i only love spicy perfumes

marsha is a doll and she brought me a couple of hermes samples from her hawaiian vacash. it's saturday night and since i don't go out anymore and i'm in for the night i think i'll try them out and see what happens. here is the procedure: i apply the perfume and write my response--in real time! hold onto your hats.

i'm still learning about perfume, but i would guess that these would both be classified as gourmand fragrances, because they smell like food.

brin de reglisse: this is so dry and lavender at first, but almost immediately it becomes earthy and full of fennel, like i dipped my arm in a salad. the name means strand of licorice. there's only a tiny bit of sweet in it so it's way more fennel or caraway than licorice candy. you can really only whiff it from very close. it's starting to turn into something sweeter and mellower now. it's rounding way out, man. maybe i'll check in on it in a while.

paprika brasil: wow, this one is hot. like it burned the inside of my nose. good hurt. sandalwood and cedar! some flower i don't know enough to identify! (marsha would know it) maybe gardenia? chunks of sandalwood and whole gardenias floating in a red spicy sauce. spicy floral, thy name is paprika brasil. i will wear this if i ever go salsa dancing (which i can't imagine ever doing) or if i become a nun (somewhat more likely), because there's incense in there. i'm sister magdala, working in the refectory all day and taking spicy stews to the street children. ok, the flower is gone now. now it's just me and the precious woods and the spices. this is right up my alley.

the reglisse is candy now, 15 minutes later. i'm not sure i can use that. i wish it had stayed with the salad smell--digging up the tulips your husband's first wife planted and throwing them in the compost heap on top of some old lettuce. now it's very, very warm. amber?

marsha, here's an interesting thing: put these two together and there's something like rochas femme. warm skin scent with spice and cumin folded in.

p.s. i can only smell out of my right nostril right now!

p.p.s. this paprika--yesssssssssssss. a man should wear this. in his armpits.