SCENTS

Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.

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Artsy

artsy edgy
Sample vial on test paper, printed with Artsy bottle with red label and Kimberly New York’s signature avi face with pinned up hair.

Marshmallow fluff–that powdered huff of air when you open a fresh bag of Jet-Puffed minis–and candied violets, the kind on wedding cakes.
Then a whiff of apples, waxy red delicious skin, that first sniff just before you bite.

Miraculously, it doesn’t do the expected caramel-amber-musk dry-down thing, it stays fresh and sugary and bright.
Ridiculously feminine, lip-gloss blown kisses last for over two hours, hovering a few inches off the wrist, then mature into woodsy sweetness on the shirt cuffs.

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Miles Davis was a painter, too, influenced by Joni Mitchell and Jean-Michel Basquiat. (Check out this article featuring some of his works.)
This song was in the soundtrack to the Basquiat movie, starring Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie.

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Artisan Acqua

Artisan Acqua edgy
John Varvatos flask with wicker macrame and bronze cap and medallion.

A priest on vacation in the tropics.

Out of the bottle–beaches and mild fruit cocktails with coconut water.

It quickly turns to soap, some kind of retro  ’70’s bar of herbal glycerine that takes over the whole tiki bar.
There’s some patchouli and musk at the bottom, like a feeble attempt to dirty it up, but it’s just too clean.

Perfect on Sunday.

My favorite bar song.

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Gucci Bloom

gucci bloom edgyThis one smells like honeysuckle and ketchup to me.
Maybe some jasmine, too.

It’s pretty, but the tomato chutney in the middle is rather disconcerting.

Lasts a long time, like that lunch stain on a shirt that won’t wash out.

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Bluebijou

bluebijou edgyGorgeous. Violets and blueberries and dark Halloween magic. Vampires wear this stuff.

Sapphire potion water, a hint of smoke, a toast of witch booze.
Sugared black currants and leather and spruce, a soft animalic purr.
Bitter chocolate tempers the sweetness and brings out the violet leaf.

Ends with a short puff of bourbon pipe tobacco and clean velvet musk, but clings to clothes all night long,

Moody vampire songs are the best.

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Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin

LL Au Masculin
Charred tree stump, with mini lavender L.L. Masculin log shaped bottle.

This guy can dance, and knows how to choose a drink for someone else based on what shoes they’re wearing, but he’s got a dark gleam in his eye, and won’t hesitate to get you drunk.

Opens with Sambuca–aniseed liqueur–with a touch of absinthe to make it herbal, then gets almondy with an amaretto chaser for happy hour. Sandalwood tones the sweetness down, then the evening ends on smooth and smoky vanilla single malt scotch.

You let him take you home.

One of my favorites from Lazaretto. Definitely not smooth.

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Sparrow

Square bottle with silver tall top and songbird label, half full of amber eau, in a blue glazed bowl. This one aged quickly, but the bottom notes that I liked ripened really nicely–makes for a very pretty room spray.

The bottled perfume smells like high end floral shampoo and wet garden–a bit meh, and doesn’t last long.

However, the candle has more of the spicy rosewood notes, and the wax brings out the creamy sweetness of the gardenia, so there’s a lovely hot cocoa accord, perfect for snowed in afternoons.
I bought three.

Lit candle in a tin with a pink breasted bird and music notes on the lid.

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Another Sparrow.

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Gabrielle

Gabrielle edgyLemon and orange blossoms and neroli and tangerines.

Ylang-ylang softens the citrus and spice warms it up a bit.

I’d have thought Kristen Stewart would smell less sweetly floral than this, but there’s a certain sandalwood androgyny at the bottom that fits her mystique.

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Women

Calvin Klein Women edgesCedar and neroli with some floral and a touch of amber. Clean and fashionable, but nothing memorable.
For marketing with such amazingly feminine women, it’s kind of unisex–which is apropos to the clothing brand, no one can strip a girl of her curves better than Calvin Klein–so I guess it works?

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Grev

grev edge
Test scratch paper with image of Slumberhouse Grev, and decant vial with bright green eau.

Alpha male cloves, softened by spring pine. Riding leather and a hint of spearmint underneath.

Josh Lobb of Slumberhouse designed it for men, but a hardcore dominatrix could pull this off beautifully. Bullwhip velvet and chai tea aftercare. Yes, please.

There are some fantastic covers of this song–this one is high on my list right now.