Perfume / Cologne

also learning that you can get a sense for a thing when you read about film, about music, about food, about art, about books, about virtually any type of thing that people would write about descriptively or evocatively, but basically everything you read about a fragrance will be complete bullshit and is way, WAY farther removed from experiencing the product for yrself than any of the above mediums. The concept I formed in my head of these smells from reading about them smells absolutely nothing like the smell itself smells to me; language seems completely ineffective in representing these things. Maybe that's what makes it cool. I mean, what other objects in the world are absolutely impossible to experience even vicariously w/o engaging w/ the object itself? You can look at a photograph of a sculpture, you can read a synopsis of a film and a breakdown of its cinematic techniques, but what of smells?

You should read The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr. It's really interesting and satisfying.

this might be something you would find interesting, arts festival that did a scent/audio/visual thing:
http://www.unsound.pl/news/unsound-launches-ephemera-a-perfume-series-connecting-scent-and-sound

last vestiges of my head cold were acting up last night, didn't think I would get a good read (sniff?) so you'll have to wait a bit

stevie, are you smelling these on their own or on you for each? they smell diff on people than on their own

on a somewhat unrelated note, it's interesting to me how closely I associate certain smells with memories

In certain contexts, Chanel No. 5 makes me really angry now due to past experience

nah I'm putting them on and then commuting to work and sitting in my cube and thinking abt how I smell rn

everyone who has a sense of smell closely associates smells with memory! it's a powerful trigger.

You should really read that book Stevie

The Emperor of Scent tells of the scientific maverick Luca Turin, a connoisseur and something of an aesthete who wrote a bestselling perfume guide and bandied about an outrageous new theory on the human sense of smell. Drawing on cutting-edge work in biology, chemistry, and physics, Turin used his obsession with perfume and his eerie gift for smell to turn the cloistered worlds of the smell business and science upside down, leading to a solution to the last great mystery of the senses: how the nose works.

xp yeah! frags seem way more of a subjective means-to-an-end than any other medium, less abt what they actually smell like and more abt how that smell makes you feel. v powerful stuff.

ugh god I just smell like I gave my grandma a big hug or like some jackass aggressively sprayed me with a perfume that is v much not mine; i don't want to wear Odeur 53 anymore.

I like that one but I can't imagine wearing it full time

just pretend you are John Waters right now

yeah I am trying that and it is just totally not working.

what does it evoke for you? what does it smell like to you?

again, I'll want to smell again with a clear head, but I got kind of a clean baby smell, crossed with a little bit of a musty-but-not-unpleasant vibe, with kind of a kicker of overripe fruit that you left in the garbage can

I really enjoy the review I found on some website
This smells like my cat
By Anonymous on 3/10/2007

oh whoops sorry I didn't read what you'd said earlier

This book is also awesome--who knew perfume reviews could be so amusing?

http://www.amazon.com/Perfumes-The-Guide-Luca-Turin/dp/0143115014

I have no real way to describe how my cat smells, but I would perhaps have a stuffed animal at work that I would spray with his fragrance if I could buy such a thing

philosykos

further reviews of Commes des garcons

wonderwood - this makes me think of a really high quality, very normal scent. high, sharp green notes w/a very subdued musk. maybe a bit of a juniper thing?

black - I had a lot more of an incense feel to this originally, but the second time it really reminds me most of a humidor that's had nice pipe tobacco in it. some muskiness and pepper notes. malin + goetz have a "tobacco"candle scent that has some similar notes

so wait these are all colognes by the same company (or designer?)? Just out of curiosity why are you, mh and Stevie D, sticking to this one brand?

I am not, it's just a recent interest!
I do not speak for Mr. D tho

my relatively inexpensive default is Kiehl's Musk

I am v perfume-dumb but I am such a massive fan of CdG's aesthetic and just playful things that make you go hmmm in general and the frags are so fascinating to read about that I guess I'm kinda jumping off w them.

the more I wear Margiela's (untitled) tho the more I think it's The One For Me

Some of the CdG frags are like almost antagonistic in their aggressive weirdness

I think they want to be!

Their collaborations are kind of cool, although the Pharrell Williams one was ehhh. Kind of wondering what their Monocle magazine ones smell like, except, lol Monocle

btw I was wearing some of the Black one over the weekend when I went to a new restaurant and had this whiskey cocktail that was served in a whiskey bottle filled with wood chip smoke and between that smokiness, the cologne, and some savory food I was pretty much in rich texture overload

I want to smell you guys!

None of the men in my life wear cologne (well, Jesse did but he can't smell anymore ;_;) and I'm so intrigued by the scents you two are describing.

I should buy some for Jesse and just put it on him when he's around me.

wearing currently:

Ivy perilla:
Top notes are Celery Seed, Maillette Lavender, Bergamot, Himalayan Cedarwood, Pine, Juniper Berry
Heart notes are Perilla, Lovage Root, Lavender Abs, Geranium
Base notes are Galbanum resinoid, oakmoss, Pine absolute, vetiver, patchouli

incredible

Do you still live in Chicago? Come here and let me smell you.

i'm surprised you can't now. i love this so much that i probably overapply but who cares.

CLOUDS I ilx-mailed you!

Today I'm wearing Comme des Garcons 2.

It's just a flowery perfume, quite pleasant and fresh, not at all cloying, but not terribly ~intriguing~ either. Still not really getting how any of these are niche/avant-garde

OH OH OH EXCEPT for the Series 1 Leaves: Tea which smells like a computer lab or like plastic!!! It's so strange and interesting! This is by and far the most intriguing one I have smelled so far. Not unpleasant but DEFINITELY nothing remotely like you would smell in a perfume.

All the other ones I have smelled smell like bad or weird perfume, whereas this just smells like not perfume at all.

you need to smell Standard

If you want stuff that's unlike perfume, definitely try those Demeter scents I mentioned upthread. There are about a hundred of them and they're all based on generic scents, like grass, bubblegum, laundromat etc. the "dirt" one is good as a scent.

wearing today:

Distant Heath
Top notes: Coriander Seed, Peach, Wild Chamomile, Bulgarian Lavender, Celery Seed
Heart notes: Armoise, Ylang Ylang, Frankincense, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Octanol-3 isolate
Base notes: Liatrix, Oakmoss, Ambergris, Cardamom Abs, Guaiacwood

brown note y/n

sorry

it's okay, i know yr'e jealous~

Are you smelling these things or are they what is in the marketing?

my friend who is an apprenticing scent maker put it together

i do smell the things i recognize

imagining the smell of those notes together IS making me quite envious tbh

ysi

my friend who is an apprenticing scent maker put it together

i do smell the things i recognize

― clouds, Wednesday, April 1, 2015 5:45 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FYI clouds' friend who is an apprenticing scent maker is putting something together for me, too, and I am UNREASONABLY EXCITED ABOUT IT. It should be done May 20, he said. Can't wait can't wait! I will need to immediately find La Lechera so she can smell me.

Big thanks to you, clouds, for putting me in touch with him!

i wanna smell you!

i have switched from my winter to my summer scent and it's lifting my spirits a little

grateful that all 3 of you will be ready for me to smell by mem day weekend

omg yay carl! so happy i was able to connect you two! i love my scents so much and am getting another more spring/summery floral/woodsy fragrance soon :D

i wannna know more about this custom-scenter friend of yours

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/21/modern-life-smells-so-good-its-killing-the-cheap-perfume-industry/?hpid=z1

imo it's not that modern life smells good, it's that everything has a scent already

Big companies have helped deflate the scents industry by piling on with their own special smells.

After reading that Burr book LL mentioned upthread this seems incorrect -- there are two tiers to the perfume industry, the creation of "pure" scents and the people combining those ingredients as perfumers. While some perfumers work creating products to be spritzed on the body, that ignores all of the scents used in everything from dish soap to dryer sheets to air fresheners.

I wonder if the industry is actually booming, it's just that stuff spritzed on human beings is in flux.

Seems a fairly arbitrary distinction between cheap and expensive scents if things like Katy Perry's fragrance (£11 for 30ml of EDP) falls into the latter category. The decline in "drug store" scents could easily be because drug stores have started stocking celebrity fragrances.

The slow prevalence of chain stores like Victoria's Secret marketing scented lotions replacing entry-level perfumes with other scented products has to be part of it. Same with scented shower gel soaps.