Big alpha leather with a lemon creme center.
This guy shows up at the party in work boots, carrying a box of chocolates. He appreciates your top shelf liquor cabinet, but doesn’t stay long.
I like him.
Ievan Polkka–also known as the Leekspin song to Bleach fans–by the Finnish group Loituma, is awesome.
Opens loud with bright green basil and sweet coriander spice–then slides into flowery honey tobacco with some good patchouli funk.
A few hours later it morphs into leather with smoke and soft civet musk, and stays there for the rest of the day and evening, filling the room.
Joint is a powerhouse, but a refined blend rather than blunt force. No true cannabis/hemp notes, but there’s a dank ganja accord that’s really nice.
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Old school “sir” in the best way.
A brief peppery lavender deluge, then alpha fennel seeds with a caveman club, and some very gentlemanly leather and juniper on the bottom.
Handshake projection at first, then settles quickly to an herbal skin scent until he gets physical and heat warms up the spice again.
This guy does exactly as he pleases. He’s usually polite about it, but not always.
This classic came out in 1978, too.
This makes me feel like I’ve walked out of the most expensive shoe store in Paris.
A quick opening of aldehydes and spicy fruit, as if to anchor the time period–and a few of the usual flowers to say I am French!—then the leather kicks in with patent pointy toe boots and kid gloves, leaving prints behind for days.
It’s down to earth–this footwear has solid heels–with oakmoss and pungent geranium and a pinch of tobacco.
I’d wear it if it had a touch more sweetness.
This tune came out in 1959, too.
Polished leather and bergamot tea and suave manners at the start, sweet woods and spice and innuendo at the finish.
For the guy who is aggressively smart, rather than physically dominating.
(But why on earth does Blake Lively’s husband’s ARMANI shirt fit him so badly in the advert?!)
I love the Deadpool movies–this is a great cover of Wade’s favorite song.
Opening notes are a shot of booze spilled on a leather coat and violets and laaa, this stuff is crazy nice.
So smooth it slides all over the place, petals and pepper, dank then sweet, light then hard, feral metal musk heat-tempered in rosewater.
Modern magic, at an accessible price.
Lingers in personal space the whole day, sugar and leather on the skin, and fog and rain on the clothes.
This could be this generation’s Lolita Lempicka, a new twist on violets, and powerfully femme.
Seinabo Sey’s Pistols at Dawn also came out in 2015, and is just as dark and smooth.
Unusual and interesting.
Opens with a blast of fruity-booze-pepper-smoke, then settles into a really nice herbal–almost medicinal–leathery rose.
The usual feminine notes are switched up, jasmine given muscles and a short-back-and-sides haircut, sweet amber sheared sharp, carnations with teeth.
I’d huff it on a guy in a big way, but I’ll wear it too, with chunky shoes and a rough sweater, in the fall.
This alternative hit (also from 1989) mixes funk and sweetness with an easy groove.
Leather motorcycle gear in the sun.
Animalic asphalt, and a marvelous tomato leaf–this guy goes off-road, too. A bit of sour fruit and herb-y flowers round out the long ride.
I love the way the vibe switches back and forth from urban to rural.
Chevelle’s Take out the Gunman came out in 2014, too. A good driving song.
The Cloud Collection perfumes are lava lamp groovy, with separate liquids rolling around in the bottle. One is advised to shake it for four seconds (shaking a lava lamp is not suggested, though the result is the same) until it turns cloudy, before spraying.
Spicy-tart sea buckthorn at the opening, and leather, then thirty minutes later the berries turn sweet and creamy, with a smooth oud-y base.
The fruit lasts on the skin for three hours–about the time it takes for the perfume salad dressing to separate again–but the sweet woods project much longer and louder, and linger on clothes all day.
The scent lives up to the novelty of the liquid. The seaberry (which I love in tea and candy) is unusual, a berry version of the lemon custard in Aqua Allegoria Teazzarro; and the base is rich as any Fort & Manlé, with twice the longevity.
I’ll wear this one a lot this fall.
Farveblind is is also weird and fun and Danish (like Zarkoperfume).
So Lolita Lempicka ran off and joined a coven, and came back organic and amazing.
Sugary licorice and lemonade top notes that last for hours, resin and burnt caramel all night long.
Bonfire dancing, bohemian patchouli flirting and aniseed incantations at midnight. Wakes in the morning still smelling of fairy sin on the skin.
Brash, pansexual and gorgeous.
The solid is tamed down–the gateway drug version–more secretive, the sweetness hiding in leather. I love it no less.
This song.
kira a. gold 