Tellulah@tellulahonline
· Edited
Spritz, Spritz, Pass Episode 2: Fragrance Elitism, Snobbery, & the paradox of “taste”
- #long_post
- #opinion_piece
- #semi_essay
What am I loving this week? The increasing behaviour of buying small as opposed to full size
What is no longer contrary to popular belief in this hobby, is that enthusiasm & knowledge about a hobby is not measured nor proven by the size of a collection. I think this opinion growing so quickly has heavily contributed to the attitude towards over consumption souring.
In response, a different metric has found its way onto the scene in response to large collections, falling out of favour as an indicator of how “into” something you are. Whose collection is of “Good Taste”?
There is quite literally no objective way to measure this, it’s arbitrary. The way some people I have seen (both irl & in online fragrance hobby spaces) look for ways to express the elevated taste they have to garner esteem from their peers (us, the implied observers).
“Good taste”, does not exist as an objective (remember, I said this is all opinions based), but it does exist as a social reality, as we keep participating in it (within 6 months Caroline Basset-Kennedy went the peak of fashion to a niche figure of yesteryear, as the people of now decided such). People who want to be perceived as having “Good Taste” need to figure out what the public’s criteria is, but I think we’ve all been in the perfume game long enough to know that fragrances don’t generally smell the same nose to nose. Taste is determined by what you like, therefore, there cannot be an “elite taste”.
In philosophy, Good Taste exists at precise opposite to vulgarity, otherwise known as “poor taste” or simply “Bad Taste”. If there are superiors there must be inferiors, if only to validate the existence of the former.
This is why (in my opinion) terminology like “cupcake skunk” gained traction.
Its use has grown exponentially, although mostly on the fragrance subreddits, I have officially heard it in real life. I first heard it well over a year ago, maybe at the start of last summer, someone was complaining people were wearing heavy gourmand scents in the summer, but to imply they had Bad Taste for over spraying, wearing certain notes in certain weather, & for wearing “cheap” fragrances, instead of just regarding it as generally unpleasant. This phenomenon was fascinating to say the very least.
At this point, it’s a game of optics. How do we perceive taste?
It is not Bad Taste to overspray a cheap gourmand on the hottest day of summer. However, trapping your peers in an enclosed space in a cloud of an overpowering scent is sure as hell rude to put it mildly. What we’re calling “taste” should not be a shorthand for manners. I can say “they have great taste, but terrible etiquette” without that being an oxymoron.
Another issue I have with “good” or “bad” taste in the fragrance world is using moralizing terms like “good” or “bad” when morality- just like preferences in scent profiles, are just that- preferences. We should avoid moralizing terms when regarding something as nuanced as how we interact with our sense of smell.
There’s a question to be asked here, why did we replace the overconsumption problem with the superior taste problem when both are ultimately vehicles for elitism?
I think a lot of people want to prove they like something for what it is as opposed to wanting it for its cultural capital. Nobody wants to be labelled “just a trend chaser”, & at a point in time where everyone is getting called performative left & right, many of us dig our heels in, going “no, I do actually like this thing- I can prove it!” & come up with new ways to draw a distinction between us (the real devotees) & them (the performative ones). We shouldn’t have to invent terms just to validate our existence in this hobby.
Ultimately, what determines Good Taste? The notes we prefer? The sense we have? Our aversion to dupes? Only buying high-end or expensive? Is YSL’s Libre reflective of better taste than VS Bombshell?
What do we mean when we say Good Taste? Let’s talk!
