I Want To Smell Of Rotting Fruit, Burning Cities, Mud, Moss, And A Stoner's 1971 Denim Jacket This Summer — Join Me?

Meanwhile, Jane is raging against Starbucks if you want to join for that in the comments also.

Here's a dumb story for a Thursday morning. I have never liked anything about Starbucks. And in the years since I first disliked them, they have racked up many many egregious reasons not to ever support them in any way. There are so many I won't even link to them here. However, my friend does, so I end up getting stuff there to be with her (berate me in comments, for sure, if you want) and I finally found one drink there that I don't mind a bit. It is their (Trenta) iced black tea with milk in it. Like an iced coffee, basically, but with tea. So yesterday I got my order and it looked really really light and the barista (who I run into on the street sometimes and hug when we see each other out of context) and I had a little discussion about it and they sweetly gave me an additional cup of the same tea to take and pour into it to make it more the way it's supposed to be. Anyway, cut to the boring chase, it was green tea. I am not a fast caffeine metabolizer (like my best friend Michael or my daughter who can drink a shot of espresso and fall asleep right after). Green tea, especially, stays in my system forever. So I didn't sleep.

But it did get me in a bitchy mood about Starbucks (which can easily lead to the opposite of a gratitude list, where I start scrolling through in my head all the people who have wronged me and it's like a runaway train. Don't do this at home!).

So I'm posting a little Starbucks thing over on Jane's phone later, because I also hate the way the new management is making the workers dress and making them write those little Sharpie notes on the cups saying stuff like, “You're amazing!” always accompanied by an I’m-certain-corporate-mandated emoji. When the whole point of writing on the takeout orders was just to put your name on there so that the drink went to the right person, now they have an automated sticker, so the whole exercise is for nothing and feels like evidence of bizarre corporate overlord abuse where even the workers’ thoughts and emotions must be manufactured and controlled. While I give them increasingly sympathetic looks and bigger tips, as if that's helpful.

And with THAT, I will let you go enjoy the wonderful work of my Beauty Editor Sara. (I really like saying that title, as she is still relatively new to me, this being her third post here ever -her first two were I'm Almost 40— But I Only Wear Tween Beauty Products and Five Beauty Product Must-Haves For Those With Mood Disorders And Unreliable Brain Chemistry .) Here is her slightly less-ranty-than-green-tea-me and always unique take on what fragrances she wants to wear right now.

I want to hear yours, too, and mostly I want Krigler to give me some free Extraordinaire Camellia 209, but that’s not happening unless I say it maybe 1000 more times. Tell us which brands you want free (or answer the more interesting questions that Sara has for you) here. I'll talk to you there.

I do truly adore you and will never rant about you in this way,

Jane

PS Go, Sara!

By Sara Pollock

I feel the need to preface this before I start rambling. There’s a fear here that I’m going to come across as an “I’m not like other girls” kind of girl, which is vastly untrue. I am actually, very much like other girls.

A realisation that became more apparent to myself within the last decade. A new set of nail extensions gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. I live to yap like an overexcited puppy with my girl pals (a lover of hearing about drama, as long as it’s not to do with me!), and my purse contains approximately 7-10 (give or take) different lip products at any one time. There’s no way to tell if I’ll be in the mood for a signature orangey-red matte lip, or a toasty glossy brown. The lip products I carry with me seem to accumulate year by year. Perhaps I’m subconsciously exploring the different facets of myself through something as simple as changing up a lip colour. A story for another day perhaps? Or not.

But I digress. I am unabashedly, stereotypically girly.

However, there’s one thing that I no longer mess with. Female-branded deodorant and fragrances. I fell out of love with them a while ago, and it’s unlikely they’ll appear on my bathroom shelf again. This might sound like an unpopular opinion. What did the whiff of a freshly picked handful of roses ever do to you? Or a creamy vanilla cupcake with sprinkles? (Are we getting Jessica Simpson Dessert Treats flashbacks here?).

Here’s the deal: overpowering Eau De Department store scents make me sneeze and wince these days. Let me tell you, there was a time in my 20s when I lived to smell like cake batter. Those days are now firmly behind me. Maybe part of this is connected to me being thankful that my teens, twenties (and now, nearly 30s) are over. After all, we know how much of a sneaky beast fragrance plays in transporting us back to another time and place.

Nowadays? I want to smell like muddy ground and burning leaves in a Scandinavian forest. A bunch of burning timber in the Pacific Northwest, a smoking room in 1964 (with Don Draper present), A decades-old leather jacket engulfed in tobacco smoke, rotten fruit but make it appealing, dill pickles. Consider this my love letter to the non-crowd-pleasing scents. Instead of familiar notes, my olfactory journey has gone to another place where beauty is found in the unconventional. I enjoy it here, and I implore you to reach out of your fragrance comfort zone. Try out a subscription box. Judge a fragrance by its odd name. You never know, you might just love it here.

Below you’ll find some of my favourite picks that might not make it on a list of “The most gorgeous perfumes to wear on vacation for SS25” but do you really want that?

Room 1015 - Sweet Leaf - $100 (50ml)

This is quite literally, how I roll

I love you Sweet Leaf…actually, that’s a lie because I haven’t smoked since 2005. However, cannabis scented things? Send them over here immediately.

The packaging and font of this fill my heart with early 70s stoner joy. A subtle nod to Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality - anyone that knows me will attest to my love for subtle references to music and film through beauty and scent.

Not entirely skunky, Sweet Leaf is spicy and even a little fruity, and doesn’t smell remotely like a hot boxed car from when I was seventeen years old, which can only be a good thing.

Demeter - Dirt - $25.00 (30ml)

Just like you’ve been gardening (minus the soil under your nails)

Smelling sexy and odd is expensive business, but Demeter has been purveyors of purse-friendly weird scent since the 90s, which is probably when I first laid eyes on the brand and their cult favorites. If you’re also familiar, then you’ll know that the fragrance options are endless - from Condensed Milk to a New Car. There’s an oddly specific scent for everyone in their library. Dirt is, as one may expect, earthy and soil-y, but very fresh and dare I say, even clean.

Yes, it might be a decades-old cult classic, but it still manages to keep itself under the radar enough for you to be asked what you’re wearing. Gatekeeping? That’s up to you.

Noyz - Shitty Day - $85.00 (50ml)

The irony of the name. It smells like an idyllic day by the sea

Okay, I’m cheating a little over here. Shitty Day isn’t a strange perfume per-se, but it made the list because the name spoke so deeply to my soul one day. I was, in fact, having a rather shitty day on a recent trip to NYC. For this very reason, I desired a little treat and there she was. The most Sara perfume that ever existed. Here’s the deal. Shitty Day may be a crowd pleaser (she’s fresh, with notes of bergamot, and cedar. Like a crisp sea-breeze) she may be Le Labo’s edgier younger gen-z sister, but I want her to be my friend because she’d totally be down for running onto the beachfront on a Friday night and screaming into the void with you.

Bon Parfumer - 904 - $67.00 (30ml)

It’s giving Mysterious Woman With Black Shades Sitting In The Corner Of The Bar

Boozy and smoky, 904 evokes the image of a mysterious underground club night fueled with vodka shots and an unsettling, eerie atmosphere. It’s like the set of a David Lynch film, and you’re the main character, wearing this delicious concoction of tobacco, brandy, patchouli, and cinnamon. It’s heady and sensual. Maybe it's the scent of 2 am debauchery that hasn’t existed in your life for 20 years. Or maybe I’m speaking for myself only.

Imaginary Authors - A City On Fire - $115.00 (50ml)

Her perfume smells like burning leaves. If you get the song reference, let’s be friends

Filed under one of my simple pleasures in life; that scent as soon as you strike a match. I can’t be the only one, surely. Hence my interest in City On Fire (which I have since learned, was inspired by a gritty graphic novel of the same name).

A cosy mix of burnt ashes, musk, and cedarwood make this blend a smouldering delight. If you have ever desired to smell like burning leaves (that’s me, every day) then this may just appeal to you.

There’s a huge range of glorious niche fragrance brands out there. They’re also (in my humble opinion) making way superior formulas to the vastly overpriced premium brands we’re all aware of.

So, tell me: What’s the weirdest scent in your collection? Failing that, I’d love to hear about your completely unhinged fragrance requests.

If you desire to smell like an autoshop/library/carton of milk, I want to know!