What is the Perfume Project?

This blog is a constantly evolving forum for thoughts on perfume, perfume-making, plants (especially orchids and flora of the Pacific Northwest) and life in general. It started out chronicling the adventures of Olympic Orchids Perfumes, established in July 2010, and has expanded in other directions. A big part of the blog is thinking about the ongoing process of learning and experimentation that leads to new perfumes, the exploration of perfumery materials, the theory and practice of perfume making, the challenges of marketing perfumes and other fragrance products, and random observations on philosophy and society. Spam comments will be marked as such and deleted; any comments that go beyond the boundaries of civil discourse will also be deleted. I am grateful to all of you, the readers, who contribute to the blog by commenting and making this a truly interactive perfume project.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

HOARDERS, GROOMERS AND HIDERS


From time to time I take off and go walkabout in my neighborhood, exploring places I wouldn’t normally go. On one of these expeditions I decided to go check out a road that I hadn’t been on for several years. I think my neglect of this area was partly because it’s in an odd location, accessed from an intersection on a sharp curve on a steep hill with no sight distance in any direction from either road, and no shoulders to walk on initially. However, I think the main reason was that it’s not obviously a road, looking more like a driveway, and I just didn’t think to go there. Once on the road, it’s OK for walking, and actually provides some fascinating sights along the way.

The neighborhood is interesting because it’s a mosaic of older houses, probably built in the 1950s through 1970s, and new developments that have sprung up within the past 5 years or so. The older houses all have large lots and range in style from one that practically looks like a fancy country estate to rickety old buildings surrounded by a wasteland of weeds and blackberries. The new houses are crammed close together on small lots, and are all built in the currently popular style of a big rectangular wooden box with a faux-craftsman façade on the part of the front that isn’t occupied by a garage entrance. The feature that all of the houses have in common is way too many vehicles parked in front of them, not surprising I suppose given that this part of the county has no public transportation to speak of.

The real contrast, however, is between the houses that are clearly occupied by hoarders and those occupied by compulsively neat people, at least as regards the exterior of their dwellings. There are a surprising number of outdoor hoarder houses in this neighborhood. These are the houses where the front yard is completely filled with junk vehicles in various states of disrepair, old parts of buildings, rusty bits of ironwork, disintegrating plastic bags full of garbage, old sofas with moss growing on them, and other less vegetation-friendly furniture and appliances. We do have weekly garbage pickup, junkyards, and other disposal and recycling services, so I can’t help wondering why people collect garbage in their yards. I suppose it makes a fashion statement of some kind. Maybe they consider it art, which it could conceivably be if it were picked up on a truck and hauled to a museum so that it could be viewed with a card explaining its deep significance.

The people on the other end of the spectrum must spend all of their time (or someone else’s) grooming their property. There’s always a blanket of freshly trimmed bright green grass with not a leaf or twig in sight to mar its uniformity, a sidewalk of some sort, freshly swept so that there’s not a grain of sand in sight to mar its smoothness, and various shrubs severely pruned into symmetrical cubes or spheres, with not a leaf out of place. Poor plants. The people who spend enormous effort trying to hold back the tendencies of nature and rigorously control the landscape are as incomprehensible to me as the ones who place all of their long-discarded and decaying items on full display. Maybe they’re two ends on a circular spectrum of compulsion.

Somewhere in between these extremes, or off the spectrum, are the people who pimp out their yards with statuary, little ponds or fountains, trimmed-poodle trees, and labor-intensive annual flower beds, or the people who hide behind great walls of overgrown vegetation, needing a machete to get from the street to the front door, wherever it is.

As a person who owns an enormous number of perfumes in different forms, I have to think about how my perfume storage areas relate to the types of landscaping people choose. I don’t display any of my perfumes publicly, so maybe my perfume holding areas don’t even qualify because they’re more like the fenced private back yard that no one but family and good friends ever see. With bottles I’m probably most like the hoarder who keeps everything reasonably neatly piled in a closet, thinking I might use it some day. With samples, I’m like the geek collector who keeps everything neatly cataloged and accessible for perusal at any time. However, for every sample in my organized “library”, there are ten samples junked in disorderly boxes waiting to be tested, so there the junk-collector aesthetic applies.

What sort of perfume-keeper are you? Are you a public hoarder who puts your whole disorderly collection out in plain sight? Are you a groomer who lines your bottles up neatly in a display, maybe in alphabetical order or by size or color of bottle, and dusts them regularly? Do you pimp-out your perfume display with fancy shelves, ornaments, plastic flowers, or other accessories? Do you keep your stash hidden behind closed doors in a neat or disorganized condition? Is it art? 

[To avoid implicating anyone in my extended neighborhood, all photos are taken from Wikimedia] 

13 comments:

  1. I'm a little boring when it comes to my perfumes. I was getting fed up with myself because I had too many to wear for a while. Once I gave quite a few away, I wanted to be sure to appreciate and wear the rest. So at the beginning of each month, I choose about ten perfumes around a certain theme of my choice, and display them on top of just one bookcase. It could be "Cool Japanese Bottles", or "Department Store Treasures" or whatever. I make sure to wear them that month, and maybe post a review on Makeupalley if I have time. It's been working pretty well.
    I don't get the junked cars in the yard, either. I thought that was just a Southern thing, because it's very common down here, but I guess it's up in the Northwest, too! It's just so darned weird....

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    1. Marla, what a good idea to have a rotating collection set out in a prominent place to wear!

      Here the junked cars are supplemented by old furniture, scrap building material and appliances. Here people collect them. In Arizona, they take them out in the desert and shoot them.

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  2. I think perfume keeping, like any other activity, can be considered as an art.
    My perfumes, a small quantity collection, are hidden in a closet. It is sort of organized for myself.

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    1. Farbod, in a closet sort of organized for yourself sounds similar to my strategy. If you know where things are, more or less, it works.

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  3. My perfumes are mostly stashed away in boxes, ostensibly by bottle size and theme (but they generally don't stay in the right place for very long). I am planning on moving cross country in the near-ish future, so I am trying not to let it grow completely out of control before then!

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    1. Yuki, I'm ashamed to say that haven't gotten around to sending your last drawing prize, so maybe I should wait until you move :-) Are you moving to the West Coast?

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    2. I am! It won't be permanent for at least 5 or 6 months, but I do have a California mailing address if that would be more convenient for you :)

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    3. (If that does turn out to work better for you, please just shoot me an email and I can give you the CA address...I didn't think to mention this sooner sorry!)

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    4. Yes, please give me your CA address and the date when you will be there. There's no need for you to pack and transport one more thing (and I have just the thing for you!)

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  4. Hi Ellen,
    A couple of nights ago I was having nightmare about my perfume storage. I have tried to organize it so many times but, as I pull things out from the various cupboards and boxes in the "cellar" and upstairs, I never manage to return them to the same place (except for the indies who are neatly boxed by perfumer). At one point I tried to catalogue and photograph everything but did not keep up with the plan. That being said, I operate on a modified seasonal rotation. Right now there are about 40 bottles "displayed"on a dresser top. These I consider good for the current weather conditions, my state of mind and the general November vibe. Some will be left out for December but most will be returned to the ever growing, disorganized hoard. The sample stash is yet another story. I believe, as a perfume prepper, that I am just about ready for the perfume apocalypse!
    Gail
    Gail

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    1. The perfume apocalypse, coming to the Pacific Northwest soon! It will probably strike us both.

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    2. perfume is wonderful, i always use it with my clothes

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  5. My bottles and vials are contained in baskets and cute boxes. If I leave them out, the cats knock them down to the floor and roll them under the bed!

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