Everything

Amsterdam artists Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug are making a big stink about perfume, reports Eric Wilson in The New York Times (3/7/13). Known professionally as Lernert & Sander, the artists took “a tiny sample of each little scent and spinoff fragrance that was new in 2012 and that they could obtain” and “poured it into one large 1.5-liter bottle.” Naturally, they named their creation, Everything.

So, what does Everything smell like? According to Eric, “It smelled, at first whiff, of strawberries mixed with salt, along with hints of baseball mitt and hair spray. And tuberose, yes. And licorice and fresh paint. And musk and rotten peaches and honeysuckle and basil and soap.” Others compared it to Chanel or Shalimar, suggesting that “many fragrances today use the most historically successful ones as reference points.”

The point, says Lernert, is “why do you need 1,400 new scents a year?” Indeed, as Eric notes, “the number of fragrances introduced annually … is increasing at a startling pace, as manufacturers seek to tempt shoppers with blends engineered for daytime or nighttime or bedtime, or summer or fall, or just to suit whatever music is playing on your iPod. Nearly four new scents are born every day.” For the person who has everything, a bottle of Everything sells for about $39,000.