In a perfect world, or even just a practical one, it is probably best to only own perfumes you have actually smelled on your skin before buying them. In my case, almost every scent I own arrived through one subscription or another, which means I did not smell them or see how they interacted with my chemistry before they became mine.
Most of the time this has
not been a problem. I have been fortunate not only to find things
that were acceptable, but things that were genuinely wonderful for
me. Still, I do have some problem children. These are scents that,
for whatever reason, were sprayed a couple of times and made
absolutely no sense to me. After that, they simply sat there, taking
up space in my collection. One of them has a very cute container,
which pleased me, but outside of that, there was nothing redeeming.
I
do not believe in letting things sit unused forever. There had to be
ways to make these scents work for me. I have not set many goals for
myself this year, but I decided I would set one for September. I am
going to learn to work with the problem children. I will learn to
stack my scents in a way that allows the difficult ones to function
on my skin.
I began with the most problematic of them
all.
Mysterious Problem Child: Montale Sensual Instinct
Top
notes: roasted coffee beans with hints of saffron, citrus, and
cardamom
Heart notes: praline and rose
Base notes: oakmoss,
amber, and cedarwood
I could have sworn when I first received
this that it listed chocolate. Maybe I dreamed that. The thing is, I
do not understand why this scent does not work for me. I love coffee
beans and the smell of coffee. Praline should not be an issue either,
since toasted nutty depth, brown sugar, and buttery warmth are
usually pleasant. Oakmoss is standard and forms the core of chypres,
which I am normally drawn to.
But this is not really a chypre.
It is an amber vanilla pretending to be one.
I started
thinking about what might be going wrong. Amber can be wonderful, but
it can also smell like bad baby powder. If the praline leans toward
almond, that can be powdery too. Praline can also introduce a caramel
element that sometimes goes sideways. The more I thought about it,
the more I realized that the powdery nature was the issue. That was
what I needed to neutralize.
My first theory was to tone it
down by making the entire stack cream forward. Something creamy
would harmonize with the coffee and hopefully override the
powder.
Attempt 1
Genderless: Commodity Milk
(Expressive)
Top: Cold Milk Accord
Heart: Warm Marshmallow and
Toasted Sesame
Base: Mahogany Wood, Tonka Bean, and
Musk
Commodity Milk is sexy. There is no other way to put it.
It feels like the crackle of fire on a late October night while you
sing Lou Reed songs and make s’mores at your backyard fire pit with
the person who stayed after the party just because of you. It is that
moment when you realize, as you do every fall, that nothing tastes
quite like a melty marshmallow. My hope was that the cold milk accord
and marshmallow would ease the Montale down, smoothing its harsh
powdery edges and making it into something reasonable.
After
that, I added two scents I trust.
Femme: Everenden Darling
Top: Strawberry, peach, pineapple
Heart: Rose, jasmine, muguet
(lily of the valley)
Base: Vanilla, musk
Often when it
comes to trying to tone down something powder-heavy, fruit is the way
to go. The top of this, with three fruits, plus the vanilla base, looked promising. Darling, as I have mentioned before, is so good at
lifting my mood. It seemed like the best bet for my femme layer of
the stack.
Provocative: onekind Bone Flower
Top: Orange blossom and pink peppercorn
Heart: Tuberose, jasmine, and Turkish rose
Base: Warm sandalwood and
patchouli
Sandalwood and patchouli are two of the best ways to
deal with powder. Pink peppercorn was my secret hope because it
brings a fizzy brightness that can wake up a dull or heavy
composition. I was taking a risk by adding more rose, but the rose in
these scents has never overwhelmed me.
Results: 3.5 out of
5
The stack made the Montale wearable. It was the first time I put
it on and did not instantly feel the need to bathe. If I find no
better solution, this is at least a solution. The powder element was
still present, though. It lingered on my skin. It did not linger in
the deeply unpleasant way it had when I tried the scent alone, but
more in a “I can handle this until it fades” way.
Tolerable
is not the goal. Tolerable is never my goal when it comes to scent.
When I wear perfume, I want to feel amazing, not
“reasonable ish.”
The month is young. The scents are
plentiful. I will figure this out.
