3 S's: Scent, Society and Psychology

This is an absurdly long and occasionally ponderous post and I wouldn't inflict it on the basenotes server if I just wanted some directions to point my nose. I'm more interested in learning how people approach fragrance, because when I take the time to examine my wants, I think they are strongly influenced snobbery, vanity and insecurity (among others).

Not that it really matters, but I'm 33 and quasi employed in a quasi-learned profession. I am ambivalent about registering because I'm not sure this is an interest I want to cultivate. Nevertheless, unlike many a poster, I've taken the time to change my country of residence from the default Abu Dabi (it takes 3 seconds people, come on). Anyway, after spending an absurd amount of time lurking, I figured I've learned as much as I can without either asking questions or actually smelling something on my own.

I had never bought a bottle of cologne until a few months ago (GFT Spanish Leather [easy to overapply] & Musgo Real #2 [impossible to overapply]). In part I wear a fragrance to enjoy smelling it, but it is also a communicative act. Maybe I'm trying to say "Hey Ladies!" or maybe I'm saying "I won't run to Mexico with all your money.", but if the spicy fougre I'm wearing is Drakkar Noir then people in 2008 will not get the message I'm trying to send (even if they would have in 1988).

No one has an innocent nose and very few people have sufficient sophistication to separate the fragrance from their thoughts on that type of fragrance. My first thought on smelling Guerlain Vetiver was old man. Original Vetiver, funeral. Black Aoud, old woman. 3me Homme, American Psycho. Loewe pH, 70's airport. So now my options are dictated by my own preferences within the choices permitted by fashion trends, the image pumped out by marketing departments, and the baggage of my own preconceptions (which I'll hold on to until something better comes along).

This leads me to want current and/or uncommon scents that are free from all of these encumbrances. I thought Anvers was OK. Yatagan striking but maybe a little too 70's. L'aire...Moroccan smelled a cedar swingset with something sweet underneath the sand. PdN pH was OK but more opaque than interesting. PdN NY smells like Church to me, as does DC 1913- both good for "I won't take your money this winter". Knieze 10, however smells like a spare bicycle tire (suggesting that even if I took the money, I wouldn't get very far). I wasn't wowed by the TdH smell strip. When I asked to smell TdH I was given a sample of Ferre for Him, which I find a little too feminine or sweet.

So right now I have 100ml bottles of 3me, GV, GFT-Spanish Leather and Musgo Real #2 (SL being the only non-blind buy). Also I have been given mini bottles of Eternity (people like it) and Polo Crest which good, but a little preppy. I'm not sure if my nose or my Ralph Lauren brand associations are setting off the prep-o-meter. So at last I'll explain my discomfort with fragrance: I am using a commercial product to express myself. My only brand allegiance is to Levi's, and that only out of a combination of a perverse anti-fashion impulse and appreciation for their once socially responsible business. Beyond that: slacks are slacks, cars are cars and if I find a soda I like more than Mountain Dew, by god I'll drink it.

The thing I'm most weary of is the aspirational approach people take to the various products. I am as guilty as anyone. I don't know what is good and I don't know what is bad so I want what is considered 'best.' I read about people who get fake Creeds and happily wear them until they smell the real thing; then they buy the real thing rather than continue with what they'd presumably liked enough for heavy rotation just days before. I've found myself hoping that my Guerlain Vetiver is fake because I don't find it to be mindblowingly awesome (however, I'm not sure I want to smell like the things I think smell mindblowingly awesome). I want to love the best. I want to hate patchouli, Axe and anything worn by climbers and arrivestes and who don't know good from bad and just want whatever is considered 'the best.'

So, basenoters, are you comfortable with your conspicuous consumption? Sure you like Old Spice and Canoe, but do you wear them? Do you think you should? Is your egalitarian impulse neutered when you smell a day laborer in line ahead of you wearing some high-end fragrance he found at TJ Maxx? Do you contemplate imposters when the prices get to high? If TdH replaced AdG as the teenagers' choice would it smell as sublime?

Finally, and most importantly, what mass produced laboratory concoction, sold at a 1,000% markup or less, can best help me express myself as a unique individual?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I'm glad no one has taken it as an attack on their hobby, rather than the mere discomfort of an unrepentant philistine.

I don't have a huge problem in buying a mass produced good to express myself, my problem is that from the outset my approach has been motivated by crass and snobbish impulses because I don't trust my aesthetic judgment to make the statements I want to make. At this point I don't know Caravaggio from Nagel.

Developing the sophistication to ignore these impulses requires that I understand the statements being made. But these statements are in part designed to appeal buying to people's crass and snobbish impulses. So I have to decide whether I should try to speak the language or whether I should rely on basnoters (and others) to translate and then pick from the available choices.

I have worn Guerlain Vetiver quite a bit and it is mostly the topnotes that make me think 'old man.' After that I enjoy it when I catch the odd whiff, although I have some trouble smelling it. I may be very susceptible to nose fatigue or maybe I have the only fake bottle of GV ever produced. As yet, no women have accosted me, but hope springs eternal. I also like the MR#2 because it smells blandly clean, sort of like Gendarme, but with even less happening. 3me and Spanish leather I may have to limit to cool weather.

I am currently traveling without any of these so I'm looking for a nice versatile summer scent (I wasn't being facetious). I want to like L'Anarchiste because it is an unusual scent from a house approved by the cognoscenti, but I've never smelled it and it sounds more like a cool weather scent and maybe too odd to be versatile. I've seen good size bottles for <$30 on line so I'm tempted. Someone, please talk me out of it!

Hoos & Goodlife thanks for the suggestions, I've hardly heard of any of them so the snob in me is satisfied. You both mention Acqua di Parma. I had heard that Loewe para Hombre was similar and bought a sample online. I like it after the lemon Pledge (brand of wood polish) fades, but it had an accord that struck me as very 70's (patchouli & oakmoss?). Is this absent from AdP?

I'm not about to buy anything blind, but I'm trying to narrow my leads. Luckyscent is just a couple miles from me, so I may see which of these I can get samples of.

Thanks goodrider. Until I become more sophisticated I am bound by my preconceptions. Almost everything smells like something. I like Loewe 70's accord, but I don't want to smell like it.

It is true that fragrance is just an accessory, but it exists on its own. A belt keeps your pants up and shoes protect your feet. Fragrance is a purely aesthetic accessory that I hadn't given 5 minutes of thought to until earlier this year so now I'm being very deliberate.

You bring up a good point with the Levi's, and on reflection I think I like the fact that they are generic without being a copy. My T-Shirt is gray at the moment BTW.

A brief aside because there have been two comments about the 'day laborer. ' It is indeed a loaded term that I should have given more thought. They are unglamorous outsiders. No one wants to trade places with them, thus thwarting the aspirational. . . aspirations of the hypothetical buyer. (By aspirational I mean that for $50 you can pluck, for your personal consumption, a facet of the good life as you see it depicted on "the O.C." or whatever.)

Maybe my purposes would have been better served if I had used the less put upon demographic of "15 year-old mulleted rednecks with acne." Please feel free to imagine that substitution.