Perfume Is Design

If you spend a considerable amount of time reading through perfume threads on basenotes, fragrantica, badger & blade, and any other popular fragrance site, an odd trend becomes apparent. Half of the posters pose questions or thoughts about a fragrance's usability. There are questions like, "which vetiver is better for summer time?" and "do you think college-age girls will like an old-school oriental on me?" These questions pivot off performance ratings and sexual cache. They aren't queries about the relevance of a perfumer's self-expression, or the emotional conflicts generated by a certain combination of notes. When someone is wondering about seasonal and sexual viability, their concerns are about one thing: functionality.

The other half of the posting populace is more introspective. They're commenting about whether or not they like a fragrance, comparing fragrances to each other, and describing how fragrances smell to them. Their remarks are usually subjective, highly opinionated, and tethered to a finite scope of personal experience. These posts are about a different thing: interpretation. Often posters combine questions of functionality with interpretative commentary, and generate interesting discussions that suck all sorts of fragrances into the dialogue. A few words on one fragrance inevitably leads to many words on dozens of them.

If the dialogue were limited to interpretive conversation, then I would be inclined to think that perfumery is an art form. After all, the greatest works of prior generations of artists are engines for interpretation of the human condition. One glance at Guernica by Picasso can bloom into an emotional analysis of the horrors of war, which in turn can generate reflections on man's nihilistic hostility toward himself, and the shaping of the modern political spectrum of the West. One does not see Guernica and think, "perhaps it would look best in the foyer during spring time." Superficiality isn't invited to this cocktail party.

Conversely, if one were to pick a perfume, any perfume, and subject it to the rigors of intellectual conversation, this dialogue would extend into numerous human affairs, but would not end with them. An exchange on the Big Bang of modern perfumery as it evolved around Coty's Chypre would inevitably lead to considerations as to where and when Coty's Chypre is best worn, and on whom. Chypre's functionality is an inescapable part of its novelty, as chypres are generally a bit difficult to wear.

Functionality is inherent to design, but not to art. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines design as the transitive verb, "to devise for a specific function or end," and the intransitive, "to conceive or execute a plan." In almost all its definitions, the word "plan" is used. There is an intent, based on a schematic, leading to something operational in nature. We can see this in anything that is designed, from cabinets and refrigerators, to cars and buildings, and even birth control products. Practicality and functionality are welded together in the best designs, and we reap the benefits of them constantly.

Art, on the other hand, is about philosophy, which is one reason why art history and philosophy are often combined in elective college courses. The artist has a view of himself and the universe in which he lives, and attempts to create his own meaning to fill the empty void of existence, and distract from the randomness of it all. Everything, from mechanical portraiture, to emotional free-associative abstractedness, is connected to a musing on man and his humanity. It takes art to convey the inner workings of the human spirit, and for this there are no limits to medium, or to the acceptability of line and image. An artist can present a series of finely-detailed paintings, or just plunk a Popsicle freezer in the middle of the room; as long as his philosophy exerts itself behind the expression, the offering is art.

Perfumery is harder to pin down as design than other designed things, like refrigerators and dishwashers, because unlike refrigerators and dishwashers, it's impossible to see the working pieces of a perfume. It's also hard to accept that perfume does not stray into the emotional grey area inhabited by most works of art. But emotional content is not exclusive to art - there are many facets of design that incorporate emotional and spiritual elements. European war posters of the 20th century are analogs of stubborn commitment to living each day to its fullest, expressed in hard lines and courageous imagery, and are loaded with archetypical renditions of men and women fighting to stay alive and sane. 

Still, these posters are graphic design, as they serve a purpose: to rally people against a common enemy. There is a subliminal and an overt purpose, with the aesthetics of illustration backed by a subversive manipulation of political allegiance for populist ends. Just look at the futuristic expressionism of Der Krieg by Otto Dix, or the Heroic Realism of Victor Borisovich Koretski's Peace, Friendship, Solidarity, No To Facism, and you see how closely wedded emotion and function can be.

Perfumery is its own form of subliminal and overt purpose. And yes, all of perfumery's working parts are invisible to the naked eye. The success of a perfume, like the success of a refrigerator, is not dependent on one creator alone. Unlike a piece of performance art by Raphael Montañez Ortiz, a refrigerator relies on the competence of the person who makes its parts, the person who develops a specific way of assembling them, and the person who does the assembling. A perfume is the same - it relies on a chemist to identify and create aroma chemicals on a molecular level, another chemist to identify how these aroma chemicals work together, and yet another chemist to interpret that data and assemble the chemicals into a volatile construction of multiple aromas which move together. 

This last phase, of chemical volatility on display, is trial and error, much like testing a new refrigerator model before it enters the market. There are times when parts malfunction, and need upgrading; there are moments when certain chemical combinations are lackluster and require changing. Eventually a perfect balance is achieved, and all parts are working well. Only then is a product ready for showcasing.

In perfumery, the very methods of obtaining building blocks for perfumery are challenging, and require considerable skill. Distillation, extraction by expression, extraction with volatile solvents, and supercritical CO2 extraction are all options. In each case, raw materials are mined for properties which yield the highest concentration of fragrance molecules. Once these materials are secured, the hard part really begins. In his 2011 book, Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent, Jean-Claude Ellena relays the conundrum of every beginner perfumer, with a particularly valuable frankness found in Chapter 5, page 43:

"As a lab assistant to perfume designers, I was exposed to different - often complex - ways of formulating fragrances (this stage is no longer part of the perfumer's training). As an apprentice, I learned things that would help me to fulfill the demands of international markets, aided in particular by the use of the then recent technology of chromatography. I was fed on a steady diet of market analyses and odor analyses: essential oils, bases, and perfumes. In my formulations, I combined materials and believed, naively, in the molecule that would change everything and would finally prove my creative talent."

There is little about this that correlates with the beginnings of an artist. Most artists serve no apprenticeships, rarely concern themselves with the finer points of market demands, and often seek to retro-engineer older technologies for new means - not make use of nascent technologies for future hypotheses. Ellena goes on to say:

"The turning point came when I read a little illustrated booklet with a bouquet of flowers on a black background on the cover. The firm Dragoco had dedicated the whole of their journal Dragoco Report to the perfumer Edmond Roudnitska. The subject was: The young perfume composer and odors. Though dated 1962, the approach was new. He spoke of beauty, taste, simplicity, method, in smelling and judging, but also of erudition and of his philosophy of life. He became a part of my life, to the point that I have long held a secret desire to be called, like the subject of the book, a 'composer of perfumes,' although on his business card he contented himself with the title of 'perfumer.'"

Although Ellena does refer to Roudnitska as having a philosophy of life, the two men do not fashion themselves after artists, but as composers and perfumers alike. Similarly, other designers adopt corollary titles of engineer, technician, and producer. Their tasks are based on the calibration of disparate qualities into new and original consonances, for commercial ends. Cars, for example, employ vastly different materials to transport people in a stable manner. Perfumes employ conflicting agents in a way that harmoniously balances skin chemistry with inorganic chemistry to produce scents that transcend nature. In short, perfumes serve the function of making people smell good, or at least different from how they would naturally smell. Without composition, this is not well achieved.

There is a difference between making someone smell of something, and making him smell like something. Certain naked aroma chemicals, like Ambrox, can successfully make a person smell of woody ambers, without the assistance of other materials. Even with one ingredient, a perfumer's ability to identify this particular aroma chemical as having an inherent complexity makes it feasible to bottle and sell Ambrox as perfume. 

But the same cannot be done with something like cis-3 Hexenal. Alone, this aroma chemical smells harsh and incomplete. If one were to bottle cis-3 Hexenal and sell it as perfume, its wearer would just smell like cis-3 Hexenal. Without the accompaniment of hydroxyisohexyl 3 cyclohexene carboxaldehyde, the floral elements to support the basic grassiness of cis-3 are missing. It takes a bit of compositional expertise to achieve the desired green, grassy effect.

It is the implicit goal of all perfumers to make people smell of something, namely perfume, and all the elements contained in perfume. They are not in the business of making people smell like something else. Perhaps it is tempting to point to Demeter, the fragrance company which sells products that smell like specific things, and say "what about them?" If I spray Demeter's Lavender, I will smell similar to lavender, but not actually like lavender - and it's still perfumery, because there isn't just lavender oil in the bottle. There are several aroma chemicals cleverly composed to mimic the natural scent of lavender buds. But if I apply some Caldey Island Lavender, and just identify the lone lavender essential oil, then I'm no longer using perfume, but simply a lavender ointment. 

I cannot say one way or another whether or not Caldey Island Lavender uses lavender alone for its fragrance, and will not try to peg the scent as being "not perfume" here, but one can legitimately question it. Ellena and Roudnitska wrote about the importance of composition in making perfume, for composition is everything in perfume. And composition is an act of design. How well do things function in this order? How well do they function in that order? And so on.

In closing, I turn to a fragrance mentioned in the first part of this "Conundrum: Is Perfumery A _______?" series - Kouros. Pierre Bourdon's classic masculine perfume is a triumph of form and function. It employs natural and synthetic ingredients, composed in a manner to best highlight their effects on skin. It is a marvel of technical contrast, with bright hesperidic notes placed alongside dark-earthy and animalic ones. Smelling Kouros provokes a feeling of happiness, much like the feeling I get when I see a 1958 Chevy. Its natural ingredients stimulate a primitive epicenter in my brain. Its synthetics appeal to my fashion sensibilities. It works beautifully in the heat, and in all temperatures. It's sexy as hell. It is the very essence of modern design.

The Old And New: Old Spice Fresh & Pure Sport

Sometime in the last few years, Old Spice reformulated and re-released its famous "fresh" variant as Old Spice Fresh. Fragrantica puts the start date at 1988, but in fact basenotes has it right - Old Spice Fresh was originally released in 1980 as Old Spice Fresh Scent, and was a minor player in the lineup until its discontinuation sometime in the 1990s. I don't know what prompted Proctor & Gamble to give Fresh another go, but apparently someone was nostalgic.

Fresh always struck me as being a product of Calone's "first wave," one of a handful of discreetly-clean and sea breezy masculines that were mass produced from the 1970s to the late '80s. Stuff like Wind Drift, Blue Stratos, New West. These weren't overtly aquatic, nor were they fruity bubblegum scents, but they all employed a clean Calone molecule that was subtly woven into their compositions for ozonic effect. The basic Calone smell is very marine-like in nature, and mimics the saltiness of a sea breeze. In Fresh, this clean sea spray element is central to the composition. It isn't sweet. It's bitter, mineralic, ozonic, salty, and a little green. It's Calone the way we're supposed to smell it, somehow relegated to the cheapest stuff in the men's aisle.

Even today, Fresh smells very old school and a little clunky. But here's a major point in its favor: it's an excellent ambergris scent, for anyone curious to know what amber smells like. Fresh opens with an incredibly bitter melange of salted lemon, bergamot, and frosted galbanum, and bitchslaps my sinuses for a good fifteen minutes before softer notes of dry cedar and amber emerge, perfectly haloed in Calone - or whatever they're using to imitate Calone nowadays. It smells like a cold Atlantic wave breaking against grey shale somewhere along the coast of Maine. 

I also find Old Spice's newest brand of "Fresh" next to them in massive 6.5 ounce bottles, labeled Pure Sport, from 2004. This fragrance is a more modern OS variant, and has seen immense success in bodywash and deodorant form. I like that they make it in aftershave form as well. Pure Sport is not your average formulaic sport scent. In fact, it's not a sport scent at all. A basenoter called Cipriano accurately states that Pure Sport smells of 60% Old Spice and 40% Allure Homme. Actually, I'd reverse the poles on that, as I get a stronger Allure vibe. But Pure Sport isn't really a fresh fougère - it's a fresh oriental, and to be honest, the aftershave version smells a lot different from the bodywash and deodorant. 

The bath products smell "sportier" and brighter, while the tonic is warm and smooth, with distinct notes of sandalwood and opopanax under light touches of grapefruit, clove, and anise. The fruity undertow is attributable to some variation of Calone, no doubt a cheap stand-in for the fruity Water of Joe Calone of the '90s. This is more wearable than Old Spice Fresh, but not nearly as interesting. Still, it's excellent value for the quality - Pure Sport smells like it should cost four times as much as it does.

If you're looking for respectable "fresh" scents, and don't have much dough to blow, P&G offers two excellent options for a combined total of $15. You won't smell like a big spender, but you'll definitely smell good, and a whole lot better than that fat asshole on the S-train who douses himself in L'Eau D'Issey.

Mimosa (Czech & Speake)

I like a dirty floral perfume as much as the next guy (assuming the next guy is sufficiently deranged enough to bear comparison with me), but some perfumes are a little too dirty. Mimosa by Czech & Speake is one such perfume.

Czech & Speake is one of those niche brands that consistently wows me. Rose is amazing, albeit a bit simplistic. Dark Rose is even better. Cuba is a pleasure to wear. Citrus Paradisi is problematic, but I respect what they were going for there. But Mimosa is, literally and figuratively speaking, one hell of a stinker.

It's not difficult to review because it isn't very complex, and it doesn't move much. It opens with a sweet burst of ylang-ylang and jasmine. The ylang is perky and lends the floral arrangement a bright texture, while the jasmine is velvety and tempers the sharpness of the ylang with a softer kind of "sweet." The pair is nicely rendered and provide a clever intro to a mimosa soliflore.

When the star note arrives, it is loaded to the hilt with dirty indoles, creating a bitter pungency that makes my nose wrinkle and my sinuses close up. It smells like an overripe flower and a burnt match. On the one hand, I like indoles, and gravitate toward their funkiness like a fly to a neon beer sign. On the other, I'm not particularly fond of how these indoles work. Their intensity is repellent, and they make the fragrance smell like a granny perfume on steroids. Mimosa has been compared to fancy hand soap, but this is closer to soap from a tawdry French brothel.

Once it reaches this starched and pooped apex, it gradually fades into a whisper of its former self, and becomes more tolerable. I guess it holds up the C&S tradition of being balls-out and red-blooded, but it's simply a good concept, executed a little too well. It's a shame they missed with this scent - they were so close.

Violetta (Penhaligon's)

I have an odd relationship with violets, perhaps because I'm a man who likes how they smell, and doesn't mind wearing them. To me, violets are about green shadows, wet earth, night-blooming romance. They're the stuff of mystery, and the men who build mysteries. When rendered honestly, they smell incredible.

When rendered dishonestly, all the inherent good and evil of violets is tragically undone. It's a fine line because there's very little difference between a good violet scent, and a bad one. The best and the worst smell sweet and green alike, with only subtle variations to distinguish them. A good violet scent - perhaps the greatest available to men - is Grey Flannel. I feel like my soul is on my skin when I wear Grey Flannel. Swirling remnants of anything that is fair and foul about me manifests in its well-oiled machine of imploded lemon, violet, violet leaf, oakmoss. Any remote fleck of selflessness and personal sacrifice is nicely suited to its sweetness; duplicity and murderous impulses are the shadow matter of crushed greens under its mossy thicket, providing shadow to the light. There aren't many fragrances that operate this way. While most frags simply accompany me, Grey Flannel becomes part of me.

Not so with Violetta by Penhaligon's. Is it any irony that Violetta was released the same year as Grey Flannel? Perhaps, and the meaning isn't lost on this violet fan. Where Grey Flannel conveys a natural scent profile, Violetta settles on blatantly synthetic aromachemicals to convey an empty expression of "chic." Violets have a natural sexiness built into their fragile scent, and if a perfumer frames their earthbound allure with other natural notes, as Andre Fromentin did, the result is beguiling. If the nose decides "natural" isn't enough, and filters violets through gobs of naked Ambrox and Galaxolide, the result is headache inducing. Needless to say, Violetta is a migraine in a bottle.

Despite its crudeness, I can sense what the perfumer behind Violetta was going for: a crisp, green, dusty violet, with hints of wood and musk as supporting players. Looks good on paper, but in practice it's a disaster. The opening violet note is piercingly bright, sickeningly sweet, and possesses the demeanor of an expensive air freshener - not a fine fragrance. It rapidly becomes obvious that the synthetic violet bombast is playing bicinium to coarse musk. The musk note is almost odorless, yet louder than the violet. It was meant to lend the sweet greenness some loess for relief, but instead just expounds on the already-bad. There are precious few wearable violets for men on the current market, and this one bites the dust. Literally.

I find it amusing that Grey Flannel, at only $12 for 4 ounces, eclipses a $125 perfume by such a wide margin. But as a guy with an eye on quality instead of price, I don't find it surprising in the least. Experienced male fumeheads know how easy it is to smell amazing for under $15 - you just have to know that what feeds the soul usually spares the wallet. With their fragrances consistently underwhelming me, I see no reason to jettison this credo for Penhaligon's, and certainly wouldn't waste time on something as offensive as Violetta.

Inis (Fragrances of Ireland)

I have fond memories of Ireland. If you conjoin all the months I spent there, you'll find I've given about two years to Ireland, and enjoyed every minute of it. My parents used to take me when I was a young boy, and in more recent years I've stopped in as a halfway point between continental Europe and the States. It's been five years since my last stop, and I do miss it quite a bit. People often assume that I'm Irish (my history there, and my name), but there isn't a single drop of Irish blood in me. I'm Italian American, a quarter Polish on my mother's side, and my last name is Italian. 

"But," you ask, "why spend so much time in Ireland then?" The answer is actually a lot simpler than you think - my family spent months at a time there because it was a good retreat from our fast-paced life in America. In 1993 they purchased land in Sligo, and in 1995 they hired an architect to design a house. The design was based on a crude drawing, done by my mother on a napkin at Bewley's. In 1996 the architect hired a local Spanish-Irish (called "Black Irish") builder and his small crew of six or seven guys, and the house was finished by the end of the year - without the use of any power tools. From 1996 to 2008 my family and I would visit and spend time, until all was sold in the autumn of 2008 to a local couple who wanted it for raising a family.

Our house in Ireland, "Mag Mell"

One of the things I remember was the introduction of Inis, sometime in the spring of 1998. Inis was a phenomenon in Ireland, possibly their best-selling fragrance of all time, even to date. You could find it in every gift shop, department store, grocery store, and airport. Touted as the "scent of Ireland" and backed with loads of oceanic imagery, it announced itself everywhere as being a fresh aquatic. 

My interest in fragrances was minimal back then, and I didn't give much thought to the banality of aquatics, or wonder why F.o.I. didn't opt for a "greener" fragrance, given the abundance of greenery there. Whenever I saw a tester, I spritzed some on my hand, and always thought the exact same thing: nice, but nothing special.

Revisiting it now, all these years later, Inis has held up rather well. I still feel it's quite nice, but nothing special in the least. By "nice" I'm saying Inis smells fresh, salty, a little beachy, and generally good. It's a skin scent and doesn't project beyond a couple of inches, which probably helps it. It opens with a piercing bergamot and lemon, which rapidly effloresce into a breezy, briny, and heavily-salted sandalwood and musk. 

I always interpret sandalwood as being driftwood in aquatic fragrances, and Inis is no exception - the wood notes are subdued, but very dry and warm, providing a muted contrast to the cool sea breeze washing over it. The heart is little more than a mild glow of sweet greenness, presumably the floral notes I see listed everywhere, which vary on every site. I get a touch of muguet, and the faintest hint of clove, which reality-checks all the freshness with its mentholated soot. The effect is similar to that of Hedione's in Eau Sauvage; Inis' clove is inherently spicy and degradable amidst all the fluorescence.

Fragrances of Ireland is a very competent niche firm, and they specialize in perfumes that approximate the olfactory assets of Ireland's geography. Driving through the countryside, one is exposed to an endless barrage of scents and accents - clean, salty air, bitter grasses and nettles, the gentle sweetness of Fuchsia, the occasional waft of fetid manure, and the singularly smoky earthiness of peat bogs, and burning peat.

Many of these scents are captured in Patrick, an excellent fougère. But Patrick falls short of conveying the Irish coastline, so Inis picks up the slack. Salt and ozone, wet, woody sand, the remote greenness of nearby fields, all are well encapsulated in the basic effect garnered by a few sprays of Inis. It's a simple pleasure, well executed, but still . . . just aquatic. Atlantic-aquatic, very cold and brisk, but aquatic nevertheless. It had a modicum of originality in the '90s; today, Inis is just another pretty face.

It doesn't smell of detergent musks and watermelon gum, so these are points in its favor. It's also very unassuming and maintains a modest presence, even after generous application. This isn't L'Eau D'Issey and The Chemical Comanches playing your local dive bar. This fragrance is pleasant and very well behaved, a lonely solo player. I whole-heartedly recommend Inis to anyone with a hankering for a sugarless aquatic. It's a pretty little fragrance from a gorgeous country, and the loveliest people on Earth.

Wind Song (Prince Matchabelli)

Luca Turin once said that feminine perfumes become masculines with age, and it's one of a precious few bits of Turin's wisdom I completely agree with (I'm a bit of a petulant asshole, you see). Those old chypres and orientals really don't match today's concept of "feminine." Wind Song is one of them, a fragrance that blares its woody and green notes from a mountaintop, and smells very adult, very sincere. 

It hearkens from 1952 or '53 - there are conflicting reports - and yet it makes me think that women in the 1750s smelled like Wind Song. Even though it's a twentieth century perfume, it is very classically poised, incredibly well composed, and ridiculously inexpensive. I wish I could build a time machine (or tinker with a DeLorean) and go back to check it out, just to see if this scent isn't on some French aristocrat's night table.

I've never knowingly smelled L'Air du Temps, but I do like Wind Song. Apparently the Nina Ricci perfume, which came only a few years before, was the inspiration for Prince Matchabelli's creation. Wind Song's massive bergamot/carnation/orange balm/coriander is an incredible intro, loaded with pungency, and unfortunately a little too much alcohol. Inexpensive drugstore frags sometimes smell nice in the opening and crappy in the drydown, but Wind Song suffers crudeness on top and becomes better as it dries. 

Its heart is full of spice, loads of clove and tarragon, and its base is rich with amber and benzoin resins. The far drydown is a nice clean sandalwood, very smooth and dry. There is something darkly alluring here, despite the associations with "old soap" that I get from the bergamot and carnation top notes. The richness of the sandalwood base wouldn't be out of place on a scheming, cold-blooded siren, like Hitchcock's Madeleine in Vertigo.

Would I wear Wind Song? I have to say, if I had one of those small $9 bottles, I would probably have occasion to wear it, here and there. I don't know if I could handle the density of the scent beyond an hour or two, but I'm not afraid to try it. One thing is for sure, though: I wouldn't worry about smelling like a lady. Le Male, 1 Million, and Acqua di Gio contain far more estrogen than Wind Song ever will.

Kenzo Homme (Kenzo)

Christian Mathieu is the nose behind Kenzo's first masculine fragrance, and his oeuvre includes the clove-filled Jacomo de Jacomo, and the chypre Coeur de Parfum. His design sensibilities favor spiced woods and dry mosses, and with Kenzo Homme he continues that trend. It therefore comes as a surprise to find many reviewers calling Kenzo Homme an aquatic. I gave it a generous wearing today, and frankly found nothing aquatic about it at all. If anything, it's a fresh woody chypre in the esteemed tradition of Fahrenheit and Lacoste Original, full of dry green notes, without a hint of "aqua" to be found.

What disturbs me a little about Kenzo Homme is its similarities to Drakkar Noir and Horizon by Guy Laroche. It shares the exact same bitter earthiness, and in some ways surpasses its comparatives. Kenzo's composition is based on a dessicated citric opening of bergamot, eastern European fir, bitter sage, and the driest sandalwood I've ever sniffed. The movement doesn't get any friendlier from there; the heart notes revolve around a pungent pairing of oakmoss and vetiver, with biting hints of juniper berry, lemon zest, and caraway in orbit. To my nose the vetiver is most prominent, and the construction is welded together by a coolness that is as nondescript as it is ubiquitous: calone.

It isn't the summery fruit-laden calone we've all come to know and hate, but more of a crystalline cool breeze wafting through the trees, made extra subtle through its integration with other sour aromatics like fir and sage. I suppose if one were to consider all these notes in unison as analogous to the scent of a freshwater riverbank in Japan, I could, in a roundabout way, understand the aquatic label. But as it stands, my dominant impression is that Kenzo is a woody aromatic chypre with a decidedly "fresh" feel. Just because something smells cool and fresh doesn't mean it's aquatic. I really don't know why it gets this reputation.

Overall, I'm not inclined to like this fragrance. I kinda sorta wish it were a flat-out aquatic, because maybe then I could appreciate it more. I need an aquatic with a bitter freshwater feel, but I don't need a chypre variant of Drakkar Noir disguised as a semi-niche avant-garde masculine. Unique it may be, but Kenzo Homme ain't for me.

Paris (Yves Saint Laurent)

There's so much hubbub in the blogosphere over Penhaligon's famous Hammam Bouquet, but YSL had a better approach to powdery-floral the idea with none other than Paris. Sure, Hammam is significantly less feminine, and pulls powdery roses from its ass with an impressive 19th century flourish, but in the end Paris comes out smelling better - better balanced, better poised, better designed, and just plain better. 

People discuss how Hammam represents repressed Victorian desire, Turkish steam baths full of semi-nude concubines eating grapes from the magistrate's belly button, blah, blah. All the imagery fails to correspond with what good perfume is about: association. We can't associate perfume with what we've never known. It's simply not possible to sniff Hammam Bouquet and honestly say, "this takes me back to that lukewarm Turkish dip I took in Manchester back when Willy IV started remembering his bastard offspring." 

Paris avoids the memory game by keeping within its own realm, with all associations based on perfume, specifically European perfume. There are no questions about bath soaps and oils, or who the queen is. Paris interprets the evening romance of a modern European square: roses, violets, woods, booze, powder, and the aura of every man and woman's perfume wafting on a breeze across the tables of an outdoor cafe.

It's an association we can easily make, as everyone has had a divine moment of fume-overload at one time or another. It happens at dinner, at business meetings, at church. People mingle and gather, and so do their smells. Together, the combined perfumes form a new fragrance, something ephemeral in spirit, but ever-present on the exhale. That's Paris, a truly universal experience in the form of a scent.

Sophia Grojsman is incredibly skilled, and this is some of her best work. Her composition stands alone as one of the few contemporary feminine perfumes to successfully straddle old-world and modern styles. I personally think it would go well on me with a double-vented suit and a new pair of Florsheims. Paris is full of light and sound, and it's a terrific product from Yves Saint Laurent.

One Last Word On Brut . . .

I happened across the above advertisement for Brut. And I noticed that it mentions its price ranging from $7.50 to $100. Pretty broad range. But $100!?! I guess back in the day, this stuff could get pretty pricey. It certainly wasn't a drugstore write-off frag. I didn't realize it was ever that expensive! Okay, that's all I had to say.

Jōvan Woman (Coty)

Jōvan is a fairly prolific brand, one of Coty's workhorse manufacturers, and they've had their fair share of hits and misses. Sex Appeal is arguably their best, and Ginseng NRG is quite possibly their worst. Everything in between varies between being easily wearable on any occasion, to being situational scents with limited appeal. Jōvan Woman falls into the second group, neatly tucked between Island Gardenia and Black Musk.

One of the many quandaries of air travel (like going commando and then getting strip-searched at customs, or forgetting to pack enough inflatable condoms and dime bags, etc.) is personal fragrance - when flying long distance the question becomes, what works? What's appropriate? Something weak enough to not offend fellow travelers, yet strong enough to make the body smell fresh? A Japanese non-fragrance with lots of airy citrus and musk (I've been doing my research)? No fragrance at all? Maybe just really good soap and a slap-on cologne? The options are endless.

Situationally speaking, Jōvan Woman is a good one for air travel because its chemical components smell very clean, synthetic, and soapy, without being noxious or too in-your-face. Its top accord is a rich faux bergamot and kitchen spice explosion, and is perhaps the only part of the fragrance that comes on strong. Maybe apply it in the restroom to limit the damage there. The spice is mostly nutmeg, with a touch of cinnamon, and something analogous to carnation. The carnation introduces green, chypre-esque mid/base stages, and pulls JW's spiciness into a lighter realm. 

Each green tint incrementally deepens as the fragrance emits strong orange flower and sweet ylang-ylang notes, which settle on a nondescript musk foundation. It's smooth, sweet, clean, and totally synthetic. Jōvan Woman is another unisex fragrance that would have you think otherwise - really, anyone can wear it. I can't recommend using it as anything other than a quick B.O. blocker, but there is a population of wearers who seek fragrance just for that reason, and as far as that goes, it's not too bad at all.

Brut Classic (Helen of Troy)

I get one day off each week (Sunday), and I used today to seek out members of the Brut family. There's no escaping it - I'm a fragrance nut. There's a pretty good fragrance shop in Waterbury that sells all sorts of classic men's frags. I went there and snagged a 3 oz. glass bottle of Brut Classic. That's the one in the middle of the picture, with the silver medallion hanging on its hairy chest. Handsome, isn't he?

To its left is Brut 33 - i.e. Brut Splash-On - which was reviewed yesterday. To its right is the 3 oz. plastic bottle version of Brut Cologne, which I was able to find at Walgreens for the surprisingly high price of $9.56. In comparison, Splash-On was only $6.56, and you get 7 ounces of it. Brut Classic was $21. Still, that's 13 ounces of Brut for a combined total of $37.12. Quite affordable, all things considered.

I'll do a two line review of the plastic bottle version of Brut Cologne: this fragrance opens with a smooth lemon balm/lavender/mint combination, quickly joined by ylang-ylang, jasmine, amber, musk, and a touch of powder. It reads as a higher concentration of Brut Splash-On, with more punch in the top, and a tangible drydown that smells pleasantly green and barbershoppy.

Now, on to Brut Classic. This is the most summery-green barbershop cologne I've ever encountered. I can't remember if I've ever sniffed Brut Classic before today, but I know I've worn the regular "original" cologne in plastic. I'm somewhat neutral on the plastic bottle version, although I lean more toward liking it than not. The Classic version in glass, however, is simply divine juice.

Classic opens with a rush of mint, lemon juice, anise, basil, and lavender. The mint is mentholated and bright green, and its pairing with basil and anise makes for a warm, grassy feeling; the lavender lifts the opening accord over Brut's heavier heart notes. After a minute, sweet ylang-ylang and jasmine appear, very indolic and ripe. Here's where Classic approaches the barbershop feel of its plastic bottle brethren. The floral notes become soft and powdery, and an ambery vanillic drydown, still tinged by the greenness of mint and lemon, imbues itself into skin. The resultant smell is very clean, and quite wonderful.

The biggest difference between Classic and "Original Cologne" is in the treatment of the top notes and the drydown. The heart notes are similar, too close to dissect. But in Classic, the herbal minty greenness is much more pronounced, while the lemon and mint stands out more in Original. Also, anise is used more generously in Classic, and lends the scent some depth and balance it might otherwise lack. I also sense a higher fidelity to the floral notes in Classic than in Original. While both fragrances have a decidedly barbershop-like drydown, Classic is more of a fresh green smell, while Original holds more powder, and smells more abstract.

The usage of ylang-ylang and jasmine is genius in Brut. Without these floral notes, the scent would smell like Mennen's Skin Bracer (which by the way isn't really made by Mennen anymore). It would be an abstract mint, lemon, vanilla affair, very fresh and clean. Brut is classified as an ambery fougère, and hugs the outskirts of the category, coming very close to orientalism. Unlike other ambery fougères like Zino and Allure Homme, Brut embraces greener components and has a very naturalistic feel. I'm reminded of the barbershop oriental Royal Copenhagen when I sniff Brut Classic's middle development, as the spicy floral components mirror RC's overall vibe. But I also sense a touch of Kouros' earthy woodiness, particularly in the first ten seconds after the juice leaves the atomizer. Brut Classic is a very well defined scent.

Wise noses have asked lesser snouts why they hate on Brut so much, given its 40+ year commercial run. It seems en vogue to trash this fragrance in the face of newer, fresher offerings. Perhaps other things have surpassed Brut in quality and style, but then again, perhaps not. I'm convinced that there is an extremely small population of guys under the age of 35 who wear Brut. Maybe 1% of guys in that demographic. For those over 35, and even more so among those over 40, Brut enjoys more popularity. I'm guessing a solid 35% of middle-aged cologne-wearing males have at least one bottle of Brut in their bathroom cabinet. This is enough to keep it commercially popular and relatively cheap.

My suppositions about Brut's demographic appeal are musings on the proper time and place for Brut. I think Brut is a great all-season scent that really shines during the spring and summer months. And I think it's something very few young guys are wearing these days. This gives me all the more reason to wear it. There's an attitude that young women crinkle their nose at Brut, but I'm not so sure. Maybe some teenagers and party girls dislike it. But nothing appeals to all women of all ages. Some fragrances find love strictly with preppy college girls, while others appeal to women with retro sensibilities - there may be a smattering of hippies, vegans, artists, and philosophers in that group. There are all kinds of women in the world, and I'm sure a sizable number of them like how Brut smells on a man.

All I know is, they don't keep making this stuff because it smells raunchy and unwearable. Conceptual experiments end up gone and forgotten; Brut Classic is anything but forgettable.