What if the perfume you wear makes you older? "The idea that a youthful scent is fresher is a myth"

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In Spain we like to perfume ourselves, that's a fact. We can't say if we know more or less about perfumes, but the idea of scenting ourselves before leaving the house comes from the cradle, something we have seen at home and we inherit, like blue eyes, a good mane... "Perfume ourselves is part of the tradition: my grandmother perfumes herself, I perfume myself. It's an automated gesture," said perfume expert Daniel Figuero (author of 'Contraperfume', ed. Superflua) in an interview with Yo Dona. But be careful: just because my grandmother perfumed herself, and I learned it from her, doesn't mean I want to smell like my grandmother (at least, not until she reaches her venerable age).

That's why, for example, I don't perfume myself with Chanel's 'Nº5'. It is a wonderful perfume, an icon of fragrances, a landmark, an avant-garde composition for its time -and even today-, where the bouquet of jasmine, rose and ylang-ylang is enhanced with aldehydes, a chemical compound that gives that different and unique note. A perfume that I knew because it was a staple in the dressing table of my aunt Lita, the woman who opened my eyes in many beauty issues -she had a thousand and one cosmetics that are now vintage although still very topical- and her unmistakable smell, the one with which she left a trail in the endless corridor of her stately apartment in Santander (which always smelled of 'Nº5' and tobacco...). A perfume like no other... that my Aunt Lita sits with every time I've tried to use it. To be clear, my aunt Lita was a wonderful lady who smoked elegantly with a mouthpiece, like a Hollywood actress, and wore the 'chaneles' almost better than Chanel (sorry). But the sense of smell, that great friend and sometimes worst enemy, king of the subconscious and nostalgia, and like Proust with his tea and madeleine, makes 'Nº5' transform me into my aunt Lita... At the age when I met Aunt Lita (20 years older than my current self). So, yes, the perfume popularized by Mademoiselle Chanel has been around for years.

Do perfumes have age?

Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer, and my specific case wouldn't serve to create a theory as to whether a perfume, such as certain haircuts or hairstyles, can take years on us or 'age' us from one spray to the next. The Perfume Academy comes to the rescue and does dare to make a speech that goes from my particular to the general: "If a young girl smells the perfume that her grandmother wore, it probably seems like an older person, but if that same perfume is worn by a friend, she will surely perceive it in a different way". Oh, the sense of smell, friend, enemy, deceitful at times... Because the fact that it seems to me that a scent has been on me for years does not mean that the 'smeller' has the same perception...

So, are there perfumes that are more youthful and others that take years on you? Actually, as we discussed, it is more of a perception related to our own experiences with aromas, especially those that persist since childhood. In addition, as the Perfume Academy recognizes, affinity for one perfume or another is something very subjective, it varies depending on personal tastes and also for cultural reasons. Let's take an example: would it be natural for us to say that fresh fragrances are more 'anti-aging'? However, Esperanza Pintado, Dior's perfume expert, is categorical: "The idea that a youthful scent is fresher is a myth."

A myth that, in Spain, has a reason to be a myth: as in our country we usually perfume babies from birth with eau de cologne, it leads us to the fact that fresh fragrances connect us with childhood... The most absolute youth, oh my. In fact, how many adults do we know who are fascinated by baby eau de cologne for themselves?

On the other hand, there are countries that are very familiar with oriental perfumes from a very young age, such as all Arab culture, or in the countries of central Europe, where less fresh and more intense perfumes tend to be liked, as the Academy of Perfume reminds us.

Perfumes young or old: beyond juice

What would be considered then, if it could, a more youthful scent and what instead more 'mature'? Marketing has a lot to say in this. Because many times, as they say in the Academy of Perfume, the fact that a fragrance is considered young is given not so much by its smell but by the aesthetic codes that accompany it. We are talking about elements such as packaging or communication campaigns, which are aimed at a more specific type of audience. An example: 'Fame', a new perfume by Paco Rabanne has as its image Elle Fanning (25 years old), who is described as the face of a generation (hers, Z), with a clear market objective. On the other side, a Dior 'J'Adore', the latest version, 'L'Or', signed by the maison's perfumer, Francis Kurkdjian, which still has, almost 20 years later, the same face, that of a 48-year-old Charlize Theron.

That the world of fantasy and aspiration that is created around a perfume is immense, and conditions the public when it comes to choosing it, has been demonstrated by the experts of the Academy of Perfume, in whose blind tastings they discover how aesthetic codes greatly condition perception, because if you smell without seeing or knowing, The conditioning factor of age often disappears.

Generational perfumes

Whether a perfume is more or less youthful or adult, it has a lot to do with being a child of its time. Like fashion, cars or food, it is nourished by culture, by the pulse of society, by what is breathed in the street. Likewise, perfumery is also cyclical.

This concept was developed for Yo Dona by the perfumer Ane Ayo, a young Spanish nose who is the architect of today's great successes, who notices that the new generations see in the old something modern. Come on, they don't have the scent of their aunts Lita linked to something that ages... Maybe because they never smelled them. "What smells classic or old to us, doesn't smell like it in young people. Apprentices, for example, love 'A Drop d'Issey' because it smells like lilac, a classic ingredient that our grandmothers used. But they're younger, they don't have that reference in their memory. It's something new for them."

We were talking about children's and young people's taste for fresh fragrances in Spain as an ancestral heritage. Nowadays, according to Esperanza Pintado, "the sweetest perfumes are completely addictive for very young consumers. This type of customer has a need to assert herself and chooses fragrances with a surprising impetus and sensuality. The sweetest and most excessive scents that have been in the house have been used by my daughters in their teens. I, on the other hand, at that age used patchouli to make myself strong."

These same sweet and gourmand perfumes can also appeal to older people, as the Perfume Academy adds, which is why "we don't like to say so much that there are perfumes that put years on you, it's more a subjective and personal matter". So it smells good... And don't think about whose age, because each nose will make an interpretation according to its circumstances.

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