Thanks for sharing these delightful thoughts with us. In terms of fannish contributions by professional contributors, this ranks (no pun intended) up there with Kevin Andrew Murphy's iconics poetry.
Brava!
Thanks. If people are entertained, the thread has served its purpose. :)
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Is it wrong of me to wish for a novel where bored Taldoran widows re-enact Liaisons Dangereux now you've planted the idea in my mind?If that's wrong, then man, I don't want to be right.
I'd love to read that book. I'd never write it, because (a) Taldor; and (b) I suck at romance and all associated topics. But I'd surely love to read it.
*immediately looks over Isiem's relations with women in Nightglass and Nightblade*
I greatly beg to differ, I enjoyed all the romantic/sensual/ and general attractions portayed in your books. You are a VERY big tease though ^w^
*selfishly crosses fingers for more KyrilxIsiem interactions in next Night book*
You did a beautiful job with Celeste, Liane! Thank you!
You seem to be having a great deal of fun with this...
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Oh good, I wasn't too sure about that one. I'm glad it wasn't way off!
And yeah, this has been a really fun project for me. Anytime I get to nerd out about two of my favorite things at once, it's pretty awesome. Plus it's been an excuse for me to catch up on the material I hadn't read yet, so that's good too. :)
Ascaros is/was actually a little tricky because I know exactly the effect I want, but it's difficult to find a close approximation in perfume, as it isn't anything anyone would really want to smell like. (I had this same problem with a couple of other characters, such as Madame Eglantine from "The Perfumer's Apprentice" -- I have a clear sense of what the answer should be, but for obvious reasons no one, to my knowledge, has attempted to bottle that particular scent.)
But anyway for Ascaros you could probably achieve a similar effect with Tauer's Incense Extreme sprayed onto linen and wrapped over the dried remains of a small dead bird. The scent is heavy, heavy frankincense layered with orris, cedar, and coriander -- but in this wearing, that blanket of spice and incense never touches skin. It stays on a light and permeable cloth, which changes its character, and beneath those linen layers is a faint but unmistakable whiff of old, dry death.
The only aspect missing is that Ascaros would be using actual spices rather than purely the essential oils and extracts, so there would be a touch of mustiness from old spices trapped in the lower layers of the cloth. That's an effect that you can't really duplicate in perfume (as far as I know, anyway; I'm only someone who smells these things, I don't make them!). So it isn't quite right. But it would be close.
What a great approach to characterization! Dave Gross pointed me toward this post a couple of days ago. (Thanks, Dave!) The post about Ellasif was lovely and poignant.
This reminded me of The Emperor of Scent, an excellent book about perfume and the science of scent. We read this at a (now-defunct) book club a few years back, and one of the members brought her perfume collection for show-and-tell. Are you familiar with this book, Liane? If not, I think you'd enjoy it.
No, I haven't read that! I just bought it for Kindle and am very much looking forward to it. I was familiar with Luca Turin's _Perfume_ and various other writings and interviews, and this seems like a great complement. :)
And thank you for your kind words on that post! I'm hoping to get another round out sometime this weekend, although I'm a little sad to see the project end and so am dragging my feet a bit.
ROUND SIX
Luma - Blood of the City
Update!
At the end of this novel, it looks to me like Luma moves over to the large and varied category of characters who don't wear perfume.
The end of the story puts her in a pretty nihilistic place. It's hard to imagine that the Luma who exists after these pages would have much inclination to indulge in personal pleasures. Perhaps with time and distance her personality might soften enough to allow for some interest in beauty again, but the character who emerges from these experiences seems to be about as stripped down and burned out as a person can be. It might be a while before any flowers poke up in those ruins.
Not only can I see no reason for her to care about perfume personally, but politically it seems like there's a fair chance that she might want to send a message by refraining from fragrance. To the extent that luxurious scents are associated with Cheliax (and especially its upper classes), you could draw a pretty sharp distinction between Magnimar's loyalists and independents by demonstrating that some characters wear those fragrances (particularly those created by Chelish or Korvosan perfumers or known to be worn by prominent figures in the empire) and others do not. Maybe they wear local flowers for contrast; maybe they don't wear anything at all.
As far as I'm aware that's not actually canon anywhere, but it makes sense to me in my head. Anyway, to the extent that Luma has an interest in pushing Magnimar away from Korvosan (and, by extension, Chelaxian) influence, that seems like one obvious way of announcing her position.
So, bummer for me and my nerdly need to attach a fragrance to every single character ever, but I think this is an instance where characterization is best served by opting for nothing at all.
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Mareshka Zarumina - Winter Witch
Several times during this ongoing project, I've noted that some fragrances are "approachable" or "not difficult," leaving unsaid that some fragrances are definitely not approachable.
Now it's time to talk about one of those legendarily difficult fragrances: Serge Lutens's Iris Silver Mist, a true perfumista's perfume, and my choice for the formidable Winter Witch.
Iris Silver Mist is, in a word, weird. It's actually meant to be a wearable perfume, I think -- Lutens is known for intense and sometimes challenging fragrances, but it's not an "art project" line like CB I Hate Perfume. Even so, while I've read on the Internet that there are people who wear Iris Silver Mist in real life, I've never met any of them and I can't imagine who they'd be or what their lives are like.
Because Iris Silver Mist does not, to me, smell like anything remotely human or even attractive to humans. It is chilly and metallic-vegetal and just pungently weird. This is the smell of frozen white roots spidered through frost-laced black earth and carelessly turned up by a gravedigger's shovel. It's winter-killed leaves and frost-strangled flowers floating in a dark and frigid lake under a glaze of muddy ice. There's an undeniable beauty to it, but it's a shivery, alien beauty, and very few people -- even among perfume addicts -- are capable of appreciating it on first exposure.
I like it for Mareshka not only because she's literally inhuman, and not only because the frozen roots-in-earth and chilly silver iris notes are so appropriate for a winter witch, but because the story shows that this character just has no idea what would actually be appealing or attractive to a normal human male. That whole entire ploy regarding Declan, and Mareshka's apparently genuine expectation that he would be devoted to her afterward, was so hilariously off the mark that I have to think all of her courtship choices would be equally strange.
So: Iris Silver Mist!
Karatha - "The Ghosts of Broken Blades"
Bath and Body Works' White Tea and Ginger is my final call for Karatha, although I did consider several entries in the Jo Malone line as well (in particular, White Jasmine and Mint could have been a strong match).
Ultimately the deciding factor for me was price. Jo Malone is noted for light, pleasant, easy-to-wear fragrances. Many of the entries in that line aren't so dissimilar from Bath and Body Works' fragrance mists (which are often quite well made). Both White Tea and Ginger and White Jasmine and Mint are clean, refreshing, soft-spoken scents that would lift Karatha's spirits, soothe her patients, and complement the odors of medicinal herbs without being too overbearing (assuming they were applied with a moderate hand, anyway!).
The main difference between them is price. The Jo Malone fragrance costs nearly ten times as much, and although the ingredients and formulations are of higher quality, it's tough for me to say honestly that they're ten times better (especially since this line used to be more reasonably priced, and there's a widely held suspicion among perfumistas that the line jacked up their prices solely so that they could enter the luxury market and not because anything about the actual perfumes changed). Twice, sure. Ten times, maybe not so much.
Why does this matter? Because price point tells you something about the character. Somebody with money to burn might wear Jo Malone; the fragrances are pretty, and a sufficiently wealthy character doesn't care if the bottles are overpriced (indeed, a new-money character might view this as a benefit: "look what I can afford!").
But Karatha isn't somebody with money to burn. She's a cleric who dresses plainly and puts most of her money into her work. Everything we see about her in this story suggests that she's willing to pay for quality, but not willing to overpay for ostentation (and probably not rich enough to do it even if she wanted to, given that she goes on this risky mission with uncertain information in order to secure more funding for her church). Therefore she's probably going to opt for the less expensive choice, particularly as perfume is a personal indulgence and an Iomedaean cleric tending to the needy might feel a little guilty about spending any money on that, let alone a significant sum.
So we'll let practicality make the pick. For a character of relatively modest means, whose expressed preferences are for plain and functional wares instead of extravagance, White Tea and Ginger wins out.
Azra - Prince of Wolves
From the beginning, I had a pretty clear sense that I wanted a tea-based scent for Azra, but it wasn't until a recent reread of Prince of Wolves that I settled on L'Artisan's Tea for Two as the tea for her.
In retrospect, however, it seems like it should have been obvious. Neither white nor green tea is remotely appropriate for Ustalav, which is resolutely Old World Eastern European and therefore demands the darkest, smokiest, most intensely spiced black teas that a grandmother ever brewed over a pine-knot fire on a howling winter night. Tea for Two is a distinctively autumnal scent, which seems appropriate for a Gothic horror setting that never seems to know summer.
I chose Tea for Two above the other black teas in my collection because this one is richly braided with ginger, cinnamon, clove, and allspice, giving it a warmth and depth that is appropriate not only for the setting but for this particular character. And although it's not an overtly sweet fragrance, there's a hint of honey and vanilla in the base that adds to the underlying sense of warmth and reassurance. Layered with the astringency of the tea notes, it reflects Azra's sometimes prickly personality, which masks but doesn't entirely hide the nurturing aspects of her nature.
Bonus round: Malena
lol j/k Malena doesn't wear perfume
It seems likely that artificial fragrances would be overwhelming to a werewolf. If dogs' noses are sensitive enough to easily pick out an article based on which I most recently touched (as exhibited by My Dog Pongu and yes, okay, that is a transparent excuse to show off the awesomeness of My Dog Pongu and/or my mismatched dog training pajamas, BUT STILL), then wolves' noses are certainly no less finely tuned, and I have to think that perfume would be Just Too Much for them.
But beyond that, we know she doesn't wear perfume because Radovan spends a while checking, and he doesn't notice anything. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that, based on the available evidence in the text, Malena is not a big fragrance fan.
Actual bonus round: Countess Carmilla Caliphvasos
Conversely, we know that the Countess Caliphvasos does wear perfume, because Varian notices it and, furthermore, identifies it as originating from Kyonin and indicative of the Countess's "passion for things elven" (which is, incidentally, exactly the kind of detail that makes me cackle with delight. Yes! Fragrance as character shorthand!).
So then the question is, what does elven perfume smell like?
My intuition is to go in the direction of lighter, greener, more naturalistic perfumes that are sweet but not too sweet. I lean toward subdued florals for the countess, since to me that reads as more suited to her age and social position (and her social acumen, for that matter; she would be astute enough to avoid big sillages for gatherings where she might want to draw someone away for a private, whispered conversation. Knocking out half the room on arrival could be counterproductive).
For Countess Caliphvasos, I like Frederic Malle's En Passant ("In Passing"). En Passant is a naturalistic lilac fragrance, but it's a curiously moody and atmospheric lilac, far more complicated and less sweet than this flower often is. The stated inspiration was lilacs after a rainstorm, and that comes through quite clearly: the blurred fragrance of wind-bruised flowers, torn leaves, and lingering raindrops after a spring storm. It's a delicate perfume, sometimes described as "fragile," that wears close to the skin.
As an aside, "en passant" also refers to a chess move. It's a particular type of pawn capture, and while I'm no expert on chess, it does amuse me to imagine that Carmilla Caliphvasos might wear a perfume that happens to share its name with a casually predatory move in a game of strategy. I can think of nothing that would suit her better.
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Mareshka Zarumina - Winter Witch
Several times during this ongoing project, I've noted that some fragrances are "approachable" or "not difficult," leaving unsaid that some fragrances are definitely not approachable.
Now it's time to talk about one of those legendarily difficult fragrances: Serge Lutens's Iris Silver Mist, a true perfumista's perfume, and my choice for the formidable Winter Witch.
Iris Silver Mist is, in a word, weird. It's actually meant to be a wearable perfume, I think -- Lutens is known for intense and sometimes challenging fragrances, but it's not an "art project" line like CB I Hate Perfume. Even so, while I've read on the Internet that there are people who wear Iris Silver Mist in real life, I've never met any of them and I can't imagine who they'd be or what their lives are like.
Because Iris Silver Mist does not, to me, smell like anything remotely human or even attractive to humans. It is chilly and metallic-vegetal and just pungently weird. This is the smell of frozen white roots spidered through frost-laced black earth and carelessly turned up by a gravedigger's shovel. It's winter-killed leaves and frost-strangled flowers floating in a dark and frigid lake under a glaze of muddy ice. There's an undeniable beauty to it, but it's a shivery, alien beauty, and very few people -- even among perfume addicts -- are capable of appreciating it on first exposure.
I like it for Mareshka not only because she's literally inhuman, and not only because the frozen roots-in-earth and chilly silver iris notes are so appropriate for a winter witch, but because the story shows that this character just has no idea what would actually be appealing or attractive to a normal human male. That whole entire ploy regarding Declan, and Mareshka's apparently genuine expectation that he would be devoted to her afterward, was so hilariously off the mark that I have to think all of her courtship choices would be equally strange.
So: Iris Silver Mist!
This is just awesome. And I actually liked that about Mareshka, it made her kinda adorable... an adorable sociopathic monster mind you, but still adorable and one of my favorite antagonists from the Tales line.
Lady Neila Anvanory - Death's Heretic
Neila was a bit tricky for me because we only see her through Salim's perspective, and for a significant chunk of the story he has a somewhat unfair opinion of her as a spoiled girl. Later he comes around to a more nuanced and respectful view, but it still takes a little work to read between the lines and sift out what she's actually like versus what Salim perceives.
But here's what I think we can say is fairly certain: Neila is of Taldan origins but lives in Thuvia; she's very rich and grew up in luxury; she's spirited, energetic, and strong-willed; she's quite young but has had to handle responsibility from an early age; she's inexperienced but courageous and has had a certain level of training in swordplay. Her youth, social status, and gender (and possibly her looks) cause men to take her less than seriously, but in actuality she's highly competent and probably cleverer than Salim is.
Neela Vermeire Creations's Mohur is therefore my match for Neila. I think this perfume suits her on a number of levels.
The background story is pretty perfect, for one thing. Mohur is named after a gold coin minted in the Mughal Dynasty, and the fragrance itself was inspired by Empress Nur Jahan, an extraordinary figure in that empire. According to legend, Nur Jahan was a great beauty who enchanted an emperor with her looks and wits, and who was capable of everything from bureaucratic administration to tiger-shooting. In her later years, she devoted her time to poetry and perfumery. She pioneered the development of perfumery in India, but that was among the least of her achievements -- and she did it all in a time and place that was not kind to ambitious women.
Marketing aside, Mohur is a suitable fragrance on its own merits. This is an opulent, spicy-sweet rose oud fragrance that draws upon traditional Middle Eastern perfumery and reinterprets it into a modern form: Persia by way of Paris (so, therefore, why not Thuvia by way of Taldor?). It's wonderfully exotic and complex, showing a complicated development that opens with saffron and cardamom, melts into a hint of vanilla and almond milk (almost gourmand, not quite), and then dries into sandalwood, orris, leather and rose. The rose and incense are constant throughout, playing over and around the other elements.
Mohur is pricey, but no one disputes that its ingredients warrant the cost. There are a lot of expensive natural components in this perfume -- the perfumer who designed it was told to create a fragrance that would be worthy of Nur Jahan, and never mind the cost.
That's exactly what he produced, and there's nothing else on the market that smells quite like it.
And that concludes Round Six. I have one more to go and then this series is going on temporary hiatus until we get more fiction to use as fodder and/or I learn enough about men's fragrances to start talking about more dudes.
(pssh, who are we kidding, I am never going to learn that much about men's fragrances. You guys should just write more female characters into your stories!)
re: Mareshka -- YES EXACTLY. I loved that about her too. Her temper tantrum was so cute. Horrifying. But cute!
I think I was sadder about that not working out for her than anything else that happened to her.
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re: Mareshka -- YES EXACTLY. I loved that about her too. Her temper tantrum was so cute. Horrifying. But cute!
I think I was sadder about that not working out for her than anything else that happened to her.
OMG her getting flustered and the tantrum made me go all Daaa*steps a good 100ft back*aaawwww, I was actually hoping somewhat that Declan would end up staying with her, would have been interesting.
ROUND SEVEN
Lady Seraphina Leroung - "The Fencing Master"
This one's easy. Frederic Malle's Lys Mediterranee.
We know from the story that Lady Seraphina is wearing panther lilies, and Lys Mediterranee is a composition of seven different lilies, so whatever panther lilies specifically smell like, we can safely pretend that they're represented somewhere in that bouquet.
It's also a suitable fragrance for her because it's a big heady bouquet with a lingering sillage that would be more than strong enough to betray her presence to Varian from a distance, and it has the waxy aspect of funeral lilies sitting in a vase, which rather fits her role in this tale.
Also, I'm not a huge lily fan (nothing against them really, just not to my taste), so for that reason as well, I'm inclined to pin lilies onto a villain and call it a job well done.
Hortenza - "Krunzle the Quick"
Another easy one: Serge Lutens's Tubereuse Criminelle (and it's worth reading the reviews on this one; reviews of Tubereuse Criminelle are almost as over-the-top as the fragrance itself).
Short of being able to assign a perfume to Nocticula directly, I'll settle for tagging this scent to one of her heedlessly destructive high-level servants, because Tubereuse Criminelle is about as perfect as you're going to get for the demon queen of succubi and her entourage.
Tuberose is the obvious pick for succubi anyway, what with the flower's long association in folklore with both tales of irresistable desire (in both France and India, night-blooming tuberose was a renowned aphrodisiac, and young girls were warned not to breathe in its fragrance after dark, lest they lose all self-control) and death (English village superstition held that the tuberose flowers was a symbol of doom and that the fragrance of even a single flower could kill a person who sat in a closed room with it).
But even beyond that, Tubereuse Criminelle is the tuberose for Nocticula and therefore, by extension, Hortenza.
Tubereuse Criminelle opens with an infamous blast of wintergreen and camphor (I do not, personally, get the gasoline notes that many people describe, but that's no surprise; succubi are notorious shapeshifters, so why shouldn't their perfumes be?). Then the perfume heats up into lush, creamy tuberose, accented with orange blossom, nutmeg, and just a tiny trace of vanilla. This phase lasts a long, long time, and its presence is unforgettable. As a whole, the fragrance is a flattening kick to the solar plexus followed by a long, sweet, suffocating kiss, i.e., succubus seduction 101 rendered into olfactory form.
This really is a masterpiece composition, but there's nothing remotely restrained or demure about it. Tubereuse Criminelle is all about choking you out and making you like it. So, yeah. That's my call on that one.
Lisette - Stalking the Beast
As I said yea so long ago (or a couple of weeks back, whichever), I'd like to use Lisette as a springboard for talking about "special occasion" perfumes. So now I'm going to veer out of the usual match game and just blab for a while about meta uses.
As a preliminary matter, we can safely conclude that Lisette is probably not given to wearing fragrance in everyday life. She's a resolutely practical and tough-as-nails gunslinger, and most of the time she probably just smells like gun oil and blackpowder smoke.
But that's exactly why she's a good candidate for this discussion. Because in addition to being a resolutely practical and tough-as-nails gunslinger, Lisette shows glimmers of a softer side throughout the book, and as she hails from Cheliax, I think we can make the assumption that she has the cultural background to appreciate and hold certain associations with perfume.
That opens up a number of character development angles that can be useful to writers and roleplayers. One of them -- the "special occasion perfume" thing -- is using a break in the character's normal routine to illustrate both that character's default mode of being (tough as nails, resolutely practical) and a contrasting change in response to a personal or story development. The comparison between what Lisette normally does (no perfume) and what she might do on a special occasion (put on a fragrance linked to a particular memory or emotion? try on something completely new and unknown?) both reinforces her basic personality and highlights a potential shift in that baseline state.
Use of fragrance in this fashion can serve as a signifier that a character is returning to or reclaiming some past identity or experience -- maybe confronting a difficult memory, maybe trying to reawaken lost innocence, maybe playing another hand of an old game she thought she'd left behind. Or it can show that she's trying on an entirely new identity, if only for the space of a single night. Or it could be something just as simple as going out for a nice dinner and a night at the opera, and wanting to feel pretty or sophisticated or just normal while she's there. Sometimes all that our exceptional-and-extraordinary adventurers want is to feel like everybody else.
You can go in a ton of directions with it, and because perfume is so strongly tied to evocations of time, place, and emotion, the choice of special-occasion fragrances can be used to say many different things. How would she choose it? What would she intend to say with it? What would those choices reveal about her?
For example: we know Lisette (at about the midpoint of the novel, anyway) is wary of forming attachments, romantic or otherwise. She barely lets herself think of her assistant Karag as valued, much less as a friend, and feels angry when she's forced to realize that she actually needs him. When her mind drifts to her late lover Kerrigan, she gets agitated and seeks out distractions; when she finds that distraction, she tries to keep her involvement controlled. Thus, what we see in these pages is a woman who does her best to wall herself off from emotional vulnerability and who views solitude as a form of strength.
In that situation, the use of perfume could be used as an external illustration of internal change: a moment where a formerly isolated character decides to let down her emotional guards and risk vulnerability. It might be a little uncomfortable, and it might be a little uncertain, because it's a new and unfamiliar role -- but, again, that contrast can be used to play up character traits. How would Lisette feel if she were trying to be "pretty" for a date early in a new relationship? Silly? Self-mocking? Afraid that someone else might mock her? It is a risk, especially for a woman who doesn't often do it, to put oneself out there like that. For someone as independent and self-contained as Lisette, it might feel like a very big risk.
Okay! So that's a lot of words and nothing about the actual fragrance I'd pick for Lisette.
And that's because I truly have no idea what she would wear. I can make a case for several options (and, indeed, started to write a couple of them up in earlier drafts of this post), but if the moment is meant to reveal a change and contrast in the character, then by definition it must be something slightly unexpected.
So who knows? Let it be a surprise.
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Zarina Capoli - Pirate's Promise
Zarina is another character that offers a great opportunity to use fragrance as an illustrative point in the character's personal development, except this time, instead of just throwing out a bunch of questions, I'll start pinning them to some possible answers. In other words, assuming everything I said in that whole big long previous post were to be applied to this character, how would you do it?
WALKTHROUGH TIME!!
At the beginning of this book, it seems clear that Zarina doesn't wear perfume. Vreva does two thorough assessments of her -- once at their initial meeting, again the first time they have dinner together -- and doesn't notice anything either time. Given that Vreva is a character who would notice, I think it's safe to say that Zarina is fragrance-free when they first meet.
But I also think you could make a fair bet that at some point Vreva tried to drag her bodily into the world of scent. If my previous guess is correct and Vreva has a ton of bottles at her disposal, there's absolutely no way that a Calistrian perfumista would be able to resist trying to tease her uptight Abadarian inquisitor of a girlfriend into trying some on (trust me, I've spent weeks doing this exact same thing to fictional characters: perfume addicts are nuts).
She might do it impishly or she might do it seductively, but I would bet a stack of dollars that at some point that they were playing in her parlor, Vreva would try to get Zarina into fragrance, and would then insist that she keep whatever bottle seemed to match her best.
It's interesting to think about what Vreva would pick for Zarina, too. If she's still trying to work Zarina at that point, she might pick something that is meant to seduce her target more than actually reflect Zarina's own personality. On the other hand, if Vreva makes the gift at a point where she's come to have more genuine feelings, then she might choose something from her heart, reflecting how she honestly thinks of Zarina.
I'm enough of a romantic that I'll choose the second option for purposes of this thread. Therefore I'll go with Fleurs d'Oranger, a Serge Lutens floral built around orange blossoms, jasmine, and tuberose, with a whiff of civet and cumin to dirty it up midway through. It's rich and sultry, steamy and sensual, constantly evolving on skin. That choice would speak directly to the relationship between Vreva and Zarina -- it isn't the pristine fragrance of flowers on the branch, but of slightly sweaty, salty flowers after they've been crushed under sun-warmed skin in the course of summer lovemaking.
That little whisper of heat and dirtiness in the fragrance is what makes this particular Lutens unique among orange-blossom florals. It's really, really hard to smell this one and not catch that mental image. The richness of the florals would suit Zarina even if that's all there were to this one (in my head, I imagine that Varisians prefer warm and passionate scents), but that flicker of cumin and civet tips it over the edge. Fleurs d'Oranger is a complicated scent, just as their relationship is complicated; it's not a linear, pretty composition. But it's lush and lovely and unabashedly sensuous the whole way through, and that's true for them too.
In light of how things end between these two characters at the close of this book, I would be really interested to see Zarina's reaction if she should happen upon a breath of that particular fragrance in a market down the road someday. A scent like that, with a history like that, could easily hit somebody like a sledgehammer straight to the brain.
and then voila, fragrance as character shorthand, mission accomplished!
Zarina Capoli - Pirate's Promise
At the beginning of this book, it seems clear that Zarina doesn't wear perfume. Vreva does two thorough assessments of her -- once at their initial meeting, again the first time they have dinner together -- and doesn't notice anything either time. Given that Vreva is a character who would notice, I think it's safe to say that Zarina is fragrance-free when they first meet.
You nailed this on so many levels... Initially, Zarina is all business, and is probably scent free, especially since her association with Vreva is business... Abadar is after all the god of merchants, and so, of business... This also tells me that I did not go deeply enough into that particular scene. Vreva would have analyzed her scent, or the lack of one, to assess the inquisitor. Well done!
She might do it impishly or she might do it seductively, but I would bet a stack of dollars that at some point that they were playing in her parlor, Vreva would try to get Zarina into fragrance, and would then insist that she keep whatever bottle seemed to match her best.
I would go for seductively.
slightly sweaty, salty flowers after they've been crushed under sun-warmed skin in the course of summer lovemaking.
Wow...so perfect. This is an olfactory image that would stick in Vreva's mind for her entire life. Yes.
Thank you.
Lady Neila Anvanory - Death's Heretic
Neila was a bit tricky for me because we only see her through Salim's perspective, and for a significant chunk of the story he has a somewhat unfair opinion of her as a spoiled girl. Later he comes around to a more nuanced and respectful view, but it still takes a little work to read between the lines and sift out what she's actually like versus what Salim perceives.
But here's what I think we can say is fairly certain: Neila is of Taldan origins but lives in Thuvia; she's very rich and grew up in luxury; she's spirited, energetic, and strong-willed; she's quite young but has had to handle responsibility from an early age; she's inexperienced but courageous and has had a certain level of training in swordplay. Her youth, social status, and gender (and possibly her looks) cause men to take her less than seriously, but in actuality she's highly competent and probably cleverer than Salim is.
Neela Vermeire Creations's Mohur is therefore my match for Neila. I think this perfume suits her on a number of levels.
The background story is pretty perfect, for one thing. Mohur is named after a gold coin minted in the Mughal Dynasty, and the fragrance itself was inspired by Empress Nur Jahan, an extraordinary figure in that empire. According to legend, Nur Jahan was a great beauty who enchanted an emperor with her looks and wits, and who was capable of everything from bureaucratic administration to tiger-shooting. In her later years, she devoted her time to poetry and perfumery. She pioneered the development of perfumery in India, but that was among the least of her achievements -- and she did it all in a time and place that was not kind to ambitious women.
Marketing aside, Mohur is a suitable fragrance on its own merits. This is an opulent, spicy-sweet rose oud fragrance that draws upon traditional Middle Eastern perfumery and...
This is great! And your description of Neila is spot-on the way I've always imagined her. My biggest regret about Death's Heretic is that Salim's POV obscures so much of her awesomeness (something I have big plans to fix in a third novel...), but I'm glad that it still came through. :)