to smell clean and well-groomed

we haven't written anything for a while--sorry to our follower. let's see if some random perfume experiences make up for it.

-i bought an eau d'hadrien eau de toilette because it was on sale at nordstrom rack. disappointing. i had been dreaming of it for so long, but the edt is soooo different from the eau de parfum. it's all lemon candy and no bracing cyprus. i really need a good eau de cologne scent. the other one i like right now is creed royal delight, which is not really cologney. not citrussy. it's almondy and shalimary.

tokyomilk ex libris is a good cologney choice; very crisp and upright and funkier than eau d'hadrien, which is sooo sweet and adorable. ex libris is more undeniable than adorable. and it's cheap!

-the other way to go would be to get an irissy, powdery job, like michelle's frederic malle iris poudre, which i sprayed on myself yesterday after i took a shower in her lovely and serene bathroom. it's so, so subtle. i couldn't smell it on myself even after i had sprayed it several times, and at the same time i couldn't not smell it. its smell registers on a subconscious level. it's the next day, and little wafts and suggestions of it are drifting around me. it seems like the kind of perfume that would change you into a different kind of person without your knowing it.

i've been wanting aqua di parma's iris noble ever since i smelled it at c.o. bigelow in n.y. and saw marisa tomei and her young actor boyfriend. what i really want is the soap; it feels wrong somehow to spray that powdery-clean smell on yourself rather than wash it into your skin or powder it on.

people in north america don't powder themselves anymore. we shower so often there's no need. and use crazy chemical deodorant.

-here's a development: esteban, makers of my favorite peony incense, are doing perfume. check it out here.