The Black Narcissus

I first ‘crossed over’ in 1996. Until that time, I had stupidly internalized the ‘For Him’ ‘For Her’ regulations as though they were an eternal order of the universe.

Coming across a $10 bottle of Herrera For Men the other day in its original polka dot packaging in a thrift shop in Tokyo (the current packaging, and ‘juice’, have been dulled down for the pathetically insecure bro-culture of our times (“Man, the PROJECTION on this thing, the M A S C U L I N I TY, man, this is a real, motherfuckin PANTY/DROPPER, MAN) … Seeing it again, I couldn’t resist buying it for the sake of pure nostalgia.

As Emma will attest, I really did tend to overspray this thing. A discovery in my last year of university, it is what I wore to the Trinity Ball – all tuxed and young slender handsome on the arm of my escort for the evening, looking lovely and wearing, I would imagine, either Cristalle, Jardins De Bagatelle, Jil Sander 4 or possibly – but unlikely for a summer ball as it was always more of an autumnal affair , Guerlain Vetiver.

It was also the first evening that D and I were veering seriously close to getting together ( we almost kissed on the top of the marquee to Madonna’s Vogue). His date for the night was Claire, and I think both she and Emma were getting a bit miffed that our attentions were periscoping elsewhere – we were all off our TROLLIES with champagne and whiskey at the balls – these extravagant, decadent, black tie indulgences thrown in the exquisite gardens next to the river in Cambridge were insanely boozy : did E throw up at one point, possibly because of the bubbles – or was it – more likely – because I was killing her softly with my recently purchased Carolina Herrera ?

What I re-realized upon smelling my new acquisition of this original formulation of what was a pleasant evolution in the stultery of outdated manhood at the time – you were still supposed to be wearing your sweating, hairy testes on your sleeve in the seventies and eighties to a pitiful and laughable extent – was that all through my adolescence, and early twenties, almost all of the ‘pour hommes’ that I wore ceaselessly only generally appealed to me in their top notes; the fuzzily generic male domination of the bases of the majority of the andro-aggressives either boring me to tears, or else making me me downright angry.

The most unforgivable perpetrators for me at the time were the ash-breathed, hernial Terminators with their stagheads hammered mercilessly into the walls of their dartboards —- Tsar, Dunhill Edition, YSL Jazz … just don’t get me started. In the same vein that I would yell and leave the room if Charleton Heston ever appeared on the television screen (teenagers!) – these admittedly well-crafted- but nigglingly invasive and overly winkily sock-down-chino atrocities —- you could practically file sexual assault charges the moment a male in such ‘aftershave’ elbowed his way into the room —- would never fail the just grate on me furiously. I didn’t, at that point, understand how perfume was constructed, nor knew what any of the notes were -none of us did at that time; fragrance was more mysterious – you gravitated towards the mysterious imagery that was selling the flacon to you, the mood that the perfume evoked, and were either then drawn to the perfume or you were not (hence the sheer joy of hanging around the perfume counters of department stores as an adolescent and ‘finding yourself’ there among the covetable and nose/beckoning Aladdin’s caves of touted and polished designer perfumes).- The new wave of Sylvester Stallones and Bruce Willises that were proliferating around that time, though – too rigid and conservative – were seriously not doing it for me one iota.

In contrast, though I would inevitably be dulled and disappointed by the base notes of most masculines – hence my ridiculous propensity to constantly reapply the fresher top notes that I did like before they faded:: Herrera, for example, has a pleasing tobacco/ clove/ citrus/ lavender opening accord that although rather sweet (simultaneously part of its appeal; we were already in Joop! territory and the times they were a changing ) – gave off a feeling of smoother edges, more fluid definitions, and a certain, undeniable New Nineties optimism. Similarly, , I grew close to other scents for men at the time with their new tingling top moments : Eternity For Men; Fahrenheit – and later Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme – though I never truly loved them in their entirety.

THE EXCEPTIONS

While I loathed the entire Jazz-posse with a jock-hating intensity I am sure regular readers of the Mad Narcissus can readily conjure, this doesn’t mean I was unable to appreciate other masculine classics, either on others who might wear them perfectly, or even with some degree of success actually on myself.

An example would be the wonderful Armani Pour Homme (1984) that I wore for many years, always frustrated by the unreachably enigmatic base that was nevertheless gentle-spiced-mossy enough not to get in the way of the to-die-for Italian lime-mandarin top; I flirted with other Italiano also : Fendi Uomo seduced me up to a point with its spiced Roman charms to get me through a couple of bottles or more – though the castoreum in the base, a little too prominent among the hidden vanilla – always put me off: leather is always slightly precarious for me. Krizia Uomo was also fascinating, an odd coniferous jasmine with soapy facets that is very unique and enjoyable for a few hours until, again, the nose aforementioned ball sacks come swinging back in your face.

THE BEGINNINGS

My first ever scent purchase was Xeryus; a glinty, Givenchyan polished onyxness I adored in its first impressions (and girls would coo and sniff me in the school corridors when I was sixteen so I knew I was definitely onto something)- but of course, as it ‘wore off’, the typical fougere base of the era just bored me to death. Eau Sauvage was magnificent – I couldn’t get over it when I first discovered it, the implacable, limpid freshness with its almost Greek mythical timelessness — but it never, at the end of the day entirely suited me — no Dior ever has —-my dad wore it much better – and I finally just came to the conclusion that I would have to admire it from afar.

THE CONFUSION

Today, aside my ascribed physio, I have nothing to do in reality but lie on my hospital bed and wax lyrical – it is raining outside as we speak in Yokohama – so if you don’t mind too much , do let me dig further into this frivolous, over analytical ephemera just to while away a few more hours.

IN THE GENES

I think the budding young homosexual male sees other males as both the same, and the ‘opposite’ sex. The same goes for females. They have different bodies, which you are not really turned on by, but are often much easier to get along with and relate to – perhaps, I don’t know because (controversially!) you have something of a female brain yourself. Or something in between. I’m not sure. I know I find much of the current gender identity politics extraordinarily tedious – I am just Neil Chapman and don’t need any of your labels ; if I want to smell like a gimp in a sex dungeon with the sweatiest male armpits that ever lived then I will spray on my Ungaro Pour Homme – so horny and masculine fougere-y it veers into the bulging erectile territory of Tom Of Finland —- and really enjoy it; if, instead, I want to snuggle up with the maternal yearnings of immaculately executed ultra-femininity, I will dab my ivory wrists with Nina by Nina Ricci or Detchema by Revillon or More by Shiseido or even some Chanel No 5 and feel no psychological contradiction by being able to enjoy either or.

Back as a teenager, though, trapped very, very, painfully in the closet – for ten years !- ! there was no way on earth I was going to be treading the boards of an evening in my mother’s Oscar De La Renta, Ysatis, Rive Gauche, or any other of the countless other beauties that were displayed on her bed dresser at 51 Dovehouse Lane (No 19! In the original grey and silver spray flacon! my god – how divine and intellectually interesting did it smell in comparison to heinous fucking Jazz !!). I would wear them surreptitiously on the back of my hand, of course, so as not to be noticed – but the idea of wearing any out in public with my friends or anyone else was impossible – the fear of being ‘outed’ just too deep rooted to take any olfactory chances.

So, while I would swoon over my classmates’ Anais Anais, Chloe, Poison, Beautiful – and especially Loulou – which I knew was clottedly camp and sweet and heavily tropical and Battenburg almondy but adored anyway…. Despite my aesthetic and sensual appreciation of them, these were still, at the end of the day, Perfumes Of The Other ; femme-tastic creations that made me fall head over heels with the art of the perfume, but which were dogmatically held from my own teenage reach by the great Chromosome Divide.

At the other end of the spectrum, the elegant masculines – which nobody in my school was sophisticated to wear themselves, but which I soon became very acquainted with from all my mooching in Beatties and Rackhams department stores -and other places ; icons such as Antaeus, Gucci Nobile, even Drakkar Noir, also presented themselves as the MASCULINE Other: distant, self-assured; dismissively erotic.

THE ANOMALIES

While the great majority of the For Men pantheon was not for me, there were, of course, some notable exceptions to the ‘rules’ ( I do love a good contradiction ); male perfumes – classics of the canon – I would enjoy wearing from start, to finish, in their entirety .

CHANEL POUR MONSIEUR … in the vintage apres rasage; … I could well up with tears just thinking about the original version of the … the fleeting, but slightly oleaginous citrus veil tapered over a light, almost powder chypre base was the beginning of my life-long love affair with the aldehydic chypre – Ma Griffe, Antilope, Mitsouko all of them : smelled like an invincible young deity in this perfume and got through countless bottles

KOUROS

Kouros ..

Ah, what to say about Kouros….

So many people wore this one; the girls in my class having affairs with much older men or the teachers would rave randily about how horny this Yves Saint Laurent made them; the oranged spice, the feral, musky piss of it all

Kouros is interestingly the only fragrance all three of the male Chapmans wear. Both my father wear or have worn it but I personally think it smells best on me — as I am by far the most feral smelling in skin tone and bring out all of its Eros. That is also Kouros’ downfall, however : there was one day on Okinawa a decade or so ago with d when I had upped the Kouros dosage just one tiny overstepping olfactory too high – and he suddenly declared out of the blue NO MORE KOUROS : I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE and that was that. I now have a vintage mini that I like to inhale again from time to time. and I wouldn’t mind trying it again this summer – but Kouros, essentially, has now been consigned to my own history books.

PACO RABANNE POUR HOMME, AZZARO POUR HOMME

Neither of these were ever my full on holy grails, but I could, and can, still pull these off when I am in the right hirsute and huskier mood. Classic fougeres – the former herbaceous and warm, the latter, more caraway anisic in similar territory to Aramis Tuscany, anothermellow and solar-lit masculine I wore buckets of back in the day, the Azzaro slightly veering into obnoxious machofucker territory but with its space-to-breathe gracefulness and clarity of structure, still manly and persuasive, somehow distant enough to let its judiciously dosed patchouli and lavender shine.

GIVENCHY GENTLEMAN

Now this really is an anomaly, I don’t like leather but I love this. I don’t want to smell suspiciously patrician, all rose and patchouli and tarragonish dark, but I have always excelled in this perfume with its unfathomable shadows and sometimes look at my remaining quarter full vintage bottles with a certain sadness. The original formulation of Gentleman ticks all of my boxes for a men’s scent for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it evinces a certain mystery.

THE GAME-CHANGER

The effect that both Calvin Klein Obsessions had on me can never, ever, be overstated.

George will corroborate how much Obsession For Men I wore at university ::, buckets: ridiculous levels of it because it was the very first time in my life that I had found a perfume that TOTALLY suited me. I fell hopelessly in love.

You have to remember that at that time, in the late eighties, there was no niche perfumery, only mainstream, – at least where I lived – so Obsession – ATE MY BRAIN whenever I smelled it like a man possessed and it was my first ever exposure to a proper amber. Later I would of course come to know all the L’Artisans, Maitre Gantiers, Profumums and all the other ambers released by the boutique perfumeries and look back on my old Obsessions as being a tad obvious and gaudy ( but not really.. I got a vintage full bottle of the women’s original recently and I am totally mesmerized by it — the main point being – you can read about my obsession with the Obsessions elsewhere – that this form of perfume, a fougereless, leatherless beauty – was an exhilarating, catalytic coverter to realms of other possibilities.

THE TRANSGRESSION

In 1996, I discovered Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant. It quickly became my signature. My friend Melanie was telling me recently how delighted she was when she could smell me flooding the maternity ward in Oxford twenty five years ago when I went for a brief visit – the spicy, vanilla ylang ylang licorice preceded physical appearance by several minutes and she already knew that I was there. I don’t wear it now – it got too sickly, and is ultimately a rather artificial perfume, at least in its dense and plasticky original iteration, but when I first smelled this strange and innovative perfume at some Duty Free or other, I just knew I had to have it, no matter what. And it opened the floodgates. Before you knew it I was wearing Infini, Vol De Nuit, anything my olfactory intuitions honed in on, feasted on, pleasured into my mind and nose and body and life memory and it is very hard now to imagine a world in which I was supposed to be limited to cretinous tropes like Dunhill and Jazz ( and things haven’t changed, incidentally, except for the worse : tell me if you agree …. the men only smell of sport ouds , the women of ignoble, vanillah flora-schlock – that smell when you go through an airport that is nothing more than a hellishly overlit headache inducer, the facile Gender Divideas dull and uninspiring as it ever was. I wash my hands of it. But none of that stops me smiling when I smell this old bottle of Herrera For Men, a scent that isn’t me any more – another time, another place —possibly another person, even but which still reminds me quite powerfully of a time and place in my life when I was pushing against forces that were thwarting my natural essence: through meaningless barriers and borders, and on towards some form of liberty …. … on the cusp.

In my continuing supine meanderings today I came across a miniature bottle of the original Valentino de Valentino, a scent I thought I already knew (colorblinded by the legendary ‘Valentino Red’ my brain had splotched tomato ketchup all over this perfume, assuming it smelled red as well – some kind of Red Door or Venezia Biagiotti meets Beverly Hills Red by Giorgio type of affair – lethal as lipstick – deeply rosed and probably spiced – but in my advancing fragrance senility I think I was just mixing it up with the later and fruitier (and definitely more mischievous and genuinely red-smelling) Valentino Vendetta.

Smelling Valentino, the meticulous couturier’s first ever perfume ( and the first Valentino scent I have ever written about ),this evening I am struck how fragile it is, striking an intricate balance between a very concerted vivacity and an Achilles’ heel of vulnerability . An effervescently delicate green floral, preluded by calming green notes, citruses, and basil over sprays of freshly cut flowers that cede into peach, and civet, plus an ever so queasy note of quivering pink cyclamen, this is a loquacious, champagne bubblebath of a perfume in the manner of Paco Rabanne Metal and the aqueous floral cleanliness of Byblos de Byblos – but registered in a different (and less oblivious) key (A# major ?) She is always the belle of the party, this diffidently charming creature – bubbles in hand, inevitably a delight to all of her guests, strenuously outgoing — but simultaneously nervous;self-doubting; easily wounded.

The vintage ad for this perfume proclaims that Valentino De Valentino is a ‘perfume of passion and magnificence’ – and I would say that it is: an ardently romantic and ‘classy’ perfume that might sweep you off your feet. I am glad to have (re)discovered it. Though there is perhaps something a little sickly in all the frothed up , ladylike performativity towards Pygmalion perfection in the earlier stages of all the quiet fireworks, the generous flourishes of candour in this perfume do also make Valentino De Valentino perfect for the beautiful, wide-eyed flirt, secretly dying to wear her true heart on her sleeve.

I go into hospital for what I call the ‘filet-o-fish’ bolt removal – the metal nails and plates that were put in during my osteotomies eight years ago to be xylophoned out like a mackerel in order to make way for my total knee replacements in August and November —- this coming Thursday.

A week ago, I started to feel rundown and throaty and was wondering if I might be given a stay of execution I mean reprieve, I mean a postponement of the procedure – but the gung-ho, ultra-positive, trust-inducing surgeon who will be taking out what he himself inserted in 2017 – says I heartily that I am fit enough to go – so Frankenstinian robo removal butchery here I come !

Off par and apprehensive, have been very idle the last few days , just reading the paper, watching Netflix, and smothering myself with perfumes not even getting up from the futon – my darkness and palpitations morphing recently into a calmer, contented, excited state of mind; in particular for perfume. I have been smelling things – just all the amazing perfumes I have in my collection – with added relish and deep aesthetic pleasure and have been truly enjoying, , post shower ( essential for proper perfume testing ) test six or seven perfumes in different places – wrist, back of hand, upper arm- simultaneously, to compare them with each other as they develop and gradate through the day – to see eventually who comes out the winner

Today’s loser was definitely Cardin De Cardin. In the interest of fairness, I found my second 3.5 ml of this recently for about a dollar, thinking I should give it another chance as it couldn’t possibly be as boring as the other times I had tried it.

In fact, as it turns out, I think it was even more boring.

It is possible that the top notes have frayed ; the opening is not so bad in a dull glinty half-hearted fashion in the first boxed extrait I got of this – the second is even more compromised – here are the notes – quite complex – from Fragrantica in case you are interested –

but it very soon progresses (regresses?) to the most generic acrylic tights and hairspray beigey must base – that staid old perfumey smell that could come out of any hairnet strewn chamber where the cobwebs have been gathering, and it reminds me quite a lot me of the final basenotes of vintage Shiseido Zen. What starts off wistfully, green, momentarily elegant and vaguely Kyoto-esque, eventually, on me at least, becomes a dul lukewarm mush of meals on wheels — despair, and grey-follicled cardigans.

I think, in truth, that the competition didn’t help. On the back of my right hand I had a cheap rose oil roll on I bought at the Mustafa Center in Singapore for about two dollars and that I rediscovered last night and found delightful. The hospital has a total edict on perfume – on me in particular – I had an email sent to me showing my reputation has preceded me – the two hospitals are about fifty miles away from each other but the next one is already aware I am a scent terrorist (I don’t think the Bergamot Incident from my last hospitalization did me any favors with all the frowning Head Ratchets. When a 30ml bottle of bergamot essential oil I had kept on my person for lavatorial dignity but which unfortunately emptied itself into my pyjama pockets and down my legs, burning my thighs/, it caused throat-clutching, cheek puffing and and hive-sensitizing biohazard panic among some of the freshly operated and I was admonished for it by the no nonsense Head Nurse the next morning :: but I am fairly confident that a sly dot of this gentle pot pourri with its fresh graceful green notes and gentle calming qualities after a soapy hand wash will surely reinvigorate the olfaction buds nicely – and quietly – when I am in sagging pajama mode, and I am definitely taking it with me furtively in my new black toiletry bag.

Right wrist : an imperfect Armani Pour Femme edt (fine) ; arm was Carven Ma Griffe vintage parfum – always a pleasure, thanks very much mademoiselle; left wrist, vintage Ungaro Diva edp (wow what a beauty with its spiced, chocolatey rose and animal depth; it will never suit me unless I start to dress like Maria Callas, but I did really enjoy re-experiencing it today in all of its effortless, operatic warmth.

Courreges In Blue extrait was the undoubted winner. This is one baroque rose I can pull off – for some reason- it must be all the herbs and marigold freshness – and it has been fuzzing through into my black cashmere sweater unawares this afternoon… oops, the nurses might have to put up with a few subtle whiffs of Andre Courreges rather than the farting sulphur of untreated gum decay and the greasy haired zomb-crew of so many others who will be happier to slide into olfactory neglect instead of this optimistic 1983 Nice Riviera beauty drifting out into the ward like Isabelle Huppert onto the Croisette – oh, how dreadful for them! ! What a pity ! But at least, they won’t be yawning, yawning ! themselves to death , eyes watering from the sheer dullardry ot their weird patient’s eponymous first perfume by Pierre Cardin that would have them dull-eyed and distracted from their jobs, syringeing in the wrong places and unable to tend to their leg sutured nose twitching neurot. No, I will spare them. This is surely one of the blandest, most featureless vintage seventies extrait that I have ever encountered.

The above photo shows my friend K hugging a random pooch in a park having just liberally sprayed her gorgeous green Hong Kong tailored coat with current edition Fahrenheit.

She smelled great when we met and hugged at Kannai station on the way to the cinema in Isezakicho : aromatic; dry; androgynously beguiling. I didn’t pick up any of the burning leatherette or gasoline or violets in her scent aura, although all these notes were more apparent with liberal fresh applications.

It was strange that I didn’t immediately recognize Fahrenheit on K as I wore gallons of it in my early twenties, particularly when I lived in Rome. ‘Neil, sei profumatissimo’ my friends would tell me when I had really overdrive it for a night out clubbing in Testaccio; I practically drank the stuff.

Why didn’t I know what it was straight away?

Possibly because it is a new formulation – a good one, I would say; fresher, lighter- I might even prefer it – but it was definitely lacking some quintessential elements that pinged the automemory: the ‘nutmeg flower’; the underwray of gaseous florals ?

It wasn’t until the next day, when I took her to my secret Aladdin’s Trove down a nothingish street in a certain city in Kanagawa prefecture and she screamed with pleasure at discovering a 50ml bottle of the vintage ( which goes for hundreds of dollars now on eBay and the like because it is different : in essence, what the perfumers intended, in its original form, not a remixed attenuation); it was only then, as we sprayed it on in the precincts of a local shrine garden – along with an unbelievable haul – I ask you to brace yourselves – that all the real, visceral memories came rushing back; not a willed and somewhat forced attempt to bring back the past; but in true Proustian style, to physically relive it.

LOOT, THE BOOTY; THE BOUNTY

For less than a bottle of Tom Ford, but slightly more than the amount paid for the sledgehammer oud floral that K picked up in some airport somewhere ; Orchid Leather by Van Cleef and Arpels – erotic, I suppose, but with no breathing space – just so heavy and in your face – for the price of just one such niche meh bleh sprayable artefact we had all of the following artful blissfulness for less than two hundred pounds sterling ( with my current situation I just made a token contribution to the kitty… )

Vintage Fahrenheit Dior, 50 ml edt

Mitsouko 7ml extrait x2 + 100ml eau de cologne (in divine packaging)

Jean Desprez Bal A Versailles mounted/boxed extraits x 2

15ml YSL Paris extrait de parfum spray (rare!)

100ml vintage Calvin Klein Obsession edp (swoon!) – I have been dying

7ml Givenchy III extrait – great on her; I am finally starting to get it

Madame Rochas eau de cologne 100ml

Miniature Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum edp

Armani Pour Femme black spray extrait (ultra rare!) and pristine edt miniature

( these two were meant for me; as you will know from former reviews I really love this perfume but her reaction when she smelled it – throwing her head back with an almighty oh my god – made me realize that these beauties would inevitably have to be hers)

Nina Ricci L’Air Du Temps baccarat parfum

Nina Ricci Fleurs de Fleurs Parfum de toilette (heavenly) ; and Nina edt 30ml – two of my ultimate bedtime comfort scents

Roger and Gallet Santal miniature

Patou Joy boxed unopened vintage extraits – black bottles with red caps x 2

Torrente L’Or miniature

plus – at the least minute – an incredible 80’s Mugleresque leather jacket so perfect for the donning of the all the above leather chypres and vintage classics we were brimming and frothing at the gills with the very ecstatic acquisitional bargainhood.

In the morning, before we left the house, I had already bestowed upon K a Balmain Jolie Madame extrait and a parfum de Cabochard, both of which had her cat-eyed with pleasure ( she wears these perfumes so well; so much better than I do… ). She essentially left Japan with an entirely new vintage perfume collection.

You want leather ? Oh, we got leather

There are still plenty of old temples I haven’t yet been to in Kamakura, and today I randomly stopped off for the first time at the only Buddhist nunnery in the city, Eishoji.

I was the only one there. A welcome solitude, given that Kamakura – a former ancient capital but nowhere near as well known or mass-trampled over as Kyoto, is still on the fast track to overtourism like a miniature Japanese Barcelona or Venice.

It had its own bamboo grove.

And the faint, but replete, lingering years of incense palpable in the wooden rafters.

I was just at Kamakura City Hall attending to bureaucratic matters – something that always puts me on edge. Gaijin cards, visas, the new social security system that everyone in the country is expected to apply for – as a foreigner, especially, these are never occasions to especially look forward to. How nice, then, that the staff there today were so gentle, friendly, and calm.

Initially I was just about managing it all in Japanese with a very accommodating lady who threw in the odd English word for good measure; when things started to get more complicated and my vocabulary brain began to crumble, she called over her fluent English speaking colleague – without embarrassing me in any way -and I continued the proceedings with an exceedingly pleasant, humorous and very well put together lady in her sixties or so who not only talked me through the correct procedures while also giving me encouraging words about the success of her knee replacements – but also smelled lovely.

I told her I wrote about perfume and asked her what she was wearing (to me the aura – sillage she was emanating from behind the semi-separated perspex screen was chypric, classical, rose/ floral but not outdated): ‘Dior L’Absolu – : is it too strong ? ‘Not at all’, I told her, though I can’t vouch for her colleagues who are all working in rather a cramped and crowded work space. ‘I usually wear this one in winter and spring and move on to the mist when summer comes along’.

All the exchanges today, in what took less than twenty minutes in total, were polite, sincere, dare I say it even life affirming. The employees in question didn’t hesitate to draw my attention to the importance of certain issues – you really don’t want to be stuck in a Japanese immigration detention centre – or experience the infamous hose pipes of Nagoya prison: such places are to be avoided at all costs, and everyone involved, my self included, is thus taking the facts and documentation suitably seriously.

But at the same time, some simple humanity, gentility, empathy, kindness, humour – as well as a lovely perfume as an aesthetically pleasing added bonus – made what could have been a protracted, nerve-wracking experience actually pleasurable and engaging. Knees or no knees, my eyes slightly moistening, I practically skipped out the building.

Like the over-baked but enjoyable crap I watched on Netflix yesterday ( ‘Nonnas’: what, Susan Sarandon seventy eight ?!! – look at hah !) this everything in the sink beach perfume – coconut, sunscreen, tiare, The Waves, a small tub of salt, is perfectly agreeable and yet not. I actually laughed out loud this afternoon , on the first Proper Hot Day, in the Ginza, at the zebra crossing, at the thought of Helen somehow wrongly spraying on two squirts of it

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Good perfume acts as a cushion. As Pol Pot sacks Harvard and most other institutions of higher learning (great plan! great for future innovation and progess !) the rest of us gaze with a mournful sense of deep superiority in other, more sensorily soothing directions, longing for bathtime.

When the world goes bananas, go bananas. Smother it on. Spray til you choke. Dive into mountainous lagoons of talc. Perfume entire neighbourhoods. Wear a literal banana.

Banana is not a note I would choose on a daily basis. Let’s face it: banana is never going to become the new bergamot. Or tuberose or sandalwood. It is too……..specific (editor’s note: you might be wrong! According to the nose-sleuthing of Sandra Raicovic Petrovic at Fragrantica, banana was the leitmotif at this year’s Exscence in Milano). Okay, well anyway we had oats with bananas, walnuts and chilled milk this morning (very nice, and one must think of one’s heart), but the only true banana in my collection – Gorilla Perfume Ladyboy – ripe banana, violet and seaweed, has, bizarrely never been worn. Or maybe it was once used in an ironic performance context but this is not the kind of eau de parfum you would reach for on the morning bus. Passengers would be slipping on invisible banana peels trying to get off; some people are simply not going to react well to an in your face banana. In fact I have a very good friend, Michael, who is an actual bananaphobe. The amount of times he has voiced this hatred on social media is sometimes surprising (though I do understand his dismay at Japan’s ubiquitous fruit sandwiches; white bread, fresh cream, mandarins, bananas and strawberries all packed in like sardines, then sliced with vicious precision and wrapped in plastic (any man will tell you that a sliced banana is uncomfortable to look at and the taste is unsurprisingly quite sickly ) but in his case, anything banana has him retching. I am personally banana friendly, but sometimes go off them for months at a time because of their stringy powderiness, and then they they go black and dark yellow in the bowl like jaundiced dalmations.

Fortunately for Michael, bananas in perfume are relatively rare. I am sure there are several other bananas bananas out there that I am unconscious of, but the ones that come first to my own immediate perfumed mind, aside Ladyboy, are Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanille Banane – exactly as it sounds- it smells like you are doing banana splits by the roadside; the sly green banana peel gracing the top notes of the foetidly lovely Patou Sira Des Indes – probably the most lazy and idolent smelling perfume of all time; Quasar by Jesus Del Pozo, which brought us fresh banana scent to the trad sport blue masculine, as well as Demeter’s very literal Banana Flambée, and, of course, the hilariously rotting bananas of Sarah Baker’s wonderfully sleazy Jungle Jezebel .

L’ Artisan Parfumeur, is naturally far too tasteful and rarified to introduce any sense of trashiness or vulgarity to its collection (if I may quote myself on Jungle Jezebel; ‘With big, flesh eating manplant accords of trumpeting banana, pink bubblegum, and pooey civet, this smells like a huge-chested Glamazonian taking a dump in the equatorial bushgrowth’. No, perfumer Celine Ellena is not laughing at the clusters of bananes hanging in the plantations here; rather she takes an exquisite and unusual top note of banana flower, lacing this quite delectable opening note with mace and violet leaf, and letting it tactfully breathe over powdery balsams and musks. In the process she does something unthinkable; she renders the scent of the banana truly graceful. I have been trying out some long ignored sample bottles today, and D took to this one immediately : once the initially delicate banana mirage starts to dissipate, you are left with a calming and savoury texturality that evokes cereals and hessian.

But onto further Jours Heureux – or ‘Happy Days’.

Firstly, I am slightly obsessed with this bottle. To me it is a perfect amalgam of niche and vintage; retro-esque but still contemporary. I want it. If the packaging were quite as pompommy and froufrou as the scent, though – all powdered almonds, violets, roses, vanilla – with subtle hints of geraniums and carnation in the heart (but buttressed by firm tonka), this could possibly read as too Miss Flopsy has nervous breakdown in boudoir mirror. But sometimes we do have our tragic Blanche Dubois moments (we certainly do), and yearn for the sheer solace of a thick, florale vanillé poudré to whittle down the sorrows a little; the sensation of powdery scents is what makes them such great armour in challenging times; they can surround you like a protectant forcefield, the talcum particles mingling the air like featherdown beneficently about your person (and hence my abiding love for Obsession, Shalimar, Vol De Nuit and Bal A Versailles and such like, all of which, in the right moment, I must confess , smell spectacular on me). Those who like their perfumes sweet and Loveheartsy – as I sometimes do; think Chanel Misia and Comète – which, Olivia, you smelled so glorious in when I saw you in North London, perfection, as though Serge Lutens Louve had gone to finishing school – or more powdery than powdery, as in Oriza Legrand’s astonishing Powder To End All Powder perfume, Jardins D’Armide ,which with more than a couple of squirts will have the busgoers clutching their throats as their pulverized air passages close from the mounds of jasmined cocaine entering the breathing apparatus; or, more accurately in terms of olfactory comparison, in this particular case, Lorenzo Villoresi’s classic Teint De Neige – still going strong, I smelled it again in Les Senteurs, Elizabeth Street, Victoria last month and it hadn’t changed – those who like the conservative boudoir of this perfume family will undoubtably take to Jours Heureux. It is nothing new, you have smelled this prototype countless times before, but still, this is very charming, sheerer in the base than you might have expected (where this genre usually just fades to animalic muffles, Jours Heureux progresses to a welcome floral clarity that is non-asphyxiating in its conclusion and thus suitable than most for public viewing. And imagine the heaven of using that soap and body wash before you apply it…….Sometimes a solipsistic dousing, and padding, is just what you need when bombs are exploding just outside your window.

Or. If you have the dough, you could just pack your bags and flee to some tropical island. The eternal deathlessness of summer, and White Lotus oblivion. To forget all the world’s troubles and focus on your suntan.

This is precisely what I love about summer. The glorious insensibility of it all. The sun burns away so much strife; now is the time in Japan when all the ex-pats, myself included, start the debate over the heat (for me it is still quite cold and I still need a heater on at night for proper incubation when everyone else is already in t-shirts and shorts ) but as I far as I am concerned we are just getting started. So many foreigners here go crazy the second the thermometer rises a notch but I am in utterly in my element.May is heavenly here; June, the rainy season, so profoundly green, so densely humid (everyone except me also seems to hate it, but I love the dewy face moisture of it all). The beginning of July is glorious. August, is, admittedly, like being roasted alive, and goes too far. I sometimes want to give it a dressing down for overstepping its mark. But you can still go to the beach around 4pm and bask in the late afternoon heat. At Ishiki Beach in Hayama, you just forget everything and concentrate on the sunlight dappling on the inside of your eyes. What bliss. And this is precisely the time for perfumes like Kenzo Summer – the solar mimosa with one of the happiest – if artificial – drydowns of all time; the time for all the beach florals and anything tropical (see here for The Black Narcissus Guide To Coconut); for jasmine, tiare.

I do love mimosa, but find it is a little tricky in perfume. Perris Monte Carlo Mimosa Tanneron comes closest to capturing the faithful fluffiness of the flower, but there is still something a tad sickly and too sweat- bosomed and claustrophobic in the base ( I sometimes enjoy the piercing desolation of L’ Artisan’s regretted Mimosa Pour Moi – it was never the same in reformulation – but that is a very acquired, wintry moment and it can plunge you into the doldrums. Conversely, I can appreciate compressed, carnal mimosas like Frederic Malle’s Une Fleur De Cassie but in their hidden, erotic pantings, if they come too close I find they also give me the jeebs). Parfums Thomas De Monaco – a new perfume brand by an artist and photographer based in Zurich- enters similar estival thematics with Sol Salgado, a salty, solar, woody floral that I find I am the most drawn to in the range. Aiming to capture the scent of sun on skin – as many a perfumer has tried to do before- there is something very snuggly and sundown pashmina about it as the Sloanes gather round the evening Seychelles fire listening to conches: it has’skin musks’, ‘cotton flower’, a full sandalwood, ambergris, and a smoked vanilla base (I don’t do even a hint of charred in perfume, myself, so that final accord is something of a dealbreaker for me), but I was suitably intrigued by the linden blossom/heliotrope/mimosa accord in the opener that I would quite gladly recommend this to the about to be vacationing Adult Woman.

There is a fine line between carefree and brainless. Sometimes I am content to choose the latter. Just as the the endoneurium, perineurium, and epineurium – the paddings that protects our nerve endings – offer a buffer between the fanciful dream and the hard raw-dogging of reality, I say a cheery hello to perfumes that offer a comparable olfactive service. And Melbourne’s Mihan Aromatics have created a very pleasing, and wearable, new addition to the genre of perfumes you can just spray on unthinkably and smell like a holiday. Fresh top notes of cucumber and palm leaf segue to a light coconut and a girding, subtly boisé base of copaiba in a simple but relaxing scent I would very happily wear to the Japanese beach once the heat rises a bit more; it feels embodied; right. Just the ticket to lay back, the rays flickering…… …… switch off.