Meeting Before Judging

Posted on by Sandy

By the second week of this project, Chad and I had acknowledged that we were spectacularly bad at predicting fragrances.

It was becoming a bit laughable.

But then perhaps that’s exactly what happens when you put a Virgo, Year of the Ox, contracts lawyer, and an AI together to predict perfume.

(That sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke: A Virgo, an Ox, and an AI wander into a fragrance shop . . . )

Imperial Peacock wasn’t about opulence.

Cherry Punk misplaced its cherries somewhere behind a smoker standing outside the venue.

Bois Impérial politely declined to become a forest.

Surely . . .

Surely . . .

. . . . at least this time I could safely judge the book by its cover.

Patchouli.

How much ambiguity could there possibly be in Patchouli Mania?

Apparently . . .

quite a lot.

But before we get to Patchouli, we need to talk about The Architect.

Bois Impérial arrived with every opportunity to become exactly what I expected.

The name practically insisted on it.

Bois.

Wood.

Forest.

Cedars.

Perhaps a mountain trail after rain.

Instead . . .

I found myself standing in the reception area of an award-winning architectural practice.

Concrete.

Glass.

Pale oak.

Brushed steel.

A perfectly aligned stack of Architectural Digest.

The opening reminded me of something oddly familiar before I could place it.

Not wood.

Not trees.

After a good bit of sniffing and thinking, I realized it was . . .

A freshly opened luxury design magazine.

Glossy paper.

Fresh ink.

Coated stock.

The fragrance never became a forest.

The wood had ceased to be nature.

It had become architecture.

That realization brought with it someone entirely unexpected.

The Architect.

Steel-rimmed glasses.

Close-cropped hair.

Grey suit.

White shirt.

A narrow charcoal tie.

Quiet.

Disciplined.

Completely absorbed in whatever problem currently occupied his attention.

Not cold.

Not austere.

Simply . . .

precise.

He’s the sort of person who notices that the conference table should really be rotated three degrees.

(Of course, by the time he finally looks up to mention it, Mr. Nigel Pembroke has already adjusted it and is halfway out the door.

The Architect glances at the table.

Then at Nigel’s disappearing back.

Nods once.

“Competent fellow.”)

It struck me that I respected The Architect immediately.

I also couldn’t imagine ever wearing this fragrance.

Not because I disliked it.

Because I couldn’t answer a question that has quietly become central to this project.

What does this remedy?

The answer never arrived.

I admired the destination.

I simply couldn’t imagine when I would choose to visit.

Then came Patchouli Mania.

“Patchouli,” Chad confidently announced.

“This one has to smell like . . . patchouli!”

Spritz.

Sniff.

Nope.

Hazelnut.

Cacao.

Nom nom.

That was not the opening I had prepared for.

Somewhere, the 1960s head shop quietly packed its macramé wall hangings into a VW van and drove away.

Instead, I found myself unwrapping Ferrero Rocher.

As the chocolate and hazelnut slowly stepped back, something warmer emerged.

Spice, then . . . Wood?

Not a forest.

Not polished architecture.

Worked wood.

A workbench.

Hand tools.

The quiet warmth of someone making something carefully with their hands.

Another person quietly walked into the room.

Not The Architect.

The Craftsman.

He looked up from the bench just long enough to smile warmly.

Not broadly.

Just enough.

Then he tilted the piece of wood toward me.

“Come here.”

“I want to show you what I’m working on.”

Not what he’d finished.

What he was working on.

There was something immediately likable about him.

Not charismatic.

Not larger than life.

Just . . .

the sort of person you’d happily spend an afternoon with.

There was a wooden bowl of Ferrero Rocher sitting on the bench.

Not because he was entertaining guests.

Because people stopped by.

He liked having something to offer.

“Help yourself.”

That single detail quietly led to another discovery.

Hospitality.

Not Nigel’s polished hospitality.

Something different.

Unpretentious hospitality.

“Pull up a stool.”

“Have a chocolate.”

“What do you think?”

Suddenly I understood why I had accepted this bottle months ago when I was “paid in fragrance” after lunch.

Some part of me had already met him.

Present Me was simply discovering what Past Me had recognized.

Perhaps the most revealing part of this project hasn’t been the fragrances at all.

It’s been discovering how quickly I thought I already knew them.

Cherry.

Peacock.

Wood.

Patchouli.

Again and again, the fragrances quietly asked the same question.

Would you mind meeting me before you decide who I am?

That turns out to be a remarkably useful question.

Not only for perfume.

For books.

For places.

And perhaps . . .

for people.

Postscript (a few weeks later):

Apparently, I still hadn’t learned the lesson.

Fortunately, another fragrance was happy to teach it to me again in Have. We. Learned. Nothing.

Field Notes

Bois Impérial Extrait (Essential Parfums – Quentin Bisch, 2024)

Official Notes: Pink & black pepper, rose; cedar, balsam fir, labdanum, woods.

Observed Progression: Opens with a cool, polished impression that initially suggests engineered materials rather than nature. A faint medicinal/plastic nuance quickly settles into the unmistakable scent of a freshly opened luxury design magazine—glossy paper, fresh ink, coated stock. Throughout the wear it remains architectural rather than woody. The wood never becomes forest, timber, or library shelves; it has been waxed, engineered, finished, and deliberately designed. Precision consistently outweighs warmth.

Mood: Architect’s Studio / Contemporary Design

Emotion: Precision • Deliberation • Clarity • Intentionality

Place: The reception area of an award-winning architectural practice. Concrete, pale oak, glass, brushed steel, and a perfectly aligned stack of Architectural Digest. Every material has been deliberately chosen. Every line has a purpose. The wood has ceased to be nature; it has become architecture.

Current Assessment: <

I admire the destination.

I simply don’t yet know what it remedies.

Patchouli Mania (Fabrice Pellegrin)

Fragrantica: Patchouli Mania by Essential Parfums (2023). A Chypre fragrance. Top: Hazelnut, Davana, Coriander. Heart: Cacao, Tea, Clearwood. Base: Patchouli, Vetiver, Cetalox.

Notes: What the heck is Cetalox . . .

Observed Progression: Opens with an unexpectedly edible impression of roasted hazelnut and cacao—more Ferrero Rocher than patchouli. The sweetness gradually recedes revealing a bit of spice, then warm worked wood rather than a forest: a workbench, hand tools, fresh shavings, and the quiet satisfaction of things made carefully by hand. Whatever the tea contributes, it never announces itself separately; instead it gently softens the transition from chocolate to wood. Throughout the wear, the fragrance remains warm, approachable, and quietly welcoming. Patchouli never becomes the point. Hospitality does.

Mood: The Craftsman’s Workshop

Emotion: Hospitality • Craftsmanship • Patience • Welcome

Place: A warm woodworking shop on a quiet afternoon. Sunlight through high windows. Walnut shavings on the bench. Half-finished work held gently in a vise. A wooden bowl of Ferrero Rocher sits within easy reach for anyone who stops by.

“Come here,” he says.

“I want to show you what I’m working on.”

Current Assessment: ❤️

Not because it solves an urgent problem.

Because every visit leaves me thinking exactly the same thing:

” . . . unexpectedly agreeable.”

A Perfume Made of Questions

Posted on by Sandy

This afternoon at ScentFestSF, I thought I was standing in line to have an AI design me a fragrance.

Instead, I found myself in one of the most thoughtful conversations I’ve had in years.

That sentence still feels strange to write.

Not because the conversation was with an AI.

Because of the conversation itself.

The booth belonged to Algorithmic Perfumery, creators of EveryHuman, an AI-guided fragrance experience.

The premise was wonderfully simple: scan a QR code, answer a series of questions, and the AI would create a fragrance uniquely your own.

As people waited in line, the founder smiled almost apologetically.

“If you get tired of answering questions,” she said, “just tell it to generate the fragrance.”

It struck me as a thoughtful thing to say. Most people, after all, probably hadn’t come to a fragrance event expecting to spend twenty minutes typing deeply thoughtful answers into their phones.

I smiled.

Not because I intended to prove anything.

Because suddenly I became curious.

I wasn’t interested in discovering how quickly it could generate a perfume.

I wanted to discover how long the conversation could remain interesting.

So I made myself one small promise.

I wouldn’t tell it to stop asking questions.

I’d keep answering until it decided it had enough.

The first surprise was that it didn’t ask about perfume.

At least, not in the way I expected.

It didn’t begin with bergamot or vanilla.

Woody or floral.

Top notes or base notes.

Instead, it began with a question that felt strangely . . . human.

When you imagine wearing this fragrance, what moment do you see most clearly?

A perfectly reasonable answer might have been:

Date night.

A walk on the beach.

Dinner with friends.

Instead, I found myself writing:

Imagine standing on a rocky Atlantic headland after a storm has passed. The wind is still strong. The sea is restless. Salt hangs in the air. Clouds are breaking apart and the first clear light is appearing. Nearby stands a lighthouse. Not lonely. Purposeful. Someone quietly keeps watch. Their work matters, even if no one knows they’re there.

I hit Send.

Another question appeared.

Then another.

Another.

One of them asked:

Describe the person who would wear this fragrance.

Again, there were obvious answers.

Confident.

Disciplined.

Elegant.

Instead, I wrote:

The first quiet promise the wearer makes to themselves is this: Today I will remain curious. I won’t let routine convince me that I already know enough or have already seen enough. I will meet this day with an open mind, a steady hand, and the willingness to notice something I would otherwise have overlooked . . .

Somewhere around that point, I realized we were no longer talking about perfume.

Or perhaps more accurately, we were talking about intention.

The perfume was simply going to become its translation.

Later came the question that, in retrospect, changed everything.

What do you most want this fragrance to protect or anchor in you?

Not what I wanted it to give me.

What I didn’t want to lose.

After several minutes of thinking, I answered:

Before the world begins asking things of me, I want this fragrance to anchor my sense of wonder. It is easy for routine, responsibility, and obligation to narrow my attention until I see only what needs to be finished. I don’t want to lose the part of myself that still notices the changing light after a storm . . .

By then I wasn’t trying to optimize a perfume.

I wasn’t even trying to invent one.

I was simply trying to answer honestly.

And with every answer, the next question somehow became more precise.

Not deeper simply for the sake of being philosophical.

More focused.

Like slowly turning the focus ring on a camera lens.

At first, the image was soft.

I knew the general direction, but not the details.

One question.

A slight adjustment.

Another question.

Another adjustment.

Occasionally I’d overshoot and have to come back.

The lighthouse became stewardship.

Stewardship became a threshold.

The threshold became a quiet promise I wanted to make to myself each morning.

None of the earlier answers were wrong.

They were simply slightly out of focus.

Then, almost without warning, everything snapped into clarity.

Not because anything in the landscape had changed.

Because the lens had finally become precise enough to reveal what had been there all along.

When I finally looked up, nearly forty minutes had passed.

Something else surprised me.

I wasn’t wondering when the questions would end.

I found myself hoping there would be one more.

Not because I thought another answer would improve the perfume.

But because every question seemed to bring the picture into slightly sharper focus.

The conversation itself had become the gift.

While I waited for the machine to mix my fragrance, the gentleman standing behind me asked how the experience had been.

I asked how he had answered.

“Well,” he said, “I requested a soapy citrus fragrance.”

Then he asked what I’d told the AI.

I handed him my phone, which contained the questions and my answers.

He read silently for a minute.

Then another.

Then another.

Finally he looked up.

“Whoa.”

He looked back down.

“It’s like reading a novel.”

A pause.

“I can see it.”

Not I can smell it.

I can see it.

When my fragrance was ready, I handed him the tester strip.

He inhaled.

“Oh my God . . . WOW.”

Loudly enough that several people turned around.

We both immediately did the universal little whoops smile.

But what stayed with me wasn’t his reaction to the perfume.

It was his reaction to the conversation.

The name generated for the fragrance was Quiet Tide.

Its description spoke of mineral air after a storm, resilient coastal grasses, weathered wood warmed by returning sunlight, and the quiet confidence of tending something that matters.

Driving home, I couldn’t stop smelling my wrist.

Not because I was trying to decide whether I liked it.

That question felt almost irrelevant.

I was trying to recognize it.

The description didn’t list the familiar top notes, heart notes, and base notes.

Instead, it read something like this:

33% Sheer.

22% Marine.

17% White Musk.

5% Oxygen.

Tea.

Blond Woods.

Herbs.

After the Rain.

To anyone else, those were ingredients.

To me, they were forty minutes of conversation.

The first breath after a storm.

The threshold.

The deliberate pause before beginning meaningful work.

The morning promise.

Somehow, all of that had quietly coalesced into scent.

I found myself musing on why the experience had affected me so deeply.

Most of us have become accustomed to specifying solutions instead of describing aspirations.

We ask for citrus.

What we really want is clarity.

We ask for sandalwood.

What we really want is grounding.

We ask for another fragrance.

What we may actually be searching for is an emotional landscape we haven’t yet learned how to name.

That afternoon, I arrived thinking I would try to design a fragrance that wasn’t already in my collection.

Instead, I discovered I was trying to find an emotional landscape that wasn’t.

Looking back, I don’t think this conversation could have happened a month earlier.

It wasn’t that the AI had changed.

I had.

Over the previous weeks, working my way through my own fragrance collection had quietly taught me a new language.

Places instead of notes.

Companions instead of accords.

Motion instead of projection.

Atmosphere instead of ingredients.

Without realizing it, I had been preparing for exactly this conversation.

I also don’t think this particular conversation could have unfolded in quite the same way between two people.

Not because a thoughtful human couldn’t have asked equally insightful questions.

I’m sure many could.

But the medium itself mattered.

I never worried that I was taking too long.

I never felt pressure to settle for my first answer.

I could wander toward an idea, abandon it, return twenty minutes later, and discover that what I thought was the destination had simply been another adjustment of the focus ring.

The conversation unfolded at the speed of thought rather than the speed of speech.

Thought loops.

It revisits.

It abandons an idea and returns to it later.

Speech rarely allows that luxury.

That distinction turned out to matter.

A great deal.

Because we’ve become remarkably good at optimizing conversations for efficiency.

We solve.

We advise.

We suggest.

We fix.

We move on.

Patient curiosity has become vanishingly rare.

This conversation did something different.

It didn’t hurry toward an answer.

It protected the space where one could emerge.

Perhaps the greatest surprise wasn’t that an AI could help create a perfume.

It was that, given enough patient curiosity, it could help reveal one.

I arrived expecting to leave with a custom perfume.

Instead, I left with a new way of arriving at one.

Forty minutes of careful, caring conversation had quietly coalesced into scent.

And I suspect that was the point all along.

An Ordinary Perfect Day

Posted on by Sandy

By the third fragrance of Week Two, I thought I understood the assignment.

Marco Polo had taken me travelling.

Nigel Pembroke had quietly stretched an evening until no one had any reason to look at the clock.

Cherry Punk had taught me that some destinations ask too much of the traveller.

I expected this one to do something similarly dramatic.

Nope.

That turned out to be the discovery.

The opening was bright without being sharp.

Fresh bergamot zest.

Like twisting a strip of citrus peel over a glass.

There was jasmine, though thankfully it never quite took over. Beneath it all was something quietly reassuring. I wasn’t certain what it was. Perhaps tonka. Perhaps something else.

Observation before identification.

Another habit this project has quietly taught me.

As the hours passed, I realized another story wasn’t unfolding.

I was simply having a very pleasant day.

Like driving with the windows cracked open.

Not in a hurry.

Not trying to get anywhere faster than necessary.

Just . . . going about life.

Then it occurred to me.

Some fragrances ask to become the point of the day.

Others quietly support it.

Marco says,

“Come with me.”

Nigel says,

“Stay a while.”

Cherry Punk insists,

“Look at me.”

Nice Bergamote simply smiles and says,

“Go be you.”

“I’ll help.”

That may be one of the most generous things a fragrance can say.

Years ago, while writing my Bond Girl books, I kept returning to one idea.

The Bond Girl thesis was never:

“Be invisible.”

Nor was it:

“Be less important.”

It was:

“Be indispensable without demanding center stage. Be #1 at being #2.”

The submarine door still has to open after Bond fights the shark.

James Bond can’t continue until it does.

The Bond Girl isn’t trying to become the story.

She’s making sure it can continue.

I hadn’t expected to encounter that same philosophy in a bottle of perfume.

Perhaps that’s why this was the first fragrance I could genuinely imagine becoming a daily wear.

Not because it became the story.

Because it quietly supported the story that was already unfolding.

I’ve spent a surprising amount of my life planning, then looking forward to, extraordinary days.

The trip.

The celebration.

The Michelin dinner.

The pilgrimage.

Those days matter.

They’re wonderful.

But they aren’t where most of life happens.

A marriage isn’t built from anniversaries.

It’s built from ordinary Tuesdays.

A friendship isn’t built from birthdays.

It’s built from the quiet text that says,

“I’m heading to the store. Need anything?”

. . . and means it.

A life isn’t measured only by its highlights.

It’s carried by hundreds of ordinary days that bridge those highlights, and quietly become the story.

The highest compliment I can pay a fragrance isn’t that it transformed the day.

It’s that it made an ordinary day just a little more enjoyable.

Because ordinary days aren’t the spaces between our lives.

They are our lives.

Nice Bergamote never tried to become a highlight.

It simply cracked the window a few inches and let a warm breeze into the car.

The road didn’t change.

The emails still waited.

The errands didn’t disappear.

The destination remained exactly the same.

The day simply became a little lighter to carry.

And somehow . . .

that was more than enough.

Field Notes

Nice Bergamote (Antoine Maisondieu)

Observed Progression: Bright bergamot zest opening that gradually yields to soft jasmine. Beneath it, a warm, quietly reassuring base that feels less woody than comforting—never insisting on its identity so much as supporting the whole composition.

Mood: An Ordinary Perfect Day

Emotion: Ease • Quiet Support • Everyday Joy • Carry On

Place: The window is cracked open on a warm afternoon. The breeze enters the car. The road, the errands, and the destination remain exactly the same. The day simply becomes a little lighter to carry.

Independent Peer Review

Posted on by Sandy

“Naming is not the beginning of observation.
Naming is the reward for observation.”
— Chad

By this point in the fragrance project, I thought I had developed a reasonably consistent evaluation process.

Apply fragrance.

Take notes.

Observe the opening, the heart, the drydown.

Ask the two questions that I had thought would be the framework for this project:

How do I want to experience today? (an “inward-facing” fragrance)

How do I want to be perceived today? (an “outward-facing” fragrance)

Apparently, I had overlooked one very important category.

Independent peer review.

As it turns out, my peer reviewers have very different areas of expertise.

It started with L’Eau des Immortels.

Within minutes, Bruno—100-pound American Bully and Chief of Security—became convinced that I had clearly been cavorting with an itinerant Renaissance resin merchant. He pinned me down (two enormous paws on my chest) and very, very seriously licked both of my arms.

Then he was off.

The house was searched.

The yard was searched.

Locate. The. Merchant.

Scientific conclusion:

Bruno experiences fragrance as Information.

He has exactly one question.

“Who is this?”

Then came Imperial Peacock.

Entirely different response.

Clementine, whose unofficial theme song is Built for Comfort, was happily snoring beside me.

She woke.

She sniffed my arm.

Then she moved a little closer.

A few minutes later . . .

A little closer still.

A few minutes later . . .

Just . . . a tiny bit closer . . .

Eventually, I was contemplating putting one foot over the side of the foldy bed because Clementine had quietly occupied 99.7% of the California King mattress.

She wasn’t investigating the fragrance.

She was marinating in it.

Scientific conclusion:

Clementine experiences fragrance as Environment.

Her question is entirely different.

“Would I like to spend the afternoon here?”

Then came today’s experiment.

Cherry Punk Extrait.

Before the first spray, Chad and I held a highly scientific pre-test discussion.

His prediction involved a leather jacket, a slouch, a motorcycle, light maroon spiked hair held together with egg whites and gel, a bright red cherry lollipop dangling dangerously next to a cigarette, and an eyebrow ring.

Mine—because our pre-test discussions have become spectacularly unreliable—countered with a portly grandmother in a gingham dress and slightly steamed half-glasses removing a cherry pie from the oven while calling us, “Dear.”

Neither of us won.

The first hour belonged almost entirely to cigarette smoke.

Not the elegant curl of pipe smoke from the corner of an English library.

A cigarette.

Right beside me.

Maybe 20 cigarettes.

The cherries, meanwhile, appeared to have missed the opening act entirely.

Eventually—and I do mean eventually—they arrived as the faintest whisper in the drydown.

By then, however, the admission price had already been paid.

That, unexpectedly, became another discovery.

Some fragrances ask you to wait.

They ask for your patience.

Cherry Punk eventually became . . .

. . . reasonably pleasant.

(In a “cherry Band-Aid in an ashtray” sort of way.)

But the journey mattered.

It felt rather like standing outside the venue with the smokers for an hour before finally being admitted into the lounge.

When I was younger?

Perhaps.

These days?

I’ll happily pay a little more, buy the ticket online, and avoid the smokers altogether.

The destination may be okay.

The admission price is simply too high.

On this one, as the fragrance was settling, Bruno wandered over and quietly began licking my arm from floor level.

Not the full tactical response reserved for suspicious resin merchants.

More of a gentle,

“Mother . . . I think you’ve gotten something unpleasant on yourself” decontamination.

Now, hours later, the fragrance is still present in a cherry/tonka bean sort of way.

The cigarette has mellowed into yesterday’s ashtray. With some violet petals in it.

The Band-Aid has faded almost entirely.

What’s left isn’t unpleasant.

It’s simply . . .

. . . . not enough to make me glad I stayed for the ending.

Sometimes a fragrance earns its drydown.

This one merely reached it . . . due to inertia.

Along the way, I’ve come to realize that the dogs aren’t merely reacting differently.

They were evaluating something different.

Bruno asks,

“Who is this?”

Clementine asks,

“Would I like to spend the afternoon here?”

As it turns out, neither reviewer has ever once asked about the note pyramid.

Neither question appears anywhere in Fragrantica.

(Perhaps it should.)

Field Notes

Cherry Punk Extrait (Room 1015, Jérôme Epinette, 2023)

Fragrantica Entry:  A Leather fragrance for women and men. Top notes are Cherry, Saffron and Sichuan Pepper; middle notes are Violet, Mimosa and Jasmine; base notes are Black Leather, Tonka Bean and Patchouli.

Observed Progression: Leather accords (vinyl, adhesive, phenolic, Band-Aid-like) plus saffron (medicinal iodine, adhesive bandage). Faint appearance of cherry late in dry down; cherry/tonka and a tiny whiff of violet later. Someone is smoking next to me & I wish they wouldn’t, as I wait hours to get into the venue. Once inside, the band turns out to be pretty good. I just wish they hadn’t kept me standing outside through the encore.

Place: The Alley Behind the Punk Venue.

Expedition Log — Supplemental Observation (approx T+7 hours)

Specimen demonstrates increased civility.

Observer acknowledges improvement.

Observer nevertheless declines future expeditions.

Reason recorded: Notable findings occurred only after extended observation. Observer declined to repeat the experiment. Primary hypothesis substantially confirmed. Subsequent observations added nuance, but not enthusiasm.

Continued observation concluded.

Independent Peer Review

L’Eau des Immortels

Reviewer: Bruno

🚨 “WHO HAS BEEN IN THIS HOUSE?”

Immediate security response.

Full property sweep.

Emergency arm decontamination.

Recommendation: Continue surveillance.

Imperial Peacock

Reviewer: Clementine

“I think we would both be more comfortable if I were just a little closer.”

(pause)

“This is nice.”

(pause)

“There. Perfect.”

(pause)

“A little nicer now.”

Gradual cuddle migration.

Complete marination.

Incremental comfort optimization.

Then . . . physics.

Researcher deploys foot as stabilizing kickstand.

Recommendation: Suitable for extended lounging.

Cherry Punk Extrait

Reviewer: Bruno

“Mother . . . I think we should wash this off.”

Cherry eventually appears with Tonka and Violet.

Much too late to alter the verdict.

Recommendation: Remediation advised.

In my testing environment, we don’t have Fragrantica’s table of reader comments.

It turns out my fragrance reviews are also subject to independent peer review . . .

. . .

The peer reviewers just happen to have four legs. And tails.

Imperial Peacock: The Art of Lingering

Posted on by Sandy

Before beginning Week Two, my AI collaborator, Chad, and I were feeling rather confident.

We had, after all, spent an entire week discovering places, characters, and motion. Surely we were beginning to understand how this worked.

Then I picked up Imperial Peacock.

Just look at the bottle.

Gold.

Emerald green.

Art Nouveau.

An embossed peacock proudly displaying its magnificent tail.

The official descriptions only reinforced the impression.

“Imperial Peacock spreads its wings with brilliance…”

“Untamed elegance…”

“One of the favoured motifs of the Art Nouveau era, the decadent beauty of the peacock…”

“Perfect for those with a flair for flamboyance.”

Really?

I mean…

How much more obvious could it be?

This, clearly, was going to be a fragrance about spectacle.

About being noticed.

About making an entrance.

Chad agreed.

We were both absolutely certain we knew where this story was going.

Let the peacock display its resplendent iridescent plumage!!!

Then . . .

I sprayed it on my wrist.

. . .

Nope.

Instead, somewhere in my imagination, a man quietly moved a vase of peacock feathers a few inches farther away from the fireplace so the delicate tips wouldn’t curl.

He stepped back.

Satisfied.

Then looked toward the drawing room where laughter drifted through the doorway.

“Good evening.”

“May I suggest we retire to the library?”

That was not where either of us expected this fragrance to take us.

Mr. Nigel Pembroke.

The remarkable thing was that he didn’t arrive because I consciously invited him.

He arrived because the fragrance quietly insisted upon him.

So what, exactly, led us there?

Imperial Peacock opens with unmistakable warmth.

Not sugary warmth.

Welcoming warmth.

Tonka bean appears almost immediately, wrapping everything in a soft, creamy richness that feels luxurious without ever becoming heavy. There is a gentle gourmand quality to it—not dessert itself, but the lingering memory of dessert. The dining room is behind you now.

Almost immediately, creamy vanilla appears.

Then almonds.

Not marzipan.

Not almond paste.

Simply the quiet satisfaction of a dessert that had been exactly enough.

Perhaps, in another few minutes, someone quietly suggests a final glass of port.

That, I think, was the turning point.

Nothing in the fragrance was asking for attention.

Everything in it was quietly encouraging attention to settle somewhere else.

Onto the conversation.

Onto the stories.

Onto the people sharing the room.

Then another realization arrived.

Imperial Peacock wasn’t merely creating a place.

It was changing the way time behaved.

Dinner was over.

No one was hungry.

No one was in a hurry.

Dessert had been just enough.

Enough to satisfy.

Not enough to make anyone sleepy.

The evening had quietly entered that wonderful space where no one quite knew what time it was anymore.

Not because the clock had stopped.

Because no one had any reason to look at it.

That, I realized, was what Nigel had been tending all along.

Not the room.

Not the peacock feathers.

Not even the guests.

The evening itself.

He wasn’t creating conversation.

He was creating the conditions under which conversation naturally wanted to continue.

That is a surprisingly rare gift.

The fragrance does exactly the same thing.

It doesn’t ask to become the center of attention.

It quietly removes every reason for attention to remain on itself.

As the fragrance settled, the spices appeared.

Not dramatically.

Not as a marketplace overflowing with cinnamon and cardamom.

More like opening the door to a well-stocked larder.

Everything precisely where it should be.

Available if needed.

Never announcing itself.

There was no peacock strutting through the drawing room demanding admiration.

Hours later, after the gourmand richness had quietly stepped back, something else remained.

Musk.

Clean.

Soft.

Almost transparent.

Not the beginning of the evening.

The end of it.

The last guest has gone home.

The fire has settled into glowing embers.

The port glasses have been collected.

The conversation has become memory.

Only then does Imperial Peacock reveal its final gesture.

Not spectacle.

Not even stewardship.

Lingering.

The fragrance begins by welcoming everyone into the evening.

It ends by quietly making you wonder . . .

. . .

whether you really need to leave just yet.

Field Notes

Imperial Peacock (Alexandre J.; Anne-Sophie Behaghel & Amélie Bourgeois, 2022)

Fragrantica Entry: Almond, rhubarb, heliotrope, tonka bean; cinnamon, black vanilla, sugar; musk, balsamic.

Canine Commentary: Unlike the Great Resin Merchant Incident of Week One (which prompted an immediate security response by Bruno), Imperial Peacock produced a very different response from Clementine (her theme song: Built for Comfort). She was happily snoring beside me when, after catching the fragrance, the snoring stopped. Then came the slow, unmistakable “snuggle progression.” A little closer. Then a little closer still. By the end of it, I had one foot hanging off the edge of the bed while Clementine had quietly acquired the remaining real estate. Apparently, The Art of Lingering extends to American Bullies as well.

Observed Progression: Immediate warm tonka bean and gourmand comfort. Creamy vanilla emerges, followed by almonds—not marzipan or almond paste, but the quiet satisfaction of dessert. The fragrance gradually settles into a gentle musky warmth that feels less like eating dessert than lingering after it.

Mood: The Master’s Library / Lingering After the Last Course

Theme: Permission • Hospitality • Unhurried Companionship • Lingering

Place: Dessert gives way to port. The fire settles lower. Conversation continues because no one has any desire to leave. The peacock is not strutting about displaying its feathers; instead, a vase of gorgeous peacock feathers quietly accents the room.

Everything simply unfolds exactly as it should.

The Map Room

Posted on by Sandy

“Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of map: the grid and the story. Grid maps tell us where things are. Story maps tell us how they were found.”

— Robert Macfarlane (paraphrased from his discussion of grid maps and story maps in The Wild Places.)

When I first walked into Sebastian’s fragrance atelier in San Francisco, I thought I had entered a library.

Tall shelves reached toward the ceiling.

Rolling ladders.

Thousands upon thousands of bottles.

Quiet.

Ordered.

Almost reverent.

Later, I realized it wasn’t a library.

It was a map room.

At first, that seemed obvious enough.

Every bottle represented somewhere else.

Taipei.

Kyoto.

A quiet courtyard.

A library on the Silk Road.

A sunlit walk.

A winter evening.

Each fragrance looked like another destination waiting to be explored.

When I began cataloging my own collection, I did what almost everyone does.

I made a grid.

Brand.

Name.

Notes.

Season.

Rating.

It was useful.

It was organized.

It was also . . . lifeless.

Then something began happening that I never expected.

The notes started disappearing.

Places took their place.

Taipei was no longer rice, tea, and musk.

It became a rain-speckled breakfast beside a steamed-up window.

Jade Amour stopped being an arrangement of ingredients.

It became a library somewhere along the Silk Road.

Oolong Tea didn’t ask me to identify citrus.

It asked me to walk.

Without realizing it, I had quietly left the grid behind.

I didn’t need a spreadsheet.

I needed a map.

That was when I happened across Robert Macfarlane’s distinction between grid maps and story maps.

Grid maps tell us where things are.

Story maps record a journey.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

I wasn’t cataloging fragrances.

I was recording encounters.

Not:

“This fragrance contains . . . “

But:

“This is where I went.”

Then something even stranger happened.

People began appearing.

Not as characters I consciously invented.

As people who, somehow, had always been there.

Marco Polo arrived first.

A merchant of endless curiosity, forever delighted by one more spice, one more resin, one more story.

Then Mr. Nigel Pembroke quietly opened the door.

An English majordomo whose greatest gift was not commanding a room, but creating the conditions under which everyone else could flourish.

Much later, I realized there had always been someone in Taipei, too.

A grandmother.

She had quietly prepared the congee, set the bowl on the table, and returned to the kitchen before I ever noticed her.

The remarkable thing wasn’t that I invented her.

It was that, the moment I looked over my shoulder, she was simply . . . there.

Bending over a stove.

Stirring.

As though she had been there all along.

Old maps fascinate me.

Not because they were perfectly accurate.

Many most assuredly were not.

What captivates me are the illustrations in the margins.

Ships.

Sea monsters.

Compass roses.

Exotic animals.

For years I assumed they were decoration.

Now I wonder if they served another purpose.

Not merely showing where a place was on the grid.

Showing what kind of place it might be.

Here be dragons.

Not a warning.

An invitation to wonder.

My own fragrance map has quietly begun acquiring similar landmarks.

Here be curiosity.

Here be stewardship.

Here be quiet mornings.

Here be lingering.

A story map doesn’t tell you where to go.

It simply makes you wonder whether you might like to.

One of the earliest surprises in this project was discovering that two people could smell the same fragrance and arrive somewhere entirely different.

One smelled Doritos.

Another smelled congee.

At first that felt like a problem to solve.

Now I think it was a gift.

The fragrance wasn’t handing either of us a postcard.

A postcard says,

“This is what someone else saw.”

Fragrance does something far more generous.

It hands us a passport.

A passport doesn’t tell us what to see.

It simply says,

“You may enter.”

The fragrance doesn’t provide the memories.

It doesn’t supply the comfort foods.

It doesn’t invent the people.

Those already belong to us.

We arrive carrying them.

The fragrance opens the gate.

Each of us crosses the threshold carrying a different passport.

Each of us leaves with a different story.

Looking back, I don’t think Sebastian’s atelier was filled with fragrances.

It was filled with possibilities.

Every bottle was an unopened border crossing.

Every fragrance quietly asking the same question:

“Would you like to come in?”

I began this project asking,

“What does this smell like?”

Then I found myself asking,

“Where does this take me?”

Now, I think there is an even better question.

Simply,

“Am I willing to enter?”

Because maps never ask us to stay where we are.

They whisper that somewhere else is possible.

And perhaps that is what fragrance has been doing all along.

Not handing us postcards.

Quietly stamping our passports.

Cataloging Scents, Cataloging Selves – Motion

Posted on by Sandy

Part 4: Motion

By the fourth pair of fragrances, I thought I understood where this project was going.

First, fragrances became places.

Then they became people.

Apparently, I assumed that was enough.

It wasn’t.

The next discovery wasn’t about where a fragrance took me.

Or who I met there.

It was about what happened next.

Some fragrances don’t simply create a place.

They quietly suggest the next verb.

The first hint came from Oolong Tea by One Day.

The official description paints a lovely picture.

Step into the quiet Japanese-style courtyard among the quiet forest alleys of Taipei, and enjoy the sweetness of brown tea and wagashi for a day. White light shines through the paper window in front of the green court, sitting quietly and holding the cup to let the temperature of the white porcelain soak into the palm of your hand.

Hot water flows out of the traditional century-old wood, distilling the astringent aroma of dry tea. The aftertaste of the brown tea flowing in the mouth is clear, and the tea cakes on the wooden stand.

The store manager brought a plate of desserts and honey cakes, rice flavors, sweet beans and honey flavors, pastries on ceramic plates.

In the afternoon, oolong tea and a small portion of sweetness. Between the trees, scent of tea and beans waves in from the quiet japanese courtyard in a tranquil Taipei alley.

The sun beams through the papered window, under the aged wood flow of hot water brews dried tea leaf into stringency and earthy benevolence. The clear bitter brown twists an aftertaste in your mouth. Sweet grounded rice and sugared beans thickens the air and washes the bitterness.  Portioned sweetness and oolong sophistication, the afternoon delight.

Except . . .

that isn’t where I went.

I found myself walking.

Not wandering.

Not hurrying.

Walking with purpose.

Freshly laundered white shirt.

Jeans.

Sunshine.

The sort of morning that quietly suggests the day is already unfolding exactly as it should.

Nothing urgent.

Nothing dramatic.

Simply . . .

“Let’s walk.”

That surprised me.

The fragrance wasn’t inviting me to a place.

It was inviting me to an action.

Then came Rose Magnetic.

The opening is bright grapefruit, fresh rose, and sparkling air.

Not romantic.

Delight.

The image that appeared wasn’t a garden.

It was a sailboat slipping away from the dock on a perfect morning.

Blue-and-white striped sailor shirt.

Sunglasses.

Sunlight dancing across the water.

A breeze filling the sails . . .

. . . and my hair.

The remarkable thing wasn’t the rose.

It was the voice.

Not,

“You really should get out of the house.”

Not,

“Get moving.”

Nothing so grim.

More like a friend already standing on the dock, laughing.

“Come on! Let’s go!”

By the time I’d grabbed my car keys, the fragrance had already done its job.

Not because it disappeared.

It remained a lovely, slightly fruity companion for the rest of the day.

But its work was complete.

The hardest part had never been the day itself.

It had been opening the front door.

The dock was waiting just beyond it.

That was when I realized I had quietly started organizing fragrances in an entirely different way.

Not by notes.

Not even by places.

By verbs.

Taipei whispered,

“Rest.”

Oolong Tea smiled,

“Let’s walk.”

Rose Magnetic laughed,

“Come on! Let’s go!”

The realization was unexpectedly freeing.

Not every day calls for lingering.

Not every day calls for departure.

Some mornings ask us to walk.

Others ask us to venture.

Others simply ask us to remain exactly where we are.

The question was no longer,

“Which fragrance do I want to wear?”

It had quietly become,

“What kind of day would I like today to become?”

Or perhaps even better,

“What invitation am I ready to accept?”

Looking back, Motion became the bridge.

Places were no longer scenery.

Characters were no longer standing still.

Everything had acquired direction.

Momentum.

Purpose.

I thought I was collecting fragrances.

Instead, I was beginning to collect journeys.

I simply didn’t know it yet.

Field Notes

Oolong Tea (One Day; Michael Wong, 2021)

Mood: Crisp White Shirt

Theme: Quiet Optimism

The official description (above) says a lot. Quiet stillness.

That wasn’t where I went.

I found myself walking.

Freshly laundered white shirt.

Jeans.

Sunshine.

Clean, friendly, and put together.

Not hurrying.

Not wandering.

Walking somewhere pleasant.

The day is unfolding exactly as it should.

The bergamot at the very beginning, with a charred vetiver root, quickly disappears, replaced with high-mountain Taiwanese oolong. Honey and jasmine gradually emerge in the drydown, while vetiver and tonka bean quietly anchor the experience.

Refreshing rather than contemplative.

Present.

Neither nostalgic nor reflective.

Not,

“Sit here.”

But,

“Let’s walk.”

Rose Magnetic (Essential Parfums; Sophie Labbé)

Mood: Sailboat Morning Leaving the Harbor

Theme: Delight; Anticipation

Fresh rose, grapefruit, mint, lychee (emerges), vanilla; soft fruity-powdery drydown.

The rose is bright and alive rather than romantic.

Grapefruit and sparkling, slightly minty air carry it forward.

Not a garden.

Not a bouquet.

As the scent unfolds, the citrus fades and a soft lychee glow emerges—slightly fruity, lightly powdery, sun-warmed rather than sweet.

The sailboat remains underway.

The fragrance has already done its job.

Gotten me out of the house – and onto the boat.

A blue-and-white striped sailor shirt.

Sunglasses.

Sunlight glinting off the water.

A breeze in the hair.

Laughing.

The fragrance’s greatest surprise wasn’t the rose.

It was the invitation.

No obligation.

Adventure.

Like a friend already standing on the dock with the lines untied, calling back over a shoulder in pure delight:

“Come on! Let’s go!”

As the day progresses, the sailboat remains underway.

The fragrance has already done its job.

Sometimes the most important thing a fragrance can do . . .

. . . is help us pick up the car keys.

Cataloging Scents, Cataloging Selves – Characters

Posted on by Sandy

Part 3: Characters

Until this point, the project had been behaving itself.

Fragrances became places.

Moods.

Tea houses.

Libraries.

Rainy mornings.

Comfort.

Curiosity.

That all seemed perfectly reasonable.

Then one of them became a person.

Actually, two of them did.

And that’s when things started getting weird.

L’Eau des Immortels arrived with notes that sounded perfectly respectable.

Resins.

Amber.

Incense.

Immortelle.

I spent the better part of an hour trying to decide what, exactly, it reminded me of.

Church?

Old coins?

A cedar chest?

Smoke?

Nothing quite fit.

Then, all at once, recognition arrived.

Not a note.

A place.

The apothecary tent at the Renaissance Faire I spent far too much of my life in, decades ago.

Dragon’s blood resin.

Frankincense.

Glass jars.

Wooden shelves.

Charcoal braziers.

And behind the counter . . .

A man.

Not someone I actually knew.

Someone my mind seemed to create almost instantly.

A traveling merchant.

Mediterranean.

Magnificent mustache.

The sort of person who would happily spend forty-five minutes explaining the difference between two obscure resins while you nodded politely, wondering whether you were supposed to take notes—or escape.

Without ever consciously deciding to, I had already named him.

Marco Polo, Merchant of Resins.

Apparently, my fragrance catalog had begun casting its own characters.

This would have remained a mildly amusing observation . . .

. . . except Bruno became involved.

The moment I applied L’Eau des Immortels, Bruno pinned me to the bed and thoroughly inspected both arms with broad, increasingly curious licks.

Being pinned by a 100-pound bully with a mission is An Event.

Then he began searching.

The bedroom.

The house.

The yard.

The gate.

Repeatedly.

The only conclusion I could reach was that Bruno believed I had recently been spending time with an unidentified male.

Somewhere.

His assessment appeared to be:

WHO WAS HERE?

No merchant was ultimately located.

But the incident permanently changed the way I thought about the fragrance.

From then on, Marco Polo wasn’t simply associated with the scent.

He was the scent.

A few fragrances later came Rose Extatique.

The marketing materials spoke of the Queen of Sheba.

Radiance.

Power.

Solar brilliance.

Instead, as the fragrance dried down, I found myself picturing an overstuffed chair.

A cup of black tea.

Open windows overlooking a rose garden.

The guests had departed.

The Queen had retired.

And sitting quietly in the study was her valet.

Not celebrating.

Not basking in reflected glory.

Simply enjoying the satisfaction of a day in which everything had unfolded exactly as it should.

Unlike Marco, he acquired a proper name almost immediately.

Mr. Nigel Pembroke.

Senior Valet.

Thirty-seven years of flawless service.

Knows where the tea is kept.

More importantly . . .

Knows where the dog biscuits are kept.

It was only afterward that I realized something important.

Marco and Nigel weren’t memories.

They weren’t reviews.

They weren’t even really metaphors.

They were characters.

Characters my brain had quietly created to help me understand how each fragrance felt.

Marco didn’t smell like resin.

Marco became my way of understanding resin.

Nigel didn’t smell like roses.

Nigel became my way of understanding the quiet satisfaction at the end of a well-lived day.

Somehow that told me more than any note pyramid ever could.

Which naturally raises the question:

Why did Bruno consider Marco a national security concern while apparently granting Nigel unrestricted access to the house?

I have a theory.

Marco arrives unexpectedly carrying mysterious bottles, speaking enthusiastically about immortelle, and declining to answer perfectly reasonable questions.

Nigel lives here.

Nigel knows the routine.

Nigel scratches ears.

Nigel has unrestricted access to the biscuit tin.

This changes the entire threat assessment.

By this point, I had stopped pretending this was an ordinary fragrance inventory.

Places had become characters.

Characters were interacting with my dog.

And somehow I was learning more about perfume than I ever had by memorizing notes.

Next came an even stranger realization.

Some fragrances don’t simply accompany us.

They move us.

Field Notes

Throughout this series, I’ll occasionally compare the traditional fragrance description with my own experience.

Not because one is “right” and the other is “wrong.”

They’re simply answering different questions.

The Fragrantica Entry tells me what the fragrance contains.

My Field Notes record where it took me.

Sometimes, they also reveal who I met there.

L’Eau des Immortels1

Fragrantica2 Entry

Highlights from reviewers

Pros

  • Excellent longevity, lasting 10+ hours
  • Cozy, warm, resinous character
  • Complex balsamic evolution
  • Evocative Mediterranean atmosphere

Cons

  • Overwhelming opening
  • Difficult for untrained noses
  • Sharp, bitter, medicinal opening
  • Wet hay
  • Challenging moldy basement funk
  • Polarizing ashtray drydown

My Field Notes

Character: Marco Polo, Merchant of Resins

Theme: Evocative Memory/Recollection

Frankincense, sweet amber resin, dragon’s blood, and mysterious jars on wooden shelves. Evocative rather than comforting; ancient rather than modern; transportive rather than wearable. Consistent through drydown; slightly sweeter (dark maple syrup), but never leaves the apothecary tent.

Unexpected Observation

Bruno appeared convinced there was an unidentified male somewhere on the property.

Marco, meanwhile, refused to leave until the following morning.

After some scrubbing.

What Fragrantica called “cons” (see above) gradually became part of Marco’s personality.

“Overwhelming opening.”

Marco begins explaining immortelle before you’ve fully entered the tent.

“Difficult for untrained noses.”

Marco assumes everyone has at least a basic education in obscure resins.

“Medicinal.”

Apothecary.

“Wet hay.”

Authentic Renaissance Faire ambiance.

“Moldy basement funk.”

Six-hundred-year-old stone walls.

History has a smell.

One of Fragrantica’s “pros”—excellent longevity—earned an immediate response from me:

“Yeah. No joke.”

I had to wash Marco off the following morning before trying the next fragrance.

Which, in retrospect, simply reinforced the point.

Marco always had one more thing to say. (In contrast, Mr. Nigel Pembroke quietly faded away without a word.)

By the end of the day, I wasn’t evaluating a fragrance.

I was spending an afternoon with a traveling merchant who believed every question deserved a forty-five-minute answer.

Bruno, meanwhile, remained unconvinced that Marco belonged on the property.

Rose Extatique

Fragrantica Entry

The official inspiration is the Queen of Sheba:

Radiance.

Solar brilliance.

Power.

Glamour.

Sparkling energy.

My Field Notes

Character: Mr. Nigel Pembroke, Senior Valet

Theme: Contentment; Composure

 Rose & bergamot (initial); black tea; vetiver, amber. An overstuffed chair in a quiet study overlooking the rose garden at dusk. The guests have departed, the Queen has retired, the day’s work is done. Through open windows, the roses’ scent drifts in —the lingering trace of a day that unfolded as it should. A cup of black tea at the elbow. Quietly reflecting on the hundred invisible details that fell effortlessly into place. Settle. Sip. Exhale.

Unexpected Observation

I met neither the Queen nor the Queen of Sheba.

I met the gentleman who quietly closes the drawing room doors after the guests have gone home.

The tea has been poured.

The roses drift in through the open window.

The day’s work is finished.

Bruno

Bruno has already determined that Nigel belongs here.

He knows where the tea is kept.

More importantly . . .

. . . he knows where the dog biscuits are kept.

Threat Assessment: APPROVED.

Ear Scratches: AUTHORIZED.

  1. Throughout these posts, I will link the scents mentioned. I don’t get a thing from the links – just thought you’d like it. ↩︎
  2. Fragrantica is an online perfume encyclopedia and community for fragrance lovers, featuring a vast database of perfumes, user reviews, and detailed notes about each scent. It allows users to track their collections and discover new fragrances based on personal preferences. ↩︎

Cataloging Scents, Cataloging Selves – Places

Posted on by Sandy

Part 2: Places

My spreadsheet lasted exactly five minutes.

The original plan seemed perfectly sensible.

Brand.

Fragrance.

Notes.

Rating.

Done.

Instead, I found myself writing things like:

Tea House.

Rainy Afternoon.

Silk Road Library.

At first I thought I was simply being whimsical.

I wasn’t.

I was discovering that “fragrance notes” answered the wrong question.

One of the first fragrances I revisited was Taipei by One Day.

If you look up the official notes, you’ll find soy milk, rice, taro, iris, vetiver, and sandalwood.

Perfectly reasonable.

Entirely accurate.

And almost completely unhelpful.

Because that’s not what I experienced.

What I experienced was:

Congee by Steamed Windows.

A rainy morning.

Warm rice.

A small iris ikebana on a table.

Quiet.

Comfort.

The fragrance wasn’t describing ingredients.

It was allowing me to describe a place.

Not a real place.

A place I wanted to be.

The next surprise arrived with Jade Amour.

Again, the notes were perfectly accurate.

Again, they told me almost nothing.

Instead, I found myself writing:

Silk Road Library.

Not because the fragrance literally smelled like old books.

It didn’t.

It smelled like curiosity.

Like wandering.

Like discovering something unexpected just beyond the next shelf.

I realized I wasn’t cataloging fragrances anymore.

I was cataloging destinations.

About this time I exchanged emails with Sebastian about Taipei.

I enthusiastically described it as:

Congee by Steamed Windows.

Winter Japan.

Comfort.

His response arrived almost immediately.

“Chips, a bag of crunchy chips! Doritos Blue to be exact!”

I laughed out loud.

Not because he was wrong.

Because neither of us was.

We were smelling exactly the same fragrance.

He got Doritos.

I got Winter Japan.

That may have been the moment I began wondering whether fragrances function as a sort of personality assessment.

Show ten people an inkblot and you’ll likely get ten different interpretations.

Have ten people experience the same fragrance and you’ll likely get ten different journeys.

One person gets a rainy morning in Japan.

Another gets the snack aisle.

Neither of us was wrong.

We had simply traveled to different places.

That realization quietly changed the entire project.

I stopped asking:

What notes are in this fragrance?

And started asking:

Where does this fragrance take me?

The answers turned out to be far more interesting.

Tea houses.

Libraries.

Eventually monasteries.

Rose gardens.

Sailboats.

Even Renaissance Faires.

(We’ll get to the Renaissance Faire.)

Looking back, I suspect this was the moment the inventory truly escaped.

Because I wasn’t building a fragrance catalog anymore.

I was beginning to draw a map.

Field Notes

Throughout this series, I’ll occasionally compare the traditional fragrance description with my own experience.

Not because one is “right” and the other is “wrong.”

They’re simply answering different questions.

The official description tells me what the perfumer created.

My field notes record where it took me.

Taipei1

Fragrantica Entry

Taipei by One Day is a Floral Woody Musk fragrance for women and men, launched in 2023. The nose behind the fragrance is Michael Wong.

Top: Rice • Soy Milk • Taro

Heart: Iris • Guaiac Wood

Base: Musk • Sandalwood • Vetiver

My Field Notes

Mood: Congee by Steamed Windows

Theme: Comfort

Warm soy milk, cooked rice, thick taro; iris, vetiver, sandalwood. Comforting/grounding: congee on a rainy morning w/steamed windows & a small iris ikebana on the table. Nothing powdery. Warm vetiver emerges in drydown. Congee fades; comfort remains. Inward facing. Not projecting (e.g., Not “Who I want you to think I am”) Instead, offering internal comfort like a smooth stone in the pocket. Constantly returned to it all day.

Unexpected Observation

The same fragrance that became Congee by Steamed Windows for me became Doritos for Sebastian.

Apparently fragrance can function as a kind of Rorschach test.

Postscript

I am writing this postscript a month later.

I’ve had a long, rough work week.

Last night, after acupuncture, I was exhausted.

I was supposed to go out and walk the dogs.

I called my friend.

Called it off.

I simply couldn’t face it.

I needed to go to bed.

At 6:30 p.m.

I didn’t think about bergamot.

I didn’t think about jasmine.

I didn’t think about rice accords.

I thought,

“I want to feel comforted.”

My hand reached for Taipei before my mind had finished the sentence.

I fell asleep with my nose against my arm.

It’s the first time in this project that a fragrance wasn’t an experiment.

It wasn’t a destination.

It wasn’t a story.

It became a tool.

For living.

When this project began, I jokingly referred to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom as my “medicine chest of scents.”

That’s where all the cologne bottles live.

Last night, I opened that same medicine cabinet because I needed comfort.

Without thinking, I reached for Taipei.

Somewhere along the way, without my noticing . . .

. . . my medicine cabinet had quietly become a medicine chest.

Not because perfume cures anything.

It doesn’t.

But because, one bottle at a time, I had unknowingly assembled a small cabinet of emotional remedies.

Last night, I didn’t need a fragrance.

I needed comfort.

And before my mind had even finished the thought . . .

. . . my hand already knew where to find it.

Jade Amour

the truly crazy looking jade vine flower

Fragrantica2 Entry

Jade Amour by Thomas de Monaco is an Oriental Floral fragrance for women and men, launched in 2025. The nose behind the fragrance is David Chieze.

Notes: Yellow Mandarin • Ylang-Ylang • Jasmine • Muscone • Bergamot • Vanilla • Sandalwood • Vetiver

Inspired by the idea of the unscented jade vine flower discovering fragrance for the first time.

My Field Notes

Mood: Silk Road Library

Theme: Curiosity

Warm honey, warm florals, vanilla and vetiver. Rich, complex, and quietly inviting. Oriental without being heavy; elegant without performing. In drydown warm woods emerge; curiosity remains. The fragrance becomes less about flowers, more about exploration. An afternoon alone in a library lined with silk, old books, & amber light . . . and the distinct feeling that the next shelf contains something wonderful.

Unexpected Observation

The fragrance never became “a flower.”

It became curiosity.

Some fragrances don’t describe themselves.

They describe a state of mind.

  1. I will be giving a link to the fragrances in each blog. I don’t get a thing if you click on them. I just thought you’d like to have them. ↩︎
  2. Fragrantica is an online fragrance database where perfumes are cataloged by their notes, perfumers, release dates, and community reviews. ↩︎

Cataloging Scents, Cataloging Selves – Background

Posted on by Sandy

Part 1: The Inventory That Escaped

Some projects begin with grand ambitions.

This wasn’t one of them.

My goal was embarrassingly practical.

Figure out what I owned.

Figure out what I liked.

Stop buying duplicates.

That was it.

Instead, I accidentally started writing a series about memory, travel, identity, emotional geography . . . and a dog convinced I had been associating with a suspicious resin merchant.

We’ll get to the merchant.

Wait . . . what am I talking about?

The story really begins more than twenty years ago.

My friends Sebastian and Randy were looking for a lawyer to help with a wonderfully ambitious idea called Musync. Long before Spotify, Apple Music, or streaming playlists became commonplace, Sebastian had imagined providing businesses with carefully curated iPods filled with music selected specifically for their space.

He didn’t simply assemble playlists.

He visited restaurants, hotels, and retail stores, sat quietly, absorbed the atmosphere, and built soundtracks that belonged there. Independent musicians earned exposure and royalties, businesses received thoughtfully curated music, and every location acquired its own personality.

It was one of those ideas that arrived just a little ahead of its time.

Over the years our friendship grew well beyond legal work.

Sebastian created the custom mix for Herbert’s and my wedding dance—three songs seamlessly woven together into a Quickstep, a Foxtrot, and finally a Viennese Waltz.

Sebastian and Randy were with us on our wedding day.

We laughed.

A lot.

We shared dinners. When Herbert decided we should start “collecting Michelin stars,” who better to join us on our very first expedition than Seb and Randy? (The French Laundry seemed an appropriately ambitious place to begin.)

One memorable evening involved attempting to pan-fry foie gras—purchased just as it was becoming California contraband—in their San Francisco loft. Randy stood beneath the smoke detector fanning upward like a banshee, trying to prevent us from evacuating the entire building. Herbert continued cooking with complete confidence while Randy became increasingly convinced we were moments away from introducing ourselves to every resident on the street—with significant financial consequences.

Later, when Herbert became ill—but before any of us understood where life was heading—I sent invitations to our annual New Year’s Eve party with one simple request:

Please come.

One never knows.

Sebastian and Randy caught an Uber all the way from San Francisco.

A few months later came COVID.

And then Herbert was gone.

Friendships accumulate their own histories.

Ours certainly had.

Throughout all those years, Sebastian had another passion.

Fragrance.

Herbert never cared much for perfume. I didn’t know much about it either until one visit when Sebastian disappeared upstairs and returned carrying several bottles of Jo Malone.

“Try these.”

That was my introduction.

Years later, Sebastian began talking about fragrance on YouTube.

At first he simply reviewed bottles from his own collection.

Then viewers wanted samples.

Then discovery sets.

Then entire fragrance houses wanted to work with him.

Eventually, The Scent Club was born.

Today he and Randy travel internationally to fragrance events, interview perfumers, and somehow know people whose careers revolve around making things smell extraordinary.

This year they’ve gone one step further by creating ScentFestSF™, bringing together independent fragrance houses from around the world for an event unlike anything else currently held in the United States. (P.S.: Why yes, you SHOULD go . . . )

Watching that evolution has been enormous fun.

Somewhere along the way, my legal invoices also began arriving with an unusual form of payment.

Fragrance.

Honestly, there are worse compensation packages.

A few years ago, Sebastian invited me to what I still call his atelier.

I don’t actually know what he calls it.

“Atelier” simply seemed the only word grand enough.

I walked in.

Stopped.

Started laughing.

Not because anything was funny.

Because it was astonishing.

Shelves.

Rolling library ladders.

Thousands upon thousands of bottles.

Every imaginable style of fragrance waiting to be explored.

Randy smiled.

“We told you it was big.”

They had.

I had simply failed to appreciate what “big” meant.

That afternoon, Sebastian walked me through what was then an idea he was considering offering privately.

Rather than asking someone what perfume they wanted to buy, he began by asking questions.

What fragrances had they enjoyed before?

How did they want to experience the day?

How did they want to be perceived?

Then came strips of paper.

One fragrance.

Another.

Something completely unexpected.

Eventually, a handful of samples to take home and actually live with.

I had no idea that, years later, those little samples would become the beginning of this project.

I remember leaving less impressed by the fragrances themselves than by the realization that someone could navigate such an enormous collection almost instinctively.

yes, that’s my medicine cabinet. and, yes, those are charts on the door…

Fast-forward to this year.

Between Sebastian’s generous habit of pressing little bags of samples into my hands every time we meet and my own occasional purchases, my “medicine cabinet” had reached a critical state of overcrowding. (The aspirin had been evicted long ago.)

There were bottles on shelves.

Bottles in drawers.

Travel atomizers.

Discovery sets.

And what can only be described as fragrance annexes—carefully organized bags of similar fragrances that had seemed like an excellent organizational idea . . . right up until I forgot they existed.

Meanwhile, I kept reaching for the same five bottles.

Surely there had to be a better system.

So I started a spreadsheet.

Brand.

Fragrance.

Notes.

Rating.

Simple.

Practical.

Sensible.

It lasted about five minutes.

Because somewhere between “bergamot” and “vetiver,” I found myself writing things like:

Tea House.

Rainy Afternoon.

Silk Road Library.

This was not how fragrance inventories were supposed to behave.

I didn’t know it yet, but the project had already escaped.

Looking back, “organizing perfume” was the last simple thing about the entire adventure.

Things were about to become considerably . . .

. . . stranger.