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AROMA: from Latin armata, pl. of arma, from Greek, aromatic herb. FRAGRANCE: from Latin fragrantia, from fragrare ‘smell sweet’ PERFUME: (this *should have been a no-brainer....) French parfum, from Old Italian parfumo, from parfumare, to fill with smoke (from Latin per-, per-) + fumare, to smoke (from Latin fmre, from fmus, smoke). Perfume in the sense of 'smoking through' a scent, adds a whole new dimension to, 'perfuming one's hair'. Alert: ramble on Indian hair perfuming ritual  At my grandmother's home in Southern India, this was a biweekly ritual. Hair would first be oiled intensely with a mixture of hair oils (they would really rub it into the scalp and not be satisfied that it had penetrated, till the oil would come off their hands and not stick anymore on the scalp); then we would be sent off to sit in the sun in the inner open courtyard. After sunning our oiled tresses like this for about twenty minutes, we'd have to wash it all off with a specially formulated herbal powder that did a great job of removing the grease. The next step was drying the hair... and this is where the perfuming bit comes in. A lady would arrive with a two chambered censer ; the bottom one for the hot coals (the perfumed incense is sprinkled on top of the coals) and the perforated top through which the perfumed smoke would exit. This censer was passed repeatedly through the wet hair, drying and perfuming it at the same time! 
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So far "odor" hasn't been mentioned. No the range of chemical composition that may be involved. "Smell" is not
a pretty word, but there are exciting messages transmitted
by pheromones. How remarkable that moths can detect potential mates by single molecules quite widely separated.
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Thank you maahey for that lovely glimpse into your family life. Sounds like a lovely time to be together, exchange thoughts and bind closely to each other. Sure beats the heck out of a quick wash in the shower!
Oh, and bel, I gree with your definitions. Nail on the head.
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The hair ritual mentions incense, which is a pleasant odor
created by the incomplete oxidation of some of the original
material. I'm also reminded of organic chemistry, with the
distinction made between aliphatic and aromatic compounds,
the aliphatic having straight chains, and the aromatic complex rings.
Maybe it's as well we have no wine snob to snow us with the
arcane adjectives they so prize.Better a dittany litany of
flower frangrances.
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I like using scent, but so many of todays colognes and even perfumes are made from synthetics, so I prefer to use essential oils. I usually apply a few drops of the oil to my hair and brush it through. That way, the warmth from my feverish brain helps disseminate the scent and it seems to last much longer as well.
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Safe in my garden,
An ancient flower blooms.
And the scent from its nature
Slowly squares my room;
And its perfume being such
that it's causing me to swoon.
~The Mamas and the Papas
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re: fragrances "that lean towards the musky".
I lean away from the musky myself. It reminds me of musks.
Which leads into another question.
To what extent, if at all, does our expectation of an odor color our experience of it?
For instance, in a blind smell test, would we choose a fragrance we knew was worn by J Lo over a no-name fragrance even tho both fragrances were identical?
Can the mind be tricked into perceiving superiority even where none exists?
We can certainly be tricked into buying something which is pitched by a celebrity, but can we be tricked into actually believing, upon using it, that it is superior to the same thing we are already using absent the celebrity cachet?
If so, that "cachet" has legitimate premium value.
The "cachet" itself is illusion, but, in the mind, the illusion is real.
How much do we spend on illusion, I wonder?
If we took all the illusion away, how much wealth would remain?
How much net happiness would be lost ... or gained?
If I introduced a fragrance called "Illusion", would you buy it?
What if I said that "Illusion" is chosen 50% of the time in a blind smell test using a J Lo fragrance, that it sells for as much as a J Lo fragrance, and that the entire 'celebrity cachet' mark-up would be donated to a Third World country? Would you buy "Illusion" then?
If you did buy "Illusion" under these circumstances, would it smell like a 'celebrity cachet' fragrance when you wore it?
Would anyone else know the difference if you never confided you are wearing "Illusion"?
If, before buying "Illusion", you had to promise that you would never reveal the name of your fragrance, would you buy "Illusion" then?
Or would you buy "Illusion" and wear "J Lo"?
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As you say, wwh, there is more to this olfactory business than meets the eye. Extract from "Sex and the Brain, Vive la difference!" report in today's New York Times: "Several years ago, Swiss scientists discovered that women could sniff out genetic differences in potential mates. When women were asked to smell T-shirts that different men had worn, they often ranked more favorably the shirts that belonged to men with dissimilar genes for major histocompatibility complex, a group of proteins involved in immunity to disease. The odors a woman preferred also tended to remind her of past and current partners. Seeking out different immune-system genes might be a way to prevent inbreeding or to arm offspring with a more versatile immune system, said Dr. Rachel S. Herz, a psychologist at Brown who in a study in 2002 found that women ranked body odor above almost every other factor in attraction, except "pleasantness." Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/health/16SEX.html?pagewanted=2&8hpib
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another study done in london hospitals, showed that mother were more sucessful in identifying the small recieving blankets their babies had been wrapped in (sans baby!) then they were identifying photo's of their newborns.
mother's know what their babies smell like, even when they have been taken from them, minutes after birth, and washed!
likewise, its rather common, as kids reach sexual maturity to find that parents think they smell rank. My daughter's father made a comment about body odor that sent her into a shower frenzy (2 or more showers a day!)--only i never noticed it. but i used to think my son as teen age stunk- his room and clothes seem rank and no else in the family noticed! i think this too is part of a natural selection against insest. the same body odor that once was so appealing (in an infant) becomes repellent when kids are teens.
as for whether different brands of perfumes are better (is J-Lo( offical) brand better than the Jay-Lo (copy-cat) brand
--that depends on the perfumes/scents.
the chemical fixatives in more expensive perfumes are often better, and the choices used to create a mix are sometimes better.
all perfumes fade, and many change as they fade during the day. some compound are voilital, some longer lasting. some start out great, and fade to nothing , others fade to something so different, they become un appealing.
i tend to like spicy, woodsy scents. most woman dislike sandlewood, or clove, i rather like them. but once in while i like a single note floral scent like lily of the valley.
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old hand
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in a blind smell test, would we choose a fragrance we knew was worn by J Lo over a no-name fragrance even tho both fragrances were identical?
I'm afraid you lost me, there: either the test is blind, or we know something about one of the two identical samples. Or did I miss something?
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