Becalmed, bemused, and beset by doubts: a belated Bonkers bulletin

 

I have been blitzing my Christmas cards this week, and while writing them I re-read a handful from last year where the sender had included a long message on the card or in a separate letter. Two of these friends - neither of them perfume lovers, or even wearers for all I know - urged me to carry on with the blog: one said they enjoyed the French travelogues in particular, and another that it was a good way to keep in touch with my news. Then last week I also caught up with a long lost fellow student from my university days, who revealed that he had also been reading Bonkers, pretty much from start to finish(!), while conceding that he skimmed over the posts that were overly perfume-y in their focus, which - mercifully for his sake - is most of them. I was still extremely impressed (and flattered) by his tenacity to work his way through 16 years' worth of output, however cursorily here and there. 

During my absence from the blogosphere I have still had many conversations with friends - and strangers! - about scent, and about smells more generally. My hairdresser turned out to have tried a couple of Byredo dupes in T K Maxx (Safran Noir and Mystique by Milestone Perfumes), while a checkout lady at Home Bargains enlisted my help to identify the source of a nasty plastic smell, inviting me to sniff the pile of 30p bags for life by her till. "I don't think it's coming from these", she mused, "I bet it's from these dearer thicker ones I keep under the counter. The smell must be wafting up..." "Oh yes, smell this", she added, thrusting a boxy plastic tote in my face. Well, I couldn't smell anything untoward, and was awestruck at the keenness of her nose.

All of the above reminded me that I haven't posted anything since April, and got me wondering why. But first, on a side note, I am still using that Effaclar Duo spot zapper cream that features in my last post - on two impudent red bumps on my chin currently - and very good stuff it is too.

I think the first reason for my silence is that I said to myself that if I parked the blog, I would have more time to devote to travel writing, which was something I have always felt more qualified to do than posting about perfume. I had long given up the idea of a book with a narrative arc, so was thinking more along the lines of a collection of pieces drawn from my travels to the house in France, or my adventures on work trips, or on tours with the band. Sorry to say that I have probably spent about half a day in total on sorting out some material to include(!). Probably about 10,000 words' worth, but that is not much to show for an eight month hiatus.

 

 

Another reason - though this only applies to the last two months - has been my grief at the loss of Truffle. For readers who are not in contact with me on Facebook or Instagram where I announced this news, she was hit by some kind of vehicle back in September, possibly by an electric scooter or bike that was riding on the pavement, as she was very "car aware". I'll never know, but due to her catastrophic injuries I had to instruct the vet to put her to sleep over the phone, as I was in France when this happened. I felt terrible that I hadn't been at home at the time, and with Truffle at the end, but on the other hand due to my pathological blood phobia it was perhaps for the best that I wasn't there, and that her heroic cat feeder dealt on the ground with the whole tragic business. 

A third reason is my feeling conflicted lately about the direction the perfume market is going in: on the one hand, there seems to have been a major hike in the prices of niche and designer brands lately - which may well be for justifiable reasons, but this isn't obvious to the consumer. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale there has been an explosion in dupe companies, possibly profiting from customers' unwillingness or inability to shell out over a ton sometimes for 50ml - I remember when that size of bottle cost more like £60. The erosion of market share brought about by these copycat scents may in turn force the established brands to recoup their losses by upping their prices even further. I do understand how the brands feel betrayed, but I am also uncomfortable about the unaffordability of fragrance these days for those on a modest income. It's a conundrum. Travel sizes / purse sprays are certainly a helpful solution in those circumstances, though they are not always available, or not singly. And apart from this head to head battle, there is my ongoing gripe about the proliferation of new (supposedly niche) brands, keen to jump on the bandwagon of what is still a high margin product, but failing to produce scents of true quality. I don't doubt that there are interesting, mould-breaking brands tucked away somewhere in the tsunami of new launches, but I simply don't have the strength to winnow the chaff and find them. I still enjoy wearing perfume, but - perhaps unfairly - have zoned out to the myriad new kids on the block.

 

A fourth reason is the rise of Chat GPT!, and the realisation that it could eventually make me redundant. Don't laugh, but I asked it to write a perfume review in the manner of Bonkers about Perfume, and in about three zillionths of a second it came up with something eerily close to my house style. It had a gratifying amount of alliteration in the title, hehe, of which I can only recall "Vexatious Vetiver" - unfortunately the original seems to have disappeared. I asked it to have another go, and it answered:

 "Here's a fresh one for you - a perfume review in the style of Bonkers about Perfume (warm, chatty, slightly rambling, gently self-mocking, with domestic asides and an amused tone)."

Why, that's me to a "t"! Or how I aspire to be. This new content was also scarily similar to a Bonkers post, and entitled: "Review: Moonlit Tea and Crumpled Linen by La Maison Imaginaire". Does Chat GPT realise that that is almost the name of an actual brand? I might post a couple of them sometime - it is astonishing that a piece that might take me several hours to write can be spewed out at the speed of light.

Then there's the fifth reason, which I am not happy about and trying most vigorously to bat away, namely the niggling worry that applying perfume on skin may have some cumulatively harmful effects in the body. I don't know which ones or how much, or after how many years of wearing - if at all! - but there is so much on social media at the moment about the dangers of UPFs, and microplastics, and pesticides on fruit and veg, and environmental pollutants in our water and air, that after a while the fear starts to seep in and make you start to doubt the perfumes you know and love. I am aware that fragrances have had to be reformulated because of carcinogenic concerns hanging over a particular ingredient in a particular combination / quantity, so there must be a grain of truth in it. "So are vintage perfumes less safe then?", my runaway imagination inquired. I am categorically not one of those "Ooh, it's made of chemicals, I shan't touch that" kind of people, but I know that aromachemicals can end up in adipose tissue, the liver and kidneys, and my kidney function has fallen quite sharply in recent years. That may be pure coincidence - correlation is not causation! - and due to something else entirely, but I don't want to put my kidneys under any more strain than I do already by asking them to process the likes of crisps, cheese and ham in my diet.

So there you have it...five reasons for my blog resembling the Marie Celeste. I am not sure where I go from here, or what angle to pursue, if I pursue any at all. I shan't start vlogging, which I know is becoming a key way people "consume" their perfume reviews these days. It's the equivalent of voice notes on WhatsApp, you could say. Some of these videos can be quite long, with unboxings and preambles and whatnot, and you have to watch the whole thing to get to the crux of whether the reviewer actually liked the scent or not - you can't quickly scroll through to get to the key points. But writing generally seems to be on the wane, which may be another reason (No 6!) why I feel Bonkers about Perfume in its present format may have almost run its course.

On the plus side, I have read 61 books so far this year ;), which I may share with readers as I did back in January. So there may be a flutter of life in the old blog yet...

Where are you with your love of perfume? Is it still tiggerish and burning bright, or has your mojo slowed, or even hit the buffers?

 

One last Truffle pic...