Technologically, I’m on the arrière garde. I don’t have a cell phone, my car is nearly 26 years old, and if I want to watch TV I have to fool around with a digital converter box. Facebook holds no appeal for me. Food just doesn’t taste as good from a microwave, so I don’t have one. Or a hair dryer or dishwasher. Besides my laptop — a workhorse MacBook Pro — and weekly posts on Now Smell This, I might as well set myself up as an exhibit at the Smithsonian entitled, “Life in 1994.”

For the most part, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But don’t even think about taking away my internet.

With Steve Jobs’ death and the arrival of my iPad, I’ve been pondering how the internet has changed the world for perfume enthusiasts. Ten years isn’t that long, really. But ten years ago I was an unanchored perfume lover at sea, buffeted by the conflicting information offered by sales associates and the slim, misleading perfume descriptions in magazines. If a sales associate waved his hand over the perfume counter and said, “Everything here is made of natural ingredients,” I believed him. Perfumers? Who were they? Didn’t Coco Chanel and Estée Lauder create their own perfumes?

Fragrance-wise, the internet opened up a whole new world…

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