"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

The Perfume Wars: Old Lady vs Older Woman

Among perfume lovers' circles there are no other two words more despised than "old lady" perfume. Is it because often the people who love ~but also have the economic means to indulge in their passion~ are of more mature years? Is it because it connotates the worst ageism possible, an invisible one? Is it because in the en masse swiping out of "old lady" perfumes one is thus disregarding all the classics and the vintage treasures which evolving trends made obsolete? Possibly it's a combination of all of the above. And why are men left out, as usual? Are there no "old men" fragrances? And if they exist, why isn't the world paying any attention? Considering the subtextual content of language in reference to scents isn't an easy task, probably exactly because olfaction is a function that addresses the brain's limbic system rather than the rational centre of speech. Therefore a correlation between feeling produced by smell and language used to express it is hard to establish.

Some people defend the term "old lady" by saying it's vague, so it could be construed positively. And originally it was. For instance, a beloved grandmother who has a loyalty to a specific fragrance of her youth might be an old lady to emulate. I can think of at least two. After all fragrance vogues come and go: When My Sin by Lanvin launched in 1925 it was the bee's knees (it still is, if we need to be objective), a subversive scent for an emancipated woman. Miss Dior (1947) was aimed at the debutantes of the first years after WWII, hence the "miss" denomination. Now the young ones wear Miss Dior Cherie, a sweet fragrance that bears no olfactory relation to the predecessor and turn up their noses at the original. L'Eau d'Issey (1992) marked a whole generation now in their early forties; in the eyes of a modern teenager, it's terribly passé. The cyclical course of fashions accounts for the unavoidable reversion of norms and perceptions, in regards to scents as with everything else.
It could be a lack of vocabulary and imagination only: The derogatory term is easy to say and to blurb forth, without trying to come up with a phrase that describes our feelings in more precise terms that could convey nuanced meaning. Obviously the mystique of fragrance is terra incognita for many, but I am wondering whether this is an excuse for terminology laziness.

On the other hand, so very often the term "old lady smell" is used in reference not simply to obsolete or old-fashioned aromata, but rather displeasing or even repelling ones: Smells of incontinence, of "dead" hormones (very seldom detractors consider "old lady" perfumes as sexy or attractive), of lacking hygiene due to physical disabilities, smells of medicine and disease...The feeling is almost one of foreboding, a bad omen that has the evil ability to stick around and influence everyone around. "Chela Gonzalez and her friend Nora are looking forward to sixth grade in their El Paso school. They have finally been placed in the A-class, the “smart class,” which is for students who only speak English. Then Chela’s father has a stroke on the first day of school, her grandmother comes to help out, and “the air became thick with the smell of old lady perfume, of dying flowers and alcohol…. It was the smell of bad things.” Thus is constructed the central plot in Claudia Guadalupe Martinez’s debut novel for young adults "The Smell of Old Lady Perfume". No baking cookies, cuddling and fragrant kisses goodnight for this grandma and grandaughter.
A blogger further writes remarking the scent of a woman he passes by: "Perhaps this isn't a smell that old people spray themselves with. Maybe when you get past the menopause, you instantly start emitting it. Old women try to mask it with stronger fragrances, but the old lady smell keeps coming out. As they get older, the smell fades, and is replaced by the smell of old mothballs." There is even a Banning Old Lady Perfume on Facebook! And the pursuit of youth at all costs knows no (commercial) boundaries: there's a magic smell for everything!
Surely it must be a hard-wired mechanism in humans that averts us from anything that reminds us of our own mortality seeing a woman of advanced years as discarded material, an old hag. Before you pppfft it as sheer rubbish though read this: "A researcher at Shiseido Laboratories has traced the problem to a fatty acid known as palmitoleic acid. He has also learned that the body of a person up to about the age of 30 does not secrete a noticeable amount of this substance, but that once a person--whether male or female--hits 40, the volume rises sharply. The volume of palmitoleic acid released by the human body is 10 times as great among people in their seventies as in their forties."
Still, aging is a privilege; the alternative isn't as good. We might as well be a little more accepting and lenient and grow up already!

Spirited discussions ensue whenever the subject is brought up nevertheless: One perplexed 25-year old says she was told by her boyfriend "his favourite perfume is White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor" and asks for opinions on whether it's too mature for her. Before anyone playfully suggests she ditches the boyfriend, she is told instead to "try it on skin first", "its old lady, try smelling Paris hilton, Gwen Stefani, Baby phat, J-Lo, these are just a few in my collection that smell oh so good", that "it’s a little mature but it smells alright. I wouldn’t wear it until I’m like 45+", "I didn’t know they had perfume for young folks and old folks" and yes, finally that "it is marketed to an older more mature woman". Ah...the magic word: "marketed"!

But let's see the world of difference a small substitution does to the term: What if instead of "old lady" we had "older woman"? The image of a prim, conservative little commuter, grey hair in a bun and structured purse in her lap, sensible shoes and no thoughts of enjoying anything naughty is looming whenever the derogatory term is used. Is it the "little" lady in there that is so distasteful to the detractors? One of them even mentions it out of the blue as smelling like "Eau de little old lady" when talking about retro perfumes , so there must be some truth in my theory! In contrast, consider being youngish and being told you smell "like an older woman", especially if this comes from a man. Instantly the characterisation is not negative; far from it. It's "older", not old. It's "woman", a more sensuously rich term than "lady". It's all French (or Italian) films and summers spent as an exchange student someplace where a knowing woman had taught you the secrets and exasperations of adult life Mrs. Robinson-style. Who wouldn't want to be as alluring as Jacqueline Bisset? Still, the ringing-of-some-humiliation term of "cougar" has been concocted against older women going after younger men, so I'm seriously considering whether "old lady" isn't a feminist issue to begin with. It probably is.

A suitable alternative term for "old lady" perfume nevertheless hasn't been universally accepted yet. Would "retro fragrances" be a positive term to replace the "old lady" one when referring to classics & old-fashioned scents? Would "old-fashioned" do when we're talking about something that is not necessarily within our comprehension or taste? Would "displeasing" be an umbrella subjective term for the scents we don't like, forgetting the ageist tentacles which are spreading and engulfing us whenever we use the term "old lady" in a negative light?
We're taking submissions for vocabulary expansion right here as we speak: Offer your own!

pics via shadyoldlady.com and cinematicpassions.com

Colour of the jus

Have you ever wondered if the colour of your perfume is not a haphazard choice? Have you asked yourselves if you would love it equally if it were a different hue? Or more importantly if the people involved in creating it have actually exerted any brainstorming about this?
A funny incident happened a while ago and made me consider the issue from another angle than the mere personal.

On a fine lunch hour shopping spree I passed from that shop that was inspired by Moses' wife and rhymes with catastrophe in Greek (which is what my significant other always mutters when he sees a bag with the white-on-black logo of it). I am referring of course to Sephora.
As I was browsing, nodding to myself "already tested", "already tested", "already tested", I come close to a couple at the Lauder shelves. Casually dressed but well groomed (the european groomed casual chic), around 30 both.
The girl, a dark haired one, rather pretty, grabs the tester for Knowing and ooohs and aaahs saying "Oh, this is my favourite perfume in the world, wore it so much". (I am thinking she wanted the guy to take the hint and buy it for her- and she was not the mercenary type at all). The guy seems uninterested and browses beside her, going "uh huh". She then picks up Cinnabar, as they have the older Lauders all grouped together. "This is nice too" she comments smelling the bottle.(I agree) She gives it to the guy, who says they are both rather heavy, vetoing the decision. She is even motioning to pick up the Youth Dew, when he intervenes and says : "Imagine how heavy that one must be; it's almost black!!" She never finished the motion to pick it up and sniff the bottle, as she didn't do it with Aliage either (which is also quite dark). And immediately he goes on and picks the nearby Alien (Sephora places them alphabetically and Mugler is after Lauder). "Now this is lighter, better" he quips. (the "light" thing merits its own discussion in another post) She made a face. I just about wanted to smack him at that point! Both because he denied her what she obviously liked and because he showed his prejudices about perfume picking. I didn't follow them to see what they bought in the end. I didn't have the luxury of time. Maybe they didn't buy anything. If they did however it was not what she wanted, she seemed crestfallen....
I don't see these two making it to the aisle and that doesn't refer to the shopping kind.
The little story has a moral though. People judge with their eyes as much as with their noses.

There is another great story that has been recounted to me by J, known as Teacake, a sweet Australian-based lady. She mentioned that someone young (a teenager actually) who was a friend of her daughter had proclaimed upon viewing her collection that "yellow/golden juices don't smell nice, only pink and blues do". That comment has been a mini-epiphany for me. Seriously: it made me realise that indeed the colour of the jus really denotes the target market as well as the olfactory family in most cases: fruity florals and "fresh" scents which were all the rage with the young some nanoseconds ago are indeed pink or blue!

I don't think this is an accident. I believe it has to do with the mentality that yellow jus is older, classic perfumes that are associated with natural ingredients (no naturals are coloured pink or blue, except chamomille of course and they don't use it in most commercial perfumery because of that unstable blueish tint that might ruin the general effect).
If one stops and thinks about it most of the classics are pale golden or light ambery: Shalimar, Femme, Mitsouko, Joy, Chanel #5, Bois des iles, L'heure bleu. They all vibrate at some variation of wee colour. There are a few notable exceptions like Chanel #19 or the afore mentioned Youth Dew, but still no pink or blue or even purple coloured perfume existed till quite recently. Certain natural ingredients do have a deep colour: Peru Balsam is molasses dark; natural jasmine turns almost orange with the passing of time, sometimes alarming us into thinking that a perfume containing it has turned.

Pink and blue juice on the other hand usually has a highly synthetic construction that guarantees the stability of colour and the unnatural hue of the finished product.
Personally, I have a deep seated aversion to the colour blue in fragrances, although I do appreciate it in other permutations (the sea, glassware and jewels come to mind). I think it shows an insurmountable lack of imagination on behalf of the person who opts for it; especially if it's a man, I'm afraid. It's such an easy, safe choice! What's your favourite colour? 9 out of 10 men reply blue, if asked out of the blue about it (am I being punny?). I don't hear fuschia (too gay), chesnut(too difficult; do they even know it's a shade?), vermillon (it sounds like a french recipe for something involving snails or frog's legs) or even black (the odd rocker/goth/outcast/mysterious Lothario picks that one up out of the 10.....thank God fot that)
In perfume terms it usually denotes an overload of the dreaded fakeness that is the "marine" note. Yeah.....marine for people born and raised and living all their lives in the Chezh Republic(a landlocked country); having no passport on top of that. I am categorically adamant that the sea does not smell like any of the marine fragrances out there I have ever smelled. I do keep hoping some day they will catch the elusive trail. I live in hope.

Anyway, younger folks tend to associate the hip and new with those pastel hues, dismissing the rest as "old ladies' perfume". In their desire to mark their territory and draw the line, maping their own identity, revolting from what their parents wear, they go for the pink and blue, with the odd inclusion of purple for those who like a smidgeon of mystery (or so they imagine).
So companies churn out perfumes in those colours. It's all marketing, I'm afraid.


Pic was sent to me via mail uncredited, probably courtesy of an advertising campaign (MAC maybe?)
Not sure, but great photo nonetheless.