Least favorite perfumes

I recently phoned my perfumer friend at L'Oréal who told me about her new mission, a recreation the smell of a rich lavender honey for a new facial hydrating cream. She told me that before actually the cream will get into shops, it has to pass many consumer testing sessions all over the continent to make sure potential customers likes the scent and are willing to buy it.

When we hang up, I remembered when we used to both live in Paris and would go for some "olfactory gourmandism" into Sephora at the Champs-Elysées which has the widest selection of perfumes. We smelled everything tangible basically and criticized everything new on the market - criticizing institutional perfume is really a trend worthy to any educated nose! There was one particular perfume that my friend hated. Amarige from Givenchy. I wanted to know what she has against the composition which I didn't find either extraordinary or horrible. From her answer ( "It is a silly creation with cheap raw materials" ) I could see that her attitude towards the creation is more emotional than scientific. If Eva Herzigova had stepped out from the advertisement, my friend would just punch her on the face without any further explanation.

I started to think of the perfumes I hate.

Although I don't really dislike any fragrance, for a long time I was angry to the Chanel house for their creation called Chance. I thought that it is the purest manifestation of brands sacrificing their image for quick profit.

It is a typical example of a perfume that though smells rich, has no character on purpose. It is liked by everybody and hence not really liked by anybody. Institutional brands are not taking anymore risks with really strong olfactory directions so that the profit will be ensured to the maximum as well. They never launch a new product without many consumer testing beforehand. Apparently, Chance tested really well basically in every country where testing were organised - all over the world.

Therefore I think of Chance as a neutral, very average perfume that would be more or less liked everywhere, would please everyone to a certain extent. As so, I refuse it in the name of individualism!

Until... One night in New York, I went out for dinner with some friends, and a Japanese girl joined us, who I thought smelled really really nice. I guessed her perfume, and while I recognized the signature of Chanel, I thought of those names that I actually like. When she told me she is wearing Chance, I was really shocked that I would find it so pleasant. I justified myself with the fact that I liked Chance on her skin only, but I had to admit that the most average perfume became extraordinary on that Japanese girl.

It's all about the money!

I had 2 really good friends in school. Tank and Blanket. We would do everything together, we would be together in a group for working during classes, we would create together, we would eat lunch together, we would watch TV together and we would study together.

We had maximum trust towards each other and though we often had rows, especially me and Blanket, we did care for each other a lot.

There was a school day when our task was to create a liquid soap. We had the idea to get inspiration from one of the "Les Jardins" collection of Hermes. Me and Tank went to the nearest Sephora and get a sample of Le Jardin Mediterranée and I quickly looked also on the note on the bottom of the perfume which listed the irritant ingredients, it can also give you hints! So we got back to the school and we sarted to create our liquid soap, sort of trying to reconsitute the Hermes perfume but adding our own ideas to the juice.

We always made very expensive perfumes, so we put a maximum amount of naturals into creation, rose oil from Bulgary, pine needle oil from Siberia, Lavender from France, Thyme oil from Spain, the finest musks and some green fig and citruses to the top surrounded with a decent amount of those synthetic raw materials marked on the original perfume's bottle. The result was mind-blowing. It was a very clean fragrance, definitely suitable for liquid-soaps, but with a huge potential of becoming the new clean fragrance. Good energy was radiating from the scent, it was uniquely refreshing while remaining very flowery very sophisticated. Everybody loved it, and we were really proud.

Blanket is an American girl from Brooklyn. The first day she was asked what she would like to do she went, I want to open my company. We all thought she is crazy, doesn't she know that one needs 10 years of experience to become a perfumer? Not even waiting for the school to finish, she did it! She already created her company. I really admired her self-confidence and secretly wished I were American too, they definitely have a superiority-complex, but it is really much better than the French with their inferiority-complex in spite of their wide general knowledge.

Blanket got married just a few weeks ago, and I went to her wedding. We both wished that Tank was there too, but she ended up having troubles getting stucked in Guadeloupe with adminstrational issues. The wedding party took place in the bride's appartment. I had the chance to smell her perfumes and I was truly happy for her and again got confirmed that my perfumer friend is very talented, and though her perfumes are not always as round and technically well built as most of the fragrances in the market, they were very likable and absolutely showing creativity.

She showed me all of her perfumes proudly, except the one called Garden. Which was according to her blog, inspired by a NY farming association. I asked her to make me smell that one too, and she answered that in fact it is not ready yet, she made a few trials but it was all a mess, so she just abandoned the whole idea of that perfume. What a pity - I said. But I thought that her tonality was exactly the same as one year back when she lied to us about why she was demanded to leave our creation class to meet the Director of the school.

Recently I wanted to say hi to her on Facebook, and I read somebody's note about smelling her fragrances and especially liking the one called "Garden". I saw on the post that she liked Garden so much well before the wedding took place.

Took me a bit of time, but I got it finally. Revelation smelled like cat pee. The one that is around the corner for a long time now, you just don't go there often, but when you got closer, it hits you. Makes your face frown. Makes you decide that you rather die than take one more sniff from this contaminated air.

I don't mind that she is lying about the inspiration of our perfume. I don't mind that she doesn't mention us as creating partners. I don't mind my share of the revenue as creator of that fragrance.

It is mostly about lying that I am sad. The preparation of lying. The fact that she prepared a showroom for her fragrances for the wedding with all perfumes except Garden, knowing that I would come as well. That she told without a blink or a second of hesitation that there is no such perfume. The fact that when she lied to the whole class about taking raw materials, I was the first one to defend her, along with Tank we were behind her even though we knew that she is far from being innocent. The fact that I traveled 6000 km to be present at her wedding, for months preparing a special dance show for the wedding guests on her request.

So hence, I lost a friend. I am not sure anymore if I ever had this one at all. And the disappointment just stinks around me. It is in my nose. It's acidity bites my skin, and makes a whole in my stomach. I really wish her from the bottom of my heart that one day she would be so rich by selling our perfume that she wouldn't need to lie to / steal from her real friends.