fragrance reviews: __ diptyque do son __ i remember buying this fragrance one or two years before the pandemic hit. i was in my late twenties and living in chicago, and i was beginning to elevate my fragrance selections. feels like forever ago tbh. i had a cute little apartment in kenwood, steps away from chaka khan’s high school and maybe a block away from my favorite greasy spoon diner, valois. i took the bus to work and walked to campus to get lunch or visit special collections or browse new books at the seminary co-op. it was as if i was back in college, and after a couple years, i felt like i needed to try something else out. before do son, i proudly wore serge lutens a la nuit. i bought a used bottle off of ebay because most of my income went to my oakland rent (this was when i lived in california, a few years before i moved back to chicago). in a previous review, i made fun of my taste back then but i also get it. how can anyone have good taste when they pay rent in the bay? do son reminds me of my chicago energy. it’s warm and ambitious but also solid and semi-serious. it has a way of shielding me from other smells while also encouraging me to live my life. but the shield is significant and potentially limiting, maybe. i’m starting to realize that i might be too humble these days, and that i’m much slower to move & pursue things compared to when i lived in chicago. i think this is mostly good because it means i’m growing up, but i also don’t know about it. i need to revive my chicago energy while also channeling it in the right places and at the right moments. i love chicago but don’t know if i’ll move there anymore. it’s my favorite city because it’s where i formed a solid identity and voice thanks to the folks i met & befriended. but i’m not twenty-something anymore. i’m grandma and i know myself a bit better today. i don’t need to strive for solid — i can soften up some. i love do son and will continue wearing it over the summer, in places that are not chicago and in chicago, too. next up: tag cosmetics after 8. . . . __ l’eau d’issey, pt ii __ i might end up writing this review in three parts! l’eau d’issey has me thinking about a lot of things. i'll dive right in: this past week, i had conversations with friends about collaboration and community-building . . . we talked about how these things might manifest across cultural, racial, and generational bounds, what some of the challenges are, and what we have gained. yesterday, i wrote about not knowing a lot of things, but i don’t want to misrepresent myself. i’m not clueless and there are plenty of things i know, and i’m also okay with not knowing the things i don’t know. i feel like a lot of younger people don’t want to hear it from those of us who are "established" and settled into our adult lifestyles. i sense skepticism sometimes and try not to take it personally. instead, i think back to how i moved about the world ten or fifteen years ago — how did i prefer to receive feedback or guidance, and which methods proved to be more effective? i feel like a lot of us may be well-intended and also condescending when we address younger people, or even people who aren’t that much younger but are possibly infantilized for one reason or another. we might slip up and forget that allahu a3lam — that we’re limited in what we can offer this world, that we don’t know what we’re talking about because each person’s frame of reference is specific to them and not always in alignment with our belief systems, etc. there are things i don’t know and then there are things i do know, many of which come from being a black woman in america and just knowing what i know: knowing what feels good, knowing what feels off, and knowing when i’m happy versus sad versus uncomfortable or confused. this is knowledge that can’t really be challenged and it’s something i am learning to protect. l’eau d’issey has triggered some ambivalence in me because i can appreciate a lot of its qualities but don’t know whether i’m capable of embracing the watery melon notes. i don’t dislike them but i’m not yet at a place where i like them. if i could somehow create a melon-less adaptation, i would, but i can’t and that’s also fine. i can’t change the things that are less ideal or even disappointing about the fragrance, perhaps because there is something to learn from them. allahu a3lam , , , * * * __ l’eau d’issey, pt i __ i’m writing this review in two parts, because i don’t think i have enough to say about l’eau d’issey but i still want to say something. you ever feel that way sometimes? i do lol. i got this fragrance about a month ago, after many years of telling myself that i didn’t like it. i still need time with it but i’m no longer turned off by the aquatic notes. i guess things have changed or are changing -- allahu a3lam. for a while now i’ve tried to embrace the fact that i don’t know a lot of things, and i think being muslim has something to do with that. allahu a3lam means “only god knows,” i.e. god is all-knowing; humans are flawed and ignorant compared to them. beyond religious practice and affiliation, this statement reminds me that there are way too many things that are out of my control and i shouldn’t burden myself with them if i can help it. i had trouble accepting this when i began teaching nine-ish years ago; i wanted to be “the expert” because that title came with a form of respect that massaged my fragile ego at the time. but these days are different for me. my changing impression of l’eau d’issey appears to be in motion. i haven’t completed the cycle, i'm not sure if i even want to, and maybe that's enough for now because i’m hungry and need to use the toilet. . . . __ theodoros kalotinis jasmine of athens __ my mom cooked fried eggs yesterday, which we call bayd 3yoon in sudan. bayd 3yoon literally translates to egg eyes. it’s an interesting phrase that makes me wonder about similar body-food analogies that are found in english and our impressions of them. are kidney beans a popular food, for example, or is the analogy unappealing? is it the body that’s not appetizing, or the english language? when preparing bayd 3yoon, my mom heats both oil and ghee on the pan before frying the eggs, and she adds a generous amount of black pepper and salt near the end. when the pan is very hot and the eggs are still frying, she spoons hot grease over the yolks, then adds a small amount of water and covers the pan to trap the steam. near the end, the entire house smells buttery and warm with a subtle pepper backdrop, and the resulting eggs are bouncy with a crispy edge. my mom makes eggs that don’t at all taste eggy and i don’t know how she does it. i know i just described the process but i don’t think i could replicate it. maybe i’ll try someday, but i’m fine with not knowing. close your eyes and imagine a world in which fried eggs are a dessert. that’s what this fragrance is — fried eggs in dessert form, prepared with a small bowl of banana candies nearby, somewhere in the kitchen. you can’t see the banana candies but you can smell them. you can’t feel or taste the candy and you find yourself daydreaming about childhood sugar highs and belly laughs as an escape. the candy is right in front of you and also nowhere to be found. it’s in your mouth and discontinued at the same time. i remember going to bath & body works as a high school teen and genuinely thinking that i had good taste in fragrances. i remember thinking i had good taste in 2016! jasmine of athens is like an evolved memory of the naiveté that informed my younger self’s taste in perfume. it’s wholesome and curious — a handmade mashmallow that’s shaped like a fox — a long hug that lingers after pulling away, days or weeks later. it’s not the same thing as before, but it can’t help but relate. next up: one of the miyakes. * * * __ pierre guillaume néroli ad astra __ i smoked cigarettes when i was a graduate student and quit intermittently afterwards. a few years out, i went a long time without cigarettes but would occasionally have one with friends, which would turn into me smoking a couple times per day for a few weeks or months. i liked smoking after drinking wine. i thought it felt amazing at the time. i donno, i was in my twenties. this fragrance brings me back to grad school but it also diverges from that time a bit. the neroli notes aren't as obvious as in other fragrances that i've tried (e.g. les exclusifs de chanel eau de cologne and another that i'm forgetting); they meld with loud pear notes that make the fragrance's bright & bitter tones a little friendlier, child-like and perhaps insincere. it's as if the fragrance is trying to convince me that they are a good person when there is more to them than that. (and also, what's a good person? who wrote the criteria, and who actually satisfies it?) over time, the annoying pear notes dissipate but the sparks remain. this almost turns into a mossy scent but not really. a blend of air and something sparky -- fresh air and clutter that smells like a gentle tickle. a ticklish dream, perhaps. i like that it takes time for me to like the scent. it feels deliberate. i haven't had a cigarette in about three years, i don't want another cigarette, and my reasons for not wanting one aren't necessarily obvious. i am worried about the health consequences, of course, but i also recall smoking with people who were kind of shitty and/or uninteresting and just standing there . . . waiting for life to happen. not everyone was like this -- some were great people, some are still good friends of mine, but a lot were randoms who i would otherwise never interact with. imagine a world in which we can light up a cigarette without the chore of forced, lame conversations and nicotene addiction. i'm into it.