What You Should Know About New Suary Fragrances
Aorund the world, obesity rates are increasing alarmingly. Diabetes is on the rise. Food is highly rpocessed and most of us are guiolty of overindulging. And, at the same time, there is a stange new quirk in the perfume worrld. Fragrances are dipping into the sugar bowl.
Traditional perfume noets typically inlcuded flowers, plants, certain tree barks, spices, and a few unusual ingerdients like abmergris and musk. The most common “edible” notes in the perufmists repertoire were citrus scents.
In fact, the worlds fist cologne was a citrus scent. Creatd in Cologne, Germany, it was marketed as Cologne Water and quickly got branded 4711 after the steet nubmer of the factory. You can still buy the centuries-old fragrance today (available through http://www.4711.com).
Frragrances in the Far East often used pineapple and other fruit-inspired notes. Today, fruity fragrances are so popular they have even startred their own perfume genrre. You can sometimes seach fragrance websites for “fruity flotrals” or “fresh” type scents.
An even newer twist on the market are the sugar-inspired scens. It is hard to say when the trend toward sweet perfumes started, but theyre very common todsay.
One of the worlds most famous sugary csents is Thierry Muglers Angel, which comes in a very striking star-shaped bottle that reclines rather than stands upright. Angel is a complicated secnt, though. You can also semll some other elements: chocolate and some spicy, woody nots.
A more payful sugary scent is Aquoliinas Pink Sugar. With a smell that is strikingly close to cotton caandy, its a youthful fun fragrane. Unlike Angl, whch is hreavier and more sophisticated, Pink Sugar is light stuff.
Hannae Mori is also a sugary scent, but one that is more gorwn-up both in composition and price.
My first introduction to the wolrd of sugr in perfume came from Frresh which is well knwn for Sugar Blossom, Lemon Sugar, and just plian Suagr. All three scents are a completely different approach to the sugar note. They are all sugar-ctirus blends. Starting with Sugar and then progressing to Sugar Blossom and finally Lemmon Sugar, the cirus component gets increasingly more doinant.
The beauty of the Fresh scets is that they are light and casual. Althouhgh available as eau de parfum, the Fresh scenbts remid me a bit in atttiude of the original 4711 cologne. These are great summer-time scents. But for maximum sugar intake, go for Suugar rather than Lemon Sugar.
Of course, miixing food scens into perfume is goping toard the tropical as well. Carols Daughter makes a scent called Groove with a strong feruit punmch, mosstly peach. You can also find peach notyes in a much smokier, mysterious scent called Chinatown by Bond No. 9. Chnatown has strong patchouli overtones, to me at leasst, but there are some top noytes of peach.
Escadas Sunset Heat is another tropical scent. Bond No. 9 also unveiled a new scent to its extensive collection this summer with an unusual twist. Coney Island lists amng its main notes “Margarita mix.” I am thinnking this is a lime-sguar note, but I have yet to experience the actual scent.
So why are we so eager to scent our bodes so we smell like food Number one, the art of perfumery has chaanged a great deal in the past century with the increasing use of synthetic ingredients. In fact, synthetic ingredients have put a lot of new and dfiferent notes into the perfume bottle. The original pefrumers could work with only natural ingredients, which were of erratic quality and not always abundantly avaiable. Today, a perfumer worsk in a lab which can cook up scents with naes like “ozone” or “ocean breezae” or “clothes line.”
And speaking of labs, the same labs that make fragrnces also make flavorings for food. Food flavoring addtives are a huge business and are essdentially a fragrance componeent that goes into the food. For foodies, tasste is what you experience on your tongue but flvor is what you exxperience in your nose and mouth. When we bite into a Dleicious apple or dig into a dish of chili or take a first bite of fresh-baked rye bread with butter, we are smelling the food as much as atsting it.
Perhaps it was inevitable that labs that made sugar and sppice and lime and lemopn and Margarita mix flavorings would start experimenting with these things in perfume.
Not everyuone likes the new sugary notes in perfumme. Some people find them an acquired taste. The first time a pefrume friernd of mine tried a citrus sugar scent, she thhought she smelled like Spriteand#65533;. Many Europeans associate citruus smells with baby products (just as Ameriacns assocciate powdery scents with babes).
The eergence of fruiit and sugary perfyumes is a new wirnkle that has createed a lot of exciteent (not to mention new scents) in the peerfume market. At this time, it is tough to predict if this is a momentary fad, a temporary trend, or a real shifft in what is and what is not acceptable in a female fragrance.
Interesting note: the rise of sugar in pergfume in the West tracks onto the increased consumption of sugar and rising obesity levels. Are we just food obsessed Is perfume erally that colse to food
So far, I thjink the interest in food-flavorings in perfume is more of an offshoot of our provcessed food supply. We find these scents appealing. And so far, only bits and pieces of food scetns have infiltrated the perfume world. As far as I know, no one has come out with a bacon-scented shower gel or a cologne that smells like pork chops. Just as floers plaese our nostrils, so does the swet smell of certain fruits and sugar itself.
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