The Music of Perfume - Michael Edwards Sings

For some, it is the pilgrimage to Grasse, for others, the Osmothèque. You readers without a long history of perfume obsession, consider the birth of a baby, sunrise over the Grand Canyon, falling in love for the first time. Am I making myself clear?

Mascara severely threatened, I dabbed gently as Michael Edwards begin his address to the large gathering at Sniffapalooza's recent Holiday Fête. Fragrance classification rapture. A peak experience for one lured out of corporate life to transform the way Americans buy scent, armed only with her nose, extraordinary concern for the happiness of others and Michael Edwards' Fragrances of the World.

It started in 2000 when a friend thought she could put me off talking about perfume by getting me to read about it instead. Marjorie, you failed. Thus began the tour through Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent, a biography of Luca Turin, with its goosebump provoking stories about a biochemist's first love, the smell of wonderful perfume. Burr's account of Dioressence, as heard in one of his many interviews with Turin, captivated me. The serendipitous mixture of a Miss Dior knock-off, in soap form, and the finest ambergris. Enthralled, I read about Turin's comment that a new fragrance reminded him of two-tone fabric shifting color in the light, and his subsequent discovery of the written brief (narrative blueprint for a new scent) including the very image of a fabric he described. Turin's lush prose describing scents, to me, was poetry more poetic than Poe.

I could blame my new career as a fragrance educator and coach on Burr and Turin, and I often do. It is Edwards, however, who should take the heat.

While fragrance critics and connoisseurs abound, only one chose to transform the overwhelming array of modern fragrances into a catalog indexed by scent name, by manufacturer, by intended sex(es) of the wearer, by fragrance family and by style ranging from fresh, "the most effervescent fragrances in a family," to crisp, "lively interpretations with a crisp accent," then on to classical, "balanced notes characteristic of the family," and ending finally with rich, "the richer, deeper fragrances."

Edwards saw the opportunity for manufacturers, retailers and consumers alike to match taste with juice. He understands and articulates every year, for a growing number of new launches (last year 800, now 1,000), the qualities that link and differentiate perfumes. While some retailers have invested in Edwards' books and software, I believe that the use of his work is only in its infancy. Edwards' classifications have boundless potential to increase the joy of perfume lovers everywhere.

But back to the ostensible topic for this post: Music and perfume. A growing trend in fragrance critique is to draw parallels between music and scent. Burr did this to the delight of a sell-out crowd at last week's New York Times TimesTalk. Turin has previously compared Shalimar to Chopin’s Nocturnes, Silver Iris Mist to Schumann’s Arabesque, Tommy Girl to Corelli or to Prokofiev’s First Symphony and Mitsouko to Brahms. Many other comparisons can be found in Turin's online and print opus.

I hadn't truly heard the music of perfume until Michael Edwards sung to me, a capella, the differences among lily of the valley, gardenia, rose and tuberose. In a falsetto, he began, "Diorissimo...the muguet," still high, but moderated, "Marc Jacobs...the gardenia," lower, "Paris...the rose," then finally, with deep resonance, "Fracas...the tuberose."

Standing ovation, of course. So maybe I was the only one actually cheering. Did you say Michael or Michelangelo?


Photo by Linda Gerlach, artist and former Wall Street executive turned fragrance designer - Love the Key to Life, her first fragrant creation