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Sillage......exactly what does this mean???

post #1 of 16
11/21/06 at 7:28pm
Thread Starter 
I've seen this word used quite often, but I've never really understood it's meaning. And what's really confused me is that I can't find it in ANY dictionary! Am I assuming correctly that it's a French term?
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post #2 of 16
11/21/06 at 7:30pm
Sillage is how far the fragrance projects. Take a fragrance and take your nose away from where you sprayed it, and how far that reaches your nose is how much sillage it has. Basically, how far away can you smell it from where it was sprayed.
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post #3 of 16
11/22/06 at 5:22am
I think of it as the 'wake' of my fragrance that flows off of me as I walk. I like sillage and feel cheated if a frag doesn't have much. One of the greatest sillage-wise is A*Men .


Dan
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post #4 of 16
11/22/06 at 7:24am
"sillage" is the French word for "wake", as in the wake of a ship or airplane, i.e. the trail of waves or vapor they leave behind them. If used pertaining to fragrance, sillage is the trail of fragrance that the scent leaves around the wearer.
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post #5 of 16
11/22/06 at 8:25am
To me, sillage is the fragrance trail that is left as one walks by.

It's pretty much the same thing as projection but I see projection as more of how far a fragrance "reaches out" as you stand in one spot.
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post #6 of 16
11/22/06 at 3:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by myaccolades

To me, sillage is the fragrance trail that is left as one walks by.

It's pretty much the same thing as projection but I see projection as more of how far a fragrance "reaches out" as you stand in one spot.

I agree that there is a valid distinction between sillage and projection.

The etymology of 'sillage' in French (the wake of a ship travelling across the sea) is such a precise and perfect term. For British readers of a certain age the Bisto gravy adverts provide the representation of something between sillage and projection (which I think of as a more personal notion - can you smell the scent yourself without waving your arms around or sniffing down your shirt? Can you perceive on yourself a glow of fragrance?)
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post #7 of 16
11/22/06 at 6:24pm
I too wondered about this term when I first started visiting basenotes but sort of figured it out based on the way it was used in reviews and descriptions. I'd also found a previous explanation on here about the origins of the word and that explained it a bit more.

However I'm still curious, what is the correct pronunciation of this word?

Is it spoken similar to the word "Village"
or is the "age" pronounced in the same way as the word "camouflage"??
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post #8 of 16
5/28/12 at 9:51pm
Sillage is a French word. Unlike many French words, it doesn't sound pompous or pedantic to pronounce it correctly whilst speaking english: Using that as a springboard, you would say:

SEA-AHJE

So, "sea," like the marvelous sea, and "ah" like open you mouth and say "ah," then the hardest if you don't speak french at all--the "je." If you remember that Book by Boris Patornak, which later became an epic movie in the 60's with Julie Christie & Omar Shariff, "Docter Zhivahgo" --the "age" in "sillage" sounds exactly like AH-ZH. SO: SEA-AHZH. there is no "L" sound at all, as, in French, two ll's together become pronounced most often like "ee"

From the French point of view, in perfumery, when one speaks of sillage, it means eqaully how you yourself experience the scent on your body--the little puffs of it you'll get, or the comforting shroud that follows you all day: Here is where you find if a scent id really "you," because if the sillage isn't right, you feel like you're wearing someone else's shirt, or you are in disguise. Sillage is important. It is not "Projection." It is a kind of relationship that you and your peers have with the particles of air that float about you: How they dance. Ultimately, Sillage is everything. It is the true soul of any scent: a scent with no sillage is like "une journee sans pain"
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post #9 of 16
5/29/12 at 4:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by myaccolades View Post

To me, sillage is the fragrance trail that is left as one walks by.

Simply.
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post #10 of 16
5/29/12 at 6:23am
Perhaps in some, restricted worlds. But here we speak of a French word applied to to the complex universe of olfactory illusions and allusions in which there is no simplicity. It is nice when so many people can convince themselves that things are so cut and dry when, in fact, nothing is, as ruled by the universe. I am a native French speaker, and a noted expert in fragrances and perfumery the world over: Sillage, when applied to the perfumed arts, is not merely the trail that is left as one walks by. Of course, it befits some to imagine that it is, as their minds may only process information this way, even though in so doing they fail to capture the whole picture.
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post #11 of 16
6/7/12 at 8:00am
it means someone doesn't have to be close enough to bump uglies with you to smell you.*



*DOES NOT condone marinating in a scent in order to be smelled from 10 miles away. find the happy medium.
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post #12 of 16
6/7/12 at 11:16pm
Another vote/suggestion in favor of the terms similar/synonymous to "scent trail".
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post #13 of 16
6/8/12 at 1:03am
People have been wondering about this "sillage" before -

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/261...on-quot-wanted
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post #14 of 16
6/8/12 at 5:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken_Russell View Post

Another vote/suggestion in favor of the terms similar/synonymous to "scent trail".

Is that a euphemism?
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post #15 of 16
6/8/12 at 9:37am
I agree there is a distinction between sillage and projection. It is possible to have a lot of sillage but little projection. I hate frags that project too much, there is no escaping them.
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post #16 of 16
6/16/12 at 5:10pm
Can a scent have poor projection but great sillage? Examples?
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Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › Fragrance Discussion › Fragrance Industry and General Fragrance Discussion › Sillage......exactly what does this mean???