I had an interesting sensory experience with this.
I was at a New Year’s party, in a fantastic Barbican flat with great view over the London midnight fireworks.
The hosts had cooked a wonderful roast venison, and the air was replete with the warm, woozy smells of the Christmas period and the first few guests intermingling over wine.
And then the host’s daughter walked in and sucked the life from the room.
At first, I didn’t notice the slow changes taking place as the fragrance spread, but then I realized that I was starting to feel depressed and that, like the aluminium flakes used to soak up raincloads, something was happening to the atmosphere: a dessicating, chemical dry-out that sapped all the colours and moods and replaced them with something…horrible, artificial, almost….deadly.
I felt like I had been transported to an airtight departure gate with grey plastic chairs.
Or was it a car showroom?
I could taste it in my mouth: thin, harsh, lemonic metal; my serotonin dipping, my good mood draining from my pores…
And then I realized it was the the scent this girl was wearing; so I asked her, and she told me:
’Oh, it’s Happy, For Men.’
the graphics are so appropos to your description!
Curious, how does it compare to the original happy for women? Once worked with someone who wore happy religiously and it smelled quite lovely on her.
This is the irony. Even though I am actually allergic to Happy and it is guaranteed to give me migraines, I think the women’s one is genius, if poisonous. I wrote something about it in my Jekyll and Hyde post. You wouldn’t believe how many compliments I got from Japanese people when I wore it…
Happy For Men just tried to use the same shiny template but failed miserably. I mean I can imagine it being ok on someone in a different context, but on that evening everything smelled so organic and warm and cosy, and A PERFUME HAS NEVER BEEN MORE INAPPROPRIATE!
Absolutely brilliant! This is one of the best perfume blogs on the net. Your writing is vivid, the artwork you choose is always relevant, and there is usually something new to read every couple of days. Thank you for taking the time to do this, you have talent.
Thank you so much for saying so. I worried this one was a bit much, but I came back from a tiring day at work and had to VENT. And this perfume is, or at least on that day, was EVIL.
And really, it is very kind of you to be so generous with what you say here. It gives me quite a boost to keep going with it!
Hysterical! It was if the gloom of Mordor descended upon the happy party.
(so sorry for the nerd reference! Just saw the Hobbit!)
But some of these non-human perfumes, so annihilatingly cheerful and metallic, can really be joy-suckers, don’t you think?
Sometimes. I also find horrible scrubbers full of sweet artificial fruit equally soul-sucking.
That, or you just had an encounter with a Dementor
A bit over the top, I confess, and I apologize for the horror of the imagery. But it really did just EAT THE ATMOSPHERE AWAY
Now you’re making me kind of want to go out and smell it
Just so I can see what Mordor smells like too 
If you do you will just smell a not totally unpleasant metallic citrus (which I hate, but…) at that MOMENT it was sheer hell. As of itself, I am sure there are many worse things on the market and the effect could have been replicated with them as well!
Just like with food, the circumstances surrounding the experience can have great effect on how we perceive fragrance! And I’m positive that there are worse on the market . . . like anything with the word “sport” in it in the men’s fragrance section
Ha ha the irony of the name!LOL
I know!
Wow, hilarious post! The stuff must’ve been truly heinous! >.<
To me, yes. Do you have an equivalent horror?
Thank you for the laugh.
de nada!
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