The Problem of the Fruity Floral

The problem of the fruity floral isn't a problem of genre. It's a problem of abstraction. Abstraction is critical to the art of perfumery because it is key to separating notes and building accords.

I use the word abstraction a lot in talking about perfume, so I should explain my meaning. Abstraction is considering an idea or thing without its associations or known characteristics. It is freedom from representation. It is concept over character.

I find perfumery implicitly more abstract and less narrative than most other art forms. The classic genres of perfumery have benefitted from abstraction. The chypre and the fougere both balance very distinct elements and use complexity and contrast toward the end of creating interesting perfumes. These two genres use conceptualization both as a tool for building rich perfumes, and an end goal. Despite the suggestive names "fern" and "Cyprus" these two genres are defined by composition. The goal is neither the replication of a botanical scent nor storytelling. The bergamot/oakmoss/amber triad and the pairing of coumarin and lavender are pursued because their combinations have been shown to be interesting, beautiful and filled with possibilities for expressing a range of esthetics.

Composing a mixed floral or a soliflor may require abstraction in construction, but the goals veer toward representation or characterization. Fruity florals use abstraction as well. They want to smell like fruit, of fruit or suggest fruity tones and traits. Ditto with flowers. This could be and sometimes is fascinating. Badgely Mischka by Badgely Mischka uses patchouli to create a heat mirage of overripe fruit and aging flowers. Bond no. 9 Chinatown uses a prune/orange blossom pairing, albeit in the midst of many other notes. Guerlain Chant d'Aromes is based on a combination of peach and a mixed white floral. It’s also worth considering that many of the classic fruity chypres could also be viewed as fruity florals with oakmoss. Examples are Mitsouko, Femme, Calyx, Yvresse.

But I'd argue that most fruity florals of the contemporary variety, from the mid 90s to today, aim low, at about the height of the lifesaver and the skittle, and meet their goals. Again, the fruity floral need not necessarily be bad, but if abstraction is used simply to find the sweetest note or the most two-dimensional floral, the outcomes won't be stellar. If abstraction is used to find superlatives such as loudest, brightest, most tenacious, nuance won't be an outcome. Abstration itself is neither good nor bad, but perfumes can be.

Use the above to target a palate trained by McDonalds, Coke and Twinkies (I include myself here) and a nose taught that Hawaiian Breeze and Crisp Waters are botanical products. Here is where the fun really starts. The food and fragrance industries assume that they have molded a sensibility of least common denominator in the public, and they design and market accordingly. The goals are not an image of a rose, or the representation of a passion fruit. They are more along the lines of, "hey. that's, like, a flower!" (any flower). Or, "wow. fruity." It’s conceptual, it’s just low-concept.

Perfume enthusiasts tend to consider the problem of fruity florals to be a matter of taste. It is, but not in the way they might mean. It’s a matter of taste in that it’s about esthetics and determining quality. It’s not about the dividing line of taste, ie. I have it and you don’t. The problem of the fruity floral, and really of all shitty perfume, is that the people who buy them are never taught how to think about perfume. They’re given lies and false expectation by the marketing departments. They’re disdained by perfumers. They’re given a vocabulary of cheap fairytales rather than being shown how to think about perfume.

I have no solution to the problem of the fruity floral. Quality and honesty on the part of perfume producers might be a start, but surely that’s no news.

Keep your nares peeled.

from scenthurdle.com