About LeftCoastNose

About LeftCoastNose: LeftCoastNose is a personal journey through the experience of discovering new scents, with ruminations on the nature of sensibilities along the way. LCN seeks to entertain, inform, and enliven the online conversation about perfume.

About Rita Long, amateur perfume reviewer; LCN author and editrix: I’m a 41-year-old San Franciscan, living with my husband and our gay dog, Rocky. I’ve got no formal training in taste-making or the arts, and I make no claim to having above-average olfactory sensitivities—just a come-lately perfume crush and a raft of opinions. You will notice, from time to time, however, that my life-long interest in social justice will come shining through in discussions on the beauty and luxury industries (See LCN’s Manifesto below.)

Why the name “LeftCoastNose”? I’ve lived for spells in New York City, the Southwest, Buenos Aires, and Chicago, but I am a Bay Arean at heart. LCN is an exploration of finding the things that I like to smell, while asking the question “Why?” along the way.

Why the star ratings? I got interested in perfume through reading Chandler Burr, the perfume critic for the New York Times, and author of “The Emperor of Scent” and “The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York.” It was how he talked about the scents that he favored that got me started on this whole quest. In his perfume reviews, he uses a zero-to-five-star rating system. Naturally, I wanted to try first what he liked best, so I hunted down samples of his four- and five-star scents. As I developed my own opinions, I started to rate the scents myself as one way to think about them. I stole his zero-to-five-star ratings shamelessly, and without thinking much about it at the time. I have given it considerable thought since, however, as I started this blog, as you can read about HERE.

Does “LeftCoastNose” sell any posts or links? Do you receive any incentives, material or financial, for reviews? No, and no. “LeftCoastNose” is solely a forum for my opinion, and my opinions are not for sale. At this time, LCN is ad-free. If and/or when that changes, I will state my advertising relationships and policies clearly.

Do you write negative reviews? Yes, but unless something is truly awful, I don’t usually bother. It’s what I like that gets the creative juices flowing. Something that leaves me flat is hard to write about. Part of the goal of LCN is to steer folks in the direction of things I think smell good. And, as I was taught as a child, if you don’t have anything nice to say….

Copyright and permission: All original written content, as well as photos taken by me are copyrighted © 2009 Rita Long/LeftCoastNose.com, all rights reserved. All LCN content is protected by applicable copyright laws, prohibiting the use of any of its content for any commercial purpose, without express written consent. I welcome all non-commercial links. However, if you quote me, please credit me!

LeftCoastNose photo credit and written content citation policy: The Internet is frequently talked about as the lawless New Frontier. Honey, I don’t care where you are—Karma—she is everywhere. LCN only uses photos found on the Web that are expressly shared and are used with the intent to entertain and inform. LCN is dedicated to giving full photo credit whenever possible. (I keep a running list of photo credits, such as I am able, along with semi-snarky commentary on the images I use HERE.) It is LeftCoastNose.com’s policy to cite other writers when they are quoted on LCN, along with links to websites LCN deems appropriate and/or useful.

LeftCoastNose commentary policy: LeftCoastNose welcomes comments, opinions, and lively debate. LCN operates under a Golden Rule policy: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Please be civil. LCN will not tolerate any language or discussion deemed to denigrate others due to their race, religion, age, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. Requests to link to personal blogs and websites within personal comments are fine; however, the use of LCN for commercial or advertising purposes is expressly forbidden.

LeftCoastNose privacy policy: LCN is committed to keeping all personal information obtained through comments private. LCN does not share any personal information (i.e. email addresses) with third parties. Subscriptions lists are managed through Blogger.com, and subscriber identities or any other personal information are not revealed to LCN.

LeftCoastNose Manifesto: The LeftCoastNose was created to chronicle my journey through the vast and multi-faceted world of perfume. I keep this blog to record my experiences along the way.

There is an ocean of scent out there, and it can be overwhelming and expensive to explore it. Other people’s writings have been terrific guideposts for me, steering me to things I might never have encountered otherwise, and enriching me with their impressions and opinions. I hope to be a constructive voice in the on-going conversation about scent.

I promise to always give my honest, straightforward opinion about what I smell.

However, I believe that in our culture, connotations of beauty, luxury, sexuality, and excellence-- all fine reasons to be interested in perfume-- are heavily freighted with casual, breezy, but utterly ugly notions of race, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation. (Oh yes, you read me right—I’m that chick.) I don’t believe that these connotations are poisonous enough to make perfume not worth wearing (I’m not the Birkenstocks-and-hairy-legs chick, although I went through that phase), but, as you read, you will notice me calling this out from time to time.

I believe the beauty and luxury industries, just like any other facet of modern life, needs to be tweaked, queered, questioned, called out, made fun of, and whatever else it takes to break down the destructive disparities our culture perpetuates due to accidents of birth and accumulations of privilege. Perfume, in the grand scheme of things, may be frivolous, but the effect of how we talk about it isn’t.