Quote:
Originally Posted by
Wordbird 
Plum Jam can be a bit blah, can't it? So I thought I'd add spice and maybe some brandy or rum to perk it up a bit. What do you all think of that? Good idea or bad idea?
Great idea! Throw some dried cranberries and chopped walnuts in there too and I'll marry you right now
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Coconut
used the leftover risotto and made risotto balls
Yum Yum Yum!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tang Serge Lutens Un Bois Sepia: sandalwood, cypress, vetiver, patchouli, opoponax.
One of my favorites - you smell awesome!
Anyway, my SOTD today has been the rather gaily-named
Alfred Dunhill Desire For A Man.
I can still remember buying this - Back then (95? 96?), I smoked like a chimney and had the bright idea that there must be cologne out there that would combine with my smokey odor and make me smell more presentable. So, off I went to Macys (being the best store I knew of at the time) to ask the SA there what she would recommend. I fell in love with Desire quickly, intrigued by its tea + berries smell, as well as the fact that it was made by a cigarette company, which I assumed would make it work with the smell of stale cigarettes (OK, so I was a bit young and stupid...).
The thing I liked about it was that it smelled like "something" (tea and fruit), instead of just "cologne" (which I now recognize was the masculine chypres available at the time).
As such, this was the scent that quietly launched me on this crazy and expensive journey, as well as one of the 3 or 4 full bottles I ever used up. So now, after discovering basenotes, sample trading, and online sample ordering, some 300 or so frags later, I've been curious what exactly this smelled like, knowing what I know now. So, it was with curiosity and trepidation that I bought a cheap mini of this recently for retesting.
So how does it smell? The tea is only in the very top, and the "berries" are sort of an artful synthetic construct of the actual smell of berries. Mainly, it's soapy. There's a floral quality, but not in a bouquet-of-flowers way, but in the way that plain white soap can smell floral without smelling perfumed. The "berry" acts as a sweetener, giving a nice sweetness to the soapy base. Late in the day, the "berry" is gone, leaving just sugary soap.
Sure, it's nice, and quite nostalgic for me, but kind of like Azzaro's Chrome (another old standby for me I recently had the opportunity to re-wear), it feels of another time. While it and its contemporaries set the stage for the fresh frags of today, it does it with a certain naive simplicity that feels a bit dated - while some simple scents pull it off with deft blending and great ingredients, Desire has the feel of something kind of experimental for its time, something that has been passed by.
But I still do like the way it smells, and it did manage to bring back some memories
(end long-winded post of nostalgic rantings)
