#basenotes

[haveusmelledthisperfume]

Have you smelled this perfume?

Floral, fresh, and so pink... Delina La Rosee is a flanker that's about as beloved as the original! A luxury purchase, there are also plenty of imitators and inspired-bys. What are your thoughts on this fragrance?

[persolaise]

Christmas 2024 Perfume Gift Guide

It's here! The list you've all been waiting for -- my perfume gift recommendations for Christmas 2024. Enjoy!

I have no doubt that the vast majority of you are forward-thinking, super-organised, careful-planning types, so I expect you finished all your Christmas shopping in October. However, if some of you need an idea or two for a few scented goodies to stick under the tree, you might want to check out my gift list for Christmas 2024. Here’s a link to the video, followed by the complete rundown of…

[southern-belle-outcasts]

What combination of scents do others associate with you?

Your Result:

rose petals, lilacs, jasmine, and botanical bliss

the sky turns into a shade of calm pinks and oranges as you make your way home. the late afternoon sun warms your skin still, feeling content just existing. a smile lingers on your lips from memories of the day, and looking forward for all the days ahead. scents recommended for you: satine by lalique, doson by diptyque, rose 31 by le labo, replica: flower market by maison margiela ♡

tagged by: snagged from @astral-athame

tagging: you're it

[evanthology]

im always impressed with people's willingness to leave reviews for perfume like "0/10!! The "Pine Forest" perfume smells WAY TOO MUCH LIKE PINE!!! Like an actual TREE! Who wants to smell like that??? I thought this would make me smell fresh and flowery like *insert specific completely different type of perfume* but it smells awful! If they took out the pine and woody basenotes MAYBE I would buy. Take this off the shelves!"

[lgcsoyoun]

"And at least we won't sneeze on the samples, too," Soyoun chuckles as they walk along the sidewalk. She links arm arm around Hyejoo, mostly because it would be a bad idea for them to separate. Besides, Soyoun is comfortable enough to do this with the much taller Hyejoo. She isn't at this level of comfort with the newer girls just yet.

"Lilies... I think they suit our Gongju-nim," Soyoun says, gesturing to Hyejoo. Humming to herself, Soyoun ponders her choices for scents. "As much as I am a floral apologist, the brand has too many floral scents as it is, so I'll probably go for a powdery, fresher scent... As if you just got out of the shower. I might include white roses though, since flowers are still part of who I am as a person... and they could work with what I have in mind."

Soyoun quickly writes a note and sends texts to their manager and the brand people, telling them where they'll be before she grabs her own coat and phone. They can't afford to have any miscommunication now. Heading toward the exit, Soyoun lets Hyejoo go out first. She can't help the sigh of relief she lets out as the questionably fresh air hits their noses. (Okay, pollution in Seoul is real but at least actual air is a lot fresher than the strong scents that they have been inhaling all morning.) "So where shall we go and savor our temporary freedom?"

at this point she feels like she's been cradling these coffee beans as much ( or maybe even more ) than she's been smelling the perfume oils. as much as she likes fragrances, she feels like she's nearing her limit of how much she can smell, and she feels a headache coming on if she continues at the pace that she's going. which is probably partly her fault, because hyejoo was excited about making her own perfume and didn't do a great job pacing herself in the beginning, but it's not like she can do anything about that now.

which is why she's relieved when soyoun invites her on a walk, nodding and grabbing her jacket before stepping toward the exit. "that's a great idea! i think my nose could use a little reset, and then we can come back and smell more."

hyejoo thinks for a bit about the perfumes that she likes, the ones that she puts near her bed to spray before she goes out for the day. "i usually like clean scents, like white florals and fresh musks, but these days i've really liked fig notes." which probably means she likes fruity florals as well, so there's something they have in common. "i really liked the lily scent here though, so i'll probably put that in my scent."

[liquorishblack]

What JJK men smell like, which fragrances they wear and which fragrances they like on you (part 1)

Character: Satoru Gojo (listen, I had planned to cover at least 3 characters in one post but then I startet rambling about my favourite sorcerer and this happened)

Word count: 1.200 (more characters will follow in separate posts)

CW: none, maybe slightly suggestive here and there…

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so please forgive me any mistakes.

So, I’m a huuuge perfume junky and I have the biggest jjk brainrot atm so it was only a matter of time until the question what the jjk characters may smell like and which fragrances they could possibly wear crosses my mind. I wrapped my head around it and this is what I came up with:

What Satoru Gojo smells like / which fragrances he would wear:

This one was easy and I have no doubt that I have found the perfect fragrance for our beloved strongest sorcerer. I can't imagine him wearing a particularly intrusive or heavy fragrance, rather something that gently surrounds him, like the limitless surrounding his body. His scent is perceptible but not clearly recognizable as a perfume. When you stand next to him, it seems as if he simply smells incredibly good, clean and well-groomed by nature and the scent seems to cast a magical spell over you that makes you want to get closer to him. It’s an attractive and enveloping scent without trying too hard and by no means overwhelming. A scent such as…

…Apollonia by Xerjoff:

This fragrance is part of the shooting stars collection and represents the universe. So, if you’ve ever wondered what it smells like in space, this might be it!

Apollonia is a powdery, musky scent with a woody base. It’s fresh, slightly sweet and creamy. The ingredients are white florals, iris butter and white musk. Sounds minimalistic at first but this fragrance will get you a lot of compliments. A pure nothingness that allures your nose and makes you want more. But due to the woody-musky basenote there is even something mysterious and slightly dark to it which has a tempting and seductive effect on everyone who perceives it.

On another note: I find the whole Universe and shooting star theme highly suitable for Gojo since all his ct’s are based on astrophysics. Also, Xerjoff is a very established luxury brand and the prices for such a little scented water are quite something, I can tell you that! But, that’s obviously no problem for Gojo cause he is loaded and doesn’t seem to mind spending absurd amounts of money on clothes and stuff.

But enough about that because there is another one that would suit Gojo quite well. For some reason Apollonia strikes me as a very serious fragrance - perhaps even a little melancholic, which is somewhat fitting (I think we all agree that Gojo has some dark spots on his soul, which he skillfully hides under his bubbly and cocky demeanor) but I don’t see him wearing Apollonia in his everyday life. Perhaps this fragrance would be it for special occasions, like the 24th of december or on date night. I can see his younger self wearing this fragrance regularly but for his daily business as an adult he could do with something more uplifting, I think. A fragrance like…

…Dancing Light by Olfactive Studio:

Inspired by the aurora borealis or northern lights, this fragrance has something magical about it. Just like Apollonia, it develops an alluring aura that surrounds the wearer as it progresses. I call these kind of fragrances “your skin but better scents” since they’re not trying too hard and are quite hard to grasp but this circumstance makes them all the more mysterious and attracting. The scent starts off very green but develops into a fresh, creamy scent with floral accords and some spicy sweetness. Compared to Apollonia, Dancing Light is fresher, more sparkling and perhaps even a little fruity here and there, but less woody. In my opinion the perfect match for a dynamic young man who likes to have fun, exudes a lot of energy and who doesn’t take life too seriously. While Apollonia can be perceived as somewhat melancholic, Dancing Light is more of a fragrance that exudes a good invigorating mood due to it’s fresh green notes.

The ingredients are fig milk, mint, pineapple, pine needles, flowers like freesia, neroli and jasmine. The base is composed of sandalwood, vetiver, musk and amber.

I can definitely see Gojo wearing this fragrance at Jujutsu Metropolitan Curse Technical College, while teaching or out in the field, exorcising cursed spirits, because it lifts his mood and gives him a refreshing, invigorating feeling, even if he's been on his feet for hours. But in more serious or intimate situations where he wants to present himself not (just) as the strongest sorcerer but (also) as Satoru Gojo, he might opt for Apollonia since it represents the depth of his soul so very well (which is not for everyone’s eyes)… additioning to that, Apollonia would make it probably easier for him to seduce you. Not that he needs this help, but he wants to make sure that his scent lingers with you throughout the next day, so that you don’t forget about him or the memories of the shared last night. As if you could…

For a cozy night in or on a casual day out I can imagine him wearing something like…

…Musk Therapy by Initio:

I don‘t know why but somehow I find this fragrance matches his wardrobe very well… like the casual clothes we see him in on the official artworks at times. As the name already suggests it‘s a very comforting scent. It‘s clean, pure and somewhat cozy and soothing. The scent itself is creamy, fresh, slightly fruity and sweet with light floral undertones. The most dominant note is (as the name suggests) musk, accompanied by bergamot, mandarin, currant, magnolia and sandalwood. A scent that will make you want to crawl into his hoodie while you two are snuggled up on the couch on a cozy Sunday afternoon.

Which fragrances he would like on you…

As everyone and his grandpa knows, Satoru Gojo has a freakin’ sweet tooth, so I think he would definitely fancy gourmand scents on you. They’re not only feminine and sweet but also incredibly sensual, addictive and sexy.

An example of such a scent would be Velvet Tonka by BDK:

As the name suggests, it’s silky, creamy and therefore not too sweet for a gourmand fragrance - quite the opposite; Velvet Tonka is not a sticky sugar candy but rather outrageously elegant. It hugs the body like a silk scarf on bare skin - insanely sensual and sexy. But it doesn't lack a certain warmth that makes it feminine, innocent and cuddly. You definitely need to be careful with this fragrance because it’s definitely addictive and you could run the risk of Gojo burying his nose in the crook of your neck all day long and once you're undisturbed, he won't be able to keep his hands off you.

Another option would be…

Escapade Gourmande by Maison Mataha:

This one is basically creme brûlée out of a bottle - like for real real. That’s exactly what this fragrance smells like. There is caramelized sugar in the top note, vanilla and tonka bean in the middle note and benzoin and musk in the base. Also a creamy gourmand, but it still has a smoky spice, which makes it something really special. His beloved kikufuku mochis will be long forgotten, I can tell you that!

If you want something really sexy that taps into Gojo's darker parts (you know, the ones that come out when he gets drunk on his own strength or while he’s pulling weeds), maybe for a special date night I would recommend….

Bois Doré by Van Cleef and Arpel’s:

Less innocent, more badass and mysterious. A smoky, woody, not so sweet vanilla but damn sexy. He will go feral!

~

Thank you so much for reading this far. Likes, comments & reblogs are highly appreciated.🫶🏻

Yours truly,

Ava 🖤

[botanikos]

Stolas raises the glass to his beak, but notices something is wrong. The aroma of the vintage is oppressive, a saccharine cocktail over basenotes of bodily frenzy, brimming with lust. A love potion, no doubt. Someone is trying to drug him!

It was rare that the prince found himself cautious with the beverages in his hand. After all, they were either selected and poured himself or by trusted servants. However, as the glass is brought closer, mere seconds from being consumed, the owl emits a low sound of alarm. He holds what had presumably been wine at one point, away from him with sharp gaze. Plumage ruffles and beak clicks with disapproval. A love potion? Something so basic? But that wasn't the issue, was it?

No. The real problem at hand was the fact that someone had nearly succeeded in slipping him a concoction that would muddle his senses and ability to make rational decisions. No matter. Stolas moves with brusque motion and safely disposes of the beverage. Keen senses now put on high alert. Water would suffice for now, if it must be this way.

[haveusmelledthisperfume]

Have you smelled this perfume?

Vanilla 28 has gone mega-viral, and sales still seem very strong--so much so that it has gotten a flanker in Vanilla Candy Rock Sugar, as well as bringing more attention to previous vanilla-infused concoctions from Kayali. No doubt this is still on many holiday wishlists this year!

[titleleaf]

Various Wills Graham & The Man Your Haunted Eideteker Could Smell Like

I promised you a really long-winded post about why the "ship on the bottle" aftershave exchanges don't work for me in the TV show and I am here to deliver. Thoughts on Will and Clarice's respective ~*~*~*signature scents~*~*~* in the novels, how the scent motif gets updated for the NBC show, and the smells I want 2013 Will Graham to smell like. Come with me on an olfactory journey.

(That second ad: dude, ew.) Gird your loins because there is so much corny sailing imagery to come.

In The Books

Dr. Hannibal Lecter lay on his cot asleep, his head propped on a pillow against the wall. Alexandre Dumas’s Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine was open on his chest. Graham had stared through the bars for about five seconds when Lecter opened his eyes and said, “That’s the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.” “I keep getting it for Christmas.” Dr. Lecter’s eyes are maroon and they reflect the light redly in tiny points. Graham felt each hair bristle on his nape. He put his hand on the back of his neck. “Christmas, yes,” Lecter said. “Did you get my card?” “I got it. Thank you.” Dr. Lecter’s Christmas card had been forwarded to Graham from the FBI crime laboratory in Washington. He took it into the backyard, burned it, and washed his hands before touching Molly. [...] “Your hands are rough. They don’t look like a cop’s hands anymore. That shaving lotion is something a child would select. It has a ship on the bottle, doesn’t it?” Dr. Lecter seldom holds his head upright. He tilts it as he asks a question, as though he were screwing an auger of curiosity into your face. Another silence, and Lecter said, “Don’t think you can persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.”

(Red Dragon, Thomas Harris, 1981)

Will is in his mid-to-late 30s circa s1 of the NBC show, airing in 2013; his book counterpart is ~40 at the time of Red Dragon (at least prior to some later timeline shuffling? I think?) which would make him ~34-35 at the time of his briefer encounter with Lecter in that continuity. The substantial difference is when they're born -- the early 1940s rather than the late 1970s. Show Will's Gen X. Book Will isn't even a baby boomer, he's Silent Generation! These generational cohorts don't mean very much but in some things, like fashion and marketing, they flag differences in how certain products are marketed and how they're viewed.

(all my Old Spice bottle images in this post come courtesy of OldSpiceCollectibles)

The aftershave lotion with a ship on the bottle that Hannibal is bitching about is almost certainly Old Spice -- the OG Old Spice, as formulated in the late 1970s. This was a golden era for aftershave in gift-giving (witness the dozens and dozens of different collectible Avon bottles) and while the classic Old Spice bottle very much does have a ship on the bottle, Willy might have given his stepfather any number of novelty bottles designed for gifting, all of them with roughly similar early-Americana/nautical themes. Ship's wheels, ship's lanterns, ships in general, scrimshawed whale teeth, binoculars, basically anything you could possibly want. (I'd wager this is at least in part to keep up with similar collectibles coming out of Avon, but I might have that the wrong way around, or be completely off the mark altogether.)

http://www.oldspicecollectibles.com/Bottles/novelty bottles.html

The fragrance inside the bottle is a spicy floral with resinous basenotes, what for decades has been called an "oriental" fragrance. (Mercifully some parts of the industry seem to be beginning a shift toward less racist language, and I hope that shift continues, I'm seeing people float "ambrée"/"amberesque" and other language to evoke the spicy, warm profile of some scents.) It's an alcohol-based aftershave lotion, so it stings like a mother when you put it on freshly-shaven skin, and it's not great for hydration.

For cultural context, most of this will probably be stating the obvious, but I think it's interesting with the book's themes around social class, family -- Will's little family, Dolarhyde's family of origin, Dolarhyde's victims' family -- and masculinity.

In 1981, Old Spice is already positioned firmly as a highly accessible men's fragrance in the US -- available pretty much anywhere at the drugstore level, with a coordinating line of toiletries like shaving cream if aftershave isn't enough for you. For a wide swath of people of a certain age, it carries associations with dads and grandfathers, or the transmission of rituals around masculinity and coming of age from father to son. (This is weird for me as a person who came of age during the whole "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign, which aimed at revamping Old Spice's product line and aiming it toward a younger demographic, in competition with Axe. That Old Spice revamp was probably my intro into men's fragrances and it's so fucking embarrassing to say that -- it seemed very transgressive and butch to me to be wearing men's deodorant with my Catholic schoolgirl 'fit every weekday.)

It's chronologically feasible that Will's dad also wore Old Spice, and it makes sense as the kind of gift you'd give your new stepdad -- it's an impersonal gift, reflecting a fairly conservative, mainline, American masculinity. The unease many American men still felt about using scented products — even deodorant, which remained a squeamish topic — could be mitigated by the association with shaving the face as some distinctly male ritual and one taught by fathers to sons as part of their entrance into adolescence.

Have another incredibly corny print ad from 1970:

(the text is tiny here, but the gist is: hey, all these different dudes love Old Spice! Grandpa Hal! Uncle Fred! Jack! Dave! Even that goofball Pete! Just a whole bunch of guys.)

So Hannibal's remark has layers -- he's needling Will about the fact that he knows (or suspects) that Will now has a wife and child, which he likely didn't have when they last encountered each other. He's taking a swipe at his social class and his lack of sophistication — for someone with a dainty nose and a decidedly bitchy sensibility (especially in RD) Old Spice is very much déclassé. And in a narrative level, the fact that Hannibal is distinguished by his aesthetic refinement and a certain degree of fussiness as well as viciousness sets him and Will in opposition, two different modes of masculinity. I have… a lot of thoughts about how Thomas Harris uses aesthetics and sensory pleasure and refinement — certain fabrics, certain garments, certain styles of penmanship — to frame social deviance in these books but that’s for a different post I’m definitely not going to make.

This moment gets a fun parallel to Hannibal's first meeting with Clarice in The Silence Of The Lambs (1988):

“Now,” Lecter said, sitting sideways at his table to face her, “what did Miggs say to you?” “Who?” “Multiple Miggs, in the cell down there. He hissed at you. What did he say?” “He said, 'I can smell your cunt.”' “I see. I myself cannot. You use Evyan skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du Temps, but not today. Today you are determinedly unperfumed. How do you feel about what Miggs said?” “He's hostile for reasons I couldn't know. It's too bad. He's hostile to people, people are hostile to him. It's a loop.” “Are you hostile to him?” “I'm sorry he's disturbed. Beyond that, he's noise. How did you know about the perfume?” “A puff from your bag when you got out your card. Your bag is lovely.”

This is definitely a different tone than he takes with Will Graham, both because he has a very different past history with Will and because of Clarice's position as a woman, placed in front of him as an object for scrutiny. L'Air du Temps is also an old school fragrance (premiering in 1948) and had been popular for several decades by the time the novel's set — a warm floral with the kind of powdery iris note that gets really annoying people on perfume review sites fighting over the words "old lady". (FWIW I own multiple bottles of L’Air du Temps and all but one are from estate sales. The one that isn't, I... uh... bought because I was thinking about Clarice Starling a lot at the time.) This one was and is a ton of women's signature scent, and there's nothing juvenile about it. Clarice wears it, and her mother might well have worn it too. That shit is iconic but for different reasons than Old Spice is for men.

(This little '80s spray is not what any of my bottles look like. If you want more on the various ways this one's been formulated over the years, check out the PerfumeShrine piece I linked above or this blog post on how to identify its different bottles and flankers.)

Someone on Fragrantica compared L'Air du Temps to the olfactory version of a pair of pearl earrings or a cashmere sweater — conveying polished, (small-c) conservative femininity. The inside of Clarice’s handbag is the recipient of scent here, not her body (that part's conveyed through the remark about her hand cream) and the indirectness of the detail under observation is what conveys the keenness of Lecter’s senses and how closely he’s paying attention to his visitor. He also huffs her business card because of course he does.

All of these elements of class and restraint are set in opposition to the crassness of Miggs’ unwanted commentary on Clarice’s body. With her good bag and her cheap shoes Clarice is faking a certain degree of maturity and presenting herself in the most palatable way possible for this interview ("determinedly unperfumed" and all the things that can mean; pretty but serious; feminine but not too feminine; performing the right social class, all along in flight from her "common" origins) but she’s still facing virulent misogyny from damn near every direction. The book doesn’t have quite the same pointed sense of a Theme(tm) around misogyny that the film manages, though that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty going on with regard to gender, but I think the differences around how Hannibal identifies these two perfumes, and what the reader is meant to gather from each allusion or name drop, are telling and very fun.

Hannibal then goes on to give Clarice advice about how to zhuszh up her add-a-bead necklace with some semiprecious stones in order to best set off the color of her hair and eyes, which… again, I do not have time to get into that, but I’m obsessed with it.

In The NBC Show

Hannibal stands behind Will, his NOSTRILS FLARE as CAMERA SLOWLY PUSHES IN on the back of Will’s neck. WILL GRAHAM Did you just smell me? HANNIBAL Difficult to avoid. I really must introduce you to a finer aftershave. That smells like something with a ship on the bottle. WILL GRAHAM I keep getting it for Christmas. HANNIBAL Have your headaches gotten any worse lately? More frequent? WILL GRAHAM Yes, actually. HANNIBAL I’d change the aftershave. (s01e05 "Coquilles")

Love the mention of the back of Will's neck, already intimating that it's not his aftershave Hannibal's huffing here. This is something I just can't fanwank for the television show's remixed timeline -- if Will doesn't have a partner and child in his life, or really anyone else in his life in a position to be giving him presents, this recontextualized snippet about getting the offending aftershave for Christmas doesn't make a lot of sense. It works on the level of "hey, I recognize that bit!" and it establishes for the viewer (or reminds them of) Hannibal's highly developed sense of smell, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

INT. HANNIBAL LECTER'S HOUSE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Hannibal comes into the dark room. Moves toward the refrigerator. Stops. Lifts his nose to the air. HANNIBAL The same unfortunate aftershave. Too long in the bottle. Hannibal opens the refrigerator door and the light illuminates a gun pointed at his head, Will Graham behind it. - (s02e07 "Yakimono")

HANNIBAL LECTER. He lies on his cot, asleep, his head propped on a pillow against the wall. Alexandre Dumas's Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine is open on his chest. Eyes still closed, he takes a long slow breath through his nose, smelling the current of air that the CAMERA traveled. He opens his eyes. HANNIBAL That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court. - (s03e09 "…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun", very directly drawn from Red Dragon)

What’s the modern-day analogue of the original Old Spice in 1981 — ubiquity, maturity, connotations around class and gender? I don’t know if there is one. In 2013 Will's more likely to be wearing Old Spice deodorant, post-rebrand, still with a ship on the packaging but called Fiji or Denali. Or Bearglove, or Wolfthorn. No doubt Hannibal would find that offensive, but offensive in a different way than his book counterpart way back in the Reagan administration.

There's no shortage of drugstore-y scents in 2013, highly accessible fragrances for a person giving a generic Male Gift at an accessible price point, or habitual buys for a guy who mostly wants to smell like he's at least attempting to be a put-together human being: D&G Light Blue, Davidoff Cool Water, CK One, CK Eternity. (Or their body spray equivalents, if you really want Hannibal to suffer, and I do, every day of my life.) But in general there's a* lot* more diversity in fragrance worn by American men in 2013 than there was circa the events of Red Dragon or at whatever age book!Will might have started using fragrance. There's no one scent that stands in for such a broad section of gender and class as Old Spice aftershave would have in the 1970s.

It seems doubtful that in 2013 Will's using whatever he's using primarily for its shaving benefits, not least of all because he's a bearded king. (Presumably he cleans his beard up from time to time and trims his neck and whatnot, but bear with me here.) True aftershave is still available in many drugstores, including some venerable names — Aqua Velva, Skin Bracer, Pinaud Clubman — but they’re no longer the arena of younger men unless they're curious budding fragheads. And you can still be an outdoorsy dude in 2013 wearing Old Spice, but it's a bit more of a self-conscious put-on at that point, either someone's buying Will tongue-in-cheek dad cologne to go with his house full of boat engines and dog statues, or Will's bashful about his own taste for tongue-in-cheek dad cologne.

What might Will be wearing in 2013? This depends on which aspect we’re trying to reflect. For modest budget and ubiquity I can see him going for the OG Polo Green or one of its flankers. (There's a great piece of NBC Hannibal perfume meta by Genufa that I swear I only encountered after I already chose this, and it mentions Polo Classic in tandem with Will, so I'm glad we're in agreement here.) For stuff in an amber-spice neighborhood, CK Obsession For Men maybe? Still retro (premiered in 1986) but not 1930s retro.

What’s a step up? If I was out here somehow tasked with buying this man a nice smelling gift, what would I choose? If Will wanted to treat himself with something under that broad constellation of selling points — a single fragrance for steady wear, something unflashy and congruent with his presentation of himself -- I would be really tempted to put him in something slightly more niche, but not a lot more niche.

I am a huge fan of Etat Libre d'Orange Fat Electrician, a really fun creamy vetiver that's sexy in a clean soft-butch kind of way. It's not spicy in the least but as the scent's subtitle of a "semi-modern vetiver" indicates it has a nice timeless quality, warm and clean-smelling but not soapy. (And a very subtle gourmand aspect -- chestnut cream or marrons glacés.) Or something from DS&Durga, Mississippi Medicine, or Bowmakers, or Burning Barbershop -- there's a whole slew of "vintage barbershop"-inspired scents that might scratch the same itch for someone who wears a fragrance out of habit and to feel grounded in a solid, put-together masculinity. (Maybe especially when he's not feeling otherwise particularly grounded or put-together.)

For different ways of evoking Will's kind of dignified no-fuss outdoorsman thing, Profumum Arso ("Cedar leaves, incense, leather, pine resin") maybe, or Fumidus, though it sounds like peaty hell to me -- Will seems to be a bourbon guy and not a scotch dude. For something a little more glamorous and a little more established, maybe Guerlain Habit Rouge, idk. 

What’s the next step up from these -- the equivalent of Bella's Bolt Of Lightning? If someone (with a bankroll on par with Hannibal, or Bedelia, or Jack, or Bella) were to introduce Will to a still pricier class of fragrance, what might that look like? It's hard for me to say, since this isn't a type of perfumery I engage with, like... at all. I like my indie oils, I like niche perfumers, I love decants, but I don't have a cool $800 to drop on a whole bottle of... anything. Once you reach a certain level you can shop pretty differently from normal people, up to and including getting something one-of-a-kind commissioned for your boytoy/crime gimp/ex-husband's ex-husband/etc. (And as a gift for someone else -- since none of these people barring possibly Bella has a remotely normal relationship with Will -- it'd say as much about their intentions with the gift and their perception of Will as the reality of who Will is.) So I'm going to have to mull that a while.

Absolutely none of this gets into the bonkers Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella sequence in Hannibal, which... has a lot going on, idk. ("Starling, then. Clean, and rich in textures. Cotton sun-dried and ironed. Clarice Starling, then. Engaging and toothsome. Tedious in her earnestness and absurd in her principles. Quick in her mother wit." Please, sir!) Like basically every other element of the series, the smell stuff gets ratcheted up to 11 for that book, and it seems like its own separate thing to unpack. Hannibal fucking loves shopping in that book and I love reading about his weird little ass shopping.

[randomvarious]

1990s House Playlist

One of these days I'm gonna add, like, a supervolcano's worth of house bangers to this playlist, but for now, with this brief update, I'm adding one delicious morsel instead, and it's William Orbit's aptly titled "Throbjam Mix" of Fuzzy Logic's "Obsession," which features the vocal stylings of Erire.

For those who might not know, William Orbit is dance music royalty. His greatest commercial achievements may be what he did to help keep Madonna's career surging into the new millennium, with unforgettably advanced, retro-futuristic bops like "Ray of Light" and "Beautiful Stranger;" but before that monumental partnership ever came to fruition, Orbit was pioneering the UK progressive house underground with his very own label called Guerilla Recordings, which he co-founded in 1990.

And in '92, he dropped this beaut' of a remix on Guerilla, which came with all these pulsatingly hazy, digi-chemical bleeps, bloops, tones, and squelches that volleyed with some integrally lovely, zone-flooding organ work too, all of which went along with diva Erire's own vocals. And much like he ended up doing with his pop production work later on, this very song sounds pretty dang ahead of its time in some ways too. I don't really much care for what progressive house became later on down the line, but this early stuff, just when house music itself was still in its own relatively early days at not even a decade old, is tremendous. And for how dope this track is especially, it's unfortunate to only see it at ~8.2K plays, because when Erire goes gravelly and that organ hums, you simply cannot beat something like this. Such warm dance bliss 😌.

Fuzzy Logic - "Obsession (The Throbjam mix)"

Now, normally with the YouTube versions of these playlist posts, I have other songs that aren't on Spotify to add to them too, but I actually don't have any this week. However, I did do some much needed house-cleaning of this thing, because apparently a handful of songs had been removed since my last update, and that included tunes from the unfortunately overshadowed early 90s Warp Records house comp, Tequila Slammers and the Jump Jump Groove Generation, as well as a rare remix of Björk's "Isobel" by the great Dimitri From Paris. An official version of that Dimitri remix was actually put on Spotify and YouTube within the past year (OMG, finally!), but whoever put it on there must've not actually listened to it, because the thing becomes an unlistenable glitch-garbled mess at a certain point ☹️. So I'm not putting it on the Spotify playlist until it's fixed, but I was able to find that someone else uploaded it to YouTube 👍.

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So this update now brings us up to 16 songs that clock in at 108 minutes on Spotify, but over on YouTube we're now at 36 songs that clock in at 255 minutes. So if you want more of that awesome underground house shit that Spotify will probably never get its own paws on, do yourself a favor and check out the YouTube one!

And here's the growing list of comps and mixes that I've used to put this whole playlist together:

The Vertical Iris (1998, ZoëMagik Records) Jackpot Presents Guerrilla by Phil Perry & Danny Howells (1997, Jackpot) Tequila Slammers and the Jump Jump Groove Generation (1993, Warp Records) California Dreaming (1994, Internal / FFRR) La Collection (1994, Fnac Music Dance Division) The Warehouse Remixes (1994, Djax-Up-Beats) Monsieur Dimitri's De-Luxe House of Funk by Dimitri From Paris (1997, DMC Publishing Ltd.) St John's Playhouse: Fierce Club Classics by DJ Dave Matthias (1997, Sony Music Special Products) Live and Rare (1998, F Communications / PIAS France) Ultra.Dance by Boris Dlugosch (1997, Ultra Records) Bakchick EP #3 (1997, Basenotic Records) Soma Quality Recordings - Volume 4 (1997, Soma Quality Recordings) Ultradance 2 by Sash! (1998, Ultra Records) Club H Vol.2 by Harry the Bastard (2000, Statra Recordings) Profound Sounds Vol. 1 by Josh Wink (1999, Ruffhouse Records) E=wMC2000: The Equation for Quantum Groove Theory (2000, EMusic) Architecture Volume 2 by Terry Francis (1998, Pagan Records) Trancespotting II (1998, Hypnotic Records) Plastic City Reconstructed (1999, Plastic City) Essential Selection, Volume One by Fatboy Slim & Paul Oakenfold (2000, London Records 90) Bakchich EP #4 (1999, Basenotic Records)

New 90s London playlist next week!

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[cleolinda]

So I tried Black Opium Extreme again

A relatively simple installment this week: remember how I tried this one and got nothing but jasmine? Well, I remembered two things:

I tried this on my wrist, not the back of my hand.

I tried it only a couple days after the sample arrived in the mail, rather than letting it settle for a couple of weeks.

I cannot tell you why either of these things make a difference. All I can tell you is that I wore Black Opium Extreme again, and suddenly it was an intense mocha (more a chocolate supported by coffee than the other way around, on me) with an undertone of licorice. In fact, through the lifespan of the perfume, the white floral blend (jasmine and orange blossom) was the least noticeable. I mean, it was there, but you could smell it as part of all the other notes, not standing unto itself. And if you look up there in the original post, jasmine was all I got. Even after the coffee-chocolate-licorice fades, it's not really the jasmine that comes out; it's more of the pear-heavy gourmand I remember from getting vaguely sprayed with the original Black Opium at an Ulta.

And I have also been able to (re)try the original. Let's compare the notes for a moment:

Black Opium (2014): Pear, pink pepper, orange blossom, coffee, jasmine, bitter almond, licorice, vanilla, patchouli, cashmere wood (Cashmeran), cedar.

Black Opium Extreme (2021): Black coffee, cacao, mandarin orange, lemon, pear, jasmine (grandiflorum? sambac?), orange blossom, bourbon vanilla, patchouli.

(For the record: the creators are Nathalie Lorson, Marie Salamagne, Olivier Cresp and Honorine Blanc.)

The newer variant is advertised as being very heavy on the "dark" gourmand notes, especially the coffee, and when I finally got Extreme to cooperate, that's what I got. Licorice isn't listed, but I feel like that's a big ol' lie, because I smell it more clearly here than in the original. Who knows? Not me.

As for the original, we gotta put an asterisk by this, because what I have is a very old Sephora sample (but less than ten years old). I think it aged really nicely, but I can't tell you for sure if the balance of the fragrance has changed—have the basenotes gotten stronger, has something else faded, what have you.

The original opens with the fruity pear-citrus blast that nearly choked me out while shopping; gradually the gourmand notes come out as a sort of pear cupcake foundation. I mostly read the (remember: aged) sample as a vanilla cupcake rather than a coffee or chocolate one, with those notes and the patchouli (which has probably aged very smoothly) subconsciously giving the base more weight. It doesn't come off like a mocha latte; it smells very Vanilla, and very Cake, and eventually, that's the scent left behind once the fruits have gone home. The white floral is still wound up in there, but again, you wouldn't really think of this as "floral" or "blooming," as opposed to the way that the Samsara EdT smelled oddly fresh and airy for a heavily sandalwood fragrance. So: A fresh batch of Black Opium might smell very different, but with this sample, that's what I get. The Extreme version is meant to bring the coffee and chocolate out and put it on top, so that checks out.

What any of this has to do with opium, or even Opium (1977), I do not know.

The thing that intrigues me is that I keep seeing jasmine/licorice combinations in perfume; I've been having a little trouble distinguishing licorice-anise notes, so I've been researching that. By researching, I mean "eating actual licorice candy even though I don't like it." The short version is that licorice, anise, star anise, fennel, and even magnolia blossoms all have a very characteristic smell/taste (granted, I have never eaten a magnolia blossom), and that common denominator is the compound anethole. That's what I'm looking into.

Jasmine sambac (aka night-blooming jasmine, mogra, sampaguita, melati putih, "Arabian jasmine") doesn't seem to have any anethole, but I'm convinced that it blends particularly well with licorice (etc.). As it turns out, I have a sample of Nemat's "Mogra," just because I like jasmine, and will you look at that: mogra is jasmine sambac. It's exactly what's in Black Opium(s). I don't care what anyone says, that's what it is. And jasmine sambac apparently has a scent that, if not containing anethole, is damn compatible with it; either I haven't learned to distinguish licorice very well yet, or they just blend together that well.

And I noticed that the jasmine/licorice combination is in two other fragrance samples I have: the original, eponymous Lolita Lempicka (1997), and the (for some reason completely different) eau de parfum concentration of HYPNOTIC POISON. So I'll be reporting back on those soon.

Perfume discussion masterpost

[lindenattic]

thinking about geoffragrance map. i think im gonna ... start by limiting myself to a certain number of fragrances to start with. and then list the notes? from fragrantica and/or basenotes ... take the notes and boolean them, or maybe if i can pull from both sites ill do 0.5 for one site and 1 for both sites... make some long ass vectors out of that data... dot product the vectors...... i think once ive got the data i can get the rest dealt with pretty easily, but the data entry is gonna be kinda tedious

[haveusmelledthisperfume]

Have you smelled this perfume?

Even more gourmand madness, now with a touch of lemon! Bake is often pointed to as THE lemony cake fragrance for the bougie set who prefer niche perfumes to BBW sprays. Have you smelled it?

[odoroussavourssweet]

Olympic Orchids Chevalier Vert

Nose: Ellen Covey

Notes: citrus, rhubarb, tomato leaf, armoise, violet leaf, violet, orris, peony, sichuan pepper, woods

Chevalier Vert (Green Knight) is indeed brightly green and vegetal. It sparkles for a moment with citrus and then it's all tomato leaf, literally a raw-vegetable chlorophyll-y smell.

I keep getting touches of something bright and fruity-fresh -- the rhubarb? but mostly it's that dense, tough tomato leaf. It smells slightly "wrong" -- it's not one of the usual "fresh leafy green" perfumery notes. It smells like a real vegetable garden in the hot sun; you're knee-deep in weeds and your pants are stained.

An hour in it goes very soft and is just dusty woods and a barely-there, chilly smoothness from iris. I like this kind of cool, clean, white vibe, but it's almost too delicate for me to smell. (L'Homme du Coeur comes to mind as a similar, but louder and more legible, example of this pearly-white scent type.)

I love my greens, but Chevalier Vert is a pass for me. The vegetal opening is quite harsh and weird to my taste, and the whole thing disappears very quickly.

Even for hardcore tomato-leaf lovers (I know you're out there) there are better options IMO -- Corsica Furiosa is aggro, sun-drenched tomato leaf fading slowly into golden hay, while Stones is tomato leaf balanced with darker mossy-earth notes. Both manage to fuse the tomato leaf with longer-lasting basenotes to make the effect last longer, while the Chevalier just vanishes and is replaced by an unrelated, ultra-faint scent.

[lightgaswaterelectricityrent]

I desperately need to go somewhere where a professional can definitively tell me what the basenote is in 90% of perfumes that absolutely reeks to me and gives me a headache

[greenishness]

really enjoying the basenotes dot com comment sections so far