Entry #17: A Philosophical Lexicon for Perfumistas

This collage/mosaic of HRH Emperor Oliver was produced using the open source software program AndreaMosaic

Leibniz' Law

For any two things X and Y, X is equivalent to Y 

if and only if every property of X is a property of Y, 

and every property of Y is a property of X.

It might seem on its face that Leibniz' Law is being violated left and right in the age of reformulation. Nina Ricci L'Air du Temps is no longer L'Air du Temps, because the properties of the early and the more recent perfume bearing that same name are not one and the same. The ingredients have changed, in this particular case, a lot.

What's in a name? I discovered through an auto-Google that my given name is shared by several other people in the United States. I was surprised by this, as my name is not Jane Doe, and it seemed hard to believe that my first name would be attached to the same last name in so many other cases. But it was. As a result, multiple entities bearing no resemblance to me share my name.

The same can be said for sherapop, of course. Who is sherapop? Is she the princess of power? Or is she the philosopher of perfume? Or is she the philosopher of power? Or is she the princess of perfume?

All of these examples illustrate nothing really, because no one ever said that the same name could not be attached to two very different things. An interesting example in natural language is the string of letters g-i-f-t. Gift means present or wife or poison, depending on the language, and most people would consider those three to be very different things!

When a perfume company retains the name of a classic perfume for a less expensive or "re-imagined for the modern wearer" reformulation, have they violated Leibniz' Law? Not exactly, but they are banking (literally) on the fact that consumers will assume that the praise enjoyed by the earlier perfume is shared, transitively, as it were, by the newer perfume. 

In fact, the praise only applies or applied to the perfume actually sniffed, and when the two are dramatically different, then speaking of them as the same thing is rather like speaking of the very different people bearing my given name as one and the same, which is absurd. I do not deserve credit or blame for anything done by anyone else bearing my name. 

Names are crude bookkeeping devices, no more and no less, but they can be and are used by marketers to a company's advantage. 

Entry #16: A Philosophical Lexicon for Perfumistas

Ontology, Ontological, Ontologist

A few entries back I boldly asserted that epistemology and phenomenology were the two most reviled philosophical terms. What was I thinking? Even philosophers hate the word ontology! "Ontology, schmontology," has often been muttered by lovers of Quine and scientistic types more generally. The science worshipers and analytic philosophers (not quite coextensive, but close enough), all roll their eyes whenever anyone expresses an interest in the topic of ontology. So what is it, exactly?

We covered the basics of ontology in the episode of The History of Philosophy Refracted through Perfume dedicated to Parmenides, an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher who was the ontologist to end all ontologists. The key concept for Parmenides was Being. Ontology is the study of Being. And, yes, I do believe that it is supposed to be capitalized, to underscore its importance. So what, exactly, is Being? To be or not to be, that is the question, and it's a lot more profound that you might initially have thought. 

To begin with, what are the things in reality? Sounds easy, right? There are chairs, and there are tables, and there are bottles. Now we come to perfumes. Are there individual perfumes? Perfumes actually perfectly reflect the profundity of ontological studies. What makes a perfume a perfume, after all? When and how does a perfume come to exist? 

In terms of chemistry, a perfume is made up of a bunch of molecules. All of the ingredients on the label, including the mystery ingredient parfum, which especially distinguishes a perfume from all others, are components which, before being mixed together are other things: alcohol, eugenol, linalool, geraniol, the list goes on and on. So in mixing a bunch of different substances together, a perfumer ends up creating something new, a perfume which did not exist before. This is a grand creation act. How can a mere human being create new objects in reality? Perfumers appear to do it all the time. Chanel no 5 did not exist, and then suddenly, thanks to Ernest Beaux and Gabrielle Chanel, it did.

But are these new perfumes really real? Or are they not merely a part of the unstable world of becoming? That was essentially Parmenides' view. All of the change and movement which we observe in reality is illusory. There is only one real thing, and that is Being. Ontology is the study of Being, but since there is only one real thing, Being, nothing can be said about it, since any spoken words are going to divide up reality into pieces. 

Understood in the Parmenidean sense, ontology digs deeper than metaphysics, which is still concerned with cause and effect and ultimate divisions between things, even if those things cannot be accessed through empirical means. Ontology, my fragrant friends, is deep, and I suspect that at least some ontologists throughout history have grasped Being only under the influence of powerfully psychomimetic drugs. For now, we are mired in the world of becoming, which is of course why we are functional. 

We do distinguish things from one another in what we perceive to be reality. Not all perfumes are the same. Perhaps if we were enlightened enough, we would cease making any distinctions whatsoever. For now, let's just keep reviewing all of the different perfumes which we believe ourselves to be encountering while we wallow our way through the shadowy world of becoming.

I will say that when I see the tsunami of new niche launches, I start to understand the appeal of the simpler approach. Is every single possible combination of any possible liquid substances a perfume? Are there then infinitely many perfumes? Apparently so, if the behavior of the multilaunchers means anything. So long as they can keep coming with new names—often through the use, it seems, of random name generators—then they can continue to christen new perfumes. 

We sometimes identify perfumes as very similar to already existent perfumes, but as the grand map of the olfactory world becomes populated with more and more perfumes, at some point there will cease to be any iconic perfumes. At that point, perhaps, we will all be carried away in a sea of perfumes, the names of which will cease to matter anymore.  

If we could adopt the perspective of Parmenides, we'd be cured forever of our disappointment and anger over reformulated perfumes. They were never real to begin with, so how could they be any less real today than they ever were? Mitsouko was always an illusion.

Is Mayotte Mahora? First sketch of an outline of a theory of perfume identity

How many times have I heard Guerlain Mahora denounced by perfumistas as an epic failure on the part of the otherwise venerable house of Guerlain? How many of those who parrot this refrain have even experienced the now-discontinued perfume? 

Mahora was launched in 1999 (according to the date on my bottles) but swiftly pulled from the counters and boutiques. How many times have I heard it said that Guerlain Mayotte, launched in 2006, is no more and no less than Mahora? In fact, the claim is frequently made that Mayotte is Mahora, albeit rebottled and sold under a new name, and this appears to be widely accepted as the truth.

Needless to say, the blogosphere- disseminated "factoids" to the effect that, first, Mahora is horrible and, second, Mayotte is Mahora, have left me puzzled and perplexed. I have been known to gush about Mahora, so the first and foremost source of my perplexity inheres in the simple fact that such an excellent perfume should be trashed so volubly by so many people. But there is more to my puzzlement than profound disagreement on a matter of taste. After all, the Mahora haters may well love Insolence, which at least in the eau de toilette form (I've yet to muster up the courage to try the eau de parfum), I find utterly repulsive. If so, then I can remind myself how very subjective perfume perception is, deriving a modicum of solace and comfort once more from the handy adage

One perfumista's treasure is another perfumista's trash.

That little piece of folk wisdom, however, is not enough to dispel the logical quandary posed by the second of the two claims, that Mayotte is in fact Mahora. On the face of it, the claim is preposterous, and I have never believed it to be true. Why? First, because if Mahora was a resounding market flop in part because of its "nasty" scent, then there would be nary a reason for Guerlain to have launched the "disaster" all over again. Would there?

Second, it has been brought to our collective attention that Guerlain has reformulated most if not all of their perfumes. Why would Mahora, even if under a pseudonym, not, too, have been put under the chemist/accountant's knife, all under the pretext of needing to comply with the IFRA?

There are a few possible responses to these concerns, commencing with the most obvious, that when Mahora was launched, Guerlain was still an independent house. Such apparent logical preposterousness would not be precluded in the least by Guerlain's new corporate master, LVMH, which after all is now infamous for having worked wonders for the house of Christian Dior by renaming Miss Dior Chérie as Miss Dior and Miss Dior as Miss Dior L'Originale, sowing confusion far and wide.  LVMH also appears to be responsible for the complete and utter perversion of the once-beautiful Aqua Allegoria line. In the wake of these sorts of wild and wacky business moves, it becomes difficult to insist that relaunching Mahora as Mayotte can only be written off as completely out of the question. Everything is permitted, it seems, chez LVMH, so why not that, too?

After all, it might be thought, or it might have been thought by the marketing gurus at Guerlain under the aegis of LVMH, that Mahora's real problem was her marketing campaign. Perhaps people were put off by the shiny-skinned naked model standing in an exotic scene before what looks to be a volcano in the middle of the desert and channeling perhaps the gods of Indian mythology. But wait, did not Tom Ford put naked flesh to good use in marketing the decidedly unedgy Tom Ford Cologne? 

Details, details. Are they or are they not the same?

The Proof is in the Juice?

Fortunately, there is no need to delve further into the inscrutably labyrinthine strategic cogitations of the marketing team at LVMH. Thanks to my perfume pal Andrew Buck at The Scentrist, who recently gave away a large bottle (125ml) of Mayotte, of which I was the lucky winner, I am able to compare the juice of Mahora to the juice of Mayotte side by side and decide whether or not they are the same. One nose, one set of skin, two bottles of juice. Are they the same?

HRH Emperor Oliver stands by, ready to assist in the definitive sniffing test

Let's begin with the visuals. The juice inside the Mahora and the Mayotte bottles is similarly colored and appears even to have approximately the same viscosity. I had remembered Mahora as having a thicker, more viscous texture, but as I compared the two perfumes, both at eau de parfum concentration, side by side, I recognized that my memory had built up Mahora in my mind as a golden elixir. In fact, it's just as watery looking as Mayotte. So are they then the same? Not so fast. Colored water is sometimes used to fill perfume bottles put on display. We cannot be sure that the juice is the same from the color alone.

The day I received my package from The Scentrist, upon my initial application of Mayotte, I was absolutely convinced that it was nothing like Mahora. In fact, I found Mayotte much closer to Versace Blonde! More animalic, more vague and cloudy, less golden and gleaming and glistening. Still, I could not be sure until comparing the juices side by side.

When I tried that, on a different day, I found that the opening of Mahora and the opening of Mayotte are not all that different, although Mahora does seem more sweet. The real story does not reveal itself until the drydown, when the two perfumes smell nothing alike. Mayotte  turns out to be rather linear, smelling more or less the same from start to finish, with only a diminution in strength until it finally fades away. 

Please rest assured that I sprayed the same amount of these perfumes on (Mahora on the left, Mayotte on the right), so the radical distinction in longevity, sillage, and trajectory cannot be explained away by spritz-versus-dab phenomenology. The Mayotte bottle does not have a sprayer, but I decanted the liquid into a purse spray vessel for the purpose of this comparison.

Mahora, in contrast to Mayotte, grows stronger and more luxuriant as it melds into the skin, which heats up the perfume to create a much bigger sillage than the perfume initially seemed to have. After a couple of hours, there is no comparison to be made whatsoever. At best, Mayotte can be read as a reformulation of Mahora, quite a bit weaker, and much less sweet and intoxicating. Mayotte is a pleasant enough tuberose scent, but it is not Mahora, the complex elixir which I fell in love with at first sniff and which I continue to love still today, long after my esteem for the house of Guerlain has dwindled to nearly nothing. Mahora is the last vestige of a by-gone era.

My conclusion: the two perfumes are not the same. But is my reasoning sound?

What are the criteria for identity in perfumery?

Perfumes, like persons, are rather complex things, ontologically speaking. What makes a perfume a perfume, and how do we decide that it is or is not the same as another? I argued above that Mayotte is not Mahora. The basis of my claim is that the two perfumes smell rather different, especially in the drydown.

It may be objected, however, that Mayotte is closer to Mahora than to any other Guerlain perfume. After all, there is a relative dearth of tuberose in the Guerlain line-up. Rose and vanilla abound, but tuberose? Perhaps that is what everyone who has propelled this falsehood far and wide, faster than the speed of sound and throughout the world wide web, really meant. Perhaps when people say "Mayotte is a relaunch of Mahora," they mean no more and no less than that Mayotte is a lot closer to the discontinued Mahora than it is to any of the extant creations, so it must be a relaunch of the same, more or less. 

Why get bogged down with picayune details? Hardly anyone knows what Mahora smells like anyway, and even fewer want to find out, now that it has been pervasively, and I dare say perniciously, denounced as the worst perfume ever to have been designed by Jean-Paul Guerlain. The received view appears to be that Jean-Paul Guerlain had a very bad nose day when he signed off on Mahora. I respectfully demur from the "conventional wisdom", needless to say.

If purveyors of the received view mean that Mayotte is "more or less" Mahora, then what they are perhaps saying is that Mayotte began in the lab as Mahora but then was reformulated. That would, in fact, make a lot of sense, given that Mahora was a market flop, and Guerlain has in any case reformulated just about everything else.

But if that is what happened, then why claim that Mayotte is Mahora in the first place? How can identifying a recent launch with a previously launched failure help anyone? Oh right, LVMH marches to the beat of their own drummer, which in their case means operating beyond the realm of logic. Has the conglomerate perhaps been infiltrated by spies from the competition, say, Procter & Gamble or Elizabeth Arden or Coty or Estée Lauder? On ne sait jamais...

I strongly suspect that the real reason why this falsehood has gained such traction is simply that the two perfumes do look similar, and they also smell similar in the opening minutes. Anyone who writes a review on the basis of the opening, without waiting around for the lengthy and complex drydown of Mahora—nonexistent for Mayotte—may easily conclude that the two perfumes are "more or less" the same, and depending upon their sensitivity, they may or may not notice the difference in sweetness between the two.

One thing, perhaps the only thing, of which we can be absolutely sure is that Mahora was never reformulated. It was launched and discontinued, thank goodness, I might add, since now when we score a bottle at least we know what's really inside, what certainly cannot be taken for granted in cases such as Shalimar, Samsara, Jicky, Mitsouko, and many other of the classic perfumes from the house of Guerlain.

I have based my judgment that Mayotte is not Mahora on the simplest of evidence: how the liquids in the bottles smell. In reality, perfume identity is not at all dependent upon scent, as odd as that may seem to those who pride themselves on learning as much as they possibly can about perfume. 

Clearly, the formula is not considered an essential part of the perfume. Why? Because countless perfumes bearing the same names have been serially reformulated. The scent of Coty Muguet des Bois has changed, but the name stays the same. The identity criteria are quite different in the case of perfume than they are in virtually any other realm. If a company owns a perfume formula, then they have the right to retain the name and fiddle with formula, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it.

By this logic, the only way that Mayotte could really be Mahora would be if Guerlain had kept the name Mahora and slapped it on the perfume instead of the name Mayotte. The two are not the same because the house says that they are not the same. By using a different name, Guerlain has stipulated that the perfumes are not identical. Mayotte is not a relaunch of Mahora, because only same-named perfumes can be relaunched.

That is all that perfume identity amounts to: the house and the name. No, wait! Even that is too much. Take cases such as Balenciaga Rumba. The formula for Rumba was sold to Ted Lapidus. They proceeded to reformulate the perfume, while still selling it in the same bottle, albeit with the house name Ted Lapidus replacing the house name Balenciaga. This is not a case where a corporate overlord has arrived on the scene to manage the company. No, Balenciaga still exists as a house, and it is not owned by Ted Lapidus. Balenciaga continues to launch new perfumes, but no longer owns Rumba. Balenciaga is owned by Coty, and Ted Lapidus is owned by the Jacques Bogart Group. (As far as I know, Coty does not own the Jacques Bogart Group. Perhaps it's on their future acquisition wish list?)

Yet Rumba continues to be sold as Rumba, despite the fact that Ted Lapidus completely reformulated the perfume, and the bottle emblazoned with the Ted Lapidus label now boasts completely different notes than did the Balenciaga original. This example shows that what matters is who owns the formula for a named perfume. They then own the name, and can at their caprice completely change the formula! Perfume names are no more and no less than brands. If a company decides that it will be more lucrative to completely transform "the product", as they view the matter, then they will. 

Perfumes, from the perspective of business people, are no more and no less than products. Mahora did not sell well, so Mahora was terminated with extreme prejudice. Mahora does not exist anymore, according to Guerlain itself, and for that reason Mayotte is not Mahora. The fact that different recipes were used to produce the two liquids is entirely beside the point. What matters is what the house says. Guerlain says that Mayotte is Mayotte. Guerlain ceased production of Mahora. Therefore, the two are not the same.

The nail in the coffin in this case is the simple fact that the official notes, provided by the house itself, are different for the two perfumes.

Mayotte

top: green notes

middle: frangipani, jasmine, neroli, tuberose, ylang-ylang

base: sandalwood, vanilla vetiver

Mahora

top: green notes, almond blossom, orange

middle: jasmine, neroli, tuberose, ylang-ylang

base: sandalwood, vanilla vetiver

Frangipani is listed for Mayotte, but not for Mahora. Almond blossom and orange are listed for Mahora but not for Mayotte. How, in the light of such evidence has this clear-cut case of false identity persisted for so long?

In fact, applying my well-intentioned but ultimately irrelevant olfactory test to any number of pairs of reformulated perfumes, one would conclude, erroneously, that they are not the same. That is to fall into a sort of fantasy world about perfumes, which do not exist as objects independent of the houses which produce them. The houses are the gods of the universe of perfumery, and the perfumes are at the complete and utter mercy of their gods. There are no Platonic Forms when it comes to perfume. There are only products being peddled to markets by hook or by crook.

The sort of deception which we deem unacceptable in our dealings with other human beings is the order of the day when it comes to the business world. The line between false advertising and seduction is impossible to locate when it comes to perfume, so long as its provenance is the house which owns the rights to the formula. By definition, Guerlain cannot commit fraud when it comes to their own perfumes, as odd as that may seem. They exhaustively define the parameters and contents of the microcosmic perfume universe coextensive with their house.

Whoever owns the formula of the juice, makes the rules.

Tom Ford Porn: What does it mean?

While looking for a suitable image to open the lexicon entry on hedonism, I happened upon all sorts of pretty unbelievable things. Did you know, for example, that there are vacation clubs called "Hedonism" and "Hedonism II", where people go to have sex with strangers? Well, it was news to me. 

I also discovered a series of advertisements for Tom Ford Perfumes which I had never seen before. I had seen the Neroli Portofino shot with a naked man and woman pouring, I presume, water on each other from large Neroli Portofino bottles. It must be water, else they would not be laughing, and might even have to undertake a detox program after the photo session, given how strong that fragrance is. The volume which they were splashing around so blissfully in the ad spot could easily have cleared the building. 

I posted the Neroli Portofino ad before in connection with another topic, but here it is again:

Pretty racy, I thought, when I first encountered the image, especially given that the woman is fairly clearly staring at her partner's private parts. Another ad for the same perfume ratchets the excitement up from ogling to direct contact, as though the naked couple were together in bed in the midst of (gasp!) fornication:

A third image for the same perfume features frontal nudity:

To my surprise, however, the Neroli Portofino ad campaign does not hold a candle to some of the others which popped up using Google image search, including this one:

Not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean. Can anyone help me out here? Paper strips used for testing perfumes have been nestled in the woman's behind while Tom Ford, a confirmed homosexual, poses as a creative director assessing the perfumes. The message is quite unclear.

What about this one:

Here we have a more standard advertising technique. The suggestion appears to be that if one wears Tom Ford Cologne, then one will gain access to the treasures hiding behind the bottle in the ad. A version of "panty dropper" logic, it seems. Here a variation on the same theme adds the extra allure of well-oiled skin:

With all of this naked flesh, and the heavy-handed, even panting, juxtaposition of sexual images to bottles, Tom Ford perfume ads start to look verily pornographic!

I use the word pornography with some trepidation, as my own knowledge of the porn world is nearly exhausted by the contents of the film Boogie Nights, which I found utterly fascinating, in part no doubt because it revealed to me a subculture of human society about which I was up until then entirely ignorant.

It's not that I have any principled moral objection to pornography, per se. If it leads men to mistreat women, then I think that is a bad thing, but whether it does or does not is an empirical matter. My real objection to pornography is simpler and less contingent than that. What little I've seen of this genre of self-expression (for lack of a better term) has just struck me as boring or distasteful or stupid—and usually all three. 

Pornography seems to be about separating body parts from souls, and in that sense it does not connect with my own experience in any way whatsoever. I've never had a relationship with anyone which was about isolated body parts. Really. As unbelievable as that may sound, it's true. Perhaps that is because for me, people are a package deal: body and soul. Aristotle opined that human beings were "rational animals" or "embodied souls," and I could not agree more.

Pornography is about severing the soul from the body, and dividing even the body up into appendages to be used as sources of pleasure. Say what you will, but isolated body parts are just not very interesting to me. I am merely reporting on a matter of taste here, not taking to task anyone who happens to like porn.

I also dislike boxing. It's true that one of my classmates in high school was rendered an imbecile by sparring without head gear during a practice session, but I disliked the sport even before that happened. I actually cringe during boxing scenes in movies. Raging Bull is the Scorsese film which I've watched the fewest number of times, and I still have not gotten around to the Hilary Swank boxing movie (Million Dollar Baby). Perhaps there is a connection between my aversion to boxing and my dislike of porn? Do I suffer perhaps from anemia?

Probably what I dislike the most about the small amount of pornography I've seen—and I confess to never having made it through an entire "work", if that term even applies—is that the acting itself was so egregious that I could not even bring myself to watch the thing. To be honest, I found what I've seen excruciatingly embarrassing for the actors. How could they degrade themselves so horribly—not by having sex on film but by pretending to be actors when they were nothing of the sort! Know thyself. 

Which reminds me: while searching for Tom Ford Porn—which returns thousands upon thousands of images—some pornographic shots of Scarlett Johansson popped up as well. I was needless to say taken aback, as she is a real actress, is she not? Coincidentally, Bryan Ross at From Pyrgos opened a recent feature with a photo of and several comments about Scarlett, one of which being that she is the world's least talented actress. I almost left a comment, because I can think of about a hundred worse actresses than her. I am not saying that she's great, but far from the worst. For the record, I disliked Lost in Translation, which I found to be distastefully xenophobic. Japanophobic, to be more precise, and I'll never understand the praise which it garnered (I presume from monolingual anglophone Americans).

Now I am really curious: did Scar Jo (which I learned from Bryan's post is her nickname) do porn before breaking into Hollywood? Or were the porn shots I found photoshopped? Either way, it got me thinking about how easy it would be to fabricate false images of famous people juxtaposed with any- and everything, as in the images of Scarlett with plenty of other people's, let us say, "ample" body parts. Yet another reason to use avatars while roaming about the world wide web...

Add to my avoidance of bad films more generally the fact that I have no interest in watching other people have sex—or any other animals for that matter—and pornography just ends up being a no-go for me. It's not interesting, and I find it aesthetically repugnant and intellectually insulting. Why would I watch it? I refuse to watch bad movies, and the porn which I've been exposed to involved insipid plots and pathetically bad acting. Those are my queue to leave the theater. I never watch regular movies which are that bad, so why would I watch a porn movie which is even worse, given that I've no desire to watch animals copulate—whether dogs, horses, rabbits, or people?

I know that lots of people enjoy or even love porn, and Tom Ford appears to be one of them. In an interview for Harper's Bazaar in 2011, he indicated that he watches heterosexual porn "all the time". He went even so far as to say that his top bookmarked sites are porn sites:

"I watch straight porn all the time. If I go on my computer, there's a button that can connect me to all the sites I look at most often, and they're all porn—and 1stdibs.com. Porn and antiques!"

Tom is not alone. Cyberporn addiction appears to be quite the internet age phenomenon, impossible in centuries past, but made possible today by the ease with which images can be transmitted from one place to another and accessed with an innocent—or not-so-innocent—click of the mouse.

Cyberporn addiction must be real because sometimes when I am in the computer laboratory at the library, I see men in rows ahead of me watching porn, which seems pretty incredible—at a library?—but there they are! They tend to be older men, and my guess is that they watch porn at the library so that their wife will not discover their naughty cookies on a shared computer. I gather that they find it less embarrassing for the people in the rows behind them at the library to know that they watch porn than that their family find out. 

When I've seen what I presume to be "porn addicts" watching women masturbating and the like, I wonder again what the appeal of these images is supposed to be. I guess that I don't understand, but I also don't want to, to be perfectly frank. My reason for posting these Tom Ford Porn advertisements is not so that we can all enjoy the images. Nor am I hoping to draw porn traffic to the salon de parfum, which is not even monetized. No, I have ulterior, philosophical motives.

What do the Tom Ford Porn ads really reveal?

On their face, the Tom Ford Porn perfume advertisements suggest that Tom Ford advocates hedonism. Would that be descriptive or normative hedonism? the savvy salon de parfum subscriber is now wondering. In the Harper's Bazaar interview, the provocateur gestured toward descriptive hedonism about himself. But he is a role model of "coolness" the world over, so saying such things could also be advocating that people emulate him and start bookmarking porn sites, too. "If it's good enough for Tom Ford, then it's good enough for me!" we can imagine some of his many adulators explaining to their employer when asked about the suspicious cookies on shared corporate computers.

One interesting facet of philosophical hedonism is that it does not distinguish pleasure by species. Any sentient creature is capable of pleasure and vulnerable to pain. In an ethical framework such as utilitarianism, if utility is defined as net pleasure, then all sentient creatures should be taken into account in the final equation. That means that cats, dogs, cows, horses, pigs and, yes, rabbits, should be considered in deciding how to act.

Why is this relevant to Tom Ford Porn? you may not without reason be wondering. And the answer is because it just so happens that the house of Tom Ford is on the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) list of companies which test their products on animals. This is not a result of the fact that Tom Ford is one of the Estée Lauder group companies. Aveda is too, yet they bear the benevolent "Beauty without Bunnies" badge.

If Tom Ford is a philosophical hedonist who advocates maximizing the pleasure of the greatest number, then he owes us an explanation of why his company is injecting chemicals into animals and causing them to suffer so that other animals can spray on the products and hopefully snag some of the hot coochie which his ads promise awaits the wearer of Tom Ford Cologne.

Perhaps I am giving Tom Ford too much credit here. Perhaps he is not a philosophical hedonist at all. Perhaps he is just a money-grubbing guy out to make big bucks. His ads then reveal not what he himself thinks but what he—or his marketing team—thinks that his potential customers think. He obviously does not use soft porn images for no reason. He thinks that sex sells perfume. One surmises that his marketing data bears this out, which is why he has put out so many such ads. He probably knows that not everyone will be seduced by his not-so-subliminal suggestions, but the ads are undoubtedly carefully placed in magazines whose readers generally share Tom Ford's fondness of pornography.

I have never seen any of the above advertisements in any of the magazines familiar to me. So the Tom Ford company has done a good job of placing the ads where they will be seen by people who are likely to view them favorably. Those of us who are not titillated by the juxtaposition of naked bodies and perfume bottles are probably better off not seeing the ads—or any ads whatsoever. 

I own two bottles of Tom Ford perfume: Black Orchid and Black Orchid Voile de Fleur, but they were purchased not because of but in ignorance of the advertising strategies of the house of Tom Ford. The exclusive private collection is this house's effort to appeal to the sophisticated niche consumer and seems to be yet another savvy business tack. 

What Tom Ford Porn reveals is not what Tom Ford thinks, but that his company's marketing data suggest that a fair number of perfume users are hedonists of the sort who use perfume functionally, to achieve other forms of pleasure, above all, sex.

Entry #15: A Philosophical Lexicon for Perfumistas

Hedonism, Hedonist, Hedonistic

Western civilization has not been kind to the word hedonist, which as a result of the influence of ascetic religions connotes sinner before all other meanings. In philosophical circles, however, the term is much more neutral and has two distinguishable forms: descriptive and normative or prescriptive hedonism.

Descriptive hedonism is a theory according to which the ultimate reason why we human beings do anything, at the end of the day, is for the pleasure which we will derive or expect to derive from doing it. This form of hedonism is incapable of empirical refutation, for it essentially defines us as pleasure seekers and explains away all possible counter examples by reinterpreting the apparently non-hedonistic behavior in terms of pleasure. People who regard human beings as essentially animals, no more and no less, may find descriptive hedonism quite plausible. Others may find it demeaning. Given that it's a metaphysical theory, no one can demonstrate it to be true or prove it to be false by empirical means.

Consider the mother who toils away for her children, sacrificing all that she might have been and done for their sake. Or how about the soldier who courageously fights for his country and dies in the process? Are these not examples of virtuous self-sacrifice, of forgoing one's own pleasure in order to help other people? 

Not according to the philosophical hedonist, who is determined to interpret everything in terms of pleasure. The mother acts as she does because she derives pleasure from seeing her children thrive as a result of her apparent sacrifice. The soldier agrees to fight because he enjoys the idea of being thought of as a hero. Construed in this way, descriptive hedonism is closely related to psychological egoism: ultimately we do what we do for ourselves. Apparent acts of altruism are really only apparent. 

Normative or prescriptive hedonism denies that everyone acts according to the pleasure principle. However, the normative version of hedonism exhorts people to do so and deems them irrational when they fail to do so. Carpe diem could be interpreted as a version of normative hedonism, and it may seem to follow logically from a recognition of our mortality. Of course, carpe diem can also be interpreted in other ways (see existentialism...).

The term hedonism has come up in a few different discussions at the salon de parfum, especially in considering why we perfume ourselves. Why, after all, do we perfume ourselves? It may seem initially as though there are different reasons, but they all may come back, one way or the other, to pleasure, in the end. Either we ourselves enjoy wearing perfume, or we enjoy the reactions we get from other people when we wear perfume. Those reactions can range from compliments to varieties of, as they say in some fragrance community website forums, "panty-dropper" behavior.

Some people may also appreciate the feeling of prestige which they derive from being niche snobs or from developing a discriminating nose. Those would be further possible sources of pleasure, would they not? What about perfume as art appreciation? Do we like and wear perfume because it is art? Or do we wish to describe our olfactory pleasure as akin to art appreciation because it makes us feel sophisticated? 

I do not subscribe to the general theories of hedonism explained above, but it seems pretty clear to me that the vast majority of perfume consumers are hedonistic, at least when it comes to their perfume. Either they wear it because of the direct sensory pleasure which they derive from the olfactory experience itself, or else they do so in anticipation of other pleasures which they will derive from the reactions they get or hope to get when they wear perfume. In this sense, perfume use appears to be essentially hedonistic—certainly our early encounters with perfume are—and attempts to elevate perfume to something "loftier" than a source of pleasure may be attempts to elevate the wearer to nobler plane.

Whatever we may say in our evaluations of a perfume—about its notes, its development, its longevity, and sillage—our final judgment of its value always seems to come down to whether we enjoy wearing the perfume. Sometimes in criticizing a new perfume a reviewer will write something to the effect that 

Perfume should smell good.

This precept is prescriptive, and it appears to advocate hedonism, at least as regards perfume use. 

What do you think about perfume use, my fragrant friends? Is it intrinsically hedonistic? Or should it be? Would you say that your own perfume use is hedonistic or not?

Entry #14: A Philosophical Lexicon for Perfumistas

Solipsism, Solipsist, Solipsistic

Have you ever awoken from an incredibly complex dream filled with characters some of whom you have never met in reality? Perhaps the phone rang, and suddenly the narrative came to an end before you were forced to contend with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. You may have been relieved to discover that it was only a dream.

Now imagine if you did not wake up, but the dream continued on and on, all produced by your own mind, but unbeknownst to you. Your world would be that of a solipsist. You'd be all alone! In some ways, solipsism represents the farthest reach of skepticism: doubt about the existence of other minds such as your own or, if you like: subjects of consciousness.

I've never heard anyone but philosophers use the term solipsism, most likely because it's a fairly crazy idea. Can you conceive of being the only real mind in existence? It's difficult to do, but philosophers love to discuss the so-called "problem of other minds," which puts the burden of proof squarely on the conscious subject who believes in the existence of other minds, not vice versa. 

How do you know that I, sherapop, really exist? How do you know that I am not a figment of your imagination? Perhaps you are an evil genius creating in some corner of your mind the entire salon de parfum—texts and comments alike! You might object that since you did not know the word solipsism until today, you could not have produced the text in which it appeared. However, the same thing happens in your dream, as its plot unfolds, you have no idea what is going to happen next, despite the fact that the dream is clearly created by your very own brain! Is it not?

It might not seem that solipsism has much bearing on perfume or perfumery, but I used the word here at the salon a while back in diagnosing the problem which I found with the idea of appropriating the jargon of visual art theory for talking about perfume. Since art theorists don't seem to know much about perfume, and perfumistas don't usually know all that much about art theory and history, how can they have a conversation using that language? If someone decides to theorize about perfume in this way, then it seems that he will end up talking to himself. No one can participate in a meaningful dialogue, because no one else will have any idea what he is talking about. It would be like being all alone. Hence, my use of the term solipsism. 

Another possible application of this term might be in cases where people simply emote short and strong praise or denunciation of a perfume in their review. We were discussing this problem in the comments a couple of days ago: how does emitting solely the words "I hate it" communicate any meaningful information or knowledge to anyone but the speaker himself? It gives no context or reasons or explanation or even a clue as to why the reviewer hates the perfume. Perhaps the perfume contains patchouli, which the reviewer happens to hate. Or perhaps the perfume does not contain patchouli, which the reviewer happens to love and feels should be there. 

It seems to me that simply emoting love or hatred is a somewhat solipsistic form of reviewing, since it does not reach out to readers to communicate the basis of the love or the hatred. I don't really believe that "solipsistic reviewers" are solipsists, but they might be like small children who believe that the world is exhausted by the limits of what they know and can see. Of course, there is no need to communicate with other people, if they do not even exist, but then why do such reviewers bother to write at all? Perhaps it is a way of expressing their emotions, no more and no less.  

Entry #13: A Philosophical Lexicon for Perfumistas

Existentialism

Many people lead their lives for other people or in accordance with what they believe to be the dictates of their religion. Existentialism challenges us to face up to our own responsibility in making of ourselves what we become and in living in accordance with our own selected or created values. I was reminded of existentialism by a couple of comments on a recent post relating to why we write perfume reviews. 

The thinkers most associated with existentialism have been Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, in the nineteenth century; and Jean-Paul Sartre in the twentieth century. All three had very different takes on the idea, which makes sense, given their views about our subjective role in determining what to do and why.

Kierkegaard was a Christian, but he was not fond of religion in its politicized form. One of his famous mottos is "Truth is subjectivity," an idea which fits right in with our recent discussion of whether there are objective truths in perfume reviewing. In one of his insightful comments, Andrew Buck likened perfume reviewing to a "subjective science," and in that sense it is similar to Kierkegaard's own understanding of man's relationship with God. Perfume experience appears to be equally subjective and must, of necessity, vary from one person to the next.

Nietzsche famously announced "the death of God," by which he appears to have meant that God had ceased to provide man with a value structure anymore. Sure, plenty of people call themselves religious, but the reality of the lives which they lead need not necessarily reflect their alleged beliefs. Consider the case of Catholic mafia members who go to confession after whacking some poor soul. Nietzsche may have meant something like this, that there is a schism between what people say when they mouth words such as "I am a Christian," and then what they do. Another example might be self-proclaimed "Christians" in the twenty-first century who visit YouTube to watch what has regrettably come to be known as "war porn." Are you a Christian? Really? 

Nietzsche also famously denied that morality is absolute. He offered a complex genealogy of the origin of moral concepts, and he appears to have felt that people are driven ultimately by a "will to power". We can convince people to do what we want by imposing our values on them, by getting them to agree with us. Nietzsche wrote thousands upon thousands of fascinating pages of texts, all of which are multiply interpretable, so it's misleading to suggest that he had some sort of "theory". What tends to happen when scholars read Nietzsche is that they find their own ideas in his texts, and then of course they praise him as brilliant! 

People occasionally blame the abysmal behavior of some people at certain points in history on Nietzsche. This seems to me to be a mistake, according to the very basis of existentialism itself. No one forces anyone to interpret the words of Nietzsche in one way or another. We bring our values to bear on the text and decide or choose (whether consciously or not) to find certain meanings in his words.

Sartre added his own distinctive embellishments to the concern with subjectivity expressed by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche before him. One of his most famous ideas is that we are responsible for what we are, and what we do, and who we become. There are no excuses for Sartre. We are free to act or not to act, and to choose not to choose is already to choose. Freedom is the condition of humanity, and this freedom imposes burdens. We must decide what to do with our life. We make of ourselves what we become, for better or for worse. Only we can decide for ourselves. Even if we think that we are following a religion or the guidance of another person, we are choosing to do so, and therefore bear full responsibility for our actions. People who attempt to shirk responsibility suffer from mauvaise foi or bad faith, in Sartre's view.

Which brings us back to the question of why we do what we do, and why in particular some of us write perfume reviews. The existentialists would deny that we must write reviews to please other people or to promote certain perfumes and demote others. No, the answer to the question why we write reviews is just as subjective as is the content of the reviews. Perfume reviews serve the purposes of readers when they interpet them in certain ways. But those purposes are determined by the readers no less than the act of penning a review reflects the writer's values and beliefs.