Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
Muguet and nostalgia.
Titania gracing an outdoor wedding, the Snow Queen in her sled in winter.
Pure lily-of-the-valley, budding green, blooming to ringing white bells and fading to pungent roots.
My mother wore Diorissimo, which is the only thing I’ll ever have in common with Prince Harry, I’m afraid.
Dior released this one in 1956. The same year Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much featured Doris Day singing Que Sera Sera.
Dior’s Hypnotic Poison is the femme fatale in the upscale mall who laces the gourmet sweets with cyanide.
It took over my house and punched me in the teeth and made me watch movies about international intrigue.
Jordan Almonds and loud vanilla sex, this stuff.
Morcheeba, a trip-hop R&B band, has been going strong since the mid nineties, too. This song has some of the same lethal sweetness.
TokyoMilk #05 touts Wild Rose, Osmanthus Chocolate and Vetiver, and while it’s not the pits, it does fizzle out pretty quickly.
The fragrance sprays on like the waxy chocolate one dips fruit in on Valentine’s Day–then turns into a sporty woody rose for a few minutes and is gone.
Nice, but too pricey for zero longevity.
I also bought the candle, which sadly smokes like a chimney, but makes absolutely divine furniture polish–my cherry wood table perfumes the room when the sun shines on it.
Edit – 2/27/22
Lasts longer in spring, with more herbal apricot than in my autumn test–or maybe the juice has ripened a bit over the past 5 years–but still doesn’t set off any fireworks.
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This woman pops a cream candy in her mouth while coolly walking away from the burning house behind her.
I’m scared of her, but I want to be her friend.
Edit – 9/12/21
(From my rescued-from-the-back-of-the-closet collection.)
The first bite is a fancy floral sweet mess of tuberose and jasmine, milky white marbled with green, that melts into ylang-ylang with a verdant pop of tomato leaf. The herbal sweetness has a minty vibe, echoed again on the bottom by the patchouli and vanilla.
The oak-moss at the base anchors us firmly in the 80’s racks of the consignment shop–patterned silk dresses and art-house punk jackets. (A good place to find a vintage bottle–they can still be found at reasonable prices–though it’s still in production.)
Cheerful and clever, in a movie-heroine-gets-her-revenge-in-the-end-while-smoking-a-menthol way, but I never really took to it.
I’ll pass it on to my friend who can quote Heathers word for word.
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The amazing Chaka Khan came out with Ain’t Nobody in 1983.
I’m feeling this updated cover today.
“Cabbage Rose & Citrus”
Matronly green apples and roses on top, sweet florals and wicker furniture on the bottom.
Doesn’t last long–I reach for this one when I want a splash of rose that’s more comforting and less business than Tea Rose–both the fragrance and the packaging has a maternal cottage-chic vibe, but sometimes one is in the mood for that, y’know?
Edit – 6/7/21
Pulled this one out of a box in the back of my closet today.
I’d forgotten how much I like it–there’s a clear sweetness that seems really refreshing when compared to so many of the muddy caramel stuff that’s out lately.
The roses I planted this spring actually managed a few blooms–and I had fun comparing the raw materials to the bottled fragrance. Believe definitely captures the softer, apple-ish aspect of the cabbage rose (named for the appearance, not the scent!) versus the sharper lemony quality of the hybrid tea rose.
I’ll leave it out for a while.
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Another comfort rose–
Cartier’s Ten o’Clock wants to spend the ‘Crazy Hour’ picking blueberries on the forest edge but sadly snoozes with Dad’s outdated watch in the sock drawer.
Ironing starch on cotton handkerchiefs with jam stains that fade to metallic dusty rose.
It makes a nice room scent.
P!nk covered Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy in 2009, when this scent came out. It’s not dusty at all.
Thierry Mugler’s Eau de Star bottles up that summer you spent with the bleach blonde stoner cutie who carved a bong out of a watermelon.
Fresh and wet and high and unforgettable.
It was my favorite candy perfume until the guy said, “That reminds me of what (our hot European neighbor) wears.”
She’s ten years younger than me and a flight attendant.
I love this live version of Madonna’s Candy Perfume Girl, bitchy and hard and still sweet.
The bottle lists Clean Coral, Mineral Salt, Watercress, and Crushed Citrus, because why not be fancy? but it’s really filled with loud dish soap.
Edit – 1/29/2023
Yeah, the tide of suds settles down after half an hour and gives way to an almost plummy spice under salty aquatics, but it doesn’t make any beach waves.
I should probably get this to someone who might enjoy wearing it, rather than spraying it in my sink so my drain smells nice.
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A much better Ocean.
This little powder solide came yesterday and I’m obsessed.
There’s something narcotic about it, in a sweet steamy fog way.
The dust goes on soft as silk, with creamy jasmine spices that rise from the skin as they warm. Then woody vanilla tracers float for several hours through a cloud of some the loveliest musk I’ve ever sniffed.
I can’t stop brushing it on.
The eau de parfum has a lot more green notes at the top–bergamot and cypress that I don’t miss at all–and here the freesia is more support for the nutmeg than a heart note.
But the musk is what makes this so special–delicate and clean, yet slightly opaque, like sugar frosting puffed into vapor, and impossible to stop tasting.
(I’m going to go through this stuff quick.)
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We watched The Graduate last night, so this will be in my head all week.
Or, lemon balm and vervain.
Bright citrus without the bite, that settles down to woody tonic water.
Greener and sharper and more linear than the original–I miss the sweetness and the quickly shifting nuances–but longer lasting.
Good for cocktails on the patio, perhaps.
Edit — 8/14/21
I usually pass fragrances that I wouldn’t wear on to someone who would appreciate them, but I’ve had Melissa & Verbena for years and still not found a home for it.
There’s an herbal musk at the bottom that sits strangely on the skin, so not one to use as a mask spritz, either.
4711 released it in 2009, but I don’t think it was in production long.
Lemon & Ginger was the hit of that run, and is still made today.
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This came out the same year. Saw it in concert–it was awesome.
kira a. gold 