PMP Perfumes Dreckig Bleiben is Inspired by Worldview of Hamburg Punks (2013) {New Perfume}

New niche house PMP Perfumes have released a new, counter-cultural fragrance called Dreckig bleiben in German, an allusion to the greeting phrase used by the Punk movement in Hamburg. Meaning "Stay dirty!" it is a code phrase for adhering to a worldview where dirt signifies authenticity and empathy with everything that takes place in the world,...

"Dreckig bleiben was for years the greet and a saying amongst Hamburg Punks and squatters and is meant as a metaphor for an authentic appreciation of the world: that one feels the people and life itself, that one stays grounded, that one is open for all new things. The dirt is standing for the real things, the authentic and that one cares of what is happening in this world. "

On a creative plane the three participants in the project, perfumer Mark Buxton, co-founders Stefanie Mayr (of Elternhaus) and her partner Daniel Plettenberg (of VALOR) defined their task as going against the grain of a certain functional or perhaps even metaphysical idea of perfume as an identity masker asking the question of what it means not only to smell like oneself but to smell authentic.

The fragrance composition project thus starts with a conundrum which seems almost inextricable at first if you think that perfume has to say who you are through a smell instead of letting you smell naturally - which would be the most authentic option - but then also has to bring out your own unique sense of authenticity through the usage of bottled perfume which will be purchased potentially by a few hundreds or thousands of people. 

"The aim was nothing more but to re-think the category of perfume in a new and innovative way. What happens if a perfume is not covering or clouding me…, but if the perfume underlines: I am who I am, and I am authentic!?” 

Stefanie Mayr brings to the enterprise her years of experience as a squatter. Buxton is said to have worked starting with the anchoring point of the squatters' fire pit on a cool evening. 

Notes are Bergamot, mandarin, ginger, cistus, gurjum, elemi, balsam, cedarwood, gaiac, sandalwood, vanilla.