Kenzo Amour and Amour Indian Holi

Neither of these smells like love, least of all French love. The original Kenzo Amour, however, does a very capable job of emulating rice pudding. So the name makes sense if you love rice pudding. (And I'm not confirming or denying that I do.)

Kenzo Amour Indian Holi, the limited edition warm-weather flanker, smacks of Orientalism only insofar as the rice pudding is now the final course at an Indian restaurant. As such, it is laced with that lovely elliptical cardamom note that makes Indian rice pudding somehow both more civilized and less edible than the British vanilla-cinnamon goop. (Mmmm. . . goop.) I am assuming it is cardamom that gives Indian rice pudding an almost floral scent to me, like orange blossom water, a powdery and somewhat decorative taste. I suspect that Amour Indian Holi has a trace of the actual orange blossom or some other light petals, but they fade quickly away, leaving a brighter take on the original Amour that smells disturbingly like . . . Barbie perfume.

And I do mean a perfume for a Barbie doll, not a Barbie-brand perfume for humans. Maybe I'm making this up, but I can't shake the feeling that I actually owned a scent in a tiny plastic perfume bottle that you were supposed to "share" with your Barbie pal. (Oh, the humanity.) My reptile brain is telling me that the Barbie scent smelled very similar to Indian Holi, with its slightly plasticky base.

Despite this unappetizing image, both fragrances are really very nice, maybe perfect for winter when I want to be smelling something highly caloric all the time. Also, I love how the bottles look like they're trying to communicate with their home planet. They could be modernist sculptures in the Barbie Dreamhouse, fashioned by a Barbie Brancusi . . . .