Maria Candida Gentile Crafts the Smell of Sadness for Luca Vitone’s Per L’Éternità
What smell can convey great sadness? Rhubarb, according to Maria Candida Gentile. I was very excited to meet Gentile in person last …
The India of Neela Vermeire
Fragrances broadly categorized as “Oriental” contain notes we associate with sensuality and headiness such as ambers, spices, woods, and balsams. Many of …
The Choreography of Scent: Atelier de Geste Debuts at Elements
This coming August, Atelier de Geste, a New York based art and design studio, will début a line of three perfumes at …
The Luckiest Scent: 8 88 by Comme des Garçons
8 88 by Comme des Garçons draws upon the Chinese numerological tradition in its name. Sichuan Airlines in China purchased the telephone …
The Art of the Minimalist Perfume
Minimalist Art emerged as a powerful force in America in the 1960’s as a response to the heroic, gestural painting of Abstract …
Riot of Perfume: Charenton Macerations’s Christopher Street
Elegance, science, violence! They’ve promised the tree of good and evil will be buried in darkness, the tyrannical virtues will be deported, …
Scent and Subversion by Barbara Herman
In the last decade we have seen many excellent books written about perfume that are intended for a mainstream audience. Among them …
Olfactive Studio: Photography Meets Perfume
Perfumes begin as ideas. A perfumer is presented with a brief from a client in the form of a written description, a …
Learning Perfume Notes
It’s rare that I write perfume reviews here, mostly because I am not as interested in ingredients per se as I am …
Mad Perfumista on Le Labo in Man of the World Magazine
I’m happy to announce that I am the new scent critic for Man of the World Magazine, a new publication created by …
Feet of the Gods by Jay Batlle
I’ve written on the work of Jay Batlle previously, and here is a new work from the studio. It’s inspired by the …
Luca Turin: The World Upside Down
Luca Turin’s blog on perfume, “Duftnotes,” began in 2005 and sadly ended in 2010. Some wonderful folks worked hard compiling snippets of …
The Dark Wonder of Kiki Smith
Every successful work of art produces a sense of wonderment. It allows you to see the things from a different perspective, opens …
Jul et Mad Paris and Aftel’s Chef’s Essences at MiN New York
If you live in New York and you try to take advantage of all of the things the city has to offer, …
Making Up and Selling Out: Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Othoniel Collaborate with Kiehl’s and Dior
In the NY Times today, Bee-Shyuan Chang reports on the collaboration between the artist Kenny Scharf and the cosmetics company, Kiehl’s. Following Andy …
Anti-Aesthetic: The Scents of Comme des Garçons
“Anti-aesthetic”…signals that the very notion of the aesthetic, its network of ideas, is in question here: the ideas that aesthetic experience exists …
Taxicab Confessions: Interview with Christopher Brosius
Many thanks to Candy Perfume Boy for bringing my attention to this video! This perfumista loves CB I Hate Perfume. I love …
Spirited Away: Scent News from New York
August has been quite the month in the New York fragrance world. Elements Showcase brought dozens of perfumers and cosmetics brands to …
From Faking It to Making It: Icelandic Visual Artist Andrea Maack’s Perfume Line
A visual artist turned niche perfumer? The Icelandic Review magazine features a story on Andrea Maack, a visual artist who began in …
Chandler Burr’s Blind Perfume Project
Basenote’s Grant Osbourne announced the creation of Chandler Burr’s collaboration with OpenSky to sell samples of an already established perfume as blind …