A scented touch-up, just a touch, can be a lovely thing. With a solid perfume – little pots of concentrated unguent – you can steal a dab here and there without the full commitment of a top-to-base fragrance phantasmagoria.
These pleasing cheapies – ¥1000 or so, which I got from the Ofuna Flower Center the other day but which you can get from Ainz & Tulpe – Japan’s Sephora – aren’t complex, but they don’t need to be.
The perfumes come across as scented candies. Sweet and cute. Delightfully designed.
At home, I kept wondering what the rosy top note was in the air every time I walked into the small kitchen. Then eventually I found it was this solid- whose top had come off : it was working really well as a quite natural, eglantine air freshener. In hospital, it smells deeper, more sultry. Though hardly a masterpiece, and probably just some geranium, citronella and some form of natural rose oil in the heart (it has that otto depth) the base notes on skin are good – there, not sour – and it eventually fades away just as it should. A dot here and there in the middle of the afternoon does give you rose-tinted spectacles.
The cosmos is even better. One of the most adorable things I have ever smelled, it is as innocent as Florentine cherubic putti chewing celestial bubblegum and will probably appeal to three year old girls and old fruits like myself who love its momentary projection into a clean and sinless world of strawberry shortcake; my little ponies and freshly opened cosmos petals — a world where nothing ever gets soiled, where everything is soap bubble radiant.
On closer olfactory analysis you find it is probably rather chemical; all ‘iced pear’ and ozone and cutesy fragola – but who cares. A soft application on new pyjamas or on hair is sheer bliss after a shower, a perfect skin scent. Momentarily, you feel unblemished.
And, momentarily, we all need to feel unblemished…
Thank you for these words, this thought, this phrase – which will stay with me.
Moments are the everything and onlything standing between us and oblivion. We have only these.
Thank you, for this.
And for all of your joyous and generous sharing of “now”.
XXOO
Thank you for writing this. I do love spontaneity and trying to capture a moment in time – so what you say means a lot to me.
The osmanthus one btw is like a hardcore niche fragrance : quite suede barnyardy peach sophisticata
A very good line actually : the yuzu didn’t quite live up to its potential yuzuness but I would like to try every one
Because of industrial chemical exposure…I live vicariously through your descriptions.
This is a big revelation. If you don’t mind, I would like to hear more.
What does that mean for you on a day to day basis ?
TBH, I often don’t smell what others complain about. I can wear fragrances and not sense certain notes.
Also, taste isnt all there. I don’t enjoy food that much. I have had moments where I didn’t taste anything where I was supposed to be able to.
I believe it was from not wearing respirators when grinding metal and using chemicals.
Sorry to hear that.
I can tell you are a very dynamic person though, so am sure you have found other pleasures to compensate for these losses.