Hey hey hey. Smell this.

I have opinions regarding perfume.

[debisdrawing]

From this post [x] by @clarabeau

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Still Life In Rio

by Olfactive Studio

The morning after at a cafe-cum-dive bar. Ostensibly, things are fresh and presentable but you've seen the hint of something buried under the sparkles. Nothing happened last night because you had to get up early this morning and you're a responsible adult. But the memory of possibilities worms through you and tugs the corner of your mouth upwards.

Notes: Yuzu, ginger, mint, lemon, mandarin, Jamaican hot peppers, pink pepper, coconut water, Brazilian copaiba, white leather, rum.

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Trayee

Neela Vermeire Créations

This is a quick trip to the food truck during your intern year in the city. It's not as cold as back home, but the chill settles in your chest regardless. You've been peacocking the entire time, hoping  the overconfidence will make up for the doubt you've been swimming in since you landed. It's fine. It's fine. You stand in line waiting for your korean tacos and try to believe it.

notes: blue ginger from Madagascar, elemi oil, cinnamon bark, ganja effects, blackcurrant absolute, Sambac jasmine absolute, Egyptian jasmine absolute, cardamom absolute, clove, saffron, sandalwood, Javanese vetiver, Haitian vetiver, incense, Mysore sandalwood oil, patchouli, myrrh, vanilla, cedar, amber notes, oud palao from Laos, and oakmoss

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Matin Calin

by Comptoir Sud Pacifique

This is walking hand in hand with them an hour past dusk at the carnival on the outskirts out town. This is turning the corner away from the neon lights and screaming strong men toward the carts filled with caramel corn and hot chocolate.

This place is awful and wonderful and part of you. It blows through like Brigadoon, gone for years and reappearing just long enough to witness every salient moment of your life.

You loved someone else here once. You hated them here too. It’s been years since then, but the carnival is the same. It’s like this place feeds on beginnings and ends with little use for closure. You can feel the past creeping up to entangle you while an unidentified future threatens to suffocate you.

This is them tugging you to the bonfire and out of your thoughts. This is you leaning into them, feeling more warmth from their embrace than the flames before you.

The snacks in the air make your mouth water. A glance to the person beside you makes it go dry. You squeeze them tighter and allow yourself a moment to acknowledge the thing you were and the things you will be. To acknowledge that there are beginnings and ends; this is both and neither.

This is ignoring all of it and being present with the person you love on a crisp summer night in a place that knows too many of your secrets.

(notes: toffee milk, sugar, vanilla, sandalwood)

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My favorite perfumes smell like bitter, aged, once prima donnas glaring at baby undergrads from across the cafe while waiting for her less-bitter but still-curmudgeonly girlfriend. (They've been married for decades, but she still forgets it's legal now.)

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The Red

by The Sum

Mmmm. Gather round the crackling fire and listen to your histories. We fled once. But we are not fleeing. We are smart. We regroup. And we will cleave what we must to get back what is ours.

The Red surrounds and engulfs, burning like whiskey. It is not pretty; it is necessary. 

Notes: fire, saffron, sandalwood, amber, sterling silver.

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Pichola

by Neela Vermerire Créations

This is an easy afternoon stroll at the lakeside cabin. You've not had to think about work for days now, and somehow you still have an unending supply of clean laundry waiting for you. Things are pure and crisp, and you wonder if this is how you would feel every day if only you kept up with the thrice-weekly yoga regimen.

(Notes: Cardamom, cinnamon, saffron, juniper, magnolia, neroli, clementine, bergamot, orange blossom, rose, tuberose, jasmine sambac, ylang-ylang, benzoin, sandalwood, driftwood, vetiver.)

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Soliflore Osmanthus

by Dame Perfumery Scottsdale

So do you remember that Roald Dahl book about a kid living inside a peach and getting into adventures with like birds and caterpillars and sharks? (Probably. Admittedly, I never read that one.) I imagine it's like this, only instead of a peach, it's apricot yogurt. It's great and I alternately feel like I'm walking through an orchard and swimming in a vat of Yoplait.

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Perfect Nectar

by Sarah Horowitz Parfums

This is a fresh, clean scent. Think more like meadowland faires on a picnic as opposed to laundry detergent. Perhaps more subtle and inviting than Grand Cuir.

(Notes: Tangerine, blood orange, papaya, mango, ylang ylang, green tea, white flowers.)

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Grand Cuir

by Parfums Rétro

Another fantastic scent. For when you want Black Pepper and Sandalwood, but don't feel like getting blood on your shoes in polite company.

(Notes: Cistus labdanum, birch tar, clary sage, orange flower, lavender, carnation, rose, violent leaf, geranium, cinnamon leaf oil, tarragon, pine moss, sandalwood, patchouli, musk, rosewood.)

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Black Pepper and Sandalwood

by Acca Kappa

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS. I will wear this when I want to go out and wreck someone. This is my Bitch the Pot playlist in scent-form. This is what my patronus smells like. 

Alternatively: This is an empty cabin with only an empty, upturned cauldron and a lingering mist from long-gone witches' brew. The coven, 4 generations deep, had work to do.

(Notes: Bergamot, elemi, artemisia, saffron, cloves, nutmeg, balsam fir, damask rose, black pepper, cinnamon, agarwood, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, cedar, black musk.)

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Debut

by Parfums DelRae

The princess' debutante dance. Light, airy, delicate but hints of sweat and determination because it wasn't easy to learn this 4 minute monstrosity in heels and tulle. She has other things on her mind - the kingdom's dwindling economy, dissent in the south, the assassin looming by the punch - but this dance is her first official diplomatic measure as royalty and she is not going to fuck it up.

(Notes: Bergamot, lime, ylang-ylang, green leaves, lily of the valley, linden blossom, cyclamen, vetiver, sandalwood, musk.)

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I started getting the Olfactif subscription boxes a few months back. They’re great! Basically everything I review will be from that website because I’m too lazy to look for new scents on my own. Plus they have rad customer service and re-sent me a package because I managed to cock things up during a move.

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Eau de Celeri

by  Monsillage

It does, in fact, "smell like the color of celery," as purported from Olfactif. It smells like sterilized nature. Like the terradomes where there are too many windows and everything else is stark white. This is space station celery.

(Notes: Coriander leaf, galbanum, grass, bergamot, lemon, grapefruit, flower buds, vetiver, pathouli, cedar.)

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Woodcut

By Olympic Orchids

This is ok. For when you need to remember that time you went camping, almost killed a man, and swore a blood oath to be the person you never were.

(Notes: Cedar, pine, oak, tolu balsam, olibanum, caramel, burnt sugar, vanilla.)