There is not much you can do: Perfume is subjective. What is gloriously shining on your skin is bääh! for somebody else. No way to convince that bääh! is not bääh! But there is hope that (at least!) a bääh! perfume is recognized as a creative master piece. It will remain bääh! , but in the category of masterpieces.
Yesterday, I felt like Cuir de Russie, after a grey and wet day, and I reached for my perfume strength masterpiece in a bottle from Chanel. I love it. It is a masterpiece and a perfume that reaches back in time. So I went to bed with it, and I realized (again) how different these perfumes where, back then. Although perfume strength, it was not particularly strong, and you could feel how it was not glued together with the superglues such as Okoumal that fix any banality for eternity.
And it speaks a different language. It is much less loud. It is like reading a newspaper from the twenties and comparing it to tabloid of today. And then, suddenly, you realize what we have gone missing, while getting a lot of new treasures. So, I am totally taken, reading the lines of this old, past, fragrant story, when the W.-factor comes by and goes like “Bääh, I don’t like it!”
“But it is Cuir de Russie, perfume strength, a masterpiece. A classic!”, I go.
“I don’t like it”, the .-factor replied. “But look at this wonderful birchtar line. That’s like in Lonestar Memories, and then the animalic notes!”, I try …
“I do not like it, it smells odd!”
“Well, I guess, in a sense it does.
But it’s a masterpiece.”, I finally add in, and “yes, I can see that” is as good as it got yesterday.
I gave up, went to bed, fell into sleep, remembering a line from Woman’s Picture, where Miriam says “this stuff brings back memories”. Actually, this was one line that I found important to keep in mind when I saw the movie the first time. Miriam is a perfume that brings back memories, too. Memories of a time when perfumes were different. Own memories of times when we were different. I started remembering how I used to smell Cuir de Russie, going back in time, trying to understand how perfumes were done a century ago. In the mean time, I moved on, but I still love to go back to the classics, be it vintage versions or not. So much better than much, much, much else that drolls around in pink bottles.
Sometimes, I feels good to go back in memory and look into the mirror of past days.
Today’s job: Filter Miriam. Open the 10 liter aluminum bottles and filter the juice. Everytime I filter a new juice for the first time it means a lot to me. It is, together with the first flacons poured, a moment where the work of months or years comes to an end.
