
I immediately inhale the powdery, intrusive pong of scented hemorrhoid cream, deodorizing balm for intractable leg ulcers, or Greco-Roman wrestler’s loincloth dipped in sour milk.
I picture a mincing Regency dandy giving his wig an extra dose of powder as an alternative to the monthly bath.
I am reminded of the aerosol cans mothers-in-law leave on the lavatory cistern to allow their dinner guests to cover whatsoever tracks they may otherwise have left.
I recall the stuff the barber soaks the comb in, between customers.
If I had to pick out a single feature of the overall aroma as being the most offensive, I think it would be Geranium-Lavender accord, which is perfectly titred so that the beauty of neither note can be discerned, but the combined chord is loud, intrusive, and ugly, like the Sandersons from Poughkeepsie arriving at your barbecue.
I suspect that the ‘nose’ (if I may hesitantly attribute such an organ to the creator of this travesty) was aiming at a fougere structure: the lavender, bergamot, moss, labdanum (cited as amber), and coumarin (cited as tonka) in the pyramid would certainly suggest this text-book intention. However, none of these notes meld in the heart of the fragrance. The colours separate out, as if printed with a misaligned cartridge.
In the dry-down, things only get worse. After 6 hours, I am dogged by a curly-sandwich stale, wedding-singer flat, wilted funeral flower, chewing-gum-on-the-pavement, polyester-shirted traffic-warden, geist.
No.