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Note to the reader
What follows is the archive of a blog that ran from June 2005 to Jan 2006. It isalmost complete, I have only edited out visual jokes (pictures were left out to makethe file smaller).Luca Turin
"Duftnote"
Just over two years ago, the Swiss magazineNZZ Folioasked me to write amonthly 400-word column on perfume. I write it in English, and Berlin-basedtranslator Robin Cackett turns it (brilliantly, they tell me) into German. I thoughtit would be fun to publish the originals in a blog. They will be updated at the sametime as the Folio article, i.e. on the 6th of each month.Many thanks to Folio Editor Daniel Weber and his colleagues for making thishappen.
June 07, 2005 |Permalink
COMMENTS
Dear Luca,_Thank you for this wonderful idea! Our Russian perfume-maniacscommunity waits eagerly for every Duftnote in NZZ Folio. Then the note istranslated from German to Russian and published in forum. It was a long way andnow, voila! we have the original English version. Thank you!
Posted by:Jolie|June 07, 2005 at 07:28 AM
Blue Stratos
To any sentient male born before 1960, being told that Blue Stratos is in
 
production is like finding out that 1975 Alfa Giulia Coupés are still made inMoldavia, cost 1200 new, are available in Positano Yellow and Amaranth, andcan be ordered on the Web. The first reaction is awestruck joy and disbelief, thesecond intense suspicion: can such a monument of obsolete grace have survived allthese years without being tampered with ? Only last week, unaware of thisresurrection, out of my wife's earshot, I was discussing with a friend the definingsmells of our early lives: Old Spice until 1965, Pino Silvestre till Brut came along,then Agua Brava and Blue Stratos before Eau Sauvage set in. Old Spice was alwaysa bit too boring, Pino Silvestre too much like pine-scented cleaner, Brut never thesame again after the ban on Musk Ambrette, Agua Brava a mite aspirational andEau Sauvage too horribly refined. But the one that really hit the spot came in aplain bristol blue bottle with a white gull diagonally across it and lower-caseHelvetica lettering: blue stratos. There was something about Blue Stratos thatdidn't belong to the soapy, tuneless "after shave" idea, something childlike, halfway between talcum powder and vanilla sugar. You smelled it a few times on othersand wondered what it was. It made you want more, like a little riff that turns asimple tune into a big hit. Later that night I was tempted to do a bit of dynamitefishing on Google to see which macerated relics of the past would float to thesurface. Put in "Blue Stratos" between quotes to avoid secondhand Lancias, wait.11 seconds and there it is: The very same stuff, available fromwww.parfumsbleu.com ! An interview with Tim Foley, CEO, explains that thegiant Procter and Gamble bought Stratos from Shulton, then "rationalised" itsproducts. In the perfume industry, as in ancient Sparta, that means shooting theold and the lame. Blue Stratos came up for sale. Foley borrowed money fromeveryone and bought the whole thing for the price of a semidetached three-bedroom house in Far North London. The sample came in the mail this morning,and I opened it with trepidation. Would it work ? Perfumes are tricky creatures,the smallest change is like a typo in a password: nothing happens. Ten minuteslater, the Doors of Memory had opened wide. Blue Stratos is risen.
June 05, 2005 |Permalink
 
Small Luxuries
_The contents of our luggage say a lot about our skill in the art of living. Athorough customs inspection should not, for example, reveal signs of anxiety:ventilated war-photographer vests with too many pockets, toiletry bags filled withantibiotics. As usual, elegance consists in remaining oneself while being ready foranything. Fitzroy Maclean, the real-life James Bond who died a few years ago,always carried with him on his travels a tube of anchovy paste. He explained that inhis experience one could always locate some alcohol and a crust of bread: his tubemade it a party. This sort of discernment has much to do with small luxuries: tooluxurious and they cease to be fun, too small and they cease to be rare. When itcomes to perfume, the choices of the faraway traveller are few. Carrying properbottles is foolish. They will break when the bag is thrown from the airplane hold,and look ridiculous in a shabby hotel. Decanting the fragrance into plastic sprays ismessy. Using a cheap perfumed deodorant sends the wrong message. No, thesolution is much simpler: all the great perfume houses make soaps. In domesticuse, they are part of a "line", as sad as excessive colour coordination. On the road,they turn out to be surprisingly good company. Like other modestly pricedpleasures such as fat paperbacks and short taxi rides, soaps can make one feelirrationally happy. Soap is the very stuff of progress, responsible for more savedlives than penicillin. It is also a wonder of early nanotechnology: no visible movingparts, just teeming billions of clever molecules that broker a peace between the dirton your hands and the rust-coloured water that comes out of the tap. Luxury soapscome in neat plastic shells that shut tightly when you decide to move on. Whichone is best ? If it exists, buy the soap version of whatever you're wearing. My favorite was Guerlain's Mitsouko., Composed in 1919 by Jacques Guerlain in reply to Coty's earlier (and now extinct) Chypre, the fragrance shimmered with themuted glow of candied fruit, a Tiffany lamp made scent. [When experienced in afaraway place, it would touch you like a Brahms concert heard on BBC shortwave].Guerlain’s new MBA-powered owners “rationalised” the range when they took
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