Smells like when you get a hug from your best friend’s mom. Warm but unfamiliar at the same time. Hairspray and hand cream, dish soap and vanilla.
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Halston woman – the green floral Chypre but with an ambery base. When the 80’s collided with the 90’s.
Like sitting in the grass, protected by the shade of your favourite tree, a breeze in your hair, not a care in the world. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Chanel No. 19 Poudre for the weekend.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Bubblegum in a bottle but it’s made with benzoin and cloves. Heavy on the sweetness but not on the vanilla. This is a gourmand I can wear. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Cherigan The Purple Bar. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It’s the new Charlotte Tilbury Exagger-Eyes Mascara, a new tubing mascara. And yes it’s actually tubing which means it doesn’t smudge during the day and comes off with just water at the end of the day.
I can’t remember the last time I went into Sephora for a perfume, but every time I’ve been in there, I can’t help but spray myself with this: Merit Retrospect. It smells like expensive pear shampoo. A tiny dose of aldehydes, and then it’s a little fruity but not overly sweet, settles to a soapy, clean, sudsy finish. Intense to start but then a more gentle finish many hours later. Every time someone catches a whiff, it’ll be a pleasant surprise. A tiny bottle but an Extrait de Parfum (and really feels like one too), in a design that feels very Elsa Peretti.
The perfumer: Fanny Bal, who has also done perfumes for other brands, even Frederic Malle.
The aldehydes in Retrospect are toned down for the Sephora audience, the powdery peachy gum is changed to a more palatable sweet juicy pear, and the musk is like the soap at your mom’s house… expensive and comforting. I like Retrospect better and it’s interesting that Bal did these two scents that were launched in the same year… aldehydes are back, maybe for a new generation of consumer who can make them their own.
Chlorine on warm skin. Violets pushing up through damp earth. The sky darkening. Wet rain on your cheeks. tastes like the sea. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Frederic Malle Dans tes Bras. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is a scent that I enjoyed very much because it challenged me but didn’t offend me. Isabey Lys Noir is an odd combination of notes – lily and a dry dusty patchouli. It’s one that won’t wow right away unless you know that you like lily, or white florals, and the florals in the opening here smell very medicinal because the lily is blended with tuberose and an indolic one of at that. The combination of lilies and tuberose wouldn’t really be strange, but the dry down leads to a cocoa-patchouli that’s dusty and dark, like a forgotten piece of old chocolate in a wooden drawer. When I smell indolic florals, I sometimes try to block out the smell of mothballs, but Lys Noir embraces all things old and dusty from the opening to the closing of its progression. It’s a bit of a slowly developing perfume, making you think you’re wearing a garland of florals but ending the day with this really old-school 70’s patch that could have come out of a Lush store. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Apparently, the original Lys Noir came out in 1924, and this is a reworking of that scent.
I love my sample and enjoy wearing the scent because it is so weird, and I confess, I do love dusty patchouli, but niche weird scents are not what I normally reach for, and I have realized that I like to experience them in sample format rather than springing for a full bottle. I highly recommend bringing a handful of samples with you on vacation, along with perfumes you’re already familiar with in your own collection. it’s good to have new things to wear but also references of the types of things you really love and are familiar with. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Let’s meet up this weekend to make holiday cards, put cloves in oranges like when we were little, sip egg nog, and eat cake. We’ll wear our coziest sweaters even though we know that as soon as the sun starts shining, it’ll be too hot to keep them on, our cheeks red from the heat, fingers sore from the crafts. We keep going, remembering – lamenting – that everything is temporary.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Vangelis by Sylvaine Delacourte. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Crisp, sparkly neroli brightens a sweet vanilla. Powdery and fresh at once. Classic and easy to wear, like a younger, more modern cousin of Shalimar Eau de Cologne, which, incidentally, I also love wearing. Brightens your day in the dead of winter. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Florals for spring: groundbreaking.
But Santa Maria Novella makes them feel new again. Magnolia, roses, and musk, this is the way you make florals smell new and have better performance. Magnolia was part of the new launch of edp’s that Santa Maria Novella launched in 2023. Yes, making a perfume into an edp improves performance but all of them have a musk base that just sticks to skin. The musks in Magnolia remind me of soapy skin without smelling just like soap. Even if you’re not a fan of florals, approach this one with an open mind and you may be pleasantly surprised. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
