Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
Tea rose with dark chocolate underneath for hours and hours.
Would be lovely as a candle.
(My sable Bombay was not appreciative. Ears back at six inches, which speaks well of the sillage.)
This song never fails to make me dance. (The cat, not so much.)
Classy soap powder.
Aldehydes and lilac with some sweetness, settling into soft floral sandalwood that lasts all day long, just within personal space.
There’s a retro middle-class “cleanliness is next to godliness” vibe to it, laundered and starched and proper.
Sometimes I put a drop on the dryer sheet when I wash bedding.
Dog and Butterfly first came out in 1978, too.
Tilda Swinton’s first signature opens with more sugar than I expected–candied orange peel, neroli and honey and pumpkin spice. The immortelle (my mum called it “everlasting”) brings an enjoyable sweet yellow curry and wildflower note–but then I got a hay-fever reaction and had to scrub between sneezes.
Pair with a pretty autumn scarf and antihistamines.
This one also came out in 2010, and sweeter than expected–
Nice for a guy who wants people to believe he just bathed.
Opens with a bit of watery citrus, then the spice-bush kicks in, smoky sweet and earthy–kind of nutmeg-ish with frothy lime flowers–and then ends with ginger tub cleanser.
I bought this one in my quest for calycanthus scents–here the sweet-shrub is overpowered by the bergamot notes and comes across soapy.
It’s nicer on clothes.
This cute song also came out of Italy in 2012.
Vanilla musk on the skin that turns into really enjoyable leather and peaches, hot nutmeg and herbal incense–
This Le Soft is perfectly soft butch–sweet and rough, spice and smoke–held close.
I like her quiet confidence.
Pair with a watch or wallet chain and other marvelous cliches.
Here’s my other favorite gender-bendy-Frenchie at the moment–
Climbs green trees and drinks peach tea, then holds orange flowers at paws length during the descent to the forest floor.
Sweet, comfortable and ponderous, but not terribly exciting.
The latest version of this is done with green apples instead of bamboo–I think I liked the older one better.
Daniel Caesar is an R&B artist from Canada, too. (Zoologist is out of Toronto.)
This one might need sniffing on a warm body. From the magazine peelie all I get is dentist office–pink saccharine fluoride rinse and lemon antiseptic spray–in a Little Shop of Horrors way.
(And maybe it’s a sexier symbol in France, but the bottle is a turn off in these gun-crazy times in the US…)
Edit – 7/23/20
It’s better on the peelie.
A French song with some sweet swagger. I like it better.
Opens with a faceful of white flowers, and I’m suddenly claustrophobic–have I been trapped in a hot elevator with this, when I was a child?
(When did this come out, anyway?)
Slowly drifts into soapy milk suds for a while, then settles down with jasmine and woodsy amber a foot off the skin–and stays there all day long.
Complicated–there’s a trace bit of musk that cuts through the sweetness and ages it up. This would be a great Boss-Lady-shows-her-soft-side perfume, in an up-do and day-to-evening shoes.
Fragonard opened in 1926. That same year Carl Nielson’s flute concerto opened in Paris to huge success.
The initial animal musk and asphalt is pure stray-in-heat, but soon gives way to some great cardamom. The balsamic vanilla is nice and chocolatey–and then it slides away quick, into the shadows.
I like it–I get the flirty alley cat vibe–but I want more claws, more of the yowl and sass that Zoologist would give.
Mooncat’s Strictly Roots is some spicy electro-reggae.
Sadly, the most interesting part of this perfume is the sweater shaped bottle.
The juniper lemon skin scent gives me nothing but bleached sheets on a clothesline and fades in five minutes.
I liked Sonia Rykiel, but one this is forgettable.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill also came out in 1998 (and was extremely popular in France.) This song has a bit more citrus splash than the fragrance.
kira a. gold 