Almond nutshells and work boots.
Nest is hit or miss with me–though I love their pretty little bottles. White Sandalwood leans masculine with fresh cut wood and an earthy leathery note, and dry almonds–almost toasted, but not gourmand at all–and I like it.
A little lasts a long time–too much explodes with Hypnotic Poison strength Sharpie marker. Pair with jeans and a flannel shirt.
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Turn it up and let off some steam.
1919.
House of Guerlain, Paris France.
Nobody:
Jacques: Here’s gunpowder and blood, coffin-woods and grave-moss, because War.
Nobody: (blinks)
Jacques: And some peaches and jasmine so it’s pretty.
Wow. Guerlain’s iconic Mitsouko is goth as Hell.
Opens with the sharp tang of citrus and peaches–bright coins to pay the ferryman–but made sanguine with roses. Funeral flowers bloom, more roses and lilac and jasmine, and slowly dry to cedar box dust. At the end, embalming spices rise from the skin, and ash smoke–the powdery residue of battle–until they fade to moss and lichen on headstones.
For elegant widows, death obsessed poets and wannbe undertakers.
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This cheerful little tune is surprisingly dark–John Cale’s classic made modern by Owen Pallett.
Boreal opens with a mix of things I find comforting in the winter–gingerbread, Tiger Balm, cedar bark, and pine needles–a lot of the Santa’s Workshop vibe of Guerlain’s Winter Delice, and I’d enjoy it on woodsman types a lot.
But the greenery dies down to faint resins on the skin in less than 2 hours, and I want more. The mossy notes do perform a bit better on cotton.
I bet it would be amazing in a beard oil.
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This is a good pine.
Citrine starts with the transparent juice from canned peaches and mandarin slices, in a nice morning cocktail way, but then fades to powdery yellow flower pollen.
Benzoin at the bottom gets sticky and brings back some of the opening citrus, with the clear syrup from candied peel that bakers use–and I so wish this moment was longer and louder, there’s almost a Shalimar vibe for a second–but everything soon dries down to the Omnia sheer woods base.
Cotton holds the jasmine well, but on skin it’s all gone by noon.
I’ll try it again in the summer. Maybe I’ll like it more.
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Green grass and green tea and green coconuts and jasmine at the beginning–playful jungle notes that I like very much–but then the patchouli makes it rain, and the sweetness is lost.
Wood notes at the bottom dry it up and add some gravitas, but I wish the cocoa came through deeper, to give more weight.
There’s a lack of presence, in both scent and sillage, that I find disappointing.
The elephant in the room should fill the space, and this one doesn’t.
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This Elephant makes me happy.
This one came out in 2005 and wasn’t in production long–my mini came in a vintage lot I found online.
A pink grapefruit with lotus and woodsy musk, Addict 2 is the free-spirited big sister of Versace’s 2006 Bright Crystal.
Watermelon keeps the pomegranate lighthearted, with a hint of sweetness from lily-of-the-valley.
Sheer sandalwood holds the base close to the skin.
I do wonder about the dedication to this scent–full-sized sealed bottles are a hot auction item and can go for niche prices–it’s a bit pale and thin to me.
Eau de Star (2007) has more depth and longevity and is easier to find, if one is looking for a fresh retro watermelon.
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Pop songs and perfumes can make addiction seem fashionable but dependency shouldn’t be taken lightly.
The SAMHSA website provides a lot of info on substance abuse and recovery help.
Bright waxy McIntosh apple skin out of the vial, with boozy pipe tobacco.
Pine comes in quickly, but less evergreen and more flowering conifer–the autumn blooming trees with the dusty pollen, immortelle-ish sweet.
Linear, loud, and long-lasting, with country fair vibes.
I’d enjoy it more as a candle.
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Carnival madness with Eddie Izzard.
It does! New muslin and patterns!
Cue fitting deadline anxiety in 3…2…1…oh, fuck.
Edit – 2/22/23
I bought this ages ago in a fit of collector’s mania, and then put of trying it for years, because I was too close to the inspirational source material.
I’ve worked with vintage paper sewing patterns for ermty decades, and they have a very specific smell–and I was so afraid this wouldn’t hold up to the real thing.
Paper & Cotton lists Coriander, White Sage, Birch Wood, Tundra Moss, and manages to make a very good representation of the title.
Opens with aqvavit spiked with herbs, and laundry soap for ten minutes, then softens to sweet woods, and there it is–that delicate ecru cross between newsprint and the sheerest parchment stamped with ink, that almost smells like root beer–and hot ironing starch on plant fibers.
Dry but not powdery, long lasting, and even after 5 years years since my last show, still manages to bring on surges of dread and creativity.
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Gorgeous song.
(I too have made a dress from a table cloth.)
Orange VitaminWater with baby aspirin.
It actually works, in a marvelously flippant summery way.
(In the winter it can stick in the throat a bit.)
Sugary woods on the skin at the bottom. Doesn’t last long, so get the big bottle.
I Love Love is the most popular in Moschino’s Cheap & Chic line.
I love love the marketing–plastic fashion, quirky and affordable, color and creativity taking the place of money. A bit of a middle finger flick to the haute couture and niche houses that set the often inaccessible standards for quality.
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Some more Italian love-
Opens one orange peel shy of cleaning solvent, but soon melts into drippy tangerine popsicle, complete with wooden stick.
Fun, in a cheerful after-gym-frosty-dessert kind of way.
Lasts two hours just above the skin, then dries down to laundry.
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This Real song is also fun and sweet-
kira a. gold 