If you hate perfume but love scents….
What would a perfume called New Baby smell like? No, there are no poop, pee or barf odors in the New Baby sold by Demeter, a perfume line that offers bizarre yet pleasingly evocative scents. New Baby smells like fresh linen (possibly meant to be unsullied diapers), lemony soap, powder, milk and — weirdly yet precisely — clean baby. Demeter was launched by “nose” Christoper Brosius, who also founded I Hate Perfume, a company that concocts amazing odors that people enjoy breathing and even being surrounded by, although they don’t always spray them on their hair or skin. Brosius is famous for being able to duplicate the smell of dirt in all its permutations — sunbaked earth, mud, wet mulch. One of his most popular perfumes is Thunderstorm, which captures the smells of mud, humid breezes, damp grass and the metallic ozone that fills the air before lightning strikes. His perfume called Snow won a 2000 international Fragrance Foundation Award for smelling like a bottled blizzard. Brosius advises fragrance fans to layer several perfumes to create a sense of place. For example, sprinkle a bit of his Grass, Leather and Dirt colognes and he insists you will have the smell of a baseball game minus the sweat and hot dogs. His I Hate Perfume scents include Burning Leaves (wood smoke and caramelized maple) and Black March (smells like raindrops, wet twigs, tree sap, leaf buds, moss, wet earth) which he named after Stevie Smith’s eerie poem of the same title. Black March is meant to summon images of a cool spring day when raindrops glitter on bare tree branches pressed against pale blue sky.
Chattanooga’s Brianna Bass happily made it through winter with no central heat and just a few space heaters because she was thrilled with the trade off her landlord gave her.
He offered her free use of a studio tucked beneath the porch of her apartment building, a space that Bass, 24, transformed into her perfume and beauty product laboratory. In less than a year, her LostLanonna brand has become a success on Etsy.com, the online emporium where artisans and craftsmen sell handmade wares.
Brianna Bass sells her Lost Lanonna scented products on Etsy.com and will soon sell them at the Chattanooga Market.On top of her portable stove, Bass whips up ginger lip balm, broccoli seed and argan oil hair balm and, for the male hipster, woodsmoke-scented beard oil. Her sub-porch lab contains jars of witch hazel and rose water, small dark glass perfume vials, shea butter and 40 essential oils containing a universe of smells.
“I love the science and magic of sometimes creating a perfume so ethereal it’s like it was blended in the clouds,” Bass says, then laughs. “Space heaters and a free room to play with perfume gave me a great winter. I just bought a new essential oil from Africa that’s woodsy, smoky and grassy that I can’t wait to try blending.”
Her dream is to one day direct chemists in a high-tech lab where they create perfumes that capture elusive odors like burning maple leaves, snow or the air before a thunderstorm — yes, all of those are real scents available for purchase. Technology is now advanced to the point where virtually any scent — or “note” as perfumers would say — can be duplicated.
Swiss chemist Roman Kaiser discovered in 1975 that it was possible to recreate the smell of an object by documenting the molecular structure of the scents that surround it through a process called gas chromatography. Chemists now use the data as a sort of blueprint to reconstruct the original smell.
Perhaps the strangest is Japan-based Comme des Garcons Series 6: Synthetic, which gives users the chance to dab the odor of a Wild West oil boomtown behind ear lobes. Comme des Garcons says the base notes include “town gas,” “grilled” cigarettes, bitumen (tar), bergamot (citrus), opoponax (balsamic, honey-like), styrax (vanilla-like) and pyrogenic (fire).
Picking scents
The global fragrance industry is worth about $40 billion and expected to grow another $3 billion by 2015, according to Statia, a consulting firm that tracks the economic impact of 21 different industries.
In the perfume industry, British-based Seven Scent has been one of the world’s most influential odor-makers for 26 years. The company analyzes data from armies of trendspotters who track what scents will console and inspire anyone with enough money to buy a bar of soap or cologne. Among its predictions for bestselling perfumes in the summer and winter of 2015 are:
* Summer’s popular scents will have vegetal base notes that smell crisp and green. Consumers will probably recognize cucumber and green herbs in some perfumes, but kale and wheatgrass will also be part of the blend. Examples: Wall Street by Bond No. 9, DKNY Delicious by Donna Karan, Safari by Ralph Lauren, Burberry Sport for Men, The Big Kahuna by Carol’s Daughter, For Strange Women’s Moss & Ivy.
* Autumn is a transitional season for warm climates like Chattanooga’s where summer fragrances still sell well even as autumn’s chill sets in. But as the weather grows colder, Seven Scent predicts hot sales for perfumes with strong notes of aldehyde, a hodgepodge of organic materials including orange rind, cow hearts, pine needles and cinnamon bark. Aldehydes go through a synthetic process that makes them smell either like champagne or gin made from juniper berries. Examples: Chanel No. 5, Jean Patou’s Joy, Givenchy L’Interdit (Audrey Hepburn’s favorite), Tommy Hilfiger True Star, Dolce & Gabbana Classique, Miss Dior.
Jennifer Strain mixes fragrances at her business, Good Fortune Soap. Customers can create their own scents, which are then added to a variety of products.* Winter’s big hits will include base notes of oud (jade-colored sap excreted by the agarwood tree that has a sweet, woodsy, nutty smell) and rose (named for the fourth consecutive winter as a bestseller). Examples: Oud by Tom Ford, Gucci Oud, Acqua di Parma Colonia Intensa Oud.
At Hamilton Place, Sephora fragrance specialist Carly Luna says Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb (green tea and rose notes) has been a huge hit, while two new customer favorites are Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet (damask rose and peach) and fresh, sweet B Balenciaga which has notes of peas (yes, the vegetable), green leaves, lily of the valley and cedar.
“This one is getting more and more popular,” she says, spritzing Alien Eau Extraordinaire, a mix of Tahitian gardenia, lemon tea and white amber.
Unlike most Southern women, Chattanooga perfume lovers don’t ditch a spicy scent for a flowery one in the summer, Luna observed.
Nose knows
Entrepreneur Bass relies on her Etsy sales and instincts to figure out what customers want.
“I just follow my nose,” she says cheerfully.
Once Bass blends a new perfume, she stows the glass bottle in a dark cabinet for six week so the oils can meld together and deepen. Bass says she’s had a few disasters like one perfume that reminded her of “being trapped in a plastic bag with rotting fruit.” More often, though, the blend is so exquisite, she describes it as a “mystical experience.” One of her most popular blends smells like rosemary and peppermint with a bright floral bouquet.
“It feels so empowering to have all these tools that I can use,” says Bass, who graduated from college with an art degree. “I handwrite all my labels. I found these beautiful little boxes at the Salvation Army store that I’m using for the perfumes and beauty products.”
Now looking for area retailers interested in displaying her wares, she says there are certain scents she avoids, like cucumber, because national companies like Body Shop carry a well-known version of the scent.
Good Fortune Soap is located at 2644 Broad St.On Broad Street, Good Fortune Soap owner Jennifer Strain opened her shop in 2013 in a vintage brick building with flower-filled urns and graceful crimson columns flanking the door. Inside, there are hardwood floors, high ceilings and air that smells faintly of spice and flowers. Wooden shelves are lined with the 80 essential oils she uses to scent moisturizers and body scrubs as well as to make perfume.
Strain was a successful graphic designer when she began to study soapmaking and how to handle potent essential oils. A whiff of the oil “Rose,” for example, is so powerful it’s like throwing yourself facedown into a giant rose mosh pit. Like Bass, Strain dilutes the oils with such liquids as witch hazel or coconut oil to reduce the powerful oomph of the oils.
Rather than leaving the oil blends to meld together into a harmonious perfume over six weeks, as Bass does, Strain prefers the symphony of scents she gets by mixing up oils immediately for the customer.
On a recent weekday, Allison Foster and her daughter, Riley, drop in because the store exterior was “so friendly and happy-looking,” Allison remarks. They decide to create and buy a perfume for Riley.
“What do you want to call your perfume?” Strain asks as she stirs the oils of Sweet Spice — vanilla, cinnamon and patchouli — and Lavender together, a scent that invokes images of a garden party.
“Eleven. Because I’m 11 years old,” Riley replies.
Strain loves perfumes that conjure up a scene. Her shop sells bottles of Africa (amber, patchouli) and South (magnolia, moss), but her favorite place fragrance is Paris (bergamot, frankincense, lavender).
“I spray my dog with Paris,” Strain says.
Contact Lynda Edwards at 423-757-6391 or ledwards@timesfreepress.com.