i smell stuff

Nose: Anatole Lebreton

Notes: rose, cardamom; wine lees, pepper, raspberry; ethyl maltol, cashmeran, myrrh

Rubaiyat starts with dry green citrus and in a few minutes evolves into a sour red wine scent. Then immediately an enormous dark red rose appears, almost black, with a winy undertone. It feels like it scrapes the sky. Simple, but massive.

Then the citrus-peel greenness returns, plus some black pepper, and we've transitioned to a peppery green rose with lingering black-red depths. The green citrus (bergamot?) is so sharp it verges on harsh; our ratio of thorns to rose petals is uncomfortably high here. Rubaiyat is shaping up to be a stark, dramatic, dare-I-say masculine rose: no sweetness or softness in the accoutrements, just raw green citrus, sharp black pepper, and tannin-y red wine, combined with a deep velvety dark-red Turkish rose.

Finally, at about half an hour in, the ethyl maltol begins to come out; it's known as a "cotton candy" aromachemical. Here with the deep red rose the effect is almost like a rose-infused gumdrop. Candied, dense, intense, a little caramelized, and still full of black pepper! The effect is novel; I'm thinking of sweet treats at the boardwalk carnival at Coney Island, but somehow powerfully rosy and deep garnet red.

The candy effect calms down quickly and we just settle into a super-dark, super-black-peppery rose. The Audrey II of roses.

I'm not especially a rose lover, and when I do like rose-forward scents I like them meltingly tender (Mohur), amber-sweetened (Rose Flash), or dirty (Epic Woman). But I know there are people out there (Jude Doyle used to be one) who crave an aggro dark rose. And if that's you, Rubaiyat is your scent.

Somehow, despite the darkness of the rose, I imagine it set against a blazing blue sky; it has that sort of a bracing, biting quality. It's the rose in the e.e. cummings poem:

if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have

one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor

a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but

it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be(deep like a rose

tall like a rose)

standing near by

(swaying over her

silent)

with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which

is a flower and not a face with

hands

which whisper

This is my beloved my

(suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

Notes: lavender, violet, styrax, peru balsam, tolu balsam, pimento, coffee, hazelnut, sandalwood, amyris, birch tar

Thyina goes on with a peachy, skin-like sweetness. I feel it more than I smell it, at first; it's an aura. Then it resolves close to the skin into a tan, powdery sweetish thing, very mellow and tender.

The violet is subtle; it just adds a slight daintiness or powderiness to the cuddly ambers. This feels like a cousin to Coty Emeraude or similar powdery 1920s scents.

A few minutes in the powdery-amber chord is joined by a dried-sachet buzz that must be the lavender. It cuts the sweetness a bit and harmonizes beautifully.

Nose: Marc-Antoine Corticchiato

Notes: orange, clementine, tangerine, lemon, galbanum, grapefruit, coriander, caraway, pepper, pink pepper, cassis; neroli, orange blossom, suede, geranium, rose; oakmoss, cypress, hay

Azemour les Orangers opens with dry green citrus, and soon becomes a brilliant, juicy mandarin orange. It sits close to the skin, but boy does it sparkle. Within a few minutes it descends into oakmossy depths, with a slight cooled-sweat summer-shade feeling and a lingering zing of orange peel. There's also a dark-green, shiny citrus leaf, blending into the shady oakmoss.

notes: lemon, bergamot, ginger, geranium, olibanum, oudh, cedar, cypriol, ambergris, clary sage, patchouli, tea

Nemus opens very sweet, with ambered, sugary lemon and some kind of nectarous floral note. I can feel dry herbs underneath but mostly i'm getting a blast of sunny yellow sweetness.

A few minutes in, I also get something zingy like candied ginger.

Nose: Caroline Sabas

Notes: mint, grapefruit, bergamot, anise; green notes, cassis, rose, hedione;white musk

You Or Someone Like You opens with sharp grapefruit and quickly transitions to an herbal green leaf. Not mint at all; something flat and chlorophyll-y. There's a lot of some airy, perfumey synthetic as well, giving it a lightly aquatic feeling.

It's a safe, normal fragrance, light and unobtrusive, which I think was the intention -- writer Chandler Burr designed it to be the perfume worn by one of the characters in his book, a studio executive's wife in L.A. I don't know what scent people actually wear "in a meeting at one of the agencies near Wilshire, at a studio, at a lunch in Bel Air or dinner off Beverly Drive", but it might very well be this. Light, fresh, synthetic, anonymous.

The mint comes out about half an hour in, and it's an interesting herbal prickle, not at all like toothpaste, just green and sparkling. Maybe a little like a mojito.

Nose: David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi

Notes: leather, sea water, mulberry, pomelo, saffron; wool, pepperwood, costus, elemi, copal, cannabis, immortelle; aquatic notes, ambergris, oud, driftwood, sequoia, lichen, moss, palo santo, flowers

In the Belly of the Beast starts as a loud, pitch-black, smoky, gasoliney leather with a touch of seawater. It smells badass, but not especially pleasant.

By half an hour in the seawater has calmed down, and this is a more normal black tarry leather, like Corpus Equus and many others. There's a vaguely industrial edge to it; it smells a little like iron.

Nose: David Seth Moltz

Notes: greens, bergamot, pear; fig, coconut milk, iris; woods, tonka bean, moss

Debaser opens whip-sharp and very freshly green. A little like juicy green bell peppers. Intense chlorophyll zinginess.

Over the next hour it stays strongly green, but I do also get a whiff of slightly sweetened coconut milk.

At 1.5 hours, I'm beginning to get some light woods along with the greenness, and then a faint sense of shady darkness.

It was meant to be inspired by summer camp, sitting under the fig trees and listening to the Pixies on repeat, and that's a pretty accurate evocation of the scent: green, dappled shade, summer contentment, just sharp and synthetic enough to feel casual rather than precious. I had an art teacher in high school who liked indie punk bands and whose messy studio had that green-shady vibe in summer when the windows were open; Debaser would suit him.

Compared to other green fig scents I've tried, Debaser is the most basic and the most intensely green. Neela Vermeire Creations Ashoka is much more sandalwoody (and incense-y), while Bogue 10 is a complex swirl of different floral, animalic, and resinous notes along with the juicy green. Hermès Un Jardin en Mediteranée is a 50-50 blend of fig leaf and neroli, and L'Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier has a weird funky brown asafoetida base under the fig leaf. Debaser, by contrast, is 100% green juice, the whole way through. No fruit, very little sweetness, the barest suggestion of a woody base: just intense Fuck Yeah, Fig Leaf.

D.S. & Durga makes a lot of fragrances with unusual concepts, and a lot of them are cheap-smelling, overly synthetic, watery-faint disappointments; but not all. Debaser is a real perfume, albeit a modern, minimalist, lightweight one. I can actually smell it clearly, and it smells pretty damn good. (Well, it smells good to me, a known green-lover. To my husband, it smells like "who's chopping green peppers?" -- his least favorite vegetable.)

Nose: Hiram Green

Notes: narcissus, jasmine, ylang-ylang, nectar, floral notes, neroli, leather, tobacco, hay, resins

Ultra opens with delicious, floaty-swoony neroli and maybe even an orange blossom not listed in the notes. (or maybe that's the jasmine). It feels summery, breezy, light yellow, and almost but not quite sweet.

A few minutes in, it goes spicy and polleny for a moment, and I'm actually getting a bit of narcissus; a dense yellow scent, a little tender. But it's still doused in white-floral nectar.

It's not very narcissus-y, and I'm speaking as a hardcore narcissus lover. Narcissus is an early spring flower; it has the breathy tenderness of April, and a dense oily-spicy-musky polleny scent, unusually dark for a flower. Ultra has a bit of pollen, yes, but it feels very much like *summer* not spring. Swooning, nectarous, amorous hot-weather vibes, not tender fresh ingenue vibes.

The archetypal narcissus scent is Guerlain Chamade (1969), which sets off the pollen with sharp green galbanum and soft vanilla. I also love Bruno Fazzolari's Au Dela Narcisse and Roberto Greco Porter sa Peau (which bring out the musky-breathy-earthy side of narcissus), Masque Milano Romanza (which sets narcissus against a backdrop of moss and myrrh), Papillon Hera (a sort of modern Chamade which puts narcissus on a musky-vanillic base and blends it with a shimmering rainbow of flowers) and lots more.

Ultra smells like none of them. It actually has more in common with Hiram Green's other heady white florals, Moon Bloom (tuberose) and Dilettante (orange blossom). Like them, Ultra is quite lovely: just dense, pure, rich flower nectar, without distractions.

Sometimes I get an odd darker raspy tone that I'm not sure how to describe -- coppery? earthy? under the nectarous flowers. And there's a layer of soft fuzzy musk, not really animalic but maybe a bit like skin.

Nose: David Seth Moltz

Notes: mandarin, elemi, orange; grass, almond blossom, cedar; violet, vetiver

Steamed Rainbow really does smell like steam! And a little shimmer around it. Like the showers next to a swimming pool on a hot day. A little bit of a perfumey citrus breeze, and that distinctly misty/steamy synthetic note.

A few minutes in, I get something a little different: a prickle of green, something herbal, something gray. Feels like shade, damp, maybe grass poking up through wet concrete. Still backed up by a sparkle of sunny citrus.

Nose: Anatole Lebreton

Notes: fenugreek, rum, licorice, cinnamon; tobacco, cade oil, cypriol; benzoin, immortelle, vanilla

Tabaquero opens with deliciously sweet caramel-gold tobacco, rich with vanilla and brightened with something fresher. It's boozy, it's radiant, it's a lot of fun. There's a touch of licorice in there, but it's not excessive.

At about half an hour in, it gets drier and woodier; a little smoky and crackly under the golden syrupy tobacco.

Then the woody phase fades out and we're just back in that mellow golden glow.

Notes: tobacco, leather, rum, coffee, myrrh, immortelle, cacao, labdanum, tonka, licorice, fig, pepper, magnolia

Purpureum has a rather heavy amber-spice opening, and then something stony and airier underneath, like a Gothic-arched courtyard.

There's definitely a lot of coffee in there, dark-brown and sweetened with amber. And, yes, a faintly anisic purple tinge around the edges, but really it's more brown than purple.

I find it kind of boring? There are a lot of niche amber-spice potions out there. This genre can get a bit gloomy and oppressive, especially in the summertime. But on the plus side, Purpureum doesn't smell bad, and it has that interesting stony quality and a sort of weightless inner radiance.

In winter it would be much more appealing: a cozy, glowing, warming scent, with all the usual Oriental associations (spicy, warm, caramelized/woody). A sweet dark coffee with a shot of whiskey, enjoyed by the fireplace.

Nose: Anatole Lebreton

Notes: allspice, davana; cacao, oudh, clove, cypriol; ambrarome, civet, castoreum

Duende opens with a smooth, deep chocolate-amber chord. It feels a little waxy as well, and very rich, like dark chocolate ganache. The amber is ominous and darkly glowing, playing backup to the stronger chocolate note and keeping it from feeling too foody. Duende is clearly in the subcategory of "grown-up chocolate scents" that includes Pale Fire and Milano Caffe.

A few minutes in and the scent blends into a smooth dark smokiness -- the "chocolate" facet of oudh. It's creamy-smooth, like kohl or henna, and has a little bit of a rainy-day, muddy smell, as well as smokiness and dark chocolate aspects.

Nose: Andy Tauer

Notes: lemon, bergamot, clary sage; rosemary, orange blossom, lavender, neroli, rose; labdanum, cedar, vetiver, amber

Cologne du Maghreb opens with a punch of etrog (or citron), that ultra-pithy, bitter relative of the lemon. Not fresh but resinous, dry, like essential oils. There's a touch of dusty light wood underneath too. It makes me think of blazing sun and dancing dust motes.

It settles into a light, dry wood scent with a hint of resin and spice, and a little prickle of sharp lemon. Casual and maybe bohemian; reminds me slightly of Olympic Orchids Hamsa.

Nose: David Seth Moltz

Notes: citruses, bitter orange, musk, blood orange, ambrette, green notes, lemon, mandarin

Italian Citrus opens with mouthwatering bittersweet orange. Exactly like a chinotto soda, or Aperol spritz. It's quite faint and sheer even with pretty heavy application. There's some fuzzy, clean synthetic white musk under there too.

Nose: Louise Turner

Notes: pink pepper; peony, litchi, petalia; musk, white cedar extract, amber

Look, I can't even be ironic about it at this point: I just like tropical florals. Lust in Paradise is incredibly fun. It's floaty, it's swoony, it's fruity, it's hot pink bougainvillea shining in the clear blue air. Summer in a bottle. Strong enough to be very legible, just layered enough to hold my interest, with a little bit of an amber-musk base that feels cheerfully sexy. It's summer! It's party time!

Yes, it's the umpteenth release by a niche firm that swears it's not like all the other niche firms, and yes I'm sleep deprived and a little crazed right now, but I would swear Lust in Paradise is a gem. It's like Beyond Paradise but maybe even better? This is, in other words, what mainstream perfume *should* be, but isn't. It's normie fun, but it's *actually fun* as opposed to pennypinching weaksauce disappointment. It is, in fact, actual Lust, in motherfucking Paradise!

Nose: Euan McCall

Notes: fig, hazelnut, almond, cardamom; rice, malt, hay, violet leaf, mimosa, ylang-ylang; sandalwood, ambrette, musk, cedarwood

Unspoken Gesture opens with fuzzy white musks and what I initially thought was a buttered popcorn note, but soon resolves into hazelnut.

It's an unsweet hazelnut note, over lots of synthetic musks. Clean, fuzzy, radiant, and resolutely beige.

Nose: Liz Moores

Notes: orris, mimosa, cedar, osmathus, olibanum, champaca

Angelique opens with sparkling crisp citrus and then goes into a cloud of pillowy-soft iris fluff. Subtle, barely-there, but plush and dense, with a delicate citrusy-floral effect around the iris.