Frederic Malle - Dans tes Bras

Watery violet and heliotrope at first, drying down to pale, plastick'd, metallic, salty skin - almost quiveringly quicksilver metallic, like sucking on a spoon. Much more interesting on paper - there it's intimate and dark, forested, soilish. Shadowy.
Ripoff Apres l'Ondee.

Shu Uemura - Fleur de Terre

For a line so entirely based on artifice (feathered fake eyelashes, Shibuya-district-bright makeup, Mika Ninagawa's candied palette), a foray into 100% natural perfumery is warying. Fear not - all the perfumes in Shu Uemura's limited-edition 25th anniversary line are superbly strange - Fleur de Rose is cream soda glitter, a sweet lolita in a champagne glass; Fleur de Source is reminiscent of saunas, frosty pines, and Jack Frost on windowpanes; and then there's my flummoxing favourite, Fleur de Terre. When wet it smells of the brightest, ripest bergamot, and you wonder what sun-soaked Italian villa they drew inspiration from - then quickly the gilded door shuts, and it turns abruptly to baby powder on melted plastic skin. You smell like a lovely doll, lashes batting, clockwork movements - but there's blood and breath underneath it all. To me this perfume is weirdly brilliant because it captures the vulnerability of putting on a facade, it's strange and moving and diaphanous, translucent flesh.

IMPORTANT: As with many perfumes made for the Japanese market, Fleur de Terre is very subtle. Use a spray more than the usual.

Juicy Couture - Viva La Juicy

Mandarin orange wonderland. Chocolate box, crackling pralines, neon Ray-Bans, too much blush and a horsey Lou Doillon grin. Bubblegum macaroon. Confectioners' glaze. This smells like everything good aout being a teenage girl - breathlessness, crushes, oversize baubles, snapping Bubblicious in class . . . if this wafted through high school halls everywhere, I would not complain. Throw us a kiss!, in between munches of butter tarts and butter creams.

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Safran Troublant

Like deliciously dissolving in a silken pool of muhallebi and squares of silver-leafed, saffron-and-pistachio flecked barfi. Milky, rosy-skinned, sinuous.

True Religion

Clean hair. The unfortunate model gracing the sample looks one rib away from being an internment camp victim.