Gucci Rush

...wearing it is like being attacked by The Blob.




Gucci Rush falls into the “learn to love” category for me. And the way I've been stuck on “learn,” I don't know if I'll ever get to “love”. Rush is an amyl nitrite disco freakout, with lactic peach and powder and patchouli all crowding the dance floor.

I attended enough disco “tea dances” as a too-young-to-legally-be-there teen in DC with my friend Stephen Miller to be quite familiar with the eye-watering smell of poppers. They were typically snorted en masse at the crescendo of Sylvester's “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real” by ripped and sweaty gay men chasing that snootful of euphoria. A sinus-clearing odor of fruity chlorine and sweaty socks would settle over the smoke machine haze, leaving no mystery as to the origins of amyl nitrite's nickname, “Locker Room."




“Rush” is another nickname for poppers, and in creating Gucci Rush, perfumer Michel Almairac left aside the sweaty socks but held onto something of the bleachy fruit. It's fruit in a sinister funhouse mirror: the milky peach morphing into ammonia pineapple, old banana, and back to that peach.

Jasmine and patchouli phase in at some point to give Rush a passing family resemblance to other “good or gross?” fumes like Christian Dior Hypnotic Poison and Thierry Mugler Alien.

You can clearly see my struggle with Rush in the video review, as I try to get my head around the fact that it's sort of disgusting, but also possesses a streak of mellow sensuality. Mellow, that is, until it starts getting louder and louder and LOUDER -- when finally, we're all dancing to Sylvester.

Rush is available from Perfume.com and Amazon.com starting at $40 for 1 oz

20 comments:

  1. Great review, Katie!!! One thing Rush can be called is "original"... I never tried any other perfume that smells like it (all you described above plus gardenias), but for me it's "loud", it has tons of sillage and everything you touch when using it will keep the scent for ages, including your handbag and the car seatbelt... I recommend it for anyone who wants to have her/his presence announced (loudly) by a cloud of perfume, but it's just not my thing. Rush is not a scent you wear, IT WEARS YOU:)

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  2. We had to have been around the same clubs in DC back in the heydays... now Georgetown seems to be all office supply stores. The Crazyhorse saw many a Saturday/Sunday morn pulsing with dancers all jazzed up with melanges of those poppers, pink Peruvian flake, shrooms, Panama red, and Jack Daniels working a David Bowie in Danskin meets Annie Hall stance.... wait! May I have seconds? =D

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  3. I wore Rush in college, so it's very hard for me to evaluate it now. I still like it, but it makes me feel kind of ooky to wear it. Ah, memories.

    It sort of smells like some other kind of beauty product -- like hairspray or spray-on body glitter -- not like something you'd apply just for the smell. And yet.

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  4. Sabrina, yes, there is a twisted white floral in there, now that you mention it - a tweaked-out gardenia that I didn't recognize in all the glitter and solvents.

    capri - Ha! Remember Cagney's at Dupont Circle? That's the venue I was thinking of specifically.

    Elisa, "smells like some other kind of beauty product" - yeah! Rush is truly abstract. The feedback I'm getting on YouTube is that there's a whole graduating class from the mid-90s who associate it solely with being a freshman girl in college. 3 cheers for the continuing influence of ripped and sweaty gay men!

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  5. Oh... I guess I was showing my age a bit. Partying on the more west end of M street in the mid 70's. The Cellar Door and all that. "OOO HOOO Jackie Blue Makes you think her life is a drag - what fun you have had." Anyway Dupont Circle enjoyed a revival of sorts in the nineties due to to economic revitalization projects - made it a safer place to be.

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  6. Haha! Jackie Blue. Earworm! But, I was thinking more "I Will Survive" along with the above-mentioned Sylvester disco anthem. Funny, my friends were all a bunch of artsy jazz-fusion loving types who wore "I Hate Disco" t-shirts while I secretly headed out to clubs and disco-blaring parties (in the DC area), behind their backs.

    Despite the nostalgia binge, the smell of Gucci Rush is definitely more gross than good to my nose. I can't really remember the smell of poppers, although I recall their presence. If they really smell like Rush, no wonder they weren't my poison!

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  7. I love "Jackie Blue", too! Hah, funny about those "Disco Sucks" types, melisand61. Jazz fusion - that's another distant memory: Chick Corea and Return to Forever! Har.

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  8. Rush fascinates me to no end, and it's got to be that deliberately chemical - or as you perfectly described it Katie, narcotic - vibe that persists from top to base. Even though Rush is totally the kind of scent you need to be in the mood for, I honestly think it's pretty brilliant as a creation. It's amazing that even after 11 years on the market Rush still manages to smell so unique and bizarre. The packaging (which I would love to see updated) is a pretty good indication of just how different the scent is.

    I wish Rush for men hadn't been discontinued. I would have loved to see how it compared.

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  9. I like those lamps behind you. Are they all scented (with different oils?) or just candles inside? :D
    Btw, don't like Rush :D

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  10. Just so melisand61... the interesting thing too is that a disco band K.C. and the Sunshine Band is still enjoying popularity today, while happily it can be said that 'tunes' like Disco Duck never made it out of 1979. My crowd was coming alive with Frampton and finding stairways with Zepplin, knowing full well that the coolest hippest dug jazz and were not just poseurs.
    More on topic, I recall Gucci Rush II being a happy summery floral spirit.
    Perfume and music are much alike in that they are both composed of blending notes and are meant to convey a message or feeling. I wonder what song I'll wear today?

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  11. As you say, Spike, it's the deliberate chemicalness of the fragrance that sets it apart. Plenty of perfumes play with smelling "bad", but not on purpose. Or not with Rush's swagger.

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  12. capri, whatever song I'm wearing today, it had better drown out the tune played by Etat Libre d'Orange Sécrétions Magnifique, which I was gagging on last night. Pen Pal Dan had challenged me to review it "live", without experiencing it prior to filming. The results were...lively, to say the least. The review will be up in the next few weeks.

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  13. Funny that I should read this review just a few minutes after coming across this blog post about (ahem) the "other" Rush:

    http://www.thisisfyf.com/2010/08/breaking-rush-to-the-store-because-your-bottle-of-poppers-just-became-a-collectors-item.html

    I feel like I should track down a bottle of Gucci's now just for posterity's sake.

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  14. What a bizarre coincidence, jonno. Thanks for sharing this. I never knew that Rush poppers had a superhero mascot, "Captain Rush".

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  15. Ankica, those are actually glass vases on the dresser behind me. They are lit by candles set behind them.

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  16. On Youtube, you mentioned Burberry Classic as a favorite. That's my signature scent!! Can you help me find a similar scent to that? I love the scent but am terribly bored by the bottle D: Thanks so much! You are awesome, I love your videos!

    Farmgirl

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  17. Farmgirl, the deluxe, amazingly gorgeous version of Burberry Classic is By Kilian Liaisons Dangereuses. You can check out my review here:
    http://www.katiepuckriksmells.com/2009/08/by-kilian-liaisons-dangereuses.html

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  18. You rock, Katie! I'll be checking out the scent :D

    Farmgirl

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  19. Rush IS such a freak, isn't she? I wouldn't go as far as "disgusting", but oddball, oh yeah. One sniff and I get the impression of hairspray, Skittles, milk, pencil shavings (?), and Scotch tape (!), with a dusting of white florals and vanilla to give it some semblance of recognizability as, you know, a perfume. I'm a little baffled by its success, frankly, but I get a kick out of it. The art direction and packaging are genius, and somehow it really is the perfect olfactory accompaniment to neon lights and dance music. It's sad that club kids (and college freshmen) were once catered to with thoughtfully wacky perfumes like Rush, when nowadays they all settle for cupcakey Victoria's Secret body mists and twice the recommended amount of Axe.

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  20. Darryl - "thoughtfully wacky" is a good way to categorize Rush. A perfume deliberately made to both entice and confuse.

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