ATTAR FULL CONTINUED

(part one below )

Yes. Before so generously being bought a delicious vegetarian dinner by a complete bunch of strangers who wanted us to check out what was their authentic South Indian cuisine

(excuse the haircut : the lady at the Burmese hair salon I spontaneously went to in a mesmerizing Myanmar building we entered near the National Gallery slightly overdid it and left me basically bald)

– before all those v welcoming shenanigans, I had made a beeline for the shop at Little India where last year I had bought an exhilarating, perfect jasmine roll on. Three, actually – two of which I gave away as souvenirs and then yearned for very quickly as I used up mine in next to no time as soon as I got back to Japan.

The smell of jasmine – deep, indolic- is everywhere in this area. From cheap agarbati incense sticks to the garlands sold on street corners, the smell of the flowers has an inherent putrefaction and deep sensuality to it, but also a death transcending joy.

And yet with the cheapness, yet the quality of it I have realized just what a rip off so many niche perfumes trumpeting their jasmine sambac content are when you could just wear this very gaily instead ( I tried many different jasmines last year while here, and I tell you THIS IS THE ONE.)

In summer I am a tropical whore. Switching between – and sometimes wearing several floral intoxicants at the same time – Heeley Bubblegum Chic (now Jasmine OD)- a heady tuberose / sambac / musk number I have always liked: the marvelously morbid mothball jasmine ointment room filler that is Lush’s ingenious Lust – now one of my all time indispensables, incredible at night in the heat, along with Montale Jasmine Full, Lys Soleia, Guerlain Terracotta Le Parfum – an almost sickening, if glorious, equatorial medley of tiare and sambac and tuberose and all the rest doused in an underbath of coconut and vanilla; the best of the bunch being a very pure and beautiful soliflore Hawaiian white flower i bought in the form of a vintage bottle of Gardenia by Forever Florals, which is divine. Starts off heady, but then goes gentle, still emanating, quietly but continuously,the essence of living flowers for the rest of the day and evening.

Attar Full is like this.

The first blast : even from a non alcohol roll on, is heady AF, admittedly – Too Much; almost blindingly sweet and fresh, the petallic hysteria of seething upper indoles almost too head-dazzling to initially bear.

Within minutes, though, the beautiful hypersoliflore settles down to the most perfect, wrist-lacing jasmine skin scent; a final accord. that would be the envy of any niche outfit – the perfected sambac. And at a twentieth, or a thirtieth, of the price of most dressed up dross masquerading as temptation — of utter value. Hence the six pack. Which might not be my last….