This isn’t Chinatown in New York (or anywhere else). This is a mall, or maybe a carnival midway. It’s a caramel corn and cotton candy kiosk next to a Yankee Candle Co. You don’t wear this scent, it wears you. There’s a faint whiff of rotting chicken in a dumpster in the parking lot; funky in a gross way, not a cool way. Simple, but not boring, the scent ages exactly the way the objects of the scents it presents would age; the caramel corn starts smelling stale, the incense/potpourri candles fade, the cotton candy dissolves and the dumpster scent goes flat at further distances. It smells puerile, and flirts with the edge of disgusting and tawdry, almost falling over. It communicates skankiness without musk, leather, or any of the usual animalic scents used in traditionally skanky perfumes. It does this using sweet and familiar scents, perfectly illustrating a very, very underage bad girl. This perfume should be named Lolita, not Chinatown.

Despite all the jailbait associations, I don’t hate it. It’s very much not boring. Like rubbernecking at a car accident, it holds your interest. There is nowhere I can possibly wear this perfume, it isn’t appropriate for anywhere I go, smelling like I live in a candle store and regularly roll in stale caramel corn is SO not work-appropriate, and will annoy people in any public venue. It is, however, perfect if you are: 1) Going to a carnival while drunk/high, 2) Regularly pick up teenage boys at the Abercrombie & Fitch, or 3) Are 15 and take your baby along for the other two activities.