Spinal Fluid

Ataraxia

On a very hot evening in Athens some weeks ago, I met Tudor Ristea, creative director of Ataraxia perfumes. His Deity was a finalist in the Art and Olfaction Awards, and he asked me whether I wanted to smell it. I did, and disliked it not because of anything specific to the composition, but because it’s a honey perfume and I hate the genre. He seemed completely unfazed by my snap judgment, and asked whether I wanted instead to smell a perfume he hated, his Spinal Fluid. He explained that he had tried to do a perfume that was entirely wrong, and succeeded.

In my opinion, artists are allowed to do ugly things once in a while just to clear the pipes. Too much hankering after beauty frays one’s nerves. A relative of mine (family legend) apparently visited a perfume firm in Grasse and at the end of the tour asked for “un peu de merde, s’il vous plaît.” I remember thirty years ago Issey Miyake did a brown duffle coat whose texture was uncannily like a cow’s rear end caked in dung. Liberty bought a couple of dozen in all sizes, could not sell them at the outrageous asking price and eventually reduced them to practically nothing. Weeks later they were still on offer, now down to the cost of two coffees. Still no one would have them. I assume this did Miyake a power of good.

Spinal Fluid packs a huge slug of indole. Indole, typically described as “fecal, floral in dilution” in learned texts, is actually neither. It smells more like rotten teeth at all concentrations, and a touch of rotten teeth happens to make a floral smell more interesting. The other main note in Spinal Fluid’s composition is a blast of heating oil. When we lived in Athens in a big drafty house, I always enjoyed the times when the delivery truck rolled out a pipe from the street and poured a cubic meter of the fragrant stuff into the basement tank. Heating oil may not have the escapist connotations of jet fuel, but it is still a friendly dragon’s breath.

I doubt very much there will ever be a more outrageously Goth fragrance. Tudor Ristea seemed surprised when I told him I really liked Spinal Fluid. I, in turn, was surprised when Tania too declared it good. You have been warned.