Scented Diaries: A Hazy Shade of Winter

Newsletter #21: Fig, amber, leather and bandages

This is an edition of Scented Diaries, where I track my adventures in perfume for the week.

Monday

7:30am: It’s my day off so I enjoy the great luxury of climbing back into my cozy bed and reading while the cold winter sun moves across my bedroom window and fills the air with pale light.

11:00am: It’s going to be a day filled with chores, cooking, and focusing on a deliverable for my volunteering work. I spend the morning procrastinating all of these things. When I’m not in my usual weekday routine all sense of order flies out of the window and it gets to nearly lunchtime before I remember to spray a perfume.

I go with something simple, unfussy, and uncomplicated: Debaser (DS&Durga, 2015).

Fig perfumes are arguably the most difficult fruit perfumes and therefore the most interesting. The sappy-milky grassy-sharp weirdness of a fig accord is either delightful or sickening, with no in-between. There are many great fig perfumes in the world and Debaser is almost one of them. It is playing the exact same beats as the classic twin Olivia Giacobetti masterpieces Premier Figuier and Philosykos. The key difference is that Debaser is incredibly strong, a fig screaming heavy metal in comparison to Giacobetti’s quiet, conversational style.

3:30pm: The green element of Debaser is sharp like a freshly snapped flower stem and great company to get some work done, which I eventually do in the short afternoon and into the twilight.

8:00pm: As I’m cleaning the dishes the smell of the dishwashing liquid - an alarmingly pink citrus concentrate - rejigs my brain into smelling Debaser again. I proceed to scrub pots and think about the strange case of DS&Durga. It is a brand that seems to be doing everything right - cool packaging, cool concepts, private equity backers, magnetic bottle caps - and yet they always seem to stumble before quite hitting the mark.

I’ve been waiting for about a decade for The Big One, the perfume that will hit the pulse of olfactive culture and launch DS&Durga into superstardom, but it never seems to arrive. Instead they consistently release perfumes that have great concepts or great names or great cleverness, but it’s never all great all at once. Burning Barbershop delights me as a perfume lover - a fougere runs into a smoky-leather like two Titans colliding in a thunderstorm - but the actual scent is only sketched and not filled in to execute the premise. Always so close to brilliant. Always nearly great.

10:00pm: Debaser’s drydown is like a thick pour of coconut milk, sweet and fragrant and cossetting as I wind down for bed. It’s good, and competently made, and I really like it. Maybe it’s the next one that will be great.

Tuesday

7:00am: It’s Tuesday, trivia day, when I’m out of the house from 8 in the morning ‘till 9:30 at night. Tuesdays require fortitude and many, many sprays.

I love winter. I’m a cold weather person and will happily endure the chill of cold floors on June mornings so that I can enjoy the best season for fashion and for perfume. In every way, winter means layers.

Today I’m in an amber mood. I know - ambers for winter, groundbreaking. But the nose wants what the nose wants so I reach for one of the most beloved bottles in my collection, Bengale Rouge (Papillon, 2019).

In the entire world of perfumery I don’t think there is anyone as delightful as Liz Moores - her instagram, like her perfumes, is pure joy.

Bengale Rouge is a modern take on Shalimar that steps where niche firms fear to tread and chucks in so many natural materials, tonka bean and sandalwood and honey, that the scent almost feels thick when you spray it. It’s a hell of an amber, strong but not loud, richly spiced and full bodied without being overwhelming, and will last until the end times.

In reality Bengale Rouge a perfume that I think is designed for a fancy restaurant and pearls kind of night out, but sometimes that’s the exact feeling you need to get through a day in the office.

8:30am: Sometimes friends and acquaintances who fall into the trap of talking about fragrance with me will ask if I’ve ever thought of making my own perfume.

I always tell them no and explain that perfumery is a skill that usually requires postgraduate degrees in chemistry or biology or a hell of a lot of raw talent. I’m more than happy sniffing through the world of perfume to try and find the perfumes that meet my dream criteria: the perfect cherry scent, the perfect cigarette perfume, the perfect tuberose.

The one exception, the one time I think god, I’d love to make a perfume out of this, is on the morning commute. Since I was a teenager I’ve loved the smell of the early morning commuter’s carriage on a cold winter’s day: the sharp bite of wintergreen, the rich scent of hot espresso, and the overwhelming bite of cheap body spray used in abundance by loud young men who move in packs and play music from their speakerphones.

The mix of these smells is joyful beyond words to me. Today is one of those fortunate days when I get to smell it, and I have a smile on my face all the way to work.

I would call the perfume Early Morning Train, or maybe The Commute. Absolutely no one would buy it. I would cherish every drop.

1:30pm: Coffee and doomscroll break in the office kitchen. A friend of mine is walking past and comes up to eagerly tell me that she’s subscribed to a monthly scent box.

She pulls it up on her phone and shows me. ‘Is it a good one?’

Oh dear - it certainly isn’t. I take the phone for a closer inspection and, yep, it’s definitely a brand selling low market dupes.

‘Hmm,’ I say, diplomatically. ‘Did you like the first delivery?’

‘It kind of smelled the one you lent me - Pretty Good Oud?’

‘Oud for Greatness.’

‘Yeah, that. So I liked it. Do you think I could bring them in each month and you can tell me if they’re good or not?’

‘Absolutely,’ I say, and take this as a good compromise - I can recommend her the original scents if she likes them.

Coffee break’s over. Back to the desks.

5:00pm: Almost time for trivia and Bengale Rouge has faded to a pleasant, ambery hum on my wrists.

I keep a 3-D printed sample holder on my desk to indoctrinate my friends, alleviate boredom, and re-up on super long days, which I decide to do tonight.

I spray some Musc Mochous (Rania J, 2019). It’s a perfume that smells exactly like overpriced, fancy jelly beans - the kind you get in pinstriped boxes from old fashioned candy stores. It’s built on a bed of iris and white musk but smells so very elegant, somehow - like a woman in long white gloves snacking on candy during intermission at the opera. It’s a small sillage, cozy scent to smell and adore on your own and will keep me company on the cold trip to trivia.

9:00pm: Trivia wraps up with a win for the team and the grand prize of beer vouchers for our efforts.

The fourth round had a perfume question - “The 1990s perfume Moi! is associated with which well known celebrity?”, which I know from researching my celebrity perfumes article.

‘It’s Miss Piggy,’ I say excitedly. ‘And I know that because of this article I wrote -’

‘Sweetheart,’ says our team captain, a grizzled labor unionist who retired last year and mainly shows up for the free beer and to tell us stories of long dead, corrupt Australian politicians, ‘I don’t care how you know half the shit you know. I trust you. Write it down.’

‘It was a good article,’ I protest. But I write the answer down dutifully anyway.

Wednesday

7:00am: I’ve been in a 60’s folk revival mood with my music lately. Maybe its because Brian Wilson passed away, or because I’ve written about hippie patchouli and The Wicker Man in the past few weeks, or just because it’s winter.

When I was a child and got my first CD player I would sit in my room and play things like Unchained Melody and The Best of Simon and Garfunkel on repeat to the point where my family would bang the wall and beg me to play anything else, please! So I’ve got a personal nostalgia as well as the general culture nostalgia for this strange, wonderful moment in music history.

I’m also a staunch sentimentalist, and if there’s one song that can always make me cry it is Boots of Spanish Leather. Something about the way the singer who is left behind gives up and asks for their gift at the end always makes me want to curl into a ball and weep.

I’m listening to it as I’m getting ready today. In an effort not to tear up and ruin my mascara I start thinking about Spanish Leather as a genre in perfume. It’s not as popular now as it was in the 20th century and it hasn’t morphed into the modern world quite like Russian Leather with its muscular birch tar. But Spanish Leather - Peau d’Espange - is an important chapter in the history of perfume.

It supposedly originates from the time when Grasse was known for its tanneries and perfume was a gig on the side, the stuff they put on boots and gloves and saddles to make them smell less pungent. Peau d’Espange perfumes are leather without the leather: floral, animalic, musky, with a warmth like the scent of hot skin. Old fashioned - out of fashion - and incredibly evocative because it’s so rare to smell in the world world.

There’s nothing for it after all that: I spend a good five minutes hunting through my sample drawer for my old, old sample of Santa Maria Novella’s Peau d’Espange.

11:00am: Santa Maria Novella are always dependable for a solid, straight down the line classic perfume formula. They are deeply Italian in this way. Their Peau d’Espange is powdery, musk-tinged, floral, and dry - masculine in a hirsute, prewar way. It’s a perfume that smells like it lingered in the streets of Paris in the days before The Battle of the Marne when the Belle Epoque ended and the world changed forever. It’s also got a huge slug of styrax which I really love - I should reach for this more often.

4:00pm: Googling the cost of a bottle of Peau d’Espange. I’ve always wanted one of the Santa Maria Novella bottles for my collection - they are beautiful - but I’ve never loved one of their scents enough to justify it. But the leather is winning me over today and I haven’t bought a new bottle in a while….

4:10pm: $250 for 100ml…. how can anyone justify a 100ml bottle in this economy?

6:30pm: Out to dinner with a friend and I ask their opinion on the hours old but still strong Peau d’Espange.

Their nose lifts from my wrist and wrinkles. ‘Um… can I be honest?’

‘Always.’

‘It kind of smells like the old box my granddad kept his cigars in?’

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘Freak,’ says my friend, with affection, as our dumplings and shallot pancakes arrive.

Thursday

8:00am: I am what one could conservatively call ‘not a morning person’. The way I phrase it to people is that I am a gremlin before coffee in the morning and am best left on my own until this time.

I cascade alarms on my phone and speaker to try and wake up in the morning. This is not glamorous but it usually works. Today it didn’t, so not only am I the morning gremlin, I am also running late.

Cue a frenetic getting ready montage as I chuck on a podcast and run around like a madwoman, eating a crumpet with one hand and putting on a shoe with the other. It’s freezing cold but the stress warms me up quickly.

Though I’m tempted to wear the Santa Maria Novella again today, I drop into autopilot and, for reasons still unfathomable to me at the time of writing, reach for Giulietta (Tocca, 2009).

10:00am: It’s a circus of meetings today, in between which I am left to catch my breath and ponder Giulietta. This bottle is one of the oldest in my collection, nearly reaching that point where I’m too scared to spray it anymore. It’s a relic from my young adulthood, a dainty Cinderella-esque bottle with a perfectly lovely, unthreatening scent inside. I wore it relentlessly for a few summers and usually reach for it in hotter weather when I, too, am wanting to seem lovely and unthreatening.

God knows why the gremlin picked it this morning, but I do still love the bones of the thing. It’s got a huge green apple opening which I think would put a lot of people off (as the apple note does in Frederic Malle’s Promise), but I love an apple accord even when they smell artificial and plastic-y, like sour candy. The rest of the scent is a very 2000’s, Chloe inspired creamy floral and musk. It doesn’t really have a backbone, but to its credit is not really meant to.

1:00pm: Iced matcha latte (yes, even in winter) and ordering my groceries break. I decide to add a leather jacket to Giulietta’s ballgown and spray the Tom of Finland sample I keep in my bag. Much more my current speed.

3:00pm: Being known as the resident Perfume Person at work can sometimes take me on strange adventures. Today a colleague rolled their chair over and dropped a little vial on my desk. A few weeks ago she had sought my advice for some oils she was planning to buy to make her own cuticle care.

It was as I expected, those funny Etsy sets that are called things like ‘Amalfi Type’ and ‘Cherry Blossom Imitation’ and ‘Burnt Vanilla Sugar.’ Wouldn’t it be easier to just sell essential oils? I told her that this wasn’t really my wheelhouse, but she asked if I would take a bottle and give her some feedback, which I of course promised to do.

The day had finally come. The cuticle oil is in a cute, gold-tinted bottle that kind of looks like an attar. I promise to use it over the week and give her some feedback.

‘Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘Um, just out of curiosity….’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘I didn’t give you any of the vanilla stuff. I used all the tobacco and leather ones because I knew no one else would like them.’

Sometimes it’s really nice to be known.

Friday

9:00am: It’s been an absolutely exhausting week at work, the kind where I don’t quite remember who I was on Monday. I decide I’ve had enough of the office and work from home.

I’ve mentioned before that I love to wear my unmentionables on work from home days, the loudest and least safe-for-work (or really, the general public) scents in my collection.

Today I pick a perfume that has a review on Fragrantica that says: “Not for children. For those who have experienced life. For people who can make serious decisions. Life is hard for some, but harder for others. Imagine a man looking into the distance on a cold day, thinking about his past.”, which is immediately followed by a review that says ‘If you wanna smell like shit go get it”.

It’s the one and only Gucci Guilty Absolute Pour Homme (Gucci, 2017).

11:00am: After a couple of meetings that have been rudely scheduled for a Friday, I’m left to do admin work and the weekly wrap-up in peace.

Well, I say peace - there is still the matter of the perfume.

If you’ve never smelled GGABH, I assure you that you have, as it is a perfume that smells precisely and brilliantly of antiseptic bandages. It smells like war kit of a medical officer fresh from the trenches at Passchendaele. It smells of a leather so rough and medicinal it’s almost not a leather at all and instead some kind of homunculus made of tar and patchouli and smoke that perches above you in the trees and watches your movements with sharp yellow eyes.

It’s wild to think that this was a mass market designer perfume from a well known house. I think I bought it half because I liked it and half to support the traditional houses doing more weird and daring things like this.

It’s doubly as shocking that it’s a perfume from Alberto Morillas, who may be the most prolific and the most ridiculed perfumer in the modern world. Yes, he may be the culprit of things like Office for Men and those Paco Rabanne scents in the horrendous robot bottles, but he also made this heaving, brilliant monstrosity. It is so pervasive that I can smell it when I walk into a room I had been sitting in earlier in the day. The sillage is haunting itself.

5:00pm: The freedom of the weekend beckons and I’m greeted by a slew of mid year sale emails in my inbox. I’ve been really good with buying this year - in fact I think I’ve only bought samples and no full bottles since January. I’m not on a no-buy, I just try to be mindful about only adding scents I love, or want to reference, to my collection.

Not that I am precious about reaching the end of my bottles. In fact there are some, like Absolute Pour Homme, I know I’ll never reach the bottom of.

And that’s the point - I bought them because I want to smell them forever. I want to see how the perfume, like me, will age over time. I want to open Absolute Pour Homme when I’m seventy and smell that awful, bracing, harsh smell like medicine and ash and smile the smile you can only give to old friends.

It’s a good test for when you’re considering a new purchase - ‘Will I want to smell this in fifty years?’

I’m heading to Melbourne for a week in October and plan to sniff my way through the city. It will be springtime. Maybe I’ll buy a new scent then.

For now it is winter, and I am happy with all my strange and terrible creatures. ▣