Scents and nonsense

Christmas is coming, so that means presents. And for lots of us, that means scent. Some of the hopeful donors will be the sort to wander helplessly around a fragrance department, bewildered by choice until they seize, in desperation, on the stuff that looks nicely packaged. That was the route whereby my father once bought my mother some pleasing aftershave.

Others will know exactly what they’re after: the scent their womenfolk have always liked, the perfume their own mothers used to wear. Which is dandy: some of the most beautiful and original perfumes have been with us for decades, a century even.

But it’s an illusion to think that what we’re buying is the same scent as Coco Chanel et al used to wear. What we’ve got now is a 21st-century version of the originals. Many will be perfectly good versions, just not the same. In some cases, it is a matter of adapting to changing tastes. But almost always it is because ingredients that perfumers would once have used are banned or just restricted. Banned by Brussels, what’s more (though not, as it happens, by the EU). The regulatory body for the fragrance industry, Ifra, which is based there, issues a regular checklist of material that manufacturers either can’t use or can only use in limited concentration or with radical modifications. It’s a bit like telling artists they can’t use yellow ochre or obliging them to find a substitute for ultramarine. Or as one exasperated perfumer, Serge Lutens, put it, you might as well ask bakers to make bread without flour.