I DON’T KNOW WHAT & the idea of the fragrance enhancer
DSD’s Best-Selling fume is I Don’t Know What. A fragrance/enhancer. It invites the sprayer to layer over whatever they like. It can be worn as a modern, radiant transparent perfume. I am often asked to elaborate, so here it is.
The Origin part 1.
Until recently I had forgot how the formula for IDKW came about. I was looking through so old emails & was taken back to 2017. I had just started working with Firmenich – now DSM-Firmenich – one of the largest fragrance houses in the world. There were many new materials to discover. Each fragrance house has materials that are exclusive to them, called captives, but they also have particular extracts, bases, etc. that only people inside the company can use. I was really intrigued by a bunch of what DSM-Firmenich calls Nature Print. These are copies of flowers and other things that often do not give up their oil by trad methods of extraction (distilling, solvents, CO2). Using gas spectrometry, machines record the chemicals in the air around a given subject – say gardenia, frangipani, or rose. This air is then analyzed, and a formula is achieved that mimics that particular aroma.
These gas spec’d copies of natural materials can be hyper lifelike. Smell them alone up close and you will be enchanted. How they perform in a perfume though, carries mixed results. When I joined forces with Firmenich in 2017, I wanted to try out a bunch of the Nature Print bases. I needed to see how they performed in a perfume without any notes that would get in the way of their aroma. If I just added the nature print of a certain Gardenia in a perfume with incense, vanilla, citrus, and the like, there would be so many competing scent narratives to really see how the flower copy behaved. So, I made a bonehead formula of all the things I would put in a perfume to give structure WITHOUT any real notes. I put in something fresh & bracing like bergamot. Something plantlike, but not too floral. Something “ambery” (i.e. warm and structured) but not truly ambery (i.e. spicy and complex). Something woody, but not overtly so – just vaguely dry. And finally, something musky, but in a clean, transparent way.
I took this simple formula and put in each gas spec’d copy that I wanted to try. I think there were 13 different versions. I got them back and could see how some worked, and others just fizzled. This informed which ones I might want to try out.
The Origin Part 2 – the realization
I quickly realized the potential for this formula I had made. You see, most essential oils and absolute don’t work directly on the skin. They can be unsafe, yes, but they don’t perform. They can smell one dimensional. Rose oil on skin doesn’t smell like roses blooming in the garden. If I had a bottle of my bonehead formula, I could simply spray it over any single raw material to make it a perfume of it: patchouli, neroli, rose. You name it. It could even be a blend. Why wasn’t anyone thinking like this? If we sold this…enhancer…anyone could play with their perfume. I had heard of some people liked to layer finished perfumes anyway. Why not specifically invite everyone to the party? I have always wanted to make a set of things that go together but wasn’t sure if it would be too confusing at the time (The Murder Mystery Layering Set actualized this dream and just won the Most Innovative Product of the year at the Fifis!). I got to work perfecting the balance of the bonehead fume so that it could accept anything into its heart. When dosed just right and with the right materials, you could layer it over anything.
The Launch
We launched I Don’t Know What at a time when we didn’t really have the organizational capabilities for sending samples and having all the images ready at a certain time. We just put it out and told people. We did have a super-duper campaign with long time collabers Leta & Wade, & Charlotte Linden Ercoli Coe aka Charles though. Tasty visuals. Charles was filming near a farm in Cali and held up the bottle to a cow who accidently licked it. That became the hero image for the campaign I DON’T KNOW WHAT is Everywhere which won a Fifi too!
Soon IDKW became a sensation. Maybe people were layering it. Maybe they were just wearing it alone as perfect skin scent with transparent radiance. It does have a big silage, lasts a long time, and you can’t always put your finger on what you are smelling. I have read many reductionists try to say it’s just this or just that. But that’s not true – it’s a blend of 20+ materials – a symphony of quiet things built up to be pleasantly noticeable.
Enhancers
An enhancer is an intriguing idea that I am always looking to add too. I really love that you can take one function of a perfume and put its application into the hands of the people. I know making perfume is difficult, hard to understand, and even harder to get made from a regulatory and economic standpoint. But isn’t it cool to offer something that can augment a person’s entire perfume collection? IDKW gives that special radiance that you want over anything. I made Crystil Pistil to as the inner wet parts of a flower to anything (it never really got off the ground as we launched it the day of the pandemic). Leatherize is made to turn any fragrance into a leather. It is pretty beastmode though – I’d make it quieter if I redid it. I have worked on a few others that I hope to release into the world one day. I dream of a line for this, but if I my thought dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine. It’s alright Ma its only fume and fume only.
The Perfectly Malleable perfume.
I Don’t Know What’s transparent radiance allows it to seamlessly work in other formats with aplomb. We did a hair oil with Crown Affair during the pandy. Weightless oil, weightless fume. Twas a match made in heaven. This month we released a leave in conditioner with them, and it already looks like it’s the front runner to win the Pulitzer. IDKW works in body soap & lotion too – both are dosed much lower than the fume so as to create a base layer for all other scents & to not get in the way of them. We have made a fun bar soap with Wary Meyers. And the crown jewel of fun stuff is the Murder Mystery Box Set. As an acolyte of Holmes & Poirot, I wanted to figure out how to a make a perfume become a Murder Mystery. You need lots of possible outcomes. A heartless perfume that can accept various heart notes into its formula gave the way forward. You can make 720+ perfumes from the 6 fumes included in that set.
My personal favorite way to wear IDKW
I have often said I think everyone who has a fume collection should have a bottle of IDKW. It’s entirely self-serving to say so, but I still believe it! If you have 10 fumes and a bottle of this, you now have 21 fumes. I use IDKW a little bit differently. I have a collection of rare oils – ambers, ouds, and the like. Aged Indonesian Patchouli is my favorite. I dab a dab of this dark burgundy oil on my wrist and a spritz it with IDKW. Pure heaven. Any questions?
Happy to see Crystil Pistil mentioned, it layers well and is really beautiful on its own. It’s a shame it didn’t take off, I think it was the timing, because anyone who I’ve shared it with thinks it’s amazing.