Definition: Creamy, Milky, Lactonic, Butyric in Fragrances

What does "creamy" mean to you in relation to fragrance? Is it the rich, sundae vanilla feeling you get while licking a cone, the thick yet refined taste of a bavaroise or is it the beachy tropical scent you get from a lush floral perfume? And what about lactonic? You hear this term brandished a lot, especially in relation to vintage fragrances, but where does it lead you? What does lactonic mean and how do you differentiate between it and "milky"? And, oh gods, where does "butyric scent" come into all of this? Let's try to define some confusing perfume terms on Perfume Shrine once again.

Creamy fragrances are more in reality more straight-forward than you'd expect: The term "creaminess" usually denotes a rich feeling, infused with silky, sensuous and lightly or more heavily sweet notes which may derive from soft vanilla, sandalwood, or coconut and sometimes from rich, lush florals that naturally have nectarous qualities, such as jasmine or honeysuckle. Vanilla in itself is usually described as creamy: Indeed Vanilla tahitensis pods have a complex odour profile, with notes of raisin, musk, cherry, lactones and anisic aldehydes.
Often tropical florals combine with coconut and coconut milk to produce that suntan lotion feel that we describe as "creamy". These would also fall under the umbrella of "exotic", as many people's vision of exotica is tan skin, dark almond shaped eyes and the scents that are exuded in meridians where leis are worn around the neck at all occasions. Delta jasmolactone exhibiting a coconut facet (and a creamy tuberose basenote as well) makes it a natural match for this sort of thing.
Fragrances of this type include Juste un Rêve by Patricia de Nicolai, Datura Noir by Serge Lutens, Champaca Absolute by Tom Ford Private Line, Gai Mattiolo Exotic Paradise LEI (coconut, vanilla and exotic flowers) and Jil Sander Sun Delight (with frangipani and vanilla). Ylang & Vanille in the Guerlain Aqua Allegoria line is a small gem of creamy floralcy: the naturally piercingly sweet scent of ylang is given a meringue treatment via fluffy vanilla and the eau de toilette concentration never allows it to become cloying or suffocating. Even the dicontinued Sensi by Armani was great in this game of uniting flowers with soft, tactile woods.

Almond fragrances when air-spun and given the dessert, gourmand treatment with lots of heliotropin, instead of the more medicinal bitter almond iterations (as in Hypnotic Poison by Dior), can fall under the "creamy, soft" spectrum as well: Try Heliotrope by Etro or the very friendly Cinema by Yves Saint Laurent. A popular choice in the genre is Comptoir Sud Pacifique's Vanille Amande. Their silky veil is soft, enveloping, tactile. When coupled with a lot of vanilla and some musk they can become almost a visible cloud around you, such as in Ava Luxe Love's True Bluish Light. On the same page, Lea by Calypso St.Barth is a cult choice and Sweet Oriental Dream by Montale (with its shades of loukhoum) is among the best in the niche line. Tilt the axis into woody-creamy and you get Sensuous by Lauder; a literal name for once.
An elegant version of this genre, holding the sugar at an optimum medium, is Eau Claire de Merveilles by Hermes; a more mainstream one Omnia by Bulgari. Men are not forgotten in this field: Pi by Givenchy and Rochas Man in the phallically siggestive rocket-bottle are great examples of creamy fragrances for men.

Among modern molecules, Methyl Laitone (patented by Givaudan, from "lait", French for milk) is a powerful aroma-material with a diffusive, milky, coconut-like coumarinic odour character. Its use as a milk note in soap formulae is now a given, but it also aids in providing a creamy scent to perfumes too.

It's detabateable whether creamy and milky are the same, though: The difference isn't just a game for scholars. The condensed milk sweetness and "fattiness" of certain gourmand fragrances, such as the latest caramelic benjoin-rich Candy by Prada, can evoke visions of both clotted cream and milk desserts and rice-puddings, melding the two notions into one. Jo Malone utilizes the cozy, familiar note of condensed milk in black tea in her Tea Collection Sweet Milk. Kenzo Amour goes the way of a rice pudding: it's lighter than a pannacota, and has a steamy rice note in there too. Organza Indencence by Givenchy has a custard-like base, sprinkled with cinnamon, while Saffran Troublant by L'Artisan Parfumeur is like a milk dessert hued a vivid crocus-yellow by saffron served in bowls dressed in sturdy suede. Flora Bella by Lalique hides a milky facet under the soft, clean, fabric-softener violet core, while Etro's Etra is a milky floral as pretty and polite as this genre gets.
Sandalwood from the Mysore region in India in particular is famous for having a rich, satisfying milky scent. But smell a pure sandalwood-focused fragrance, such as Santal Blanc by Serge Lutens and see how a "milky scent" can be subtler, drier, less sugary than "creamy"; more opalescent than fatty glistening. Contrast now with a heavy bad-ass sandalwood perfume (boosted by powerful synthetic Polysantol), such as Samsara by Guerlain, and you are at a crossroads: that one's creamy rather than milky, va va voom sexy and enhanced by the richness of jasmine. Smell a virile, masculine sandalwood, ie. Santal 33 by Le Labo and you're back at square one; not a hint of cream in sight. No single ingredient can sattisfyingly give the full effect, obviously.

Take things too far on the dairy scales and you end up with "butyric". The word comes from the Greek for butter: βούτυρον/butyron. Usually butyric smells are due to either a single molecule (butyric acid) or, in the case of butyric esters, to part of a molecule. Butyric refers to a sharp cheesy scent, reminiscent of parmesan cheese (or even vomit and really stale, stinky socks; take your pick!), but some butyric esters, such as ethyl 2 methyl butyrate which has a fruity facet like pear or apples, are used in perfumery (and in the flavouring industry as well). And yet, and yet... irony has a place in perfumery; it's the buttery taste of tuberose-drama-queen Fracas by Piguet that makes it the unforgettable classic that it is! 

"Lactonic" however is specific perfumery jargon. It's not just a descriptor, hence I differentiate. (Though the feeling can read as "milky" or "creamy" too, as you can see further on!) Picture  lactonic as a subgroup of the greater milky/creamy continent, reached through specific vessels (called lactones).
Lactonic fragrances derive their name from Latin for milk (lac, hence lacto- etc.), and lactones are cyclic esters, a very specific chemical compound group, uniting an alcohol group and a carboxylic acid group in the same molecule. Therefore describing a fragrance as "lactonic" transcedes mere smell evocation and enters the spectre of analytic chemistry.

Why the confusing name, then?

Because they're produced via the dehydration of lactic acid, which occurs in...sour milk (and is found also in some dairy products such as yoghurt and kefir etc). You could begin to see the connection if you get the brilliantly synthetic Rush by Gucci, a lactonic modern chypre rich in a patchouli-vetiver-vanilla base and squint just so; a hint of sourness is its crowning glory. This is also the weird baby-vomit "note" in the iconoclastic Le Feu d'Issey (possibly accounting for the fragrance's commercial flop!).
Far from smelling sour, however, lactonic fragrances fall under 2 main schools, according to which of the most popular lactones they're using: milk lactone/cocolactone (i.e. 5,6-decenoic acid) or peach lactone.

A classic example of the latter is Caron's Fleurs de Rocaille or Mitsouko by Guerlain; Mitsouko's infamous peach-skin heart note in particular is due to undecalactone (referred colloquially as "aldehyde C14"). Peach lactone can sometimes veer into coconut territory smell-wise, thus giving rise to "creamy" descriptors! Indeed gamma-nonalactone is the popular coconut additive in suntan lotion.
On the other hand, demethylmarmelo lactone has a milky, butter cake scent, as does delta decalactone which has facets of coconut.
Milk lactone or cocolactone has a silky, balsamic almost burnt butter odour which pairs exceedingly well with white flowers (jasmine, gardenia), as it is reminiscent of naturally occuring jasmolactones, hence its use in white floral blends. Dis-moi Mirroir, in the more esoteric Mirroir line by Thierry Mugler, is a characteristic example showcasing a white flower top (orange blossom) and a white floral heart (lily) plus peachy lactones (smelling of apricot and peach) flying over a milk lactone base, producing a milky-fruity floral.
Massoia lactone is an individual case, as it produces a note that is poised between woody and coconut; it is what will be featured in the upcoming Santal Massoia by Hermès in the more upmarket Hermessence line.

But not all lactones are created equal: the whole group of octathionolactones has a fungi smell, reminiscent of the refrigerated mushrooms aroma of some white flowers, such as gardenia and tuberose.These flowers also exhibit creamy facets side by side, so the whole issue of describing a fragrance is far more complex than expected; as with most things in life, it all depends on context and proportions!

Related reading on PerfumeShrine:  

If you haven't caught on the Perfumery Definitions series till now, please visit:

• Definition: Indolic vs. Non Indolic
• Definition: Phenolic, Terpenic, Camphorous
• Definition: Powdery & Dry in Fragrances
• Definition: Resinous & Balsamic
• Definition: Soapy in Fragrances
• Definition: Which Material Produces Which Note/Effect?

Tweet

What Constitutes Luxury & How is it Marketed Right Now?

L' Association des Professionnels du Luxe is today debating the question of luxe and premium as pertaining to terms used to communicate products to consumers at the Westin hotel (with the participation of Michel Teychène, marketing director at Air France and a trio off Added Value comprising Cécile Gorgeon-Pompéi, director, Leslie Pascaud, marketing director et Mark Whiting, director.) This gives us an excellent opportunity to question the theme for our own purposes regarding luxury brands and lessons learned from them.

News surrounding the luxury segment devising new techniques to capture the attention of consumers amidst an economy that is still not recuperating from the recession (and in fact might be in for another bout) have been landing on news sites thickly recently. Witness the mega-news that Gucci devotes an entire blog-site to the China market: Gucci China. The question of whether China is an applicable market for luxury brands or not is rather an over-discussed point. Obviously it is, otherwise so many brands with huge marketing offices standing behind them wouldn't try to infiltrate it so passionately. To point, the Hermes offspring specifically for it, as announced on these pages over a year ago, has been doing amazingly well according to reports. What makes Gucci stand out in this piece of news is that they dedicate a blog site, rather than just a part of their site, thus personalizing the platform for users and importing content that can be peripheral. The marked similarities with the Sartorialist in the layout of street fashion photography is also intriguing to watch. Could it mean, to make this a broader discussion, that one successful amateur might pose as an exemplar to the professionals? To bring this to perfumes, could it mean that specific elements of presentation offered by amateur/indie authors (be it producers of aromatic compositions or troubadours of perfume prose) can slowly become the expected way in which certain aspects of the trade will be communicated from now on?

The Missoni Target collection which sold out within the first day is another example of a new spin to the techniques of making luxe products stand out. “The combination of the excellent marketing strategy, a large number of resellers looking to profit off of the limited availability of the line and Target vastly underestimating the popularity of the collaboration are what led to such a successful, sold-out first day of the Missoni for Target launch,” said Emily Connor, conversation manager at Media Logic, Albany, NY. It's also a lesson in how social media could be of tremendous help when mobile Web problems and in-store fights erupted due to over-demand (Web crash happened on Sept.13th 9am.Eastern time).

On what constitutes the targeted market segments, two interesting facts emerge: Male consumers with an aspirational streak consume more luxe goods and the affluent family is becoming a new target within brands.

Aspiration male consumers increase their spending "dramatically", according to American Express. “As consumers grow more confident coming out of the recession, many are returning to their luxury fashion shopping behaviors from years past,” said Ed Jay, senior vice president at American Express Business Insights, New York. "[...]online and discount and flash-sale spending has provided another platform for buying favorite brands, all contributing to increases in luxury retail spend across the board". (According to numbers, that's a staggering 126% increase on premium luxe brands for non-enthusiast males in the USA). Maybe some of the Missoni-Target audience consisted of those? Compare and contrast with male fashion enthusiasts, who spent 11% less on premium luxury overall, while affluent female consumers did not change their spending habits.
Cuing in this data with the rise in masculine fragrances released by mainstream luxury and niche perfumery brands makes sense: indeed the tsunami of releases presents fragrance addressed to men like never before seen in the history of mankind. There's definitely something here. Could it also mean that the (traditional) role of women buying perfume has finally shifted?

But it's the affluent family which might be the emerging target of the luxury world: According to the Ipsos Mandelsohn 2011 Annual Affluent Survey families buy products in mass (that pertains to the digital and electronic goods especially, but a concept store that caters to each and every member of the family can also see this materialized in higher sales). The reason behind it is suggested to be one of being in control and effecting changes in an are that the consumers feel they can make a difference. Children and teenagers are increasingly monitoring purchases for families. A fact that is well known by the perfume industry as well, which has been catapulting us with releases that address the under-teens (see Justin Bieber celebrity fragrance) or slightly above.

“Additionally, it’s undeniable that the line is successful in the fact that it was truly able to keep the traditional Missoni elements, yet design a much less-expensive group of products, ranging from clothing to luggage to kitchenware to electronic accessories, that was accepted by this key demographic,” she said.

Quotes & data provided by Rachel Lamb and Kayla Hutzler. Photo via thelocal.de

Chewing the Cud on Givenchy's upcoming fragrance Dahlia Noir

Givenchy' upcoming feminine fragrance, Dahlia Noir (i.e. black dahlia), is the first house scent overseen by couture creator Riccardo Tisci in collaboration with perfumer François Demachy, but it already presents something of a challenge for reasons we elaborate on below. Fabien Baron is the creator of the bottle and the ad campaign, featuring Maria Carla Boscono, which is set to hit glossies and screens later this year, in an image of almost fetishy gothic-inspired clothing of black lace and chiffon.

The fragrance notes for Givenchy Dahlia Noir comprise such vague terms as "rose vapour, peach milk, iris powder and precious/sacred woods" and since dahlia has no smell, we are left guessing with only Tisci's feedback on what to expect. The childhood memories & associations of Tisci, on which he drew inspiration from for Dahlia Noir, include the iris-scented scent of his sisters' cosmetics (including lipstick and a shared bottle of Rive Gauche) as well as a classic scent from Italian brand Santa Maria Novella.
According to him, the concept was an abstract, geometrical floral, which leads me to believe we're dealing with a floral that will not be obviously floral (in the mould of many modern floral fragrances aimed at young people who sneer at being presented with "traditionally feminine" pretty flowers in their scents) . Tisci goes on to elaborate that the concept alluded to by the name has to do with romanticism, sex and darkness: a well-played theme by now in many a "noir" fragrance, but also supposedly standing for what Givenchy stands for as well. I think Hubert might have other ideas in his mind than "sex and darkness" back in the day when he was dressing Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, but even though he is very much alive, his own patrician image has subtly, discreetly exited the picture on what concerns his brand.


It remains to be seen whether the darkness of Eau Demoiselle (a previous release by Givenchy played on the allure of a black mantle-dress) will now transpire into more than the innocuous woody floral musk the former fragrance equated into.

The new Givenchy fragrance reportedly "has nothing to do" with the James Ellroy novel Black Dhalia, which takes upon itself to explore and partly fictionalise the facts of an infamous real murder case, or with previous Givenchy releases; but the association with the unsolved murder case of brutally  butchered Elizabeth Sort (nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" in the call-girl circuit of late 1940s LA she was part of, due to her predeliction for wearing black) is too close to home to escape criticism of milking an infamous catch-phrase for money. LVMH, to which Givenchy belongs, is no mom & pop establishment that would fail to research a trademark adequately, at any rate, and the French posters for Brian De Palma's film a few years ago have it emblazoned all over the Internet. Let's not forget, MAC Cosmetics, another big player, who issued a comparably similarly named makeup collection. What's up with that?

Givenchy Dahlia Noir is released on 22 August in France for 57 euros for 30ml of Eau de Parfum.

"Stop Dousing with Musky Perfume" (From Facebook) & a Giveaway

It's always interesting to hear about the perception of people on fragrances and scent related matters. So when I came across a mention* of an actual Facebook post that addressed the dreaded "old lady perfume" phenomenon, I knew it had hit a chord. The actual FB post wrote: "Dear Middle-Aged Women, please stop dousing yourselves in musky perfume. No one enjoys it but you. Thanks".
This is probably the most passive-agressive thing I have read in a long time. Let me count the ways:

1. Condescending tone: Pretty obvious, dear Facebooker!

2. Blanket statement: Obviously not all middle-aged women resort to that behaviour.

3. Confusion: What exactly is "musky" again? As we have discussed, there is a huge cultural association of musk in perfumes and most people don't even know what they're talking about (precious few have smelled real musk from the deer musk). Musky emphatically does NOT equate aldehydic, nor mossy/ dry/ powdery (most usual categories of mature women's perfume due to fashions at their heyday), nor even animalic per se, as we have determined in our extensive Old Lady vs Older Woman Perfume Wars article.

4. One iota of truthfulness, but meddled: Indeed dousing one's self with perfume might be too much. Touché! But again, "dousing" is relative. What's much to you might be little to me and so on. Who makes the rules?

5. The pièce de résistance: God forbid if anyone does anything to please themselves!! No, in this Botox-ed, plastic boobs & prosthetic butts, fake hair tresses and spinning-toned bodies' society you have to first think about how you appear to others and only later (much, much later) on what pleases yourself. If this is how we're supposed to live from now on, you can count me out. I might have more fun in my coffin.


Just because someone has a public soapbox on Facebook gives them the impression that they can vent publicly on whatever irks them on day to day life. Let us discuss at length our nose snot, isn't that interesting.
Some of us are only approaching middle-age, but we could cite many younger (or older or same-age, doesn't really matter!) people we have met, who were wearing the most obnoxious, far-reaching, oversurupy plastic-fantastic fragrant stuff that would make us want to reach for the barf bag if only we weren't brought up with piano and French.

In the end it's all a matter of choice: Affronting the issue by taking that someone close by, in private and -depending on level of intimacy- voicing your displeasure in direct, concerned and polite terms. And accepting all the while the option that you might be shot down with a "It's what I like and it's within my rights"! Which it is, you know, unless you're literally dying from some rare anaphylactic case as soon as you touch their perfumed skin. Or posting passive agressive statements on public venues (where -worst of the worst- your intended target might casually read and have no means of retorting) blanket-stating your disdain on all concerned, as if anyone gives a fig. It merely reflects on a lack of communication skills and effectiveness radar threshold on the poster's part.Which do you choose?

To rub salt on the wound (I know many would be right now tearing their hair in protest), I'm giving away a bottle of my own personal collection: a musky perfume all right, which is de trop in my own collection which already comprises many concentrations of it. An older vintage Bal a Versailles by Jean Desprez in Eau de Cologne. Draw remains open till Thursday midnight.


*mention by cykeane/mua
pic of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in It's Complicated via womensvoicesforchange.org

Which Type of Perfume Collector Are You?

Among the perfume aficionados set you will find several types: The "I follow only fragrances costing upper of 300$ a pop or hard-to-get niches launched only in Rovianemi"; the "I worship at the shrine of Trish-au-four and everything else is just dog crap stuck on his sole"; the "Give me a good thick unwearable woody emblazoned with oud on the label and I'm set"; the "I chuckle through my fine mustaches as I drive thousands of people to sample expensive things which I semi-loathe, but they're the newest thing and I have to try it out first, don't I".

There are other less aggressive or opinionated ~take your pick~ types as well; from the well meaning housewife who is now living vicariously through her perfume cabinet (brandishing Bandit here and unleashing Fracas there), hidden underneath the mementos of her children who flew the nest for worthwhile pursues of their own (who knows, they might in turn hide a perfume cabinet underneath their university dorm sink!) or the businessman who is hearing tirades on software all day long and relaxes at home with a good old glass of whiskey and a dab of vintage Vetiver on his dressing gown. There is the fashionista type who collects all the latest designer fragrances building a collection, which hard-edge members of specialized fora might sneer at, but who knows her Dolce The One from her Chanel Coco Mademoiselle down pat and can give you a mean advice or two on how to pick stuff for gifts. A subset of that one displays her wares proudly on her dresser, to the amazement of all her friends who ask "do you use all that stuff?" like a clueless person would ask a wine collector whether they drink all that stuff.

There is also the seasoned kind of perfume collector who has become a bit bored with one's self over the years, constantly weeding stuff from the fragrance wardrobe, but at the same time continuously lured in by novelties that promise to be the revolution of the industry in a bottle or by unmissable bargains on an old standby which -guess what- won't be available that much longer.

There is the eager novice who desires to partake of the holy sacraments with an urgency approaching that of hysteria, yet feels unworthy deep down, trying to manipulate himself into liking a revered fragrant beast like Mitsouko instead of vice versa.
There is even the mock perfumista who posts on discussion boards about acquisitions but in reality hasn't even opened one bottle of perfume, setting them on the side for profitable meta-selling when the drive for the elusive has reached improportionate heights. And surely, there are uncharted waters which I might have missed.

Which is YOUR type?


mini perfumes tray collection via 1950s Atomic Ranch House and of bottles collection via Through my Eyes Beauty

Season Specific Fragrance Wardrobe & "Rotate Your Scent so You Don't Stop Smelling it": Fiction or Fact?

Surely all of you have heard/read these lines time and again: "You must change your fragrances from season to season to get a better effect". And: "You want to avoid wearing the same fragrance all the time, because after awhile you literally won't be able to smell it - that's just the way the sense of smell works. If you have several fragrances, you can alternate between them and avoid "getting used to" the way they smell. Add fragrances to your collection periodically so you have a nice selection that you can choose from". Great! It's not enough to just find something that suits you; perfume selling stuff, fragrance companies and glossies have persuaded you that it's a most difficult task and you need expert advice ~their advice~ to get the ball rolling. "Feel fresh and relaxed with moisturising body soap and men's perfume",  magazines say."You need to rotate your scents".

Now you need to find several of those, to comply with changes in season, weather conditions, occasions, mood, hormone imbalances and match it to your nail polish shade and your earrings. I'm of course kidding. All this received advice, which has been reiterated for decades to the point we've all believed it, is pure and utter bullshit; a myth, if you will. And I will prove to you why.

The main argument in favour of changing your perfumes from day to day is so your nose doesn't become too accustomed to it and you risk not smelling it on yourself any more". True, it's a scientific proven fact that our nose becomes acclimatised to existing odours after a few minutes so that it's ready to pick up alerting odours. It's the hunter-gatherer's gene: big predator is approaching; that bog is poisoned, better not drink water off it; something is badly burning, could it be the thatched roof on my hut? That said, the artificial corrolation of that fact with perfume use bears little logic. Fragrance wearing is not an opaque layer of odour that stays the same throughout the day, thus inflicting odour perception blockage like it would be if you were sitting in a chemical factory working every day to the same effluvium. Apart from the natural evaporation that would naturally occur, fragrances are constructed in a purposeful way so that different elements come to the fore with warmth, friction or simply rate of evaporation of the molecules in question. Usually we refer to this as the classic "fragrance pyramid" of top notes, middle notes and base notes. Although not all fragrances are built that way (indeed most are not nowadays), there is still a structure even in linear scents that creates a less or more intense scent that you catch whiffs of throughout the day. Think about it: How many times have you surprised yourself by smelling your fragrance amidst a daily chore and thinking "this smells good"? Clearly, your nose blunts a bit after the initial swoosh, intense enough hence the occasional sneeze when first putting it on, but the peaks of scent are there to remind you of its presence: now you catch it, now you don't; but you're not totally oblivious unless you're performing brain surgery, in which case what the hell are you distracting yourself with sensory stimuli for?


I have tried the practice of wearing the same scent for weeks on end myself as an experiment to see whether I would stop smelling it on myself several times (usually involving either Opium, Bandit, or Diorling) and the amount used and enjoyment derived never fluctuated; instead the continuous use allowed me intimate knowledge of the fragrance in question, something which could not be done if I was being fickle continuously. Not all days were the same while going the course, but at the end of each session I was not more oblivious to my scent than when I started. Perhaps getting people to change fragrance all the time avoids exactly this pitfall: they might realise just what utter dreck some of the products on the market are and never return to buy them! But wait, the fragrance industry has cornered that as well: "By the time you get bored with this one, we will have a new collection in the store", a line which makeup sale assistants have been using for ages. It seems like perfumes have become seasonal makeup items as well. Witness the hundreds of flanker fragrances (scents of the same brand coat-tailing on a bestseller's success with minimal change in name and packaging). And the tsunami of fragrance launches in the last 10 years: In the worlds of Oscar Wilde "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

But even if that weren't enough, maketing lore has cleverly played upon our most subconsious fears pertaining to smell. The implied innuendo of "after awhile you literally won't be able to smell it" is "think how horrible that will be on those around you!" Notice how sly they are into leaving it be hinted, without actually blurting it out: Because if you won't be able to smell it, why buy their product again anyway? They could have said, "you're not going to enjoy the scent as much after you put it on day in day out", but they don't, they say "you won't be able to smell it on yourself". Smell, not enjoy. As in "you smell!", aka a negative connotation. Because the perception of our human smell is such an intimate, personal thing, there is the fear that the way we project our homo sapiens projectiles might be repulsive to those around us. It just wouln't be the same with a visual example and they know it. Visual clues are unquestionable unless you're blind: either something is blue or it's not. But what is "good" and what is "bad" in olfactory terms? The confines are broader. And thus the perfume sale is sealed!

One of the easiest ways of cementing the need for a fragrance wardrobe is the concept of "a seasonal fragrance wardrobe". This is mainly because if you notice the bulk of the sales of perfume products happens in the temperate zone and not some sub-Saharan savvanah. The change in seasons in such places is dramatic enough that this seems like it makes sense. And yet we know that sometimes ambers bloom in the summer and florals can be icy and full of luster in the dead of winter. "Heat enhances the perception of fragrance," says Karyn Khoury, senior vice president for fragrance development for Estée Lauder Cos., who wears fragrance every day. "It warms up the skin and intensifies the diffusion of fragrance so you smell it more." (as reported by Beatrice de Gea in The Wall Street Journal) "When spring arrives, women may want to tone down perfumes so they aren't overwhelming. Ms. Khoury often leaves behind the deeper, richer scents of the winter months, such as patchouli and cedar wood, and instead seeks out fragrances with lighter touches—'citrus notes like mandarin, lemon and grapefruit, dewy green notes, things that smell like leaves or fresh-cut grass, lighter tropical florals like gardenia petals' she says." Khoury is responsible for mega sales of fragrance for decades, so she is a decathlon champion talking about running; you know there's a reason.

Historically speaking, the idea of changing your fragrance all the time, the concept of a fragrance wardrobe, didn't appear but very recently, in the middle of the 20th century actually. Perfume lost its prophylactic function in Western society when Pasteur made his discoveries, while it had almost entirely lost its sacred function way before that, so it became a middle-ground between craft, art and product. In Tilar Mazzeo's book The Secret of Chanel No.5, the cultural researcher notes that it was in the 1950s that consumer goods advertising firms started applying the expertise of psychologists, who realised that "any product [...]must appeal to our feelings". The idea that what mattered to consumers were images, especially images of self, was exploited to good effect: Perfume by its very nature explores an idea of self and to instigate that idea into its marketing is genius because it's something that can be used both for the championing of a signature scent ("this is me at its purest form") and for the necessity of a fragrance wardrobe ("these are my different facets, I'm not that simple")! Really brilliant, isn't it? It can also consolidate brand loyalty. Don't believe me or think it's counterintuitive? Just Google Images for "fragrance wardrobe". Oodles of pics of Chanel coffrets with a predetermined selection of mini parfums of their portfolio comes up. Several other houses issue their own "collection" so as to instill a sense of finding the scents you need for different moods and needs within the same brand.

Men who are ~bless their hearts~ such a saner creature in what concerns shopping practices ~apart from cars and electronics of course, but that's another fodder for another day~ consider the concept of having to change your fragrance all the time an exercise in consumerism and a sure indication that women are victims of wallet manipulation. The Western world female of 20-40 years of age is the most ferocious consumer of them all and thus the prime target of advertisers. As displayed on Beaut.ie blog, men just don't "get it". But the women commenting provide all manner of justification! One reason might be that it's so totally fun to play with several fragrances, an epiphany that came to me when I had abandonded my idea that I should only have about twenty full bottles in rotation in case they spoil; why not bring them all out? A signature scent might be a most romantic, evocative idea, but in the end playing with a variety of fragrances allows a certain -otherwise denied- playfulness to surface, a playfulness that is sometimes a springboard of sanity in this tough world we're living in. Other people just have the collector gene in them. I know I'm one. It doesn't matter if it's paper-clips, stationery or perfume bottles of rare compositions, it brings on the completist in you.

But that is one thing and being told that we NEED to do it, otherwise the repurcussions will be unpleasant, are two very different things! I hereby proclaim my right to change my fragrance ~when and how and if I want to~ because it's fun and exciting to me and not because they tell me I have to. What about you?

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: On the flip side of the coin; the indefinable allure of a signature scent

Photo of Faye Dunaway from the set of Bonnie & Clyde. Perfume collection pic via fracasnoir.com. Nude in black & white photo by Willy Ronis.

The Indefinable Allure of a Signature Scent

“One of the most wonderful things for a man is to walk in a room and know that that woman was here because of that lingering smell.” Isn't that a most romantic thought?Who in their right mind wouldn't want to be thus ingrained into the mind of another? Thus, dreamingly, muses designer to the stars Oscar de la Renta. According to him perfume is integral to an overall look and a woman should be known for her signature scent, as he told StyleList apropos his upcoming fragrance launch, a feminine floral-oriental perfume for the "chic and sophisticated women of a new era" inspired by his own daughter Eliza Bolen. [source] .


In the 19th and early 20th century the mission of finding an appropriate signature scent was built into the minds of coquettes and ladies of the house alike, becoming a laborious occupation and a rite of passage. Women chose at an early age among tiny nuances within set parameters. Ladies of virtue went for violets or roses, but done in a variety of styles and with small details differentiating from maker to maker. The promiscuous or demi-mondaines went for jasmine and tuberose in unapologetic mixes, still treated to the slight variation of technique that produced an array of interpretations. But once they chose, they stayed the course, being identified by their choice. Sometimes they were more faithful to their perfumes than their husbands, preferring identification by intellectual and emotional choice than societal mores.

Finding one's signature scent is an all consuming occupation today as well, in those in whom it is an ardent desire and in those in whom the pang of the new or the newly-found drums its drum with the fervor of the newly converted. Lexa Doig, the Canadian actress best known for her role in the Tv series Andromeda, admits she can't curtail temptation when she says "I'm totally on a mission to find my signature scent, but I'm too mercurial". Fashion model and TV-presenter Lisa Snowdon finds the variety hard to resist: "I enjoy popping in to World Duty Free at the airport and trying out perfumes - I can never resist a new scent". So, I bet is the case with most perfume enthusiasts or fragrance writers such as myself. Even if we know our true tastes very well indeed, the lure of missing out on something unanticipated keeps us on our toes. After all the concept of changing fragrances according to mood and fashion trends is a clever device of marketing to get us to consume, otherwise where would the market be? On the antithetical pole, we have Oscar de la Renta's thoughts (who perhaps ironically enough has his own share of eponymous scents beneath his belt): “I say a fragrance should become part of your identity. [...] When I want to smell that fragrance, I want to recognise you by it”. He's not alone.

Perfume writer Susan Irvine, who tests fragrances for a living, recounted a story in which a young mother was telling her how a particular fragrance was encapsulating a particularly happy era in her life, getting her first job in New York City in her early 20s; but also how she purposefully extended its aura into how she wanted the rest of her life and her personality to project: crisp, energetic, with the dynamism of a young woman who is gripping metropolis by the horns and makes things go her own way. The definition of a signature scent, this magical amulet never missed to put a spring into her step. But it also stood for something more: "I like to think that when I die, this is what my children will remember me by" she finished. The fragrance of pure rapture and dedicated passion in question? It was none other than Aromatics Elixir, the Clinique classic which still goes strong since its introduction in the early 1970s. Irvine was inwardly ~and outwardly too, come to think of it, since she divulged the story, didn't she?~ questioning her own choices, her fickleness and pondering on the existence or not of children as historians of the scent trail that is left lingering in ether and memory long after someone passes. The fragrances we choose become our own memorable chronology, marking important events: our first job, a fling that slowly becomes something serious, the birth of children, a promotion, the passing of someone we cherish.

Signature scents can become our own geography as well; precious places that come back, without beckoning, upon uncorking a rich bouquet of complicated molecules. In the words of Diane Ackerman: "Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains". How many among us think lovingly of holidays spent on some beloved locale, peppered with precious memories and beauty that sustaining us in the months of daily commute?



But more deeply than either personal history or individual geography, signature scents can be signposts of the self: I remember my own mother, her bosom and her endless scarves aromatized by the mysterious vapors of her beloved fragrance, rising as if from within her very self: Was Cabochard by Madame Grès such a womanly mantle in its vintage form or was my association of it with her that tinged it with the exasperation of an unfulfilled longing? The thing which made it so magical in my heart? Continuous wear seemed to have effectuated not only a change of the person thanks to the perfume, but, mysteriously enough, a change of the perfume thanks to the person, even in its bottled form! Cabochard thus lost some of its aloofness, gaining instead a sui generis enigma that was beyond anything else a daydream; like she was.
She didn't always wear Cabochard, having the occasional fling with other fragrances that tickled her fancy, like women who are faithful in other ways, and she seemed to instinctually instill some of her primary goodness, her unbridled kindness and openness to the world in each and every one of them. I smell those fragrances now on my own skin and I find them lacking compared to how she manipulated them into something ghostly that evoked no other but her.

That signature scent remains poised on a scarf locked in a drawer. Whenever the mood strikes me, I gingerly open a tiny crack when nobody watches and, scared I'm letting out a little bit of a finite amount of an eidolon each time, I'm inhaling a miniscule whiff while my eyes get misty.

And you? Do you embrace the idea of a signature scent or not? And why?


pics via pinterest.com and sparkles & crumbs

Perfume and the Perfumed: When Icon & Fragrance Delightfully Clash

Imagine the jaws dropped when Christina Hendricks, the one of voluptuous bosom, retro colouring and glamorous role in Mad Men, the cult TV-series, revealed some of her favourite things on People magazine, naming a fragrance among them: The fragrance was Premier Figuier by L'Artisan Parfumeur, a fig fragrance. It's quite usual to think of perfume in the way of a glamour accessory meant to evoke a specific image, but how can this astound us when a perceived connotation of a specific fragrance is shattered by its actual use; especially when it is by someone famous which we envisioned a specific way. For many seasons fans of the series imagined Hendricks oozing sex-appeal in something that was come-hither and ripe of the seductress, in the context of a 1960s classy one, not withstanding.

It's an automatic reflex to think of fragrance as a very specific symbol of self, the most pliable perhaps of all, since it does not evolve neither a sanctimonious financial overlay (like a condo would), nor an extreme make-over. Spray and you're good to go; or so the thinking goes. After all, we have been told that a fragrance wardrobe should be our goal, fitting scent to time & place and to outfit, not to mention our mood.

What happened with the above scenario is that we had pegged Christina a certain way: the curvaceous glamour puss and we -more or less- refuse to believe that she is a living, breathing woman with tastes of her own who chooses an outdoorsy, intelligent scent that is reproducing something that is not meant specifically for seduction, but for one's self. It might have helped that we saw a shot of Christina as Joan Holloway (office manager of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper) in front of a mirror preening, applying lipstick, with an array of glamorous bottles in front of her, one of which was the seductive Shalimar by Guerlain in one of the stills from the TV-program. Premier Figuier has its own special sex appeal, but it lacks the edge that a certain mythos over the decades has given to Shalimar. We have come to associate the actress with the role of the sassy femme fatale, as if she is incarcerated in her DD-cup and her cinched waists, smart reply hanging on rouged lips. And yet, her style is not without substance. On the contrary. But like in many cases of projecting a certain image in olfactory terms, it's another example where the mold is broken and we raise an eyebrow in surprise.



I hear similar pronouncements all the time perusing some of my favourite perfume-discussing boards: "Jackie Kennedy Onassis was the epitome of elegance, it all fits she wore Joy and Jicky". (But not only!) "Maria Callas was so loyal to Chanel, she must have worn No.5, her style was so timeless." (We'll never know for sure though the hypothesis holds water) "I can picture a chypre perfume on Katharine Hepburn". (and yes, she scored one or two, but not only!).

In our above exercise, Peggy Olson would wear the cool, brainy chypre fragrance. "Keira Knightley must have an endless crate of Coco Mademoiselle, oh look here, she says she only wore men's scents before!" (absolutely not true). Madame Sarkozy, previously known as Carla Bruni, is an Italian aristocrat who modelled for a hobby, so it fits she would wear something with a pedigree of taste and quality. (voila, indeed!).

I had the easiest time while composing my Vetiver Series picturing each and every one of the vetiver fragrances featured on the visage of some male actor (even though they did not necessarily wear said fragrance in real life): smart and facially rugged Hugh Laurie, alluring and insinuating Jeremy Irons, straightfoward old-school Gerald Butler, virile and seemingly cocksure Russell Crowe, suave but enigmatic Ralph Fiennes. Was I guilty of free-associating thanks to no more than the persona they project? Most certainly.


To cut a long story short, celebrities choose what they choose for various reasons, one of the lesser or grudgingly admitted ones being that they are people like us with their own set of criteria, tastes, memories and dislikes. But try to take that out of our heads? Not so easy...

And on to YOU: Are you guilty of associating specific fragrances to specific people and why? Share your thoughts in the comments!

*Note on picture of Christina Hendricks as Joan in Mad Men bathroom scene in front of perfume display: The AMC photo is from Season 3, Episode 3: “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”. The fragrances tray includes for sure Houbigant's Demi Jour, a Lauder bottle (same shape as the later Estee but it's probably Youth Dew) and Intimate by Revlon.

Christina Hendricks photos via wikimedia commons, Huffington Post and Haircutting in High Heels

How Far Can One's Allegiance to a Brand Go? (vis a vis the Galliano Incident)

Last week's fashion news involved drunken stupor, brawl fights and a surprising revival of what we had deemed long forgotten past in the form of a "I Love Hitler" video captured on cell phone. The protagonist of all was fashion designer and formerly head designer for Dior, John Galliano who hurled anti-Semitic slurs on a Parisian outing, obviously under the influence of heavy liquor. The news traveled with the speed of lightning, Dior (LVMH actually) fired him and Galliano issued a non-apology apology.


Like reported on RealBeauty.com "Newsworthy events like these can, for better or worse, impact the way people view brands and celebrities. Many were impressed with the haste with which these songbirds and Galliano’s business partners distanced themselves from their entangled alliances". (Interesting correlation made, go read it)

Sidney Toledano, himself Jewish, opened the anticipated Dior Fall 2011 show with the following statement:

“Since its founding by Monsieur Dior, the House of Christian Dior has lived an extraordinary and wonderful story and has had the honor of embodying France’s image, and its values, all around the world. What has happened over the last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal to us all. It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be. Such statements are intolerable because of our collective duty to never forget the Holocaust and its victims, and because of the respect for human dignity that is owed to each person and to all peoples. These statements have deeply shocked and saddened all at Dior who give body and soul to their work, and it is particularly painful that they came from someone so admired for his remarkable creative talent.”

I hate to break this to them, but there is some sketchy past in the house of Dior...

The crux of the matter remains: Where does that thin line between artist and public figure begin and end? When Woody Allen rocked the celebrity circuit and raised outcry with his admitting of being in love with Soon Yi Previn, things were different: Not only was Soon Yi not his adopted daughter (the adoption papers were in Mia Farrow's name), what most people missed was the fact that the two didn't even live in the same house! Woody and Mia never really shared apartments, instead choosing to each having their own. Plus the motive was love.
Art redeems, or rather, the artist can be brilliant in his art, although flawed in his human being comportment: When homosexuality was considered a "flaw" how many nowadays revered artists (from the Great Masters of painting down to classical music) would be outcasts in their societies?
Racial slur and hate however is something completely different. Different because it perpetuates that which art is supposed to suppress and man-handle: the beast in us.

Even Jean Paul Guerlain, an old guard veteran, rocked waters a little while ago, when his quote on working on the Guerlain classic Samsara, apparently hinted at his not believing in blacks slavery being that harsh. (catch that discussion on this link). His quote was qualitatively different because the offensive part in the press relied on a fundamental mistranslation: the N word was never actually uttered. LVMH summarily severed all ties from Jean Paul (we're not supposed to ever hear again his name in mystical relation to the creation of another new Guerlain launch...) and he publicly apologized. The incident was considered comparatively mild and put behind for digestion.

With Galliano, things are on a distinctly different path. Not only is he much younger than grandpa Jean Paul Guerlain, thus not able to claim age-related haziness, he's also in the midst of the cultural milieu that involves all races and religions of the world, all erotic persuasions and all possible human variables: fashion! If Jean Paul Gaultier, an equally formidable designer in his own right, says that Galliano's work never exhibited racism, then why is Galliano showing such an attitude in his words? And where do words end and opus begins? Where does the "do I as I say and not as I do" get in the way and mix up things? How can anyone endorse his fashions or eponymous beauty products and fragrances now without a twitch of guilt and self-loathing?
What is especially vexing is that Galliano used those epithets alongside a tirade against "ugliness" and (allegedly) bad taste in a manner that shows that the worst enemy of equality and dignity is one who has been raised on the wrong side of opportunity and who got a break thanks to his many talents. A serious pity...

What's your take?

The Politics of Perfumery: Jean Paul Guerlain Makes a Faux-Pas?

Perfumery is a minefield. It's not only perilous to make an olfactory mistake and distance your core audience, a communication faux pas might even trigger a campaign of boycotting your product. That faux pas can take many guises, but none is more "sensitive" than a random comment which can hint of racism. Jean Paul Guerlain, apparently unintentionally, just committed just that cardinal sin.
The whole incident took place in an interview to Elise Lucet concerning his work at maison Guerlain, where he created many masterpieces, Samsara among them. Concerning the latter, Jean Paul commented: "For once, I worked like a negro. I don't know if negroes have worked that much, but anyway..."

The word used in French was negro, but the translation is edgily close to the subversive nigger word (of which there is no French comparable).

The quote also inelegantly suggests that there might be laziness involved too. SOS Racisme and Cran have complained about this statement on France 2 this past Friday 15th October. (You can read the news and the original quote on this link) The reasons given for the outcry are mostly pedagogical, as they renounce the colonial cliches which are thus being perpetuated through such statements. Of course it's argued that these statements go against the values of LVMH and Guerlain in general, and action of distancing was demanded from LVMH, to which the behemoth company replied with a direct apology by Jean Paul himself on AFP via mail. In it Jean Paul Guerlain clarified that he is sorry for the statement and that it does not reflect his deeper thoughts. He also mentioned that he is not a representative of the company since 1996 and is not salaried since 2002, "taking full responsibility [for the faux pas], not wanting to hurt the company and its employees". His current position is of advisory to the head perfumer Thierry Wasser.

That was of course in response to the wildfire criticism which erupted on Twitter and blogs as well as perfume community fora (such as this one or that one) with proposals of boycotting the brand. It even reached CNN!.

As usual on Perfume Shrine, we dissect things to get to the bottom of it.

First of all, the first part of Jean Paul's statement is simple enough: "Work like a negro" is -unfortunately, but there you have it- a common idiom in many European languages (French being one of them, Greek also among them) in which it simply means "work very, very hard". Undoubtedly the French have it one better than us, having intimate knowledge of just how hard negroes might have worked because they have been colonialists for centuries, but I digress. The thing is very often the phrase springs up with no intent of offense; it's just an ingrained "memory" or "hearsay" (for those of us who never had any blacks in a colonial past working for our wealth). And anything can be interpreted the way one wants it to. The Holy Bible is filled with racism if you're willing to seek it from an objective point of view.

Blacks/Negroes have worked in plantations for many years as slaves, as recently as the previous century. This is deeply shameful, there is no other way around it. But certainly not to black people! Rather the ones who owned them and perpetuated this practice at a time in history when such a practice was not necessitated by ANY means (It's an agreed fact that slavery in antiquity falls under completely different parameters and not within our scope here). There even exist wonderful French patisserie creations that reference negroes, certainly through no desire to offend them.

The unfortunate correlation is that the word negro can be twisted into translation into the offending "nigger" word, which is undoubtedly derogatory. Which is exactly what happened on American media. This reminds me of the instance when Gérard Depardieu was a nominee for an Academy Award for Cyrano in 1990 which he eventually lost through a mass campaign smearing his name as "juvenille rapist". What had happened? He was giving an interview in French, recounting his troubled formative years in which he was seeing things on the streets. He mentioned, in way of example, witnessing a rape. His misfortune was the French verb "assister" which he had used was mistranslated out of context as "assisted" in the US press. From witness, he became accessory to the crime! Outcry ensued and Academy Award voters took the matter to heart...and decided to give a pedagogical lesson by denying him the votes. The trajectory followed was down-spiral...and the award went to Jeremy Irons for Reversal of Fortune (In no way am I intending to diminish his exceptional performance which I love myself). Thankfully Depardieu has remained unscathed since and the gossiping tongues claim the campaign was not so innocent to begin with, aiming to deny a non-English speaker an Academy Award for Leading role in a non-English speaking film. This is of course merely conjecture.

So far so good and this should be a lesson to us all on how to pick our words in a multi-cultural society such as the global one we're living in. And I wouldn't be giving any extended commentary, should the second part of the Jean Paul Guerlain quote not exist.

But the second part does exist, alas. Weirdly too, because Jean Paul is well-known for his good rapport and friendship with the inhabitants of the island of Mayotte, where Guerlain keeps ylang ylang plantations. Maybe his progressing age doesn't help too much in general?

That second part of the quote inelegantly attaches the stigma of laziness where none exists (and by association the "plight" some of the countries inhabited mainly by negroes is attributed to a fault of their own). Speaking with personal national experience, where critical geopolitical and precarious financial games are played on our backs by the superpowers, I can assure M.Guerlain (and everyone) that very seldom in politics anything is "through one's own fault". It's not school exams, you know. There's got to be someone assisting someone else's plight; someone else who is actually gaining something out of it. In this instance, it is colonialism and the wealth it accumulated for colonials. Too bad that France is still struggling to come to terms with accepting that heritage. Whatever... nevertheless a little more compassion to people who are not wholly responsible for what happened to them goes a long way.

And, before I forget, oh, I wish I could have forgotten about another unfortunate quote concerning other less privileged groups which I had critiqued on these pages back in 2008.

Because, come to think of it, what purpose is perfume accomplishing -refining us, giving us a veneer of sophistication and allure- if we forget to show basic human understanding for the misfortune of others? Let's refresh our Aimé Césaire readings.

For purposes of injecting a semi-relevant & controversial viewpoint on racial matters, France and the US, please read this blog post. Food for thought, and why not, comment!

NB: The pics are (clearly I hope?) ironic. The hypocrisy of white colonialism at its very highest.

Should we or Shouldn't we Say "You Stink!"?

"Why can we never seem to smell ourselves? This has to be one of the greatest mysteries known to man. Back in the day, long before progress jammed us all into metal boxes on tracks and wheels and ferried us to work to spend our days in air-conditioned cubicles, the smell of fresh sweat, the perfume of cowboys and construction workers, was regarded as a signature of hard work and manly labour. Back then, when perfumes and colognes were saved for state occasions and holidays, we took the time to check. We were masters at masking a quick sniff of the armpit; experts at exhaling into a cupped hand; and adept when it came to frustrating our own flatulence." "More than a hundred years ago, American author Elbert Hubbard defined perfume as any smell used to drown a worse one. How little things have changed. Spraying deodorant or perfume or cologne on an unwashed body is about as effective as trying to collect water in a colander. It simply doesn’t work. If, as I firmly believe, we cannot smell ourselves, then we need to rely on our friends and family or even complete strangers to set us straight. But we think it rude to point out the obvious and instead suffer in silence, distancing ourselves from them, cutting conversation short. And so we become complicit in the great unwashed. [...] To tell or not to tell... that is really the question."

Thus concedes Mary Murphy on The Budapest Times. Which brings us of course full circle on many issues pertaining to personal hygiene, the perception of that hygiene based on fragrances/products used and whether there is a sound reason of letting anyone know their personal smell is foul or whether it is an absolute social no-no. Perfume, after all, was since the height of the Versailles used to mask unpleasant odours when no other solution would do in exterminating them. We have progressed from the times when George Orwell famously quipped that the social distinction in the West can be summarized in "four frightful words...the lower classes smell" (in The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937, chapter 8). He nuanced it by saying that "here, curiously enough, the Socialist and the sentimental democratic Catholic of the type of Chesterton [ed.note: seeing dirtiness as self-mortification] join hands; both will tell you that dirtiness is healthy and 'natural' and cleanliness is a mere fad or at best a uxury". Even Murphy insists "As I was growing up, the neighbouring farmer, even starched to within an inch of his life in his Sunday best, always smelled of cow manure and boiled bacon. "

Of course such social stigmata today in developed countries at least are taken to be the absolute peak of racism and bias towards specific groups and no doubt they are. After all, there is no one more insistent in deodorising the stench of manual labour by using heaps of soap or in bringing their shoes to an impeccable shine than the laborer, eager to shed the "image". The rise of "clean" fragrances (so on trend since the 1990s) could be also interpreted in the social climb-up-the-ladder in the last three decades, at least in affluent parts of the Western world, of people who would otherwise face a life on a rural environment that would involve the smellscapes they are now eschewing in favour of the exhaust, the rained upon concrete and the cubicle farm. The American urban landscape (excluding specific exceptions) in particular is not only more egalitarian, but -perhaps in accordance- more sanitized in what concerns olfactory miasmata as well. It's probably no coincidence that some of the sexiest ads on TV concern deodorants!

But is it only social attributes which present their own challenges smell-wise? In Popular Music From Vittula by Swedish author Mikael Niemi, the narrator, Matti, reminiscences about his Arctic-circle upbringing offering vignettes from his youth, for instance when he and a friend sneak into an old gym in which middle-aged women are exercising doing aerobics: "Bum sweat cascaded over blubbery backs, the air was alive with a whiff of pussy. … Women fell like two-ton bombs, lay slithering in the pools of sweat on the varnished floorboards before scrambling up on their feet again, indomitable. The room stank of marshy swamps and menopause." I can just see the sour face you're making right now, oh dear menopaused reader! And why should something so natural, so unavoidable, so -darn it!- feminine, like menopause, be linked to olfactory impressions that are of a less than pleasant or appealing nature? you ask. It shouldn't. But there you have it.

Sometimes despite our best efforts and despite every possible stigma or lack thereof, we are oblivious to the scents emanating from our own body. Both our physical smells and our added-upon scents which are largely relying on tastes, odour preferences and accumulated empirical data received through positive and negative associations from our entourage. Sometimes, we just plainly stink for whatever reason. Objectively or subjectively, assuming we're not dealing with a drama queen being irritated by our very own presence, rather than smell.... The question is: Do you tell? In polite or covert ways? And would you want to be told? In polite or covert ways? Or anything in between?

The podium is up to you!

Painting Haunting by Brian Despain.

Why French (and European) people grow up to love scents while Americans don't

One of the most frequent and controversial divides among Europeans and Americans has to do with the scope of this venue: smell! The things we like to smell, the way we smell, the cultural milieu in which this function happens, our perception on it and the reaction to the olfactory environment. Why are the French (and most Europeans grosso modo) so much more attuned to smells and more receptive of them, even when they tether on the edge of the unpleasant, than North Americans? Before anyone says that this is not true, let me state: There are of course exceptions, on both sides. And I bet our American readers are here exactly because they belong to that percentage of exception; even though they are numerous, let's admit it, on the grander scale of things, perfume is only a small niche. But incidents like trying to ban scented products from public spaces in a whole city or refusing to carry a passenger in public transport in Calgary, Canada, because her perfume is disagreeable, not to mention the augmenting complaints of real and imaginary "allergies" to perfume which we discussed recently, tend to happen across the pond mostly. Why is that?

Certainly one cannot in any sanity of mind even entertain the thought that there is some inherent, chromosome-induced difference in olfactory perception or reception, because a)that would sound completely Nazi-like and b)both North America and Europe consist of largely mixed populations which have effaced lots of their indigenous DNA makeup through centuries of intermingling. We all, more or less, start from the same standpoint, but we tend to diverge early on. So, if it's not nature, it's got to be nurture. Education, to be exact. It's not just a 9-letter word, you know.

This train of thought lagging at the back of my brain was sent to the forefront again when I came across a post on Sylvaine Delacourte's blog, the artistic directress of parfums Guerlain, who elaborated on how they actually organise special "workshops" led by Marie Birin (in two levels, mind you!) for children starting from the age of seven (!) so they can learn how to organise smells in their mind, see the perfume creation logic at work and therefore appreciate scents better. One might cynically exclaim that this is a tool to convert children into little consumers. And in some part it does create an affinity for the brand, I suppose, when they grow up. Wouldn't you have fond memories of a brand who allowed you to get your hands dirty with all kinds of smell stuff and got you out in the garden to sniff flowers and wet earth? Yet I wouldn't wager this is intended with that objective to begin with (they also host workshops for adults anyway). No other society on the entire planet is more consumer-and-business driven than the American one and I have yet to hear of children's perfume appreciation workshops there. The powers that by do try to make them little consumers, all right, what with the Disney cartoon characters embossed on innocuous "waters" for playing dress up and what not, but is this really on a par with sitting down and educating them about smells and raw materials? I don't think so.

Ask what perfume signifies across different cultures and you will hear interesting differences of perception, converging on its overall goodness: To some it's a pick-me-up, a moment of freshness and joyful, frank pleasure, a smile at both yourself and the world, if you will. Think of the Spanish, the Greeks and the Italians who use literally liters of eaux fraiches and Eaux de Cologne throughout hot summers both on themselves and on children. To others, it's part of a glamorous living in which they can indulge into after decades of being deprived of these luxuries. Think of the Russians and the formely communist Eastern Europeans who had no varied access to perfume for decades, because it was seen as a decadent representation of capitalism. To others, still, it's a nostalgic representation of nature scenes for when the sky is all gloomy and overcast making them dream (think of the Victoriana English perfume scene before the advent of niche in the last decade) or an accessory which is providing a tie with both long tradition and latest fashion (think of the numerous German and Dutch apothecaries, or the au courant designers' scene hailing from North Italy, Austria or the Netherlands). And of course there is that special intimate rapport between a person and their chosen perfume; the latter standing as an extendable, inviting aura for the revelation of the former, which is so well met au valeur (put to its besty advantage) in France...

These are so much ingrained to children from an early age that they grow up to view them as perfectly natural, expected, par for the course: An experienced pedagogist was telling me the other day regarding potty training that she recommends when a toddler is successful to congratulate them with "well done" and a drop of their parent's cologne or perfume on their hands. An Austrian acquintance of elementary school age came back from a trip grabbing not only chocolates, but also minis of 4711 Eau de Cologne. For herself and for her friends I might add. Relatives give small sips of red wine to their little kids so they develop the palate to appreciate them at a later age. French friends routinely give camembert (a non pasteurised cheese) to their small children without as much as raising an eyebrow as to any microbe scare. Heidi, in the famous Yohana Spiri novel, a Swiss child, was accustomed to drink goat's milk (a quite smelly kind of milk in its raw form) straight after the milking off the animal. The antithesis in the form of revolted apostasis to that was Miss Rottenmeier, the austere, dried-up sprinster who was responsible for the kids at her German friend's home in Frankfurt. European children in short are taught from the craddle onwards that smells are not a bad thing on the whole. Sure, some are more likeable than others and everyone has personal preferences, but they form part of the sensual world. And the sensual world is something to embrace and indulge in, rather than reject and demonise.

Contrast with the American reality and lore, where smelly stuff is (seemingly inherently) bad and many things having to do with the body are demonized by the status quo. Even the phrase "it smells" usually has a negative connotation: Putting perfume on small children is generally seen as sexualising the child, even by people who themselves are responsive to perfumes. The value of keeping childhood innocence for as long as possible in nowhere more pronounced than in American culture, as attested by children's fairy tales of local origin, films and prototypes which, enthused as they are into passing the best possibly intented pedagogical messages, sometimes tend to overexaggerate in their zest. If Snow White was an American tale, she would never have eaten the poisoned apple but instead would have responded to the wiles of the evil stepmother with a "This isn't washed nor peeled, talk to the hand!".
Flowers are increasingly grown devoid of any particular smell, as if they are meant to look nice and just play the virgin. Come to think of it: Why was it such a big deal that Brooke Shields and Britney Spears were presented as virgins at the time of their prime? I have never heard such claims by any aspiring or established star in Europe (and if they did dare bring this up, it would be confusing and ridiculed, like "what the hell does this has to do with what your job is"?)
Urban kids eat chicken drumsticks coming out of a pack of 6, almost never having the experience of seeing someone defeather a real chicken (never mind a rooster) and seeing the guts discarded in a plate, unless they live on a farm of course. If you showed them or if you mention that process in a classroom full of kids, they would sooner respond "eww, don't gross us out" than make appreciative noises at the inherent violence (yes, children do embrace violence in healthy, necessary ways too) and curiously "dirty" satisfaction that such an act produces (Have you ever cooked a mean coq au vin having just received a rooster from a small supplier at the village? Do try it and then tell me!).

Therefore, if this talk among perfume enthusiasts about "stopping the madness of banning perfume and scented products" is to be taken seriously, then people, please try starting at the source: at the hand that rocks the craddle. It is the hand that rules the world. In the foreseeable future, at the very least.

Photo Erich Comeriner Petit Mannequin, Anonymous Weight Problems.