Rook Perfumes Scent of the Metaverse: Verse 1, official photo 

If a golden fish would ever happen to cross my path and grant me a wish, my request, invariably through the years would be “grant me access to a REAL holodeck”! As a small kid, playing SuperMario on my Nintendo, to my first antediluvian Intel 286 computer, to the VR sets tested today, my hunger for virtual escapist delights has varied only in the range of interest but never in intensity.

I have often talked in my fragrant reviews that I often see perfumes as my roleplaying “skins” that my real-world avatar can wear, with extra added perks and benefits coming from the deep waters of the subconsciousness. These past months, my favorite toys have been the AI image generators and I have spent countless hours typing out prompts in Midjourney or Dall-e, summoning android dreams with the feeling that it’s all just a beautiful visual metaphor for the fact that we are standing at the entrance. And a new world awaits. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Nadeem Crowe perfumer for Rook Perfumes  lives in the UK and is an Emergency Doctor and an actor/artwork created by Warren Beeby, via known origin (dot) io

A note from the brand: “Scent – the fourth dimension. Our environment brings us endless stimulation. We often focus on what we can see and hear and take for granted that both these senses are reinforced by the scents around us. Our sense of smell is perhaps the most visceral of the senses. Bypassing the thalamus in our brain and targeting the limbic system – scent provokes instant emotion. It transports us back to moments in time that we may or may not want to recall. Our aim is to add the dimension of fragrance to the Metaverse. To create a scent that conjures an instant link to a world that exists in a sort of parallel to a world that has become all too familiar. A scent that brings more depth to the Metaverse but also allows us to feel more connected to it with one spray. When people think NFT, they usually think “sorry what?” or of digital images sold online with no palpable product delivered.  We did things a little differently… The digital artwork we sold as an NFT was in fact a digital invitation to a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) – in simple terms a discussion group. 30 people purchased the NFT ticket and through the group discussed what the scent of the metaverse would smell like and they also learned about the nuances of creating a perfume and the logistical complications of producing and distributing a fragrance. Over the last 6 months The Scent of the Metaverse: Verse 1 was blended and the final product has now shipped to the co-creators of the scent who indeed now also co-own it.  It was an interesting concept for me to use a digital world (the Metaverse) as inspiration for a fragrance and to create something that was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time” – via official site.

Collage with Rook Perfumes Rook Perfumes The Scent of the Metaverse Verse 1, error message and American Gods poster by Nicoleta

 Rook Perfumes The Scent of the Metaverse Verse 1 is what a new (new-new not just “new) god from Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” would smell like. Forget Mr. World, Technical Boy and Media, this is a whole new sentient creature.

The first sniff reminded me of one of my favorite fragrances that play on that cold modern take on incense: Zagorsk from Comme des Garcons. The reverie lasted only a couple of minutes because immediately the image glitches and we move to the next sensorial frame – sensorial because now the fragrance has an aftertaste, rather than a smell.

Midjourney by Nicoleta

Imagine picking up a wet rock from the ground, after having been struck by lightning and licking it. Bitter, metallic, ozonic, weirdly comforting smooth, wet and cold. Next, nostalgia creeps in. The hot plasticky smell of my old yellow crimping pliers used to re-arrange the Gordian knot of cables behind my desk.  Hmm, maybe it was not a lightning strike I tasted earlier but a random-access memory of chewing on a cable, in a desperate attempt to fix the old dial-up network? Or was it the metallic prick of a pixel art rose, just barely sketched? Then, I giggled thinking of the Office Space printer scene (see it again here for a kick of nostalgia) as Rook Perfumes The Scent of the Metaverse smells like a possessed ancient printer refusing to “end task” and rolling out paper after paper smelling of hot ink and overheated circuits.  Really now, that would be one annoying ghost in the machine. Pun intended.

Midjourney collage by Nicoleta

I love the cold-hot game Rook Perfumes The Scent of the Metaverse Verse 1 plays and the abstract twists and turns it takes like an AI-generated Rorschach test that will yield out completely different responses with each subject/user taking you deeper into the virtual hole – or – on the contrary, will make you take distance and mumble stuff that’s better left unheard about the emperor’s new digital clothes. As with anything, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for this beholder here – there is much joy to push these buttons. I just wished I sniffed it “blind” and I must disclose that I have been quite stressed about reviewing this since I first read about it, as any marketing backstory that involves anything SF/gaming/virtual reality triggers my happy-drool-lucky-pavlovian-golden retriever reflexes that turn my review into a series of “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy” while shaking an imaginary tail. So, I tried to curb my enthusiasm (long time, no Larry David nods) and dial back on my stream-of-consciousness from wandering out too far from the borders of the metaverse. But if you like geeky stuff, miss your old computer, or want a server dropper for your office IT party – look no further!

Notes: White Smoke, Warm Circuitry, Digital Rose, Celestial Incense

Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Disclosure:  Sample kindly provided by Rook Perfumes; opinions are my own

Rook Perfumes Scent of the Metaverse Verse 1 official photo

Thanks to the generosity of we have a 30 ml of bottle of Rook Perfumes The Scent of the Metaverse: Verse 1 for one registered reader in the US, UK, EU (WITH THE FOLLOWING EXCEPTIONS ROMANIA, RUSSIA. SPAIN, GREECE AND TURKEY) You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Nicoleta’s review and where you live. Draw closes 9/8/2022

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Please read Perfume and The Metaverse by  Senior Contributor Elise Vernon Pearlstine and reader Rachel Ng here

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