August 2024 *EDIT* IndieWeb Carnival, "Ritual (Nous sommes du soleil): How I became scentsible"
EDIT: A combination of poor reading skills, and an old RSS post boosted into my current feed, caused me to overlook one crucial bit of information. I read a post in my RSS reader earlier this month about "Rituals" being August's IndieWeb Carnival topic, which prompted my submission below. What I skimmed over, or likely didn't see in the RSS feed, was that this topic dated from August 2024 and not this year. I'm editing my post to reflect the correct year, but otherwise I'm keeping it as is. I'm embarrassed at myself for not catching this error sooner, and many red-faced thanks are due to Steve Ledlow for bringing this to my attention.
The Tangible Life website had hosted August 2024's IndieWeb Carnival under the topic of rituals. Some ideas for discussing rituals are what values they hold for you, how they’ve shaped you, which rituals you’ve outgrown and which ones you keep, whether or not “ritual” is a loaded word, and so on. My own take will be on how I started the ritual in question, why I still keep up with it, and how I view it as a signifier of self.
The French part of the title won't mean much to you if you are under 50 and/or managed to get by in life without exposure to prog-rock.1 But let's skip ahead for now and focus on the other part of the title with the bad pun. Scents and colognes have been a large part of my life, going on several decades now, as I have made it a point to wear one on a near-daily basis. It's as part of getting dressed for me as clothing. I must wear clothing to meet the outside world, but I choose to wear a scent as well. This is my ritual, so let's dive into it.
Part of the maturing process is evolving a style, which is sometimes driven by outside trends. The overall motivator for style evolution comes from your own physical, mental, and emotional growth. Yes, I know there are overgrown children-as-adults who claim that they figured out their life when they were 9 or 13 and they're sticking with the styles they had back then, but I really don't care about them. They're not reading this blog. For the rest of us, we can chart our style evolution through times like elementary school, high school, college, our first post-college job, weddings, funerals, and so forth. This evolution continues after today, so what one wears at 60 is largely different than what one wore at 30. It's a journey through changing times, driven by a changing self. Clothing is part of this journey, and so are the scents you choose to wear.
My scent journey started in high school, likely during my junior year. I'm not particularly clear on the exact year because of what high school meant to me, which could be summed up in one word: "meh." By the time of my freshman year, I was starting at my sixth school in 10 years, living in my fourth city in that same time span. Two of those cities were in the Chicago suburbs, one was in Minneapolis, and one was in rural western Illinois. I was coming into an environment where a large chunk of the student body had known each other since kindergarten and were classmates. Meanwhile, my longest time in one school up to this point was 3 years, covering kindergarten through second grade. When I started high school, I chose not to make many friends or socialize much, as a part of me was just tired of the process of starting all over again. Why should I bother introducing myself to people who would be moving away in a couple of years? What was the point?
Something in me changed around my junior year of high school. I actually started to care about how I was perceived, and I made efforts to be more social and outgoing. Part of that caring was channeled in my appearance, which also included learning how to wear scents. This being the late 1980s, there was only one cologne that mattered: Drakkar Noir. You could smell it in the high school hallways, you could see ads on TV, you could see it hawked in the department stores in the mall. Not surprisingly, Drakkar became one of my first scents. In that mix were a couple of colognes worn by family members: Pierre Cardin, favored by my father; and Gray Flannel, worn by his brother. I would occasionally dip into their collection for my own use, but as I was in my mid-teens, I had no idea of proportions when it came to applying scents. Let's just say it was really easy for my father or uncle to know when I was using their colognes, as I was a precursor to the teen boys of today dousing themselves with body spray.
When I left home for college, I had more money at my disposal, and lots more time on my hands. I began experimenting with different scents that were outside of the upfront, masculine presentations like Drakkar and Pierre Cardin. This experimentation peaked with a Balenciaga Pour Homme cologne that was multi-layered, incredibly complex, and likely the most feminine scent I've ever worn. I'm sure I made quite an impression in rural Iowa during the early 90s when I wore Balenciaga, but I have no regrets. Well, okay, just one: during my second trip to Spokane in 1993 to visit my grandparents--which I wrote about as part of the June IndieWeb Carnival, as seen here--I did not securely protect the cologne in my suitcase. It shattered upon my return home, so my suitcase had an expensive scent embedded in it for years. I can't remember if I replaced the Balenciaga after the original bottle shattered, though I do remember it disappearing from the department stores sometime in the 90s.
The scent journey continues to the present day. My current lineup centers around small-batch, individual producers like Chris Rusak and Fanny Brodar, along with small companies like Portland's Olo. Japan's Commes des Garçons would be a step up in size from Olo, and I've been a fan of their scents for many years. They worked with Monocle magazine to produce four scents, three of which I own today: 01 Hinoki, 02 Laurel, and 04 Yoyogi (L. has the sample of 03 Sugi, which I can clearly say is a woman-only fragrance). In fact, 02 Laurel was my default cologne for several years. These scents aren't exactly cheap, so to help out my wallet, I have lately been mixing in less-expensive colognes that you can buy at stores like Target, such as the Alleged scent by Fine'ry. Finally, I have a real special occasion cologne: an older bottle of Égoïste Platinum in my collection that L. bought for me as a birthday present many years ago. Since it's a Chanel product, I won't be surprised if that scent outlives me.
So that's the story of when, but now let's talk about the why. Why is it important for me to put on a scent? Whether it’s a utilitarian, everyday scent like the Alleged, making an impression with Fanny Brodar’s Shisho, or a feel-good cologne like the CdG/Monocle 02 Laurel, all of these scents are a presentation to the outside world. They are how I choose to show myself on any given day, and as mentioned before, it's as much a part of my wardrobe as the clothes themselves. It is such a part of me that even on days when I work from home and see only L., I feel obligated to wear some sort of scent.
And maybe that one word, “obligated,” explains it all. A scent is a signifier of myself, how I choose to present myself to not just the world, but to me as well. Who I am changes from day to day, depending on mood and circumstances, so with that in mind, why not do the same with the scent or clothing I wear? I feel like I owe myself a presentation I can be happy with, and part of that obligation is met with choosing a scent. On the rare days I go without wearing a scent, I will notice how I feel off-base, that something doesn't settle right. It's not much different than wearing pants that are uncomfortably tight in certain areas, or a shirt whose tag that constantly rubs against your body. Depending on your circumstances, you can easily relieve this discomfort, but even after doing so, you're still a bit unsettled. You're not you, or at least a you that you can live with, and since I carry myself wherever I go, I owe myself to be the best me possible.
On any journey there are obligations to meet, whether to others or to yourself, or to both. How I use scents as part of my journey is how I choose to oblige. It is a ritual I enjoy, one which I have carried forth for decades, and hopefully will have decades more to continue.
And now for something completey different. The French phrase in the title is a repeated mantra from the Yes song "Ritual (Nous sommes du soleil)," which can be found on an album often derided as the peak of prog-rock excess, 1973-74's Tales From Topographic Oceans. I personally cannot call this album the peak of prog-rock excess--not with Emerson, Lake & Palmer standing right there--but I acknowledge that a double album with one song per side, with songs ranging from 18 to 21 minutes in length, can be a bit much to handle. ↩