Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
Another fruity floral that fits the high school dress code, in designer shoes.
A citrus hard candy and canned peaches opening, that soon gets roughed up by an amber school bus, and eventually maced with hairspray.
One for the gift exchange when you drew the mean girl’s name, and want to come off classy.
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Another Bella:
(Semi-Modern Vetiver.)
I love this stuff!
At first, vanilla ice cream, sweet and a little sweaty, with that strange metallic smoke of burnt wire, but wonderful–y’know the scent in the air at McDonald’s, when the shake machine blows a circuit mid-pour? That.
The singed plastic note grows into the middle–the vetiver, hot and ashy, but sexy in a smouldering way–for a nice hour inside cuddling space, before melting down to the most enjoyable myrrh for the rest of the day.
ELdO spins a nostalgic story about the gigolo who aged out and had to go into trade (yay for artsy ad copy!) that reeks of classism and fatism and ageism–NoT aLL eLeCtRiCiAnS!–and yet, because this stuff is so fantastic, we get a marvelous tribute.
The workingman’s ass crack made voluptuous, his sweat pheromonal–and who doesn’t love the guy who fixes the shake machine?!
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Clutch has been rocking out for thirty years–
Opens with opulent spiced honey mead and elegant jasmine, then slices fresh apricots and sprinkles them with a bit of pollen dust.
But Journey isn’t delicate–there’s a solidity on the bottom, like sturdy hospital clogs, leather and wood and rubber soles–that keeps her from being frivolous.
The dichotomy reminds me of my grandmother, who loved rich and exotic things, but didn’t hesitate to tie on a smock when nurses aides were needed during the war.
Stays within personal space for most of the day, then fades to the skin with sweet tobacco musk for the evening.
I like it–though my wallet is a little too lighthearted for this kind of gravitas.
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Really feeling for healthcare workers right now. May their shoes never, never, never let them down.
This one is all about the bottle, which says Midnight Gardens & Wildflower right on it.
The ad copy talks about night-blooming jasmine, cypress and waterlily, adding up to a sweet wet flower mush that’s pleasant at a distance, and hits the back of the throat with a bit of algae pond funk up close.
Performs reasonably well with some nice “lake mermaid” vibes.
Not my thing–the Lollia line tends to be too soft for me–but the “Little Luxe” bottles are adorable and way too easy to collect.
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Here’s a soft wandering song.
Myrrh & Kumquat is marketed as being “harmonizing,” but it’s the first 4711 Acqua Colonia I’ve sniffed that gets flirtatious.
Opens with a sour candy citrus zing, then melts down into very personal space with sugary balsamic come-hither glances, for thirty minutes.
Lingers with caramel sweet spice on the skin for another hour.
Unisex, unexpected, and marvelous. A good one for a spontaneous lunch date.
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Another Myrrh.
The Church has been around for forty years–this is an early one.
The opening is wonderful–sweet crystalized ginger with a sharp bite–but then the tuberose wilts, and the peony turns antiseptic, drawing attention to unfortunate cedar leakage on the bottom, and I get uncomfortable nursing home neglect vibes.
I wanted to love this one–the original Twilly is enchanting for any age, young at heart and soul–but Eau Ginger has too little of that timeless magic, and makes me a bit anxious.
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I went looking for the Natalie Merchant and REM cover of John Prine’s Hello in There, but then remembered how much I like this one.
This “bad boy” just earned a week of detention when he got caught with a blunt at his all-boys private school, along with Axe Dark Temptation and Invictus Victory. He’s got good taste in chocolate, and misses his mom.
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(It’s a shame that The Inner Circle’s Bad Boys is indelibly linked to the show Cops, because it’s a good song.) Here’s a Scandi EDM duo
Demeter Fragrance Library’s Riding Crop is not the stuff of Bluegrass tack shops, with clean virgin hide goods and polished silver bits, nor of stables full of equine sweat and clover hay.
This unisex cologne is a quick trip to the sex shop.
Tops with leather and latex, changes position with high end water-base lube and a hint of drying spice–cardamom, perhaps–and bottoms with pleasant musk and a post-coital smoke.
Fun.
Doesn’t last long, and stains the clothes a bit.
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Lots of folks have covered this Velvet Underground song, but The Kills’ acoustic cover turns it intimate and consensual.
So the COVID anosmia thing seems to be ebbing, but it has a tide.
I’ve felt better and better these past weeks, but then this weekend I felt kinda lousy, and my tea tasted like it was made from a twice-soaked bag and sizzling bacon smelled like a distant campfire.
But today I woke up feeling great, and had a very fragrant Darjeeling and a tasty biscuit, so I reached for an old favorite that I know well–
Tokyomilk 61 Petit Parfum Solide–Sugar Plum–came out at least fifteen years ago, an early one from Margot Elena offering peach, candied mango, white tea, persimmon and “deep cassis.”
–and all that comes through. Creamy sweet summer fruit, cool wet mango and cheeky black currants, just like I remember, and I don’t have to shove it up my nostrils to find them.
Interestingly, the guy doesn’t smell the sugary fruity notes, he only gets the ammonia end of the cassis.
He’s been laying on the hot sauce pretty hard too–so we’re guessing he’s maybe two weeks behind me in the C-19 recovery. (Or maybe he’s sailing on a lower tide.)
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Thelma Plum is pretty amazing.
Big boss moss meets elegant earth mother with sweet spice (alliteration much?)–as if Chanel № 5 and Niki de Saint Phalle had a gender-fluid love child.
Begins with sassy juicy fruit aldehydes–that manage to give off interesting gasoline fumes–then grows calm and cool with a bouquet of spring flowers at arm’s length. Those are soon overtaken by deep voiced oak-moss sugared with ylang-ylang, cloves, and a spoonful of vanilla that settles to the skin by evening.
The top notes last ages on clothes, with some patchouli bitterness that I don’t get on the skin, but like very much.
Or Noir has been around for over 40 years, and is still in production. Reasonably priced too.
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Some more Gasoline with pretty bitterness.
kira a. gold 