I finally tried it. I’ve never actually worn it before, only sniffed and dismissed it as yet another old aldehydic menace like No. 5.

I applied a few drops to my wrists and neck, and nearly scrubbed it right off. Those nasty aldehydes almost drove me to my knees, but just as I was passing out with the image of a WWI gasmask-readiness poster as my last coherent thought, the chemical topnotes dissipated sufficiently for me to regain full conciousness…

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time…

“Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen

After that, I had to leave for work.

While driving, the middle & base notes creeped forward, the warm vanilla note for which Shalimar is famous hummed up from a dim filament to radiant full glow. A different chemical-musk-greenish middle note also appeared with the vanilla; cheap shampoo filled the air, and until it dissipated I couldn’t shake the feeling I hadn’t rinsed my hair out completely. This is the note co-opted into copycat spinoffs and background scents for toiletries, much like No. 5 has been. Evidently, this is the cheapest component of the scent. One of those cheaper scents, such as B&BW Warm Vanilla Sugar, fly by these notes, zooming directly to the vanilla. But Shalimar is on a train, and is concerned with the journey itself, not the mere vulgarity of “getting there”.

Mahora was renamed Mayotte after its introductory ad campaign failed. This discontinued perfume is widely vilified as a horror, is it because something so unsophisticated came out of the haute House of Guerlain? I don’t know what the hot fuss is about, Mahora is only tuberose.

Saying Mahora is “only tuberose” is like saying Michael Phelps is “only a swimmer”; both are understatements of the year, and both are a simple truth. There is tuberose, the complete tuberose, and nothing but a tsunami of the tuberose in all its waxy, tropical glory. It’s heavy, and absolutely nothing is added to lighten it. To wear Mahora is to suffocate to death in a very specialized, very niche candle store (Tuberose Yankee Candle Co.?) Luckily, it isn’t a strong perfume, its sillage is minimal and wears off exponentially within 4 hours.

I cannot stress this enough, to enjoy this you have to like tuberose! It may have an incense-y edge, but this is essentially a soliflore of natural (or damn good artificial), full-spectrum, god-given, this-one-goes-to-11 TUBEROSE. Despite the loud monotone, it isn’t a bad scent, it wouldn’t be so hated if it wasn’t from Guerlain; if it were a drugstore offering from Dana its sales would suffice and it might have become a beloved scent, a reminiscence of impoverished youth. Instead you embark on a failed safari in search of a nonexistant trace of Guerlinade.

To get back in the habit of snarky reviewing, I wrote several small quickies about various scents I received over the holidays. A few sentences each, not too in-depth, suitable for scents without much. Please enjoy.

Pink Sugar by Aquolina,

Surprisingly not that bad. It’s obviously cotton candy, but it has a slightly musky undernote and a bit of white flowers which saves it from being this generation’s Love’s Baby Soft. Lacks the dumpster-diver, trailer-sleaze “bad girl” smell of Chinatown, this is its “good girl” sister. A grown woman can actually wear this, to many different settings, no less. Knock me over with a feather!

inner grace by Philosophy,

Light woodsy scent like every other one out there. Ellen Tracy comes to mind, as do many many many others. Perfect for the over-50 middle management office slave. If you’re not (and don’t want to be mistaken for one), stay away from this. Bor-ing!

Juicy Couture

Mix Happy by Clinique with Agree shampoo, the green kind, from the ’70s. Got it? Now add some generic “expensive” smelling wood-musk bottom note that won’t go away. Again, surprisingly not that bad, smells better on skin, but nothing unique about it. If you want to be invisible at a hip nightclub, (or just like wearing sweats with “Juicy” embroidered across the butt) wear this. It’s scent camo at only $300/oz.!

Hard Candy by Urban Decay

Another sugary scent! Remember when Madonna was first famous? Yes yes, the 1980s. Remember her tween fans were called Wannabees? Right. See Pink Sugar & Chinatown above. Not as nice as the former, not as nasty as the latter, trying desperately to act grown-up but has to go to bed early (it’s a school night). Grown women should not try to wear this.

My Insolence by Guerlain

I’ll say! I washed the sweater I wore it with and it still didn’t come out. Now I can’t wear any other perfume with this sweater. Washing, drying, and hanging in the closet for 2 weeks, still there! It’d be fine if it didn’t smell like my grandma’s coat closet.. Damn! Insolent little b…… of a scent! The original’s probably worse…

Body Lotion Sampler Signature Collection by Bath & Body Works

Mine has Japanese Cherry Blossom, Sensual Amber, Warm Vanilla Sugar, Sea Island Cotton, Sparkling Peach, and Sweet Pea Blossom. I have a problem with most B&BW scents. They’re chemically and smell better as candles or air-freshener than on people, for the most part. The ones that work: Sensual Amber (one of their real winners, vanilla & orange & amber, oh my!), Sparkling Peach (like Hi-C peach drink), and Sweet Pea Blossom (innocuous). The ones that stink: Japanese Cherry Blossom (real cherry blossoms have almost no scent, this is masking chemicals for “unscented” products), Warm Vanilla Sugar (it’s everywhere! on everyone!), and Sea Island Cotton (cucumber face mask mutated into Godzilla). After I tore up the packaging, I discovered the return slip taped to the bottom. Oy…

It’s hard to be snarky about violets, they’re soft and purple-smelling, and are about the only choice if you want to say “innocent” without cloying sweetness, tho historically, they apparently mean something else. Après l’Ondée (After the Heavy Rain) is all about violets, it’s got violets out the wazoo! Picture that for a moment….

Remember the end of “Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr. Vinal” by e. e. cummings?

. . .
perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
–how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?

ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush
. . .

Apparently, violets mean something else to mr. cummings.

That “ono” allbyitself isn’t just “oh no” or even a certain aging Japanese princess/performance-artist-breaker-up-of-infamous-rockgroups. Ono! This is referring to Odo-ro-no, a “toilet water” sold to prevent “excessive perspiration.”
It’s still sold in Canada as an antiperspirant. One could guess, based on mr. cummings’ reference that it once smelled like violets.

Speaking of infamous rockgroups, The Who used Odorono as a reference to consumerism and banality much as e. e. cummings did, but in a less scatological vein:

. . .
She ripped her glittering gown
Couldn’t face another show, no
Her deodorant had let her down
She should have used Odorono

Odorono could have saved your day
Could have helped her to get the part
Odorono and he would have stay
To help her to save her heart.
. . .

Wait, this is a scent blog, not an arts & humanities blog… I think…

Après l’Ondée is an old perfume, it’s not well known in the U.S. Perfumistas everywhere are gaga for it, and usually in the same breath proclaim its sibling, L’Heure Bleu, to be even better. Après l’Ondée’s famous violet note (which disappears in less than 10 minutes), is followed by a very light powdery scent whose volume turns down to zero very swiftly. Hope to god, dear reader, you don’t take a serious shine to this one, at about $100 per ounce you’d go broke spritzing it on 5 times a day just to get a whiff!

For all the artistic allusions in recent history of Violet = Cheap B.O. Coverup, it’s just “purple” to me, not a complex scent at all. For everything “purple” you’ve ever smelled that wasn’t fake grape, it was probably fake violet. Hand soap in rest stop rest rooms and scented fancy grade-school pencils comes to mind, but of the two the pencils are the stronger association for me (oops! my demographic is showing!).

This is not my grandmother’s perfume, this is my (and your) great-grandmother’s perfume. Save your money, move on to shinier, newer consumer goods with fresher allusions, not overpriced ones weakly scented of violets. There is no point to this perfume’s existence. Please, just Let It Be.