SCENTS

Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.

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Matcha & Frangipani

Cut glass cologne bottle with pale green and gold label, and box with green tea illustration.

I’m really enjoying this one from 4711’s Limited Tea edition.

Soft and sweet green tea over milky tropical florals in a soothing cologne with surprising projection and staying power.
Usually 4711 Acqua Colonias are gone in ten minutes with almost no sillage at all–and that’s part of their charm, a secret personal pick-me-up–but this floats around the body for a good half hour with matcha mochi coolness, and the frangipani lingers on silk all day.

Leans to the feminine in a fluttery skirts way.
Also brilliant on bath towels.

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This song always soothes my soul. A lot of folks have covered it, but Eva Cassidy’s version is my favorite.

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Riva Solare

White card with Allegra collection icon of a glass Murano candy, sample spray and blue and yellow hard candy rods.

Bvlgari’s ad copy talks about sparkling citrus and the excitement of boat ride on the Mediterranean.

The bergamot on top has some nice sunny herbal lime sweetness–but it quickly ebbs to orange flower and watery musk on the skin, and completely sails away in half an hour.

For that price I was expecting a bottle of Asti and a day trip on a yacht, and instead I got a lemon lolly and a Sea-Doo run around the nearest buoy.

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This recent hit from Italy is a lot of fun.

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Fresh As

LUSH pot with teal solid perfume, and a pine cone and needle branch.

Fir and sweet balsam pine, with benzoin making it soft.
There’s a timeless quality to Fresh As, as if it could have been worn by a troubadour of centuries past, with stringed instruments made of spruce wood and polished with golden resins, yet also by a modern musician, fresh electric ozone and green Recording-In-Progress lights.
Pair with a clever shirt and a tweed cap.

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My brother introduced me to this one–I love the way this is filmed, so we feel like we’re in the studio with them.

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Diaspora

Clear ice-cube shaped bottle with tall gold cap, and black and white and red packaging.

Kimberly New York’s site lists Asian pear and Fiji apple, Jamaican rose apple, and champagne.

I’m not discerning enough to sniff out which apple is which, but they’re lovely and crisp, with that marvelous boozy-floral note that fresh red peel has. There’s a powdery wax accord, almost like taffy with a hint of violets–recognizable if you’ve ever gone to a pick-your-own orchard–the dusty rime an apple produces naturally, that I just love.

Artsy–Kimberly Walker’s flagship fragrance–has the same candied apples at its heart. In Diaspora they’re the full body and soul, not just a note but the whole song.
I get gourmet wine gums at the bottom, a little younger vibe than bubbly, but equally as fun.

Like Indigo Love, my skin gobbles this up, so I have to reapply often (no hardship at all, because it feels delicious) but it lasts much longer in my hair, and forever on cotton.

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How amazing is this video from Nitty Scott?!

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Moon Bloom

Moon Bloom bottle test paper, decant vial, and mother-of-pearl moon brooch.

Moon Bloom is ridiculously decadent, an indulgence of white flowers with that indolic reminder that flowers are sex organs.

Opens with fresh sharp green, like the first cut of a thick plant stem, of big florid tuberose and jasmine, then gets even lusher with a hint of spice in sweet cream, and fleshy coconut.
That’s all in the first five minutes, and where it stays for two days, melting slowly down into the skin.

There’s a roughness to it, making one aware of the quality of the raw materials (the way a really good olive oil has a heady earthiness, or how heavy dupioni silk bends light) that easily justifies the top shelf cost.

I’d consider springing for a bottle, if I weren’t already cheating on Fracas with Love Tuberose.

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This whole album is is decadent–

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Cocktail

Large black label bottle of Cocktail at the local Lush store. The recent health regulations made testing cumbersome, but I’m glad precautions are being taken, and the sales associates were patient.

An odd one that started with faint florals and shy herbs with no projection from the test strip–a meh from me at the store–but slowly filled my car with big branches of moss and limes on the way home.
If Cocktail came in a small size, or better yet one of their solid pots, I’d order one, but there’s no way I’d shell out for three ounces without being able to test it on the skin.

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This song always winds up on my driving playlists.

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American Cream

Pale yellow filled small bottle in a wood display box at the nearest LUSH store–the furthest I’ve ventured from home in an entire year.

American Cream smells like Demeter Fragrance Library got stoned and went to a Ben&Jerry’s.

Scoops of strawberry vanilla with honey drizzle, and light herbal funk.
Not the highest you’ve been, but a long-lasting buzz.

Puff, puff, give.

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One of the sweetest slow jams ever.

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Snowy Owl

Zoologist card with drawing of a bird princess in a cute winter hood, sample spray and a craft feather wing to make my photo fancy.

Snowy Owl is clever and gorgeous and a little wistful–

Opens with wintry wind notes, and a weird animalic beat that really does smell like feathers (that anyone who has kept chickens would immediately recognize, and can be found in new down pillows, too) but is freshened by sugary alpine mint.
There’s a tease of spring florals, green and sharp but distant, and a vaguely earthy sweet resin that’s somehow creamy, like ice milk that hasn’t been flavored yet.
Projection is mild, but not exactly linear, with white forest floor musk shyly creeping in now and then.
Lasts most of the day, and even longer on mitten cuffs.

Recommended for ski instructors, Swan Lake dancers, and anyone else–but only when the temperature is below freezing out.

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I love this melancholy winter song–and how amazing this party must have been!

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Eternity Moment

Pooka casting a perfect cat head silhouette shadow while sniffing a clear mini bottle with pale pink liquid, that’s surrounded by square pink candies (which taste like snobby Smarties.)

Cotton-candy vodka out of the bottle that settles to Choward’s guava mints–and lasts longer than most top notes usually do, even longer than it takes for the candies to melt on the tongue (though it’s hard not to crunch them)–then eases to light flowers in personal space that slowly fade to wood musk on the skin.

Safe, pleasant, and affordable.

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Here’s a moment of Eternity from Imelda May.

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Rose of No Man’s Land

Velvet rose with paper test of Byredo bottle, and decant vial.

The ad copy for Rose of No Man’s Land lists rose, pink pepper, raspberry blossom, papyrus and white amber.
I can pick out those notes, but all together it smells like the green-room at a drag show.

Ms Turkisha Petals camps out at the snack table–salty corn chips and berry ginger-ale–until Rose d’Red threatens her wig with pepper spray. Eventually Amber Oralgami sashays in after her paper dolls routine, to collapse on the sofa for a few hours.

Statuesque, sweet and savory, and a little chaotic in the best way.

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Annie Lennox’s ironic hit is a drag show regular.