I've been holding out on you.
Ages ago, I started writing a story that had a perfumer in it. The perfumer worked in a dark room in a windy tower, every surface in the room covered in vials and pipettes and handfuls of blossoms or mounds of ground spices. He was working in secret, because his work was outlawed. It was too real, too strong and too subtle to be allowed. I loved the idea that his little glass vials could be worn as part of a disguise, that a character could put on a certain outfit, alter their features, and then as a last touch use a dab of this illicit perfume to tie everything together and sell it.
The perfumes in this story are nothing like the ones I've reviewed here, which are mostly about enhancing your natural appeal with a totally alien scent. I mean, I have no excuse for walking round smelling like a flower, or a stick of incense. Those are sort of aspirational echoes; I like choosing a scent that might hint at an impulse or personality facet, but none of these are real-world smells. No one's going to think I've been running around honeysuckle trellises just before coming over for dinner.
That's why I enjoyed writing this story so much; all the scents were selling the image. Scents like "fishmonger" or "carpenter" or "airman". Scents that would make other people's senses lie to them, that would guarantee the wearer a hidden layer of assurance.
And then I discovered CB I Hate Perfume, and found the perfume-maker, stepping out of my imagination and landing right here in New York.
"In the Library" is a scent I can't really review. I can't reel out extended scenarios for it; they're all bound up in the scent itself. "In the Library" is vellum and parchment, places where dry leather has cracked and turned dusty, frayed edges of cloth-covered bindings. And it is serious. This is not romance or sitting by a fire or drinking a cup of tea, this is a book. I have very good memories of reading old books, so this is a happy scent for me. For others, who maybe got stuck researching back in the stacks and hated it? They probably aren't as happy.
No verdict, no judgement, this perfume eludes all effort at categorization. This is a scent for the wearer and the wearer alone. It actually changes my mood, or refines my personality. I've worn this under a turtleneck with tortoiseshell glasses and I have felt more scholarly, but still me. It works with Christopher Brosius's other scents in the same way: I know where I'm going to be that day, and there's potential for me to feel all sorts of different ways, and I pick a scent to bring out the way I want to feel.
I can't tell you to go out and buy this at all. I can just say that this particular perfume is not one I ever wear for the benefit of another. It's like a bottled landscape, and if I put it on, I can live in that landscape all day.
