Diptyque - Tam Dao

Sprayed on my watch and fabric, this is the heavenliest, creamiest sandalwood, silken and voluptuous, like swimming in a vatful of custard. It lasted a full week.
On skin, however, it doesn't exist. Disappeared into the ether, or somehow got deflected off my wrist. A tremendous disappointment.

EDIT JUNE 4: A tingling cassia red hot sweetness that prickles my tongue, crossed with an Ikea manufacturing plant. Something is wrong with my hormones these days - I can see why in medieval Europe menstruating women were kept away from dairies. This is the second time I've hoped for Tam Dao to replicate the unforgettable milkiness I fell in love with - now all I get is a flurry of love-bites - where is the doe-eyed sandalwood my dreams are made of?

Thierry Mugler - Alien

Uninspired floral with the most hideous marketing campaign on earth.

Etat Libre d'Orange - Eloge du Traitre

Beautifully done men's fougere, with a spicy, cuminous edge. Evades all cliches of men's perfumery (fresh, watery, sporty) and exists in its own elegant sphere of dove grey and slate blue. Vegetal without verdancy. Dusky, resinous, wonderful.
10/10.

Keiko Mecheri - Ume

This is the happiest perfume on earth. Plump Victorian lasses writing New Year's greetings sealed with jonquil-coloured wax, a hundred cups of mulled wine being raised aloft and tinkling, very dainty wholesome cheer. This is the first flush of Orientalism in the West, Earl Grey sipped from a china tea-service painted with frail-flower beauties. Alas, my sister said it's very Euphoric - her signature scent! This Lillie Langtry in scent will adorn my clothes, then.

Comptoir Sud Pacifique - Vanille Amande

. . . and all the teeth drop out of my head, riddled by suppurating sores and diabetic shock.

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Dzing!

Rubber, black leather, motorcycle goggles, sawdust, moist paper pulp. Affecting and odd, like Sylvia Bourdon's trysts on a Harley-Davidson, the death-defying stunts of the visitor in Radley Metzger's The Lickerish Quartet, and the hallucinations of the acid-soaked Girl On a Motorcycle. Petrol, danger, sweaty palms gripping shiny handles. In an hour heady benzoin and caramel notes emerge - the olfactory equivalent of a Victorian topsy-turvy doll. 7/10.

Serge Lutens - Miel de Bois

My compliments to Christopher Sheldrake for making this astonishing beauty, which resembles no other perfume on earth. I'm still literally catching my breath, so my words will come out all scattershot . . . Honey removed of all its Winnie-the-Pooh connotations, it's honey made from hemlock and toxins, nux vomica, folktales of wooden babies turned into ravenous monsters (see Otesanek), wooden teeth gnashing you to bits, ohmygod I can't believe this exists, STING STING STING, I'm going to bathe in this by the vatful, OH! but I am in love.

Thierry Mugler - Ice*Men

Well-lubricated ass.
It all dissipates after 30 seconds and dries down into sport-deodorant mode, but that top-note is one of the oddest and most sordid imaginable.

Thierry Mugler - A*Men and A*Men Pure Coffee

What piqued my interest in A*Men was its supposed resemblance to my beloved Borneo 1834, in that it had notes of patchouli and chocolate. Would this be a more price-reasonable alternative to my rare-as-hen's-teeth paramour? Alas, no. A*Men smells exactly like that species of male that goes clubbing, blinds your eyes with a permatanned oily sheen, is hirsute, has chains a-clanking, and has a ridiculously groomed goatee. The kind that likes to see desperate straight girls kiss for attention in between body shots and Brazilian waxes. This is a laughable little nubbins, a goofy adolescent horndog with a permanent hard-on. A very, very small one.
A*Men Pure Coffee is wan, a malformed foam heart on a too-weak latte made by an incompetent, 17-year-old barista in training.

Serge Lutens - Arabie

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur
zur Sommerzeit, Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Dein Kleid will mich
was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Trost und Kraft
zu jeder Zeit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Das soll dein Kleid
mich lehren.

Heeley - Cardinal

Instead of the cold, stony majesty of Comme des Garcons' Avignon, this is the radiance of the sun filtering through a rose window. Lighter and sweeter than most incense fragrances, this is the Sister Sourire of the school.

Guerlain - Herba Fresca (Aqua Allegoria)

Vaguely nauseating tisane that reminds me of being six and waiting for my sister at her orthodontist's office. Smells like a folklore abortifacient.