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.

Old School Hermes: 24, Faubourg

It's ironic, I guess, that the current fragrance profile at Hermes is regarded as sophisticated, elegant, and refined, while the fragrances themselves are largely so wan and vegetal.  I won't say the things in house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena does for the brand aren't elegant, but they define elegance in a pretty different way than I would - in or outside of Hermes.  This speaks to changing times, and what is generally considered chic these days, probably:  clean, effervescent, sparkling, and austere.  Yet no fragrance spells out what I think of as "Hermes" to me more adroitly than 24, Faubourg, a fragrance which has to be the quintessential antithesis of something like the cold-hearted, icy thing which is Kelly Caleche.

24, Faubourg is creamy and ornate, without feeling particularly heavy to me.  In fact, the top notes are practically sunny.  It resembles another ornate fragrance, Ysatis, in certain respects, characterized by a rich floral accord with deep amber tones, but lacks the dusty incense quality of Ysatis, feeling somehow quieter, though neither could be said to whisper, exactly.  Ysatis dates back to 1984, preceding 24, Faubourg by nearly a decade, and it's interesting to see how little the cultural idea of opulence they represent changed in the intervening years, especially when you look at how drastically these fragrances differ from Ellena's fairly recent work for Hermes.  Faubourg is not a particularly large leap from 1984's Parfum d'Hermes (now Hermes Rouge), speaking much the same language, if using different verbs.

Like Rouge, 24, Faubourg is a chypre.  The listed notes are bergamot, orange, peach, hyacinth, tiare flower, orange flower, jasmine, orris, sandalwood, patchouli, amber, and vanilla, according to osmoz.com.

I have two versions, one of which is the original edt, the other of which is a more recent eau de parfum.  There is very little difference between the two, except in respects to longevity and projection.  For me, the edp stays a little closer to the skin but is richer and creamier.  The edt isn't exactly lighter, and I can smell more of the vanilla and patchouli.  It doesn't last quite as well as the edp, but it's hard to say exactly, as neither concentration is anything close to a lightweight and the edt projects a little more, giving it the illusion of more mileage.

24, Faubourg is the very best of Roucel's work, and seems to have a clarity and a resolve that some of his more contemporary fragrances sometimes lack.  It's a statement, a declarative thing, compared to something like Dans tes Bras, a fragrance Roucel created for the Frederic Malle line.  Dans tes Bras is no less forceful, but it feels muddled and morose by comparison to Faubourg, as if Roucel were struggling a bit to adapt his style to changing times.  Dans tes Bras makes a valiant effort to hold onto the old school opulence of Ysatis and Faubourg but ultimately mumbles a little incoherently, insecure in its point of view.

Faubourg is a lot more confident in outlook and execution, I think.  It sits very comfortably within the range of chypres from the eighties and nineties.  It knows it belongs there, and that "there" is a perfectly good, even enviable place to be.  It's rich and intense and feels like a coat you've worn for years and wouldn't dream of giving away, knowing they don't make it anymore and nothing new will ever feel so wonderfully lived in.  I suppose the biggest difference between Faubourg's kind of thing and Hermes by way of Ellena these days is the sense I get from the Ellena fragrances that they are a little like trying to keep warm in a still-wet watercolor.

Overrated: I Smell Hypocrisy

I've been called splenetic before.  I won't lie.

I had to look it up, and when I understood what the word meant, I didn't entirely disagree.  This might lead you to believe that I'm a mean, nasty guy who keeps to myself.  And of course I might be--mean and nasty.  But the truth is, I love reading and talking to other bloggers.  I love reading the various fragrance boards.  I belong to a few of the more popular communities--and even a secret society or two.  I've made many friends there, believe it or not.  Every day I visit these sites and forums and do my share of reading.  Often it feels like I'm at these places all day.  The windows seem always to be open somewhere on my mental screen, and the discourse wafts in and out of my consciousness.  It's a matter of record that we all routinely disagree there.  Mostly, we agree to.  I love knowing that the fragrance I love might be disliked by someone else.  I like reading what gets other people talking, even when I don't have much to say about it myself.

So what gets my goat, exactly--and where's it getting from?  I can't say.  Overrated praise for the subjects below is simply "in the air", wafting in and out of the screens--not just on blogs but in forums, boards, fragrance site customer reviews.  I don't pay tons of attention to the source.  I just smell the general stench of something fishy after a while.  The last time I wrote satire or, um, rather...angular...commentary, it was as though I'd slain a bunny in a field of dandelions.  Surely there's room for creative dissent?  Judging from our site's stats for that post, there is, and people secretly love to hate a strongly phrased, technically unpopular, opinion, believing themselves superior to someone's verbalization of things they'd secretly like to say themselves.  I suppose in this case Duchaufour will be the bunny and again I have a sharp weapon in hand.  So be it.  I like a conversation, and I enjoy saying what it seems I'm not supposed to say.  Like any community, online or off, we have our heroes and villains.  I often want to illuminate the underdog and scrutinize the hero.  Collective heroes tend to baffle me.  What makes these people or things so great?  Who died and made them king?  And to what extent is our appreciation of them socially contagious?

Lately, several heroes and trends have continued to rub me the wrong way.  Don't take it too personally.

Hermessence Iris Ukiyoe

There are huge Jean Claude Ellena (JCE) fans out there; it’s a cult-following. Me, I respect his talent and will always sniff anything new he creates. But mostly I feel indebted to JCE because he forged ahead with his “tea accord” back in the early 90’s which I consider a personal favor the man did for me. However, I must admit that JCE’s sheer, linear style isn’t typically my thing; I’m a girl who loves orientals, florientals and chypres. Occasionally I am blown away by the sheer beauty of something in the simple soliflore category, and this happens constantly with almost everything from Annick Goutal, but I don’t typically seek out these sorts of fragrances. I have about a dozen favorites in this category, which I whip out during the summer months, and I wasn’t really looking for more.

Well, this year I’ve had a few of these sheer, linear, soliflore-type beauties sneak up on me and become part of my permanent collection. First there was Byredo La Tulipe, then il Profumo Blanche Jacinthe, then Annick Goutal Rose Splendide (but on me this one is pretty potent) and now there is Hermessence Iris Ukiyoe.I have always wanted to find a fragrance that smells like iris FLOWERS. Not the roots, rhizome, bulb, cold wet earth stuff, but the scent of iris flowers. Oh, don’t tell me the iris flower doesn’t have scent, it surely does, and in my garden back in New Jersey, I had several beautiful varieties of scented iris. I adore Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile in both edt and edp (very different scents) and so far I’ve found these to be the best abstract interpretations of the scent of iris flowers. The AdP iris scents are quite voluptuous and full bodied, these aren’t sheer little soliflores but both fall into the floriental category. DSH L’eau d’Iris is another iris floral worth checking out and this one falls more in line with the new Hermessence Iris Ukiyoe; so don’t miss out on that one.

Anyway, let me get to the point: Hermessence Iris Ukiyoe is beautiful, especially if you are looking for a linear, sheer scent that smells like iris flowers. Iris Ukiyoe is realistic, like a photograph, not a painting; it smells of irises, but also contains a soft vegetal quality, like freshly cut stems, that oozy cellular plant-like scent you get on your hands when trimming irises for a vase (Byredo La Tulipe is like this, so obviously I have a thing for stem juice). Once dried down, IU becomes a softly peppery aquatic scent, one that I wasn’t sure I’d like, but oh, how I do. I’m pleasantly surprised by IU’s longevity. Don’t get me wrong, this is a JCE creation, so it’s far from a sillage monster, but it wears nicely on me for about 3 hours and I don’t mind re-applying. It strikes me that this is a perfect scent for gardeners or for a person specifically looking for an iris floral scent. It’s a quirky smell, so if someone were not to recognize the scent of an iris flower, I imagine s/he might think it’s a little odd. I love it. Had Iris Ukiyoe appeared on shelves back in May I would have worn it lots and lots this past summer.

A Tea Project

Jean Claude Ellena did me a favor back in the late 1980’s when he created a scent that smelled of tea. Tea cannot be extracted into a fragrance like other notes, so Ellena had an idea that he could create a scent that smells like tea; the leaves, the water and a little bit of earthy smoke, and so he made it.

Ellena took his scent to Dior, who focus-grouped the smell to death and eventually turned it down. Then Ellena took his tea scent to Yves Saint Laurent, who also turned him down. Ellena ended up at Bvlgari, who thankfully had the good sense to understand this was groundbreaking. Bvlgari took Ellena’s tea scent, made it into a limited edition which sold only in their boutiques. Jean Claude Ellena’s first tea scent, Bvlgari Eau Parfumee au The Vert was a huge success and now just about every perfume house has a scent which centers on tea.

I tire of most light summery citrusy-green scents but the one note I can never have enough of is Tea. Maybe that’s because the tea note is extremely fleeting and I am forced to run after it like a stealthy butterfly never getting caught in my net. I mentioned this to Laurie Erickson, perfumer at Sonoma Scent Studio, and she confirmed for me that the tea note is an extremely fleeting one, an aroma that is just not going to linger for a long time. Nevertheless, unlike other fleeting notes, the tea note remains worth chasing for me.

I’ve been on a tea quest for quite some time so I thought I’d gather my findings together to assist others who might also be on the same journey. While I really love a good number of these fragrances, I’m still searching for the Perfect Tea Scent. This is part of the reason why I mentioned my quest to Erickson at SSS, I thought maybe someday she could create it. Sonoma Scent Studio fragrances all have excellent longevity on me, so if anyone can do it, I figure Erickson can. What I’m looking for is a strong black tea scent, with hints of fruits and florals. Imagine opening a fresh tin of passion fruit jasmine tea, or something along those lines. I love the smell of earthy black tea leaves, but I also love the mixture of fruits and florals with a touch of smoke.

..In the meantime, here are the tea scents I have:

L’Artisan Tea for Two: gourmand tea scent. Tea for Two is a fragrant cup of tea with milk and honey. It is to be worn by the fireplace in the winter months. For some reason, Tea for Two makes me a little nauseous; I think it’s the combination of lemon in this cup of milky sweet chai tea.

L’Artisan The Pour Un Ete: chilled jasmine tea with a wedge of lemon and sprig of mint. The Pour un Ete is among the few fragrances I genuinely love from L’Artisan. L'Artisan, for me, is a house which makes far too many fleeting fragrances, but I forgive them with The Pour Un Ete because we know the aroma of tea just doesn’t stick around no matter who creates it. I previously reviewed The Pour un Ete last year, and it remains a beautiful summertime tea staple for me. The tea note fades but what is left is an exquisite airy jasmine.

Dior Escale a Pondichery: black tea with cardamom and jasmine was a great idea but somehow this doesn’t live up to its description at all. I love Escale a Portofino and don’t even get annoyed with its fleeting nature because, well, it’s supposed to be light and short lived. I very much looked forward to Pondichery’s release last year but I find this one falls flat. It does smell of black tea with Indian spices and jasmine at the start but it quickly morphs into a vaguely citrus aroma with very little charm. If I wanted citrus I’d just wear its sister Escale a Portofino. If I want tea I’ll just wear something else.

Bvlgari tea trio: this consists of 3 fragrances, a green tea (au The Vert), a white tea (au The Blanc) and a red/roobios tea (au The Rouge). I prefer the red tea scent because I find it unique as far as tea scents go. Au The Rouge is a little fruitier and nuttier than the other two teas from Bvlgari. I do think it smells of roobios/red tea, which is a unique scent. I previously reviewed Bvlgari Au The Rouge because it’s my favorite of the tea trio.

Elizabeth W Sweet Tea: This is almost the scent I’ve been looking for except it doesn’t have enough fruits and florals. Elizabeth W Sweet Tea is a tall glass of summertime iced tea with a big spoonful of liquid sugar. You know you can’t mix granulated sugar into a glass of iced tea, right? Granulated sugar doesn’t mix and falls to the bottom of the glass. Mix in some (preferably flavored) liquid sugar and you have a delicious glass of summertime sweet tea. Elizabeth W brings sweet iced tea to us in a wearable fragrance.

Parfumerie Generale L’eau Rare Matale: “mate” is a type of tea common in South America which has a distinctly toasted quality. PG’s Rare Matale reminds me the most of CdG’s Sweet Nomad Tea (coming along shortly) but it’s more wearable for me. PG Rare Matale is a mildly sweet citrusy tea scent that is extremely natural and realistic and smells of this mate type of tea. This one works best for me layered on top of other scents which aren’t strong enough on the tea note. This is a tea jumper cable of sorts.

Aroma M Geisha O-Cha: this is a zesty powdered tea scent. I don’t mean powder as in baby powder, I'm referring to instant powdered tea in a packet as opposed to loose leaf tea. This smells like a packet of Lipton iced tea with a lemon. It’s still zesty and nice and if you spray it on your clothes it will stick around for the afternoon. Instant-tea-packet might not sound appealing but I actually find O-Cha quite nice.

Creative Universe Te: greenish oolang tea with hints of osmanthus and faint florals. CU Te is a relaxing tea scent, with a fresh citrusy quality that fades into a pleasant subdued floral. The tea note and celery note are interesting in the way the PG and CdG tea scents are but it’s immensely more wearable and typical instead of just plain weird.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz The Vert: brisk, realistic green tea. Longevity is decent if you spray liberally. DSH The Vert is closest to CU Te but it’s much more focused on green tea with less florals and citrus. If you are looking for a straight green tea scent this is the most exact I have ever smelled. It’s earthy green tea with an overall herbal quality and a touch of smoke.

Comme des Garcons Sweet Nomad Tea: another “mate” type tea scent but this one is truly weird. It’s more about sweet mint sprigs and very tannic tea. Sweet Nomad Tea is appealing if you like strongly herbal scents but it does also have a brisk tea note, as promised by the name. This won’t make much sense but Sweet Nomad Tea is sweet in the most unsweetened way. It’s actually quite interesting and unique but not something I normally wear. CdG Sweet Nomad Tea is perfect about 1 time per year when I get in the mood for something herbal and non-perfumey. Actually Sweet Nomad Tea smells a lot like fresh pot (aka marijuana, hemp, weed, whatever you call it) once it dries down.

CB I Hate Perfume Russian Caravan Tea: This, like a lot of the CB scents (and prior to CB, Demeter scents) is almost an exact replica of a cup of tea. It is a strong black cup of tea, with a dash of bergamot and a hint of smoke. It is really nice and lingers longer than most, I just need to layer it with something else in order to make it read as a perfume on me. Layering this (and I hardly ever layer) with Nez a Nez Vanithe after Vanithe loses its tea quality is quite nice.

Nez a Nez Vanithe: Vanilla Tea. This reminds me of Loulou with an herbal tea note at the start. Overall it’s very sweet and the opposite of most of these other brisk, refreshing tea scents. Vanithe was introduced to me by a kind POLer otherwise I would probably never have tried it. This is the most perfumey, sweet and synthetic smelling of all my tea scents in this list but it is actually one of my top favorites. The initial verbena, rosemary and Earl Grey tea notes are wonderfully balanced with the sweet vanillic base notes. The top notes vanish after awhile and even though I’m left with only the memory of them I do enjoy the sweet slightly woody-honey-vanilla base.

Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille: someone, somewhere, called this an iced tea fragrance which suddenly struck me as the reason I love it so much. Le Chevrefeuille is honeysuckle iced tea and absolutely gorgeous. Honeysuckle, as an exact note, might otherwise be awfully sweet and cloying but this sparse, fresh, hesperidic and slightly brisk tea/honeysuckle scent is genius. Please pray with me that this hasn’t been or isn’t about to be reformulated.

Annick Goutal Duel: a beautiful yet thoroughly too fleeting tea/citrus/smoke scent. Duel is almost perfect if only it lasted longer than 20 minutes. It’s not just that the tea note vanishes; the problem is that the whole scent vanishes for me. But it is an awesome 20 minutes.

Lorenzo Villoresi Yerbamate: grassy meadow of mild mate (tea). LV Yerbamate is less about tea and more about the softest green meadow and newly mown hay. It’s a bucolic country scene. I really should wear this more.

Do you know of some good tea scents that I don’t have listed? Please tell me! I’m always hunting for tea...

Amouage Dia Pour Femme: revisted

Earlier this year I tried Dia and scoffed it off. It simply wasn't the right moment for me to try Dia. There are right days and wrong days to try perfumes. I think it was back in the spring when I tried Dia and I had also purchased Amouage Gold which completely took my attention away from Dia. If you have Gold, you'll know that trying both of these fragrances on the same day was a bad idea. Gold is opulence bar none. Gold is grand, extravagant, old school perfumery at it's best. As much as I love potent old school fragrances, Gold wasn't for me either. It was just too much.

Yesterday the gorgeous Dia was staring at me. I do think perfumes call to me on occasion. I have been having a field day with big aldehydic fragrances this fall and somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I recalled that Dia was an aldedydic little number. So I wore Dia yesterday. And today, too. Suddenly Dia is perfection. Does this ever happen to you? You try something once, think nothing of it, then try it again and you love it? I feel I owe Dia an apology. She's been sitting on my shelf neglected all this time. Well, here's my apology.

Amouage Dia Pour Femme was created by Jean-Claude Ellena, did you know that? Odd isn't it? JCE is such a devout minimalist that I would never have associated him with anything Amouage. The last time JCE created anything old school was very nearly back in his childhood when he created VC&A's First. But here's the clincher, this is where it was obvious that Amouage wanted JCE for the creation of Dia. Dia is meant to be a softer, sparser, more demure and less heady daytime equivalent to the evening bombshell known as Amouage Gold. Well, well. Jean-Claude Ellena is pretty darn good at making sparse, demure and minimalist fragrances so he seemed the proper choice to me. But please keep in mind, Dia is minimalist IN COMPARISON to Gold. Dia is absolutely nothing like JCE's Hermes creations, it is still resolutely old school, classic and perhaps on the potent side of the aisle for some.

Most have compared Dia with Chanel No. 5. This is the starting point for any floral-aldehyde - compare it with Chanel No. 5 and this gives the peeps an understanding of what the fragrance smells like. So, there you have it, think of Chanel No. 5, but add more dewy florals in the heart and less soap. Dia will seem soapy and enormously aldehydic at first but once it dries down the luscious florals emerge. I think the most prominent floral for me is rose. But this is an abstract rose - not a realistic one - think of YSL Paris as an example of an abstract rose. Dia is not dark, remember, it's meant to be a daytime fragrance, so this rose is perhaps yellow or light pink. All the florals in Dia are bright, happy and cheerful. There's the sort of generic smell of expensive cosmetics in Dia. If you were to walk into a well-off ladies bathroom, one with marble counters, floors and sinks, a chaise lounge and a gigantic vase of fresh flowers, go directly to her cosmetics closet and inhale - you'll find this smell in Dia. Beyond the florals, well into the base, Dia does have a spicy, woody aroma. As the hours pass the aldehydic blast lessens and the fragrance becomes a clean bright floral over soft spices.

Dia is truly lovely, and Dia, if you're still reading, I'm very sorry I underestimated you earlier this year. Your sister Gold gets all the attention, but you are the better one for me.

Notes:
top - fig, cyclamen, bergamot, tarragon, sage and violet leaves
heart - peach blossom, rose oil, orange flower, peony and orris
base - white musk, incense, vanilla, heliotrope, cedarwood, sandalwood and Guaiac wood.

Dia is expensive like all Amouage fragrances. Initially I bristled at the prices but now I think Amouage perfumes are high quality and worth it if you decide you love them. Amouage fragrances always have excellent longevity and sillage. So a bottle will last you a lifetime.

Hermes Un Jardin Apres La Mousson: A Review

Given my penchant for hording full collections, I purchased a bottle of Apres La Mousson, mostly to have all three fragrances in the Hermes Un Jardin collection. I’ve read many reviews, mostly from mediocre to bad, including the scathing review from Chandler Burr, and upon finally sniffing Mousson, I find myself perplexed.

Mostly what I’ve read about La Mousson is that is smells like melon – cantaloupe, watermelon, green melon – and a watery aquatic accord. Today I wore La Mousson and even with the idea of melon firmly cemented in my mind, I don’t find the scent overwhelmingly melony. If I smell my wrist, and visualize cantaloupes, I do find a slight melony note, but this is quite forced and with all the weight that pre-conceived notions carry. Yes, the melony aroma is here, but it’s slight, and it’s definitely not a melon focused fragrance to my nose.

What I do smell in La Mousson is a peppery, gingery, vetiver aroma atop a watery herbaceous base. Oddly, I expected to dislike La Mousson and I find myself liking it. Of the three fragrances in the Un Jardin series, La Mousson smells the most complex and interesting. I happen to love the scent of pepper, ginger, cardamom and vetiver and La Mousson seems to be a fragrance based on these notes more than anything else. I can see how this would be an especially refreshing fragrance for the summer heat and it’s much more unique that the usual citrusy-light-green-floral fare.

Perhaps it’s my skin chemistry which doesn’t make the melony note dominate but I find La Mousson to be an interesting alternative for someone looking for a sheer, aquatic yet spicy, vetiver fragrance for warm weather. La Mousson is delicate, yet feisty – I like it.

Notes: cardamom, coriander, pepper, Kahili ginger, ginger, vetiver accord.

Longevity: average 3-4 hours
Sillage: soft
Rating: 3.75 Stars ;-)