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, the fourth here, the fifth here and the sixth here (fortunately, the end is near!).

This time we have both ends of the restrained/over-the-top scale represented: on one hand, Hermes, Chanel and The Different Company and on the other, Thierry Mugler. Since I wrote these little vignettes, I’ve also done a more review-like review on Tokyo Bloom, but I’ve included the old one nevertheless. 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 (the cover image is new).

22 APRIL
Scent of the Day: No 5 hair mist (Chanel)

I don’t like Chanel No 5. I do appreciate the quality and art of it and I trust people who say its jasmine and rose are the best there are. Still, it doesn’t speak to me and the beginning can be downright annoying on my skin – frumpy and dated.

My dislike of No 5 makes it extremely difficult to explain, let alone justify the fact that I’ve just bought a bottle of No 5 hair mist. Using money I borrowed from my family members with the promise to buy food (because, literally, BANKRUPTCY)… I have managed to come up with three possible explanations:

1. It’s SOTD’s fault. I mean, I need to publish something every day, right? And one has to cover No 5 when doing a series like that, right? And I don’t own a bottle of No 5 and I really couldn’t imagine posting something about an iconic scent without thorough testing and… you know.
2. It’s the mist thing. Surely no-one can resist something as impractical and unnecessary as that? Hair mist sounds so much more alluring than a mundane Eau de Toilette or an unexciting Eau de Parfum. Pure parfum could maybe compete, but it was much more expensive. I checked.
3. It smells better! No 5 actually does smell nicer to me in this format. It more-or-less skips the parts I find most annoying (aldehydes?) and gets to the dry down that smells more like Chanel in general and less like No 5 in particular. It’s lighter and softer than EdT and EdP and I smell quite a lot of iris, always a good thing in my book. The problem with this theory is that I didn’t really test it before buying…

Oh, whatever. I’m going to wear it with jeans and a t-shirt and get some financial counselling.

A Note on Availability: many Chanel counters have it, including the one in Kaubamaja and I guess Stockmann, too?

23 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Eau de Narcisse Bleu (Hermes)

I’m not a natural Hermes woman. Understated, always impeccable, quietly elegant… just no. But the same way I would gladly tote a dark green Kelly bag, I would happily wear pretty much anything perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena has created for this venerable luxury house.

If your biggest fear is to be too in-your-face, too conspicuous, too vain – Hermes is the brand for you. I think they do tasteful and classy even better than Chanel: I used to wear Coco Mademoiselle for years, but “classy” isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind. While I love the Jardins series – Un Jardin sur le Nil in particular – and the boutique-only Hermessence sub-line, I think the colognes are the quintessence of Hermes perfumes. They are all good, simultaneously traditional and modern, crisp and elegant and unisex.

My favourite of the five is one of the latest, Eau de Narcisse Bleu. It attracted my attention because it smelled almost harsh, very green and slightly bitter – among all the colognes, nouveau colognes and faux colognes of late, it smelled unique. It also turned out to be a great reminder why one should ALWAYS try scents on skin and if possible, multiple times. Not that the greenness or the bitterness aren’t there, but after the first sharp burst of citrus and leaves is gone, EdNB wears much softer and gentler on me than I expected, turning almost powdery at some point. It’s all relative, of course – it’s still a scent equivalent of a crisp white shirt and cigarette pants, not a romantic dress. But it’s so wearable that it would work with both.

A Note on Availability: Hermes is, fortunately, widely available. Both Kaubamaja and Stockmann carry the colognes, as do most international airports and lots of other places.

24 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Angel EdT/A*Men (Thierry Mugler)

In the name of science, I’m currently wearing both Angel and A*Man (and some Womanity, for good measure…). If you have ever smelled a Thierry Mugler fragrance, you’ll understand immediately why this is a perilous course of action: both Angel and A*Man have monster sillage – meaning you can probably smell me from Tallinn – and I’m therefore trying to avoid people, animals and more sensitive plants.

By now it’s probably obvious that I’m generally not fond of gourmands: the sweet, edible-smelling perfumes. I do, however, have a huge amount of respect for Angel. Mugler took the traditional components of a gourmand so far that Angel becomes the very opposite of a nice, girly scent. I guess it’s also difficult to find a fragrance that smells less like yesterday’s Hermes cologne… Angel is intense, sweet, syrup-y – my overwhelming impression is of a few red berries drowning in burnt sugar or caramel. The tartness becomes more obvious next to A*Men that skips the berries entirely. Angel is the mother of all modern gourmands and after Victoria (edit: of Bois de Jasmin) pointed it out, I could clearly see the similarities with Coco Mademoiselle as well – they share the combination of clean patchouli and fruit.

A*Man is the masculine version of Angel and they are very similar, although A*men is even more intense and more burnt. Unfortunately, on me it smells less nuanced than on paper/other people: more sweetness, less woods and lavender and coffee. But my favourite version is not the original anyway, I prefer A*men flankers – A*Man Pure Malt in particular. Unlike many other brands, Mugler does excellent flankers (different versions of a pillar scent) that are always worth a try. And everyone should try the originals at least once, too: few things are as healthy as a generous dose of camp.

A Note on Availability: these are everywhere, as they should. Airports are a good hunting ground for flankers.

25 APRIL
Scent of the Day: Tokyo Bloom (The Different Company)

Aaaarrrghhh. It’s almost midnight and I cannot locate the sample of the scent I wanted to post about and as I don’t have a sample nor a full bottle, I of course do not have an appropriate picture to share either. Prosta superski, to quote the Ukrainian transvestites at the Tallinn Gay Pride.

No matter. I’m just going to post about it anyway, because Tokyo Bloom is a great scent and The Different Company is a great company. If you like Hermes’s gentle touch but find it a bit boring and too classic, you should definitely give The Different Company a try. They do really good modern, different, interesting versions of traditional perfume genres. Their Sel de Vetiver, a salty, transparent scent is my favourite vetiver of all time and Oriental Lounge is a great, light twist on an oriental.

Tokyo Bloom is my favourite of the TDC colognes and it really is unique, in my experience. It’s fresh, herbal and green, which sounds pretty standard, but in addition to traditional galbanum, there’s basil and dandelion – notes that you don’t encounter often. There are some petals but no sweetness, it feels more like a salad than a bouquet of flowers. I guess Tokyo Salad as name just doesn’t have the appeal of Tokyo Bloom… Gentle musk and woods ground the greenness and the result fits my image of spring in Tokyo perfectly, although I have absolutely no clue what spring in Tokyo smells like.

A Note on Availability: you can order a 3X10 ml discovery pack from The Different Company web site, they do ship to Estonia. Senteurs d’Ailleurs in Brussels carries the line, although I haven’t yet seen Tokyo Bloom. Many big department stores and perfume boutiques have TDC scents as well, so keep your eyes open when travelling. (Edit: it’s now available from Crème de la Crème in Tallinn.)