A big mouthful of Buttered Popcorn flavored Jellybelly beans, sticky sweet and stuck in the teeth for hours.
Later, powdered sugar and clove dusted gingerbread crumbs cling to shirt cuffs.
Fun, like that holiday party at the boss’s house that you weren’t expecting to enjoy–but I’d do better with it as a candle. It’s too sweet for me to wear on my skin.
By the Weather Girls, who brought you It’s Raining Men:
Herbal-sweet and sheer, and comforting, without any overt invitation.
Opens with a taste of upscale hipster lavender vodka, then the neroli blooms, delicate and sugary with a faint twist of grapefruit zest.
Stays at elbow length for an hour, then settles to the skin with rainwater musk.
Too fragile for summer, but it would sparkle in the snow.
This cover is equally as delicate.
Nice flirty cantaloupe and jasmine, with a smart woody tonka bean ending.
A good “young-adult” scent that doesn’t take over the entire house, street and neighborhood on the way to the high school–a safe blind buy for your favorite teen-thing this holiday.
And five points to House J. Couture for the “Bows before Beaus” line.
I love Lizzo.
Artificial cherry, and the dregs of cheap wine.
A bit of cigarette ash, too.
The ElDO ad copy is a big story about parties and shoes and iris centerpieces, and I get the booze and the hangover, but this scent has been done already, and better–without the feet–in Lolita Lempicka’s Sweet.
Here’s a much better Cherry.
Nice rose oil by Kai, supported by magnolia and a mess of tuber-lily-of-the-jasmine. Lasts a pretty hour, then fades soapy-clean into the skin, with no residue.
I bet it would be great as a hair mist or deodorant, or even a moisture barrier to hold another scent to the skin–but it doesn’t say much on its own.
This song doesn’t say much either, but it’s pretty.
This mini is the eighties edition of the seventies formula, which was a remake of Caron’s 1913 original. (The 2018 version is a complete revamp into a pear and vanilla gourmand.)
A big gust of retro aldehydes out of the bottle, carrying a mess of flowers–jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, rose and tuberose–that settle down fairly quickly a few inches above the skin, anchored by sandalwood and amber.
It’s pleasant, and nice to find a vintage scent of that era that isn’t a tangle of oakmoss and civet, but not one to keep for nostalgia or reference.
In 1970, the top female pop song in France was Venus, by the Dutch band Shocking Blue–it was also re-released in the eighties by Bananarama.
(There was actually a “Venus Waltz” by the American Standard Orchestra recorded in 1913, on cylinder.)
A pretty cuppa tea.
Opens with Ceylon rose and lemon, then slowly cools to musky peach Oolong.
It’s simple but long lasting with impeccable sillage–personal space and the faintest trail of petals. The base notes–woody stems tinged red with the roses–linger for days on clothes.
And the bottle is adorable.
Another gem that came out in 2019.
Vintage Calycanthus.
Opens sharp and sweet, like peaches, then settles into soft green forest floor leaves with a cinnamon/curry melange–calycanthus is also called “spice-bush” and “sweet-shrub” in the US–and ends with ferns with cardamom spoor.
Interesting and unusual.
Released in 1970 as part of Bosari’s Library of Fragrance, but I don’t know if it was sold apart from the reference set.
It’s a spicy scent–reminds me of the curry-plants the herb guy at the farmer’s market sells.
*
I’ve always liked this one.
Midnight Fantasy and Tea Rose meet for a tryst in a hedge maze, saying, “J’adore!” while Lou Lou watches with Envy.
Plums are tasted, roses are plucked.
Night flowers bloom, then fade after a few hours, leaving a long trail of powdery musk behind.
No one speaks of it in the daytime.
It’s gorgeous and delicate, yet a bit naughty.
2001 also saw the release of one of my very favorite French movies.
Chocolate covered mushrooms.
Tom Ford’s biggest is actually an olfactory pun on truffles!
The bottle is even textured like gills.
Opens sweet and dirty and loud, earthy cocoa and umami fungus that grows on your skin and your clothes and the walls of your dining room.
They slowly warp into wet white flowers and syrupy fruit, in a change of dinner courses that doesn’t take the old plates away, a trencher of watermelon garnished with petals and patchouli.
Afterwards vanilla beans, smoked like cigars.
Very sexy, in a you-make-me-hungry way, but don’t wear it if you’re dieting.
So many ‘shroomy covers of this song. I’m stuck on this awesome Arabic one right now.
kira a. gold 