The Scented Salamander in the New Yahoo Shine Get It Guide & a Note on Grandma Smell at the Sensorium...Really? {Scented Thoughts}

The editors at the new Yahoo Shine Get It Guide wrote that they highlighted the contribution of The Scented Salamander blog on celebrity fragrances after requesting a contribution on the topic as an Insider: see the piece that made it: 6 New Celebrity Fragrances to Try Out This Fall.

Thanks for the feedback (and the link!) They also report that the new Yahoo guide has 24,134,412 millions unique visitors per month. Thanks again and congrats!

We also wanted to call attention to a detailed visit of the Sensorium by The Style and Beauty Doctor blog, adding our own commentary on a well-known topic that Sephora-Sensorium picks up again, "Grandma Smell" ....

Wow! I had no idea Sephora-Sensorium were going above and beyond the call of duty. Sensorium do not just want to educate you, they apparently want to indoctrinate you and pose deep, probing questions. Case in point "Grandma Smell", a concept fraught with prejudice and uncertainty which becomes crystal-clear under their pen:

"What causes "Old Lady Smell?"(thanks for the precautionary quotation marks)"

But read on,

1) First of all, you're doomed:

"Body chemistry changes overtime: your favorite scent might not smell so good on you."

Cue in Jaws film music: and think of all the other potential sources of social anxiety: garlic, hormones, dirty clingy kids, smelly elevator that you can't help even with your costly niche perfume, and so on. But you're doomed anyway, because unless you die, you will age, and when you do, you will smell of an old lady smell...even if you're an old man. What could be worse than wafting of an old lady smell when you're an old man?

For some reason, old men escape the laser-sharp scrutiny of Sensorium. We are left to wonder, what do old men smell like?

2) "Perfume spoils: saving it for special occasions increases the likelihood that it's gone bad."

What does that have to do with the concept of "old lady smell" (even in between quotation marks)? Apparently, old perfume equates for some the smell of old lady. Even if you cannot escape old age (unless you die), you can still try to beat some of the odds by using a lot of perfume to cover your naturally aged smell. Do not restrain yourseves. Apply. Reapply. Repeat. Do not let your perfume spoil. Buy it fresh from Sephora. You are being warned.

3) "What smells modern changes quickly just like fashion and music. Something can smell old-fashioned, even on a young person."

Now, it all sounds like a desperate situation. The young are not even spared. It's become a widespread disease. Even the youthful youngins can smell of an old lady smell.

So that in the end, and if we understand them correctly, there is no old lady smell that exists as such since each and everyone can smell of an old lady smell, at all ages. Statement #1 is voided. Old lady smell knows no barrier. It is pervasive. It is relentlessly threatening and creeping, invisible a danger. You could be smelling of an old lady smell right now, without knowing it. Sniff yourself. Can you tell? Otherwise ask people around you: do you detect an old lady smell? When they ask what does an old lady smell like, whistle for an old lady, she will appear and then you can sample her. Please report back.

Wouldn't it have been better if they had called attention to the use of social discrimination (agism here) expressed in olfactory language to suggest to people to watch and rethink their expressions, instead of lending it some biological, practical, and fashion credentials (Not!)?

More pictures and commentary at The Style and Beauty Doctor blog