Girl of Now

girl of now edgyWith emphasis on girl.
One to wear with pigtails and a mini-skirt.

Opens with a juicy slice of pear, and soft citrus, and as it warms, a lovely pistachio.
Orange flower water pushes through, then almond marzipan.
In half an hour it developed to syrupy tonka bean and heavy artificial amber, a foot off the wrist, and made my ears ring and my teeth hurt with how sweet it is.

The guy said it smelled like a very young girl’s perfume and made him feel a bit creepy.


Artsy

artsy edgy
Sample vial on test paper, printed with Artsy bottle with red label and Kimberly New York’s signature avi face with pinned up hair.

Marshmallow fluff–that powdered huff of air when you open a fresh bag of Jet-Puffed minis–and candied violets, the kind on wedding cakes.
Then a whiff of apples, waxy red delicious skin, that first sniff just before you bite.

Miraculously, it doesn’t do the expected caramel-amber-musk dry-down thing, it stays fresh and sugary and bright.
Ridiculously feminine, lip-gloss blown kisses last for over two hours, hovering a few inches off the wrist, then mature into woodsy sweetness on the shirt cuffs.

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Miles Davis was a painter, too, influenced by Joni Mitchell and Jean-Michel Basquiat. (Check out this article featuring some of his works.)
This song was in the soundtrack to the Basquiat movie, starring Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie.

Bluebijou

bluebijou edgyGorgeous. Violets and blueberries and dark Halloween magic. Vampires wear this stuff.

Sapphire potion water, a hint of smoke, a toast of witch booze.
Sugared black currants and leather and spruce, a soft animalic purr.
Bitter chocolate tempers the sweetness and brings out the violet leaf.

Ends with a short puff of bourbon pipe tobacco and clean velvet musk, but clings to clothes all night long,


Moody vampire songs are the best.

Pulp

pulp
Black (magnetic!) capped Byredo jar and half a pink grapefruit being suggestive in the background.

Aptly named.

A walk through the produce aisle in sexy shoes that only come in European sizes.
Byredo’s Pulp is lush fruit rind you want to press your thumb into to check for ripeness. Tart currants spill onto a heap of figs, then there’s a nuttiness, a bite of candy bar like a bawdy pick-up line, funny rather than insulting.
Drunk apples sit on the skin for several hours, waiting for elegant lipstick bites, then they fade to a woody stem.

I bought the biggest bottle I could legally take on the airplane.

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Saw her live, ages ago–so good. This one is a bit bawdy, too.

Saint Julep

saint julep
Travel spray and Imaginary Authors book packaging, with pale green decals.

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.

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It’s a bop.

Camel

Enamel camel pendant carrying decant vial, Zoologist bottle paper test cut-out, and dried rose petals.

Camel is that delicious import shop halfway down a dark alley that greets you with dried roses in enamel vases and sticky dates on brass trays when you walk in the door.

Cedar boxes of incense, the animal musk of raw silk tapestries…
The shopkeeper has smuggler’s eyes, and you laugh when he tells you there’s a djinn in the bottle but you buy it anyway because he’s so incredibly sexy.

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This whole album is amazing.

Stardust Midnight

Star Dust edgy
Licorice log candy on print of bedazzled purple and silver Lolita Lempicka apple bottle.

This was my first lesson in flankers. I’d mistakenly bought it thinking it was a back-up bottle for my LL Midnight Sun.

LL Stardust Midnight is sharper and sweeter, closer to the original Lolita.
It opens with bright hot anise and settles down to licorice candy and sugared violets, then lingers on skin and clothes and sheets with an effervescent vanilla.

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A darker Lolita:

Black Phantom

black phantom edgy
Decant vial on a printout of by Killian’s black back-labeled bottle.

Decadent yet disconcerting, like having dessert cocktails at a mortuary.
Chocolate vodka and a shot of caramel liqueur in the coffee afterward, but in the basement is sandalwood coffin sawdust, candle wax and dried flower petals.

Seductive, androgynous, macabre and delicious.

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Here’s a song as decadent, and macabre.