Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
Rather nice.
Wet cantaloupe, with a spritz of lemon and a dash of salt to cut the sweetness.
This guy has Soundgarden on most of his playlists, drinks good tequila and likes standup comedy. He’s fun to hang around with.
This song is not aquatic at all, but is my favorite off of Down on the Upside, which also came out in 1996.
A hard liquor splash of orange flower water spiked with amaretto, made clever with spice, then a dump of vanilla sugar heavy enough to hurt the head.
This smells like that sassy chef at the corner bakery who drinks on the job and sets aside cupcakes for the cops who give her a ride home.
(This is what happens when you watch that Baking Show while testing House of Sillage.)
This is a good tune for mixing batter–debuted in 2012, same as Benevolence.
A great one for sweet tooth cravings.
TokyoMilk #10 is a spilled pot of syrupy tea with cream, smoky jasmine and sugared violets.
Sandalwood at the bottom gives the honey a nice bit of bee-sting.
Pretty and warm, with good sillage and amazing longevity.
Edit– 2/27/21
This one has grown on me lately. The quarantine mixed with winter doldrums has made me miss my childhood home and the scents of my step-father’s apiaries.
Honey & the Moon is simpler, and less animalic Bee, but has more woods at the base. Beehive boxes are usually made of pine or cedar, for their non-bee insect repellent properties–Absolue Pour le Soir nails this note perfectly–so I like that bit of structure.
The candle is quite nice, too. Margot Elena’s hand creams are also popular. I’ve tried a few and they feel lovely, but I’m always testing something on my wrists, and I avoid scented lotions. She makes a Honey & the Moon “crema” creme eau de parfum as well, that I’m curious about–always nice to have something travel friendly.
Santana and Michelle Branch came out with this sweet song in 2003, too.
It’s blue! And weird and wet and marvelous.
Marine water and smoke out of the vial that darkens down to black fountain pen ink, dirtying up sea foam.
Algae blooms, delicate green, strangely organic and chemical at the same time, with big juicy sillage.
The ambergris rises to the surface an hour later, making it even wetter with ocean spray; benzoin sweetens it, turning it fresh again.
Six hours later and it’s still there, chaotic, never seeming to settle down to one depth; yet it’s oddly comforting and beautiful.
Gov’t Mule does a terrific jam cover of Jimi Hendrix’s 1983 (A Merman I Shall Be)–from Electric Ladyland–that goes deep under water around the 4:15 mark.
Orange blossom.
Starts out sugar sweet, the dust on marshmallows, then turns jasmine-like, with a touch of honey.
Finishes fruity-juicy, more gourmand than neroli’s greener woody-spice edge.
It’s the floral note easily found in the opening of Coco Mademoiselle, and tastes delicious in Italian Cream Cakes.
This one was bottled for a mini collection for tourists from the Borsari 1970 Museum in Parma, in the seventies–the caps are hideous plastic, but they’re effective–it’s quite well preserved for being so old.
Honey sweet erotic tune from Princess Nokia–
(I’m falling in love with these solid perfumes. Airplane friendly and moisturizing!)
Zazou–surprisingly, given the twee packaging–is a sophisticated little neroli limeade spiked with aqvavit.
It opens fresh, a zing of citrus as it warms up on the skin, then relaxes and turns floral with an herbal undercurrent.
Sits just above the skin for hours until sinking under into warm green woods.
The Zazou subculture in France most likely took their name from Cab Calloway’s scat riff “Zaz, zuh, zah!”
Well made, but buttoned up as tight as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young.
Nice not quite ripe pear on top, pale floral musk and modesty on the bottom, with yards of projection for two hours.
Sadly, I get none of the tea or bamboo that would give it depth or interest.
This young woman is both talented and interesting.
Alcohol and asphalt, perhaps.
I might get a slight gust of subway air rising from the station at Jay Street-Borough Hall. Maybe a whiff of the spices from the import stores on Atlantic Avenue, and possibly a floral green breeze from the Botanic Garden.
But Kings County New York isn’t tentative, or maybe.
Give me the jazz zest, the hip-hop fire and the Philharmonic sweetness.
Give me diesel fumes of the BQE, Fulton Street funk and Coney Island animalics.
Give me drag queen cheesecake, everything bagels and spumoni on the Bridge.
This stuff projects only inches, not the length of Flatbush Avenue, and lasts barely through lunch, much less a Spike Lee movie, or a season binge of 2 Broke Girls.
I was born there.
Don’t spill a weak gin and tonic on the sidewalk and tell me it’s Brooklyn.
Wakes up with a snap of nutty sandalwood, then jasmine and vanilla, but not too sweet. Lasts thru lunch hour then fades to a silvery metallic floral musk on the skin.
Hip and fun and would pair well with coffee.
(I’m more of a tea gal, though.)
This was France’s 2017 Eurovision hit. Good to get one moving in the morning.
Blackberries at dawn, and other secrets.
Gah, this stuff is NICE. Basil cuts through the sweetness of the berries, and moss keeps the musk soft.
Juicy on the skin, herbal at a distance.
I just wish it lasted longer.
Kurt Vile is an indie-folk musician out of Philadelphia. I love this dreamy tune off his third album, Childish Prodigy.
kira a. gold 