The primary ever fragrance I purchased for myself by Glow by JLo, bought with money given to me earlier that day by my step-grandmother. Britney Spears Fantasy, Vera Wang Princess and Gucci Rush followed over the subsequent few years as I participated wholeheartedly within the age-old teen girl tradition of smelling like a candy shop.  

Like your first kiss, it’s hard to forget your first scent. Each occur during those heady, hormone-filled teenage years when every part is recent and exciting and terrible. Today, a single whiff of the scents I used to wear will bring me straight back to that ghastly, nostalgic period of braces, crushes and angst. “We have now so many big emotions at that age and we’re going through a lot,” says Elizabeth Renstrom, a photographer and former senior photo editor for The Recent Yorker. “Perfume really marks that and I feel that’s why we’re in a position to remember them so well. They’re related to all these big firsts in our lives. It’s a special time and that’s why the perfume we wore then resonates a lot now.” 

It’s exactly these big emotions and firsts that Renstrom taps into for her project Basenote Bitch. A photography and review series, Basenote Bitch takes retro fragrances, particularly ones beloved by teens, and lovingly satirises them alongside still-life homages to the bedroom scenes that may have been home to the perfumes. Specializing in the 80s, 90s and early aughts, the pictures evoke powerful nostalgia for each those that lived through the years themselves, and the younger generation who long for the rose-tinted days of landlines, dELiA*s and Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Dazed spoke to Renstrom concerning the project, nostalgia and her desperate seek for the Emily the Strange fragrance.

You call yourself an “unhinged frag head” which I like. When did your obsession start?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I feel my obsession really began with having to do gym in class. I used to be so concerned about smelling disgusting because I could be too mortified to shower in front of individuals after gym class. So I used to be at all times rolling with like eight body sprays!

Then once I got my first job, that’s once I upgraded to the perfume counters on the mall. A particular perfume has at all times marked where I’ve been in my profession and work life too. So it’s been a protracted journey. The collecting happened more recently, but I don’t wear a ton of fragrances that I take advantage of for the project. My personal collection of fragrances is just a little bit separate.

More sophisticated?

Elizabeth Remstrom: Yeah! Although there are some that I still wear. I like Lolita Lempicka, their original fragrance is so good. And I like the Gap Dream. It is admittedly amazing, the unique formulation is admittedly good. 

When did you select to show your collection right into a project?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I began it right before the pandemic in February 2020. I used to be working on one other project about how we market beauty products to women and I desired to do a picture about [Victoria’s Secret] Love Spell for that series. I shot it and I actually liked it and I used to be like, ‘Oh, I actually have a pair more perfumes that I would really like to reflect on in this fashion’. Like Sweet Pea from Bath and Body Works. 

Then it just spiralled within the pandemic, it was such a therapeutic thing for me to revisit these items when I could not travel. And I used to be having a lot fun recreating this time in my life. It’s an ongoing series for me and one which I’ll at all times contribute to so long as there are perfumes to put in writing about. Fragrances didn’t come out as rapidly in that point period but there’s a lot I haven’t explored that I would really like to.

Do you’re thinking that as a society currently we’re particularly at risk of nostalgia?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I feel it’s easier for us to be, due to the web. And I don’t want to offer a cliché answer but I feel that we live in very uncertain times. At any time when I’m feeling uncertain about anything, I lean into the things that comforted me before and this project is a product of that. 

So I feel it’s a mixture of uncertainty and likewise access to having the ability to revisit and recycle trends online. I do feel prefer it makes us regurgitate moments in beauty and fashion a lot quicker than we’d have even five years ago. I do not really see it as an issue but I’m curious how we are going to reflect on our fashion and wonder five years from now. What were we doing that was different? Or was all of it just a mirrored image on our past? I’m unsure.

One in every of your reviews is for Love’s Baby Soft and the campaign for it on the time included a really young model and the slogan “Because innocence is sexier than you’re thinking that.” It’s essential to learn rather a lot concerning the culture of the time period by old promoting and the best way things were marketed.

Elizabeth Remstrom: Yeah, once I take a look at that and take into consideration how far we’ve come it gives me just a little little bit of comfort and hope. Love’s Baby Soft got here out within the 70s and, on the time, I don’t think it was a controversial marketing scheme since it lasted for some time. Hopefully, we’re in an area where nothing like that may ever fly. But yes, you learn a lot about promoting and who was within the room during that point where this might get made. 

That’s also an enormous a part of this project: gently, sometimes not gently within the case of that one, critiquing how these items come into our hands. Because regardless that they’re beloved, sometimes it’s super problematic how we were reeled into buying them. Marketing in beauty may be very predatory and I like talking about that in a whole lot of my reviews too. Because they’re reflections, but they’re not at all times starry-eyed reflections. I’m not at all times like, ‘I loved that point period where I hated myself because I wasn’t Kate Moss’. I feel it’s good to discuss how we talked about bodies every decade. And perfume is kind of like a medium for that.

Perfume trends themselves also often reflect the cultural mood of the time they’re from. In the longer term once we look back on today, what trends do you’re thinking that will represent the last decade?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I feel the mid-2010s going into now we’ve been really into what I’d call personal fragrances, ones which can be attuned to regulate to your personal scent or pheromones. I feel that’s something that individuals are really considering. And the nude neutral fragrance vibe, to not be confused with unisex although I feel that’s a very big continuing trend. But I feel the ‘near you’ personal fragrance is something individuals are really considering and proceed to be. I’ve definitely been swayed by the hardly there fragrance.

I completely agree, just like the Glossier You fragrance.

Elizabeth Remstrom: And I like them but then I totally reject them half the time. I’m like, ‘No, I need everybody to smell me. I need to smell from 50 feet away’. That’s once I wear something like Marissa Zappas ‘Whore’. When I need to be perceived.

I feel among the best compliments you’ll be able to get is when someone says ‘you smell amazing, what perfume are you wearing?’

Elizabeth Remstrom: I’m at all times trying to find that moment. It truly only happens once I’m wearing a few fragrances, I at all times get compliments on them. It’s either Orpheon from Diptyque or recently Gris Charnel from BDK Parfums, that’s a really big compliment getter.

You mentioned that you just desired to keep going with the project – do you see it evolving?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I feel I’ll proceed to make the reviews in the best way that they are going but I’d also like to bring it right into a more physical space ultimately. Whether that’s a book or an exhibition where people can really engage with different fragrances which can be a part of the projects in a setting that also shows off the period-specific props. 

I’d like to conceptualise an experience for the followers and perfume enthusiasts to have a library of sorts to undergo and have interaction with them in their very own way. Possibly contribute their feelings. That could be a dream of mine. I receive so many messages from my personal reviews of them, however it could be amazing for people to have their very own experiences. There are olfactory art spaces in Recent York where I feel like that may very well be possible. That might be my total dream, to make something just a little bit more collaborative.

I’m going to manifest that for you! Are there any perfume trends in the mean time that you just’re enthusiastic about?

Elizabeth Remstrom: I need to manifest goth fairy fragrances coming back and having that be more of a genre. As Evanescence comes back and Indie Sleaze I’d like to see how that influences fragrance. This will not be a trend, it’s just me being like ‘I need this trend’. I need more goth fairy fragrances. I need Avril Lavigne to come back out with a recent fragrance because she hasn’t in a protracted time. It’s been hard for me to seek out a fragrance that encapsulates the goth girl from the 2000s. The sort who had an Emily the Strange poster. There’s an Emily the Strange perfume however it is so expensive. On eBay, it’s like $500. I would like to do a callout to see if anybody owns it and may ship it to me to be photographed!

I actually hope that individuals just proceed to interact with and be considering fragrance. Fragrance, basically, has had an enormous moment the past couple of years when it comes to people wanting to wear and explore them, so I actually need to see that proceed. And I need people to be enthusiastic about trying recent fragrances because there are such a lot of cool indie fragrance brands. I need people to seek out their personal scent and get enthusiastic about it. And overspray!