Five Scents to Turn Men Off

Or "how to write a bad piece of fragrance advice". The following article appearing unacredited (thankfully) on bodycare.becomegorgeous.com is indicative of the widely-spread view that it suffices to take tips from here & there on your lunch hour in order to write an article that offers some insights into scents. Apparently, it's not that easy, unless you want to perpetuate gross mistakes (sandalwood is a herb?? kiwi is a citrus??) and boring clichés that group poor men into a herd of cattle that can't think for themselves. Then of course the article proceeds on suggesting at least one citrus fruity scent and an ambery one! Taking into consideration the site focuses on "how to" articles and videos, I'd say this is seriously bad judgment into accepting such an article in the first place. Why is that everyone suddenly poses as an expert in just any random field?

If you're still curious on which scents supposedly turn men off (though, dear reader, we have compiled a rather critical map on Perfumes that Attract Men and Scents that Turn Women On that is more researched on these very pages acknowledging all the while we're catering to an inherently demeaning question to both asker and askee) the writers on above-mentioned article mention: citrus fruits, rose, chocolate, honeydew, too much sandalwood & amber.

pic via pheromonesattract.net 

Frederic Malle & Pierre Hardy: Collaboration on New Editions de Parfums Product

Frederick Malle and Pierre Hardy: The perfumes editor and the acclaimed shoe & jewellery designer; surely a dream team? The two men are collaborating on the debut of the limited edition Travel Spray Cases for Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle.

Designed to hold any 10ml spray vial in the Editions de Parfums Collection, these pocket-size perfume atomizers are perfect for carrying your favorite Editions de Parfums fragrance along wherever you go.

Available in a series of colors, a total of 500 of the individually hand-sprayed cases will be sold within the US exclusively at the Frederic Malle NY Boutique, Barney’s New York and Beverly Hills for $285 beginning in April 2012.

There will be another 500 available for the overseas market, available at the FM boutiques and www.fredericmalle.com

Guerlain Mon Nouveau Parfum: These Boots Were Made for Walking

Nancy Sinatra's classic song "These Boots Were Made for Walking" put to use for Guerlain's new video clip animation to promote their La Petite Robe Noire perfume.

What do you think?

NEWSFLASH: My source confirms my theory that the clip is released to promote the now wider distribution of former boutique exclusive La Petite Robe Noire. It makes absolute sense in that regard.

Top 20 Best-Selling fragrances for women in France (2011)

The difference between what's sold as connoting "French" and what actual French people prefer is a rather wide one. Despite the usual glamouralisation of French culture (not without its own marketing reasons, I suppose), the reality is French people are not widely different or widely more sophisticated than the rest of the world: They don't as a rule have a penchant for classic chypres, elegant aldehydics or byzantine orientals as the average perfumista in the USA imagines (though fashions in the past did create a "type" of perfume defined as "French style perfume"). Instead the French mostly buy what is contemporary and familiar, as does any normal human being to the degree that they don't have an obsessive interest in perfume. (The French do learn to use perfume from a young age onwards and not be too sparing with it, nevertheless, which is a huge difference compared with some other cultures). The globalisation as well as the agressive marketing of the fragrance industy bears interesting fruits in those regards.

Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Béart in Nathalie

So let's discover the top 20 best-sellers in feminine fragrances in France for the year 2011:

Dior J'Adore
Dior Miss Dior Chérie
Thierry Mugler Angel
L'Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake
Dior Hypnotic Poison
Guerlain Shalimar
Lolita Lempicka by Lolita Lempicka
Viktor& Rolf Flowerbomb
YSL Parisienne 
Rochas Eau de Rochas 
Rem by Reminiscence
Givenchy Ange ou Démon
Guerlain Idylle
Paco Rabanne Black XS pour elle
Narciso Rodriguez Narciso For Her
Jimmy Choo by Jimmy Choo
Paco Rabanne Lady Million
Nina Ricci Nina (apple bottle)
Lancome Trésor
Kenzo Flower

List thanks to notrefamille.com, a French webzine, in no particular order.

Another list (top 7) from a French source, meuilleur-top.com, runs thus (again in order of presentation, not necessarily bulk of sales):

Lolita Lempicka by Lolita Lempica
Kenzo Flower Le Parfum
Nina Ricci Ricci Ricci
YSL Parisienne
Dior J'Adore
Thierry Mugler Angel
Chanel No.5

The exact order, as per the prestigious NPD Group, of the top 3 perfumes in France for 2011 can be seen here.

Additional observations, courtesy of yours truly, are captured in my short memoir "Snapshots of Phantasmagoria" about a Paris trip in winter.

Perhaps more fittingly, nonetheless, since this is a fumehead blog with more sophisticated interests & tastes than the average person in the street, what we consider that should be popular in France is more a propos. So in that spirit, if you hadn't caught it when I first posted it back in 2009, please read Drapeau Tricolore: 12 Quintessentially French Fragrances.

But more importantly and I'm interested in opinions, rather than hard facts:  
What do YOU consider French-smelling? And why?

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Definition: French Type/French Style perfume,  Top Selling Fragrances for Men 2011 (USA), Top 10 Best-selling Masculine Fragrances in France , Past ascribed gender: Best masculine fragrances for women, best feminine fragrances for men

Meaningful Scents around the World (2006) by Roman Kaiser: Perfume Book Review

Sometimes the readers have a pre-conceived notion about where a book is going—although I suppose Proustian reminiscence never involved headspace technology. 

~by guest writer AlbertCAN

I first deduced a book with a rose on the cover would stay comfortably within the confine of conventional beauty. Guess again with Roman Kaiser as I found out when first cracked open “Meaningful Scents around the World” (2006), a fragrant journey around the world to some of the exciting places the author has visited during his 30 years of olfactory research.

One of the first things Kaiser covers, defying all of my expectations, is China —2500 years ago.

How Kaiser managed to track down the orchids Confucius praised and identified Cymbidium georingii as the scholar’s favourite is still beyond me. I actually spent about three decades trying to decipher it—and no luck—but then Kaiser solved the riddle like nobody’s business the minute I opened the book, not only providing insightful details about the plants but actually describes the scents in ways even a fragrance amateur would be interested in purchasing if the headspace result could be available in bottles. (Good luck convincing fragrance account managers that fascination.) Then again, who knew the orchid scent Confucius once enjoyed resembles a very ripe lemon crossed with lily of the valley?

And then it gets more and more curious from there.

Ever wonder what makes fine wines smelling the way they are? Actually, how about a fine 1988 vintage from Château d'Yquem? Kaiser has a report on that. Now Francophiles might be slightly miffed that Kaiser did not analyze the cult 1961 Sauternes featured in a pivotal sequence of Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995), considered many as one of director Claude Sautet’s masterpieces (and one of the finest performances by French cinematic icon Emmanuelle Béart), but having a glimpse of the famous wine is good enough for a non-drinker like me.

From wine Kaiser then goes off to interesting places. Gewürztraminer actually a rosy smell due to ionones, and then from ionones he managed to examine how the modern hybrid roses benefit from the introduction of Rosa chinesis into the European rose hybridization program, using beta ionone as the indicator as he backtracks the evolution of roses.

Somewhere in between those sections Kaiser visits the famous nymphs—Egyptian blue lotus, for instance. Now the sacred blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) is incredibly fascinating, actually a water lily yet not only having a gorgeous hyacinth-like scent (minus the earthy undertone associated with the Dutch hyacinth hybrids) but actually was also used as the ancient Egyptian party drug or a shamanistic aid. Considering the fact that the wines in various Egyptian religious ceremonies were often macerated in the sacred blue lotus first one can only imagine how far the ancient Egyptians went in order to contact the divine! Then there’s the Amazonian water lily Victoria amazonica, initially named after Queen Victoria as Victoria regia and now linked to the iconic Waterlily House at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew , England . Kaiser analyzed the Victorian marvel along with its sibling Victoria cruziana—though curiously enough the samples were taken from Munich’s Nymphenburg Palace—and concluded that two water lilies have, curiously enough, a plum-like scent in order to attract a specific species of beetles for pollination. Kaiser also notes that both species have similar scents, though amazonica is more refined than that of cruziana.

(Alas, I also secretly wished Kaiser would also explore the famous Sri Lankan lotus padparadscha, a flora so glowing that a Ceylon sapphire is named after. But then Kaiser did not make the detour!)

All in all what Kaiser really excels in this book, beyond all the aromatic magic and tour de force, is a sense of thematic coherence, never fails to communicate to the audience how the wide array of scents deserve their places in this book, which is so difficult to do considering to vast geographical, temporal, and cultural terrains he needs to whiz through in mere 304 pages. By keeping each theme to itself Kaiser surprisingly creates a focused, intimate way to maintain the excitement of each idea. This isn’t a chemistry text, more like an incredibly elevated edition of National Geography, only better.

But be warned: Kaiser did not reveal all the chemical readings, choosing to leave out, for instance, some of the more spectacular modern rose and incense findings. (Why devoting a whole chapter on agarwood when the headspace read outs are not going to be published in any shape or form in this book? And why praise the ever phenomenal “Fragrant Cloud” hybrid tea rose when the full read-out is not included? I have no idea why.) Kaiser also later transferred some material from this book for his “Scent of the Vanishing Flora” (2010)—some photographs and paragraphs are in fact near identical, although the floras are technically covered in different lights. Thus considering the hefty prices of these books, though really worth every penny given all the glossy pages and informative insights, one might be tempted to get just one of the two. (Which I chose to do eventually by purchasing “Vanishing Flora” and signing out “Meaning Scents” from my public library.) Of course, get both if you can.

Photo, from top: Book cover; Confucius’ orchid; Nelly and Mr. Arnaud from the eponymous movie; padparadscha lotus and padparadscha sapphires. All via Google.com unless specified otherwise.

R. Kaiser, Meaningful Scents around the World. Olfactory, Chemical, Biological and Cultural Considerations, Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta, Zürich, and WILEY-VCH, Weinheim, 2006, ISBN 978-3-906390-37-6, 304 pages. 

The book is available on Amazon.