The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World. This academic book by Andrew Kettler contributes to a sensory history of Atlantic slavery. It traces the way olfactory sensibilities were shaped and wielded by white culture to subjugate African people and justify slavery, the way smell was used to dehumanize Black and African people, and the ways enslaved and formerly enslaved people used scent in acts of resistance.
“Scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
—Patrick Süskind, Perfume
Benzoin is the resin from the styrax tonkinesis tree. Benzoin can be translucent or darker in color, but this one is opaque and looks like dried caramel—and it kind of smells like it, too. Benzoin absolute always reminds me of Coca Cola with its vanilla sweetness, a bit syrupy, but with a fizzy quality that gives the scent some lift and keeps it from being overly heavy. Its scent can be described as “balsamic”—not as in balsamic vinegar, but as in balsams; tree resins. Benzoin absolute smells warm, rich, resinous, with hints of cinnamon and wood. It’s a core component of classic “amber” accords, along with vanilla and labdanum.
“Olfaction necessarily puts the smeller’s body at risk: to smell something is to become vulnerable to it.”
Hsuan L. Hsu’s The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics is an examination of the many ways that smell is bound up into structural inequality—how “our differentiated atmospheres unevenly distribute environmental risk.” In the book, Hsu explores the olfactory inequalities present in art museums, naturalist writings, detective fiction, and settler colonial and Orientalist values and practices. Ultimately, Hsu explores what it could mean to decolonize smell. This book doesn’t shy away from complexities, and I highly recommend it to anyone curious about the role smell plays in environmental justice and decolonization.
In early 2020, I had the joyful assignment of selecting some curated perfume sample options for a couple who was engaged to get married in the desert near Santa Fe. They wanted to both wear the same perfume on their wedding day, which I love. Like many couples, the pandemic changed their plans, and although they didn’t get married in the desert as planned, the perfume they selected brought the feeling of their Southwest vision back into their wedding day in Portland, Oregon. Profumum Roma Arso, which they were able to pick up at their local perfume shop Fumerie, is dry woodsmoke and incense, comforting cedar and pine.
Congratulations to the wonderful couple M & J, and I hope this striking scent will bring back wedding memories for years to come!
I enjoyed IFRA’s Olfaction: A Journey, a catalog of ideas, projects, and possibilities collected over 10 years of their Fragrance Forum talks. The book reads like a well-curated collection of summaries—about a page dedicated to each talk, giving the reader enough to feel inspired and to follow up with their own research into the speakers’ work. Topics range from the science of olfaction to business insights, perfumery to typography, questions of health to questions of art & culture.
Last weekend two of my best friends got married, and I had the pleasure of helping them pick out their wedding perfumes.
Katy wore Arquiste Flor y Canto, a lovely white floral that is at once heady and airy. The bouquet of plumeria, magnolia, and tuberose sits atop a soft, slightly sweet, resinous base of copal incense—pretty with a subtle air of ceremony, perfectly suited for this elegant, joyful, gorgeous bride on her wedding day. Connor wore Arquiste ÉL, a bold, spicy fougère with an earthy richness and a bit of an animalic-musky edge—perfect for this handsome groom who tore up the dance floor at the reception.
We knew their scents would need to stay pleasant in the heat (their wedding day was 110 degrees F!), so we were mindful of that when selecting their perfumes. These two fragrances were perfect, and will bring the newlyweds scent memories of their wedding day for years to come. Congratulations to Connor and Katy!
Recently I put together a perfume sample set for my friend, a gift for his wife as they are both now fully vaccinated and celebrating getting back out into the world. They were looking for a naturalistic rose perfume currently available in the US, with a budget limit of $190 for a full bottle. I had a lot of fun with this assignment—I don’t usually seek out rose perfumes for myself, so I discovered some beautiful perfumes in the process.
The biggest revelation for me was the house Perris Monte Carlo, which I had never tried before but found at Indigo Perfumery. Their Rose de Mai and Rose de Taif are platonic ideals of rose scents, lifelike and pitch-perfect. Rose de Mai is delicate where Rose de Taif is richer, spicier.
Masque Milano Love Kills is a bit darker in mood, inspired by the life and death of a rose stem in a vase.
Ormonde Jayne Ta’if is a sweet rose with orange blossom, candied yet still fresh.
Chronotope Perfume Spite EdT is a green rose garden with wings of leather and burned sugar.
Hendley Perfume Rosenthal is a woody rose with wisps of incense.
Essential Parfums Rose Magnetic is a light daytime rose with grapefruit, soft woods, and a whisper of mint.
Villa des Parfums Toujours Espoir is a big floral charmer of a perfume, petally with peony and jasmine alongside rose. I was also able to include an assortment of rose materials—oils, absolutes, and accords—I had kept from an online event with Villa des Parfums through Tigerlily Perfumery, a perfect supplement to an assortment of rose perfumes.
Lastly, I like to include a perfume that’s somewhat adjacent to the actual assignment, for fun and because sometimes it opens up a whole new avenue you didn’t know you wanted to go down. So I included Arquiste ELLA, a beautiful chypre with a rose-jasmine heart. The brand story features a ‘70s disco queen, which is a fun take on the celebratory occasion for this set, but also, ELLA is a lovely, subtly earthy floral perfume that deepens into a beach-vacation skin scent. Plus I got to include its corresponding “masculine” perfume, EL, a bold fougère—in case my friends want a “his and hers” set!
What rose perfumes would you include in a sample set?
—Harold McGee, Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells
When we smell something, it means that volatile molecules floating through the air, having escaped their source by becoming vapor, have made their way into our noses and up to our olfactory receptors behind our eyes. Fugitive, invisible fragments of the world around you enter your body with every inhale—smell is the body’s way of being attentive to this. When you smell a flower, it’s because minuscule pieces of that flower made their way through the air and into your body. When I visualize this, I think of paintings by Alex Kanevsky. Every fragrant object shifting and shimmering, the buzzing hub of a swarm.
Paintings above by Alex Kanevsky.
Scent Appreciation 