Quickies

Spring Flower by Creed, 1996

What do you get when an ancient and distinguished house of couture parfumerie belies its distinguished heritage and puts out crap? ...My Insolence.. (ba-da-bump crash!) No, seriously folks, a 250-year-old perfume house, Creed, a family business handed down father to son since 1760 (1760!!!!1!!) provider of perfumes to royalty, many famous and well-loved perfumes, managed to make... a fabric softener sheet. Seriously... seriously folks, it's a #@!%&* sheet of fabric softener! Strong generic-blah flowers, unidentifiable fruit salad, some detergenty musk soapy smell... it comes screaming at you all at once and suddenly disappears. Shoulda known by the packaging, it's a cheezy pink bottle, fake metal cap... Classy, real classy there, Creed.

I Am King by Sean John, 2008

I realized much much later that I referenced this one in my Star Trek Scents post, but didn't actually give a review. Much as I said about Red Shirt, this is generic to the extreme. The juice is freshclean melonwater skyblue airbreeze calibrated precisely and scientifically using only the best market research polling, PowerPointing, and seven-point-of-difference-to-avoid-lawsuits documenting available. The feats of marketing that went into its making are brilliant, precise, and laserpointer-accurate. The bankroll for this level of professionalism is impressive. It achieves what it sets out to accomplish, be perfectly poised to appeal to everyone and no one, to suit every taste, style, and function, yet be so perfect a distillation of current mens' scents it transcends them all thru perfect ubiquity. It doesn't achieve more thru less, it attains, finally, the sought-after, perfect state of  ...meh.

Lily of the Valley by Penhaligon's 1976

A basic lily-of-the-valley analog, lacks the soapiness some other LOTV scents. Has a light musk base, with a tiny bit of an oakmossy note added, which leans it towards a chypre scent. The musk base turns it into a masculine scent for me, although it was meant to be a feminine. Definitely not meant for a hot-young-thing in a party dress, this is a mature feminine scent, or a good masculine for a dapper dressing man.

Alien

by Theirry Mugler, 2005


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and scent and sillage
My soul can reach, when feeling anosmic
For the ends smelling and ideal trace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most noisome need, by sun and iPod-light.
I love thee secretly, as men strive for gain.
I love thee obsessively, as they turn towards praise.
I love thee with the passion put to ill-use
In my old Giorgio, and with my teen-age's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to use
With my lost sense. I love thee with the breadth,
Scent, jasmine! Of all my life; and if Thierry choose,
I shall but love thee better after anaphylaxis!

Jasmine. Wood. Musk. Grape. Loud. Strong. Sublime. Allergenic. Beware.

(apologies to Liz Barrett Browning)

Pon Farr and Red Shirt

by the Star Trek franchise, 2009 

Thanks to the magic of the holidays, and geeky friends, I accessed 2 of the Star Trek scents, Pon Farr and Red Shirt. The Star Trek line of scents (which also includes Tiberius, which my friends didn't have for me to sample) are blatantly cashing in on the seemingly inexhaustible pockets of the Star Trek fanbase. Having such an obvious marketing ploy, and their drugstore price point, I had no expectations of either being good at all. I was pleasantly surprised, not at their originality, as neither had any, but of their subtlety. Actually engineered well, they have actual progression to their development, just the right amount of persistence, layering of notes, and some genuinely interesting scent materials other than dime-per-gallon air freshener mixes that other cheap perfumes descend into (Stetson and Charlie, I'm looking at you). This is still meant as a marketing phenomenon, not a luxury item, the limits to this I delineate below, and I further hairsplit on the marketing itself. Read boldly on....

Pon Farr

So subtle, arid, could it possibly be... pheromonal? Notes of peony, melon, the most identifiable pink pepper I've ever smelt in a perfume, white musk, and an unidentifiable candied red berry. Startlingly similar to Happy if it were made by Comme des Garcons instead of Clinique. Goes on insubstantially, I need 2 spritzes to get a read on it, then it brightens, the florals, fruits, and spice coming up. Then it fades again, everything disappears into a dryhot chemical odor that reminds me of Odeur 53, but much more similar to Bakelite bracelets left on a car's dashboard in summer. Then it swings back to the unknown red berry candy scent, fading to just the white musk skinscent providing the constant undercurrent for the journey.

Marketed as the women's perfume, it does try for a little imagination, its undercurrent of almost imperceptible musk providing a symbolic shorthand for the Vulcan mating-frenzy it's named after. You could do much worse than this somewhat predictable floral-fruity number, you could try anything in the Britney Spears line, for example, and totally waste your money. For more on that, see below...

Red Shirt

Every single cleanfresh men's scent of the past 20 years. Drakkar, Polo, Cool Water, yadda yadda yadda --but mostly Polo. Rotates thru the usual men's scent notes:  lavender, cedar, citrus, "freshclean", melon, musk...  Relentlessly generic, yet still better than I Am King by Sean John, which has a cynicism to its ruthless genericity that Red Shirt lacks. Both are generic mass-market-engineered inoffensive nothings which only sell because of their brand name; but I Am King sneers thru its megaphone "I suck, but you'll buy me anyway because I'm a Sean John product, suckers!" Its smell is precisely, purposefully generic with a painful hollowness.

Red Shirt, on the other hand, much like the hapless extras sent to their doom each episode, is innocent of its true purpose in life. It thinks quietly to itself, "I have some good things going for me! I smell acceptable and nice, sorta like Ensign Aspen over there, who got laid last Shore Leave! If I do well in this away mission, maybe I'll be promoted/get laid/live to see another day too...!" Its genericness is almost a direct copy of a successful scent archetype rather than an engineered amalgam of successful scent notes. As such, it's an admiring ripoff rather than a careful corporate you-can't-sue-us-we-stole-nothing clone. Usually I detest ripoffs, and one of the purposes of this blog is revealing the separated-at-birth scents ripping each other off, but in this case the cheerful naivete Red Shirt pulls off with its ripoff is almost admirable compared to the blatant corporate ripoff I Am King is pulling on its buyers.

It comes down to this: if you buy Red Shirt, you can smell like one of the sheep led to slaughter; if you buy I Am King, you become one.

Tabac Blond

by Caron, 1919


I can't detect the tobacco in Ambre Narguile, and Tabac Blond is to blame. In the varied and illustrious history of tobacco-based perfumes, this is the 900-pound gorilla. When the writer of One Thousand Scents wrote his own entry on Ambre Narguile, he emphasized the tobacco. I commented on his post that I didn't notice tobacco in it much. In my own post on Ambre Narguile, I focussed on its foodier aspects, I didn't mention the tobacco because, to me, it was so non-existent and fleeting.

That's because Tabac Blond is a Virginia tobacco barn full of the lightest, sweetest, richest, Grade A tobacco leaf hanging to dry. No tarriness, just sweet, sweet, mellow, unburnt leaf. There's maybe a bit of musk and definitely some orris, a touch of some white flower accord, but everything else is incidental to the point of the scent, which is tobacco, and nothing but. It's so strong I expect to find nicotine stains on my fingertips every time I apply it. The blond in the name refers more to the shade of the tobacco, and only metaphorically to a Veronica Lake-style femme-fatale  ...one who's about to light a cigarette, raising one deadpan eyebrow at the leading man's best pickup line, nullifying it.

Grey Flannel

by Geoffrey Beene, 1976

Lavender & mothballs. Violet leaf & oakmoss. Astringent. It's a theme that's been done to death in men's colognes and aftershaves. Some consider this classic combo of scents to be comforting, a reminder of paternal figures in their lives, and it does say "quintessential classic masculine", but it's also acrid, sharp, and constantly on the edge of setting off my nasal allergies. As classic a combo as it may be, oakmoss mixed with lavender does a disservice to the oakmoss, and is practically a waste of a substance that's already endangered in perfumery. Lavender is notably tricky to work with, being so camphoraceous and strong, so making it the center of a composition, instead of a supporting character in miniscule quantities, automatically means the star of the show will be LAVENDER! (--and some other players hanging around-- don't mind us...) If you're feeling creative and trying to find a nominally novel way of presenting lavender, go right ahead, knock yerself out! I bet you won't succeed. Lavender-centric scents have been a staple of perfumery since, well, lavender was discovered, and mixed with absolutely everything available at one time or another. And you know what they got? LAVENDER! (...and some other stuff, nothing to see here... move along, move along...) Better to stick to the well known presentations which have a track record of success. Sharp and boring as it is, you could do worse than the showcase for lavender that is Grey Flannel, much worse... you could try to formulate your own.

Cologne

by Thierry Mugler, 2001

Thierry Mugler is an artist at the high-low fashion tightrope walk, because his Cologne is a real work of postmodern art. It starts by smelling like a better-made, more expensive version of 4711, all fresh and citrusy, and you're thinking, "Hey, ok, highend 4711, dude!". Then all of a sudden you're wearing highway reststop bathroom soap, "Whoa! WTF?" (yes, my inner voice sounds like Keanu), which evolves into the barest hint of Nag Champa incense and aftershave lotion, then something fresh-herby starts morphing into Un Jardin en Méditerranée, suddenly zigs away from that luxe smell, zagging back into the reststop bathroom. All this in under 5 min. Then it starts all over again; or, really never went away, just revealed more of itself over time.

Sound complicated? It's not, it's very straightforward and simple smelling. Mugler's scents tend to be rather direct and no-nonsense, hitting you upside the head with their obvious-yet-weird mashups of quotidian accords: Angel=chocolate-musk-vetiver-licorice, Alien=jasmine-wood-musk, and this? Citrus-pink public bathroom soap-incense-herbs. If fashion is the line between taste and trash, this is a work of genius.

Feu d'Issey

by Issey Miyake, 1998

It's a fire alright, right outta Hell!  This has been characterized as an odd floral-spicy scent, roses & hot milk, according to some. I put it on and immediately thought, "OFF! OFF! GET IT OFF ME NOW!!!" Roses & milk & spices MY ASS! This is roses & boxwood & baby barf. The roses I'm sure of, the boxwood is my best guess at an indelible strong spicy-woody-vileness accord, one that reminds me to those nasty bottles of predator urine (bobcat, wolf, fox, etc.) you can buy at fancy garden centres to sprinkle around your vegetable plot and scare away the little bunnies from eating your lettuces. The baby barf is the closest to the purported "milky" note, but if it's milk, it's waaaay beyond rotten, and not even cheese yet, just a bile-laced bad-breath sour-rotten nightmare that clings needily to skin. I don't get it at all, why is there a following for this discontinued dumpster juice (Heaven help us! there's a "Light" version still available)?!

I diligently tried to scrub it off after enduring close to an hour of wear, just to be fair and check for development into something tolerable. Was it worth it? Let's just say this was possibly the biggest sacrifice I've ever made in the name of Fairness.

After scrubbing three times with different detergents and soaps, IT'S STILL THERE! I may have to amputate...

Quickies

Sorry once again for my long absence. Aren't the holidays swell? As usual, no time for a single in-depth review:

Odeur 53 by Comme des Garçons

Supposedly made of 53 chemicals not found in nature. Has ridiculous ad copy that mentions NONE of the following: Faint whiffs of rose, old leather, stale tobacco, lipstick, dried up mint gum, and a lost violet pastille. It's Eau de Grandma's Purse...  oddly, it's not your grandmother's purse.

Prada eau de parfum

Berries, musk, leather accord base. Luxurious, classy. Seemed to be aiming at Kelly Caleche but hit Lolita Lempicka by accident.

Black Amethyst by Bath & Body Works

Lowend deadringer for the above. Less leather, no development. Won't wash off.

888 by Comme des Garçons



Supposedly made to smell like gold bullion, but smells like a mostly generic highend luxury scent. Replace the berries from the Prada with saffron, add a yellow (instead of white) flower accord and it's the same scent. Still... nice, classy, pleasant, gives a warm glow.

Angel Men Pure Coffee by Thierry Mugler

This is Angel (candy-chocolate-musk). For Men (extra musk). Coffee scented (Yum!), which wears off quickly, just musk left (yuck), which sticks to your clothes fiercely (drycleaning!$$!).

Shalimar

by Guerlain, 1925

I finally tried it. I've never actually worn it before, only sniffed and dismissed it as yet another old aldehydic menace like No. 5.

I applied a few drops to my wrists and neck, and nearly scrubbed it right off. Those nasty aldehydes almost drove me to my knees, but just as I was passing out with the image of a WWI gasmask-readiness poster as my last coherent thought, the chemical topnotes dissipated sufficiently for me to regain full conciousness...

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time...

"Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen

After that, I had to leave for work.

While driving, the middle & base notes creeped forward, the warm vanilla note for which Shalimar is famous hummed up from a dim filament to radiant full glow. A different chemical-musk-greenish middle note also appeared with the vanilla; cheap shampoo filled the air, and until it dissipated I couldn't shake the feeling I hadn't rinsed my hair out completely. This is the note co-opted into copycat spinoffs and background scents for toiletries, much like No. 5 has been. Evidently, this is the cheapest component of the scent. One of those cheaper scents, such as B&BW Warm Vanilla Sugar, fly by these notes, zooming directly to the vanilla. But Shalimar is on a train, and is concerned with the journey itself, not the mere vulgarity of "getting there".

Black

by Bulgari, 1998

I've read this is a blend of burning rubber, vanilla, and car exhaust contained in a rubber hockey puck bottle. Intrigued with the description, I hunted for it, and hunt I did. Department store perfume counters, perfume discounters, and even Nordstrom seemed barren of it. I found every other color of Bulgari scent (Jasmin Noir made me pause for awhile, tho), except for Black.

Just when I thought I'd have to flush it out online ...lo and behold! I wandered over to the men's side of the new Sephora at the mall... Eureka! Hidden behind a box of some vile Armani scent; there it was, Mr. Black Hockey Puck himself!

Spritzed on paper, it's surprisingly sweet, musky, and vanilla. On skin the industrial odors materialize.... It isn't burning rubber, it's melting polystyrene! it's the sweet scent of touching a soldering iron to a foam drinks cooler, a melting plastic scent that has nothing to do with the vinyl-plasticky aldehydes in most perfumery. There's a resinous smell mixed in with the vanilla, a slight spicy-syrupiness --Styrax or Benzoin? Rosin or Retsina? Maybe...

So who wants to smell of melting (not burning) plastic and vanilla-retsina syrup?

I DO.

It's magnificent, evocative, unique, inspired, and just plain weird. It's a shared-custody weekend at my dad's place, playing with his soldering iron by testing what it'll burn thru and wasting his rosin-core solder, followed by grandiosly buffoonish pseudo-academic baking experiments we were fond of, (e.g. Confectionary, My Dear Watson: The Effects of Vanilla Extract Infusion upon Apple Pie... an Experiment in Six Parts).

This scent is fascinating, odd, jarring, and sentimental (ok, maybe just to me). It's a post-industrial-waste barren racetrack rush-hour experiment gone wrong all the right ways. A polyharmonic Penderecki concerto kind of fragrance, a harmony of perfect dissonance.