How to improve both your sense of smell and your ability to speak about aromas via wine tasting? Elisa explains.

A few months ago I read a sentence in the Atlantic that gave me serious pause: “In English, there are only three dedicated smell words—stinky, fragrant, and musty—and the first two are more about the smeller’s subjective experience than about the smelly thing itself.” Excuse me, what? I can think of a lot more smell words than that. How about aromatic, acrid, pungent, yeasty, perfumey, resinous, skunky?

And those are just the “dedicated smell words” – but most descriptive terms can be used for multiple types of sensory experience. “Rosy” could refer to a perfume or a complexion, “silky” to a fabric or a voice, “sharp” to a taste or a smell or a sound or a feeling. Our senses aren’t as distinct as we think – most of “flavor” is actually smell (that’s why you can’t taste your food when you have a cold), and sound effects or different color packaging can make your chips taste fresher or your soda taste sweeter. (See also the “McGurk effect” – seeing a different mouth shape makes you “hear” a different sound.)

Continue reading →

More than a month ago we ran a poll on the most versatile perfume. I asked you to name a fragrance or several that you consider versatile and can wear for any occasion and in any mood. You shared your entries–around 700 perfume names total, and I tabulated the results. Since I posted it as a casual poll, I didn’t follow the standard procedures to correct for errors. Please take the results with a grain of salt. I also don’t think that Bois de Jasmin readers represent the general population, so our idea of versatile may be rather idiosyncratic.

The most popular houses are Chanel (150 nominations), Guerlain (65 nominations) and Hermes (58 nominations). Frédéric Malle received 30 nominations and Serge Lutens 25.

Continue reading →

We have our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread this week. You can use this space to ask any questions about perfume, including fragrance recommendations.

How does it work: 1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know what you end up sampling. 2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin, all rights reserved

I have long held that the owners of perfume boutiques all over the world have more similarities than differences–artistic dispositions, creative personalities and a boundless passion for fragrance. It’s not enough to be a good manager and sales person to run such a specialized enterprise. One needs to inspire visitors to learn new things, to expand their horizons and to step outside their comfort zone. For this, energy and knowledge are essential, but so is passion.

Walk past the fanciful House with Chimaeras, whose dolphins and monsters look as if they are about to tumble down on the guards patrolling the Ukrainian President’s office. Then continue past the former residence of  the ballet dancer Serge Lifar and the pale blue Ivan Franko Theater that looks like a Ladurée pastry. Tucked away nearby is Le Flacon, a boutique run by a team of perfume lovers.

Continue reading →

As an illustration of the idea that time doesn’t always separate the wheat from the chaff, two gems–Bulgari Black and Guerlain Nahéma extrait de parfum–have been discontinued. Black has been in limited distribution for some time, but the news of its discontinuation is now official. It has a peculiar odor of rubber and lapsang souchong tea, an anti-trend perfume as it were. As for Nahéma, the parfum was one of Guerlain’s treasures.

Other perfumes to bid goodbye to this year include Fleur de Chine, Lys Fume, Jonquille de Nuit, and Azure Lime, all from Tom Ford’s Private Blend collection. Azure Lime was Ford’s attempt to do an expensive take on a cheap sports cologne, so I’m not going to miss it, but Fleur de Chine was a brilliant aldehydic floral, modern but with a clever retro twist.

Continue reading →