Lemon and orange blossoms and neroli and tangerines.
Ylang-ylang softens the citrus and spice warms it up a bit.
I’d have thought Kristen Stewart would smell less sweetly floral than this, but there’s a certain sandalwood androgyny at the bottom that fits her mystique.
Cedar and neroli with some floral and a touch of amber. Clean and fashionable, but nothing memorable.
For marketing with such amazingly feminine women, it’s kind of unisex–which is apropos to the clothing brand, no one can strip a girl of her curves better than Calvin Klein–so I guess it works?
A tea party with all the old dollies, the ones that that have grown sticky-sweet as their painted plastic faces break down with age. Real almond cake petits-fours, with orange flower icing, but the teacups are made of Play-Doh.
A must-have for quirky Lolita goth girls.
Alpha male cloves, softened by spring pine. Riding leather and a hint of spearmint underneath.
Josh Lobb of Slumberhouse designed it for men, but a hardcore dominatrix could pull this off beautifully. Bullwhip velvet and chai tea aftercare. Yes, please.
There are some fantastic covers of this song–this one is high on my list right now.
Chevaux d’Or (oddly named “Golden Horses,”) is lux sweetness and candied money. The Mario mushroom bottle is supposed to be a jeweled cupcake.
The first spritz is salt and strawberries. The second is raspberries and sugar.
Then roses. All the roses. Tight buds, sharp and green, then full and sexy and come-hither, and finally sweet and blowsy and soft.
Settles down with a sheer layer of vanilla and spicy sweet flowers over the roses. It lasts for a few hours, then fades into nutty powder.
A spoiled princess perfume in the most perfect way.
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A breakfast salad in a garden.
I get cantaloupe and delicate flowers, and honey. The finish is a musky trail of almonds that lingers six inches above the skin for an hour.
It’s too pretty for me.
Here’s a pretty tune from Blind Melon.
A Midwinter’s orgy.
Opens with fir and sticky chocolate, incense and sex.
Seriously. This stuff is like having violent Viking-love in a heap of furs in front of a balsam bonfire. It writes runes on your body with spruce psychotropics and sweet ash.
The juice is dark and lays heavy on the skin, like hands and honey and pine tree sap, and stains clothes with green spoor.
Amazing.
Norne can refer to a calypso orchid, or to the three Norse goddesses of destiny.
Manly mint, and lemon.
Nice, but stuffy at first. This guy orders Woodford Reserve on the rocks when he really wants a Malibu and Coke with a straw loaded with fruit.
After a bit it loosens up to vanilla and vetiver, and longing glances toward the karaoke bar.
This was the biggest song in Italy in 2012, when Versace released Eros.
Rain on the sea and blue spruce, with a smear of mint camphor rub on the chest.
Moody and clever and so wet.
The man wearing this might be prone to rough fisherman’s sweaters and prefers strange tasting akvavits.
The woman wearing this also wears eyeglasses instead of contacts at business meetings, so people will take her more seriously.
This one is from Above. An incredibly moody and clever album.
I was determined to visit Byredo while seeing my family in Sweden this year.
Niche perfumery from Stockholm with an Indian influence and a simple streamlined aesthetic? Ja, tack–yes, please!
We looked the address up online, and I was excited to discover the store was on Mäster Samuelsgatan street, across from Happy Socks–though my dad made faces when I mentioned the funky footwear shop. My brother and I had trouble getting there–he led me all over streets at odd angles with amazing names–but just when we were about to give up, we found the flagship perfume shop.
The store was a little crystal cave. I’m not sure what I was expecting–something bigger, perhaps, or that the founder Ben Gorham, actually would be there, and I could ask him the odd questions that people side-eye until you tell them you’re a writer–but the saleswomen were supermodel gorgeous, and my dress was faded and my shoes scuffed, and I was too intimidated to ask anything of them.
I sniffed Flowerhead, a fresh floral; the new sweet autumn Eleventh Hour; and bought the fig grenade Pulp–my birthday treat to myself–and they gave me a sample of Bal d’Afrique, too.
Each of the Byredo frags have only a few simple notes–a designer trademark–but they come together to create oddly complicated and evocative scents. A lot of fun for an amateur frag-head like me.
We left in a hurry to meet Dad for dinner, no time to shop anywhere else. They gave me Happy Socks for my birthday.
kira a. gold 