Dear reader,
I love the feeling of coming home after a trip. Before I leave I always clean my place so it feels good to come back to. It’s the best way to feel the end of something. When people come over they tell me my place smells good, and I love that. (I’m a Taurus.) This week I present part two of my conversation with Courtney Rafuse, also a Taurus, and the perfumer of Universal Flowering. Part One is here. As always, thanks for reading, and happy spring, xo.
When I was sixteen I bought my first perfume, which was Davidoff Cool Water. I first smelled it at an airport duty free shop on the trip home from Athens. I wanted it so much: the elegant blue bottle, the crystal phallus of a cigarette company. At the duty free I sprayed Cool Water on my wrist for the first time, and inhaled it over the transatlantic flight. When I got home I’d find it in pharmacies and department stores, and each time I found it I’d spray it again. I loved the smell, it was the colour aqua, a mental quiet, the feeling of white ice cream. I usually don’t buy things without thinking about them, so after trying it several times I finally bought it. On that first day it smelled beautiful. On the second day something changed. At the end of the perfume was the feeling of something different, something sour, and it lingered. This got worse and worse every time I sprayed it. It smelled different on me than it had before — it was an aftertaste that got bloated and saccharine. The perfume would transform from that pure coolness into the feeling of fake alcoholic syrup, which began to invade even its opening notes. I stopped wearing the perfume, but I didn’t get rid it. For years I kept the bottle, spraying it once in a while to see if the scent had gone back to what it once was. It never did, so eventually I gave it to a friend who said she liked it, even when I found it disgusting.
Courtney fills an iridescent purple glass with tap water and hands it to me. The glass is smooth, long and rounded, both a vessel and projectile. I remember Georges Bataille (1929), briefly mentioned psychoanalysis in his essay on the Language of Flowers: “Among other things, the value given to pointed or hollowed-out objects is fairly well known.”
Eleni: [Drinks from the cup] I love Toronto taste.
Courtney: I agree. The taste of Toronto.
Are there specific notes in Toronto tap water that are different or stand out?
No, I think that what I like about it is that it tastes very clear and free of anything. It doesn’t taste very minerally to me.
Yeah. It feels pure. I’m trying to think of places where I noticed the water tasted different.
Florida.
Tell me.
Really, really stinky water. Really iron-y. Tastes like blood in your mouth.
That’s disgusting.
And it kind of has, like, a viscosity.
So it’s like swamp. You’re drinking swamp.
I mean I might be remembering it wrong, but I feel like I have a very visceral memory of drinking tap water in Florida and being really really upset by it.
I don’t think there’s anything that’s not upsetting in Florida.
Old people getting eaten by alligators.
Eating alligators in tacos.
* * *
Bataille: “But nothing contributes more strongly to the peace in one’s heart and to the lifting of one’s spirits, as well as to one’s loftier notions of justice and rectitude, than the spectacle of fields and forests, along with the tiniest parts of the plant, which sometimes manifest a veritable architectural order, contributing to the general impression of correctness. No crack, it seems — on could stupidly say no quack — conspicuously troubles the decisive harmony of vegetal nature.”
* * *
When’s your birthday?
24th
Of April. Ooh, okay, I like the April Tauruses. I’m also an April Taurus.
Oh right!!
We also have Venus in Pisces in common.
I remember my Pisces placements are in, like, love. [Looks up chart.] Mercury in Taurus, Venus in Pisces, Mars in Pisces.
[Screaming] Oh my god literally same.
Really?
Yeahhhh. The only people I’ve met with Venus in Pisces are all people who work in mental health. So this speaks to your work. I mean, I feel like perfuming is kind of a form of therapy.
It’s my best form of therapy.
Tell me more!
I mean, I was thinking about it today actually, how lately the things I’ve been noticing and trying to work on more the last few years have been learning how to communicate my needs, my desires, things like that. So this is sort of teaching me how to do that more internally than anything. And I think that’s kind of why I still have a lot of trouble talking about my perfume and my work in general, because it feels so closely tied into my internal world. It feels like a very direct extension of that, which is really nice for me. And it’s really great that people take such a nice interest in this. It kind of trips me up to talk about it.
Have you ever shown your therapist your perfume?
I have not, I’ve never shown it to her. I started seeing her the first year of the pandemic. So we met over Zoom, and since the second week of January we’ve been seeing each other in person once a week. The other day I mentioned to her that I noticed I was wearing the same perfume whenever I go to therapy, and I’ve kind of ruined one of my favourite perfumes by making it my therapy perfume. It’s Atelier Materi Cacao Porcelana. She said, “It’s funny because this is the first time I’ve actually noticed a smell on you.”
Do you ever talk about the perfumes that you’re making in therapy?
No. I’ve talked about them after the fact. But a lot of the time, kind of like what you said earlier, I don’t really know what something is about until it’s done. And I won’t even know what something’s about until I honestly start writing about it. And then when I start writing about it I’m like “Uhuh, okay. Okay, teen goth.” And then the truth comes out. I mean, if you look at the last year of releases, it’s been like, comfort. It’s all just me craving comfort and safety and warmth basically. That’s why I find it hard to talk about it. Because I feel like there’s so much that hasn’t revealed itself to me yet through it. It’s going to be one of those things that I’ll look back at later and be like “Jesus, put your shirt on, you’re saying too much.” But I think I have more of an awareness of it now. Themes that I go through with them, that become obvious to me later.
* * *
I was in New York this week for work: On the way there, before the plane took off, I heard the sound of a baby crying somewhere behind me. The man sitting behind me kept cooing and hushing the child, but the cries sounded distant, like he was talking to a baby on video chat before takeoff. But the sound continued even when we were supposed to be off our phones. It got louder and clearer until I realized it wasn’t a video baby but a real life cat. The flight attendant passed through the aisle as we started taxiing and told the man to put the cat carrier under the seat for takeoff. The man, who’d seemed so sweet before, grew loud and suddenly angry. He said, “Absolutely not, not after what you guys have put me through. She’s been in this carrier for the past 14 hours, you can throw me off this plane if you want, but there’s no way I’m putting her under there. I’ll make a scene.” The flight attendant was so patient with the man. Her voice was so quiet, even when he threatened her, as if she was responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened to him and his howling cat. Her voice got so quiet that I couldn’t even hear her, and eventually he put the carrier under the seat. I didn’t hear him or the cat for the rest of the flight.
* * *
Where are your spots to put your perfume?
I like the back of the neck, my lower back, and the backs of my arms, kind of around the shoulder blades.
I’ve never heard of that. I mean, back of neck I knew. But back of arms and lower back.
I like lower back because it gets really hot, and just lovely. A lovely place to have scent. You know those dresses that go down to the buttcrack and there’s a nice little thong sticking out? It’s like that. And back of arms is nice because there’s motion there, and sweat.
Oh I love that. Can you free associate about Venus in Tuberose?
Again, innocence. But like, you’re trying to have that innocence, you’re trying to get it back. It’s just kind of like searching for yourself. For some reason what’s coming to mind is really, really, really fresh celery hearts. The feeling of crunching them between your teeth. The sound, and the crunch, and how satisfying that feels. Jolly Rancher, but good. It’s been a long time since I put that on. Dipping your finger into candle wax and peeling it off. Peeling the label off of a cold, cold bottle of soda or beer.
Does it leave a residue?
Yeah, and you peel the rest off with your fingernails. Lipstick on a glass. Purple. I think all the things I’m thinking of are kind of like curiosity. It feels like there’s a lot of curiosity in that perfume.
It’s also so tactile. Reaching. Like, you’re reaching for the glass, you’re reaching for the label to pull it off.
Yeah. I think that’s the clamoring, the innocent feeling. There’s a reaching, there’s a desire to get somewhere.
And you don’t know where that is yet.
Yeah. An ideal place or something. Like how a memory can feel so much more grandiose than it was. You remember it in all these bright shades. And all these ways that are complementary to it. But it may not be that. But it’s like the idealized state that never existed. But you can still picture it that way.
Have you ever noticed how memories, as they get older and more remote, will shift from first person to third person?
Yes. Very much so. And I find that when that happens, it feels like kind of where I start to lose touch with them, and I start to feel like my memories aren’t real anymore. Which is a very scary feeling.
I have that all the time. Not trusting my own memory because it doesn’t make sense in retrospect.
Terrible. [Laughs.]
But it’s so beautiful because they still affect us. They still have feelings attached to them. They’re still real. Something is real.
Something is real. It’s almost like the memory becomes less important than whatever is showing up now.
Okay: Pleasure Portrait.
Pleasure Portrait is funny to me right now. The way I see it has completely changed. I don’t know why, but now when I smell it it feels very vintage to me. I’ve been wearing it to bed recently, and it feels like putting on somebody else’s perfume. It doesn’t feel like mine anymore. I think for a long time it felt very comfort-based, a very full exploration of everything that I loved to smell. Now it almost reminds me of perfume on my grandmother’s vanity or something. It doesn’t feel the same to me anymore. I love it still, but my relationship to it has changed a lot.
It’s interesting that you choose that one to sleep with. I sometimes wear perfume to sleep.
I love perfume for bed. It’s my favourite.
It’s the best. Especially sleeping alone.
It’s so elegant. Such a nice thing to do for yourself.
For me Pleasure Portrait feels like Church when I was little.
Yeah. That makes sense. It has that intense heaviness. Is it the wood of church?
I think so. And I grew up in Greek Orthodox churches, which were extremely ritualized and severe. If you think about Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the rabbit at Easter is a bunny. It’s cute. The eggs are dyed pastel colours. At Orthodox Easter there is no bunny. We have a lamb stripped naked on a spit over a fire. We dye our eggs blood red. It’s a Byzantine religion, and the symbols have this smoky violence to them, in a really hot way. It’s like seeing a painting of a hunt, where you have the slain body of a huge animal just draped over a horse. It’s elegant but terrifying. It’s the feeling of seeing the Unicorn tapestries. Have you ever been to the Cloisters in New York?
No, never.
I fucking wept in there by myself last year, for like thirty minutes. Because the tapestries are the story of the unicorn being captured and betrayed by a maiden. The unicorn is a symbol of purity and innocence. Like our conversation before. In the first tapestry you see the unicorn on its own, chilling, purifying a lake with its horn. All the beautiful creatures of the forest are all around it. But in the background there are these hunters peeking through the trees, looking at it, ready to hunt. There are some battle scenes with the hunters, but they can’t get the unicorn because the unicorn is magic. It’s interesting because there’s a little dog in the battle scenes, and the unicorn has literally pierced the dog through the belly with its horn, even though the unicorn is such a peaceful, graceful animal. You can feel the pain in this tapestry. It’s horrifying. But all of the beauty of the individual flowers in the middle of that violence just envelops you. Because it’s a fucking blanket. That’s the thing, it’s a tapestry. It’s not a painting. It’s a blanket. Someone made a goddamn blanket of this visceral, violent tragedy. But then eventually in another tapestry the unicorn is captured. The only thing that can tame a unicorn in the story is a maiden, a virgin — another sign of innocence. So the only way that the hunters can actually capture the unicorn is by bringing a woman. And that’s the only tapestry that didn’t survive in full. There are only little scraps of it. And you can’t see the maiden who tames the unicorn, you can only see her hand around the unicorn’s neck. There are actually two versions of the story’s ending, which is interesting. In one, the unicorn is slain over the back of the horse, with little bleeding marks on its body like Jesus Christ on the cross, like stigmata. In the other, the unicorn is captive in this circular fence surrounded by flowers, wearing a collar. It’s supposed to be about marriage, the “bridegroom tamed by love.” All these flowers symbolizing fertility and weddings. All this fucking detail, on a blanket. So that’s what I get from Pleasure Portrait. There’s a violence to the pleasure of looking at those tapestries. The same thing in the violence of a church. Churches are crazy to me. The perfume is like that as well. There’s this deep, visceral, aching pleasure to it. And there’s this pulsating sense… There’s blood in there.
But you still enjoy wearing it.
I think I do. I wear it less. I would say I wear Purple Afternoon the most. And it’s my comfort. Pleasure Portrait used to be my comfort. But I haven’t worn it for a few months.
That’s how I feel. I haven’t had this happen with any of my perfumes. Where the smell hasn’t changed, but the way I smell it has completely changed. It’s very weird. I’m still trying to understand because I only noticed it a few nights ago. I was like “What the fuck happened.” But yeah, it’s very very real. That one really does have a life of its own. I think that’s the joy of how nuanced they are. You’ll notice something different about it that shifts it. I love it still, I just need to figure out in what way, now.
Can we do one more?
Of course.
I want you to free associate about whichever one you feel is the most important one to free associate about right now.
[Long pause, looking at the wall of perfumes]. I can’t. Okay, the one that I went to is one that I find that I almost need to take out of the collection because it feels too personal in a way. I want to be able to. It’s There is Bliss and There is You. For some reason we keep talking about blood. [Laughs]. And one of the notes, I think I’ve told you about this, is actually a blood note. I made a blood accord for it. But I call it ‘copper wire’ because I felt like that was too intense. But I still find it so hard to talk about it. That one I’m so vague about. But it was kind of about a relationship. Not so much about the relationship itself, it was about a lot of different things. But sort of that kind of feeling, of pulling, going back, pushing away, going back. The blood accord, sort of like blood in your mouth that you keep jabbing your tongue into it to get more, even though it hurts. Yeah there’s a lot in that one. I can’t even free associate about it.
You just did.
I just did.
Fuck that’s so painful.
[Courtney sprays it on my wrist]. I kind of wanted it to smell like electricity. I wanted it to smell like high voltage.
Oh that’s developing really beautifully. Is there a powderiness to it?
There’s a bit of a powderiness in there. But it’s very root-y, a little sweet, but with a really sharp spark basically.
Yeah, it’s like if a carrot were neon, for me.
Love that. Neon carrot.
There’s a hare that’s giving birth to it. Not a rabbit, not a bunny, but a hare. A Greek fucking hare.
I’m picturing fiberglass.
I’m getting the copper wire. It makes sense that it’s blood. Fuck, now I’m tasting that idea of jabbing the sore in your mouth.
And it feels really good.
And you can’t stop doing it.
Sticking your fingers in your wounds.
Love,
E