Madison Soirée Bond No. 9 2003

I had an interesting experience today. I planned to don Bond no 9 WEST BROADWAY to see if I like that fragrance, which I do not remember all that well, having tested it only once, now more than a year ago. When I reached for what I thought was my purse spray and spritzed some on, I was unpleasantly surprised by what I smelled. "Yuck," I thought to myself--or perhaps, knowing me, I said it outloud. I tried to figure out why I had been thinking that this was a lime-centric composition which might work on a hot day like today. Then I sprayed some more on, supposing that perhaps I needed more in order to a get a good sense of the scent. "Yuck," I thought--or said--to myself again.

I was overcome briefly by a sense of relief that WEST BROADWAY would now be crossed forever off my list of possible acquisitions. Until I glanced at the writing on the purse spray and read the words MADISON SOIREE. I had applied the wrong perfume!

Through this route, I have inadvertently confirmed my longstanding belief that MADISON SOIREE, if not the worst, is definitely one of the worst of the perfumes from the Bond no 9 line. Why do I dislike it so? I suppose because it reminds me invariably (I've tried a few times, this perhaps the last...) of a rendering factory. I have never actually visited a rendering factory, but I learned about them from watching an Errol Morris film.

Rendering factories are places where dead animals' bodies are mined for anything salvageable. Toe nails, hooves, horns, etc., are all made into soap, for example. MADISON SOIREE smells to me like dirty tallow, precisely as I imagine a rendering factory must smell. In a word, to reiterate: "Yuck."

Definitely not for me!