SCENTS

Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.

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Voyage d’Hermès

voyage d'Hermes
Mini chrome flip flask in a pile of green cardamom pods.

A trip to India, for spices and Darjeeling and marigolds.

Opens with big bright lemon and brash cardamom–heaping handfuls still in their green pods.
There’s an interesting warm-and-cool, push-pull to the top notes that keeps it from settling down–and it stays that way, fresh from the citrus, yet powdery with the spice–for several hours at arms length.

Eventually green tea musk slides in, soothing it down and pulling the sillage in. Finishes with a breath of woody flowers on the skin.
A lovely scent for summer daytime wear.

Stromae is a Belgian musician who also manages to be both dry and refreshing (and  stylish–his design line, Mosaert, is gorgeous!) His first hit came out in 2010, the same time as the fragrance.

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Lady Stetson

lady stetson edgy
Vintage mini with bourbon colored eau.

Sweet soapy sandalwood and senior English Lit class, prom carnations and packed bleacher musk.
I wore this at seventeen, with pleated stonewashed jeans and my grandfather’s Stetson Stratoliner à la Molly Ringwald.
Three decades later and it still holds up, an affordable and cheerful Chanel knock-off with riper peaches at the end.

Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. came out the same year, in 1986, and we all swooned over the album cover. Here’s a great cover of my favorite Dwight Yoakam tune, that came out almost ten years later.

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Azzaro 9

azzaro 9A messy bouquet of flowers, the kind you’d hand pick as a child and bring home to your mum. Wildflowers crowd in with lilies, spills of wisteria, a stray carnation, a random rose from the neighbor’s yard, yet vague–no single bloom stands out as the star.
Awkwardly maternal, in a “Very nice, dear,” kind of way.

Another awkwardly maternal one that came out in 1984. I remember desperately wanting that silver and black dress.

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Acqua di Rosa Thea

Aqua di Rosa Thea edge
Mini bottle (it stands about an inch and a half tall) with orange bow and label with a (…tea cozy?) (…woman in a huge hoop skirt?) illustration in black and orange.

Vintage rose from an antique reference set.
(Perfumeintelligence suggests this one was first formulated in Parma, Italy, in 1880.)

So how do you define what a rose smells like? This one does a pretty good job of it–

Opens with airy pastel buds, lemony with sugar in the tea, then ripens with earthy green leaves and bright fruity rosehip wine. The dry down is exactly that, dried petals–dusty, musky and spicy sweet with a hint of powdery cloves.

So top notes to bottom, a good illustration of rose that would hold its own against Perfume Workshop’s Tea Rose and Annick Goutal’s Rose Absolue–though it doesn’t quite have the luxe of Fort and Manle’s Harem Rose.

Everyone’s favorite pizza delivery tune, Funiculì, Funiculà, came out in Italy at the same time. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, so here’s some Sting.

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Fire Island

Fire Island 2
Bond no.9 samples with royal blue foil bonbon wrapper, and sunny orange bottle cut-out test paper, on vintage map of New York coastline.

Neroli, waves and sunshine.

I spent a few summers on Fire Island when I was little, the volleyball net at the Pines marking the nude beach–suits vs. skins games all day except high tide–and I’d come home with a pail full of seashells, a permanent sunburn and sand everywhere.

This scent has that freedom, wind and ocean spray and surf and naked skin, with a lovely base of top shelf zinc tanning lotion.

Projects two beach blankets over, and lasts til the sun goes down and the disco starts.

“Somewhere there is a gay man with a magic lamp and two wishes left.” -Jerrod C.

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Capucine

capucineCapucine means nasturtium in French–I grew them in my little garden when I was a girl–and there’s a hit of that weird woody spice note at the opening.
Mostly though, I get fancy tea-shop–jasmine oolong and marzipan cakes–and dusty bakery musk in the air, with fresh roses on the cafe tables.

The dry-down lasts close to the skin all afternoon, a gorgeous elusive vanilla, with an Alice-in-Wonderland vibe–ruffles and cookies and riddles.

This sweet little song was a huge chart topper in France the same year.

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Orange Sanguine

orange sanguine
Spray sample on scratch paper with photo of yellow glass bottle with dark cap.

I like blood oranges, and this is a nice ripe one.

Opens with a bright hit of sweet juice then settles to peel, with a breath of green underneath. Sits two inches above the wrist for an hour or two, then fades to candied citron and sandalwood on the skin.

It’s a little pricey for the lack of longevity and projection, but maybe not for a citrus aficionado.

Blood Orange is amazing and this video is a giggle. The costumes are brilliant–I keep wondering what scents they all might be wearing–

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Minuit Noir

LL licorice
Black and gold Lolita Lempicka apple on a pile of licorice all-sorts.

Sweet and evil.
Lolita Lempicka Minuit Noir will always be my witching hour perfume–my house reeks of it on Halloween.

Sugar spells and dark iris magic, wicked candy licorice and violet patchouli brew.
It’s nicely powdery, keeping the juice intriguing–fey dust rather than cloying syrup.

Lasts all Samhain and charms sleeves for days after.

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Nirvana Black

nirvana black edgesViolet, vanilla and sandalwood in equal doses.
It’s quite nice–I’m impressed with this  whole line–powdery soft and sweet, but with a little bite.
I do miss the ivy and licorice notes that add the depth to Lolita Lempicka’s Au Masculin–this is like the drier, autumn version.

Lasts a few hours close to the skin–a good one for dancing on Halloween.

Here’s a disturbingly happy cover of Nirvana’s Lithium.