Everyone has a hobby. Mine is fragrance.

When thinking about how to approach this post, I’ve recalled how I’ve made mention on Facebook to my friend community there my own interest in fragrances, especially rare or unusual fragrances. My suggestion of it seems odd, but consider the following:

Some people make a hobby out of collecting wines and spending thousands of dollars on a proper wine cellar to store and enjoy their collection. True enthusiasts can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a rare bottle that has a certain uniqueness to it. It’s enjoyment to them. My hobby just happens to be focused more on the olfactory, and rather than spending thousands of dollars on alcohol, I spend money collecting perfumes that have uniqueness about them.

For the uneducated, perfume is not purely a female term, I’ll explain Fragrance 101 in a moment.

I recently had the experience of ‘acquiring’ a discontinued Creed, one that they have stated will no longer be manufactured due to the scarcity and reduced quality of the ingredients. “Tabarome” (or as some refer, “Vintage Tabarome” to differentiate it from the more recent “Tabarome Millesime“) is a fragrance noted for it’s very deep and pronounced tobacco basenote along with a series of other florals and woods to mark the depth of the scent. When I got the call that one of the last Tabaromes had arrived, it took less than a couple of hours for me to complete the transaction.

It’s often not a cheap hobby. A good fragrance can require the addition of a wide variety of notes to make it complete, and will ultimately transform on the skin during its wearing. My choice of Tabarome, for me, came at a cost of being slightly too late to have made my decision. A couple years earlier, and I would have had a flacon for what I paid for only an atomizer today, but because it’s now produced in such limited quantity — if at all — you could say that I could likely recoup my investment reselling it on eBay if I were so inclined. So that people know, I’m not so inclined; this will be for my personal enjoyment. I’m not making the same mistake again with Creed’s Windsor, and am making absolutely certain of that.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve had a love affair with a good scent. A good scent to me is something that can easily be described as unique, subtle, complex in character, and not one that will either annoy me (or others) or send me into having a migraine. When walking through a shopping mall, I literally need to cover my nose when passing an Abercrombie & Fitch because of that ‘top note dreck’ that they waft into the corridors.

And my tastes have changed over time to where I am today. Not every fragrance is something that is pleasant to the olfactory. Where once my leanings would have been toward citrus and patchouli, I find myself gravitating toward other notes and have often been surprised by the results. I’ve found as I’ve matured, my tastes have also matured and I’m more impressed by a scent that yields more depth and subtlety. The result is that I’m far more likely to purchase something unique and timeless than a scent that is all-the-rage today and history in a few years.

To give you an example, at age 20, I would have been most impressed by Oscar de la Renta’s “Pour Lui“. At mid-40′s? Clive Christian’s “C” — which I believe represents how many C-notes you’ll drop for a bottle of it — or Tom Ford’s Private Collection Tuscan Leather .

People change, so do their preferences. One more note, though: A fragrance is a very personal statement. When we meet someone, think about what we often notice about them or remember long afterward. What was the longevity of that smell? How about the silage — did it stick with you a while? While we often cannot recall what color tie someone wore, or whether he wore loafers or wing-tips, we’ll recall a smell and it will trigger memories. Think for a moment of the visions that are conjured by certain aromas: Does clove remind you of Thanksgiving or Christmas? What does the smell of salt air bring to mind? If you could smell cedar, what would it mean to you? An old trunk? Driftwood? All of these scents evoke a response for the person who encounters them.

I promised earlier on that I’d try to make this post a little educational by including a “Fragrance 101″ section on some of the terms I’ve used in order to describe fragrances, and you’ll note my liberal use of the words’ fragrance’ or ‘scent’ since there are various terms used to describe the strength of a fragrance. Let’s begin with the strength of a fragrance:

Perfume or Pure Perfume – usually about 30% aromatic compounds, the remainder are water and alcohol.
Eau de Parfum (EDP) - usually about 15% aromatic compounds, remainder are water and alcohol.
Eau de Toilette (EDT) – usually around 8% aromatic compounds.
Eau de Cologne (EDC) – usually 5% aromatic compounds.
Splash/Aftershave – 1-3% aromatics.

Top Notes: These are the notes that are first revealed when a fragrance is sprayed on the skin, and that are usually present for the first 10-20 minutes until ‘dry down’, at which time these notes become more muted or may give way to the other aspects of the fragrance.
Heart Notes: This is the composition of the fragrance that begins to emerge as the top notes dissipate. Sometimes also known as “middle notes”, they form the middle of the fragrance’s dispersion process. They can begin to appear anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour after a scent has been applied.
Base Notes: The main theme of the fragrance, this begins to take shape and present as the heart notes begin to dissipate. Typically, these will be deeper and richer components than either the Top or Heart Notes, and emerge once the fragrance has completely mellowed on the skin, usually after a couple of hours. Sometimes, the note is still detectable many hours after application.

Longevity – simply put, the length of time that the fragrance stays with you. Most often, fragrances with higher concentrations of aromatics will tend toward higher longevity, while an aftershave or splash will dissipate within an hour or two after application. The longevity of a fragrance is usually (note: not always) proportionate to the level of aromatics, though some EDT’s may actually have better longevity than EDP’s or even Perfumes. The longevity also depends on the body chemistry of the wearer.
Sillage – this is the ‘vapor trail‘ or the waft of fragrance that remains after the wearer has passed. If you’ve ever walked into an elevator and smelled a fragrance despite no one else being in the elevator, that represents the sillage of that fragrance. More sillage is not necessary better than a lower sillage.
Flacon – a large splash bottle of a fragrance, usually used for application of a scent at pulse points, or for filling an atomizer. Flacons can generally range from 250ml to 1000ml.

Basenotes.net is a great resource on the Net for information about the composition of fragrances, past and present, and a fantastic source of reviews by those who’ve tried them. I’ll make an effort to post something about the fragrances I’ve tried and liked in future postings, as well as some that have recently come to market and others that are unique enough to warrant some information. Hope you’ve enjoyed.