Cannabalistic gourmand.
French perfume house État libre D’Orange offers an impressive library chock-full of whimsy and ironic flair. The brand passionately drives forward notions of freedom and individuality—and perhaps hedonism; they’re French, after all. They are also so unserious as a brand, which I love. They even have a perfume inspired by the infamous freak Marquis de Sade.
The Ghost in the Shell, launched in 2021, first grabbed my attention because it shares its name with the cyberpunk manga Ghost in the Shell—I have yet to read it, but I have it on good authority (my boyfriend) that both the manga and the subsequent films are excellent works of art. I was also drawn to the unique note composition (more on that later). Upon my first sniff of The Ghost in the Shell, acquired from my discovery set from the company, I was struck with the most decadent limoncello ice cream garnished with freshly sliced yuzu dipped in sugar, melting down your wrist. The wrist is key here—skin is a vital part of this equation. It’s aquatic, aldehydic, gourmand, flipped upside down.
The behind the scenes story of this perfume gets a little complicated, so stay with me here. The Ghost in the Shell—both the perfume and the manga by Masamune Shirow— was inspired by the 20th-century sci-fi novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons, who was inspired by the work of French philosopher and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The nose behind this perfume, Etienne de Swardt, swept all that up and put it in a bottle. Basically, these guys are all in a circle jerk about futurism—if you don’t get it, just ask any man you know and he can explain.
Fantasies of flesh and machine synthesis are a tale as old as time, but they used to be way cooler. Elon Musk wishes his freakazoid autistic ass could come up with something as cool as this fragrance. Hyperion is on my reading list, but based on my preliminary research, it is an impressive mind fuck to create a rather simplistic scent based on such a roller coaster of a book. Then again, the ingredients in this formula are far from uncomplicated.
One of the top notes, Aqual™, is a member of the aldehyde family used to diffuse and enhance aquatic-floral qualities. Aqual is trademarked by MANE Biotech, one of the world’s leading fragrance houses. Yes, you can own a molecule!
I am obsessed with the science of aroma chemistry—that is creating new scent molecules from scratch. If this intrigues you too, I highly recommend Nose Candy podcast Episode 57: I F#%king Love Science ft. Sean Rasput. Aqual, along with other synthetic molecules in The Ghost in the Shell, such as Mugane™, Hexyl Acetate, and Orcanox™ (Ambrox)—all play crucial roles in delivering the tediously specific lactonic flesh and floral-amber quality of this perfume.
De Swardt has achieved an impressive balance of bright citrus and milk without a curdling effect, not to mention the delicate essence of jasmine and moss it contains. The milk soaks, seeps, sops, spins. You’ve soaked your teddy bear in Fruit Loops milk and you’re sucking it from its polyester fur, microplastics and all. It does the same succulent thing that Innocence by Poesie does with peach and coconut milk.
“This is the act of birth that makes the spirit of perfume. The rest is poetry to live on the skin.”
—Etienne de Swardt
In online reviews, it seems that a handful of people think the name and story don’t live up to the smell. I totally get it—with such a robust lineage of inspiration, you would expect a more rigid scent profile. This is precisely what makes this perfume special: it is completely unpredictable.
When you think of science fiction, you might think of smoke or metallic notes, but this has neither. This begs the question: What does a cyborg-ridden futuristic society smell like? Not only the olfactory details, but what kind of imagery does it conjure up for you?
People have shared their discontent by explaining that all they get is a clean, soapy scent. All I can say about that is: try harder. It absolutely does have a soapy, lotiony quality to it, but there is so much more going on. This isn’t your average squeaky-clean, musk, Glossier You–esque perfume.
The marketing copy and name are objectively quite dramatic, but can we just embrace commodity fetishism for a moment? It not only smells amazing, but the vision behind it totally works, in my view. I love this Fragrantica review by user milkgrll: “perfume for android girls. for metal-flesh hybrids. for pretty robots who still take baths.” Exactly.
What if a cyborg did smell like creamy limoncello ice cream and white florals? In a dystopian future, surely not every robot would smell the same. I urge the Fragrantica anons who want to dive into the freaky perfume pool with no life jacket to try Cero by Agar Olfactory. The aroma of a burning laptop might have you wishing for a “boring,” soapy, clean scent again.
The note breakdown in The Ghost in the Shell is as follows:
Top: Aqual™, Yuzu and Hexyl acetate
Middle: Milk, Skin, Jasmine and Mugane
Base: Orcanox™, Vinyl Guaiacol and Moss
In the product description, de Swardt emphasizes his goal of illustrating the wonder of biotech and natural materials coexisting. He boils this down to a finer world, one where milky skin merges with cold, sterile matter. In this universe, tech is so well integrated it is not visible to the naked eye. It spreads like a fog, blanketing every inch of the world.
When I was a kid, I used to hold my arm out the car window and let the air graze my skin. I would sniff my arm afterward because I loved the way my skin smelled after the wind had been on it for a while. It’s sweet, nutty, mildly lactonic. A cannibal would call it gourmand.
The present day means the warm, familiar promise of corporeal condition, while the future teases a complete unknown for our bodies. All we can do is imagine, which turns out to be something humans love to do and which has given way to countless impeccable pieces of media and art.
The one thing we can be certain of is that matter of some kind will always exist—and have a distinct scent—even if there are no noses around to smell it. Unless, of course, the cold expanse of our universe somehow gets rewound back into nothingness—null, none—not-scent.
What does not-scent smell like? One of my favorite things to do is try to imagine what outer space smells like. Do you think the moon and the sun smell similar? The fact that I will never get to smell the sun one day makes me more upset than I should admit.