geza schoen

As our world begins to turn everything into digital bits and bytes we begin to leave the unique scents of the things being digitally replaced behind. The smell of a vinyl record fresh out of the album sleeve has been lost and now it looks like the scents associated with books will be next. Kindles, Nooks, and iPads have no inherent fragrance to add a bit of reality to them. That leaves perfumers to fill in the blanks. Christopher Brosius has taken up the task of bottling the smell of aged paper in his perfume CB I Hate Perfume In the Library. In the new fragrance by Geza Schoen he goes the other way as Paper Passion captures the smell of new ink on paper.

Hr. Schoen is one of our most creative perfumers but much of what he creates can be something that does not appeal at first. I have often only really come around to enjoying one of his perfumes after wearing it more than a couple of times. Paper Passion was not that way for me but that is because it also contains a very personal memory for me.

Hr. Schoen was approached by Wallpaper* magazine and Gerhard Steidl to produce a fragrance which would evoke the scent of the pages of a new book fresh off the printing press. Gerhard Steidl was inspired by a conversation with Karl Lagerfeld who first brought the smell of this to Hr. Steidl’s attention. Hr. Lagerfeld designed the packaging for Paper Passion and it is a tactile pleasure to unwrap this heavy grainy red paper to find a small cloth-bound book which you open to find the bottle nestled within the pages. There are some written words as preface all about the smell of paper. Hr. Schoen’s section actually describe his process in capturing this scent.

My father was a pressman for The Miami Herald newspaper and I spent a lot of time at work with him surrounded by the smells of ink and newsprint. Paper Passion captures the sharp smells of the ink and the warmer pulpy smells of paper. It is those inky accords which make Paper Passion a bit of a prickly pear to approach as they might be a tad too sharp for someone who isn’t as fond of them as I am but Paper Passion transitions into a fragrance of ink on the page and that’s when it truly turns a new leaf. It becomes the potential of whatever that ink says on that page.

Hr. Schoen uses cresyle acetate and ozonic notes to create that sharp ink accord. The page is first represented by a clean balsamic note and it doesn’t do much to soften the sharp quality of the early going. Hr. Schoen then brings in some osmanthus which adds a leathery hint along with its floral character. The richness of the paper comes from two notes Hr. Schoen describes as “fatty”; methy and ethyl lionoleate. Amber xtreme imparts the final bits of the paper accord and brings Paper Passion to a satisfying denouement.

Paper Passion has above average longevity and average sillage.

I loved smelling the mimeograph ink on pages I received in grade school. Paper Passion is not that scent; it is the scent of black ink on creamy thick paper. I think I’m going to spray some on the next time I start a new book on my iPad.

Disclosure: This review was based on a bottle of Paper Passion provided by Steidl.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor

3 comments

July 4, 2012 at 11:10 pm
Devon H says:
I’m dying to get a sample of this to sniff, and might have to just end up buying it. I’m a huge book lover, and have a beef with ebooks. This became intense when Borders Bookstores closed their doors (my favorite chain). There is nothing like the smell of ink on paper in a new book, or even vintage used books (I fantasize about where they came from – musty old libraries? is that a hint of pipe smoke? perfume even?). I always find myself sticking my nose in the pages close to the spine and deeply inhaling. There is something so precious about that smell and tactile sensation of the written word in hand that no eReader can begin to replace.
July 11, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Katherine says:
Hi Mark,

My bottle of it just arrived, and frankly, I can’t stand it on my skin. I too loved the mimeographed paper smell, and I love sticking my nose in a book to inhale its scent. But the acrid smell of solvent is burning my nose in the way that ammonia would, and it’s overpowering anything else that might redeem it.

I’m a conceptual perfume lover–the further scents actually get from conventional definitions of perfume, generally the more they interest me. Not sure about this one.
July 11, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Somerville Metro Man says:
Hi Katherine,

Yes this is very sharp and I tried to convey that but that is my memory of the smell of newspaper ink almost solvent-like. I don’t find it unpleasant but your experience probably makes me need to add a caveat emptor in that Paper Passion is a very synthetic smelling fragrance with a lot of very sharp edges. I would also give one more piece of advice as to wear it in very small doses as that might help soften some of the rough edges…or not.

Mark