Perfume Reviews by ClaireV

Frosted Moon / Lune de Givre by Cloon Keen Atelier

I’ve loved this since it was called Lune de Givre, but only bought it last year. In my view, it is the standout of the line, alongside the equally magical (but very different) Castaña. Frosted Moon showcases an exquisite iris material, pale and rooty and buttery all at once. This comes first soaked in the earthy bitterness of galbanum and a silvery note halfway between grappa and juniper berry. Frosted is right, the greenery jostling around the iris is downright icy.

When benzoin joins the party, what happens is the silvery polish of the orris slowly sinks into the dulling warmth of brown wrapping paper – the kind we wrapped our schoolbooks with in Ireland in the late 80s – giving way to an accord that is earthier, drier, and ‘toasted’, kind of like brown sugar warming on a pan but not yet dissolved. The trajectory from cool-bitter-white to warm-toasty-brown is a bit too short, but may be slowed down by spraying on fabric. Me, I wallow in it until I can no longer smell the orris and simply re-spray myself to relive its bitter green glory. Wearing this perfume is, for me, akin to ordering a side of stewed chicory to accompany a rich roast pork dish. I swear I can feel it deglazing my intestines.

Winter Palace by Memo

Bubblegum and face powder over a rosy boot polish with a bright, fresh start that seems to have been created from tannins rather than citrus. Later on, a true tea note pushes through, an earthy rooibos, I think, with a slice of orange cooling in the glass. Though this central accord smells more like an orange-tea-flavoured candy or packet of aspartame than an actual tea and fruit infusion, I love that it smells both warm and fresh.

By the way, the more I wear it, the more I understand that certain resins – or resins set inside a certain accord – can smell like the firm candy coating on a tic tac or bubblegum, and not just straightforwardly of incense or of cola. (This treatment of resins is something I also pick up in Le Régent by Oriza L. Legrand and Rouge Smoking by BDK). Though I am not overly fond of this facet of resins in perfumery, I admit that it works beautifully here, set against that almost medicinal tea note and that orangey amber-vanilla backdrop. It smells incredibly jaunty, as if all the notes are doing little whirligigs on the skin – a sort of Theorema for the Gen Z crowd, high on life, THC gummies and Aperol Spritz.

Wander by Miller Harris

Wow, what a juicy green scent, full of fig leaf, blackberry, and something that smells like stewed rhubarb! It is so wet and dewy that I can imagine sitting on a wooden bench in an English kitchen garden after a downpour, but the door to the kitchen is thrown open and I can smell the delicious bramble pie baking in the oven. There is something so luridly cordial-like about the opening that you kind of suspect that its extreme naturalness will eventually show itself to be a lie. Thankfully, this doesn’t ever happen.

The first time I wore it, I found the tuberose note overbearing and stuffy, like gentile ladies of a certain age sweating gently in a greenhouse. But I’ve worn it several times since and have never interpreted the tuberose note like that again – now I understand its purpose as lending the scent a fleshy ‘hothouse’ feel, i.e., green and vegetal, almost celery like, but also as creamy as gelato. Fig leaf tends to go either pissy or aquatic-rubbery on the skin, and I’d be inclined to say this leans towards the latter. However, it never strays into man’s blue fragrance territory, nor does it copy any other fig leaf perfume I know. It stays firmly in a juicy-green-fruity-naturalistic track. Very good, like a supremely hydrated, almost pulpy version of Ninfeo Mio, and with 100% less cat pee in the drydown.

Komorebi 9.1 by Parfumerie Generale

Probably more complex in construction than I’m describing here, but to me this smells like a mint-ade that your children might make from the garden, mixing tapwater with grass cuttings, blackcurrants, and an invasive mint species colonizing your hostas. It smells bitter and powdery – pleasingly so – with a side order of mulch. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the opening of Komerebi fills me with joy. It is evocative and original, a sort of summoning of the memory of a lazy afternoon in a meadow you didn’t even know you’d experienced. I can’t smell mimosa per se, but I sense its particular watery, honeyish pollen at work, casting a sweet golden glow over the herbaceous notes.

I agree with the reviewer below who called this a modern fougere. Eventually, however, I realise – with a bit of disappointment – that this is mostly built over a base of tonka bean, which is fine but its effect is to turn that gloriously wet, tangy mint garden into a Mentos. I appreciate the chew the tonka bean gives, and I know it’s what’s carrying the more delicate herbs and flowers past the opening. I just can’t help but miss the dewy ethereality of those first twenty minutes.

Cologne 1871 / Commune de Paris by Astier de Villatte

An eau de cologne for people who like orientals more than they do eaux de cologne (which would include me). Think less 4177 and more Shalimar Cologne-slash-Shaal Nur-slash-Opus 1144. Its bright, herbaceous start smacks of lemon peel, a touch of something like anise, and garden herbs, but soon settles into a sort of powdered, glittery lemon drop accord, like resins sanded down and stirred into a key lime pie. It is very benzoin forward, and so has that dusty-gummy-gritty texture, i.e., half-cassonade, half-icing sugar. It’s basically the Guerlainade in tisane format.

More than anything, this reminds me of a much brighter, airier take on Parfum Très Russe by Institut Très Bien, a perfume I loved but never bought because of a hesitation I had over the potato starch-like quality of the benzoin in the late drydown. Commune de Paris works much the same idea but its roseate, candied citrus effervescence is held aloft throughout. Vetiver adds a verdant woodiness here and there, but doesn’t dominate. As far as eaux de cologne go, I feel like that guy in Love Actually holding up a placard saying “To me you are perfect”.

Under My Skin by Francesca Bianchi

My first impression of Francesca Bianchi’s Under My Skin was that of a milky sandalwood over something vegetal and spicy, like a dish of Chinese greens simmered with lots of black pepper and fenugreek. But like Santal de Mysore, which it resembles in some parts, Under My Skin reads like two different perfumes – one when sniffed closely on the skin, and the other sniffed as an aura or a trail of scent on the air.

I find the dichotomy between the two sides enthralling. What emerges in the air is a glow of milky-sweet sandalwood, like the breath of a breast-fed child, but with an undertone of something even more intimate – a faint hint of young sweat perhaps, or the yeasty, buttery smell of a baby’s nape before his bath. This accord is both nursery-ish and sensual in the original, non-sexual sense of the word, meaning it is physically satisfying to the senses in the same way certain colors, fabrics, textures, and aromas are.

Smell the perfume close up, however, and the sweet milkiness disappears, leaving behind the scent of rooty, vegetal iris and a skin note that flits between the doughy rubber of suede and the tannic smokiness of castoreum-driven leather. There is also the unmistakable glow of an ambergris note here, which manifests as silvery driftwood, giving the scent the intimate air of a closed-up professor’s study, full of old marking papers, books, and ancient wooden furniture that’s seen better days. This base is also, to my nose, quite spicy, with lots of black pepper, cinnamon, fenugreek, and clove (or carnation) adding to the exciting textural bitterness I sense. When the spice and rooty, vegetal iris meet the milkiness of the sandalwood aura, it’s hard not to think of Santal de Mysore. But given that’s one of my favorite perfumes in the world, I can’t think of higher praise.

Under My Skin also reminds me (slightly) of Amaranthine by Penhaligon’s, another big love of mine, especially in the way it juxtaposes the milkiness of a dairy-rich pudding with more sensual notes such as cumin and banana leaf to produce an accord that many people feel smells like the inner thigh of a woman (Amaranthine used to be hilariously referred to as “Amaranthigh” on many perfume blogs). Under My Skin achieves a similar effect in that it smells milkily sensual without smelling dirty, pungent, or overtly animalic.

Patchouli d’Atlas by Ormonde Jayne

Patchouli d’Atlas is possibly the strongest (and most masculine-presenting) perfume I have ever smelled that didn’t also raze my nose to the ground with brutish woody ambers. Make no mistake, the woody amber are there in ample quantities, and it is by no means a comfortable wear for me, but this perfume appears – at least on the face of it – to derive its immense power not from its Ambroxinated underpinnings but from the combined forcefulness of the other notes, which in and of themselves all possess strong personalities.

Among these non-shrinking violets, we have a rubbery saffraleine material that smells like Tom Ford’s Ombre Leather magnified to the nth power, tons of that woody-pap space filler that is cashmeran, finely milled cedar, and the nose-moisture-wicking qualities of Akigalawood, a bone-dry particle that extricates itself from the earthen, cocoa-dark mass of patchouli to become an airbone expression of leather. The drydown is a sour, rich tobacco-like accord, with hints of Black Gemstone (SHL 777). Tom Ford would totally release this as Cuir Marrocain if he managed to get his hands on this formula.

The best way I can describe this perfume is to say that it is like Ganymede (by Marc-Antoine Barrois) if it moved out of the Parisian suburbs to Riyadh and started speaking fluent Arabic, or like Oud for Greatness (by Initio) if someone was willing to pay for a much better formula. It is an iron fist inside a velvet glove. Though I would rather push razors under my nails rather than wear something like this potent, I admire the Giga-Chad-ness of it all. Someone just distilled GCC braggadocio into a scent without looking over their shoulder at the fake Middle Easternness of most of this genre.

Oud Liaisons by Ormonde Jayne

Oud Liaisons is a thoroughly weird perfume. It smells pungently of real oud oil right off the bat, with almost none of the other supposed topnotes (rose, lemon, pink pepper) showing up, except for an odd licorice note that smells more like a medicated boiled candy than the anisic gumminess of licorice rolls. Though the opening is compacted and a bit overwhelming, in the air, it manages to create a scent trail of something softly rounded and suede-ish. Up close and on the skin, though, it takes time to cycle through some less attractive phases that smell a little like ureic acid or dried honey soaking through the sawdust floor of an indoor riding ring. It is horsey and acid in equal part.

Close your eyes, though, and it no longer smells of pee and woodchip, but of those expensively peaty Scottish whiskeys, like Laphroaig. The whole perfume, in fact, is subject to the power of suggestion. Once the cacophony of notes loosen a little, it begins to smell of clay, of horse blankets, and of old wood. Later, a hint of candied rose petal emerges, and, unless I am hallucinating, even something one might think of as marshmallow fluff. In the very late drydown, though, this candied accord evaporates entirely, revealing a latexy myrrh. Inexplicably, though composed of individually ugly and brutalising notes, Oud Liaisons manages to smell regal. This is a successful expression of the idea of oud, rather than a faithful (and inevitably poor) copy of the raw material itself.

1957 by Chanel

If 1957 by Chanel were a mood, it would be a flash of mental clarity. It has the ergonomic purity of museum buildings built by architects dreaming of an android future, but none of their sterility. It just feels like noise falling away.

I hesitate to say that any white musk material smells expensive, because those materials are generally quite cheap, but this particular combination smells like it went to school in Switzerland and has a twelve-step Korean skincare regimen. The musk – or more likely musks plural – smell thick and silky, like the air pumped through the vents of a five star hotel. After spending much time with 1957 over the past year, I think what’s remarkable is not so much its smoothness but the absence of things that don’t belong, like a scratchy aromachemical or an annoying lactone. When the lily is enough, you stop gilding. And that is what you pay Chanel prices for.

The scent is built on an impressively layered sub-structure of aldehydes, which, on paper at least, should put this firmly in the No. 22 or No. 5 camp. But while I understand that the perception of texture, like soapiness, powderiness, or fizz, is deeply subjective, I am never not a little confused by the fact that for a perfume so stuffed with aldehydes and white musks, 1957 doesn’t smell – to my nose at least – particularly like soap, powder, or champagne.

Instead, to me at least, it smells like musk blown through a Waterford glass of artisanal lemonade, one made with slightly flat mineral water and a dollop of aged, brown-ish honey that has crystallised slightly at the bottom. This suffuses the musk with a blush of dried saliva, it clean, architectural angularity parting its lips here and there to reveal something shockingly human, even a little (dare I say) dank. This is, I realise, the only way I can truly love a white musk. Give me the ‘posh hotel pillow’ expansiveness of a good white musk, yes, but if you really want me locked in, give me a hint of freshly-licked skin too.

Lilac Love by Amouage

Lilac Love sends me in a state halfway between pleasant confusion and mild panic.  Something about the opening – green, syrupy, a bit sharp – made me think of the pungently honeyed booze notes that presage all of the scents in the Tom Ford ‘Orchid’ series, before giving you the come hither into a sultry but uneasy bath of flowers, fruit and chocolate.  I think that if you like Velvet Orchid, say, you will find its plusher, posher sister in this Amouage.

The sweet, almost crunchy wateriness of the lilacs (and their honeydew melon-honey centre), though gorgeous on their own merit, just don’t mesh well with the backdrop of powdered Nesquik vanilla.  I feel the same way about the cucumber-melon-cocoa clash in Black Orchid – striking, even sexy, yes, but also kind of gross and stomach-churning.

True to form with the newer, post-Chung Amouage perfumes, which pander too cynically to the modern craze for tasty-smelling gourmands, the drydown is eventually less food-like and more acceptably perfumey.   Guidance has much the same trajectory.  The boozy almond notes unwrap themselves into a more almond lotion type of texture, both doughy and milky, and the final resting place for all of this is a cozy floral powder accord that feels like an expensive dusting powder.  This part I like – powder fiend that I am – but given that two-thirds of the ride is overwhelmingly dense and blobby, this is a pass.

Bois Talisman by Christian Dior

A disappointing effort from a perfumer who created the stunning Eau Noire for the same house – a thin burnt sugar-over-firewood effort that is briefly attractive before quickly unravelling into a mess of scratchy woody-ambery aromachemicals.  The scent of Bois Talisman is what hangs over the Dior Privée concession nowadays, by the way, tainting the air with its bro juice grossness.  Though I’m sure it’s not aiming for it, Bois Talisman lands in the same general area as By The Fireplace and if that’s your thing, fine, but not sure you want to be paying Dior Privée prices for it.

Mixed Emotions by Byredo

A blackcurrant-flavoured Vicks throat lozenge, complete with that wintergreen edge that probably doesn’t even have a therapeutic effect but never fails to remind you that you’re under the weather and ingesting this out of necessity, not choice. Underneath the clear, hard candy gloss of this topnote lurks a cat piss note so sharp and winey you are right back in those abandoned lots at the corners of your estate where the weeds and stray cats have colonized every inch of the floor space.

Later, much later, and some might say, too late, a pleasant Ombre Leather-like suede accord comes in – no tea, mind, just the plainest of all glove box suede and new mid-range car upholstery.  The catpissy blackcurrant note lingers like a feeling of malaise, developing an unpleasantly BO-ish nuance that only adds to my distress.  Though unhappy to have ceded so much skin space to this horrid perfume during a lunch break, I am happy to have smelled it, as it had been occupying quite a large part of my imagination for some time.

Rhapsody by Louis Vuitton

I have smelled almost all of the LV Parfums fragrances, and while uniformly pleasant, serious perfume wearers should remember that certain brands, like LV, design and market their perfume as ancillary products to their leatherwear, and are really no more than a revenue diversification channel in section C of the business plan.  And so while Rhapsody is the only perfume in the LV Parfums range I’ve smelled that feels like it makes an effort to rise above a merely pleasant smell, remember that the €510 you're slapping down on the counter for this is fuelling LV's profit margins rather than a rare chunk of white ambergris or wild 1970s Cambodi oud, or the fees of a master perfumer who emerges from his cave once a year on the spring equinox to create one single, special perfume.

I forgot to mention that Rhapsody is part of LV Parfums’ ‘exclusive’ sub-range and costs almost twice as much as the perfumes such as Ombre Nomade, Afternoon Swim, Pacific Chill, etc.  Its shiny silver sculpture-as-bottle-cap broadcasts even more loudly, baboon’s-arse-like, a message of wealth and status to the other, smaller monkeys in the room.

It does smell great, though.  It is a big, chaotic rush of bitter, perfumey flowers – soapy muguet, a whole kitchen sink’s worth of small white flowers, a sunntanned banana ylang, a touch of hyacinth maybe with its oily greenness, with a dry patchouli and vetiver base for that essential grounding element.  It comes off a little Diaghilev-lite, a modern mall wall of sound up front and an almost creamy-faecal-scalpy earthiness in the base – costus or civet perhaps - to mimic the slightly raw, grass-fed lactic quality of oakmoss.

Intense, serious, and quite piercing, Rhapsody presents a cacophony of notes that makes you frown rather than smile – there is no whimsy here.  But for all you’re forced to study it, turn it over in your head, trying to find where each thread ends and begins, you also get a sense that it is more crowded and ornate than it is deep.  This could have been a wild ride but in the end, it is chaste, a little too self-serious, and both matronly and sleazy, like Karla Homolka in a high-necked blouse in court.  And if that’s the effect I’m chasing, then I could get there with a spritz of other green floral chypres I am equally unenamoured of and yet inexplicably own, like Eau de Soir or Odalisque.

Viole Nere by Meo Fusciuni

Viole Nere is difficult for me to describe because while I am used to iris perfumes that lean towards violet (Iris de Nuit, Moulin Rouge, Infusion d’Iris Absolue), I am less used to violet perfumes that behave like an iris rhizome – earthy, cold, buttery, leathery, slightly smoky – and yet are still completely and unmistakably a violet. Each time I wear it, I come away with something slightly different. Sometimes, the sharp, botanical stemminess of the green notes up front make me think of the opening of Iris 39 (Le Labo); other times, I get that bitty, mineralic frankincense powder that holds the violet notes aloft in Maria Candida Gentile’s Exultat.

Nonetheless, there is always a moment in Viole Nere’s transition that makes me think of the green-grey hay notes, powdery moss, and impressionistic jonquils of a grander, more fin de siecle perfume than the surely artisan effort I hold in my hands. The thought that Imprezzabile has somehow knocked up a violet-inflected Vol de Nuit in a charmingly hoky, cluttered workshop far removed from the precision-engineered formulas, weighing scales, and strip lighting of Guerlain’s labs and compounders enters my head and nothing shakes it loose again. Conscious that’s a wild thing to say. Allow me to condition it by saying that Viole Nere doesn’t smell like Vol de Nuit, per se, just that it performs the same trick as the Guerlain does of being at once superbly naturalistic and perfectly abstract, a sort of pointilism of lilac, violet, grey, and green notes.

There is no Guerlinade here, though. Though slightly powdery and earthy, there is more incense dust than cosmetic powder, and no vanilla in sight. Instead, the drydown of Viole Nere features a rubbery, latex-like musk molecule similar to the one that also rounds out Fleur de Peau (Diptyque), as well as another Meo Fusciuni scent, Encore du Temps. It feels a little like a dusty leather or suede in places. This gives Viole Nere a far more streamlined and modern finish than any Guerlain I know. (It’s also safe to say that lovers of Stephen Jones x Comme des Garcons would find Viole Nere an attractive proposition.)

And you know, despite the billing, neither does the perfume strike me as particularly dark. A touch moody, sure – damp violets in a mossy forest clearing, with all the lengthening and shortening of shadows that implies. But even then, I would call it ‘romantic’ or ‘wistful’ before I would call it ‘dark’. I think a good analogy would be L’Heure Bleue (Guerlain) or De Profundis (Serge Lutens). Like those perfumes, while Viole Nere is a serious, deeply emotive perfume, it feels more serene and pastoral than dark. Anyway, enough blathering – Viole Nere is my favourite from the Meo Fusciuni sample set and the only one that makes me feel compelled to own it.

Bois d'Arménie by Guerlain

As a long-time papiers d’Armenie afficionado, I want to say two things. First, the pleasure of papiers d’Armenie is all in the gauzy manner with which the smoke from the lit paper hangs in and on the air. Neither the benzoin resinoid itself nor its essential oil possesses this quality. When the papers, impregnated with the benzoin oil, are burned, they release into the air an accord that I imagine heaven might smell like – roasted chesnuts, sweet paper, powdered sugar, a slightly sour, fermented woodpulp, and a fine incense dust that sparkles as the light catches the mica. Second, Bois d’Armenie is the only benzoin-based fragrance in existence that manages to capture the scent of the papers on the air. Others – Benjoin Boheme, Petit Papiers, Indochine, Candy, and so on – are doughier, emphasizing the honeyed amberiness of the essential oil or the resinoid. Bois d’Armenie is not a perfect perfume, not by any stretch of the imagination. But its faults of (extreme) vagueness and quietness are also the qualities that allow it to corrall the butterfly wing-like essence of one of my favourite smells in the world into a bottle.

Eau Lente by Diptyque

Eau Lente is to opoponax what Shalimar is to golden, ambery ‘oriental’ perfumes, except with its barbershoppy vibe, it’s more Daddy than Mommy. From its vigorous loins sprang Imperial Opoponax (Les Nereides), Ligea la Sirena (Carthusia), Bengale Rouge (Papillon Perfumery) and Empire des Indes (Oriza L. Legrand). I love that opoponax is a resin that can’t decide whether it wants to be a spice or a herb, which is why Eau Lente’s searing topnote lurches wildly between the metallic, sweaty sting of clove and the aromatic camphor of bay leaf. The base reveals a rich toffee-like resinousness, with a boozy, almond butter tonality and a touch of Johnson and Johnson’s Baby Powder. It is this disjointed transition between the astringent spicy-herbal top and the almond taffy base that make it an interesting perfume to wear. A chunk of amber dunked into a cup of Old Spice. You get the honey of a resin and the soapiness of a barbershop fougère. What’s not to love?

Comme des Garçons Parfum by Comme des Garçons

That I find this so wearable that I’m on my second bottle is a surprise even to me. Though it is positively classical in comparison to other Comme des Garçons scents, this is not the kind of thing you casually splash on and go about your merry way. No, with its mulling spices so pungent you fear they will burn through three layers of skin, the Parfum is something you have to really mean. Despite its sharp and unlovely start, Comme des Garçons Parfum turns out to be a warm and sturdy sandalwood all dressed up for Christmas in an inch thick layer of pepper, clove, nutmeg, and cardamom. The drydown is dominated by a beautiful ‘old honey’ accord, slightly animalic and waxen, threaded with the smoke from a Shoyeido incense stick, heavy with benzoin, cloves, and aloeswood. It is rich, slightly incense-woody, and not at all sweet. In fact, there may even be a distant kinship to Absolue Pour Le Soir.

Cuir Cannage by Christian Dior

Opening with a strawberry Hubba Bubba note wrapped in a plush leather accord that appears to be fashioned 20% out of gasoline (that rooty petroline iris) and 80% out of a thick carpet of musks and resins, I am firmly of the camp that Cuir Cannage leans far more towards Knize Ten or vintage Tabac Blond parfum (or even L’Heure Bleue) than it does Cuir de Russie (Chanel). This is so rich, sweet, and medicinal that I visualise it swelling and rolling off my skin in waves. Many poo-poo this as a Cuir Mauresque (Serge Lutens) knock-off, but I own both, and while there are similarities, I far prefer the Dior. Cuir Mauresque is angular and difficult in that ‘high art’ manner of older Serge Lutens – Cuir Cannage is a deeply slutty, red-brown amber performing in full leather drag.

Castaña by Cloon Keen

A simple thing really – vetiver, mimosa, powdered sugar – but so suggestive of the soft, mealy deliciousness of roasted chestnuts floating on cold Roman air that it never fails to transport me. Castaňa is the perfect antidote to the loud, thick sweetness of modern perfumes. Ephemeral, almost maddeningly so, it demands (gently) that you pause and lean in to hear what it is saying. The older I get, the more I understand that two thirds of the magic spell cast by perfumes like Castaňa, Osmanthe Yunnan, and Bois d’Armenie is embedded in their quietness, so we should approach them with much the same attentiveness as we might the art of listening to incense (monkō).

Eucalyptus 20 by Le Labo

First off, I feel the urge to warn you know that the words in this scent’s title that aren’t ‘Le’, ‘Labo’ or the number 20 is one of the words that I have trouble spelling. Anyway, Eucaluputs 20 smells great and also a bit redundant if you own any of these Comme des Garcons perfumes: Hinoki, Avignon, Black, maybe even a little bit of Kyoto. Euclptus opens with its titular note, except it’s more camphor than straight up eucalyptis, a bit wet and smoky and green, reminding me a little of the camphor in Feu Secret (Fzotic) or Bohea Boheme (Mona di Orio). I love this note because it always make me think of hiking through evergreen forests, fresh air, and far-off curlicues of delicious smoke, like when someone throws pine needles on a campfire.

Underneath this camphor or euycalptous, there is a fantastically dry, smoky frankincense lifted into the air by a shower of sparkly Coca Cola-ish aldehydes, which definitely gives off a very Avignon or Black (Comme des Garcons) vibe, to the point where they are eerily similar. About fifteen minutes later, I feel this accord tilting more definitively in the direction of Black than Avignon, as the bubbly soda pop aldehydes fade away and a sooty, smoky accord takes over, that nubbin of pine-like frankincense having burned all the way to ash in the censer.

For the rest of the ride, I am convinced that Le Labo Euocapliptus is a dry, smoky-hoary, whiskey-ish vetiver, with a scratchy wool sweater texture that is almost identical in structure and aroma to the wonderful Vetiver Insolent (Miller Harris), a perfume I wear an awful lot and with which I am therefore intimately familiar. It means that the slightly abrasive woody note (Iso E Super?) that bothers me in parts of Vetiver Insolent also bother me here, in the case of Eucapyptus 20.

But I have come to terms with its use in Vetiver Insolent, because I admit that its scratchy, cedar-adjacent obnoxiousness is essential to recreating the rather irritating ‘steel wool’ volatile esters that are naturally occurring in real cedarwood and vetiver distillates. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s not really a deal-breaker for me in Eucalptus 20 either. That said, my need for this sort of sour-smoky-woody incense accord is more than adequately fulfilled elsewhere, so I am happy to sample this and move on.

New Look by Christian Dior

Absent the former glories of the now discontinued or badly reformulated versions of Eau Noire and Eau Blanche, I don’t think much of the Dior Privée line these days. It produces really nice smelling stuff like Vanilla Diorama and Gris Dior, but nothing truly innovative or interesting. Solid if slightly boring masstige perfumes for people with more money than sense, in other words.

But oh man, New Look 2024 is a blast. Re-purposing the name of New Look 1947 (Dior is running out of heritage names and year numbers more quickly than Chanel, so they had to recycle), a vaguely abstract white floral that nobody was ever going to miss, New Look 2024 actually honours the original spirit of the controversial Christian Dior New Look collection of 1947 better than the New Look 1947 perfume did.

Let me say plainly why – the New Look collection took post-war clothing for women away from the wartime austerity years, with their angular, streamlined discretion into an almost cartoonishly, fetishistically femme direction, complete with cinched in waists, exaggerated deep necklines, and skirts so full they extravagantly required metres and metres of fabric that only the truly rich could afford.

2024 New Look opens with such a violent overdose of aldehydes that the impression is immediately of a jubilant, utterly triumphant, two-fingers-up-to-austerity-measures jeroboam of the most obscenely expensive Champagne available, mixed with the scent of clothes washed in laundry detergent dosed in staggering amounts that you just know that all the ration rules just went out the window. I love it – it is fizzy, curvaceous, but unsweet, like soda with all the bubbles intact but the sugar surgically removed. It is almost minerally salty in its absence of sweetness.

This accord dovetails seamlessly with an equally effervescent but also sooty, serious frankincense note. I understand that Dior – more likely Kurkdjian himself – is trying to re-purpose and pervert Chanel No. 22 in the more streamlined shape of one of the New Look skirts (steampunkt in spirit rather than romantic or classical). And luckily, though New Look 2024 follows the general lines of No. 22 in layering aldehydes on top of church incense and a warm floral-amber base, Kurkdijan’s skill makes it feel more like a new shape in the air than a homage. It feels like a study of the separate facets of champagne and soap flakes and incense than a cohesive and therefore more abstract perfume, as the Chanel is. If anything, it reminds me of Heeley’s quiet, ethereal, linen-fresh take on incense that is Cardinal. But only in parts, only really when the frankincense takes centre stage.

Weirdly, I don’t experience the base as amber, just as a slight warmth enlivened with a salty driftwood nuance. I suspect that parts of New Look 1947 are molecular and therefore ‘new’ also in terms of captives or strange building blocks of molecules devised in a lab. This is not my usual thing at all, but I can’t help be fascinated by a perfume that not only honours a 1947 clothes collection without feeling vintage or dated, but also captures some of that collection’s strange, shocking, super-exaggerated view of femininity that threw the rulebook on how women should dress and be out the window.

Guidance by Amouage

Synaesthesiastically, I experience Guidance as a whirl of the vinyl-shiny, plasticky colours on a 1930s movie like the Wizard of Oz, but aroma-wise, it’s more like what I imagine the sleepover/makeover scenes from Grease would smell like – Bazooka gum, acetone nail-polish remover, Aquanet Super Hold, and handfuls of marshmallow fluff and brightly-coloured hardboiled candies like pear drops and rhubarb-and-custard sweets.

It is so fruity and creamy and loud that I immediately grasp the appeal to young women still on the prowl. It projects enormously and indiscriminately, invading people’s personal space with its confident message of, here I am, the Queen – bitches, part the crowds and play the bugles!

Of course, it is by Quentin Bisch. Guidance follows the same rulebook that made his Delina such a hit, being equal parts piercing and creamy, flirting but never quite touching the pitch of a headache, working up your arm and into you to the point where every sensory node, every synapse is flooded by that loud, creamy, fruity, rosy, nutty smell that is no longer just a smell but also physical touch and a bright white light mushrooming at the back of your corneas.

I absolutely hate it until a minor détente later on when a quieter, icing sugar rose-sandalwood moment arrives, by which point, I convince myself that this is quite pleasant actually. Until the next time I spray this on myself and the cycle begins again, and I curse my weak mind for falling victim to the Stockholm Syndrome lure of this awful but also occasionally quite beguiling perfume.

Venus of Verbena by Sana Jardin

Venus of Verbena proves that it is very difficult to make a verbena-dominant fragrance that (a) doesn’t smell like air care or liquid soap after that initial nanosecond of citrusy, green goodness up top and (b) does something better or different than what L’Occitane’s Verveine does. This is a very pleasant scent for the ten minutes I can smell it, and there is a lovely, herbaceous earthiness lurking behind the volatile top notes that I wish I could smell for longer than I do. But, Christ, never spend stupid money on anything verbena. If you want verbena, either grow it yourself or buy the L’Occitane (both the perfume and ancillary products are great).

Celestial Patchouli by Sana Jardin

There is an almost pungent ‘apricot mead’ note in the opening of Celestial Patchouli that smells like a bowl of plums or peaches crawling with rot and mould. Now, that doesn’t sound too attractive, but without it, this would be just a patchouli flanker version of Tiger by Her Side. I get the impression, too, of a sharp, lean ‘Safraleine’ style leather swimming underneath, which adds an astringent ‘iodine’ like slant to the boozy opening. It is spicy and rich and sour, with tons of depth. The patchouli is feathered out at the sides by a plethora of resins and balsams, which dries it up and turns the booze into a handful of brown dust. (This seems to be a sort of Sana Jardin cut-and-paste model for their more resin-forward stuff.)

Despite the heavy basenote materials used, and that initial wallop of grunge, Celestial Patchouli seems to shed richness and density by the minute, before becoming a ghost of its initial self by hour three. The drydown, though pale, is a pleasant amber.

In its defence, I guess that means it could be an office-friendly scent as long as you spray it on well before your commute. I like it a lot but find it overlaps a little too much with Tiger by Her Side and much of my own patchouli collection to be seriously interested. Sticky Fingers by Francesca Bianchi is in a similar vein, but much better. If this is your one and only, though, Celestial Patchouli is interesting and different enough to take a chance on.