05 Jul 2007, ST
I may not sport the latest high-fashion threads, but my one indulgence is scent
By Ong Sor Fern, culturevulture
I RECENTLY appalled a friend of mine when I told her how much I had spent at a boutique for perfumes.
Her exact words: 'I actually blinked.'
This from a girl who does not bat an eyelid at designer outfits tagged at over $1,000 and shoes that cost the equivalent, or more, of an iPod.
I thought $400 was not that big a bill for a 100ml bottle of liquid pleasure and a clutch of wonderfully scented candles, which, by the way, were discounted at 40 per cent.
But I guess it is all a matter of priorities.
I am more likely to sport a bargain vintage frock than the latest high-fashion threads. I balk at spending more than $80 on a pair of shoes.
But my one indulgence is scent.
My curiosity was first sparked by a rather cheesy novel I had read in secondary school, Johanna Kingsley's Scents.
While I only vaguely remember the book as a pulpy read, what entranced me was its setting, in the perfumery business. The story taught me about the Nose, not the anatomical feature but the nickname the perfume industry gives to its most important occupation.
It refers to a man whose olfactory abilities are so acute he can instantly identify a scent. Not only that, he is able to arrange scents in such combinations as to create liquid gold in a bottle.
The book led me to my first perfume revelation. I had decided to buy a perfume as a sort of extension of the literary experience, and settled on, in a now forgotten piece of teen girl logic, Chanel No. 5.
This is possibly the most famous scent in the world, the first perfume to employ synthetics called aldehydes in its composition. It was created for French fashion designer Coco Chanel as a signature fragrance for her boutique.
But my encounter with the perfume was a disaster. I detested the cloying rush of ylang ylang and jasmine immediately. It was like being pummelled by flowers. That was my first lesson in chemistry.
For that is what perfumes are all about, literally and metaphorically. They are complex chains, constructed meticulously down to the last specific molecule.
Despite their scientific birth in petri dishes, perfumes come swathed in pretty flacons and draped in wreaths of flowery language that aim to create a mythic experience for the buyer.
Because ultimately, the chemistry that bonds a scent to its devotee is inexplicable. Whatever the science that goes into the creation of a scent, its success or failure finally depends on a mysterious alchemy that happens when the molecules meet a buyer's nose.
That reaction is instantaneous and instinctive, as I found out. Instead of No. 5, I ended up falling for the lesser known No. 19. This iris-based scent was a cool, clean bath of clarity after the overwrought frilliness of No. 5 and it was the beginning of a lifelong affair with the pleasures of perfumes.
Nina Ricci's L'air Du Temps and Estee Lauder's Pleasures were girlish guilty pleasures with their soft florals. Calvin Klein's Obsession For Men was a more appealingly full-bodied scent compared to the overly sweet version for women.
Then I discovered boutique perfumers like Annick Goutal, Serge Lutens and L'Artisan. Their perfumes were towering symphonies compared to the pleasing pop ditties that were the commercial scents from fashion labels.
My passion has also been fed partly by books as I sought to identify its various aspects.
One of these was Patrick Suskind's darkly funny Perfume (1976), where the Nose also happened to be a psychopathic murderer whose ambition was to build the perfect perfume by distilling the essences of 12 virgins.
The book was a swoonsome love affair with smells both good and bad. The author's considerable literary ability and writing style was wholly bent to the purpose of describing smells in all their infinite variety and effects.
Then there was Chandler Burr's entertaining The Emperor Of Scent (2003). This non-fiction account of scientist Luca Turin and his controversial theory of smell was another great behind-the-scenes look at not just the secretive world of perfumeries, but also the byzantine corridors of scientific research and publication.
Part of my fascination with perfumes comes from the fact that it is the product of this seemingly contrary intersection between the orderly logic of the scientific world and the frivolous excess of the fashion world.
Perfume devotees consider a well-made perfume a work of art. But cynics might see little sense in shelling out $188 on what is essentially air.
But the perfume industry has built a US$20 billion-a-year business by luring a consumer to spend money on an ephemeral experience that literally evaporates upon consumption.
One could argue that, in essence, is the nature of art.
What is theatre but a fleeting encounter in a proscribed space and time? What is music but a collection of sound waves within a defined temporal span?
Similarly, a perfume offers a pleasurable sensory escape which takes one out of the boundaries of daily routine.
Like art, it is a luxury good which can only be consumed once society has already addressed the pesky issue of survival.
So go ahead and take a deep breath at perfume counters. That is the smell of the good life.
I may not sport the latest high-fashion threads, but my one indulgence is scent
By Ong Sor Fern, culturevulture
I RECENTLY appalled a friend of mine when I told her how much I had spent at a boutique for perfumes.
Her exact words: 'I actually blinked.'
This from a girl who does not bat an eyelid at designer outfits tagged at over $1,000 and shoes that cost the equivalent, or more, of an iPod.
I thought $400 was not that big a bill for a 100ml bottle of liquid pleasure and a clutch of wonderfully scented candles, which, by the way, were discounted at 40 per cent.
But I guess it is all a matter of priorities.
I am more likely to sport a bargain vintage frock than the latest high-fashion threads. I balk at spending more than $80 on a pair of shoes.
But my one indulgence is scent.
My curiosity was first sparked by a rather cheesy novel I had read in secondary school, Johanna Kingsley's Scents.
While I only vaguely remember the book as a pulpy read, what entranced me was its setting, in the perfumery business. The story taught me about the Nose, not the anatomical feature but the nickname the perfume industry gives to its most important occupation.
It refers to a man whose olfactory abilities are so acute he can instantly identify a scent. Not only that, he is able to arrange scents in such combinations as to create liquid gold in a bottle.
The book led me to my first perfume revelation. I had decided to buy a perfume as a sort of extension of the literary experience, and settled on, in a now forgotten piece of teen girl logic, Chanel No. 5.
This is possibly the most famous scent in the world, the first perfume to employ synthetics called aldehydes in its composition. It was created for French fashion designer Coco Chanel as a signature fragrance for her boutique.
But my encounter with the perfume was a disaster. I detested the cloying rush of ylang ylang and jasmine immediately. It was like being pummelled by flowers. That was my first lesson in chemistry.
For that is what perfumes are all about, literally and metaphorically. They are complex chains, constructed meticulously down to the last specific molecule.
Despite their scientific birth in petri dishes, perfumes come swathed in pretty flacons and draped in wreaths of flowery language that aim to create a mythic experience for the buyer.
Because ultimately, the chemistry that bonds a scent to its devotee is inexplicable. Whatever the science that goes into the creation of a scent, its success or failure finally depends on a mysterious alchemy that happens when the molecules meet a buyer's nose.
That reaction is instantaneous and instinctive, as I found out. Instead of No. 5, I ended up falling for the lesser known No. 19. This iris-based scent was a cool, clean bath of clarity after the overwrought frilliness of No. 5 and it was the beginning of a lifelong affair with the pleasures of perfumes.
Nina Ricci's L'air Du Temps and Estee Lauder's Pleasures were girlish guilty pleasures with their soft florals. Calvin Klein's Obsession For Men was a more appealingly full-bodied scent compared to the overly sweet version for women.
Then I discovered boutique perfumers like Annick Goutal, Serge Lutens and L'Artisan. Their perfumes were towering symphonies compared to the pleasing pop ditties that were the commercial scents from fashion labels.
My passion has also been fed partly by books as I sought to identify its various aspects.
One of these was Patrick Suskind's darkly funny Perfume (1976), where the Nose also happened to be a psychopathic murderer whose ambition was to build the perfect perfume by distilling the essences of 12 virgins.
The book was a swoonsome love affair with smells both good and bad. The author's considerable literary ability and writing style was wholly bent to the purpose of describing smells in all their infinite variety and effects.
Then there was Chandler Burr's entertaining The Emperor Of Scent (2003). This non-fiction account of scientist Luca Turin and his controversial theory of smell was another great behind-the-scenes look at not just the secretive world of perfumeries, but also the byzantine corridors of scientific research and publication.
Part of my fascination with perfumes comes from the fact that it is the product of this seemingly contrary intersection between the orderly logic of the scientific world and the frivolous excess of the fashion world.
Perfume devotees consider a well-made perfume a work of art. But cynics might see little sense in shelling out $188 on what is essentially air.
But the perfume industry has built a US$20 billion-a-year business by luring a consumer to spend money on an ephemeral experience that literally evaporates upon consumption.
One could argue that, in essence, is the nature of art.
What is theatre but a fleeting encounter in a proscribed space and time? What is music but a collection of sound waves within a defined temporal span?
Similarly, a perfume offers a pleasurable sensory escape which takes one out of the boundaries of daily routine.
Like art, it is a luxury good which can only be consumed once society has already addressed the pesky issue of survival.
So go ahead and take a deep breath at perfume counters. That is the smell of the good life.
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