Douleur!
Bogue Profumo (2019)

Douleur from Bogue Profumo. A collaborative work between Antonio Gardoni and tattoo artist Freddie Albrighton.

A quirky and avant-garde perfume that doesn't smell challenging or experimental to me, as some have claimed. When I focus on it (gently because it is nuclear) I can detect some of the peculiar accords like the raw meat, plastic toys, and the salty seaweed accord. But if I spray it and go about my day, it smells surprisingly pleasant. It reminds me of the scent of Plum Preserves, the way they are traditionally made here in Eastern Europe. Exactly like that. If I close my eyes and enjoy its aroma in the air. Furthermore, to reinforce that scent association, my mom made the same comment when she smelled it, even adding that it smelled nice. Hence, the perception of perfume is most certainly subjective. Close-up, on the skin, however, I can pick up the quirky parts of it. Space Rangers and Barbie dolls, metallic roses, mint-flavored bubble gum, and sweet fruitiness. Raw meat at times served in blood. Overall though, not a challenging scent for me, it's rather pleasant. Now, the Achilles' heel with this perfume is the ridiculous performance. Simply put, I can't bring myself to wear it. Occasionally, I take off the cap, smell it, and tell myself "Not today!". It gives me a headache unless I spray it underneath my clothes, and if I do, I can incinerate them. Hence, as much as I love the smell, there is not much point to it unless I can enjoy it. Original, yet unwearable for me. But if you like them bigger than life, you might not have this problem.

IG:@memory.of.scents

This perfume only makes sense in knowledge of the context - a cooperation of Gardoni with queer and bondage-loving tattoo artist Freddie Albrighton ("queer tatoos for queer people"). It's a zany olfactory reading of getting a plasticky rose tatoo. Consequently an absolute pain to smell, as the name suggests, and with an Etat Libre attitude, it's main intention is to spit your bourgeois pretensions to good taste in the face. Its atrocious blend of bubblegum and urinal cake perfectly manages this and even adds a sly "Taxi zum Klo" reference, whether intended or not. I appreciate Gardonis joy of experimenting and don't mind an olfactory challenge (while hating Mem I did find it interesting) but I get nothing out of this except feeling confirmed in my dislike of abrasive synthetics, tattoos and a queer pop-culture that has degenerated into serving as a neoliberal-consumerist marketing device for corporations, emptied of any political significance. Do yourself a favor and sample this on paper before buying or - God beware - wearing. For a joke that falls flat rather quickly it's rather expensive as well.

Everything points to Douleur! being too clever by half – from the misleading name (who wants to wear a perfume supposedly evoking pain and distress? Ok it was done in collaboration with a tattoo artist and bondage aficionado, but still..) to the stretching of contemporary genre expectations (pushing once-novel designer aquatic-metallic notes to the fore). I get it – this is Gardoni overturning his box of toys, delighting in synthetics, blowing a raspberry at the classicism of MAAI, telling MEM to lighten up. It's a different mood, more flippant and fidgety but, surprisingly, compositionally still strong.
The trick to enjoying Douleur! (and there will be many who will find little to enjoy no matter how objectively they approach it) is to not sniff it up close. A spray to the back of the hand brought up to the nose will disappoint – smelling at first like a thrown-together wash of aquatic and metallic synthetics before settling into seaweed. But spritz it about the person and what emerges is a cool, ozonic mint and pale pink rose combo, Barbie happily riding a can of hairspray into outer space. It's tongue-in-cheek and playful, a bit ‘Tocade: the kindergarten years'. I loved the flatlining pale mint – a Scandi interior designer's orgasm – that runs through it and how surprisingly well it pairs with rose, at times coaxing it into wearing magnolia drag. Fresh and frisky fun, but I find little in it to justify the elevated price tag.

I was reading some reviews and I approached Douleur with fear. I have forgotten what I've read about it, just remembering that it is challenging. At first there was a wave of sweetness and I thought ok, it's very sweet but nothing bad or challenging; that lasted the first 5 seconds until I started to get a salty fishy note. Diving in more with my nose into the skin, I'm not sure if I get a plastic or a metallic note, or maybe both. Now I think that the fishy smell might just be metallic and some plastic rose appeared; it's all very confusing, very sweet and very synthetic smelling and nuclear. I have a desire to go wash it off (which happens very rarely) but I'd like to see what happens next, because it's the first and last time I'll wear it. After the first hour, the metallic note is so pungent that it makes my nose hurt and I can almost feel the overly sweet metallic taste in my through. At this point I think I'm getting a headache and nausea…which almost never happens because a perfume. And I'm off to wash my hand. Of course the smell is there, but at least most of the metallic is gone and it's a sweet cloud of fuzzy rose, still very bad.
If this is art, I'm ok with me not being able to appreciate it. I think it's just a synthetic mess which smells bad. I can appreciate a good well done perfume even if it's not my taste, but this one…horror. Maybe this is the smell of zombies from The Walking Dead. I usually don't like mainstream generic perfume, but in this case I'd rather smell some Bleu de Chanel right now to calm myself.