Perfume

"This is probably the best-known work of fiction about perfume and the perfume industry. It’s a crime novel by a German author which was also made into a movie. It’s a very lush, richly imagined book. It just bursts with sensuality and the smells of Paris in the 18th century. And not just good smells, but also the smell of raw sewage running in the streets, or of horse manure. It’s about a lowly orphan boy who happens to be gifted with the olfactory equivalent of perfect pitch. He apprentices with perfume makers. He’s a very odd creature, and eventually he decides that he wants to create a perfume that will make people do his bidding. It will be so stupendous that it will overwhelm people and he can rule the world with this perfume. What he decides it must contain is the essence of a young virgin that he follows around. I don’t want to give too much away… Yes, and in the process we are showered with olfactory images of all kinds. We’re taken inside the laboratories of the early French perfumers. He explains distillation and enfleurage. We go to Grasse in southern France where perfumers grow fields of roses and irises and jasmine. It’s very romantic. Süskind is deft at slipping in the technical processes of perfume-making in a very natural way. We never feel we’re getting a lecture on how to make perfume, it’s woven seamlessly into the story. It’s a wonderfully engaging novel. It was definitely an interesting twist on the old murder mystery. Also, perfume has always been imbued with magical, supernatural powers. Potions have been sold since ancient times promising that if you wear this unguent, men or women will find you irresistible. From time to time, scientists do studies. I don’t know how rigorous they are. The study I was referencing in my column was a very small sample, only about 30 people. There was also a study that said if you wear a grapefruit perfume, men will think you’re 10 to 15 years younger than you really are. There’s all sorts of silly studies. I don’t think there’s proof either way. Among the perfumistas of the world, we often joke that the biggest aphrodisiac for men is the smell of bacon. And nobody really wants to slather themselves in a bacon-scented perfume. Although there is one – “Lonestar Memories” by Tauer Perfumes, a wonderful niche perfumer – that does have a barbecue tang to it. So one idea is that men are attracted to smells that remind them of food. The other is that it’s the pheromones, which in animals attract the opposite sex. But it hasn’t been proven that if you put pheromones into perfume it will attract people. In coming years I think scientists are going to study this more, and it may emerge that it does have some basis in fact. Studies have been done about sweat, and there is something about the hormones that are excreted in sweat that is attractive to the opposite sex. Which brings us to the idea of stinky notes in perfumery – the dirty notes. The classic French perfume houses – Guerlain, Caron, Coty – in addition to floral essences or ambergris or vanilla always added a tiny bit of darkness, whether it was civet or musk. I call it the skanky note in perfumery. Some people call it the poop note. It can smell cuminy, like human sweat. The idea is that when you bake, for instance, every recipe calls for a pinch of salt to heighten the sweetness. It’s the same thing in perfume. It was Jacques Guerlain who famously said that he put a little bit of the essence of his mistress’s backside in every perfume. There is something to that. A lot of perfumes have a bit of an animalistic smell to them that people find compelling. You don’t want it to be too strong though. Yes, and her idea isn’t even new. There’s already a perfume out there that smells like blood and semen. It’s called “Secretions Magnifiques”. Very edgy. It’s horrid. But did I want to smell it? Absolutely. If someone says, “I’ve got this perfume that smells like blood and semen,” you recoil, but at the same time you reply, “Ooh, can I smell it?” I was just at a mystery convention in St Louis, and I brought some vials of different perfumes for mystery authors I know who are also avid perfume people. One was a guy who wanted to smell Secretions Magnifiques. He put some on, and then he was moaning about it the whole day, saying “I can’t wash it off! It smells disgusting! I think I got it on my shirt, what am I going to do?” It’s not actually as bad as you might expect. It’s milky, it’s metallic, it’s a little bit rank."