A week of reviews of drugstore fragrances wouldn’t be complete without a rundown of a few inexpensive musks, and reviews of drugstore musks wouldn’t be complete without Jovan and Coty. Lucky for me, a nearby Walmart stocks a gift box with 11 ml bottles of Jovan Musk for women, Jovan White Musk, and Coty Vanilla Musk Eaux de Cologne.
Jovan Musk for women has been a drugstore staple since it was introduced in 1972…
In perfume-loving circles we talk about how scent can evoke powerful emotion and how it seeps into areas of the brain that language is too clumsy to enter. We know that perfume can wake up memories that might have otherwise slept for good. Well, listen up, friends: if you had a rough time of it in the mid-1970s, take my advice and stay far away from Revlon Charlie.
Charlie came out in 1973 and was marketed toward the young, single, pants-wearing, tequila-sunrise-drinking working woman. While Charlie was under construction, its working name was “Cosmo”, after the sort of woman who read Cosmopolitan magazine. According to Osmoz, Charlie’s top notes are citrus oils, peach, hyacinth, and tarragon; its heart notes are jasmine, lily of the valley, cyclamen, and carnation; and its base is cedarwood, sandalwood, oakmoss, and vanilla. Osmoz describes Charlie as a floral oriental, but I’ve also seen it referred to as a green floral, or even as a green chypre…
Welcome to a week of reviews of drugstore classics. It seems fitting to start the week with a review of Dana Tabu, one of the most loved, reviled, illustrious, and cheap of the perfumes you’ll find at the local Walgreen’s.
In 1932, Jean Carles, the nose behind such genius compositions as Christian Dior Miss Dior (with Paul Vacher), Carven Ma Griffe, Schiaparelli Shocking, and many of the Lucien Lelong fragrances, created Tabu…
I don't normally coo over 'everyday' hand soaps, but indulge me for a moment to share with you how thrilled I have been with my recent purchase of EO Peppermint & Tea Tree liquid Hand Soap. I bought a couple of EO soaps not too long ago, having read good things about them and, as always, appreciative of anything both eco-friendly and indulgent. They have all kinds of lovely organic ingredients, and are pretty reasonably priced (very much so when compared to high-end lines!). I put the Peppermint Tea Tree soap in the guest bathroom, thinking it would be good disinfectant for people coming in from outside (especially gardening), and the Rosemary Mint soap in the kitchen, thinking the herbal scent would work well in there.
It was a while before I got around to trying the Peppermint soap. The Rosemary Mint is pleasant enough, mostly herbaceous and slightly menthol, a bit weak on the lather but nice enough for the kitchen where it does not conflict with any cooking smells…
In the August 2008 issue of GQ, there is an expensive six-page advertising spread for AXE’s new Proximity fragrance line; these ad pages, showing model-actors wearing not only AXE body fragrance but clothes by Dolce & Gabbana, Paul Smith and Tom Ford, are positioned right before a GQ grooming article by Chandler Burr on nice-smelling deodorants called Give Up the Funk. Interestingly, among Burr’s deodorant picks (Mark Birley, $29, HM by Hanae Mori, $20, Tokyo by Kenzo, $18) is a plug for AXE Dry Sharp Focus — $5.
AXE’s Proximity print ads are aspirational — as in AXE aspires to attract an older, more affluent customer for its $5 body fragrances. But who in their right mind would think a man wearing a Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo for a night on the town would opt for an AXE Proximity fragrance? Hell, a man wearing that tuxedo could do much better than Dolce & Gabbana’s own fragrances. But I’m here to try what scents come my way, be they $5, $50 or $150…