spicy

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Opium

Mini flask of Opium with a half pearl cap, gold eau and dark red lettering, sitting in a blush carnation.

Sexy Grandma.

Normally I dislike the “old lady” ageist cliche of describing vintage perfume–but my grandmother actually wore this, and damn if she wasn’t the swimsuit model at the pool in her retirement home’s brochure.

And I’m going to be that guy too, and complain that ~ThEy DoN’t MaKe It LiKe ThEy UsEd To~ but the original was much sweeter, with big banging cloves at the top sweetened by peaches and plums, and a resinous dry-down held in place with charred wood.

The 2009 version still has the carnation and myrrh at the center, but her rockin’ bottom has grown a bit soft, droopy amber patchouli and vanilla with no verve, rather than rounded out with sandalwood, cinnamon and incense.

If you need a hit of classic eighties balsamic spice, grab a vintage bottle–and pair with a pussy-bow shirt belted over culottes.

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Opium came out in 1977, the same year Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat hit the charts.

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Royal Riesling

4711 cut crystal flask with plain gold and white label, and a bunch of green grapes.

Nice green grapes at first bite, effervescent and tart, but then it suddenly turns into raisins…? Sickly sweet with awkward dusty spice.
Weird and disappointing.

Edit – 9/5/21

Sometimes I find old notebooks, snippets of things on scraps of paper, my first impressions of something distasteful or not interesting enough to write about–
Reading them later, I have to laugh at my ignorance, my arrogance, or my honesty–or the fact that I take a disappointing fragrance so personally…

But really, who wants to smell like raisins?!

4711 gold bottle cap and a stem bereft of its grapes, on notepaper scrawled with the word “why??”

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Royalty.

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Aqua Allegoria Anisia Bella

Guerlain beehive bottle and star anise.

Wore this the entire week that one crazy midsummer.
Still makes me feel hungover.

Edit – 10/12/21

Anisia Bella doesn’t make me ill anymore–I can finally drink ouzo again, too–but it’s definitely a scent for high summer.

The anise and licorice are too spicy for spring, the basil and tea too herbal for autumn. The citrus kick at the top is a lovely summer lemon seltzer, and the drydown was biscotti in another lifetime.

Nice. Leans a bit more butch fade than Teazzurra‘s fringe bob.
For more accessible options, try any incantation of the original Lolita Lempicka, or 4711’s Blood Orange & Basil.

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I played this song a lot that summer.

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Bittersweet

Black bottle with a white painted dragonfly silhouette, sitting in a bowl of chocolate chips.

(TokyoMilk No. 83 lists Cake Flour, Dark Cacao Bean, Osmanthus and Bronzed Musk.)

Big cocoa powder and apricot spice, a little musk at the bottom, but ooh, is this one rather delicious, sexy and gourmand yet a little prissy–like tea-time in the viewing boxes at a Victorian orgy.

The opening seems derivative, Angel without the wet patchouli, then settles to Hershey’s Syrup on the skin in 30 lovely minutes, with creamy florals on linen for an hour.

I’ll go through this quickly.

Edit – 1/29/2023

Yeah, I drained that bottle in a month. Not available any longer, but sometimes one can be spotted for resale.

This is the one that made me take notice of TokyoMilk Dark–and it was discontinued even back then–I think I scored mine at TJMaxx for $20. (Now they go for $150 or more.)

I’ve been going through old notebooks, and finding my scribbled thoughts on scents. I wrote about this one exactly six years ago, right after an awkward paragraph about the smell of dried kiwi (which is neither sexy or delicious.)

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A bittersweet song.