∴ perfume basics and reviews ∴
Victoria has exquisite taste. I know because it matches my own, more or less.
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“Exploding the 10 biggest myths in the perfume world”
One of my favorite notes in perfumery is headed toward the same fate as sandalwood and agarwood (a.k.a. oud).
I know what my man smells like, do you?
Five O’Clock Au Gingembre, Serge Lutens (2008), by Christopher Sheldrake: Earl Grey tea and ginger biscuits, but not overly sweet. Yep, the perfumer is British. This is the one “gourmand” (an edible scent) in my small collection. I dislike most of them because of overdoses of the cotton-candy smell of ethyl maltol (e.g., Pink Sugar and Angel.) Benzoin, the smoky-woody-vanillic resin of styrax tree bark, stands in for vanilla here, giving depth. I’ve been told I have some kind of intimidation aura. I wear this when I want to try to smell nicer and more approachable than I seem. Fragrances don’t have gender, but few smell truly unisex to me. This one does.
Santalum album, the source of Indian sandalwood, isn’t an impressive-looking tree. It’s short, scraggly, and derives some of its water and nutrients parasitically from other trees. But the smell of its wood is transcendent.
You’ve likely smelled things called sandalwood—incense, soap, etc.—and you probably have an idea of the scent in your olfactory memory. But were you smelling real Indian santal, the Australian santalum spicatum, the synthetic Polysantol®, or even balsam torchwood, sometimes called “West Indian sandalwood”?
After realizing sandalwood is a common element in many perfumes I enjoy, including Chanel Égoïste (1990, by Jacques Polge), Diptyque Tam Dao (2003, by Daniel Moliere), Hermès Bel Ami (1986, by ?), and Chanel Sycomore (2008, by Jacques Polge), I decided to seek out some sandalwood oil from the Mysore region of India, reputed to be the finest in the world.
I found it at Tenzing Momo, inside Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market, where it’s sold for $120 per ounce. Why so much? Mysore’s sandalwood forests are all but gone because of overharvesting. The tree takes at least three decades to reach its peak of fragrance, and Indian forestry officials have actually been killed by those who stand to gain from poaching the trees. Export of the timber is now illegal. (Those who reject all synthetics: take note.)
What does it smell like? I enlisted friends and coworkers to answer. “Jungle smoke,” said one. “Wet eucalyptus just thrown on the fire,” said another. Other responses included “rich,” “creamy,” “smoky,” “dark green.” I would describe it like this: A thick, dark, opaque syrup distilled from humus and loam. A voluptuous dryad. A warm, overgrown tunnel. A dark Eden.
I can’t hope to match the technical knowledge of Elena Vosnaki. Visit her blog, Perfume Shrine, to learn about the 8+ synthetics used to try to recapture Mysore sandalwood’s magnificence.
Chandler Burr discusses scent as art at TEDxDanubia, using Guerlain Jicky (1889, Aimé Guerlain) as an example of romanticism, Chanel No. 5 (1921, Ernest Beaux) as modernism, Robert Piguet Fracas (1947, Germaine Cellier) as brutalism, and Hermès Santal Massoïa (Jean-Claude Ellena) as a brand new example of contemporary minimalism.
Huzzah! The Balenciaga Pour Homme I bought via eBay is the pre-IFRA-oakmoss-ban formulation! /soakcurtains
Great to see more mainstream media taking up this complicated issue.
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