best known for his soup cans, flowers, Elvis and Marilynās, Warhol also collected perfumes. he rightly believed smell was our strongest sense, and would savor and save various perfumes and colognes, associating specific scents with moments and memories. itās such a beautiful and poetic way to look at time and memory.
āI switch perfumes all the time. If Iāve been wearing one perfume for three months, I force myself to give it up, even if I still feel like wearing it, so whenever I smell it again it will always remind me of those three months. I never go back to wearing it again; it becomes part of my permanent smell collection.ā ā Andy Warhol
Jan 20, 2025
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This is such a cool perspective on scents! I can bet it leads someone down to some interesting perfumes - thanks for sharing
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it all started with my aunt who has a friend that works at bloomingdaleās and contrabands bottle of testers and pass it on to her to do the trafficking. iām talking niche fancy stuff for $100 or less. thatās how i ended up with an incredible collection and an addiction that iām not proud ofā¦ but once you get into perfume, itās like a whole universe unveils in front of your eyes (nose) and there is so much to experience, so much to taste, so much to learn about yourself, your brain and the strangeness of human olfaction. and the association of smell and memory is one of my favorite things, every single perfume i have triggers memories and feelings in a very deep and intense way. i have no interest in having a āsignature scentā, life is too short. hop on!
May 5, 2025
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I started collecting perfumes on the tour for my āAladdinā movie in 2016, my bandmate was an amateur perfumer and his passion for aromatic materials was infectious.Ā Studying scent unlocked an entire dimension of sensory experiences I had been ignoring.Ā I realized thatĀ perfumers were trying to communicate with us, the raw materials had developed symbolic meanings over thousands of years, and could be used in combination to create very specific artworks.Ā I began to see perfumes as snowglobes that carry information as a landscape,Ā that thereās a lot of encoded information in them.Ā Collecting them became an adventure, walking around the city realizing every city block had stores with samples of these precious artworks. Ā I even started to obtain vintage bottles of perfume fromĀ 30, 50, even 80 years ago that still smelled great, and I began to understand in more depth how people used to smell and why.Ā I recently wrote an epic perfume adventure book that I hope to put out soon.
Nov 2, 2022
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Obsessed with perfume. For a while I was searching for a signature scent, but then the hunt just became too much fun, and now Iāve ended up with a full on vanity tray in my bathroom piled with a different smell for every mood. I used to wear only China Rain, a rollerball scent my mom got me in high school from a perfumery in LA called Spiritbody. I still have a bottle of that, but when I wear it Iām transported to a more insecure time lol. Right now I love Shadow in the Water from Diptyque for when I want to smell clean and romantic. I wear Smudge by Heretic almost every day because itās colder out and it makes me feel so warm and cozy, like iāve been sitting by a fire all day, and like I give good advice and paint landscapes. Perfume is definitely a splurge, but it lasts for so long, and I think itās really special to have a beautiful scent that people can recognize you by. I am going to gatekeep my secret combination of Byredo perfumes that I wear constantly, and Iām sorry about that. Itās just too good and too me.
Dec 20, 2022
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iāve been trying to articulate why i enjoy this space so much. yes, the UX is reminiscent of Tumblr and the early days of the internet. and thereās genuine sincerity and vulnerability on here that makes it feel really cozy and real, which i havenāt felt online in at least a decade.
but i think whatās undergirding my love of this space is how anti-capitalist it feels. most of the recs everyone shares are vibe-checks, quality of life shifts, meditations and offers, music and movies, just plain good art. i donāt feel compelled to buy anything when i come here. i feel excited and pumped to be a cheerleader, find connection, find common ground. and FWIW the recs iāve shared that have gotten the most traction are my suggestions for leading a less capitalistic / consumerist life (quitting Amazon, getting off of Spotify, building community to take care of you and your things).
all of this is to say, i love it here and i love you guys.
Feb 7, 2025
i canceled my Spotify account over the summer and have spent the last few months rebuilding my digital music library on a refurbished iPod Touch. reading critiques of the app (and itās enshittification), i realized i wasnāt even sure of my own musical tastes and preferences. i had stopped picking for myself, stopped seeking out new music, ceasing to know how to choose what i wanted or articulate what i like.
breaking free from the algorithm has been such a joy! iām borrowing gobs of music from the library, rebuilding my old playlists, and consuming more music than i have in years. and better yet, my data isnāt being tracked by Spotify and i own whatās in my personal library. further, my receptors are more open when iām out in the world exposed to music, searching for recommendations in an organic way.
Jan 16, 2025
hear me outāthis one might feel impossible, but i quit purchasing items on Amazon in 2018 and cancelled my GoodReads account shortly after.
i did some serious reflection and realized iād become super reliant upon, and frankly, quite used to the instant gratification of purchasing something and knowing iād have it within a day. thatās not normal. the labor practices, economics, and environmental impacts of getting what you want from the internet delivered quickly and right to your door are skewed. i was filling a void in myself with mindless purchases.
iām aware that they service a huge swath of the internet (Amazon Web Services), own Whole Foods and Abe Books, and will likely take over more businesses we like and rely on. weaning off and avoiding entirely is very very hard, but it can also be a measured decision. that said, i know that it is a privilege to abstain from Amazon. i am able bodied, i donāt have kids, i have access to a car, i live in an urban environment with access to a lot of stuff at my fingertips. but making the choice to break out of the Amazon loop has ultimately been better for my pocketbook and better for my relationship to these mega-tech-companies that have their fingers in everything.
in contrast, iām becoming more interested in alternate economies, like bartering and sharing. i love the idea of having commonly shared tools and items (tool libraries are very cool). we donāt need to own it all, we have each other.
interested in exploring more? the zine pictured below is a great start, and summarizes a much larger book by the same author on how to resist the leviathan that is Amazon.
Jan 22, 2025