Synesthesia and scent.

I keep trying to write blog posts as if I am a Professional Blogger, rather than a mentally ill artist who gets overly emotional about smells. I'm just getting that out of the way.

I stumbled upon Bruno Fazzolari's line of scents at Tigerlily Perfumery in the Mission a few weeks ago. He has synesthesia like I do (I don't consider it to be a mental illness, as it doesn't cause me any distress, but I digress) and his is smell/color linked. He's a painter who moved on to fragrance-making and I can really respect that. Painting is my baby, and I hold it in the higest regard. I don't do it nearly as often as I should, and it hurts.

Smell and color are only linked together for me by a wee bit, but it's there. I tend to favor purple and lavender-colored perfumes. The smell/geometric shape link is much stronger for me. Circular smells better than triangular. Square can be difficult but I tend to like them over time. Hexagons are also good.

I don't remember where I was going with this. Good enough.

Fragrance and First Impressions

Since moving to a large city from a small town in Maine, I've been enjoying people watching. There's much, much more diversity in San Francisco, and it makes for a lot of interesting second-hand encounters.

I'm trying too hard to write this like a blogger. So careful, so controlled. Let me start over.

I smelled Angel on a woman in Goodwill, who was wearing jeans a size too big for her. Her hair was unbrushed and she needed some dental work done, but she was in a good mood. She bumped and bumbled through the aisle of pants, oblivious to the cloud of chocolate and patchouli she was leaving in her wake. It was fascinating to watch. She was a pleasant enough woman, I'm sure. There is no cruelty in this observation. But, it struck me how much her perfume colored my impression of her.

I've already long thought of Angel as being for women who straight up don't give a fuck, and this encounter reinforced that idea. This woman was in her own world, shopping for second hand pants, not giving a shit what she looked like. It was awesome, and she smelled awesome.

Driving in San Francisco is a nightmare, so I take BART to work now. Every single day, I smell either Flowerbomb or La Vie Est Belle on a woman in a pencil skirt as she comes whipping down the escalator. They seem to be the fragrances of choice for working office women in this city. (And, annoyingly, I can't tell them apart when I smell them on an actual human). I wonder why. Neither strike me as being very work-friendly-- they're awfully sweet, and have a sillage big enough to be noticed in a musty-ass BART station.

I have no idea where this post is going.

Women who wear Alien are approachable, not at all cold like their fragrance choice would have you believe. Women who wear Shalimar are fearless.

I still have no idea where this post is going.

I wear Stella, and I have no idea what that makes me. Sometimes I smell it on someone else and I wonder what she's like.