YAEL, Sammarco

Finally I am starting to feel a bit like myself again. I have been totally overwhelmed of stress, finishing my master thesis. When that happens (stress levels up from ”stress” to a state of paralysis of one's soul) all my senses shut down. I cant manage stimuli, especially not smells since that sense often interacts with my others. But now things are starting to slow down. I start to breathe again and after that my mind slowly opens up, being ready for impressions again.

Todays fragrance, YAEL by Sammarco, connects with two of my other senses, both the sense of touch and hearing. They are connected, roots from the same impression but splits and the result is a sound and a sensory feeling.

YAEL has the sound that comes from thin fabric catched by wind.
The feeling of YAEL, as I said, roots from the same source. Only a bit more specific. Thin fabric, not silky or soft, it’s linen fabric. Wearing linen fabric on a windy day. The wind catches your clothes and  in those short moments it touches your skin, that is YAEL.

Beautiful orris, cassis, raspberry, ginger and vanilla. One of the best releases in 2017 in my opinion.

Tubereuse 1 La Capricieuse, Histoires de Parfums

Despite the name, this is all about iris. A dry, powdery iris encapsulated in a waxy and buttery layer, sharing the limelight with an elegant suede note.

A balancing act leaning towards plastic doll head, vibrating but manages to stay on the right side of the line.

I can feel this one very clear. It's texture is of an old oil painting with thick, hard portions between strokes in different directions. At first sight irregular and random, but stroking away the dust that covers it tells you it is made with great thoughtfullness and care.

OSANG, Talismans Collezione Preziosa

Today I am wearing Osang, by Talismans Collezione Preziosa. Osang has been a special scent for me since I smelled it for the first time. In the beginning, wearing it made me anxious in some kind of way, that mix between anxious and nervous. Still, I loved it, I felt connected to it. It was like Osang crawled under my skin.


After a while I realized that maybe I should change my perspective about when to wear Osang. I have been struggling with depressions and anxiety on and off my whole life, more or less anxious is kind of my mood base line. I have learnt to live with it, in the background or in the foreground, depending on which day it is. I started wearing Osang on those days when my anxiety levels already were high. At that point something happened. Osang turned into my own anxiety, the one I'm familiar with, and worked as a shield against the bad anxiety coming from the outside. Osang made me feel safe. 



Regarding tactile sensations and texture, Osang brings me the feeling of clay. The feeling of your fingers going back and forth over a piece of half-dried clay. Neither dry nor wet, even though it leans more towards dry. It's a mixture of roughness, dry dustiness, still something a bit wet and cold. Looking at your fingers after touching it, putting your fingers together, rubbing them against each other, a scraping sound and a feeling that is a bit unpleasant and fascinating at the same time. 


What and why

These are my first shaky steps in the attempt to blog about perfumes in the way I experience them. english is not my native language, so its not gonna be easy to translate what I perceive and already need a lot of energy to manage putting down in words. But its worth a try, right?

Who am I and what do I perceive? I am a huge fragrance enthusiast. I love perfume and spend a lot of time smelling it, talking about it, reading about it, researching about it... What I've learnt is that my way of perceiving and expressing my experiences of perfumes differs from many others. Not so long ago I learnt why. A session with a pretty new therapist led to it when he asked me "your synesthesia, is it only linked between olfactory and tactile sensations?"


Well, before that I didn't even know I was a synesthesist. It's not that uncommon actually (not being aware of it, that is) since the way I perceive has always been that way, hence is totally normal in my world. It has never occurred to me that this might differ from other peoples perceptions. He explained further that it was obvious to him after a few meetings with me, hearing me describing experiences and thoughts regarding my olfactory interest. Olfactory sensations in forms of perfume very often translates to my fingers, meaning - I feel what I smell. Not what I smell per se, but the picture or feeling of the olfactive impression brings a tactile sensation to my fingers that feels as I am actually touching something.


Most often, I experience perfumes in a mixed kind of olfactory and tactile way. Therefore, it feels natural to me to describe perfumes in terms of tactile terms as well. My synesthesia is not the most common kind, I don't read or hear in colors, as many of you might think of when hearing about the functional diversity. From what I can tell thinking about this a bit more since I have gotten aware of it, it is only my olfactory sense that is affected. It's only stimulation of my olfactory sense that leads to automatic response in other sensory pathways. As I wrote earlier it's mostly tactile sensations that are stimulated, but different combinations exists as well. Olfactory - auditory for example, meaning olfactory impressions perceives as sounds. Sometimes it's a mix of these.


Experiencing perfume through your nose "only" is fantastic as it is. There is so much out there that speaks in different voices, being multidimensional. But also feeling and hearing perfumes, that is what makes them so special to me, that is why my interest has grown so big it's undoubtedly a part of my every day life.

My hopes and thoughts with this attempt of a blog is to share my views and thoughts - with others ones as crazy for fumes as I - maybe adding a new perspective or hopefully broaden the minds of the olfactory writing and reviews. Might be interesting for someone else than me, might not be. Either way, it's mindful and destressing for me to write about perfume and olfactory thoughts, and I might as well do it here as in my notebook.