Beauty Is a Monster, and Arabelle Sicardi Loves Her 💄🪞😈

On blind judging, being earnest, and why war criminals shouldn’t have fragrance lines

Arabelle Sicardi has spent their career taking a scalpel to beauty culture. As a teenager, they became Tumblr’s resident fashion theorist with their blog Fashion Pirate. They’ve since analyzed beauty and fragrance for Allure, ELLE, SSENSE, Teen Vogue, and The Cut. In Arabelle’s Perfumed Pages collective, participants swap scents, expand their fragrance vocabulary, write about perfume, and more. Arabelle’s been a judge multiple times for the Art and Olfaction Awards, and their forthcoming essay collection, The House of Beauty, explores how the beauty industry seduces, exploits, and reshapes us in its image. “When I tell you that beauty is a monster, I need you to know it is my favorite kind,” Sicardi writes. Their work treats beauty as both poison and antidote: something to be worn, studied, and occasionally set on fire. We spoke about Chanel No. 5 as a toxic ex, committing to the bit, and more.

What did your childhood smell like?

Roach spray, pine wax, pool chlorine, incense, freezer burn, Drakkar Noir, the MTA, and books. Big chunky books - you know the smell.

What’s the first perfume you ever bought? What’s the last one you bought?

Estée Lauder’s Beautiful Love. I bought it blind on the plane to Taiwan when I was in high school, I think. I think I maybe wore it once before my parents began spraying it on me to wake me up in the morning like they were herding a feral cat. I was not pleasant in the morning, so I can almost forgive them for that.

If beauty is a monster, what’s the most monstrous perfume?

Chanel No. 5 will always be le monstre, certainly in terms of the sales and also its origin story - tracing the ugly history of that perfume became some of the most important years of my life, and it’s the reason The House of Beauty was even born. Now I feel a kind of fondness for it that some people probably reserve to their most toxic and important ex-lovers.

Are there any scents you’re secretly a little embarrassed to love?

Oh no. I am rarely embarrassed by the things I love. I am fiercely devoted to my obsessions, protective of them, almost. I think being earnest is a kind of superpower. Commit to the bit, man. We are only alive for so long.

As a judge for The Art and Olfaction Awards, what's your approach to evaluating fragrances?

The Institute for Art and Olfaction does a great job in providing a framework on judging not by personal taste but narrative and technical execution. I don’t judge things by if I’d personally wear them but if they’re accomplishing the task the perfume brief has set out to do. It depends on the category I’m focused on, as well - they have different parameters, the Artisan category versus the Sadakichi (Experimental) category, which might not even be a traditional fragrance but location based scent art or sculptural work. Ultimately you’re always judging blindly, with no knowledge of the perfumer or brand involved. It’s all numbered and anonymous to the judges. So you work by smell, instinct, and whatever written explanation has been provided to contextualize the smell. It’s made me very brand-agnostic, which I’m grateful for. I have no loyalty to any brand - just the juice! I’m just as thrilled to learn the finalists and the winners as anyone attending the awards.

What perfumer do you most admire and why?

I really adore Giuseppe Imprezzabile (the perfumer behind the brand Meo Fusciuni) - simply because I love so many of his perfumes. And then I found out he used to be in a noise metal band (incredible lore) and he has an incredible beard, also. Very swashbuckling poet. And Jean Claude-Ellena is such an icon to me; not only is he an incredible perfumer but a wonderful writer, too, and seems to be such a generous person to speak to. I’ve only ever heard wonderful things about him. He’s also been the perfumer behind most of the fragrances people I’ve had crushes on wear. He knows how to break a heart!

I’m lucky to be in community with so many perfumers and scent-based artists. I admire them all very much. Perfumers are by nature often weird, multi-disciplinarian creatures with immense talent and observational skills, and I admire every perfumer I’ve met for different reasons: their imagination, their tenacity, their curiosity, their persistence.

Have you recently discovered any scents — via a swap or exchange—that you loved?

Last swap I went to I picked up Studio Scent by Kismet Olfactive. It’s this moody chypre fig moment and it smells like old books and palo santo and fig and tea. It’s like smelling a more romantic version of my childhood and my first apartment, I think. All the vintage records and the cheap weed and the dried lavender lining the walls I used to buy at the farmer’s market. It’s cozy and still crisp enough for summer. The perfect thing to wear to take a nap on the fire escape at dusk, you know? When you have nothing to do and nowhere to go and it's glorious.

Your essay collection House of Beauty comes out this fall — what does it smell like? What are its notes?

I was actually thinking of doing a perfume for it (and because people keep asking) but I don’t have the time or the money to do it justice right now. But in case I do get to do it down the line, I don’t wanna spoil it now!

What perfume house has your favorite branding, and why?

I am a Meo Fusciuni fan (as I mentioned before) even though I do not actually own any of the full sized bottles yet - I’m really stuck between wanting so many that it’s like choosing a favorite child, you know? But if I had a golden ticket to one brand’s oeuvre I’d use it on their line in a heartbeat.

Stora Skuggan has the best sample packaging and consistently cool fragrances overall. Love their branding. Clue Perfumery is so tenderhearted and clever, also - and for such a small, young brand, doing SO well for themselves. They’re so self-actualized, so early on in their career. It’s very cool.

What does your favorite movie smell like?

Cigarettes and blood and fog and lipstick and noodle shops.

If you had to commit to just one scent for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I actually have a custom fragrance I made with my partner; we both made one to wear at a workshop at Capsule Parfumerie as a date night. When we were packing our go-bags during the LA Fires I didn’t pack any fragrances but that one, really.

Capsule Parfumerie

There’s only one bottle in existence so it’ll be gone eventually. When I run out I’ll make it again and just tweak it a little to suit who I am when I make it. I don’t think anything has to last forever - probably nothing should.

If you had to ban one fragrance from the entire world, what would it be?

The entire Trump and Bolsonaro lines of perfume. Don’t really think anyone should smell like a war criminal except a war criminal. I think everyone involved with those propaganda potions should be ashamed of themselves, including those reviewing them or providing them platforms with any sincerity.

You’ve coordinated a few outfits with scents — what was your favorite pairing?

I do this all the time but the ones I remember documenting - hmm. For my friend’s birthday we went to the Getty and I wore this long Haider Ackermann smoking jacket, a tapestry corset and a vintage Ralph Lauren linen blouse over burgundy pants from The Row, and some Guerlain perfume, I think it was Bouquet de Paris? It’s in this IG reel. This is one of my favorite jackets; I used to wear it every single day, and I’ve probably had to bring it to the tailor three or four times because I obliterate my clothing with usage. But I think you should. I think it’s important to wear the life out of your clothes, and take care of their wounds and let them show their age and experience in your closet. And I knew we were going to go see Jan van Huysum’s paintings, which have a lot of the same colors of my outfit. I love a rich, decadent palette in both clothes and perfume.

📸📸📸Camera Roll 📸📸📸
💄🪞 Arabelle Sicardi Edition 💄🪞

Arabelle’s Perfumed Pages Summer Salon fragrance map paired with Yes, Please by Pekji.

I Don’t Want to Be Understood by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza paired with Apocalypstick by Mad Et Len.