The Sad Scent of Champagne?

Sometimes context is everything.

The WSJ on Michelle Roark’s Phi-nomenal Fragrances

The Wall Street Journal is best when it sticks to its knitting—financial reporting. Lately, however, it’s been strenuously transforming itself into a general interest newspaper with lifestyle stories, sports pages, helpful household hints, and lots and lots of space-filling pictures (oooh, pictures!).

The latest fluff to float off the Journal’s pages is by Matthew Futterman. He usually churns out sports copy but on Thursday he put his Columbia J-school-certified talent to work on a “Life & Style” story about champion freestyle skier Michelle Roark. The hook: Roark uses a performance-enhancing scent of her own design during ski competition and now makes a business selling it.

Futterman’s piece on Roark illustrates two problems with the Journal’s new hey-we’re-just-like-any-other-paper pose: it’s neither timely nor incisive.  

Let’s start with timely. Michelle Roark has been getting press for her “freestyle skier turns perfumer entrepreneur” story for months: The Deseret News in January 2008, Christian Science Monitor in June, 2008, BusinessWeek in July 2008, Denver Post in January 2009. Last month she was featured in a piece by Howard Berkes on NPR. And two days before Futterman’s piece a Denver Post story made many of the same points.

According to Futterman, Roark’s business “is only in its early stages, with most of her customers local acquaintances in the Denver area.” He also tells us that she “has a salon/spa and perfumery set to open in December.” In other words, this is a story about buzz, not achievement. Unfortunately, the buzz is stale. Worse, it seems inaccurate: according to the other stories, Roark’s perfumery/spa in Denver has been open for months.

Then there’s the matter of incisiveness. Roark sells six blends of essential oils named Confidence, Balance, Focus, etc.

Ms. Roark mixes all of the potions herself at her lab in Denver. She bases the ratios of the oils in her blends on the “Golden Ratio,” also known as the phi, or the number 1.618.

Hear that noise? It’s the alarm on the all-new digital FirstNerve Bogosity Meter—it’s going crazy! It’s not enough that Roark is a champion athlete with a flair for fragrance and self-medication. She’s also discovered a new principle of perfumery: Golden Ratios! Fire Jean-Claude Ellena and get me the new algorithm!

(Yes, I’m aware that Octavian Sever Coifan over at 1000Fragrances recently blogged about the Golden Ratio in perfumery. I have a hard time following his argument but it seems to be about aesthetic principles, not formulation-by-the-numbers.)

Roark’s U.S. Patent Application 20070042933 is titled “Fragrances, cosmetics and other body products based on Phi.” (Her company is called Phi-nomenal Fragrances.) Here’s a taste:

Accordingly, the first embodiment perfume relates to Phi in at least three ways: (i) all ingredients are present in Fibonacci series integer unit multiples; (ii) The ratio of the perfume base to perfume concentrate is Phi; and (iii) the number of ingredients in the perfume is a Fibonacci series integer.

According to Roark, a perfume formula with x ingredients is a Phi-nomenal fragrance if x is a number in the Fibonacci series {1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 . . . .}. Bulgarian rose oil counts as a single ingredient, but so does pure phenylethyl alcohol which is a component of rose oil. And what’s to stop Roark from pre-diluting her raw materials so that they can be combined in perfect Golden Ratios? With rules this fuzzy, I could blend a perfume that corresponds to my area code and phone number.

There’s no hint of reportorial skepticism in Futterman’s story—he could have called any perfumer for a reality check but he didn’t.

Flufferman attempts to give his story some balance by quoting two other people.

Jim Fannin, a motivational guru who has worked with athletes including Alex Rodriguez, said he does not believe there is a universal scent that inspires confidence.

Dude! Quoting a self-identified motivational guru doesn’t inspire confidence either. From the guru’s web site:

More than a ‘life’ coach, Jim Fannin is a ‘change your life’ coach. His S.C.O.R.E.© System empowers people to swiftly become the best they can without inconvenience. Period.

Hey! Will someone please hit the mute button on the Bogosity Meter? Cool. Thanks.

Futterman then delivers this knuckleball:

“The scent is an artifact of the expectation,” said Bert Hayslip, a professor of psychology at the University of North Texas. “An athlete believes it’s important to success, so therefore it is important.”

Whaaaa? How much nonsense can a Regents Professor of Psychology pack into a two sentence quote?

When Michelle Roark sniffs her blend to get into a certain frame of mind, the scent is not an artifact of anything—it’s a scent! The second sentence, which amounts to “wishing makes it so”, is a non sequitur. Professor Hayslip is a prolific researcher on the topic of human aging; he seems out of his depth on the topic of smell and motivation. 

The Wall Street Journal has given us a stale, muddled, bite-sized, lifestyle story dressed up as a groovy buzz piece. Pretty lame stuff. I don’t think it augers well for the paper’s new market positioning which seems to be “We’re just like the New York Times but with a differently flavored editorial page!”

As a fellow smell entrepreneur, I don’t begrudge Michelle Roark her moment in the sun. (In fact, I wish her well.) Nor do I have an opinion on the quality of her fragrances, which I’ve never smelled. For all I know they are very nice and even helpful in achieving certain mental states. It’s just that I won’t be taking Matthew Futterman’s word for any of it.

[Hat tip to Mark G.]

New York Bans the Smell of Autumn

The Middletown Times-Herald Record has the story: no more leaf burning in the Empire State as of today. It’s for your own good of course. Environmental edicts always are.

So who’s the grinch that stole the last smells of fall? That would be Peter Grannis, the Commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. And who elected him? Well, nobody—environmental stewardship is too important to be left to the whims of the electorate. Mr. Grannis was appointed by the recently humiliated governor of New York. No, not that guy. The sex-with-a-call-girl guy.

And what qualifies Mr. Grannis to be environmental commissioner—his scientific background perhaps? No, he has none. He’s a political hack: a lawyer who spent years in the state Assembly representing Manhattan’s gritty Upper East Side. His crusade against “deadly second hand smoke” won him the rapturous applause of anti-tobacco zealots and the Lung Association. According to his official bio, his pastimes include spearheading government intrusions into the markets for housing, auto and flood insurance, and health care. Free people and free markets be damned.

But who wants to make a big deal about those piles of smouldering leaves, anyway? Perfumistas should, that’s who. When Mr. Gannis proposes to ban perfume because of its high VOC content and potentially toxic trace components, do you think his fans at the American Lung Association, the Audubon Society, the Environmental Action Coalition, Common Cause, and the New York State Public Interest Group will suddenly pause, tug at his sleeve and say, “Hey, Pete, maybe we shouldn’t sacrifice beautiful fragrances on the alter of Gaia worship—let’s leave them alone”?

I don’t think so.

Today your leaves, tomorrow your cologne.

No burning leaves for you!

ISDP: The Non-Nosey Neighbor Edition

Welcome to this month’s collection of macabre and malodorous incidents from the Dark Side. The timid and easily offended should seek amusement elsewhere, perhaps here.  

We begin with the case of the stinky “horrorcore” rapper. The horrorcore genre, for those of you hopelessly out of date with current musical trends, features “artists rhyming about raping, killing and mutilating people.”

Richard “Sam” McCroskey, 20, from Castro Valley, California, is an aspiring horrorcore artiste known professionally as “Syko Sam.” He’s suspected of killing his 16-year-old girlfriend, her father and mother, and another girl in Farmville, Virginia. Afterwards, he allegedly stole the father’s car and drove it into a ditch at four in the morning. Police ticketed him for driving without a license and had the car towed. The tow truck driver gave McCroskey a ride as did cab driver Curtis Gibson later that morning. 

Both drivers said they noticed a foul odor on McCroskey. Police have said some of the bodies found in the home were badly decomposed.

“It wasn’t something I’ve never smelled before,” Gibson said.

Grammar aside, we think we know what he means. May he never have to smell it again.

In WTNK, I nominated for a Norman Bates Award the lady who drove from Oklahoma to Florida for five days with the body of her dead mother in the car. A recent news story suggests a strong contender for the 2009 nomination:

A Sebastian woman who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge related to collecting her dead mother’s federal benefits for six years was ordered Monday to serve one year and one day in prison.

Penelope Jordan, 61, was arrested in late March by Sebastian police after they found the decaying body of her mother, Timmie Jordan, in a barricaded bedroom of their Wimbrow Drive home. Jordan told officials she kept the corpse there since her mother’s death in early 2003.

Six years and no whiff of suspicion? I guess Ms. Jordan didn’t have very nosey neighbors.

On September 15, Paula Devlin of The Times-Picayune reported a classic ISDP incident:

A fisherman hunting for grasshoppers found the nude corpse of a woman under a blanket Monday evening in a wooded area of eastern New Orleans, police said.

The man smelled a foul odor, then spotted a hand under a blanket in the 15200 block of Chef Menteur Highway, police said.

Also last month, sheriffs in Yuba County, California made an arrest in a July murder that never made it onto the ISDP radar. The deceased’s body was found when “when neighbors noticed a foul odor coming from his apartment.”

In last month’s edition we told you about the folks in Bloomington, Indiana who thought they were smelling a nearby sewage treatment plant when, in fact, they were detecting the remains of 24-year-old Johnny Turnpaugh. On September 18, Nicholas C. Brooks pleaded not guilty to first degree murder in the case. According to reporter Edith Brady-Lunny, Brooks is charged with “stabbing Turnpaugh and penetrating his skull with an unknown object.” This makes the story’s headline somewhat counter-intuitive:

Normal man pleads not guilty in slaying of 24-year-old.

Finally, although we don’t usually cover foreign affairs at ISDP, this item from Penampang, Malaysia caught our attention. 

Followers of a cult here kept the body of their leader wrapped in plastic for 13 months after his death, while praying for him to be resurrected.

Police remained tight-lipped over the bizarre discovery but it is believed that the body was badly decomposed but neighbours had not complained of a foul smell.

Whoa! So what did draw their attention?

complaints on the chanting of prayers late into the night.

Another Haunting Perfume: Ghosts of “The Uninvited”

As the October nights grow longer and colder, we here at FirstNerve Manor—that Gothic pile down at the end of Lonely Street—like to retire to the study, pour ourselves a brandy, and settle down in front of the fire with a classic ghost story. Naturally (or perhaps unnaturally) our favorites involve specters that announce themselves by smell.

Smells are haunting in more ways than one: they are invisible, they sneak up on you, and they can disappear quickly. Smells go hand in glove with faded memories, lost love, fear, anxiety, and unfulfillable yearnings.

One of the volumes we dust off this time of year is The Uninvited, a 1942 novel by Dorothy Macardle. Set in England in the 1930s, the story centers on Cliff End, an old seaside house in Devonshire. Owned by Commander Meredith, a retired naval officer, it has been empty since the death of his sainted daughter Mary some fifteen years earlier. He now lives in the nearby town with his grand-daughter Stella. The girl’s father, the debauched painter Llewellyn Meredith, died some years after his wife. 

The story’s narrator is Roderick “Roddy” Fitzgerald a young but well-established literary critic who is looking to make a break from the London scene. He wants to find a place in the country to live with his sister Pamela who needs to recuperate after six years spent caring for their late, ailing father.

The siblings happen upon Cliff End and convince the reluctant Commander to sell it. Roddy is charmed by Stella who is a strange mix of upright formality and girlish warmth. Soon enough the new owners experience supernatural “disturbances”—moaning, sobbing voices, vaporous apparitions, cold air, and the sweet smell of Parfum Mimosa. The locals believe these are the caused by the uneasy spirit of Mary Meredith who was killed in a suspicious fall from the cliff. The incident involved a beautiful and mercurial Spanish woman named Carmel, who was Llewellyn’s artist model and more.

Stella worships the memory of her mother and wears Parfum Mimosa herself. The fact that she and the Fitzgeralds associate the spectral perfume with comforting and warm emotions (in contrast to the terrifying, fog-like ghost that also visits) is an early clue that the haunting of Cliff End is the result of dueling spirits.

The plot involves lots of characters and plenty of misdirection. There’s Father Anson the priest who recommends exorcism, Lizzie Flynn, the Fitzgerald’s longtime cook and housekeeper, Dr. Scott the socially inept town doctor who’s soft on Pamela, and the daunting Miss Holloway, proprietor of the Centre of Healing through Harmony who was a nurse to Mary Meredith and later Stella’s governess. Roderick and his sister go down several blind alleys in their attempts to unravel the mystery—which become more desperate once Roderick falls in love with Stella and the Commander decides to send her away. 

Parfum Mimosa—its sweet floral character, its origins, and its mood effects—is one of the keys that eventually reveals the true identities of the story’s ghosts. Macardle deftly weaves the perfume into the story, along with occasional other smells that bring the local settings to life. Perhaps because it’s a British novel of a certain vintage, the characters do an enormous amount of eating, drinking and smoking. It’s a hard book to read without having something handy to munch on . . .

In 1944 The Uninivited was made into a movie starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey as the Fitzgeralds and Gail Russell as Stella. The film score by Victor Young included the instrumental theme song Stella by Starlight. Ned Washington set lyrics to it a couple of years later and it’s been a jazz standard ever since.