My Favorite Books VII

A favorite book of mine, Perfumery: The Psychology and Biology of Fragrance, edited by Steve Van Toller and George H. Dodd, is a rather technical tome that dwells mostly on the relationship between perfume and personality.

In one chapter, by Mensing and Beck, the authors ran experiments with groups of women, and analyzed which fragrances these women preferred. First establishing that personality had a profound effect on fragrance choice, they correlated personality and color preference. This led to the Mensing color-wheel, which predicts, with 80 percent accuracy, a subject’s favorite fragrance family.

This saves a lot of time sniffing around to the point of olfactory overload. After consulting the chart, the salesperson can bring out two or three fragrances, instead of having to go through a dozen or more.

More outgoing, “emotionally stable,” types, are drawn to chypre notes, deep and mossy and grave, but they like their fragrance a touch floral and almost imperceptibly fruity.  This same kind of customer, who’s more on the introverted side, might like her perfume a little aldehydic. She wants her fragrance to be discrete, but with subtle floral tones running through the base. Those who are attracted to fresh and green scents, are extroverted and find fulfillment being with people. Those who are “emotionally ambivalent,” but lean to being extroverts, are most likely to choose florals with fruity aspects.
Further down the wheel, we find the capricious, who, while, often changing their fragrance, tend to be drawn to not-too-sweet florals. Another group, described as emotionally ambivalent, but this time more introverted, is drawn to slightly “oriental” florals. Last, are the oriental scents, rich, complex, with a bit of funk, often preferred by introverts.

As I said, these experiments were done with women. I have never read whether men fit into this paradigm, or into any paradigm, but it might be worth the research.

After all, I want to play, too.