Down The Rabbit Hole

Orange County based fragrance company IBI has just released what they call “The World’s First Spiritual Perfume”, Virtue.

“The natural oils of Virtue(R) blend with the wearer’s own body chemistry to form your own signature fragrance. Uniquely beautiful and definitely unforgettable, it places the wearer in an ancient world of senses, enduring and timeless for over 3,000 years,” says Vicki Pratt, IBI’s president. “A gift for someone special or your own unique treasure, Virtue(R) brings a valued gift of scent and hope of a renewed spiritual self. No one has ever done this before in a perfume - developing a fragrance that reminds us of our, sometimes frail, conscious link to God.” The notes are described as including “top notes of apricot, pomegranate and fig that transition to a gentle heart of iris, warming to a golden base of rich, exotic woods of frankincense, myrrh, aloe, and spikenard.”

Now, I am not a person of faith and I have to admit that when I first read the press release by IBI I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they were going to fall back into my skull. But upon further reflection, IBI isn’t completely full of shit when they say how important fragrance has been, not just in biblical times, but throughout history. The word “perfume” comes from the Latin “per fumum” meaning “through smoke”. In the ancient world, people used to burn incense and other fragrant plants as an offering to their gods. The smoke would lift their prayers to heaven. Perfume became one of the most treasured gifts that one could give another.

There are very few other things in the world that are as individual as perfume, which I think is the reason I love it most. First of all, a single perfume smells completely different on every single person because of body chemistry. Also, scent vocabulary differs from person to person. What is “fresh and clean” to one person may not be to another (trust me, as a person who creates custom fragrances for people all day long, this is a problem I encounter endlessly). One person loves the smell of patchouli, the next person loathes it with every fiber of their being (personally I like it- I did go to college in Santa Cruz - but in small doses).

My boss, Sarah, believes that perfume is an excellent way to bring someone back to themselves, to remind someone of who they are and what they love. I have a fragrance that Sarah made for me, (which I named ‘Athena’), which, every time I wear it, I feel like I’m bathed in liquid sunlight. It has blood orange, gardenia and lavender, sandalwood and vanilla, some of my very favorite scents. When I wear it, I feel like me. So I guess if you are someone who believes in god, there may be a fragrance that reminds you of your faith. One of the women I work with says that frankincense does that for her, because it reminds her of being in church.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think IBI is far off in saying that fragrance can be used as a tool to bring you to a very personal awareness. However, I think IBI is turning personal faith into a marketing ploy, which is just plain gross. Anybody could throw together some oils in a bottle, slap a name like “Virtue” on it and say that it will bring you closer to god. Bullshit. But I think the culture in this country is such right now that there are a lot of unhappy people looking for meaning that will be taken in by something like this, and there are probably thousands of good, pious women who will shell out the $80 just because of the advertising. It’s really sad.

Ahhh, capitalism at its best, eh?