Quickies

Life is busy. No time to focus on one scent in depth. Here's some observances from recent mall-crawls...

 Michael Kors eau de parfum

A tuberose-tropical, good for summer. Tries hard to evoke a tropical vacation, and pretty much succeeds. The tuberose is light enough to let other notes have a chance, but is overall a weaker strength scent than Fracas or Mahora (some would say that's very fortunate). Unintended scent by-product: it has a top note smelling almost exactly like Chinese Silk Tree blossoms; we had a huge one in our front yard when I was a small child. Will probably buy it just for this.

 Gucci

Sort of similar to Michael Kors but less tropical, more fake-sandalwoody. Little bit of leatheryness too. Goes on smelling sophisticated & expensive, wears out quickly, going cheap & stale in an hour or two. The generic woody-vanilla-amber base note that everything has nowadays lingering forever, which is bad, it's so boring it's annoying it won't go away. You want it to succeed, you really do when it's fresh, then it grows up to be a big disappointment.

The Beat by Burberry

Goes on smelling like an intriguing unidentifiable pleasant white floral-ish something, just when you think you've identified it you can't think of the word... Soon moves into an odd "urban accord" of exhaust fumes, asphalt, and burning rubber --and quickly exits it. Ends in another generic woody-somethingorother that won't wash off! I'm 90% sure Comme Des Garçons has covered this ground already, but 100% less timidly.

Mango Mandarin by Bath & Body Works

If I deride B&BW stuff so much, why do I bother trying it? Because I have hope they'll accidentally make something with depth someday. In the meantime, It was 104 degrees F last week and I just wanted to smell yummy & uncomplicated. The gallons of sweat didn't warp this chemical juggernaut one bit. Very foody scent. Made me hungry. Wanted a fruit slushy all day.

Badgley Mischka

by Elizabeth Arden, 2006

This one is an unusual case, how it smells in the bottle or even on paper is absolutely nothing like its scent on skin. I usually go thru perfume aisles sniffing the bottles themselves (please don't have a heart attack, it works for me!), stopping & spraying when I find something different than the usual. Badgley Mischka's bottle smelled oily-coniferous and vaguely musty, not musky, with some unidentified fruit waving frantically on a desert island while the ocean liner bulk of rest of the perfume sailed past. On a paper strip it smelled a little more coniferous, a lot less musty, and the musk started to come out; the fruit caught the attention of several passengers on deck, even distracting some from a shuffleboard game (that they wanted find an excuse to end anyway).

When I put it on my skin, the ocean liner ran aground on the desert island (was the helmsman distracted by the frantic castaway?). The carved fruit displays on the 24-hour buffet splatted on the dinner theater floor, the showgirls in the Carmen Miranda Extravaganza! show lost their footing on the 100% more banana peels than was in their contract, adding the contents of their costumes to the total, now approaching 1000% tropical fruit in addition to the random explosions of pineapple when sliding audience members accidentally kicked them in a bid to rediscover "upright" due to the tilt of the run-aground ship. Meanwhile, on shore, the castaway gleefully boards, bringing his entire supply of fruit and the occasional coconut he scavenged to stay alive on the island. Saved at last!

So, I was a little surprised at the difference.

BIG FRUIT. Big! Reaaaallly big. Luscious, juicy, fruity... um, something... Heavenly pineapples? Rainforest peaches? Opium gooseberries? Not sure which fruit this would be... some designer's idealized fruit punch. With musk. And something that smells (to me, anyway) of black locust tree blossoms. No matter, it ages rapidly, in one hour you're left with a light powdery muskiness and one sweet unknown fruit note, the riot has disembarked and the cabin boys swept the mess over the side. At $90 for 100ml, it's too expensive a ticket for a 3-hour tour (if you're lucky). Bon voyage!