It Started With a Sniff …
















You are entering a unique olfactory world.


A world where fragrance and ideas cavort and collide. Where scented loves and hates are debated and defended to the death.

What do boys wear? What should girls wear? When did you have your perfume ‘epiphany’? How do scent and memory bisect? Is perfume politics? Is it sex? Can it be more than a molecular miasma? What are its meanings?

Is it art?

Here to chair your conversations is your host, The Scentimentalist. Views and olfactory anecdotes are welcome. Share the love.



9 comments:

  1. It is so much more than a miasma of molecules - it is aroma therapy in the widest sense of the term, nay, the elixir of life itself!

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  2. Scentimentalist, I wonder what you think of Schiaparelli Shocking? My friend Ruth's mother used to wear it.

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  3. floriental girl, welcome, you are a woman after my own heart.

    Frances, welcome, also. Shocking!, you say? What a dame your friend Ruth's mother must have been. This is a strong scent, sensual. A scent that is scary to many. It is abundant rose and civet, it is honeyed, and somewhat gingery. In vintage form, it is stand-alone wonderful. In reformulation, it is barely passable.

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  4. Thank you, Scentimentalist! You're right, Ruth's mother was quite a dame. She would have used the vintage form. Her jewellery box still smells of it. Ruth's niece Kay wants to wear Shocking in memory of her gran, so I hope she isn't thinking of buying the modern stuff.

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  5. Tell young Kay to look for vintage minis on Ebay. The top notes may have perished after all this time, but if she persists with it, she will smell glorious ... and audacious! It's also very powerful juice, so a little will go a long way.

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  6. Scentimentalist, you are fab!

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  7. I really wish the world was not so gendered around fragrance. It would be great if men would feel masculine wearing Chanel No.5 and women feeling feminine wearing Egoiste. I personally love that frisson.

    Gender is scents is also culturally determined. In India both men and women wear sandalwood.

    I prefer woody, spicy or citrusy fragrances and have done so ever since I was a wee'un.

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  8. Jean Cocteau wore no 5 and as a result, since he was more or less the Madonna of prewar Paris, so did all the other gay blades!

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  9. Thank you for your contributions, CampbellX and Supermarky. I feel a 'gender bending' blog coming on very shortly ...

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