Author: kira a. gold

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Kate Spade New York

Sample card and spray, with pink on white graphic pattern of Kate’s spade.

Seems like every design house is desperately churning out their version of a citrus-berry-rose, as if fruit sorbet is the must-have wardrobe staple now that COVID-19 has made hard pants a thing of the past.

This one should have been named TRULYsprite.
Kate Spade New York is nice, bright strawberries with lemon-lime zest opening, rosy refreshing middle and a mineral chrome shine at the base. It’s fun and bubbly, but it’s a bit brief, and a bit simple.
Pair with stretch leggings.

This is likely the first fragrance that Kate Spade herself didn’t have a hand in producing, on some level. Do most legacy houses take the safe route after their creator has recently passed?
I hope they find their way back to her iconic cuteness-as-an-artform aesthetic.

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Terry Gilliam took Kate Bush and Donald Sutherland to a new level of cute in her “Cloudbusting” video.

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This Moment

Adorable floral painted Lollia mini bottle with gold cap.

Opens summer bright with bunches of wet greens, more lily-of-the-valley in the rain than water lotus.
And appropriately, This Moment lasts only a few of them, soon settling to the skin with orange flower honey and gone in an hour.

A safe blind buy gift for tweens on up, and pretty on the vanity.

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I grew up on this song.

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Spice Must Flow

Sample spray and paper tester of amber bottle, with the ELd’O medallion redesigned with a sci-fi planet vibe.

Did anyone else mutter, “Fear is the mind killer…” as they opened their little white package?

I was rather excited when Etat Libre d’Orange announced their obvious hat tip to Frank Herbert’s DUNE novels. The classic series revolves around the politics of a psychotropic spice which fuels all interplanetary commerce.
Melange is described as a glowing blue addictive cinnamon, mined from the sands of Arakkis.

ELd’O’s tribute is not Melange, and the nerd-girl in me feels this could have been really iconic with the addition of either cassia or canela.
Spice Must Flow does have a good desert planet vibe, though.

Opens with an explosion of hot ginger-cardamom-rose, powder dry, that shifts between sweet and salty until it settles to incense dust on the skin, where it lingers for days.
The peppery notes make it very masculine–though a Bene Gesserit witch could easily wear it in a subtle manipulation for dominance–a rugged cardamom bomb with rose thorn shrapnel.

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DUNE was an influence on Thirty Seconds to Mars’s first album.

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White Sandalwood

Pile of Nest square minis, White Sandalwood–with a botanical drawing label–in front.

Almond nutshells and work boots.

Nest is hit or miss with me–though I love their pretty little bottles. White Sandalwood leans masculine with fresh cut wood and an earthy leathery note, and dry almonds–almost toasted, but not gourmand at all–and I like it.
A little lasts a long time–too much explodes with Hypnotic Poison strength Sharpie marker. Pair with jeans and a flannel shirt.

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Turn it up and let off some steam.

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Rose Pompon

Red cut glass bottle with gold cap, pink striped tea roses and raspberries.

Heat activated roses that last FOREVER.

Opens with Ruby Red pink grapefruit juice cocktail spiked with raspberry Chambord, and as it warms, the roses bloom sweet with vanilla, and stay there for days. Weeks, even.

The rose masks the violets, I only smell them in my hair (which is Covid-19 long right now) and on my shirt cuffs when I’m not wearing it. If I pin my hair close to my head the roses open again, same if I re-wear the jacket.
In a hot bath the roses get thorny, woods with a bitter bite of the grapefruit again, gorgeous, yet also a bit masculine.

There are sexier fruity roses out there—(come to me, baby) Angel Nova and (sigh) Sådanne—but none as delightfully mercurial or long lasting.

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Just discovered Esperanza Spalding, a cool jazz artist with a lot of Joni Mitchell energy–

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Springtime in a Park

Replica sample card with a pink liquid filled spray, and a really tasty Bosc pear.

Springtime in a Park is supposed to replicate Shanghai 2019, but I get Car Wash 2004.

Starts out with a blast of flower lather, and then some not-quite-shrieking neon-green pear liquid soap, then blooms with bonkers loud lily-of-the-valley suds.
Bath-time is over in an hour, drying down to clean musk on the skin.

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Donna Summer had much better spring fling flair.

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Rhinoceros

Test paper cut out of bottle, a decant vial, carved wood rhino and a shot glass with an ounce and a half of hemlock cones.

Drunk pine cones and combat boots, but comforting.
This is that big guy at the bonfire who wrapped me up inside his motorcycle jacket to keep me warm, and whispered dreadful jokes in my ear all night long, and I’ll always be a little in love with him.

Fills the room then eases into personal space for the entire night, and lingers on the skin the next.

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Rhinoceros was a supergroup experiment by Electra Records in 1969. There’s a good stampede in the middle of this one–

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L’Air des Alpes Suisse

Tauer blue mini pentagon bottle with mountain graphic label, on iced over evergreen bough.

I thought there would be hot cocoa.

L’Air des Alpes Suisses is chilly and gorgeous, and stays that way.
The ambergris is a gust of cold wind carrying snow and pine, with a weirdly enjoyable sweet whiff of gasoline–and it echoes. The camphor in the woods somehow resonates, the way a struck bell vibrates the air in the room, with a slow two hour fade to the skin.

The linear sound wave quality is very cool, a good example of synesthesia in perfumery, though I keep wondering if it will resolve at the end.
(Is there a tease of warmth and chocolate in there, or is that my own wishful thinking?)

I like it very much, but I bet it’s a completely different scent in August.

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An electro-pop dance hit out of Zurich that’s oddly soothing, with a gorgeous little video.

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Byzance

Orange carnation tipped in rose pink, and cobalt disc shaped bottle with gold coin center medallion

I was in high school in 1987, and aldehydes were the stuff of women thirty years older, who wore Chanel and Givenchy and Estée Lauder–but that gorgeous blue bottle lured me with bohemian riches and devious secrets anyway.

The juice in my bottle has become dark and viscous, and the carnation has mellowed the soapsuds, turning them into a wonderful fizzy cola. Tuberose still takes center stage, like Ysatis but with more spice and less cat–though I think Byzance has aged better, retro rather than dated.
I’ve no idea how well this performed fresh from the factory. Mine stays nicely at arms length for a good six hours.
Pairs well with sequin tops with shoulder pads.

Snag a bottle soon if you’re into vintage icons–I see fewer and fewer of them at my usual second-hand haunts.

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Byzance is especially lovely in the winter.
This song came out the same year.

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Sotto La Luna – Tuberose

Decant vial on paper test cut-out of Tauer cobalt bottle, and scattered whole cloves.

Sweet, buttery green tuberose sharpened by spice with a serrated edge.
Turns creamy on the skin with nice projection and lasts all day, but the geranium sticks to the cuffs with a funny veggie side dish note.
Pretty, but makes me crave fried chicken.

The structure is similar to Tuberose Flash, from the Tauerville collection, which I absolutely love. so I sprayed that on my other wrist to compare. Flash’s benzoin softens the jasmine and patchouli, where the ambergris and spices in Sotto La Luna brightens them.
Of course, I went for the spice cabinet next. and hit the raw materials. The clove was obvious, the sweet bite on top, but the cinnamon was more subtle–just a dusting of warmth.
That was fun.
(I’ll stay with Flash.)

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This is so weird and unexpected–I like it.