Saturday, September 6, 2008

Retention Game: Great Lakes as Measure of Lasting Power

Ever heard of a lake's retention period?  Basically, it's how long it takes Mother Nature to perform a complete water change.  Being a fan of our tremendous fresh water resource AND fresh to perfumista-dom, I thought I'd explore categorizing the lasting power of a given scent according to our Great Lakes' retention periods.

Here's a spare model, which clearly could use some developing:
  • Lake Erie*, retention period 2.6 years  =  Flower waters (rose, jasmine)
  • Lake Ontario*, 6 years = Guerlain Eau de Cologne
  • Lake Huron**, 22 years  =  Liz Zorn Sunset Rider, Chanel Bois des Iles
  • Lake Michigan**, 99 years  =  Givency Amarige, Lanvin Arpege
  • Lake Superior*, 191 years  =  Guerlain Shalimar

Feel free to help me out here!  Which perfumes are you still wearing the next morning (=Lake Superior); which are gone before the cocktail hour--which we know is 3 hours--is over?

retention periods gathered from *The Great Lakes Atlas,, or the Wikipedia entry on "lake retention,"


Jenavira13 said...

Must de Cartier pure parfum= Lake Superior. Lake Erie=4711. Love random information like this. Amazing how long it takes each lake to change it's water and the lengths are so diverse in time.

ScentScelf said...

I'm wearing DK signature scent right now, and apparently it's going to be more appropriate in Lake Huron than Lake Michigan.

Isn't that an interesting phenomenon, the retention period thing? I guess the incredibly brief period for Lake Erie probably is a factor in how that body of water was able to recover from a phosphate crisis in the 1970's. (And other associated ills, manifested in fires on feeder rivers in Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo.)

I a capable of being such a geek that I actually think it would be fun to keep an ongoing chart, incorporating various input from perfume fans. Need to work on the graphic... :)

tmp00 said...

Annick Goutal Sables= Lake Superior

Eau d'Hadrien= Lake Erie

T.Allen-Mercado said...

I thought I posted yesterday...ugh. My longest lasting secent was probably Amarige de Givenchy or Bulgari Blu. That said, these days I'm an essential oils gal-namely patchouli and it is certainly long (as in forever) lasting!

BTW thanks for the book recommendation, I purchased the book for my daughter and took it out of the library for myself today.

ScentScelf said...


Ha! So right...Eau d'Hadrien does go in the Lake Erie category. I'll add Sables to Lake Superior, as well...

Glad you dropped by!

ScentScelf said...


Uh-hunh, a drop of Patchouli essential oil is going to give you some good long retention time. Added to the Lake Superior pack!

You are welcome for the book recommendation; I'll be curious to hear the reaction of both mother and daughter.