Firefly
Demeter Fragrance Library (2003)

Kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling...

I love this fragrance. To me, it evokes nights as a teenager in Wisconsin working at a summer camp. The main note for me is grass, but it somehow smells more like grass in the evening than the Demeter scent "Grass" (which I also love).

Crisp, fresh, green wet and dew-dripping grass with earth, soil. Nice, but linear. A slightly rotten undertone. Evoking summer's in the grass, nature.

I get moderate sillage, adequate projection and four hours of longevity on my skin.

Bright and summery, but very linear. Quite synthetic. Well-made in principle, less rich than Geoffrey Beene's Bowling Green but vivid enough. It has limited longevity, but so do have fireflies. 3.5/5.

A very static fragrance, Firefly smells like freshly-cut grass and insect guts. Or is that insect repellent? One of the two, to me. Wet, cool, and freshly ozonic. Firefly doesn't really remind me of fireflies or the catching of them, though it definitely brings me somewhere outdoors, sometime nighttime.

I'm not really a fan of this, though. While the way it smells is almost repellent to me (mainly the part reminiscent of dead bugs), I can't say I dislike it. I probably would if it were more powerful, but it wears very close and disappears very quickly, so it's really unnoticeable unless your nose is right up to the skin. When you smell it from so close, Firefly seems strangely powerful. It seems odd it would have such poor sillage.

And about the lasting power: Firefly, much like its namesake, doesn't last long. I'd estimate it hangs around for an hour or two before disappearing. But it is inexpensive, so I'd recommend anyone who's interested in the idea to try it.

For me, this scent has a very specific referent: those segmented, plastic trays of flowers that nurseries sell in the spring. Subtle floral notes compete with the loamy scent of wet, pillow-soft, mica-flecked soil, and I swear that I detect a note of chemical fertilizer, like TruGreen, whispering beneath. Powerfully evocative of suburban childhoods (and quite possibly other kinds of childhoods as well!).

A gentle breeze in the fresh night air, sweet green grass, moist earth, aaahhh one of the best smelling memories I have!