Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Dzing! Perfume Notes


While I was running around this past week, a set of packages arrived from the Perfumed Court, containing samples of several perfumes that received good recommendations in Turin & Sanchez's Perfumes: The Guide. First one out of the box: Dzing! by L'Artisan Perfumer. This is a perfume that smells primarily like cardboard. Not corregated cardboard, or that spongy gray stuff used in record albums. Maybe the bottom of a game box, or a manila envelope, used to contain some little white flowers that you picked out of a field somewhere.

I'm reminded of a Brian Eno essay on axes and the development of new positions and new axes. For example, before the punks, nobody thought that anyone would like to have half a haircut, or a badly cut haircut. Afterward, you can see any number of people who have made either choice. Before smelling Dzing! I wouldn't have thought that anyone would want to smell of cardboard, but it's actually a very attractive cardboard. It doesn't smell particularly perfumy,but it smells great.

Based on reports from elsewhere on the web, the original concept was that Dzing! was supposed to smell like a circus, with notes of "tonka beans, balsam, saffran and ginger". I don't get that, but then neither do about half the people who smell it.

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