The Truth About Natural vs. Artificial — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne says Alexander's sweet sweat was a rare constitution; ordinary excellence is to smell of nothing, as Plautus wrote that a woman smells best when she smells not at all.

Heavy perfumes suspect a defect being concealed; to smell well is still to stink. Montaigne loves good natural scents and detects bad ones farther off than most; simple smells please him most.

His skin holds odours, from gloves on his mustachios to youthful kisses lingering hours. Physicians might use smell more; churches incense to rouse the senses. He chooses lodgings by air, and Venice and Paris lose his affection for marsh and street dirt.