Author Archives: ginzaintherain

(Silver Walk. Rose Strang 2022)

The Perfume Papers.

GUEST POST BY ROSE STRANG

Firstly, many thanks for having me on your blog again Neil. 

During the wintry quiet months of January and February this year I decided to write, rather than paint, scenes and characters inspired by perfume. This led to a book called The Perfume Papers. Volume One – a book of short stories inspired by perfume. 

I’ll dive straight in with a painting (see Silver Walk, above), then a fragment from a short story so you’ll see what I mean …

Sýko (excerpt)

“She looked away, still smiling, as though she was still amused by something. At least she no longer cried, but she got up and walked off, picking figs from the trees and collecting them in a fold of her silk dress. She walked to an old crumbling wall in the sun and placed the figs on it, formed them into a triangle and turned to me. Then, still looking at me she held out her arm and pointed away from us, down the valley towards the sea.”

 And here, the rainy Highlands …

(Through Kintail. Rose Strang 2020)

And in words ….

Northern Star (Excerpt)

“Driving back to the village, I stopped and got my thoughts in order. How would I tell Duncan? Appropriately, the weather was dreich, the sound of water everywhere – gushing white cataracts tumbled down the rockfaces, clouds obscured the mountain tops, rain drops hung like tears in the auburn ferns. I couldn’t cry though. I didn’t know what I felt.

Nearing the cottage, there was the scent of a fresh-lit peat fire. Duncan was home. A deep breath, and in I went …”

Excerpts from The Perfume Papers. 

To explain more; these stories were created because I wanted to lose myself in imagination, as a break from painting, which is what I do as a profession, since doing something creative professionally can get really pressured. 

I took small ideas from the perfumes; snow, say, or figs. Then I played around with them in my head, letting them steep … 

Often, a character would just walk into view, fully formed! Then I wanted to see their thoughts and what they felt.

The perfumes themselves I already love, but I always wanted to write about perfume in a way that shows how emotionally meaningful it can be. My concern is that people (publishers for example) might see perfume stories as frivolous because they perhaps haven’t lived the fact that perfume can be emotionally meaningful or evocative. 

I think that anyone who reads these stories will immediately understand that perfume is a doorway into something deeper. From the inspirational spark of perfume I’m writing about love, trauma, survival, and the healing power of art, for example.

So these are universal human experiences. The perfume is the catalyst, the memory trigger or the sensory anchor.

We know how perfume works in human memory and emotion, it’s generally understood as the most primal sense, directly connected to the limbic system. A whiff of something can transport you decades back, which is neurologically profound!

When I think of the ideal reader, it might be someone like my mum, or some of my close female friends, who’ve really enjoyed these stories. I know the collection will probably appeal most to women, but my partner Adam – and some of my male friends – have equally enjoyed the stories. My concern is that the publishing world might shove them clearly into ‘women’s fiction’!

These stories are also literary fiction which happen to have a unifying thematic element (perfume). They span centuries and continents – Renaissance Italy, Mughal India, 1940s Paris, 1990s England. And they explore power, trauma, class, love, survival, beauty. Not a narrow category at all.

I’ve now written fifteen and there are many more I’d like to create. Being a bit ambitious, I’m now en route to getting them published, at which point I can release all the stories in their entirety in the form of a book.

https://substack.com/@rosestrang

In the meantime,I can’t give away too much before the stories get published, but I can show little excerpts, or fragments. Here are a few (feel free to guess the perfume 😊) …

Unbreakable (excerpt)

“One day she asked if the wall-climbing rose was thriving. Perhaps it was wrong of him, but he exaggerated its demise a little.

It had the desired effect.

First, she rose in the morning and took breakfast with them on the terrace. She was still so weak, so he was glad she took her time. Then each day she wandered slowly around the garden, examining, touching each plant. The papers wanted to speak with her, and some friends from the Resistance, but he turned them all away. This time was so fragile – she needed protection.”

A Cool Head (excerpt)

‘WHAT the actual f— Phew. Oh God!’ Mathilde emerges from a roiling sea of scarves.

Thinking ahead, Trudi has already brought down their hand luggage from overhead lockers, stored it on her lap and on the extra seat that Mathilde has booked in case she wants to stretch out (or even worse, in Trudi’s experience, invite over and chat up a random male passenger en route).

As they descend into Linz Airport, Mathilde’s hand clamours for her.

‘Oh God, bring me my, in my, my … for fuck’s sake, Trudi, get my eucalyptus oil.’”

Daffodils in the Snow (excerpt)

“Patches of snow cling to the grass verges even now. It’s almost twilight as she steps carefully across the muddy field. The wood hut beckons with its plume of smoke from the stove and firelight in the window. She hurries, worried he won’t be there because if she’s late he’ll go home. She doesn’t want that tonight since he’s the only one she’d say goodbye to.

In haste, she steps on the tiny daffodils that line the verge. Cold as it is she bends down, begins to straighten them. Aach it’s okay, they’re tough. She walks on, pushes open the wood door without knocking.”

In the Wolf’s Mouth (excerpt)

“Isabella pulls her coat tight against the icy, damp air, grateful for the plush wool that drapes warmly over her shoulders. Maybe she should stay inside her hoteltill evening, but the over-heated air in there can be so dry at this time of year – like being in a rest home. Not very poetic.

She inhales gently and deeply – breathes in a tiny snowflake … now that is poetic!

The slap of water against stone announces the arrival of her taxi. There’s no need for it really, she could walk but she wants to continue in this floating mood – if only she can avoid any dissonant encounters on these busy streets.”

~ ~ ~

And that’s it for now, there are many more! Many thanks again Neil, and thanks to everyone for reading! I’d love to know what you think here in the comments. 

Does anyone else write stories about perfumes? Maybe an anthology could be in the works?

visual artist ( https://rosestrangartworks.com/ ) 

perfume writer ( https://substack.com/@rosestrang)

The anti-foreigner sentiment in Japan is getting out of hand.

I had quite an unpleasant experience on Friday night .

Ironically, three of us had got together – ageing expats, two Brits and an American – to catch up and specifically lament the current environment in Japan where a xenophobic tinge is becoming more mainstream and palpable; the fact that so many long term non-Japanese residents of this (still fascinating) country are coming to the sobering realization that Nihon simply DOESN’T WANT THEM and never did. A point most clearly illustrated by the number of people I know who are currently being chased for back payments of the nationally mandated pension and health insurance requirements for visa extensions in the country that they thought they had been paying out of their monthly salaries, only to find that their companies had deliberately not being paying them all along, keeping them on renewable six month visas or on teaching schedules with just few enough hours in week to allow the company to think of these employees as ‘temporaries’ – and thus not eligible for the same rights as J-citizens even when they have been here for many many years. One friend has had his salary seized by the government for the next few months and is leaving in a fury; a Canadian woman I know, who loves Japan, her job as a kid’s teacher, was horrified to recently discover the true circumstances behind her working situation and is now seeking legal action with a labour bureau: childlike and innocent at heart herself – probably why her Japanese students love her so much – she has really had her eyes opened to the blatant discrimination that often lingers beneath the surface here – and is being squeezed out now with new hard-hitting legislation into the open like insidious poison.

2025 has been The Year Of The Foreigner. The government long wanted to increase the number of tourists here for sake of the economy, but 40 million of them has proven just too much (there were less than a tenth of that number annually when I first came here; the yen was stronger; the country a lot more mysterious). Japanese citizens in tourist-overrun places feel overwhelmed, exacerbated by the media who are obsessed with the topic; it becomes a vicious cycle of foreigner-obsessed sensationalism. As we were saying to each other on Friday night, to the sensitive expatriate who has absorbed and partially been absorbed into the Japanese culture, many of the foreigners who rock up here do in fact come across as oblivious elephants trampling on their surroundings, speaking too loudly, dropping litter, wearing hideously obnoxious perfumes, insensate to the people around them; not even trying to tune in – an ancient archipelago nothing but a weird and wacky playground for them to put up on Tiktok and Instagram.

On the other hand, the right wing wave of stringent nationalism means that The Foreigner now gets blamed for everything. They sit on the streets. They carve out graffiti in sacred bamboo craves. They swing like monkeys on the torii gates of shrines. They don’t take their rubbish with them (NOTE: taking your garbage home with you is a recent thing in Japan; it is not an inherent part of the culture. Yes, this is a much tidier nation than average, but THERE USED TO BE RUBBISH BINS, EVERYWHERE. On streets, especially in stations; Japanese people availed themselves of them just like anybody else from any other country. Who wouldn’t? Then they suddenly disappeared; because of the coronavirus, or because of some foreign dignitary or other requiring security protection (or just to save money)and the whole country was immediately inconvenienced. But the foreign visitor is somehow supposed to intuit in advance that there IS NOWHERE TO THROW YOUR LITTER AWAY – and it’s bullshit.

Now, authorities are starting to be a bit more realistic and pragmatic and I have been delighted to observe recycling receptacles, or gomibako, your old fashioned rubbish bins, are returning; one had popped up in Yokohama station the other day, with easy to understand instructions for foreigners! : there was also even one on the high end Omotesando shopping street in Harajuku the other day – Hallelujah!- but this is only one of the gripes of the locals, who do want the cash to prop up their ageing society, but not to have to endure the waddling sight of mouth-breathing, ruddy faced cargo pants shouting in loud voices and not being cowed and self-negating enough like the locals. They jangle the exquisite Nipponesque nerves; they ruin the atmosphere. It has all become a bit of a clash, and you can FEEL it in the air if you have the antennae I do. You start to feel a bit embarrassed and overly self-conscious in your own skin (apologies for my off-putting, rather intense green eyes!) Twitter feeds and Instagram are apparently full of gaijin hating sentiment, one Australian friend tells me, but this is also, obviously, part of a more general veering in that direction worldwide. People in general, in all countries, tend to get whipped up by the crowds and the prevailing winds; the whole world is obsessed with immigration right now and I get it; it is a complicated topic. Humans are ethnocentric and want to preserve their original culture; change is frightening. Almost overnight a couple of years ago it seemed that anyone working in a Japanese convenience store was Nepalese or Vietnamese – for an island nation famous for its centuries of isolation from the world, a sense of’uniqueness’ and apartness that is part of the country’s DNA now, I can understand that this has taken some getting used to; I understand also how the locals in Kamakura feel now that they can’t even get on their local Enoden train line there are so many jostling tourists licking green tea ice creams on their way to take selfies in front of the Great Buddha. The country needs the immigrants to fill the jobs that either nobody wants or there are not physically enough people to do them, but the demographic change makes them uneasy. The economy does need tourism; but the logistics of this ‘invasion’ have none been properly thought through and neither has the cultural impact (Kyoto is ruined, I would never go there as things are now, and hopefully Kamakura is not going that way entirely – at night it returns to its ancient zen capital atmosphere to an extent – thankfully the tourists don’t realize this – although the station does sometimes feel more like Shinjuku on a Friday afternoon with all the throngs and the loud tannoy announcements in English, Korean and Mandarin in a tone that is too declamatory and urgent; the serenity, secluded, and quiet peculiarity of Kamakura has definitely been partly shattered.)

Friday night, we old timers had had a great time at the marvellous Saizeriya two stations up from there in the direction of Tokyo – Ōfuna- at the cheapest restaurant imaginable, something of a national institution here that everybody in Japan likes, from young to old; tasty Italian at mindbogglingly low prices, busy but somehow cozy; I stayed talking and eating and drinking the ridiculously cheap wine until it was time for me to queue up to get the last bus. In truth, I was happy to go alone and decompress in the cold air for a while, but my friends insisted they join me in order to continue the conversation (and thank god they did), including Liverpool Neil’s Japanese girlfriend Mai who had arrived a bit later on. My left leg is still quite swollen, and was very painful on that day (sometimes I overdo the walking and pay the price as a result) so it is necessary for me to get to the front of the line, put my bag there, and sit in the cold for the twenty or thirty minutes until the last one comes to ensure that I get a seat.. The buses in this area used to come much more frequently, but with the population decreases the country continues to suffer from, the bus companies have been shedding services left right and centre in order to maximize profits; the last one is now more packed than Noah’s ark, and if possible, I usually avoid it like the plague or at least get on first so I can sit on the back seat on the left, next to the window, and pretend there is nobody there .

There was a man on the bench. Drunk; in his forties; bearded; wild. He was spread across it, asleep. We had had a few ourselves, so although I should probably have been more wary of disturbing someone who was obviously behaving antisocially, at that moment in time I had no compunction in asking him to budge up a bit so I could sit. I expected him to just be affable. As would usually be the case.

Upon being roused from his stupor, however, and realizing that a foreigner had had the audacity to ask a holy JAPANESE person to move, when he was having a nice sleep, and a foreigner with a FAKE WALKING STICK TO BOOT; IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT IT WAS A SCAM, WASN’T IT..; THAT I JUST WANTED TO BE ABLE TO SIT DOWN ON THE BUS, wasn’t it, AND THAT THERE WAS ACTUALLY NOTHING WRONG WITH MY LEG AT ALL, IT WAS A LIE, wasn’t it; —-how DARE such a sneaky foreign invader demand that he not take up the very bench made for the precise purpose I was using it for; how dare how dare – and he was getting angrier and angrier, a very physically powerful man who was beginning to terrify Mai, wide-eyed and petite as a sparrow, and me, in a very physically vulnerable position on the bench as he stood up and started bellowing like a minotaur (and where the hell were the other two? Why were they taking so long at the convenience store? It felt like an eternity………..we really needed some backup).

Within a few minutes the situation was becoming untenable. He was getting more and more aggressive, and simply wouldn’t have it that I have in fact had THREE operations on this leg now; he refused to believe anything of what we were telling him even when I mentioned the specifics of the operations and the hospitals in question, not that I should have had to do that in the first place, ASSHOLE! – but just to calm him down; it all just felt like a matter of time before something violent occurred; at which very serendipitous moment a woman in her thirties crossed hastily over the busy street, asked if we were ok, and intervened magnificently on our behalf. M whispered some things to her about the situation, I explained to her what was happening as she looked me in the eye and understood, and then she went to work on mollifying him as best as she possibly could, standing there patiently trying to defuse the situation; cleverly understanding and entering his racist, blasted mind and trying to placate him, although I was also starting to get riled up now at the sheer injustice of the situation, which, admittedly, caused a few F Us to start issuing from mine own lips (can’t take the hooligan out of a Brummie); it was then quickly decided I had better get into a taxi instead of trying to stubbornly get the bus after all (the whole point of this had been to try and save money by NOT having to pay for one), but it felt very dangerous now and there was no other option. Neil and Drew finally made their way back to us just at the last minute as I gave them a hug, and I was sped off in the taxi, breathless with what had just happened. Looking out at the scene from the car window, I saw three sturdy police officers approaching the bus stop in firm haste, summoned to deal with the xenophobic maniac that had been terrorizing all those around him, and, drama-queen yearnings to get in there and tell them what was what (yeah, good luck with that, because the police are obviously going to listen to the foreigner) notwithstanding, I was glad I had been able to avoid all the bureaucratic hassle and also remain unmaimed. Mai had been filming some of this on her smartphone, as I am sure had some of the bystanders waiting for the bus just in case things got truly hairy or I was being beaten to a pulp; they looked very alarmed by what was transpiring – ‘LOOK! SEE! HE CAN WALK! IT’S ALL BULLSHIT! I TOLD YOU! ‘ – the man shouted out self righteously as I stood up and walked away like Lazarus (it is true, I can walk, and my gait is normal, thank goodness and I am hardly a wizened Methuselah myself ).

With this unnerving experience, I had an inkling for the first time in my life I think, of what it must be like for people who are lynched for false crimes, when the impetus for the accusations is nothing other than simple racial hatred and bigotry. That sense of UTTER WRONGNESS – someone verbally attacking me for faking my knee problems when I have had the year that I have; the exasperation of not being able to change a bigot’s fixed state of mind; and I think if the situation had not been de-escalated by that kind Samaritan, he might even have attacked my physically because that was the energy that everything was building up to – imagine if he had kicked my leg and actually broken it in this situation, it could have been really horrendous ! ……………….it all made me understand, for a moment, the sheer hopelessness a person can feel from being accused of something that is totally unfounded and merely founded upon the basest and most disgusting discrimination. If I had been Japanese with a cane, there would have been no problem. But because I was a foreigner, and because this man has probably been influenced by the general mood in the country right now and the media and the Internet that foreigners are no good, my walking stick was a fraud. Fake News (thanks, Donald, for that contribution to human culture). It was obvious! For him, it was a simple as that. I was a Bad Foreigner.

Yes. If it hadn’t been for that kind, quick thinking and open-minded Japanese woman who crossed the street without a second thought, an empathetic and quick reacting person who could have just ignored the situation like all the other cowards int the bus queue did, and who was undoubtedly held up in hassle-heavy police questioning for a long time afterwards as they arrested or questioned the man and wrote up a report ; her evening impacted in who knows what unforeseen ways: and also my ultrasensitive Japanese friend who also did her absolute best to contain the situation, I am not quite sure what might have transpired. Sometimes, people really do step up (I am really no saint, but I do stand up for people in similar situations- I have, defended women against angry drunken men who sometimes get scarily violent in Ofuna night frenzies, once even having to make a statement at the local police station); not everyone is a monged out zombie; some, thinking and feeling people actually do look up from their smartphones and self absorption on occasion, and notice what is happening to other people around them. A tired looking woman, miraculously, gave me her seat on a crowded train the other day when I really did need it — though she, very obviously, needed it as well- she looked exhausted. But at that very moment, she had noticed me with my stick in the crowd, and needed the seat at that particular moment in time more than she did. Sometimes, strangers really do have enough empathy to forget themselves for a moment and not think of a person in need as just a foreigner, or an immigrant; or a liar, or a fraud.

Their purer instincts are just to help.

Citruses are usually destined for summer – for obvious reasons. But sometimes, an aromatic lemon scent with chypric undertones – think Annick Goutal Eau Du Sud, the original Eau De Rochas, can be bewitching in Autumn and Winter. They become not mere sweat reductors — but sing more silverily on the air; purer: a more wrenching suaveness of melancholy.

I was delighted the other day to get a message from my old friend Peter who has been sojourning in Rome for ten days, revisiting our old haunts and immersing himself in the art, churches, and magnanimous atmosfera.

At the Choistro Del Bramante exhibition bookshop, he came across some copies (with the original gold-leaved pages!) of the Italian, now out of print, version of my book Perfume — and has just very kindly sent me a copy.

The whole package was scented with Acqua Viva, which at first I confused with the similar Goutal (in fact I don’t think I have ever smelled this one before; I associate Profumum more with its thick, luxurious tooth melting confectioneries such as Battito D’Ali, Gioiosa, Confetto and the like; any other favourites from this velvety decadent profumeria?)

This citrus couldn’t be further from that style, though : Amalfi lemons form the main frame, but there is a mossier, darker element from the cedarwood and cypress undertones; a certain adult sternness. I can easily imagine Peter wandering around the ruins in this : he always wore the aromatics well at university : scents such as Aramis Devin that were quietly enigmatic.

Acqua Viva must have smelled beautiful in the yellowing, auburn and russet trees of Ancient Rome, the quiet somnolence of St Paul’s pyramid; the indolent, strolling cats at my favourite place in the city; John Keats’ grave at foreigners’ cemetery, Testaccio.

We had a great ‘birthday weekend’ in Atami. I was supposed to be in surgery again for the Main Event – yegadz I hear ye cry : how can he STAND it : exactiy ) :: so we came two and a half weeks early; the very day the same as Britney Spears’ and the death of the Marquis De Sade.

I just wasn’t ready, after being mauled by the scalpel twice already this year, so am going for the final chop in January instead.

We stayed in our favourite hotel, whose room resembles a lighthouse and where all the senses can breathe.

We went to familiar places and restaurants, but also to new haunts, including the Trick Art Museum high up on the mountain by Atami Castle: I haven’t had such childlike, silly and innocent fun in a very long time.

Perfume : d was wearing Electimuss Puritas; I Hermes Vetiver Tonka.

We were also road testing Puredistance’s releases from this year – Divanche and Ysayo – both very good – reviews to follow, and both enjoying a step away ( though the crowds, this time domestic tourists rather than the foreign hordes in Kamakura ) were slightly stupendous.

Cheers.

Sometimes I have rose cravings. And those cravings are not satisfied by the spicy rose chypres of the 80’s nor by the powdery Guerlains that are replete in my collection – Nahéma is very beautiful but it suits a very particular fragile and vulnerable state with its peachy talcum and that is not what I am thinking of right now.

There are a hundred million prissy artificial rose perfumes out there in the mid-price ranges of department stores that sicken me: the contemporary rose tends to induce a lurch in the stomach. Certain chemicals – I don’t know what they are – pins in the head that I imagine are supposed a represent a ‘contemporary virginality and chaste put-togetherness ‘ – are supremely offputting to me – although I realize I am not the intended candidate in the first place, nor the mouthbreathing pursuants of such insipid individals.

There are an equal number of rose ouds around. I like some of them, but it depends on the oud; the quality, the naturalness, the ratio of the formula. So many have that note in the base, that inescapable black vinous cypriol – or ‘nagarmotha’ if you want it to sound more exotic – that even if you paid me I could never wear them.

But I don’t mind a bit of oud in a scent every once in a while. Particularly if it is the gentler, richer, barnyardy kind (as in Cartier’s lovely Oud & Pink, which you can read about here, along with L’Heure Osée and Pure Rose – one of the better rose trio variegations of recent times) There is also some oud, in the base accord of Dusita La Douceur De Siam, the modern rose I wear the most but which I cannot rely on exclusively. There is certainly too much oud in Electimuss Octavian, a classic saffron heavy Arabia-ish ‘oriental’ I have a strange affiliation with, and I do sometimes suffer a little in the later stages as a result of this if it is not the right day for that muddier plasticene, but the opening of Octavian is sublime: a really high quality rose oil with pink pepper and what smells like raspberries – it is a very haunting accord, and – drat! – I have almost got through my samples now. I enjoy wearing this when I want to feel anchored and a bit heavier in the bones :it has got past my defences, It is also very expensive at 500 dollars, and comes in the most unattractive bottle; my visual brain cannot handle the Trumpian eagle insignia set against that light copper topper – and I would have to hide it away out of sight even if I were lucky enough to obtain it: not the ideal reaction when you shelve out for a luxury product….surely you want the whole package, not to shame it away like Jayne Eyre’s lover’s aunt in the dusting attic?

A nice rose I have in my collection, but which I had forgotten about until just now – a travel sized bottle from a Collection Noire gift set I received once during my brief stint at Vogue Japan – is Serge Lutens’ La Fille De Berlin.

Why have I failed to wear – or write about – this more? It is jammy, syrupy; rich red rosey, soft with geranium and palmarosa, and it works. It caresses. The base of Fille De Berlin is a warm, musky honey and patchouli, but subtly done. The red tint of the perfume is also gorgeous ; hue-tastic. I am wearing it now. And I like it. But why…….. does it ultimately bore me? (it always did, from the first time I smelled it in Shinjuku Isetan, overly excited.). It’s just…… so….nice. Which sometimes I want. A wrist of nicety with a slightly traditionalist edge.; a cosey rose. But somehow, La Fille De Berlin is just a little too fuzzy and drab about the edges, lacking any bite (and I think it has too much Body Shoppish White Musk, ultimately) even if I may still wear it when I go out for lunch with a friend on Sunday in Motomachi, the chichier part of Yokohama where a waft of such an odour will not go amiss. Perhaps with an added touch of Rose Trocadero by Le Jardin Retrouvé on top? This rose goes perhaps too much the other way; an acidulousness of rose morning fresh-hood that almost strains credulity with its photo realistic I AM A ROSE!! desperation, but which still makes for quite a pleasant rose spritz. It makes me want to own again a bottle of the original Annick Goutal Rose Absolue, which was more genuinely heavenly dewy. (You can read about Rose Trocadero here, along with reviews of Mona D’Orio’s Rose étoile D’Hollande and Ormonde Jayne’s Rose Taif Elixir if you want to continue to rose up your day now that the Halloween pumpkins have been put aside).

Tom Ford has a few roses up his tight-muscled sleeves: I quite like Cafe Rose and Rose Prick is alright, but like so many of this house’s releases with their ‘shocking’ names, the juice inside the bouteille often does not match the lascivious projection of the fragrance’s title. ‘Rose Exposed’ is another such item : perfectly fine, a peppery rose oil and rose water opening that was moderately exciting, but ceding quickly to a leatherish /oudish / cashmeran base that belies a fundamental lack of concerted creativity and immediately dulls the senses. What is being exposed here exactly? The project manager’s cowardice?

This is the thing with Names With Claims: Lancôme’s new Forbidden Rose also does not really live up to its name – if you are going to call something that at least give it even a minimal shock of the new- but it is a pleasingly fruity rich rose / fig / amber and earthy patchouli that took me nearly back to my beloved L’ Artisan Parfumeur Voleur De Roses – which wasn’t even called ‘niche ‘perfume when I wore it back in the early nineties – and was my favourite of the large rose selection the house now has at department stores available for your gullible, rosaceous delectation (Rose On The Moon; Hot As Rose; Hell Of A Rose; Not Your Rose; Storm And Roses; I Flamed A Rose (what?); most of these are worth a sniff if you are in the market for a new fresh rose, although Rose Or Die, my second preferred of the roses from this overpriced collection, is a green tea rose and doesn’t quite merit its melodramatic name; suggesting nothing about the kind of passion that would require any form of killing, or throwing yourself from the trellis onto the spiky white garden fence with a pair of rose shears protruding from your gullet because your hybrids for 2025 hadn’t quite bloomed as you’d been hoping).

Of course, despite the vague disappointment we all experience when a fragrance doesn’t live up to its hype, I am not averse to a touch of melodrama, as anyone who reads the Black Narcissus will attest. And I almost miss the verbal garbage , the lavish verbiage – that used to come with each new Serge Lutens release, when pretentious-beyond-endurance mystical ‘poetry’ was given instead of detailed note listings and you had no idea what the hell he was trying to say (though you liked the underlying suggestivity of this rubbish anyway because you were a perfume freak and were lured into bullshit about phoenixes rising from the ashes and the like). As a result, the current releases, both in descriptors and in execution, do seem rather tame in comparison with the past, when the perfumes were so much more potent (can anyone forget how tart and full bodied, green and acidic the original formula of Sa Majesté La Rose was? It was so bitter and twisted! A startling entry into the perfume market at that period of time unlike anything I had ever smelled before or since, and it is a shame it has become the wan attenuation it once was (you can read my original review of that perfume here in an old article, ‘Some Roses For Winter’, which features some other all time rose classics and personal favourites, such as Caron Rose, Creed’s Fleurs De Bulgarie, Maison Parfumeur et Gantier Rose Opulente, Sisley Soir De Lune; – in fact, if you type in ‘rose’ at the top of this page in the enquiry space it is surprising how many reviews of rose perfumes do come up that I have written over the years. Do I really like the scent of this flower this much? I think I probably do… ).

But I was supposed to be discussing the contemporary rose. And although other reviewers describe La Fille De Tour De Fer (‘the girl in the iron tower’? hardly) as a tad dull and inferior – simplistic – to the Lutensian rose precursors, I happen to personally disagree: this was the only perfume I smelled the other day at Yokohama Takashimaya that I thought, ooh — maybe, maybe I can get this as a birthday or Christmas present or sneak myself a treat on pay day – the 50ml was not too extravagantly priced and I felt that want want want feeling that I haven’t had for quite a long time with a recentish perfume. What I don’t like about it, just to nickpick – is the colour – why not that deep bloody red of La Fille De Berlin, which would make the perfume so much more irresistible (even drinkable) ? Why this pale tedious lavender purple more suited to a bathroom cleaner when the main ingredients, very prominent, and very lovely, are the immediately recognizable essences of Bulgarian and Turkish roses that both stimulate and mollify the heart? I love the natural oils that perfumer Christopher Sheldrake has chosen for this scent, but it seems odd to have coloured them in this way. Was this tint chosen to represent the iris at the centre, or the metallic edge that is said to come later in the dry down? I don’t know. But though I do get a strange kind of anti-synaesthesia from the colour/smell amalgam, I want this in any case. A rose dab, simple, fresh, deep, real – voluptuous- can sometimes be exactly what the doctor ordered.

I experienced a severe case of SRHG (Sudden Rapid Hair Growth) on the morning of Halloween and by evening had bleached and frizzed it into a nice Boy George meets Hanoi Rocks’ Michael Monroe.

It was a freezing rainstorm but it suited some Halloween cosiness. After some mulled wine – over Dario Argento soundtracks and some mariachi musica – perhaps a little too heavy on the cinnamon and cloves – it was almost mouth-numbing – we headed out getting soaked to the local bar one minute away.

A perfect bottle of vintage Poison had been sprayed on copiously before we entered the premises, the perfume by far the most frightening thing happening. It got passed round by everyone and multiple further spritzes were executed to the point of asphyxiation

Kunihiko – right – liked it best but then he always likes sweet heady perfumes – and the musky, purpled fleurs du mal – all plum and pimiento and vanillically addled tuberoses was a general hit – in many ways it is a work of genius, though in truth I am getting a little tired of it now as Burning Bush’s signature – maybe next time it will wear Shiseido’s Enchanting Rhinestone. What perfumes did you wear for Halloween ?

Peppermint is essential. Where would toothpaste be without it ? ( hello spearmint ).

The best toilet cleaner in Japan was a simple mint that smelled lovely and did the trick. It has been gone for the shelves for about half a year. I smelled a tres pepperminty spray in the ‘restroom’ of the rehabilitation centre yesterday that was so good I spritzed a little extra in the air so that a few blessed droplets would alight on my person – I wanted to ask the receptionist where they got it — I still might.

At the big convenience store today I saw that the one I always use – there are guests coming round tonight for a mini halloweenish shindig – that the Mint Thing was back, so I bought a big bag of it

But bleurrgjh

—– are we now at the point where toilet cleaners are also getting reformulated ?

I cleaned and applied … but Big Bird Of Legoland this smells like vomit in a 90’s nightclub. I am genuinely embarrassed those coming tonight for a bit of costuming and records and a quick trip to the izakaya one minute away might think I wanted the toilet to smell like this.

Mint is good for you. And cheap.

so Why would they take that essential ingredient out of the mix. Is there some kind of IFRA ((JIFRA?)) edict on the mint species ?

This is vile.

I gasped in the Chinese eatery post-physio when D suddenly produced a plastic bag full o scent he had picked up for ten dollars : a sealed Mitsouko parfum; the most beautiful bottle of Bal A Versailles cologne ; a Tuscany per Donna – when you run out of Samsara it makes a pretty good substitute ! and a leaked Guy Laroche Fidji parfum which is assailing my senses alluringly like a Parisian Tahitian siren — but it was this unheard of perfume, with the cretinously chosen title ‘Enchanting Dance’ that has most captured my diamond shaped heart.

Ooh missi. This is a straight rip-off of Ungaro Diva – but possibly improved. A classic 80’s spiced rosa all’italiana – eBay tells me it can go from the extortionate to the very affordable – but for anyone who still loves that genre as I do, mama mia this ticks all the boxes.

Thanks D – your name is even written on the carton !

Shiseido’s Tsubaki range, which I would say is one of the National Fragrances Of Japan – red and floral camellia with a lustrous green apple top accord, I am greeted with its familiar scent on students, their mothers; friends, is now a firmly entrenched mega hit. I find it very pleasing when a person’s conditioner infuses their hair after drying and becomes their Perfume (: a stinking, greasy scalp pit is the opposite, meriting swift decapitation with the shiniest samurai sword) but thankfully, most people wash their everyday in this country and Tsubaki; not cheap, it is a popular prestige Shiseido product after all – is among the most ubiquitous.

Sadly, Tsubaki is the worst possible shampoo for my wispier Caucasian hair ( Japanese barbers and hair stylists often use thinning scissors for their J clients, the follicles so thick and bountiful they are like gardeners chasing topiaries with secaturs) and I need all the strands I can keep at this age, so although it is quite easy to simply ask to not be trimmed with the scissors in question , i usually trim one’s barnet by oneself rather than come out the hairdressers looking a fluffed up chemo-gosling dredged through the hedge backwards.

The right shampoo can maintain things nicely – the cheap camellia shampoo you see on the right side of the photograph above my hair wash of choice now. Floral fresh but not too perfumed, it leaves just the right balance of lightness and moisture and does not overly interfere with my scent choices.

A few weeks ago when d was out on yet another of my demanding cycle out shopping lists – I am determined to do this myself very soon but am still trying to strike the right balance between the right level of exercise and not overdoing it- HE MIXED UP THE DARNED CAMELLIAS ( is it time to head to the divorce courts ? ) and I learned again, firsthand, how important it is to get this right

I knew the Shiseido wasn’t suitable for my particular needs, having bought it and rejected it in the past, but I don’t want to keep being the shrieking harpy every time he gets an ‘order wrong’ — he is doing enough for me as it is….., but lordy : this deep oleaginous formula suited perfectly to the indigenous hair perhaps but so not to my own not only felt deeply vaselinic, but also made it look as if I had placed a beef tallow dipped toupee on the front of my head and actually committed follicide. I swear I have lost quite a lot of hair from just the three or four times I tried using it – they just kind of … fell out. This may suit the tens of millions of individuals who use it across the archipelago, but I shall henceforth be avoiding Shiseido Tsubaki like the plague.

The wrong champù can not only make you look like Wurzel Gummidge but also smell quite offputting (I always find the Luxes and Pantènes a little too sofa showroom in their creamy white pongs; the Timoteis a little too artificially green meadow frolicking; my sister’s Aussie Moist too squealing of sour strawberries; so many others too mariney or toilet ducky or sports locker roomy: unperfumed ones smell of hippified flax sheep; the Vosenes and other medicateds like rough toilet rolls and moustachioed military majors ,and so on and so forth. Japan has just as many overly perfumed wrong’uns: women here really do fragrance themselves primarily with their hair products and many do smell sublime as they sashay past – they are just not for me. I am pleased, therefore, that the one I know I do like – clearly a blatant Shiseido rip-off in concept, just without the cormorant-caught-in-an-oil-slick tanker disaster – is, at ¥150, the very cheapest shampoo on the market.