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March 18, 2011

Gorilla Perfumes

by LUSH, 2011

Hippie-ish mostly natural scents. This collection is a cross section of the scents LUSH uses in all their other products. Taken together, the entire collection reeks of one of their stores, you can smell it a mile away and instantly identify it as “LUSH outlet”. Calling these the Gorilla perfumes is a bit of a hint that these things are STRONG. Use tiny amounts.

Imogen Rose
A dirty rose essence. Like all their scents, if the ingredient is natural, it's “dirty”, that is, it hasn't been significantly refined or stratified extensively. Therefore, they have all their components, even the less than pure scent ones. This is a very earthy, salty rose scent. Like the other scents, it's reminiscent of a bath bomb, just one of the rosier ones. The baking soda/salty aspect adds to this effect. It wears down to a more heavy, earthy base, and the vetiver comes out with a leftover soft sweetness. In the end it becomes a swampy rose scent. Strangely heavy for something named after the company founder's infant daughter. Works better on men.

The Smell Of Freedom
The smell of citronella candle, to begin with, then a dose of the mimosa absolute they use in so many of their products. Has an uplifting undercurrent of jasmine & iris. Reading the ingredients, I see it also has sandalwood, but it's pretty hard to find under everything else. Not reminiscent of freedom, particularly, it weighs you way down, man.

Orange Blossom
Much like Imogen Rose, this has its main floral scent paired with a salty/baking soda-ish base. Unlike Imogen Rose, the main floral scent eventually breaks free and becomes itself, but not before spending a few hours in petitgrain/neroli astringency, that just about chokes you before it passes. If you endure it, this fades and you are treated to a kaleidoscopic whirl through mimosa, jasmine, iris, sandalwood, each paired with the orange blossom scent until the whole thing wears off... in about 20 hours. Again, pretty good on a guy, too.

Breath Of God
Only if god eats pine needles and cedar bark, and gargles with original Old Spice. Your standard issue old fashioned aftershave scent, all natural.

Tuca Tuca
LUSH makes much of this being inspired by an Italian pop song. I can see why, “fruit punch & violet extract” doesn't seem as inspirational. Overall, it's the closest analog to the store experience in a nutshell. A very musky, fruity, sweet, earthy nutshell. It's a real bodice-ripper.

Lust
If you're familiar with Godiva and Flying Fox, you've smelled Lust. It's their signature jasmine scent. And is it ever luuurrrvvely! OK, a brief renaming is in order: Tuca Tuca should be named Lust, and Breath of God should be this perfume. Crazy strong, of course, and is lacking the mellowing of the honey in Flying Fox, but if I'm a complete sucker for anything, it's a good whole jasmine!

Karma
Their bestselling scent, and in many of their products (for once, all of them named Karma). Why, I don't know. It's a greeny-orange scent that smells more of a public restroom cleaning agent than anything I'd want to wear for fun. Fairly bland and surpringly lacks any development at all. Big yawn.

Vanillary
As named, it's their vanilla scent. Very foody, has a heavy cake element, if you like your cake with a musky orange base. It's so overwhelming for about the first 45 minutes I thought my nostrils were being scoured with vanilla-scented tub scrub (more of that baking soda element), then it wore & settled into the soft, fuzzy, cakey, orangey, incredibly thick vanilla cloud. It's a very thick, soft, wool sweater; it's a perfect winter scent. I now own it in 3 versions, so I think I like it!


March 12, 2011

Hello Kitty

by Sanrio, 2011


Another pink juice review, this time it’s packaged in a cutesy cartoon cat’s head instead of a freaky Necromonger-couture bottle. Like Womanity, Hello Kitty tries to be all things to all women, or, in this case, girls. Unlike Womanity, it fails to be anything to anyone. Recall my entry on I Am King, now imagine a scent even more insipid, if that’s possible.
However, it’s 100% less cynical than that Sean John corporate melange; it stays on-message with its brand philosophy of a happy-happy, joy-joy kawaii-to-the-max lifestyle.

To that end, it’s mega-innocuous, and like most Japanese market oriented scents, it’s not there. Unlike other Japanese-market scents, this one is really not there. There’s no there there, it’s just about nothing. The carrier alcohol has to evaporate before any scent at all is noticeable, and when it does appear, it isn’t worth the wait. As a friend described, “If it was one of the Star Trek perfumes, it would be called The Neutral Zone.”

So what does it smell like already?! Damn little. The vaguest notes of something fruity, something floral, something air-freshenery, something pink. Something.

What that something is… your guess is as good as mine.