Face Goop

A Summer of Scent

E: So, M, when we were on hiatus over the summer, I had the great good fortune to be invited to a launch of, like, a really good beauty shop here in the Belgiana. I didn’t really tell them I worked for Croatian Vogue. That’s a filthy rumour.

M: Lies. You don’t have shops in Belgiana.

E: We do actually have a few rough shacks with earth floors. Actually, since the shop wasn’t actually finished, it was a bit like that. ANYWAY, they gave me the best goodie bag ever. EVER. It was quite literally the best thing that happened in summer 2011.

M: Oh, nice. Was there chocolate in it? A golden status of a cow? False idols to worship?

E: Are you mistaking Belgians with Incas? Or Aztecs? I think you are.

M: Possibly. They both like chocolate, I think. ANYWAY. What was in the bag, E?

E: Well. There were many things, and we will talk about them over the coming weeks, but today, I want to tell you about the perfume.

M: Oh god.

E: Yes, yes, I know you hate perfume talk.

E: Don’t make that face. I can see you in the OTHER HEMISPHERE rolling your eyes

M: Why. WHY MUST YOU DO THIS NOW. AND WHY IS THERE AN OWL? I still use a bottle of Crabtree and Evelyn body spray I got when I was 16.

E: Because. It. Is. Interesting. So you can just lump it, and listen to My Summer of Scent

M: Interesting? To fellow smell pervs enthusiasts, perhaps. I think it’s a small victory when I don’t spend the day smelling of buffalo.

E: Ssssssh.

M: pffffff

E: I got this vast quantity of fragrance samples, and I spent the whole summer using a different teeny tiny sample each day. There were some good ones and some spectacularly AWFUL ones. There was even one that was based on Tiger Balm.

There were days when my family recoiled from me in disgust and days when no one would sit next to me on the bus.

M: So, like any other day then. But more tigery.

E: Yes, but there were days when pervy old men chased me down the street and once, the woman in the post office told me I smelled “clean”.

So. Here are my amazing new scent discoveries. First, Ormonde Jayne Osmanthus.

M: Who is she? I am already slumped over on my keyboard, sobbing, by the way.

E: Ssssh. nearly over. Ormonde Jayne – and yes, it’s a terrible name – do this bespoke scent test on you where they ask you how you feel about goats, and cinnamon, and wire wool smells, which they waft under your nose in tiny test tubes. Then, based on your reaction to pencil shavings, overripe bananas and hoof oil, they suggest a scent. Osmanthus was mine.

M: Did it work?

E: Oddly enough, it sort of did. It’s softer and gentler than what I’d usually wear, and I can’t really describe it satisfactorily. It’s like a big, cosy, floral marshmallow hug. That sounds horrible and stifling. It smells like … uh …. nice things. Like Friday afternoon.

M Friday afternoon when you skive off work to stuff your face at Ladurée?

E: Yes! And then you hug your St Honoré aux Framboises to your chest, slightly crushing it. It smells like that.

E: The other winner in the summer of scent were Heeley scents.

M: Heeley sounds like a sporting event. A posh one. Involving canoes and possibly horses.

E: Ha, yes! It is made by James Heeley, a pretty, fey man who looks like he has escaped from Brideshead revisited.

Definitely horses and canoes. Anyway, he makes these exquisite, weird fragrances, including the tiger balm one (very tiger balmy), a sort of sea salt one , and a really grassy verveine one that smells like your granny’s tisane.

M: Couldn’t you just give yourself a rub down with some crushed leaves or some tapenade?

E: So practical always, M. Yes. I suppose you could. It’s like that, but less… sappy and exfoliating. More importantly, he writes the most florid, bonkers copy about his scent I have ever read. Each one comes with a suggestion of what it should evoke.

So: “Cardinal” gets “an immaculate young priest”.

Cuir Pleine Fleure is “An equestrian abounding in natural grace. Faye Dunaway in Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown”

Figuier:  ”Fashion girls out to lunch. Roquette salad and spring water”.

M: I am beginning to think you only brought this whole perfume thing up because you are angling for a gig as a pervy scent copywriter.

E: Or, I think my favourite description, of the St Clements: “Mirte Maas drinking ice lemon tea on the Italian Riviera”.

It’s hard to choose though, I promise they’re all golden.

M: Bored now.

E: Just one last thing. My absolute favourite Heeley scent was called Menthe Fraiche and is the most un-scenty scent ever. It smells JUST like good fresh mint tea.

M: And what does he say about that one.

E: Tragically, M, he says “Patrick Bateman in American Psycho”.

M: HA. How much does this shit cost?

E: I believe it costs in the region of 80 of your British pounds, because James has striped blazers to buy. And croquet sets.

M: And tiny scones.

E: And powerful hallucinatory drugs to buy to write his website copy. But I swear you’d like it, honest.

M: Hmph.

E: There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

M: It was FUCKING AWFUL. I hated every minute of it and we’re never. DOING IT. AGAIN.

E: But I haven’t even told you about my new imaginary boyfriend Frédéric Malle yet!

M: Go away now.