Signature scent: How fragrance lovers choose the main smell in life
Despite the abundance and variety of perfume range, many of us remain faithful to one fragrance, which once caught something and still remains the main one. Five heroes told Moore Soboleva about the main smell in their lives and why he became one.
Text: Moore Sobolev, authored by telegram channel Fierce & Cute
Hermès calèche
Anastasia Lander
communications specialist
I am one of those who are called LiveJournal as parfmaniacs by nil. I was keen on finding niche scents, despised “chanelles” and “diors”, went to “spills” (this is when one rare fragrance is bought in purse, and then it is filled with a syringe into atomizers to all participants in the transaction). And then I looked at my collection that was not too large by the standards of the fans of perfumery (there were sixty copies) and I realized that I love most of it and I wear ten flavors. And among
They have one that with me almost from childhood. This is Hermès Calèche. I remember this bottle: it stood in my grandmother's old linen closet, adapted for books. Mahogany, with mini-columns at the top, of a slightly empire look, the wardrobe was kept by the most desirable books in the world: the complete works of Maupassant (you can’t read!), My mother's French with a golden edge, smelling slightly sour and dusty, and many more volumes. And in the corner on the middle shelf there was a similarly slender and elegant empire bottle with a screw-in round stopper. There was not a drop of perfume, only what condensed on the walls, but the greatest pleasure was to beg to smell the bottle. He smelled terrible in French: not sweet, bitter, fresh and dusty at the same time. I thought then that these are some incredibly ancient perfumes, at least the XIX century! And remembered the name from the shabby label.
I deliberately found them much later, just to zero. In search of a new, unexplored "niche", she climbed to google, was very surprised to understand that they are not that old, but so much the better; bought a bottle. And it was absolute happiness: the scent of childhood, the perfume train of our university teachers of the French department, bitterness, freshness, spring, autumn, dose of self-confidence, dose of tranquility, quenching nostalgia, indescribable je ne sais quoi. Since then, no matter how new I am, Calèche is always with me. Now I have eau de toilette spray of the 70s, my mother gave it to me for one of the birthdays about five years ago. I use it very rarely, one pshik is enough for the whole neck - after all, modern, reformulated eau de toilette does not smell so magical.
L'eau par kenzo
Lisa Resurrection
editor
It was summer. It was the end of the 90s, and I was very young, not to say small. And so I left the Prospect Mira metro station with the aim of walking to the house. This place of the city is neither interesting, beautiful, nor pleasant, but for me, Mira Avenue is some very Moscow combination of glass, concrete, asphalt, earth and old houses, so when I need to get back in contact with the city, this street becomes one from recipes. And so I went out, looked up to look at the familiar landscape, and saw the poster. For those times it was innovative: clean background,
a girl with a very fashionable then elongated square lowered her face into an aquarium, and a cobalt-colored fish swims straight to her. Not gold, it would be too banal! Most of all I was struck by pebbles - also blue, like gems. To the right in the corner is some amazing bottle, the sight of which inspired a sense of magic.
This girl was what I wanted to be, she was an inner me, how I saw myself. I remember the effect produced so far at the level of sensations: at such a moment in films, the operator usually makes a still-frame. It seemed to me that I had come out not from the subway, but from some dark room and saw the light. Having spat on plans, I turned around and went to look for him. The years were dashing, and, firstly, it was not immediately possible to find him, because the perfumery shops were not at every corner, and secondly, there was no such liberty as splashing perfume on the blotter, if you are not going to buy them my mind then it was clear that I just can not buy them). But everything worked out, of course, and I tried it. It was an extravaganza of feelings, then I saw an image describing my impressions in advertising of other spirits: a girl sends a stream of aroma into the air, which flies out like a salute, with spray-sparks. It was a sea, a dream, a carnival and success.
Soon I was given a birthday present, and I, absolutely not able to live to the fullest every day, allowed myself to walk only in it. Then he became real bread for me - anything you could not buy, but you had to buy it always. I even collected empty bottles: they lay in my closet for a long time, like pebbles from a fantastic beach. It was the first love, when you don’t think about the qualities of your beloved - I didn’t put it on notes, and I didn’t understand these notes. It was enough for me that he smelled the sea and this sea promised me constantly. He was perfect and beautiful in summer, sparkling and "brilliant", like snow, in winter. I pollinated them (here I would like to say that a fur coat, but I did not have a fur coat either then or now) everything. Why, there - he accompanied my first love, which was smashed to smithereens about nonsense a year later, he comforted me in a new relationship and without any relationship. He was ripping off a lot of compliments and was my talisman. I even had a miniature bottle with me always, and sometimes I ran my hand into a bag or stroked it. I remember him in Cyprus (oh, the first holidays), I remember him in Paris (oh, the first business trips).
So it took ten years. It seemed to me blasphemy to change L'eau Par Kenzo, but fate was already preparing a fatal break. Once I went to replenish the stock of a precious potion. But on the shelves there were not those boxes, but the wrong bottle was found in them! The company ordered Fabien Baron, a famous international designer, to redesign the bottle and box - and he killed my talisman. Instead of a perfect drop, in which even the thickness of the glass was thought out (I'm not talking about a cobalt pebble on the neck of the bottle), he made some kind of frozen water flow - such are poured in the office centers along the walls. In fastidious horror, I opened a new bottle-tester - and that's all. The notes seemed to be the same, but there was no more magic.
Further - and write bitterly. I finished everything that was at home, then I bought all the remnants I could find. And then, as after a long relationship, she tried to learn to live without him. I learned. But so far I can not already catch the same feeling of delight and some kind of absolute coincidence. Mugler Angel, Donna Karan Cashmere, Shanel Allure, Dior Forever and Ever, then all the niches that I could find in my hands (and they went to the editor of fashion magazines, of course, smoothly). Sisley Soir de Lune stayed longer than the others, but I had already forgotten how good I was and I started looking for the best from a good start: some dreary search for perfect oud began, which continues to this day with sluggish success. I don’t lose hope, but my mind tells me that the freshness of sensations is gone and you won’t return it, no matter how eternally young I would build myself. But sometimes I close my eyes and feel in that moment of a freeze frame on Prospect Mira. My face at this moment is lowered into that imaginary aquarium with a cobalt fish. And still ahead.
Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers
Olga Galkina
media consultant
It all started with the fact that my parents and I went on the first trip abroad in 1994. The duty-free shop at Sheremetyevo-2 airport was full of amazing, alien things, but my attention was captured by a real English girl in tights who offered "to try the brand new perfume by Elizabeth Arden". This was the Sunflowers. We will avoid further vulgarity, but a fresh, new and bright flavor after a day on the train really gave hope for something better. The hopes were gone, but the scent remained, just like the bold leopard hairy sweater, which was then conceptually proposed by the Perm central
market and returned this year through the efforts of all designers at the same time. Further, dotted - I worked in state structures, and one of my friends of many years of exposure once drunk told me that there are two unchanging things: that deadlines should not be missed and that the train of this wildflower stretches behind me. The human psyche is plastic, so I think this is a compliment. While preparing this text, I looked into Wikipedia, and from there the truth came down on me. Base notes: white cedar, amber, sandalwood, oak moss, musk. Execution of aroma: perfumery water. Characteristic aroma: brutal, individual, provocative, heavenly, purposeful. For what age: for young, middle and elegant age. Zodiac signs: Aries. I give it all up.
Diptyque tam dao
Olya Azovskaya
chief editor of "Locals"
With this fragrance, we have been together for more than ten years, now I have the fourth bottle. We were introduced by a friend. Then the selective perfume was not yet sold in large perfume chains, he had to go to Leform or hunt in very strange places. The first time I bought Tam Dao in some underground shop, where we were winding along long paths through the Savelovsky market. It was difficult, but the desire for beauty won. I fell in love with this enveloping smell from the first venture and set out to seize it at any cost - in the end
I gave 3,500 rubles, I still remember. Tam Dao smells of sandalwood, amber and musk heated in the sun with slightly perceptible notes of rose - noble, incredibly beautiful and incredibly comfortable. She used to wear only him, then other pets appeared, but I constantly come back to Tam Dao. If I can not decide what to put - put it on. It helps to calm down and feel better. Or teleport to the past: I'm twenty-four, I walk down the street, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, my headphones have favorite music, I have great friends, my favorite work, and in general, everything is ahead.
L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou D'Absinthe
Venerable Steerpike
illustrator
For the second decade now, I have loved L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou D'Absinthe wildly. Anything happened to me - and the hellish passions under Tomford's Urban Musk (which smells of unwashed stables from a bottle, but on the skin gives out something completely pornographic), and Comme des Garçons Jaisalmer (here India is completely Kipling, with oily temple stones and incense, from which there is no-no and the sectarian-strangler will jump out), behind which a fair romantic trail with
semi-criminal stifling. But fou! No, this is not absinthe - and it was drunk a lot and different (from matchless to complete profanation, so I guess I can say that I more or less understand what I'm talking about). This is the aftertaste of the first glass with a touch of delight from the upcoming intoxication.
It began, of course, with alcohol. In the early 2000s, I decently drank and at least drew, and my beloved woman at that time, among other things, was interested in perfumery blogs in LiveJournal. And then she began to collect the bottles, and the bias was specific - from the faded roses and the moldy cellar to the smell of a freshly curved coffin (we are Goths, we can be understood). So we had a friend who gave the first time to smell Fou D'Absinthe. At first, it was not some kind of in love with the scent — rather, an addition to its own image. The smell is, perhaps, straightforward: wormwood that hits the nose immediately, then anise and somewhere in the tail, in many hours, pine needles. Nothing fanciful, but in combination - some kind of feeling of flare, confusion and protection, weightless elegant armor. Perhaps this is how strong affection arises, if not love. As stated in the movie "Amadeus": "At first it sounds like a squeaky cart, but here comes the oboe, and you find yourself in captivity of a charming, fabulous melody."
In general, a week later we drove somewhere behind the platform "Elk", where we were given the first bottle of Fou D'Absinthe in my life. We bought it in purse - "in the flood", as they said. Returned to Moscow in an empty train wagon and poured a bottle on atomizers. As a result, of course, the car smelled wormwood and anise. And I became a complete fan of this bottle with a gilded lid and green foolish label. And from the first acquaintance and to this moment I have exhausted a little more than 300 milliliters.
Photo: Hermes, Kenzoparfums, Elizabetharden, Diptyque-perfume, Artisan-parfum