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After sampling (and loving) a few scents from Perfumer H, I‘ve become increasingly fixated on the talents of Lyn Harris (I’ve also ordered some of the scents she produced for Trudon), but I had yet to try any of the offerings from the house that she previously founded (and then sold), Miller Harris. L’Air de Rien came freighted with praise so lavish that it attained a nearly mythic status in my mind before I was able to smell it, not least because it ranked highly in some lists of fragrances that evoke old books, and I’m eagerly searching for the perfect library/bookstore scent. This wasn’t easy to get, either—I had to prevail upon a stateside relative to procure this vial for me (so many eBay sellers won’t ship to Canada!). All this to say that expectations were high. My first sniff was a mix of thrill and disappointment: it’s a ravishing, beautiful smell, and the press and marketing don’t lie—it really does feel as intimate as a lover’s embrace, with a mix of sensuality and private quietude. It smells like skin and hair (not sweat or body odour, just the natural sweetness of a person), a tiny bit spicy, with an ever-so-slight warm, vanillic mustiness, as of slept-in sheets, a dusty room, or—yes—a stack of old books. Imagine an afternoon tryst in a sun-dappled attic full of chests of leather-bound volumes and antique furniture draped in sheets. The description of "watching dust dance in the light as you lay entwined” is amazingly accurate and feels like a remarkable avhievement: such a subtle and specific thing to evoke. The idea that this was composed for Jane Birkin (in 2006, when she would have been 60) also lends this perfume an aura that’s quite different from the Perfumer H signature, which is decidely British: minimalist, sober, artfully serious. L’Air de Rien is warm and languorous, sexy, chic, and graceful. It smells like what I imagined Musc Ravageur would be like, before I tried it (and didn’t like it). So all that accounts for the thrill. Whats the disappointment, then? The thing is, on the first spritz, I thought, “Oh, I love it, but this isn’t for me.” First off, I feel like it leans a bit more feminine than I want, but more importantly, it immediately made me feel guilty. It’s absurd to say, but it smells so much like the physical presence of a person, and not my own body. It also isn’t the familiar smell of my girlfriend, so it gives me the overwhelming sensation of having been intimate with someone else. It’s as if I expect to be accused: “Where have you been? Who were you with?” I protest: “I was just at the library! I mean, the bookstore!” "A likely story!"
