. ݁ ⊹ . ݁ The HMS Olfactory: Scents of AMC's "The Terror" (Pt. 3/??) . ݁₊ ⊹ .
part 1: Collins & Goodsir
part 2: Sir John, Fitzy, Crozier, Jopson
quick reminder of the premise here: perfume/cologne picks for each character based on historical perfume practices, and their personalities! i plan to do a longer write-up in the future (honestly, maybe a YT video breaking this down? cold boys presentation/talk if i'm selected?) that goes into more detail about the historical development of perfume near the time of our cold boys' demises.
also: i have people to thank and give credit to! since starting this series, i've immersed myself in this fandom in a way i haven't had the pleasure of doing in a hot minute. it's been nothing short of fucking awesome. i have a little cohort of olfactory-minded people that have really helped me flesh out my process with these, and have given me ideas for revisions and additions to the first two parts of this series! @mascara-pyjama, @i-am-countess-olivia, and several more (i will edit and add more mentions as i continue to be bad at connecting who is who across platforms in this fandom) are absolutely deserving of love and nods of recognition for being so generative in this space. so thankful for you, sailors!
(alright, onto our doomed yaoi lads...)
Cornelius Hickey: Secretions Magnifiques - Etat Libre d'Orange
okay, so this scent has made its rounds online as a shitpost in part (iT sMeLLs LiKe cUm aNd bLoOd), but i cannot think of something more deviously fitting for our mutiny cannibalistic failboy hickey. it's intriguing. it's nasty (positive). it's not like other girls: it's worse, and if that's not hickey, then i don't know what is, really.
i think constantly about how goodsir and hickey are connected, and iris, to me, connects them, since i picked a violet-heavy fragrance for goodsir in part 1. they're foils for one another (i could write about THAT all fucking day), so this choice in particular is solidified in my brain for that reason.
something i mentioned to folks when brainstorming hickey picks is wanting a fragrance that smells like a bradford pear, whose blossoms notoriously smell uh. cum-adjacent? (my cred here comes from my family previously running a landscaping and tree nursery business. trust me. those pear flowers fuckin STANK.) so, i'm just going to leave that nugget of information here.
lastly, we've got some tie-ins across scents from the characters with a base of sandalwood. the metallic-leaning scent profile here is also something i want to lean into in some upcoming amendments to parts 1 and 2 of this series (wink)....
editing to add @strogoff-era's fucking AMAZING tag (thank you, sailor!) in response to the hickey pick: #the fact that the name of Hickey's perfume could be read as a poop reference just makes it extra perfect
...
William "Billy" Gibson: L'Homme L'eau - Prada & Megamare - Orto Parisi
genuinely made me emotional to dive into gibson selections, if i'm gonna be honest. i rewatched ep9 in preparation for making this post, and it made selecting gibson scents feel like it carried a lot of weight.
blanket note that due to gibson's standing, prada prices are NOT realistic here as something he could likely afford. that likely applies to a lot of future picks as i go down the ranks, literally, of the crew. i ask you to suspend belief, and to maybe imagine hickey stealing it for him. (fic idea?)
teasing the idea of picking multiple scents per character here, because i intend to do that more, going forward! i'd love to have 2-3 picks each, and will add more to the characters that i've already covered.
it was important to me to tie gibson and hickey's scents together, so we have matching notes here: iris, in hickey's base note and the heart note of the prada for gibson. (isn't the fact that the connection is in the heart note tragically lovely?)
megamare is a sea-related scent i've had on my list for a bit, and i wanted a nautical pick that leaned bright and clean (something something a dirty boy trying his best to be clean despite the influence of his counterpart in the doomed yaoi goodness), which i think this accomplishes by being so citrus-forward with the top notes. not to sound like a broken record across posts in this series, but bergamot would also be a nod to historically accurate and trendy scent notes at the time.
more to come, scent-happy sailors! kisses if u read/interact. mwah!
(slides for post made with Canva. photos sourced from Fragrantica, and the Cold Boys Fandom Hub.)











