Every day seems a different international celebration of *something*, but this one really resonates with me: National Book Lovers Day. Being a self-confessed book-sniffer, and a regular frequenter of bookstores and libraries, I happen to celebrate this particular every day, it’s so wonderful to see the world of fragrance similarly obsessed, in olfactory form…
The smell of paper – old and mysterious or newly seductive – is a huge part of our emotional intelligence, our interconnectivity, with scent and memory combined. In those ancient library type fragrances (which I still absolutely adore) it’s often the combined smell of crumbling leather bindings, dust and polished wooden tables that conjure a feeling of being in a particular space. But the smell of paper itself needn’t always be musty.
We might be in a shiny new bookshop, or have just cracked the spine of a sensorially satisfying weighty magazine. The paper might be that of an artist, awaiting the stroke of a brush, or of a writer’s virgin sheet, greedily thirsting for the first drop of ink.
And while we’re on the subject of books and fragrance, don’t forget to check out our extensive library of book reviews for fragrance fans – we’ve suggestions for everything from novels and poetry inspired by scents, to tomes explaining the history and science of fragrance and our sense of smell. Fill your bookshelves with Fragrant Reads!
In the meantime, there’s several scents to choose from that take paper and ink as their inspiration. Which of these might make your ‘must-smell’ list…?
Diptyque L’Eau Papier
A blank sheet, a pen, ink, ideas: the starting point for this perfumed masterpiece by Fabrice Pellegrin. Conjuring diluted ink and artistic brushstrokes, powdery mimosa and white musks are mistily ethereal, while a rice steam accord builds the textural sense of paperiness, and roasted sesame the ink-soaked pages.
From £129 for 100ml eau de toilette libertylondon.com
Commodity Paper (Personal)
Achingly soft, especially in the ‘Personal’ (most hushed) version, this suggestively whispers of stationery, passing a letter to someone, your fingertips barely brushing, but a gesture that says so much. The molecular wonder of ISO E Super sighs to skin’s warmth, an amber trail that lingers long after you’ve finished the book.
From £130 for 100ml eau de parfum sephora.co.uk
Montblanc Patchouli Ink
Fabrice Pellegrin (clearly a fellow bibliophile!) creates a perfect expression of the ink free-flowing from the sublime craftsmanship of Montblanc’s heritage fountain pens. The patchouli feels richly liquid, instead of the more earthy form it can take in other fragrances; here seamlessly melding ink, paper, and passion.
£125 for 125ml eau de parfum harveynichols.com
Map of the Heart Purple Heart V 5
Inverting the traditional perfume ‘pyramid’ of notes, we plunge straight into darkness with bittersweet black cherry and plum lapped by salty purple roses and liquorice. Deep violet begins to soar, a brightness softened by the soft almond-like powderiness of tonka beans then swathed again in the darkest of inks. It really tells a tale on the skin…
£175 for 90ml eau de parfum mapoftheheart.com
Comme des Garçons 2
Mark Buxton used headspace technology to capture and reproduce the scent of Japanese ink for this lovely play of light and shadow in a fragrance. There’s a sense of cold air from aldehydes and juniper, and drifts of incense with that liquid inkiness, emphasised by labdanum, cedar and shadowy pools of vetiver.
£110 for 100ml eau de parfum libertylondon.com
Written by Suzy Nightingale
