Who Nose Best?

(Source: seymourchwastarchive.com)

A beginner’s guide to curating a fragrance collection 

Perfume is a subjective art form, which cannot be measured through a quantitative lens. Yet, my social feeds are often inundated with well-meaning enthusiasts using arbitrary measures to try and determine “best” and “worst” fragrances. While these absolute statements frustrate me, I can see why they would be appealing to a novice. The market is saturated, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Fragrance exploration is not necessarily a cheap endeavour, so it understandably feels much safer to have someone tell us what to do rather than find out for ourselves through trial and error. But I’d argue that while adhering to another person’s rubric may trigger some short-term assurance, it will likely lead to a lingering feeling that something’s missing. When you curate a collection based on a personal idea of what is functionally, aromatically, and artistically valuable, you will experience far more delight than regret when looking at your perfumes each day. 

Considering a perfume’s longevity and projection:

When considering how a fragrance performance or functions, longevity and projection are often central to the discussion. The fixation around longevity, or how long a fragrance lasts on the skin, is a fairly new one. And unfortunately, it’s become common to equate staying power with quality. The fact is, longevity largely has to do with the type of scent molecules in a formula. A perfumer could use the rarest, most precious mandarin oil, but the scent it emits will still disappear much faster than a cheap wood base. However, many fragrance houses are bulking up their formulas to include aroma molecules that will stay on the skin for 8+ hours to appeal to this mass confusion. There is a similar polarisation towards projection, or how much the scent fills a room. While some believe a scent can only be “high quality” if someone else can smell it from across the room, others prefer quieter scents that only they and perhaps a few people close to them will enjoy. It’s worth deciding for yourself what to prioritise. Personally, I am willing to sacrifice longevity if the top notes elicit a deep joy for me, so long as I also enjoy the dry down, which is what I will smell for longer.  A shorter longevity can actually be a bonus for me, as I often like to try on different scents throughout the day. As for projection, I don’t mind who else can smell me (save for if I’m in an enclosed public space where lighter scents are preferred like a doctor’s office or on the tube. In this case, believe it’s a courtesy to opt for something that only I can smell).

(Some of my favourite gourmand scents in my collection)

On determining your favourite scent profiles:

Different aromatic profiles also seem to garner different assumptions around value. For example, I’ve seen several “experts” scoff at gourmand fragrances, associating them with the cheaply made scents that young women and tweens adored in the early 00s. On the other hand, wood-forward compositions tend to garner more praise for their sophistication. When I let go of my prejudice of gourmands and was honest about my love for them, a whole new world of fragrances appeared. Beyond vanillas there were waxy, tart cherries; boozy, spicy chocolates; powdery, candied violets; and even savoury, buttery bread scents. Had I let someone else’s perception of gourmand fragrances colour mine, I would have missed out on an entire candy shop! Additionally, while this trend fortunately seems to be going away (albeit slowly), there is still an issue with gendering fragrance. Perfume houses will market a fragrance towards men or women, but the fact is, anyone can wear whatever they like, no matter their gender. One of my favourite fragrances, Habit Rouge, is marketed as a “men’s fragrance”, but I can’t imagine my life without the smooth, luxurious leather scent that makes me feel like I’m in a penthouse suite at the world’s most expensive hotel. Never deprive yourself of these sensations just because some advertising copy told you it was for a different gender than your own. 

The role nostalgia and emotions play in fragrance: 

Finally, and I’d say most importantly, consider what is meaningful to you on an emotional level. I say that perfume is an art form because there is such a deep emotional connection tied to this ephemeral channel of expression. Compared to our other four senses, our sense of smell largely bypasses our logical processing centre in our brain (the thalamus) and hits us straight in the memory and emotional centres of our brain (the hippocampus and amygdala). And because of this unique connection to our inner world, we will have wholly unique ideas of what is emotionally valuable, as we are each shaped by different memories. I instantly fell in love with Lunar Dust not because it was pretty or made me smell better, but because it reminded me of the fresh sheets in my bedroom when I stayed with my grandparents in the summer. All the warmth and light-heartedness of gentle childhood evenings came rushing back to me. To trigger this joy with just a spray was invaluable to me. Your nostalgia and incandescent associations will be different from mine, but I believe it’s important to find even a fraction of these in every scent you own. It has to make your heart flutter a little.

So, who knows best? 

My perfume collection works as an archive of my past, present and future: lush rainclouds over asphalt, smoky branches, bubblegum-scented flower bushes, waxy lipsticks scoured from the bottom of my mum’s purse, fruity body spray, and linen curtains in the sun are all manifestations of my memories made and will continue to scent those to come. Nobody else could curate this list of scents for me; it was something I had to discover for myself. Some of these fragrances last nearly a full day, project for miles, and are adored by many. Others I can only smell, and no one ever compliments me on them. That is fine with me. I have worked to determine the most important features of my fragrance collection that only I could have come up with. Because of this, I take immense pleasure in all of the scents that I own. 

About the Author: Katie Moore-Gillon is the Marketing Manager at Mabelle O’Rama. She is also a content creator on TikTok and Instagram (@smellyaries) and enjoys combining olfactory delights with surreal storytelling. If she were a fragrance note, she would be a strawberry!