I really, really do. All perfume, and yes that means yours too. But I loved the book Perfumes: The Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. If you are rating this book along the single dimension of how skillfully it informs the reader, it is one of the best non-fiction books I have read, ever.
Plus it has good sentences like:
Nobody ever died from wearing Mitsouko, but lots of babies were born as a result of it.
And:
Fragrances for men are mostly identical crap, designed to trap you and give you away as a lout.
Recommended.
I hate perfume too — gives me headaches, nothing seductive about that. It’s such a strong physical response I have that I don’t show up at as many classical-music or opera evenings as I otherwise might. All those moneyed ol’ gals who fill the seats, every single one of them wears ‘way too much perfume. Makes me wonder if perfume isn’t something women do not for men but to make themselves feel good
On the other hand, the scents in some oils can hit me in the most pleasurable way. Vanilla, for instance … Yum.
Thanks for the perfect Mother’s Day gift recommendation!
Has anyone of you read “The Perfume” by Patrick Süskind? It’s fictional, but it’s amazing! (was also made into a movie last year or in 2006, but that’s of course not as good as the book)
As some one with allergies, I hate perfume/cologne. Forget trans-fats ban public wearing of perfume and close all those counters at department stores not to mention magazine inserts.
Foghorn Leghorn
It’s odd to “hate perfume” in general, as opposed to certain scents, and odder still to declare a hatred of perfume and a love of vanilla, which is in fact an element in many perfumes.
People actually like the smell of vanilla? Ugh!
Your chemist is right on target on both counts, MB. Vanilla is indeed one of the simplest scents, chemically speaking. Burning rubber is in the same category – most of that smell is a lovely compound called thiophenol. And you can get most of the way to banana with isoamyl acetate, although since that’s used so much as a cheap substitute, what it mostly smells like is imitation banana.
Luca Turin is a very interesting fellow – I wrote about him here, and he was kind enough to send along a copy of his “The Secret of Scent”, on the science of odors. Some of his ideas on the subject are controversial, but the jury’s still out on the key ones.
If you hate perfume you still might like this guy:
Christopher Brosius, an independent perfumer whose brand is called “I Hate Perfume.”
He has a scent called “a memory of kindness” that smells, I swear to god, EXACTLY like tomatoes on the vine when the sun warms them up a little. And a little like dirt.
And all his perfumes are oil-based, which means they don’t smack you in the face like an alcohol-based one does. They sit right next to the skin, so you have to get close to smell them.
Check it out: http://cbihateperfume.com/
I agree
I love perfume,because of its pleasant fragrance…i can’t blame you if you hate perfume but for me perfume and cologne are the best!!!
http://www.thisthatandeverything.com
I can’t believe that you acsually hate every perfume that exists.Because that would mean you don’t clean yourself at all(no shampoo, soap etc etc) I guess you haven’t found your flavour yet.perfume
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