The Perfume Pet Peeve

For my birthday this year, my sister gave me a graphic t-shirt that says, “I LOVE over-reacting.” At first, I was aghast!! Me, overreact?! But sometimes the shoe (or t-shirt) just fits, and I humbly admit to having big emotions, opinions, and reactions time, again, and often, usually about very obscure and unimportant things. Thanks for indulging me as I share my most recent big emotions which have to do with the perfume industry, or more specifically, the application of said products. Think of this as a small distraction from all the serious problems in our world!

The concept of perfume originated over 4,000 years ago, starting in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, where it was considered sacred and tied to the Gods, and was used heavily in religious rites, embalming, and elite grooming. Then, in 16^th century France and in the royal courts, perfume was increasingly used to mask foul scents, which is code for body and wig odor, since deodorant had yet to be invented.  Today, perfume is a $64 billion industry, with steady annual growth expected to reach nearly $100 billion over the next decade. Billions, friends.  Not millions, billions. The ancient Mesopotamians would be equally flabbergasted by these figures!

In today’s world, there are as many as 16,000 brands of distinct commercial perfumes. You’ve got your celebrity lines (i.e., famous people scents), and your global luxury design labels (e.g., Chanel). You have the budget friendly drugstore brands at $20, or your most elite brands priced upwards of $1 million per bottle.  Le Monde Sur Mesure by Morreale Paris is priced at $1.8 million per bottle; some of this price is attributed to the bottle itself which is a massive 5-kilogram gold shell encrusted with 1,000 diamonds, but still, that is pricey perfume. Can we please talk about how much good could be done in the world with $1.8 million other than encrusting a perfume bottle with diamonds? Humans are creative, but sometimes so dumb.

Perfume has an element of nostalgia as we remember the scents of people we know and love. If I pass a person on the street who smells like a boyfriend of years past, I am definitely turning around to see if it’s him. When I smell drugstore variety Jean Nate, I think of my grandmother and when I smell Love’s Baby Soft, I think of every girl with whom I went to middle school. And when I smell someone wearing Clinique’s Happy, I simultaneously smile and miss my mother.  This all makes sense since smell is widely considered the strongest sensory trigger for memory and emotion.  The perfume industry is well intentioned in that regard, and I am grateful for the scents that are tied to special people.

There is quite a variety in perfume scents- floral, woody, fresh, oriental notes—and this variety is helpful because different scents appeal to different people. While there are no fewer than 16,000 brands of perfume, it is important to note that each of those brands has multiple scents. Simply stated, that is a lot of perfume. And while we may love similar scents, it is important we acknowledge that no one scent appeals to all people (or smells the same on each person). The scent you love may cause me to quickly bury my nose in my turtleneck sweater. The scent I love, may cause you to picture your middle school English teacher and cringe. Let’s not be presumptuous or so self-centered to think that everyone will like the scent we each choose to wear.

But the truth is perfume is fun, and I am grateful for my two favorite bottles on my own bathroom vanity- Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue and Bulgari Au thé Blanc. I love the shape of the bottles and the fragrances inside, and I love how I feel and smell after pressing the little actuator. Our scents define us and our perfume is a well-chosen accessory. My pet peeve is simply how much perfume we apply, and where on our bodies we spray it.  If you were dead and trying to cover up a horrific stench like our ancestors in Mesopotamia, then by all means pump the entire bottle onto your body. But in today’s developed world, where we have soap and the luxury of deodorant, we already do a great job of minimizing foul smells. So, most often, we are merely adding a splash of seduction to our bodies and an ode to nostalgia and memory with every pump of the perfume bottle.

And all we need is one pump, tops two; we want the perfume scent to be a faint whisper, not a wrecking ball to the senses. When you walk into a room, let your scent be a hint of something special, not a wave of fumes so strong the inside of people’s nostrils burn. Never has the phrase “less is more” been more relevant!  We all remember that one experience of stepping into an elevator, a room, or a taxicab, and being hit by the wave of cologne that has been overly applied. Or sitting in a crowded airplane cabin, with the strongest scent coming from the seat immediately in front of you during a five-hour flight (e.g., United flight 2410, Dulles to Salt Lake City, the lady in Seat 27C). It’s brutal and headache inducing, and I am convinced that none of us wants to be that person who makes other people so uncomfortable. And, knowing that perfume is expensive, the one-pump rule helps us practice good money management as we protect our investment in making the bottle last!

As for where we apply the perfume, can we all please agree to aim the nozzle at places on our body that are in greatest need of a more palatable scent? In Ancient Greece and Rome, they discovered that applying fragrance to the inner wrists helped the scent linger longer via body heat. Excellent! Let’s aim for our wrists, our chest, or below, but please do not spray perfume on your neck (even though Coco Chanel said we should apply perfume wherever we want to be kissed).  From a very young age, I remember the dreaded hug by certain great aunts and uncles knowing I would then smell like them for the rest of the day, as their neck cologne rubbed off into my hair during the hug moment. I have not outgrown this fear or discomfort when hugging friends and family. And this is where my overreacting goes full throttle and I hear myself saying things in my head like “If I wanted to wear your perfume, I would have purchased it myself.” (I love my new t-shirt!)

I know this diatribe sounds positively unromantic. Perfume is seductive, wearing it empowers us, it’s a billion-dollar industry in which we are all invested, and how special that certain scents remind us of people we know and love! And yes, obviously, if you are hugging the person to whom you are attracted and with whom you are in love, I would hope your beloved’s perfume is an aphrodisiac and if it gets in your hair, then it will happily remind you of that person long after you have parted, which is romantic!  My fingers are crossed that you love the scent your partner has chosen.

I am just a girl wearing her “I LOVE over-reacting” t-shirt, planting a mustard-size seed that maybe we could all spray just a little less perfume and apply it to places on the body where it will not have to be unintentionally worn by another person for the rest of the day. We want to enjoy the scent we wear, we want others to enjoy it as well, and we want our scent to be a memory-maker, but not a deterrent to hugging. Elizabeth Taylor once said, “I never face the day without perfume”. I totally agree with her! Amen! And don’t we need something beautiful to help us face our days!  But I would have loved it more if she had said “I never face the day without one pump of perfume on my wrists or below the neck.”  May we all be the sophisticated faint whisper in the room instead of the aromatic wrecking ball as we continue to love, adore, and support the billion-dollar perfume industry, and I will try very hard not to overreact in the process!