Sunday, May 15, 2011

WHAT ODD PERFUME!

There were teenage girls on the bus who sounded like ducks. It is doubtful that any of them will ever go to college, they just didn't seem the type. But please do not think that I look down on the dumb - I actually like morons!
I just prefer them to be quieter. Or, if that's impossible, more intelligent.

One of them was wearing a new perfume.
Even from several seats away I noticed.
Her friend asked her what it was (which is how I know it was a new perfume). The wearee was proud of her find and gladly shared that knowledge.
It may have been called Tropical Thunderstorm, or Tropical Passion, or Tropical Fever, or Tropical Lust-dream, or something.
Tropical.
Supposedly it recalled the rainforests.


MANGROVE SWAMP TROLLOP ALLURE

Sweetheart, rainforests do NOT smell like the mango jelly whore house!
There is remarkably little in the tropical environment that smells of fruit, or even flowers.
Rainforests reek of tannic rottenness and very nasty things.
The tropics are rich, fecund, and decomposing.

Most of the exotic perfumes are misnamed. The wearers would be horrified if they could really smell the exotic locales and rare ingredients enfolded in the perfume's image.

Many tropical flowers, if they have any aroma at all, are feral and verging on putrid.
Several of the most beautiful blooms whiff of rotting meat.
If you really want an exotic fragrance that will not make men gasp, try something more mundane.

Decent soap, normal shampoo, clean clothes .....
A discrete touch of Alfred Sung or something by Muelhens .....


Several smells really awaken images for me, and recall warmer (and hence 'exotic') climes.

Fried shrimp paste and dried fish: Philippines.
Gummy incense and salty condiments: South-East Asian grocery stores.
Fermented black beans: A sea-food restaurant in 110 degree heat.
Decomposing fruit: All of South-East Asia.
Rotting fish: A palm-lined beach in Malaysia.

Burnt rubber: Java.
Open sewers: Java.
Animal corpses: Java.
Rancid coconut grease: Java.
Rotting garbage: Java.
Chemical effluvium in a ditch: Java.



Java is a VERY exotic place. Beautiful, too.
Yes, please smell like that!



On the other hand, dried citrus, the faintest hint of cassia and clove, merest whiffs of camphor and coffee - just about perfect.
The exoticism has been tamed, the foreign brought home.
Add the smells of clean laundry and cookies, and we're really talking sexy!

If you're wearing that, no need to speak - your presence is enough.
You are a sultry temptress just laying there fully clothed.
I have to brush my teeth now.
Or wash my hands.
Something.


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3 comments:

Tzipporah said...

lemon and rosemary. Or cardamom.

The back of the hill said...

Definitely the rosemary and the cardamom. Lemon, not so much – the notes at either end of the fragrance-spectrum dissipate too fast. Though it does work as an undertone presence.
Anise also comes to mind.
And tea rose, wafting in from an open window.

Anonymous said...

Its all a matter of what one associates with the smell. Perhaps decaying jungle vegetation, perhaps patchouli oil, it depends on what evokes memories.

R

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