Silver Scent (Jacques Bogart)

Grapes, Gum, Orange Blossom, Bacchus

I've done my best to ascertain why they named it "Silver" Scent, but I've come up empty. I'd like to say that it was their "silver" anniversary, but 2006 is not 25 years after 1975, so that doesn't wash. There's nothing silvery about the smell of Silver Scent, so its name and the story behind it remains an impenetrable mystery.

Methyl anthranilate is a naturally occurring chemical in Concord grapes, and I love how grapes smell. Additionally, MA is found in oranges and neroli, two things that also smell great, so finding it in such unilateral abundance in a fragrance is interesting. When I was a small child, I was briefly obsessed with a pearlescent black plastic necklace that my grandmother gave me to play with. I'll never forget one particular summer afternoon of fidgeting with the beads and marveling at how their colors shifted depending on their angle relative to the sunlight. Silver Scent is the olfactory incarnation of that necklace. It's a blast of black grape soda in the first fifteen minutes, followed by the neon of an expensive grape-flavored bubblegum from the 1990s. But then, an hour in, it shifts to subtle nuances of Joop! Homme, a distinct shimmer of off-white orange blossoms that add a retro floral glow. Bend down to tie my shoe, and it's purple candy again. 

I've seen some reviews that denigrate Silver Scent as simplistic, linear, one-note. It does play one simple tune, but it plays it with an affecting innocence that lingers long enough (and loudly enough) to elicit suspicions of disingenuousness, like the chronically-caffeinated coworker who always blurts "Awwwww!" when someone gets engaged. At its core, this is a decadent fragrance, steeped in the richness of amaranthine fruits and the cheap dessert wines rendered by them. Only a person who has achieved enough in life to enjoy it could wear this and understand what it's saying, a trait typical of the most seasoned among us. Perhaps that's what they meant by "silver" after all.