Can a Fragrance Be Racist, Misogynistic Or Ageist? an Angry Mob of Consumers Believes It Can
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READ IS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS KILLING PERFUME? Can a fragrance be racist, misogynistic or ageist? An angry mob of consumers believes it can. Ingeborg van Lotringen investigates how the perfume industry became silenced and scentsored… and how it’s affecting the way we all smell› 101 READ here’s a strange smell in the air. It’s innocent, up. Ethyl maltol, the candyfloss-copy, cloying and pink, redolent of pre-teen girls. mouth-watering molecule responsible for the celebrity-scent sales surge, I smell it everywhere; in pubs and out at now got marketed as happiness in champagne receptions, in the supermarket, a bottle, and soon even grown-up the office lift and in dimly lit bars made for scents like YSL Black Opium and seduction. I smell it on young, flirty women Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire came out smelling of cupcakes. Globally by out at play but also on older, serious women mid-2018, 70% of new launches had mountaineering their way to the top of the sugary accords, 75% were housed in career ladder. It is ubiquitous. There is no pink bottles, and seven out of the 10 escape. Sniff the air and you, too, may catch most popular scents were sweet.* For an industry renowned for its ability the sweet, throat-catching scent drifting its to provoke and innovate, something way towards you. It is supposed to be uplifting, had gone very wrong. at least that’s what the marketing jargon would But why? The current generation have you believe, but to me? It’s depressing. is a fiery mix of millennials and iGenners (anyone born in the Because this, dear readers, is the smell of rot, mid-’90s and later, named as the eating away at one of the world’s great first generation to spend their institutions: the perfume industry. entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone). They are highly like Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche opinionated, dedicated to free SCENTS OF THE TIMES and Charlie by Revlon. And then expression, promoting diversity TSo who exactly is hell-bent on of course there was the ’80s, a decade and progressive change, particularly smothering one of the most of pure neoliberal ambition, where with relation to gender and the innovative, intriguing and, at times, the perfumes (Obsession! Poison! environment. How then did a controversial industries in the beauty Samsara!) were as bold as the shoulder- scent that smells like the inside world? To understand that you need padded women who wore them. The of Barbie’s pants drawer come to start at the beginning. Perfume only thing these fragrances had in to represent their culture? has been around for as long as man common were their vast differences, has been wearing a loincloth and as back in the day perfumers were EXPRESS YOURSELF Cleopatra was dousing herself in allowed to throw money and time at rosemary-and-myrrh-infused ass’s products designed to be as unique as (CORRECTLY) milk. While its original use was the culture around them. But then a “Corporately and socially, the basically to mask the rank smells whole new millennium came along, acceptable spectrum of individuality of a sewer-less world, perfume later and something changed. and self-expression is actually tightly became something else: a luxury, controlled,” says perfume consultant a sensory embodiment of the A NOT-SO-BRAVE Nick Gilbert of Olfiction.com, who wearer and, perhaps most crucially believes that, contrary to appearances, of all, a cultural gauge of its time. NEW WORLD iGenners are far more conformist Take, for example, the joyous If there’s anything history will than previous generations. “And this is post-war years, which remember the millennium reflected in the scents people choose.” brought with them a raft for, it’s celebrity culture. Spears’ Curious, which perfectly those two have that perfumers had like, from Kylie to Katy Perry to One What’s more, this is a generation of similarly uplifting floral Celebrity shows, magazines encompassed her bubblegum failed to bottle before? Direction and beyond. Bottles flew that’s noticeably more wary and chypres spearheaded by “Every and clothing ranges universe and proved there was money The answer: an intoxicating mix of off the shelves. Perfume executives circumspect when it comes to sex. Miss Dior (ask your gran dominated our shops and to be made from young girls and a celebrity name and a juice smelling patted themselves on the back. The Remember, they are growing up in – today’s caramel imposter scent came our airwaves. It was only fudge notes,” says Jack Hewitt of Roja of gentle florals and/or irresistible scent world had rarely seen anything an age that has birthed #Metoo, The by the same name has zero up smelling a matter of time before Parfums. It worked. Glow raked in sweets. It was a formula that could like it before. And its success was only Everyday Sexism Project and some of to do with the original). of cake” perfume would follow. $100 million in its first year, while be churned out quickly and cheaply, compounded by the financial crash the oldest virgins on record (one in Or the free-loving, earthy “JLo’s Glow kicked Curious was the best-selling perfume designed not to put off anyone (who of 2008, when a world reeling from eight millennials are 26 before they ’70s captured so perfectly off the age of celebrity in department stores in 2004, its doesn’t like flowers and caramel!?) the worst recession since the Great have sex†). Where, then, does that leave in musky, bohemian scents scents, along with Britney year of release. But why? What did and applicable to any celebrity you Depression of the ’30s needed perking an industry whose very purpose is › 102 · COSMOPOLITAN COSMOPOLITAN · 103 READ based on traditional notions describing scents as “curvaceous” a scent-loving insider I speak to who of seduction through scent? (“sexist”) or “like radiant white skin” doesn’t agree that if the commercial “It’s all quite sexless and (“racist”) to name just a few examples. mass and designer fragrance business CHANGE IS of no extreme opinion now,” If you remember that scent barely doesn’t commit to getting its creative says James Craven, fragrance has a vocabulary of its own but relies mojo back, the bottom could fall out IN THE AIR archivist at London scent on comparisons to sights, sounds, of it. Celebrity scents have already SCENTS DARING TO BE DIFFERENT emporium Les Senteurs and flavours and feelings to bring it to expired (UK sales dropped by almost Dior Joy by Dior EDP, a perfume consultant for life to those who can’t smell it, you 40% in the past two years‡), and £54 (30ml) 30 years. And it’s not just sex can begin to see how much any growth in the market overall is An in-your-face floral on a that’s off the table, he finds: level of censorship can affect the steadily declining. Standing at 3% in base of milky sandalwood and musk, Dior set out not “People want ‘vegan’ fragrance industry. “If I worked for a big 2017, it was in the double digits just a to make another sweet and get het up over ambergris, perfume brand, I’d be scared to few years ago, and what growth there scent. Team Cosmopolitan which is whale poo [a do anything remotely challenging,” is is largely due to heavy discounting. excitedly approves. venerated ‘fixative’ ingredient says Craven. “I genuinely think Laboratory Perfumes in perfume] that washes up in someone, somewhere, will soon bring PERFUME: Amber 01 EDT, great big blocks on the beach a case for feeling ‘traumatised’ by £65 (100ml) and has a sweet, earthy aroma. a scent and what it’s said to express.” A NEW DAWN “Ambiguous”, “not like perfume”, “unisex”. Like I can assure you no whale is That said, some commercial So who has the answer? Well, the Glossier You and Escentric offended, much less harmed, perfume houses have dared to niche fragrance market (small, Molecules, this really by our use of it, but perfumers be daring over the past 15 years: independent perfumers and exclusive captures the New have begun to avoid the think Mugler’s odd-salty collections by big brands Millennial imagination. ingredient because they’re Womanity, Alexander like Chanel and Dior) is Serge Lutens Louve tired of having to defend its McQueen Kingdom actually booming in terms EDP, £260 (100ml) inclusion.” Yet, interestingly, (which smelt of post-coital “Perfume of trade (the segment grew Almond, vanilla and sales of perfumes that boast sweatiness) and voluptuous by 29% last year) as well musk bring to mind should the fur of a she-wolf. “all-natural ingredients” are up. tuberose Gucci Bloom as out-there creativity. No animals were harmed That’s funny given all perfume (heavy on the “indole” note provoke But costing an average of in this description. needs a blend of naturals and present in white flowers: £150 per bottle and with discussion” Tom Daxon Laconia synthetics to really work, which in large quantities, it begins limited distribution, those EDP, £105 (50ml) means the term “natural” in to reek of bottoms). But concoctions are beyond A “sea-breezy citrus with perfumery means very little. each time, says Gilbert, the reach for most people water mint and a frosting brands got burned sales-wise. And so, (especially the cash-strapped of salt”, this smells DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON. LONDON. COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR DEPARTMENT † suitably fresh and natural, time and again, the mass and designer millennial generations), cutting CREATIVE ATROPHY, and uplifting to boot.