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Perfumery is much maligned and misunderstood. It is, ultimately, an art form, a kind of human expression like music or painting, that is rarely appreciated as s
by Clamchop 1y ago
Perfumery is much maligned and misunderstood. It is, ultimately, an art form, a kind of human expression like music or painting, that is rarely appreciated as such. Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud.
Lucky Scent (mentioned in this article) has a boutique in LA. If you're nearby, you can go in and sample to your heart's content. Perfume boutiques are unfortunately rare but most large cities will have something and they're accessible and inviting in my experience. There really is a _lot_ more out there than what a Sephora or Macy's will ever show you.
Nice article. He correctly notes that vocabulary for describing odors is limited for most so reviews and descriptions trend quite "purple" and abstract. There is a vocabulary, though, but it'd take some time spent with some books and a perfume organ to make progress on that front.
- jittery41 1y agoI think we should engineer the perfume equivalent of a headphone: something plugged directly into the nostrils so that the smell doesn't offend too many people.
- cyberax 1y agoScent is a unique sense, it is not decomposable. Taste is just a combination of 5 basic tastes, vision is a combination of 3 primary colors, etc.
- viraptor 1y agoThere is a huge number of olfactory sensory cell types, but it's all still decomposable. Smell is not unique here.
- humpty-d 1y ago3 pedantic "well ackshually" comments saying scent is decomposable, yet 0 just decomposing it for us? I wonder why that is?
- function_seven 1y agoWhile (human) vision is 3 colors, reviews of visual arts obviously can't just describe the colors of the thing. It also has shape, depth, style, etc. Food reviewers don't note the levels of salt, sour, etc. They describe flavors and textures and parings. But also, I don't buy that taste is just the composition of 5 components. This sounds like a reference to that diagram of the tongue we've all seen. It's as complex as scent is. There's no way you can define the taste of cinnamon by specifying some sort of 5-tuple.
- kulahan 1y agoI believe he is correct. The misunderstanding is from the old chart that showed certain tastes were only detected by certain parts of the tongue. It’s still true that we can only taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. All other flavor complexities come from scent simultaneously giving us information. It’s why everything tastes so boring when you have a head cold.
- BurningFrog 1y agoScent is part of the taste experience, despite being produced in the nose. Food also has a universe of possible consistencies.
- cyberax 1y agoThink about this, suppose you're on a Zoom call and you want a person on the other side of the call to match a color that you're seeing. You can say "make it more blue", "make it brighter", "shinier", etc. You can get pretty close to what you're seeing this way. With scent? Not even close.
- function_seven 1y agoI have no idea why, but I interpreted your original comment completely differently Yeah, the only way I can describe scent to another person is to compare it to other scents that I hope we both have a common experience with. Thanks.
- brokencode 1y agoScent is decomposable. There are many different scent receptors, but finite. Hearing is quite similar in that there are numerous different length hairs in the ear drum that can sense different frequencies of sound.
- cyberax 1y agoThere are anywhere between 200 and 400 scent receptors in humans. Sure, this is a finite number, but for practical purposes it's not really decomposable.
- nick__m 1y agoI belong to the ban perfume group. I am allergic to most of them, it feels like someone is hitting me from inside my sinuses. And it is not because someone wears to much or smell to intensely either. Sometimes I barely smell it but it feels equally violently bad. I wish I knew what is so irritating in so many perfume so I could militate to have that substance banned instead of being in the no perfume militia!
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoDo you get this feeling from scented soaps as well? If not, I wonder if you having a reaction to the alcohol in perfume.
- nick__m 1y agoMost of them but not all of them. Dove and even Irish spring us ok (not that it smell great) however my wife had to throw away many fancier soaps she received from a cosmetics sampler subscription. Essential Oils like fir needles, black spruce, orange, rosemary... don't affect me, I even like them (but I find lavender repulsive but it's not hurtful). And I don't feel like going to an allergy specialist for something as superficial as this is a good use of my time since my coworker, friends and family are not into perfume.
- viraptor 1y agoYou can go to an allergy specialist to not only identify what exactly affects you, but likely also try to reverse the problem.
- o11c 1y ago"Reverse the problem" is severely overstated. Admittedly it can be useful for people with potentially-fatal allergies, but otherwise it's often the equivalent of building scar tissue.
- decimalenough 1y agoLiving in a tropical country, I found myself with increasingly bad allergy symptoms. I went to a doc and had an allergy panel done that clearly showed I was allergic to a weed that flowers all year around (boo). They gave me a nasal spray steroid that, to my utter astonishment, quickly and permanently cured the allergy, with zero side effects. I know I was lucky, but the point is that yes, it is sometimes possible to "reverse the problem".
- lmm 1y ago> Many would happily see it banned, knowing nothing about it other than that some people wear too much. That'd be like banning music because your neighbor's TV is too loud. Eh, we get pretty angry about people going around with music in public spaces (and tend to require licensing for it) and I think we're right to.