Myrrh & Kumquat is marketed as being “harmonizing,” but it’s the first 4711 Acqua Colonia I’ve sniffed that gets flirtatious.
Opens with a sour candy citrus zing, then melts down into very personal space with sugary balsamic come-hither glances, for thirty minutes.
Lingers with caramel sweet spice on the skin for another hour.
Unisex, unexpected, and marvelous. A good one for a spontaneous lunch date.
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Another Myrrh.
The Church has been around for forty years–this is an early one.
The opening is wonderful–sweet crystalized ginger with a sharp bite–but then the tuberose wilts, and the peony turns antiseptic, drawing attention to unfortunate cedar leakage on the bottom, and I get uncomfortable nursing home neglect vibes.
I wanted to love this one–the original Twilly is enchanting for any age, young at heart and soul–but Eau Ginger has too little of that timeless magic, and makes me a bit anxious.
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I went looking for the Natalie Merchant and REM cover of John Prine’s Hello in There, but then remembered how much I like this one.
This “bad boy” just earned a week of detention when he got caught with a blunt at his all-boys private school, along with Axe Dark Temptation and Invictus Victory. He’s got good taste in chocolate, and misses his mom.
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(It’s a shame that The Inner Circle’s Bad Boys is indelibly linked to the show Cops, because it’s a good song.) Here’s a Scandi EDM duo
Demeter Fragrance Library’s Riding Crop is not the stuff of Bluegrass tack shops, with clean virgin hide goods and polished silver bits, nor of stables full of equine sweat and clover hay.
This unisex cologne is a quick trip to the sex shop.
Tops with leather and latex, changes position with high end water-base lube and a hint of drying spice–cardamom, perhaps–and bottoms with pleasant musk and a post-coital smoke.
Fun.
Doesn’t last long, and stains the clothes a bit.
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Lots of folks have covered this Velvet Underground song, but The Kills’ acoustic cover turns it intimate and consensual.
So the COVID anosmia thing seems to be ebbing, but it has a tide.
I’ve felt better and better these past weeks, but then this weekend I felt kinda lousy, and my tea tasted like it was made from a twice-soaked bag and sizzling bacon smelled like a distant campfire.
But today I woke up feeling great, and had a very fragrant Darjeeling and a tasty biscuit, so I reached for an old favorite that I know well–
Tokyomilk 61 Petit Parfum Solide–Sugar Plum–came out at least fifteen years ago, an early one from Margot Elena offering peach, candied mango, white tea, persimmon and “deep cassis.”
–and all that comes through. Creamy sweet summer fruit, cool wet mango and cheeky black currants, just like I remember, and I don’t have to shove it up my nostrils to find them.
Interestingly, the guy doesn’t smell the sugary fruity notes, he only gets the ammonia end of the cassis.
He’s been laying on the hot sauce pretty hard too–so we’re guessing he’s maybe two weeks behind me in the C-19 recovery. (Or maybe he’s sailing on a lower tide.)
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Thelma Plum is pretty amazing.
Big boss moss meets elegant earth mother with sweet spice (alliteration much?)–as if Chanel № 5 and Niki de Saint Phalle had a gender-fluid love child.
Begins with sassy juicy fruit aldehydes–that manage to give off interesting gasoline fumes–then grows calm and cool with a bouquet of spring flowers at arm’s length. Those are soon overtaken by deep voiced oak-moss sugared with ylang-ylang, cloves, and a spoonful of vanilla that settles to the skin by evening.
The top notes last ages on clothes, with some patchouli bitterness that I don’t get on the skin, but like very much.
Or Noir has been around for over 40 years, and is still in production. Reasonably priced too.
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Some more Gasoline with pretty bitterness.
I grabbed this one this morning, a test to see how much I’ve recovered–and I definitely pass!
Maybe not with the highest marks–I had to douse myself in it to get everything I know is there–but my schnozz is working, and sniffing this one is like hugging an old friend.
The top notes all come through, a gorgeous thirty-minute-long opening: sweet anise and violet powder blast, with a bit of cool green ivy to keep it wild and fey.
Then the middle blooms, a foot off the skin for three hours: licorice candy, dessert cherries in almond amaretto, dusted with iris flour so everything stays light.
Settles soft, to clothes and hair until the wash: vanilla ice cream, the almond end of tonka, and sugar musk, a brush of vetiver to keep it dry.
Delicious, iconic.
The lighthearted gourmand that exchanged Angel‘s chocolate edible underwear for lace fairy wings, and made fantasy haute couture affordable.
I wore it for a decade.
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The album Surfacing came out the same year–
This little beauty shows off the lighthearted facets of tuberose–sweet milky florals, the giggly sweet aromatics of bubblegum, the sugary mint of wintergreen, buttercream icing–without going into the skanky indolic camphorous aspects. (More on Amouage’s Love Tuberose end of the spectrum than Moon Bloom.)
A bit of sandalwood on the bottom anchors it, and there might be a bit clove, too–I get nice hints of Tabu there.
I can definitely smell it–though I still have to shove my nostrils up into stuff to get a good full whiff. So I’m guessing all my receptors are still firing, they’re just weak.
My first Covid symptoms hit four weeks ago. The folks I’ve talked to, that have weathered it through, have said they finally got their taste and smell fully back after two months.
Mine seems to be coming back faster than that–most likely due to the vaccine, rather than me huffing everything that crosses my path.
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An uplifting song with some spice on the bottom. It’s so nice to feel better.
Pansies are so fun! The smaller johnny-jump-ups have the most scent (which isn’t much) and are the easiest to grow.
Borsari 1870’s 1970’s reissue of a 1920 classic that I picked up in 2010 (…Let’s do the time-warp, agaaiin…!) is a greener violet than many, with a dewy leafy opening that stays verdant as it slowly dries down to sweet floral powder.
There’s a bit of woody backbone at the bottom–I’m only getting a smidge, but it’s there–some subtle oakmoss, maybe? that takes it out of traditional feminine flowers and into intriguing unisex garden.
Nice vibe of the whole plant, not just an extraction of the petals.
I have to shove my nose into things to get good results–a big huff rather than a delicate sniff–but I’m getting there!
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Another vintage one that got me moving. (I still get worn out quickly, but I’m much better than last week!)
It’s just a jump to the left–
Garofano means carnation, and this little Italian beauty–first produced in 1930, and reissued for gift sets in 1970–is exactly that, but amplified.
Jasmine sparkles up the carnation’s already sweet and zingy opening, and then the heady middle is augmented by roses, making it even more rich. The bottom is the best part, with added cloves (wild carnations are called clove-pinks) and pepper bringing out the floral spice.
My schnozz is healing!
I get all the facets, even the base notes (which are spicy enough to be worn by even the most alpha gents)–they’re just at 50% volume, rather than full blast.
Right now, I get two hours from it, three inches off the wrist–but I’m sure the performance is at least double that.
One of my favorites from the Borsari 1870 collection.
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Oasis’ cover of The Jam’s Carnation jam.
kira a. gold 