There are perfumes inspired by flowers, spring rain, and even sex. Well, maybe not sex, but you can buy pheromones in a bottle, to be spritzed on like Chanel No. 5 on a Saturday night.
Add “freshly printed books” to the list of come-hither scents available for purchase at Macy’s. (Disclaimer: I haven’t confirmed that Macy’s is actually selling the stuff.)
Paper Passion is not the work of a fashion house, but of Wallpaper* Magazine and Steidl, a printing company in Göttingen, Germany. Together, they commissioned master perfumer Geza Schoen to create a fragrance “based on the smell of books,” as described on the Steidl website. “It is an opportunity to celebrate all the glorious sensuality of books, at a time when many in the industry are turning against them.”
Or, as Mr. Schoen puts it: “You have a book, you open it, there’s a bottle inside and it smells of a book. It might be quirky, but the idea has a simplicity, a linearity.”
Incidentally, schoen means beautiful in German, and people will spend a lot for beauty. But beauty is in the nose of the beholder, and charging $115 for a small bottle of Paper Passion, Steidl better hope consumers feel like this guy.