Image: A Better Way to Review a Perfume

There are times when showing someone an image can be a more effective way of communicating to them someone else experience of a perfume, than using words. There have been images posted on other blogs and tied to perfumes by the reviewer, and the image is so compelling that I have to rush out and try the fragrance. In fact, one of the reasons I chose a multi-media approach to perfume reviews (this perfume blog) was because I wanted to be able to post images and explain which perfumes they call to mind, and use multi-media to show someone what a perfume is like. After all, you can't scratch and sniff the computer screen.

Earlier today, I was looking at images online and saw one (a still from the movie "Mostly Martha"). This particular image is truly fitting of what it is like to experience a perfume for the first time, without having first read reviews. You close your eyes. You are blind to what is coming. You try not to use your intellect to dissect it. Instead, you push away the world and your worries (work, the overflowing laundry basket, your stack of bills, your hungry dog) and reduce yourself to a singular sense: your sensual sense of smell.

There is something very personal and very intimate about experiencing a perfume. Scent is not something you can see or touch. Without a list of notes, some perfumes are hard to dissect on that intellectual level where notes and ingredients lay. You are in a quiet, personal moment with the nose, the creator of that perfume, who made it just for you and this moment. Never again will it smell like the first time. Later, your nose will be more familiar with it. It will experience it differently. And those first few moments of the top notes won't last. You are like the woman in the picture, sitting across the table from a unseen and expectant artist, who is feeding you an experience. You, your body, the perfume, and the perfumer.

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