Love is in the Air: My Most Romantic Perfumes ~Valentine's Day Countdown part 8

What makes for a romantic perfume? Is it some secret common thread which runs through fragrances making them able to commuovere? Or is it the added subtext we add to them through experience? Every one of us can tell a different tale, but since this is my post let me today recount some of the perfumes which have marked some romantic moments in my life. Come along and share your own in the comments!

The German have a wonderful word, Habseligkeiten, literally the paltry belongings of the almost penniless, but poetically also adjusted to children's prized items. The fascination that simple things, inexpensive things exert upon the impressionable mind of child elevates them to the level of treasures. I was 6, the strange mix of hyper-dynamism in the package of a girly girl, and all the world was a stage. My favorite props were small vials and flacons of scented liquids and pomades. A friend of my mother's had an interesting collection of the latter, all tiled up on the bathroom shelf stacked like alphabetized tins in a 1950s grocery shop. One little roll-on applicator, inviting like a lip gloss (but rather conversely to appearances horribly tasting) hid a small time wonder, Timeless by Avon. Such was my rapture to the contents that the item was deemed suitable to be gifted to my little demanding hands. Timeless is as timeless a scent as its name implies, a friendly yet grown up chypre fragrance, and it was the soundtrack of my elementary school flirting, as smooth and as polished as a woman much senior of me, but somehow it didn't seem too incongruent on a child; it was the discarded experiment (one among many) of an older woman handed down to a kid who obviously prized them and thus rendered them beautiful and rare, rendered them habseligkeiten. 

Although Anais Anais was my first "proper" perfume, the one I was gifted with because I actually asked for it, I don't consider it particularly romantic, because it was something of a "me too" moment in time (Knowing me even slightly, you'd surely guess this was a phase of pre-adolecense since the bulk of my teenager years were spent trying to do everything opposite to everyone else and everyone popular, no doubt in a passive-agressive way to mark my own territory and carve out my identity). Rather Opium by YSL, which I got with my pocket money after being impressed with it at the time-frame when only Timeless remnants could be given to me freely without fear of wasting expensive perfume, served as the "me" fingerprint. This made it romantic enough, in a Nietzschean sort of way. It also served as a flirtatious throw of the glove. Indeed it made a statement and was highly complimented.

Other fragrances came and went. Some remained. Molinard by Molinard, long before it became a "niche" novelty was the love letter of a particularly charismatic guy who captured my heart. Sure, it's a floral (with aldehydic, green and fruity accents to boot) and can one be any more romantic than offering a bouquet of flowers, even if they come in the form of essences captured in a fancy bottle like shiny May beetles caught in a glass jar? It also had a lyrically beautiful bottle: Lalique's design of nude nymphs dancing.

Chanel No.19's drydown has been likened to my naked skin (this followed a romp in the hay). That made it extremely romantic… Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue in the elusive parfum de toilette concentration marked a summer spent rummaging through the city centre for book quotes on a paper I was preparing for Byzantine icons for the university. Its Parisian "blue hour" wistfulness became my own lieder of sunlit mornings, naked feet in gladiator sandals and roomy flowing calico skirts in ivory. It's funny but there was nothing Parisian, nor "blue hour" about it, my tiny miniature lasting as long as the completion of the paper, but filling me with memories of an innocent time, a time when everything seemed possible; that has to be romantic, right? (If you don't shy away from this idea, try also Etro's Messe de Minuit in a similarly incongruent context).

I have many other fragrances in my arsenal. Some have erotic overtones, from the nuzzling soft (Narciso Musc for Her oil parfum in the original version) to the soiled clothes & disheveled hair of intense lovemaking (Musc Koublai Khan, L'Air de Rien, Dzing!) via the rubber-and-talc of a pervert vanilla (Bvlgari Black, VIP Room, Hypnotic Poison). Some have intellectual associations which by way of reflection (and lots of wishful thinking on my part) earn a badge of "borrowed romanticism": Guerlain Mitsouko, which was the scent that tied Anais Nin to her Sapphic love. Doblis by Hermes because it embodies the apex of elegance and soft effortless sensuality; I only wish I were such a smooth operator. Eau d'Hermes is how I'd like to present myself to the world; I share that wish with a famous perfumer, I'm told.
Others still just remind me of times spent with loving company enjoying the new things, the new experiences: Serge Lutens's La Myrrhe (my first bell jar when it launched), Grand Amour and Passion by Annick Goutal, Ramon Monegal Mon Patchouly and Mon Cuir, Malle's Lys Mediterranee….surely there are more.

Whatever the bond that ties everything together (and whether it truly exists or is a figment of my fevered imagination is a moot point) the implication of a romantic perfume weaves a powerful web which entangles us and  influences us long after the remnants on our or our beloved's skin have all but evaporated.

Valentine's Day Special: The Scent of Unrequited or Impossible Love (Valentine's Countdown part 5)

"And the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen" [1]

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wirtherings, of tarnishings."[2]

via etsy

So often we focus on Valentine's Day as the occasion when one MUST be coupled to participate in the holiday or when one should at the very least have a romantic interest at the ready if they're single. Obviously some are happily married (such as The Non Blonde) or happily single (such as Chemist in a Bottle) with whom I organized a small joint project; they have their own anecdotes to share.
Poor me I reverted this year to that pool of endless discoveries: literature and specifically two cases of unrequited or impossible love.

One of them revolves around the impossibility of the love of the nymphet, of a "Lolita", in Vladimir Nabovok's famous and stylistically memorable novel of the same name. Indeed one can hardly call it a love story, tragic or otherwise. Although possibly everything must have been written around this lyrical tome and its "poetics of betrayal" ~and the issue of pedophilia is arising again in public consciousness due to the recent allegations (re)thrown at Woody Allen's face decades later~ one of the aspects that hasn't been quite explored yet is the insistence of the emigre writer on the scented aspect of Humbert's unrequited, obsessive (and yes, ultimately sickly) love. It is a sort of love, no doubt, because he expresses all the symptoms of eros. His male gaze is held by the thread of fascination: on the one hand of the unknowing pull that the nymphet, Dolores Haze, has upon him,;on the other hand his sophisticated European professorial veneer recognizes that the stuff arousing the little one's admiration is uniformly "trash" ~she lacks the necessary critical distance to judge it. (This includes celebrity and film magazines,  shops with knick knack souvenirs, comics etc.)

via pinterest

Humbert's own inherited profession is a perfume company, to which he pays little business attention throughout the novel, but which seems to have an indirect yet potent pull in the machinations of his love patterns. There is a specific reference to the unidentified "musky and powdery" scent of his formative love interest, the child Annabel, when he was of comparable age at the French Riviera, which he traces to her borrowing it from the Spanish maid (a reference that might indicate Maja by Myrurgia or even Habanita by Molinard, promoted with a Latin-sounding name and popular in France). But Humbert also references another unidentified perfume in the memorable poem he dedicates to his lost love towards the close of the novel.

"My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?"

Soleil Vert literally translates as "green sun" and isn't among the many historical fragrances which I am aware of. Supposedly this secret smell, this surreal sun which evokes the variations of light shone upon the two unlikely lovers constantly mentioned in the novel, is the one which has bonded the memory of her to him, a gift from him; one which he chose for her. Much like he chose one for her mother's sake, the landlady he had betrothed a little while before her tragic death in the hopes of keeping at the nymphet's side. But it is still interesting to contrast how mother Haze tricks Humbert into thinking he is going to be picking up perfume for a friend of hers, as an intended gift, when in fact the perfume is then held hostage to be used by the flirtatious woman herself in an equally sorrowful love tension tormenting the love-struck Charlotte in the hopes of catching her tenant's (unrequited) amorous interest.

via VioletHour/pinterest

Another memorable incident of scent marking the impossibility of love shared in literature comes from a part of the life-long diaries of Anais Nin, amassed in the tome titled Henry & June in which she recounts her rising desire for sexual and erotic exploration despite her genuine love for her banker husband, Hugo. Her adventuring desire positively detonates upon meeting the writer Henry Miller (famous for his own unabashed depictions of sexual exploration and erotic experiences in his work) and his beautiful, destitute, but "destructive"wife June Mansfield. The two women indulge in a bit of Sapphic intimacy marking the impossibility of a fully fledged relationship in the context of the mores of the times, or more importantly as the writer continually stresses her feelings of love and friendship for her husband whom she won't quit and June's detached state in life. But it is again perfume, this time in the form of Guerlain's Mitsouko, which creates the tension of memory for the star-crossed lovers.

June asks for Anais to gift her with her perfume as a memento. The perfume is again mentioned as being the thing she notices and keeps as a memory from Anais' house. It's referenced by monetary value too (it's expensive for poor Miller and his wife). It's implied as a mysterious veil that captures the essence of Anais too. In a way, the Guerlain perfume loses some of the respectability and bourgeois factor it enjoys as the scent of choice of a banker's wife and earns through this impossible love, this fated affair, the reputation of a scent that signals a capitulation to some erotic journey of the mind and of the soul.

Anais and another Guerlain perfume, L'Heure Bleue, are wonderfully, poignantly tied in a love poem which I had read a while ago and I hereby quote for you.

"The blue hour perfume hesitates
like a turquoise tear, before falling
cerulean through her hourglass night;
a mauve nocturne of
low saxophone notes
and amaretto sorrows,
echoing footfalls of younger years
departing her dark almond-forest hair;
so as not to awaken from a dream
about to come true, blossoming
within herself; an indigo rose,
unfolding lavender lovers
pressed violet against her lips."


found on Underground voices, Don Pesavento

[1] Vladimir Nabokov
[2] Anais Nin

Don't forget to check out the links for the posts of my friends:

Gaia on The Non Blonde
and Lucas on Chemist in a Bottle.

Perfume Advertising Champions: Guerlain again...through the years

"Perfume mocks the passage of time..."

This beautiful historically-centered perfume ad by Guerlain appeared on Ebay. Though it certainly doesn't encompass all Guerlain classics it certainly does some of their most famous up to 1970: Jicky, L'Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Shalimar, Chant d'Aromes, Chamade... A joy to look at and a fashion & advertising history lesson for those with a sharp eye.

Guerlain Shore's Caprice (1873): Perfume History & an Enigma

When Aimé Guerlain created an extrait de parfum for use on the silk and linen handkerchiefs of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in 1873 little did he know that he would be creating a modern day enigma. The scent has of course disappeared from the face of the earth and any remnant purported as authentic would raise serious questions in the minds of the sane collector, but the intricacies of its historical trail capture the imagination all the same.

 The perfume Shore's Caprice began its journey as patronage for la Comtesse Emanuella Pignatelli Potocka, something not unheard of for the venerable French house in the 19th century. The countess Potocka, born Emanuela Pignatelli and a descendant of pope Innocent XII, appears as a personality full of contradictions, Italian grace and Parisian flair, who was keeping a salon to awe the society of her times. De Maupassant was a daily visitor. Barrès, Bourget, Robert de Montesquiou, Reynaldo Hahn, Widor as well. In her position as the lover of a well known philosopher, Emanuella derived intellectual enjoyment from humiliating the philosopher in him, even though her personal conduct with the man was above board.

Emanuella Pignatelli, countess Potocka

But it is the use of Shore's Caprice a short 9 years later, in 1882, in a case of reverse engineering (just think of the literary inspiration behind the legendary Guerlain Mitsouko) that it becomes food for fantasy. It happened when it became the perfume worn by Julia Forsell, the heroine of art critic's and journalist's Octave Mirbeau's L'écuyère (the title translates as "the horsewoman", "the amazon"). The specific quote goes like this: "Une mondaine, qui l'avait vue chez Guerlain, achetant un flacon de Shore's caprice, s'en était fait une renommée". This comes smack in the middle of a full page describing Julia's habits and skills, which are many and eye catching.
It was not the first time that a novel would benefit from a reference of perfumes worn by its characters and certainly not the last. It's mighty interesting how the imagination of authors and artists has been captured by the free-spirited character of the horsewoman, featuring such proto-feminist types in their work. But it's also fascinating to compare and contrast Shore's Caprice with the iconography of another Guerlain fragrance, the classic Jicky (1889), which as a prototype fougère, has always had a touch of the androgynous. Jicky is advertised with fetching, independent women behind the "volant" instead of the horse, stirring their lives with the determination of a true amazon.

Octave Mirbeau

The information about Shore's Caprice deliciously contradicts itself, creating an intricate puzzle of theories and little corroborated data. Four years after the release of L'écuyère, Shore's Caprice is mentioned in a complimentary manner in a proto-lifestyle-manual, Louise Gagneur's Pour Etre Aimée: Conseils d'une Coquette. There it is referenced as a perfume inspired by the sea and its complex aroma, but is deemed especially fit for neutralizing the catty aroma of certain furs. This tidbit of perfume etiquette use (common in "parfums fourrure") would have passed unnoticed had I not recalled having read an interview of Jean Kerléo, back when he was head of L'Osmothèque, where he commented at length on the feel and memories of "marine" fragrances (i.e. fragrances that try to approximate the scentscape of the ocean) and saying that they oppose the ideal of the bourgeoisie "who do not want the scent of the sea emanating off their furs". Was the countess Potocka revolutionizing fragrance mores by opting for an intellectualized scent that would clash with what the society of her times would think of as "proper"?

Whatever the scent smelled of in reality (and how realistically the smell of the sea could be captured in a composition dating from the 19th century with all the technical limitations of the times) the very existence of the fragrance is undisputed. Just a few years back, in 2009, a lot of Guerlain bottles were auctioned to perfume bottle collectors, amongst them Shore's Caprice alongside Guerlain's Cuir de Russie perfume. The square bottle measuring 17cm tall dated from 1880, a gold-gilded encrusted flacon that was a special commission, labelled «15 rue de la paix Paris» after the older address of the French family business. On it there was a gravure of a woman with a flag, providing another cryptic clue to its character.

Leo Tolstoy

But perhaps the most fascinating tidbit of all comes from a fellow "perfumista" who had read in an -as yet unidentified, unrevealed- book that Shore's Caprice was supposedly the perfume bottle found on the night table at the deathbed of famous novelist Leo Tolstoy. Is "shore" not a name but the evocation of the sea, the eternal blue that the steppe-born Russian soul only dreamed of and never attained? What was its caprice and why did it appeal to Tolstoy in the first place? Guerlain holds the key to a precious mystery in its archives.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Guerlain perfumes, known and unknown, Fragrance history. 

Chasing the Demons of Perfume Marketing: a Case for the Humble Marketeer

Marketing has gained a bad rep among perfume aficionados: "It's all marketing" you hear them say with a dismissive pfft over their shoulder as they consider the tsunami of launches in just the previous year, rhapsodising all the while about the glorious past, about eras when perfumes were supposedly both classier and cheaper to purchase. The truth however is never as simplistic as all that and the demons are less malignant than thought of.

"Now it appears perfume once again stands alone again, not tied to fashion nor an entry point to a new undiscovered world. It simply is" said veteran marketeer Jeffrey Dame the other day, while discussing the rise of prices on perfume brands. He explained how price is a pillar to the marketing of a fragrance and how perfume stands as a luxury, but also aspirational good: "Price is a marketing concept, one of those four key elements drilled into us when I went to university for a marketing degree in the 1970's. "Marketing" a product was a new idea in 1977 and the field of marketing and an actual marketing degree were part of a brave new world which has not quite resulted in a better new world 35 years later. Price is key, high or low, pick your passion. Before the 1970's perfume stood by itself, a creation of the perfume house. The big change in the 1970's with designer fragrances was that perfume provided you with lower-cost access to the world of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and YSL. If you couldn't afford an Oscar de la Renta dress, you could certainly stretch to purchase a piece of Oscar through his pretty perfume. The fashion was magic, and purchasing a piece of the magic through fragrance a thrill."

via coloribus.com

The status symbol of luxury brands is uncontenstably part and parcel of the high prices. "When we want to denote luxury, we increase the size or we increase the price" perfumer Jean Claude Ellena had told me on a one-to-one, explaining at the time the rationale behind the ginormous bottles introduced for some of the Hermes fragrances, but at the same time clarifying the thinking behind some of the perfume marketing going on across the board.

Some of the prices have become ridiculous, that's true. Even though there are perfumes that are decent enough to ask for very high prices, the rate of price raise is relative to the antagonism between niche key players; everyone is pricing in comparison to others' in the field. As Dame succinctly notes: "18-24 months ago the general price for high end niche was in the $150.00-$190.00 range for a 100 ml [bottle]. Nowdays, heading into holiday 2013 niche prices have risen greatly and a standard going rate is in the $225.00 - $285.00 range. Prices haven't quite doubled in the past two years, but close. This is a general guesstimate, and certainly there are many niche scents still below $200.00, but $250.00 seems to be where the heart of the niche business is". Furthermore, perfumer and niche brand owner Patricia de Nicolaï admits in a Fragrantica interview "...I have to say that some brands really exaggerate with their prices. I don’t want to denounce anyone, but offering a very expensive perfume with a lovely packaging does not always mean that this perfume will be nice." Further amunition in the dissenters' quiver? Not really.

Personally, I value marketing. Maybe it has to do with getting to know a bit of the stuff through, shall we say, personal interactions. Maybe it has to do with me being highly interested in the goings of perfume advertising from a historical point of view. Or maybe it's just that I like to be inquisitive and the devil's advocate. So let me plead a case for marketing.

Marketing doesn't have to be a brain-washing dystopian Big Brother device to work its magic. It's marketing which puts wings on perfume, providing the story which connects with the wearer and consolidates the brand. The smell alone can't really create that bond, not only because it can't be translated the same way for everyone, but also because smell is mute. As perfume maker Serge Lutens once said, "It is potentially a carrier for the imagination". Just think about it: all those romantic stories you've heard about Guerlain or Chanel or Caron etc, the twilight dusk of the "blue hour", l'heure bleue, inspiring Jacques Guerlain to create an enduring classic, Jicky being the nickname of a lover Aimé loved and lost, Mitsouko meaning "mystery" in Japanese (not so!), the Cuir de Russie perfume being inspired by Cossack boots smeared with birch, Tabac Blond an homage to flappers... all fabrications, all marketing. Their creation was much more pedestrian, if we take things factually. But they created a mythical beast which is with us still. Like in Herodotus, even if these things never happened, someone had the wisdom and the cunning to narrate them anyway....

For a product as mystifying, as undecipherable, as steeped in half-truths as perfume, selling it without the story would be akin to trying to sell hot air. The most exquisite smell in the world rests without aim if there isn't a stiring hand to propel it into the finishing line. The most divine creation needs to be communicated and communicated in the right way for the right audience at that. Good marketing works stealthily, convincing us that what we choose is "quality" or at least "a good fit", "value for money", "what we need right now". We consequently feel validated by our choice: smart, in the know, pampered, exhilarated, good about ourselves, happy. It also affords us the luxury of thinking we have free choice: this chesee instead of that cheese, this car instead of that car. But it's already cheese and car, this doesn't change. Does Coca Cola or Apple have good marketing? You bet. So does Chanel, selling not only nice perfume (well, most of the time) but also the unbridled assurance of "good taste".

Furthermore, perfume is an acquired taste. Babies don't grow being appreciative of it. It needs a certain conditioning to learn to appreciate man-made smells as "pleasant", "delicious", "enjoyable", even "life changing". Marketing helps us connect the dots, brings out specific points, making us think about something in the way that best translates the brand. This is especially crucial for artisanal brands, smaller players who have the need for a more truthful, but also highly clever marketing plot to make their presence known to those they'd best connect with and to consolidate that bond. Arguably, this force harnessing might also maim the more creative, more imaginative thinking of the individual. But to quote something I first heard on the 1st season of "Mad Men", itself a study in advertising and early marketing,"People want to be told what to do so badly, they'll listen to anyone". Cynical, but true.
So let's at least validate the marketeers who operate on a scale of imaginative honesty and creative truthfulness. All hail. They deserve as much, high prices be damned.

For those with not as long memories, I had said something along those lines back in 2007 in Lies and Misdemeanors. I had also talked about Perfume Prices back in 2007 too, in Gimmick or Innovation.

Weather-Beaten Awakenings: Let it Go

"You must have brought the bad weather with you,
the sky’s the colour of lead,
all you’ve left me was a feather
on an unmade bed”
~It’s Over, Tom Waits

The thunder came crushing down like release from heavens last night. The humidity and the city's torpor of the last few days came to an abrupt end. The foliage, dripping wet and cleansed, as if a giant rubber had erased all dust off it, shone with a newly found brilliance this morning. Mitsouko eau de toilette (with one drop of parfum extrait on the hollow of my neck) wafted off my cleavage in spicy puffs of selfish enjoyment.

How neatly arranged that the demarcation falls on the first calendar day of the month of October; almost as if the skies were conspiring or rather scheduling things with the precision of a conscientious housekeeper. It's official; autumn has started and with it the glorious melancholy that the promise of decline is giving us each year at this time. The moment when nature is rubbing its weary eyes a bit, starts yawning soon to plunge into a short nap. Hypnos (sleep) was the mythological brother of Thanatos and I'm reminded of this little fact as I see the fallen blossoms, yesterday still so orange red, today trampled underfoot in the muddy pools on the ivory pavement, a dark rotting mulch.

Mitsouko by Guerlain, my default rainy-weather-perfume, has often been linked to a certain wistfulness, seeing as it's inspired by a novel concerning cross-starred lovers. But I'm convinced there's something more to it than just mental associations, especially since raindrops make me exceedingly happy, as they're not incessant on these latitudes. As I savor the mowed grass freshly fragrant in the air by the scent of geosmin mixed with chlorophylle rising up, I sense anew that certain aspects of the fragrance are enhanced; its mossiness, its cinnamon-clove kick, its citric tang, its fiery heart torn by unspeakable passions...Although Mitsouko is also customarily linked to glamor, to me it will always remain an introspective affair, something to keep like a secret that puts a smile on your face no one knows anything about.

I'm reprising a ritual and this small tradition aids me more effortlessly slide into the slots of this giant machine of which we're all bolts and wheels in the end. Vaille que vaille...

And how about you? Do you have specific fragrances you wear in rainy weather?

Perfume and Pets Named After It: a Unique Trait

I don't know about you, but if I had a pet I'd name it Opium. It'd create all sorts of quizzical looks from general folks in the street (the name being also euphonically pretty much the same in Greek as it is in English), interesting conversations with budding acquaintances ("let's get home so I can show you my Opium") and most importantly of all it reflects a small part of my own personality: my love for the (original, vintage) formula of Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume and its shadowy id.

I know of a perfumista with a poodle named Jicky and another whose cat is named Mitsouko. Both classic Guerlain perfumes and they do make a fascinating name for a pet. Another, less mysteriously, calls her parrot Chloe (it's a she and it fits her like a T, even though yes, Chloe is a woman's name all right apart from the perfume). I have an online friend and fellow perfumista who loves cats as much as she loves perfume. One of my male friends when asked what fragrance name he'd pick for a male dog companion said Kouros (after the YSL perfume). Hmmm...that would make for a seriously static pooch, I'd bet. Anyway...

In all these cases the name serves as both an evocation of the beloved fragrance and a sonorous, usually short enough, name that is relatively unusual. Do perfumistas have a penchant for distinguishing themselves in general, going for the path less trodden, or do they simply have their obsession manifest itself in more ways than it seems possible at first glance? Possibly both.

So, do share in the comments, do you have a pet named after a beloved perfume? Would you have liked to? 

This post was in part inspired by the perfume horoscope suggestions by Hieronymus on Fragrantica and by an old thread on MakeupAlley.

Perfume Acting as a Time Capsule: Why We Will Forever Love What We Once Loved

It's an all too common observation with people I fragrance consult. "Tell me what perfumes you have enjoyed wearing in the past", I ask. They invariably reply with names of fragrances they wore when younger, like L'Air du Temps or Fidji or Dior's Farenheit; it varies. Young and older ones alike also love to reminiscence about things they loved in the turmoil of puberty, from Cacharel Loulou to CK one via Tatiana; I suppose it gives us a sense of nostalgia, a queer thrill of reliving a period of our lives when we were not so sure of certain things, innocent enough that we had faith before life bore its heavy blows crushing our dreams. Whether it was something cheap, brash or immature (Impulse body sprays anyone?) does not matter; the memory is there and the hold it has over our hearts reads like the delicious thrill we feel at the borderline segregating damnation from redemption. And because it is such a thin razor's edge, we continue our lives with a precarious, perverse pleasure derived from seeking for the elements we loved in every subsequent scent to be met, almost like a golden standard against which we judge everything that follows; the Mr.Darcy against which everyone else pales, the Heathcliff whose darkness embodies our secret yearnings, yearnings we have buried and mourned only on the surface. Yes, all too frequently the first fragrances we have loved remain our loves throughout our lives, unless perfume Nemesis -in the guise of allergens restrictions or business behemoths pennies-pinching- shutters the gilded foil and makes them unrecognizable. Only then can we continue to love them for what they once were; the seal of accepted, hard-earned maturity.

via indulgy.com

Contemplating what I just stated I realize "one's youth" is too restrictive. It's also rather inaccurate. "One's prime" is more like it when recalling a given fragrance with a pang of the heart. Shed a thought for my mother in law, for instance, who fondly associates with fragrances she wore in her mid-to-late 30s, because that's the time frame she held a glamorous job that involved international air travel, first class, all over the world. Or a good friend who wore  Gucci pour Homme (from 2003) in his 40s when courting his second wife who proved to be everything he had wished for the first time around. My first Serge Lutens bell jar was La Myrrhe and I was feeling on top of the world when I bought it; I still love it to bits.

Perfume itself is cyclical: like fashion (which famously can be so atrocious that it has to change every six months) it alters its key syntax to reflect a changing world with changing needs. This is why every decade of the 20th century has roughly had its own fragrance background, from the impressionistic scents of La Belle Epoque to the orientals of the 1920s (boosted by the success of Guerlain Shalimar), the advancement of floral aldehydic perfumes, the 1940s and 1950s feminine chypres deriving from the iconic Mitsouko, the hippie revolution with patchouli and musk, the career women of the 1980s with their strong aura of Poison, Obsession and Giorgio up till the 1990s and the watery ozonics exemplified by L'Eau d'Issey, Aqua di Gio and Light Blue and our current inundation of gourmand, sweet perfumes.
But even so generations remember what was the vogue in their formative years: The 40-somethings are still wearing Kenzo pour Homme from time to time and are crazy for Light Blue in the summer, whereas the 25-year-olds are all about the Coco Mademoiselle and Miss Dior (Cherie). The teenagers of today will come to form new associations, different from their elders.

In many ways perfume can act not only as an accurate reflection of the zeitgeist, but also as a time capsule. In fact, time capsule is the name of an actual fragrance, believe it or not. Such is the pull of the concept. No wonder advertising uses this technique, selling the past to the future, its referencing quality being retrospective. For every one of us a scent time capsule is deeply personal. Very often it not only includes the perfumes we have indulged in and felt elated in, but also the other scents we lived through: the stale pizza & fresh coffee brewing in the percolator that morning following a boozed out night waking up next to the object of our affection in our university years; the smell of the new apartment we came into with our first downpayment; the soft fur between the paws of a favorite pet now long gone; the nuzzling warmth of a baby's just slept jumper; the pleasure and the grief of lovemaking; the cold sickly chamber of a deathbed.

So indulge me, cast your mind back: Which are your own perfume time capsules? What period of your life do they capture or would you have liked to capture in something that can recall it for you on demand? I remember a glorious summer spent in the throes of young love, lapped by the waves of the Aegean, accompanied by Parfum d'Ete by Kenzo. The fragrance has since changed and the memory doesn't quite click. In the meantime my old bottle is drained empty, so I'm at a loss; this green floral didn't keep too well and old stock might therefore be rancid. Perfume by its own nature, you see, is destructive; once you spray it, the molecules have flown off their Pandora's box, they're dispersed, you simply can't put them back in. It shares with time that ephemeral, perishable quality which accounts for things of great beauty and great pain.

Perfume Recommendations According to your Zodiac Sign

Astrology is a minefield for any scientist such as myself, steeped as it is in a cloak of half-truths and half-lies about the universe and as old as man himself, but there is no doubt that it is an entertaining past-time, especially if you disagree with it. Purists would of course argue that specifics, such as ascendants, moon signs, Lilith positions, personal chart of houses and other intricacies would account for much variation within the generic 12 types and that much is true.

via astrologicalchartinfo.com

Astrology combined with perfume sounds like too much of a guilty pleasure (don't you just love the perverse pleasure of breaking out the Secretions Magnifiques on a Virgo, who should be most appreciative of its chlorine-like nuances?)
and we're in the pleasuring business, so here it is: a small perfume guide into the zodiac circle (For all practical purposes, and for better or worse, I'm restricting myself to standard Western astrology for the moment).

Sun illustration from the Nujum al-'Ulum (Stars of Sciences), a manuscript from the 16th century AD,  probably commissioned by 'Ali' Adil Shah II of Bijapur, India

The recommendations are lifted off The Perfume Zodiac by John Oakes: I only included the perfume names recommended by him for every sign, but in the book there is a description of each one, some more recommendations meant as "wild cards" (when straying from character…) and some more distinctions on a table that recommends which fragrance to wear at which time (day/night), at which age (young/mature) -commentary with which you might disagree-, on which skin colour (fair/dark) [ditto] and which season(summer/winter). Alas they only include scents marketed to women (is it because it is assumed that women are more eager to follow astrological recommendations?) but as usual on these pages, men will flock and freely adopt what they feel suits them regardless. Since most people into perfume don’t abide by the strick rules set by Oakes I didn’t think it was necessary to elaborate, plus I'm sure the publishers would disagree anyway. But the zodiac recs are fun, not to be taken TOO seriously, so please do get the book if interested in further exploring the subject; it’s quite fun reading and oddly educational about perfume too.


GUIDE TO PERFUMES ACCORDING TO YOUR STAR SIGN
Aries : Le feu d’Issey, Calandre, Ma griffe, Escape, Ferre original, Rive Gauche
Taurus : Femme, Fendi (original), Casmir, Chanel #5, Chanel #19, Roma
Gemini : So pretty Cartier, Bulgari pour femme, Joy, Yvresse, Jean Paul Gaultier classique, Champs Elysees
Cancer: Romeo Gigli, Amarige, Boucheron femme, Diorissimo, Cabochard, White Linen
Leo : Coco, Knowning, Gio, Donna Karan NY, Dolce Vita, Panthere
Virgo : Mitsouko, Arpege, Amazone, Parfum d’Hermes, Sublime, Nahema
Libra : Dolce & Gabanna original (red cap), Cabotine, Paris, Organza, 24 Faubourg, Deci Dela
Scorpio : Shalimar, Poison, Obsession, Must de cartier, Allure, Narcisse Noir
Sagittarius : Jicky, Quelques Fleurs, Madame Rochas, Crabtree&Evelyn Evelyn, Pleasures, Coriandre
Capricorn : First, Bal a Versailles, Youth Dew, Ungaro , J’adore, Private Collection
Aquarius : Eau d’Eden, Anais Anais, L’eau d’Issey, Diorella, Jaipur
Pisces : Samsara, 1000 Patou, Vent Vert, L’heure bleue, Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum, Dune.



You can also find astrological recommendations on these links :
A niche selection of recommendations, courtesy of Luckyscent
International discussion of real people on Fragrantica boards
Sampler packs per sign on The Perfumed Court decanting site

Some (indie) perfumers also manufacture specific "zodiac signs perfumes", such as used to do Ayala Moriel. Sadly those are no more (apart from a couple on Etsy), but I'm sure if you asked nicely and she had the ingredients at hand, she might repeat the recipe for a commissioned work.
It looks as though Roxana of Illuminated Perfume indulges too in some sign-related recommendations amongst her line. Another one is Alexandra Balahoutis of Strange Invisible Perfumes, specimens of her work you can witness on the picture. Estee Lauder only this last holiday season brought out a limited edition collection of solid perfumes and compacts (in her regular products, please note) taking the guise of each of the 12 star signs.

There are various  other  examples of scented products/fragrances (in various permutations) on Amazon, though I have no experience with them. Last but not least, in passing, let it be said that sculptress Niki de Saint Phalle, well-known to perfume aficionados thanks to her pine-forest smelling chypre eponymous fragrance, had issued a line of limited edition bottles bearing her designs of each of the zodiac signs.

Niki de Saint Phalle "Sagitttarius" via luraastor.blogspot.com

Fragrance Layering: A Layman’s Guide on How to Layer Perfumes

So you’ve decided to layer, the art that involves applying more than one fragrance at the same time. You have amassed your scents, put all your samples in order. Now what?

~by guest writer AlbertCAN

Fragrance layering sounds impossibly chic, but often harder than a trifle dab of this and that. Part of the delicate problem lies knowing the basics of your fragrances, somehow understanding how to rev the aromatic engines in harmony. Thus in layman’s terms I am here to put together a concise, easy to follow guide on the fundamentals of perfume layering.

via scent compass

Before the layering can take place I want to show you a few simple application rules. Some of you might know this already but I prefer covering all grounds. Still, for those of you new to the game: less if always more. Discretion and common sense always is the key to success in fragrance layering: to start always choose to play with two. More only if you are confident.
Even perfumer Jean Claude Ellena advocates some wild combinations of scents (Angel and L'Eau d'Issey together?)

Pic Source: jillmckeever.blogspot.com via For Strange on Pinterest

1. Layering doesn’t have to be merely pairing equal-concentration scents, meaning that parfum A can blend beautifully with, say, eau de cologne B. In fact that’s often how I layer. This is also taking into the accounts that historically houses (such as Guerlain and Chanel) have separate formulations for parfum, eau de parfum and eau de toilette even within the same line. (Personal example: Chanel No. 19 parfum & 4711 Eau de Cologne)

2. Ancillary products, such as deodorants, body lotions or body creams are absolutely fair game layering with regular fragrances. Still, often they are designed to amplify and to hold onto the fragrance molecules a little longer, so please take that into consideration when layering. Nothing worse, say, a tuberose body cream with an extremely diffusive spicy 80s fragrance! (Personal examples: Terre d'Hermès deodarant & Creed Green Irish Tweed eau de toilette; Chanel Allure Homme Edition Blanche deodarant & Terre d'Hermès eau de toilette)

3. Layering doesn’t mean applying everything on the skin. Try misting your undergarments with fragrance X and apply fragrance Y on your skin. (Personal example: misting Hermès Hiris on a garment & wearing Guerlain Mitsouko parfum to boost the iris effect)

4. Layering does not mean applying everything at the same time. Sometimes heavier fragrances such as the orientals or the chypres have lovely drydowns to pair with a different fragrance. (Example: extending a few drops of Guerlain Shalimar parfum with Guerlain Jicky eau de toilette)

5. Layer with purpose. Most of us in the know layer because we see an improvement in the combination, not because we want to wear something nobody else has. (If I do it for vanity reasons penning this article would be self-defeating.)

I shall further illustrate the last rule: I enjoy wearing eau de colognes but the sillage and the longevity of each, by themselves, tend to leave me wanting more. So my staple combination is actually 4711 Eau de Cologne x Chanel Eau de Cologne x Tom Ford Neroli Protofino, spraying 4711 on the garments (not directly on fabrics), body mist with Chanel, and then a discreet spray of the Tom Ford on my forearms as punctuations. Those three would last me a good 10 hours.

via www.ninfeobeauty.com

Which brings me to the central theme of fragrance layering: the preferred method is to involve citrus-based or simply light-handed fragrances, as they are flexible enough to meld with the bolder fragrances—and always heaviest first and the lightest last. As I have mentioned with all-citrus fragrances one can layer 3 fragrances effortlessly, but if a heavy oriental, classic aldehyde floral or a chypre I would first try with two fragrances. I would also recommend:

• finding a common theme with the fragrances—such pairing a soliflore with an oriental (Guerlain L’Heure Bleue parfum & Chanel 28 La Pausa comes to mind).
• extend the nuance within the lighter fragrance—for instance I would describe layering Piguet Bandit with Osmanthe Yunnan as “the S/M tricks occasionally enjoyed by sexually frigid suburban housewives when their marriages are on the rocks”!
• (only if you know what you are doing) pair with another fragrance a very similar structural analogue: for instance the aforementioned Shalimar/Jicky combination. I also love smelling Givenchy Ysatis with Estee Lauder Knowing—but only with a deft hand on a very chic person who knows what on earth they are doing. Not for the faint hearted!

Now one caveat: marine/aquatic fragrances are case by case only, since though they are generally light in nature Calone (the watermelon-smelling "fresh" molecule) can be extremely dominant and unpredictable. I have never, for since, tried layering L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme even though I have worn it since 18!

So there, now you are ready to play. How to test? The safest say is to spray the choices on test strips first—weeding out all the bad choices before applying gingerly on you. And just like entertaining: never prepare something for the first time right before a major event—stick with a tried and true layering combination in this case! Good luck!

For inspirations here are some further ideas:
Combos published in French Elle (21 July 2003)
Les Tuileries Bizarre Layering Challenge of the Day

PS. My all-time favourite layering combinations:

Chanel No. 5 Eau Premiere & Hermès Un Jardin après la Mousson
4711 Eau de Cologne & Chanel Eau de Cologne & Tom Ford Neroli Protofino (and if I am feel like pulling all the stops maybe an accent of Guerlain Eau de Fleurs de Cedrat)
Guerlain Shalimar parfum & Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte
Terre d’Hermès deodorant & Creed Green Irish Tweed
Robert Piguet Bandit & Hermès Osmanthe Yunnan

Currently I’m experimenting mint (Prada Luna Rossa, Cartier Roadster, Guerlain Homme) with iris soliflores (Hiris, 28 La Pausa)!

Pic Source: Uploaded by user via Vicio on Pinterest

And a few of Elena's perfume layering suggestions:

Le Baiser du Dragon parfum + Narciso Musk for Her oil = the most delicious baby powder scent

Lancôme Trésor + Bvlgari Black = sweet, peachy rubber

Youth Dew body cream + Old Spice = delicious spicy carnation

Pacifica Spanish Amber solid + drop of Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan = mellow skin-like amber

Thierry Mugler Angel (preferably a fav product in bath & body range) + Serge Lutens Clair de Musc = a more floral & lighter Angel

Shiseido Feminite du Bois + rose hydrosol = lighens the oriental and emphasizes the smoother notes

Jo Malone Red Roses + Jo Malone 154 = woody, dark, earthy roses

The Body Shop Citrella + The Body Shop Amorito = Pink Sugar on the cheap

Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan + Serge Lutens Vetiver Oriental (both in tiny dabs) = gorgeousness!

YSL Opium + orange blossom soliflores = summery Opium

Dior Dioressence + Eau de Merveilles (Hermès) to reinforce the ambergris scent

Stay tuned for follow-up post, with perfume layering suggestions by perfume Francis Kurkdjian and by Serge Lutens!

We also welcome your own Layering Suggestions & Tips or Questions in the comments!

Parfums MDCI Promesse de l’Aube: Fragrance Review

"With maternal love, life makes a promise at dawn that it can never hold. You are forced to eat cold food until your days end. After that, each time a woman holds you in her arms and against her chest, these are merely condolences. You always come back to yell at your mother’s grave like an abandoned dog. Never again, never again, never again."
―Romain Gary, La Promesse de l'aube (1960)

by guest writer AlbertCAN

There. The mandatory quote from Romain Gary’s La Promesse de l’aube (translated into the English title “Promise at Dawn”), the autobiography which the fragrance is supposedly named after*. I am getting that out of the way because I still cannot—for the life of me—figure out the connection between the book and the fragrance. And I have owned Francis Kurkdjian’s composition for many, many moons.

Yet somehow that’s the beauty of artistic transposition, isn’t it? Ideas attributed to something else altogether. It’s as if one discovers that Luis Buñuel’s psychological sexual liberation Belle de Jour (1967) is actually based on Joseph Kessel’s 1928 thinly veiled cautionary tale of the same title about a young garçonne’s indiscretions and her eventual fall from grace. One story, two completely different tales! Or realizing that Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly takes after Marilyn Monroe in the original 1958 novella, really a kooky gamine who rather explores the whole wide world than resolving her insecurities. (Monroe, in turn, was considered for the starring role in the 1961 cinematic adaptation: her bid, however, pretty much dashed after her demand of getting paid in Tiffany diamonds. The more affordable Audrey Hepburn came into the picture—and becoming the highest paid actress of her time in the process. Much to Capote’s chargrin, however, and understandably he never embraced Hollywood’s vision on his beatnik tale.) Somehow that is the way I have felt about Promesse de l’Aube (2006): probably not exactly what Romain Gary had in mind when describing his youth, but a transcendental beauty in its own right nonetheless.

Parfum MDCI describes Promesse de l’Aube as an oriental floral “pour le jour” (daytime wear), but truth to be told the overall sheen and aura are just shy of the modern chypre terrain. Structurally it has also been favourably compared to Guerlain Attrape-Coeur, though not having the opportunity to experience Mathilde Laurent’s creation I cannot objectively comment on that matter. Still, the word honeyed comes to mind upon describing the opening Promesse de l’Aube; although the requisite graces of bergamot, mandarin and lemon are present, the focal point is more apricot-glossed in sensorium, candied yet delicate in tow. One can almost mistaken the olfactory refraction as the offshoot of a vibrant peach, but such is not the focus, at least not in the sense of the classic grande dame tone, how unctuously fruity Persicol is in Guerlain Mitsouko (1919). Instead, imagine a quality French citrus-apricot confit, say, from Fauchon: poised, polished, but knowingly with that touch of restrained decadence. The apricot here is that necessary gloss above the rigorously made crème anglaise and pâte sable, that requisite sheen on the French confections.

And that sheen gets subsequently buoyed by the white florals, of ylang ylang and jasmine. Knowning Kurkdjian’s style my money is also on orange blossom—not in the sense of the absolute but more of a modern accord with methyl anthranilate and the salicylates—but alas such is not listed. This is where having an unrestrained development budget factors in, the floral elements having a proper heft and sheen without the all-too-commonplace screech in its sillage before the balsamic elements (tonka bean and vanilla) ushering in the modern musks, along with the woods such as Indian sandalwood to give off an air of billowing cloud somewhere within the vicinity of a modern chypre.

Here lies the contradiction within Promesse de l’Aube: the compositional style nudges on the late fifties side with its solemnity and structure, yet the overall sweep is nimble and modern. To this day I am still doing double takes on its theme: the cerebral side of me knows all too well that an oriental floral is at play, yet from time to time I wouldn’t think twice about enlisting the base as a modern chypre...

Is it worth its hefty price tag? Ringing the affirmative. To me here the phrase “promesse de l’aube” is more literal, a take on l’aube without the fear of not delivering on la promesse.

For more information on the perfumes, flacons and on how to order, please contact Parfums MDCI
Photo: Promesse de l’Aube from LuckyScent.
* For a basic summary of the book please refer to this literary review.

Acronyms & Slang across Perfume Discussion Boards/Forums/Blogs: a Guide

There's nothing more incomprehensible ~and at the same time deeply satisfying if you're part of the club~ than reading all those odd vocabulary and syntax contraptions that perfume aficionados use when discussing their favorite pastime online, fragrance that is.

Here's a compilation, a short guide into the most important fragrance terminology on perfume forums and blogs, with the odd yours truly coined acronym or two for kicks (see if you can pick those up among the list!). Please be very aware that there might -just might- be different acros for different things when discussing things through other focus boards, such as cosmetics boards.
Also note that often long-winded perfume names take the form of an acro for ease, ex. SDV is Spiritueuse Double Vanille by Guerlain, CDR is Cuir de Russie (a type of leather fragrance exemplified -and usually connoted- by Chanel's homonymous fragrance), MKK is Muscs Koublai Khan (Lutens), APOAL is A portrait of a Lady (Malle) and -you really see the point of this to save finger work!- ELPCAYY is Estee Lauder Private Collection Amber Ylang Ylang, etc. (now guess: what is ELPCTG?)

AdP: Aqua di Parma. Popular niche fragrance line.

BN(IB): Swap (see lemma) specification, means brand new in box.

BPAL: Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs. What Edgar Allan Poe would envision for a fragrance line. Cult indie perfumes with gothic and mystical names and a very popular forum dedicated to discussing them.

Code: Discount "codes" issued by fragrance distributors or decanting sites with a time sensitive slot. Usually passed around on perfume boards as a PSA (public service announcement).

CBD: Cherry Blossom Diva. Etailer of high end dupes.

CDG: Comme des Garcons. Famous fashion brand headed by Rei Kawakubo, which also issues cult fragrances.

CBIHP: Christopher Brosius I Hate Perfume. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

CSP: Comptoir Sud Pacifique. Popular niche fragrance line with "tropical" scents inspired by the islands.

Decant: Home made perfume "sample" (usually larger than the commercial samples of 1 or 2ml), hand-poured by one's own perfume bottle into a plain vial in plastic or glass for the purposes of the buyer/swapper (see lemma) testing said fragrance on their skin at home in leisure. Sometimes, when a perfume is not FBW (see lemma) decants might be enough to tidy one over for life; one might not need more quantity of something as potent as Fracas or as special & occasion-only as Amouage Hommage; this definition of course depends solely on the wearer (what is one's "potent" is another's "regular 3 spritzes, thank you very much")

DS: Drugstore. A fragrance that can be found at the drugstore for little $ and is considered low end. Not necessarily denoting respective quality, true fragrance lovers offer love select drugstore fragrances.

DSH: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. Indie, artisanal line of fragrances.

ELdO: Etat Libre d'Orange. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

FBW: Full Bottle Worthy. A tested and approved scent that you feel you can upgrade to a whole bottle of. Considering that most perfume collectors have numerous bottles in their wardrobe closets (see lemma) , a few in the hundreds at that, which would take a lifetime to finish, a full bottle of anything is a serious commitment and thus high recommendation.

FM: Frederic Malle. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

GWP: Gift with Purchase. Retail terminology for extras (samples, miniatures of regular product) included in your bag when buying something. Useful acro for swapping (see lemma) specifications.

HdP: Histoires de Parfums. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

HE: High end. Belonging to an upscale brand. Opposite is low-end or DS (see lemma).

HG: Holy Grail. That single, perfect, elusive perfume that perfectly encapsulates who you are, what you want out of life and how you want to be perceived. It sweeps floors and earns you serious bucks and love conquests as well. Hyperbole aside and suffice to say, a very tall order. Lifelong quest for many.

HTG: variation of HTF.

HTF: Hard to find. It entails either jumping through hoops, traveling to Vladivostock or raiding your great--great- grandmother's attic. Bottom line, rare and precious perfume.

IMHO: In my humble opinion. Prelude to polite dissent.

JHAG: Juliette Has a Gun. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

KM: Keiko Mecheri. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

LAP: L'Artisan Parfumeur. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

Lemming: An irresistible urge to test/buy/follow a particularly lauded scent (or beauty product in general). The call of the herd, as in the cute Northern rodents that all jump off the cliff in hordes (and which have given mothers around the world the irresistible argument against any teenager claiming "but all my friends are doing X thing!")
Originated on the MakeupAlley boards. Used as a noun ("My latest lemming is Alien Essence Absolue/What is your lemming for spring?") as well as a verb usually in the present/past continuous tense ("I was lemming L'Heure de Nuit by Guerlain, but when I calculated the price I decided I'm better off with regular L'Heure Bleue").

MdO: Mona di Orio. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

MFK: Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

MH: Miller Harris. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

Mitsy: Affectionate (or throwing the towel) term for Guerlain Mitsouko classic fragrance.

MPG: Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

n/m: nothing more. end of message. especially pertinent to the odd to navigate Makeupally board. Usually at the end of a line, it means there's no need to click to read inside the thread. Opposite is RO or r/o.

OJ: Ormonde Jayne. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

Pending: a swappable (see lemma) item listed on swap list, which has been promised to a swap partner but the negotiation hasn't finalised. It means it's off limits for other swappers till further notice.

PG: Parfumerie General. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

PdE: Parfum d'Empire. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

PdN: Patricia de Nicolai. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

POTL = People of the Labyrinths which usually means their perfume Luctor et Emergo (LeE)

RAOK: Random Act of Kindness. Once one has your address from a previous swap (see lemma), they may decide to send you a little something in the mail that they think you might enjoy or they have seen you have been "lemming" (see lemma). Usually samples, but it can be whole bottles too!

RAOG: Random Act of God. Post office strike, cyclone hitting your city or your bottle "turning" and spoiling, rendering it unswappable. Hey, it happens.

RIS: Received in swap (see lemma). Item we can't guarantee the provenance of because we didn't buy it ourselves. Useful when accessing the product or when negotiating further swapping.

RO(P) or r/o or r/o/p: Read on (please). On Makeupalley it means there's more info inside the thread, so you need to click the line to make more text appear. Opposite is n/m.

S01E03: Example of varied numerical indications (season and edition) of the Chandler Burr headed "blind sampling" project for Open Sky.

S/A: Sales assistant. Often the object of ridicule and critique on perfume boards due to their pathetic ignorance on their subject compared to die hard perfume aficionados.

Skanky: Stinky in a good way, perhaps a bit wildcat and promiscuous or interesting in an eyebrow raising way that invites discussion. Originated on the Perfume Posse blog. Used by perfume aficionados as a positive connotation ("Amaranthine is skanky goodness, it's sex in a bottle") while other people outside the aficion might view thus described scent as derisive and pushing the envelope ("Man, that's one skanky stink!")

SL: Serge Lutens. Cult and popular fragrance niche brand.

SOTD: scent of the day, that particular's day perfume choice. Perfume enthusiasts like to share this tidbit of info.

STC: Surrender to Chance. Online decanting emporium.

SSS: Sonoma Scent Studio. Indie, artisanal line of fragrances headed by Laurie Erickson.

Swap: Exchange of perfume bottles/decant (see lemma)/samples between corresponding partners on a forum. The two partners agree on specifics (quantity, scents, concentration, etc), exchange addresses and prepare packages with stuff for the other to receive. When both get their end as it should be, the swap is considered successful. Rare is the case of "swaplifting"(see lemma).
The whole raison d'être for a swap is to diffuse the cost of an "unsniffed buy" (see lemma) and therefore on the one hand getting rid of anything you do not fancy in the one woman's poison is another woman's meat mentality and on the other hand securing a wide variety of scents to try which would be unavailable, hard to find, too much money to try else. Shipping regulations have made this swapping sport rather difficult lately, but there are some ways around it.

Swaplifter: Unscrupulous person who after they have agreed on a swap and secured reception of what was promised to them, disappear and never mail their own end of the deal. Rare but potentially possible. This is why trust in old-timers, instincts and feedback in the way of "tokens" (on MakeupAlley and Basenotes) as well as word of mouth (on Swaptalk boards) serves into avoid potential pitfalls. Known swaplifters are summarily ostracized. Swaptalk is the only specifically created board for swap problems.

TDC: The Different Company. Cult fragrance niche brand with dedicated followers.

TDF: To die for. Simple: means absolutely gorgeous.

TF: Tom Ford. The well-known designer has fragrances in his line. If it's TFPB, it means Tom Ford Private Blend.

TM: Thierry Mugler. The famous designer issues cult fragrances, made and distributed by the Clarins Group.

TPC: The Perfume Court. Online decanting emporium.

TPP: The Posh Peasant. Online decanting emporium.

TSV: Today's Special Value.

TY: Thank you.

Unsniffed (purchase): When something is bought unsniffed, i.e. without having being thoroughly tested before by the buyer, usually online, it potentially denotes three things: 1) The perfume in question was nowhere to be tested (no testers, no samples, no access to store). 2) It was a vintage specimen which sounded too good to be bypassed, while #1 applied all the same. 3) It was a great bargain thanks to a discount, store coupon, Ebay opportunity etc.

YMMV: Your mileage may vary. Polite way to say "you might hate this".

YKIAGAM: Your kink is as good as mine. De gustibus et coloribus...you know the score.

YW: you're welcome.

For any "real" fragrance terminology as used by the industry please consult the Perfume Terms section with appropriate links on the right hand column of the site. 

Do you have other terms and acronyms to add to these? Let me know in the comments!