christopher brosius: i hate perfume.

I’ve discovered my new favourite artist. He’s not a painter or designer or photographer – he’s a Perfumer. There’s almost too much to love on Christopher Brosius‘ website – I Hate Perfume.

These uni-sex scents are for people with an imagination. Instead of making a bottle look like an obelisk or a flower or a penis and hoping that pictures of prostrate models will make you want to buy it, his packaging is stylish. His site is minimal, but passionate. His small bottles have labels that look like they’ve been individually typed by hand on an old typewriter. Each scent has a complete story – not that sort of “I am elegant because I say I am” ubiquitous nothingness of mainstream perfumes – but an actual emotion-inducing tale.

He’s also got a range of “accords”, single-note scents that can be individually blended to create any scent you want. Elementary in both name and nature, I’m having a hard time not buying them all and going to town on my wrists and neck…

Like he says himself on the site, Brosius’ is an artist. These are scents that are actually discovered; their nascent point is emotional. To explore the site, it’s almost like he’s channeling – just as any good artist he’s creating something simply because it demands to be created.

And not necessarily from the stuff you’d imagine. His goal is to create true scents, ones that evoke real memories, and so ingredients are honest and direct. Notes like “wet sand”, “green tomato vine”, “old leather suitcases”, “dirt”, and “fresh cut hay” help create the true, organic, and almost visceral nature of his scents. At his perfume gallery in Brooklyn, open to the public, you can visit his studio and see exactly how he works, how the scents are created, and find out why “the point of the perfumes I create is to offer you an experience you never thought possible…”. I love this guy.

As with any full-realized art, the names of his scents are just as intuitive and emotional as what they represent: “Just Breathe”, “Cradle of Light”, “Memory of Kindness”, “In the Summer Kitchen”, “Eternal Return”… how can you not want this stuff?

My fave is “At The Beach 1966″. I dare you to resist a description like this…”The prime note in this scent is Coppertone 1967 blended with a new accord I created especially for this perfume – North Atlantic. Imagine it’s about 4 o’clock on a golden summer afternoon and you’ve been at the beach all day rubbing yourself with Coppertone suntan lotion – but Coppertone as it existed in the 60’s, not quite as it is now… You walk into the surf as the waves break on the shore and, bending down to touch the surf, you notice the smell of your warm skin and of the salt water that seems so cold by comparison. It has just the faintest hint of watermelon rind…”

C’mon! How good is that? When I die, please douse my corpse in “At The Beach 1966” and send me to the Crematorium.

smiley®: “happy therapy”.

This made me happy. Maybe not for the reasons it intended to, but the end result was still joy. Brightly laughing yellow-coloured joy.

The iconic smiley face has expanded into the world of aromatherapy and fragrance with Smiley®. This isn’t your normal cologne. It’s a “happiness factor” claiming to be the “very first anti-stress perfume”. It’s literally bottling happiness. Smiley offers a full range of olfactory upers; the unisex fragrance is filled with an ”olfactive substance with euphoriant bio-mechanics”. It contains two chemicals derived from cacao extract: Phenylethylamine (a hormonal joy booster) and Theobromine (an adrenaline blocker and stress reliever) help get you pepped up and then keep you that way. The top notes are bergamot, orange, and pimento. The heart is cacao, pralines, and curaçao, and the bottom notes are musk, patchouli, and myrrh.

I’m not sure if this would physiologically actually affect your mood, but I’m pretty sure that psychologically it could – and as long as you’re happier, who really cares how you get there?

The packaging design is killer. I suppose the whole concept would naturally steer them away from that sort of ubiquitous Calvin Klein-esque sleek crystal obelisk we’re sused to seeing frangrance bottles in, but Smiley has really run with the whole pharmaceutical cuteness vibe. Bright white and sunshine yellow, each product has it’s own medicinal function-first sort of bottle – the body wash comes in old-skool Wizard of Oz type oil can, the perfumes in a pill-shaped spray bottle, and bath powder in single-use tablets. If you’re in desperate need, then you can get a whole bunch of happy in their First Aid Kit.

Designed by Ito Morabito of ora-ïto, whose previous work is for style-heavy brands like Nike and Swatch, the entire line is brightly and perfectly on-brand.

But that’s just the beginning. Smiley’s website is a written playground. The English section of the site is a lost in translation dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it). I honestly can’t tell if all the grammar nonsense is supposed to be intentionally funny or if French directly translated into English just comes out hilarious. I’m hoping it’s intentional because, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, just reading the descriptions on the site made me really… yes, you guessed it… happy.

It sounds like everyone working at Smiley mush be high. I challenge you, dare you in fact, to read the following quote and not smile. Guffaw even. Perhaps chuckle:

“These two cardio-tonics associated together dope the vitality and sets up the moral. It’s that simple! What were we waiting for to flood these benficial molecules on everyone?!!!”

I’ve totally been looking for a new way to dope my vitality. And of course, once your vitality is doped your moral is set up too.

Smiley’s online store, called the “Happy Therapy Centre”, sells the whole range of smiley products – including Smiley Rubbing Body Friction, an“epidermal stimulating massage oil with micro-nutrients to activate happiness”. The site also ships worldwide and has a store locator in case you want to go pick up some happy in person. I need this stuff. Not to use, just to have for the pure comic value.