LesNEZ, The Unicorn Spell

I learn from other reviews that The Unicorn Spell is a violet scent, and so I infer that violets are a flower I may never get along with. It is undeniably pretty, but so cold it makes my sinuses ache. Green, with scarcely a hint of the warmth you associate with a flower; so astringent that if my nose could pucker, it would. These violet blossoms are tiny and pale and close to the ground, as if they bloomed too early in the spring and had to weather a lot of chilly nights. On the skin, soft woods begin to embellish and warm the scent after half an hour; but the violet note, almost metallic to my nose, hangs on much longer; then the whole thing vanishes into oblivion, just as a hint of vanilla begins to pull the scent off-center.

If Magical Moon is about moon goddesses, The Unicorn Spell is about the actual moon - cold, astral, eerily distant in the night sky. Think of keeping a silver locket in the freezer for a week, then pulling it out and wearing it around your neck.

Update, later same day: After wearing Kenzo Amour out today, I've relented a little on The Unicorn Spell. Now I think that my opinion was based largely on resentment at our recent cold rainy snap (Chicago spring, grr!). In warm weather when I need less comfort from my fragrance this might be easier to wear. And I'm thinking of a friend who is tall, graceful, and very reserved - Marie - who could probably pull it off at any time of the year.

Montale, White Aoud

In my freshman logic class at UT, there was a girl in the back of the auditorium who always raised her hand, and who, when called on, spoke in a disconcertingly loud voice. This girl wore broomstick velvet skirts with denim vests; fedoras and other rakishly masculine millinery; and round glasses that she squinted through owlishly. This girl, who quickly earned herself the usual monikers that loud, intelligent women accumulate in their wake (cf. Hilary Clinton), was Alissa.

Around the time she took off her glasses to reveal eyes of startlingly childlike blue and showed me a poem she'd written that knocked my socks off, Alissa and I became friends. The rest is history. When trying to come up with a perfume for Alissa, I have been stumped by the odd assortment of characteristics that she represents in my imagination: feminine, even womanly, but not sweet; hippie-ish, but not in a patchouli-wearing way; witchy, but not dark; both extremely warm and extremely reserved. Creative, yet analytical; both generous and stern; also a little reckless in her finer moments. Brave, bold, shy, kind.

Quite possibly the scent that best represents her comes from the squadron of 80s power perfumes, those conversation-halting Poisons and Shalimars with which I have little experience. Probably Alissa's mom wore something along these lines. But for Alissa, I had been hoping to sniff out something a bit more mystical, something with witchy ingredients gathered at midnight on the vernal equinox. That type of thing.

I had high hopes for LesNEZ's The Unicorn Spell, a violet scent that is plenty mystical enough. But somehow the nose-tingling reserve of the first hour, when the violet is just barely green and cold cold cold, brought to mind the wrong Alissa. It evoked her steely qualities, the icy strength with which she scythes her enemies to the ground. But that was Alissa in a bad mood.

For Alissa in a good mood, I am settling on White Aoud by Montale. Aoud, otherwise known as agarwood, is one of those deep dark gritty notes that evokes a Middle Eastern trade route, camels and all. From what I've heard, many of the offerings in Montale's aoud line can knock birds out of the sky at thirty paces. It's not a wussy note. When aoud is first unleashed in a perfume it has a dense acrid smell, almost like medical bandages. But in White Aoud, a complex of floral notes - rose, saffron, jasmine - keeps the opening lighter and more delicate, almost powdery. Sandalwood softens, a hint of leather and a hint of vanilla make the drydown comforting rather than disturbing. The astringent note never leaves entirely - Alissa in her best mood is still rather tart - but White Aoud is deeply feminine, even refined despite its earthiness; it smells old-fashioned to me.

But just like that girl in my logic class and the lawyer she grew up to be, it packs a punch.

Oscar de la Renta, Oscar

Sometimes you invent an imaginary woman to wear a fragrance. Sometimes the woman already exists. And sometimes, the woman already exists AND she already wears that fragrance. I know, I know, Ouroboros, history and associations, blah blah blah. But such is the relation between my mother and Oscar. It is written in the stars and in the TJ Maxx inventories.

Just as your mother is probably the single most important woman in your life, her perfume probably struck your child-self as the essence of adulthood and authority. My mother was not a woman to be disobeyed or trifled with. In her glory days, she was like a Nagel print: mass-produced elegance personified, the unabashedly expensive kind, and she threw her class in people's faces like so much prime rib in the face of a starving refugee. But it was the 80s, and she had her own career and was married to an MD (even if he technically worked as a public health administrator). She had paid her dues, in cash (or check if she happened to be at the grocery store), many times over, so it wasn't so unusual to be loudly announced by the clatter of a couple of solid gold bangles, half an inch wide, every time she entered a room. She always looked beautiful, always wore leather shoes and real jewelery. And she owned a fur coat. A good one. In Florida. Her style commanded the respect she deserved as a woman of class, substance, and fortitude. After all, she had come to this country with nothing, put herself through nursing school, and mothered 3 children. She worked 12-hour shifts in the Critical Care Unit of a corrupt hospital in a corrupt healthcare system.

Rooms away, we kids knew when she was finished dressing - that heavy, amber floral, deep and powdery, would fill the bathroom and seethe through the house, occupying every blanket-fortress, penetrating every last pillowcase gas-mask. In the car, it was a massacre. Nobody even had a chance. Eyes watered, throats seized, and any daughterly impulse to cuddle against her pretty silk blouses and coiffed hair was thwarted yards ahead of time.

Now, such aggressive hauteur is out of style, and they sell Oscar and his "don't even think about it" allure at Target. I still don't like it, but I'm used to it by now; I'm much older and bigger, and I can kind of ignore it. However, sometimes, when I'm visiting and there's some event, she'll do her hair and slug me with full-on, floral bitchface, just for old time's sake, and to prove she's still got it.

She does.

Sometimes when I'm sniffing around perfume counters I get tired of trying to figure out what I like and try to imagine what someone I know would like. I compulsively attach personalities to the perfumes I know, so why not try it the other way around? And maybe when I strike it rich I'll just go around buying people the fragrances I associate with them.

So that's going to be my project for the next couple of posts. I shall play matchmaker with my friends and the fragrances that remind me of them. Starting with Alissa. . . .