Swag Wank Follow-Up

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on the Swag Wank.  I knew it was going to be a controversial topic, and I’d like to say how proud (and unsurprised) I am that we could natter on and people could disagree and even get their dander up a little, and yet maintain civility – no tears, no drama.  As many of you have figured out, the blog is part social experiment for me.  I like to watch the commentary unfold, and the way it does is often interesting and thought-provoking.

I thought I’d go over the new source disclosures I’m going to use on an experimental basis for, let’s say, the next month – because enough of you voiced why you valued it.  I’m looking for a balance that provides those who care with some useful information in terms of provenance, without the process being a big inconvenience for me or a bore for those who don’t care.  I’ll make these notations at the bottom of my posts.  I haven’t actually done it yet, so things could change, but I’m thinking along the following lines:

1) Disclosing when a perfumer/distributor is the direct source.  I mean, I’m not ashamed of it.  If you guys can live with my getting some freebies, I can live with you knowing it.   If I got the bottle or sample from the house/perfumer/distributor, it’s probably the good stuff, right?  (Unless it isn’t; based on my recent pan of TDC Oriental Lounge, Carmencanada at Grain de Musc thinks I got an early, bum version of the juice.)

2) “Private sample.” This is going to cover a multitude of sins, but the point is it’s a sample or a decant from my private collection,  and thus of indeterminate age and/or origin.   This also covers sampling where an acquaintance of mine is the source, but that information is private.  No friend is going to share Doblis, Nombre Noir, or Coty Chypre with me and then thank me for putting his/her name on the blog.  I am hoping this needs no further explanation.  Private samples may be old, or tainted, or dissimilar to “the new stuff.”

3)  Mall blitz fragrances.  If I sniff something in one of my occasional mall or department store blitzes, I might only have tried it once; I was probably unable to score a sample for further consideration (stingy bastards!); and – hey – there are a lot of bum testers out there, at Neiman Marcus as well as at Macy’s.  Testers sit around until they’re broken, empty or stolen.  I’ve casually smelled any number of testers of fragrances I’m familiar with that seemed off, subjected to bright light and heat — the enemies of perfume.   If I discover later, having tried a fragrance two or three times elsewhere, that I like it and that my initial impression seems badly mistaken, I generally do a re-consideration post.

4) A special note on older/vintage perfumes.  I have built entire posts around perfumes – e.g., Chanel Coco, YSL Paris, and Dior Poison – that smell different than I remember from the bad old 80s, even though these scents are still in production.  It’s probably worth mentioning here for perfume newbies that many (most?) scents appear to be reformulated over time, although which ones, when, and how much is a topic of hot debate and mystery on the perfume blogs and boards.  Fragrances are reformulated for any number of reasons: cost of ingredients, lack of availability of ingredients, IFRA regulations, inventions of chemical replacements, etc.  In some cases the goal appears to be to produce a fragrance that smells as much like the original as possible; in others there appears to be a subtle tweaking (toning down the aldehydes, adding a gourmand note) to try to make the scent more “current” in terms of popular trends in perfumery.

Perfume houses don’t issue a press release telling you they’re messing with your fragrance.  Off the top of my head the only frank revelation I can recall is Serge Lutens discussing the reformulation of Feminite du Bois.  I actually assume that older fragrances have a different chemical composition than their newest versions, whether you or I can smell much difference.  And reformulation isn’t just a problem with 20-year-old fragrances.  Particularly given the new IFRA regs, there’s no guarantee that the scent released a year or two ago smells like what’s being produced today.  (Someone chime in: I think the consensus is that fragrances heavy on oakmoss and/or citrus seem the most impacted in a noticeable way?)  In any case, I will try to note at the bottom of a review, even if it’s obvious in the review, that I’m blogging on what appears to be an older iteration of a scent that I got on, say, eBay, that is rumored (or appears to me) to have been reformulated to a degree that even I can smell the difference.  And, obviously, my old bottle of Chanel Coco bought on eBay is likely to smell different than your old bottle.

This is a full-disclosure conversation so I’m disclosing.  I’m stating.  I’m pointing it out: there are no guarantees.   Any sample, tester, or bottle I run across might be “off.”  Unless I’m standing directly in front of Frederic Malle or Isabelle Doyen saying, hey, does this smell funny to you?, which I am not – I have no way of knowing.  If you like what you read and you buy a bottle of something, even if you tested it in the same store you bought it, there is no guarantee that what you tested and what you bought will smell the same.  (Raise your hand if this has happened to you!)  Shit happens.  This blog is meant to be my impressions of what is under my nose and on my skin.  I am not a professional perfumer.  I am not conversant in the chemical components.  What I am is honest and enthusiastic, and occasionally prone to fits of self-doubt and reassessment, which you end up reading about (several fragrances I hated at first sniff have become favorites.)

Okay, enough of this foolishness, this is already waaaay too long.  I’ll be back on Wednesday with a look at several versions of two of the sandalwoods that came up repeatedly in comments on my sandalwood post: Guerlain Samsara and Chanel Bois des Iles, including some vintage.