Month: September 2008

Kicking off the Bond No. 9 marathon, I chose to…choose the fragrances at random, and I’ll be mixing in my as-yet unreviewed fragrances out of my wardrobe and the Bond No. 9 fragrances for your reading pleasure. This also takes a lot of that pesky thinking out of the equation; I now can tell you what I’ll be wearing on any given day for the next month or so (and I’m working on a calendar to show you as such).

Central Park was the first of the Bonds to test, and unusually for me I began completely blind; no reviews, no ideas what to expect, nothing. The opening blast was a very green one, with citrus being the most recognizable thing right off the bat. I knew something was coming to me so I stared at my wardrobe for a minute until my eyes settled on Creed Virgin Island Water. I’m not calling them similar, but the lime and verbena were a very high-quality much like VIW. What Central Park has over the baby Creed is a lush assortment of woods in the background, it’s not a straight cedar but there’s plenty of cedar present in the base and you guys know that’s a good way to get my attention. There’s also a fair amount of musk but it doesn’t stick around terribly long, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It has a definite progression, the “crisp edges” so to speak fade and you’re left with a very nice cedar drydown, sweetened with lime and a whisper of jasmine, it wasn’t until I saw it listed as a note and actively went looking for it that I noticed it. It’s marketed as unisex but this one, I believe, leans toward the masculine side rather heavily.

It wasn’t until I sat … (More) “Central Park – It’s Easy Being Green”

With the niche experiment winding down I’m hitting the second of three by Kilian Hennessy, Cruel Intentions, and this one was recommended explicitly for me out of not only the Kilian line but all of perfumery, by the Basenotes crew. Well, how am I supposed to not sample it when you get a recommendation like that?

Now, I’ve been wearing these fragrances to work, all of them, even the sugary-sweet concoction known as A Taste of Heaven. I wore Cruel Intentions two days ago on Sunday, hoping to see why it was recommended so highly. Still in high spirits from the job situation I elaborated on a few days ago, I entered work with a level of confidence and high spirits that I haven’t had in weeks (months?). I was more relaxed, smiling more, taking a deeper interest in customer issues. And Cruel Intentions was almost transparent, and this is where it’s gonna get hard to explain. I definitely smell it, a sort of refreshing mint gourmand that I’ve gotta describe as the olfactory equivalent of having a word on the tip of your tongue. It was so familiar to me, but yet so fleeting. That Sunday ended up being the busiest Sunday I think I’ve ever worked with the possible exception of the weekend after Christmas. I mean absolutely slammed to the point that even taking a lunch break was entirely out of the question.

But there was something strange; anything I tried to sell, the customer was buying. They just would not say no and I racked up sales (and commissions) all day long. By the end of the day I exceeded my typical commission payout by a mind-blowing 1,000%. I did better in one day than I typically do in the course of an entire … (More) “Cruel Intentions – Cologne to $$$ to.”