The subject came up in class the other day of what kind of people we naturally gravitate towards. Aside my immediate and instinctive answer : ‘those who are themselves’, I admitted that I tend to be drawn to individuals who exhibit a combination of light and dark, a what I perceive to be healthy balance between optimism and realism (pessimism if you like). I veer away intuitively from the miserable and negative because life is too short; at the same time, perpetually Pollyanna-ish Disney types make me just want to kill myself (or them): fake ass hooplah, positivity or die – too much happy glinting in the eye makes me droop like a flower in this punishing, unrelenting (but beautiful) July sunlight.
There is no danger of such beaming Estee Lauder-ish adult Barbie grin-flashing in vintage Chanel Cristalle edt. Strangely, I had been craving the dab version for some reason: everything I need to say about the sparkling crystallinity of the pristine spray editions I have already written in my original review of this beautifully chic and enigmatic creation; somehow, though, I have been wanting just to have the tiniest amount on myself – rather than just admiring it on women – and while usually, vintage non-vaporisateur perfumes can often be too drab and attenuated as the years take their toll, somehow, the very dark, chypre base in this bottle – which D must have telepathically received my desire for, as he came back home from the beach having picked up a small bottle at an old rag bag jumble shop – is perfectly melancholic, the morbid honeysuckles and citric bright jasmines of the still very hopeful main theme so very poignant. While this particular original iteration might not have the famous crispness of the newest Cristalles, what is swirling within this liquid contains so many memories of close friends who have worn it over the years that it is like being taken forcefully down a time tunnel. I almost can’t take it. That perfume can elicit such intense emotion – so much that I can’t even quite articulate it entirely – is something miraculous.
Someone asked me the other day via private email if I could recommend the perfect gardenia.
I can’t. No perfumes I have encountered smell like the actual flowers – the consensus seems to be that enfleurage solids from artisanal batches, where the living flowers’ smell is soaked into fats and oils – are the most lifelike, but I am fine with artificial approximations.
Today I wore a base of Nivea with the lovely Penhaligons Gardenia from 1976 and a spritz of the original Marc Jacobs for a fresh aquatic touch along with a freshly stolen – a Chapman trope I know – gardenia or two stowed in the wallet, the combined effect – I felt good all day I must say – not a gardenia, but very gardeniaish.
Apologies for the lack of personal response and deserts of posts generally: this is the busiest time of the year for me, I have had what I was sure was Covid but is probably a lingering bronchitis, the party took a lot out of me and also, post Hawaii, which involved a lot of preparation and toil I felt rather overexposed and perfumed out.
My actual obsession with smell, and scent, if not the constant promotion/ self promotion involved in perfume writing/blogging/ YouTubing – so fucking meaningless and tedious, sorry, I give myself permission to dismount the carousel – is genuine, abiding, and for life. As Steely Dan once said, you Can’t Buy A Thrill, but who needs to, when they are just glowering at night at you from the hedgerows ?
BO as defined by Body Odour emanating from bacteria produced in the undeodorized sweat glands of the human armpit.
Unlike the faecal/tooth decaying halitosis smell, which is 95% repulsive (think of Mouchoir de Monsieur or Jicky if you need to think again), or the largely male – quite foul actually – sweaty/pissy that afflicts so many unwashed individuals on any given day but which, while noxious, can still be oddly stimulating – at the very least fascinating –
unadulterated accumulated sweat, something I try assiduously to avoid giving off as my smell on busy summer workdays -but which I sometimes let fester at weekends – I enjoy luxuriating in the feral rankness, so unique to each individual – we smell entirely different left to roam naturally
is always shocking to experience in a public place (when this person got on the bus in either the seat directly in front of me or the one before that )
I was completely flabbergasted they hadn’t realized that their naturally broiled out aroma was filling the ENTIRE BUS.
Was it one of the youths I often see travelling home together ? ( one of my students told me yesterday that on top of lessons at school plus cram school lessons he does TWENTY FOUR HOURS a week of tennis on top, with temperatures in the low to mid thirties -no shower, just a change of clothes ( he smells immaculate )
Surely it wasn’t the woman sitting in front (not pictured; I took a picture tonight – illegal – because the idea of writing about this suddenly occurred to me ).
Whoever it was, my bodily arousal, quite intense – horror, in a way, as so OBVIOUS, but also like a dog, working out their inner workings, felt entirely inappropriate. It felt like an internal map; the person smelled healthy, well; hormonal,; sexed.
Sometimes when reading in summer I like to lie down on the futon with an aldehyde. Having almost totally forgotten about the beautiful Bleu De France boxed extrait I have left lingering somewhere at the back of a cabinet, I was very pleased to rediscover it.
Somewhere between Caleche and Arpege but more streamlined and lean/ clean satin conservative, the inkling of civet at the beginning on skin (a proportional perfection – precisely the right amount of dirt – cut through with the sheen and airline politesse of all the patinated flowers and sandalwood vetiver), Bleu De France is a rare but ebay findable classical aldehyde that I think is a little staid but also rather exquisite. I can find no information on Bernard Lalande ( on Google he is either a French politician, Catholic priest, vintner or professional mortician) but whoever he was, his immaculate floral aldehyde collectible is an invaluable exemplar of this olfactive family.
Always on the search for a good fresh green, my eyes popped out like tomatoes on the stem yesterday when I smelled Foglie di Pomodoro in Tokyo. There are not all that many convincingly crisp and sharp bracing summer eaux fraiches out there that give you the refreshing jolt you require in hot and sultry weather: Sisley’s Eau De Campagne is not what it once was – still very basilic and viney but not as complex and beautiful (nor green) as the original, Yves Saint Laurent’s Vice Versa is too hard to find, and other tomato leaf productions such as Lost March’s Feuille De Tomate Poivréeare almost too monothematically pinpointed and roughly photorealistic; don’t actually smell like tomato leaves whatsoeverDemeter Tomato) or else, like MiN New York’s Chef’s Table go too far in the culinary direction (do you actually want to smell like a walking chilled gazpacho?). The opening of this perfume, however – a mandarin- tea leaf- orange blossom coronet interlaced with freshly picked tomato leaves, green, lean and Italian simple was just so good, perfectly balanced and sense-delighting that I literally went speeding to the nearest ATM to get it even though I was going to be late for the meeting with my friends.
Strangely, my card wasn’t working in that convenience store, so I perhaps wisely decided to wait and feel the base notes before committing (you can see why I don’t allow myself a credit card). Walking in the hot city early evening, the perfume – postpandemic everything is buzzing and excitable right now and I felt happily stimulated to be surrounded by so many people – gradually receded to a pleasant musky mandarin soap that naturally did not have, even remotely, the exciting briskness of the opening – which for me is DIVINE – and which would be the main reason for buying it. Mmm. Sometimes, beggars cannot be choosers, though, and on reflection, I know deep in my tomato loving heart that I will be going back to get this delightful little scent for sure – you can’t unsmell a smell – beauty is beauty – and in certain moods and climactic conditions, I know I am going to definitely need that first hit.
Not bad : a vintage VC&A First-ish jasmine, followed by a musk-ish something, but not remotely worth the outlandish price tag.
For a similar (but much better executed and a fourth of the price ) old fashioned romantic jasmine, try Rogue Perfumery’s quite obviously superior Vetifleur.
Our big party (still recovering), Featureless Void, which we held at a club near the sea , in Yokosuka – was a blast – even if it almost ended in catastrophe when a pole detached itself from the ceiling and hit one of the performers (Belgium Solanas, above), who was sitting on the sidelines. Thankfully no one was hurt and the show went on. That aside, it was dreamy and expansive and a very good recharge for the love batteries – everyone said they felt really happy and at ease and I have kind of been basking in the glow in the week since.
Perfume-wise, it was interesting. Annoying in a way that people I have given so much scent to in the past didn’t bother to wear any (if not then, when ?!!! ). It was a VERY hot day as well, and some guests – having travelled in some cases more than two hours down south from the Tokyo area. would have benefited from a spritz or two of something nice; I concealed my own sweat stench with lashings of Gucci Envy For Men, which in the overly air conned space gingered forth from my person rather sexily, with lots of keenly inhaled compliments ( it was so good to be able to hug so many people after all this time ).
One friend smelled great in Electric Purple by Lalique : another in Diorissimo parfum. Belgium Solanas smelled incredible in two different cherry scents ; another smelled very ‘dressedup’ for the occasion in Coco Mademoiselle Intense – clean, silvery and ambery current, I am used to the more oystered edition that I consider one of my personal betes noires ( a relative in England gave herself two sprays of the original edt from what I think was a relatively old bottle when I was back home last summer and it was vile); on Sadnha the Intense version was much more sensual and iridescent.
Getting all the presents home the next two days was quite the joint-strainer : flowers, champagne, wine, home made gifts – one bag – we didn’t know who it was from at first- contained a luxuriantly presented bottle of Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet. Ordinarily I would probably just wrinkle my nose up at this as I stride past the department store counter ( wouldn’t you?) because I think I have just tended to lump all commercial perfumery into one category – it all just smells like duty free, that horrible, horrible, chemicalized ‘miasma’ as I often refer to it but then sometimes you realize that you are just being too overgeneralizing and swift-judgey.
I don’t know if it is only because it was from a friend, or because the special bottle the perfume comes in is rather appealing, but this 2023 new edition of Blooming Bouquet is actually very well done. Pretty, slightly melancholy, with rose and peony laced with peach and apricot nectar over the more familiar, lightly chypric dry down, I actually wore it on the grey skied second-day-after-the-come-down Tuesday morning in the silence of home and felt quite emotional.
While my basic perfume taste veers much more to the classical or artisan note centric / (the more singularly strange and beautiful, or else just effortlessly wearable), you also realize sometimes that even within the blockbusters there is evolution ; last year’s Eau Fraiche edition of Givenchy’s Irresistible, for instance, reached a pink floral loukhoum of paradigmatic perfection: similarly the red hot rouge edition of L’Interdit – so strong it was the only thing my mother could smell when she had Covid, and she likes it enough to wear to a family wedding next weekend, is so triumphantly all cylinders you want to applaud – none of the star perfumers were holding back when they set to work on that one.
And I think this is the point. I sometimes forget that the perfumers who are hired to make these blockbuster creations are artists at the very top of their game. Yes, they often have to work with banal scripts and limited budgets, and probably wish they could be more daring and adventurous, but they still always want to make something special that smells good- their professional integrity is on the line. So when Anne Flipo – author of some beautiful L’Artisan Parfumeur fragrances – and Carlos Benaim were brought in to work on an extrait edition of Saint Laurent’s popular lavender / patchouli vanilla Libre, which I smelled in a department store the other day, they presumably sat down for hours weeks and months in dialogue and experimentation – the much richer, and far more appealing – ginger and saffron emboldened orange blossom vibrating elixir (nothing new as such but still something of a sensual showstopper and much more interesting than the first version), the successful fruit of their labors. While I would myself usually prefer to be surrounded by more diffident and intriguing olfactory mystery – because I like to not understand everything, everywhere all at once (the basic message of the current popular prototypes), at the same time – as our party proved – some energized, upbeat and colourful fun is, occasionally, just what you need.
