Suzanna: 60 posts

The more that women’s fragrances begin to smell alike in one pink synthetic blur, the more I find myself considering the men’s fragrance section.  The overly sharp woody or harsh herbal notes that traditionally signify a “male” scent aren’t my cup of tea, but there are plenty of men’s fragrances that make for an interesting and distinctive feminine perfume.

A combination of desperation and curiosity led me to the men’s counter at Nordstrom, where I was promptly shied away from Kiehl’s Musk by a female salesclerk.  “That’s for men,” she said, about the slightly animalic musk scent that has been called a mall cognate to Serge Lutens’s hot and sweaty Muscs Koublaï Khan.  So what if someone raises an eyebrow about a cross-gender spray-and-play?  The men’s section contains novelty and surprise, two qualities that have been lacking in recent women’s issues.  There are gems at the men’s counter that are sure to intrigue if not outright delight.  Here are some that I wear myself and buy for men, straight from the mall:

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Do you remember what fragrances you wore at different stages in your life? Recently, as I was reading Love, Loss, and What I Wore, in which Ilene Beckerman reflects on her life through clothes, I was inspired to do the same with perfume. Here’s my timeline of big moments and often big perfumes, starting back when I was 11 years old and sitting on a wooden porch swing at a house whose great green lawn swooped downhill past stands of lilac to the Narragansett Bay.

THE FIRST KISS: I’ve just finished sixth grade and have gone to a classmate’s end-of-school party.  I’m soon joined on the swing by a boy a year older than I am. I have a terrible crush on this boy.  Suddenly, the boy leans over and kisses me—my first!—and then urges me to come into the house to dance with him.  He rushes off into the house and I stay on the swing mortified, not by the kiss, but by dancing, which I consider to be geeky and uncool.  In a while, though, I wander into the house.  The boy is dancing with Linda Rose and never looks my way again.  I call my mother to come pick me up and once at home I put on her eyebrow pencil and Max Factor Hypnotique and I playact  that I am having cocktails in Paris.  Alone.

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Comme des Garçons Harissa is a quirky little citrus-spice scent from the imaginative Series 2: Red collection of fragrances themed around the color red as it is found in spices, woods, flowers, and fruits. The fragrance has its origins in harissa, the bright red condiment common to North African cuisines that contains red chili peppers, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, caraway, and cumin.  The condiment is used as a flavoring in stews and in couscous dishes.

Harissa the fragrance is not so much an olfactory recreation of the condiment as it is a nod to the idea of it.  It is a citrus scent based upon what marketing copy says is a “North African blood orange”, and additional touches include red chili pepper, angelica, saffron, nutmeg, cardamom, and tomato.  The fragrance is only mildly spicy despite the list of notes.

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I find endlessly fascinating the “stories” created around perfumes; the one concocted for Atelier Cologne Rose Anonyme is briefer than many but is still dramatic:  “She turned the dial until the safe opened, revealing the diamond. She had stolen jewels before, but none compared with this one. She left a single rose and the scent of her perfume in its place for him to find. In a moment she’d be halfway around the world and he would be in pursuit. The chase began again…”

More useful for someone wondering whether he or she might enjoy the fragrance is a sentence about “a breathtaking seductress caught in a stolen affair between light and dark.”  Forget the seductress and go right to the light and dark part.  This isn’t fiction.  Rose Anonyme contains mostly dark elements that can easily topple a less carefully considered fragrance. But it’s so smoothly blended that the perfume feels like something that one slides into rather than something one sprays on.

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Is there any fragrance that says spring more than Diorissimo? That lovely study of lily of the valley is the essence of a new season.  But what of the chilly iris, the damp green of nascent shoots, the contagious zest of orange? All of these fragrances evoke spring-like freshness and rejuvenation for me. My favorite fragrances for this time of year draw me away from the incense and cedar and smoke of winter. There is nothing wrong with wearing these perfumes all year round, of course, but these days I crave scents that bring me outdoors to the enormous cartoon-like blooms of fantasy Florida.

To some degree, many of my spring favorites have a sense of playfulness or fun, and several contain fruit. Let’s say that the perfect Diorissimo is my model of a classic spring scent, and here are ten more picks to enjoy:

Atelier Cologne Rose Anonyme:  Stunning combination of oud and rose, with notes of incense and ginger. The darkness of the notes is presented as nearly ethereal, with lots of movement and light within.  The oud shows up early and is a game-changer for the rose, which melds into the oud as if part of the wood.

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