Too sweet to be cold

Visiting the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2003, the Demeter fragrances exhibit captivated me. I smelled grass, I smelled mildew, I smelled tomatoes, and I read the story of how each fragrance was inspired and came to be. What subtle genius would take the most fundamental smells of my childhood and create essences that fired memory neurons I had long forgotten? I remembered my father’s failed vegetable garden that continued to sprout wild tomatoes after we abandoned it. I remembered the corner of the basement where my grandfather built his tool shed and workshop where I smelled mildew. And the smell of freshly cut grass brought back more memory than I can list, like watching clouds and listening to the neighbor mow his lawn.

In the gift shop, I wavered between buying the scent Gin and Tonic and Snow. I decided Gin and Juice was too naughty for a southern gal like me, and settled on Snow.

Snow was never quite right for me--though I liked the smell well enough--it just wasn’t snow. Snow smells crackly like ozone, it smells cold, and it smells like the absence of scent because it drapes every scent-giving thing in fragrance-retarding ice. To me, snow smells like absolute zero, a fresh scent palate.

Demeter’s Snow was sort of ghostly sweet and gentle, but not frozen enough for me. Oddly, when I sprayed it on, the scent evaporated quickly, and I smelled like regular musky me again. I thought it must be a joke, that snow is ephemeral and melts quickly, but then I thought I’d been duped by a museum fragrance that couldn’t withstand real wearing. And after living in Chicago for so many years, I know that the zero smell is what is really ephemeral about snow, and that quickly it smells like oil and dirt and garbage--probably all are Demeter scents, but not my preferred olfactory stimuli.