Splendid Molerat

Perversion: the tonka bean lingers like heat around your skin, and the other notes come together in an ideal blend of light and dark.

This is the fragrance where I'm at an expensive club (mahogany, armchairs, bright brass, a fireplace), and the room in nearly empty. I'm in a well-worn leather trench coat, my case of Gauloises in the inside breast pocket, leaning back with my elbows against the bar rail, and a half-forgotten glass of black rum in my fingers. There's a panoramic view of city lights on water, and the water is as dark as my drink.

You aren't here yet.

The Caterpillar is earthy, smoky, sunshine-warmed flowers. And kinda furry too -- not so much the scent, but the sensation of planting your nose on a fluffy kitten.

Unfortunately, this was my shopping experience on Saturday:

Cashier- "Did you find everything you were looking for?"

Me- "Yes, thanks."

Cashier- "Excuse me. Wah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo! "

Me- "Um. Would you be allergic to patchouli at all?"

Cashier- "Wah-choo!"

I could have sworn I only dabbed on a little.

Loup Garou has a leading chill of eucalyptus, like trying to remember winter when you're in a hot climate.

I can imagine the displaced Acadiens telling their new children stories of the loup garou in the firelight, and that creature growing bigger and darker in the black wooded hills and cypress swamps.

This smells like something strong has torn the trees until they've bled.

In the Star I'm getting lime-mint-coconut-almond. More astringent than food-y.

Very high and white, like rarefied air.

I had a dream after trying this one, in which I could walk on air, maybe two or three metres off the ground. Indoors I could cling to the ceilings like a helium balloon.

I had a young, smarmy stalker guy following me; he would try to grab my heel and pull me back to earth, as if he were doing me some kind of favour. I managed to lose him, and met his father, who in the dream had known me for years, and always liked me.

"Do you still fly?" he asked. "Yes", I said.

"What's it like?" (wistfully).

I picked him up by the waist (he was light as glass), and spun in a circle. "Flying is like this," I said.

It was quite touching, the feeling lingered for several hours.

Zombi is giving me some flashbacks to childhood.

I used to hide in the garden under the overgrown vine roses. There's the damp earth and thick moss, and a patch of clay I'd sometimes nibble on (fine grit, almost sweet). Around the first frost the roses would be dead or dying all around me, and the thick tangle would create a still pocket of warmth on an otherwise chilled day.

Wolfsbane starts out as a very green herbal, like juniper and sage to my nose.

The follow-through is wild roses, the kind you find out in the woods in October that are brown-red and no bigger than your thumbnail.

Wolfsbane is okay on me, and really wafts nicely off the husband...

Tintagel did something disagreeable on my skin, doing an uncanny imitation of malt vinegar.

The real complexity came out in the oil burner, where I tried it out on Thanksgiving. The apartment filled with mulled wine and apple cake and fresh kindling -- simply gorgeous!

[Edit for spelling.]

The first two notes I get from Obeah are lemon peel and patchouli. Behind that there's wet cedar and spicy earth, and something dark that might be tobacco. This invites repeated sniffing as the fragrance unfolds.

The Obeah scent is compelling and sinister -- something I'll retain in the fragrance library, but not something I'll revisit frequently.

Sudha Segara: Up front I'm tasting ginger syrup, maybe drizzled over sticky rice sweets.

In the background I've got a kettle of hot tea, made with cracked cardamum pods and creamy fresh milk.

It's a fragrance of quiet civility.

The first note I get from Val San Retour is natural turpentine, the kind that wells up when pine is deeply cut, or clawed. It's like crossing the boundary of a valley.

The follow through is an airy and watery blend, close to lemon. Later notes come up like a descent into the valley, reminiscent of tiny alpine flowers, grass and clover. You can imagine still air, and the shadows of clouds rippling the earth around you.

I oddly enjoy this one.

It's an aggressive, rutty odor, like you've spilled the wine and twisted the sheets and gone at each other again and again, exploring every orifice, not even pausing to shower.

I find the civet note very close to camphor, so while it does remind me of stale exhalation, anterior or posterior, it also reminds me of things mothballed for storage.

It's compelling, if not pretty. Inappropriate for the job interview, but possibly a nice touch for the exit interview, if accompanied by a toothy, wild-eyed grin.

In Neo-Tokyo I get the cool floral and almost-citrus fruits. I can taste the ozone at the back of my mouth, like standing under an awning while the rain clears the sidewalks.

I found the fragrance lingering well into the afternoon, which was a lovely and calming gift considering the tit-caught-in-a-wringer day I was having. Like a gentle reminder that I could go home to a hot bath at the end of it all.

On first sniff, I'm getting something like catnip, sage, and licorice. Crisp and feral.

After a few minutes on my skin, it dries out to the exact scent of Turkish delight candy, and I keep checking the test spot in case I'm mistaken:

-- [sniff] Yup, still Turkish delight.

-- How about now?

-- [sniff] Rosewater and gelatin, that's the stuff alright.

It's pleasant, but oddly disconcerting.

I want more of this.

On me Bayou was luscious, green and watery. There's a good balance between the moss, woods and florals, that kept the fragrance from going too sweet or too dark.

The image I get is of milky sunlight through green and black trees, flies and pollen barely moving in the half-light, and still murky water. There are alligators somewhere, but you're too spent to care.

I ran a few drops through my hair, and got the occasional wave of heat throughout the day.

If you're one of the unlucky subgroup whose skin transforms civet into something the dog rolled in, you could make an unforgettable impression that way.

Unless he's a scat fancier, then you're on your own.

Depraved has established itself as one of my favourite travelling/running around town perfumes.

There's something sexy and naked in the intersection of patchouli and apricot. On me it reminds me of a long summer day out in the sun, and a clean sweat-plus-pollen skin scent -- especially if the day involved, let's say, a roll in the tall grass.

It encourages the mind to go off on strange tangents, and I think the name really suits it.

Kali is the only fragrance to date that my husband has noticed on walking into the room, as in "Something smells sweet!"

This blend is mostly roses and chocolate on my skin, and the wear is very robust and balanced.

I had some initial misgivings about Kali, as some of the top notes reminded me of YSL's Paris. In a short span of time, Paris became obnoxious and cloying, and it was only liked by my then-boyfriend -- who coincidentally was also obnoxious and cloying.

The background notes of chocolate and tobacco make for a stately and dignified composition. I like.

This fragrance is very clean and subdued. It most reminds me of washing clothes with a bar of Sunlight soap, and hanging them out in the wind to dry -- when you bring everything back in, you've got all kinds of delicate scents: lemon, lye, sunshine, pollen...

I get a sense of purification in this one.

This is a really sultry and laid-back fragrance.

There's a lot of overripe honeysuckle and jasmine, and some deep, earthy spices. I'm also getting an elusive smoky note, like coal cinders from a steam engine. The lemon cools down the blend, so it isn't overpowering for me.

I think I'll be getting more of this one.

When I tried Midnight a month or so ago, I was left scratching my head -- for some reason I couldn't smell it at all. A vague hint of earth, otherwise nothing, so I gave away that imp.

New imp: Now I can smell it (odd!), and I quite like the blend. There's some humid leafiness, and something peppery, and waxy white flowers, the kind that look like they're floating in the moonlight.

I could see myself wearing this after a hot evening soak, and sitting outside to watch the fireflies.

I'm trying to imagine what an overgrown English garden would smell like from a cat's height, and I think this is it.

I get a grapefruit-lavender combination initially, quickly fading into the chamomile. Those also fade (I guess Cheshire Cat climbs the tree at this point), mingling into a really soft fruity-floral.

My skin eats this one up fast, but it's going to be pretty as a room fragrance.

I ordered an imp of this after Lolita agreed with me so well, just to see what another incarnation of heliotrope would be like.

Lolita is like a day in the sunshine, snapping your bubblegum and playing double-dutch with scents blowing in from the lawns and gardens.

Glitter is an older girl going the clubs underage, getting spun on wine and fizzy drinks, dancing until her mascara melts, and still looking beautiful (because at that age you can).

I can use this when I want to recall and process my younger days (or mourn my youth and beauty). Not a place I would visit every day, but something I need to consider at intervals.

This was a gift from the Lab, which I've worn around Darling Husband over the last couple of days.

Apart from commenting that it smells nice, he's had no particular affinity for it -- which makes sense to me. DH could not be more devoted than he already is, and requires no olfactory cues.

In the wet oil, I'm picking up Southern florals: jasmine or lotus, honeysuckle, maybe some roses, maybe some licorice. It smells yummy to me, and the dry down is like sugared petals -- say, a white cake with edible flowers.

It also vaguely reminds me of the original Johnson's baby lotion formula, which my mother once told me was a sexy scent. And you can bet I changed the subject after that revelation.

I'm finding Omen a very compelling fragrance -- it has the juniper and moss creating a dark green setting, but I'm also getting a note that reminds me of lake water.

Do you remember the time you waded out from the shore, misjudged your footing, and inhaled some of the lake? Forget the panic and the pain, but recall there was something in the displacement of air with water that created a phantom scent.

The feeling is a black forest and blacker water, with heavy silence all around.

This is the scent I'll go to when I need to be detached and clinical.

I'm picking up the mint and neroli, but the eucalyptus and violet have merged in a way that I can't distinguish between them. The colour/texture that comes to mind is gunmetal.

Perhaps in an alternate universe there are plants that produce revolvers instead of flowers, waving fields of gunmetal blue under a clear sky...

No, that wouldn't work. Those plants would never be pollinated. Scratch that notion.