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Sillage: Should we focus more on sillage than smelling upclose?

post #1 of 12
7/14/10 at 10:56am
Thread Starter 
So, I pose the question above because many times a find a fragrance to be quite beautiful when I smell on my wrist. However, when I get a whiff of the sillage its changes to something rather common.

My first thought is that most people around us will perceive the fragrance according to sillage. I mean how many people come sticking their nose directly on your wrist or hand.

Dior Dune: When I smell it from a distance on my mom, I find it to be a drop dead gorgeous scent. However, if I apply on my wrist i find it to green and harsh.

Apres L'Ondee: Love this on my wrist its amazing, but when I catch a whiff of the sillage, I feel like an old musty lady is hovering over me. This is were a lot of folks opinion differ on this fragrance. Because it depends on the distance that it's approached.

On some perfumes all of the beautiful nuances seem to get lost from a distance. Yet, on others the harshness up-close is needed to make it beautiful from a distance.

What do you all think?
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post #2 of 12
7/14/10 at 11:47am
I focus on the "aura" during daily wear (I apply mainly on neck/chest, so it's physically impossible for me to sniff closely).

I sniff wrists/arms when I'm testing stuff (and also judge the sillage, of course).

Jicky is one of those fragrances that is less pleasant up close, but its sillage is wonderful.
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post #3 of 12
7/14/10 at 12:34pm
Sillage.
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post #4 of 12
7/14/10 at 1:09pm
I think this is a very important fragrance issue - at least for the fragrance industry. A fragrance can never be successful if the sillage isn't good. I'm pretty sure that perfumers at houses like Chanel, Caron, Dior and Frederic Malle (to name a few) are more preoccupied with the "sillage image" of fragrance formulation "x" than what it smells like up-close - and that difference can be significant. Sniffing / testing a fragrance up-close can often give a distorted perception of how a fragrance will "come across".

The example you give of how Dior Dune smells 'gorgeous' from a distance but 'harsh' up-close is a perfect illustration.
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post #5 of 12
7/14/10 at 1:14pm
Mo sillage, mo problems.
But seriously, it depends on the situation, and the taste of those you will be with.
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post #6 of 12
7/14/10 at 1:20pm
I prefer smelling aquatics and fresh fragrances (geting whifs of it) on other people and orientals on me. Maybe its skin chemistry or fact that orientals are usually more complex and less synthetic, so they are not so anoying and fatiguing upclose as when you are bombarded with synthetic sillage of aquatics.
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post #7 of 12
7/14/10 at 3:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DULLAH View Post

Mo sillage, mo problems.
But seriously, it depends on the situation, and the taste of those you will be with.

haha. I understand. I definatly hate huge sillage monsters. But my concern is more of the frangrance perception with sillage in general vs. Up close.

How many times have we walked around with our heads held high because up close we smell like an "exotic flower hand picked at 3 am and combined with an expensive musk tonkin and laden with Orris butter" only to be preceived by others as smelling "old ladish".

I think I'm gonna make this my next project. But then, how do I test sillage. Should I use my loved ones as guinea pigs and spray them in order to test?? Any suggestions??
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post #8 of 12
7/14/10 at 3:36pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Delmar View Post

I'm pretty sure that perfumers at houses like Chanel, Caron, Dior and Frederic Malle (to name a few) are more preoccupied with the "sillage image" of fragrance formulation "x"

.

Yes, I am sure that is the case with Chanel and Guerlain. Not sure about the "Niche" markets.

But then it begs the question, would our way of discribing scents change. I mean if sillage is kinda fleeting, how can we closely analyse the frangrance notes. Say this Jasmin Grasse, or this is madadascar vanilla, etc.

I suspect the general way of discribing sillage would be more on emotions rather then notes. So we would then say this smells stimulating, sexy, intriguing.
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post #9 of 12
7/14/10 at 8:01pm
I totally agree that radiant smell is much more important than what you smell by pressing your nose against your skin. You can't be doing that during the day. You'll look like an idiot at work drilling your nose into your arm. I pick frags that smell good from a distance, so that I can smell it on myself without having to do that. Plus, it gives you a good idea of what other people are smelling on you.
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post #10 of 12
7/14/10 at 11:12pm
A good fragrance will smell nice no matter what the distance.
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post #11 of 12
7/14/10 at 11:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ManlyScent View Post

Yes, I am sure that is the case with Chanel and Guerlain. Not sure about the "Niche" markets.

But then it begs the question, would our way of discribing scents change. I mean if sillage is kinda fleeting, how can we closely analyse the frangrance notes. Say this Jasmin Grasse, or this is madadascar vanilla, etc.

I suspect the general way of discribing sillage would be more on emotions rather then notes. So we would then say this smells stimulating, sexy, intriguing.

Being able to dissect out all the notes in a fragrance pyramid does not give me a good idea of what the sillage of a fragrance will be like. Take YSL's Opium or Dior's Poison. I couldn't say what the individual notes of these two fragrances are but I'm sure I'd recognize them 'on the street'. When one picks up on someone else's sillage, it is often there the one second and gone the next. Sniffing one's own scent up-close is a totally different experience. Then one is initially enveloped in all kinds of fumes, alcohol and dilluted essential oils. And then there's scent fatigue that can set in. Describing / reviewing scents isn't easy and, I'd agree, describing sillage is challenging. Saying a fragrance 'has good sillage' doesn't say much about that sillage.

Frederic Malle, I noticed, has small chambers in one of their stores in Paris in which are used, I presume, to give the customer a better idea of the sillage of a scent.

http://www.editionsdeparfums.com/mallesite_gb/index.htm (Click on "Our Stores")
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post #12 of 12
11/27/11 at 4:17pm
I saw small chambers like that in a movie theatre once.
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