(Photo: Man Ray)
There are a few things in life I’ll spend serious money on. It’s a short list: cigarettes, Indian food, and perfume, in no particular order. Naturally, because I don’t aspire to smell like the armpit of a dive bar, the first two indulgences make the last more necessary. In my bathroom I have enough perfume to aerate a small village. You could say I’m a collector. A mad scent-ist.
Remarkably, I remember purchasing each one. I can recount each trip to the department store, can relive the ceremonial drawing of the debit card, the cordial exchange between customer and cashier, can feel again the glorious moment when I hold that delicate bottle in my sweaty little palms for the very first time. What I can’t remember, however, is why exactly I chose that specific perfume. What was it that made me select that one fragrance over all of the other scents in the store? What, if any, are the criteria?
A new book, modestly titled Perfumes: The Guide, suggests that many women buy their perfumes—consciously or not—to attract men, or to entice the man they’ve already locked down. Authors Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez do go a long way toward explaining what might be the reason for those perfume ads featuring otherwise sane-looking adults rolling around in wet sand. As I’ve never been one for sand in my swimsuit, I must fall into the “subconscious” category. After all, I don’t remember ever spritzing the air while asking, of a heavily accessorized saleswoman, “is this going to get me laid?”
Scent, to me, is everything. When you smell good, I’m drawn to you. Even if you bore me, I’ll hang around, just because you’ve captured my olfactory focus. So I’m not sure why I have a hard time believing that we (women) buy scents solely for the purpose of appealing to others (men). Maybe I’ve just been fooling myself this whole time, not realizing that when I smell something I think I like, what I’m really registering is that someone else might like it when I wear it.
Humans, like other animals, adhere to specific mating rituals. We may not howl, or whine, or rub our butt cheeks on lampposts (well, only sometimes), but Sanchez points out that women often “peacock,” relying on things like clothing and make-up to attract men. Really, though, perfume is our best bet when it comes to making first impressions that linger.
And first impressions are very important. Kirsten Menkes and Ashlee Firsten of Aromachology, a Canadian-based custom fragrance line, made a great one on me when I met them last year. These girls know their stuff when it comes to both fragrances and the reasons to buy them. Although they believe that perfume should be a personal thing—after all, they’ve built a business on bespoke scents—they see merit in what Turin and Sanchez argue.
“We have clients come to us all the time bringing their significant other with them to make sure they like the scent too,” says Menkes. “Men can be very picky. They usually say they don’t want their other half to smell like their ‘grandmother’ or ‘mother’ and many associate strong, flowery notes to that.”
So if straight girls, either knowingly or unknowingly, seek out male-baiting smells, and if candy floss and calla lilies don’t exactly rev the engine, what types of scents do gentlemen prefer?
Sanchez jests in the book’s introduction that “after years of intense research, we know the definitive answer. It’s bacon.” Like any joke, it contains truth: some scent experts agree, and one perfumer has taken note.
Bac?n by Fargginay is a line of fragrances inspired by—good guess—bacon. Founder John Leydon came upon the idea while sitting alone in a Parisian cafe and overhearing, all innocently, a conversation between two Frenchmen about the legend of John Fargginay.
Story has it that in 1920 John Fargginay, a humble butcher from Paris, concocted a brew of 11 essential oils and the essence of bacon, then lit a candle beneath it. Customers loved the meaty aroma so much that they didn’t want to leave the store, and if they did, they were always quick to return. A brilliant marketing scheme for a butcher. But for a woman?
According to Leydon, the answer is yes. Surprisingly, the reception has been entirely positive. “We knew the products were going to be successful, but we had no idea just how successful,” says Leydon.
Leydon attributes the overwhelming response following the scent’s release to the power of memory, and how the sense of smell is so closely tied. “A person’s sense of smell is intricately linked to human memory, profoundly influencing people’s ability to recall past experiences,” he says.
“A comment we hear over and over again is that bacon reminds [men] of home,” he explains. Of course it does! For many men, the smell of bacon conjures a particular comfort on cold winter mornings, the wind snapping while Mom fries bacon in a pan—and every man secretly just wants his mommy, right? Me, I’m Jewish, so when I smell bacon I just smell guilt. Even now, bacon counts not as meat, but as my favourite fruit—the forbidden kind.
And, Leydon isn’t the only perfumer cleverly using forbidden fruits to sweeten sales.
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In 2007, Geoffrey Gray of The New York Times wrote a brow-raising piece about Tom Ford’s Tuscan Leather cologne, one of many in his Private Blend collection. Customers and critics agreed: the stuff smelled, quite simply, like cocaine. And after Ford reportedly stated that one of the fragrances in his new line was meant to smell “like a man’s crotch,” it wasn’t too hard to believe, either.
In Gray’s article, a counterboy from the Ford store said that many customers had commented on the similarities between the smell of the cologne and the powdery white narcotic. The unnamed counterboy even goes on to add that many customers bought the cologne specifically for that reason.
Whatever the cause, Tom Ford’s dusty old Tuscan Leather continues to sell at record, um, highs. I get that cocaine isn’t flowery, and it certainly doesn’t smell like any granny I know. However, I’d hate to attract someone simply ’cause I remind him of that time he went to Zanzibar and woke up the next day naked. In Detroit.
Oh, but it gets weirder. Girls? There are perfumes out there that make bacon and cocaine sound like roses and banana bread. Not only can you smell like fried lard and Charlie Sheen, but you can also buy Eau La La, a perfume that leaves you reeking faintly of coffee and cigarettes; a better name for it might be Eau de All My Friends. The trend-whorish New York store OAK has a line of home scents meant to smell like New York City, and not the stuff dreams are made of either. Nope, try paint thinner, booze, and dust. Loft party! Released in September, the line has been wildly successful, despite/because of the repugnant odours that inspired them. And, of course, there was buzz galore when Lady Gaga announced her plan for a fragrance with notes of blood and semen, which will be released in Spring 2012. Can’t wait.
Image from Tom Tykwer's film "Perfume: Story of a Murderer"—about a perfumer who goes a little mad.
It’s clear that the base stench of human existence is becoming oddly, wildly fashionable. But do these bottled oddities actually smell nice, do they truly make men dizzy with desire the way Chanel No. 5 did in Marilyn’s era? Or is it simply a product of manipulative marketing and false promises of true romance?
Fabrice Penot, the Parisian co-founder of New York-based Le Labo fragrances, says the relative success of these scents has more to do with sales savvy than it does quality. “We are not talking about fine perfumery here, but about air fresheners,” he says, making clear that a luxury fragrance doesn’t need to list shock value as an ingredient, and that perfume is not meant to be worn for anyone else but the wearer herself.
“Perfume is about well-being, beauty and indeed, sexiness. There is nothing more sexy to a man than a woman who feels beautiful,” he says, adding that the only smell that truly attracts men is the smell of success, “and success is like a fart, only your own smells nice.”
And even when it comes to Bac?n, Penot shuts down the claim that men are drawn to the smell of cooked bacon, pointing out that “what makes [his] stomach growl is not what shakes [his] libido.”
“The whole movement in scent trends is reflective of so many things, including the economy. I think society was and has been in a state of wanting change and I think [these] scents are a product of this,” explains Menkes, whose company, like Penot’s, has provided just that. A change.
Both Aromachology and Le Labo allow clients to develop their own scents, ones specifically tailored to their individual tastes, and both promote the idea that perfume is worn for oneself. In North America, scent mixing is a relatively new trend in itself, and women have been eating it up. With or without a man to pay for their dinner.
They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, not through his nose. So, have we been wrong all this time? “I really don’t know,” says Penot. “But one thing is for sure, when your man’s stomach finally gets too big, he’ll be the one needing the perfume in order for you to desire him. Call me then.”
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Carli Stephens Rothman is a Toronto-based writer. This is her first story for the Standard.
