The birth of a perfume

“To make a perfume is to find a harmony of three or four dominant ‘bodies’ that you smell in your mind. You have an inspiration for a mixture of those three or four bodies, not more. And they will release themselves in such a way that when you have composed the ‘corps’ in the proportions by which you have been inspired when you were in a tranquil, happy state of mind, you will not be able to distinguish one odour from the other among your basic raw materials, It is a perfectly balanced mixture which smells as a separate entity from the odour of each of the three or four bodies you have chosen - and in so doing you will have created the ‘woman’. After that, you have to enhance her, make her more beautiful, do her hair, select her dress, her lipstick, her eye liner, her hat, her wrap - and that is a perfume.”

             Perfumer Pierre Dhumez in an interview with William Kaufman

(William Kaufman, Perfume, E.P.Dutton, 1974)

Stay summer stay

Speaking of scents and their power to let us travel in time... If you, like I, live in the northern hemisphere you're probably also starting to notice the temperature falling and the days getting shorter. My vacation was more than a month ago and the tan is long gone. I use any possible way to keep the feeling of summer with me, because there are still sunny days sometimes - even if one is in the office!

This is what I do, scent-wise to hold on to the summer feeling for a few more days. Nothing advanced. But it works for me so it might work for you too!

- I drink a lot of infusions made from fresh summer herbs. I love a cup of tea and a blanket in the autumn but the earl grey also gives me a november feeling. So my summer version is to use fresh rosemary or verbena leaves and some honey or cocoa sugar. Not only does it taste great, the smell is fresh and uplifting. But try to find fresh ones, you need the right-now-ness, dried will be like "remembering".

Lemon Verbena

- When I travel I almost always bring a perfume home because it will remind me of that journey and of that summer. Using this fragrance gives you just enough of that still-away-feeling. If you didn't get a new perfume this summer then maybe you used one more than others. Wearing that will bring some of the summer moments closer.

- The summery perfumes... There are a few safe classics that inevitably sing olfactory arias about sand and sandals to your brain... Neroli di Portofino and Bronze Goddess are two of the most well-known. For a more discrete effect I like to use what is left of sun screen lotions from the summer. Somehow there always seems to be an amount enough for 2-3 weeks more left. Using these lotions as moisturizer (which post-summer office-schocked skin really needs!) gives a soft scent of summer that stays close to the skin.  Be careful however when you wear summer/vacation scents at work since that is also the feeling that you will send out to people around you - so don't smell like a day on the beach for important work meetings! It is not a very authoritative or reliable signal. Use your nice medium sillage elegant fragrances for those days. But for more off-stage days, evenings and weekends - indulge in summer scents for a few more weeks!

Nostalgique

Scents and memories are lovers that never part. We can be interested in perfumes or not, enjoy or even notice the smells in a kitchen or not - but we can never free ourselves from the psychological effects of scent impressions. Which is such a good reason to embrace that and really indulge in our own private scent stories, adding olfactory details to important experiences etc. This summer I wrote about weddings and scents, how a symbolic scent will add sensual pleasure to such an occasion but also help you return emotionally to it in the future. I know I am not the only one with olfactory childhood memories, like in my case for example this and this one... we all have them, some good and some bad - so if you are a parent think about how you can give your child future treasures in the form of scents that will bring back precious memories to their adult self. If you want some ideas or suggestions on this, you're welcome to contact me. I remember when Swedish newspaper DN featured an article about my blog this spring I received a letter from a woman asking how I thought she could help her daughter develop her scent awareness and what they could do together, like olfactory adventures. I loved that e-mail.

Scent and memories are like the air and the wind, and they clothe the bond between the present and the past of the senses like few other impressions can. Maybe even erase it. The mind reacts to the scent of an absent person's sweater or scarf to a large extent in the same way that it would if the person was there. For someone like me who has an ambiguous feeling towards time as a concept, this is fascinating.

Two weeks ago I was going through my storage. I have a Dad-box. My father died six years ago, exactly six years ago. On the 16th of September, it was a Saturday that year. He died in an accident. Suddenly he was gone. I have lost other people that I loved, like my grandparents, but then their things and worlds also disappeared, much more than in my father's case. I thought it was extremely bizarre and painful the way he was suddenly so very gone but all the things and scents and smells - that I had never previously even been aware of - were left with me. The food in the fridge, the oceans of books, his car, his cigarettes, the laundry that I had to take out of the washing machine. Everywhere that smell of a person who is just not there. At that time it just made me sad, or maybe it made me tired because of the conflict between presence and absence that it created in my senses, and tired and sad were synonymous feelings. For the next years those smells disappeared. And then now, cleaning the storage, finding the Dad-box, I discovered to my great surprise - because I don't remember doing this - that I had kept my father's perfume bottle. Seems only natural now, since my life is so much about scents, but then...I don't remember that I thought about keeping it. I am happy that I did.

That it is even possible for a scent to give you the feeling of someone's presence or of a moment from your past is..., I know the scientific explanations and the logic, but it just is magical. Extra-ordinary. It is not exactly the presence of that person, because they are not present, the dead are gone. It is not that moment back because it is over. It is more like something in your soul gets a little "now"-place to dance in for a moment. Like you are given the opportunity to open a little box, look at it, reconnect with something that is not as close as it used to be, activate a part of yourself that is connected to it - and then get back to business. Scents give us access to feelings. To our own different inner and outer worlds.

Say what?

Perfume lingo... Phuw. I like Philosophy. I really do. And I like softness, love, yoga, the existential mental embrace. All that. But these kinds of rhetorics around perfume just irritate me. I want to ask a hundred detailed questions about what exactly they mean. How they are going to do it. Because these are pretty high ambitions described here, from a psychological perspective. But more than that, I would just really want to know 1) what is in the perfume, and, 2) how they feel about it, what their reflections where in the creation process? I am less interested in exactly how someone at a perfume company has decided that I should/will/must feel when wearing their creation. And I just don't perceive the promise that this bottle is what will "enable me to fully embrace the beauty of living in the present moment each day". If it really would - hey, fantastic! But I mean... seriously. Come on.

Speaking of Noir by Chanel...

Lady Gaga at Chanel. Photo by Terry Richardson.

Where is any of this in Coco Noir?

Montre-toi misérable!

There is one perfume commercial more infamous than any other. Chanels "Balcony" for Egoïste, produced in 1990, directed by Jean Paul Goude. Égoïste was created by Jacques Polge and is a woody spicy fragrance with sicilian tangerine, brazilian rosewood, coriander, damask rose, sandalwood, vanilla and ambrette seed.

Jean-Paul Goude was born in 1940 in Saint-Mandé. He is a graphic designer, illustator, photographer and advertising film director. His name became famous world-wide for the Chanel commercial but many people knew about him already before because of his collaboration with icon Grace Jones. He directed several of her videos and took many memorable photos of her. Their collaboration was at its peak in the early 1980's and their personal chemistry strong enough for her to become his muse and the mother of a son, Paulo. Paulo Goude has a band, Trybez. Here's a moment of their concert at one of my favorite places in the entire world - Paradiso. Rather crappy quality but still. This is his mother performing on the same stage.

Goude is a universe of inspiration and aesthetic joy. Explore his official website or check out the official documentary video So Far, So Goude. Right now, there is a restrospective hommage to his career in Paris, at Les Arts Décoratifs. Go if you can!

The music you hear in the Chanel Ègoïste commercial is Sergei Prokofiev's "Montagues and Capulets” from Romeo and Juliet. With this magnificent take on the complete version I wish you a lovely Saturday. Valery Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

How not to sell perfume

I work with PR and communication so it is natural that the different aspects of sales techniques interest me, from the rhetorics to hands-on practical details. I am particularly fascinated by this, when it comes to perfumes as I think retail generally does have some work to do regarding consumer communication. The gap between the art, knowledge and stories within the perfume world – and the consumer – is gigantic. This leads to people spending too much money on products that are not right for them, which leads only to confusion and disappointment. People buy to much crap produced without neither heart nor art – because the perfume world allows itself be a slave to sales logistics. And the exceptions to these descriptions - they are much less well-known than they should be. Seriously, je déclare la guerre.

I don’t expect every person who sells perfume to be an expert. Although, that would be amazing... But I do hope that you feel, if not passion, then at least respect for the exceptional product that you sell, and that you have the will to create genuine dialogue.

I would love to spend some time with people who sell perfumes and talk about how we best invite and guide others into this world. Selling perfume is not like selling ”anything”, its like being there for someone who is discovering their inner self, its like being an expert of Michelangelo’s art. For crying out loud, all you sales machines – get your act together!

So. Here is a real-life example on how it should not be done. Today after work I went to a store in Stockholm to try Coco Noir. Inevitable. I have avoided reading reviews, just noticed them, because I wanted to discover it with a clear mindset. However, from my post yesterday (and if you read this blog you know), you can picture my stand on the noir side of things.

And here we go… I get to the Chanel counter, look for paper strips, none are to be found... After a while a sales woman approaches me and asks if she can help me. I answer politely ”No, thank you, I am happy botanizing by myself”. This is sign No 1 that she should back off. She doesn’t. Instead she says with the persuasion special effects of a real estate sales machine, ”Oh, this one is SO GREAT, I wear it myself. I have worn it everyday since I got it”. Ok… let’s pick this army of information apart. 1) I am smelling the perfume to see what I think about it. Not what she thinks about it. I could of course be interested in that and some other day maybe I would be, but today I already signaled that I wanted to be left alone. 2) It is completely irrelevant if she wears the perfume to me. For all sorts of very logical reasons like for example the fact that my skin does not smell like her skin. It is just completely irrelevant. The only two reasons why this information would be valuable are 1) if the two of us were identical or at least similar in a couple of relevant ways – and we were just not, and 2) if I really wanted to be (=try to smell) like her, and I don’t, and its just megalomania on her part if she assumed I do. The natural conclusion when someone is testing perfumes is that they want to find a fragrance that smells like them, like the self that they want to be. Needless to say - she has no idea what about me it is that I am looking for in an olfactory reflection of me - as she is only talking and thinking about herself. So all this information about this total stranger leaves me bored and silent. If she really wanted to talk to me about herself, well, weirder things happen in the metropolitan landscape – fine. But she wanted to tell me what to do (=buy) by telling me what she does, taking for granted that I want to be like her. Don’t ever do this when you sell perfume. You are insulting art when you do. If you don't get this or if it sounds to pretentious for you, please sell something else.

You would think that it would stop here. After all, I was totally silent and not exactly encouraging the conversation. But she had more in store. ”You should know (I just love strangers who tell me what I "should") that this is the last bottle we have, they all went flying of the shelves”. Ok. Should I buy it because everyone else that I don’t know did? Because...? By now I am thinking, ”Please, just stop talking, you seem like a nice girl but this is not working out, can’t you feel that?”. But I feel rude ignoring her so I say, ”Yes, it is exceptional, but not as noir as I expected”. This triggers no conversation. I sigh and walk away to the other Chanel bottles to play around for a while. I pick up Coco Mademoiselle. A familiar voice goes: ”This one really reminds you of the other one, they are very similar. They both contain patchouli.” Please, perfume girl… I just said the noir was less noir than I hoped, what are you saying? It’s like you're comparing a man’s mistress to his daughter.

And then she starts talking about a body lotion that is perfect with the perfumes. I leave.

Perfume deserves more than this. If you agree and if you are in a position where you can do something about it, I will gladly support you in any way I can.

Le Grand Noir

I am guessing some of you ran straight to the perfume counters when Coco Noir was released. So, what did you think? Was it as Chanel as you expected, was it noir enough?

I find this launch interesting. As avant-garde and undefinable as The Big 5 was when it was created, the last decades of Chanel olfactory adventure have been less controversial and well, sophisticated but uncomplicated. Noirness stands for something else. For me this step brings some edge to Chanel that is in line with using Alice Dellal as muse. I like this step. But then I am generally into the noir.

The internet is swimming in an ocean of reviews of Coco Noir so I will let you do your own googling. What I do have to offer however in terms of treasures is 1) a beautiful article on the noir from Perfume Shrine that dances with this topic in a elegant, ambitious and exiting way. You will find this excellent piece here. And 2) the magic world of Clarimonde created by magic Lucy Raubertas... get enchanted here.

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Clayton on skin

Oh, this Clayton on the other side of the planet... When I started writing this blog after having decided to make something concrete out of my scent obsessions, Claytons articles on his blog What men should smell like, were among the first texts that I read for inspiration in my search for my kind of perfume rhetorics. I didn't want to write reviews per se, there is an abundance of perfume reviewers which is great for the market and some of them are striking. But I was interested in diving into a world of reflections rather. And I have a major issue with the kind of language you find in oh-so-many perfume ads and descriptions filled with clouds about "unique fragrances that evoke the sensuality in the soul of what is woman" etc etc... To find Clayton's work was inspiring and refreshing. For some reason he makes me think of one of my house gods, AA Gill. I think I like them for the same reasons, eloquence, sophisticated stringent sense of humor, directness and profound knowledge of matter.

Some time ago I went all OH! about Clayton's article on Ambergris. And today I am all OH! again. Read this article. It is from The Perfume Magazine and it just might make your entire weekend. Made mine.

"So perhaps the aphrodisiacal reputation of these animalic 

odors does not come from the materials themselves. It comes from 

the connection made as they remind us of the scented human 

body, a smell we remember from life’s intimate moments." - C.I.

Clayton, writer extra-ordinaire