Story in Scent

February is my birthday month (yes, I get a whole month). So I’m going to indulge in teasing out a connection between writing and one of my favorite hobbies: perfume.

We all know that scents evoke memories and create atmosphere. Perfumes transport us, and we can use them to transport readers. What perfume or cologne would your characters wear? Does the beloved grandmother wear sweet, cloying Bal a Versailles (1962)? Or is she more of a 60s/70s free-love musk type? Does your villain have a Tom Ford scent for every day, or do they shop niche houses, like CB I Hate Perfume?

Even if you don’t like naming perfumes in your work, you can make preferences part of your characters’ off-the-page backstory. Knowing how your characters like to smell can enrich other things you want to share about them.

Or – you can spritz some perfume to turn your writing space into a time machine. Guerlain’s Apres l’Ondee (1906) has a powdery, violet-y sweetness. Pre-war innocence lost. Chanel #5 (1921) and Molinard’s Habanita (1921) evoke the sexy, smoky Jazz Age (and maybe helped make it happen). Want to relive the 80s? Giorgio Beverly Hills’ Giorgio (1981) and Dior’s Poison (1985) are big hair and giant shoulder pads turned liquid. For the 90s, there’s the clean, stripped-down, unisex scent of CK One (1994).

Perfumes tell stories and are born from stories. Virtually all perfumes begin with a narrative “brief,” a description that guides the artist. Sometimes that comes from the perfume house (“give us the smell of a sunny day on a crowded Mediterranean beach in August”). Sometimes, the artist gets to work from a personal vision. Germaine Cellier is the nose behind Robert Piquet’s Bandit (1944). Legend has it that Cellier, who loved the ladies, was inspired by the tangy underclothes of runway models after a show. I dearly hope that’s true. Wartime Paris needed its secret sins. I will say this – I love the sharp, powerful scent, but I only wear it in the house.

Some non-corporate, niche perfume houses specialize in narrative perfume. I’d like to share three of them (apologies to lovers of Byredo, Imaginary Authors, Replica, etc – I may get to them next February for Birthday Month 2023).

Etat Libre d’Orange

This French perfume house is full of stories, most of them subversive. I only own three of their scents but have a shoe-box full of samples. My favorite, Fat Electrician, smells to me like burnt electrical cable and Brut. Here’s their story of the scent, trimmed slightly:

Fat Electrician: “His beauty would have been his greatest asset. One imagines he was raised in the big air of Texas, his soft skin scrubbed by ears of wheat, his eyelashes curled by grappling with grace against a blinding sun. A Midnight Cowboy lost on city asphalt. Youth for women-of-a-certain-age, stock for late-night parties, a partner to accompany the wealthy of Palm Beach on nature walks, his splendor is consumed in the service of others. Now, a Fat Electrician in New Jersey, his talent depleted in his sexual decline. This is the curse of beauty - it doesn’t last.”

In the right mood, I love wearing another of their best-sellers:

Jasmin et Cigarette: “It is the era of the grand studios when Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich magnetized men with a Hollywood look in the eye, smoking a cigarette in a smoky black and white ambiance. Jasmin et Cigarette is the smell of a woman’s skin when she exposes her freshness to the dark seduction of night. A hazy atmosphere. Transparency in sophistication, just a trace of jasmine mingled with the so far neglected smell of a cigarette. Jasmin et Cigarette is the twilight zone, the banned, the addiction. She is an icon, the longed-for woman.”

Secretions Magnifiques: You can figure out the French pretty easily. I bought a bottle only because they won’t send samples. I wanted to be cool and like it, but it literally makes me gag. I think it’s the saliva notes. Enough said.

Zoologist

Canada isn’t exactly famous for perfume houses – but Zoologist is one to enjoy. They stick to just what the name suggests: animals. Sloth. Camel. Hummingbird. Macaque. My favorite is Elephant. In 1995 I visited South Africa, and this scent reminds me of standing in the hot sun on a dry day in the middle of nowhere near New Bethlehem. Here’s the perfumer’s narrative:

Elephant: “Huge trees quake at their approach, vulnerable leaves shuddering as the ground rumbles under heavy footsteps. They come with appetites as massive as their lumbering bodies. Nothing is spared from their bottomless hunger – trees stripped bare, roots upturned, even the tiniest blooms cannot escape their grasp. Yet what often looks like carnage is actually a renaissance. The elephants fulfill a vital role – purging the delicate ecosystem, allowing new life to flourish.”

I highly recommend Zoologist’s 24-scent sampler. The vials are generous, and you can smell like a different animal every day for nearly a month. Writing a scene set in a cave, a dim attic, or under a scary bridge? Try Bat.

Alkemia

In the hidden gems department is Alkemia, a tiny house popular on Etsy. Narrative is front and center with them – each scent is paired with classic artwork and a quote. You’ll be in good company if you explore their very nicely priced offerings: Selma Hayek considers their Les Mysteres a “must have.” My two favorites are The Libertine and Big Sur.

The Libertine: “To His Mistress Going to Bed” - John Donne. "Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tir’d with standing though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there. Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime, Tells me from you, that now it is bed time. Off with that happy busk, which I envy, That still can be, and still can stand so nigh. Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals, As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals."

Big Sur: Jack Kerouac is this scent’s spokesman: “On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word.”

Are you sold on thinking twice about perfume, as a writer and as a wearer? I’ll toss in a few things I’ve learned:

Perfume doesn’t go bad. Ignore people saying it has a shelf-life of four-to-five years. If you store perfume properly – in its box in a drawer or cabinet – it can last decades. Light is what kills perfume. If you love to see those bottles on your dresser, know the risks.

Look for vintage perfumes on Etsy and Ebay. I’m reconstructing my late ‘70s perfume collection from these sites. I’ve hit a few skunked bottles – but mostly I’ve found treasures that, after a few screechy top notes, smell the same to me. That goes for cheap perfumes, too, so it’s not just expensive materials that last. Perfume hounds hunt down original formulas of reformulated perfumes on the internet. Original Rive Gauche (1971) is sought-after – it’s not your imagination that it simply doesn’t smell the same. Saddest case: L’air du Temps (1948) – the most delicately beautiful of all 20th century perfumes – has gone pale and shrill.

Wear it in the house! Wear it on both arms! Back in December 2020 a friend told me how disappointed his girlfriend was about not wearing perfume lately, since COVID kept them in the house. That just didn’t compute for me. Why wouldn’t you put on perfume in the house? Is it only for strangers on the street or co-workers? I wear perfume every day, rain or shine.

What’s more, I wear a different one on each arm. Some days, similar “shades” of perfume: Thierry Mugler’s Aura (2017) on the right, Marc Jacob’s Decadence (2015) on the left. Sometimes I go for contrast: Jo Malone’s delicate Wild Bluebell (2011) balanced against their heavy, heady Myrrh and Tonka (2016). Perfume is for you (and your partner, if they’re into it). Indulge every day.

Luca Turin is the bomb. Fellow writers can learn a lot from his fabulous perfume reviews. Google him. Nobody is better at translating scent into narrative. Here’s Luca on Chanel’s Cristalle (1974), a sharp green scent and one of my absolute favorites: “There is a business-like briskness that suggests waking up from a night spent with a gorgeous stranger and finding her fully dressed and made up, ready to leave after nothing more than a peck on the cheek, leaving only a cloud of Cristalle as a contact address. Beautiful, and a little scary.”

We’re told as writers to never neglect sensory detail. Scent memory is the most powerful of all. So even if you’re not a daily, double-armed perfume wearer, you can still let perfume stories help you tell stories.

Check back soon for a Valentine’s post on the romance genre by Susanna Craig!