Welcome
This blog is where video games meet perfumery. Two of my favorite hobbies coming together as I assign fragrances to characters I love, using perfumery as a way to analyze them.
There are many layers to a character: their writing and place in the story, their relationships with other characters, their actions, their symbolism. Fans often explore, analyze and expand on all of these elements. Even the fantasy of touching and tasting them is explored through fanfiction. But something is almost always missing from both: their smell.
I believe smell is a powerful storytelling tool. We notice it all the time, and we form prejudices on it. What a character smells like can say a lot about them, and someone's reaction to another person´s scent can say just as much, as seen in Parasite (2019), where smell becomes a silent weapon against the main characters. Perhaps it's a given that a lot of videogame characters would smell awful, as many of these fictional settings don't allow them to mantain regular showers or a ten step skincare routine. For the sake of this blog, going for realism isn't always the point, I choose to imagine their scent by assigning them perfumes that relate to them the most.
The perfumes I assign to the characters aren't necessarily what they would choose to wear, but what they would smell like. My interpretations mostly come from a character's design, personality, and the world they inhabit; as well as symbolic elements associated with them such as flowers, important locations, or defining events. The availability of the perfume also plays a role. I doubt there's a fragrance that smells exactly like a Lunar Tear, but if we observe its inspiration coming from lilies, surely there's one that comes close.
The world of niche perfumery has ventured into uncomfortable territory, producing hyperrealistic fragrances that can be unsettling, with rare notes such as metals, body fluids and even interpretations of crime scenes. I find all these perfumes interesting and artistic, and will not be afraid to incorporate them into my analysis.
This blog is not meant to encourage anyone to buy a fragrance, this is strictly a personal hobby. I’m well aware that perfumery, especially niche perfumery, is expensive and often difficult to access.
However, if you are interested in trying a perfume, I will always recommend to test first, preferably on your skin. We all have different skin chemistries, so a perfume won’t smell the same on everyone. Any notes I describe may be unnoticeable for you, just as notes listed by a brand may be unnoticeable to me. This doesn't mean there's something wrong, just that we may have untrained noses and haven't registered certain smells in our brain yet.
Scent is also very subjective, and these are merely ficticional characters with no autonomy. One could argue that a character would prefer woody scents and wear Santal 33 by Le Labo, and I would disagree. Not because the interpretation is wrong, but because I personally don't like that perfume, and argue that they would prefer vanilla/spicy scents and wear Lune Feline by Ateliers des Ors instead. There is no correct answer because ultimately, this is a matter of preference.
I am always open to suggestions and your personal interpretations of these characters and their scents, so let's all have fun!











