"All these fleeting scents, those of the streets, the fields, the houses, the furniture...the sweet and the bad, the warm scents of the summer nights and the cold ones of the dark winter evenings, they all evoke memories, just as if the fragrance itself embalmed the past things." Guy de Maupassant, Fort comme la mort
Blog entry Nora-Claire (18 years old)
Hey guys, I'm posting some unsorted stuff here You'll be fine.
Some freaks are really into scents. My aunt, for example. Not a week goes by that she doesn't buy a new scent. Usually something called "vintage."
Or a "niche scent". "Rare distribution." I don't like their perfumes. Many of them disgust me, almost like a book of math rules or those pungent patchouli incense sticks.
But yesterday Aunt Annick showed me her latest achievement.
"Teatro alla Scala" by Krizia.
Finally an old perfume (from 1986) that I like. Not playful. No questionable, embarrassing "glamour". No example of the crazy aunt of mine. Not even a mere addition to her latest outfit. And definitely not the right scent for a stroll through town.
My aunt is currently asking me on Skype how I get to understand and comment on a perfume. "You've never interpreted perfume!"
That's right. Such tasks are not normally part of a high school student's curriculum. But in Corona times, in the subject "Politics and Society" we were given the task of reporting on a crazy hobby that could be "culturally significant".
Now I feel completely overwhelmed.
Annick e-mails me:
"Perfumes, for example, can be described using the same vocabulary as driving styles ("fast", "spirited"), lovers ("passionate", "impetuous", "tender") or weather phenomena ("sultry", "oppressive", "sunny").
Do such descriptions have a value ?
Is "Teatro alla Scala" a passionate scent?
Yeah, it's warm and spicy.
Not narcotic (like "Taboo") or as balsamic as "Youth Dew".
Must I show a passion for opera to wear it?
No.
But if opera, what would it be?
Annick says:
"Definitely not Mozart.
Not even a mature work like "Don Giovanni".
"La Boheme?"
Too sad. In the end. Oh, many composers end up with a tear duct. Or it's all very dramatic.
Take "Rigoletto". The opera by Verdi. Intoxicating. Unforgettable. So very MILAN and so very SCALA."
"My classmates and I sometimes go to the perfumery together, but we don't come into contact with the true treasures of the fragrance world. All those older perfumes that you always praise so much, dear Auntie, they're no longer available at Douglas.
Yes, I suffer from my ignorance of perfume. The common scents I have tried so far are not recognized by my aunt. I would have to start from scratch. And before that, of course, pass the demanding perfume tests on the Internet, which my aunt passed years ago. First on Basenotes, then on Fragrantica. And then later on Parfumo.
Perfume, she says, was the biggest challenge.
Thank God I'm not in Mijas shoes. She has more problems with her homework.
She feels that most of the noble and precious perfumes my aunt has in her collection are like a castle with high, insurmountable walls and a few beautiful flowers around them, which you are not allowed to pick. Mija has no acadamic parents, she doesn't speak English very well and her German is not sparkling either. In the noble castle perfumery, which we had visited for research purposes, she felt uncomfortable, because she first had to learn the handling of expensive fragrances with great effort to survive there. When Mija is extremely frustrated (which she often is), she buys a bottle of "Bruno Banani" or "La Rive" in the supermarket.
We probably only have the faintest idea how unsatisfying and sad Mijas life is probably going to be. In contrast to my aunt, she doesn't have a magnificent collection of perfumes, not a single magnificent vintage in an art nouveau bottle
"I often imagine myself walking through the city with a fat wallet and simply fulfilling all my wishes," Mija suddenly says. "And then I would buy myself a really cool perfume. One that would blow all guys away!"
We look somewhat haphazardly on the net for information about perfumes and come across the page
"Dream smell wanted - the regulars' table".
Unfortunately, only the men who are unsympathetic, macho and unsatisfied with us go in search of scent. These guys are all "hard to please" because they have unrealistic ideas about perfumes. They often buy fragrances that are popular and about which others say that women can get laid faster and better with or through them.
Long lists of cheap imitations of the "Super-Panty-Dropper-Scents" are posted.
"Stop, girls," cries my aunt. "Where are you looking?" She says she wouldn't like her husband to come home with a fragrance from the "Dream Scent Regulars" After all, most of them are "copies", coming from a "primitive culture", what does a man actually want to achieve with such a "Dupe"? (What a question, of course, what...).
"You can also tell they're copied!"
Can you smell it?
For my homework on fragrances, which I still have to submit online today, it is an advantage that I can apparently quickly empathize with problems that involve a lack of sensitivity for the place of use and the "essence of perfume". I talk to Annick about her first years in the perfume world, in which she used (her words!) "indiscriminately heavy oriental guns".
Her landlady in Heidelberg gave her notice to leave her student room in 1984 because of the "obtrusive, indecent smells" she noticed in the hallway. My aunt had worn "Habanita" by Molinard. Doesn't mean anything to me, but I can imagine exactly what the landlady meant.
Hey, by the way. Vivaldi and Bach don't go well with Teatro alla Scala. More like belly dancing. That just occurred to me, because the scent is considered "Oriental."
Jean Kerleo: "Well, be that as it may, the scent and also the perfume inspire dreams. They provoke feelings. You could even say that they move our psyche. They make a grey day appear earlier. They complete something in you. But above all they are there to make life more beautiful. Yes, that's exactly it. Because where there are no scents and no perfumes, there are no dreams and therefore no future."
Jean Kerleo is the founder of the Osmotheque (perfume museum!) and of course perfumer.
"There are plenty of opportunities to dream, opportunities to smell. Some people seem to have a special talent for this, the creators of Teatro alla Scala for example. A small ensemble of five or six notes quickly becomes a feast with bel canto and chypre chords. Wonderfully untamed, yet with thoughtfulness behind it."
(Says my aunt).
"Does anyone want to read the notes? I have Internet."
Smell. One of the best homework assignments ever.
Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
Rachelg
