Unquiet
Things

I love perfume. I love talking about perfume. I love how it’s simultaneously the most invisible and most evocative art form we have – how a single molecule can transport you through time, space, and memory. The fragrance community has given me some of my most treasured conversations about art, emotion, and the weird, beautiful space where they intersect. But like any passionate community, it’s got its share of nonsense.

Let’s start with the one I find most aggravating…

tap tap tap Here’s another pristine manicure hovering over another luxury bottle, another perfectly filtered face telling us something is “literally fire.” These aren’t fragrance reviews – they’re beauty influencer content that happens to use perfume bottles as props. The fragrance itself is barely a supporting character in its own review.

In each of these videos, the person reviewing the perfume looks like a social media beauty influencer, and I know that you know exactly what I mean. Not just “pretty,” but beautiful in that instantly recognizable, algorithmic way – the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, the glazed donut skin, the lip combos, the siren eyes, the perfectly sculpted ‘that girl’ routine. These people and their unattainable levels of curated beauty have somehow become the faces of fragrance discourse, and I find that absolutely insufferable.

Why? Because perfume is supposed to be the great equalizer, the one form of beauty that has absolutely nothing to do with appearance. Fragrance is where those of us with crooked smiles and frizzy hair and uneven eyeliner get to be goddamn ethereal. When I smell beautiful, I don’t care about my sun spots or broken capillaries or the way everything jiggles when I move.

A perfect scent lets you slip through the world in a veil of impeccable elegance or a melancholy cloud of romantic longing. It moves you to beauty in places that powder and glosses can never hope to reach. While influencers are tapping their manicured nails on bottles and getting millions of views for calling everything “iconic” or “no thoughts just vibes,” some of us are achieving a beauty far beyond what you can capture in a well-lit studio with all the filters in the world.

The comments section erupts: “omg queen your reviews are so detailed and helpful! 😍” Meanwhile, people who actually describe the development of the fragrance, its artistic merit, its place in perfume history, or god forbid, its actual smell, get “too wordy, just tell me if it’s good.” The rise of micro-content has somehow convinced people that complex olfactory experiences can be reduced to three-second clips and vague superlatives. I get it – long-form content takes more time and effort to consume. But perfume isn’t a TikTok transition trend. Some things deserve more than a bottle tap and a catchphrase – especially something that makes you feel beautiful in ways that have nothing to do with how you look.

And of course, it’s not enough to make perfume just about looks – we’ve also got people turning it into a competitive sport.

 “But what’s the sillage like? How’s the projection? Is it BEAST MODE?” My brother in Christ, not everything needs to announce your presence from three zip codes away. The obsession with performance metrics has created this bizarre arms race of nuclear-strength fragrances that sacrifice all artistry for pure brute force.

The whole “beast mode” culture has led to these bombastic, synthetic power-fragrances that smell like they were designed by people who think typing in all caps makes their argument stronger. Judging a perfume solely by its longevity is like judging a meal by how long it takes to eat, or a movie by its runtime. Those gorgeous citrus top notes? They’re fleeting by nature. That’s literally physics.

Sometimes beauty is ephemeral. Sometimes reapplication is part of the experience. Sometimes screaming doesn’t make you a better singer. And sometimes your nose has just gone temporarily blind to your fragrance because you’ve been marinating in it all day (Google “olfactory fatigue” before you leave that one-star review).

Speaking of missing the point entirely…

“Which fragrance gets the most compliments?” This is not a dating strategy. The constant pursuit of compliment-getting fragrances has turned parts of the community into a weird sort of olfactory pickup artist scene.

And while we’re here – it’s 2024, and you’re still asking me if a scent leans more feminine or masculine? Gendering scent molecules is like gendering clouds or colors or the concept of Thursday. Is your bergamot licensed to practice law? Does your vetiver have student loan debt? When was the last time your oakmoss filed its tax return? Do these sound like silly questions to ask? They are equally as silly as fretting about your perfume’s gender identity. Just be a human, wearing a note you love because you love it.

And while we’re on the subject of arbitrary rules we’ve made up…

 “What’s your signature scent?” My what? “Nobody needs more than 10 bottles!” Says who? The weird moralization of both collection sizes and scent monogamy in the fragrance community is exhausting.

Some days I want to smell like a marble bust vined with ivy, others like I just rolled in a constellation of stars. Sometimes I want to be a cozy sweater, and sometimes I want to be an entire gothic cathedral. Why limit yourself to one song when you could have a whole playlist?

And let’s talk about the designer fragrance snobbery. Not everyone needs to be wearing small-batch artisanal perfumes that cost half a month’s rent. That “basic” designer scent you’re sneering at? It probably brings its wearer joy, and isn’t that the whole point?

And once you’ve finished judging how many bottles someone owns, you can start judging how much they paid for them…

 “$300 for scented water? What a rip-off!” Ah yes, because art should be cheap. Those years of training, rare materials, creative development, and artistic vision? Should probably cost the same as a bottle of designer body spray, right?

The dupe-hunting mentality is particularly exhausting. “Does anyone know a dupe for BR540 that costs $30 and performs better?” No. No, I don’t. If there was a $30 perfume that smelled exactly like a $300 perfume AND performed better, why would anyone buy the expensive one?

And don’t get me started on “clean” perfume marketing – it’s greenwashing with a side of classism, wrapped in a recycled bow. Not everything natural is good (poison ivy, anyone?), and not everything synthetic is bad. This marketing approach doesn’t just mislead – it creates artificial moral hierarchies around something as personal as scent preferences.

After all this talk about what perfume shouldn’t be – too expensive, too synthetic, too gendered, too whatever – let me tell you what it is: it’s poetry for the nose

 Yes, I know my reviews are flowery. Yes, I describe perfumes in terms of memories, emotions, and elaborate scenarios. No, I will not simply list notes like I’m reading the back of a box. If you want a clinical breakdown of molecules, go read the IFRA documentation.

When I say a fragrance smells like “the last warm day of autumn, when the golden light hits fallen leaves and you’re sipping a hot chai and nibbling an apple cider donut when you get the call that your dad died,” I’m conveying an experience, not just a list of notes. Scent is intimately tied to memory and emotion – describing it purely in technical terms misses the entire point.

And finally, because I desperately need to say this…

Here’s the thing about perfume recommendations: unless you’re asking me how to smell like Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin’s Fascination, or the trippy pastel poster art of Belladonna of Sadness, or lying on your bedroom floor in 1994 feeling weird and hazy and scared of the future while listening to Mazzy Star, or Scully slapping on the latex in that one funny episode of the X-Files, or that dream you had after finishing Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X trilogy – I probably shouldn’t be your guide.

“Looking for something unique but crowd-pleasing, sexy but office-appropriate, under $50 but niche quality, smells like summer nights but works year-round…” Does this exist? Possibly. I got bored and fell asleep before you finished your request, though. Without a genuine connection to your desired vibe, anything I suggest would just be me half-heartedly people-pleasing. My recommendations would be exercises in mediocrity, expensive arrows shot in the dark.

Just last night, someone messaged me asking how to smell like Gerard Way at a 2002 New Jersey basement show. No shade to the asker – that’s actually a fantastic request! The specificity is chef’s kiss. But I had to admit I literally didn’t know who Gerard Way was until that very moment. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. We had a fun chat about it anyway, made a new connection, and they’ll hopefully find someone who can actually nail that early-aughts emo basement vibe for them.

The fragrance community (and everybody, really) seems oddly hesitant to say, “I don’t know,” or “That’s not my area.” But it’s actually freeing – better an honest “not my wheelhouse” than pretending expertise you don’t have. Perfume is deeply personal, and unless you’re tapping into something that genuinely excites me, something specific and evocative and meaningful (to me), I’m not the right person to guide your scent journey.

Every community has its eye-rolling moments and misplaced priorities, and perfume people are no exception. They obsess over synthetic metrics instead of genuine experiences, make up arbitrary rules that serve no one, and sometimes get so caught up in chasing trends and validation that they completely miss the point of what makes this art form special. But there’s something beautiful about watching someone describe a scent that moved them to tears, or sharing a sample that changes how they see the world, or finally finding that perfect bottle after a hundred near-misses. Even when they’re driving me crazy… they’re still speaking my language.

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