Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
A Diorissimo martini.
So interesting-. Spring green jasmine and lily-of-the-valley and all the heavy white flowers, but with a tipsy watery note and a lemon zest curl that cuts through the floral wax with a vodka edge.
Cocktail hour lasts three hours, and leaves a kid leather glove behind, 1950’s Cinderella chic.
Hey, Philosophy, with that bottle color, you mean “Caucasian,” not nude.
But the magazine sample was free, so:
Smells like a bouquet of over-bred pale tea roses in a hospital room. Pretty but generic, with an odd note of bleach musk underneath.
There are soooo many better rose scents out there. Lush’s Imogen Rose is heaven. Tea Rose by Perfumer’s Workshop is a great bargain for an awesome rose. Annick Goutal’s Rose Absolue is a petal bomb. Filch your grandmother’s YSL Paris if you have to.
But roses shouldn’t ever be beige.
And nude is an absence of clothing, not “white people skin.” Not the best marketing moment for a product line called Pure Grace.
This song came out in 1992. Feels like we’ve actually slid backward since then, but more likely, we’re finally seeing what has always been.
Aptly named.
A walk through the produce aisle in sexy shoes that only come in European sizes.
Byredo’s Pulp is lush fruit rind you want to press your thumb into to check for ripeness. Tart currants spill onto a heap of figs, then there’s a nuttiness, a bite of candy bar like a bawdy pick-up line, funny rather than insulting.
Drunk apples sit on the skin for several hours, waiting for elegant lipstick bites, then they fade to a woody stem.
I bought the biggest bottle I could legally take on the airplane.
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Saw her live, ages ago–so good. This one is a bit bawdy, too.
Not my monkey.
Pissy alpha pine flings fruit and the dregs of metal teapots in the air for hours, then disappears into trees after smearing indelible green musk on the skin.
Edit – 11/16/2021
Discontinued, with new flanker editions. Yuzu is a slight improvement on the original. (The Fuji Apple wasn’t available when I placed my order.)
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Different circus, better monkeys:
Roses in Vaseline.
Pretty bottle, though.
Edit – 10/10/21
Today I pulled this one out of the “meh” box–the bottles that never inspired more than a bit of snark, but didn’t quite deserve to perfume the trash bin–just to see if anything had changed.
The rose is still coated in an odd layer of petroleum jelly, perhaps the saffron at the top hitting the cypriol oil on the bottom, that sadly masks the caraway and jasmine sweetness.
I bought Mystique during my search for a signature rose scent. (I gave up on that rather quickly–turns out I’d rather have a whole rambling garden rather than singular perfection.)
Lancome has discontinued it, and bottles are hot commodities now.
At current prices, one could snag a big bottle of Amouage Epic Woman–a rich caraway rose, and a 50ml of Imaginary Authors’ saffron delight Slow Explosions.
Or get the Elizabeth & James Nirvana Rose vetiver power suit for about $20.
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Keep an ear out for Saffron Collins, a talented teen from Dubai.
A loud catcall of fantastic peach nectar, with a pinch on the ass of cloves.
Later she steals a flower from a neighbor’s garden to tuck in her hair, on the way to buy sweet Meyer lemons and flirt with the fruit vendor in the square.
Fresh and brash and juicy.
Peach was my favorite ice cream flavor at Baskin-Robbins.
Opens with lots of roses and some other greenhouse flowers my grandfather grew in patio pots and brought inside in the winter.
There’s an edge of citronella and underneath, some cedar notes, but it doesn’t tell much of a story.
I love the marketing on my little magazine sample–yes to gorgeous Black women with natural hair and real women over fifty! But I’m disappointed that there is none of Kate Spade’s trademark whimsy of typewriter purses and flowerpot bags in this scent.
Edit–2/18/2020
Three years later and here’s a mini in a box of curiosities I don’t remember ordering at all, and I manage to splash it all over the house while opening it. Now I have rosy cedar floorboards and an annoyed cat, but there’s a quirky cottage-core vibe that I like (and didn’t get from the peelie) so I’ll tuck it into my linen closet until I find a good home for it.
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Rest in Parfum, Kate Spade. I’ve loved your fun designs.
Remember that green gum that looked like pillows that squirted sugar syrup when you first chewed it?
Saint Julep is the sparkliest perfume I’ve ever sniffed. It’s that Turkish iced tea that knocks your drunk off at four in the morning, the half an Adderall you saved for finals week.
The mint itches on your skin, keeping you awake, jeering at the insomniacs who are too tired to enjoy the starlight, and then kisses you in the morning with still-fresh breath.
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It’s a bop.
Tea in a European cafe.
Watery with peony and lotus flowers, yet clever, with a twist of hint of lemon. Dries down to a dark woodsy musk.
It’s very swanky. I feel I’d have to be fluent in at least three languages to be able to pull this off.
Like, this woman knows her glove size and exactly which fork to use and how to eat Norway lobster without getting butter on her blouse.
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This opens with The Cheesecake Factory issuing a declaration of chemical warfare to Au Bon Pain.
Disaronno and Lazzaroni broker a tense amaretto truce, but VS Amber Romance blasts in and gives everyone headaches.
Finally the battlefield clears, leaving Toffifay standing alone, making feeble “This is nuts!” puns.
kira a. gold 