Symrise Part II

OK I guess I should get to the latest Sniffapalooza thing at Symrise, which I'm calling Symrise Part II right now.

This was quite possibly the best presentation I could imagine from a flavor/fragrance manufacturer (for the most part) aside from just being let loose and allowed to smell the raw materials. It was about (and I may misremember things, so there's your warning. I'm just winging it; I ain't no journamalist) luxury scents, and they were letting us smell some scents that they've pitched to their clients for 'inspiration.' One of the groups they were pitching was luxury scents--one of the qualifications for luxury was long-lastingness; another was quality of materials. Quality of materials. Think on that one. Because that was what made this presentation so great--we got to smell some scents made out of top-quality, expensive materials. Scents that no accounting department in a company that sells fragrances would greenlight. So basically we were smelling perfumes to expensive to ever be mass-market produced.

There was one that was made mostly with orris if I remember. When I smelled it, it actually smelled like this very cheap synthetic orris that I got at a health food store years ago, except fuller and softer. It was really lovely! It brought to mind Hiris by hermes, and also carrot seed oil. I really liked it, and kept smelling the strip throughout the presentation; it only got better. Then there was one built around immortelle absolute, which is wonderful and smells darker and deeper than the essential oil that I'm used to (and slightly prefer). It smelled closer to labdanum, but still had a distinct caramellic backnote. There was one that was supposed to smell like a classic floral, and did, in the sense that it smelled like it could've been launched in 1950 (in the good way). There was one greenish one with seaweed, that smelled so clear and fresh and beautiful that I was just bowled over. There was another floral meant to smell like a stargazer lily, and it DID! It smelled as exactly like a lily as I could ever imagine. It was made with all synthetics too, which is interesting.

The last group of fragrances they showed us was themed around something like "Less Is More." Basically here they showed us scents built around Symrise branded compounds--there were quite a few built around ambroxan, one around cashmeran and one with ambroxan and timber propanol. I've smelled ambroxan and TP before, and I could smell them in these. Ambroxan is pleasant, but kind of spare to be building scents with it as a dominant. The whole exercise seemed kinda masturbatory in their part--because there weren't real perfumes in these raw materials, and I don't really know what they were after by showing us stuff built with only ambroxan (the branded name is something different, like Ambroxide)--I mean, it's not THAT great alone. (It's supposed to be magical BLENDED with other notes--providing a fixative effect but also making the upper notes pop.) And I think I remember reading somewhere that it's going a little out of fashion in perfumes. Also, they said that it's really expensive, but I wasn't so sure about that--if you look on some resellers' sites, you can see generics of it, and to look at their prices, it doesn't look expensive at all. Compare it to a jasmine, tuberose, vanilla, beeswax, ambrette or even cassis absolute, and I think it compares well. It surely compares well to real ambergris, which I'm sure costs a fortune. So anyway, smelling those scents was kinda perfunctory, since once you smelled the scent that was nearly all ambroxide, everything else smelled the same.

There was one scent in this part that I really didn't like, and everyone else in the room seemed to have a different reaction. it was this one with a metallic-woody note on top and a dry woody drydown. I found it very unpleasant--it smelled metallic and harsh, and just like really piquant synthy wood notes screaching. But other people in the room found it very sexy and were bordering on the salacious in their comments. I couldn't smell the sexiness. I couldn't smell the leather in it, unless it was that "burnt wood" flavor of leather. I just did NOT get what everyone else smelled in it. Maybe I'm anosmic for something.

Anyway, one of the best parts came at the end, when I got to smell some raw materials: cashmeran, cocoa absolute, bran absolute, tiare absolute, immortelle absolute and a few others. Wow, that was cool. I couldn't smell much of cashmeran--isn't that interesting? That these are really strong, uber-longlasting base notes that don't smell strong by themselves, but really do amazing things to blends? I think it's fascinating. Cocoa: like very dark chocolate--I so wish I had some of this. Bran absolute--I think it's called son, actually. Interesting. Tiare--wow, this is great. I've never smelled the actual flower, but this stuff really does smell like a flower. Immortelle--like I said, deeper/darker than the essential oil; lovely.

And that's the Symrise beep.

Beep!

Symrise

OK, I'd REALLY be remiss if I didn't mention this. A few weeks ago Sniffapalooza had an event that was hands-down my favorite one so far. Even more so than the Estée Lauder one. It was a lunchtime thing where we went to Symrise and they gave us a presentation on what they're working on re: the Russian market. Because apparently the next big markets for fragrances are BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India and China. I don't have any of the materials here with me, so I'm going to have to do this from memory, but you'll have to deal with it, because as I said in the last post, I have the svårmod. In fact, you can just call me Evald the Svårmod, and draw a big sorglig brontosaurus to represent me.

Anyway, the theme of the presentation was Russia, so we walk in and there's some cool Russian stuff, and they gave us a li'l "refresher course" on Russian history, which no one in America knows about, so it was more like a brief overview. (No one in America really knows anything about any other country, and most of us get our own history wrong. And yes, I speak for every citizen in every state of this land. Just yesterday I learned that Thomas Jefferson was on the penny cuz he, like, wrote the Constitution and not for that beer that he makes. ...Or was it wigs??) Then we went into the room for the real presentation. And it was probably then that we got the overview, but who can remember anything about history....

Then we got a PowerPoint presentation and a movie. Or a movie and then a PowerPoint presentation. Whatever. Then they showed us li'l mockups from marketing about the scents they've developed to appeal to the Russian market, and what the idea behind them was. The mockups looked, well, like mockups. They were probably done at the last minute, because I was sitting there thinking, "I could do better Photoshop than this. I've DONE better Photoshop than this!" But then I remembered how everywhere I've worked, nothing ever got done until the last minute. Surely their presentations to actual perfume houses will be better. I wish I could remember the actual titles of the juices and what not, but I can't. I know they did some by season, and then there were some that were done with a different theme in mind. Then they passed around scent strips with the juices on them and asked us what we thought. w00t!

I was actually vocal. Usually I just kinda draw back, because I assume everyone else knows what they're talking about and I'm just an idiot. After all, in spite of the fact that I can probably identify more odors than your average person, my olfactory sense per se isn't really all that sensitive. And I'm not confident that I can describe why exactly I like a scent---I mean, I'm better than people I know who aren't into scents, who just say, "I like it. I don't know why. I don't know what it smells like. I just like it." So I don't speak up all that much. But this time I actually did.

What of the actual scents? Well, this happened months ago, and since I don't have the li'l booklet they gave us in front of me, I dont' remember what most of them are. I do remember that one smelled like something out of Bath & Body Works, which made sense considering that Symrise makes stuff for them. And another one for women smelled dark and woody, which I like, because you never see that these days. (I want to declare a War on the Perfumes of the 90s--those "fresh," "clean" scents that smell of nothing. I mean, was there ever a bigger swindle than Zirh's cologne for men? Top notes: Alcohol. Middle and Bottom Notes: Void. I don't necessarily want to bring back that powerhouse 80s type of perfume, although I DO like them; but I want that fresh, clean, aquatic bullshit to take a vacation. Gimme funk. Gimme strong, earthy, woody, animal scents. Spicy florals that you can drown in. Honey and tonka and smoke and myrrh. And let's retire that whole line that goes by the name of "Clean." Hey, it's a Depression, so let's have some more scents like Youth Dew. There. There's my screed for now. You'll hear more of it soonly, I'm sure.) There was a scent that smelled just like Baby Doll to me. And a men's one that I quite liked--kind of autumnal, maybe a little "Christmasy" (oh how I hate it when people use that word! now here I am using it!). I wish we'd gotten li'l bottles, but they were just rough drafts.

Then after the presentations and the initial smelling, we got to ask more questions. The presentation was done by a couple of marketing people, but there were a couple perfumers there too. Perfumers! And perhaps the marketing people need to spend more time with the perfumers, or at least they learn how to pronounce the word homme. Speaking of words, though, I learned a new one: floralcy. OK, not so much a new word, but a new form. I probably would have said flowerfulinessitude. :P

Then they served some food, which was good for me because I had major cottonmouth and needed to eat and drink something. Here are two cool things: Someone mentioned No 5, by Chanel. I mentioned that I don't particularly like it all that much. I mean, I sort of like it, because I've gotten used to it, but when I first smelled it I did NOT see what the fuss was all about (of course I knew it was the aldehydes, but while those were piquant and novel at the time, that they are no longer). Anyway, they said that when they do blind tests in focus groups and they include No 5, no one likes it. They have the same reaction I do: "It smells old lady. Soapy. Powdery." Interesting. But what was more interesting was when somehow civet got mentioned. And the woman asked me if I wanted to smell some. YES!!!!!!!!!!!! So she went and got it and opened the bottle and put it on a strip. Now, I thought the whole room was going to smell like feces at that point, but no. I smelled it and it just smelled like a rotten tooth. Not so offensive as you'd expect, given its reputation. It was probably a dilution. And I would have to assume it was a synthetic reproduction, because no one makes civet oil anymore, do they? But here's where it gets interesting: I'd smelled something called civet before at some wiccan store where they sell essential oils and synths (it's on 9th street---their "deer's tongue" {um, it's actually "deertongue," but whatever} smells very coumariny. Their tonka smells.... sort of like frankincense. Odd, because you'd think the tonka would smell more coumariny), and I'd assumed that it wasn't very close to what anyone would call a civet accord. It smelled unpleasant, but not like I'd expected, and nowhwhere near as strong as I expected, and someone with me said it smelled "like old people." At the time I thought she or he meant like diapers, but I think now that civet has a bit of a naphtalene smell to it, and I certainly associate that--it's basically the smell of moth balls--with old people. Anyway, I thought the Symrise civet smelled much like the wiccan one, so I went back to the wiccan store, and sure enough, they smelled identical. So if you want some civet, go there. But if you want the civet without the glycol or myristate or whatever it's diluted in, you have to find a raw materials supplier. OR just go to Enfleurage, now that I think about it! Because while they don't have civet, I'm TOLD that they had some real ambergris, and that it might just smell like locker room. I don't know what that says about the quality of the ambergris, but it's certainly cool to discover something that actually smells unpleasant.

And anyway, that was the bagoosh with that. Glorp.

Cartier's Roadster

So here's a brief overview of the last Sniffapalooza event I went to, which was Cartier introducing its new scent, Roadster. Now, I lerv Cartier scents--Eau de Cartier Concentree was my fave for a really long time, and I've had a couple bottles of Declaration--so I was excited. In fact, I'd seen the ad for Roadster at Bloomingdales before I heard of the event. So when I got word of the event, in which someone from Cartier would be telling us about the history of the company and about the new fragrance, I was breathless. AND they were serving breakfast!!! w00t w00t!!!!

Anyway, so I show up at Bloomingdales (where the event was held) just in time to get a seat next to my friends. They started serving the coffee while this woman from Cartier spoke to us about the company. Great, whatever. I wasn't really interested in that, but it's fine. They then passed around bottles of the scent, and as we all sprayed them on our hands or whatever, we looked at each other to gauge everyone's reactions. "I don't smell anything" was repeated. I looked at the bottom of the bottle, and sure enough, it said "Factice," so those were just models. Oh, the bottle! Well, you can check it out when you see it--it's made to evoke a car or something, but the fragrance is actually named after the Cartier Roadster watch. I didn't know anything about a watch, but wow, talk about tacky. Hermes names a scent after a bag and now Cartier does so after a watch? What's next? Aisle 3 by K-Mart??

So the woman talks and breakfast, which seemed to be catered by lower-end McDonalds, was served. Then she goes into the scent. I remember seeing a ridiculous movie montage, the point of which escaped me, and then her going into her spiel. So here's Cartier's thing about how they're representing the fragrance: They're not describing it in terms of top, middle and base notes, because it "doesn't have those." Um, OK. (Never mind that the whole top/middle/base notes thing is pretty much marketing crap anyway; I think Luca Turin wrote that in so many words, and when I read it I was like, "Yeah, I alwayskinda thought that.") No, they constructed the fragrance in four Cs, to correspond with the ways one judges a diamond (because Cartier was "the king of jewelers and the jeweler to kings"? Or something like that. You'd think I'd remember--she repeated it enough.)--cut, clarity, color and coherence. No, wait, carats. I can never remember that one. So she went into the "notes" then--"So what's the 'cut'? Right! It's bergamot!!!" What a bunch of crap. I zoned out. I couldn't believe we were being asked to participate in this ridiculousness. Come on Cartier, we like fragrance--that doesn't mean we're brain dead. I really did feel a bit insulted by the crap she was shoveling. And if anyone from Cartier is reading this, get your marketing department under control. Seriously.

So what does the cologne smell like? Benzoin. Straight-up, fresh from the bottle benzoin like you can get at a lot of health food stores. Not a bad thing, not at all. But I kind of expected more. If you're not familiar with benzion (and usually for perfumery the benzoin Siam is the preferred material), it has a cocoa-vanilla, ambery smell with kind of a weird tone somewhere in there. When I had a friend smell it, and I asked how it smelled he said, "It's.... different." To which I replied, "Actually, it's rather familiar. It smells like cocoa-vanilla." But there was always that part of it which smelled peculiar to me--not the resiny amber part, but some kind of up top smell. Well, now I think I know what that smell is: mint. Because Cartier's Roadster apparently has bergamot, mint, labdanum and vanilla, making it I guess an ambery fougere. The Cartier person stressed that it was a fougere, and equally stressed that that was the the best selling category for men's fragrances in the U.S. Oh--I didn't realize that was the reason for making a fragrance. So we're supposed to accept the romantic cut/color/clary/carat/crap while knowing that you made it in this fragrance category not because you find it particularly beautiful, or because you have something to say in it, but that it's the best-selling category.

Anyway, I think that minty is what that off smell in benzoin is. Because I started to smell the mint in Roadster after a while. I still don't smell the bergamot. But to sum, basically the scent smells like good benzoin made sprayable and more effusive and long-lasting. Nothing more. I didn't get the emotional impact from it that I got from Eau de Cartier Concentree and Declaration. It's a fine scent, but I wouldn't buy it. I'd buy more Eau, maybe more Declaration (although I'm kinda tired of it now), I might would buy Pasha Fraicheur Menthe (but probably not--I'd probably buy Polo or Aramis first), but I don't think I'd drop coin for this. And since we're talking about what I'd buy, I would also buy Bel Ami and Equipage by Hermes, Yatagan by Caron, and possibly Incense Avignon by Comme des Garcons. And any scent that, when sprayed on my commputer, would magically put in all the diacritical markings that I'm too lazy to do right now.

That's pretty much all I can recall from that event. They gave us a gift bag with testers and a small purse which I promptly gave away in Central Park (You'd be surprised how difficult it is just to give away a purse). I LERVED the Baiser du Dragon (where have you been all my life?!), in spite of the fact that Turin hates it (he hates Spellbound too, but I'll NEVER give that up, even though I don't actually own any; maybe I should say I'll never give up the dream of owning a bottle to spray on my sheets); I thought the Declaration body wash didn't work well for the fragrance; I didn't really smell the Delices eau Fruitee, and I didn't smell the Must. And since I mentioned Luca Turn (yeah, I keep referring to Perfumes, the Guide, which I never bought but flip through all the time), I'm really wanting to get another bottle of Stetson and give it a try. I hearted it when I was super young. And I'd love to try Stetson Untamed, because it's supposed to smell like toasted marshmallows and cardboard. And of course, Stetson Suede, which I just saw tonight and isn't in the book, and couldn't possibly live up to its name, but you never know, right?

And that's the beep for now.

Beep!

Perfume!

Whoah!!! Someone made that Patrick Suskind novel which I've still never read, Perfume, into a movie! The site says it's "coming soon." I wonder when it will hit theaters, or whether I'm so behind the beans that it already has and I just didn't know about it. Cool! I can't wait to see it. From the trailer I could tell that Dustin Hoffman is in it. And I thought I saw Claire Danes, but I'm not sure. (She's probably not in it--I'm terrible with faces. This is how I could walk around Manhattan for 6 years and never notice a celebrity.) The trailer looks interesting, but don't all trailers? Man, that's good work if you can get it--making movie trailers, that is. Anyway, this is one movie that I'm definitely going to intend to endeavor to attempt to try to see while it's in the theaters.

Oh yeah--the trailer. I saw it here, on youtube, of course. Here's the long one in German(?). ...And the short one in English.

Beep!