I Was Busy Thinking Bout Boys

Without further ado, a handful of men's fragrance reviews, all of them classic old school men's fragrances. 

ENGLISH LEATHER 

My father had bottles of this stuff when I was growing up. It's very masculine but it's an old school masculinity that isn't found in current best selling men's fragrances. Mostly I smell leather, like an old beat up leather jacket or a baseball glove. I get a quick dose of citrus oils when it's first applied and in the drydown I catch little whiffs of tonka and cedar. It's not exactly something I want to smell like very often but it's not unpleasant either. Mostly it reminds me of the bathroom in my childhood home where my dad kept his shaving supplies. I remember smelling this on his neck, riding around in his old Army style Jeep. This review would be incomplete if I didn't mention how every time I apply it my skin stings and burns for a few minutes. Not in an allergic way, just in a heavy alcohol way. As an adult I finally viewed the old television commercials for this and had a good laugh. "I make all my men wear English Leather... every one of them" she says in that breathy post-women's-lib-but -still-clinging-to-traditional-methods tone of voice. Hilarious. This stuff is a time machine. 

MERCEDES-BENZ

"Hey kid, need a ride? Hop in"

He pulls up alongside the curb. What are you gonna do, say no? The bus is late and it's sweltering outside. You get inside the luxury sedan. It's at least twenty degrees cooler immediately. The interior smells like cool new leather and pristine upholstery. Almost perfumey. Almost like violets. You make small talk as best you can, but are ever so grateful to arrive at your destination. You thank the CEO of your company for the ride and bolt from the car. For the next hour your nose is still filled with the scent of cool violets and a life you'll never afford.

VENDETTA UOMO by Valentino

This is like Tom Ford Oud Wood's sexy older brother. He's quiet with dark soulful eyes you could swim in. When you get close to him, his skin smells like warm cinnamon. You want to reach out and touch him, you can't stop thinking about him. His lips are moving but you can't make out the words because you are too under the spell of this cinnamon and leather emanating from his being. He is like the incense of a church that exists only in your loins.

DUC de VERVINS by Houbigant 

I stumbled upon a large batch of old school men's fragrances and Houbigant Duc de Vervins may have been my favorite of the whole lot. This is the aromatic of dreams. Sage, lavender, oakmoss, rosemary. This is the smell of a Simon & Garfunkel lullaby. It's definitely not a leather fragrance, but it does give the impression of expensive clothing, a well cut jacket, maybe with leather patches on the elbows. Argyle socks. A man who does not watch television and his musical taste scares you slightly. I wish my father had worn this one when I was growing up.

I Would Imagine a Person Who

Most fragrances remind me of someone. Sometimes it's a person I know but more often it's a person I have created in my imagination. What archetype does this scent bring to mind? What kind of person would smell this way? As a writer I have spent my entire life watching people, observing their details, and creating characters by filling in the blanks with my own imagination. When I was a little girl, I loved playing with my dolls. Each doll had her own name, personality and mannerisms. It's humorous to think perhaps my perfume bottles are just my grown up version of dolls. Each with their own personality and mannerisms. I present you with reviews for seven fragrances that totally cause me to dream up a character for it. 

WILD CHILD by Pinrose

I think this is called Wild Child because it reminds you of a friend you had in days of youth who got away with everything by fooling the adults around her into thinking she was sweet and innocent. But you knew better! She was always pulling you into her schemes aka "adventures". She didn't realize that although she was immune to consequences, you were a Regular Child who was trying to be rational and stay alive. But you loved Wild Child because she could pull that reckless side from within you, that crazy inner brat you secretly longed to be. So you and Wild Child cried over boys and laughed over beers together. She always had better luck with both of those things. Okay, perfume wise this is a basic subtle white floral. Mostly gardenia and freesia. Inoffensive, safe, professional even. Your parents would approve. But on the drydown there is a musky skanky hint of the wild shenanigans glinting in your friend's eye.

BOTTEGA VENETA

This is one of the greatest suede fragrances of all time. At first I was going to write that this smells like a luxury handbag but no, that's cliche. This is so much more than that and it took me some time to see the whole picture. Bottega Veneta is an aristocrat maybe. She lives a higher end lifestyle than most of us realize exists. This smells old money but she could just as easily be new money. There is a hint of smokiness... if she smokes it's always in private. Her taste is so expensive she does not even know it's expensive... that's just her life. Wear this with a little black dress and the realest jewelry you have to feel bitchy and beautiful. Wear it with torn jeans to feel the same.

OBSESSION by Calvin Klein

Ever see the '80s movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"? This is what I picture the girlfriend, Sloane Peterson smelling like. Spicy, sensual and just a tiny bit wild. Obsession really feels like a fall and winter scent to me. I get the impression of a well worn leather jacket with traces of perfume clinging to the lining (In the case of Sloane, that jacket would be white with fringe). The longevity is great and the sillage is enormous, only one or two sprays of Obsession will get most people through an entire day. A light hand in applying is key. Dries down to a smoky powdered musk. I remember smelling this plenty in the '80s and '90s but it's not dated at all. Anyone who likes warm spicy or slightly animalic scents should try out Obsession.

TRACY by Ellen Tracy

Tracy was my favorite of all the Ellen Tracy perfumes I've had a chance to try (I got a set of minis) I call it my "suburban mom perfume" because it makes me feel like that mom who is kind and capable and runs the household effortlessly. She has no problem setting an extra place at the dinner table for her kids' friend. She has a regular date night with her husband and a book club night with the other neighborhood ladies. It's a calming, lotion-esque scent. The almond note is very milky and the violet note is soft and powdery. The peony and plum blossom add freshness to the composition without ever getting shrill. This is a nice one to wear right out of the bath or on a Sunday morning, it's soft and relaxing. People smell this on you and feel good, like you're going to nurture them. It's a comforting hug in a bottle.

JONTUE by Revlon 

Has anyone seen the movie Dazed and Confused? It follows a group of Texas teenagers on the last day of school in 1976. There is a scene where a few of the senior girls are in the high school bathroom and Jontue isn't featured in the scene but whenever I smell it, I get the idea of those characters all passing around a bottle of it to share. Sweet chamomile flowers and retro oakmoss. Goes so well with bell bottom jeans, embroidered peasant blouses, macrame belts and feathered hairstyles. This is Shavonne, Jodi and Kaye and the smell of their fictional friendship.

CHLOE 

Chloe EDP is one of those "olfactory armor" perfumes to me. It's not something I would wear to come across as sweet or approachable or even sexy. The reviews calling this a "rich bitch" scent are onto something here. It smells expensive, with an air of "don't talk to me, don't touch me, you aren't in my league". Some days I NEED A PERFUME JUST LIKE THAT. I definitely pick up a soapy, laundered linens vibe as well. It makes the rose into less of a realistic garden rose and more of a high-end talcum powder, sachet rose. That's really unique and makes me slightly nostalgic for the era of Laura Ashley boutiques and hotel bathrooms filled with silky guest soap.

EVENING IN PARIS by Bourjois

I must be one lucky babe because I have both a vintage bottle of Evening In Paris (from the 1940s I believe) and a sample of the new reformulation Soir de Paris. They are related for sure, but two very different ladies...

1940s Evening In Paris

There is something distinctly vintage about this. There must be a bunch of oakmoss or orris root in here. It has that "classy but skanky" quality I love so much about vintages. Heavy violet powder and syrupy ylang ylang are garnished with a shake of heliotrope and rose petals. I see a well groomed woman in a black dress and pearls dabbing this behind her ears. She checks her handbag to make sure her red lipstick and cigarettes are in there, then throws a fur around her shoulders. Her husband is taking her to the opera and then a supper club for cocktails and dancing.


New Soir de Paris

When first applied, I get amped up rose, vanilla, peach and apricot. I keep sniffing myself and thinking I put on Lancome Tresor, but I don't own any Tresor. This has better longevity than the vintage Soir de Paris and after an hour or two, the fruit mellows out a bit to let that iris-heliotrope-sandalwood out. It's much sweeter than the vintage and in my opinion, is far more girlish. I see a well groomed young woman in a little black dress and pearls dabbing this behind her ears. She checks her purse to make sure her red lipstick and cell phone are in there, then throws a silky pashmina around her shoulders. Her boyfriend is taking her to a swanky tapas lounge where a DJ is spinning jazz-funk fusion.

I Know A Place

Sheltering at home during quarantine has not stopped me from wearing fragrance. I love perfume so much and wear it for myself, not others. If others happen to enjoy it that's just a nice bonus. It's art to me and a serious mode of self expression. As much as I have come to detest the phrase "silver linings" in reference to anything pandemic-related, I get it. While nobody likes a Pollyanna playing "the glad game", there are a few places where unexpected benefits have appeared after the world turned upside down. 

The first noticeable silver lining for me was that I no longer had to worry about selecting "office appropriate" scents during the weekdays. A new workday that happened from one corner of my kitchen table meant that I could wear any perfume I wished, on any day of the week, in any amount I desired. And if I decided halfway through the day that I could not stand my scent of the day? Well, a midday shower was now a viable solution!

Like all of us, I still missed going places. I began to crave more scents that evoked very specific locales to me. If I can't go somewhere in real life, it's nice to have the option of escaping in my imagination, if only for a moment or two. Here are a few reviews of fragrances that certainly send me to a very specific place and time. 

SHALIMAR by Guerlain 

January, 2003. I have run away from my old life and am hiding out in a cottage in the snowy woods. I have taken only a few possessions with me, including a mini bottle of Guerlain Shalimar. I take to wearing it every day as I settle into a peaceful and strange new life off the grid. Shalimar makes the most sense to me in the context of this setting.

It opens with one of the most realistic Earl Grey accords I have ever smelled. The morning cup of tea as I sit at the dining table, relieved to be rid of the old life and contemplating how I might move forward this morning on plans for my new life. Shalimar moves into a leather gloves note. Makes me feel brave enough to bundle up and venture out into the brisk air and walk around the property. As I do, my body temperature increases, bringing out the sweet smoky opoponax incense. Makes me want to curl up by the fire, or at the very least, go back inside and make another cup of tea while paging through old books forgotten for years on the shelf. Shalimar is the ultimate "sexy librarian" scent in my opinion. After a day of wear, the note that is left on my skin is a soft vanilla, a memory of a hug from a long passed ancestor. It lingers on my sweater for days and becomes the olfactory soundtrack to an era of my life when I had to be my own mother and father and grandparents.

BLUE SANTAL by Comme des Garcons

There is a very specific smell to the air at our summer house. Whenever we arrive after a long long drive, I step out of the car and inhale deeply of the ancient pine forests of northern Wisconsin. The air is clean, green, cool, woody and full of life. CdG Blue Santal is this scent, bottled. I know it's hyped up as a sandalwood fragrance, but I hardly smell the sandalwood. I get rows and rows of hundred year old pine trees. I get the juniper bushes that my great grandmother planted in the yard back in the 1920s. I don't necessarily want to wear this, I like to save that smell for the actual event of BEING THERE. But it's so cool to find this and know that someone managed to bottle the experience.

FRESH CREAM by Philosophy

This really does smell like I walked into Coldstone Creamery or Dairy Queen or some other chain ice cream store where the air is thick with vanilla soft serve and waffle cone smells. Honestly, it was too much sweetness for me, admittedly not a huge gourmand fan but I still enjoy experiments. I ended up wearing it layered with Banana Republic Rosewood, which is also a vanilla scent but has enough woody tones in it to balance out the dessert festival. Fresh Cream lends itself well to layering, so use it to sweeten up things that might feel too dark or serious for you. Personally, I can't really see wearing this on it's own. It feels immature to walk around smelling like a tub of frosting, but to each his own.

CAROLINA HERRERA 

Carolina Herrera is a bombastic tuberose in that over the top style so prevalent in the 1980s. Lots of civet backing up that tuberose and another accord (maybe the apricot or ylang?) that creates a honeyed, almost beeswax thread from beginning to end. This came out when I was a little girl and was quite popular. Upon smelling Carolina Herrera as an adult, I was struck with a very specific memory of hanging out in the hair salon my uncle owned. I'm sure that one of the hairstylists working for him must have worn plenty of this. Without any comment, I let my sibling smell it and asked them "What does this make you think of?" The immediate response was "One of the girls working at the shop when we were kids" So that confirmed it for me, us both having the same association. This is so 1980s for me, it almost feels too costumey now to wear. A scent for a sultry lady. Wallflowers need not apply!

BOUCHERON

It's a funny thing about scent and memories. You smell something and all of a sudden your brain pops up a memory that you didn't even remember you remembered! I like Boucheron, it's a nice smoky floral, over the top 80s oriental style. It has enough going on to keep you interested as it unfolds this way and that over the course of it's wear. It's smoldering and powdery and the florals are thick.

For me, Boucheron smells exactly, and I do mean exactly like the inside of a popular "adult toy store" and headshop in my city. A plasticky 80s tuberose mixed with years of Nag Champa incense. I couldn't believe my scent memory took me there but yes, I smell this and I think smutty. I think bongs for sale and I think of rows upon rows of cheap lingerie and rubber/ vinyl "toys". Obviously if you've never been to this very specific store, you're not going to have this association so by all means give Boucheron a try if you like powerful smoke infused floral orientals. This is decadent. If this were a woman she'd be all curves and lipstick.

Oops, All Berries!

A tribute to some of my favorite juicy berry scents...

BCBG by Max Azria
This one was fun! Normally I'm not a big fan of fruity scents or gourmand type, but whenever I find a nice one I think "Gee, I really need more fun fruitys in my wardrobe!" and then I use up the whole bottle and go back to vintage oakmoss things as if my dalliance with the Big Sweets never happened. BCBG Max Azria is a very playful strawberry and cherry syrup, like grenadine in perfume form. The drydown is light powdery florals and woods, which keeps the whole composition just on this side of mature. It's still young at heart, but you won't smell like you just walked out of grade school. This makes me think of strawberry Starburst candies or maybe a fizzy cherry soda. I used up an entire bottle rather quickly. It was inexpensive enough that I didn't mind wearing it just lounging around the house or running errands. It makes me feel young and happy.


Ciao by Vince Camuto
This does in fact, smell exactly like the Strawberry Shortcake dolls from the 80s. It is a very specific strawberry accord. The top notes are bright and sunny, the middle notes are sweet and rich and the drydown is silky and musky. It really does smell like that doll. What a scent memory! There is an underlying amaretto liqueur accord in this that gives it a bit more depth. The bottles of this line are really beautiful, I think I like this so much partly because of the bottle design with it's gold filigree Rococo swirl patterns. I wore this on my trip to Boston the day we walked the Freedom Trail and visited Granary Burying Ground, so there are some fun memories all around for me with Ciao. 

 Ocean Lounge by Escada
Almost every modern scent from Escada is a tooth achingly sweet fruit cocktail and this is no exception. Ocean Lounge is the ideal strawberry syrup. I wanted to hate it because it's a Barbie doll but I ended up loving it for that very reason..plastic and salted strawberry with a whiff of cherry grenadine syrup. Oooh I bet this would be fun to layer with my BCBG Max Azria. Strawberry ponies and boardwalk fun! There are some tart lychee berries present in here as well. "The snozberries taste like snozberries!" (Fun reference from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) 


Cast a Spell by Lulu Guinness
I remember buying a bottle of this years ago one weekend visiting with friends in Chicago. I thought it was sooooooo amazing, dark blackberries and woodsy patchouli. The tiniest hint of lavender giving it a smooth coolness. I wore it all the time and probably too much of it. I wore this during the time period when I started dating my son's father. It seemed sexy and mysterious, perfect for seduction. Well, that relationship fell apart in less than two years. I can't wear Cast a Spell anymore, because for me it now smells like broken dreams and immature decisions. But for someone without my associations, this is a nice "cool" scent of dark forest and berries on the bush and just a little bit boozy.


Framboise Noir by Shay & Blue London
Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries and... OUD WOOD?? I was skeptical that these could make a good mashup and was pleasantly surprised to be so very wrong on my assumption. The oud wood (agarwood) is definitely the star player here, no doubt about it. It turns what could have been an overly sweet berry mix into glass of fine red wine, aged to perfection. 


Hot Couture by Givenchy
Hot Couture is unique and sexy. Not a sweet raspberry but a tart raspberry mingles with a sharp bitter tobacco note and fiery black pepper. It reminds me of a delicious expensive cigar bar and the high maintenance ladies who frequent these lounges. It feels of drama and confidence and ever so slightly bitchy. Smoky and erotic. When first applied, it's over the top pepper. The longer it wears and dries down, the more the berries come front and center and the scent becomes much softer. This is not shy, it takes huge personality to pull it off successfully.