Shalimar

by Guerlain, 1925

I finally tried it. I've never actually worn it before, only sniffed and dismissed it as yet another old aldehydic menace like No. 5.

I applied a few drops to my wrists and neck, and nearly scrubbed it right off. Those nasty aldehydes almost drove me to my knees, but just as I was passing out with the image of a WWI gasmask-readiness poster as my last coherent thought, the chemical topnotes dissipated sufficiently for me to regain full conciousness...

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time...

"Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen

After that, I had to leave for work.

While driving, the middle & base notes creeped forward, the warm vanilla note for which Shalimar is famous hummed up from a dim filament to radiant full glow. A different chemical-musk-greenish middle note also appeared with the vanilla; cheap shampoo filled the air, and until it dissipated I couldn't shake the feeling I hadn't rinsed my hair out completely. This is the note co-opted into copycat spinoffs and background scents for toiletries, much like No. 5 has been. Evidently, this is the cheapest component of the scent. One of those cheaper scents, such as B&BW Warm Vanilla Sugar, fly by these notes, zooming directly to the vanilla. But Shalimar is on a train, and is concerned with the journey itself, not the mere vulgarity of "getting there".

Chanel #5

I hate Chanel #5.

Yack all you want about its timelessness, its sparkling aldehydes complementing its heavy jasmine, its perfect representation of everything classy. I think it stinks.

Specifically, I think it stinks of a child's inflatable vinyl pool toy that someone spilled cheap fake flowery perfume on and a little nail polish remover. These aldehydes do not "sparkle" as advertised, they smell like what they are, chemicals. The actual real flowery essences are suffocated in the haze of industrial waste that is your sillage. This perfume does not say "Marilyn Monroe", or "New York", or "high class" to me; it shouts the post-war slogan, "Better Living Through Chemistry!"

What's worse, I can't escape it. Knockoff scents appear in every toiletry known to (wo)mankind, usually the ones that are already unwholesomely