A Clean, White Musk Foundation with an Orbital Death Ray of Jasmine
From the first time Y Eau de Parfum broke me out of my “Axe Body Spray” stereotyping of men’s scents to my very recent Endymion Concentré discovery that I actually liked faux-leather, my favorite scents break my preconceptions. It’s always “I didn’t know I’d like this, and now I love it.” I thought maybe this applied to Tokyo Elegance Elixir for a while, and while I was wrong, I still deeply appreciate the audacity these folks have in making such a sharp, floral Spear of Longinus out of a nice, white bar of soap.
Akigalawood became a trend in the industry around the time I started picking up something in the scents worn by arrogant, overcompensating lunkheads around me. I thought the culprit, alongside Bisch, was that ingredient, but no- turned out it was some other "sorry, we didn't do leather correctly" woody dank accord they’ve thrown into things like Sauvage Elixir. Ganymede Eau de Parfum taught me that. Akigalawood, being the thing that lasted the longest in Ganymede, stood out as this round synthetic uniter of otherwise brash ingredients: the reason why a perfume that smelled like new cars and retail store clothing on the rack dried down to something pretty heavenly... if not for me.
On this trip to Zara, I also stopped by Jo Malone. (Yes, I know, plus Penhaligon’s. Tell me you went to Disney without telling me you went to Disney.) I tried the one Jo scent I hadn’t before, Hinoki & Cedarwood, and surprise surprise, it wasn’t for me. I apologetically told the salesperson that some day they’d make something I'd like. Oh well. But this is... a different thing entirely. Way more brash than anything you'd see in the store with her name on it, and yet she's the nose.
And then there’s Zara. I liked 800 Black, it’s a Tonka bomb you can wear in the one month a Southern state is actually cold and it works, but largely Zara was filled with “We tried to make this expensive scent more affordable,” and it was never something I liked, and you knew, quickly, that it wouldn’t last an hour. And hardly any scents stop me in my tracks, make me do a triple take, keep trying to figure out what it is - Sycomore (2016) Eau de Parfum did that to me at a Chanel - but here I was, transfixed about this unique scent in a store I thought was just for dupes.
This is daringly floral for something you’d put in a section already gender-segregated for men. Heck, it's murderously floral for something you'd put in a women's section and call "Daisy" or whatever. This thing, on my skin, which couldn't project two pixels of a god darned IMAX movie if it was burned directly into its epithelial layer, projected. Trailed. Annoyed my wife. Projected too much, like an Omnimax nature flick of jasmine. Leonard Nimoy amplified through a zillion planetarium speakers jasmine (yeah yeah, old Bostonians will get that, just you watch). It’s also woody, but not too woody. Just a bit of a light wooden core. White musky, which I wouldn’t expect out of anything featuring Akigalawood. Three hours later, still a Railgun Blast of jasmine in there. I can't actually pull this off, but it's so... weird and wild. Affordable enough that I could get it as a curiosity. But it ain't my 1957 Eau de Parfum . I trudge onward in search of a good musky soapy floral that's either A Little More Dude or Affordable Enough That It Doesn't Matter That I Can't Pull It Off.
So, apologies to Jo Malone, to Akigalawood, to Zara: you’re all pretty cool when you work together. Maybe you're not exactly *my* kind of pretty cool, but I still appreciate the bold, brash, jasmine-infused ion cannon this thing is.
