Perfume Pen Pals: Yosh U4EAHH! 2.43


Katie,

So I received a Yosh sample in my Barney's bag and, get this, it was unmarked. It came attached to a Yosh card, which listed all of the Yosh fragrances and the Yosh website, but nothing to indicate what was in the vial. I put it on anyway. Cuz that's how I roll.

Ick. Fruity but not in the best way, the way complex perfumes smell. More in the way a sachet in your aunt's dresser drawers might smell, the way everything that comes out of her bedroom might smell.

And cucumber! I smelled cucumber, realistic cucumber, like fresh cucumber juice had been spilled all over my arms. I smelled like I had an accident with cucumbers and my aunt had come rushing in from her bedroom to dry me off with a towel from her dresser. I smelled like a bad day with my aunt. (Truth be told, I don't have an aunt.)

Then I noticed the faintest of lines on the Yosh sample card, almost like a mistake, running beneath U4EAHH!. Which I guess means I'd been stunk up by U4EAHH! What an arrogant way to present perfume samples.

All those bad vibes aside, Yosh uses a similar non-alcohol method as CB I Hate Perfumes, in which the perfume goes on a little oily, but doesn't suffer those harsh first seconds. It's all smooth sailing. U4EAHH! even smells like a CB, all hyper-realistic, like a faithful painting of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Except perfume, like painting, is usually best when it's abstract, when it isn't the equivalent of a first-year art student sitting in front of the bridge with a sketchbook. I like cucumber but I don't want to BE cucumber. Though maybe that's the abstraction: it's so true-to-life it can't help being abstract because who would walk around smelling like a cucumber? And pretending he has an aunt?

Dan


Dan,

Wow! Sounds like U4EAHH! has really taken you on a journey. Admittedly, a journey where you’re cranky and kicking the back of the driver’s seat and whining “Are we there, yet?” a hundred times in the first five minutes.

As Yosh says, “fragrance is feeling”. It would seem that at the moment, you’re feeling like a cucumber. For others, U4EAHH!’s feeling is like Jolly Rancher apple candy. The superfans find it uplifting, buttery, and in at least one torrid instance, “babymaking”. I would guess that your pretend aunt falls into the latter category.

Katie

2 comments:

  1. I just tried U4EAHH, and the pomegranite/cucumber combination was so tasty I wanted to drink it! (Actually the pomegranite+pear= tamarind for me.) And I never knew I wanted aloe vera in my perfume before.

    But my "wow" turned to "whaaa" when it was COMPLETELY GONE after 45 minutes. I'm all for subtlety in perfume, but when something smells that good (and costs that much), I want to spend some time with it, get to know it. Not just bump and run.

    I wonder if it was an old tester bottle that's lost its "oomph." I'll have to try it again...

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Left Coast Nose, Mine was a sample vial, and not knowing it was perfume oil, I dumped it all over my arm. So subtlety was the last thing on my mind. And yet U4EAHH! did fade fairly rapidly (to my relief). I've read these Yosh scents don't project much and it's probably because of their natural-perfume-oil make-up. My Yosh experience left me cold. (Though my imaginary aunt loves them.)

    ReplyDelete