It’s April, so you know it’s time for a visit from Donatella Versace, Our Lady of Creative Perfume Math.1 She’s looking forward to the upcoming Gianni Versace Retrospective at the Musée Maillol in Paris, but meanwhile she has set aside a moment or two to hear the confessions of her flock. She’d very much like to know what you bought in the 1st quarter (January, February and March) of 2026.
My purchases…
From Otherland, the Georgette candle, with magnolia, lily of the valley and amber. I cannot verify the size, but they used to be $36 for 227g and now they are all $20 — the only thing in the world that costs less than it did a few years ago — and I can't figure out why...at Otherland.
Karl Lagerfeld has launched Karl Ikonik Absolu, new flankers to 2024’s Karl Ikonik…
It’s the first Friday in April, plus happy National Chocolate Mousse Day! Birthdays: Washington Irving, Doris Day, Jane Goodall, Eddie Murphy. Our community project for today: celebrate anything you like about April (April Fool’s Day? the Pink Moon? Easter? Poetry Month or Earth Month? anything you can think of) with your fragrance.
What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
My favorite thing about April is that it warms up (usually! hopefully!) and flowers start to bloom. I’m celebrating the flowers even though today’s weather is not all that, in Hermès Jour d’Hermès…
“I can’t imagine being on the train near someone wearing one,” she told me when I broke the news. “Why would anyone think that’s a good idea?”
But many apparently do: As elevated gourmands and fruity accords reign in 2026 perfumery, banana in its many iterations—caramelized, green, blossom—is the It note du jour.
— Read more in Do You Really Want to Smell Like Banana? at Harper's Bazaar.