silent, passionate, & gloriosensual

I must eat my words; it's really called Paper Passion.  [image via Aedes de Venustas]

“The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world,” according to Karl Lagerfeld, who we know would list "books" in his answer to the second Nosy Interview question (What do you like to smell?), and now, thanks to his collaboration with perfumer Geza Schoen, perhaps he could answer books to the first nosy question, about what he smells like, too.

According to press for the perfume, "[Paper Passion] is an opportunity to celebrate all the gloriosensuality of books, at a time when many in the industry are turning against them." I'm not sure I know exactly what gloriosensuality is, but I appreciate ambition in nouns, and am eager to see how silent the smell of paper really is this September, when Paper Passion arrives in U.S. stores, just in time to accompany all the real-book smells of back-to-school season.

[If you prefer to smell like older books, CB I Hate Perfume and Demeter have you covered.] 

three for thursday

This photograph! Discovered via @Baratunde and delighting me to no end. Some additional digging reveals that the woman is a performance artist, but she still chopped that onion on that train.

The science behind that beloved old book smell, as explained by a Richard from AbeBooks who pronounces "deterioration" in a pleasing way:

I am fully obsessed with Harmless Harvest's Coconut Water. Be warned: once you try it, you will find it difficult to enjoy other brands of bottled coconut water. This stuff smells (and tastes) so fresh and nutty and yummy; after I've finished drinking, I save the bottles until the smell is gone (always wearing eau de weirdo around here).

stinky links c/o sweet friends

Friends! I love it when you send me stinky links. I'm trying to cut down on both Google Reading and Facebook, so e-mails with smelly bits I've probably missed are even more welcome than usual. 

Lola (who will hopefully be featured in the very near future as a Nosy Interviewee) sent me a fun link that proved I love reading about what people like to smell even if I've never heard of them (it also further proved that I simply must smell this CK One Shock for Him!) as well as an interesting piece from SF Gate that included a section on fragrance trends by decade suggesting a link between our stressed-out tech-(dis)connected world and a rising popularity in warm and cozy gourmand fragrances. 

Anne sent me this quote from Perfumes: The Guide, and the magic of Google Image Search (you know you can drop in images to search, right? So fun! And unsettling!) tells me that it comes from a window display at Shakespeare & Co. Books in Berkeley:

(If you want that smell in bottle, In the Library by CB I Hate Perfume is lovely, and Karl Lagerfeld is also at work on a book-smelling perfume that I have a hard time believing will actually be called Paper Passion. If you want to read some books about perfume, author and perfume-lover Denise Hamilton gives five suggestions in this super-informative interview.)

Somewhat related (though it proves I've done a poor job staying off facebook, which has lately become a collection of these quotes-on-photos, no?):

Their apartment won't smell as sexy anyway!

Speaking of sexy: Bus musk! I like saying that. Thanks to Janet for this cartoon, "Smells Like a First Date":