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I’m writing to you from my sofa, surrounded by a diffusion of rose and geranium essential oils, a Diptyque Baies candle burning nearby, and the lingering scent of my perfume, Daddy by Universal Flowering, fading.
It’s a smell sanctuary, but these smells don’t exist in a vacuum. They mingle with the remnants of “real life”: debris of cooking in the air—fried artichokes, chopped garlic, charr, butter, boiled greens—a dank ashtray of cigarette butts wafts, my dissipating perfume leads my nose to the natural traces of my own sweat.
Just outside, New York City carries on in its own olfactory complexity, a mix of pleasing and offensive smells. It’s all part of the same sensory symphony, so why not embrace the less socially acceptable smells? We have the human urge to hide who we are, we’re afraid to smell like what we do, or what we’ve done. Destroy the evidence and cover our tracks. Straighten your curls, curl your straights. At this point, it’s choosing between the chicken or the salmon—would you like the floral or the woody smell? Would you like the Listerine mouthwash or cucumber body wash today, sir? It’s zombie-mode behavior.
The fear of smell shouldn’t stand in the way of a good time. Take food, for example. Be brave— add more garlic, smear the blue cheese, bite the raw onion, fork the sardines. With friends, this is less of a faux pas, but in romantic scenarios, it can cause anxiety. Remember, food makes our mouths water, it brings us together, it’s a facet of sensory consumption that goes hand in hand with sex and attraction. On dinner dates, we should embrace the threat of fragrant food. I align with Anthony Bourdain on this matter (as I do in most matters) in that the pleasure of food in social situations should not make us self-conscious, it should further entice us, underline our enjoyment, should be something we share, not something we hide. If you don’t mind putting it in your mouth why would you mind fucking it, or at the very least walking it home and kissing it goodnight.
I mean, Hilde Soliani, gourmand extraordinaire and Italian wild woman, has built her career on it. Many of her fragrances explore desserts and sweetness, an often shamed olfactory category. Like her fragrance Fraaagola Saalaaata, an unabashedly sweet artificial strawberry. Or Buonissimo, a hot cappuccino and confectionery pastry—oh you like sugar? Dare to smell like it then. She’s also alchemized savory experiences. Miss Tranchant includes notes of oysters, lobster, and butter- a thick lactic skin smell combined with a briny and oily aquatic base. She even produced a limited edition fragrance, Eau De Cuisine, in collaboration with the chef Paolo Lopriore, featuring notes of cheese, fish, anise, and chestnut, it smelled more like an expensive plate of food than a rank fish market, but many would still consider this fragrance “wrong” to wear as a perfume.
As I urge you to order the curry and douse yourself in seafood absolute, I also encourage occasionally taking the risky gamble of using perfumes as a replacement for deodorant. Excuse me?! What’s the payoff of this risk? Finding the scent that compliments your pheromones. Not to mask them, but to dance with them, soften their edges, balance their funk, and create a potion accentuating both your taste and your unfortunate human condition. It'll also cost much, much more money.
Now, I’m not calling for some society of perverted hippies and heathen Europeans walking around with their body odor polluting the world, at least not outright, but it's important to remember the appeal of, say, your boyfriend after the gym, or the sweet smell of skin on the beach. Every perfume reacts uniquely to different skin types. For example, my skin often turns things creamy (brag). A fragrance that may be sharper and spicier on someone else develops a milkier sweetness on me. Combining the perfect perfume with the commercially undesirable scent of you (no, Glossier, not You), creates the ultimate elixir. The following perfumes worked to perfect my BO, so much so that I’ve gotten compliments even sans deodorant—Daddy by Universal Flowering, Red Currant and English Oak by Jo Malone (the line's most exquisite and sadly discontinued fragrance), Strawberry by Malin + Goetz, and a cheap bottle of L'Erbolario Del Ponte my ex got me in Italy. Though this likely won't apply to you, dear reader. The effectiveness of these has to do with my bodily chemistry. You’ll have to experiment with your own library and your own stink to discover your true irreplaceable signature scent.
Taking a risk in fashion feels impossible, every rebellious act of style is either some political inside joke or is accepted as soon as it touches air, or both. Likewise, high fashion increasingly welcomes normcore and streetwear, machine stitching. However, unconventional smells still pose the risk of losing respectability. And while there's plenty of experimentation on the market, we must first appreciate the world’s raw, controversial smell-scapes before adorning ourselves with avant-garde olfactory designs. We must acknowledge the beauty of the hoof, before donning a Tabi boot, although I suppose the better option would be to jump off a bridge altogether before donning a Tabi boot.
Like everyone, I enjoy certain untraditional smells—gasoline, Comet stove cleaner, artificial grape, cigarette smoke, horseshit, to name a few. But the first strange and risky perfume I’d ever confronted was Secretions Magnifique by Etat Libre D’Oranges, the infamous metallic stinker made to mimic the smell of blood, spit, sweat, cum. Naturally, I was enamored, if only by the brave/annoying mind who asked us to pay attention to this smell without judgment, and perhaps even wear it. Ever since then, I’ve searched for experimental perfumes. The old formulation of Kouros by YSL (80s-2010s, new formulations are watered down) has a potent civet note— smells like an Italian summer at the urinal wrapped up in timeless spicy masculinity. Another stand out is Sombre by Strangers Parfumerie— a fragrance inspired by a psychological thriller of the same title about a serial killer — with notes of vomit, mold, pus, mud, sweat, champagne, and a large bouquet of white florals and rose. It’s not disgusting, it’s dark and terrifying though. They’re not all body horror, in Fantomas by Nasomatto, hot peppers and dried fruits sterilize over airplane ice cubes. Steamed Rainbow by D.S. & Durga, the textured smell of humidity. And shout out Purpl by Pekji, the psychedelic cocktail of grape soda, strawberry, vinyl, animalic notes, sweat, and carnation. This scent delivers a mouthwateringly salty, fruity and sticky dance party that somehow mimics the smell of the drooling it induces. I encourage you not only to smell these fragrances but to wear them out. Wear one to that boring book party, or a dimes square young-republicans-in-disguise cocktail hour—if you’re living in a metropolis like New York City you have no excuse not to give them a spin.
I believe all New Yorkers are poets, every single one. A contributing factor to this is that New Yorkers must think with their noses more than other people. We can smell danger, literally, and before we even have to think about it, our bodies prepare for an unpleasant smell and whatever it brings with it: fire, crack, human shit, obnoxious teenagers, etc. We are also the first ones to romanticize smells that people from any other city would be scandalized to even hear about. So while we understand that an empty subway car is to be avoided, we also understand the nostalgia of piss on the hot summer sidewalk or the combination of a garbage truck and the bodega flower display. Once again, the world can learn from New York.
Fragrance isn’t a straightforward thing; like any other mode of adornment or eroticism, it can challenge social norms and affirm them too, sometimes in the same stroke. And that’s just it—put down that goddamn Tom Ford Lost Cherry for one second and pick up a stink bomb. Stop hyping up the roses and let’s hear it for the intoxicating smell of wet tar, lift your boyfriend's arm and huff.
