Perfume fanatics are seldom short on strong opinions. When confronted with a clean, sweet musk or a fruity floral, your average fragrance blog regular will enumerate the many reasons why such a scent could actually be considered an act of evil — and yet I still sense a frustration in between the lines of many comments, as if the writer would like to communicate entirely in caps, an Owen Meany of smell. When this same average commenter is confronted with a new cologne, however, there is an odd tendency to damn with faint praise. Some fragrance freaks seem to consider lighter, fresher, more straight-forward fragrances to be a little too easy. Summer weather sometimes forces us to resort to tonics, you see; as a perfumista, one should not publicly admit to wearing cologne without repeatedly referencing high temperatures or similar trying circumstances. Colognes are admired primarily for their effectiveness, rather than their beauty.

I do not deny a susceptibility to this type of thinking. Even though most of my favorite fragrances sit in the “Fresh” and “Crisp” categories of Michael Edward’s scent classification system, I wince when a counter assistant descends on my spritzing and asks: “So, you’re looking for something fresh?” It scandalizes me that this person does not instantly recognize I am a woman of rare taste and knowledge, a connoisseur not prone to indulge in whatever plebeian Eau de Calone he or she is thinking about selling me…

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