SCENTS

Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.

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Coach Platinum

coach platinum edgy
Ad peelie with flasks on the hood of a black car, Empire State Building in the background.

Not bad, in a modern Town & Country way.
His girlfriend got it for him when they were on spring break last year. His mother thinks it’s nice too.

Pineapple and sage on the top, sandalwood and rented groomsman’s tuxedos on the bottom.

Edit – 5/11/21
Lots of pineapple in the store, almost cloyingly sweet, then settles down to the generic leathery vanilla woods that seems to be the base of all dude cologne right now.
I wish the sage notes I got from the peelie came through more.

I am never not in the mood for this song.

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Lou Lou

Lou Lou
Opaque blue bottle with tall red cap sitting on a purple dish of Ceylon cinnamon.

(That feeling when you finally get your hands on the one everyone told you about and you’re all “Okay, I get it now.”)

All the treats of all the winter holidays bottled into Aladdin’s lamp, doled out in wishes.

Smoked spiced plums and sweet purple flowers–violets and iris–that get creamy with tuberose after an hour, turning the cinnamon sticks to sandalwood.
Later, vanilla and benzoin incense leave hazy trails like warm season’s greetings for days.

Lou Lou came out in 1987, along with INXS’s Kick. Here’s a sweet cover from Beck and Annie from St. Vincent.

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Furze

furze edgyIf dolls could fart marshmallows, they’d smell like this.

A loud pbthpbthpbth of sweet plastic esthers–almost an artificial banana–then greasy coconut oil that dries down to diaper powder and decomposing Barbies left in the sun.

Weirdly sticky  (and very synthetic for a LUSH scent) and lasts forever.

Who’da thunk Aqua’s bizarre hit could be turned this haunting and pretty?!

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Dragonfly

Sample spray and promo card showing pink lotus blossoms and bottle with label of a dragonfly wearing an embroidered caped greatcoat.

Edit – 9/29/21

The 2021 remake of Dragonfly is a little lighter, I think–the amber and heliotrope is replaced with benzoin and ginger, with the wet notes lasting longer on the bottom.
The mustiness of the rice still comes through, but it’s more powdery now–drying out just after a sun shower, rather than in the rain–and still cloying.
Not my favorite Zoologist.

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dragonfly edgy
Decant vial on Zoologist ad. (The first edition had lavender eau.)

Green pond lilies and sugar dipped flowers steaming in summer rainstorms.

There’s an amber shard edge that keeps it from being cloying, but it’s still too sweet for me.

An acoustic track from a post-grunge group that definitely has an amber edge.

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Dear John

Dear John edgy
Bottle of Dear John on piano keys, with reflections.

I tested this one in the store, and loved the cloves–it faded to spiced coffee on the skin after a few hours, but I huffed my wrist all evening–and the next day I went back for a bottle.
Maybe the weather had changed, but the woodsy notes wound up being more than I bargained for, too green, too feral-tree-sprite than the Turkish cafe I thought I was getting.

I gave it my brother, who can pull off forest faun with just a smirk.
It suits him.

I bought this at the LUSH store in Stockholm. Theses guys come from there, too.

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Angel Eau Croisière

angel croiserie filterAirport duty-free testers are disgusting–those germs have survived tropics and tundras from all over the world–but this one was well worth the risk.

Angel “Cruise” opens loud and proud with delicious fresh mango that lasted the trudge to my gate and through fancy class pre-boarding–I was worried I would be THAT seatmate, who gives everyone in the row a headache with their perfume–but it settled nicely to a few inches off the wrist with pink grapefruit ice by the time I managed to cram my bag into the overhead compartment.
Somewhere over Iceland the sorbet gave way to Angel’s signature caramel patchouli, without the amber musk that I usually find cloying.
It was gone when we landed, and my connection too short to hit the shops for a bottle of my own.
Next trip, maybe.

Here’s some nice light jazz that’s actually wonderfully filthy.

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Quelques Fleurs

quelqes edgesThis is a forgotten gem of a scent–

Opens with sharp green herbs and a squeeze of citrus, then immediately blooms with lilac and honey. Projection for miles, yet the flowers change closer and closer to the skin:  lily of the valley, then rose, then violet.
Lasts forever, ending with the softest civet-y oakmoss and more honey.

A new favorite.

I’d never heard of it until I blind bid on a auction lot of vintage minis–then fell in love and did the research–it’s been around since 1913.

The tango was taking France by storm then, brought from Argentina. This is a modern one from the Parisian group Gotan Project.

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Devil’s Nightcap

devil's nightcap edgyRain on tree-lined streets, organic and urban at the same time.

A huge foggy opening of oak bark and oakmoss and oak-y sweet clary sage that calms down quickly to powdery ash and sweet orange flower water.

Ambiguous and androgynous, city gardens and paved forests. I like it on other people.

This song is best sung sloppy, and listened to in earphones while walking.

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Sikkim Girls

sikkim girls edges
Pot of LUSH solid perfume (tinted rose, though the scent isn’t rosy at all) and paper cut-out of bottle with original label–a black and white and red woodcut of two women.

A blast of jasmine and frangipani that melds into an almost edible sweet spice. The tuberose keeps it more floral than gourmand, with a sharp green edge.

On me, the solid perfume settles to the skin with creamy vanilla after an hour.

I’d rather this one in an incense stick, to burn behind a beaded curtain while drinking Indian tea.

Abhibyanjana Rubhi is from Gangtok. She had a song in Priyanka Chopra’s movie Pahuna, filmed in Sikkim. Her first single’s video is a little hard to watch, but the song is marvelous.