At the risk of being strung up by the people of Grasse, I sometimes wonder what the point is of perfume. Don’t get me wrong, I love those smells—peppery, crisp, fleshy, conjuring up sea spray, old churches, and midnight-blooming jasmine. But plenty of things smell nice without requiring precious roses from Bulgaria or vanilla from Madagascar. This ritual of rubbing scented liquid on our bodies is older than Mesopotamia. Yet in a world where actions are measured and calibrated, perfume offers no payoff, no before-and-after, no status to display, nothing to game, nothing to gain. It exists for our pleasure, as simple and as complicated as that.
Maybe that’s why, dodging my way through Heathrow’s duty-free chaos earlier this month, I stopped in my tracks at a Charlotte Tilbury display. “How Do You Want to Feel Today?” it asked. Good question. To make it easy, it offered multiple choices with matching fragrances that would take you there: More Sex, Joy Phoria, Love Frequency, Star Confidence, Calm Bliss, Magic Energy. Those might not have been the words I would have chosen, but under the circumstances, Calm Bliss it was.
