Cream soda cocktails at a retro ’90’s New Year’s Eve party.
She shows up to the festivities with bourbon fumes and bubblegum on her breath, then dances with sparkling rose geranium over vanilla amber. Fades to a sweet kiss of powdery patchouli for the Bare Naked Ladies’ cover of Auld Lang Syne.
Here is said cover.
Opens with a big splash of blood orange juice that softens down to ginger-ale zing, then settles to soft wet musk on the skin for a few hours.
There’s a slight note of feet on the bottom that wants to be warm woods, but doesn’t have the right balance.
This one teeters between nice and meh for me–a sportsball guy could pull this off better than I could.
You can’t beat the original, but this cover of Sade’s Paradise roughs it up on the edges in a good way.
I love the opening, a magician’s big poof of flowers hidden in a sleeve.
They turn green quickly, facefuls of huge leafy citrus blooms with extra greenery, and woodsy patchouli stems by the armload.
Private Collection came out in 1973, but doesn’t bare the civet fangs that were so popular then–the base is cedar and bright spice a few feet from the skin. The dry down on clothes is wildflower sweet for two days.
The top notes are so fun, and the finish is pretty, but the middle feels like I’ve been whumped in the chest by the biggest bridal bouquet ever thrown.
This one first came out then, too.
I get berry lemonade at first, then a mild iced jasmine tea. Two hours later there’s a trace of sweet patchy citrus musk on my skin.
Cleopatra is pretty, but a bit thin for the name–the Queen of the Nile conjures power and seduction, not summer drinks.
Opens with caramel cubes and sweet flower water in a blast of candy store goodness, then snacks on marshmallow fluff on toast, the crusts cut off, pretty please?
The sugar rush is loud but cute, and lasts three-quarters of an hour.
This was my favorite song when I was little:
Fun, but would make a better ice cream flavor.
Maybe by Ben & Jerry’s, with some sprinkles of head shop funk and first crush blueberry sweetness.
Goes on cheap, dutch-date artificial giggles, but slowly gets comfortable and sexy–sugary incense ash a breath off the skin–for several hours.
Perfect for ditching class and finding your chakras, the clitoris, or lay-lines.
Love this dreamy tune by Jay Som. (Check out her NPR Tiny Desk Concert.)
Happy happy, merry merry!
This is sugary Christmas kisses under the mistletoe, clean snow and frosted black currants.
The lavender is sweet and musky and long-lasting, a pretty rime over the pine notes on the bottom.
I’d love this as a pillow spray in the winter.
This one is fun–
This is what Santa wears when he’s visiting a naughty house, because they’re a little nice, too, aren’t they?
Manly gingerbread cookies left under the tree.
Bright fir, fresh cut, leaking sticky pine pitch, and spice–baked ginger, ground cloves–with a syrupy base of resinous vanilla musk.
Long lasting in personal space, balsam trails with with brown sugar rubbed into the skin. Unisex, but should be worn by St. Nick types with big beards and twinkling eyes.
I like the candle even better. The pine takes center stage with a fruity note of cranberry, backed up by some smoky rose infused tea.
My house smells like a present–I’ve been a good girl this year.
Merry, merry.
A fruity failed sobriety test.
Opens with party-girl peaches, so alcoholic they need rehab. Once they dry up, they give off morning after fumes of vanilla and stale sandalwood breath.
Oddly, it’s very enjoyable on clothes–a splash of apricot brandy musk that lasts til laundry day–but on my skin it’s soured pear custard, so I’ll keep it for a scarf scent.
My little mini was from the first release in 1995. (The name changed to plain Burberry on the next pressing.) Edwyn Collins came out with A Girl Like You the same year. I like this updated reggae femme version a lot.
The opening of this one smells exactly like the Jewish bakery on Montague Street on Hanukkah, the windows fogged with the scent of chocolate and poppyseed hamantaschen, and red jelly donuts–
–but then the sequoia note pulls it out of feminine gourmand territory and gives it nice depth.
Good sillage, and the dry down is amazing–a masculine woody cocoa powder that lasts forever on clothes.
My new favorite of the Nest line.
L’Chaim!
kira a. gold 