Author: kira a. gold

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Sunflowers

Amber eau mini capped with white, with a yellow flower crest, sitting on a pile of salted seeds, against a flag blue background.

“Take these seeds and put them in your pocket, so sunflowers will grow when you die here.” -Ukrainian curse

Elizabeth Arden’s iconic 90’s soapy melon salad smells of Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, Beanie Baby pellets, and Bill Clinton’s saxophone spit, and nothing like sunflowers, or war.

I’m a bit sideways today. The world seems unreal, sometimes.

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The Ukranian Armed Forces asked a soldier–Taros Borovok–to write them a fight song, the day Putin invaded. He praises the Turkish combat drones that slowed the Russian forces that day.

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Brune Melancolia

Black and white solid perfume canister, with orange and yellow rose.

Sad rose yogurt.

The citrus opens too tart–soured by the sandalwood, maybe–but then berries and a bit of spice get stirred in, sweetened with floral syrup.
The moody violet/cassis finish on the skin is nice, after the first disappointing hour–the start seems like something you’d taste in the dairy aisle at the happy-hippy food co-op, rather than a fragrance.

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The most melancholy song ever–

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Jazz Club

Replica sample spray and promo card, with a spilled shot glass.

Half the price of Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille–and smells like it.

Edit – 3/5/23

Less a jazz club and more a seedy casino that hasn’t had the upholstery changed since before the indoor smoking ban and serves cheap house bourbon. The gift shop sells chocolate covered mint cream candies that actually aren’t bad.

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Ms Ella F., at a club in Berlin, messes up the lyrics and turns it into one of the best jazz improv moments ever.

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Eloge du Traitre

Dabber vial on promo card with Etat Libre d’Orange bullseye.

Sharp pine needles barely tempered with cloves, hard leather–but weirdly rich with sour milk–and broody green warlock herbs.
Heavy and wild, evocative and fleeting.

Performs like an eau de cologne, but Byronically.

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An elegy rather than a eulogy–but this Indonesian heavy metal band is kind of amazing.

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And Soul

White bottle with gold cap and graphic anatomical heart, on a linen tea towel, with hand sifter, sprinkled with all purpose flour.

Orange flour water.
Seriously, this stuff has a weird dusty bread dough thing going on.
The bottle says Oolong Tea, Bamboo Reed, Orchid & Air (whut?) and White Musk, but I get sweet uncooked enriched buns, with that puff of powdery steam when you punch the rise down.

Doesn’t last or project much. Leaves a smudge of sugary floral musk on the skin for a few hours, but that’s all.
A good gift for home cooks.

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I’m hungry, now.

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Moroccan Leather

Memo Paris black white and gold promo card and test spray on a jade dyed leather wallet bought in Marrakech.

If leather grew on trees, with patent leaves on on suede stems–
This is the finest full grain, sultry green, almost pulpy, tanned by smoke bark plants and orange blossom, with smooth iris and ginger underneath.

Both animalic and verdant, yet also clean and polished. I really like it.
Lasts half the day a few inches off the skin, and turns all clothing to mossy nubuck hide for a week.

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A great tune by Moroccan artist Chawki-

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Pure Poison

Mini bottle with white fade up to the black collar and purple lettering, casting iridescent shadows.

A jasmine bomb with a 2 mile blast radius.
Pull the candy orange peel pin and white flowers go nuclear, a dense gardenia fog with ambery woods fallout underneath, that flattens every other scent in the vicinity.

Brilliant and a little frightening.
Wear in winter with an open carry permit.

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Zoa Night Perfume

Marvelous swirling black bottle with frosted flower shaped cap–Regine’s classic bottle shape has a bit of a can-can dress vibe.

A fun and inexpensive vampy amber floral–
I love the big citrus champagne opening, fresh and flirty, though I wish it lasted longer before dissolving into the pink flowers. The vanilla at the bottom stays close to the skin for most of the day, with faint patchi amber an inch above.

There’s a joyful retro feel that makes me think of secondhand shoppes that cater to drag royalty and couture collectors, and sell Pop Rocks and Lemonhead candy at the register.

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This one was a hit in France in 2009, too.

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The Chort Wife

(Photo: A red velvet anatomical heart pincushion with antique scissors and a spool of pink silk thread.)

A followup (a prequel?) to Chort’s Suds.

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The Chort Wife

The car careens around Gooseberry and Third, spattering gravel on my skirt.
I spit my grandmother’s curses at the receding taillights–I’d spent days embroidering that hem.

“And what will you give me, for ‘taking the car and that hellish music too’?”
A man stands in the intersection, smirking. He’s fiendishly handsome, in hoof-heeled boots, tattered red leather duster, and hair slicked up into horns.

Babula had chastised me for summoning chorts–my first husband was a devil, and my second, too—they always stole a piece of my soul but never stayed.

I eye his clothing. “I can mend your coat.”

“Done.” He licks his palm and extends it. I kiss my fingertips and shake his hand. He doesn’t let go. “The ‘always flavorless pierogi’ might cost you more.”

My heart spins a polka in my chest.

He leans closer, his whisper on my neck rough and warm as smoking coal. “I’ll take that skirt.”

I take him home. He takes my clothes, and the rest of me, in the most sinful ways.
I darn his coattails while nude, needle flicking stitches under his hot gaze. He’s hypnotized by the flashing silver as the parzenica patterns close the ripped hide with chain-stitched hearts. When I prick my skin, he sucks my fingertip, and other places too.

The next day he’s gone, to make good on our deal, but I’ve sewn my name into his coat in blood, and this time the devil will return.

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