It’s fruity, it’s woody, it’s David the Gnome & his wife at a rave
June 26, 2024 10:49 AM Subscribe
Sarah Brown on scented candles and perfume descriptions. One of the all-time greats [of fever dream copy] was Byredo announcing their Palermo perfume back in 2010 with this: "With clacking oars the Phoenicians arrived millennia ago to found their center of ancient exchange. Under golden Roman yoke the port gained gleaming palaces and mosaics. Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Byzantines alternately wrecked and rebuilt." Take Jessica DeFino's quiz on whether you can distinguish actual perfumes from fake: “Picture a Barbie melting in a hot car: vanilla, candy floss, white summer florals, hedione, cashmeran, ambroxan, musk, strawberry, ginger. The artificial epitome of sex.”
Give me this drugged-up thesaurus-ass job!
No, give it to me!! Writing unhinged perfume/candle copy seems like a delightful job. I'm imagining, like, the Oracle of Delphi only with candles/perfumes instead of hallucinogenic incense and poisonous gases or whatever the fuck was going on there. Just, like, huff the candle smoke and let yourself be moved by Visions as you type away at the description.
Anyway, another favorite unhinged perfume-related thing: this forum question asking "Are there any perfumes that remind you of Saint Sebastian? That evoke the images of him tied to a tree, impaled by arrows, in transendant ecstacy and/or pain?"
posted by yasaman at 11:11 AM on June 26 [4 favorites]
No, give it to me!! Writing unhinged perfume/candle copy seems like a delightful job. I'm imagining, like, the Oracle of Delphi only with candles/perfumes instead of hallucinogenic incense and poisonous gases or whatever the fuck was going on there. Just, like, huff the candle smoke and let yourself be moved by Visions as you type away at the description.
Anyway, another favorite unhinged perfume-related thing: this forum question asking "Are there any perfumes that remind you of Saint Sebastian? That evoke the images of him tied to a tree, impaled by arrows, in transendant ecstacy and/or pain?"
posted by yasaman at 11:11 AM on June 26 [4 favorites]
When I train beer and wine judges I have to break them of trying to write nonsense descriptions because it's what they're used to seeing from various columns of overwrought copy. It's like having to break young dudes of trying to be the next Hunter S Thompson. (me included in that bunch)
It's fun to write because it's so silly, but, at least, when you're giving feedback to people about their products, it's damn near useless. Be plain, be direct, use images that are accessible to communicate the sensations.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:16 AM on June 26 [3 favorites]
It's fun to write because it's so silly, but, at least, when you're giving feedback to people about their products, it's damn near useless. Be plain, be direct, use images that are accessible to communicate the sensations.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:16 AM on June 26 [3 favorites]
(pouts) Only subscribers get to play the quiz, I wanted to play.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:49 AM on June 26 [2 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:49 AM on June 26 [2 favorites]
Like wine afficianados. I taste a hint of pear and blackberry in the middle of my throat.
posted by Czjewel at 11:59 AM on June 26
posted by Czjewel at 11:59 AM on June 26
Scroll down, EC! Only subscribers can click the real/fake buttons, but the answers are at the bottom for everyone.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have enough hyper-whimsical names/descriptions at this point to train a LLM on (and I’m not going to go check, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they’ve already done it and put out an AI series).
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:02 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have enough hyper-whimsical names/descriptions at this point to train a LLM on (and I’m not going to go check, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they’ve already done it and put out an AI series).
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 12:02 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
If you love bonkers descriptions of fragrances, nearly any review section on Fragrantica can provide you with hours of reading. Descriptions range from things like “smells like snuggling up into the freshly-showered armpit of your boyfriend on a rainy day” to “like Pine Sol, but good” to “this smells like the handkerchief a little girl named Edith would have carried in her pocket in 1931 if she were running through a forest filled with cherry blossoms and licorice whilst eating a piece of fresh shortbread from her granny’s kitchen, a kitchen packed to the gills with birdsong, jam, and wig makers.”
The descriptions, however overblown and hard to parse they can be, are infinitely more helpful than the names of fragrances themselves. 90% of what’s out there smells like car wash air fresheners but is named something like “Lilac Freesia Fantasy.” (Notes: oud, precious blonde woods, musk, with zero lilac or freesia.)
posted by corey flood at 12:27 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
The descriptions, however overblown and hard to parse they can be, are infinitely more helpful than the names of fragrances themselves. 90% of what’s out there smells like car wash air fresheners but is named something like “Lilac Freesia Fantasy.” (Notes: oud, precious blonde woods, musk, with zero lilac or freesia.)
posted by corey flood at 12:27 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
When I train beer and wine judges I have to break them of trying to write nonsense descriptions
Is this amateur or professional? In my experience the homebrew judging community (BJCP) is very down-to-earth, all about very specific technical descriptors rather than lyrical prose. The only warning we give ours is to keep it to descriptions of output rather than process (e.g., feel free to go on about the beer's acetaldehyde content, but don't conjecture on what parts of the brew/fermentation caused that flaw).
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have enough hyper-whimsical names/descriptions at this point to train a LLM on (and I’m not going to go check, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they’ve already done it and put out an AI series).
Here's GPT-2 describing candles, as a taster.
posted by jackbishop at 12:51 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]
Is this amateur or professional? In my experience the homebrew judging community (BJCP) is very down-to-earth, all about very specific technical descriptors rather than lyrical prose. The only warning we give ours is to keep it to descriptions of output rather than process (e.g., feel free to go on about the beer's acetaldehyde content, but don't conjecture on what parts of the brew/fermentation caused that flaw).
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have enough hyper-whimsical names/descriptions at this point to train a LLM on (and I’m not going to go check, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they’ve already done it and put out an AI series).
Here's GPT-2 describing candles, as a taster.
posted by jackbishop at 12:51 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]
Is this amateur or professional? In my experience the homebrew judging community (BJCP) is very down-to-earth, all about very specific technical descriptors rather than lyrical prose.It's both - mostly BJCP though. There's a few different avenues of struggling - don't be overly flowery, don't be uselessly succinct ("nice aroma") and my personal bug - stop being obsessed with flaws. That last one comes down to a side effect of training/drilling so much on flaws in beer. New judges, in particular, get nutty about trying to find at least one trained flaw in every sample.
On the professional side, it's mostly been about getting the beer descriptors to be useful and not silly.
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:04 PM on June 26
I have enjoyed many of Atelier Cologne’s fragrances, but some of the descriptions make me laugh:
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:52 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
Cèdre AtlasThat’s a lot of wintery drama for something that smells like a perfectly pleasant, summer-y citrus/wood men’s cologne.
He woke up suddenly, foggy and out of place. Scenes flashed in his head. They were chasing him. The snowpack was deep. He did not have what they wanted, but they would not believe him if he stopped. So he ran. Exhausted, he fell again. The moment he regained consciousness, a figure approached, she looked at him intently and spoke, «I can help you».
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:52 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]
I'm enjoying perfumes from Sarah Baker recently. The founder is an artist, and the fragrances are all based around storytelling, memory, and fantasy. Today I'm wearing Flame and Fortune, which is described thusly;
Fast cars and sexy encounters. It’s a high-speed car chase through a field of tuberose on fire. You’re driving the getaway car. Indulge in the guilty eroticism of petrochemicals; savour the combination of orange, liqueur, and fire that come together like tempting crêpes Suzette, flambéed right under your nose. Dripping in flame-caramelised orange zest. Gunpowder gourmand.
It's real sexy.
posted by mostlymartha at 12:39 AM on June 27
Fast cars and sexy encounters. It’s a high-speed car chase through a field of tuberose on fire. You’re driving the getaway car. Indulge in the guilty eroticism of petrochemicals; savour the combination of orange, liqueur, and fire that come together like tempting crêpes Suzette, flambéed right under your nose. Dripping in flame-caramelised orange zest. Gunpowder gourmand.
It's real sexy.
posted by mostlymartha at 12:39 AM on June 27
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lit 🕯️
posted by HearHere at 10:57 AM on June 26 [1 favorite]