79. Chronicling Space & Time (& Trauma) Through Scent (w/ Chronotope Founder Carter Weeks Maddox)
Perfume Room
Emma Vernon
4.9 • 619 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2023
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you made potions with your parents' beauty products as a kid, congrats there is a 99.999% chance you are now a fraghead. Today's guest went one step further -- from potion-making to perfume-making.
Chronotope Founder and Perfumer Carter Weeks Maddox is in the Perfume Room today! Though Carter is an entirely self-taught perfumer, the lens through which he creates is backed by an MA in Critical Theory. He wrote his thesis on manifestations of the chronotope within women's postwar life writing and his fragrances in many ways exist as the olfactive manifestation of his studies. We discuss issues of colonialism in scent culture, how Carter reclaimed (and recreated) smells of his personal trauma (for profit hehe), the notion of fragrance as performance art, as well as the question at the heart of it all: for whose gaze do we wear scent?
FRAGS MENTIONED:
La Perla My Day, Frederic Malle Iris Poudre, OURSIDE Nostalgia, PHLUR: Tangerine Boy, Lost Cause; DSH L’Or{ris}, Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose, DSH: Special Formula X, The Absinthe Drinkers; Balmain Jolie Madame, Halston, Balmain Vent Vert, Chronotope Intra Venus, Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Brut, Aramis, CK Obsession for Men, Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds, Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills, Polo Green, Chronotope: Buen Camino, Nanas; Curve, Adidas Moves, Azzaro Chrome, Chronotope: Playalinda, Spite EDP; Bal de Versailles, Chronotope Spite EDT, YSL Paris, Effronte et Evocateur
SHOP THIS EPISODE: https://shopmy.us/collections/106298
FOLLOW CARTER: @chronotope_perfume
SHOP CHRONOTOPE: chronotope-perfume.com
FOLLOW PERFUME ROOM: @perfumeroompod (IG) @emma_vern (TT)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the perfume room. That is the first time I am saying that in 2023 and oh my God, it feels good. |
| 0:16.4 | I hope you guys have had some nice time off. I hope your years are off to a good start. We had a nice |
| 0:22.1 | little hiatus these past few weeks, but I am so happy to be back. We have such an incredible |
| 0:27.4 | guest list lined up for 2023, and it all starts right here, right now. To kick off the new year, |
| 0:33.8 | I thought it would be fun to share with you guys some of the top sniffs from when you heard from me last because I have smelled so many fragrances in the last few weeks and I have a few highlights that have risen to the top that you must know. So one, and I have to say, I can't remember if I talked about this before our little break or not, but I cannot stop wearing my day from La Perla. It is the perfect aldehytic oris scent. I love it. So yes, |
| 0:58.0 | you heard that right. It's an aldohydic oris. When I first sprayed it, immediately I'm like, |
| 1:01.6 | okay, Frederick Mal, Iris Poot, I hear you, I see you, I smell you. But this one is different because |
| 1:06.2 | of that oris note. Yes, there is that floral iris at the opening, but very quickly you get that |
| 1:11.4 | waxy, creamy, earthy orris that somehow is faceted in such a luminous way because of the aldehydes |
| 1:20.3 | and the musk in this fragrance. It is absolutely beautiful. There is a warm, sweet, slightly |
| 1:26.6 | endolic floral heart and I just cannot stop wearing |
| 1:31.1 | this scent. Not to mention the bottle is, I think, my like dream fantasy bottle. You know, I love a |
| 1:37.2 | ball cap, and it is a purple ball cap with a seafone green jade colored bottle. I am obsessed. |
| 1:46.6 | Need to add full bottle to my collection immediately. |
| 1:52.4 | Okay, let me very quickly run through a few others. So next up, we have Our Side, formerly known as Aspen Apothecary. You remember Cato was a guest on the pot, I think. If my memory serves me |
| 1:57.2 | correctly, she was episode 8. Anyway, they have rebranded to our side and they just |
| 2:01.2 | released a new fragrance called nostalgia and I am absolutely obsessed. In 2023, I want to see a |
| 2:07.8 | return of maximalist florals. I want to see more Georgios. I want to see more carnal flowers. I want to |
| 2:14.7 | see more fracas of the world. And I feel like nostalgia is the perfect |
| 2:19.5 | leap into that genre. It is a nod to those endolic florals. It has a huge jasmine note. It has a |
| 2:25.5 | huge lang-a-lang note. But it is complemented by this big, juicy, fresh grapefruit and sort of green |
| 2:32.3 | notes with violet leaf. And I just find it to be somehow a very |
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