Public Space and Private Perfume Preferences: Is There a Problem?

I have often been surprised at the fervor with which some people denounce the use of perfume in certain spaces, most often the workplace, where the perfume naysayers appear generally speaking to hold sway. As a perfume lover, I am inclined to bristle at the effective olfactory tyranny of some in response to the complaints of a few, usually people who claim to suffer from severe allergies, and some of whom probably do. I doubt, frankly, that all of them do, just as I doubt that all of the people these days who request gluten-free substitutions in restaurants are in fact afflicted with Celiac disease (wheat gluten intolerance), as its incidence in the general population is rather low (~1%).

One reason why I doubt that very many people suffer from allergies bad enough to make even a whiff of someone's fragrance a cause for undue strife or major illness is that many parts of the world in which we live, and especially cities, are chock-full of scents. I often poke fun at New York City, in particular, but if such hypersensitive persons were truly so severely allergic, then it would be miraculous that they should be able to survive in most any city, in the midst of so many smells, many of which are quite a bit more offensive and obnoxious, if not noxious, than even Christian Dior Poison or Thierry Mugler Angel, to name but two of the more notoriously over-applied perfumes still in rotation among perfume wearers today. 

Despite my skepticism about and consternation at the anti-perfume backlash, however, I must confess that a couple of cases cause me to pause before dousing myself with loud perfume and proceeding to waltz out the door to a library or other public venue.

The Case of the Stinky Homeless Man

When I first moved to Boston, I used to attend free movie night at Boston Public Library on Boylston Street, conveniently located a few blocks from the Prudential Center and Copley Square and accessible by the T (our subway system). The films screened were usually classics, and so it was basically like going to a theater without paying but also being afforded the opportunity to see something which was actually worth watching. Overall, it was a nice way in which to indulge my passion for classic films without spending any money, which was especially good in my case as I had moved to this city without first finding a job and was living only on savings at that time.

The lure of attending free movies in a public space was considerably greater back then, before I had acquired a large flat screen television to forever obviate the need and squelch what motivation I once had for leaving my humble abode in order to see worthwhile films. I hardly ever go to watch movies in public anymore, and I suspect that I am not alone, although some theaters are managing to survive, even in a world where DVD releases succeed new movie premieres in some cases by a matter of only weeks. Since acquiring an HDTV, I find it very difficult to muster up the motivation to make my way to public movie screenings, although art film events such as the Boston French Film festival at the Museum of Fine Arts occasionally coax me away from the comfort of my couch.

One of the most unforgettable aspects of watching movies on Wednesday nights at Boston Public Library was the spectre of the local homeless men, one of whom in particular would often come to the movie screening and bring with him his weeks—months? years?—of accumulated stench. On the occasions where he sat within a few rows or seats from me, it was necessary to relocate to another part of the room because the smell was simply unbearable. One night I was so nauseated that I actually left without seeing the film.

The failure to bathe sufficiently or frequently enough is certainly not the province only of homeless people, but it is probably true that transients, having neglected hygiene in some cases literally for years, tend to be the worst olfactory offenders in this regard. They do not appear to recognize the type or extent of the scent which follows them around, leaving permanent memory traces in some people's minds, including mine. There are other varieties of unpleasant human-generated scent, but in thinking about public spaces and the question of perfume, I find myself drawn over and over again to the analogy which unwashed persons represent.

On the one hand, no one has the right to force someone else to bathe more frequently than he chooses to. On the other hand, it seems antisocial and rude to foist the scent of one's unwashed body upon other persons in public places. The case of the homeless person who reeks unbearably of filth, sweat, dirt, and general body odor all mingled together to produce a noxious “perfume” of sorts is especially interesting to me because of the apparent lack of intention on the part of the person to offend. Instead, stinkiness is a natural consequence of a lifestyle which may or may not have been chosen by the offender himself.

I imagine that most homeless people have not freely and willfully chosen that lifestyle, although a small proportion of them may have. For the most part, they are down on their luck, in some cases unable to land or keep a job because of psychological and emotional troubles. Having spent whatever resources they once had, they now lead a day-to-day, animal-like existence, living hand to mouth at the mercy of sympathetic passersby.

Perfumed people who stink because of their choice of fragrance or because they have overapplied it have definitely made a conscious decision to scent themselves, the consequence of which is to offend some of those in their environs. But I do not believe that very many such people intentionally overapply their fragrance in order to offend other people. Instead, they seem closer to the homeless man who, as a result of having not showered in weeks, months, or even years, verily stinks.

I was first made aware of the reality of olfactory fatigue on a day when a former colleague did not complain about but complimented me on my perfume, Marc Jacobs, which I was entirely unable to detect on myself so late in the day. In fact, when she asked me what I was wearing, I had to think back to what I had applied that morning in order to be able to answer the question!

In a recent comment on Perfumes of Geography: What's in a Place Name? here at the salon, Pitbull Friend observed that Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan could be accurately renamed “Eau de Homeless Person”! Many people of course like and choose to wear this perfume, so Pitbull Friend's pointed barb underscores the general problem of divergent reception of perfumes, caused by our different tastes, backgrounds, and sensitivities, and is one reason why the question of perfume and public space seems to me to be quite complex.

What is interesting in the cases of the overperfumed and the homeless person (or the person who wears a detectable application of Muscs Koublai Khan in the presence of Pitbull Friend!) is the paramount importance of the subjective experience of the various parties in question. The overperfumed person does not believe that she stinks any more than does the homeless man. In each of these cases, the unwitting culprit, if you will, has become habituated, inured to his or her scent. The perfumed person has been wearing her perfume faithfully, let us say, for some time and has developed a tolerance for it, leading her to apply more and more so that she herself can smell her own perfume. The effect for others may be not at all unlike the homeless man who decides to sit close to you at the movie theater, making it impossible to concentrate on what is happening on the screen—or even to breath.

At the same time, and as Pitbull Friend suggested in christening Muscs Koublai Khan with her own colorful moniker, one perfumista's treasure is another's trash, and one person's heaven sent scent is another's hell-engendered olfactory torture implement. The question, then, for perfumistas becomes: when we wear perfume in public spaces in the presence of persons for whom perfume is a source of unpleasantness on a par with what we find to be highly offensive body odor, are we conducting ourselves in the manner of the transient who pays no heed to the negative effects of his scent upon the noses of others? Having consciously chosen to perfume ourselves, are we not, however, culpable in a way in which the homeless man cannot really be said to be, at least if it is true that he did not freely choose his current deplorable living conditions—city streets and alleys—and his resultant state of filth?

The Anti-smoking Revolution

Second-hand smoke offers a second tinted lens through which to view the perfume and public space issue. Not so long ago, smokers ruled the day. Nonsmokers had to grin and bear it in restaurants and bars because the smokers, having purchased their cigarettes and pipes and cigars, had simultaneously purchased the power to use them where they wished. The powerful tobacco lobby acted to promote and perpetuate the sale of tobacco far and wide, creating nicotine addicts in such abundance that they were able to bind together in solidarity to effectively repel the complaints of the nonsmokers.

The power of the smoker bloc shrouded the weakness of its individual members—they could not live without the stuff—but they were supported in a capitalist system where whoever has the gold makes the rules, and tobacco growers and cigarette manufacturers managed to suppress legislative efforts to curb tobacco use. Second-hand smoke was an annoyance which nonsmokers simply had to tolerate.

There has been a complete about-face on the second-hand smoke issue as more and more people have been made acutely aware in recent years of the serious health hazards of smoking, and the number of smokers continues to dwindle. The medical costs of dealing with the health problems caused directly by smoking eventually became more of a motive force than even the profits enjoyed by tobacco growers and cancer-stick manufacturers.

Massive marketing campaigns and legislation requiring the visible printing of health advisories on all ads and packaging for tobacco products eventually gave rise to an increased consciousness among people about the scientifically documented dangers of smoking. As a result, the number and proportion of smokers in the general population has plummeted in recent times. 

A big part of this downward trend in the percentage of smokers, and the concomitant turning of the tables to accommodate nonsmokers, leaving smokers out in the cold—figuratively but also literally, as anyone living in a city with frost on the ground in wintertime can attest—can be credited to the levying by governments of taxes on tobacco products so steep that it has become prohibitively difficult even to become a smoker, requiring as it does a significant amount of cash on hand to do so.

I actually marvel at the fact that any poor people are smoking at all these days, given the prohibitive cost of doing so, and I'm not sure what explains the persistence of this habit beyond the ongoing perception of a sort of “coolness” still associated with this practice in some sectors of society. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the very people who really can still afford to smoke tend to be well-educated and aware of the dangers of developing an addiction to nicotine. Taken together, these forces—the generally improved information disseminated to potential smokers and the prohibitive cost of purchasing tobacco-laden implements of premature self-inflicted death—persuades many would-have-been smokers (in earlier decades) never to begin.

Perfume haters who lobby for the prohibition of perfume in public space are concerned that many of the chemicals used in fragrances today have been demonstrated to cause health hazards on a par with exposure to second-hand smoke. Their argument is that they should not be in the position of endangering their own health because of someone else's willful decision to don a substance which will pervade the air of any space in which she travels.

I am sympathetic to the concern on the part of some people to avoid some of the substances included in perfumes today. Many of the chemicals do have pretty ugly health profiles, and I eschew them in my own personal perfume use. The question, then, is: should someone who avoids BHT, for example, be subjected to exposure to the substance simply in order to indulge another person's aesthetic caprice?

One possible solution to this problem, from the wearer's end, is to refuse to wear poisonous perfumes. This way one can prevent poisoning not only one's self but also others. The problem remains: which fragrances are the toxic soups, and which are innocuous liquids? Nearly anyone has horror stories of encounters with perfumes which induce vague feelings of malaise or even acute neurological distress.  But are those the poisonous perfumes? 

Once again, in considering personal perfume reception, it appears that one person's poison is another's panacea! I myself literally shudder at the thought of applying Estée Lauder Intuition or Isabella Rossellini Manifesto to my skin. I actually think that I would prefer to have my toe nails forcibly removed than wear Intuition again. Other people wear those perfumes comfortably and even reach for them in anticipation of the enhancement which it will bring to their day. A chacun son corps!

Some among the perfumes which I love, on the other hand, may well make some other people cringe. However much we may all love our own favorite perfumes, we are wired somewhat differently, and this manifests itself not only in our radically different evaluations of the quality of perfumes but also in our willingness to wear them. All of us quite naturally avoid the perfumes which induce in us undue strife, despite in some cases the praise of other people of the very same creations as great. It simply does not matter how much artistry has gone into a fragrance which makes us feel physically ill. That is the ultimate test of a bad perfume, it seems to me: its inability to be worn. While that may be an entirely subjective judgment, it is nonetheless authoritative—to us.

Ethics or Etiquette?

I am fortunate to have a large selection of perfumes ranging from intense mega-sillage elixirs which I myself cannot even don with the hope of getting anything done, to light, skin scent-like colognes whose presence I barely detect, if at all. I realize that some people who complain about perfume are simply complaining for the sake of complaining, because they want people to jump at their beck and call and to modify their habits at their behest.

Nonetheless, I approach the question of public space scent from the most charitable possible vista. I assume that there really are people whose ability to function well may be severely impeded by what to them is perfume-infused air no less polluted than a room full of second-hand smoke. For this reason, I reserve my intense, big projection perfumes for use at home, where I can be sure that no one will be bothered by the scent.

At the same time, when I encounter someone wearing the metaphorical equivalent to “Eau de Homeless Person,” I make a concerted effort to “put daylight” between us, to invoke a phrase unforgettably ascribed to U.S. President Barack Obama by presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. I operate under the assumption that such people do not know any better when they behave in socially unacceptable ways.

I do not conduct myself thus only in order to avoid conflict. No, I have an ulterior motive as well. By exercising discretion in my choice of perfume in public spaces, I avoid giving the perfume haters more grist for their mill. Similarly, while assuming that over-perfumed persons do not know what they are doing, I do not voice my disapproval because I refuse to give the perfume police and anti-perfume activists more evidence for their view that all perfume should be banned from public spaces. Nothing of the sort is true, of course, so strategically speaking, this approach makes the most sense to me.

In saying all of this, I should clarify, by way of conclusion, that I do not believe this to be an ethical issue at all. I do not believe that other people's even poisonous perfume is inflicted on those around them in concentrations sufficient to cause them harm. At the same time, as I have remarked before and will no doubt again, it seems quite clear to me that there is no natural right to perfume. Perfume is a luxury, pure and simple, and we are fortunate to be among the small percentage of humanity capable of enjoying this luxury. It is a privilege, not a right to perfume one's self, and no one is wronged by being deprived of something which was never his right in the first place.

Because we are among the tiny, incredibly privileged portion of humanity to enjoy the opportunity to indulge in the perfuming of ourselves, we should do so with discretion in public spaces, ever aware that it is our honor to do so. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than the homeless man at the library and comport ourselves with civility among our fellow human beings, whatever that may require, and even when their perceptions differ radically from our own. 

Perfume and the Pre-Socratics 4: Pluralism and Primordial Scents 2012

The Pluralist Response to Parmenides

The time has arrived at last to return to our History of Philosophy Refracted through Perfume. For those new to this series, we have so far covered the thought of pre-Socratic thinkers Thales, Heraclitus, Anaximander and Anaximenes, and we last left off with Parmenides. According to Parmenides, only Being is real, and it is unitary, eternal, and immobile. All of the different things which we take ourselves to perceive in what Parmenides terms the realm of “becoming” are but illusions, including all of the empty perfume bottles which we believe ourselves to have drained.

I imagine that the philosophers who immediately succeeded Parmenides were a bit daunted. How to respond to a theory—All is one—according to which nothing can truly be said? Instead of simply capitulating or wasting precious time sulking in silence, the next group of pre-Socratic philosophers leapt out of the Parmenidean monism box and boldly proclaimed the truth of pluralism. Essentially these critics' position appears to have been that their convictions in the soundness of the Parmenidean arguments against change and motion were less strong than their convictions that things really do change, motion is in fact possible, and perfume bottles can indeed be drained.

Why did the pluralists believe in the reality of motion and change? For the usual reasons: they observed them with their own eyes. Change seemed undeniable to the pluralists, so Parmenides' picture was incomplete, and there must have been something wrong with his arguments, even if they could not pinpoint exactly what it was.

This handy little skeptical parry can always be whipped out when faced with a seemingly insurmountable argument to an unwanted conclusion. At the end of the day, the plausibility of first premises is a matter of subjective intuition. From first premises everything else follows—or not.

“All is one” is certainly true under some possible interpretation—everything is connected in one way or another to everything else, even Versace Blonde and Balmain Balmain—but it does indeed seem as though divisions made and distinctions drawn have much more relevance to the way people actually lead their lives than does an intangible realm of Being. Perhaps we are meandering about in a fog of delusion in the realm of becoming, but that is, in fact, where we are, where we have found ourselves, deeply mired in ignorance. For the time being, then, why not attempt to understand the realm of becoming, the fine distinctions between fine perfumes, and embrace the concepts of change and motion rejected by Parmenides? Even if he is right about the True Nature of Ultimate Reality, what relevance does that have to any person's life?

Moreover, would not a strict adherence in practice to Parmenides' theory lead naturally to one's ruin? If there is no difference between scentedness and unscentedness, or an empty bottle and a full one, then why bother to wear perfume? Why bother even to drink water? Why bother even to budge? While sitting inert, basking in the beatific light of Being, one would simply starve to death. Clearly, following Parmenidean logic consistently would be a short-term endeavor. Perhaps Parmenides is right about pristine Being, but our bodies are firmly ensconced in the gunky goo of becoming, as regrettable as that may be—or not.

These sorts of arguments may sound familiar to readers who have wrestled with the conundrum of the God hypothesis. Many self-proclaimed free-thinking nonbelievers simply deny the relevance of God to their life from day to day. “Nonbelievers” is of course a category which comprises both atheists, who religiously deny the existence of God, and mild-mannered agnostics such as sherapop, who simply withhold judgment on the question, unsure as they are as to what would constitute evidence either way. The music of J.S. Bach? The Holocaust?

I recall that when I was in college a woman living in my dormitory did not study for her final examinations because, she maintained in what appeared to be complete sincerity, if God wanted her to pass, then she would. This is precisely the stance rejected by those who scoff at petty requests directed toward the Almighty for assistance during times of need. Will God really help you with your mortgage?

Even if you find out that you are dying of cancer, is praying actually supposed to help? Well, then why did God let you get cancer in the first place? The answers to such questions offered by believers invariably cast an unflattering light upon the Almighty, and sometimes attain the level of high conspiracy. In fact, the God hypothesis itself may be the most conspiratorial of all possible conspiracy theories! God may have His inscrutable reasons, but of what relevance are they to me?

These sorts of arguments of course go on and on and on, and some smart people end up as atheists in a sort of pendulum effect. Bill Maher's film Religulous (2008) offers a clear illustration of this position, but I must say that I felt that he painted religious people in a crude and derogatory way. In my experience, not all religious people are imbeciles or (vel) ignoramuses. On the contrary, plenty of very smart people have believed in God, including some of the most esteemed Dead White Men in the history of philosophy: Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Kant, Descartes, Pascal, why even Socrates appears to have spoken of “the gods” now and then—though it's never clear with him whether he is speaking ironically or not... My suspicion is that the “voice” to which Socrates alluded was probably his conscience, not the man with the beard. George W. Bush, on the other hand, invoked “voices” to explain some of his more dubious policy decisions, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq in violation of international law—but that's another story.

Empedocles: Love and Strife and the Four Root Elements

The pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles accepted the Parmenidean arguments about motion and change, but he rejected monism. Empedocles concurred with the monist to end all monists that reality was indeed a plenum, but he maintained that motion and change are possible because things trade places with one another. Rather than there being only one ultimate substrate, Empedocles posited six: four roots—earth, air, fire, and water—and two motions: Love and Strife. Love brings things together; Strife divides them apart.

According to Empedocles, in the beginning of what he called the “world cycle,” the four roots, earth, air, fire, and water, were interwoven together under the action of Love. This harmonic mesh was rent asunder through the motion of Strife, which seems to be related to the proverbial Fall from grace described in a number of religious traditions. Applying this idea to the contemporary world, we see these divisions exacerbated in contemporary wars, which seem to go on and on... Rather than focus on what connects us to one another, we tend to focus upon what divides us, to such an extent that a reunion may often seem beyond our means.

Left to my own devices, I'm not sure how I would have been able to apply Empedocles' theory directly to the case of perfume. However, I have been happily rescued on this front by Monica Miller, Perfume Pharmer, and Primordial Scents 2012, a contemporary perfume project currently underway, which commences precisely from the picture of reality painted by pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles!

In this project, a group of distinguished independent and all-natural perfumers have come together to create new perfumes based on or inspired by one or more of the basic roots of reality posited by Empedocles: air, earth, fire, and water.

Primordial Scents 2012 affirms the interconnectedness not only of all of the elements serving as the foundation of perfumic creations but also of perfume writers and perfumers. Described as “a salon of scented artists and perfumers,” Primordial Scents 2012 is essentially a celebration of first things, of which we may lose sight in the busy, chaotic jumble of the world of becoming in which we interact day to day.

The inspired creations of the perfumers participating in Primordial Scents 2012 include entire sets of perfumes which focus on one of the basic roots: air, fire, earth, and water. A fifth root, metal, has also been explored, and some of the perfumers have commenced from the concept of ether or space. For those who wish to experience these new creations, sample sets are available at the etsy website. Now that the weather has finally cooled off, I'll be posting reviews of the air and the fire series scents at Il Mondo di Odore.

Here at the salon de parfum, we'll continue to progress through the History of Philosophy Refracted through Perfume and see what the other pre-Socratic pluralists would have had to say about the object of our fascination—or perhaps did, but the content of which has been suppressed by olfactorily benighted scholars in a misguided effort to deny the philosophical importance of perfume and how it can help us better to apprehend the true nature of Reality.

In the meantime, I encourage you to explore some of the sources of perfumic enlightenment which await you at these fine ateliers:

• Amanda Feeley (Escentual Alchemy) - AIR & EARTH
• Ane Walsh (Ane Walsh) - BEACH/WATER
• Anita Kalnay (Flying Colors Natural Perfumes) - SPACE/ETHER
• Anu Prestonia (Anu Essentials)- WATER
• Bruce Bolmes (SMK Fragrances) - METAL
• Dabney Rose (Dabney Rose) - FIRE
• Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH Perfumes / Essence Studio)- ETHER/SPACE
• Emma Leah (Fleurage Perfume Atelier)  - METAL
• Jane Cate (A Wing & A Prayer) - FIRE
• Juan M. Perez (Exotic Island Aromatics)- FIRE& EARTH
• Justine Crane (The Scented Djinn) - EARTH
• Katlyn Breene (Mermade Magickal Arts) -FIRE
• Kedra Hart (Opus Oils) - EARTH
• Kirsten Schilling (Arabesque Aromas) - ETHER/Space
• Laurie Stern (Velvet and Sweet Pea) - AIR
• Lisa Abdul-Quddus (Blossoming Tree Bodycare) - METAL
• Lyn Ayre (Coeur d’Esprit Natural Perfumes ) - ETHER
• Mandy Aftel (Aftelier Perfumes) - WATER
• Maria Mcelroy (Aroma M) and Alexis Karl - FIRE
• Marian Del Vecchio - FIRE 
• Michael Storer (Michael Storer Perfumes)- AIR & EARTH
• Neil Morris (Neil Morris Fragrances) - AIR
• Shelley Waddington (En Voyage Perfumes) - ETHER/SPACE,FIRE & WATER 
• Suzy Larsen (Naked Leaf Perfumes) - AIR
• Tanja Bochnig (April Aromatics) - AIR, EARTH, ETHER

Happy Sniffing!

Perfume and the Pre-Socratics 2: Anaximander, Anaximenes, and the Importance of Contrariness

The heavy rain faded away leaving a thick curtain of humidity hanging in the air. It suddenly dawned on me: could water [or eau de toilette] alone explain this steamy effect? Would it not be more accurate to say that the hot and the dry gave way to the cool and the wet, and then as the heat returned, it transformed the wet into this muggy blanket of moisture now tinging the world rather gray and making me feel as though I were in a permanently decaffeinated state?

My thoughts are running slow; my speech is slightly slurred, but this much I believe, albeit foggily, that I know: Does not reality, my exquisitely scented friends, ultimately comprise pairs of contrary things: the hot and the cold, the wet and the dry, the black and the white, the scented and the unscented?

As a matter of fact, there was a pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaximander, who appears to have believed precisely that. This theory is ascribed to Anaximander by historians, all of whom write about other historians' writings, leading back to the sole extant phrase said to have been authored by this man:

They give justice and reparation to one another 

for their injustice

in accordance with the arrangement of time.

Now, the historians who interpret this cryptic phrase pregnant with possibility understand it to mean anything but an assertion of the profound philosophical importance of perfume, and I am confident that no one has ever before ended the list of contraries ascribed to Anaximander with the all-important pair “the scented and the unscented.” Yet it seems obvious that such an exclusion cannot be rationally justified, given the abundance of smells found naturally in the world and of which Anaximander was undoubtedly aware.

Could Anaximander really have been anosmic? I think not. Instead, what has happened is that historians over more than two thousand years have dogmatically re-penned the same old interpretations over and over again, the very interpretations in which they were steeped as students. All too eager to please their mentors, these thinkers have never really made any progress at all. Trapped in what they have been told by equally ignorant others was the worldview of the ancient Greeks, scholars continue to this day to neglect the central role played by perfume in the history of Western philosophy. Let's look now more closely at what Anaximander, clearly an avid perfumista—whether closet or not—really thought.

Anaximander is said to have believed that all of these contraries emerge from an enormous “Indefinite-Infinite,” what he termed the apeiron. The existence of the apeiron would seem to be the only possible explanation, too, for the fact that perfumers still today, more than two millennia after Anaximander reflected upon the nature of reality, continue to make radically disparate, even antithetical perfumes. Translating the terms of the question and its answer to a modern context, how would Anaximander have aligned the opposites in perfumery?

We perfumistas all know that sharp, soapy floral aldehydes such as Hermès Calèche and Amouage Dia bear next to no resemblance to a sweet floral oriental such as Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur or Bond no 9 Chinatown. 

But all of these perfumes are closer to one another than any of them is to a flowerless fragrance such as Prada Infusion de Vétiver or Annick Goutal Mandragore.

How to explain the seemingly endless ability of perfumers to continue to come up with new creations, using a finite palette of scents in the world?

It is through the interaction and exchange of opposite qualities emerging out of the indefinite-infinite apeiron, the wise Anaximander explained, and we may rest assured that he would have wholeheartedly concurred with the application of his theory to perfume. 

Indeed, perfume would seem to offer the clearest illustration of what are said to be Anaximander's own views. This philosopher's metaphysical theory has the added virtue of having prophetically predicted what would happen in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the world of perfume.

Anaximenes, Air and the Accordion Effect

Anaximander's thought has been admired by many, but another pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaximenes, refined the theory of the indefinite-infinite apeiron, whose generation of opposites was left unexplained by Anaximander himself. In a brilliant anticipation of modern theories of physical chemistry, Anaximenes reasoned that the qualitative differences observed in nature were brought about by quantitative changes.

To give a simple example: think of water at very different temperatures. Water which is frozen has the properties of a solid thing. Water which is heated up acquires the properties of a gaseous thing. On analogy to this case, throughout nature, Anaximenes reasoned, it is through quantitative changes that qualititative differences emerge.

However, Anaximenes did not embrace water as the ultimate substrate, as Thales had. Instead, Anaximenes hypothesized that pneuma or air was the most basic substance, the underlying foundation of the universe. He reasoned that air becomes denser and denser as it undergoes condensation, to produce all of the other apparently disparate types of matter in a series looking something like this:

air → fire → wind → cloud → water → earth → stone

In tandem, dense matter becomes lighter through the reverse process, of rarefaction:

stone → earth → water → cloud → wind → fire → air

In other words, air is the beginning and the end of all things. It goes perhaps without saying, then, that given his explicit focus on air, Anaximenes would have been very, very conversant with the perfumes of his time, and with only a bit of interpolation, we can derive important implications of his theory for the modern world of perfume.

How did Dior Poison and Giorgio of Beverly Hills Giorgio 
give rise to the house of Clean?

In some ways, what Anaximenes was suggesting held sway was the proverbial “pendulum” or “accordion” effect, which obviously applies directly to perfume. Among other phenomena, the 1980s excesses of super-potent or scent-ful perfumes which filled entire public spaces could only have been followed by the pendulum—or, if you prefer, the accordion—effect of the apeiron. If asked to explain what transpired, Anaximenes would surely have replied that an expansion to the upper limits of scentedness had to be followed by a contraction back to unscentedness.

So there you have it my fragrant friends: the ultimate explanation of the anti-perfume backlash and the mass of perfumes being marketed today which offer no more and no less than the scent which should be expected upon one's emergence from the shower or bath.

Hair conditioner and shampoo florals, sweet laundry scents, and “not a perfume” perfumes all emerged from the inexorable oscillatory expansion and contraction of the apeiron. The “not a perfume” perfumes such as Escentric Molecules Molecule 01 and Juliette has a gun Not a Perfume may represent the limit to which the contraction of the apeiron can still be capitalized upon in persuading consumers to pay for less complexly scented liquids. Or are people also prepared to pay niche perfumery prices for a completely unscented liquid? Only time will tell.

For now, we have Anaximander and Anaximenes to thank for providing us with the explanation so many of us have been grasping for in attempting to make sense of recent developments in the world of perfume, a microcosm of the vast universe which these wise philosophers undertook to explain. Clearly these thinkers, like Heraclitus and Thales, were inspired and enlightened by their experiences of perfume.

A House of Mirrors

What is it, then, which unites all of these pre-Socratic philosophers? No, my fragrant friends, it was not just that they preceded Socrates, nor that they indulged in metaphysical speculation. Nor that they had far too much free time on their hands, as non-philosophers may be tempted to jest. In reality, although their views have been rendered scent-free by olfactorily challenged historians throughout many centuries, all of these monistic thinkers recognized that, far from being a mere cosmetic item, perfume holds within it the key to the deepest mysteries of the universe.

Our memories elicited by scent reflect an infinite kaleidoscope of experiences unique to individuals yet still binding them together as one. When we disagree about perfumes, proving yet again that “One perfumista's treasure is another's trash,” we reveal that each one of us, like Thales, Heraclitus, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, have grasped different facets of Reality. We may lose sight of this truth, under sway of lists of fictitious and metaphorical names given in the note hierarchies for perfumes.

Cotton Candy: Aquolina Pink Sugar and MOR Marshmallow MOR

Popcorn: Dior Miss Dior [Chérie] and Memo SIWA

Vodka: Bvlgari BLV Notte Pour Femme and Parfum d'Empire Ambre Russe

Earth: Tokyomilk Crushed and Tauer Perfumes Pentachords Verdant

Seawater: Comptoir Sud Pacifique Aqua Motu and L'Artisan Parfumeur Fleur de Liane

Suede: Keiko Mecheri Cuir Cordoba and Tangeri; Serge Lutens Daim Blond

Ozone: Bond no 9 Fire Island and Linari Vista sul Mare

In reality, cotton candy, popcorn, vodka, earth, seawater, suede and ozone are found in no perfume. These are names given to the intended evocations of the perfumes in which they are said to figure. People with no prior experience of cotton candy, popcorn, vodka, or suede will not be reminded of those objects when they smell a perfume which its creator intended to call to mind those things. But even less obviously metaphorical notes, such as rose, jasmine, ambergris, and many other naturally occurring things, are also, in truth, metaphorical. There is no rose in a rose perfume. A rose perfume is intended to evoke the effect of a rose on the person who smells the perfume. What is the effect of a rose on a person who comes in contact with it? Depends on the person!

This is why, in the end, perfumes make up an infinite house of mirrors, into which we glimpse each time we take a sniff as our memories and associations rise to consciousness. This is also why perfume reviews reveal much more about the author than about the ostensible object of his or her critique.