I have a difficult time with perfumes. I go crazy at concerts if anyone is wearing a scent, and you can bet that so many in the audience are. When I’m in the pit I can smell the scents of the first few rows. Some of those people must have no sense of smell at all, because they bathe in the stuff.
At the same time, I love certain smells. Like the smell of rain on hot pavement. Yum! Great smell. And wet dirt … oh … I guess that’s called mud, eh? Lovely. I even like the smell of tar. Really. When I was anemic, the smell of rubber was fabulous. Sadly that went away when the anemia left. I miss it.
Yeah, I’m weird.
And then there’s this guy:
I have a strong sensitivity to certain aromachemicals, like musk,” says Christopher Brosius. “The aldehydes in Chanel No. 5 make me puke.” And that is unfortunate, he continues, because the Polish ladies here in Williamsburg wear so much of it.
Christopher is the perfumer behind CB I Hate Perfume Gallery, a small shop on a street that runs parallel to New York’s East River. I’ve visited often in the years since I first wandered in and overheard the owner describing his philosophy: that great fragrances are unimposing and genderless, and they should harmonise with a person’s natural odour. Christopher (“Never call him ‘Chris'”, his assistant once whispered) is a theatrical presence, possessing a wry wit and a spring-loaded arch to his brow. He speaks to me between sips from a container labelled Muscle Milk, as Zephyr, his mastiff, rests his enormous head on my knee.
The shop’s exposed wooden beams and minimalist decor give it the air of an austere cabin. Three hundred miniature laboratory vials populate white shelves. Inside the bottles are accords, the aromatic building-blocks with which one can–for $125 to upwards of $1,200–collaborate with Christopher to construct one’s own custom scent. The vials of single notes, which can be had individually for around $25, carry hand-scrawled names like “Rhubarb Leaf”, “Papaya Seed”, “Celo Tape” and “Crayon”.
I wonder if the smell of cane would be good, or if it would drive me nuts. Probably just make me feel guilty. Might it spur me on to work on reed? One can hope!
So what scent would I choose? You?
