When did Tide start making rose-flavored pods?
Detergent floral that strips the nuance of the original. I put it in the medicine chest, but it might do better in the laundry room to lift stains.
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This song (and the video) is jarring, but also has incredible tension and nuance.
Manly herbaceous man who fashionably needs to shave tones it down for a corporate meeting.
Grapefruit juice and lavender for breakfast, oak desk and middle management musk at the end.
He’ll get his promotion soon.
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The Blind Boys of Alabama are fantastic. This was the intro theme to The Wire.
Lemon and a really nice peppery marigold an inch above the skin–the vetiver and bergamot project off my shirt cuffs better than my wrist–for an hour.
The literature says this one is supposed to evoke the spirit of the Haitian people. Not really getting that from the blonde in the wintery ad, but okay.
I’d enjoy it more as a candle.
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Here’s a Haitian take on “the land of ice and snow” by the amazing Moonlight Benjamin.
A squirt of lemon juice that sweetens to hard candy and aniseed for an hour, then settles to citrus oil woods and Joy dish soap suds for another two.
I get why it’s so popular. There’s something fancy, yet low-key about it–like good taste with a sense of humor.
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This song never fails to put me in a good mood.
A drier 4711, less sweet, less herbal, with twice the lasting power…
…which means twenty minutes rather than ten.
The orange flower is lovely, but it gets eaten up by the bergamot pretty quickly. I like the amber at the bottom–it roughs up the jasmine, but the rosemary and lavender don’t have the freshness of the basil.
If I were stupid rich, I might buy a bottle, but tried and true and cheap suits broke me just fine.
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Chris Cornell joined Alice in Chains on this one.
This smells like your car after you’ve had it detailed because the neighbor kid puked Olive Garden all over the back seat.
It tries.
Lavender and orange oil solvent.
Windex and mint. A little lime and some hopeful sandalwood.
But it just can’t disguise the vomit.
(This is how to cover a song.) (Contains no barfing.)
A wincing blast of Ruby Red pink grapefruit out of the bottle that dries down to really lovely peaches sweetened with frangipani.
The musk on the bottom has some heat, a peppery note with the sandalwood, but with hard edges.
It’s got nice facets, but kind of jumbled–and the middle notes that I love last less than 20 minutes on me.
From Under the Pink.
A 4711 Acqua Colonia mini that didn’t come with the sampler set, but I had to have anyway because give-me-all-the-matching-things.
Nice fresh squirt-in-your-eye grapefruit and peppery bite that slowly fades to brisk rose on the skin. I like the masculine zing–this one has a bit of a bristly mustache.
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More pepper. (Like the cologne, the original is better, but sometimes it’s fun to mix things up a little.)
Green bank lollipops, grubby herbs and pale wet patchouli.
A twinkly high school boy could pull this one off well, but not me.
Nick Cave is so marvelously angsty.
Spell is my favorite from The Lyre of Orpheus, the mellower “side B” of this double album.
A good bossy stewardess perfume.
Matter-of-fact grapefruit and grinning roses and brisk musk, but not inviting or invasive.
Starched silk suits on top, sir-take-your-seat-please on the bottom.
Dunja’s strumming technique makes me blush–
kira a. gold 