Happy Merry to me.
Vagabond Prince’s Enchanted Forest is exactly that: dark balsam fir woods and tangles of black currant shrubs and wine and roses.
The first spray turns one into a wayward elf, dressed in flowers and drunk on berries. The acid bite of the fruit slowly softens with benzoin, sweet on the skin, and lofty on clothes for hours.
I feel like I’m the heroine in an epic fantasy novel saga wearing this stuff.
This is an enchanting take on a Ukrainian Midsummer folk song.
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 priest on vacation in the tropics.
Out of the bottle–beaches and mild fruit cocktails with coconut water.
It quickly turns to soap, some kind of retro ’70’s bar of herbal glycerine that takes over the whole tiki bar.
There’s some patchouli and musk at the bottom, like a feeble attempt to dirty it up, but it’s just too clean.
Perfect on Sunday.
My favorite bar song.
Manly mint, and lemon.
Nice, but stuffy at first. This guy orders Woodford Reserve on the rocks when he really wants a Malibu and Coke with a straw loaded with fruit.
After a bit it loosens up to vanilla and vetiver, and longing glances toward the karaoke bar.
This was the biggest song in Italy in 2012, when Versace released Eros.
Rain on the sea and blue spruce, with a smear of mint camphor rub on the chest.
Moody and clever and so wet.
The man wearing this might be prone to rough fisherman’s sweaters and prefers strange tasting akvavits.
The woman wearing this also wears eyeglasses instead of contacts at business meetings, so people will take her more seriously.
This one is from Above. An incredibly moody and clever album.
Remember that green gum that looked like pillows that squirted sugar syrup when you first chewed it?
Saint Julep is the sparkliest perfume I’ve ever sniffed. It’s that Turkish iced tea that knocks your drunk off at four in the morning, the half an Adderall you saved for finals week.
The mint itches on your skin, keeping you awake, jeering at the insomniacs who are too tired to enjoy the starlight, and then kisses you in the morning with still-fresh breath.
*
It’s a bop.
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.
Fresh, just out of the hotel room shower, squeaky-clean, man.
Big handsy citrus, a rub of green herbs, a switch of summer pine.
No personality whatsoever, but that isn’t what you hired him for.
Versace came out with Eau Fraiche in 2006. This song–“Stop. Forget it.”–was the hit in Italy then.
Cape Heartache is not really a unisex travel book–it’s a gender-fluid memoir.
It opens as a young girl sucking on a pink candy necklace, but the elastic string grows into sweaty teen boy burning tires on the pavement.
Then the car takes a turn, cool mint and chic college girl with the top down, winding up alpine roads–
but the pine trees are cut down by a lumberjack with a gas-powered chain saw.
Then a sultry strawberry in a red dress and bare feet watches a campfire until late into the evening, when the coals are covered by a passing dark stranger.
It’s like a romance with shifting his-and-hers point-of-view, but I can’t stop sniffing my skin to see if there’s a sequel.
A fluid song.
Eye of Civet and Thorn of Rose, Rind of Bergamot and Moss of Swamp.
This is Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a single spray: opens with “Enter three Witches,” and in their cauldron is a bubbling neon chartreuse potion.
By the third act it tries to come clean, the murdering queen taking a skinny-dip in a hidden spring, but it fails to wash off all the traces of evil.
Savage green, in a weird fertile spell-chanting way.
Led Zeppelin’s The Rain Song, from Houses of the Holy came out at the same time. Page and Plant re-released a version (as Jean Couturier did Coriandre) two decades later.
kira a. gold 