musk

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Song in D Minor

Margot Elena’s packaging is hard not to fall for–Victwardian collage with gold details and raised crests on the bottles–this one features a domed birdcage and sheet music.

TokyoMilk No. 13 opens with big white flowers, in a packed hot church kind of way–and even gets a bit sweaty a few minutes in.
The gardenia takes up a lot of elbow room, then slowly settles to a foot off the body with sticky amber that smells like the soap in the bathroom of a mortuary.

Lasts through the burial and the wake, and haunts your clothes for a week after.

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Sky–the super-group that you’ve never heard of–included the classical guitarist John Williams, the bassist Herbie Flowers and percussionist Tristan Fry, (who both did session work with everyone from the Beatles to Lou Reed to Elton John.)
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue is easily the most famous song in D minor ever.

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Desert Blush

Sample vial and promo with blonde wearing a dred-wig and pink dress in a grassy field with a cloudy mauve sky.

The ad copy says “warm sophisticated floral” but all I get is sandalwood and cedar musk that turn dry and dusty, like old leather.
Where have all the flowers gone?

Good for aging cowboys and folk singers, I suppose.

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This song has been translated into thirty languages, and got Pete Seeger inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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Amazon Lily

Sample card with botanical drawing of a white lily, spray vial and other Nest mini bottles.

The first spray is a sanitizing citrus that fades to weird artificial fantasy flowers–they feel a bit Tim Burton-ish, like they might eat your brains with slurping noises.
The dry drown is very cool, a woodsy musk that does a chilly freshwater slow dive that lasts for hours and hours.

Masculine, in a modern knight errant on a trippy quest way, but a Lady-of-the-Lake could pull it off, too.

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Tim Burton directed this cute video for the Killers.

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Ghost Deep Night

Purple moon shaped bottle casting plum colored shadows.

Opens with burnt peaches, vague flowers and a haunting hangover with sour lemon breath.
The vanilla alka-seltzer in the middle helps, but the headache doesn’t go away until the dry down–a woody musk that sticks to the clothes like party confetti and bad aftershave–fades too.

Recommended to bottle collectors. (Leave it closed.)

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This ghostly song is sweeter and much less ghoulish.

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Incanto Charms

Incanto Charms turquoise mini bottle on heap of Cascade Action-Packs. They look weirdly like tiny pillows with water bed toppers.

Incanto Charms is a party store French maid costume.

Opens with spring floral dishwasher pods, then cleans out fruit peelings left overnight in a Dispose-All, and finishes with vacuum cleaner dust musk.
Complete the look with fishnets and rubber cleaning gloves.

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Maid-core is a real cosplay thing, and some of those outfits are absolutely amazing.
(This song by Samantha Rochford is delightful.)

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Koala

John William Lewin’s 1803 drawing of “Coola and Young,” Zoologist bottle paper test strip, decant vial and tip of a eucalyptus branch.

Down Under barbershop bloke.
Zoologist went for environment rather than animalics on this one, though apparently koalas do smell like cough drops.

Opens with a big bar of masculine eucalyptus soap, and rinses down to herbal spice and vanilla mint. Within half an hour there’s a splash of smoky tea that I wish stayed longer, then it dries down to soft wood musk on the skin.

I like him, even if he’s not giving out Vegemite sammies.

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I’m old enough to remember when this first came out on the radio.

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Riva Solare

White card with Allegra collection icon of a glass Murano candy, sample spray and blue and yellow hard candy rods.

Bvlgari’s ad copy talks about sparkling citrus and the excitement of boat ride on the Mediterranean.

The bergamot on top has some nice sunny herbal lime sweetness–but it quickly ebbs to orange flower and watery musk on the skin, and completely sails away in half an hour.

For that price I was expecting a bottle of Asti and a day trip on a yacht, and instead I got a lemon lolly and a Sea-Doo run around the nearest buoy.

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This recent hit from Italy is a lot of fun.

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Snowy Owl

Zoologist card with drawing of a bird princess in a cute winter hood, sample spray and a craft feather wing to make my photo fancy.

Snowy Owl is clever and gorgeous and a little wistful–

Opens with wintry wind notes, and a weird animalic beat that really does smell like feathers (that anyone who has kept chickens would immediately recognize, and can be found in new down pillows, too) but is freshened by sugary alpine mint.
There’s a tease of spring florals, green and sharp but distant, and a vaguely earthy sweet resin that’s somehow creamy, like ice milk that hasn’t been flavored yet.
Projection is mild, but not exactly linear, with white forest floor musk shyly creeping in now and then.
Lasts most of the day, and even longer on mitten cuffs.

Recommended for ski instructors, Swan Lake dancers, and anyone else–but only when the temperature is below freezing out.

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I love this melancholy winter song–and how amazing this party must have been!

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Springtime in a Park

Replica sample card with a pink liquid filled spray, and a really tasty Bosc pear.

Springtime in a Park is supposed to replicate Shanghai 2019, but I get Car Wash 2004.

Starts out with a blast of flower lather, and then some not-quite-shrieking neon-green pear liquid soap, then blooms with bonkers loud lily-of-the-valley suds.
Bath-time is over in an hour, drying down to clean musk on the skin.

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Donna Summer had much better spring fling flair.

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Cool Water

Teal blue mini bottle of Cool Water in the icicles of my arborvitae.

Alpha evergreen rosemary and rain on top, Ray-Ban Wayfarers and herbal musk on the bottom.

Clean, mild at a distance and brash up close, Cool Water rejoices in its chemicals–the polymer sheen of a new laserdisc, NutraSweet powder, the antiseptic wetness of lubed condoms–with the late eighties zeal for cheap innovation and mass appeal.

I swiped a bottle from a pretty college boy thirty years ago (he took my Sandman comics, so I don’t feel guilty about it) and still wear it with pegged jeans and a skinny tie on soft butch days.

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I wore this cassette tape out in my Walkman–another sweet and synth number from 1988.