I Smell Therefore I Am

I resisted the Ramon Monegal line for a long time, for several old reliable reasons. The fragrances embody two emerging trends I'm no...

I have only the vaguest recollection of the Wind Song now being sold in drugstores. I remember buying it on impulse and, a few days later...

Watching Noontide Petals evolve over the last year or so has been a real highlight, during a period of time which was often dark and at t...

Nearly every American of a certain age remembers the neighborhood Avon lady. Avon, like Tupperware, was a massive Mid Century door to doo...

Unless cacao and vanilla combined are to be taken as the new oakmoss, Keiko Mecheri's Johana seems anything but a chypre to me, yet t...

If I'd been looking for a spokeswoman in the eighties, and had a sultry perfume to sell, Jaclyn Smith wouldn't have been my first...

Even when I was a kid and I knew nothing more about perfume than the fact that I liked it, I could see a through line from Halston, which...

A few years ago, when I discovered that Bonwit Teller carried the Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier line, I bought a few of my favorites over ...

When I first smelled Cuir Velours and Bois d'Ascese, the debut duo of fragrances by Julien Rasquinet for Naomi Goodsir, Bois d'As...

There weren't many surprises for me this year, but plenty of memorable moments. In May, for instance, after a grueling film shoot, I ...