Introducing Interactive Smelling Experiences on Substack

Smelling the perfumes as the text unfolds.

Dear readers,

As this Substack grows and more of you join me here I’m thrilled by our growing interaction. I want to keep this energy going and gradually turn what began as a hobby into something a little more intentional. For that, however, I will need your support.

Rather than restricting access for unpaid subscribers, as seems to be the norm these days, I would like to try something that I hope will be more engaging and mutually rewarding. I am calling it Interactive Smelling Experiences via Strip-Scents

Fragrances are becoming increasingly expensive and, in many cases, harder to access, especially rare vintages and niche releases. Yet the challenge of tracking them down and sharing them is precisely what I enjoy most. So here’s my idea.

The Concept
Some time ago, I helped Fliss from Les Oderantes smell her beloved Dantelle au Coeur by Henry Jacques. As snobbish as they are, Henry Jacques do not produce samples. Until recently, however, they would send a scented blotter enclosed in an envelope if you requested one. They have since stopped offering even that.

So I went to Harrods, asked for a blotter, dipped it in Dantelle au Coeur, and posted it to Fliss the next day. It arrived safely, and she was able to confirm the depth of her love for this tuberose. I kept my own blotter for several days and enjoyed it immensely.

This experience gave me an idea, one that many fragheads tend to dismiss. But if it is good enough for Henry Jacques, why not try it ourselves?

I plan to create curated fragrance lists. I know how much many of you enjoy them. These will be short, thematic, and carefully composed.

They might include:

Rare vintages
Cult classics
New and noteworthy releases
Thematic selections such as leather, chypres, or white florals

For each list, you will be able to order scented paper strips. I call them Strip Scents. I have tested this format with different fragrances and, when sealed properly, it works surprisingly well. The scent remains on the blotters long enough for multiple revisits and gives a convincing sense of the perfume’s character.

The aim is simple. You will be able to smell the perfumes while reading about them. A small form of synesthetic storytelling in which text and scent unfold together.

How You Can Participate

Currently, A Vintage Prelude collection available at Strip-Scents gives you a chance to smell what will be included in my final post in the series of Vintage Perfumes Worth Owning. In my humble opinion, the vintages I offer to smell are sufficiently different from what we have on the market and simply great, but also impossible to get (or at least to obtain in good wearable condition for a reasonable price).

For now, I am only offering shipping within the UK, but if you would like to test this experiment with me and you live elsewhere, drop me a note here and I will try and help you.

If you are in the UK, all you need to do is order the curated set in my shop and I will send it to you immediately. It should arrive just in time, or slightly before, my final post in the series Vintage Perfumes Worth Owning

The number of strip scents I can send is limited. This is partly due to the amount of fragrance I currently have, and partly because I will be preparing and sending them personally, which makes time a scarce resource.

Even so, I hope you will look kindly on this attempt to connect more directly. I am trying to find a meaningful way to contribute to the perfume community while sustaining my writing practice outside the academic environment. In other words, I would like to move from simply running a blog toward a more participatory form of engagement, one that allows your reading and smelling practices to be woven together.