Perfume is Pleasure

Home scenting goes upscale as your new taper exudes tobacco, fig or green bamboo.

We are ever-more-hip to the great mood a good smell can launch and home scenters now deal routinely with our mental health.

Rick Ruffalo, CEO and the marketing face of Yankee Candle, explained the new possibilities to a group of fragrance experts in September, 2008. Fragrance is used to enhance and remember events, to create environments and moods. Florals and musks for romance, vanilla and spice as invitations home, ozone and pine to relax, licorice and cinnamon to promote alertness and lavender for sweet dreams. Yankee Candle has innovated with No-Smella, the new anti-citronella that expels mosquitoes but refrains from competition with the scent of your favorite hot dog, hamburger and sausage. Highbrow stuff.

Last November, I had occasion to watch gifted scent critic Luca Turin’s face as he smelled a votive of Yankee’s Macintosh for the first time. “A date with Macintosh” was in order, he allowed.

Yankee Candle’s flagship store in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, affectionately dubbed The Scenter of the Universe, is a Disneyworld of home decorating products and scent experiences. This winter, you can buy candles in a room where it snows every four minutes.

Despite the rise of sophisticated notes like leather, sage, geranium and white tea in our ambient aromas, the gourmands reign supreme. Make no mistake, vanilla is here to stay! Home scent developers are expanding the dessert palate with fruit salad, marshmallow, crème brulée and butter cream. I was all nose, er, ears, as Karen Young from The Young Group shared her outlook on the smell of my house, and yours, at Fragrance Business 2008, an industry conference held last month.

How did Karen know I’m not spending as much time cleaning as I used to? She was ready with solutions. There are some home scenting jobs too tough for even the butteriest, creamiest vanilla. Bring the outside in to cover the smell of pets and children. That’s what purchasers of candles, diffusers and plug-ins are doing these days. Greener, less floral scents, clean and ozone notes fill the air. And for that touch of “haute candle-ture,” expect new combinations of sweet and sour, fruits harvested from remote global locations, spice, wood and wine.

Following a playful scuffle over sniffing-rights to my “x-rated” jasmine oil, Kyron, Nate and Jasmine had finally agreed to share when this shot was taken. Along with Yonka, Marnise and Roxie, they almost beat me in an exuberant smell-athon at the Connecticut Youth Forum. It was thrilling to observe the stamina of young people choosing favorites from a large menu of woody, fresh, oriental and floral scents.

Introducing my new friends to the essentials of perfumery was great fun, especially after the jasmine riot ended. The group quickly abandoned my innocuous, sweet-smelling jasmine for a “love it or hate it” version, rich in indoles. Indoles have a decaying animal smell that attracts insects to flowers. Don’t get squeamish; I will spare you further details on indoles. Just promise that you will try to understand as well as these young people how gorgeous they can be as part of a well-constructed perfume.

I delight in conducting sessions like this to help people find scents that bring exquisite pleasure.

We were headed to Montreal for a look at McGill University, since my son David has shown an interest in that school. On the way, we stopped downtown for an errand and got into a parking lot conversation with some friends we hadn’t seen for a while. After we covered college (not my very favorite subject), Helena brought up perfume (my very favorite subject). She had read about my business in the local paper. Naturally, I asked if she wears perfume. “I’m lucky if I floss,” came the reply.

She waltzed down the aisle, all shiny fur and shiny hair, a twittering entourage and more glamour than usually seen on a Thursday in Hartford’s Bushnell Theater. But she didn’t get past me. “What is your fragrance?” Surprised, she turned. “It’s fabulous,” I reassured her. Not like any I had smelled before, puffy, light and ethereal, but for all the delicate femininity, hinting at mischief. I liked it.

She registered my benign intent. “You know, I don’t know. I got it from a friend. I stayed at her house and she left me a sample.” But wait, she dug through her purse. Normally you’d get some details on the pocketbook, but tonight it was all about perfume. “Maybe…oh, here it is! Let’s see. Bond No. 9.”

“That’s good,” I encouraged her, “Bond No. 9 is the manufacturer; can you see the fragrance name?” “No, no,” she inspected the small glass vial as the houselights went down, “That’s it. Bond’s the name.” Oh, well, maybe Bond had its own house scent, something I hadn’t heard about. Then the incident slipped my mind.

Months later, I stopped into the lovely Madison Avenue shop for Bond No. 9. A gorgeous young Russian woman standing behind a display of well over thirty bottles (my estimate) greeted me warmly. I told her I was looking for a fragrance called Bond No. 9. She gently explained that all of the fragrances are Bond No. 9, exactly as I knew and feared to be the case. She and another salesperson who had joined the conversation giggled, but without a hint of condescension. Then he admitted “We have a problem.”

Undeterred, she asked me what it smelled like. I began to speak, but didn’t get far before she reached for a bottle and sprayed it on a round paper blotter. Handing it to me, she asked: “Is this it?” “Yes!” Nuits de Noho. She and I had landed a plane wearing blindfolds. The language of scent. Very handy.

Bond No. 9 flagship store pictured here.