The Synaesthesia of Scent

In The Diary of a Nose, perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena writes, "Green is the only color that makes sense as a smell," adding that, in his collection of raw materials, he has different kinds of green including gentle, harsh, smooth, sharp, dense, etc. Among these he has greens "that smell of beans, fig leaves, syringa, ivy, seaweed, elder, boxwood, hyacinth, lawns, and peas."

He might be right, in one sense, given that of all the colors green is used maybe most frequently as a descriptive. Green chypre, for instance - or green floral. When I think of any number of fragrances I picture the color green. I can't talk about, or wear, Jean-Louis Scherrer or Givenchy III without seeing the fields of parched summer grass I remember from my childhood vacations in rural Arkansas. Alliage brings to mind bitter snapped stems. Clinique Wrappings is a shock of fir peeking out from under banks of aldehyde snow; Tauer's Cologne du Maghreb, a dish of fresh herbs. Ellena says every perfumer runs the hazard of conjuring mental images of toothpaste when using mint in a composition, but I smell it in many fragrances and think of herb gardens.

It might be more accurate to say that green is the color that gets the most mileage in the scent vocabulary. Red, for instance, is a little trickier, but some rose-centered fragrances do read to me as red. Une Rose has always brought to mind a deep red velvet when I smell it; Agent Provocateur, a drier shade on the spectrum, like something long sitting out in a potpourri dish. Miss Dior Cherie - don't let's get started on exactly which version - reminds me of fresh strawberries; not just their smell but their damp, staining skins. Lipstick Rose evokes the obvious - but even Arden's Red Door recalls the crimson lipstick my grandmother applied with a brush from its tube.

I often think pink, especially with the contemporary spate of fruity florals. Baby Doll is strictly bright fuchsia tutus and tart berry innards. Yellow crops up every so often too - buttery yellow for certain floral compositions, palest yellow for scents whose vibe feels incredibly buttery to me, whether from orris root or otherwise. Daffodils pop up in my head. More often than anything I imagine golden yellow to orange hues, probably because orientals are one of my favorite types of fragrance. Alahine is golden light at dusk, casting everything in a late afternoon glow. Mitsouko is a brassier shade, something like peaches steeped in liquid sun. I even think of white, when I smell White Linen - something scorched of all color, singeing the senses.

Sometimes I wonder if some of us have a rare offshoot of synaesthesia when it comes to scent. The synaesthete cross-pollinates the senses in ways most people don't. She might see a number and hear it as a sound, for instance. She might see a color and experience it as a smell. What about the other way round, I wonder. What about seeing a scent as a color, as a sort of tinted wash that spreads over our senses? Has anyone seen MARNIE, the Hitchcock film, where Tippie Hedren's kleptomaniac goes into fugues, seeing red when an object or a situation triggers certain emotions? During these episodes the whole screen goes blood red. I wonder if scent is like that for some of us.

It's not quite as cinematic with me, but most of the smells I love do filter the images they conjure through some emotionally corresponding colored lens. When I smell Vent Vert, I do see green - my mind goes right to an analogous image - a field, a spring lawn, fresh shoots proliferating on deciduous branches. It's like that in some way with every scent I smell. So I'm not sure I agree with Ellena, whose own Kelly Caleche tints my imagination a specific sort of pale but vibrant metallic pastel.

Hanging Out with the Gorillas: Several Lush Scents

You can tell Mark and Simon Constantine, the father and son perfumers behind the Lush fragrances and their offshoots, first B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful then Gorilla Perfume, are having a good time. The fragrances are touch and go but often at least interesting, and more often than not surprising. Some of them are very good.

The packaging, once pretty naff (hot glued dime store jewels! Confetti! Cheap metal pedestals!) is now avant garde utilitarian, basic black, allowing the scents to speak for themselves, unless you're venturing the wilds of the brick and mortar satellite stores, with all their ear-piercing, nose singeing, slumber party fanfare. I say visit Lush online, where no one will rush up to you with a mixing bowl and some mysterious mud they insist on slathering somewhere, because the fragrances are fun enough they don't require a rave party or a glow stick to get you revved up.

There's a bias against Lush - not just from people who are turned off by the noise- and air- and eye-pollution of these pungent, neon-saturated satellite stores - but from many perfumistas/bloggers, for whom anything short of 150 dollars and a certain kind of wan exclusivity is worthy only of meticulous disdain.

It's true, you probably won't sign a book deal writing about Lush. You won't be invited to dinner or court with Serge. There's a risk that people won't think you are discriminating, that you drink at home out of plastic cups and record episodes of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for anything other than anthropological research.

It might even be true that people will avoid you altogether if you admit to admiring Karma, thinking you must not truly appreciate the original Coty Chypre, and question your judgment: after all, why would anyone who wants to be taken seriously admit to liking something so Mitsouko-oppositional? How will you get a regular column in the New York Times if you admit to appreciating anything so base?

Alas, I can't answer these questions. I can only put my unworthy bourgeois little tail between my legs and tell you what my favorites are among these pedestrian-centric scents. I've already written about other favorites (Karma, Icon, Orange Blossom, Tuca Tuca). These are the newest additions:

DIRTY

I couldn't get behind this one at first, let alone wrap my head around it, so it seemed certain I would eventually like it a lot. Like Andy Tauer's Pentachord Verdant, Dirty has a persistent minty diffusion that you're either going to love or write long essays about, citing its foulness, its failure, its unmitigated gall. Dirty has a strange aquatic thing going on, as well, which the snob nose will shorthand, stupidly, as "synthetic".  Aquatic and minty aren't things I myself get in line for typically. Add to this the name's confusion. Dirty isn't dirty at all; neither animalic nor grungy.  Some say skank. I don't get that either. I do get herbs: the tarragon, maybe, in addition to the mint. Maybe thyme? Who knows.  Like a lot of the Gorilla scents, Dirty has a weird kind of creamy base, which works well here, bridging its contrasts. There's something simultaneously metallic and organic about the fragrance, bracing but relaxed. The listed notes are tarragon, mint, thyme, oakmoss, and sandalwood. It coasts along indefinitely, infinitely reversing your decisions about it.

DEAR JOHN

Dear John takes recognizable mainstream masculine motifs and twists them in some interesting directions. Vetiver, pine, and cedar are familiar territory, and while clove, coriander, lime and coffee aren't exactly strangers to the format, the overall combination feels just a little more interesting than the average fare. Just enough for me that you get a sense where so many of its kind go wrong. Dear John's coffee note isn't as forthcoming as in other masculines which make use of it. Neither is the clove.  The lime hops right out at you but settles down soon enough. It just wants to make sure you know it's there, and it plays nicely with the vetiver. At first you think you're smelling some country cousin of Guerlain Vetiver, all tart and woodsy. After a few minutes that comparison seems pretty suspect. The truth is I reach for Dear John far more often than I do GV, which in recent years has become so transparent that it's technically its own country cousin. The reason the comparison seems suspect, I think, is that Dear John is closer to the shock of pleasure I remember first smelling GV, years ago.

COCKTAIL

It's a brave fragrance that doesn't immediately busy itself apologizing for the rubbery, mentholated facets of Ylang Ylang.  The closest comparison I have for Cocktail is Aveda's Number 20, but even number 20 gets a little embarrassed by the direction it's taking, and back pedals about half way through, arranging itself in a more ladylike pose.  Cocktail has something in common with Tubereuse Criminelle in its boldness, and the price point confirms what Lutens works hard to deny: what makes this kind of juxtaposition so fantastic is essentially its straightforwardly crude approach. There's nothing delicate about it, and I'm not sure even Lush gets it right by calling this a fragrance for a fancy night out. Cocktail might be nocturnal, but it's heading for a speakeasy, and if pearls are part of the equation they're only an ironic means to a decidedly hedonistic end. That isn't to say Cocktail is animalic, which is usually the shorthand for a fragrance put to such uses.  Part of what makes Cocktail so wonderful to me is that it gets to the same place by entirely different strategies. It has the kind of good natured carnality no amount of civet or castoreum can match, and it's ultimately more about the fun of the hunt than the spoils anyway.

IMOGEN ROSE

Back wen I first smelled this, it was my least favorite of its bunch (Tuca Tuca and Orange Blossom, which came out right around the same time). It's grown on me. What I disliked initially about Imogen Rose I now appreciate most: the dread powder. I spend so much time defending scents which don't really smell like powder against the accusations by non-perfume lovers who see it everywhere they look that when I do smell it I tend to dismiss it out of hand. Every time I smell Imogen Rose I like it a little more, so that now, a year or so later, I like it very much. The listed notes, in addition to the obvious, are iris root, ambrette seed, tonka bean, vetiver, and bergamot. I might have gotten used to the powder, but IR seems less powdery to me than it once did. What I smell now is iris, and IR has turned out to be one of my favorite uses of it.  I first thought IR was a bit dowdy as well. I don't get that anymore either. Go figure. IR reminds me a lot of Hermes Hiris, but it satisfies every expectation that Hiris disappointed. In the past year, I've looked to many niche fragrances for this kind of pleasure and richness, and found them lacking.  All this time, it was right under my nose.

25:43

I like 1000 Kisses, a strange little medley of apricot, mandarin, and (allegedly) resins, but it's such a light kiss that I might have subtracted several zeroes. 25:43 is more my style, and could use the extra digits in its name, giving its citrusy elements more oomph with vanilla, ylang, and a laurel note I find addictive. I suppose it comes down to the difference between sweet little batting-eye pecks on the cheek and an open mouth approach. As with many Gorilla scents (too many to name) I thought I didn't like 25:43 much at first. After wearing it for an afternoon I changed my mind. Apparently, Mark Constantine created the fragrance in honor of his son's wedding day, picturing his bride walking down the aisle, with lime and tonka. It was said to "capture the moment beautifully." Later, son Simon added the rest, because as we all know, the wedding aisle leads to the bedroom.

I haven't tried some of the latest Gorilla offerings like Twilight, Silky Underwear, and Rose Jam. Thoughts from those who have?

Mitsouko & Me

Every so often you have to put up with my ramblings. Today I wore Mitsouko edp so I was thinking about it on and off all day. I love Mitsouko, but, as much as I love it, I’ve frequently wondered why it’s so revered by perfumistas. Maybe I will answer my own question by writing about my relationship with Mitsouko.

I wear Mitsouko when I don’t have time to think about what I’d like to wear. Mitsouko is a “go to” fragrance for me. It works for nearly any occasion. In a way, it’s that perfect little black dress – which is effortless and classic, garners compliments and you know you look good in it. I do not swoon when I smell Mitsouko. I love the aroma, I really do, but I don’t swoon. I’d say that I enjoy Misouko, I appreciate it, I feel completely comfortable in it, I will always have a bottle, but I do not swoon.

In a way, Mitsouko works for me as a practical fragrance. Mitsouko is practical as opposed to fussy; handsome, with good bone structure as opposed to gorgeous or stunning. Mitsouko seems humble; she seems like the offspring from a loving family with old money as opposed to the offspring of the flashy nouveau riche with multiple nannies. Mitsouko is not an ultra luxurious car, she is more like a high end Honda – she runs beautifully, smoothly, she’s dependable; she’s probably a conservative silver or black. Oh, but she definitely has heated leather seats.

Mitsouko is the standard. I guess that’s the big deal. I might not swoon, but I can’t think of any other perfume which hits all the same notes as Mitsouko. I’ll be happily married to Mitsouko for the rest of my life. Like all good marriages, I suppose I need to tell her that I love her and appreciate her every so often.

The First Ten Scents That Pop Into My Head (AKA Top Ten Fall Scents)

1. Delrae Bois de Paradis: This one has the depth and the melancholy of an Andrew Wyeth painting; specifically, Christina's World. A field of grass with the texture and smell of soft hay warming under the sun. The house isn't so far up the hill, but feels miles away. So where is the smell of stewed fruit coming from? “You can lose the essence by detailing a lot of extraneous things," Wyeth explained. There's nothing extraneous about Bois de Paradis. Everything about this perfume is in accord. Lucky Scent aptly describes the fragrance as "ripe and nectarous, its dark sweetness enhanced and perfectly balanced by woods." The rose is indeed honeyed, as they say, and transformed by the influence of fig. Bois is beautiful but a bit lonely, sitting out by itself in a field with its back to you. You can't see it's face but you know there must be a wistful expression on it. Every time you open the bottle, you hope to get to the bottom of something so impossibly lovely. To wear it is to accept defeat in exchange for nirvana. It all makes a little sense when you learn Michael Roudnitska created the fragrance. Its Spring sister would be Debut.

2. Etro Messe de Minuit: Maybe you're out and about in some European village, trying to navigate the serpentine byways of its ancient streets. You don't understand a word people are saying. Why are they all screaming, anyway? Their incessant chatter, happy as it might be, starts to feel like pepper spray. You haven't heard anyone speaking your language in more days than you can count. No one seems to register your presence, let alone acknowledge your existence. Even the birds seem hostile, lined in rows atop the roofs of the tall buildings you pass. It sounds as if they're laughing at you. Everything feels too big and too wide, you need a sense of scale, so you head into a modestly sized cathedral up the road. The moment you step in, you feel better. It isn't that you're particularly religious, not at least in the way most people seem to be, but the stone walls of the building bring all the sound down to a measure you can handle, giving everything a dulcet baritone edge, as if up close, whispering in your ear. The place is quiet and still and makes you feel as it's wrapped its arms around you. A priest approaches, swinging a thurible with a slow, rhythmic insistence. Its incense wafts in billowing circles, creating a heady cloud around you.

3. Gucci EDP: A strangely happy, slightly balsamic jasmine, very light on the indole, though enough is there you won't forget it. Gucci wears wonderfully, with a curiously insidious sillage. The big glass chunk of a bottle is something a heroine out of a 1940s women's picture might have hit some poor lug over the head with, or thrown at a wall in a glamorous pique of anger, or both. Gucci grafts an old fashioned sensibility to a decidedly modern construction, presenting a new wave beauty in a pleated satin cocktail gown. I'm not going to make excuses for it's failure to be the most revolutionary scent you've ever held to your nose. Not everything should be exceptional simply by virtue of its brilliance. Some things stand out because they get pretty or precarious just right.

4. Guerlain Mitsouko: Mitsouko might not warm the skin, but it certainly warms the heart. This fragrance is quite simply one of the best ever. If you still persist in believing otherwise, whether it happens to be your thing or not, you might want to check into that problem you're having with your barometer.

5. Bond No. 9 H.O.T. Always: It has nothing to do with burning leaves or a crackling fire, but the camphoraceous effect of this Bond No. 9 winner has a solar intensity that will set flame to your senses, and probably frighten any nearby horses. It's been compared to Givenchy Gentleman, and the comparison fits, though H.O.T. has more cinnamon and a marked shortage of Gentleman's rose. H.O.T. is no gentleman. Rather more of a beast. It's a loud juice with a primal bent. It's got its claws out, ready to get messy with mixed metaphors.

6. Caron Third Man: This has got to be the loveliest masculine ever, or good enough that you forget the competition during the time you wear it. Jasmine for days, superimposed over one of those trademark Caron bases, a weirdly gourmand medley of vanilla and lavender. Women, please, wear it too. Everyone should. Oakmoss, vetiver, clove, coriander, bergamot. "Avant-garde but very accessible," says Caron, though why you should take their word for it after what they've done to Tabac Blond is open to debate. Inspired by the Orson Welles film directed by Carol Reed, Third Man is inexplicably gorgeous and supple where that character was shadowy and corrupt. Nothing fishy about the fragrance, and the 125 ml bottle can be had for a steal. Why for Fall? Think of it as the pillow you lay your head on as you watch the leaves turn out the window.

7. Donna Karan Signature: Oh, I know, this is the part where you write in to tell me Signature sucks. Have I lost my mind? Can my taste now be trusted? Will I be singing the praises of Britney Bi-Curious next? The real deal is, supposedly, Black Cashmere, or Chaos. Though I can't attest to the charms of Chaos, I will soon enough, having ordered it from Bergdorf's today--and yes, I do like Black Cashmere but rarely find myself going for it. Donna Karan Signature is a weird little thing, with some of Daim Blond's apricot suede charms. I don't know why I'm drawn to it as strongly as I am. It's a pretty straightforward, soft leather fragrance: some jasmine, some rose, some fruit, some amber. All I know is I spray it on before many other things in my cabinet which are sworn to be better--and it lasts at least twice as long as most of them. It even has the faintest whiff of toilet paper, and yet I'm in love. Who can account for these things?

8. Chanel Cuir de Russie: The leather to beat all leathers into sniveling submission, and with such a cool smile on its face as it cracks that fragrant whip. You can find many glowing remarks about CDR on the perfume blogs. If you're not already convinced of its loveliness, nothing I say will convert you. I don't have half its powers of persuasion. Oh well, more for me--as if the pint-sized bottle weren't enough to last into the following millennium.

9. Lanvin Arpege: I never grow tired of the strange directions this one takes on the skin, from sinus-clearing aldehydes to vetiver to tobacco by way of bergamot, neroli, and peach. Jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, ylang ylang, coriander, and tuberose. Without question, the destination is worth all the twisting peregrinations: sandalwood, vanilla, tuberose, that vetiver, patchouli, and styrax. It's all somehow ultimately smoky, and wears like a dream.

10: Estee Lauder Knowing: Mossy rose with an almost primeval feel to it, like something out of a forest with ten foot ferns and paw prints the size of of Cadillac Escalades in the mud. Which isn't to say it's barbaric or, you know, like the sweat off a caveman's whatnot. It's perfectly lovely, and even old fashioned to some extent; it's just that it doesn't smell like something your grandmother would wear and inflict upon you during the course of those holiday-long clenches to her bosom. It smells more organic, like some happy accident found growing under a long-forgotten tree stump.

And more, again off the top of my head: Bal a Versailles, Aimez-Moi, Polo, Une Rose, White Patchouli, La Mome, Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit 32, Comme des Garcons 2 Man, Dzing!, Claude Montanna Homme (Red Box), Patou 1000, Etro Shaal Nur, Kenzo Amour, Antique Patchouli, Kingdom, Opium, Cinnabar, Spellbound, La Nuit

Mitsouko

Saying you love Mitsouko is like saying you shop for groceries, the kind of statement unlikely to come as a newsflash to anyone--yet the fragrance does have its detractors. I don't know these people, naturally. I make a conscious effort not to know them. I very nearly developed amnesia about my relationship with one friend when recently she said Mitsouko smelled like that stuff that repels mosquitoes. Surely you don't mean citronella, I warned. After carefully judging my facial expression, she answered, certainly not.

Until I smelled the pure parfum at Nordstrom this month, I was fairly ambivalent about Mitsouko myself. I'd owned the EDT for a while, and pushed it to the "for special occasions" section of my collection, otherwise known as scents I dislike, am disappointed with, or don't understand. A spritz on the wrist lasted all of five minutes, it seemed to me, which was reason enough to move on.

I have no idea where this EDT falls on the reformulation continuum. It smells different enough from the EDP I purchased at Nordstrom that I wonder. The EDP has different packaging. The EDT has the geometrically striped, foil-bright gold box most of my Guerlain purchases from the local department store bear. The EDP box is more discreet, matte gold with a simple logo. Who knows what any of this means or where lines can be drawn or comparisons made. As I've mentioned before, don't expect clarification from the department store, or, God forbid, the Sephora counter, whose employees seem equally confused by the words Guerlain and Homme, the latter being a word they seem to take as some sort of environmental product for spraying on sheets or carefully abstracting unwelcome water closet aromas.

The Mitsouko EDP starts out bright and a little warm. It seems to give off heat, like simmering peaches. There are many other things in there, some of which you'll find listed on basenotes, though that listing is pretty sparse, as if this were a construction of admirable restraint. Perhaps that's true, and there's barely anything in Mitsouko. Maybe it's one of those experiments in minimalism so fashionable with people who like to believe things should be kept simple. I find that hard to believe, given how complex some of the Guerlain oldies are said to be. Their base materials alone would make quite complex perfumes. Whatever the listed pyramid of Mitsouko is, wherever you happen to be looking, I smell a strong gust of vetiver similar to that present in many contemporary perfumes. It presides over the entire composition, as far as I can tell, bolstering it from top to bottom with a fairly masculine character.

Though the EDT smells very similar to the EDP and is recognizably the same perfume, it lacks that quality. I smell the oakmoss prominently in the EDT, getting that muted, slightly fussy ambience associated now with elderly women and, increasingly, daring young men. This puts it closer to old school chypres, the closest of which, in my cabinet, would be Trussardi Femme and Rochas Mystere. Both possess a dry, almost smoky aspect absent in the Mitsouko EDP. The EDP is closer to the new chypres in many respects, not least because of their sunny disposition. Clearly, new means were applied toward a familiar end, but the result is arrestingly bright.

Which isn't to say the Mitousko EDP is insipidly cheery. It isn't. It's a complicated smell pretending to be more straightforward than all that. It has stealth and wears powerfully. It's remarkably androgynous, part sultry, part swagger. The brilliance of the reformulation is its ability to look forward and backward simultaneously, to modernize Mitousko without reducing it to a museum piece, admirable but unwearable. It smells richer than most of what perfumers are producing today, and more accessible than much of what came before it. The 2 ounce bottle seems a steal to me, given the endurance the fragrance has.

Chamade: An Appreciation

Chamade was virtually the first thing I ever smelled at the Guerlain counter, though not the first thing I saw. It's possible to find Guerlain's greatest hits here at the mall, but don't expect anyone to pull them out and show you without being asked. When you do ask, the saleswomen do a double take, either because they've never noticed them before or have but can't believe someone's looking for them. Pink and purple, L'Instant and (My) Insolence sit right up front, bracketing Hilary Swank's toothsome smile. Samsara and Shalimar are stored below, behind glass, very old fashioned in their staid red and blue rows. Chamade is behind the counter. Its gold box nearly disappears into the wall, alongside Mitsouko, Jardins de Bagatelle, and sometimes, if you're lucky, Jicky, all similarly packaged. You can forget Nahema, and the masculines don't even rate an appearance. Where Champs-Elysees is placed depends on the whim of whoever happens to be bored on the clock that day, and how old she is. Its pink and gold markings straddle the fence of old and new. Of all the Guerlain names, Chamade was the most intriguing to me.

I've since purchased L'Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Nahema, Coriolan, Vetiver, Shalimar, Habit Rouge, and Samsara, in no particular order, but only finally picked up Chamade this afternoon. Why I saved the best for last is something of a mystery to me. Something about Chamade convinced me I wouldn't be able to pull it off; whether the heady impression of narcissus or the overall potency of the fragrance, I don't know. At the time I first smelled Chamade it did seem overwhelmingly, inarguably feminine to me, of no particular age but of very definitively gendered. What gave? Mitsouko is arguably masculine by conventional standards, but L'Heure Bleue? Samsara isn't exactly butch either. I think my tastes keep expanding, and my nerve keeps building. I might not have worn Chanel No. 19 a year, or even a month, ago. I might have said, like my friend when he smelled Cannabis Rose on me, "Hmm, too girly."

Something's changed; probably, mostly my mind. Outlook is everything. The Perfume Guide helped. The idea of a Best Feminines for Men list, like everything else Turin does, isn't simply about itself, about the idea of better and best. It's about expanding your view. Once you've allowed that Mitsouko might be worn by a man, you inevitably question why you ever thought it shouldn't have been. What exactly about Mitsouko, and, by extension, any other fragrance, makes it masculine or feminine? Very little, it gradually seemed to me. That the Perfume Guide was written by a male/female duo who happened to be romantically partnered makes that process of re-evaluation even more interesting.

What I noticed right off the bat this time, picking up Chamade, is that, yes, there are florals. But once you process that, and move on, you smell everything else. Chamade is slightly oily, as Turin praised and others have complained. Inside that, or beyond it, you smell all kinds of things. Exactly what I'll leave to your own discovery. It's a favorite of mine and I enjoy the hard won right not to defend the position with detailed analysis. I love it more than anything because it waited patiently for me and, once I came around, held nothing back. It's as complicated as it ever was, and I'm a little less simple-minded.