Gleaming beds and chairs, Polished by the years, Such would decorate our chamber; And the rarest blooms Mix their soft perfumes. —Charles Baudelaire, “Invitation to the Voyage” 79 WHEN YOU SMELL PERFUME, you absent yourself from habitual life and go on a journey. Scents materialize, one after the other, volatilizing and disappearing as if out of the mists on the horizon. There is a vitality to this carefully orchestrated unfolding, what we might call the movement of scent. This movement, this evolving of scented experience, is not a mere metaphor; we really feel it within ourselves. Smelling perfume is a meditation on what Gaston Bachelard calls “the fluid state80 of the imagining psyche.” The radiant top notes are the invitation to this scented journey. They reach our noses first, establishing the scent’s initial impression before they dissipate into the ether—literally; the oils of which they are composed vaporize more rapidly than those of heart or base notes. Their evanescence makes them seem superficial, and in a sense they are, yet a perfume that contains no head notes seems flat.
What do You think about Essence And Alchemy (2011)?
