Blind test: final remarks and a huge THANK YOU to all
Then thanks also to all participants, because they honored the sense of the game by committing deeply in it and having fun, too. I’m particularly happy because skills, perspectives, tastes and knowledge levels of the participants were so different that have resulted in varied and unexpected reviews. I couldn’t ask for more.
In particular, reviews by Eleonora, Marco and Michiko gave me great satisfaction: although this may be the first time they put themselves at this difficult task, their efforts brought interesting results, delightful to read and sparkling, somehow.
Marco is an individual who gets excited and this excitement, in his words, shines. And because fragrances are mostly vehicles of emotion... I think it’s a pretty good thing. He conveys his personal feelings, but then tries also to go further, extending the vision of the scent as a whole thing, trying to integrate the general feelings and evolution, with considerations risen by his personal taste.
Michiko has just begun to approach fragrances in a more critical way but from what I read, she jumped a long way so far. She writes about her personal feelings, but before she always tries to perceive the fragrance in a more "objective" way: the general feeling and evolution, the light and tone, always with particular interest in the “story” the scent tells.
Eleonora’s words focused on the evolution of the fragrance, with no particular interest in single notes, but pickin up the general feeling, the sensation the scent offers to its wearer. She relies on effective visual parallels to be understood by readers.
Even Arianna has made a huge effort (which I appreciated) and maybe realized that how difficult is going further than just saying "I like / I don’t like," and tell the olfactory sensations we perceive; words are never enough explanatory! With a little study and good books improvements will shine!
Flinn, who I know and esteem since … well, years, confirms her joyously anarchic vein, in the sense she didn’t give the game a damn. Her refined nose and her fragrant culture are able to write rich and more detailed reviews but I think that here, with no particular interest in any of the four fragrances, she hasn’t felt encouraged to get more lyrical, and simply told us what she didn’t like in them in her frank and funny way.
Alberto… perhaps you’re a chemist? Well, maybe not, since chemists I've met so far, don’t care at all about the history of perfumery. In addition to recognizing the olfactory notes, Alberto shows a multilevel personal baggage (both niche and industrial perfumery) spanning 5 decades, which allows him to make interesting parallels. He may be a perfumista who studied extensively, or he may own a perfume store, open for passion years ago, which led him to study and read a lot. In short, he showed experience in telling fragrances, which other participants have not yet acquired, and this has risen a lot of curiosity. So, Alberto, who are you?
Nebulosa is... belly-focused, as usual. "I like/I don’t like" here comes before anything else (a bit like Flinndudu, but at the cube power), enabling Nebulosa to write poems with very detailed criticism if the mood is right and the fragrance is inspiring, or to synthesize all in three lines of witty remarks when inspiration is out. Synthesis and the ability to target the essential is part of Nebulosa’s style, and I must say that I appreciate this because this characteristic may be hard to find.
So, thanks again to all of you for your efforts, I enjoyed the game very much, I hope you enjoyed it too!
Pic here
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