Perfumes and dinosaurs, dinosaurs (and a few non-dinosaurs) and scents.

Why dinosaurs?

Because dinosaurs are amazing, and because I got sick of the luxury hype around perfumes and perfume marketing. Small plastic dinosaurs seemed like a good counterbalance to brand marketing and influencer culture.

This all seems familiar…

I originally posted the older pieces on instagram, starting with stories in 2018, and then posts under the @scentosaurs name and account in 2019.

…but also kind of weird

It’s because I don’t list out notes, use marketing blurbs, use the word “sexy”, or tell you how a scent unfolds. I riff on my experience of a scent, and the emotional impact it has for me, while going off on tangents about language, gender, and scent culture.

Self indulgent? Absolutely. These are just my responses to other people’s creative work.

Why this site is here now

Because fuck Meta.

And fuck all the other massive tech bro billionaire boys clubs that profit from our creativity, communities, and attention. And fuck their craven toadying to fascists too.

I am old. I am the same age as ARPANET, the computer mouse, the laser printer, and the 747. So I am old enough to remember handbuilding our own sites on our own domains, and controlling our own work. It’s time that came back.

We can find each other again. If in doubt, use RSS to collect all the things that interest you into one place. forgetting.net/feed should do the job here.

There’s an awful lot of different perfumes here.

Some I’ve had for decades, some for days. some do;t even belong to me. I’m not a collector, I’m just better at accumulating than shedding things.

Do you get freebies?

Very, very rarely. I don’t ever solicit them. Sometimes I trade things I make with perfume makers who I get to know, or swap samples with other enthusiasts. Occasionally I get a discount or a gift when I am a regular customer of a small brand. Mostly I buy things, new or second hand.

Wasn’t this site once about places, not perfumes?

Years ago, I used this site to write about place — places I’d been, wished I’d been, imagined I’d been — and about the worn threads of memory.

Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice. Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or, perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.

(Calvino, Invisible Cities)

And then I stopped. (Long story, very dull.)

But later I started writing about scent. Again, the connections between new experiences and old. Again, I stopped.

These posts are some of the things I wrote. Maybe there will be some more.

Why no comments form? You are being wrong on the internet and I have things to say back!

The conversations that took place about perfume on IG were amazing. I miss being part of that (but see above: fuck meta). Maybe soon.

In the meantime, email katie@forgetting.net (and let me know if you are ok with me adding things you say to a post).