BellaSugar

Fragrance Finally Gets Its Own Museum Department

Miriam Lacey — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:00:20 PST

New York's Museum of Arts and Design is about to become the first institution in the US to have its own Center of Olfactory Art, curated by none other than preeminent scent critic Chandler Burr. I'm delighted by this news; fragrance is something that most of us experience intensely each day without ever being terribly aware of it, and the storied craft of fragrance manufacture certainly deserves its own body of study. Burr's inaugural exhibit for the museum will be “The Art of Scent, 1889-2011”, which opens in November of next year. While I'm contemplating ways to get my master's in Scent Studies, tell me: is this new discipline as appealing to you as it is to me? And should fragrance receive more attention as an art form?

Bella Interview: Chandler Burr, Perfume Critic

BellaSugar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:15:41 PDT

So, it's official: I am smitten with Chandler Burr's latest book, The Perfect Scent. Read it; you won't regret it. Burr, the perfume critic of The New York Times, was gracious enough to talk with me about perfume last week. Be sure to read his opinions on why a celebrity scent succeeds or fails, and read on to find out why a perfume can seem so great on paper, but can smell different when you wear it.

In your book, you mention that perfumes are now created to smell good on paper when you're in the store, rather than being formulated only for the skin.
It's the new construction because of the way people buy perfume. The way that people buy perfumes today has a huge impact in how a scent is constructed. It used to be that one would go into the atelier at Guerlain or Coty in Paris, and put the perfume on, and the assistant would bring cakes and tea. You'd smell the perfume and it would stay on your skin past an hour or two hours - for an entire afternoon. Today, you're trying to grab 10 minutes between the movie or the next business appointment, and you're not putting perfumes on skin because you're already dressed. It's like buying clothes without trying them on.

For Chandler's advice on shopping for perfume,

read more. So how should we shop, if the typical way doesn't work? It's easy: Even if you have 10 minutes before the next meeting, go to work without any goddamn perfume on! Go to Sephora, you do a little bit of homework online, you think about what you want, you walk in, you have four perfumes you want to try. Put one on your wrist of your left arm, one on the wrist of your right arm, one above the elbow on your left arm, and one above the elbow on your right arm. Walk out of the store - and you wear them. You smell them, and you smell them 10 minutes later, 30 minutes later, an hour later, and four hours later. You live with the perfumes, and that's how you do it. Sometimes I'm confused when perfumes are described by their notes alone. How can we train our noses to identify certain scents? It's actually a problem, because you can't use any of the raw materials. Somebody should set up a series of courses; those would actually be popular. If somebody entrepreneurial ever did this, I think there would be quite a market for it. Somebody should set up a place where you can go in and actually do a perfume course, and have raw materials - your basic woods, your basic greens, your basic musks - and learn what these mean. Obviously I've thought about this quite a bit! If you can't do that, then you should just do what's in the industry called a market product. Woodsy scents, for example - Gucci Pour Homme, that was a sort of paradigmatic wood perfume. If you're going to do floral, you should know Joy, you should know Chanel No. 5, you should know L'Air du Temps. Chypre, you should know Coco. And you could actually go in and learn the categories by smelling the perfumes. Certain scents are associated with their time. For instance, Obsession was everywhere in the '80s, but now it feels very dated. Are there any scents that you wish would come back, or are there any that you think will be linked to this point in time? Scents are always related to their points and their eras, even if they continue to be successes, like Chanel No. 5, which was a 1921 perfume. Or Eau de Sauvage, which is a 1966 perfume. Angel is early-nineties. These things have a life. Rive Gauche for women is one of the quintessential 1970s perfumes, as is Opium. And you can still wear them. Vintage works, I think, better in perfume than it does in clothing in a lot of ways. It really depends on the scent. Some of them simply smell so much of their era that you wouldn't want to wear them. And others are more timeless. I think Gucci Rush - and maybe I'm deluded - is going to prove very strongly resistant to time because it's so unusual and it's so beautifully constructed. It's definitely a modernist perfume, but I think it will wear very well.

Bella Interview: Chandler Burr, Perfume Critic

BellaSugar — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:00:50 PDT

Yesterday I wrote about The Perfect Scent, Chandler Burr's fascinating book about a year in the perfume industry. (You can read an excerpt to find out why I'm so smitten with his prose.) When it comes to fragrance, Burr is one of the world's most knowledgeable experts. That's why I was so excited to speak with him about everything from celebrity scents to perfume shopping. Check out the first part of our interview, and be sure to come back tomorrow for more.

Both fragrances that you wrote about - Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and Lovely - have been successful. But what kind of story might have happened if they hadn't been?
I thought about that a lot, actually. I was very, very happy to be able to write about two perfumes that I really liked, two perfumes that were commercially successful. Had they not been, I really don't know. Julie Salamon was invited to follow the making of a movie. She did the same thing I did, but with The Bonfire of the Vanities. The novel was called The Devil's Candy. It was about the making of an absolutely disastrous movie. If that had happened to me, I would have done the same thing.

For Chandler's thoughts on celebrity fragrance,

read more. You wrote about Lovely, and it was a phenomenal hit. When a celebrity-backed fragrance does well, is it usually because of the scent itself or the celebrity factor? The first three months is entirely the celebrity, and then the juice kicks in. If you create a juice that's a piece of crap, then people simply are not going to buy the second bottle. It's the second-bottle phenomenon. The second bottle is about the juice - virtually always. It doesn't matter who the star is or how much you love him or her; people are simply not going to buy that second bottle if the juice isn't good. I think Britney Spears Curious is a good scent. Jennifer Lopez Glow is a good scent. Paris Hilton's first perfume, made by Steven DeMercado, is a good scent-not great, but it's a good standard, commercial, competent perfume. Come back tomorrow for more of our interview!

Bella Book: The Perfect Scent

BellaSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:17:31 PDT

Last weekend, I spent a wonderful afternoon devouring Chandler Burr's book The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York. As the perfume critic for The New York Times, Burr explores both the business and creative sides of the fragrance industry. In The Perfect Scent, he writes about his year covering the development of two fragrances: Un Jardin Sur le Nil from Hermès and Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely.

This is such a well-written, fascinating, and enjoyable book that you'll find much to love even if you aren't obsessed with fragrance. I spoke with Chandler Burr on Friday, and I'll be bringing you some of his wit and expertise later this week. But for now, let me tell you about the book. For the synopsis,

read more. In France, Burr follows Jean-Claude Ellena, an accomplished perfumer who'd just been tapped to be the first in-house "nose" for Hermès. Saddled with the challenge of reviving the luxury house's lackluster perfume sales, Ellena has to maintain a delicate balance between formulating an artistically beautiful scent and pushing Hermès forward in the multibillion dollar perfume industry. (The scent, Un Jardin sur le Nil, launched in 2005.) You're probably familiar with Lovely, the first scent created by Sarah Jessica Parker. Burr observes the actress over the year, beginning with a walking tour of Sarah Jessica's favorite New York smells and moving forth into the development of her scent. Unlike many celebrities who launch fragrances, Sarah Jessica was highly involved in the development, packaging, and marketing of Lovely. Even ignoring her fame, the story of Lovely would be an interesting one; still, it's difficult not to love SJP after reading about her favorite scents. (They aren't what you might imagine.) The book is packed with countless fascinating bits about fragrance (did you know that molecules in jasmine have the smell of a corpse?), and Burr's writing is as witty as it is pithy. I could go on and on, but sometimes you just have to read a book. And this is one of those times. Read it; I know you'll enjoy it. And come back tomorrow to read the first part of my interview with Chandler Burr.

Bellissima! Florascent Trial Collection of Fragrances

BellaSugar — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:00:10 PDT

Decoding the world of fragrance is not an especially easy task. Although most of us can probably discern a fruity scent from a woodsy one, it's harder to identify certain smells without going through training (as Chandler Burr has said). That's why I delight in these Florascent fragrance trial collections ($26.50). Each features four fragrance vials, with each package focusing on one of five families of scent. So if you've always wanted to explore oriental or floral perfumes, you'll get four distinct scents within that category. (I prefer Aqua Aromatica.)

The other cool thing is the slide-out packaging. Instead of opening like a regular box, the box slides out to reveal information about the scents along with the vials themselves. Is that reason alone to buy this? Nah - but it's a nice little perk nonetheless.

SJP Talks About Her New Scent and What Carrie Would Wear

BellaSugar — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:00:49 PDT

After the success of Lovely and Covet, is it any surprise that Sarah Jessica Parker is working on another fragrance? The funny thing is, the first one almost didn't happen. In his book The Perfect Scent, journalist Chandler Burr reveals that many fragrance houses declined Sarah Jessica's perfume pitch. Coty, of course, said yes - and has enjoyed millions of dollars in sales because of that decision.

There hasn't been any official buzz on SJP's next scent, but during a recent press event to promote Sex and the City, she revealed what perfume she's been wearing. "It’s a genderless one I have been working on for about six months," she explained. "I wore this a lot when I was shooting the movie."

To find out what kind of perfume Sarah Jessica thinks Carrie Bradshaw would wear,

read more. We know that Sarah Jessica is a fan of unconventional fragrance, but what about Carrie? "I always think that Carrie actually wouldn’t wear a fragrance, since I feel like if I walk out without wearing fragrance, it's my version of being completely nude," Sarah Jessica said. "Like, I would feel nude - which as you all know, I never am! So I don’t really think Carrie is necessarily a fragrance person. I don’t know, I’ve never seen it on her counter. I’ve never seen it in set dressing. And as much as I would have liked to have seen Lovely or Covet on her bureau, even I wouldn’t do that." I've always thought of Carrie as someone who would wear something earthy and masculine, like Kiehl's Original Musk. Definitely nothing too fruity or flowery - since Carrie had those things covered with her wild wardrobe. Source