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Scented Thoughts Archive
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 The pilot launch of Eau de Stilton is generating quite a stir. People are adopting a wait-and-see attitude to see if this perfume concept will flounder or not. The dairy farmers who have come up with the idea are selling at this point about 200 sample-bottles (the price was not mentioned) hoping that the perfume will catch on. If it does, it will go into mass production. At any rate, even if the perfume does go down, the SCMA will have succeeded in drawing much attention to themselves. There is indeed a successful advertising campaign going on right now for the association of Stilton makers...
Continue reading "Scented Thoughts: More on Eau de Stilton & on Milk, Seduction, and Fragrances" »
 This is just a small reminder that on Mother's Day, Sunday May 14, a group of participating perfume and beauty blogs will each be fundraising for the charity of their choice. For each comment that you will leave here, $1 will be donated to the Orphan Foundation of America. There will also be a drawing for a 1 oz bottle of Eau de Patou, a hard to find fragrance (sorry, it's the only size I was able to find).The event was initiated and organized by Katie from Scentzilla!
 Orphan Foundation of America has served thousands of foster teens all across the United States. From teaching youth how to balance a checkbook, write a resume, and apply for that first big job, to testifying before Congress and State Legislatures, OFA has long been a vocal champion of foster teens… Each year OFA and its scholarship partners award more funding and provide a stronger safety net for those pursuing post-secondary education.” OFA also received a four star rating from CharityNavigator, which can be viewed by clicking here. In addition to financial donations, OFA also has opportunities for knitters to donate the products of their artistry. There is additionally the option for women to join the Pink Panel, run by The Benchmarking Company, who will donate $5.00 to a scholarship fund run by the OFA each time a woman joins or fills out a beauty survey. You can go to Benevolent Blogging for more detailed information on the participating blogs. Here's a current list of participating blogs:
 I am inaugurating a new column and in it, I will offer information about travel intineraries, promenades, and places that are perfume-related.
The search for perfumes leads to travel in time and the discovery of new imaginary geographies that are enhanced by the spatial setting, the place in which we may find ourselves. Oftentimes we may think that the experience of a fragrance is limited to the liquid art form itself, then perhaps sometimes extending our perception to the bottle in which it is contained as the architectural form that gives shape to fluidity and transiency incarnate. But we cannot stop there, for if, we become conscious of the influence emanating from one's physical environment and which impresses itself on our thoughts and emotions, then we become aware that the perfume, as an object to be seen, apprehended, and not simply inhaled, is contained in a room, a space ot its own. At the same time, the scent will open up the confined limits of that particualr space and tear down the wall of that particular room, for we are transported elsewhere, while being irremediably present.
In the 17th century, special perfume drawing rooms were created to, not only attract a clientele of perfume connoisseurs, but also to have them stop their steps and engage in the sensory plenitude of a reserved space dedicated to the cultivation of the fifth sense as well as to the visual, tactile pleasure of holding bottles and aesthetic contemplation. Conversations in these "Salons de parfums" were lively too. Today, we can see a distant echo of that more complete, elegant, and insightful practice in the design of a Maître Gantier & Parfumeur store or of an Annick Goutal store.
But we do not need to rely solely on a pre-designed architecture, we can also mentally compose that geography of desire, following paths, taking the road, meandering through the streets, and stopping at last in scented havens of our own choosing. We may also stroll in gardens or near fields and in doing so associate promenades, spaces and scents more closely. We thus become connected to the world in ways richer and fuller, imagining and remembering and searching, always. My scented address of the day is a store address: Parfums de Capucine, 18, rue des Capucines, Paris 2ème. Tel: 01.42.96.02.46. This store specializes in niche perfumes and hard-to-find vintage fragrances.
 For whatever reasons people decide to compile lists, and lists of perfumes in particular, I find the results of this activity to be usually both interesting and entertaining as well as informative for the consumers that we are. The activity itself is fascinating, pointing to a seemingly innate urge to categorize the world and bring added meaning to it. Making lists is also a cataloguing activity; we want to store knowledge and preserve it in a clear and accessible way. How do we classify fragrances and symbolically re-work the ready-made, packaged material presented to us by perfume brands? How do we symbolically re-order nature and society through the classification of scents? What values are expressed through that activity? How aesthetically satisfying can lists be? These are some of the questions I want to raise.
Lists, furthermore, are fun, beautiful, creative, personal, normative, erudite, informative, etc. They reflect a critical and selective activity and usually are meant to be helpful as well as be aesthetic pronouncements pointing to a more ideal world. They tell us what they think are "the best of" and where to find meaning, beauty, and harmony. They also offer us condensed, essential information. So, I've decided I will post lists of perfumes or of perfume-related information I come accross. I will probably pitch in too at some point. Don't hesitate to chime in to let us know what you would have put in any given list.
Tomorrow, I will post a list regarding the types of fragrances that certain types of men should be wearing.
Photo is from Institut Très Bien. It is a beautiful, poetical list of perfume notes. No selection here obviously, except in the choice of words, like Siam instead of Thailand. An a priori boring commercial list of ingredients is turned into a little work of art.
 Yesterday, sitting on the couch, sipping my early morning cup of coffee, the lamps unlit, the blinds still un-drawn, and the laptop on, I suddenly became aware of the presence of an exquisite scent surrounding me. It made its presence felt and then disappeared, came back, tenuous and all the more delicate and intriguing for that. I tried hard not to let go of it, now inhaling carefully and more deeply while concentrating on trying to recognize it, focusing even more intensely as I wasn't distracted by any glaring object that I could visualize in the semi-obscurity. Was I dreaming, was it some sort of illusion, or maybe was I just unknowingly recreating an olfactory memory? Now the scent became more tangible, felt intimate, and stayed on. I suddenly remembered my woolen shawl hastily thrown at the back of the couch and the perfume I was wearing the day before, Fragonard by Fragonard! I had never suspected until then how lovely it smelled. That moment served to help me objectify its beauty and I simply had to wear it for Easter egg hunt day, with a renewed, deeper appreciation for it.
I've discovered that it is the sign of a truly good perfume when it can become something else than you thought it was. A truly moving fragrance will possess the power of metamorphosis and will surprise you by taking on different olfactory hues and identities along time. Its nature will be to be both elusive and present.
Photo is from Fragonard
  It is hard to write about perfumes when you are in Paris. First of all, there are too many things to get busy about and secondly, if your mind starts craving certain scents, the craving can so rapidly be satisfied that you can hardly call it a craving and certainly not a longing. In sum, not much to write about. Back in the States, I start forgetting about that sense of satiety and plenty, perfume-wise, that you experience in Paris. I start imagining perfumes, rather than living them and therefore it comes more naturally to me that I should wish to write about them. Scents to me cannot be dissociated from certain places, streets, atmospheres; they add that extra dimension of mystery and imagining of forgotten universes to the present world. So, perfume almost stands to me as a mere excuse, a means of making time stand still and recreating lost spaces.
Certain streets; I gaze absent-mindedly through the window, abstracting from my surroundings, almost forgetting about the very boisterous courtyard outside. In my memory, I go back to la rue Saint André des Arts, la rue de l'Ancienne Comédie and I recreate with great pleasure the impressions of a certain day that smelled of vanilla and patchouli. The scent is Vanille, from Des Filles à La Vanille. There is a boutique there on the corner of the rue de l'Ancienne Comédie and another one on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. "Vanille" just goes well with the neighborhood, I don't know why. I am not the only one to appreciate it, both bottles of "Vanille" at both locations are almost empty. They have been sprayed away by anonymous and familiar hands, women most probably, sharing similar tastes. Passers-by on boulevard Saint Germain are invited to sample three bottles of perfume from Des Filles à La Vanille, sitting on a stand situated on its threshold, half-way standing between the boutique and the street. The "mouillettes" (paper strips) are lovely and fancy, all gold-lettered and rather full of flourishes; I wish I had taken a close-up photo of some of them. They are fanning out in their glass cups. So much inconspicuous attention given to details. Why? It's so ephemeral. I suppose a taste for luxury, a good supplier, and some idea of what civilization means.
Women here like heavier, earthy scents and men do as well. You smell them and they make you think of the depth of history and experience. Of some sort of roots and at the same time, it's evocative of their skins, of the dry warmth of unknown bodies. People are not shying away from their corporeality but emphasizing it. How courageous of them. I am at ease sporting heavily sensual perfumes in Paris, but I think of the trip back home to Massachusetts and this compels me to buy a parallel set of perfumes, lighter, more proper, ones that won't run the risk of being judged offensive. I think more of the risk of invading someone's private space and less of the pleasure of scenting the air, on the street, for strangers to be appreciative of and intrigued by.
This morning in Cambridge, I nevertheless put on Vanille and yes, someone did turn suddenly toward me and looked a bit surprised, an unusually strong scent wafting toward him? I almost did not buy Vanille, the patchouli had such an explosive force at first that I had to take a step back away from the spray in utter shock and olfactory revulsion. Berk, berk, berk! Yet, soon enough the beautiful, rich vanilla took over, appearing deeper and more interesting thanks to the patchouli, softened further by the almond note. It's certainly not typical of what you smell on the streets of Cambridge and Boston. But what then is typical of a Cantabrigian and Bostonian smell? I don't know. I think of a medley of scents escaping through the doors of a The Body Shop, sweet and nice. My husband just mutters now that he hates the smell of The Body Shop, although he is one that pays no attention to scents, he confirms to me that there is such a typical smell imprinting that corner of that street. I think of iodine, of the scent of the sea that sometimes runs through the streets with the wind and reminds you that there is a coast. What else? Maybe Happy by Clinique, because of the many young students who live in Harvard Square? Did I really smell this that often or am I just imagining it? Well, I do remember spying a bottle of Happy that sat almost empty on the Clinique counter at the Coop. I should pay more attention next time and follow the scent trails.
Photos by Mimi Froufrou
    This is where part of me lives, St Michel in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Good old Archangel Michael is slaying evil, a demon with wings and a tail, amidst the bubbling waters. Once a year, at least it used to be so, the students from the faculty of medecine, called "les carabins" literally take possession of the surrounding streets, throwing flour and eggs at passersby and then emptying bottles of shampoo in the fountain in order to complete their rites of passages. The waters turn to overflowing froth until the municipality has to intervene.
Not far from the square proper, there is another mythical animal, a salamander made of stone and gracing an antique portal that very often smells of an incongruous and acrid pee left by passersby, glad to find some modest shade in its corner during the day or at night, the shadows. The house of Gabrielle d'Estrées, mistress of François Ier used to be located there where she borrowed for herself the emblem of her lover.
I find now in this antique stone animal a symbol of my childhood as I remember how I used to contemplate it or glance at it while playing the "marelle" on the street with the grocer's son. It represents for me a world that endures, somehow, the representation of a faithful animal that never lives the house and waits for you to return from your travels, your long exiles. It was there even before I left and will be there long after I die, at least I hope so. And it is scented in the sense that memory is most extraordinarily composed of lingering smells and perfumes.
Top photo by Mimi Froufrou
 I miss my home city, Paris, and so I evoke her through images, words, and...scents. Here, the Eiffel Towers almost smell of flowers. A fabric for a coquettish boudoir where perfumes mingle with the imagining of fresh-cut flowers and the odor of steel?
Scented Thoughts Archive
Page 8 of 8 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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