SCENTS

Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.

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Alaïa

alaiaOpening notes are a shot of booze spilled on a leather coat and violets and laaa, this stuff is crazy nice.
So smooth it slides all over the place, petals and pepper, dank then sweet, light then hard,  feral metal musk heat-tempered in rosewater.

Modern magic, at an accessible price.
Lingers in personal space the whole day, sugar and leather on the skin, and fog and rain on the clothes.

This could be this generation’s Lolita Lempicka, a new twist on violets, and powerfully femme.

Seinabo Sey’s Pistols at Dawn also came out in 2015, and is just as dark and smooth.

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Dead Sexy

dead sexy skull
Mini bottle with skull and crossbones label, sitting in the eye socket of a plaster skull.

TokyoMilk #06

The blackest richest dirt, and polished exotic coffin woods, vanilla sweet flowers to cover the scent of death—-but then it lingers for a while at a distance, ethereal with a breath of incense ash and mystery.

My not-so-inner goth-girl finds this utterly lovely.

How sweet is this song?!

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Bijou Vert

bijou vert
Sample spray and ad with a wet faced model staring moodily from greenery.

“Fresh and sensual” according to the tagline, but I get grapefruit pith and greenhouse at first spray, then it settles into vetiver an inch or two above the skin for an hour.

Oddly dated, but pleasant–it’s how I’d imagine the interior of an old VW bug that’s been decomposing in a retired philosophy professor’s back yard would smell like–full of weeds and nostalgia.

This scent was supposed to be inspired by Haiti. I don’t really feel that, but the closest I’ve been was Jamaica, and it smelled like bus fumes and curry.

Twa Fey (Three Leaves) is a very special Haitian folk song–this is a gorgeous version by Emeline Michel.

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Knowing

knowingThis one should come with a warning: a little bit goes a loooong way.
Miles.
Leagues.

Frothy aldehydic opening, mimosa sweet–the whole blooming tree, not just one flower. Then the cat spray hits–make that three cats, two toms fighting over a queen–though the roses and patchouli do their best to drown them out.
After a few hours, moss creeps in and covers everything under the roses–everything–your skin, your house, your neighborhood–turning them into herbal topiary sculptures that cast weird spicy green rose-shaped shadows until the sun goes down.
Except they’re there the next day. And the next. You can’t outrun this stuff. It laughs at hot showers, goes swimming in the laundry, dances under the garden hose.

Please send help.

Knowing came out in 1988, along with Enya’s Orinoco Flow. A little of that goes a long way, too. Here’s the shortest cover I could find.

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Fate

fate for women
Amouage iridescent glazed mini bottle on a pile of hot peppers, peppercorns and cinnamon sticks.

Fate for Women is the queen in an urban fantasy who reads your palm with a handshake and leaves you wondering if you’re going to be invited for a bedtime snack, or eaten in a stew.

Opens with cinnamon and pepper–almost itchy–then sweet incense flares with a breath of rose for an hour. Eventually the most gorgeous benzoin melts with vanilla into leather and lingers all night.

Incredible on silk scarves.

This cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is spicy-smoky-amazing.

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Acteur

acteurUnusual and interesting.
Opens with a blast of fruity-booze-pepper-smoke, then settles into a really nice herbal–almost medicinal–leathery rose.
The usual feminine notes are switched up, jasmine given muscles and a short-back-and-sides haircut, sweet amber sheared sharp, carnations with teeth.

I’d huff it on a guy in a big way, but I’ll wear it too, with chunky shoes and a rough sweater, in the fall.

This alternative hit (also from 1989) mixes funk and sweetness with an easy groove.

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Amber Absolutely

Amber Absolutely editMight be the nicest amber musk I’ve ever tried, but I think I’d need to be a bit less girly-girl to pull it off properly–this one falls more into the laid-back dude territory of unisex.

At first, plums–not the pale juicy kind, the dark prune ones, with that blue rime on the thick skin–drink smoky black currant tea with honey, while wild roses bloom in the distance. Then the amber kicks in with masculine wood, warming up some musky benzoin for several hours.

Quite nice, and projects louder and longer than any other Fort & Manle I’ve tested so far.

A mellow 311 cover–

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Daisy

daisy
Daisy shaped gold and white enamel perfume pendant and wild field asters casting pretty shadows.

For the girl who wants to fit in.
Fashion is stressful–she likes her school uniform. Daisy is mild-mannered and pleasant, and doesn’t bring attention to herself.

Strawberry ice cream and shy violets, some unassuming citrus and pale woody musk at the end.

I hung the solid pendant from my rear-view, and now my car smells rather nice, but also like I haven’t been driving long.

Colbie Caillat released this sweet little song out in 2007, the same year Marc Jacobs came out with Daisy.

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J’adore

jadore edges
Teardrop mini bottle with bitten peach. I’ve always been fascinated with the wire wrap around the neck of the bottle–a bit like the gold dzilla necklaces worn by Ndebele women.

Opens with fresh peaches and jasmine that gets mixed into a fruit salad and white flower arrangement–in an elegant Martha Stewart catered way.

Lasts for three hours at arm’s length, with musk anchoring a bit of rose on the skin for several more.

J’adore was special when it came out in 1999, but it’s kind of everywhere now, so it seems generic.

(In 2011 Christian Dior launched a massive advertising campaign with the iconic video featuring Charlize Theron and this song, to huge success.)