Pride, Prejudice and Perfume: Welcome

A regular column about, you guessed it, fragrance. What to wear and when to wear it; what suits your skin type and why your best friend smells better wearing the same fragrance; what to buy for the picky, the clueless, the indifferent, the stubborn and the unimaginative; understanding notes, how a fragrance is created, how it develops, and its life span; reviews and recommendations; all your questions answered.

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The other day, two fragrances I had purchased online, arrived in the mail.  This was the cause for great excitement on my part, and a fly on the wall might tell you that I ripped open the box and reverently withdrew the two bottles whilst breathing, ‘hello you, aren’t you handsome.’ It has been said I have a Problem, I prefer to see it as the other P, Passion. It makes me feel better about myself, not so socially maladaptive. It also means I can write this column, regularly, and never run out of things to say and fragrances to review – this makes me very happy.

Luca Turin, in his book The Secret of Scent; Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, tells those of us who ramble on about how evocative fragrance is, that we’re wrong. Well, partly. Scent is evocative, but according to Turin, that is not something peculiar to scent alone. All sorts of things are evocative, and certainly sensory stimuli outside of the olfactory realm is evocative. He also tells us stop talking about our Grandmother’s perfume because chances are the formula was changed somewhere between our first inhalation of Guerlain’s Champs Elysee/Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door and how we smell it now in department stores (where maniacal spritzers thrust scented cards at you and bray about how gorgeous the note of hand-picked, night blooming jasmine is. I don’t actually think they know anything about what they’re saying, most of the time). The actual science of how we smell is incredibly complex and, much like no one snowflake is the same, no two compounds of the hundreds of thousands artificially produced thus far, have an identical smell.

Perfume, Turin says, is therefore less about memory and more about intelligence and beauty. It is the snowflake-like aspect of scent compounds that are peculiar to the science of scent and the art of fragrance composition, and this is what makes perfume so special. The delicate art of composition, undertaken by flavourists and perfumists (the latter looking down upon the former, and the former writing the latter off as snooty) is done in cahoots with, and with great respect for, the greatest perfumer of all, Mother Nature. The balance between Mother Nature and those creating fragrances to reflect what is natural, is part of why making perfume is such an art form. And the ability of the finished product to inspire feeling, change mood or prod a memory awake, is a beautiful byproduct. Scent, my friends, is all around us. Summer fruits, roasting coffee, cut grass, flowers in bloom … it is something we respond to subconsciously and consciously every day of our lives. Breathe it in.

The fragrance industry is a big one. A booming one. Hundreds of fragrances are released a year, a good 90% of them by celebrities, as the desire to define one’s essence in a 30, 50 or 100ml bottle, to the tune of millions of dollars in sales, intensifies. The sheer amount of choice confounds many consumers, to whom the world of fragrance is foreign, flippant and frivolous – but it need not be this way.

You don’t have to pay a small fortune for a day-to-day fragrance (you can if you want to, and I happily do, but I don’t count) – there are some lovely scents out there that you won’t smell on every second person you encounter (I hate it when every woman and her dog is wearing my perfume) and won’t mean you can’t pay this week’s rent once you swipe that card. And look, if you can’t pay this month’s rent, at least you’ll smell good sleeping in the gutter.

I’ve kicked off this column by rounding up a small handful of affordable, summery scents that are perfect for wearing with a calico frock and those Hampton Island espadrilles you’ve been dying to crack out, on the beach or in the bar.

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Urban Rituelle are celebrating their 10th birthday with a bang, launching two new lines of fragrances, Scents of Style and Garden Party. The packaging alone is enough to incite materialistic greed. Scents of Style is the less expensive range, and is a series of fresh, zesty, summery spritzers; White Orchid and Lotus, Pomegranate, Ginger, Green Tea and Coconut & Kukai.

My pick?

White Orchid and Lotus by Urban Rituelle

RRP: $24.95

Notes:

Top: fresh bergamot and citrus

Middle: peach nectar, creamy coconut milk, white jasmine and lotus blossom.

Base: amber and musk

Smells like: Long summer days; warm afternoons at a garden party, wearing a white cotton halter-dress, a glass of sauvignon-blanc in hand. A vintage summer siren with a weakness for fresh flowers and the men who bring them.

Will suit: the fair skinned amongst us, particularly with its prevalence of white floral and citrus notes. The coconut milk, and base notes stop the perfume from being entirely light-hearted, so it does warm up on the skin once the top notes have faded. If you’re not crazy about jasmine or her white-flower friends, then this one isn’t for you.

Strength: It’s an EDP (eau de parfum) which means it should technically last between four and six hours on the skin. This one doesn’t last that long, I’d give it 3-4 hours, but we’re not dealing with a $100 French EDP here, so one can’t complain.

Buy it if: you’re after a new, fresh, floral fragrance for day-wear, that you can afford to spritz liberally, then snap this baby up. For $25 you can’t go wrong.

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Bellocia by Principessa (Editor’s Pick)

RRP: $45

Notes:

Top: peach and vanilla flower

Middle: night blooming jasmine and ylang ylang

Base: sandalwood and amber

Smells like: the love child of Mae West and Sophia Loren. Think sultry nights in Rome, ripe peaches and decadent boudoirs (within which you would lounge upon a chaise, demanding a champagne refill and some new grapes).

Will suit: despite its fruity notes, and the Principessa website describing the fragrance as fresh, this is actually quite a warm and sensual number. This smells as good on my skin as it does on olive skin, I daresay because having a warm top note (vanilla) as well as warm base notes, balances out the sharpness of jasmine.

Strength: It’s an EDP oil, which is pure and strong. This fragrance lasts, and lasts, and the best thing about it, is that it deepens as the hours go by. You will still smell traces on your skin the next morning.

Buy it if: you want to stand out. Principessa Beauty is a cult Canadian brand available in Australia exclusively through Sassi Sam. So you’re not going to be smelling it on every girl who pushes ahead of you at the bar.

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Kristall by Make Up Store

RRP: $95

Notes:

Top: bergamot, mandarin, fruits

Middle: lily of the valley, jasmine, peach and sandal flower

Base: patchouli, vanilla, musk, sandalwood, amber

Smells like: the early 90s. You know, when supermodels had thighs and long, gleaming manes, and everything was wholesome and botox free. This is an early 90s supermodel fragrance, right down to the packaging (tiny little crystals at the bottom of the bottle).

Will suit: This one is going to settle differently on everyone – I bring out the patchouli, and I have a feeling that’s going to be the overwhelming note for most people. Although the ‘fruit cocktail’ in the top note packs a punch.

Strength: EDP, but again, it doesn’t last as long as you want it to. I give this one about 3 hours. What is rather cool, however, is it comes with a signature Make Up Store necklace, in which you sit a little cotton ball, soaked in the fragrance. It won’t smell as good in your necklace, as it does on your skin, but it’s a novel way of keeping your perfume close by.

Buy it if: you love a fuller fragrance. This one takes a bit of getting used to, and there is a lot happening in it, but it’s reminiscent of a more indulgent time in fragrance

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For the Boys … in the spirit of finding different, cultish products this week, I went looking for a men’s product that doesn’t have Jude Law in the advertising campaign, nor does it claim a porcelain skinned Russian model will ravish you as soon as the first droplet lands on your skin. But it does promise to help you embrace your grooming side, and hop on the path to smooth, supple skin.

Gammazon HuMAN Nature Peppermint Aftershave Spray

RRP: $25

These natural aftershaves provide an alternative to fragrances, and are an essential for the modern man’s beauty bag (okay, I just said beauty-bag to rile you all up). If you’re not the kind of guy to spritz YSL’s latest, or even if you are, exploring the endangered (in the fragrance world) concept of aftershaves mightn’t be a bad idea. And if you’re using EDT on your skin tinking it will simply serve the same purpose as a good old fashioned aftershave, stop right now. Aftershave doesn’t have alcohol in it, fragrances do.

Gammazon aftershave sprays are non abrasive products that use floral hyrosols and essential oils, to nourish the skin. Available in -

• Cedarwood, Neroli and Mandarin
• Peppermint, Lime and Petitgrain (Ed’s fave)
• Sandalwood, Lime, Petitgrain and Ginger

The scents are simple, fresh and classically masculine, in an industry where male fragrances are getting increasingly sweeter and androgynous (although that could start changing as more and more leading men lend their mugs to rugged advertising campaigns). If your skin needs a little TLC, or you’re after something different, natural and refreshing, then these beautiful products are worth the (completely affordable) investment.

Q&A

Got a question about something written here? Want to know what to buy your cousin for Christmas? Can’t find Balenciaga’s Cristobal? (Don’t worry, nor can I, but I won’t give up.) Each week I’ll respond to your questions and suggestions as best I can, and print all questions and answers in this section. So get spritzing and write to me.