Eau de Jane, Parfums Quartana Forest of the Golden Dream & Andrea Maack Flux ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 21 March 2025 8 Comments

The author and cultural critic Fran Lebowitz once said, “To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.” I share this preference (and many others) with Ms. Lebowitz, and yet every now and then, I do enjoy a walk in the woods…as long as I can easily stroll back to the subway or the bed-and-breakfast when I’m done communing with nature. And if that mood strikes when I’m home in my city dwelling, I can always pick up a perfume that evokes the wild wonder of the forest for a quick hit of arboreal fantasy.

Eau de Jane was released in 2019 and was developed by perfumer Roger Howell…

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Friday scent of the day 3/17

Posted by Robin on 17 March 2023 220 Comments

It’s Friday and there are 3 more days until spring! Birthdays: Penelope Lively, William Gibson, Nat King Cole, Alexander McQueen. Of course, it’s also Saint Patrick’s Day! Our community project: wear green for St Patrick’s Day. (This is a repeat, probably many times over.)

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.

I’m in L’Artisan Parfumeur Jacinthe des Bois: green + hyacinth. My bottle is elderly but still kicking…

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Summer greens ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 19 May 2022 6 Comments

Longtime readers here at Now Smell This will be familiar with the idea of the purgatory basket. It doesn’t have to be a basket, strictly speaking: it could also be a bowl or box or drawer, any container that holds an assortment of samples we try, think about, and decide to reassess later. The delay might just be a matter of mood or season or, in my case, a busy calendar that distracts me from my usual sampling efforts.

I recently revisited four releases from 2021 (and one older fragrance) and realized that they all had some kind of “green” theme in common — gardens, vines, mosses. In addition to my usual rotation of L’Ombre dans l’eau and tart rhubarb-y scents, I might be branching out (hah) a bit this summer.

To start: I recently read Muriel Barbery’s A Single Rose, and its descriptions of Kyoto’s Zen gardens sent me hunting for the vial of Le Jardin Retrouvé Mousse Arashiyama (image below) that I’d stashed away for later reappraisal…

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Aftelier Joie de Vert ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 30 December 2021 8 Comments

We recently marked the winter solstice in my part of the world, and I’m so relieved that we’re now slowly edging towards the “longer” days and milder temperatures of spring. I’m already extracting as much sensory value as possible from every brief outdoor errand, despite the grayness, the wind, and the ongoing threat of Covid-19: sniffing the air in local parks when I’m alone and can remove my mask, turning my face to catch a ray of winter sun, taking close visual note of evergreen trees and any lingering greenery in my neighborhood.

I’ve reread a few favorite works of children’s literature over the past year, including two that employ secluded, leafy spaces as symbols of renewal and transformation. One is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911), in which a pair of lonely children observe the arrival of springtime in a long-forgotten garden…

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Vilhelm Parfumerie Chicago High & Imaginary Authors The Soft Lawn Edition 2.0 ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 20 August 2021 5 Comments

This news item hasn’t received the attention it might have attracted at a less fraught moment in history: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel The Great Gatsby has entered the public domain in 2021. (Just in time for us to realize that our own Twenties might not be quite as Roaring as we hoped — at least, not yet, thanks to Covid-19.) Over the past ninety-five years, The Great Gatsby has given rise to dozens of adaptations in all media. (Do you have a favorite film version of this novel? I don’t.) Even a few perfumes have attempted to capture the spirit of this classic book, with Vilhelm Parfumerie’s Chicago High joining the group in 2020.

I wondered about Chicago High’s inspiration when I read this description…

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