a review of a perfume you cannot buy
a week ago i mentioned I'd treated myself to Two Nice Things as a reward for living ultra-frugally these past 6 months. someone asked what the second thing was, but I didn't answer bc i was terrified of jinxing it.
I have it in my hands, so I'll tell you the story now.
Back over 10 years ago now, I discovered the Imaginary Authors perfume house. They are an indie perfumer specializing in 'unisex' options with a fun little concept: all of their fragrances are presented as if they were books, complete with cover art and a summary blurb and excerpt/quote. When you buy a discovery set, it comes as a little book you open up and then there's two 'shelves' inside of samplers.
Like, if nothing else, IA is a fucking triumph of marketing and branding.
So my first sample set, ages ago, I got a lot of interesting scents. I bought traveller sizes of O, Unknown! and Decisions, Decisions, both of which are now discontinued. What I did not buy was Telegrama.
Telegrama is probably the most important perfumes I've ever tried. Officially, its scents are: talc, lavender absolute, black pepper, teak, amyris, vanilla powder, and fresh linen. It taught me that scents could have texture, specifically they could be "powdery" to the nose, and that I fucking love amyris, it's one of the handful of always-yes fragrance notes for me.
It also stopped being sold a long time ago. I've mourned it forever, especially when my sampler sizes ran out. I've tried to match its scent notes to other perfumes, but there's nothing else similar to it. It's apparently wholly fucking unique.
For the curious, this is the fake-book synopsis:
Separated when they were nineteen but forever tethered to hope, two Argentinian lovers manage to stay in touch even as the world pulls them further and further apart. Persuasive messages, some of which take months to reach their recipient, dramatically alter the course of each of their lives, but the time that passes between communications has a way of unraveling even the best-laid plans. Aboard a transatlantic flight many years later, the two are serendipitously united, but the repercussions of this much-anticipated convergence could have global consequences.
My lost lenore, forever gone.
Until: on Parfumo (what I use instead of Fragrantica bc i think unfortunately that site is drowning in try-hard snobs), someone pointed out that no, Telegrama wasn't listed as a fragrance on the site and no you can't search for it but if you look for the Telegrama shaving oil then look on the sidebar at "also available as" there is a link to the perfume and it's still for sale.
That was a month and a half ago. I freaked out, I really thought about just buying it bc this was a miracle. But I also did not have the money to my name to buy it, so I decided to wait until my student loan dispersal.
Almost exactly a month later and I had money. I went to IA's site. They had locked the page. It was no longer accessible. I was so upset with myself, even if I made the correct choice.
Then, on a fucking wing and a prayer, I checked every device in my house, every browser I use. And specifically on the Firefox on my desktop, I still had Telegrama in my cart.
I checked out immediately, and then waited. Since it was literally locked down and unlisted, I figured there was a good chance IA would refund my money and cancel the order. I understood the risk.
It's here and it is mine. And yes, it almost made me emotional from the first mist of it on my wrist. Powder without the itch to the nose, lavender so sharp it's almost medicinal, the amyris that's like sandalwood after baking on a white sand beach for a month, and that sharp bite of pepper.
So I have until this bottle runs out to find anything remotely similar. But I get the feeling there's nothing else like the Final Telegrama.
