- Apr 1, 2019
- 5,594
- 3,780
After a certain point, a lot of us come to terms with the fact that 'notes' - the written or visual list of ingredients or component smells within the fragrance - are insufficient for explaining a fragrance in its fullest sense. Whether it's reviewing a fragrance, or comparing one with another, just listing or mentioning a note (lemon, sandalwood, sea notes) is barely half the picture (or smell).
Now, in part you could say that notes aren't real - they're interpretations or abstractions, a way of putting something superficially 'real' back in to the equation to make them more comprehensible to the general public. Modern fragrances are built on fewer and fewer natural components - where once fragrance would have been solely derived from natural ingredients - and most people now seem accepting of the fact that their fragrance might not smell like anything recognisable to them from the material world. For enthusiasts, getting to grips with aromachemicals - the synthetic chemicals that make up the bulk of modern fragrances - leads a general identification or understanding of a few of them: ambroxan, dihydromercenol, norlimbanol, calone.
Perhaps it is my ignorance of the materials and process of making fragrances, but I find that trying to move beyond abstract 'notes' in to aromachemicals can be even less informative or useful than the alternative. Again, perhaps it is stating the obvious, but perfumery is about ingredients in combination with one another to produce a (hopefully) harmonious aroma - dissecting it for analysis can be useful, but referring to chemicals seems inferior to the abstract discussion of notes. Describing a fragrance as smelling like 'ambroxan' means nothing to the layman, but also can be confusing for the enthusiast as well.
And so, how do you talk about or understand the elements of a fragrance that cannot be covered by discussing the interpreted notes? There are crucial aspects within a fragrance that, to my mind, are vitally important (and therefore worthy of communicating), yet cannot be conveyed by discussing notes. An example of this would be a few fragrances I have tried relatively recently: Ted Lapidus's "Ted" and Clinique Happy for Men. There is something to these fragrances that simply convey "the 90s" to me in a way that I could not hope to explain through notes.
Generally speaking, I'd say I have a fondness for 90s masculine fragrances. While nostalgia may play a part in it, I also think there's something more fundamental to the fragrances from that time that are simply more pleasant and appealing to me than their modern equivalents. There is a property in a lot of them which I can, hopefully, express through notes or genres: there's a combination of the old and the new (perhaps the synthetic and the real) which helps them to retain a certain masculinity, a feel like you're smelling/wearing 'aftershave'/cologne. More modern scents - particularly the dark blues - don't have this quality. They don't feel like aftershaves, they're thicker, richer, more decadent. If I were to explain through notes, I would say there's something of the fougere or woody-spicy structure to a lot of them: green, woody, aromatic notes, combined with modern chemical-smelling notes that kicked off all sorts of weird and wonderful things (like the aquatic genre) during that decade. But that only gets you so far. What is that so many of these fragrances from that period (I could reel off dozens that share this certain aspect I'm thinking about, from Egoiste to Acqua di Gio) share? And if we can't describe it with notes, or aromachemicals, then should it just be left as something that isn't mentioned or categorised?
Perhaps this is purely a matter of material ignorance, and that breaking down the fragrances in to their component chemicals would illuminate much of the confusion. On top of that, there are all the other elements: the alcohol, the fixatives, and so on. People sometimes refer to houses or perfumers having a certain 'DNA' - is this just the aromachemicals? Is it just an aromatic property, or is there something beyond that, in the non-aromatic materials? I think I'm probing in to the darkness a little bit without any hope of finding the answers.
I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts about this? Have you considered the limitations of both 'notes' and aromachemicals when thinking about, discussing, or categorising fragrances? Do you recognise shared qualities between fragrances, but can't articulate what it is that's shared? How much do you think this matters?
Now, in part you could say that notes aren't real - they're interpretations or abstractions, a way of putting something superficially 'real' back in to the equation to make them more comprehensible to the general public. Modern fragrances are built on fewer and fewer natural components - where once fragrance would have been solely derived from natural ingredients - and most people now seem accepting of the fact that their fragrance might not smell like anything recognisable to them from the material world. For enthusiasts, getting to grips with aromachemicals - the synthetic chemicals that make up the bulk of modern fragrances - leads a general identification or understanding of a few of them: ambroxan, dihydromercenol, norlimbanol, calone.
Perhaps it is my ignorance of the materials and process of making fragrances, but I find that trying to move beyond abstract 'notes' in to aromachemicals can be even less informative or useful than the alternative. Again, perhaps it is stating the obvious, but perfumery is about ingredients in combination with one another to produce a (hopefully) harmonious aroma - dissecting it for analysis can be useful, but referring to chemicals seems inferior to the abstract discussion of notes. Describing a fragrance as smelling like 'ambroxan' means nothing to the layman, but also can be confusing for the enthusiast as well.
And so, how do you talk about or understand the elements of a fragrance that cannot be covered by discussing the interpreted notes? There are crucial aspects within a fragrance that, to my mind, are vitally important (and therefore worthy of communicating), yet cannot be conveyed by discussing notes. An example of this would be a few fragrances I have tried relatively recently: Ted Lapidus's "Ted" and Clinique Happy for Men. There is something to these fragrances that simply convey "the 90s" to me in a way that I could not hope to explain through notes.
Generally speaking, I'd say I have a fondness for 90s masculine fragrances. While nostalgia may play a part in it, I also think there's something more fundamental to the fragrances from that time that are simply more pleasant and appealing to me than their modern equivalents. There is a property in a lot of them which I can, hopefully, express through notes or genres: there's a combination of the old and the new (perhaps the synthetic and the real) which helps them to retain a certain masculinity, a feel like you're smelling/wearing 'aftershave'/cologne. More modern scents - particularly the dark blues - don't have this quality. They don't feel like aftershaves, they're thicker, richer, more decadent. If I were to explain through notes, I would say there's something of the fougere or woody-spicy structure to a lot of them: green, woody, aromatic notes, combined with modern chemical-smelling notes that kicked off all sorts of weird and wonderful things (like the aquatic genre) during that decade. But that only gets you so far. What is that so many of these fragrances from that period (I could reel off dozens that share this certain aspect I'm thinking about, from Egoiste to Acqua di Gio) share? And if we can't describe it with notes, or aromachemicals, then should it just be left as something that isn't mentioned or categorised?
Perhaps this is purely a matter of material ignorance, and that breaking down the fragrances in to their component chemicals would illuminate much of the confusion. On top of that, there are all the other elements: the alcohol, the fixatives, and so on. People sometimes refer to houses or perfumers having a certain 'DNA' - is this just the aromachemicals? Is it just an aromatic property, or is there something beyond that, in the non-aromatic materials? I think I'm probing in to the darkness a little bit without any hope of finding the answers.
I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts about this? Have you considered the limitations of both 'notes' and aromachemicals when thinking about, discussing, or categorising fragrances? Do you recognise shared qualities between fragrances, but can't articulate what it is that's shared? How much do you think this matters?
