Tinder Hookups, Only It’s Perfume

Sounds like fun, let’s try them all!

Since it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I thought it’d be fun to write up some recent perfume encounters as if they were poorly-thought-out blind dates, which, in a way (since I didn’t do any research beforehand) they were.

D.S. & Durga Pistachio I had high hopes for this one – a little weird, a little funky in a trust-fund-hipster kind of way, right down to the label which looks conspicuously groovy. (notes: pistachio, cardamom, roasted almond, patchouli, vanilla crème.) And it was a little weird, but not in a good way, sadly. It does eventually get around to smelling like pistachios, but overlaying that the entire time is a metallic-musky zing that smells very much like D&G Light Blue? Not even kidding. I mean, there are worse things, and I like Light Blue. But not in this particular combination. Maybe it’s like that Taylor Swift song and I’m the problem, it’s me.

Tom Ford Vanilla Sex The issue (okay, an issue) with this line is that when you look at all the fragrances in a display, their names start to feel less edgy-chic and more like the smutty jokes of a group of 12-year-old boys at summer camp.  Tom Ford (the man) seems equal parts irritating and skeevy, but I do like some of his makeup and perfume, and A Single Man was a great movie, so what can you do. Anyway, Vanilla Sex smells like vanilla with a little burnt-caramel twist, and feels like a capitulation to some behind-the-scenes pressure for a nice, straightforward vanilla scent. I’d probably go out with this one again if it turned up on my doorstep, but it’s not marriage material. It’s not doing anything interesting, just reminding us why so many folks find the smell of vanilla so intoxicating. But I could absolutely do better with one of a dozen rich and/or sexy vanilla scents.

Mistakes were made.

Tom Ford Cherry Smoke I’m assuming Lost Cherry (hehe, get it?) was popular enough for them to release two quasi-flankers tweaking the scent a bit – Electric Cherry, which leans more into the fruity sweetness and musk, and Cherry Smoke, its sultry older sibling. (notes: sour cherry, saffron, leather, osmanthus, apricot, smoke, woods.) I swiped right immediately and looked forward to our time together. And it was a nice interlude – nice enough for me to use up a generous decant from a generous SA. It’s less fruit-pie than Lost Cherry, and that overlay of saffron-leather-woods-smoke puts it well into unisexy territory as far as I’m concerned. If I wound up with another freebie I’d do it all again. After it was gone, though, I found I wanted more of something that made my toes curl, so, back to vintage Poison for me.

Tom Ford Bitter Peach When I was a kid we spent the summer eating fresh Georgia peaches, and the rest of the year eating canned peaches (don’t judge.) This starts off as an interesting combination of both – the sweet floral of a fresh peach and some of the syrupy sweetness of the canned. I was thinking of nice things to say about this and then hahahaha it turns into the WORST DATE EVER. It was like dinner with that creep from American Psycho, only I didn’t wind up dead. The peach gets less peachier and more fruity and that patchouli comes in and then I wanted to cut my own arm off. I googled and it turns out Hannibal Lecter Bitter Peach gets compared all over the place to Mugler Angel. While it’s not quite as chocolate-vomit to me, I see the resemblance, including not being able to make it disappear from my skin with laundry detergent, vinegar, or exorcism. Thank goodness I didn’t get it on any of my clothing during my walk of shame. I tossed its number in the trash and moved across town just to make sure I never ran into it again by accident.

Had any brief, ill-advised fragrance encounters yourself recently?

images: pexels