The perfumer scolded me when I asked whether his fragrance was meant to be unisex. He prefers the term “genderless.”
Why?
He replied, somewhat alarmed at the prospect, “Unisex means there’s no sex.”
— Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, quoted in A Season’s Roundup of Beauty Choices at the New York Times. Many thanks to SuddenlyInexplicably for the link!
Ferrari has launched Scuderia, a new woody aromatic fragrance for men fronted by Fernando Alonso.
Ferrari has always been the synonym of passion, action, performance, speed, innovation…
Few things in life inspire loyalty in me like the Parfums de Nicolaï line. No doubt the packaging is plain — but surely this can be overlooked when the contents are so beautiful and yet so affordable? Many of the newer niche brands charge a lot more for an equally ugly bottle. Yes, the products seem to be more expensive in North America than in Europe — but it feels churlish to complain when even the inflated USD or CAD price is a bargain. Besides, the dysfunctional website for the line urges you to “Buy Now” without giving the cost of anything in Euros or any other currency — I’m serious, go check it out: the price column reads zero for all products in every size — so North Americans are never going to know what deals they’re missing anyway.¹ Furthermore, the sight of each squat 30 ml bottle of Maharadjah or Sacrebleu warms my heart: may every other perfume company see the light and start providing smaller, reasonably priced packaging across the board!
True, it is often difficult to determine when or whether a Nicolaï fragrance has been discontinued, renamed or reformulated under the same name, and there are clearly some problems with the North American distribution, as many products seem to be on perpetual “backorder” — but even this commercial ineptitude sparks a foolish fondness in me. In this age of the hard sell, it is heartening — if nerve-wracking! — to see fragrances survive simply because they smell darn good…
Once again, Andy Tauer of Tauer Perfumes would like to give away some free perfume to his fans. The winner of today’s contest will get their choice: Eau d’Épices or Une Rose Vermeille, shown above left and right respectively.
Want one? For a chance to win, leave a comment…
So it is like a Dalmatian dog, you don’t look at it as being a listing of 100 dots; you see it at the end just as a dog. And you can see how if you have this dog, on the black and white picture, you can remove a few dots from the dog, you will still see the dog and then at one point when you remove two or three dots, the dog is going to disappear in the whole picture. So that’s what we do in perfumery. We put enough of those dots to recognize a certain facet, a floral facet, a woody facet...
— Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, from Creating the Scent of a Virgin: A Lesson on Fine Fragrance Perfumery at Big Think.
Update: Joe points out that to see the actual quote I clipped above, you have to click on the links in the Big Think article — those links will take you to the interview.