Reviews of Perfume Samples Ripped from Magazines
Hey, my magazine smells.
by Meredith Pinault
Reviews of Fragrances from Details, April 2006
Everlast – Everlast (“The New Men’s Fragrance”)
This sporty, controlled scent is perfect for the guileless conformist desperate not to usurp the Alpha Male’s pheromones. It is dominated by a mellow musk with woody-spicy cedar base and cardamom overtones, the smell that typifies low-grade men’s fragrance. Some strange market psychology is being exploited when sporting goods companies produce cologne: “Well, Everlast is the premiere manufacturer of boxing equipment and apparel, so they must make a good fragrance, neatly completing the natural olfaction lifecycle of purposeful exercise.” But the man who wears Everlast doesn’t want danger. He wants a life filled with easily surmountable challenges, elliptical cardio machines, and steady 401k accumulation.
Giorgio Armani – Acqua Di Gio (“For men”)
This quintessential scent has been masking the odors of springtime sweat since 1996 with its wholly successful fusion of wet grass leaves, rain water, persimmon fruits and cedar. Breath deep, and ponder its unalloyed green tomato citrus with characteristic herbaceous and woody topnotes. Unmistakably Armani: Raw masculinity chemically formulated to tweak the functional odor receptors of females who like their men to smell as expensive as they do.
Nautica – Voyage (“The New Fragrance for Men”)
Though the name implies adventure and exploration, this generic marine scent is strictly for a routine day at office. If you close your eyes and let the odor waft deep into your nostril, you can pretend you’re on a 46 foot cruising yacht, the sea water misting onto your Helly Hanson offshore jacket while you gaze at the expansive ocean in Yves Saint Laurent Aviator sunglasses and nurse a Smirnoff Lime and Cola.
But open your eyes. You’re staring at an Excel spreadsheet while the guy in the next cubicle clips his fingernails and munches on peanut M and Ms, and you smell like generic aspirational tedium.
Reviews of Fragrances from Marie Claire, February 2007
One would imagine that the February issue would offer an array of redolent scents to romantically cloak the stenches of humanness, but this month, there are only 2. Because on Valentine's Day, it's the man's job to buy the flowers, the jewelry, and the dinner, and the woman's job to emanate grapefruit, vanilla, and ylang ylang.
But for the target demographic of Marie Claire, maybe only two samples are necessary. Young women either do or don't believe in Valentines Day. Women who do believe seize the opportunity to indulge their fanciful notions about romantic love, mainly that men are base creatures who respond to subtle cues gleaned from their primitive senses. Women who don't believe seize the opportunity to assert their independence: I'm strong enough to be alone, and I'll be damned if I smell like I want to cuddle.
Estee Lauder Beautiful Love ("The new fragrance that celebrates the love you share")
What does "romance" smell like? Our cave-dwelling ancestors would describe the scents of dirty laundry. Scientists talk of chemical pheromones, while researchers have found "sexy" smells to include pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and Good and Plenty candy. But I say screw science and all its animalistic trappings: Romance smells like this classic floral/jasmine combination.
Launching just in time for Valentine's Day, Beautiful Love joins a cadre of sex-inducing Estee Lauder perfumes with foreboding names like Beyond Paradise, Pleasures in the Garden, and Youth Dew. It's a teasing yet purposeful scent that indicates both sexual readiness and meticulous domesticity: this female believes in potpourri and toilets that smell pleasantly chemical. Go ahead and express ardor in fits of beautiful love.
Lucky Brand Jeans Lucky Number 6 for Women
This one's for the cool girls. The hip girls, technorati girls, mentally-provocative girls, girls who dabble in 5 or more DIY hobbies, girls who deride Valentine's Day as a commercial holiday on which several luxury industries depend upon to peddle tokens of modern affections that have been voided of emotional meaning.
Yeah, Lucky Number 6 is a pleasant smell, with its unisex overtones of citrus and amber, but it's got astringent overtones. It may induce headaches. Maybe even a nosebleed. You certainly won't want to spend the rest of your life with it.
Reviews of Fragrances from Marie Claire, December 2006
Escada Into the Blue ("A New Fragrance for Women")
"Into the Blue." Such a cryptic prepositional phrase, I thought, pondering the image of the sparkly blue bottle pictured on the sample. Where is "the Blue?" Who or what will be going there? How long will he, she, or it be there? Then I took but one whiff, and entered the Blue.
Synesthesia is a rare neurological condition in which two or more senses are consistently coupled, enabling the afflicted to see colors when hearing music, or taste food when speaking, or have "feelings" about individual alphanumeric characters. There are many forms of synesthesia, but never a documented case of someone smelling a perfume sample and then seeing a color.
Until now. Via the olfactory receptors deep within my nostril, my mind was sent spiraling into a vortex where everything was Blue. I thought I had died and was viewing the world from limbo, and everything earthly was a noxious object capable of infecting me with the stench of patchouli and gardenia. Dear god, it was a freak out. Do not smell or go into the Blue.
Very Irresistible Givenchy ("Sensual Eau de Parfum")
How many roses had to die for this? If "irresistible" means "smells like a floral shop's refrigerator", then it is "very." Did that make any sense? I think this killed a few brain cells, to tell the truth.
Armani Code ("The secret code of women")
Ah, what would I do without my monthly dose of Armani Code? I so look forward to peeling back the sample's flap to engorge my nostrils with this flavorsome scent: A strong citrus, rounded out with a warm vanilla, all the while dropping hints of jasmine and cedar. It affirms my femininity, yet assures me I'm a complex and autonomous being. And then the exposed fragrance gradually wafts off the paper, dead in the air, and I'm back to being some woman sniffing perfume samples on the commuter train like some sort of derelict. Until next month, Code.