II.2.a. Oloid MDC 2019

I would love to tell a wonderfully imaginative and embellished story about this fragrance. But either it simply doesn’t lend itself to that, or I am unable to do so, or both, but somehow it surprises me that there isn’t a single line written about this perfume, and I find it incredibly intriguing and deserving of discovery.

I can imagine that it polarizes quite a bit, at least that’s how it feels to me, and I keep smelling my wrist and wondering what’s going on.
This morning, the scent arrived in a sample exchange letter (thank you dear Moritz at this point).

“Pleasant sound” is not exactly the name, to be precise, I don’t think anyone really knows how to pronounce it, and I try to imagine how I would respond if asked what fragrance I’m wearing today, and I would say, “This is Ilzweipunktaoloid” or something similar. Then one might wonder if I’m joking, considering I smell a bit like soap and laundry and freshly cleaned.
But in the next moment, I don’t smell like that anymore, rather - yes, how exactly, that’s what I’m getting at, I just don’t know what I smell like.
Freshly sprayed, I smell some undefinable iso-synthetic for a few seconds, then it suddenly becomes very citrusy, but not hesperidic, rather cleaning product-citrusy, and that’s really unpleasant. But it’s not bad enough that I want to scrub it off, because it’s not loud or intrusive, just really strange.
Then I find that the scent now smells a bit like a laundry room, soapy and lye-like, but not really old-fashioned.
But it changes a bit further, and now there’s a familiarity that I just can’t place; it reminds me of something past even though it doesn’t smell nostalgic.
I kind of like that, but it also drives me crazy that I just can’t grasp the scent and don’t know what association is buzzing around in my brain and hiding from me.
It’s similarly unsatisfying to when you’re trying to remember the name of that one actress from that one movie, and you just can’t figure it out, and it nags at you until you finally ask Google. But unfortunately, I can’t consult Google about this, so I keep sniffing and pondering.
Fortunately, the scent has now become extraordinarily pleasant, and I hope I’ll come up with something.

Geza Schön is known for his synthetic creations, and I personally have nothing against Iso-E and Ambroxan, but I often find these kinds of fragrances boring, perhaps because many people in a big city like Hamburg smell like that. When I read about Hedion (which I’m seeing for the very first time today), Iso-E Super, and musk, I spontaneously think that it must just smell like young, urban city dwellers, but somehow the scent dances out of line. It is thoroughly unisex, and I can’t assign it to any time of day, year, or otherwise, but since this whole pandemic, I’ve lost my sense of time anyway and feel like I’m moving sideways past time, if that makes any sense.

I always find titles and conclusions the hardest part, and maybe that’s why I usually prefer to write a short, snappy statement, but now I’ve written a bit for the sake of the fragrance, I think it has something to offer.
I just don’t know what.