Spooktacular Scents of Fall

 Happy Halloween to all of our ghoulishly lovely Posse peeps! It’s that time of year where we conjure our favorite (or most frightening, as the case may be) scents of the season and share them with you. So here goes …

From Ann —

After the long, hot summer  we’ve had, I was really revving my broom in anticipation of cool-weather scents. So here’s what’s rattling my chain this season:

Its incense, juniper, pine and bergamot make Byredo’s Gypsy Water mysterious and intriguing, yet still easy to wear;  Le Labo’s Vanille 44 falls in the same vein, but with less mystery and more cozy comfort. And from my newly acquired fondness for  leather (not to worry, folks, no leather pants here),  I’ve got Bottega Veneta and Cuir de Lancome in as heavy a rotation as my samples will allow. P.S. Just got my sample of Serge Lutens’ Profundis — I’m kinda grooving on its earthy floral vibe with just a hint of  greeny-dark goodness. Maybe I’ll unearth this one for the trick-or-treating to come tonight …

From Anita/Musette —

I’m crawling out of my Grant Application Grave (bwaaahaha -oh, forget it)  just long enough to tell you what scents scare me…and what scents I use to scare others! bwaaahahahaha <ack!>

What Scares Me:

Angel.  Try as I might, I cannot get closer to Angel than 3′.  I was in SFA a few months ago and a woman came in, liberally marinated in the jus.  She wanted to chat and couldn’t understand why I kept backing away!  Finally I asked what she was wearing and she said ‘Angel.  My signature scent’.  All I can say is Voldemort, have I got a gal for youuu!

Opium.  Fear Factor 10.  On my way to the Malle Candle Thingy (yeah, that long ago and it’s STILL seared into my memory).  Got a teeny little dab on my fingertip.  Two trips to the bathroom and a trip to the Clinique counter for some Number 4 Toner Love….and that damn thing STILL clung to me, scattering the hoards right and left as I blazed a trail up Boul Mich to meet M. Frederic. The Opium preceded my entrance by a good 5 feet.   It’s a wonder he didn’t throw a bucket of Carnal Flower on me!

Aromatics Elixir.  In my entire life I have only had two things run me out of my house.  One was a bug bomb I intentionally set off (you know, set it and run like hell, slamming the door behind you)…and the other is Aromatics Elixir, when I spilled it on a leather chair.  It’s not that it’s not gorgeous.  It is.  But so are cobras.  Three days on the porch, that chair.

My Own Skary Ones:

Contemporary (current) Mitsouko.  For sheer, wet-your-pants Terror, nothing says “I will bite your head clean off” like current Mitsouko, with that elegant gasoline punch to the nose.  I wear it when I have to advocate for my dad or remind a Neanderthal site crew that I Am Their Boss.  Something about it really tends to frighten people.  Or maybe it’s just me?

Bandit.  It’s got a mean streak that I just LOVE! but beautiful in its capacity to terrorize.  Like a vampire created by FX artist Rick Baker.  You know it can’t hurt you…..right?  You’re sure about that?

Jolie Madame.  Booooya (with the emphasis on ‘boo’!).  Another one of those to give you pause.  Dark night, dark street.  Gorgeous woman in a fur coat and stilettos slinking down the fog-shrouded sidewalk.  Uh, that is a fur coat…..isn’t it?

From March —

I could aim for the cheap seats with something like Etro Messe de Minuit, which I put on the other day and got an extra dose of crypt from (although it smells like incense-roses on a friend, go figure.)  But instead I think I’ll run with:

Aquolina Pink Sugar.  Parents around here go different routes with the whole Leftover Halloween Candy issue, including doling out two pieces a night for three months, or letting the Great Pumpkin take it all away after a three days.  Our approach has always been: have at it.  I’m pretty sure at least two of my four kids have gorged on their candy until they (literally) puked, and there’s no way I could come up with a better lesson about moderation than that.  Bringing me around to Pink Sugar, a fragrance sweet enough to conjure the evil spirits of five pounds of candy corn, and which nauseates me in pretty much the same way.

When I think about trick or treating as a kid, what is the strongest memory besides the candy?  It’s the smell of the evening, out there in the dark for what seemed like hours of bliss, tromping around with friends in our cheesy home-made costumes up and down sidewalks, and around (and through) endless raked piles of leaves.  The smell of fall is still defined for me by that indescribable leaf pile aroma, which is why I was so thrilled the first time I smelled CB I Hate Perfumes’ Burning Leaves and realized he’d gotten it perfectly.  I’m old enough to remember the excitement when we and all the neighbors used to burn those leaves curbside (something I assume folks outside the city still do).  As great as the fragrance is when you first put it on, my favorite part is the drydown — when the “burning” fades away and I’m left with the smell of fallen leaves and a hint of autumn chill.

From Tom —

Well, fall in Los Angeles can’t decide from one hour to the next whether it will be chilly with a marine layer or  having hot Santa Ana winds, so choosing a scent can be an adventure in itself.  That spritz of Fumerie Turque that seemed so appropriate at 8 a.m. when it was 57 degrees  can become a little, well, challenging when it starts to hit the mid-80s at noon.

So I am keeping the Sables, with its immortelle-bomb aspect until it stays cool. I’m enjoying the comfort of ELdO Like This and Le Labo Musk (which you can all sample this November if there’s a Le Labo near you).

For other lists, please visit:  Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc, Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin- Things.

Share your favorites for fall, what scent you’ll be wearing for tonight, or if you’ve got something special planned for Halloween.

pumpkin image: there are a ton of fun carved pumpkins, including plenty of NSFW images.  Since this pumpkin image appears on several sites, I don’t know which one to credit. — March