Back in April, I applied to take part in a Mystery Sample Project hosted by Ronny, the propietor of an online niche perfume store called Scent-and-Sensibility in the West Country. You have to live in the UK to be eligible - hurrah!...we Brits are often excluded from prize draws and the like on geographical grounds - and you have to post your unfolding impressions of a mystery scent (supplied by Ronny) on the company's Facebook wall.Unsurprisingly, Ronny was pretty swamped by the interest in her project from UK-based perfumistas, and advised me that it could be a few months before my turn came around. Then yesterday my sample arrived, and I started testing it today: so far on skin, but trials on other media such as paper and fabric are up next...
You can follow the blow by blow meanderings of my confused nose on Facebook - I believe that eventually Ronny puts you out of your misery and tells you what it is in fact that you are smelling. I have played this game before, under the auspices of the Le Labo Synthesthesia workshop, which I documented over on Ça Fleure Bon. I was pretty rubbish at identifying perfume accords in a vacuum back then, and my nasal receptors seem to be living down to their reputation as a finely blunted instrument on this occasion too. I get that Mystery Scent is green, in a grassy/herbal/slightly resinous kind of way, but more rigorous application of nose and mind is called for!
UPDATE
Right, so the game is over, and as it turns out I correctly guessed the name of the Mystery Scent as Narziss by Dorissima. My nose only gets some of the credit for this feat, and my professional skills as a researcher the rest... For I have never smelled Narziss, only it seemed to be the most likely candidate out of all the fragrances in Ronny's online store. A quick glance at past Mystery Scents featured in the Facebook thread confirmed that they were also ones she carried, so I basically checked the notes of all 44 and decided which one the scent I was smelling most closely resembled!
