Perfume reviews and olfactory culture
The signature scent was always a shortcut, one answer to a question that deserves more thought. What the perfumers have always known, and rarely share, is that coherence across layers is the more interesting problem.
There is a particular kind of woman who smells the same every time you encounter her, on the street, at dinner, years later in an airport. That consistency is not laziness. It is a form of conviction.
There is a particular clarity that comes from deciding, once, that you are done cycling through bottles. The right vessel is not a purchase, it is a position.