That strange 1990s song by Nirvana came on my car radio the other day: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. A strange song, considering that the lyrics don’t mention anything about “Teen Spirit”.
Assuming the “Teen Spirit” in question is the popular deodorant manufactured by Lady Speed Stick.
In fact, the singer, Kurt Cobain, doesn’t mention someone smelling like anything. This, despite the fact that almost everyone smells like something. In some cases, like a combination of things.
I also found it strange that the radio played that particular song right after I’d finished an article in The New Yorker about famous Parisian perfume designer Francis Kurkdjian, the ‘nose’ behind Baccarat Rouge 540. Forbes magazine ranks Baccarat Rouge 540 as one of the world’s 11 best “luxury perfumes”.
I looked up the current price of Baccarat Rouge 540, and found it available on Amazon.com: 2.3 fluid ounces for $350. However, the same Amazon search offered me the option of buying a (similar-smelling?) perfume called “Barakkat Rouge 540” for $18.
There are many things I will assuredly never do in my lifetime, even though other people will do them. Bathing in the Ganges Rivers, for example. Photographing lions in Tanzania.
But then, there are certain experiences that might — just might — actually happen. Like, I might someday pass near someone wearing Baccarat Rouge 540 perfume, and remark (to myself), “My God, that woman smells good!”
But more likely, she will be wearing “Barakkat Rouge 540” — the cheap imitation —and I won’t even know the difference.
Such a realization could leave a normal person feeling despondent, and wondering if life is actually worth living. But I’m not a normal person. Instead, I took a hard look at my life and realized that I’m mostly oblivious to the virtual orgy of odors that surround me. Only a select few get noticed. Coffee brewing in the morning, for one. And coffee brewing at noon, as well.
Occasionally, coffee in the evening.
How many other smells am I failing to experience fully? I mean, we have only one life to live. What does it smell like?
One might think, living in Pagosa Springs, I would have been more on top of my game, considering the Ute words pah gosa can be translated as “water that stinks.” But after a couple of years living here, I totally stopped noticing the odor. What a waste of a man’s olfactory potential.
Archaeological evidence suggests that people have been making perfumes since at least 1200 BC. Eventually, France became the perfume capital of the world, where perfumes were used luxuriantly and copiously by royalty and the wealthy to mask body odors resulting from the sanitary practices of the day.
These days, pretty much anyone can afford “Barakkat Rouge 540” and pretend they are wealthy.
The New Yorker article about Francis Kurkdjian mentioned that, while some traditional perfume components come from nature — like fossilized pine sap, bergamot, jasmine, heliotrope, and oakmoss — other ingredients are modern aromatic chemicals. Apparently, the magical fragrance in Baccarat Rouge 540 is mainly a blend of four chemicals.
From Rachel Syme’s article:
The resulting perfume did not smell edible or organic; it evoked something air-gapped and untouched by human sweat, like a new Porsche that happens to be filled with cotton candy.
Reading this description, I realized how limited my experiences with smells have been to this point. For instance, I have no idea what a new Porsche smells like, let alone, one filled with cotton candy. Something untouched by human sweat, I can vaguely imagine, but what type of odor does something “air-gapped” have?
Obviously, a big smelly world, long ignored and heedlessly neglected, awaits my attention!
So I began to smell things at random, and rank them as “exciting”, “edible”, “seductive”, and “don’t ever smell this again.” Does Scotch tape have a smell? I couldn’t discern one. But Sharpie markers do, and ‘red’ smells slightly different from ‘black’. (In my opinion.). Old books don’t smell like new books. Ivory dish soap smells like Ivory dish soap.
Then my car radio played that song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and it hit me that I didn’t know what Teen Spirit smells like. I swung the car into Aspen Village and hurried into the Walmart store, confident that they would certainly have that brand on the shelf, and I would at last have a deeper understanding into the mind of Kurt Cobain.
No luck. They were sold out.
Feeling frustrated (as you can imagine!) I bought a tube of ‘Speed Stick’, which is made by the same company as Teen Spirit and actually has a lot of the same letters in its name, but mixed up differently. It has a slight ‘pine’ scent, but mostly smells like chemical aromatics.
I’m hoping Teen Spirit has a more pleasant odor, and I can’t wait to find out.
But truthfully, I’m not too optimistic that I’ll rate the odor “seductive”. This isn’t France, after all. This is America.