Our sense of smell...

[Guest guest]

Yesterday, I had a small epiphany. I made a simple blend that I LOVED,

and when I showed it to someone with great pride, I got this reaction:

" Helen, that's DISGUSTING! What IS it?! "

Um. Ok, I don't have DISGUSTING taste (at least I don't think so), and

so I took her through some of the components and discovered that she

found geranium 'disgusting'... she thought it smelled

like 'refrigerator leftovers'. Geranium smells a lot like an oily rose

to me, and I have geranium from 3 different reputable suppliers, and

they are fairly consistent across the board, I don't have bad geranium.

The epiphany was just how different my sense of smell has become over

the years, since I started playing with EO.

When I was younger, my first sniff of patchouli was pure wonder. I

wondered how something so utterly rank smelling could be so beloved by

so many. A whiff of it made me feel almost lightheaded from the potency.

Today, patchouli is one of my favorites. I can sniff a really old

patchouli and go into spasms of ecstasy. It's so round, smooth, earthy,

etc etc. My scent taste has done a lot of changing, and I attribute it

to having better educated my nose.

Of course, everyone has different taste, or there wouldn't be such a

proliferation of scents on the market. The question that I wonder, is

that the more 'educated' our noses become, do we lose touch with the

average person's nose? My biggest concern is that the more experienced

I get, the more varied and distinctive my taste becomes. Can this

become offensive to the public at large?

Perfumes are unlike other connoisseur items. A fine wine, a gorgeous

cuban cigar, a breathtaking abstract painting are items appreciated

from the privacy of solitude or among like-minded connoisseurs.

Perfumes are to be displayed, shown off in public, flaunted before all

within the scent radius. Perfumes cause people to react, both

negatively and positively, it assaults the senses or it soothes them.

Yesterday, on the davana thread, I saw so many different opinions on

the same scent it amazed me. This board is full of scent specialists!

Yet even among specialists, there's such a huge range of perception. On

person's fruity delight is another's burnt tire. I am now wondering if

the more we smell, the more refine our own senses, do we inadvertently

become too bold and daring with our scent blends?

When I think back to before I was particularly interested in scents,

most of the EO that I love today would have shocked me with their

pungency. Am I shocking people with my pungency when I wear some of

these eo blended into scents? I'm curious what more experienced

perfumers think of this and how they blend to compensate for it.