Perfume Fanatic Jargon
It’s been on my mind for a while to do a post on perfume fanatic jargon because, let’s face it, we speak our own language, only understood by the fellow afflicted and/or others in the know. I love perfume jargon, for obvious reasons, but also for the fact it’s so easy to learn and extremely exciting to teach. Today I’ll mostly talk about the jargon adopted at certain online perfume communities (Makeupalley, mostly). I realize I cannot mention everything in one post, so please feel free to add your own ideas in comments.
Abbreviations
FBW - the obvious one, one of the first questions that usually pops in your head when you smell a new scent. Is it Full Bottle Worthy?
HG - the never ending, often futile quest for the Holy Grail perfume.
WUFS - this one is my personal concoction (copyrighted - ha!). Wow Upon First Sniff.
WUFT - same as above, except Wow Upon Further Testing.
YSBB - I threw this one in here to add some variety. Your Skin But Better. I personally don’t use it much.
PO - yes, it’s part of the perfume jargon and an integral one, might I add! No, not Pathetically Obsessed. Simply, Post Office.
Needless to say, a vast array of abbreviations is used for perfume names/houses - from the proverbial MKK (Muscs Koublai Khan by Serge Lutens), POTL (Luctor et Emergo by People of the Labyrinths) to such commonly loved perfume houses as SL (Serge Lutens), FM (Frederic Malle), CdG (Comme des Garcons), and the like. Basically, if it can be abbreviated, it certainly will be.
Terminology
Sillage - a trail of scent a person leaves behind or is followed by. Not all perfumes have sillage, and sillage is not necessarily an attribute of a good quality perfume. In fact, I could name a few with devastatingly awful sillage. But not today.
Lemming - the word “is often used in slang to denote those who mindlessly follow the crowd, even if destruction is the result”, based on the Wild Wilderness film that “popularized, using staged footage, the myth that during population booms Norway lemmings [rodents] become suicidal and leap en masse off cliffs into the sea.” (Wikipedia.org) The word has been adopted amongst perfume aficionados not as much for its tragic connotation as for following the crowd aspect, usually after reading about a certain fragrance. Can be used both as a noun and a verb. I quite like the adverb version of it, lemmingly, so you might see me using it in the future. As in, “I sniffed it lemmingly.”
Decant - perfume poured or sprayed into a certain size bottle, usually smaller than the original bottle. Typical decant sizes are 2 ml, 5 ml, 6 ml, and 10 ml. A decant is something you want to get if you don’t want to/cannot buy a whole bottle or just want to sample a scent.
That’s about it for today. I’m looking forward to reading your ideas! Happy weekend, all!
Image source: www.store.perspicuity.com
25 comments October 5th, 2006