Perfume 101: 517 posts

Are you feeling under the weather? Pat explores a range of scented cures. (Bois de Jasmin will be back to its regular schedule on March 6th, Friday.)

It might start with a slight headache, or a small case of the sniffles, or just feeling somewhat unbalanced, then it progresses to general malaise and aching limbs. Time to face up to it, you’re sick, and you might as well cancel everything planned for the next three days to a week. Your best friends will be a cup of hot tea, a box of tissues, and a warm comforter on the sofa. Perfume won’t even be on your radar.

But what about when you start to recover and take an interest in life again? Just as you wouldn’t attempt a three-course meal before starting with a bowl of hot chicken soup, you won’t want to go right back to wearing a heavy application of your vintage Mitsouko. Transition fragrances are in order, and here are some of my favorites.

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What makes one a perfume lover? Having a collection that puts the Saks Fifth Avenue fragrance counter to shame? Knowing the minute details of Serge Lutens’s biography? Speaking of fragrance ingredients with an obsession rivaling that of a Michelin starred chef? Wearing nothing but the most exclusive and expensive brands? No, no, and no. A perfume lover, or a perfumista, is someone who loves scents. Period.

Like all hobbies, fragrance can be treated in as esoteric and passionate a manner as you wish, but what I have always found special about this pursuit is its endless variety. Our olfactory palettes are shaped by numerous factors, including early childhood memories, idiosyncratic preferences and particularities of our noses. It’s a fact that we all experience scents slightly differently, based on a combination of individual sensitivities and anosmias. Even perfume industry professionals, whose noses are well-honed to distinguish different ingredients, can’t avoid olfactory quirks, whether it means not being able to smell some types of musk or woody ambers. The wealth of individual interpretations of common smells is what gives perfumery its richness and beauty.

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The following message arrived into my inbox last week:

“Dear Victoria, help me!

Several months ago my wife became perfume addicted. She tried a new scent and was instantly hooked. Since that day no sensible conversation with her is possible. Whatever subject I bring up (varying from Islam to when to prune roses or whether dogs have a conscience), after two minutes she turns the discussion to fragrances.  She  bought a kind of perfume bible and studies it for hours and hours, she orders test bottles and sniffs  small puffs, commenting on them like an old winebuff tasting  Petrus 1996. She has bought some bottles ( “so you need not look for a birthday present next year darling, I have it already”) and is in fact completely out of control.

Dear Victoria, what to do? Forbid her to read your blog? Alternatively, is there a cure for this disease? Where can I find a clinic for deperfumisation and rehabilitation?

Yours truly helpless, W.”

I asked W for the permission to post his message here and to open the question to all of you. What advice would you give him? How do you manage your fragrance hobby to keep things in balance?

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

As the last of the Christmas sales are tallied up, consumer research groups are sending in their numbers and preparing their lists of top selling perfumes in 2014. In many ways, it was a year that brought some surprises and at the same time ensured that some trends won’t be going away. For instance, despite the breathless proclamations of forecasting agencies last year, there are no signs that the gourmand trend is giving way to woods and chypres. The best selling perfume of the year in France is an extra sweet blend of caramel and cotton candy. But at the same time, the list contains incense accented blend of woods and a powdery floral.

The information comes from NPD Group and it was shared by ChallengeS, a French weekly. ChallengeS focuses on economic topics, so if you read French, please follow the link to learn what the new constellation of best sellers means for the French perfume market and L’Oréal in particular.

Top Selling Perfumes USA : Snapshot 2013

Top Selling Perfumes France 2012

Top Selling Perfumes USA : Popular Fragrances Spring 2012

Top Selling Feminine Fragrances 2011 USA

Top Selling Feminine Fragrances for 2010 USA

Top Selling Feminine Fragrances for 2010 France

Top Selling Masculine Fragrances 2010 USA

10. Flower by Kenzo (2000)

Soft and powdery, alternating between floral and musky notes, Flower is an intriguing perfume. It has a gentle personality, but its presence is distinctive and enveloping.

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“It’s so hard to describe scents in words!” This is one of the most common phrases I’ve encountered in my profession. It’s only rivaled by “smell is the most primitive of all senses.” Perfume marketers are particularly prone to wringing their hands over this issue. Our supposed inability to describe scents is blamed for perfume not being taken seriously and not being recognized as art. And well, the reasoning goes, since the sense of smell is so primitive, no wonder we can’t describe odors. Our brains simply don’t have the capacity for it.

As someone who interacts daily with people who can describe scents perfectly–and this includes not just professional perfumers, but also many of you who visit these pages, I don’t believe in our inherent lack of scent language. If we can’t describe scents, it’s because we don’t often have an opportunity to do so.

Both the idea that scents can’t be described and the primitive nature of the sense of smell would have seemed bizarre to Indians in the first millennium CE. In their society, aromas were a part of daily life, from religious ceremonies to seduction, and even, politics. Blending scents and using fragrant oils was not simply common practice, it was an essential element of culture. The art of perfumery was something performed by anyone wishing to be seen as educated and genteel.

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