, fragrance which we might have chosen for ourselves or simply enjoyed smelling in the air, if only it weren't for that tangible web of memory which ruins it for us.

So, do you have similar cases of having a fragrance ruined for you through association? Let me hear those horror stories for twisted Little Red Riding Hoods now...

Photography by Jean Baptiste Mondino, courtesy of mondino-update

Globalisation-Indie Businesses: what's the score?

This tidbit of info and the very interesting video was brought to my attention by Anya from Anya's Garden.


I am not much of a Perfumaria (Passionaria of perfume, a term coined by yours truly) and in my life I have often being scolded of being a jaded aristocrat discussing the plight of the world from her couch ~which is not good karma if you think about it!~, but I thought this needed all the support it could get.
Perfume Shrine after all has always been for supporting small artisanal businesses and it would pain me if you were deprived of the choice to give them your business should you choose to.

I urge you to watch the video and read the post and, if you agree, to sign the petition. Just hurry, before the deadline for passing the signatures to the law-making body expires!

An Iris Problem: How to Build One

I got a most interesting mail the other day: Someone who is clearly very much a perfume lover and whom I knew before through the blog was asking me what I thought was a perfumer's perfect way to build a masterful iris. It surprised me because I am not a perfumer myself, but intrigued my nerdy tendencies enough to devote a post to it.
I have to put a disclaimer here that the post will feature some chemistry and might be perhaps a little boring for those of you who'd rather read ethereally poetic reviews about fragrances or some comedic spoof take on popular trends. But despite all that and knowing it won't be too popular, I thought it was worth addressing and I promise I will try to state it as simply as possible and even include a small index at the bottom for your ease.

Our reader has been reading what many of you have too: The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr, Luca Turin's Secret of Scent and Perfumes, the Guide, many online perfume blogs and boards...the works! Based on that and some knowledge of chemistry on the reader's part, those are the questions posed:

"I know α-n-methyl ionone (aka Givaudan's Raldeine A) was the chief component featured in Iris Gris. I also remember that one also needs irones; they are crucial, since it's this group of compounds that give orris its distinctive aroma.
Now, problem number one: which irone isomer(s) {1} should one use? I know orris emits at least three irones: cis-gamma, cis-alpha, trans-alpha irones. Octavian mentioned alpha irone in his Iris Gris entry (didn't mention which enantiomer {2} was used in Iris Gris). So what would be your pick? Is there a commercial blend, say, from IFF, that produces a good irone bouquet?
Then there are the interesting molecules....I remember Chandler Burr mentioning something about methyl ionones, which is a bit confusing since I assume ionones must have a methyl group stuck with them as well. Is this necessary? In addition, Dr. Luca Turin also talked about Maurice Roucel's ingenious use of Irival (produced by IFF), a nitrile{3} that gives Iris Silver Mist it's interesting quality. Now I'm lost..."

The question is interesting because it goes to the heart of the matter: in order to build a solid, good, true iris, where should the perfumer look?

To my understanding, irones are higher analogues of ionones, because they contain an additional methyl group in the cyclohexane group.
Although irones are indeed present in natural orris, it seems that production of a-irone has become standard, starting from a-pinene via the Caroll re-arrangement. [Basically the schema is going like this for anyone taking notes: A-pinene goes through decarbonylation, gives methyl trimethulcyclobutyl ketone, they add acetylene, there goes the Caroll re-arrangement, we get (trimethylcyclobutyl) heptadienone, pyrolysis is induced, giving methylated ψ-ionone and through cyclization this gives α-irone.]
Let me at this point clarify regarding the Greek letters (α: alpha, β: beta, γ: gamma) in the nomenclature of irones (as well as ionones and damascones) that they refer to the position of the double bond after the ring closure, while n- and iso- to the position of the alkyl group (assuming something other than acetone is used in condesation).

I suspect this ease of production is the reason why we have been flooded with iris fragrances the last couple of years: like Octavian pointed out, it has become easy to synthesize, not to mention it is a great marketability tool in a milieu which thrives on semi-info (the perfume lover usually knows that iris is the most expensive natural ingredient). Two birds in one shot!

But wait: what was that interesting molecule that Chandler Burr was referenced to mention? It must be a-iso-methylionone which had been erroneously mentioned as γ-irone in some old texts. At least, I suppose so... Therefore another irone, used to produce an iris effect.

Concerning Iris Silver Mist and Irival, let me set this straight. The info is not that Irival gives the fragrance its very specific iris scent (I just checked Luca's book before I typed this), but that it has been used in conjunction with other things to produce the ethereal, sad and grey rooty effect that we smell in Iris Silver Mist. Maurice Roucel, the perfumer behind it, used every ingredient he had acess to that had an iris descriptor attached to it, prompted by Lutens who urged him to produce an iris to the max.
There are possibly myriads of ingredients that have an iris descriptor attached to them (meaning they have some nuance of iris in their odour profile); if one reads lists of ingredients one sees that. To reference an example: Like we say that oudh has a musty woody but also nutty nuance when we smell it, the same applies for other ingredients, some complex like natural essences and some less so like single molecules. Roucel probably used all the ones available to him at the time and in the company he was working with.

Basically what I have concluded is that there is no single molecule that alone could account for a sublime effect on any perfume, be it an iris one, a certain jasmine effect or the surreal ones such as those based on dusty lamp and linen drying in the wind notes. Although we're often made to think that chemists discover magical aromachemicals/single molecules (and they do) which in bullet-form could almost fuel a rocket, to bring an analogy, I think that it has to do with context as well. The interaction of different ingredients with each other accounts for many pleasurable and not so pleasurable sensations and therein lies the artistry of perfumery. Rose and patchouly for instance do wonderful things to one another, which is probably why they are often combined. But with what different effects: smell Voleur de Roses side by side with Aromatics Elixir. The result is dissimilar. They are both based on this accord, but they go in different directions from there. Otherwise every chemist would be a perfumer! It takes however something more than that to become the latter.

The secret of producing a masterpiece iris -or anything else for that matter- lies in the artistry of the formula and the sleight of hand of its creator.

Index:
{1}.Isomers are compounds with the same molecular formula but different structural formulae.
{2}.Enantiomers, like their Greek etymology alludes to, are stereoisomers which have a mirror image of each other, much like one's own hands (the same, but somehow opposite).
{3}.A nitrile is any organic compound which has a -C≡N functional group (that is a carbon and a trible bonded nitrogen).

Pic of perfumer Alberto Morillas courtesy of Basenotes.net