“Lemon leather,” “vanilla vinyl,” “rubber baby powder flowers,” and “amber sandalwood,” are all tongue twisters.

Black is equally confounding, made up of all those seemingly discordant syllables, yet somehow is absolutely marvelous.

Yes, it smells like WD-40* and tires–but they’re not Goodyear treads baking in the summer sun at a smoky track, they’re Victorian bicycle tyres ridden by gentlefolk on jasmine lined lanes in the spring.
And no, I’m not going to wear it–but I’ve read quite a few romances that feature a mechanic who cleans up nice, and in my head they smell just like this.

* (Have you ever looked at the ingredients list on the can? There’s a hefty gob of vanillin in that silicone oil.)

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