Geranium Pour Moi

Pssst!  Posse!

I haz a secret.

I. Like. Men.

:: crickets ::

sigh.  y’all already knew?  oh.  okay.

(LOL! it’s a good thing March is off to Away – this revelation would leave her… unmoved).

Here’s the thing:  I like how men look, taste, feel – but I particularly like how men smell (men whom I think smell good, at any rate.  Or men I like.  Oh, nebber mind – just roll with this, okay?).  There is a definite difference in how men smell v. women, even when wearing the same scent.  I remember the first time I smelled Geranium Pour Monsieur – I spritzed it on and nearly swooned at its minty beauty.  Then Rex, the Malle SA, spritzed it on his uber-manly self and I nearly climbed up his… okay… ANYHOO!  it was a different scent on him, the mint mixing with the Y-chrome, amping up the clove just enough to smell like … a freshly ironed shirt on a hot Summer’s day?  I can’t quite figure out how it works on men.  I’ve smelled it on several men (including M. Malle himself) and it’s always the same, that alluring man-smell (and, no.  I did not feel the urge to climb M. Malle.  Gitchermindouttathegutter!).  When I wear it the geranium leaf seems a bit more floral whereas when a Y-chrome wears it the herbal-green undernote of the scented geranium leaf struts its stuff in manly fashion (if you can figure this out you’re a better woman than I am).  I’ve spritzed it on several women and it smells largely as it smells on me: gorgeous but not mindblowing.  I’ve spritzed it on several men as well but was careful to make sure they were not men I was already attracted to – there’s no telling what might’ve happened! (I’m currently in a ridiculous state of madness over A Wildly Inappropriate Man – every time I see him (in a public place – we are not dating) I’m nearly blinded by lust.  I thought about seeing if he would let me spritz him with it but I’m afraid I’d end up in the back of a SWAT van).

That damb Dominique Ropion.  Why he do this to meee?  Fragrantica lists notes as thus:  Top notes are Mint, Geranium and Star Anise; middle notes are Clove and Cinnamon; base notes are Musk, Sandalwood, Incense, Styrax and Benzoin.  I’m wearing the body lotion and perfume as I write this and, sweatergawd, I can barely think for imagining this on the Wildly Inappropriate Man.  Is it the geranium? Is it the mint? Probably both, bound by the clove & cinnamon to keep it from flying off into the ether.   I think it’s the amazing skill of M. Ropion, that makes it almost impossible to decipher.  I mean, anybody can combine mint & geranium (I haz done it, myself) but it takes a particular genius to blend them so seamlessly, that all I can smell is the perfection of the pairing.  That geranium top note stays throughout the wearing (I’m on Hour 10 and it’s still lingering) – it stays but never overstays, if that makes sense?

I absolutely adore this scent.  Perfect for a Hot Spring Day, with the green just greening the hell all over the place – but a cool, grey-green.  Sitting outside, under the umbrellas, with this scent wafting……bliss.

Years ago Neil Morris and I talked about the alchemy of a Y-chrome wearing a femme perfume – this was quite awhile ago (I didn’t hate EL O quite that much yet, that’s how long ago it was).  He suggested I spritz one of the more femme-y perfumes on El O, next time we were going somewhere social, and see how women responded.  Now, El O is good looking enough, uber-Guy in that hefty biker-lumberjack kinda way but he really isn’t a guy women flock to.  However, I remember spritzing him lightly with Carnal Flower on our way to a Chamber of Commerce dinner.  Honeydoodles…!!  These extremely conservative women kept circling him like … well, the weirdest part was 99% of those women had probably never spoken more than 3 words to him the entire time we lived here!  It was fascinating.

Why am I yarking on about that now?  Well… I think Geranium Pour Monsieur achieves that same alchemy in a less obvious way – unlike Carnal Flower GPM is a  scent that subverts the notion of femme because it works so well on women but twisting it into this outrageously sensual/sexual scent when worn by a man (at least it does that for me – ymmv).  This is a scent that makes you delight in a fully-clothed man…because you (okay, me/I) have every intention of taking every last stitch of that clothing off. And even if you never do, this perfume causes you (okay, me/I) to always have that thought in the back of your mind.

I cannot think of another ‘masculine’ scent that does it for me quite. like. this.  And yeah, I’m insane.  But I know what I know – and I know that Geranium Pour Monsieur is a very, very seductive scent – lovely on a woman but stupefyingly sensual on a man.

Hmmm….  if I do spritz this on the Wildly Inappropriate Man and I do end up in the back of a SWAT van, will y’all set up a fund to bail me out?  I’ll be in the slammer, reeking of Geranium Pour Monsieur.