Comme des Garcons / Floriental

For a brand known for its chic eccentricity, Comme des Garçons can also surprise by keeping surprises to a minimum. I refer specifically to CdG's perfumes that comprise a virtual forest, a world of woods which includes the Incense and Blue Series, along with Black, Serpentine, Laurel, Hinoki, 2 Man and Wonderwood. (Hmm, seems I was complaining of "wood fatigue" back in my 2010 review of Wonderwood.)

Viewer Mail: The Perfect Beach Perfume

Hi Katie,

I am looking for a summer perfume I can wear during the day. I'd like it to embody the beach where I spent my summer months growing up.

There's a shady dirt path that leads there, the dirt pounded smooth by decades of bare feet. There are roots to trip over if you don't know the geography, and lots of ivy. At the end of this path there's a heaping helping of dark pink rugosa rose (I call it beach rose), white and orange honeysuckle, and granite rocks to sit on that are bleached by the sun.

Fumes in the News: Smell Ya Later

Hello! I'm cranking up ol' KP Smells clown car again, and while I'm lubing the chassis, I thought I'd share something I wrote for the The Guardian in June. "Bottling the Smell of Dead People Won't Capture Their Essence" concerns Olfactory Links, a French company which aims to make a perfume out of the smell of clients' deceased loved ones.

Perfume Pen Pals: The Different Company / Rose Poivree

Katie,

As you know, this The Different Company Rose Poivrée drama of mine goes back over a decade. I'd owned a big canister of the original civet-heavy formulation, the one that Luca Turin famously said smelled like dirty underwear, and because I was young and I thought perfumes had to smell nice, I never had the nerve to wear it and finally sold it off.

Fumes in the News: What Does David Bowie Smell Like?

David Bowie is described as “the best-smelling human I ever met”, by Arcade Fire musician Will Butler.

The Thin White Duke's fumes came up in Butler's conversation with BBC 6 Music's morning goddess Lauren Laverne last week while promoting his debut solo album Policy.

Never one to let an intriguing detail slip away, Laverne pounced, insisting firmly, “I am going to require some more adjectives. How would you describe the smell of David Bowie?”

Perfume Pen Pals: Frapin / 1270, Paradis Perdu and Speakeasy

Katie,

Have you tried any of the Frapin fragrances? Until recently, I hadn't. There are entire perfume lines that don't interest me. I don't know why and I'm so apathetic I don't care to investigate why. I see the word "Frapin" and I don't even remember liking perfume.

Clinique Aromatics Elixir

Aromatics Elixir by Clinique had been around for 20 years by the time I discovered it in the early 90s. I started off admiring it from a distance: even the most tentative spray hurled a lavish, densely-packed cloud of flowers, moss and woods into the air around me. I wasn't sure I could deliver on the promise of this perfume.