A big mouthful of Buttered Popcorn flavored Jellybelly beans, sticky sweet and stuck in the teeth for hours.
Later, powdered sugar and clove dusted gingerbread crumbs cling to shirt cuffs.
Fun, like that holiday party at the boss’s house that you weren’t expecting to enjoy–but I’d do better with it as a candle. It’s too sweet for me to wear on my skin.
By the Weather Girls, who brought you It’s Raining Men:
Herbal-sweet and sheer, and comforting, without any overt invitation.
Opens with a taste of upscale hipster lavender vodka, then the neroli blooms, delicate and sugary with a faint twist of grapefruit zest.
Stays at elbow length for an hour, then settles to the skin with rainwater musk.
Too fragile for summer, but it would sparkle in the snow.
This cover is equally as delicate.
Nice flirty cantaloupe and jasmine, with a smart woody tonka bean ending.
A good “young-adult” scent that doesn’t take over the entire house, street and neighborhood on the way to the high school–a safe blind buy for your favorite teen-thing this holiday.
And five points to House J. Couture for the “Bows before Beaus” line.
I love Lizzo.
Opens loud with bright green basil and sweet coriander spice–then slides into flowery honey tobacco with some good patchouli funk.
A few hours later it morphs into leather with smoke and soft civet musk, and stays there for the rest of the day and evening, filling the room.
Joint is a powerhouse, but a refined blend rather than blunt force. No true cannabis/hemp notes, but there’s a dank ganja accord that’s really nice.
*
Sweet water with vague apricot and flowers.
Lily-of-the-valley blooms a half hour in, about a handspan off the skin, while the wet fruit stays close. Lasts the morning on skin and forever on clothes–even after laundry day, cotton still holds the watery musk.
It’s too refined for me. I want to dirty it up with salt or civet or something–my Love Island is messier than this.
The band Isle of Love is out of Warsaw, Poland. I have no idea what they’re singing about, but it’s a pretty tune.
Artificial cherry, and the dregs of cheap wine.
A bit of cigarette ash, too.
The ElDO ad copy is a big story about parties and shoes and iris centerpieces, and I get the booze and the hangover, but this scent has been done already, and better–without the feet–in Lolita Lempicka’s Sweet.
Here’s a much better Cherry.
More class than flirtation.
Lilacs and sour apples, a hand-span off the wrist, then lily-of-the-valley and white musk.
Supposedly inspired by Fellini’s love for his wife, who wore Diorissimo–so the flowers and hint of sandalwood are dead on.
Nino Rota was Fellini’s composer–Amarcord is a semi-autobiographical dramedy of a little Italian village in the 1930s that won a few Oscars.
Old school “sir” in the best way.
A brief peppery lavender deluge, then alpha fennel seeds with a caveman club, and some very gentlemanly leather and juniper on the bottom.
Handshake projection at first, then settles quickly to an herbal skin scent until he gets physical and heat warms up the spice again.
This guy does exactly as he pleases. He’s usually polite about it, but not always.
This classic came out in 1978, too.
Nice rose oil by Kai, supported by magnolia and a mess of tuber-lily-of-the-jasmine. Lasts a pretty hour, then fades soapy-clean into the skin, with no residue.
I bet it would be great as a hair mist or deodorant, or even a moisture barrier to hold another scent to the skin–but it doesn’t say much on its own.
This song doesn’t say much either, but it’s pretty.
Boozy pineapple fruit dipped in herbal honey, garnished with minty patchouli–but then some dank tobacco weirdly dirties up the sweetness.
It’s an odd mix, like Jimmy Choo Man put on silk argyle socks and Birkenstocks.
Maduro is an ode to a famous box of Cuban cigars from 1961. Despite Fidel Castro’s ban on rock music the same year, Los Zafiros were quite successful.
kira a. gold 