TokyoMilk Dark black bottle with white enamel details of a solar eclipse, lit with stars.
TokyoMilk #99
Black Anise and Mint Leaf (Margot Elena is so marvelously extra) make for an intrusive yet great wormwood opening, but then the “Smoked Amber” tramples all the herbs into damp bachelor pad funk.
Touted as unisex, but it’s taking up waaay too much room on the subway seat while boasting about its car emissions.
Lingers a foot off the skin for half the day, and on cotton until a hot water wash. Wear with a barbershop Ivy League cut, and mirrored aviator shades. (Maybe don’t wear it.)
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Soundgarden covering The Doors. Also a bit rude, but in the best way.
Lolita Lempicka powder atomizer globe in a snowbank with lavender spritzed snow.
Lolita Lempicka shimmering powder. I fully own up to buying this for the bottle.
There’s something dreamy and cutely sinister about it–the sweetness doesn’t come through as much as in a liquid formula, so the licorice and and almond cyanide are really carried in the musk.
Leans unisex in a sleepy morning skull-print pajama bottoms way.
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Alabama 3 (or A3 in the U.S. because copyright shenanigans) came on everyone’s radar with the theme song to the Sopranos. They’ve got a crazy acid house country blues sound that I love–here’s one of my favorites.
Amouage spray sample and red card, photo-bombed by a Siamese cat with no manners.
Oooh, this is heavenly. Cinnamon and cedar and so warm, like standing before a brazier of burning hardwood, and sweet–but not cuddly, the honey is spread with a sharp rose knife.
I get a lot of Youth Dew vibes–that rich spicy heat–but Crimson Rocks is wilder, more elemental. The lack of amber or balsamics on the bottom give an amazing desert mirage feel, elusive and light, like dusty spice in evening sun–
Lasts all night, growing sweeter and softer, just a breath on the skin left in the morning.
The guy said “You should get that,” and I might, when the price of eggs becomes reasonable again.
Mini 4711 flask with bright yellow and gold accented label, on a dish with starfruit.
Starfruit & White Flowers is a lovely fruity floral, with crystalline green peachy-citrus notes, their sweetness carried deeper by the gardenia-neroli mashup. Pretty and linear, projects across the room for 10 minutes, then settles to the skin over the next half hour.
I’ve enjoyed most of the 4711 Acqua Colonia offerings, but this one is rather special–delicate, refreshing and cheerful, and even a bit sexy in a see-through summer evening sundress way– –but there’s also a crisp sugary vibe that works for daytimes in winter, too.
“Do you have to take off your coat? It’s so cold!”
My wife pouts when I hand it to her, but then smiles prettier than the 14-karat flakes in the Goldvasser they toast me with in Gdansk. They call me Gwiazdor there, the Starman, and I’m not so bad.
Kraków is different now, too close to Ukraine, and people are scared. Here I wear chains, and my horns curl long during Advent.
I heft the sack that she’d covered with needlework—each stitch a spell—and I follow Nicholas into the house. He keeps his robes on, flaunting his privilege in a houseful of shivering kids. Sanctimonious bastard.
The house is freezing. Putin turned the gas mains off, yet I’m the son of Czernobog?
The mother bends low as she pours shots of throat-burning krupnik. I snort my appreciation of her cleavage, though my wife’s are much nicer. Nick passes out candy to the girls, as if they can afford a dentist. He skips the sullen youth in the corner.
I catch the boy’s eye. “What did you do?”
He juts out his chin. “Stole a kielbasa from the grocery store.”
I pull a few black lumps from my bag and toss them in the empty coal bin. “Is that all?”
“Stuck it down my pants and shook it at Anna-Katarzyna.”
“Nice.” My sack grows no lighter as the hopper fills.
Outside, she throws my coat around my shoulders, and kisses my face. I say filthy things in her ear, loud enough for good Saint Nick to hear. I am a devil, after all.
St. Clair bottle with dark amber eau, and hosta flowers because my tuberoses haven’t put out.
White flowers hit with a bang, loads of orange blossom, jasmine and tuberose too, but they’re wild and searching rather than lusty–almost as if escaping their space instead of beckoning one toward it–then they ease back to reveal some fruity citrus for a few hours. There’s nice benzoin on the bottom with some shadowy musk, like watchful guardian cats.
One to immerse in for a day, scent a bath, fill a room– I’m curious what it does on warm days.
Edit – 6/28/23
In summer weather this has an indolent vibe–the florals less wistful, the animalics more prowling, the labdanum a little more smoky–definitely one for nights, still hovering a soft handspan off the skin at dawn.
Small glass pot of purple solid perfume with black lid.
Oh, Junk, how I love you–one part Tiger Balm, one part black currant cough drops–you heal my soul with comforting ’70s vibes of beaded doorway curtains and rusty VW micro-buses, JOB rolling papers and Aquarian tarot decks.
The solid is much preferable to the spray, so it can be rubbed into the skin like a curative salve. Apply every four hours or as needed.
My little pot expires next year. I cannot wait until someone asks me what I’m wearing, so I can nonchalantly say, “Just some old Junk I had.”
Sample spray and promo card, with desiccated roses and incense in a green ceramic holder.
Amouage’s take on Citizen Kane opens with sharp resins with melancholy undertones, then shifts to burning dried rosebuds (see what they did there?) and more aged frankincense.
Sadly, these heart notes leave one wanting more–the myrrh plot twist is so well known that there’s no surprise of cleverness to the sandalwood at the end–and the fleeting sweetness of vanilla at the bottom gives only the sense that love was never found.
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“The Union Forever” is The White Stripes’ take on the same movie, but “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” is my favorite song on that album at the moment. Here’s a live version-
Large bottle of Demeter Bubblegum with silver tall top in a red vending machine filled with rainbow layers of gumballs.
Demeter Fragrance Library’s Bubblegum is the best pure pop out there–exactly what it says it is, the way it should be–cheap, sweet and fun.
Yes, Fracas‘s smutty fabulousness is amazing, and several niche brands have a highbrow interpretation (Bubblegum Chic by Heeley and Bel Rebel’s Bubble Gum are nice) but for a moment of uncomplicated selfish joy, go with this one.
Sugar, spun with cloves and wintergreen, and a tiny hit of synthetic musk just to keep it soft, and that’s all. For anyone of any age. Lasts a loud hour or two on skin with a bit of sticky residue, and hard to get out of clothes.
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I got Covid again this summer. The flu symptoms lasted only a week or so, but the sinus fuckery is still ongoing–sometimes plain tapwater can smell like garlic mush, and milk will smell like fuzzy marmalade, and I lose all confidence in my nose–but then I have days where everything is crystal sharp and exactly as it should be.
Today has been lovely–crisp cool autumn with no allergens or humidity–so I’m sniffing all the things.
Decant vial on test strip bottle cutout, on white boots with copper and patina wash.
New leather boots and I love it, but I wished it lasted longer.
Goes on stiff with big fresh leather, tanned with green herbs, and a little vanilla ice cream polish–then softens down with resins and frankincense and cedar to the skin, over the course of two hours.
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Carlos Santana and Gavin Rossdale covering T. Rex’s Get It On.
kira a. gold 