Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
A little girl in frills pretending she likes black coffee.
Opens with sweet green, then big blowsy peonies and roses take over with a bit of vodka jam, but soon a weird dark sour note blooms underneath. Maybe the spices hit the musk at odd angles on me, but it’s just sort of awkward.
Lasts three hours too long and leaves faint black currant pee on the clothes.
*
This Doors song has been stuck in my head for a week–here’s a breathy feminine cover that rocks out nicely at the end.
What a fun little coffee-on-the-terrace scent!
Opens with some late 90’s fruity flower goodness, then warms up with espresso and coriander–the seeds, not the cilantro leaf, after the plant has bolted and the flower pods are ripening in the sun–warm and sweet and spicy.
The powdery musk in the center is soft and ageless and perfect for morning.
Doesn’t last terribly long, but it’s not pricey, so have another cuppa.
*
This is song is full of good post-quarantine vibes.
Opens with mild fruits and green violet leaf, sweetly pleasant in personal space, but five minutes later becomes a mush of flowers and spice and odd salt and enough pink pepper to be a bit headache inducing.
Coconut and vanilla woods settle to the skin after an hour or two, with no residue on clothes.
I wanted more.
Zoologist is usually polarizing, love-or-hate animalics with strong reactions. Chameleon is a bit too boring to represent a color changing lizard with a tongue twice the length of its body and eyes that move independently.
*
(I adore The Voice blind auditions.) This is a haunting cover–Boy George did not even recognize his own song at first.
Dreamcicle orange vanilla ice cream pop and Nag Champa incense, done quite well. Sweet, herbal and spicy with nice urban hippie overtones.
The solid floats in personal space with sweet citrus for a good two hours before a slow melt into the flesh. The consistency is a bit waxy but not drying–works brilliantly as a cuticle cream.
The liquid lasts forever on paper, until laundry on cotton, and a day on skin–with more of the pine and patchi base.
I love both.
Sadly, a little hard to find sometimes. LUSH is fairly upfront about world trade and the sporadic availability of natural resources–and some of their fragrances only wind up in bigger metropolitan stores.
I’ll get a back-up bottle next I see one.
*
I’ve always loved this song, and the video is a costume dream–
TokyoMilk #79
Destiny is that marvelous obnoxious friend who’s a blast to hang with, but would wear you out if it were an everyday thing.
Rolls on in with sugary ginger and wild berries, in a heavy-handed but good way, then develops some nice nasty indolic tendencies.
A pleasant bitter-sweetness that might be the davana paired with honeysuckle interrupts for a few hours at arm’s length, then slowly settles down to creamy cuddly jasmine for the rest of the day.
Lots of fun, but for occasional use only.
(Can be hard to find. Snag a bottle if you see it at a price you can afford–I’ve see them as low as $12 used and $60 new.)
*
I would totally hang out with Lizzo EVERY day.
A peach pie scratch-n-sniff sticker.
The bottle wants to be Lolita Lempicka when it grows up and the juice wishes she were Britney Spears.
*
I’d be much more interested in a Folklore-Evermore fragrance.
The first spray is a bright sweet puff of Tang powder, crystal clear sugary orange, that settles down to the skin in 60 seconds.
A bit of herbal citrus peel lingers with some green spice for a quarter hour, a little longer on clothes.
Lovely and refreshing.
Wear to breakfast.
*
This song makes me both happy and a little melancholy.
Raw Spirit calls this “warm and seductive,” though “stifling and carnal” might be more accurate–
I got clubbed with thick hot amber at first spray.
As I gasped for fresh air, the guy wrinkled his nose and said, “Huh. That’s really sexy.”
Eventually the amber simmered down to nice dusty sandalwood–tempered with jasmine, very close to the skin–that lasted most of the day, a spot of heat on the flesh, almost like a bruise.
I’d wear it for him, but I’d need some cooling sweetness–a breath of violet leaf, or maybe vanilla–to wear it for me.
*
This Wildfire is quite spirited, and a bit raw.
There’s a very fun generational skip with Shalimar Souffle–a fresh take on bygone fashion–that reminds me of the ultra-feminine girls who wear ’50’s pinup dresses in modern prints at the car shows.
This “Breath of Perfume” opens with lovely light citrus and jasmine, that soon gets interrupted by a peppery note that feels discordant–like it’s my skin, somehow, that is objectionable–but does fade in a few hours, leaving behind rich vanilla cake with lemon icing for the rest of the day.
Retro yet fresh at the same time, but weird on me. (One often sees “It doesn’t work with my body’s chemistry,” in reviews, but I rather feel that with this one I’m the one at fault.)
I gifted my big bottle, but kept the mini. Maybe I’ll improve with age.
*
Imelda May is the epitome of retro and fresh.
Pink grapefruit juice splash, that ends quickly with woody raindrops on roses.
Synthetic, safe, and unpretentious.
Eau de toilette projection with cologne longevity–good for a spritz after gym-class.
*
How cute is this girly-gay-girl song?!
kira a. gold 