Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
An early seventies classic–fruity aldehydes on top, sweet honey clove in the middle, and catty amber resins on the bottom–that seems like an attempt at a dry-cleaned Tabu.
Easy for vintage brew collectors to find, but like shoulder wide lapels and polyester leisure suits, that much civet is best left to nostalgia rather than wear.
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Diana Ross stole this one out from under Marvin Gaye in 1970. Jennifer Hudson’s updated cover is stellar.
Y’know how when you pop a bottle of Zinfandel and get a big grape-y whiff that’s sort of sweet and exciting, but when you actually taste the wine, it’s drier with less fruity notes than you expected, so you’re kind of disappointed, even though it’s a reasonably nice wine for the price?
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This song by Kat Dahlia has no vines but is not disappointing at all.
Fierce out of the bottle, smoked black tea with two sugars and burning cedar shavings, loud in personal space, soft outside.
Lasts three hours before sliding into nutty vanilla and dark woods on the skin for three more.
Aggressive but interesting, with enough sweetness to be inviting.
Recommended for corporate mercenaries and apocalypse vigilantes.
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DAG: Angharad used to call them anti-seed.
CHEEDO: Plant one and watch something die.
~ Mad Max: Fury Road
3121 is a decent album, in the top third of the stack by the Great Purple One, but the fragrance is a total flop.
“Black Sweat” was an early single and a good song, a bit of a throwback to “Kiss,” but the dark sweaty notes this opens with are not kissable at all–they’re fetid body odor and lime shaving cream.
Eventually settles to grubby white flower musk, in an invasion of personal space for most of the day–a reflection of “Lolita,” perhaps–sweet, too young and weirdly dirty and desperate.
Sadly, rather than “Incense and Candles,” this finishes with sawdust funk and murky patchouli.
Download the album, skip the perfume.
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Best song on 3121:
A quick tea with lemon cookies and Earl Gray.
Two bites of citrus frosted baked goods, three sips of bergamot flavored Dragonwell, then it’s gone, no crumbs left behind.
A refreshing spritz good anytime, for anyone.
Also nice on dinner linens.
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This cover of Joni’s gem is another quick mood boost–
I had so hoped that I wouldn’t fall in love with this little ’80’s vintage eau de toilette, but Folavril is the spiked herbal brew the Faerie Queen serves at summer parties.
A sunny day-drunk cocktail made with one part Chartreuse, one part Fleur Defendue, topped off with mango hard seltzer and garnished with tomato leaf.
Lasts through the afternoon, sliding back and forth between fruit nectar and a sharp, fizzy–almost soap-suds–green.
Stays close, leafier on clothes and sweeter on skin.
Sadly, other collectors love it too. Bottles are scarce, and pricey.
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Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty came out with this beauty in 1981, too.
Opens with dry salty roses that are polite, but not shy. Sweet water seeps in after a half hour, with a cool wet/dry ambroxan musk, and some dusty pink incense smoke rises six inches from the skin all evening.
Lasts overnight on cotton, and leans to the floral end of unisex.
I like it.
A smart “no-nonsense” professor vibe, and a nice change from the lush, fleshy petal fruit preserves everywhere.
(Sadly, at this price our prof needs tenure at an Ivy League school.)
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This celebration of Joni is my mood today–
TokyoMilk No. 13 opens with big white flowers, in a packed hot church kind of way–and even gets a bit sweaty a few minutes in.
The gardenia takes up a lot of elbow room, then slowly settles to a foot off the body with sticky amber that smells like the soap in the bathroom of a mortuary.
Lasts through the burial and the wake, and haunts your clothes for a week after.
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Sky–the super-group that you’ve never heard of–included the classical guitarist John Williams, the bassist Herbie Flowers and percussionist Tristan Fry, (who both did session work with everyone from the Beatles to Lou Reed to Elton John.)
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue is easily the most famous song in D minor ever.
Did the dodo go extinct because they actually smelled like this? Recent studies of their oversized beaks have suggested they had an acute sense of smell–were they so offended by their own species, they refused to mate?
Zoologist’s Dodo smells like screeching black currant cat pee, cheap body spray over unwashed teenager, and fresh basil.
For way too long.
Eventually settles to fruit salad with herb dressing tinged with feather musk–but unlike Snowy Owl, it’s not cute downy fluff, it’s molting fowl.
Fairly permanent on cotton.
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I like this dodo sound.
The ad copy says “warm sophisticated floral” but all I get is sandalwood and cedar musk that turn dry and dusty, like old leather.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Good for aging cowboys and folk singers, I suppose.
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This song has been translated into thirty languages, and got Pete Seeger inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
kira a. gold 