Quickies-July 4th Edition

Nothing particularly patriotic about these Quickies, it's when I found some time to post.

Piment Brûlant

by L’Artisan Parfumer, 2002, good

Leaves of a pepper plant, chocolate, light flowers, slight hint of roasted bell peppers, which descends into something close to lavender (on me) with the help of the chocolate note. I wish I could say more about it, but like many L’Artisan fragrances it’s very light and doesn’t last long. Delightful, tho.

Received a bottle as a Christmas gift from hubby.

Chance Eau Fraîche

by Chanel, 2007, Good

Melon-woody watery with that Chanel base. It’s trying for fun & young but still classy (or classy while being un-stuffy, not sure which.) Melony like Happy, supposedly the top is citrus, but I read melon. Woody like KenzoAir, but more pencilly, less hinoki. Again, supposedly teak, but seems more coniferous to me. The watery is like, well, every fresh-watery thing out there. Hint of jasmine + Chanel base. Not bad. Not remarkable. Versatile. For a nondescript, all-purpose fragrance it’s good quality and *interesting*  --unlike the same by Perry Ellis or Hugo Boss.

My sample was given to me by a Nordstrom’s saleslady when I was nosing around her department.

New/Butterfly

by Hanae Mori, 1995, good

Starts with an accord of vanilla & woods, shifts to a creamier vanilla that’s mildly fruity.
Suddenly flips in 3 minutes/hour (randomly) to an almost vanilla-free fruity floral, mostly indistinguishable from yet milder than Mandarin Jasmine. Sneaks quietly back into a vanilla woodsy musk.

Sample as part of a gift sample collection from Sephora.

Fleur Oriental

by Miller Harris, 2000, so-so

Herbal, and floral,
Powdery, vanilla, more
powder, ends in musk.

Got my sample at a yard sale, amongst several other unopened perfume samples.

Higher Energy

by Christian Dior, 2003, bad

Mix Spring Flowers & I Am King. 0% interesting, 100% banal.

Bought unopened sample at a yard sale for 25¢. I paid too much.

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.

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...

Bel Ami

By Hermès, 1986

Bel Ami by Hermès is a black hole cologne, you try to escape from its pull, but ultimately succumb to the stygian Pine-Sol Musk depths, its bug spray-like sillage is the electromagnetic transmission signalling a fresh victim.

This is from the '80s, but smells as harsh as a cheap cologne from the '70s (an old, very cheap one called Archie, whose bottle was a miniature plastic hard hat, comes to mind). When I tried it on my fiancé it reacted as the creators probably intended, his skin swallowed up the scent almost immediately, and curiously, released the faintest whiff of clove. In an hour the piney-bug spray scent appeared, but much weaker and less noxious, it was almost nonexistant in a few hours and disappeared before the end of the day.

Earlier "cologne" was a unisex scent, usually heavy on the citrus, maybe a little something piney but not much. No. 4711 being one of the originals

Patou 1000

By Jean Patou, 1972

Patou 1000 is the sibling of "the world's most expensive perfume", Joy, which I like to call the Emperor-Has-No-Clothes perfume as I've never been able to smell it. Oh, I can perch my nose at the edge of the bottle at the department store, and like a sound beyond the range of human hearing, you know it's there, but you can't hear it, just a fluttering of your eardrums. That's what Joy does to my nose. Something quivers, my body is aware of the presence of something, but I only detect the faintest whiff of something floral, like a sound from a great distance. Perhaps the ingredients are so costly, Patou only uses the tiniest amounts? Is Joy the grand perfumer's response to homeopathy? Is it a colossal corporate ripoff? Most likely. But this is a review of Patou 1000, not Patou Joy.

I put on 3 dabs of this stuff and almost fell over. Strong, musky, very

Chanel #5

I hate Chanel #5.

Yack all you want about its timelessness, its sparkling aldehydes complementing its heavy jasmine, its perfect representation of everything classy. I think it stinks.

Specifically, I think it stinks of a child's inflatable vinyl pool toy that someone spilled cheap fake flowery perfume on and a little nail polish remover. These aldehydes do not "sparkle" as advertised, they smell like what they are, chemicals. The actual real flowery essences are suffocated in the haze of industrial waste that is your sillage. This perfume does not say "Marilyn Monroe", or "New York", or "high class" to me; it shouts the post-war slogan, "Better Living Through Chemistry!"

What's worse, I can't escape it. Knockoff scents appear in every toiletry known to (wo)mankind, usually the ones that are already unwholesomely