Mlleghoul

Ôponé is a fragrance so revolting you’d think someone was joking, that it couldn’t possibly be real. But it is real, and I have a sample of it. It’s a vile cocktail of the following: a freshly-opened bottle of goopy, boozy-but-not-nearly-enough booze bitter berry Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough and Chest Congestion (possibly the one with Dextromethorphan and Guaifenesin), the most repellent, unpalatable artificial fruity-sour energy drink on the shelf with the most outrageously obnoxious packaging, the one so disgusting and foul that even the people you think might be into it would never buy, and the saddest long-stemmed fake rose wrapped in dusty crinkly plastic at the gas station. Nobody wants any part of this. Throw it in the trash immediately.

The last-gasp sour and tang of sun-shriveled citrus, fusty desiccated green herbs and mummified mosses, ashy, arid leather, and the most spectral iris wilting in a disappearing patch of shade whose earthy roots are already giving up the ghost, crumbling away in the sandy dirt. The radiant aurora of an eclipse made pale, parched apparition via a scratched and dusty lens.

I got a sample of Flamingo from Blackcliff because thought this was for sure going to be my manic pixie pink pepper of demented glee that I have long been searching for. What it is: a mangrove swamp’s heart of kaleidoscopic funhouse mirrors, twisted cypress knees splashed in the lurid, tart effervescent guava-grapefruit hues of technicolor twilight. Prickly pink pepper, like a shard of shattered glass, like a frenzied clutch of little claws, skitters and dissolves, and a melancholic violet peeks through, its bruised purple mascara streaking through the murky water. Damp earthy tendrils of vetiver, musky ambrette, and loamy tobacco loom faintly but unsettlingly close to the surface. Flamingo is the warped sour bittersweetness of unseen creatures chirping and croaking in the twilight–and I like it– but it’s more of a pink pepper whisper than the deranged fever dream intensity of pink pepper delirium I was hoping for.

Citron Boboli was a lovely, unexpected surprise. It's such a light, refreshing, palliative scent; there's hardly anything to it at all, and then the longer you sit with it, the more mellow marvels it conjures. On the hottest day of the summer, when the sun bakes the earth, and the air hangs humid, heavy, and shimmering, find a mason jar, glass smooth and etchings worn, passed down from your mother's mother, to cradle a spell for a sweltering day. Beneath the skeletal shade of a midday tree, into this vessel layer lemon balm and blossom, a sprig of geranium, and a frilled citronella leaf–a soothing strata, herbal, citrusy, and green, a counterpoint to the relentless heat. Stream in a shiver of rainwater that has caught the reflection of the moon, and, finally, drop in as many cloves and peppercorns as loves you have lost, and smell their spiced warmth transmute into a strange, fizzing chill. Anoint your pulse, your throat, and your heart with the verdant brew, peer into its swirling emerald shadows, and let echo the words that cool the air and summon the soft, secret summer rain. This is what Citron Boboli is for me. And as a Floridian, I think this fragrance will be my go-to scorching summertime incantation of relief.

Parfums de Marly's Pegasus Exclusif, and maybe I am extrapolating a bit from the brand’s copy, promises a ride on the back of a flying stallion, a journey into a realm of masculine virility and exhilarating power. But I think we need to temper our expectations; the description would have us believe this is the fragrant equivalent of a noble winged steed, all myth and muscle, soaring through the heavens, presumably being the fantastical equine embodiment of toxic masculinity. I'm not saying that I actually wanted any of that, but instead, what we are presented with is a pastel carousel pony, all heliotrope powdered sugar and cracked porcelain. Now, there are some things I am not up to speed on here, which is to say that Pegasus Exclusif implies the existence of a Pegasus not-so-Exclusif, and if that is the case, I haven’t smelled that yet, and maybe that one is a dusty plastic marzipan macaron as well… so I am not sure how this one differs. And unlike other reviewers, I don’t get anything complex or dark or rich out of this perfume; the promised depth and complexity and woods and spices never materialize, leaving a one-dimensional sweetness and a sense of artificial whimsy that smells more like a My Little Pony collection than the epic journey of a majestic beast.
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