Maddie Phinney talks Centerfold, the state of niche perfume, and being a professional analogist

BY LAUREN LEXA BROWN

The dry down we all needed.

We all have those few people whose brains we would pay hundreds to pick at, even just for a few minutes. Upon listening to hours upon hours of Nose Candy over the years, my parasocial bond with co-hostesses Chloe Coover and Maddie Phinney has bloomed from a seedling to a whole garden. These girls do something few can do without sounding overly pedantic or pretentious— they have the gift of using an anthropological, objective lens when discussing perfume. It’s never just about what’s in the bottle— it’s about who owns it, where they got it, how they got it, and what that means for society at large. This investigative approach is important because we tend to forget that perfume is media, and like other mediums, it will always reflect and shape— crookedly, at times— the world we live in.

Maddie Phinney (left and Chloe Coover (right) of Nose Candy Podcast

Photographer: Jessica Bertino

As a graduate of the University at Buffalo in New York in 2014, Maddie was able to study visual culture at such an exciting time. This was the dawn of the art-hoe, when we really began to see contemporary critical theory being adapted not only by institutions like colleges, but also by gays in Starry Night socks scrolling Tumblr. Wielding an MA, her vast knowledge for the intermingling of art and identity only scratches the surface of her impressive repertoire. From being a shop girl at Scent Bar LA, to appearing as one of the artisan and indie judges (alongside Chloe) at the 12th Art and Olfaction Awards this June, to moving to the perfume capital of the world (France), Maddie's impact on the fragrance world is unmatched.

Photographer: John Hein

Design: Madeleine Kunkle

Model: Stella Barey

Naturally, when I first caught wind of Centerfold, I knew I needed a bottle. Below is the description listed on Hollywood Gifts site:

THE SCREEN TEST | Heart-shaped box of milk chocolates, amaretto-soaked cherries, almond brittle, and praline.

THE CALLBACK | Floaty mimosa, pretty-girl musk, styrax, Fancy Mixed Nuts, and earthy patchouli.

Centerfold is to perfume as Slayyyter’s latest album, Worst Girl in America is to music. It carries a John Waters-esque sophistication— it's raw, bare naked, and manages to embrace the kitschy artifice of the red-blooded American trash whore.

I could go on, but the interview will speak for itself. Please welcome Maddie to the Heart Note Press stage.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

L: What perfumes have you been wearing lately?

M: I'm going to tell you something. Perfume has been a little bit of a bummer recently. I don't know if you feel this way, but commercial perfumes are trying to be sort of artsy. I feel like artsy perfumes— in an attempt to be more legitimate— are getting more commercial. It’s kind of like we're at this place where there's so much new perfume, and a lot of it smells the same.

L: I do feel that. It's kind of like the horseshoe theory of perfume. It's come full circle. Huge brands are cosplaying as niche perfumes a little bit, and vice versa.

M: And I think that would be okay on its face— but I think what I expect with a niche perfume is something that I'm not getting with a more commercial fragrance— meaning more experimental. That doesn't seem like it's necessarily been the case. So, I recently got a new scent from Serviette, do you know about them?

L: Yeah! I have their discovery set, but not featuring the newest release sadly.

M: Ok, I just smelled Priscus this morning, and it's really beautiful. The opening is kind of this wet house paint note that I love in perfume, but it's an organic smell, like if you smell wet house paint, it actually smells a lot like an under-ripe banana violet leaf– it has a little bit of an acerbic thing. Then it goes to a mushroomy place. Then, the dry down is where I get juicy, fruity patchouli. It’s really fucking cool.

L: Wow, I really want to smell it, I'm very intrigued! I feel a sort of fruit revolution coming on. Have you heard about the new Susan Alexandra fragrance by Marissa Zappas?

M: No, but that's so genius. It makes so much sense.

L: I already ordered it, I’m so excited. It’s got grape, candied violets, amber, musk— I think grapes are going to be huge this year.

M: I love that, I love working with fruit.

L: Me too. Speaking of fruit, I’m wearing Centerfold all over my body currently.

M: You like it? You're like, the perfect centerfold girl. I'm sure it smells so good on you.

L: Oh my god, thank you. I love it. It’s like a master class in how to make the perfect top to dry down.

M: Thank you so much! The dry down is my favorite part too. Like a cool, floaty mask. That's my favorite part of it.

L: I was wondering, was there anything that surprised you during the process of making it? Anything unexpected you learned?

M: Ever since I got into perfume, I have been really interested in materials. A lot of my education around perfume wasn't in like, blending or accords. These classes can be quite boring, girl— you have all of the raw materials in front of you, and you just kind of smell them and talk about them. It can feel a little slow, but I really appreciate having gotten to take these classes. If you're someone who's studying in the big schools in Paris or in Switzerland, you probably spend a year or more just on that process.

L: Totally.

M: In terms of materials, I think that practice is a lot more important than talent. With Centerfold, I could just play with these beautiful raw, natural materials and synthetics without a fancy European education, or going down some very conventional, technical path to perfumery. We’re sort of told that that’s not possible. I guess I felt surprised that I wasn’t encountering all of these super massive technical or commercial roadblocks.

L: Absolutely, like you were expecting more red tape.

M: Totally. Like, if you talk to people at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery for example, they’ll say they’re ‘not perfumers’ even though they fully graduated and have this education, because they haven’t made perfume for Chanel or something. In my opinion, you’re a perfumer just because you want to make perfume!

L: I agree, it’s like if someone has an English degree, has written hundreds of stories, but doesn’t consider themselves a writer because they’re not published in Vogue. Nobody is immune to imposter syndrome.

L: I wanted to talk about a past Substack essay of yours called "No, perfume isn’t Art.”, where you argue perfume should just be perfume. I think this is really compelling. Tell me more about that.

M: Honestly it’s only something I kind of half believe in, it’s a polemic. Obviously, Centerfold had a story in mind when I was creating the fragrance, and some of it kind of came after, and sort of developed in tandem with modifications to the formula and stuff. For example, say Trey Taylor from Serviette has a bunch of marketing material that he's written about for Priscus— I'm sure there's a narrative behind it too— but to experience it outside of that, a perfume that smells like if wet house paint grew out of the ground, that is something only perfume as a medium can accomplish. I think this medium can do a lot of interesting things, like a perfume that smells like a movie or something. It’s the abstraction that I think is so beautiful— if we're trying to approach the really central essence of what the ‘thing’ is.

L: Yeah, that's really interesting. It’s not productive to try and paint a movie if what you’re trying to make is a movie.

M: I'm with you. I'm pretty into medium specificity— not for any politicized reason— that's actually not the part of it that's particularly interesting to me. What's interesting to me is we have all of these tools for presenting ideas about the world, and it's like, why not? Like it can be, as you said, an interesting experiment to cook the scrambled eggs with the eraser, but is that going to be the best tool for the job?

Maddie grabs a nearby eraser and waves it around.

L: Yes! I know what you mean. If we have the spatula available, the best tool for the job, get the spatula and just put in your damn tool belt and use it like you mean it. In your essay, you say you consider yourself to be a “professional analogist” as a perfume writer. I absolutely love that. I think a lot of people try to avoid admitting that, but we should be proud of it.

M: If we can find little hacks to communicate with each other, to me, it's very cool. I don't know that that's important work, but it's really fucking fun work and communication is so hard. There's this political idea around it, that there are very important things going on in the world and we shouldn’t create metaphors to discuss them— that is a very 80’s idea of representation of the world. As someone who has had the privilege of being on the earth as long as I have, I have a data bank full of things that I've smelled and seen and, you know, transcendent pieces of art that I've been able to experience, and with that, if I'm able to pull some of that to help someone better understand something else in the world that feels important.

L: That is so interesting. That is often so overlooked, not only in perfumery but all art forms.

M: I had a friend who went to perfume school, maybe five or six years older than the other students. She was saying she had been on this earth longer, so she’s smelled more fruits in her lab and has the faculty to actually describe more things than someone who's much younger, who has simply experienced less.

L: Yes! Thank you. That is an objective fact. Let's sit with that for a second.

M: No, totally.

L: What are your thoughts on selling perfume to people who don’t like perfume? Audrey Robinovitz brought this up on a recent ep of Perfume Room, in the context of ‘clean’ scents.

M: People are looking for the needle in the haystack sometimes. But in terms of skin scents, there are some good ones now. Discussions about perfume application need to happen. I used to be a really a chronic over-sprayer, and my favorite thing was to over apply Angel by Mugler— it projects crazy coconut, chocolate, fruit, patchouli, all at the same time. I love that perfume, but I've started realizing even a perfume like that can kind of operate as a skin scent, if you really are judicious about it. Do you smoke weed?

L: I don’t, but I ingest it in other ways.

M: I don't really smoke anymore, but you can go into a dispensary and you can buy very low THC cannabis. It’s like… yeah… or you can just smoke a little bit of normal weed. I think people see skin scents as perfumes that just don't have a lot of projection. You could just wear a perfume with more projection, but just spray a little!

L: That is so simple, but that is exactly right. I heard that you're working on a second fragrance for Hollywood Gifts. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

M: Unfortunately, no, but it's so germane to so much of what we've been talking about. Girl, it’s so good, it's really, really, really beautiful. It’s based on an experience that I love and the smells that accompany it. And working Maddy Kunkle from Hollywood Gifts— she's just such a fucking genius. She's so creative and permissive. If we're working together on an idea, she lets me go in my own direction. I feel very lucky to have these experiences in artistic collaboration, both with her and with Chloe on Nose Candy, where it's just two women who complement each other, and there’s no ego involved.

L: Yeah, you have a common goal.

M: Totally, it’s such a privilege to work with people who are so talented and smart and not have to deal with bullshit.

L: That is so cool. Any concluding thoughts you have?

M: Centerfold just restocked at Lucky Scent, and I think by the time this comes out it will be on the Hollywood Gifts site too! And we have a new beautiful box— Maddy K. is just a packaging maven.

L: So exciting, everyone should go buy a bottle.

M: I can say that Chloe and I are going to come back with Nose Candy in a version that we both think is really, really special, and we're really excited about so that's in development now. I'm also working on a perfume with Fear Safe, which is another fashion brand in LA. too. The owner's background is actually in construction, so we’re really taking inspiration from things like concrete and glue and other industrial materials.

L: That is so cool. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today!

Shop Centerfold on Hollywood Gifts and Lucky Scent!

Lauren Lexa Brown is a writer and archivist based in Vancouver, Canada. She is the Editor-In-Chief of Heart Note Press.