Dublin S+S Meets Coty Training

Foreword

I was kindly invited along to a perfume training event this week by Fiona Cooke of Coty Ireland, having found each other on twitter a few months ago. Fiona was holding a training day for the many customers Coty work with. And in the evening, she hosted a similar event for journalists, bloggers and trade customers. She invited Odette Toilette (or Lizzie) along as her perfume trainer. Lizzie is known for holding her S+S (Scratch + Sniff) events in London—a monthly gathering of perfume appreciators, guest speakers and attendees curious about exploring their sense of smell. The events are held cabaret style around tables so everyone can get to know each other, all the while, there is lots of sampling, discussion and a few scent games to play and share with everyone.

It was quite serendipitous that at the same time I was trying to get Lizzie to come to Dublin to hold an S+S event, Fiona invited her to give some inspirational training to her customers.

I was delighted.

Training meets S+S

In the evening as I arrived at the Radisson Blu, I stepped into a lobby rich with perfume, floor polish and clean rugs. I made my way up to the function room and sat round the table with everyone else. There were beauty bloggers, style magazine journalists and editors and pharmacy people all excited and curious as to what we were going to be doing for the next couple of hours.

Fiona began by introducing Lizzie as a perfume lover. As simple as that. A person who truly has a passion for fragrance. She wanted Lizzie to share that with us and have us leave, inspired, tuned in, more aware about fragrance and it’s effect on the mind. In a way, the best thing about the evening is that I think everyone was going to pay it forward too.

Fragrance 1

Lizzie passed around fragrance sticks to everyone seated. We were asked to close our eyes, and breathe in.

What are you smelling? Can you imagine yourself somewhere? Maybe you’re inside, maybe you’re outside? Are you alone? What time of day is it? What is the weather like? Is it peaceful? How do you feel?

After a minute or two, I felt extremely relaxed and was verging into a meditative state. It helped that the fragrance was Eau de Gloire by Parfum d’Empire. It smells green, bitter, herbaceous, fresh. To me, the only imagery coming into my mind was a green, lush grassy field, wide, vast, expansive, nondescript. I couldn’t see the sky, as I was lying belly down on the grass looking out. It was day-break and there was that gorgeous, cool light. Can you see why I was feeling peaceful?

Everyone else though had a completely and different experience though:

1. It reminds me of the calamine lotion my mum used to put on me.
2. It smells musky, warm, orangey.
3. It’s kind of churchy. I’m being reminded of Italy, of cypress trees. It smells like something from Tom Ford.
4. I’m imagining an Italian man in a suit. A white suit. An older man.

Of course, there is no right or wrong answers, and this wasn’t the objective to see if everyone could. Lizzie wanted us to use our imaginations and appreciate a fragrance for how it works on each and every one of us.

Fragrance 2

There were no eyes closed this time, and as the fragrance sticks were being handed out, I could smell this one already. It was a fruity floral gourmand. Do not curl your toes or wince, this is the point.

Whilst I’d never wear this particular perfume, I know of a few others like it and tire of smelling it everywhere. I put my snobbery aside and followed Lizzie’s instructions.

Who is this girl wearing the perfume? What does she wear? Is she young? Mature? Is she vibrant? Who would she be at a party?

I could only picture a pink 2007 VW New Beetle and a pink flower in the dashboard’s vase. The girl was in her 20s, getting ready to go out with her friends. There was fake tan on the go, velvety tracksuits, nails, extensions NOT fake looking, but just, she was a girl who loved getting dolled up and going out.

Other responses were suitably mixed:

1. It reminds me of beach bum.
2. Is it Zsa Zsa Gabor?
3. It’s teenage and pink. Like Charlie and Exclamation!
4. It’s like sherbet marshmallow.
5. A person who gets driven by their mum.

This time round we were smelling Beyoncé Pulse. We were invited to move over to the cocktail bar at this point where mixologist and cocktail director, Alan Kavanagh of Total Cocktail Solutions, introduced us to his take on a Beyoncé Pulse inspired cocktail.

What a cocktail he produced too. I can’t begin to tell you all the methods, ingredients and preparation needed to make this cocktail, but boy did it smell and taste fantastic. There was pear liquor, lemon zest and vanilla pods used in the mix. He added to this a Blue heart-shaped Curaçao ice cube, reflecting the colour blue used in Pulse’s advertising. In time, like a perfume’s dry-down, the ice cube would melt, releasing beautifully scented and flavoured rosewater, colouring the cocktail’s liquid and ultimately (importantly) adding the Curaçao ;) To top it off, a spray of Pulse onto the base of the glass to linger on the hands of those who drink. Stunning.

Fragrance 3

Lizzie introduced us to the game “Consequences.” One person writes down questions on a sheet of paper. Players each answer one question and fold over their answer so the next player can’t see the previous. At the end it reads a story where every player has had a say. We did this in three groups of five players.

We each took time to sniff the perfume on our sticks. It was manly, peppery and woody. It was smooth and simple.

I was the last player in my group, my question read, “When is he most happiest?”

Now, I thought about this, and thought about this, and thought about this. Time was up and I was holding back. I wrote my answer down quickly and passed back to Lizzie. She read through all the groups and was shocked at ours! “Were we conferring?” She asked. She laughed, shocked and began reading out.

Q. What does he do for a living? A. He is a woodsman and enjoys chopping wood…[more q and a's] Q. When is he most happiest? A. When he is chopping wood and exploring the forest.

The room erupted into laughter, I was mortified. I thought to myself, “Shit, this is sounding like a shared fantasy!” At any rate the coincidence was hilarious and everyone had a little giggle at our ideal man.

Some other groups had these to say as well:

1. A man who sails in his spare time.
2. He has a woman in every city.
3. He lives in an LA plush apartment, with white walls and white shaggy rugs.
4. He has a hairy chest.
5. He wears his wife’s underwear.

Turns out our ideal man was David Beckham and his fragrance Homme. I yelled out, “Jesus Christ!” at this point. I would never have put David Beckham in a fantasy or near my nose. I was pleasantly and rightfully smacked in the face.

Fragrances 4, 5 and 6

For our fourth and final fragrance/s, we were each to match three fragrances to a peace of fabric; silk, feathers and velvet. And to add to that, match this then to a type of woman, a Sassy, Temptress or Ice Queen.

I thought No 1 was a Temptress and linked her to silk, it smelled refined, esteemed, posh almost. No 2, smelling cold to me, was the Ice Queen and she had velvet. And No 3, smelling more playful and cutsey, was Sassy and associated her to feathers.

As it turns out everyone had mixed ideas and reasons as to why. It was truly fascinating to hear what some people think! Everyone’s brain is wired so differently and even though we can’t put a word as to why we feel this smells like it belongs to that, we just instinctively think so. I really liked this part of the evening.

Lizzie presented us with her impressions. No 1 was Diorissimo by Dior, it has Lilly of the Valley and she thought it was like the Ice Queen as a result, then, associated this to ballet and silk slippers. No 2 was Calèche by Hermès. Containing aldehydes, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, cedar and sandalwood, it smelled leathery and velvety, she was the Temptress. No 3 was Coty Guess Seductive, smelling seductive, and playful too, it was Sassy and linked to playful feathers.

Thoughts

I had never been to a fun, fragrant experience like this one. Whilst I’ve been to launches before, this event was much more personal and connected the attendees in a way I didn’t think it would. People weren’t as apprehensive as I thought they might be. There was even that feel of everyone trying to share their thoughts to the point of talking over each other! And you could see lots of smiles, nodding and “ah-ha!” moments throughout the evening.

I want to take a minute to really thank Fiona, Lizzie and Alan, for putting on such a thoughtful, enlightening and fun evening. And to the other attendees for getting into the spirit of the evening like I did too. Having had time to reflect on it now, I walked away even more aware to stop and smell the roses and perfume longer. To question more than I normally would. Most of the time, I play a game of identifying ingredients in a perfume, I forget sometimes to appreciate how it’s making me feel, what it’s making me imagine, or think. So to Fiona, Lizzie and Alan, thank you for helping me to walk before I run.

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What do you think?

Would Dublin be game for a regular S+S event? Was Coty a good sport for pushing the envelope of perfume appreciation? Any thoughts on some of the attendees associations on fragrance, and mine also?

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I Love Perfume. I Hate Perfume.

As it’s somewhat safe enough now to talk about this—I’ve handed in my notice in my current job.

It’s an odd feeling. In one respect, it’s an achievement. I’ve been studying, learning and practising web design for close to seven years now and to finally have landed a good job, well, not everyone makes it. In another respect, it’s bitter-sweet. I thought this was the path for me, but I just don’t feel the same for web design as I do about other creative pursuits, “It’s not you, it’s me. There’s someone else. I’m just at a stage in my life…” sounds familiar.

Whilst I’m not indefinitely closing the door on web design for good, I do feel like I’m opening a window to something else—to put it poetically.

Love

I love design. I love art. I love creativity. And creative people, and their work, inspires me. In the last two years I’ve been gradually exploring perfumery thanks to a chance meeting with inventors and perfumers themselves.

When I went off and began reading about perfumery, and all it’s facets and features, I had no idea I’d become so hooked. At first, it was the perfume itself, naturally. When I found out lots of people made perfume, I looked more of them up. Who were they? And how did they step into it? When I discovered the approach perfumers take when crafting a piece of work, I was fascinated. Why did they make it that way? Trying to understand the not-so-black-and-white area that is development was not only enlightening but made me only more curious. Why are they adding vanilla, tonka, patchouli and vetiver to the base? Are citrus oils always a “top note?” To find out a perfume can be linear too, was illuminating. There was no convention, no standard as such, no right, no wrong, certainly there were basic rules, but this didn’t seem to be so set in stone.

To find out about all the extraction methods was incredible. Cold-pressing, solvent extraction, tincturing, hot enfleurage, cold enfleurage, creating a concrete, an absolute. Who’d have thought the excess water in steam distillation could be used as well.

Then there was the oils themselves. That Jasmine from Grasse can cost twice the price of gold bullion, or from one year to the next there are subtle differences in a crop’s yield. A rose, is a rose is a rose, that is until it’s Bulgarian, Egyptian, Moroccan or Indian. Then think about the fact that each year those rose yields could smell different from the previous year, and then, different still from each other…

Perfume is an art. It is subjective due to the very fact that smell is subjective. Sight and sound are literal, and you can point things out to someone so easily. But smell…how do you tell someone, “That there—yeah that’s sandalwood. Over here is peru balsam. Oh and this, this is rose absolute?”

I don’t think I’m the first, nor the last, person to be this moved by perfume.

Hate

At times, perfume can be a pain in the ass. It’s expensive. You know what I mean, the good shit costs money. And money doesn’t grow on trees. Even at that, the good stuff can sometimes be hard to come by. The niche and exclusives sometimes offer up more gems than sometimes dull-as-dishwater annual flankers etc. At other times, it feels a little self-indulgent. Could I not be investing my interest (and money) in something that isn’t so vain—a question asked to a fellow perfume aficionado? In fact, that’s a question I sometimes feel I’m nearly being asked when people actually ask, “Why perfume?” I had one reaction/question that stated the word “weird.” I get the word “odd” too on occasion. And the one I really hate, “It’s a bit girly isn’t it?!” What is it? A statement or a question, buddy?

Sometimes, perfume can be condescending. Some Sales Assistants assume I only want what’s popular. And sometimes they even look me up and down as if I shouldn’t be “gracing their presence.”

So here, I was wondering, to put it simply, what do you like about perfume in general, and what do you dislike about perfume in general?

I like it for everything I touched on above. It makes me smile.

I dislike it when I can’t buy a bottle of a particular fragrance, please don’t discontinue that.

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What do you think?

Surely there must be something you dislike about perfume? What’s the yang to perfume’s yin? I know if you’re reading this blog, chances are you love something about perfume too? What’s the yin to perfume’s yang?

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The Smells from the Guinness Brewery

History

In Dublin, 1752, a man named Arthur Guinness was bequeathed £100 from his godfather’swill. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery outside Dublin. Four years later he moved into the city to set up his own business and took a 9000 year lease on a brewery at St James’s Gate. That brewery is now the Guinness brewery, probably the best brewery in the world ;)

Foreword

I have to admit one thing from the very start, I do not like Guinness. It’s just too heavy a drink. It’s a meal in a glass and after the first few sips it, just tastes awful—it’s that tangy taste! Obviously my opinion is in a resounding minority, Guinness is such an iconic drink, brand and flag for Ireland it can not be denied a success.

I have memories of Guinness growing up. At family gatherings, weddings, funerals, going to the pub when I was wee, my uncles and older cousins would be drinking the black stuff. I have a vague memory of tasting it too. And like all children if they have a sip of a drink, they’re reaction is a resounding, “BE-LUCH!”

When I moved to Dublin last year, within the first week or so, I would smell the unmistakable odours carrying heavily across the city—the Guinness brewery at work, roasting barley. Sometimes it would be in the morning and slightly gentle in its potency. You’d step off the LUAS or the bus and it would catch your attention. Other times it would be really strong and you could smell it at your desk in work. What a smell…

Approaching St James’s Gate

After all this time I finally got to visit the brewery I was excited because I knew there’d be some fantastic smells in there, just waiting, roasting, brewing away.

As I’ve said before, sometimes the first odours you come across from the Guinness brewery are from the roasting, unmalted barley that carry all across the city centre. More often than not you can smell it best on any of the bridges on the river Liffey. I have smelled it before near St. Stephen’s Green, but the smell sometimes doesn’t carry well through the other smells of the city—the car fumes, the garlicy restaurants, the coffee shops. Those smells are more immediate and closer.

When you get up to the brewery, the roasted barley is sometimes like potatoes to me. I’ve previously written about this, sprouting potato smell before. It’s not unpleasant either, but kind of comforting and as some Dubliners tell me, it is the smell of home to them.

The Giant Pint Glass

It’s worth mentioning at this point, visitors do not get into see the actual brewing of Guinness, which in some respects really disappoints—it’s the reason you go. But you can understand the “closely guarded secret.”

The old fermentation plant is what visitors explore, a giant seven storey pint glass, that, if full, we’re told, would hold 14.3 million pints. Each floor of the pint glass is dedicated to an aspect of not only the drink, but the man, the brand and the brewing process.

The ground level, is about the ingredients. To your left is a huge water feature, the gushing and rushing of the fast-flowing waterfall is slightly deafening, but the smell is like pure clean, crystal water. It’s hard to say how water smells exactly when there’s lots of it, but in this room there is a mixture of copper-like odours. The pool that collects at the bottom is filled with 1, 2 and 5c coins. Wishing coins that I think have mixed with the water.

One level up, is the brewing floor. Here (on videos) you’re shown how the barley is malted, roasted, milled, mixed with hot water and finally, mashed. The liquid is then filtered off and boiled with hops. The yeast is added and the fermentation begins. Fermentation is the best description for the odours in this floor. It’s like stepping into a bakers, before the bread is baked. It’s (yes) yeasty, sometimes sweet and doughy, sometimes sour and sharp. In the other side of the room is a tray of roasted barley. Here, the grains smell like coffee, without the familiar bitter quality. In some ways it was again, bread like. Like a mixture of the two. You can lift a handful of the barley for tasting, and I have admit, it’s like I imagine crunching down on bitter, off-coffee beans. It tastes like really burnt toast too.

The rest of the floors of the pint glass are pretty nondescript. There’s the advertising floor, the pour-your-own-pint floor, transportation floor, the Drink IQ floor, another advertising floor, and a weird convention floor.

The Gravity Bar Reward

At the top though is the Gravity Bar, the head of this massive pint glass, and undoubtedly a great end to the tour. With 360° panoramic views of the city, the Wicklow Mountains and Phoenix Park, it’s kind of breath-taking. Here, you are rewarded with your free pint and, on a busy Saturday it’s like stepping into any pub.

Guinness itself, well to me it smells like coffee, iron and bread, and obviously of Guinness—like trying to describe how coffee smells, it is its own smell, as Guinness is its own smell. Guinness smells invitingly creamy too, and smells really nice. I think I had half a pint or so before I had to give it to my friend, and she wasn’t complaining! I don’t know what it is, for someone who is such a foodie, who loves coffee, flavours, spices, sweet things, savoury things, I just can’t like Guinness. I wouldn’t say I’d be forcing myself to like it either, but it’s an acquired taste in some respects.

Some people “poison” it with a dash of blackcurrant cordial. I think next time I’ll choose to poison myself.

Leaving The Brewery

When you leave the building altogether and step out into the street, horse-drawn carts are waiting for tourists. Need I say what a bunch of horses smell like? It’s an unusual (but not unexpected) smell after walking around the brewery. The smell of fresh and old manure, because they’re so different, is unmistakable and not overpowering. It’s kind of befitting. There’s the smell of sweaty horses themselves, dry and dusty and if you close your eyes, like stepping into a time-warp. With all the cobbled streets, and old world features you could be forgiven for thinking you have stepped back in time.

When you walk through the quieter back alleys back to the city centre, on a day like today, you’re presented with another familiar Irish smell, that of burning smoky turf from peoples’ homes…

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What do you think?

Tried the black stuff before? I’m sure more people think of its taste than its smell, but what do you make of it? Coffee-like? Iron-like? A good-for-you drink? Or a pint of black shite?

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Trusting Your Nose

How much can you trust your nose?

It’s a question that packs a mighty punch. You take your vision so innately for granted, and why wouldn’t you? We’re a species that rely totally on vision. Hearing too. A world of silence and a world of darkness are two fates you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. And sometimes I think about smell, were I to develop anosmia I think I’d sooner drop dead from the shock of the news than the affliction itself—not that anosmia is a killer, but I would genuinely be heartbroken. It’d be much the same as telling a musician he/she is going deaf. Is Beethoven a deaf exception? Is Jean Carles the anosmic equivalent?

Take this passage out of The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr:

Jean Carles went on to create the great Ma Griffe for Carven, a result of pure imagination in the complete absence of the relevant physical sense. Carles’ condition was known only to him and his son. When a client came in, he’d go through the motions, make a big show of smelling various ingredients and, finally, the perfume he had created, which he would present with great gravity to the client, smelling it and waving its odor around the room. And he couldn’t smell anything!? Turin smiles, thinking about it.

I believe this whole-heartedly. A man of Carles undeniable mastery and artistry could very well create in the absence of smell, case in point, Ma Griffe and Miss Dior. Losing your sense of smell is no better (or worse) than loosing your sense of hearing, sight or even a limb. Why is it then in a poll on The Escapist, a staggering 66.2% of respondents said they’d rather loose their sense of smell, followed by a not so surprising 22.9% to loosing their sense of taste? Had the same poll been ran on Basenotes I imagine the site would buckle under pressure—perfumistas clamouring for the exit button not wishing to choose any, not least of all, smell.

I know it’s a no-brainer why those choose smell as their number one sense to sacrifice. For the majority of people, they just don’t care. Smell is, by it’s very nature, a taken for granted sense. I always remember my science teacher telling me in school that we don’t taste our food without our sense of smell. That stuck with me because as any growing boy knows, food is the best thing in the world! I wouldn’t wanted to have lost my sense of smell because I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy my food. The thought made me weak at the knees.

Sense Trust

So what about my question? It’s not about sense loss, but rather, sense trust. I stepped into my elevator in my building this morning on my way to work, and I smelled something, instantly I thought of, “Oh it’s black tea.” Then I thought, “Well, why is there black tea in here?” True, someone could have been drinking-on-the-go, but a dreaded thought entered my mind, “Was I imaging the smell?”

To go back to The Emperor of Scent, take this passage:

Janet Rippard [...] a former nurse, living in a rather remote part of Scotland [...] suffered from a very rare disorder called cacosmia, whose symptom  is that virtually all smells smell vile.

How could anyone trust their nose after developing cacosmia? In a rather cruel scenario, I don’t know what’s worse, no sense of smell, or a perpetual grim one where everyday things smell like burning rubber, burning hair, fresh vomit or running puss. Her words, not mine.

As my, what seems to be an annual occurance, summer cold takes grip I’m slowly, and temporarily loosing my sense of smell. Obviously, I’m not worried, I’m a little pissed, but not as devasted as you might first think. In a way, I’ll welcome the absence of smell. I’ve been here before, olfactory fatigue is actually worse than a temporary loss of smell. With it, I became despondent and uninterested to anything smell and perfume related. A part of this I believe to be down to attitude and personal circumstances at the time, but the truth in the matter was, I was sniffing around me like crazy without a break.

Maybe after a few days of the sniffles and lots of hot baths, my cure-all for colds, I’ll step back into smelling things and fully appreciate odours for what they are. I’m a firm believer in taking breaks from things and maybe we (the smell-a-holics and perfumistas) could learn to appreciate a little cold now and again ;)

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What do you think?

Have you lost your sense of smell before? Do you relish a cold as much as I am going to try to? Or are you not at all bothered?

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Sécrétions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d’Orange – Review

Foreword

I’m sat here on a very wet day with my arm glued to my nose. Or maybe that’s my nose glued to my arm, either way, I’ve forgot what the weather is doing and I can not stop sniffing the most peculiar perfume. The unfairly, notorious Sécrétions Magnifiques by perfumer Antoine Lie for French house Etat Libre d’Orange.

I read about Sécrétions Magnifiques on a blog, somewhere, a year ago and was absolutely mesmerized by it’s conceptual outline. Blood, sweat and semen are the three tenors used in the perfume’s make-up, oh and some spit thrown in for good measure, ’cause, spit helps things move along!

Moving along. I think my jaw hit the floor when I first read this and thought it must be a joke. I genuinely believed it to be one of those highly conceptualized, high-brow affairs. Trying to be different and shocking for the sake of it.

I’m not the first person to discuss the, what seems insane, perfume. Katie Puckrik shows us her first reaction to it as she liberally spills applies the juice on her arm. She wasn’t impressed, but it makes for funny YouTube antics. Denyse Beaulieu interviews the perfumer, Antoine Lie for a fascinating, sometimes, behind-the-scenes read. In fact, a revealing read at that and one I highly encourage you do. And Birgit Oeckher shares her horrific, hilarious impressions on her blog.

The seeds were planted, I had to see what all the fuss was about. I parted with £3/£4 and ordered a sample from Les Senteurs. A week later I held my breath and went in.

Sécrétions Magnifiques

My advice to someone who is curious about this perfume, do not be afraid. True, It’s hard to shake the mental image of what might be crawling around your dirty mind when you hear of Sécrétions Magnifiques’ creation—a carefully considered intention I’m sure. Personally, I think it is absolutely stunning. It does not smell of any of the above mentioned fluids, but instead, I think it tries to capture the impression of these fluids.

It opens with a muted citrus note, the orange blossom coming through. In a juxtaposition of sorts, the clearest, most transparent smell lingers for a good half hour—the metallic note. It’s cold at first. The citrus odour however works with that metallic note that was always there to begin with, but as the citrus begins to fade, the metallic note is now standing to attention beside an iris floral heart. Neither of the two clash, in fact they compliment each other so well in a yin yang, 69 kind of way.

After a few hours Sécrétions Magnifiques really becomes something else. It is for the most part, a linear perfume with a subtle dry down. And I like linear fragrances too but an obvious floral smell is now present and that inital citrus, highly metalic smell has well receeded. It is now soft with coconut milk, sandalwood and opoponax—even slightly powdery, the metallic present in the background at times. With this in mind, Sécrétions Magnifiques is now itself, so soft, so gentle you could be forgiven for thinking it’s as if the furore of sex and it’s climax is now still, peaceful and thoroughly exhausted. It’s as the perfume is making a statement on the number of hours it takes for people, and this perfume, to reach a state of satisfaction and sedation.

This is what impressed me so much about Sécrétions Magnifiques. I genuinely believe it to be a story of sex told through smell. It not only arouses curiosity, but it evolves from initial passion to stillness and calm. That metallic note, always appearing, always receding throughout. Sometimes sour, sometimes sweet.

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What do you think?

Is Sécrétions Magnifiques an over-sexed, over-hyped creation? Does it merit the status of “class” or “crass?” Or, is it something of a subdued, submissively smelling creation?

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Please Don’t Discontinue That

When someone really likes smells, odours, perfume and olfactory delights, they sometimes really, really like what it is they are smelling. A daughter’s favourite perfume maybe, passed down from her mother. It could be a man’s favourite, dependable cologne, confidently masculine, self-assured, ready to face the world in that cheesy way a man does. Maybe it’s a child sniffing the popcorn in the cinema on a Saturday matinee, full of excitement and sugar. Maybe, it’s your granny as she wears that vintage 4711. Today, it was me. And it was a Yankee Candle, Meadow Mist to be exact.

Smells don’t hang around long

It’s obvious, smells don’t hang around long. They don’t exist indefinitely like a painting or say, a sculpture can—a pleasure on the eyes for some. Nor are they like music—most instruments can be played whenever only the noise itself doesn’t last forever. Smells I’m sure can technically last for a long long time. Egyptian tombs have been discovered with jars of resins and spices still wafting their scents. What I’m getting at is that, they are transient in the most possible sense of the word. The smell molecules themselves fade and dissipate into the air.

Any perfume lover will romantically tell you, as I’m about to, this is the beauty and torture of smell itself. It’s kind of sadist.

I’m not sure if I can actually recall a time when I thought, “Hey, where did that smell go?” Like most smell experiences we are sometimes blissfully unaware of their presence. I’ve had a few moments I can remember when I was really young and can remember the smell of food driving me ravenous and voracious. I think all boys growing up have this other-worldly appetite to consume anything edible in sight. I really believe that smell is so central to being human that we use it in this very way, to tell us, “Hey, that pizza with the melty stringy cheese, pepperoni, olives and chicken is too good to pass up, order a large.”

That Yankee Candle

So what about the Yankee Candle? Well I bought this particular jar of Meadow Mist two years ago when I was beginning to notice it missing from the shelves. When the sales assistants were telling me in a rather blasé way, “Oh yeah, it’s been discontinued alright,” I on the other hand was feeling genuinely gutted. I’ve been on the opposite end of this earth-shattering scenario myself, having to dish it out to a few customers in Lush. Yes, they too looked like someone had given them the worst news of their year.

It’s a business thing, discontinuing one product to make room for another. It keeps the inventors and perfumers busy and it creates a strong emotional response in consumers, not customers. Read Purple Cow by Seth Godin for the distinction. A business and its brand would become stagnant if it only stocked the same number of products. As a result, people would get bored and tired of the same old, same old. We wouldn’t progress as a society, chaos would ensue and we would be stuck in some perpetual fashion-lingering nightmare. The world would cease to exist and we would be kicking ourselves for not releasing something new.

I like change. But sometimes, I wish Yankee Candle didn’t discontinue Meadow Mist… It really did smell like a misty meadow, or at least the idea of one.

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What do you think?

Should we remain in some perpetual world where we freeze everything that is current right now? Enjoy what we have and stop wanting more, more and more? Is there anything wrong with wanting to break our hearts and our wallets?

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Science and Smell

Last week I started reading The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr. I didn’t think I’d be as intrigued and curious about a very scientific angle on my passion for olfactory learning. It depends what side of the fence you’re on really if you think smell and importantly, perfume, aren’t a science.

There’s the artistic side of the fence. The creative one, the fine few who are the crafters of perfume and fragrances. This invariably covers the realm of science—an understanding of chemistry being a requirement.

You could be on the consumer side of the fence, buying up bottles and bottles of juice, or, saving up for a truly devoted, special, one of a kind fragrance. Does science come in to play for this person too? Yes, as a direct result from the perfumer.

There’s the chemists side of the fence. Those labourers crafting thousands and thousands of scent molecules only to have a handful selected by The Big Boys and the boys that run those houses. Science is obviously here too.

Let’s see. You could be on the haters fence. For the people that loathe department-store spritzers, over-the-top wearers, foully scented men and women on public transport, or the slightest bad whiff of something that triggers a gag-reflex. Yes these people too are touched by science—buying something equally as foul to cover it all up.

It’s looking like a square shaped fence now and I could go on—making some godforsaken decagon metaphor, but I’m sort of thinking as I type this.

I took for granted that scent, at least not perfume, wasn’t that big a scientific field of study and work. Sure science is everywhere, unless you believe in other things. But I never thought for one second that people in the world were welding atoms together, to listen to the vibrations that “sing” to hear/smell what odours are given off, that an electron bond vibrating at 840 would smell of ripe papaya. That this could be worth millions and that other odours are conceived/discovered in the same principle. And of course, that money is what all this comes down to. How much cheaper can a fragrance be made…?

I’m not going to pretend that I think artificially synthetically crafted/extracted scent molecules are wrong in an industry I know quite a little about—men sitting around sniffing wineglasses full of ethanol—like something out of Twin Peaks. I do wonder where along the line quality just got put to one side? Was it when money overtook everything? Is it really true, some natural materials do just cost so much money no one would then be able to afford any kind of perfume, let alone a good one?

Maybe the flip-side of this is positive. A perfumer’s palette opened up vastly after the introduction of synthetics. And when has variety ever hurt anyone? And really, what’s wrong with making money anyway?

In another sense, it’s difficult for me to fathom maybe the true scale of what replacing the real deal with a synthetic molecule means. Like a child of yore I listen/read stories of masterpieces called Fougère Royale, Shalimar and L’Air du Temps. These three have been reformulated at some point or another in their long life. I haven’t had the great luck to smell either in their original  state, but I can imagine it being breathtaking in comparison to what is sold today.

I know this on some level because I had a rare chance to smell a genuine find this year by Ahmed Soliman, Cairo’s Perfume King as he went by in the first half of the 20th century. In that antique shop in Dublin, on an otherwise wet afternoon, I was stood smelling musk, real musk. And real jasmine too. Oh, and real rose, old rose. Aged rose. There were musk granules still in the bottle and the smell was, deeply deep. It was big, loud, rich and sensuous all at the same time. All the while it oozed luxury, class and real sophistication.

I don’t quite know where I stand with synthetics. Ethically it’s great to see the musk deer no longer in threat in quite the same manner. Civet cats can heave a sigh of relief for the most part lets say, and the North American beaver can piddle without fear. On the other hand, there was something in that bottle of Ahmed Soliman’s that made me weak at the knees… I wonder if synthetics will ever achieve the real thing.

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What do you think?

Have you had a stunning moment with a natural, rarity? Has a synthetic plucked your heart strings?

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