Big White Flower Syndrome (BWFS): A scent that has a whole bunch of sweet-smelling floral notes (especially rose, orange blossom, honeysuckle, and jasmine) that just wash together for me. Usually not a compliment.
Blow-up: When a scent that smells fine out of the bottle and on paper, but turns foul when it touches my skin.
Car Bomb: A scent that “blows-up” when it touches my skin and smells like burning rubber, burning plastic, and/or scorched metal.
Eureka!: A “where have you been all my life” quality when first encountering a new scent. A feeling of instant discovery, connection, and understanding.
Indole (or) Indolic: Refers to a chemical, present in human feces, rotting meat, and coal tar, that also, in low concentrations, is naturally present in many flowers, such as tuberose, gardenia, jasmine, orange blossom, freesia, lilies, etc. A challenging property that can be used both for good and for evil. (IMHO)
Kitchener: Refers to a scent that is so good, it knocks other scents out of the wearing. As in: "X is so good, I know I'll never reach for Y again." Y has been kitchened.
Perfume: (See “Scent”) While I can use this term rather loosely, at times I contrast it directly with the notion of “scent” (another loosey-goosey term.) Strictly defined, I use “perfume” to mean a “scent” that is designed to interact with the human body, rather than just sit on top of it. If you rub a lime rind on yourself, the lime oil is a scent, but it is not a perfume. All perfumes are scents; not all scents are perfumes.
Pretty Water: A scent that smells nice, but has no point of view. No story. If I can’t remember a scent 15 minutes after I smelled it, no matter how pleasant, it’s pretty water. Not a compliment.
Purple: Purple flowers are pretty self-explanatory: wisteria, snap-pea, lilac, violet leaves and violets. I also include the tea rose in this taxonomy, completely arbitrarily, I admit. I find purple floral notes to be challenging, because, on the one hand, they tend to be retiring and receding. On the other hand, pumped up to smell loud, they don’t blend well with other elements—they don’t “play well with others.” (IMHO)
Saturation: Similar to the accepted notion of sillage, but I use it more narrowly to connote the concentration of a scent as it goes through several stages: when it first comes out of a bottle; initially dries on the skin; is present on the skin after 45 minutes or so; after several hours. A scent can be quite saturated—and still only be smellable close up. Perhaps the best distinction is between “big” and “deep”—“sillage” is how big a sweet-smelling force-field a scent produces. (Only you can smell it? Someone who hugs you? The whole elevator? Everyone who uses the elevator for the next two hours?) “Saturation” is how “much” you smell when you get close and deeply inhale. (In my review of Apothia “If” I discuss the properties of a low-sillage, highly-saturated scent at length.)
Scent: (See Perfume) Something that smells. In the context of LCN, it’s usually something liquid that comes out of a bottle, and its sole stated purpose is to make people and/or things smell nicer. But it can also refer to smells in general, such as “coffee” or “geranium,” or “cat pee.”
Snap: Certain smells start out smelling like one thing and then—snap—smell like something else entirely. Some scents snap hard, like clove, pepper, and rosemary. Some snap softly, like cucumber and lavender.
White-whites: (See “Big White Flower Syndrome) The flower family that makes up the sweet floral backbone of many perfumes, specifically rose, orange blossom, jasmine, and honeysuckle.
Yellow: Completely arbitrary term I use to describe the slightly bitter smell of a whole family of floral smells, specifically iris/orris, carnation, daffodil/narcissus/jonquil, and peony. Oakmoss is not a floral note, but contains a strong yellow property. Two other ways to describe “yellow”—akin to the smell of celery leaves (or) smelling the way soap tastes. A very challenging property. (IMHO.)
Pretty Water: A scent that smells nice, but has no point of view. No story. If I can’t remember a scent 15 minutes after I smelled it, no matter how pleasant, it’s pretty water. Not a compliment.
Purple: Purple flowers are pretty self-explanatory: wisteria, snap-pea, lilac, violet leaves and violets. I also include the tea rose in this taxonomy, completely arbitrarily, I admit. I find purple floral notes to be challenging, because, on the one hand, they tend to be retiring and receding. On the other hand, pumped up to smell loud, they don’t blend well with other elements—they don’t “play well with others.” (IMHO)
Saturation: Similar to the accepted notion of sillage, but I use it more narrowly to connote the concentration of a scent as it goes through several stages: when it first comes out of a bottle; initially dries on the skin; is present on the skin after 45 minutes or so; after several hours. A scent can be quite saturated—and still only be smellable close up. Perhaps the best distinction is between “big” and “deep”—“sillage” is how big a sweet-smelling force-field a scent produces. (Only you can smell it? Someone who hugs you? The whole elevator? Everyone who uses the elevator for the next two hours?) “Saturation” is how “much” you smell when you get close and deeply inhale. (In my review of Apothia “If” I discuss the properties of a low-sillage, highly-saturated scent at length.)
Scent: (See Perfume) Something that smells. In the context of LCN, it’s usually something liquid that comes out of a bottle, and its sole stated purpose is to make people and/or things smell nicer. But it can also refer to smells in general, such as “coffee” or “geranium,” or “cat pee.”
Snap: Certain smells start out smelling like one thing and then—snap—smell like something else entirely. Some scents snap hard, like clove, pepper, and rosemary. Some snap softly, like cucumber and lavender.
White-whites: (See “Big White Flower Syndrome) The flower family that makes up the sweet floral backbone of many perfumes, specifically rose, orange blossom, jasmine, and honeysuckle.
Yellow: Completely arbitrary term I use to describe the slightly bitter smell of a whole family of floral smells, specifically iris/orris, carnation, daffodil/narcissus/jonquil, and peony. Oakmoss is not a floral note, but contains a strong yellow property. Two other ways to describe “yellow”—akin to the smell of celery leaves (or) smelling the way soap tastes. A very challenging property. (IMHO.)
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