Category Archives: Flowers

this morning, she shone brightly

grinding to a halt somewhat, in overdrive

The smell was immaculate. I still want it. I adore Patou 1000. And the extrait is to die for. That patchouli !

But as I enter a period of relative impoverishment, ¥5,000 right now is too much. Plus, the way the antique shop presented the flacon, leaking, like an abandoned, bandaged leprosy patient, was, I would say (wouldn’t you ?) …. a pile of tripe.

Sometimes you want gradation; development; shadows; psychology. All of which I experienced last night wearing vintage Hermes Amazone edp on the back of my hand all evening —— what a perfume. But at other times, you just want simplicity. A SMELL.

Fernanda’s Apple Mango was one of the quickest impulse buys I have ever made. I sprayed it on a sample card; started walking away and then turned right round and bought it.

This is one of those creations where everything is just right. There is a flash of apple, a few barely perceptible floral whisperings, but then a photorealistic just-picked giant mango afore your eyes, fresh, tantalicious ; morphing, eventually, into a soft and very satisfying vanilla ice cream a la mangue.

Apple Mango has been waiting a while. I actually bought this perfume at Ofuna Lumine department store last year but only debuted it properly today , not sure why. Maybe just for some fruity uplift to colour the Monday doldrums, I sprayed myself down post shower with the light, tropical ditty- a whim on a cold, white-skied- day. I then realized I needed to go into Kamakura City Hall for some unavoidable administrative tedium, but also that I was smelling like living dessert. The polite and gentlemanly employee I was assigned didn’t seem to remotely mind, though.Who knows. Maybe a brief midwinter encounter with Mango Man gave him a boost as well.

Nosferatu is a clever marketing tie-in with the same-named and fonted Robert Eggers directed vampire film currently riding high in the world’s box office. Creating what is surely the first ever ‘eau de macabre’ – although I could have done without the ‘de’ – the house of Heretic, usually focusing on all natural plant based fragrances, here veers off in far more synthetic territory in the name of fashioning a very specific olfactory apparition: a bush of wet, wilting lilacs outside Count Orlok’s castle as the centuries old nosferatu appears, blood starving in the cold, stony mists..

The results are interesting. I am still waiting for the film to come out here in Japan, as I am sure an epic goth horror of this standing will merit the proper big screen treatment, even if I am not really, in truth, a big fan of the director. I found his Big Norse Mythology Blockbuster THE NORTHMEN laugh out loud terrible; we watched half of it on the plane and were rolling in the aisles; The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe – who I can’t stand – and Robert Pattinson – nice to look at – was alright, if a little self serious with all the tiring foggy black and white; ; ; though I do have to confess that his first film, The Witch – insidious as they come – was rather brilliant : stark, laboured ( but horribly convincing – let’s not talk about the goat ) —- – … .. it was just too scary for me personally, striking obscene levels of satanic terror, in my punily palpitating heart.

Nosferatu the perfume might have a similar impact on those around you. While some talk of soft, spectral musks; heart-tugging violets, a plaintive orris concrete all set against a glistening petrichor – all I really smell is

H A L I T O S I S. I don’t know if it is the oud in the base or the indoles used to create the ‘lilac’- always a difficult note to replicate authentically : Pure Distance’s opalescent but overpoweringly soapy Opardu bears some similarities to this vampiric hallucination with its high powdered florality – but the menace of really, really bad breath being exhaled from old / / young lungs , irrefutably hangs, icily, despite the lacy filigree, ( deliberately ?) over the entire (de)composition. The spectre of worm-tongued Nosferatu himself, lord of the malignant undead, hovers stinkingly above; eager, ready, to French kiss his fevered lover.

As such, the scent is strangely effective. It is repulsive, and yet perfect (like, say, Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex which makes me want to run for the hills but is undeniably very sexy; or vintage Guerlain Mouchoir De Monsieur with its overdose of faecal civet that smells filthy yet ultra refined and horny simultaneously): there is a lightness and vulnerability to the scent; a plangency that certainly emotes – I can imagine it bewitching on younger, less contaminated skin – so hats off to Heretic for not surrendering to the tedious blood and smoke tropes you might expect from such a project. Nosferatu is original; arresting —— and genuinely strange.

For those still after a semi- gothic vibe but who do not want to smell as though they haven’t cleaned their teeth since birth — just feasting on carrion — Coeur Noir is a welcome alternative. A familiar warm patchouli melange based on a soft and powdery heart of quality labdanum and vanilla Madagascar, the more unusual element in the scent lies perhaps in the (over)application of sharp rosewood up top that lifts the petticoats out of too much fresh-bottomed talcumed complacency; and confers a certain vibrancy.

One can imagine the object of the vampire’s affections beginning the film like this : subdued, but subtly, unconsciously emanating erotica. Later, when her all consuming passion for the count takes over, I see her succumbing instead to an overdose of Tabac Rose: a devouringly sweet, thick, rich and chocolatey Bulgarian rose that really seized my attention at Yokohama Nose Shop yesterday and had me glued to the nozzle (I shall have to go back). Like all the best perfumes that inspire deep ambivalence — that intoxicating mix between hate and love, Nosferatu included,, – this fetishistically suffocating floral: : : too much, but kind of gorgeous, easing its way slightly too forcibly into the oesophagus, immediately sunk its claws right into me ….. ….. … …… … …. 。。。and I was unable to turn away.

Kamakura is currently awash with suisen – narcissus of many varieties – but the air is filled with the scent of newly flowered ume. The gardener at Hokaiji temple told me just now that the plum blossom is a little earlier than usual this year and few trees are fully out yet but it is amazing how pungent the plum is; acidulous, slightly savoury; poetically severe.. I find that the suisen sometimes take a while to properly fume the atmosphere; startled to be awake, they then, eventually, realize it is time.

I was a little disappointed in Hokaiji, one of the less well known temples just down from the Hachimangu lotus pond. I have always loved it for its rambling, ramshackle, overgrown and even disorderly entanglements – thickets of narcissi, which I was hoping to see today, but it has been overly tidied – made too kempt —a shame ( I used to refer to that particular spot as my own personal garden of eden ). The tranquil, secluded place does still have some lovely corners though

( a highly scented plum blossom tree )

( scentless camellia )

Daigyoji, nestled between municipal buildings, is a very pleasant short cut right in the middle of the city that the local residents seem to love to stroll through ; taking their time and admiring whatever flowers are in season ; here the scent of ume was particularly potent, but also chastened by the narcissus, gently floating about the perimeter