Smellscapes: Ghostly Japan & Modern Paris

Kaori Shoji recollects an old smellscape that is making a comeback:

The Showa smell is comprised of a lot of different elements but suffice to say, the notes consist of sweat and mildew, of old wood and damp corners in the house, of oshi-ire (押し入れ Japanese style closets), mothballs and ammonia-based toilet cleaning solutions. It's the smell of people over 60, many say the chief smell of the Showa Period is the koyashi (肥やし fertilizer made mainly from cow, horse and human dung) that reigned supreme over the farms and fields of Japan for centuries.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Marie-Helene Wagner inhales a different sort of funk:

If I had forgotten that it this is the season for linden trees to bloom, they did not let me forget that fact. The other day, walking down Avenue Mozart in Paris was a novel experience as I distinctly smelled in the air the smell of horse stables and manure . . .

On the Fragrance Publicity Beat with . . . The Wall Street Journal?

Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of The Wall Street Journal continues apace. More pictures, more lifestyle stories, more . . . fluff.

From yesterday’s online edition: “The Scent of Angels.”

To celebrate the launch of Thierry Mugler’s Angel Eau de Toilette and the fragrance’s newest spokeswoman, Eva Mendes, the company flew in dozens of guests for a cocktail party Thursday at the IAC building and served truffle pasta and short rib plates. The notoriously reclusive Mr. Mugler made a rare cameo.

The report drops 4 celebrity names in 163 words, for a tabloid respectable CPW rate of 40.7. Extra points for “truffle pasta” and “notoriously reclusive.” Points off for the repetitive redundancy “rare cameo,” and for failing to mention the Eva Mendes nipple slip.

So who does Rupert have churning out this fragrance-fluff? Priya Rao? Marshall Heyman?

No—there’s a new hack in the Journal’s stable. Meet Valentine Uhovski. He’s the young “social scribe” who, along with his creepily ever-present step-sister Olga Rei, founded a short-lived website that provided weekly rankings of New York socialites. Then he wrote for Harvey Weinstein’s online magazine ASmallWorld, a feature of the “private online community” aimed at the world’s rich and fabulous. Recently, he’s been writing for W magazine.

Given his limp on-camera persona, he should probably stick with print.

The Smelly Web Indexes for June 26, 2011

The Solo Blog Index
Close: 96
Change: +10
Big movers: SorceryOfScent +38.4%, FirstNerve +28.0%, OlfactaRama +12.5%, NathanBranch +8.6%, BonkersAboutPerfume +8.3%, PinkManhattan -14.5%, FragranceBouquet -14.1% IndiePerfumes -8.7%,

The Team Blog Index
Close: 121
Change: +4
Big movers: none

The Corporate & Community Site Index
Close: 25
Change: -16
Big movers: TheDryDown -10.6%, Sniffapalooza -10.9%

The Corporate & Community Blog Index got hammered this week. It hasn’t been this low since November/December of last year. There was a fifth consecutive weekly decline at Sniffapalooza, and a fourth at TheDryDown, while BaseNotes eked out its first gain in seven weeks.

One of those periodic bouts of Alexa turbulence hit the Solo Blog Index this week. There were lots of big movers, but the gainers were more numerous and bigger than the losers which pulled the SBI up.

A nice uptick kept the Team Blog Index in the narrow 117 to 123 range it has occupied for the past six weeks.

Stench-hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

Stench hunting isn’t easy.

Stand on a New York City sidewalk next to the window of a ground floor apartment and you could be smelling a French cheese or a pile of dirty diapers. Tough call without any context cues.

Same goes for the brighter end of the olfactory spectrum. You’d think perfumers would use their esoteric knowledge to meet chicks at will. “Wow, I love that Gucci Rush you’re wearing” is an outstanding opening line—as long as it’s correct. However, ID’ing fragrance on skin is notoriously difficult. The potential for humiliation and loss of professional dignity discourages all but the most reckless and horny perfumers from using this approach.

When Molly Young of New York Magazine asked me if I’d accompany her on scent tour of the Lower East Side—specifically the famously malodorous block of Broome Street between Allen and Eldridge—I figured “what the hell?” I have been writing about smellscapes, might as well go check one out.

Ms. Young’s piece—"The Smelliest Block in New York"—was published today, and it turns out she had a hidden agenda; she was intent on identifying the stink at one address in particular. To that end she had previously taken an investigative stroll with someone referred to at FirstNerve Manor as TNYTODPC.

Molly! Why didn’t you tell me you were in touch with MAD’s Curator of Olfactory Art? I would have winched the mothballed BurrOmeter onto the flatbed and driven it in from Jersey. Plus, I could have unloaded a ton of Jean-Claude Ellena bobbleheads over on 14th Street.

Oh well. It’s tough to stay mad at Ms. Young (who is cute as a button). And her story is pretty entertaining.

From the Curator’s Closet: Weekend Quick Sniffs

Another fastidiously curated collection of smelly links for your amusement.

The ladies have had these for years. Now Schick is launching an Xtreme3 razor for men with a scented plastic handle.

[Brand manager] Ms. Nagaraj of Schick said that, for young users, “the scent provides an additional linkage with this razor that strengthens their bond with it.” She added, “Scent is so evocative, and as they grow older we want this scent to be kind of another anchor that’s in their brain for this razor.”

An anchor in my brain? To help me bond with my razor? Really?

USB USMELLSOFINE. We’ve been hearing about these for years. Now a major manufacturer puts them on the market. And yes, it’s for real.

Nanotechnology it’s not. New scent generator sounds like DigiScents without a working prototype. True, this one is getting unveiled in Angewandte Chemie instead of Wired.

Another day, another Corpse Flower Giant Misshapen Penis Plant. This time at UConn Storrs. BTW can someone help Mr. Rick Buell of New London get a life?

“I’ve missed it a few times and I was determined to get here for it this time,” said Rick Buell of New London, who’d been checking with UConn greenhouse officials for weeks about the anticipated bloom, and posed for pictures in front of the plant Friday wearing a shirt with an image of a Titan Arum on the front.

New Fujitsu cell phone 4ChineseGirlz has a “scent chip” by which they mean a chip you spray your scent on. How do you say “lame” in Mandarin?

À la recherche du anosmie perdu. Molly Birnbaum gives away the gist of her book for free in the Times and the Post.