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.
This one is pure handsome-doctor-in-a-television-drama.
Soap and water, good leather shoes, a touch of medicinal anointing oil, get-well-soon roses and brooding hero amber.
I’d totally huff it on the ER resident with a stethoscope and good bedside manner.
There’s a lot of speculation about the true identity of Dr, Robert, but he obviously prescribed some fun drugs.
Lemon poppy-seed salad dressing.
Sweet and moist with a few random peppercorns.
Might be nice on lettuce, but I wouldn’t want to sit next to it on a trans-Atlantic flight.
More Dylan blues–an extra sweet cover by Magnet & Gemma Hayes.
There’s a pun here, because it opens with a breath of incense, like a burning vanilla bean–
Then it settles to the skin with a sheer dry cedar-y vanilla warmed by amber, and slowly fades to nothing.
I wish it had better performance–I’d love it on the artist with rough hands who eats from bowls they’ve made and has a houseful of rescue dogs.
Here’s more Vanille, with Follow the Sun.
Moody woods and spicy leather. I like it.
The bergamot and pepper opens bright, then the suede turns up the volume. A hit of wintergreen fades into forest within an hour.
This might be marketed as unisex, but I find it very masculine, with smoke and dry musk between the trees.
I still like the original of this one.
This is what Santa wears when he’s visiting a naughty house, because they’re a little nice, too, aren’t they?
Manly gingerbread cookies left under the tree.
Bright fir, fresh cut, leaking sticky pine pitch, and spice–baked ginger, ground cloves–with a syrupy base of resinous vanilla musk.
Long lasting in personal space, balsam trails with with brown sugar rubbed into the skin. Unisex, but should be worn by St. Nick types with big beards and twinkling eyes.
I like the candle even better. The pine takes center stage with a fruity note of cranberry, backed up by some smoky rose infused tea.
My house smells like a present–I’ve been a good girl this year.
Merry, merry.
The opening of this one smells exactly like the Jewish bakery on Montague Street on Hanukkah, the windows fogged with the scent of chocolate and poppyseed hamantaschen, and red jelly donuts–
–but then the sequoia note pulls it out of feminine gourmand territory and gives it nice depth.
Good sillage, and the dry down is amazing–a masculine woody cocoa powder that lasts forever on clothes.
My new favorite of the Nest line.
L’Chaim!
In the summer it’s eye-watering: all the hot sauces at the taqueria–tabasco, nopales salsa verde, pico jalapeño–uncorked and spilled over the table.
In the winter it cools down, becomes herbal, sweet bell peppers with a touch of rose on a base of cedar and metallic musk, but it’s no less potent.
Xeryus Rouge came out in in the mid nineties, along with this sweet spicy tune from Cuba.
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 with bergamot then rolls around on forest floor with violet leaf and lily-of-the-valley for a few hours.
Finishes with musky rose and wet ambergris on the skin.
Very brooding male pixie.
I love it.
(I may have posed in a compromising photo with a certain lawn ornament, many many years ago…)
This duo from Cleveland is doing fun things with music and video.
