Author: kira a. gold

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Lilacs & Gooseberries

Shay & Blue’s iconic blue flask with black tall top, hung with a silver wolf medallion, sitting in a pile of sugared green gooseberry hard candy.

I was hoping this one would cast spells.

I’m a big fan of the show and the game The Witcher–for a male point-of-view medieval fantasy, it has some amazing and powerful women who call their own shots. (Side note: Henry Cavill looks so much better when he’s grubby.)
Yennifer, the main character’s usual love interest (and occasional foe) wears a distinctive perfume of lilac and gooseberry.
So of course I was excited to see her scent manifested in reality.

Shay & Blue’s write-up is pretty lush:
Nightmare dressed as a daydream. A twisted and addictive juicy floral. Obsessive Lilacs open to the thrill of dark demons. Twisted with sharp Gooseberries drenched in juice. Finishing this intoxication with smooth white amber.
And while that’s a great description of the sorceress’s vibe, S&B’s perfume interpretation is quite literal, and somehow more simple than I was expecting.

The eau goes on fresh and soft with light florals and tart fruits that linger somewhere between green peaches and Granny Smith apples at arm’s length. After an hour or two it settles inside personal space with a wet mineral amber that’s a little abrasive–not headache inducing, just a little prickly–and stays pretty for half the day.
The top notes grab cotton nicely.

I wish it were witchier, more chaotic, more like Yen, but I like it, and the geek factor makes me really happy.

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The bard in the series is an absolute drama queen. Jaskier (which means “buttercup” in the original Polish, though in the English version of the game he is Dandelion) is played brilliantly by Joseph Trapanese. Here’s my favorite song from season 2.

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Sun Moon Stars 2023

Black cat looking suspiciously at an iridescent white bottle with raised celestial motifs.
(Same, Luna, same.)

Strawberry sports drink, petroleum jelly, and secondhand embarrassment.

I have no idea why the original was discontinued, or why this mess was introduced, and I’m sad about it.

A pretty variation of the bottle, though.

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Today is a bit gloomy and melancholy-

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Zippo

Cologne flask in the shape of a silver cigarette lighter, open capped with a flame seemingly lit from the top.

Usually I pick music for these posts that tie into the name of the perfume somehow, or maybe a song is written by an artist from the fragrance’s country of origin, or even the year the vintage came out–
This time my brother challenged me to find a scent to go with this jam by the ’70’s prog-rock band Gong.

I went with Zippo because the song has a lot of disjointed sweet notes with some metallic resonance, it lasts a long time, and after sampling a few times it kinda grows on you.
Also the packaging is cute.

Opens with flares of apple peel and vanilla, snaps some high hat brassy herbs and spices, and finishes on slow woods.
Leans to the tenor clef.
Not terribly unique, but fun and accessible and upbeat.

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Citronelle & Geranium

Bottle and box with cute flower drawings, in front of a can of Deep Woods Off and a tube of Skin-So-Soft body lotion.

Holy shitballs, it works.

Mosquitoes LOVE me. The little vampiric assholes feast on my flesh like I am manna from above.
So I am always looking for a good smelling repellent, and while Diptyque actually makes no claim to Citronelle & Geranium being proof against the bloodsucking fiends, it boasts lemongrass and lemon eucalyptus. Both are effective bug deterrents, and along with citronella, can even kill the little effers in large enough doses.

This “summer body spray” goes on comfortingly strong, with that invasive green citrus that immediately stops the annoying tinnitus whine that is not “just in your head.”
In a half hour or so, orange blossom and neroli ease in to soften the sharp sting of the lemon leaves, for a glorious insect free afternoon.

Would it stand up to the fanged pterodactyls that live in Vermont marshes?
No. You need DEET for that.

Is it as sweet smelling and nostalgia inducing as Avon’s iconic Skin-So-Soft?
No, but it’s a lot less oily and doesn’t stain the clothes.

Is it pricey?
Yes, especially when compared to a can of Off from the drugstore.
But since hats with full netting aren’t apropos for garden parties anymore (a shame, that) it might be worth it for fancy outdoor events when waving and slapping and swearing and welting and itching seems undignified.

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Edge Effects

Edge Effects sample spray with b+w post card, and a peach, a clementine, tomato leaf and basil, and a big box of nag champa incense.

The inspiration for this scent is the dual world at the line where meadow meets trees, and it’s lovely–multifaceted, but without hard edges–and always changing from moment to moment.

Citrusy green peaches at first sniff that immediately ripen, turning sweet and spicy and lush for half an hour or so, not too loud, but very inviting.
Labdanum smoke breezes in, delicate and airy over earthy pine sweetened with jasmine. We we linger here for half the day in personal space, whispers flicker in and out: small musky animalics, pleasantly bitter leaves, sugared herbs–
The peaches and jasmine turn creamy toward the evening with a bit of vanilla, almost like benzoin but lighter and less sticky on the skin.
Gone by morning, with just a smudge of sweet greens on cotton cuffs.

Absolutely big bottle worthy, and my birthday is coming up soon.

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Another Edge, much edgier.

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Zinnia

Vintage Floris bottle with iconic royal blue label and cap, and dwarf orange and pink zinnias from my garden.

I wish my zinnias smelled like this.
Mine smell like dusty bee pollen, green stems and maybe some petrichor from this morning’s rain.

Floris Zinnia smells like peach sweet tea and clove carnations and a bouquet of powdery roses and lily-of-the-valley–that should seem matronly but are pure coquette–in a garden, with lawn games involving a mallet or a racquet or something, played by people who say “ta” and “cheers” a lot.

Good performance, fresh and bright in social distance for several hours, then spicy and warm in personal space for the rest of the afternoon.

First in the catalogue in 1860 and relaunched in 1990, bottles can still be found at reasonable prices. I’m surprised they aren’t snatched up more quickly.

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Looks like evening rain, too.

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Jubilation 25

Amouage mini bottle with gold dome lid on a pink flower.

A celebration of drunk roses.

Almost frosting sweet at first–the ylang-ylang, but tarragon keeping it from being cloying–with a bubbly champagne exuberance, and loud.
The sugar turns smoky in censers, ceremonial myrrh exultant at arms-length for hours, inebriated and wild. A pinch of wormwood in the incense slips in and out of the roses all day long, and makes one aware that holidays had roots long before any book was written, with potions much stronger than wine.
Herbal petals cling to the cuffs for a week after, the confetti that lingers after a parade.

Jubilation is too raucous a party for me everyday, but it’s fun to go to a bash once in a while.

Also, I might be really enjoying tarragon at the moment–it gives nice sharp green aromatics at the top and sweet aniseed at the bottom–Minotaure has it, too.

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ZigZag

Cut cube bottle with black tall top, on photo of Zsa Zsa in diamonds. The eau was originally chartreuse, mine has turned amber.

I was feeling kind of nostalgic and reached for this one this morning–originally out in the late 1940’s, had a heyday in the late ’60s when Zsa Zsa Gabor became the face, and then relaunched by Dana in the late ’90s.

ZigZag is a bit of a shapeshifter, opening with fascinating sniffy green tarragon amid some orangeade, then sliding into blowsy jasmine for an hour before lying on the skin with a dust of indulgent powder that has nothing of the top notes at all.
There’s a timeless cheeky pretension to it that I love–ultra feminine but cheap in the best way, like false eyelashes from the dollar store–and I bet it will have another resurgence, maybe late in this decade.

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More nostalgia, with no pretense whatsoever–from Joni’s first album, 1968.

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Cow

Promo card with a rather judgy bovine, sample spray, apple and kid’s cloisonne cow pendant.

Nestlé apple flavored Quik.
And Crayons.

Opens with some herbs and a basket of fresh apples, that soon turn milky sweet with lily-of-the-valley and violet powder, and then slides down to the skin with waxy musk for half the day.

I don’t know how to explain how silly this smells.

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Some ridiculous NSFW Doja Cat

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Poison Ivy

Black bottle with white ivy illustration and silver cap, and dark green flocked silk leaves

Velvety green roses and lily-of-the-valley out of the bottle, soft in personal space for an hour, then sits with lime sherbet dust on the skin for a few more.

This one is the last of the newest TokyoMilk Dark set. I’m not so impressed with this release–First Base is good, but the other three seem weak in both performance and creativity.

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Dreamy soft song…