Last year, I did a project called Scent of the Day. For a month, every day, I talked about a scent on Facebook. I have been asked by friends to make these musings available on the blog, as it’s impossible to find anything on Facebook. So I’ll copy my mini-reviews here, but it needs to be done in batches – otherwise it’d be an insanely long post. You can find the first instalment here, the second here, the third here and the fourth here.

This edition features my favourite white flower, gardenia, and one of my own favourite reviews (of Shalimar), plus the wonderfully weird CdG Black and a classic Caron. My notes on availability are a bit – but not entirely – specific to Estonia; I’ve kept them, just in case. I have to apologise for the pictures again, as they were random snaps for Facebook, but I’ve kept these, too.

14 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Black (Comme des Garcons)

Tired of all these sexy/pretty/diva scents I’ve been talking about, but too polite to say so? No worries, I’m tired of them as well. The beauty of the less mainstream fragrances is that you are not confined to flowers and fruits and vanilla, but can smell as strange as you want.

Comme des Garcons is the High House of Strange of the perfume world and I love them for it. Their line-up has grown quite unwieldy through the years and I haven’t tried everything, but I’m convinced they have never done a pretty scent. The brand made even violet smell edgy (in Comme des Garcons Stephen Jones) and that is no easy feat. CdG is best known for their variations on wood, incense and synthetic notes and if you like any of these, you should definitely go and start smelling now. Most of the scents are either unisex or lean masculine – not that I care, but you get the idea.

Black is probably at the weirder end of CdG scent spectrum and some (OK, make it ‘many’) people find it unwearable. I’m not among them (I find very few things unwearable, as long as they are well made) – not sure if it’s my skin that tames some scents, my nose that isn’t that sensitive or my character that isn’t easily shocked, probably a bit of all three. I do understand that if people are used to traditional florals or fresh colognes, Black might smell pretty scary. The initial burst is about rubber, black pepper, tar, smoke, asphalt and leather and we are not talking lady bag leather here – it’s black and tough and possibly patent. Almost right away, however, a sweet licorice note softens the blow and the longer I wear it, the cuddlier it gets. Yes, I use ‘cuddly’ in a very relative sense here, but I find the dry down perfectly pleasant, although still interesting – with the traces of initial blackness drowning in the sweet-ish woody base.

It’s a very urban scent that I can see equally well on a smart moto-chick (or guy), a tough CEO in black Celine or a modern monochrome-wearing dandy. I wish more people wore scents like that.

A Note on Availability: CdG can be found more easily than most niche lines – in the end of the day they do have a well-known fashion brand behind them. In Tallinn, Kaubamaja has quite a few of their perfumes (not nearly everything, though) including Black.

15 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Shalimar EdP (Guerlain)

I don’t like vanilla. Or, to be more precise, I love real vanilla pods and use them in everything from coffee to Chicken Arabie. The Congolese pods in my spice drawer smell dark, smoky, sticky and very naughty. Vanilla note in perfume, however, too often just smells sweet and boring, smothering everything else.

I suspect my aversion to vanilla-heavy fragrances is heightened by the universal knowledge that “men like vanilla scents”. Few statements get me angry as quickly as “men like long hair”, “men like women wearing dresses”, etc. While I’m sure these statements are true of some of the men some of the time, the men I know show a remarkable variety in their tastes. And even if they didn’t, I really find this men-like-vanilla argument quite weak compared to I-don’t-like-vanilla-at-all argument when picking a fragrance for myself.

There are, however, vanilla fragrances for people like me and that brings us straight to Shalimar, the mother of all un-cute, un-nice vanillas out there. I dislike quotes possibly even more than I dislike vanilla, but I really have to repeat what Ernest Beaux, the creator of Chanel No 5, said about Jacques Guerlain and Shalimar: “When I do a vanilla I get a crème anglaise, when Jacques does it he gets Shalimar.” Yes. Could all young perfumers please meditate on that?

Make no mistake, there’s a LOT of vanilla in Shalimar. There’s also a lot of bergamot. On paper, this could mean a nice sweet citrus fragrance, but this is a magnificent oriental that eats modern fruity florals for brunch (because not bothering to wake up for breakfast). The initial burst takes the bergamot to such an extreme that it smells almost like gasoline to me. Perfect. It does get nicer thereafter with all this vanilla, amber, tonka bean, rose and jasmine (I personally don’t get almost any flowers from Shalimar), but never boring or tame – there’s enough wood and smoke and balsams to keep that from happening. In fact the dry down smells very similar to my vanilla pods. Now, if only men smelled like that…

A Note on Availability: where they sell perfume, they sell Shalimar.

16 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Pour Un Homme de Caron (Caron)

The problem with me announcing my dislike for things (see yesterday’s SOTD) is that I will almost certainly change my mind, possibly very quickly. Vegetables, nature, children, scented candles – I used to be highly suspicious of them all. And look at me now: a spinach-loving employee of Ministry for Environment with a serious candle habit and a daughter.

So it’s maybe not entirely surprising that my hatred of lavender has turned into love. Guess what? I didn’t have an issue with lavender itself, I simply had a trauma from visiting those tourist shops in Provance where industrial quantities of dried lavender will literally (and I do mean literally, not figuratively) suffocate you when you stay in a store longer than seven seconds.

In any case, enjoying lavender has been a nice revelation to me and there aren’t many out there better than Pour Un Homme. Yes, there are Jicky in parfum version, By Kilian A Taste of Heaven and Vero Profumo Kiki, but that would mean at least tripling the price. These three are also more complex, while Pour Un Homme is pretty much all lavender, with vanilla (yes, I know…) making an appearance later on. This is not a criticism – in this case, simplicity is a virtue. The aromatic, herbal, intensive lavender pairs really well with everything sweet, as the notes balance each other beautifully.

Caron is, next to Chanel and Guerlain, the third classic house of French perfumery. It’s sad that they have managed to make a mess of most of their iconic feminine fragrances. All the more reason to be glad to have Pour Un Homme still on good form.

A Note on Availability: France is, of course, the surest bet. But if you really like lavender, this could potentially be a good candidate for a blind buy – you’ll definitely get your lavender fix and it’s not too expensive. (Edit: Caron fragrances are now available in Crème dela Crème in Talinn)

PS In the absence of blooming lavender I have at least located something that blooms and is lavender-coloured.

17 APRIL
Scent of the Day: gardenia

Like many other niche hobbies, serious perfumistadom encourages obsessiveness. Or maybe it’s the other way around, obsessive people tend to be drawn to such things? In any case, I’m a beginner and have only a modest collection and limited understanding of fragrances. There are, however, a couple of topics where I feel I have gathered a certain amount of knowledge and gardenia is one of them.

I actually own a gardenia plant (!), although it’s alive only thanks to Liisbet’s heroic efforts. Despite my love for tuberose, jasmine and orange blossom, gardenia is my favourite white flower: it smells heady and intense and has a somewhat fruity over-ripeness with a nuance that can be described as mushroom-y.

In fragrance, gardenia’s greener and fresher aspects are usually emphasized and the sultriness is dialled down. The only gardenia perfume that I think is actually more intense than the real thing is Tom Ford’s insanely sensual Velvet Gardenia, which is also the truest gardenia I’ve smelled in a bottle. And I’ve smelled many, from the dewy Un Matin d’Orage (Annick Goutal) and pretty Gardenia Petale (Van Cleef & Arpels) to Chanel’s non-gardenia Gardenia, Estee Lauder’s wonderfully wearable Tuberose Gardenia and Guerlain’s Cruel Gardenia that I almost cannot smell. Marc Jacobs for Her and Michal Kors’s eponymous fragrance are two nice mainstream gardenias while Une Voix Noire (Serge Lutens) is the most perplexing of them all. Isabey Gardenia and Jovoy’s Gardez-Moi take the tropical route while Maria Candida Gentile’s Lady Day is the greenest of the bunch.

I love and like many of the above, but my favourite gardenia is Boutonniere No 7 by Arquiste. Arquiste is a relatively new perfume line created by Mexican architect Carlos Huber, but its seven scents have developed quite a following among perfume fans. Interestingly, Boutonniere is actually developed for men, but it would take quite a man to pull off this mostly floral composition (I do of course encourage everyone to try!). The gardenia here is life-like and very beautiful, while the vetiver and a touch of moss in the base prevents it from being too one-dimensional. The scent is exquisitely blended and balanced and I always have it on hand. It’s my perfect cocktail-party scent and while I don’t wear perfume for compliments, this one always gets them.

A Note on Availability: if you are a regular Net-a-Porter customer, you can order your Arquistes from them. Quite a few posh department stores and boutiques carry it as well, including Senteurs d’Ailleurs in Brussels. I hope that when Crème de la Crème opens in Viru Keskus, it will carry Arquiste, as their mother ship in Vilnius does (edit: it is indeed the case now). If you live in Tallinn and are mostly interested in smelling lovely, I suggest you go to Kaubamaja and try Un Matin d’Orage and Gardenia Petale.