Sunday, December 30, 2012

Can We Talk? About Perfume? Part 2




What does disagreement 
about the value of a perfume really mean?

Perfume reception is the consummate expression of subjectivity. This is how and why two different perfume enthusiasts can disagree vehemently about the value of the very same perfume. Chandler Burr hails as masterpieces Diptyque Eau de Lierre and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue. Turin & Sanchez deride both of those perfumes as one-star failures. If the value of a perfume were a matter of objective fact, then one of two critics who held diametrically opposed views would have to be wrong.

So is Light Blue a triumph of modern perfumery? Or is it a hopeless wreck, less a perfume than it is swill or dreck? Perhaps it all comes down to idiosyncratic tastes. Burr likes clean scents, which Turin & Sanchez appear generally to abhor. Burr appreciates streamlined scents, while Turin & Sanchez are easily bored. Burr likes amber and hails Prada Amber as a masterpiece. Turin & Sanchez dislike amber in general and, logically enough, Prada Amber more specifically. A chacun son goût. One person's masterpiece is another person's disaster. End of story.

Or perhaps the critics who disagree in their most basic evaluations really disagree because they actually smell different things, owing to the natural range of variations in scent sensitivity within a human population for all of the components of the complex mixtures known as perfumes. Perhaps those who despise some perfumes fail to detect their beauty because they do not smell everything that is there. Another possibility is that they smell more than most other people do. They may smell substances the presence of which would ruin another person's experience of the perfume, if only he were capable of detecting them. A chacun son nez.

If this way of understanding aesthetic disagreement about perfumes is true, then in seeking out the opinions of critics, we would do well to hew to those who seem to share our basic sensitivities. Otherwise, we'll be led astray by the advice of people different enough from us to make it the case that we actually smell different objects when we smell perfume even drawn from the very same bottle.

Given the considerable evidence of heterogeneity in human scent perception, the effort to point outward, attempting to taxonomize perfumes as stable things in the world alongside other stable things—whether various types of paintings or the products of less-exalted crafts such as cooking or winemaking—would seem ultimately to be an otiose endeavor. To do such a thing is to walk down a path to a dead-end, because the primary value of perfume—beyond its simple inducement in us of pleasure—is not artistic but philosophical. The aforementioned critics want to uphold the objective reality of perfumic masterpieces. But they cannot even agree amongst themselves about what the pillars of perfumery are supposed to be.

The best—and most charitable—way of understanding profound disagreements about perfume among self-proclaimed experts is simply to accept the intrinsically subjective nature of perfume perception: A chacun son goût et son nez! This vindicates the critics—they are neither incompetent nor anosmic—while however simultaneously implying that no one is really a better expert than anyone else when it comes to perfume, a conclusion which will likely make the self-styled experts bristle. If their opinions are no more worthy than anyone else's, then why should anyone listen to what they have to say? For what, precisely, are professional perfume critics being paid? 

I think that the answer is clear: they are promoting some perfumes which will be bought because many ignorant people will simply accept the self-appointed experts' advice as authoritative. They end by serving as marketing shills when they hail certain perfumes, holding them up as objective masterpieces, and effectively advise their readers to avoid those which they either omit from mention or vociferously decry. The “experts” become marketing tools—whether wittingly or not—because perfume, being essentially and inextricably enmeshed in an economic context, is consumable and commodified. People pay to wear perfumes, and they choose to buy some but not others on the basis of the so-called experts' advice. Or am I giving the critics too much credit? How many of the millions of perfume consumers out there even know their names?

Probably not that many, I'd surmise. But another bottle sold is still another bottle sold, so marketers will support those who support the products which they are trying to sell. This explains how and why mutually beneficial arrangements such as The Art of Scent Exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design can arise under the guise of objective art appreciation when in fact the works being exalted are already best-selling perfumes.



What do perfume marketers do?




Christian Dior does not use screen captures of Charlize Theron from the film Monster (2003) to advertise their best-selling perfume J'Adore

Instead, they seduce consumers into believing that they, too, will be bathed in a golden light of glamour, if only they buy and wear the perfume. 

J'Adore has been reformulated, but the advertisements remain more or less the same and are apparently just as effective as—if not more than—they were at the perfume's launch.

It probably does not matter much anymore what's inside the bottle. So long as it is at least wearable, women will continue to buy the perfume, seduced by the vain hope that they, too, can be as glamorous as Charlize Theron. But the properties of the perfume are completely distinct from the images used to market the perfume. This point is graphically illustrated when the same model advertises a variety of different perfumes.




Given the highly subjective basis for perfume appreciation, slapping new and foreign but apparently approbative labels on familiar perfumes, exalting them as masterworks of this or that movement in art, would seem to be just another variation on the marketer's game. 

In advertisements for perfumes, we are told, in effect, that we will be beautiful and glamorous or sexy and alluring, if only we don the product which the advertisement is attempting to persuade us to buy. There is no logical connection between the models who pose in perfume advertisements holding bottles and the liquid inside. All of this is no more and no less than a game of sleight of hand.

Similarly, the application to perfumes of labels borrowed from the visual arts such as Neo-romanticism and Surrealism is essentially equivalent to what marketers have always done. In other words, one way of understanding the current exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design is as an innovative and ingenious marketing scheme. Perfumistas may wish to believe otherwise, but perfumery is a business, and anyone who has even the faintest grasp of the nature of the enterprise of enterprise should be well aware that the managers who agreed to invest money in the Art of Scent exhibit were concerned above all with one thing: selling more of their perfume.

Perfumistas see this:




and hail the dawning of a new age, in which perfume is finally given the recognition it deserves as one of the beaux arts.

In contrast, the people at the corporate headquarters of the perfume conglomerate giants making financial investment decisions—whether or not to fund The Art of Scent exhibit and donate free perfume to the Museum of Arts and Design—see, instead, this:





As they deliberate over whether to fund such an initiative, they may rub the palms of their hands together while dreaming gleefully about upcoming second-quarter returns. 

I do not mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with any of this. Savvy businessmen have always succeeded through such schemes. Indeed, the very point of marketing—its raison d'être—is to persuade people to believe that they need what they do not need, and to buy what they would not otherwise have bought. We have a wide range of choices in deciding how to dispense with our wallet share available for nonessential expenses, including luxuries such as perfume. Marketers' job is to see to it they we spend our money on their products, not those of the competition.

The marketing masterminds who agreed to promote the event are well aware that the fact that the perfumes on display in “The Art of Scent” are not being sold in the museum's gift shop certainly will not prevent enthusiastic exhibit goers from stopping at the nearest Sephora or other retail perfume purveyor on their way home. As for the countless people who have no way to travel to New York City to see the exhibit, they can console themselves by purchasing bottles of the “masterpieces” online.

The reason why all of this should matter, to supporters of independent perfume houses, is because consumers only allocate a portion of their budget to perfume, and once that money has been spent, it will not be spent again. Judging by some of the gushing I've seen around the blogs, some perfumistas have come to believe that exalting bestselling perfumes as artistic masterpieces will somehow help independent perfumers, when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth.

In reality, the more money people spend at the big houses funding the exhibit and whose works are being heralded as masterpieces, the less they will spend on the unnamed houses not being celebrated. The irony in all of this is that the perfumistas who rush to lavish praise upon Chandler Burr and his initiative seem to be entirely unaware of the likely economic outcome of this scheme: to buoy and promote the ongoing corporatization of perfumery. If Chandler Burr's funding, including his own salary, derives from the megacorporations controlling the houses whose works are currently on display at the Museum of Arts and Design, then he works for them. If his initiative succeeds in improving those companies' bottom line, then he will keep his job. If not, he will not.


The Good News


Can we talk about perfume? Yes, of course. Why? Because we do. Hundreds of new perfume reviews are written online every day, and people are reading them. The reviews combine personal anecdote and feelings with references to terms recognizable to other perfume lovers because they derive from what has emerged as a full-fledged perfume culture. The discourse among members of fragrance communities is informed by an idiom used by perfumers themselves. This makes perfect sense because perfumers know more than anyone else what their own intentions are in developing a new creation with particular aesthetic properties.


Certain conventions have already been widely embraced. Because perfumistas often commence from the text created by perfumers and marketers themselves, they have become fond of talking about the objects of their devotion in triangular hierarchies, as though there really were a distinct and distinguishable top, middle, and base to perfumes. 


In reality, the various stages in the evolution of a nonlinear perfume—from spritz to disappearance—are infinitely more nuanced and unfold continuously with no sharp breaks from one stage to the next. In some ways, perfume development bears similarities to music, which, too, flows through time in ways that static paintings, sculptures, and buildings do not.

The complex evolution of a perfume over time can also be compared to the aging process of a person. Each person is born an infant, grows and transforms continuously over the decades comprising his or her life, until old age and finally death, at which point there is little—if any—resemblance to the person's appearance at birth. At any moment in time we can describe how the person looks: her size, weight, and shape; the color of her hair and eyes; the texture of her skin; the presence or absence of skin pigmentation, etc. Just as in the case of perfume, we can decide to divide the life into three parts: childhood, adulthood, and old age, but those are in some ways arbitrary divisions, although they can be useful in certain circumstances.

Despite its somewhat fictional quality and the grayness of its boundaries, the tripartite hierarchy in perfume profiles may be nonetheless helpful because in fact the opening stages in a perfume's development are detectable but also transient, ceding quickly to the later stages, the longest and most memorable part of which we refer to as the drydown.

In discussing what they perceive during their experience of a perfume, reviewers sometimes lament not “getting” this or that note, but in reality the notes are nearly never ingredients, as some of them are explicitly claimed to be by the perfumers themselves in self-consciously minimalist perfumes such as Escentric Molecules Molecule 01 and Molecule 02 and Juliette Has A Gun Not A Perfume.

Iso-E-super is usually not mentioned as a note even though it is quite frequently used as a cedar surrogate, just as ambroxan is used to mimic natural ambergris, which is often listed as a note though it is in such cases a fiction. All of this should suffice once and for all to demonstrate that the ingredients are not the notes, and the alleged notes said to be salient in a given creation by marketers are metaphors and manifest evocations: an attempt to tell consumers what they are supposed to find in the perfume.

Those who know the difference between the scent of cedar and the scent of the aromachemicals used to confer a cedar-like quality to a perfume, may say that they do not detect cedar in a perfume which lists cedar as a note. And they are right. Others may have arrived at a concept of cedar which is more open and includes the scent of the aromachemicals used to mimic the scent of cedar in nature, just as the perfumer intended them to. 

Once we know what iso-E-super and ambroxan smell like, having compared them directly to perfumes containing real cedar and ambergris extracts, then we may become difficult to fool, jaded and even annoyed by the near ubiquity of the use of such blatant aromachemical surrogates under the guise of more natural substances. But iso-E-super and ambroxan are only the beginning of the story, or the first drops in a sea of metaphor. 

No perfume literally contains a cedar tree. Even those which contain substances derived directly from cedar wood are abstractions. Why are certain substances included in perfumes while others are not? Why do perfumers choose to produce a cedar scent, or one which smells like ambergris? For their effects on our sensory apparatus.

Ionones are used to produce a violet-like scent; and eugenol smacks of clove to many. But because different people have variable sensibilities and sensitivities to all scents, the first-person experience of a perfume may bear little—if any—resemblance to what the press materials decree is the nature of the creation which they have launched and are attempting to sell. Sometimes this is because they use unfamiliar metaphors: oud and papyrus may have scents, but how many times have most of us encountered them beyond the realm of perfume?

When we identify notes, we are sharing with others our own subjective experience of a perfume. Likewise, when we laud a perfume as beautiful or great, we may be saying something about its aesthetic properties, but we are also saying something—indeed, much more—about ourselves. The reason why we perfumistas have been flocking together to discuss perfume is that we have established a language through which to share our experiences with others who also appreciate these same sorts of insights made possible by perfume.

By penning reviews and commenting on them, explaining how our own experience coheres or does not with that of another perceiver of the same perfume, we broaden our understanding of not only perfume, but also ourselves. We come to see what it means to perceive different facets of a perfume and how two equally valid experiences may arrive at divergent judgments about the value of the very same thing, as a result of each individual's distinct history, memories, personality, and tastes.

Perfume language should be exactly what develops among perfume lovers informed by perfumers and marketers because the only reason why we have any understanding of perfume at all is because it is sustained through the perception by some people of perfume as profitable. If no one believed that they could make money from selling perfume, then they would sell something else, and we would not be meeting to discuss perfumesthe good, the bad, the beautiful, and the uglybecause they would not exist at all.


At the end of the day, what matters is our personal experience of perfume. This implies, among other things, that if one loves celebrity fragrances despised by niche snobs, one should nonetheless wear them with one's head held high. How could anyone be a better judge of what one likes than one's self? 

It does not matter whether other people disagree with our taste in perfume, although it would be decent of us, whenever possible, to make an effort not to offend others or induce in them undue strife, as a courtesy to our fellow community members, by which we express our respect for and tolerance of difference. Within the privacy of our home, anything goes: we are the kings and queens of our scented castle!


What are perfume reviews?

Perfume is a cultural artifact, but it has no meaning unless it is experienced, and for many people, the perfume story ends at pleasure. It is no coincidence that perfumes lauded as “great” are also thought by many to be delightful to smell. But perfume perception can also serve as a phenomenological tool, providing insight into our place in the universe and how we in fact construct it, conceptually speaking. Because of the intimate connections in our nervous system between the processes of olfaction, cognition and emotion, perfume immediately elicits memories of our past and may trigger in our mind a cascade of emotions, images, and ideas. 


There is no question that marketers attempt to shape those images through advertising, but any positive label or image attached or implied points the consumer in the very same direction: to reach for his or her credit card. 

Looking beyond the perceiver, to the established art world in trying to make sense of perfume, is to turn away from the profound philosophical insights to which perfume may give rise. It is also to diminish or deny the value of the uniquely intimate engagement which forms the very basis of our love of perfume. We do not love a perfume because someone else has labeled it in one way or another or hailed it as a masterpiece. No, we love a perfume, when we do, for the pleasure it provides and the richness it adds to our mental life, thanks to its ability instantly to evoke ideas and images in our mind. 

The language in which we discuss perfume must connect directly with the objects of our own experience as recorded in our memory bank because that is both how and why perfume succeeds in affecting us. We compare perfumes to other, noncomposed scents, because we have memories of them, too. As perfumistas grow more and more familiar with the vast terrain of the universe of perfume, they may begin to compare perfumes to one another. However we choose to convey our experience, it must commence from ideas in our own minds, whether rudimentary or complex, and whatever their provenance. We are, in the end, products of our culture.

Some perfume reviewers take themselves to be offering advice to their readers about which perfumes are good and which are not. Others, however, regard their task as a more modest one: to record the subjective experience of their own encounter with a perfume. Such an experience can never, strictly speaking, be replicated, even within the very same perceiver who spritzes on the very same perfume. Why? Because the perceiver will have changed, and the conditions in which the perfume is being used will be different, too.

In fact, the two different kinds of reviewers may inhere in the very same person, someone who chronicles his or her subjective experience in order to inform other people that there is someone somewhere who has experienced the perfume thus. In other words, the review expresses one possible reaction to the perfume, which may or may not cohere with other people's experience. It is interesting, all the same, because it reveals how other people may perceive what we perceive in an entirely different way. Therein lies the profound philosophical importance of perfume.



94 comments:

  1. Thank you for this insightful article. Fragrance and music also share similarities with flower gardening, another ephemeral "art" that moves in time and space. At any one season, we only see part of the symphony.

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    1. What a beautiful comparison! Having a black thumb myself (all of my plants die, because they don't make any noise, and I need to be reminded of their needs...), I never thought of the gardening analogy. Perfect!

      Thank you so much, Diane!

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  2. Hi Sherapop. Excellent article!

    I was wondering if you are familiar with Scent and Sense in Early Modern England by Holly Dugan? I happened to download a sample to my Kindle, and I think you would be intrigued. Dugan points out that prior to the advent of printing and widespread reading, the sense of smell was much more important to daily life, as reflected in the language of the time. A few of the lost words that I can remember off the top of my head are "civeted" and "fetored." All in all the book seemed quite scholarly and right up your street. :)

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    1. Thank you, Cryptic!

      I have not read Holly Dugan's book, but I'll certainly add it to my reading list--sounds interesting!

      I wonder whether now we are not moving from text to more and more focus on images, what with the internet and all of these slick image-producing devices. A further change is the prevalence of text-bites such as in Twitter. Together, these forces may produce people incapable of reading more than a page in a sitting... Unless of course they continue to visit the salon de parfum! ;-)

      Anyway, "Scent and Sense..." has me intrigued. Thanks again!

      Delete
  3. You just wrote my Bible on perfume reviewing!

    First of all I think that perfume criticism is redundant. You cannot buy a sample of a painting or an exhibition, you cannot buy a sample of a play, you cannot buy a sample of a musical performance, but you can sample a perfume. So why rely on critics to form an opinion? The only thing that makes sense when people write or talk about perfume is to share their experience and thoughts, not to rate and judge a perfume. Á chacun son goût and that's it!

    I totally agree that notes are not igredients, they are increments of perception and experience. This is why perfume perception is not stationary. It evolves as we evolve and as our taste on anything evolves.

    Cryptic's comment on the declining importance of smell in culture and your comment on the rise of sight are extremely interesting. I often use the image search on Google instead of the default mode simply because an image will give me more information about how close to what I am looking for a result is. It is only reasonable for people to support a visual arts language to describe perfume but it is really contrived to take these terms and use them on perfume without the historical background to support it.

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    1. Hello Christos!

      What a profound idea you have offered in your comment. I had not thought about the sampling question, and on reflection, I recognize that you are right: we have the opportunity to sample perfumes, so why do we need to know what the self-appointed "critics" think? It would be one thing if people all shared the same tastes and sensitivities, but they obviously do not. People talk about their "scent twins" and "nemeses", those whose perceptions tend to cohere with or contradict (respectively) their own, but it seems that many forget about all of this when they heed the advice of the self-proclaimed “experts”.

      I have read reviews in which people express their disappointment at having followed such advice. Some people apparently went out and bought all of the five-star perfumes from The Holey[sic] Book only to learn that many of them were completely unwearable. These lessons are difficult to learn because we are used to humbly submitting to the authority of experts in all realms of knowledge. The problem in this case is that there does not seem to be a body of knowledge in question at all. No, it appears that perfume is inextricably mired in the realm of taste, as the disputes between Burr and Turin would seem definitively to demonstrate.

      I am sorry that Chandler Burr does not have more esteem for the history of art theory than he seems to. Slapping these labels haphazardly onto perfumes without engaging with the thinkers whose life work it has been to develop theories of art seems quite intellectually irresponsible to me, in addition to revelatory of a severe Socratic deficit...

      Both Turin and Burr appear to embrace a quasi-Lockean theory of claim to expertise: if they get there first, they seem to believe, the territory belongs to them. But it does not, and their own radical disagreement on questions as basic as whether perfumes such as Light Blue, Prada Amber, Eau de Lierre, Yuzu Rouge, etc. are mediocre or masterpieces merely underscores the problem with their view on “aesthetic expertise” about perfume.

      Thank you for these insightful remarks, Christos!

      Delete
  4. Hi Sherapop,

    Haven't read your blog for ages, but was thinking about it yesterday, because I'd love to read about perfume ingredients and fair trade, I work in a fair trade store and it is mostly knick knacks, and not the likes of everyday items like cell phones, computers, nor luxury items like gold, gems, or perfume! And I bet there is a story to tell about for example Sandalwood from Mysore, or the whole Oud explosion in the niche market.

    Sorry this is not a comment on your blog, English is not my mother tongue and you write so eloquently that I find it hard to really understand it all...

    But I woke up this morning and thought: Why not just pop in and share my thoughts, who knows you and/or your readers are interested in this side of the fragrance business as well :)

    Greets, crazyaboutlairderien (tho lately it's been more like crazyaboutrockcrystal lol)

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    1. Hello crazyaboutlairderien! Nice to read you here again

      That's a great suggestion. I'll try to come up with a post which raises some of these issues in the perfumery case. Have you seen Black Gold? it's an independent film about the coffee industry and the unscrupulous practices of Starbucks toward powerless farmers in Africa. The good news is that the film seems to have had an effect, since Starbucks has cleaned up its act to some extent. Or at least they give that impression with their free-trade offerings...

      I agree with you that there must be a story in the perfume case. It's probably very complicated and will draw us into a lengthy discussion about the aromachemical companies and the IFRA...

      Anyway, I'll see what I can find! Thanks for stopping by!

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  5. Of course you never used canned white frosting, and of course your mother never did either. But lucky you, what a coincidence a neighbor used it all the time!. And you of course stuck your nose in the can. You're too good to use such a product and when reviewing a fragrance you have to make sure everyone knows just how much better you are then them. You are so much smarter and educated. You are simply refined and cultured beyond belief.

    The dirty little secret is every one of your reviews and blogs shows just how empty, shallow, surface, and spiritually void you are. And some of us out here get it.

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    1. My Dear Trollman! Long time no read! How have you been? Happy New Year!

      Your white frosting metaphor is a bit cryptic, but I'll give it some thought...

      By the way, I think that you meant "than" not "then".

      xxxooo

      sherapop

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  6. You reviewed Jessica Simpson - Taste on Fragrantica. Some people mentioned the connection to frosting. But only YOU had to make it clear that while you will be using the frosting reference in your review, people shouldn't confuse that with the fact that you eat white canned frosting in your private life. Because Heaven forbid you are not one of the ignorant "little people". All your reviews smack of snobbery and that you are a lonely little girl. Though my hunch is, way over fifty. =o)

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    1. Trollman, I am truly flattered that you have become a veritable sherapop scholar!
      Pray tell: when is the book coming out?

      xxxooo
      sherapop

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  7. When you become relevant
    =o)

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    1. Don't you see Trollman: each visit, each comment which you make reaffirms my relevance!

      Or were you directed to my blog once again in your relentless search for "group orgy"?

      xxxooo

      Delete
  8. My Dear Sweet SheraPLOP,

    What I do see is that it was YOU that made first direct response to me.

    <3

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    1. But the first overture was yours, Trollman: your having assiduously searched through the internet to find me again so that we might be reunited...
      xxxooo

      Delete
  9. Sherapop the way you react to reactions like from anonymous makes me a big fan of you, you ARE intelligent, eloquent, curious about the deeper meaning behind it all, and because some people might find that intimidating or interpret that as snobbery and feel looked down upon (it somehow resonates with something already within that person, I mean why would you put on a shoe if it doesn't fit you...?)

    Anyway Elite, Scholar, intellectual, it all seems like the devil in disguise in this era where everything goes so fast there seems to be no time for going further than scratching the surface, and the majority wants to feel important and heard, and seems to feel that people who long for reasons why, the different concepts of certain aspects of life, be it perfume, art, or what have you, somehow are scared to have their chains of (false?) security rattled...? I mean, come on! This is a blog! Written thoughts and ideas! If you want to get all riled up about something, something that really makes your stomach turn in disgust, why not fight for a higher cause, plenty to chose from, let's say HIV infected orphaned girls in Nepal or something.

    Anyway I'd rather be judged as arrogant/know it all/snobby (actually I'm a wannabe intellectual, missed the proper education to really call myself a true intellectual)(ow and who judges? People who don't know SHIT about me anyway lol)
    than well, let's see what could be at the other side of that same coin...
    I'd say "a closed minded following the herd hanging on to the fridge and the tv howling with the wolves falling for corporate strategy over and over again to fill a void that only immaterial things could fill".

    Ugh! ;)


    Greets crazyaboutlairderien

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    1. Thank you, crazyaboutlairdrien! So many kind words! Yes, you are right: this is MY blog. Why would someone come here unless they wanted to read MY words??????

      The world is a strange place inhabited by very curious creatures... such as our friend Trollman. ;-)

      I think that you have summed up the situation quite well with this beautiful phrase:

      "a closed minded following the herd hanging on to the fridge and the tv howling with the wolves falling for corporate strategy over and over again to fill a void that only immaterial things could fill".

      Brava!

      Delete
  10. To the insufferable wannabe anonymous...you could never be an intellectual because you are too dumb to know to hyphenate "closed-minded". You will always be on the outside looking in. Too bad, too sad, I'm glad...

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    1. My Dear Trollman,

      You seem to be attracted to the salon de parfum as an iron filing to a magnet!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  11. My Dear SheraPLOP,

    That pathetic opening analogy of yours was cringe-worthy.

    I am here because I wish you and this blog would disappear. In order to find out if my wish has come true I am forced to check in from time to time.

    That review where you obviously couldn't stand it if anyone thought you ate canned white frosting was insane. You spent more time convincing people you didn't eat it, never ate it, don't have it around, and your mother never used it than you didn't talking about the scent. But since you needed a reason to speak with authority you made it clear that you remember as a child a neighbor's family used. And used it often. I'm sure you have no idea how pathetic you came across. The truth is no cares that deeply about you. Your life of empty insecurity means nothing to us.

    If you can find one already posted fragrance review by you that does not include you being self-serving, putting down of others (usually subtle), references that you are genetically superior, and/or better educated than the "common-person", I'll never show up here again.

    It was quite interesting that you waited the "proper" amount of time before you responded again. I think you know what I mean. ;0)

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    1. Trollman:

      You wrote: "I am here because I wish you and this blog would disappear. In order to find out if my wish has come true I am forced to check in from time to time."

      I have a friendly piece of legal advice for you, Trollman: this is not the sort of revelation of your innermost desires which you should be leaving out in public places. It is possibly interpretable as a threat, which means that if--God or reasonable facsimile forbid--some harm should come to your dear sherapop, *you*, Trollman, would be found at the top of the suspect list!

      Let me guess: you're a card-carrying member of the NRA who opposes background checks?

      Delete
  12. SheraPLOP,

    You are a card-carrying dodge ball target aren't you?

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    1. Now that we've caught up a bit, Trollman, what do you think about the above article? Did you see The Art of Scent Exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design? What is your opinion of Chandler Burr's initiative?

      Delete
  13. First my extended greeting and the xxxooo is gone...
    Now any greeting at all is eliminated...tsk tsk tsk...
    so childish you are...

    I bet you held your breath a lot as a child....you know...until you turned blue...LOL

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  14. Wow I got insulted, I'm flattered :)

    I'm very happy with my status as self proclaimed wannabe, and English is not my first language anyway but I also beg to differ that talent for grammar and spelling is not necessarily (always having trouble with this word lol) THE criterium to get the brain moving in an intellectual direction.

    SO much emotions, wanting this blog to disappear, wow Sherapop, did you do something horrible to this person? And I don't mean disagreeing or critiqueing but really nasty stuff like beating his puppy up or something.

    Where does all the bitterness come from....? You stole money from him? Single handedly twisted the neck on his moneymaking business...?

    I'm seriously intrigued by this personal vendetta! (curiosity killed the cat, thank goodness I'm not a cat lol)


    Greets crazyaboutlairderien


    Ow and can I suck up to you some more and tell you again how I SO appreciate the fact I can write here anonymously without all the register stuff? ;) :p :D

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    1. My crime, crazyaboutlairderien? Your guess is as good as mine! I suppose that he is a part of the troglodytic clan whose members continue to believe that "women should be seen and not heard." There are quite a few of them out there, believe it or not. I was banned from Dnotes for (gasp!) expressing opinions critical of The Holey[sic] Book and complaining that my criticisms were summarily deleted while those made by male members were not.

      Thank goodness I use a pseudonym. Who would have guessed that writing about perfume could inspire such seething antipathy?

      I permit anonymous posting at the salon de parfum because I am a true believer in freedom of speech. I really want to know what's out there. Trollman is one such thing.

      Delete
  15. I made myself very clear why I'd like things to disappear. I said:

    If you can find one already posted fragrance review by you that does not include you being self-serving, putting down of others (usually subtle), references that you are genetically superior, and/or better educated than the "common-person", I'll never show up here again.

    And of course it can't be done. Even in a post above on this page, sheraPLOP HAD to toss in the line on the NRA people, for the sole purpose of putting down an entire group she believes she is better than. It was so off topic an irrelevant, yet the sad truth is sheraPLOP could not resist putting it in. Like an addict her urge was stronger than her will.

    This sheraPLOP has gone her entire life being insecure, superficial, uptight, unhappy and spiritually void. I doubt she'll ever get the stick out of her behind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trollman, like a bee to honey, you seem to be irresistibly attracted to the salon de parfum!

      Now let's return to the topic: Pray tell, what do you think about the above post? Please note that it is part 2 and that part 1 can be found by clicking on the link at the end of the article. ;-)

      I look forward to your thoughts on the question whether and how we can talk about perfume!

      xxxooo

      Delete
  16. Yet AGAIN sheraPLOP, can not post without tossing in an unnecessary insult. BUT by putting others down sheraPLOP gives herself needed, though temporary and fake, self-esteem. The kind she never got as a child from mommy and daddy. SheraPLOP is a slave to her own emotional deficiencies. For all intents and purposes she may as well be a heroin addict. The resultant "life" is the same.

    PS - your last sentence, "I look forward to your thoughts on the question whether and how we can talk about perfume!", is grammatically and structurally a mess.

    ReplyDelete
  17. My mother always taught me "don't feed the trolls," but I was a refractory child...

    I hate to burst your little bubble, Trollman, but I have no dearth of self-esteem. Some may even say that I have a surfeit! tee-hee xxxooo

    Now can we please set all of this banter aside and return to the question at hand:

    "Can we talk? About Perfume?"

    ReplyDelete
  18. What others see as a surfeit, is actually you spending decades trying to fill your empty love tank by putting down everyone, and making comments and doing actions where your only goal is to be complimented and noticed.

    The ONLY reason you are talking to me is that you know full well I see you for the shallow vessel you are. And that intrigues you. IF, and it's a truly big IF, you really had self-esteem, you wouldn't have spent decades seeking praise of others.

    I'm not saying we can talk about perfume or not, but I will tell you this. It will only possibly happen, when I get a proper greeting, you drop the "Trollman" stuff, I get an xxxooo closing whether you mean it or not, and you do not include any obvious or veiled insults to me or any person or group you deem yourself superior too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My Dear and Esteemed Anonymous,

      I am fully prepared to accede to your demands. Let us begin the conversation in earnest here. What have you to say about the question at hand:

      Can we talk? About perfume?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  19. I can live with "My Dear and Esteemed Anonymous".

    We shall endeavor to talk about perfume, and time will tell how long it lasts.

    ReplyDelete
  20. PS-"Can we talk? About perfume?
    is actually TWO questions.

    ReplyDelete
  21. To Anonymous:

    Quote "If you can find one already posted fragrance review by you that does not include you being self-serving, putting down of others (usually subtle), references that you are genetically superior, and/or better educated than the "common-person", I'll never show up here again."

    That is what Sherapop did to you? Her crime is being on a high horse? And you will keep insulting her on her own blog until she comes with evidence that she once was not on a high horse?

    I DO feel really dumb right now because I cannot wrap my head around this, why you would want to spend time and energy on such a cause.

    Makes me think of a certain phrase, I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt? No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.


    Crazyaboutlairderien

    ReplyDelete
  22. I was thinking about another subject besides the fair/unfair trade thing, maybe you've got plenty of topics already but anyway another couple of my 2 cents, do with it as you please :)

    Mona di Orio said in an interview: People like scents that they already know. I'd like to put this in a broader perspective, do we like things because they are familiar to us? And where have we picked up these things? As young children only? And later on it is only reruns of the same but in a different time, place, and some subtle nuances?
    Not sure I'm making sense here, but I was thinking about how I DO seem to look for familiar music, genre of books, movies, fragrance, when did this taste/preference thing start? Who was I influenced by?
    Some preferences seem almost like a package deal: You listen to a certain type of music, read a certain type of books, dress accordingly, smell accordingly (I was thinking of goth btw)

    How individual is our taste? What is taste? What makes it change? etc etc


    crazyaboutlairderien

    ReplyDelete
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    1. All excellent questions, crazyaboutlairderien!

      I started talking about this issue a while back in a post posing the question:

      Who are the tastemakers?

      I became especially interested in the topic after watching the film MONDOVINO, which I highly recommend to you because it explains quite clearly how tastes have been shaped in the world of wine over the past few decades. We are clearly corralled into pens where "our choices" are laid out before us as though we were free. In fact, the choices are very narrowly delimited and consciously directed (by marketing) whenever commodified products such as wine and perfume are involved.

      Perfumery, like wine-making, is a business before anything else. Why? Because without the business interests of these endeavors, we would have no access whatsoever to the objects of our esteem.

      Your question about whether we cling to the familiar is relevant as well. Once a consumer gets a bottle of perfume on her vanity tray, it may become her signature scent, and she will buy it again and again and again. Above all, it seems, because of its comforting familiarity. This seems to me the best explanation for the resplendent success of Chanel no 5 post World War II, given that the perfume flowed freely to soldiers and their loved ones. It became a symbol of victory and liberty, but it also was probably the first real perfume that plenty of women in the United States ever owned.

      I'm reading a book about the history of Chanel no 5, which is why that example leaps to mind... I'll post a book review soon.

      Delete
  23. To Mr. Wannabe,

    When one fancies themselves as superiorly educated, civil, tolerant, embracing of diversity, highly cultured, a lover of nature etc. And that person spends a lifetime putting down others because they honestly believe they are inherently better, then you bet, that is a crime.

    ReplyDelete
  24. My Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, and My Dear and Esteemed crazyaboutlairderien,

    Why don't we all shake hands now and return to the topic. The question still stands:

    Can we talk about perfume?

    I anxiously await your insights on this matter!

    xxxooo

    sherapop

    ReplyDelete
  25. It was nice of you to edit the two questions into one question. I already answered it then Mr. Buttinski threw things off course.

    ReplyDelete
  26. *Offers her female right hand to you both*

    I'm just an old hippie.

    Sorry I got carried away & off topic.

    Will report back later with my 2 cents on this perfume post.


    C.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I'm beginning to get the idea this "sherapop" doesn't really want to talk perfume.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My apologies, Dear and Esteemed Anonymous!

      I had thought that you were going to comment on the above post. Now I see that there was an ambiguity in my question.

      Let's try again: what do you make of the radical disagreement between Turin and Burr on Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue? The former thinks that it's junk; the latter hails it as a masterpiece. What are we to conclude?

      Looking forward to your thoughts on this puzzle!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  28. It's in both their interests to keep the argument going and their name in the spotlight even though they take opposite views on Light Blue. It's not unlike the two-party political system. They both win (retaining first and second place) and gain followers while everyone else argues and chases paper tigers. Ultimately it only matters if you like the fragrance. Next question please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very interesting answer, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous. It does seem that they are salesmen of sorts...

      A follow-up question: do you believe that there is an objective fact of the matter? Are some perfumes truly masterpieces and others truly failures (which would imply that when people disagree one or the other is wrong)?

      Or do you believe that it's all a matter of taste? Some people prefer black licorice and others prefer red. No fact of the matter--just a question of preference.

      What do you think, Dear and Esteemed Anonymous?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  29. Red licorice is truly not licorice, however I do get your point.

    Like artwork of the various visual mediums there can be true masterpieces. But there are much less than popularly perceived. They are rare. True fragrance masterpieces are rare. Marketing in perfume (smell) is much different than other things, such as artwork which is visual. Smell more so than the other senses is powerfully linked to conscious and unconscious memory. it's why almost universally people love the smell of babies. Childhood memory plays a bigger role in what you like in perfumes by far than your tastes in paintings or sculptor. And yes there are utter perfume failures, thousands. Sometimes people "like" certain fragrances because of what it reminds them, who gave it to them, where they first smelled it, to follow the crowd, or even to be contrary. Most times when two people disagree both are wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  30. sculpture, before you say anything.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Good point about the licorice, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous. That wasn't the best example, but I'm glad that you were able to make sense of it anyway.

    Those are some very interesting observations about how when it comes to perfume we are much more affected by our memories than in the case of visual art. That makes a lot of sense to me, especially when I read other people's reviews and see that they are making associations unique to their own past history and which no one else could possibly share.

    I agree with you that true masterpieces of perfume are few and far between. It seems to me that often when Turin or Burr label a perfume a "masterpiece" they are simply doing marketing for the house. I also agree with you that most perfumes are failures--or I should say mediocre, because obviously someone likes them or they would be pulled from the shelves.

    My impression is that people generally wear whatever is available. So Chanel no 5 became a smash success post-World War II because it was made readily available to the GIs coming home. They bought bottles to bring home with them, and then the perfume became inextricably hooked up with their memories of the end of the war: the victory and the relief that they had survived. The women who received those bottles as gifts were equally relieved and from then on associated the scent with the relief that their husband (or lover) had been lucky enough to make it back alive.

    I never thought about your final idea before: that when two people disagree both are wrong. Now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense in the case of perfume. I tend to think that they are actually smelling different things. Take musk. Some people are anosmic to many musks, and so when they smell a heavily musk-laden perfume they are really only smelling a portion of the composition. The people who are sensitive to musk smell every part of it--or perhaps too much. So maybe when two such people disagree one of them is not sensitive enough and the other one is over sensitive?

    Is that what you mean, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous?

    xxxooo

    sherapop

    ReplyDelete
  32. You type a lot, I type minimally by design. (just for the record)

    One way two people are wrong.

    Person 1 hates a fragrance because they associate it with an old lady they smelled it on years ago. So they are not truly evaluating the fragrance. So they are wrong.

    Person 2 loves the same fragrance and calls is a masterpiece because the first time they smelled it was on the person they dated long-term. Since the fragrance is mediocre at best, they too are wrong.

    Opposite opinions, same fragrance, both wrong.

    Burr and Turin are most assuredly influenced by friends and connections in the business if only because of human nature. The question is how much? We'll never know.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do admit, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, that on occasion my verbosity veers toward logorrhea. I'll try to keep the next question short.

      What I'm wondering now--given your examples of Persons 1 and 2, which seem quite apt to me--is whether it is possible for us ever to know that we've actually encountered a masterpiece?

      How can we know that we are not just like Person 2? What are the measures of a great perfume beyond the fact that we happen to like it? But what if we only or primarily like perfumes for reasons similar to those of Person 2?

      What do you have to say on this matter, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  33. Of course we can't ever be certain. Just like we can't be certain if we truly think the statue of David is a work of art, OR that we have been told over and over again that it is....then we feel inadequate when deep down we may not like it or doubt our taste...I can assure you this principle has kept crappy art work on the walls of the wealthy for countless generations....

    that being said...liking a perfume because you met your first love while they were wearing it is a wonderful reason to like a perfume....maybe even masterful...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good morning, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous!

      What an excellent point you've made about the uncertainty involved in identifying masterpieces in every realm. I agree with you that hype often substitutes for aesthetic judgment, which explains the phenomenon you describe above, of wealthy people whose homes are filled with what sometimes amounts to kitsch--expensive kitsch, yes, but kitsch all the same.

      I think that you have very well highlighted the importance of remaining true to oneself in evaluating anything in reality, whether it be paintings or perfume or books or whatever. It is easy to be seduced by price tags, which probably explains the success of some of the luxury perfume houses whose wares do not really seem any better (and sometimes they are worse...) than less expensive perfumes.

      I agree with you that it's better to know what one likes--and maybe not worry so much about why. I see from your last line that, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, you are a true romantic at heart!!!!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      p.s. I have some more questions up my sleeve... be back soon...

      Delete
  34. I wish that all perfumes were sold in the same non-labeled bottles and available in a world-wide series of perfume shoppes. And all the SAs were anosmic.

    You find something you like, and the SA keys in a code number found on the tester, and up through the floor from some lower floor storage area comes an unmarked box. Of course the perfume house connected to the number would be paid.

    If some of those Bond no. 9s were found in a drug store in a box with the word "Dana" on it, the fragrance would be pilloried in blogs. But they are labeled Bond no. 9 and people fall over themselves buying them.

    As regards to D&G Light Blue, I fall closer to the side of Burr. I find the fragrance unique, and I'm drawn to smell it. And those are two hard to find qualities of the 17,000+ fragrances out there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My Dear and Esteemed Anonymous,

      I like your thought experiment about selecting perfumes without regard to packaging and hype--well, in a way--as an idea. But I also tend to think that we are influenced by the marketing and presentation to the point where it often positively affects our experience of the perfume. Yes, Bond no 9 is the house of bling, but let's be honest: people like bling! So what's wrong with giving them what they want?

      I understand your point about the price, but the truth is that all perfumes involve a massive mark-up. Did you happen to see the article "Behind the Spritz" in Financial Times a while back? It reveals that only $2 of a $100 MSRP perfume goes to the liquid inside. So what are we paying for--not only for Bond no 9, but for everything? We are paying for the whole image produced for us. And the more people pay for a perfume, they more glamorous they may feel wearing it.

      There are people at the upper echelons of society for whom the cost difference between Dana and Bond no 9 is utterly trivial. They are the people who do not use loyalty cards at the grocery store, even though if they did their groceries would cost half as much. It's trivial to them. What the luxury brands do is to amp up the price and packaging and the hype, and usually the perfumes are of decent quality, too. So the question becomes whether one is interested in the whole image conveyed by the brand.

      By Kilian is another example. Look at all of the marketing material for the recent In the Garden of Good and Evil releases. The perfumes all smell completely tame to me, verging on banality. The creative director is posing with a huge snake around his neck. I find the whole campaign ludicrous and the perfumes mediocre, at best. But there are some people who really dig the whole package. It's the package which appeals to them much more than the scent of any of the perfumes. For most people perfume is a smell. It becomes a luxury item, an indulgence, an extravagance, when it is placed in a special, usually expensive, context.

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  35. I don't know of a product off the top of my head with a higher markup than perfume, it makes diamond markup seem reasonable.

    I wasn't referring to Bond being bling as I was that they are genuinely by-and-large disgusting concoctions AND overpriced.

    Sure I get that people are not only paying for image, but in a way, getting some sort of endorphin rush along with it. I was saying, that at least for fragrance, I'd like a break from it.

    In your last post you are saying many things, that I would trust you would think obvious to me. Of course I understand rich people make no distinction in price.

    I don't like brands like Bond (and they are not alone) to put out such garbage at those prices. And when I see the lemmings in fragrance blogs marching in step to how great "New Haarlem" is, I wanna slap them all up side the head.

    No I have not read any article in the FT.

    Kilian is another brand that does make great scents, what's so great about bland, cloying, sweet things we smelled other places but they sell for $265+ a bottle?

    "Dig the packaging", that was funny, I can't hear you saying that out loud, but anyways...

    It's about mostly OCD people who like the search, the ordering, the waiting for the package, the arrival of the package, and then the opening of the package, the first sniff, and the release. Every step includes a rush and anticipation. And then it's time for the next order. Oh wait, that's like heroin.

    All the while, cradling their babies, lining them up like toy soldiers and photographing them. Staring at them, thinking of their next purchase. Oh yes, and sharing those photos online as you would children.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, the article was in Daily Finance. Here's a link:

      http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/05/22/celebrity-perfume-cost-breakdown/

      Yes, OCD is key, and it is nurtured by the online communities and FB groups where people congregate with like-minded OCD types. I guess that I find it all pretty innocuous. Why not? Some people collect baseball cards and know all of the stats of all of the athletes. I always chuckle every year as another World Series and Super Bowl pass by, and I haven't a clue which teams are playing in them!

      Other people (myself included) collect perfumes and know tons of ultimately useless information about them. As far as vices go, this one seems quite a bit less damaging than your example of heroin. Hopefully people are not coddling their brains through excessive perfume use!

      I also tend to think that perfume reviewing, unlike heroin use, offers an opportunity for writing which many people would not otherwise find. What do you think about perfume reviews? I know that you read them. But what do you think they are? Why do people write them and read them?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
    2. I must not be communicating well :(
      I wasn't comparing perfume use and or reviewing fragrance to heroin use especially as regards to effect on body and soul.
      I was comparing the chemical rush in the start to finish ritual of searching for and acquiring fragrance to a very similar ritual to of acquiring and using drugs.
      I don't read as many reviews as you think.
      And I don't think much of them, UNLESS I find someone who after reading their reviews seems to like what I already know I like.
      I was going to use a baseball card reference the other day regarding collecting but thought it may be out of your league (PI).

      Delete
    3. Good afternoon, Interlocutor Man!

      Yes, we are living in truly acquisitive times. "Shop 'til you drop," "I shop; therefore, I am," ... these sorts of slogans apply nowhere better than in twenty-first-century Western civilization. So I do agree with you about the ordering and anticipation and elation involved in perfume shopping, but I think that it cuts across all categories. Everyone seems to be accumulating more and more STUFF. One of the worst cultural manifestations of this phenomenon is the new "social shopping" network concept. Yuck. If there's one thing I do not want to know about, it is what everyone I know is buying.

      In the case of perfume, the problem is compounded by the secret and closed FB perfume groups where like-minded "junkies"--as you so aptly put it--feed into each other's frenzy. I wonder whether we'd be seeing the same sorts of "conversations" if all of those groups were open and outsiders could see what is happening there? Within the subculture it seems quite normal: everyone is posting their SOTD and talking about their latest acquisition and complimenting everyone else on both. But it only counts as normal, it seems to me, within the subculture.

      Still, I do think that there could be worse things--a lot worse, in fact--than people sharing their elation at the latest UPS delivery of their coveted juice. It's true, though, that at some point, the whole thing starts to get out of hand. That's why in 2013 I am in the midst of a self-imposed austerity campaign. I'm not ordering any perfume or samples or anything perfume related until either 2014 or I've reviewed everything in my house. I recognize that the very fact that it might take me the whole year to do that itself reveals that I have already acquired too much, but at least I have recognized the problem--and as they say: recognition is the first step to recovery! ;-/

      I truly believe that the enormous number of niche launches and the establishment of new niche houses on every street corner is unfortunate. I hope that the niche bubble will pop by 2014. In the meantime, I'm going to wait it out, just as I usually wait until movies have proven their worth before watching them on DVD at home. I dislike about 98% of new movies, and I'm starting to be the same about perfume, so I'm adjusting my strategy accordingly. A lot of these small mom-and-pop "everyone's a creative director" houses are going to fail, and I will not have missed much by skipping them.

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
    4. My Dear Sweet sherapop, you are maturing...

      I see the perfume bubble as beginning to bust well now, 2012-13.

      Except for the fact that I'd be older now, I long for being around when the total yearly release number was what we get in a few days now.

      The closed and semi-closed groups and pages, are where people get affirmation that they are "OK". They post SOTD in the hopes someone will say something positive and validate them. They agree with others they look up to on fragrance opinions to be "part of a group". They want to fit in an be accepted. The vehicle they have chosen is perfume. And for many its not just perfume.

      I do the same thing with movies, and watch most I like months after release. I find I don't get interested in 99.8% of current releases. I'm not putting on sherapopian airs but I quite like foreign movies. That may be simply because the ones available here are a higher concentration of their top stuff, not their entire yearly catalog.

      Speaking of movies the same thing is true with movie reviews as perfume. A lot of crowd-following, hype, subject (or note) of the moment, etc. Every year I'm amazed at some movies nominated for best picture. I still can't get over American Beauty won. Who even remembers it?

      If you can go through this calendar year without a new FB purchase I shall be most proud of you. Perhaps even see you in new light. One never knows.

      Delete
    5. Hello, Interlocutor Man,

      Well, I'm still going strong six weeks into the year: no perfume purchases yet. I almost tripped up with the Barneys bag gwp going on right now. Maybe since I have posted my resolution publicly vanity will prevail. ;-)

      By all means: put on sherapopian airs! ;-) I never thought about your idea that foreign films are in effect filtered before coming to our attention. You're right. Back in ancient history, when I was a member of the Columbia House DVD club, before it had become obvious that DVDs would be going the way of the video tape, the cassette tape, the LP, and ultimately, the dinosaur, I used to buy DVDs, and I always noticed that I had already seen nearly all of the foreign films available. But I did not come up with your explanation, blinded as I was by my own europhilia!

      I like to read the negative reviews at IMDB.com. I occasionally write a review there (under a different pseudonym), but I've noticed that most films which fall into the broad underbelly of the bell curve do not motivate me sufficiently to warrant penning a review.

      Do you review films, Interlocutor Man? Do you know of any films which reference perfume in some way? I'm trying to watch all of them and review them here at the salon de parfum. I have not found very many, however...

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
    6. There is a new HDTV technology for home called 4K, it is 4 times the resolution of current even top of the line HDTVs. What that will do to blu-ray I don't know.

      I don't care for IMDB reviews because it's skewed by the masses. Most people that review on their give 8 stars to Iron Man, and no stars to good movies (at least how I see it).

      I have watched 100s of foreign films, and I like the reading part. Perhaps it helps my attention span.

      I have thought of writing reviews, but in the end there are so many sites and reviews and blogs, who'll read it and who'll really care?

      As regards to your New Year's resolution, yes I agree vanity may just be your trump card. =o|

      "The Story of a Murderer" is a movie from 2006.

      Delete
    7. Good Afternoon, Interlocutor Man!

      I only just saw your comment here. For some reason I received no notification....

      Anyway, I reviewed "The Story of a Murderer" here already:
      http://salondeparfum-sherapop.blogspot.com/2012/05/do-perfume-and-serial-killers-mix.html

      That post brings more new traffic to this site than any other one because it includes the text "group orgy". Now that I've written those two words again, the number will probably double. ;-)

      Having a blog is a fascinating way to find out what your fellow human beings are doing in their free time. They do things like google "group orgy", "Luca Turin divorce", "girl being suffocated", "prostitute", etc. Really. That's what they do. You know all of those people who stare at their gadgets while they walk down the street? Probably watching porn, at least based on the stats I've seen. It's rather amazing, to be honest.

      For me, writing reviews is a good way to really process a film or a book or a perfume. It also establishes a text trace which makes it possible to remember the experience of having seen or read or worn it. There are so many movies I've seen which I could not say a word about now. They are now meaningless to me. Of course, many of them are best forgotten, but when I review something, then I feel that I have a much deeper knowledge of it. The exceptions are really great films which I've watched many times--even though I haven't reviewed them, I've thought about them each of the times that I watched them.

      Well, now I'm rambling. I hope that you have a nice weekend, Interlocutor Man!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
    8. Despite every cell in my body screaming not to, I'm going to read that review connected to the link you posted.

      I'm not going to keep replying up here and down there, it hurts my head. =O|

      Delete
    9. Understood, my dear Interrogator Man! Let's move this discussion down to the bottom of the page...

      Or perhaps you'll post a comment to the review? ;-)

      Either way, hope to read you soon!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
    10. I posted a comment to the review page in Dec....

      lol =0|

      Delete
  36. ACK!!!
    I meant kilian DOESN'T make great scents.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, that was understood, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous!

      It reminds me of something funny I've noticed:

      Sometimes I say 'hot' when I mean 'cold' or 'fast' when I mean 'slow' or 'black' when I mean 'white'.
      It's a very bizarre switch. I wonder whether other people ever do that. Do you, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  37. I never thought I'd see that day when you admit you have made any mistake.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With all due respect, my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, I have acknowledged several mistakes in this very comment thread!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  38. I release you from saying "my Dear and Esteemed Anonymous, It's just not right.

    =|

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How, then, shall I refer to you? Interlocutor Man? Son of Socrates? What's your pleasure?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  39. I guess however you prefer.
    I am merely here
    revolving around you

    =o|

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hereby christen you:

      Interlocutor Man!

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  40. so it is written
    so let it be done

    ReplyDelete
  41. I think snobbery can go two ways: Only the hard to find expensive stuff is good enough to tickle your fancy, you want something Special. Or you shun a brand because the hubbub around it puts you off. In both cases the juice itself is not the central focus!

    I'd love the idea of fragrance stores having private rooms for sniffing sessions without bottle, name, brand, only a code, and when you are done sniffing you take home samples of the fragrances you like best, for further testing, and then, only then, when you want to buy it you get to know the name, brand, etc.

    It is human nature to not be comfortable with so little information, anyway I would not want to stand all excited at the counter asking for a bottle of 58s0dos, only to find out it is way above my budget because I fell in love with a Chapter something by Frazer :)


    Anyway the stepping stones seem to be mass market -> niche -> vintage

    It's like winetasting, there will always be people who love to drink the uncomplicated simply pleasant tasting wine, and people who go gaga over bottles of hard to find, or wines with very pronounced this or that, it was so funny to see the movie Sideways where one of the main characters says he just could not fall in love with a woman that loves Merlot, because to him it equals being simple minded/having no taste. My fave wine lol!

    Satisfaction almost guaranteed.

    Ow and about brands sucking totally, like the mentioned Bond, how do you rhyme that with the fact that different noses make these scents? They can't be ALL bad? (overpriced, yes, 100% bad juice in the whole range, I doubt that)

    But I don't know many Bond scents, something about the BRAND puts me off!! So I'm not sure whether I am snobby on one way or the other, of instead of falling for corporate strategy I am not giving attention to the juice BECAUSE of corporate strategy. I also do not like the bottles, another thing that puts me off and has nothing to do with whats inside, it is image, the cover of a book, and tho I KNOW not to judge a book by its cover, it seems to come naturally, first impression doesn't mean anything really, but it IS a first impression, and when that one fails to intrigue, there is not enough curiosity to further explore.

    In the case of fragrance that is not so bad, in the case of people I find it serious business :)

    However when it comes to perfume I just don't feel obliged to live with any other principle than whatever floats my boat, I am not doing anyone any harm by liking this and disliking that, how irrational the reasoning behind it may be. And that to me is a reason not to take my fragrance hobby nor myself for that matter TOO seriously ;)


    Ow and I also think it has to do with context, where do you smell it, on who, in what state of mind are you when you smell it, scent is the one sense that goes directly to the emotional part of the brain, so no matter how brainy you are, you simply cannot switch on your rational brain and decide to test rational only, disregarding any irrational emotional response.


    C about L'AdR

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    1. Good morning, Crazyaboutairderien! Sorry I missed this post yesterday. Well, it's full of juicy nuggets, so let me just choose one to begin. You write:

      "Anyway the stepping stones seem to be mass market -> niche -> vintage"

      I have to take issue with this sequence. As more and more perfumes become serially reformulated, it becomes less and less possible to "score" what one is looking for from the e-bay hawks.

      Furthermore, the whole exercise eventually becomes pointless, since it is impossible even to have a conversation about a perfume which is totally different from anything that anyone else has.

      Finally, these "vintage treasures" are all going to evaporate in the next few years. They cannot be made, under IFRA restrictions, and perfume is "mortal" in the sense that it will literally evaporate away into the cosmos.

      What have you to say about my contrarian reflections on The Question of Vintage? (I do have these and other concerns spelled out in the two-part essay by that title linked above under the "Questions" tab...).

      Please respond! Show me where and how I have gone wrong!


      Delete
  42. Goodmorning! (it is 7:30 AM here :) )
    I keep thinking about all these questions, and other questions keep popping up like mushrooms: In customer reviews on fragrance website, you can read "it smells cheap" lots of times, and sometimes "it smells expensive" when the scent itself is not that expensive, but never Yeah this is costing me an arm and a leg and it sure does smell like a million bucks!
    Also makes me wonder.

    How about a fragrance by Clive Christian, that comes with a pricetag but also with the service of delivery to your house in a limo...?

    And the search for the reason behind this all goes on :)

    Have a great day!

    C about L'AdR

    ReplyDelete
  43. saying something "smells" expensive doesn't mean it is expensive or that the reviewer even thinks it is expensive.

    Clive Christian does smell expensive. It may be $3 for the liquid instead of $2, but that's a 33% increase.

    See about later? What does that mean?

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    1. Thank you, Interlocutor Man, for jumping in here with this astute point about perfume pricing.

      I have been wondering about this myself: why no one seems to be upset by the fact that a $100 bottle of perfume contains $2 of juice, but lots of people bitch about a $300 bottle of perfume, though it may well contain $6 of juice. I think that savvy entrepreneurs are simply pushing the pricing logic as far as they can, and they seem to be succeeding, because people are attracted to prestige labels and fancy packaging and interesting background stories.

      I suspect that the truth is indeed that luxury perfumes, take Creed, for example, do involve two or three times the amount of money put into the juice itself. My Creed perfumes in fact smell much better than most designer launches. I am happy to have bought them at discount prices from emporia (I don't do ebay...) which guarantee the authenticity of their wares. So, yes, it was a gamble paying $100 or so for a bottle of Creed, but I knew that I could return it, if it seemed to be a fake. These perfumes in fact smell "expensive" in the sense that they clearly feature ingredients which in all likelihood did cost two or three times the $2 used in a $100 MSRP bottle of perfume.

      Well, that was something of a ramble, but my ultimate question is this: why do people cry foul when luxury lines charge $300 for $6 of perfume, while no one seems to be bothered by paying $100 for $2 of perfume?

      What have you to say about this matter, my dear Interlocutor Man?

      Delete
  44. I hope you don't mean interlocutor in the "minstrel sense" that has been in the back of my mind since you chose it...

    Creed I believe really does use still all natural ingredients...whatever that ultimately means...but even the ones I don't like or are mediocre have an alluring quality...

    People balk at the $300 bottles over the $200 bottles because the price tag of $300 is a hundred dollars more than $200...for a bottle that sits small on your shelf...it's not more complicated than that....

    For myself I progressed to price acceptance...there was a time when $79 seemed like an insane amount to pay for fragrance...now...would that all my favorites were $79 a bottle....

    I did a response to a response on Feb 13th you may have missed or just felt no need to respond to...these boxes are not linear and confuse me.

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    1. My Dear Interlocutor Man,

      I mean 'interlocutor' in the Socratic sense, as in someone who is willing to put up with Socrates' incessant questions!!!! It's a compliment, actually...

      I like your price tag for an acceptably priced frag: $79. Lots of good perfumes can be had for that amount of money, for sure. I think that the people who complain incessantly about prices need to figure out ways to buy testers. It's nearly never necessary to pay full MSRP for a perfume, thanks to capitalism, it seems...

      Yes, $300 seems like a lot of money for a small bottle. Until, that is, one compares it to the number of experiences which one will have from it. Compared to dining out or drinking fine wine, even expensive perfumes are reasonably priced, provided that one thinks in terms of numbers of experiences. A bottle can contain one hundred wears. A meal and a couple bottles of wine become history over the course of a couple of hours!

      I'm going to go locate your other comment now... ;-)

      Delete
  45. Yes there are countless numbers of sprays in a 50ml bottle however the problem is most fragrances after we own them seem barely above mediocre.

    How many times have you sampled something, thought it was one of the best things you ever smelled, bought a bottle and barely used it? The fact that it's usable many times over becomes a non-factor.

    And unlike a meal or wine, the bottle of mediocrity stares us in the face daily.

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    1. My Dear Interlocutor Man,

      I do know what you're talking about: the dreaded sea of mediocre perfume. I've changed my ways a lot from the past when I used to buy perfumes scent unsniffed. Now I virtually never make a purchase without multiple wears to make sure that I really and truly do believe that it's worthy. I am even making wish list items sit there for a long time and re-testing before making a purchase, for the very reasons which you give.

      One fellow at Parfumo said that he only has perfumes which he loves. That's my goal. Purge my collection of all mediocrity. It's easier said than done, though, because some perfumes serve functional purposes. For example, citrus colognes, of which I have several. I really do love them--but only during hot weather. The rest of the time, they just sit there. The same can be said for amber and oriental perfumes more generally. I only like to wear them under certain conditions: when it's very cold!

      Which are your favorite perfumes, Interlocutor Man? I am quite curious about your taste in perfume. Do you think that certain countries tend to make better perfumes than others? Or are your favorite houses distributed across national lines? What are your favorite notes in a perfume? What are the notes which you detest?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  46. LOL, it seems I already had visited the movie review, it was just so memorable I must have forgotten it. It's greatness blinded me. Yeah!!! that's it, that's what it was. My dear sweet sherapop. I could not read the review. I tried to skim it, I couldn't I skimmed paragraph after paragraph only to find out that I traveled miles and that wasn't even THE review..

    I have seen the site Parfumo, not a member. Seemingly it has the worst qualities of the FB pages and basenotes sites etc, only amplified. Yet you like Parfumo.

    I have never heard of emporia nor can I find it as a place to buy fragrance.

    I read the reason you chose "interlocutor". I can only surmise that you fancy yourself as the Socratic variable.

    I know you have smelled Cooper Square because you have a review. I have been fighting with ordering that fragrance. I think I want it so badly (I have a bon bon of it).

    I'll revisit my thoughts on other favorites and notes later on.

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    1. Dear Interlocutor Man,

      I am sorry that you did not like my discussion of the film! ;-/
      Did you like the film?

      Cooper Square is a funny one. I did a complete 180 on that perfume. Initially I did not like it, then I changed my mind. The first time I did not smell many of the notes. Maybe I was having a bad-nose day? Now I think that the lavender-labdanum combination is quite nice.

      Parfumo is not like FB or Dnotes, at least not in my experience. It's a small group of like-minded perfume enthusiasts at this point. We have all become friends. I do like the place!

      It's true, guilty as charged: I do indeed suffer from what might be termed a Socrates complex! ;-)

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      ps: 'emporia' is the plural of 'emporium'. I was referring to places such as fragrancenet, parfum1, beautyencounter, et al...

      Delete
    2. My Dear Sweet sherapop,

      It's not that I didn't like the review, I don't have the patience to follow a verbal labyrinth.

      Your original question was do I know any perfume films. So I told you one, never said I saw it, and I haven't. =o|

      Ah!!! Maybe the small group of like-minded people in Parfumo is what suits you. I find that kind of concentration in a forum incestuous. But I get that when a small group is so like-minded, they tend to overlook the things they despise in larger groups, because they become friends it's just them doing it. It gets downright cultish.

      I just did a google on "emporia perfume", looking for a place selling perfume named emporia. It wasn't unreasonable to do.

      Delete
    3. Dear Interlocutor Man,

      I found your comment and apologize again for neglecting to respond! For some reason, and completely unpredictably, my email filters out random comments as spam. I have no idea why, given that most "Anonymous" comments make it into my inbox. Perhaps you might consider adopting an Avatar for use here at the salon, so that we can avoid this problem in the future? ;-)

      Is Parfumo (or Fragrantica or Basenotes) incestuous? I suppose that you're right, to some extent. Certainly these forums mutually fertilize people's obsession with perfume! We all suffer to some degree from OCD, it seems. But I feel at the same time that it's a rather harmless pastime and in fact can be great for those who wish to deepen their knowledge of the object of their obsession.

      Is it cultlike? I'm not so sure. I don't see anyone being harmed in these exchanges. Everyone who participates has a life away from the internet, with friends and family members, some (many?) of whom have no interest in perfume. (My mother, for example, hates perfume! Or I should say that she cannot wear it. Recently she denied in a conversation that she "hates" perfume, but I think that she was just trying to be nice, since she knows about this blog. ;-))

      Before these websites existed, people who loved perfume were rather isolated from one another. Now they can meet and discuss questions which to "outsiders" are not interesting and are even utterly obscure, such as "What is the best leather chypre?"

      I put it to you, Interlocutor Man, is not the "incestuousness" of which you write common to every such online forum, devoted to any interest or hobby?

      xxxooo

      sherapop

      Delete
  47. I can't keep bouncing between 3 or 4 different threads and know you may not even see my response.

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    1. Good Morning, Interlocutor Man,
      I received your message--so please do continue your reply! Do you think that all forums are equally "incestuous" or is this unique to fragrance websites?
      xxxooo
      sherapop

      Delete
  48. I say the forums that remain small in number, membership-wise are incestuous and cult-like, cultish always doesn't mean physical harm. A forum like Fragrantica is probably too large now to remain inbred. It's diluted. Parfumo, not so much. Parfumo is mostly like-minded automatons. Boring and predictable.

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    1. Hello, Interlocutor Man!
      I see a lot of collegial disagreement and debate going on over at Parfumo, so our perceptions differ.
      best,
      sherapop

      Delete
  49. Thank you Princess Obvious....lol

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  50. I'll see you in a month, hang in there.

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