Times Square
Masque (2017)

Much of the hand-wringing over Times Square is down to the company’s own copy, which described garbage cans full to the brim with fruit peel on a hot day, dusty pavements, prostitutes, and smashed up lipstick. Accordingly, because none of us can smell let alone think for ourselves, most of the early reviews trashed (pun intended) Times Square for precisely the dirty, garbagey smell or the cheap hooker-heel vinyl effect the copy said it was aiming for.

Not a bit of it. Times Square is a violet-osmanthus loukhoum-and-lipstick scent that actually smells quite a lot like I Miss Violet (The Different Company), Niral (Neela Vermeire) and Traversée du Bosphore (L’Artisan Parfumeur), only a lot stronger, muskier, and frooty-tooty-er. Sure, it smells a bit trashy, but only because loukhoum and lipstick can themselves be a little cheap-smelling (waxes, gelatin, rosewater, powdered sugar), rather than smelling literally of trash. This is a fun, offbeat scent – think cubes of osmanthus-flavored lokhoum, rosy, off-brand lipstick, and sugared violets. A thick suede accord shows up later, to support all the lovely silliness up top.

The opening is made up of an accord of lipstick, combined with overripe fruit pineapples hazelnuts with a strong slightly smoky chemical character.

The drydown adds a chemical and rather - again - chemical tuberose, which smells as fake as it can get. Touches of osmanthus come and go.

The base morphs into a nonspecific woodsy impression; Unfortunately I could discern only very little of the characteristics from the sandal and guaiac promised in the scent pyramid. Touches of styrax are added in now, but, again, this styrax in nonspecific and quite weak on me. Touches of the initial fruitiness remain present until the end.

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

The spring scent, which is quite bright in character, is essentially an attempt to combine lipstick, nutty, floral and woody phases into an interesting whole. While the concept is not without some originality, its execution cannot be regards as being utterly successful. Not only are its components egregiously petrochemically synthetic in a predictable way, but these synthetic components are not really creative in themselves or in their application, and they lack any other redeeming features. Maybe it is not surprising that the lipstick note is the only only that is really convincing, as it is inherently a synthetic ingredient. The Poor performance for a synthetic product is unusual. As superficial as Times Square's vacuous glitter and neon lights?
Overall 1.75/5

This is overly sweet and too nutty for me.
The sweetness is quite synthetic and the hazelnut is so powerful, it makes my stomach turn.

Times Square feels like an odd sort of candy, something I do not seek in perfume.
Of course the projection is enormous.

Nice house, gruesome perfume.

After an ineffectual and inoffensive fruity boiled sweet opening, which led to some head-scratching on my part regarding why this was masquerading as niche while its heart clearly belonged to the dime store, Times Square became a bit more shaded, taking on the mauve moroseness of violets – so sad, so vague and somehow also moreish. It's a consumed, wan spirit calling from this perfume to my nose rather than the intended gutsy NYC denizen – but no matter, such things have a kind of aftermath-of-decadence appeal. It's cool, it's right for a certain kind of inert mood, and it's backed by a steady hum of the opening fruit candy, traces of vinyl and wood foam. But does it move in mysterious ways? Nope.

Based on all the notes in Times Square, one would think it fits into the 'makeup' accords, however the opening is a brash and synthetic fruity bomb. I dislike Guerlain's La Petite Robe Noire EdP - over the top red fruits that remind me of imitation flavoring extracts. The glossy lipstick notes are there too, but hidden.

After 30 minutes or so the obnoxious red fruit bit fades away and there is a nice mellowness to it that is creamy and nutty. An hour after the initial application the dry down reminded me too much of Sarah McCartney's perfumes at 4160 Tuesdays's, especially the Creamy Vanilla Crumble.

It's all a bit of a mess from beginning to end, but I'd rather purchase a 4160 Tuesday's fruity creation than Times Square.

This lands on the skin in a busy mess, which quickly becomes Cherry cough syrup with wafts of garbage (rotten fruit note ala Insolence)and a discreet Asphalt note. Fairly linear, but the creaminess of the Sandalwood kicks in at about ten minutes and mitigates the awful Cherry a little bit, but not enough.

Not terribly wearable, IMO.