Gets better after an hour.
(The guy called it a mean old lady perfume.)
Edit – 2/24/23
I was so hoping this would be as fun as the dark flankers to the original Lolita Lempicka.
Si Noir is a lot richer and sweeter on the bottom, but still has that pink pepper and sweet pea sharp pinch on top and the patchouli cigarette ash in the middle, but I’m not willing to wait for it.
Better than the first, but it’s no Minuit Noir.
*
“Mean old lady caused me to weep and moan…”
I get amber and salt, then… nothing.
A page turning, old paper, perhaps.
Half an hour later, a faint powdery sweetness develops, but it’s not exactly pleasant.
After two hours watery smoke sits under the skin.
The “book cover” is pretty, though. I’d have that as a poster on my wall.
*
A good song for when you feel a bit salty:
This could be this decade’s Drakkar Noir–a new definition of masculinity for these semi-enlightened times. Sophisticated and clever–strength and ego coming with style and smarts rather than brawn–this man might not have the classic pretty face but his shirt is nicely tailored and he plays cards well–he’s interesting.
Opens with icy lemonade, then smoky ginger, and lays two inches above the skin with amber, mint and sandalwood all evening long.
I wish it had more sweetness.
Edit – 6/24/21
I sniffed a bottle in the men’s department–and I got a drop on my nose.
(…sad whine…)
The world did not get any sexier, but I did have a sudden craving for lemon sweets.
When I got home the guy said I smelled like one of his golf buddies–the smart one.
*
Peter Gabriel always seems to carry an air of cerebral masculinity.
(The live version with The Blind Boys of Alabama is even better but there’s an ad break in the middle that’s jarring.)
A beach wedding.
Opens with grapefruit, sugar and a silver spoon, then the frangipani* kicks in.
Waxy flower leis, festoons of them everywhere, sweet and heavy, lovely, but overdone.
The bride carries orchids, but you can’t smell them.
Hours later there’s breezy musk on dunes, and driftwood drying in the sun. The next day, an odd amber citrus still clings to the skin, like sand in unexpected places.
*(Does anyone else think “fancy-panties” when they read the word frangipani?)
(Only me?)
(This is awkward now.)
*
This is NOT a wedding song, even with the deceptively easy beach vibe–
So apparently Edward Scissorhands smells like sawdust and lemon meringue pie–or maybe it’s sugared furniture polish?
There’s some old spice cabinet and an amber musk that is apropos to the aging pirate mystique, and a wave of evil English wizard lavender wand.
I like it, even though I don’t want to.
Edit–2/19/2021
I eventually did test this from a bottle.
Ad peelies have improved greatly over the years, but usually only hold the top and middle notes well. You can get more of the bottom notes if you stick the test strip in your pocket, to warm it up to body temperature.
In person, Sauvage has more of a labdanum campfire-creosote base, which gives confusing burnt pizza gourmand vibes.
This song from the same year has some pretty savage guitar.
Camel is that delicious import shop halfway down a dark alley that greets you with dried roses in enamel vases and sticky dates on brass trays when you walk in the door.
Cedar boxes of incense, the animal musk of raw silk tapestries…
The shopkeeper has smuggler’s eyes, and you laugh when he tells you there’s a djinn in the bottle but you buy it anyway because he’s so incredibly sexy.
*
This whole album is amazing.
This one is fruit syrup made from Italian plums and fresh picked raspberries, purple flowers and vanilla underneath, but with a hint of metal, like that sourness of sucking on a penny.
The amber musk base gives it enough gravitas to take a high school girl into college, and it lasts for days on skin and weeks on clothes.
It’s a rather brilliant note in Britney Spear’s collection–a teenage lipstick fashionista graduating magna cum laude with advanced studies in sociology.
One of my guilty pleasure songs–
Brilliant busty bubblegum and bisexual bananas.
Edit – 10/19/21
Truth or Dare was the first movie I ever saw where on-screen homosexuality wasn’t portrayed as a hardship, flaw or deviance.
I still think about that sometimes.
*
And this how you change the standards of the entertainment industry:
Supposed to be bamboo, jasmine and flowers, and olibanum, and that’s nice, but I mostly get Old Skool lilac. Is that what they mean by “flowers”?
Edit – 2/18/23
I bought this set of minis–The Silk Road Collection–curious about what kind of scents Shanghai Tang (a very cool fashion house dedicated to the revival of Chinese culture of the 1920’s–I’ve used several of their pieces on stage) might put out.
Turns out their perfumes were designed by two French-trained Western bigwig master perfumers.
There’s an excellent article over here about China’s fragrance history–Mao banned perfume in the Cultural Revolution.
*
This album came out at the end of 2013, just before Spring Jasmine was released. Hebe Tien was the front woman for the Mondopop mega band S.H.E.
kira a. gold 