The closest thing I’ve experienced to a 14th-century saintly vision was around two months ago, when I pulled out a coat from the very deep recesses of my closet and out it came smelling so unexpectedly divine, filling my nostrils and my living room with an aroma I can only describe as salt that has been smoked through a clean fire. Since 2022, I’d been on medication that had robbed me of the ability to tolerate even the slightest of smells without running out to vomit. But that day, I stood there with my nose buried in the folds of the coat for a full minute, breathing in the liquid, limpid, godly salt-and-smoke smell without getting violently nauseous for the first time in years. A piece of clothing emerging out of storage with a mysterious smell typically does not bode well for either the wearer or the garment, but in this case, the culprit was stashed inside one of the pockets, a glass vial smaller than my pinky finger of Matiere Premiere Vanilla Powder. Neither vanilla nor powder, most of its contents had spilled in the pocket and somehow remained on the coat for nearly two years.
In the world of fragrance collectors, enthusiasts, reviewers, and redditors who inhabit r/Fragrance, “beast mode” refers to scents like Vanilla Powder that have hyperstrong longevity, lasting more than ten hours from the moment you put it on. And Vanilla Powder, a perfume created by Aurélien Guichard, is the beastliest of them all, its nuclear staying power summed up elegantly by my favorite Fragrantica comment calling it “a monstrous stinky fug of chemical base notes that lasts for a week and cannot be washed off.” I do understand that longevity is not the defining feature of what makes a perfume interesting. But if relentless, lasting power is what you demand out of a bottle of perfume, then Vanilla Powder is for you (two other fragrances from Matiere Premiere — peppery, incense-flecked Radical Rose or the fireplace-like Encens Suave — also exhibit the same longevity).
I’ve smelled Vanilla Powder on myself after a shower. I’ve smelled it on myself after swimming laps for 90 minutes, when even the pool’s chlorinated water didn’t manage to completely erode it. I have smelled it on myself after taking a dip in the waters of Brighton Beach, where the coastal sun and air only magnified the rich saltiness on my skin. I have smelled its faint traces on my fresh-out-of-the-dryer cotton T-shirts in the thick, cloying heat of August, and I have smelled it on my dry-cleaned cashmere sweaters in the chill of November. A person I’d hugged told me that for days afterward, they could sense my smell on their jacket following them around. Another friend chased me down a block on Madison Avenue because they recognized me by the salt-taffy cloud, even in the crowd. In the event of an apocalypse, I firmly believe my bottle of Vanilla Powder might outlive me altogether. Since my moment of divinity smelling it on my coat, I have rampaged through a full bottle of it, giddy at how it clings to me and creates a cloud of smoky incense tempered with brine wherever I go.
Perfumes for me were such an accidental pleasure (I wrote about discovering them in 2019), and in my initial days of discovery, I thought of them like a secret only between me and myself, gravitating toward soft, dainty smells that felt like whipped, airy confections. But after two years of forced hypersensitivity when I couldn’t sniff anything without wanting to purge the contents of my stomach, I have reentered this hobby with a taste for smells that are more monstrous and far less tame. I spent years smelling palatably sugary. Now, I want to smell like salt, fire, and divine intervention.
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