Fragrance

If you are a woman who loves to wear fragrance but only if it's not too floral or girly, maybe it's time to expand your choices. This year, why not try a men's scent? Odd? Not at all. Much, if not most, fragrance is unisex. It's mainly the packaging, marketing and strength of the fragrance that categorize it as "male" or "female" and determine in which part of the department store the bottle is sold. "I think it's really quite outmoded to talk in terms of male and female fragrance anyhow," says Mandy Aftel, owner and perfumer of Aftelier Perfumes, an artisinal perfumery in Berkeley.

Eat. Pray. Love. Spritz. Now inhale deeply and feel your life transform. It's only May, but 2012 is already shaping up as the year perfume wafted from the lively online blogs and into mainstream publishing in a big way. These days, new fragrance releases are greeted - and critiqued - with the intellectual sophistication formerly reserved for Paris fashion shows. Perfume is an art form and the "noses" who compose cutting-edge fragrances are rock stars. Writers, always hip to the zeitgeist, are avidly chronicling this renaissance and some books have even inspired their own perfumes.

What should a man smell like? This is not an inquiry to be undertaken lightly - particularly at this time of the year when the gantlet of parties, events and mixers that stretches from Thanksgiving into the new year is destined to put the fragrance profiles of near strangers beneath our noses as surely as stockings dangle from the fireplace mantle. It's a timely question for other reasons. According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, one-quarter of all annual sales in the prestige fragrance category (defined as the scents sold at the department store level and higher)

Forget new car, percolating java or even newborn baby. I realize it now: I love the smell of fresh MacBook in the morning. "A distinctive scent can be observed when unwrapping a newly purchased Apple product from its packaging," according to Air Aroma's blog post .  "Apple fans will certainly recognize this smell. " Although I do distinctly remember the smell of my most recent MacBook's unwrapping in November, I think I mistook that for excitement and elation -- and the smell of $1,100 leaving my account.

When Catherine Deneuve said: "He knows what you want . . ." on a television commercial some years back, what "you" wanted was Chanel No. 5, the fragrance she was under contract to at the time. Today, she has another answer to what you want. It's called Deneuve. And it's her own fragrance this time, created by the French film star with the help of Parfums Phenix, manufacturers of the $165-per-ounce scent.

It all began at age 12, when I spent my 25-cent allowance for a creamy white, yellow-throated freesia for my aging Aunt Eleanor. At that time, going into New York City and up to my aunt's 20th-floor apartment was high adventure. Wafts of heady scent from my gift freesia on the windowsill filled the room, dispelled the gloom of the treeless gray, noisy city below and sealed our tryst. Decades later, in pursuit of that freesia magic, I researched the mystery of fragrance.

If sniffing the countless designer fragrances displayed on department store counters leaves you befuddled, or if constantly rubbing your wrist on the flaps of perfumed paper in fashion magazines has pushed your olfactory glands into revolt, you may want to consider a custom concoction. Blending a bespoke scent offers the experience of creating something tailored to your favorite notes and a chance to focus on the intimate details of who you are as a person. "People want to be taken somewhere else, yet they also want to locate something of their own familiar essence as well," said Alexandra Balahoutis, owner of Strange Invisible, a high-end perfume shop in Venice.

A slender bottle of serge lutens' Fleurs d'Oranger, Sophia Coppola's favorite orange blossom scent; an apothecary jar of chartreuse-colored Absolute Absinthe, with hints of cannabis, black tea and lotus flowers; a faceted Art Deco bottle of L'Artisan Parfumeur Passage D'Enfer, evoking sweet roses and ginger until something slightly dark and intriguing creeps in, a whisper of frankincense, a smidgen of cedar. They're all on the shelves of Apothia, the jewel box of a fragrance boutique at Fred Segal on Melrose that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month.

Men, if you've been looking for a manly fistful of fragrance, a scent that, say, invokes the adrenaline rush of NASCAR rather than a shirtless jog on the beach, take a deep breath -- the industry is paying attention to the growing percentage of guys who are taking care of their own grooming and buying their own scents. That's why, alongside faces like Matthew McConaughey and James Franco (shilling for Dolce & Gabbana's the One and Gucci by Gucci, respectively), you're likely to see rapper 50 Cent pitching Power, and Common promoting Diesel's Only the Brave.

Have you been feeling a little down lately? Maybe it's the weather. The rainy days we've had this winter just might touch off a mild case of seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression that experts say generally appears during late fall or early winter, when sunshine is scarce. For serious cases, treatment includes light therapy, medications and psychotherapy. But for those of us who are just having a gloomy day or two, there are beauty products that claim to elevate mood.

Lately, it seems you don't have to be anywhere near a garden to stop and smell the roses. Smell is the latest way that businesses are attempting to woo customers, whether it be the vanilla and cloves wafting through the air at Williams-Sonoma or the pungent smell of colognes at trendy clothing chains. Technology to spread the scents has become more elaborate and includes a device that pumps fragrances through ventilation systems. And it's all in an effort to create scent branding that helps to attract and keep customers.

What should a man smell like? This is not an inquiry to be undertaken lightly - particularly at this time of the year when the gantlet of parties, events and mixers that stretches from Thanksgiving into the new year is destined to put the fragrance profiles of near strangers beneath our noses as surely as stockings dangle from the fireplace mantle. It's a timely question for other reasons. According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, one-quarter of all annual sales in the prestige fragrance category (defined as the scents sold at the department store level and higher)

Anyone who's ever been trapped in a crowded elevator intrinsically understands: Few people are gifted with noses so finely tuned to fragrance that they can distinguish between scents that allure and ones that merely annoy. Scents that fall into both categories — and the entire spectrum in between — were chonicled in the 2008 "Perfumes: The Guide. " That book has now been culled to 100 classics in the authors' new "The Little Book of Perfumes," which is scheduled to go on sale Monday.

When you're sitting in Paris Hilton's living room, plenty of things catch your attention. The half-dozen dogs, three Munchkin cats (bred to have absurdly miniature legs), and one 150-pound pot-bellied pig sashaying around the backyard pool. The Pepto-Bismol-pink Maserati in the driveway, next to the powder-blue Maserati. The throw pillows emblazoned with pictures of her famous face. The two gigantic nudes of herself on opposing walls, displayed above gold-trimmed couches. But it's the voice — that's the thing that stands out most when you sit down for a talk with Paris Hilton.

Having conquered reality television, the Kardashians are fashioning a celebrity retail powerhouse. Beyond the glittery red carpets and steamy tabloid fodder, the famous family has transformed itself into a branding machine, quickly leveraging the hype into a retail empire worth tens of millions of dollars. Unlike other reality-stars-turned-entrepreneurs such as Snooki of "Jersey Shore" fame or Lauren Conrad of "The Hills," the Kardashians are in a class by themselves and unfazed by skeptics who doubt they can keep it up for the long haul.

If you are a woman who loves to wear fragrance but only if it's not too floral or girly, maybe it's time to expand your choices. This year, why not try a men's scent? Odd? Not at all. Much, if not most, fragrance is unisex. It's mainly the packaging, marketing and strength of the fragrance that categorize it as "male" or "female" and determine in which part of the department store the bottle is sold. "I think it's really quite outmoded to talk in terms of male and female fragrance anyhow," says Mandy Aftel, owner and perfumer of Aftelier Perfumes, an artisinal perfumery in Berkeley.

Survey a group of beauty-conscious Americans and many would undoubtedly agree that a Paris Hilton fragrance is for teenagers or twentysomethings and the sophisticated strength of Chanel No. 5 is for your grandmother. Certain scents typically have certain age associations. But ultimately, what makes a scent "young" or "old" is subjective. While most perfumers agree that simple and sweet, fruity florals are the scent of preference for women and girls who are likely to have seen "New Moon," and that big, powdery, floral bouquets are most often worn by older women, that perception is largely dependent on one's personal interaction with the fragrance.

Lately, it seems you don't have to be anywhere near a garden to stop and smell the roses. Smell is the latest way that businesses are attempting to woo customers, whether it be the vanilla and cloves wafting through the air at Williams-Sonoma or the pungent smell of colognes at trendy clothing chains. Technology to spread the scents has become more elaborate and includes a device that pumps fragrances through ventilation systems. And it's all in an effort to create scent branding that helps to attract and keep customers.

We all read food labels for nutritional content but what’s in everyday household products? It turns out the chemicals in fresh-smelling laundry detergents, air fresheners and cleaning supplies may not be as nice as their scent. The Health Notes blog of the Newport News Daily Press points to a recent University of Washington study that found nearly a quarter of the chemicals emitted by products containing fragrance mixtures were classified as toxic or hazardous by federal standards.

Have you been feeling a little down lately? Maybe it's the weather. The rainy days we've had this winter just might touch off a mild case of seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression that experts say generally appears during late fall or early winter, when sunshine is scarce. For serious cases, treatment includes light therapy, medications and psychotherapy. But for those of us who are just having a gloomy day or two, there are beauty products that claim to elevate mood.