Kalenderen, med hjelp fra Fragrantica

Ine Vik dufter seg gjennom året med hjelp av gaven som gir og gir: duftanmeldelsene på Fragrantica-forumet.

Det finnes en liten gruppe mennesker med duft som hobby. En liten del av disse igjen anmelder og diskuterer duft på internettforum, og det finnes nesten ikke noe bedre enn å lese og leve seg inn i brukernes olfaktoriske stream of consciousness, som anmeldelsene må sies å være.

Det som gjør disse tekstene så fabelaktige, er blant annet hvor random de kan være. Fragrantica-forumet er et overflødighetshorn av folks spontane duftassosiasjoner, og man får lese historier om alt fra råtten sopplukt i september til lukten av farfars hansker. Ofte handler historiene om spesifikke årstider og høytider, og jeg tenker: la oss spille dette spillet. Her er en kalender med 12 dufter, valgt og kommentert av undertegnede. Deretter følger utplukkede anmeldelser fra Fragrantica. Takk og lov for at folk gidder å skrive om parfyme anonymt på internett.

LES OGSÅ: Duften av Ilija Wyller

Januar

Januar er kald og gold og lukter lite, og passer sånn sett godt inn i ny start-konseptet. Kongen befaler at januar lukter blankt ark, og duftenes blanke ark er Escentric Molecules.

MinniiiieMe: (Escentric 01) Imagine being a student at Hogwarts: you are chilling in the Great Hall, eating pudding for breakfast. You look up at the magical ceiling: the sun is shining, and you start daydreaming about hanging out at the Great Lake after classes. Then: swoosj! A ghost floats right through you. The cold sensation is followed by a distinct smell of cold vapour blended with a sliight human skin scent. It smells nothing, but it smells something.

Bulldada: (Molecule 01) Liquified pencil shavings. Sometimes I can smell it and sometimes I can’t.

watchaka: (Molecule 02) It smells like a bloody mary. Salt, celery, and a tomato base combined with Ozonic, hidden, barely noticeable lemon juice.

Februar

På vei hjem fra svømmehallen under gatelyktene og tørr i nesa av klorvannet, men det skjer et væromslag og luftfuktigheten øker og du blir varm i nesa og det begynner å snø.

Duft: Doe in the snow (4160 Tuesdays)

Etamun: Doe is a cool, prim (aka uptight) and organized person. They are flawlessly beautiful with not a hair out of place. The crust is cut off their sandwich and they carefully place throw pillows back on their bed in the morning.

Autoperk: Doe in the Snow flooded my psyche with vivid memories of shoveling dirty wet snow. I almost threw down the vial, screamed and hid under my bed.

Escoteric: You step into the shower, where it’s so insanely hot you have to have a cold shower. You come out into your hotel room, which has old wooden floors, the maid has left you a floral bouquet and you pour a chilled cocktail daiquiri, you have the over head fan going at full pelt and you sit down on a leather Chesterfield Chaise Lounge and think oh the pleasures of life, I feel so clean and I am in my comfort zone, an element of sharpening your pencil with the leather, the cedar wood, the florals, and you start to write … Dear Uncle … your nephew Phileas Fog. Write time for a nap as thunder clouds gather…

Mars

Barnehagebarna står i en klynge og venter på grønn mann. De har søle opp til armene og veiver og piper og har røde kinn og er på vei hjem fra utflukt på årets hittil mest gjørmete dag.

Duft: Dirt (Demeter)

Anaïs Nin: Dirt is so cool, exhilarating, and imaginative. It is the smell of growth, roots, wet soil, trees, rain left on leaves, frogspawns, etc!

KimmyoftheValey: Straight-up dirt, like I just stopped, dropped, and rolled at the local park. Dirty dirty dirt dirt. DIRT. This is not a fragrance for me.

Beatnik: Sometimes, you just need to smell a bit dirty, and this will get you there.

April

Unnskyld det åpenbare, men: det er en perfekt appelsin og det visste du allerede da du plukket den opp i fruktdisken. Sola varmer, men fingrene blir kalde av appelsinskrellingen og du pakker dem sammen i en ball rundt skallet slik at fingrene lukter appelsin resten av turen.

Duft: Orange Sanguine (Atelier Cologne)

bintTapputi: Recommended for orange enthusiasts. 6/10

dominicgoyer: This perfume is like the old add for Sunny-D, where a family is WAY TOO HAPPY to be drinking orange juice. PURE ORANGE BLISS but the ad would be dubbed in French for extra sophistication.

Dogmeat: You will taste the juice. Your mouth will pucker. You will see a million citrus slices bouncing in slow motion like in a Tropicana commercial. I love it.

Mai

Denne anmeldelsen er perfekt, og jeg har intet å tilføye:

Duft: En passant (Frederic Malle)

Cinnamonpeelerswife: These are the neighbors’ lilacs, and you are not allowed to touch them. You can only stand by the fence and smell them through the raindrops.

Juni

Det ligger et teppe av dugg over gresset mens du går til sommerjobben, og det gjør ingenting å stå opp tidlig selv om du brøt deg inn på Frognerbadet seks timer tidligere. Dagene har begynt å gå inn i hverandre for solen er nesten aldri nede og det er ikke du heller.

Duft: Deja Le Printemps (Oriza L. Legrand)

Meama: The memory of a walk in a Parisian park, or the first time you realize that cut grass can smell deliciously good?

DulciusExAsperis: Take it from a kid who grew up in a rural farm area… this is barnyard fresh (as opposed to barnyard funk).

Juli

Du kjenner denne salte steinen og hvor man kan legge ut teppe, og du vet at den er trygg å campe på når floa kommer. For du har vært her før, du var her i går og dagen før og forhåpentligvis også i morgen om været holder.

Duft: Beach Walk (Maison Martin Margiela)

Brightflashes: This scent smells to me like a clean beach bag with all the stuff – goggles, sunscreen, towels, sunglasses, an extra hat, and some loose change. The beach bag is pleather and has those straps that dig into your arm – it’s probably new.

Advdentminded: Described in short: musk melon mom purse

GenevaX: This succeeds in smelling like someone’s fantasy of a tasteful, upscale beach vacation

August

Hagefest hos en larger-than-life-kvinne med silkeskjerf i håret som klyper cateringvertene i kinnene.

Duft: Shalimar (Guerlain)

Bourcet: an overly powdered woman smoking cigarettes, sitting in a leather armchair with a cat on her lap, while the ashtray overflows next to her. In my case, the powder is Shower to Shower. (…) Sure, the ashtray is overflowing. Not sure if it’s ever changed. Not like it needs to, the ashes end up on her half the time. There are burns on the leather chair. The crocheted blanket is also burned and singed. The cat has seen it all and as such permanently remains in some dissociated state that all cats possess. The world can be literally burning and the cat gives no fucks. I would say the TV is on, but what it’s tuned to is irrelevant. The news? Sure. Wheel of Fortune? Why not. The electric din is there regardless of time of day. Maybe this is painting a sour picture of Shalimar but that really isn’t my intent. Shalimar presents you with a portal to the past, and within that reality tunnel is a real longing, a real grasping for a memory that once heartily existed in the 4D but now is just fleeting figments, anchored to powdery accords. And with that is an association to women who were born in the early part of the century, truly LIVED the mid century and if they’re still alive, well damn.

FadiTheEvangelist: (…) Shalimar was her signature scent for years. And it suited her. She was very dark, which stood out in an area where blonds were much more common at that time. She loved to dress up to the best her budget allowed.

September

Tur på Fagerborg og over Stensparken med dokumentaren Grey Gardens friskt i minne og fantasien i spinn. Og Fagerborg blir til East Hampton, dragehuset foran deg blir et viktoriansk spøkelseshus og mannen med vannslangen i hagen blir en avdanket, alkoholisert professor emeritus som er blakk, men egentlig ikke siden huset og boksamlingen hans er verd en formue.

Duft: Fancy Nights (Jessica Simpson)

Frogopolis: God, no. Like someone sprayed Thierry Mugler Angel (which I love) on some old damp newspapers, causing the fragrance to decompose and become imbued with the smell of moldy pulp.

ALC555: Smells like Salem warlocks and witches.

Maci2222: a room-bolting intensity of a sour yard sale. It will be okay. Give it 5 min. You will begin to emerge from the garbage fire into a drab forest. The trees are standoffish and evil at first – all the wrong colors. Slowly the sun emerges and the trees bloom into hugs. An enchanted spring sits some distance in, and you cannot imagine how you ever got here.

Janlaw: Imagine an old witch that hasn’t really showered in months and stays locked in her apartment for months at a time. She has the dirty herbs filling her entire house some covered in cobwebs. She’s also messy and disorganized and has cups all the way to the roof in her kitchen sink. She’s old, scruffy looking and worn out in appearance. She also carries around a permanent weird smirk on her face with poorly drawn on lipstick. She’s clearly very out of it. She briefly opens her apartment door as you walk past it. This is what you smell.

Oktober

En stor billboard med oktobertropen på: pledd, begge hendene varsomt rundt en diger kopp med te. Sesongen for de gode, sure eplene er snart på hell, så du baker apple-crumble pie som en sann høstperson fra New England.

Duft: Ambre Narguile (Hermes)

Mooglebuns: Tobacco, honey, cinnamon, some sweet booziness. It does give the impression of Apple pie, if that Apple pie was being baked by a cigar smoking, Brandy drinking grandfather.

Apprentice Istanbul: The opening makes you feel that you work at a honey packing facility where you do add cinnamon in the big jars. It is aggressively sweet in the first ten minutes. Then Ellena, Gandalf of the perfumery, shows his magic and the scent turns into something else; a gourmand melody singing your favorite song; totally different then the opening, mature, knowing all the answers.

MsCharcoal: Although I own and love Ambre Narguile, I have to admit the first half hour or so reminds me of hampster shavings.

Miletas89: who remembers the DirectTV commercial a couple years ago with the Russian oligarch walking around his mansion showing off his Direct TV account? He sits down on a plush couch between 2 models, pets his genetically-altered miniature giraffe, and says 4 words I love to joke about over and over again: “Opulence. I has it.” I bet on the life of that miniature giraffe, that everybody in that commercial was wearing Hermes Ambre Narguile.

November

På konsert med en tante i Gamle Aker kirke. Forestillingen er pitchet som «lys i mørket: europeisk tidligmusikk møter Midtøsten» men din lett negative innstilling til det hele forsvinner underveis, de litt ustemte instrumentene med tarmstrenger vekker et eller annet og du tenker på en bok du leste som liten, kanskje Kabalmysteriet.

Duft: Santal majuscule (Serge Lutens)

Myname: like sandalwood soup.

JessDrew: When I smell Santal Majascule on skin, I think of seducing a sexy carpenter on Valentine’s Day.

Addiehominem: I wasn’t expecting this one to be the most evocative of attending church with my grandma. It reminds me of her in general, actually. Her brown skin with the scent of lingering lush roses from her garden, her wooden rocking chair. The black she always wears, as it’s her favorite color.

Raw umber: “A scent for a lady vampire” as my friend Vie Cafe once suggested. Not a glamorous and impeccable movie vampire. A real one.

Desember

Hjemme i småbyen og atter en kirke. Du kjenner igjen foreldrene til noen av barndomsvennene dine, men du ser ikke noe til vennene og forstår at de har droppet tradisjonen. Det lukter kirke, men det lukter protestantisk kirke: lys gjennom vinduene, teak og potensiell raddisprest.

Duft: Cardinal (Heeley)

Scientific: This is like walking into a church, (not a dark gothic cathedral but a Mid-century red brick, teak pews and coloured glass widows) early in the morning during a holiday.

OntheMark: Cardinal is unburnt incense gently diluted in a puff of linen scented spray starch.

Pavi_ne: You enter a small church somewhere on a beautiful Italian island. It is late summer afternoon, the sun is shining through the stained glass windows, the church is empty, airy, serene. As you sit in one of the pews to take in all the beauty of the moment, you hear footsteps approaching you from behind. A young and attractive priest is walking through the aisle, a rosary around his neck, a stack of bibles under his arm, his freshly pressed, immaculately clean robes rustling softly with every step. For a brief moment your eyes lock, your heart skips a beat and you are overwhelmed with thoughts you should not be thinking. At least not in the church. He just smiles and nods slightly before he disappears in the sacristy.