Role of sillage, projection, longevity in "masterpiece" designation

Well...yes and no. I am a sillage whore, I want to be smelt. I guess it depends from person to person. There are people who prefer perfume with medium to little or no sillage. And there are people like me who want that exquisite trail left behind. All of my "masterpieces" have to have tons of sillage (ex. L'heure Bleue, STH, Rose 31, etc....), but I have one perfume that I cannot classify as a masterpiece simply because of it's sillage: The Party. It's literally one of the best scents I have smelt in a long time, but it's pathetic excuse for sillage is what have held it back into entering into my "masterpieces" list.

I dont think a masterpiece has to have sillage, or longevity. I love the smell of Acqua di Parma and it seems like it is an eau de cologne that is modern yet classic, and yet, it does not last very long. Yet, if I could get a 100ml bottle for $50, it would be in my collection because it would be one of those scents that I would love and would be great for that three or four hour cookout. Yet to wear it to work, it would be gone by lunch and I would have to have a spare bottle or decant at work, and well, Im not up for that. I also only want so many bottles in my collection. However, I would call it a masterpiece.

Sillage, not all people want that. I am loving some CDG 2 Man I got yesterday. It does not project or last as long as say L'Air du Desert Morocain, but it is satisfying. Maybe not a masterpiece, but, hey, it brought a smile to my face.

I don't care for Paco Rabanne Pour Homme but I do consider it to be a masterpiece. It is in the FiFi Hall of Fame.

AdP Colonia is one of my favorite fragrances and easily lasts seven to eight hours on my skin. It definitely deserves to be called a masterpiece.

Duncan, I prefer longevity and sillage. I feel that I get more bang for the buck. I like to sniff my wrist say 7 hours after applying it, or turning around quickly and somehow the scent wafts off my shirt collar at work. I also like having others tell me that I smell great.

But for a masterpiece, I dont think I would define it in terms of projection or longevity. Some flowers bloom all summer, some for only a couple of weeks. Why can not a scent be ephemeral and still so well regarded? In the end, I judge the scent on how it smells and how it works on me. Who knows, there could be a scent that lasted but three hours but gave me so much pleasure for those three hours that I would buy it at $150 for an ounce? Who knows!

people who wear dior homme and other sillage monsters are annoying and want lots of sillage because they think their cologne smells a lot better than it actually does. People who were naturals don't want lots of sillage because they wear something that smells good to them and don't care to annoy other people with it.

i trust the person who doesn't want a lot of sillage a lot more than the opposite.

[QUOTE=scent;1509139]Well...yes and no. I am a sillage whore, I want to be smelt. QUOTE]

You and me both buddy, you and me both....

I find AdP to be one of the longer-lasting colognes. My absolute favourite at the moment is Guerlain's Eau de Cologne Imperiale, and it dies within the hour. Longevity matters for me not a whit. Ten minutes? Fine. As long as they are lovely. No base? Excellent. Projection - well, one must be able to smell it oneself. If one can, it's probable that someone immediately next to one, within one's 'space', will also be able to. Beyond that, I don't really care.

For me, a fragrance with excellent sillage, projection, and longevity doesn't necessarily equate to "masterpiece".

Something is awry here.

Colonia isn't a long lasting scent on me, but it does have strength for a few hours. While Issey is a very long lasting scent with high sillage output. You are better off having some sprayed on testing paper, and seeing how long they last on that for an objective assessment of their strength.

That said, back to your question.

Many scents are highly acclaimed around here, as being masterpieces or in other glowing terms, but have pathetic endurance and sillage on most people. To me, that means they don't do the job I want them for - to smell good both to me and to others, or just to keep me smelling fresh - and I wouldn't rate them highly at all.

Others here use different criteria - exquisitness of craftmanship or some such - and the notion that scents are a highly personal thing to be experienced mainly for one's personal and sensual pleasure. They necessarily then rate many scents highly, that I would rate very differently.

Some scents have very good longevity but poor sillage, which is fine by me when one doesn't want to be overly obtrusive for some reason.

What I really, really hate is being caught out spending good money on dud short-lived scents. It happened to me with Eau Sauvage, and I've been careful ever since. I don't mind buying short-lived scents if they are going cheap (for me, they're handy for wearing to shops, to the beach, or when I know I'll wear somthing else later), but at full price, I want a scent that lasts.
Regards,
Renato

I think it may be a personal chemistry issue with you and Eau Sauvage. I find it very long lived indeed.

Scents are like music, different genres, different 'instrumentation', etc. What constitutes a masterpiece metal album? Well, surely their Marshalls will be cranked to 11, for one thing. A masterpiece classical work? Hmm, it surely won't be featuring electric guitars, I can tell you that much. It's clearly silly to have one set of criteria that would denote 'masterpiece' when it comes to music, and it's just as silly with fragrance, imo.

The intention of the fragrance: its intended smell, its broad categorization (eg: chypre, fougere, oriental), any meaning or emotion that it wishes to project, the intended audience, time and place of wear, all of these things (and many more) contribute to a scent's 'genre', and each genre, or specialized categorization of scent, will have different criteria to denote a masterpiece. There are probably a few criteria that would span across all or most of the categories, but they will necessarily be fairly generic.

I don't think sillage, projection, or longevity span across all categories, or at least not at some single quantifiable 'masterpiece' level.

From an amateur's point of view, to be a masterpiece a fragrance must have not only an amazing and unique blend of notes but must also have some combination of sillage, projection and longevity. I will leave it to those that want to argue which scents are indeed masterpieces of the art of perfumery, but some combination of all these traits certainly must be considered to achieve the masterpiece designation. Just my 2¢ worth.

Chemistry has a role with Eau Sauvage, that's true. When I first posted about how short lasting it was, quite a few responded that it lasted a long time on them. But there have also been quite a few others who have posted how short lived it is on them.
In general, most designer scents - including quite a few citrusy ones - easily last a whole working day on me.

Anyhow, before spending top dollar on a scent, I always give it a three hour wrist test. If it's still there with some strength after 3 hours, it usually lasts a whole working day under clothes on me.
Regards,
Renato

I agree completely with Merely on this. None of these performance traits have anything at all to do with whether I consider a fragrance a masterpiece. That word connotes something that is a work of genius, a rare product of human creativity that is novel, beautiful, and expertly crafted.

Would you say that a painting is not a masterpiece because it doesn't fit the space you want to fill on your wall? Or because it doesn't match your color scheme. No, it is a masterpiece if and only if its beauty is unique and compelling enough.

A perfume is the same way. Even if it lasts 10 minutes and you have to press your nose to your wrist to smell it.

On the other hand, that would make a pretty bad fragrance to wear if you want something to make you smell nice throughout the day.

But we don't wear works of art. We wear attractive functional things. A good pair of shoes is not a masterpiece. It's just a good pair of shoes.

In the same way, a fragrance that lasts as long as you want it to and projects as far as you want it to, and smells good to you or whoever you want to please is a good fragrance. It may also be a masterpiece if its stunningly gorgeous and original.

I have to agree with Renato. I love the scent but find its silliage is seriously lacking

I don't require strong sillage for masterpiece designation, though the right amount is a definite plus. That said, my favorite fragrance -- Chanel Pour Monsieur (1955) -- stays close to the skin and doesn't last terribly long. It just has a spectacular
collection of notes, of which Oakmoss figures significantly.

AdP Colonia is also top shelf in my ranking, and is once again not a sillage monster.

L'eau D'Issey Pour homme and masterpiece .... ?? Your definition of masterpiece is entirely different than mine.