The Scented Word

The following perfume reviews were originally posted on Bois de Jasmin, a leading resource for scent and scent education created by Victoria Frolova, fragrance writer and journalist.

Serge Lutens: Daim Blond
Love at first sniff – calm, lovely and more a mood than a scent, and isn’t that the goal of a good perfume? A subtle bouquet of apricot, heliotrope and musk, the hidden star in Daim Blond is leather, pale and buttery – I imagine grey leather kidskin driving gloves of impeccable cut and quality, and that association alone unleashes several others…driving a country road at twilight, as the evening bites with a crisp dampness. The gardens speeding past smell faintly of iris. I’m cloaked in Daim and the vintage leather aroma of my mid-century Jag. A fragrance which conjures new memories.

Sonoma Scent Studio: To Dream
A bouquet of heliotrope, rose and violet grounded by woods, the opening of To Dream smells much like the Lancome Trésor I loved as a teenager...yet To Dream is decidedly adult. Floral powder and fizzing stone fruit blossom into dry, parched woods, melding with the brackish smell of river grass. I imagine California perfumer Laurie Erickson taking inspiration from the native oaks and redwoods of wine country, and the local delta mud. The longer the scent wears, however, the more singular becomes the impression of the latter, which is unfortunate given the fragrance’s tenacity.

Hermes Jour d’Hermes
Radiant, luminous powder. Jour D’Hermes is a citrusy floral both spirited and subdued, with a noticeable sillage, but why not share this sunshine? In my personal cloud of Jour, I do feel as though I’m basking in the glow of the sun, even in the dark days of winter. This scent is all light and effervescence, with a champagne-like tartness that reminds me of Comme des Garçons’ Rhubarb, an upper for any occasion. Cheery and lighthearted, yet not young.

M. Micallef Le Parfum Denis Durand Couture
Inky citrus, smoke, pepper, leather. At its center, M. Micallef Le Parfum is pure rose, but a gothic rose, high contrast, both peppery and brambly, one that broods and sulks, yet wears close to the skin with exceptional smoothness. Reminiscent of Anne Demeulemeester’s oeuvre of black tailoring, Helmut Lang revival haircuts – and for that reason, may not be entirely suited to your every day. Yet it is memorable.

Aftelier Cacao
Whiffed straight from the vial, Cacao is a boozy mélange of orange and spiced chocolate, and positively decadent. On skin, Aftelier’s take on a familiar theme evolves into another dimension, pure sensuality, comfort, and wonder, yet underpinned by a rusticness reminiscent of stone ground chocolate. While the cacao note is familiar, at no point is Aftelier’s version hackneyed; its rough-hewn succulence keeps it fresh and off-kilter. The joyride only lasts so long, though, before the confection devolves into a heady mess of jasmine flowers. But this is no problem, really – procure yourself an unlimited supply of the stuff, reapply into oblivion, and let the adventure unfold anew.

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far

The list that follows was originally inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s list by the same name.

The irony of this list: life is messy. Life evades the neat ordering of so-called ‘rules’ into tidy lists. But I am who I am, and I like lists, so.

Secondly: change is the only constant. Much as I like a definitive list, this might be the only thing I actually know for sure. Every ‘rule’ is iterative. See #19, #33. Since its first iteration in 2008, this list has been heavily edited.

Perhaps by 2040, this list will be whittled down to just those two facts, and that will be fine. But until then:

  1. Honing a self-concept is essential to create. Rarely do the self-concept and the real self align.

  2. Art is an act of expression. Design is an act of service.

  3. Everything deserves a closer look.

  4. Trust, but verify.

  5. Helping others helps me.

  6. Dishonesty is at war with freedom.

  7. The key to a good ending is knowing when to roll the credits.

  8. In business, an inner world is only as interesting as it is marketable.

  9. Originality is a necessary delusion.

  10. You can’t work for a person you don’t respect.

  11. Consistency outweighs speed.

  12. Iteration over perfection.

  13. There’s enough time for what is actually important.

  14. The process of creation often yields a more interesting result than the finished product. At the same time, there is a cleansing in shipping the work.

  15. Inquire within.

  16. Remember when you wanted what you currently have?

  17. Doesn’t matter what it is – a piece of the cake, a place on a map – save something just for you.

  18. Writing daily breeds honesty, and in its own time, action.

  19. Certainty is at odds with curiosity.

  20. Everywhere I go, there I am.

  21. Who draws the maps?

  22. Reality is neutral.

  23. A good idea is never done. The same goes for places, people, events. Everything can be recontextualized.

  24. Perfectionism isn’t the golden word I once thought it was.

  25. ‘Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry.’ — Leonard Koren

  26. Envy and procrastination reveal what you value and what you don’t.

  27. Money does indeed buy freedom. See #20.

  28. Love is an action.

  29. Turn soft and lovely in a lesser town whenever you have the chance.

  30. Read it aloud.

  31. Maintain a curiosity the size of Carl Sagan’s comb-over.

  32. Carry your camera wherever you go.

  33. Discard this list and start again.

Elsewhere

Notes from six weeks in Stockholm, 2018

A map view of the city reveals a land mass that registers nothing, but looks a bit like a human skull. What’s the difference between Vasastan and Vasastaden? Save all places of interest to a map, and admire the constellation of possibility. Tag every saved place with a multitude of labels for easy discovery: heritage, overlook, hideout.

Plan your descent into the unknown around a location of interest - whatever feels attractive, achievable, and will account for a few hours of the day. Locate the nearest green space in case of emergency. Observe the local pace, then adopt it. Resign yourself to the nearest Wayne’s Coffee, a neutral zone situated on every next city block, where one can disappear when the cracks begin to show.

Make plans, and then abandon them. For alleys, dots of light on the pavement leading to somewhere, languorous wanders through the local clock shop, soul mates…

When panic or idleness strike, refer to your map. With the look of someone that knows what they’re doing, stride purposefully toward your next destination. Or strike up a conversation with a character of your choosing in the nearest park. Launch into a concerted study of the city’s preferred trousers (cut, color, and wash) and make notes.

Ask yourself ‘What would Hamid do?’, Hamid being the coolest person you know.

Twice a week, give yourself a free pass to do nothing. In turn, anything you do will feel the grandest of achievements. Switch sides in your borrowed bed after binge-watching a BBC romantic dramedy front to back, now strewn in the crumbs of a million biscuits. Even nothing is something, elsewhere.

Forever desirous of

aimless walks through unfamiliar environs

bridges receding into banks of fog

a tiny harp

an unlimited vocabulary

perpetual relevance

old letters found yet unopened

the edge of mastery

polar caps

a natural expression

ornate onigiri

a bering strait crossing

a shed of one’s own

Re-entry

Washington Dulles Airport: To remain suspended within this moment, this fifteen minutes before landing, 8pm Eastern Standard Time, Indian Summer, sky this exact gradient of flat grey-purple, distant glow of city lights flickering beneath undulating clouds, Ø playing in plugged ears. To remain. On the ground, another nondescript airport. Another queue. Another destination yet. / London Heathrow Airport: The usual clinical cafeteria smell. Feels like I’ve never left, maybe. It helps that LHR hasn’t bothered to switch out its ad campaigns in over two years. The city continues its obsession with the Gill Sans typeface, continues with its eyes in train window reflections, with the everything wilting regretfully outside, with the white trainers, with the tacky adverts I managed to forget, the ceaseless humidity, with the idling and consequently the pace, with the effort being made, the throngs, the anonymity. With the usual trainbounce at Turnham Green, sailing eastward along the track toward old habits, old haunts. Even the same book in my lap. / Airports, like this city - enough content to illustrate one or two hundred lifetimes and yet nothing particularly solid to hold onto; just an image or a sentence on the verge of forming, soon to be replaced by the next haphazard revery as we round this corner / board the plane.

Aphantasia

I’ve been reading about aphantasia, or the inability to visualize mental imagery. I was surprised to learn that for those of us without any visual impairments, the ability to visualize imagery still differs greatly among us all.

When recalling a person, place or thing, some of us visualize that thing in crisp detail. Some of us imagine vague outlines. And some of us have no images at all.

What would the past be without images, where would a sense of self derive from? What is time, apart from an accumulation of these images?

It’s easy from my position to conceive of aphantasia as a loss, but I begin to wonder who bears the greater loss, really—the person with the ability to dredge up the past in all its detail, or the person who must be immersed in beauty to see it at all?

The Dizziness of Freedom

A resonant image: Marion from Wings of Desire after the circus has left town. The world and its buffet of options looms like a storm cloud. I think of decision paralysis, the ‘dizziness of freedom,’ and a couple of Andrea Zittel’s parables from These things I know for sure (2018):

  1. What makes us feel liberated is not total freedom, but rather living within a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves.

  2. Things that we think are liberating can often become restrictive and things that we think of as controlling can sometimes give us a sense of comfort and security.

The vast expanse of the pandemic has illustrated that we can acclimate to and even thrive within a set of limitations that’s forced upon us. And now, we measuredly try to integrate some semblance of normality as the pandemic wanes. We lose the masks, we book the international flights, and again we have license to construct our lives piece by piece—our rules, our limitations. Yet there is that loss, that melancholia, and that anxiety that accompanies disaster’s end. We are free. We can breathe. Yet wasn’t there some earned sense of dignity to this containment, some feeling of being held, finally with everyone else? What will it be for this pandemic to be over? When all paths are available to us once more, will we be contented at long last, and will we call it freedom?

Actual Freedom

When I ascend the stone steps of—last week, Lake 22, or yesterday, Vernal Falls—I am suspended in that moment between departure and arrival, effort and ease, interrupted only by some terminated vista of lake or waterfall when the path and therefore the moment reaches its endpoint. I am in the flow state: suddenly all of my senses are on, my field of vision both widens and sharpens, the edges and contours of the forest and trail vibrate with new detail. I am at home with all things, spirit sans mind, and yet still a body, a machine purpose-built for this environment. Another thousand feet of gain towards the frozen lake or the waterfall that refracts the color of the day and this physical body is suddenly transparent and clear, inseparable from the air it breathes now, more deeply than it ever has indoors. I am made for this—the first thought, and the last thought—made for this sensation, ecstatically alive and without time, without analysis, free at last from the burden of personality.