It’s been a crazy ride, this fragrance journey.

Most people wouldn’t even understand that statement. For them, perfume is a product, or a tool, with specific and very limited utility. Sometimes, when you want to smell good, you spray it on. When you run out, you might get more — if you’re feeling crazy, you might even choose a different one next time!

Then, there are “the collectors.” By virtue of the fact that you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you could be one of them. Fragrance collecting is one of those things that you either identify with and internalize completely, or that you truly can’t understand. Why would anyone need more perfumes that they can wear in a month (or a year, or a lifetime)? Is it an enjoyable hobby, a compelling passion, or a giant waste of time and money?

Depending on what day you ask me, I will answer the question very differently. I’m not here to judge anyone, and I think that what’s an ideal number will be up to each individual. I’m also not here to make a confession… but I’ll just say that I’ve gone from two perfumes on the dresser to several hundred full bottles, with multiple cycles of binging and purging along the way. Two things that I particularly love are vintage fragrances and trying new things, so I have sealed boxes and bottles going back to the 1930’s, and hundreds upon hundreds of sample vials that are meticulously cataloged but have remained untouched (and unsniffed) since they arrived.

THE REVELATION

No matter what I do, there’s some degree of dissatisfaction. I want more, or I have too much. I want to preserve (and hoard) the masterpieces of the past, but I also want to try every single new release. The rush of opening packages dissipates almost instantly, when I’m done unwrapping and sniffing and realize that I have to rearrange an entire shelf (again) just to be able to squeeze one more bottle in.

In 2019 I’m searching for the Middle Way. I know that fragrance will be part of my future. I have no delusions that I will sell or discard everything and become a perfume ascetic. The fact that I have enough perfume to scent everyone that I know daily, for decades, will not keep me content enough to never buy another bottle of perfume. But I so desperately want to focus less on acquiring and possessing, and more on just being.

Having too many bottles to manage is weighing me down, and the constant hunt keeps me in a mindset of deprivation. Honestly, there was some point at which the balance tipped, and acquiring new scents went from being enjoyable to being a chore, and I was consuming so voraciously that I didn’t even notice when it happened.

This year, I’m going to focus on getting maximum enjoyment out of what I already have. In a lot of cases, that’s going to mean letting things go that no longer suit me, to clear space and time for the things that do. In some cases, it’s going to mean going back to the old things, cultivating a beginner’s mind, and falling in love again. Which brings me to Blackbird.

BLACKBIRD

Blackbird from House of Matriarch (now called Black No. 1) was my first niche fragrance purchase. I have other bottles that are older, but none that I’ve personally owned as long.

Blackbird was released in 2012 and reached “cult classic” status in 2013. I saw some article somewhere that described it as a sexy men’s cologne that smelled like grunge rock and the forests of the Pacific Northwest. It was edgy and dangerous, fashion-forward and highly conspicuous.

I was a Midwestern mom who wore Light Blue (if I remembered) because my (now-ex) husband gave it to me as a birthday gift once. When I asked him how he chose it, he said that the pretty and well-endowed fragrance counter salesgirl had hooked him up. (Only, what he said was more graphic and crude.) Over the next few years I came to understand that hitting on salesclerks while shopping for my birthday was not even close to the depths of his bad behavior.

I’m not sure where or how I ended up seeing the story about Blackbird, but it was at a time in my life when I was ready to make a drastic change. And, for some reason, that change started in the form of a fragrance.

Just buying it was an act of open rebellion, because my ex-husband liked to keep a tight control on the finances, and it was a really expensive purchase compared to the perfumes at the mall. When it arrived, and I saw its deep, dark color, I was a little bit apprehensive about even spraying it. It was like standing at a threshold to the unknown, with my hand on a doorknob, trying to decide if I turn and retreat or walk through.

The first spray was absolute magic. So many things that I’d never smelled before, like a story in scent that was unfolding in front of me. I was enchanted, and terrified. There would be no hiding this, and no going back either. It sounds trite and cliché, but I could feel bonds of inertia breaking, and gears slowly starting to turn. Somehow I, in my new sexy-masculine perfume with 300 ingredients that smelled like nothing I had ever encountered, was going to leave my abusive marriage and create a new life for myself.

I was still afraid of the moment when he would surely realize that I had bought something for myself and be angry. Especially something that I knew he would consider exorbitantly expensive, and that came from the evil, evil internet (which he loathed). And as soon as he came home, he found out, because there is no hiding when you’re wearing this scent. Up to that moment in history, nothing in Cincinnati had ever smelled like that.

Predictably, he was mad that I had spent money, at least for a minute. But he loved the fragrance, so he got over it remarkably quickly. For a few months I wore Blackbird every day. It made me feel like another person — all self-assured and carefree, unique and badass.

Before too long, I started to wonder what else was out there, fragrance-wise, that I had been missing out on all these years. I bought other fragrances, came back down to earth, started to feel less badass and more hopeless and defeated. But my ex would always ask me to wear Blackbird. And it would make me angry, that he wanted me to do something to please him. But sometimes I would do it anyway, and smelling it always took me back to the knowledge, deep down, that I was going to disrupt everything and change my life.

I wore Blackbird on the day of our divorce, more for spite than anything else. I wanted him to have the full sensory experience of what he would be missing. And then I put it away for a few years. It reminded me of things that I was trying desperately to forget.

Since then, I’ve bought hundreds of perfumes, many of which I really like, and some of which I even love. But none has given me that sense of absolute amazement and immersion like the first smell of Blackbird. It was my first niche fragrance, the beginning of my journey, and there’s still nothing like it. Maybe I have been looking for that feeling again, when it was right here all along. Ultimately it doesn’t come from the fragrance. It comes from my appreciation of the fragrance. It comes from me.

Now that years have passed, and I am happily remarried, it’s time to reclaim things. I’m ready to make more changes. Blackbird was my introduction to the immense world of fragrance, where I feel like I have been lost for a little while, wandering in search of something that I can’t describe or even imagine. I’m not sure that it exists at all. So I’m going to let Blackbird lead me back onto the path. There is nothing out there to grasp for. What I am, and what I have, is enough.

As I move from a mindset of searching to a mindset of appreciating, both in life and in fragrance, there is a place for the inspiration of Blackbird again. I am grateful that I held onto it during the tumultuous times of dissatisfaction and uncertainty. I’m going back to it, releasing it from the baggage that surrounded it, and just letting it be — free of expectations and open to all potential. I’m letting love and wonder back into my life, and that includes my fragrance experience.

My Phoenix is a Blackbird. 🖤