My first Perfumes & Poems feature is dedicated to a scent I can't stop sniffing. It's Rose Oud, from By Killian. Recently, I have discovered a small obsession with the pairing of roses and saffron. For many years, I thought that I only liked perfumes that made me smell edible. These are known as gourmands: fragrances that smell like food. A gourmand is someone who takes excessive pleasure in eating and drinking, often to the point of gluttony. So, it makes sense that a gourmand perfume turns one's own skin into an expression of such appetite. A gourmand fragrance transforms the body into a cupcake or a peach or a bowl of rice pudding with cinnamon.
But, as I began to smell more perfumes and became
more aware of my own tastes, I discovered a preference for the darker, smokier
aromas. In the language of perfumery, these are known as orientals: heavy, amber scents evocative of The Other
(keep in mind this terminology comes out of a Western tradition of
perfume-making and that, from such a perspective, a label like “oriental” would seem the very definition
of exotic—we can only guess what Edward Said would have had to say about such
language).
In any case, I couldn't stop thinking about the marriage of roses and saffron. Having done a lot of research online, I was determined to track down a few fragrances from Tom Ford, Ormonde Jayne, By Killian, l'Artisan, Montale, and a few other companies that produce scents with this pairing. I was in DC, visiting my family, and ended up wandering the stores of Chevy Chase, making long stops at Nieman Marcus, Bloomingdales, and finally Saks. It was at Saks that I doused my arm with Rose Oud, stuck my nose in the necks of a few other bottles, and talked with some of the sales associates about things like longevity (i.e. how long a perfume lasts), projection (the size of the cloud that the perfume makes around the body), and sillage (the scent trail that the body leaves behind it when traveling through a space).
Then I left the store. Ten minutes later, I turned around, walked back to Saks, and bought a small travel bottle of Rose Oud. It's not always a good idea to buy a perfume after only a few minutes of wearing it. Perfumes are complex little texts that take time to unfold on the blank page of the skin. They change or evolve over the course of many hours. A perfume that opens beautifully may have a nauseating middle set of heart notes or a corpselike base. Lucky for me, Rose Oud does not disappoint. I love what it leaves on my wrist immediately, then two hours later, then four or five after that. Roses. Saffron. Oud (but not enough to terrify my nose!). More roses. And later delicates spices and sweetness. Yum.
I was trying to think what poem I would pair with Rose Oud. Something about roses? No, too obvious. Something Persian? No, too literal. Something about desire? Maybe. When I wear this, I certainly want to sniff my arm and ignore the rest of the world. So, here's "Love Poem" to be paired with a few good spritzes of Rose Oud.
Love Poem
by William Carlos Williams
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—
you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!
2 comments:
Hi Jehanne. Nice.
I too have discovered perfume, in part because of perfume reviews. They tell little stories, like this one: "Violets and Rainwater. The name suggested it would be this watery, Debussy-like dream. Well, yes and no. It does have a pastel-violet, watery open but just as I’m getting over the gauzy bits this nice whump! of damp dirt settles in and gives the violet an unexpected gravity, then it changes again. You’re slightly chilly and damp in front of a Lexington Avenue florist, with the cold rain hitting the concrete, and a pot of violets has been overturned and trodden on the pavement. Just as you are thinking about feeling sad about the violets and the cold, wet afternoon, the rain slackens, the sky lightens and a warm wind carries the promise of a lovely evening and you realize that if you just pick the damn pot up and put the violets back they’ll be just fine. And so will you." (by someone named Anita on perfume posse dot com, top ten scents of 2009)
Yes, Donna! That is absolutely lovely and exactly the same thing that has drawn me into this interesting field. Who would have thought that a series of scents could form a narrative? Amazing.
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