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 The NYT has an article about several American natural perfumers and the passion that drives them to source ingredients from their gardens, leave more lucrative jobs and believe that there can be a craft of natural perfumery which runs parallel to the big perfume industry. The feature also explains where to take online classes and how to make your own tinctures at home. One of the insights derived from the piece is that more and more people are put off by the codes of (semi-) synthetic perfumery and want to find the authenticity that perhaps they experience more thanks to the growth of the organic produce market. It's very true that going from one field of perfumery to the other is not easy as natural-artisanal and chemical-industrial perfumeries rely on different codes. If you are used to one, you will wrinkle your nose at the other in many cases. Having said that, the fragrance industry is turning more and more their attention to natural perfumery, a phenomenon which is especially apparent to me in France. One shouldn't therefore assimilate artisanal perfumery to natural perfumery as a number of artisan perfumers actually use synthetics...
Continue reading "Article about Naturel Perfumers: Nature's Bounty vs. Man-Made Stench {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 The best customers for CK Obsession for Men might be jungle cats or
rather the zoologists who research (and enable) them. In a procedure called "scent enrichment" conservationists use all sorts of scents to "enhance" the lives of big cats on a quotidian basis. Seeing them nearly enter in a "trance" and do "cheek-rubbing" are sure signs that a particular perfume is a hit. Musk perfumes are reportedly their favorites. Using an olfactory bait to retain the attention of felines is also one of the means that researchers
use to get the animals from moving away too quickly from a
data-gathering setup in the field about their identities and behavior. Apparently,
the "best-seller" of the feline kingdom is the masculine version of CK
Obsession over L'Air du Temps, still the runner-up, leaving Revlon
Charlie and Estée Lauder Beautiful in the dust. Big cats then must love
oriental fougères, with this particular mix of green forest-y accord
and animalic notes. CK Obsession for Women, although it quite clearly
echoes the men's vesion, is perhaps too sweet for their tastes? Dr. Pat Thomas of the Bronx zoo hints that it would be good to know what ingredients are used in some popular perfumes among the big cats but admits that the industry's secrecy works against this wish (pssst, you could perhaps do a chromatography analysis and then there is a whole industry that specializes in copycat perfumes, like in Grasse)...
Continue reading "CK Obsession for Men more Important than Food to Big Felines {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 Perfumer Christopher Brosius of Brooklyn-based CB I Hate Perfume, whom we interviewed once, on the blog retraces his career itinerary with the WSJ and says he plans to maybe open a store in Manhattan, move to a bigger plant thanks to the easing of the Recession and last but not least, start a clothing line. It turns out he previously studied fashion at Parsons The New School of Design. On his website he writes, " I continue to explore other ideas & projects that don't have
anything to do with perfume - still they are about making things!"...
Continue reading "Christopher Brosius Talks with the Wall Street Journal {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 A rare form of obsessive compulsive disorder called Olfactory Reference Syndrome (ORS) has been identified and referenced more or less informally for more than a century but still awaits fuller recognition to enter an official classification of mental disorders, namely an entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). People who are suffering from the disorder hold the belief against the better judgment of their entourage that they smell foul...
Continue reading "Olfactory Reference Syndrome: The Illusion of Smelling Bad {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 When I see the word "secret", I think "sensationalism" especially when it's used by a report positioning itself as being scientifically objective. Two watch-groups, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Group have issued a report on the safety of ingredients choosing to look at 17 top-selling fragrances on the market including products such as Chanel Coco, Britney Spears Curious, Armani Acqua di Gio or JLO Glow. The top offender according to this report Not So Sexy: the Health Risks of Secret Chemicals in Fragrances is American Eagle Seventy Seven with 24 unnamed ingredients. While high-profile names may attract more attention and publicity, what this report is implicitly about is the possible presence of harmful chemicals in all sorts of toiletries, detergents, cosmetics etc. ...
Continue reading "Unlisted Potentially Hazardous Ingredients Said to Hide Behind the Word "Fragrance" + a Critique of the Report {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
  Globe Careers of Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail is looking for testimonials on the controversial topic of perfume-wearing in the workplace. You can either send your answer by email or leave a comment in a dedicated thread. You could also do both as journalist Wallace Immen probably won't be able to reproduce all the answers he receives. Here are the questions he asks... 
Continue reading "Globe & Mail is Looking for Testimonials: Are You Bothered by Perfume-Wearers at Work? {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 Balenciaga Ready-To-Wear Fall 2010 © Giovanni GiannoniPerfume - as one may or may not fully realize - is one of the pillars of the fashion industry as it generates a democratic revenue stream that simply would not exist by relying only on the creativity of Haute Couture or even high end, research-oriented ready-to-wear. Selling fragrance bottles is not only a good cash flow source but a brand carrier. A successful perfume will contribute in a major way to building the mythology of a fashion brand. Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, even Dior can be grateful to the perfume industry for their prestige and freedom as couture houses....
Continue reading "A Financial Outlook on Balenciaga Parfums and Fashion {The 5th Sense in the News} {Fashion Notes}" »
 There have been on and off reports about mounting intolerance towards perfume-wearing in public spaces, a phenomenon which seems more typical of the USA and particularly acute in Canada. Either industrialists will have to improve fragrance formulae to make them asthma-proof or protocols of civility will need to be established to avoid the situation encountered by a woman wearing Opium in Saskatoon who got ousted from her commute bus. And consider this, now transit buses will be defined as " scent-free workplaces,"...
Continue reading "In Canada, Perfume Intolerance Mounts in Public Spaces, Honolulu Agrees and The Stinky Bus Trope in Pop Culture {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 Couple Kissing Onstage, NYC/Valentino Lookalike at an Audition, Diane Arbus, 1963 A research published in Psychological Science shows that men are geared towards grading women's natural scents as most attractive when they are ovulating. It is also an olfactory cue that they register and which provokes a rise in testosterone levels in them...
Continue reading "How to Attract Men: Please Don't Wear Any Perfume But Your Own {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 An article in Le Monde dated January 12th, 2010 attempts to gauge the French perfumery professional milieu's positions, or more modestly as it turns out, reactions to the International Fragrance Association's (IFRA) work on listing, regulating and banning health-hazardous ingredients in perfumes. For now, reactions are subdued and expressed with the help of an emotional register rather than a firm political stand...
Continue reading "The Last Straw: Could Rose Essence Be Banned By IFRA One Day? {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
One perfume site one should reportedly avoid shopping at is 69rocks.com according to a North Jersey news report,...
Continue reading "Perfume e-Commerce Selling Counterfeit Fragrances {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 In another example of how our sense of smell is used for survival purposes, Japanese scientists have been researching the smell of the moon in order to be able to identify the minerals that make up its surface. The project is meant to help assess the future possibility of humans settling on the moon by looking at the risks of radiation. We're that close...
Continue reading "Scientists Smell the Moon to Identify its Mineral Environment {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 Two articles in Le Monde cover the topic of perfume and indirectly reveal some discrepancies between the discourses of the actors, namely the perfumers here, and the more hard-nosed and less poetic reality of the business of perfume-making. As a preamble, I would like to say that it is very difficult for professionals to side-step this glamorizing discourse because it is in their eyes essential to the perception of fine fragrances. You can tell the truth but only up to a point. Their job is to make people dream not be overcome by a fit of lucidity. Each article, to me, reveals in between the lines, the somewhat (ouch!) slightly distorting and aesthetizing discourses of perfumers, which in some cases can lead to pranks played on clients that deserve it...
Continue reading "Two Articles on Fragrance-Making: The Aesthetizing of Perfume Discourse {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 Perfumer François Demachy who is responsible for the Dior
portfolio of fragrances but also associated to the development of several other
perfume brands owned by the Louis-Vuitton-Moët-Hennessy group (LVMH)
like Guerlain, Givenchy or Acqua di Parma is reported to have been recently in Korea on a scent trek to research local aromas that could be incorporated in future products...
Continue reading "Perfumer Francois Demachy on a Fact-Finding Mission in Korea {The 5th Sense in the News}" »
 A partnership between PZ Cussons (Imperial Leather, Carex) and the Sea Shell Trust for the blind and deaf lets perfumer Kate Williams reconstruct smells for severely disabled children for whom it is the only means of communication, with touch.
"The Seashell Trust is both a day and residential, co-educational,
non-maintained special school, offering specialist provision for pupils who
have severe and complex disabilities, combined with communication
difficulties.
One boy, whenever he goes to the park, sniffs the metallic chains that hold
the swings. Kate has therefore recreated that unique, ferrous smell and this
is a way of telling him that he is about to go to the park. "
Read more...
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