BRIAN: I love the girls from like Delaware who walk you through Britney Spears Curious in their bathrooms.
ELISA: I haven't seen that.
BRIAN: Here's one that seems promising:
BRIAN: She's slightly morose, which really endears her to me. It's like, ho hum, this is my favorite perfume, and I'd get excited about it, if I were the kind of person to show excitement. I like her.
ELISA: OMG she said epitome.
BRIAN: You know what I like? I like it when people on youtube reference their other videos. "As I said in video number thirty-four."
ELISA: "...For those of you familiar with my oeuvre." Whoa, is that Donna Karan Signature?
BRIAN: Listen, she has very good, very quirky taste. I'm telling you. I like her.
ELISA: I know, she even said she's a snob. She knows, she knows.
BRIAN: Signature is her ALL TIME FAVORITE perfume. Literally no other perfume like it. I love her.
ELISA: She said "all time favorite" about like all of them, though. Just saying. Still, yes, I am impressed with her taste.
BRIAN: The only thing she doesn't like about Signature is--not the bottle, but the rubbery, annoying, crappy jamming atomizer. And she asks if anyone knows how to fix it. This is a common problem with Signature.
ELISA: Now Clarins! Who is this girl?
BRIAN: I know. If she pulls out vintage Mary Quant I'm going to get on a plane and show up in her Belgravia bathroom. Signature is good. Me, I like moody, pouty, sort of idiosyncratic things.
ELISA: Pouty! Name a pouty perfume. I automatically think rose.
BRIAN: Also, the kind that are really pissed off about something and they won't shut up about it. I like those, too. There's one by Phillippe Venet that I found in a discount store here. It was a tester and they don't sell it anymore so I got it for next to nothing. That one is pouty. It smells sort of like Angel and you go, Hmmm, okay, Angel. But then you realize no it's not Angel at all, and the perfume is like, Screw you. Like it resents being mistaken for Angel. It reminds me of one of the Russian girls who sell perfume at the kiosk here. She wears bright shimmery things that are lopsided or too small and always seems like she'd rather be out clubbing. She's strong and a little trashy.
ELISA: I always think things smell like Angel, until I get to know them, and they become their own people. Do you match your perfume to your mood or something else?
BRIAN: It's probably matched to my mood but I don't think much about it. I just grab until I've filled up my hands or whatever bag I happen to be carrying.
ELISA: Trashy is one of my top five characteristics in a perfume.
BRIAN: Trashy perfumes like...?
ELISA: Maurice Roucel stuff for sure. L de Lolita de Lempicka, Roberto Cavalli Oro, Broadway Nite, Tocade and Missoni (though the last two aren't faves of mine). The man knows trash! I think Fracas is trashy. Paris too. It's hard to get a perfume that's garish and sweet and yet still complex.
BRIAN: Some people call them cheap and cheerful but that doesn't get there for me.
ELISA: Oh yeah, not at all. Cheerful is like, a secretary.
BRIAN: I think Sophia Grojsman is trashy.
ELISA: Yes! I had a spray of Calyx on my hand earlier today.
BRIAN: It's like, Hey, I'm Paris; I'm cheerful. I'm rose! And I'm like, um, no, you're a semi in a low cut leopard print dress.
ELISA: Paris is rose, but her friend is holding her hair so she can puke.
BRIAN: Yvresse is ALMOST trashy.
ELISA: Ooh, I've never smelled Yvresse.
BRIAN: I bet you'd like it. It's PEACH. Big, stonkin spiced peach.
ELISA: Oh, fun. Jaipur is pretty trashy too.
BRIAN: Yvresse is like Mitsouko in a tight skirt with gold chains dangling from the waist like a Versace belt, but then the blouse is super classy.
ELISA: Now that sounds like an awesome outfit.
BRIAN: It's really gorgeous. Here's another video:
ELISA: Argh, this is loading slow for me. I'm on the edge of my seat about her favorite perfume! Don't tell me if you know already!
BRIAN: I won't.
ELISA: She doesn't consider body sprays perfume. That's something. The suspense is killing me!
BRIAN: It's like Mission Impossible. Who knows what will happen next!?
ELISA: Seriously, she'll get out like three words and then it hangs. Did she plan this?
BRIAN: I think that's just how she talks.
ELISA: "It's my favorite smell ever..." I think I love this girl even more than the last.
BRIAN: I like her way with a story.
ELISA: What timing. I like how her V-neck is so low it's not even in the frame.
BRIAN: It's your turn to find one.
ELISA: Okay. Looking, looking...
BRIAN: Waiting, waiting...
ELISA: This girl has a feel for the trashy:
ELISA: Keep an ear out for the way she says "also".
BRIAN: Okay.
ELISA: "Old people can wear it," she says.
BRIAN: My favorite line so far: "I'm going to try to describe the scents to you, so we'll see how that geroers."
ELISA: We will indeed! All her bottles are like pastel UFOs.
BRIAN: The word milliliters is quite a hurdle for her.
ELISA: IT'S LONG.
BRIAN: It's...tricky.
ELISA: Weird how she equates strong to a men's scent.
BRIAN: At 1:06 she sprays it then dives below camera to smell it. I thought she might fall! It was like she was plummeting into another dimension. Perilously.
ELISA: She's probably wearing heels.
BRIAN: The bottles are Jolly Rancher fantasias. "The mini Fantasy, the mini Curious, the mini Believe..." I so need a mini fantasy. Even a macro mini fantasy.
ELISA: The "normal fantasy."
BRIAN: She likes Lovely.
ELISA: There's one other total oddball in there, too.
BRIAN: Perfect present for your mother if you know your mother doesn't want to smell old(!)
ELISA: Very tactful. I also like it when they say "hey guys" like they know me.
BRIAN: I like how she is preoccupied with tasteful.
ELISA: Did you get to White Diamonds yet?
BRIAN: Her grandmother gave it to her!
ELISA: I know!!!!!!!
BRIAN: It's very grown up, she admits. I appreciate that she doesn't say old. She's merciful.
ELISA: She's a sweetie.
BRIAN: Can I just tell you how happy it makes me that so many people record themselves talking about their favorite perfumes?
ELISA: This is bad. I could watch these all night. I love that it's like A GENRE. There are CONVENTIONS. For instance, it's important to keep the bottles out of view until you are ready to cover each one.
BRIAN: Also, "Hey Guys." Did you ever see that video:
ELISA: WHOA.
BRIAN: Brilliant.
ELISA: Anthropologists would think it was one word. This is their greeting: "HEIGUIZ."
BRIAN: It's maniacal. My favorites are the gay guys. Hey Gays!
ELISA: This is so weird. I'm thinking WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER SAY THAT? Man, if they had webcams when I was a teen, I shudder to think.
BRIAN: I like the contrasting moods and tones here. Some are downright morose.
ELISA: My favorites girls are the ones who act all bored.
BRIAN: Sullen.
ELISA: Like, Oh, YOU AGAIN.
BRIAN: It's like an obligation.
ELISA: Well, here I am, making another dumb video about my face.
BRIAN: Like the words are a verbal frown. We should stop.
ELISA: You're not going to post this whole thing, are you? You might break the internet.
BRIAN: We should make this a regular thing, called Hi Guys. We can review the latest youtube perfume videos.
ELISA: This Week in the Perfume Vids.
Find more Elisa here.
You guys are terrible. Thank you!!!
ReplyDeleteThe "HEIGUIZ" mashup is priceless.
omfg, that was entertaining. all of it. there's just so much win here.
ReplyDeleteMy God I couldn't understand the first one and she was English . I fell asleep for a while . I think these are trials for Q.V.C presenters which went horribly wrong. Maybe the fragrance companies are forcing young women at gunpoint...no it's too horrible.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abc.net.au/tv/summerheightshigh/#home
ReplyDeleteWatching no 3 made me think of Summer Heights High via Australian Broadcasting commission.
Her accent was a little strange at first, but then as she relaxed into it...became Australian "Valley girl".
I read this again, thinking, My, we're jaded. I love these girls. They scare me. Technically, they rule the world, when you think about it. There are lit-rally thousands and thousands of them on youtube and further out in the provinces (the un-televised bedrooms, bathrooms, suburbs of the world). I want to get them all in one bathroom to gab about their perfumes. Can you imagine the cacophony?
ReplyDeletePurple sweater girl #2 (I think her name was missayela) spoke so movingly about Georgio Armani Sensi I wanted to go out and smell it right away. She said it makes her feel beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI'm as addicted to you guyzez blog as I am to my favorite perfumes!
ReplyDeleteI love their *sans gêne*, it is sooo
ReplyDelete21st Century !
There are so many things we missed here. I like how the first girl says that sometimes she feels nervous and she sprays Jardin to calm her down.
ReplyDeleteI love how the first blonde girl says that she loves So in Love by Victoria's Secret but she just can't wear it because she'll get a headache and HER HAIR WILL HURT!
Sigh. I'm in love, y'all.
Thank you, Zanne. We're sort of a gateway drug, I think.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, you've finally made me realize why I love Sophia Grojsman: she is trashy. Her compositions are all trashy (except White Linen, which isn't like the rest of them anyway). They're all firmly rooted in the healthy, American, bigger-is-better bang-for-your-buck Lauder mentality, which is pretty much what I look for in a perfume. Perhaps it wasn't trashy to begin with, but I think Yvresse is definitely well past the point of trashy now since it foreshadowed the blaring Bath and Body Works sweet fruity Peach Fantasia things that scent most women today. Also its Virginia Slims-worthy advertising campaign.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently soaked in about eight sprays of Spellbound, have a throbbing headache, and couldn't be happier.
I love this post!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful to realize that there are "young" women all over the world who appreciate the power of fragrance.
I adore the first girl (English girl in purple top....) She is articulate, selective, discerning and her comments about her understanding of fragrance is wise-beyond-her-years powerful. She UNDERSTANDS how a perfume like Donna Karan Signature, made to smell like the "feeling" of DK's husband is so.....poignant. I was mesmerized by her comments.
AND her comment about spritzing Jardin sur le Nil to calm her soul. Utterly beautiful, and true.
It gives me hope for the survival of perfumery.
Thanks for the alternately moving and chuckle inducing post.
Smiling mightly.
Ah..Hahhahahahha! ha!
ReplyDelete"If I'm feeling worried, I spray this on...and I'm relaxed." (Un Jardin Sur...) "I like the bottle as well." (Euphoria) "...no other perfume like it," holds up robo-duck. Right up perfumista alley, all those comments. (Yeah, the sprayer.) And then the kicker, on DK attempting to bottle the smell of her husband's neck: "Much more immediate than ambitions to bottle a feeling."
ReplyDeleteAnd the she buys a perfume specifically to address the concern about what image she is projecting to a potential paramour. Ultimately, "it's not very charismatic," but "sometimes you do just want to smell like a lovely girl, and not give too much of yourself away."
She is for real, dudes.
If there is mockery here, I'm not part of it.
But here's what I don't get about something I see crop up here, and in Katie P's videos, too...a visual conceit, as it were...they sniff the atomizer to check in with the scent. Do you do that? There is no way I could count on pulling a bottle out and being able to pull off the cap and get its smell, let alone its full personality.
But that gesture is kind of universal...I think of it from movies, too...whether one is (supposedly) picking up the scent of a perfume, or the scent of a person.
Anyway, that is an interesting sub-genre of You Tube channel. Good to know, should Facebook not happen to eat all my time any given day. ;)
nah, no mockery. Appreciation society, for sure. I like these ladies a lot, especially the first. I like how personal their takes are, all of them, but the first one really gets me. Elisa and I checked out some of her other videos and I'm now officially a fan. For me this is the present generation's version of bedroom symphonies, where a teen goes into his/her bedroom and interfaces with an imagined audience, and creates something. And we get to watch it. It's sweet, and goofy, and sometimes pretty smart. I think these ladies have as much if not more to say as anyone else talking about perfume. And they seem to be a lot more fun to read.
ReplyDeleteI definitely sniff the atomizer! If you haven't sprayed from the bottle in more than a few weeks, it doesn't really work, but anything that's in regular rotation, you get a pretty damn good sense of the scent, similar to smelling it on paper. I rarely, however, sniff the cap, which I've seen some people do, including Katie. That's more elegant, but I just shove the nozzle right up by my nostril.
ReplyDeleteThe woman who runs a discount store here in town sprays in the cap and it drives me nuts. You can smell the plastic more than the perfume, often. When she does it, I look at her like, Really? Are we doing that whole thing again? I know it's DRAINING to spray on paper. I know it's wasteful. There are all sorts of reasons not to. It's just a need I have.
ReplyDeleteI always spray on paper with a tester -- it's just my OWN perfume I don't like to waste. :) Sometimes I just want a quick hit without the pressure to commit. I am constantly passing by my collection and stopping for a hit.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. I'm a big bottle sniffer. I sit in front of my perfume all the time, pulling out bottles, sniffing a little here, a little there. But it's like the thing where you know, I can call my best friend a nudge, but you call my best friend a nudge and suddenly I'm all...EXCUSE ME? Who you callin a nudge? That's how I feel about the bottle caps in a store thing. I could possibly do it, but when someone else does it's like they double dipped or something.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I agree, it's stingy and also seems kinda unsanitary.
ReplyDeleteBrian, OMG. Never saw any of these types of videos (except for the perfect Katie Puckrick), but when I did a Google search for a scent, look what I found!!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.expotv.com/Fragrance/c43
I love how casual those are, Karin. I wonder. Do people get paid to do reviews like that. It's almost like they picked up the only half empty bottle of cologne/perfume nearby to review. Riveting.
ReplyDeleteOk, I see what the site's about. They do get paid, based on hits? Check out this gal:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.expotv.com/BPAL-Hellfire-Perfume-Oil/H-13VG
She's amazing. Very good.