Air opens with a raging chimney blaze put out with Lapsang Souchong tea, with smoke that takes over the entire house, and slowly melts into alpine mist on the skin overnight.
I like the finish, but the beginning is hard to breathe.
*
Air
Bel Rebel
Stunned
Y’know the skanky convenience store two blocks down, that has as much lampwork glass paraphernalia as munchie snacks on the shelves, and sells the best cheap vanilla incense anywhere?
The guy at the counter is fat and comfy with some nice swagger, and if you’re a regular he’ll give you a zip-lock bag of the green with your $50 roll of Butter-Rum LifeSavers.
Stunned is stunning.
Funky, verdant, sweet, resinous, and joyful.
Goes on with a draw of labdanum smoke, then exhales long–with sticky cannabis cupcake frosting and relaxing cloves–in personal space for most of the evening. You wake in the morning with a smudge of sugary patchouli on the skin, and only a vague idea of what actually happened the night before.
I love that Bel Rebel didn’t go the haute couture route that Florabotanica did–here they embrace messy weed culture full on, with head-shop cliches, creosote smeared bongs and gooey candy excess.
Medical card not required.
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Peach Me
or, Kirkland’s in liquid form.
Seriously, this stuff opens with nice juicy tropical peach dangling-from-the-mirror car air freshener, or maybe even the clip-onto-the-vent-because-my-dog-barfed-on-the-way-to-the-vet, you-can-buy-it-in-wax-melts-too kind.
The fruit fades to the skin over the next six hours into spice mix potpourri from the store at the mall that starts selling cinnamon scented pine cones in September.
If you can afford to splurge, Tom Ford’s Bitter Peach is the surreal masterpiece–but an awesome, long lasting succulent peach for a tenth the cost of Bel Rebel is Outremer Pêche. Or if you want that retro spice bottom, go with Dior’s Dolce Vita.
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Proper nasty punk Peaches, that you won’t hear on the Muzak speakers in Kirkland’s.
Bubble Gum
Bel Rebel’s interpretation opens with a tutti-fruity candy coated gum ball, loud and boisterous, the kind that clatters down the clear spiral base to ding the silver door of the coin machine.
I get the orange flavored one, citrus tart and sweet.
Sadly, the trace amounts of cloves aren’t enough to elevate it out of the candy dish–more sweet spice is needed to blend the fruit sours into that truly iconic bubblegum flavor.
I’m reminded of Fruitchouli Flash, an earthier distant cousin, maybe.
Settles down to elbow length after half an hour, with a dusting of chalk powder and the faintest hint of mint. (I got sneezy for a minute, but perhaps not the fragrance’s fault? Cold-season and all.)
(It’s 23 eff degrees outside, right now.)
Nice, and sniffy–I’m aware of it as I type–but I wish the heart had a bit of L’Interdit‘s tuberose or jasmine to cream it up and give the opaqueness that the bottle suggests. Bubblegum isn’t clear–
Lasts half the day, slowly fading to lighthearted patchouli on the bottom, with some super soft musk, an inch above the skin through the evening.
I like it. For the price, I’d hoped to love it.
*
I do love this–
kira a. gold 