Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
TokyoMilk #31
Another well named scent from Margot Elena.
A crashing wave of flowers and seashells, but somehow sadly watery–
Then the coral blooms with terrific ylang-ylang flowers, for hours, and slowly settles on the bottom with sweet salt.
Good for mer-folk types and surfer sweethearts.
This one has a snorkeling kind of ambiance-
Rose tea with thorns.
A prick of citrus, but black currants keep it sweet. The pinch of black pepper grounds the floral edge nicely.
Stays pretty linear — fresh in personal space for two hours, and twice that on clothes.
I’d love it in a bath gel.
Here’s another sip–Anna Maria Jopek is an amazing artist from Poland who reminds me of Joni Mitchell.
This is what you wind up smelling like when you’ve been attacked in Bath & BodyWorks by the associate wielding Warm Vanilla Sugar, and you try to wash it off in their dinky sink with something that promises to be perfume-free but isn’t.
Here’s another “Skin.” Much sweeter, and twice as sultry.
“Black clove and cassia flung onto glowing cinders and mingled with slow-dripping poisons.”
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s description beats even my purple prose–but it’s spot on.
Bright green leaves with that black currant sting, then–CLOVES. Big loud sweet woody spice, with a breath of smoke and an unnecessary dash of dirty cinnamon. After an hour it dries down to powder, a smudge of gingerbread dust and vanilla on the skin.
More insidious than godlike, but definitely good for tricky witchery.
Here’s an insidious witchy song with an awesome Bond-girl vibe.
Marquis de Sade–Attack the Sun.
On first blind sniff, I get an earthy animalic lemon with some smoky cedar resin. It’s marvelous, almost like wet oil paints–complex and changing with a hint of sweetness. Even my cat got nosy.
So I looked up the description, and discovered it’s pure labdanum. Rock-rose, and that’s all. The designer apparently doesn’t like it, so he made a solifleur in an attempt at immersion therapy.
Labdanum is at the heart of two of my favorites by LUSH, Tank Battle and Rentless, grounding the clove and the aniseed. On its own, it becomes airier, balsamic and musky, and decadent.
Projects at arms length for an hour, and on the skin for three more.
“How many times, good God, have I not wished it were possible to attack the sun, to deprive the universe of it, or to use it to set the world ablaze –” Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom
Another riff on the decadent Marquis:
The adorable bottle opens with that ambrosia fruit salad made with orange jello and canned peaches and marshmallows that your gran always made for parties, then turns into handfuls of powdery Smarties for a few hours.
Lasts longer on clothes than skin, a deeper dry down of vanilla sweet resin, infused with peach cordial.
Weird and flirty and so fun.
I love it.
This was a big hit in 1994, when Deci Dela came out. Also sweet and funky and fun.
Cream soda cocktails at a retro ’90’s New Year’s Eve party.
She shows up to the festivities with bourbon fumes and bubblegum on her breath, then dances with sparkling rose geranium over vanilla amber. Fades to a sweet kiss of powdery patchouli for the Bare Naked Ladies’ cover of Auld Lang Syne.
Here is said cover.
Opens with a big splash of blood orange juice that softens down to ginger-ale zing, then settles to soft wet musk on the skin for a few hours.
There’s a slight note of feet on the bottom that wants to be warm woods, but doesn’t have the right balance.
This one teeters between nice and meh for me–a sportsball guy could pull this off better than I could.
You can’t beat the original, but this cover of Sade’s Paradise roughs it up on the edges in a good way.
I love the opening, a magician’s big poof of flowers hidden in a sleeve.
They turn green quickly, facefuls of huge leafy citrus blooms with extra greenery, and woodsy patchouli stems by the armload.
Private Collection came out in 1973, but doesn’t bare the civet fangs that were so popular then–the base is cedar and bright spice a few feet from the skin. The dry down on clothes is wildflower sweet for two days.
The top notes are so fun, and the finish is pretty, but the middle feels like I’ve been whumped in the chest by the biggest bridal bouquet ever thrown.
This one first came out then, too.
I get berry lemonade at first, then a mild iced jasmine tea. Two hours later there’s a trace of sweet patchy citrus musk on my skin.
Cleopatra is pretty, but a bit thin for the name–the Queen of the Nile conjures power and seduction, not summer drinks.
kira a. gold 