Summer greens ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 19 May 2022 6 Comments

Longtime readers here at Now Smell This will be familiar with the idea of the purgatory basket. It doesn’t have to be a basket, strictly speaking: it could also be a bowl or box or drawer, any container that holds an assortment of samples we try, think about, and decide to reassess later. The delay might just be a matter of mood or season or, in my case, a busy calendar that distracts me from my usual sampling efforts.

I recently revisited four releases from 2021 (and one older fragrance) and realized that they all had some kind of “green” theme in common — gardens, vines, mosses. In addition to my usual rotation of L’Ombre dans l’eau and tart rhubarb-y scents, I might be branching out (hah) a bit this summer.

To start: I recently read Muriel Barbery’s A Single Rose, and its descriptions of Kyoto’s Zen gardens sent me hunting for the vial of Le Jardin Retrouvé Mousse Arashiyama (image below) that I’d stashed away for later reappraisal…

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The swapmeet, episode 20

Posted by Robin on 23 April 2022 104 Comments — Comments are closed

Chrysanthemum

The swapmeet (episode 20) is open for business! PLEASE read the instructions! (For those of you who refuse to read the instructions, please do not respond to anyone else’s comment except to say that their email address does not work. ANYTHING else you need to say, say it in an email. If you insist on responding to a comment, I will delete your comment. If you want to know how to swap for something, see #6 below!) For people who would like to chat in addition to, or instead of, swapping, there will be a poll along shortly.

Don’t know what swapping is, or you know but you’ve never tried it? See here. You can also take a look at the feedback from episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episode 6 and episodes 7-8, episodes 9-10, episodes 11-17.

Please, do not participate if you do not have time to mail your items within the next three weeks! Hopefully, another swapmeet will be coming up in the fall…

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Eris Parfums Scorpio Rising (with a note on Belle de Jour) ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 7 April 2022 15 Comments

Years and years ago, when I was just beginning graduate school, I made a new friend who had an amateur interest in astrology. At the time, this interest was regarded with suspicion (or even scorn) by the more “serious” members of our academic program. I’ve always been curious about the storytelling and symbolism of the zodiac, though, so I was a willing ear for her theories about certain classmates’ behavior.

“We have too many Leos in this group,” she’d murmur to me when the same few individuals kept dominating a seminar meeting. Or, more ominously, “Watch out for the sting of the Scorpio” — in reference to some November-born classmates whom she didn’t trust…

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Zoologist Seahorse ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 3 March 2022 6 Comments

I’ve been fascinated by seahorses since I was a child. Why? So many reasons. Their heads resemble the heads of teeny horses! They can hold onto things — seaweed, each other — with their prehensile tails! They are monogamous! The male seahorse carries his mate’s fertilized eggs in a pouch on his abdomen! I’ve never actually stopped to think about scents associated with seahorses, though — until now.

Seahorse is a unisex aquatic fragrance developed for Zoologist by perfumer Julien Rasquinet…

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Mugler Angel Nova ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 4 February 2022 15 Comments

When I learned that Thierry Mugler had passed away on January 23, I recalled my feelings the first time a sales associate offered me a sniff of the original Angel in a department store: I was intrigued, repelled, and somewhat confused. I didn’t buy it, but it lingered in my mind and I kept trying it whenever I spotted that distinctive pale blue star bottle on my shopping rounds.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I’d occasionally smell Angel on another woman on the subway, at a party, at a professional conference, and sometimes it smelled glorious on someone else, and sometimes it didn’t, but it was always distinctive and not quite like any other perfume…until so many new fragrances suddenly started to smell more and more like Angel, and they just kept proliferating at every tier, from high-end niche to mainstream, not to mention candles and body products.

I did eventually purchase a small bottle of Angel…

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