Scent of Womanity

It was the film that first caught my eye — an ethereal and mysterious evocation of female experience.

Then of course the name itself, 'Womanity' — and its echo of 'humanity'.

Then Thierry Mugler's take on what Womanity means:

At the heart of it is what one woman learns from another. Womanity is that bond: giving, complicit, a tacit affinity."

I like that. A lot.

It's a distillation of what I see going on in the world at large. Yes, this has been called the Year of the Woman  (but so was 1992, '94, and 2008).

It's more than that, more than women in office, or women in charge, or women in the spotlight — it's more of a consciousness of collectiveness, what connects us, how we bond — a very female perspective. The Womanity website underscores that by inviting you to share experiences, insights and images.

But would I like the perfume? As with anything, the more I know about something, the more attraction and resonance it has. The scent itself is a combination of fig, caviar, and fig tree — the last a wood note that Mugler says they put in all their perfumes for "spine."

Womanity has spine.

The fig tree scent on its own smells like walk in the deep woods after a hard rain. The caviar note is startling — scary at first, and then the leathery richness becomes a magnet, almost against your will.

The top note of fig is fresh in that the scent is extracted  by a new molecular technology from the fruit itself. Previous fig-scented products have only been from the leaf.

The blend is dark and rich, and different.

It purportedly has a prismatic effect — smelling unique on any skin it's on.

One of the "shares" on the Womanity website is a lovely article on the power of fragrance by Colette Leisen; it contains an apt quote from Helen Keller:

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived."

Womanity embraces that idea perfectly.