Most people think perfume is something you wear.
I have never believed that.
I make perfume because I believe scent can change how we experience life instantly. Not metaphorically. Literally. The olfactory system is directly connected to the emotional and memory centers of the brain. Scent bypasses logic. It bypasses language. It goes straight to feeling.
That alone makes perfume one of the most powerful creative mediums available to us.
A single inhale can shift mood, perception, confidence, comfort, memory, and even how we see the world in front of us. That is not decoration. That is transformation.
And yet, most of the world treats fragrance like a commodity.
One of the biggest misunderstandings about perfume is the belief that it is simply a product. Something to be compared, discounted, ranked, or justified by volume and branding. Even when perfume is described as art, the conversation often collapses under pricing confusion. Why should one bottle cost more than another? Why does this scent feel expensive? Why does that one not?
The problem is not the price. The problem is the intention.
Some makers price perfume high because they want it to be considered luxury. Others price low because they believe accessibility is the goal. But neither approach matters if the work itself was not created as art first. Art demands coherence. Art demands purpose. Art demands honesty. Without that, price becomes a costume instead of a reflection.
Perfume, when done with intention, is closer to music or painting than to a consumer good. You do not ask a song to justify its price. You either feel it or you do not.
What I want people to feel when they experience my work is something even deeper.
I do not want someone to feel like they are wearing perfume at all.
I want the scent to disappear into them. To merge. To become something they forget they applied. Perfume is absorbed by the skin. It enters the body. It interacts with chemistry, warmth, movement, and time. In that sense, saying you wear perfume is slightly inaccurate.
You consume perfume.
And once you do, it becomes part of you.
That is the level I aim for. Not projection for attention. Not performance. Not statement. But integration. When a fragrance feels inevitable on someone. Like it belongs there. Like removing it would feel stranger than keeping it.
That is why I still believe perfume is more than smell.
It is emotion.
It is psychology.
It is art.
And when done honestly, it is identity.
Darryl Hunter
Traveling Atelier Perfumer and Scent Cartographer
