
I’ve written before about my love for coffee, both as a beverage and as a fragrance. I’m always surprised that more coffee-scented body products don’t exist. Surely I’m not the only person who loves this smell so much? For anyone who shares my obsession, here’s a summary of a few high-quality toiletries that include actual coffee for its smell as well as its other benefits.
Lush’s Sonic Death Monkey Shower Gel (shown above, middle) looks like something you could drizzle over ice cream, and it smells like a drink that would set you back about $7 at Starbucks: a potent mocha blend of coffee and chocolate, with a shot of orange syrup…
The other morning, as I was pulling out of my driveway, I happened to notice the charming scene of my neighbor across the street watering some tall green plants in her backyard with a great big watering can. I can't be sure, but from a distance they looked like large leafy tomato plants. I was reminded of my own adventures in trying to grow tomatoes; one year I had cherry tomatoes which gave me plenty of fruit but none of it very good, and so the next year I tried the larger kind, which proceeded to overwhelm my garden with their large stalk-y bases and profuse green leaves. They also attracted some extremely odd looking (and rather large) caterpillars who took shelter in the dark shade provided by the plants, and which gave me a queasy feeling whenever I tried to pick a tomato. Whatever the reason, once again, the fruit was mealy and the skin too tough, and so this year I decided that perhaps my climate is not the best for tomatoes and to forego them altogether.

