Perfume is Pleasure

“Please don’t make me smell anything, Laura Beth.” These are not the words to inspire a love of scent or the decision to make a career in the fragrance industry. Yet, a certain suspicion about perfume was Shari Cohn Steinhardt’s legacy.

Not one of those who complain of headaches, allergies and the rudeness of those who indulge, she nonetheless preferred smells that were already there, not the kind you put on.

My mom died in late June and her final weeks were a glorious celebration of the people she loved, food and laughter. She held court and reveled in saying cheerful goodbyes. Her appreciation for sights, sounds and tastes was intense. She rhapsodized about flowers brought by friends, the hustle bustle of hospital life and the gurgling noise of water bubbling in a tank to moisten her oxygen. She loudly proclaimed her appreciation for food, ending months of picky eating - who knew that an orange popsicle could bring such transcendent joy?

Not all food was safe from Shari’s critique, however. There were, of course, the playful death-bed digs about my cooking. “With Laura Beth, it’s never the same way twice… (do not assume, dear reader, that this was a tribute to my creativity)… now Bob…(my husband and her cherished son-in-law)…he always does it the way I like it!”

“But wait, Mom,” I protested, “isn’t this supposed to be a time of reconciliation, you know, where we make peace?” Laughter all around. The point is, my mother was occasionally fussy, but generally elegant. Though not a scent-o-phile, she was an aesthete, a woman of exquisite taste in fashion, food, interior design. She adored beautiful things.

I forgive the rest. And I believe that my mother passed on to me certain tastes in perfume. My grandmother, Sylvia Steirman Cohn, wore scent. My earliest perfume memory was a bottle of Monsieur Worth, a men’s fragrance, on Grandma Sylvia’s mirrored tray. I discovered oakmoss. When I was about 13, my mother returned from a trip to France with a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent’s Y for me. Three generations charmed by chypre.

I have complete peace about my mother’s death and admire her decision to squeeze every bit of pleasure from life, even when death was clearly imminent. I am deeply grateful to her for teaching me the art of appreciation. My love for her goes from the tips of my toes to the tip of my nose.

“Are you teaching this morning?” I asked my husband, a sometimes Sunday school teacher,  when I heard the alarm clock. “Yes, and I really should have asked you to help me with this one.” Turns out, the book of Esther was up, and interactive scent exercises were part of the lesson plan. I scrambled about for frankincense and a variety of essentials. What would Esther do?

You know the story. Nice Jewish girl saves her people from persecution with good perfume. Highlights of this scriptural tale of redemption: “Before a girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics…and this is how she would go to the king…In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem…She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name…Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.”

The instructional catch was sketchy, but adequate justification for our guessing games with incense, fruity woody and floral scents on paper blotters. As it happens, nowhere in the Biblical account does the name of Yahweh explicitly appear but we know he is there, working behind the scenes. By the same token (play along here), all of our scent strips looked identical, but we know they are scented, and clearly unique. God and curriculum designers work in mysterious ways!

Mona (the real Mona) lives in Aspen, Colorado with Missy, pictured here. Mona is an entrepreneur and owner of Main Street Reprographics, a digital graphics company.  Father Ray, a pilot now deceased, often brought fragrant potions home from his world travels to little Mona who developed rich tastes in scent early on. The journey begins.

Mona left home in her late teens to begin a career in printing. Arriving at the airport upon transplantation from Connecticut to Colorado, she felt lost. But then, getting a whiff of her own baggage, realized “it smelled like me.” Mona was suddenly grounded, returned to herself. The scent? Civet.

Closer to the present, I tell her about my obsession: Personal delivery of scents that bring exquisite pleasure. A one-on-one experience. Mona shares her history: Opum, Beautiful, Fracas, L’Air du Temps, No. 5. I see  some patterns and reply with an array of small glass vials of commercial scents containing olfactory tangents.  Mona selects her favorites: Aromatics Elixer and Cannabis Santal. I explain emerging themes. Together, we confirm my observations about her preference for various notes.

The list grows: Amber, musk, nutmeg, cardamom, oakmoss, sandalwood, clary sage, vetiver. The memory and the experience of distinct smells crystallize in Mona’s mind. We can hardly ignore the tuberose and mandarin - these notes keep coming up. We are in mid journey.

But civet! The longing in Mona’s voice is pungent. We must have the real thing.

To meet the needs of clients desiring a unique fragrance, something crafted just for them, I have gotten to know perfumers with a variety of specialties. One of them is Abdus Salaam Attar, also known as Dominique Dubrana, a natural perfumer in Italy whom I had reason to believe might rise to this occasion. We agreed that I would coach Mona to the point that she was ready to request her scent.

I guided Mona to select for him the top three fragrance notes, the notes that make her heart sing: They are mandarin, tuberose and civet. All my clients should intuitively select top, middle and base! She mentions other favored notes as well. Abdus Salaam Attar designs “Mona” and sends it to her.

The word from Aspen: “I got it!! I just got my perfume. It is like nothing I have ever smelled before. It is a little bit musky, powdery. It is very light, like a feather. It is not an old scent, it is not a young scent, it seems very natural. As soon as I can I would like to create another. What fun having my own scent. I feel sooo special.” The journey will continue.

Abdus Salaam Attar took a special liking to this custom creation, shared it with some Basenotes bloggers who have commented on a few threads upon the scent, and added it to his own permanent repetoire of scents available to the general public. My own personal comments on Mona Lisa are on Basenotes along with the rest. On this post, I write as the midwife, not as a perfume critic. Obtain your sample here. And of course, contact the real Mona for all of your digital printing needs. You don’t even need to travel to Aspen, Colorado, though of course, you want to!

I’ve been trying to spit that out for over a year. This week as we sat around The Connecticut Forum, thinking of ways to juice-up Food for Thought, Sandy told us what just happened to food. Read what Mary Eberstadt has to say, or Prudes at Dinner, Gluttons in Bed, by George F. Will. This clears the way for my news.

Perfume culture isn’t just for those who spend their free time debating the virtues of Mysore sandalwood over the Austrailian variety. It is also for the 12 year old from North Carolina who wrote this to me:

“Dear Laura Donna,
My name is Christa. I live in North Carolina. In my science class we are doing a year long project. I chose my subject on perfumery. I know there aren’t really any one or two sentence answers to my questions but i was wondering… how does perfume have different fragrances? what are some main things mixed into it? Any information would really help. You don’t necessarily have to answer those specific questions. Thank You for taking your time into reading this… Christa”

It is also for the woman I called when a workshop was snowed out - you never know what burning questions a student might have. Her husband, when they courted, had warned her off “that smelly stuff you spray on,” and she abstained for 50 years. Now, in his honor, she wanted to know: “Do they make perfume in a lotion or cream?”

Avery Gilbert put it to me this way: It is time to bridge the gap between “perfume island and the rest of smell world.” Stay tuned for perfume edutainment! Start by thinking about all the good things you’ve smelled today, or plan to.

If you are still catching up on food, contact Sandy or any of my friends at the Forum for your tickets to hear Alice Waters, Duff Goldman and Anthony Bourdain with local Connecticut hero/radio personality/author/four-time Forum moderator Colin McEnroe.

Some wear fragrance as a private conversation with self and those close by. Leaning in for a kiss, that’s the time another should detect your fragrance, according to Anya McCoy, who created cult favorite scents Kaffir, Pan and Fairchild and heads the Natural Perfumers Guild. Many are frustrated, however, when their scent goes unnoticed by a broader audience. They expect those compliments to keep flowing even after they’re gone. “Wasn’t it nice when Mona was here? Too bad she left, but at least we have her perfume in the air to remember her by…”

I have close friends in both camps.

Some perfumes that won’t let us forget you:

Addict
Agent Provocateur
Alliage
Aromatics Elixir
Calandre
Coco
Estée
Eternity
Farnesiana
Fracas
Habitana
Opium
Paloma Picasso
Youth Dew
Yvresse

Sillage (pronounced see-yaaaj) is the French word for wake. To see additional recommendations for “great sillage” read Perfume of Life, a playful and informative blog.

Photo by Sara Zarrella, my neighbor at the Grace Ormonde Grand Bridal Show. Sara’s photos make a cameo on this bridal show video by Bruce Cullen at Dream Images - look for a wire cage sporting her great shots. You’ll enjoy the gorgeous runway show, jazzy music and may even catch a glimpse of my home page banner, 16 feet tall!

Unless you do your part and comment, this post will generate more heat than light. While waiting for the experts to show up, I shall attempt to compensate with intrigue for what I lack in knowledge.

I want to know: Why do so many people not look at you like you’re crazy when you say that something smells “green?” Galbanum, cut grass, vetiver, oakmoss, lavender and basil have fragrances we consider to be green.

Color and scent, what’s up with that?

Grass is green, but does that make its smell, when freshly cut, green indeed? Cool, fresh and airy, the sky, the sea, blue, of course. Dry wood, brown; moister, mossy varieties, add a touch of yellow.

Estée Lauder’s Cinnabar and Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium were packaged very effectively with touches of a warm brick red, evocative of an item you might find somewhere more exotic than New York.

Are we simply reinforcing sensory associations linguistically, or is there an intrinsic physical color to the smells?

Forgive me, the reference to synesthesia was a red herring; I am not above pandering to search engines.  Richard E Cytowic, author of The Man Who Tasted Shapes, in his online article: Synesthesia: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology, admits:  “It is rare for smell and taste to be either the trigger or the synesthetic response…I have found no other in which sight evokes smell; and…I have found none in which smell itself is the trigger.”

But maybe I will stumble onto some truth about scent and color by accident. In the worst case, the fiction is a pleasant diversion.

Robert Tisserand, in the classic tome, The Art of Aromatherapy, asks: “What are scents if not invisible colours? In Krippner and Rubin’s The Kirlian Aura it is suggested that if the sense of smell is connected with electromagnetic waves, one might expect the skin to be sensitive to odors. This is not as farfetched as it may sound. We know that the skin is especially responsive to essential oils, but much more impressive is the fact that some people can see with their skin.” He goes on to talk about Rosa Kleshova, whom the Soviet Academy of Science certified as capable of reading newsprint with her hands and elbows, and describes the ordinary Russians who are trained to distinguish colors by touch, with red being sticky and yellow, slippery.

How does this relate to our conversations about perfume? I covet your thoughts.

What a riot! Just when we were supposed to fade from a long day of lectures, out comes the exuberant Jeanine Recckio, founder of Mirror Mirror Imagination Group. She’s a double espresso, the world’s only beauty futurologist. Jeanine brought us Jessica Simpson’s lick-able scents based on her work in the porn industry. That’s Recckio’s work, not Simpsons’. And by work, I mean…oh dear! Hope you are OK with all of this. Too late to leave the room and no time for seatbelt fastening.

Virtual air, augmented reality, clouds, non-moments, fresh air for sale in fragrance-free zones. Bubble-ologists. Anti-aging flavors. Time-release fragrance injected under the skin and programmed for future delivery. Emotional engineering, sexology, digital pheromones, heterosexual and homosexual fragrances now in clinical trial. Scents to extend the benefits of a three-hour nap so you get the eight-hours of rest you wanted. Living, breathing and scented wall-space. Fragranced germ warfare. Fabrics with ceramic polyesters to generate emotion while regulating sweat. iPod scent play lists. Endorphin-branding.

We all knew the developments mentioned above were on their way before attending Fragrance Business 2008, didn’t we? Oh wait, Jeanine corrects us, we are not talking futures; many of these unbelievable technologies are already in use. Tell us more, Jeanine. A guest post on Perfume is Pleasure?

Just Axe! Women will tell you that men who smell good look better too. Axe is the American name for a popular deodorant called Lynx in Europe.

The Economist reported that women find men who alter their natural scent with fragrance more attractive than those who do not. Interestingly, it is not the direct effect of scent on women, but rather, the body language of scented men’s increased self-confidence that drives women wild. The December 18, 2008 issue detailed findings of Unilever’s collaboration with University of Liverpool researcher Craig Roberts and his team.

Here’s how the study went. Two groups of men were given identical-looking spray containers, one with a scented deodorant, while the other was devoid of scent and deodorant properties, a dummy. Researchers did not know which containers were which, double-blinding the study to eliminate potential bias. No research subjects knew the purpose of the experiment, so participants with the deodorant dummy did not question its impotence.

Psychological tests conducted over several days showed that self-confidence of the men with real deodorant had increased by their own report. And here comes the “Lynx effect” – this occurred to the point that women watching short videos of deodorized and scented men, without smell-o-vision, found them more attractive. The operating explanation is that these men carried themselves in a visibly more appealing way and female observers caught the vibe. Still photographs of men in the scented and unscented groups did not provoke differing reactions in the women.

The Economist concludes: “To attract a woman by wearing scent, a man must first attract himself.” Cool cats are onto the Lynx effect.

Because Raffaele Ruberto’s products and skin care advice have taken at least a decade off my looks? Maybe on account of the bio-active organic ingredients so richly concentrated that high-end celebrity skin care types want to buy him out, dilute the formulas and Still make money? No. Because he sources organically and generously donates profits to reforestation and other environmental efforts? Try again. Do we care because mod.skin products deliver premium results at prices you would never expect? True, but not the answer I was looking for. Tired of guessing why mod.skin products are news here at Perfume is Pleasure?

Because they smell good, silly!

I love the Samurai Scrub. Forget the complexion enlivening enzymatic effects, turbo charged by spherical jojoba beads that do not micro-gouge your face like other harsh abrasives. Focus simply on the transporting essence of geranium, long known to aromatherapists for its anti-depressant effects. Geranium is a soothing gift to our nerves and emotions.

Another favorite is the Alchemist’s Mask. Yes, I watched a woman complaining of roseacea transformed from ruddy to sallow by her facial with the mask. Though becoming “sallow” is not a big sell for olive-skinned types, is comes as great news for the unwillingly pink. What I love most about the mask is being transported to the great outdoors. Linden, birch, lavender, rose hips, chamomile, wheat grass. When the mask is activated and applied, you are in a sunny field of wheat. Richly vegetal, earthy and clean, nutritious. You know it is good skin nutrition by the smell.

While the Daily Re-Vital Cleanser (a cedar, lavender, white grape and chamomile treat), Samurai Scrub and Alchemist’s Mask deliberately create spa experiences with their scent. The mod.skin moisturizer and face and eye serums are very low-key in the fragrance department but not on functional benefits. Mod.skin founder and developer Raffaele Ruberto is too mod.est (so I should leave the puns to my father-in-law?) to advertise the serums as an instant face-lift in a jar - but just listen to his clients rave. Models hip to the serums would not think of doing a photo shoot without first sculpting the look. Mod.skin adds no scent for its own sake - you just get the glorious smell of natural ingredients chosen for their skin treatment benefits. My olfactory delight is an accidental by-product!

Most people don’t know that much about perfume and cologne. Combine basic ignorance with any of the following:

• A scent that once thrilled, but now annoys
• A discontinued favorite
• Confusion morphing to outrage as we accept the reality that manufacturers tamper with the formula and eau de wonderful is now eau de just ok
• Discomfort with the department store scene
• The search for one’s very first fragrance — a potentially joyful but intimidating rite of passage at any age

Goodness knows Adonis and Aphrodite in the glossy perfume advertisement (you know, the three pager with no scent strip) are not spilling the juice in the bottle. Her face says, “You bore me to tears, but I can’t live without Brand X perfume.” His face says: “It’s the body, stupid, and Brand Y cologne.” A picture is worth one thousand words and precisely zero smells.

Actually, the words don’t help much either. Perfume Advertising Bingo (scroll down the page, you won’t miss it) spoofs the futility of seeking guidance from industry promotions. At any moment in time, a fragrance manufacturer, advertiser or retailer may not be motivated to promote the scent that is Perfect for You. You suspect that it exists. But how to find it…