THE SEA, THE SEA.. .. THE MARINER’S RHYME by FRANCESCA BIANCHI (2024) + PELAGOS BY DUSITA (2024)

N: You like and wear marine perfumes much more than I do. 

D: Yes, especially in summer – in fact, almost exclusively so.

N: On roiling hot Japanese August days I will sometimes wear some Kenzo Pour Homme for nostalgia purposes (that stick deodorant works well with the original unreformulated bottle I still have in the frosted glass bamboo), and I can do aquatic tropicalic florals quite happily, but somehow algae, waves and salt smell better on you, even though you are not a natural swimmer. 

D: Never been a water baby, sadly, unlike you. 

N: I have never understood people who prefer municipal pools. Warm, chlorinated water potentially laced with old piss. Goggles that suck your eyeballs in, caps that hurt the scalp and make you look foolish. And then swimming around in formulation with some calloused old foot in your face as you swallow the ‘water’. Yuck. Give me a rock to dive off from and some ocean anyday, even when you go headfirst straight into a school of jellyfish, as you will remember I did twice at the beach in Hayama. I had quite the stinging. 

D: Yes, your shoulder and arm were like strawberry jam. A real toxic baptism.

N: And yet I still went back the next year and the same thing happened again!  I just love the beach there.

Onto the oceanics as a genre. I have been into perfume long enough to remember the precise shock of the arrival of the aquatics; Sunflowers, New West, then Kenzo and Escape and all the rest; they felt unnatural, weird – it was like splitting the atom; iconoclastically new and different. Cool Water struck me as being a bridge between the two worlds – oceanic-ish – but didn’t have the full bonanza of later horrors such as Acqua Di Gio Pour Homme, where you were given the full symphonics of every possible note shot through with overdoses of calone to the point that you could taste it in your dinner or your drink at the bar. I am really glad those days are over:  the unnatural repugnance of Calvin Klein Escape and Givenchy Fleurs D’Interdit which then of course later spawned the unforgiveable Chloe. 

Anyway, I digress. The modern oceanics are more ocean centered, more focused,  less everything but the kitchen sink, and I prefer that. You smell amazing in Filippo Sorcinelli’s Nebbia Spessa for example, and I really like you in Heeley Sel Marin and Art De Parfum’s Le Joker, although for me, the correct dosage is vital. Too much of any of these – of any marine – and I am gagging in revulsion. For me the weather, the amount, the surroundings all are very key. I am still a bit daunted by this genre of fragrance, ultimately. 

D: Yes, I loved Nebbia Spessa as soon as I smelled it. A salty sweet halo that is modern and cooling and minimalistic – and yet puts me into a vast misty reverie. It’s kind of genius I think. Heeley Sel Marin adds in a little citric warmth – Heeley scents are suave but I like that about them, not a muddy number among their range – and Le Joker has a more turpentinic tang and that nutmeg, which is very sexy – more grit to it. Three great scents, but yeah, apply with restraint: there’s a thin line between suspending yourself in salty bliss and poisoning those in your proximity. I think I just adore marine and ozonic notes with musks and oakmoss.

N: Francesca Bianchi’s new creation The Mariner’s Rhyme is an exquisite marine perfume. The tone is similar to Sel Marin in its mid toned mellowness, but without the latter’s slightly overconceited suavity (Marin just loves his own sillage just that little bit too much). I find this one of the most poetic marines I have smelled, really cool and relaxing, but with an edge. The citruses and herbs are all in perfect balance, the oceanic notes lilting and drifting on the breeze, but there is also something else lurking beneath – something that really draws you in. I think she has nailed this one. 

D: What a wonderful list of ingredients: bergamot, grapefruit, lavender and elemi on top – lavender gives a sort of leathery aromatic quality when you first spray it; orange blossom, iris, ozonic notes at the centre – love that iris is there – so classy; ambergris, oakmoss, patchouli, incense at the base. Definitely comparable to Sel Marin – refreshing and cooling, elegant – but as you say, it has an added enigma. Really good. 

N: In comparison with the oceanic serenity of The Mariner’s Rhyme, Pissara Umavijani’s Grecian sea odyssey, Pelago – a marine iris fougere – is more assertively powerful and unforgettable, but I have my own fundamental personal issues with the fougere- as soon as a perfume dries down to that macho swagger I get angry as a Pavlovian Rottweiler – but that is just due to my own history with aggressive males and their scented associations.  There is some of that in the base of this scent – Pelagos is a real tuxedo killer with a dark heart of poisonous indigo (the new James Bond? or his new nemesis?); a very hot individual that I can’t help being attracted to up to a point until he reveals that aggression – but the perfumer nimbly avoids the usual pitfalls of straight manliness that put me off the last perfume, La Rhapsodie Noire, where the delicious lavender licorice of the top ceded eventually to a man we have all met a thousand times before. I think the cool iris in the top here of Pelagos combined with the darker notes is very clever and original, like a muscular nude in satin sheets of midnight blue   – it is extrait strength and it really feels like it! – but I can’t be entirely objective about Pelagos. I was with Pissara when she was wearing it that day in Ginza, and smelling it again is one of the most sensorially immediate experiences I have ever had. I am there with her again, viscerally, immediately, when I smell it. The court therefore orders the jury not to consider this evidence. 

How does it work on you?

D: Well, I liked the opening and the ending, but there is something hovering about the middle that I just didn’t get with. It’s powerful and impressive – a sultry heaviness at the heart (that must be the indolic jasmine with orris, thyme and tonka bean – buttressed by woods on top and below – pine, sandalwood, vetiver) like a vintage perfume in its way – but ultimately not for me. I’m an Issara and Le Pavillon d’Or boy through and through – I don’t really understand Pelagos – maybe it is the jasmine adding a weighty twang? Sure it will work wonders on some, though. It’s very idiosyncratic, as you’d expect from Pissara – she’s always bold and interesting. 

But you omit my favourite modern salty marine scent: the luxuriant, lilting, megawafting aquatic dreamboat, Mémoires d’une Palmeraie 11. I know you tend to shudder when I pick it up and once said I could fill a soccer stadium with two squirts of that (I have regularly transformed the bus with it). 

N: I have an excellent memory connected with that one. Following you on the bike when we went out for a stroll one summer. One shot to the wrist, in the air around you, was like actually being by the sea. So salty it made me physically thirsty. 

THE PERFECT L’AIR DU TEMPS (1948)

We would never wear L’Air Du Temps (within minutes of application last night D began sprouting a curvy hourglass figure – it’s just too old school, deep musky estrogen feminine ) but the perfect, eugenolic clove and carnation aldehydes in this immaculately preserved vintage (80’s?) Ricci canister that he found yesterday for £2.50 (¥500) made me feel as though I were standing on a never ending beach : miles and miles of sea and sky ; a sense of euphoric possibility.

Yes, it’s a masterpiece. The extrait you see pictured is also pristine, softer, more cherubimic; together, they form an immutable part of the collection.

TANGO IN HIROO: AN EVENING WITH NATALIA OUTEDA, THE FOUNDER OF FRASSAÏ, AT THE EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA, INCLUDING THE 2024 RELEASE, DORMIR AL SOL

Guest post by D

As Neil was otherwise disposed, on Friday evening I attended, on his behalf, the Nose Shop’s event at the Embassy of Argentina, introducing the perfumes of Frassaï. This Argentinian niche brand was featured in Neil’s perfume workshop in Honolulu, as the ‘scent bar’ – a contemporary niche brand sampling station – had three Frassaï scents: Blondine (2017), A Fuego Lento (2018) and Victoria (2022). Blondine had proven the most popular of the three at the workshop, although actually we had warmed to A Fuego Lento and Victoria, which are rather more reserved and unusual compositions. On Instagram Neil wrote: “in this era of unsubtle tooth-rotting scents for women, how wonderful to smell perfumes that are rich yet intriguing and delicately put together” so this was an excellent chance to sample the rest of the range and meet the founder, Natalia Outeda.

The Argentinian Embassy is tucked away in Hiroo, next to Arisugawa Park, in a leafy, upmarket district of Tokyo between Ebisu and Azabu. I was half expecting to have to present my passport/have my bags searched upon arrival, but actually the embassy is pretty chill. There were few formalities; just a smiley concierge and the Nose Shop staff, who choregraphed the whole event with considerable efficiency and charm. I presented our business cards at reception, and was conveyed into the function room, where Natalia was seated with her Japanese interpreter and the ten perfumes that comprise her range, flanked, as you would expect, by the flags of Argentina and Japan. It’s an unfussy space with three rooms in muted tones, hung with oil paintings: a small reception area, a larger room for meetings and presentations and a long antechamber with a large table set for mate tea and wine tasting afterwards. 

The talk began with the Argentinian ambassador, Mr. Eduardo Tempone, giving a brief introduction in Spanish, and then the Nose Shop compere introduced topics and questions which Ms Outeda answered in English, followed by an explanation in Japanese by her interpreter. She started by introducing the Frassaï brand, which is now just over a decade old (founded 2013) and has ten scents in its range, eight of which were inspired by the nature, history and musical and literary culture of Argentina. It is one of the few niche perfume brands from Argentina (perhaps the most famous being Julian Bedel’s Fueguia 1833, which has a shop in nearby Roppongi Hills) and the first fronted by a woman. Given the fast pace of most perfume production and marketing these days, Frassaï prides itself on taking its time: developing the scent story behind each creation, sourcing natural and sustainable ingredients, where possible from Argentina, and collaborating with perfumers that resonate with Ms Outeda’s approach. Having worked with top perfume brands in New York from 2005 until she relocated to Buenos Aires and set up Frassaï, she made the conscious decision to eschew the rapid pace of commercial perfumery and make slow perfumes – and this was a concept she continually came back to throughout the talk – with the key inspiration coming from Argentinian culture: the elegant capital itself, the pampas grasslands and the dramatic landscapes of Patagonia, the iconic gaucho, Astor Piazzolla and the tango, as well as influential artistic figures such as the twentieth century doyenne of letters, Victoria Ocampo. Early praise and recognition from Luca Turin set the brand off to an auspicious start.

Ms Outeda started the evening’s scent journey with explanations of four scents from her collection that foreground her touchstone Argentine inspirations, kicking off with Verano Porteño (2017) (potent summer, the title taken from a Piazzolla tango) which aims to evoke a gentle breeze wafting through Buenos Aires of a summer evening, with bergamot, clementine, cardamom, imperial jasmine, vetiver and Argentinian yerba mate. I was struck by the white flowers and green stems: it’s like crushing white summer flowers – jasmine, magnolia – petals and leaves, in your hand – green with gentle undertones of citrus – notes that feel natural and in harmony – no shrill chemicals here to needle the brain. A nice opener. 

She moved on to Teisenddu (2018), one of the brand’s most popular products, a spicy, bitter orange and mimosa accented, rum-soaked number, which straddles the wood and gourmand categories, and is based on Natalia’s grandmother’s cake recipe. This black fruit-filled burned raw sugar confection was adapted from a recipe brought to South America by Welsh immigrants in 1865 and Frassaï’s stealthily rich interpretation is far from the characteristic blaring vanillarama of many gourmands. Warmth with depth and mystery. Recommended.

Then on to Cuir Pampas (2020) – one of two scents taking inspiration from the landscape of the pampas grasslands- this more masculine accord (though actually billed as unisex) takes on the nomadic el gaucho cowboys, often pictured on horseback with a stripey blanket about their shoulders (famously, one of the inspirations for spaghetti westerns as well as countless cat walk lewks, gaucho style interestingly evolved from a melange of native fabrics and Spanish settler equestrian garb): as you might expect, a drier concoction of leather, woods and grasses, with green mate and black pepper thrown in for moisture and pep; earthy, leathery, somewhat green.

On to Victoria (2022), (which I was wearing), a tribute to Victoria Ocampo (1890- 1979), one of the leading literary figures of South America for much of the twentieth century, friends to many prominent artists, writers and composers, and an emancipated modern woman who used her fortune to sponsor and promote the arts. This scent features tuberose but in a less powerhouse buttery mode than other renditions, it is combined with oud and pink litchi – an example of choosing “qualitative ingredients to highlight a story.” Ms Outeda commented that the pairing of tuberose and oud is an unusual one and I certainly appreciated the unclichéed restraint in that accord, so used to (and increasingly bored with) rose ouds. The oud seems to make the tuberose less creamy, whilst the tuberose prevents the oud from dominating the composition as it is often wont to do. I enjoyed wearing Victoria, with its soft sweet floral drydown. I’m not sure if it conjures literary or emancipated or, as the blurb has it, ‘bold,’ but its pleasant aura was enjoyable to lean into from overture to dying ember.

Then we moved on to her new release, Dormir Al Sol (2024), about falling asleep in the sun, a metaphor for living in the sun-kissed moment. This is a chirpy scent with notes that include lime and mandarin over mimosa, guaiac wood, saffron, brandy, vetiver and patchouli. I have it on my hand now as I write this and after the initial citrus evaporates, I feel a sweet creamy saffron note predominate. I would like to wear this in the sun to see what happens, and though saffron is not really my thing, I can appreciate the modernity and sunlit optimism of Dormir Al Sol. 

When asked about her favourite scents she selected A Fuego Lento (2018), a slow burn of sueded jasmine (that is also Neil’s favourite) and El Descanso (2020), an enigmatic accord featuring bran absolute,  ombú leaves (a huge evergreen, native to the Pampas), galbanum, with cedar wood and sandalwood, that is described as the scent of wheatfields stretching into the limitless Pampas horizon. This serene scent was the one I selected to take away at the end, and I shall definitely enjoy it in the coming weeks. On my skin it has a dusky, sylvian soft powderiness which is very calming and unobtrusive and yet somewhat fresh at the same time – it’s shadowy and well, yes, enigmatic. It definitely keeps its distance, hovering on an olfactory horizon which could be a little faint for some.

Ms Outeda was at pains to stress the brand’s efforts to minimize packaging with recycled wood, simple labeling and a no-cellophane policy. The bottles, which have a grounded solidity to them, are labelled over the rounded square edge – an eccentric and unique quirk of presentation. Perfumes are produced in limited batches of 400 or 500 bottles at a time with the slow mission very much at the heart of everything. She praised her perfumers, spoke of the Chinese inspirations behind Tian Di (2017), affirmed her love of travel and new places (the motto of the brand is ‘Embark upon a new sensorial experience’), and hinted at a possible Japan-inspired creation. By this point, we had covered a lot of ground and rather than moving to a Q and A session, we were treated to a selection of Argentinian wines and maté, empanadas, roast beef and cucumber sandwiches and caramel cream desserts and we were able to speak with Natalia, the embassy staff and the Nose Shop assistants. An enjoyable informative night giving a strong sense of the Frassaï aesthetic and its place in the niche market. With these subtle and varied creations that do actually embody the blurb around them, the brand may well find a dedicated following among Japanese consumers. Definitely left me wanting to learn more about the process behind the creation of these scents which was only briefly touched upon – but that is a whole other matter for another day. 

I left with Hiro Nakayama who is founder of Bridge and Blend (@bridgeandblend), a contemporary Japanese incense company (whose incense cones we had sampled back around the start of the pandemic – they left a very pleasing ambience in the room after burning), highly knowledgable in all matters olfactory – fascinating to learn about the Japanese incense scene and the challenges of setting up a new brand – and we took a taxi to Hiroo station, going our separate ways. I stopped off in Bistro D’Arbre in Ebisu for a quick apple endive salad with mushroom quiche, washed down with a glass (or two) of C’est Bien Comme Ca! red (delish), then ended the evening with Neil and beer talking over the scents and the week.

2010s scents, 2020s scents, Frassaï, Natalia Outeda, NoseShop

EAU RIHLA by DIPTYQUE (2021)

This has just made it to Japan as a ‘new’ release by the perfume house that always has young hip things queueing up at concessions throughout city department stores here to suck up the wares for self pampering or gifts – Diptyque remains very much in vogue.

I prefer the greener Diptyques : L’Ombre Dans L’Eau, Philosokos, Eau De Lierre, Eau Duelle; the aquatics – Huis Clos, Florabellio or else the spicy and weird 70’s ( L’Eau, L’Eau Lente, L’Eau Trois and especially the gloriously spectral Vinaigre), although the only Diptyque that actually thrills me is the insane rasping wisteria sambac hysterical floral Olene. Yes – I need a new bottle of that.

I don’t really do their musky inbetween type beige perfumes like Fleurs De Peau or Eau Papier, a mid musk that eventually ruins their otherwise nice woody patchouli, Tempo as well, and a general category – thicker, woodier, Tam Dao and Oud Palao included, in which I would probably place this stronger eau de parfum ( there is a biscuitiness I don’t enjoy in some Diptyque perfumes, like cookies that have been left far too long in a jar).

That said, Rihla is an exceptionally smooth oud leather vanilla – effortlessly blended – with a dense cedar wood heart and a radiating undertone of perfectly balanced raspberry that gives it a soft friendliness not present, say, in the most famous cuirish framboise, Tom Ford Tuscan Leather. The hookah red fruit note reminds me a little of Givenchy Hot Couture’s raspberry pipe tobacco finish, which I always had a bit of a soft spot for. It is a stylish, wearable leather – not for me- but I can appreciate Fabrice Pellegrin’s craftmanship. A ‘slow’ leather, done Diptyqueishly.

A HEAVEN OF SWEET PEAS…… …featuring POIS DE SENTEUR DE CHEZ MOI EXTRAIT by CARON (1927)

There is often something very moving for me about a real profusion of flowers. The cascades of wisteria at flower parks in Japan, the banks of cherry blossom along city rivers, rose gardens in the English dusk. But all of these places are public: made for picnicking and photographing with other people. We go to them with the explicit purpose of immersing ourselves in their scented presence as a specific day out – busloads of tourists go off to visit the tulips or the fields of lavender in Hokkaido : sometimes the very ‘Event Flower’ nature of floral abundance can take something away from their pleasure. Sometimes you want them all just for yourself.

Which is what happened on Saturday. And with sweet peas….flowers I cherish for some reason but which I have never seen in plurality – only a few trailing in my childhood garden or as part of a posey – until we happened to stumble upon a row of greenhouses that were packed to the rafters with them in shades of every pink through purple to blueish mauve with the most remarkably rich perfume that made me well up even when just smelling it through the glass.

We had just been to a vintage furniture shop in the middle of nowhere, a sunny, balmy afternoon, and were walking back past the Samukawa shrine to Miyama station when I spotted the Sweet Pea Farm, the flowers’ names posted in katakana outside on a wooden board – ‘Sweet Peas For Sale’.

There didn’t seem to be anybody there, the office in shambles with bunches of freesias, snapdragons and the pease left randomly on the floor with semi-cut bits of old ribbons and shears. Drawn in by the scent, which was rich and deep, even if I was trespassing I knew I could feign gaijin ignorance and get away with it so before I knew it I had found an opening to the first glasshouse and gone ungingerly inside.

My goodness. It was like being in a John Singer Sergeant painting. A fairy’s dream. The scent, the colour, as the exquisite light filtered down through the slats onto the flowers felt extravagantly beautiful and I felt unanchored. I saw the old lady, who was obviously hard of hearing, as she hadn’t heard us – nor seen us because of the sheer volume of sweet peas everywhere – gathering some fresh flowers, and I knew I wanted some that had just been picked rather than a bouquet that had been lying around on the floor. She noticed us, but didn’t start, or panic, as could easily happen if you suddenly found two strangers uninvited in your flower farm; she just smiled. I oneirically drifted a while longer through the space, taking deep breaths of the scent, which truly was like the oiled extrait of Caron’s original Pois De Senteur De Chez Moi I once had the fortune to receive in the post courtesy of the duchess of vintage perfume, Brielle, we then bought a couple of bunches from the lady, as well as some small turnips she had grown there in other soil, and went on our way. Wrapped in plastic, the flowers wilted, their freshness dissipating by the minute – they are now in the room I am writing this and the scent is way past their best. But I will never forget the sheer captivation of coming across that place so unexpectedly ; neither the vision, the atmosphere, nor the smell. It was pure magic.

THE MUSIC AND THE MAIKO : HERITAGE by GUERLAIN (1992) + COSTA BLANCA MUSK by PRIMERA PARFUMS KUWAIT ( 2023)

There is nothing connecting these two perfumes aside from the fact that we wore them on Saturday night. The Guerlain – a peppery lavender amber – that I found retrograde when it was released and came to love, was just the right thing for a balmy then chilly evening on the water. D has taken a shine to this perfume from Kuwait – rose, tea, ‘patchouli fruit’ and a loukhoumish musk – mid toned, long lasting, fresh and aromatic – and I rather like it on him : its pinkness was perfect for the cherry blossom.

🌸

Which we didn’t see that much of actually because it was too cold to go out on the deck, and I was enjoying watching the trainee geisha, or maiko, doing their thing. They smelled of powder and delicately scented hair oil for their elaborate head pieces ( you couldn’t exactly call it ‘hair’): while dignified and with a definite presence – geisha are actually a lot rarer than you might imagine; my friend Setsuko (in kimono) had never met one before – they struck me as being charming , very talented – and just a little bit naughty.

about to go on a cherry blossom viewing cruise with some live yokohama geisha

excited !

CARON INFINI COLOGNE (1970)

Shalimar Cologne. Mitsouko Cologne. Madame Rochas Cologne. Nuit De Noel Cologne. All the classics used to have their own lighter, fresher varietals for daily wear – though Jean Desprez’s Bal A Versailles Cologne is notoriously the skankiest of the set. Infini I have in all the strengths, being particularly partial to the parfum de toilette, the first iteration I ever discovered, as well as the hyacinthine, narcissus filled parfum.I had never seen this particular box when I walked past a knick knack shop yesterday having walked away from the gleamier spanking clean department store that houses the cinema to the more laid back and human area we feel more at home in – and had to have it.

This morning I decided to do a live opening.

What would it be like inside ? The lady at the shop said it had never been opened. And I believed her.

Always something so magical and yet slightly disrespectful and desecrating about tearing open something that has lain undisturbed in its plastic wrapping, but obviously I wanted to smell it. At ¥5500, or 28 pounds, this was more expensive than a proper fleapit level bargain, but still hardly expensive for a vintage Caron.

Love this side of the box !

As I opened the perfume I could smell it. Uh oh. Never a good sign.

But not old, congealed spillage.

New.

But fret not !

I am not delivering another of my perfect disasters – just a partial one.

The lady had not been lying I don’t think.

The perfume hadn’t been opened – look at the plastic sealer –

– but probably I had *just* been lugging it around upside or something and there had thus been some tragic seepage.

It is very nice. Soft musked sandalwood with a heart of pure garden rose I have not encountered in other editions as well as a very violety facet that I like very much indeed ( plus, there is another bottle there if I should so need it so weep for me not yet).

Plus !

At the shop down the street, a tin pan alley of kitchenware and old maps and fur coats and all the rest of it etc etc I picked up some other feisty treasure. It was almost 50 quid but what kind of perfume can you get for that these days when instead you can get

The L’Origan is fresh and powdery! Like a cherry maraschino compact. The Vol De Nuit is perfection. So is the Jolie Madame miniature – oh that violet leather base. We have a leather Montana coat upstairs so why not get a new bottle of Parfum De Peau for future extravaganzas ? And the Arpege.

THIS bottle.

I tried to hesitate to open it but you know me by now.

I get off just looking at the sticker.

Best of all, smell wise, is the unbelievably gorgeous ur floral Gardenia by Forever Florals. I know I went through all of the available wares by that Hawaiian brand when I was in Honolulu last year and none were as gorgeous as this. It is so luscious you almost want to hang your head in shame as you feel so lifeless in comparison: it reminds me of a ylang perfume I once bought in Hanoi that had a similar effect, as well as the pure tuberose oil – which I have still yet to write about – that I got in Hawaii that was so heady complete strangers were clawing at me in Tokyo one evening desperate to know what it was ( honestly , the most extreme reaction ever elicited by any perfume I have ever worn.)

Ah, perfume. Ah, flowers !

FITTING IN…….AUSLESE by SHISEIDO (1978) + NOBILE by GUCCI (1988) + SPIRITO by MEO FUSCIUNI (2019)

I go back to work on Monday after a wonderful spring break during which I have had a great balance between quietness and concentration on home, writing, and some wild nights out. Reality is hitting the fan though, or at least it ought to be, and I am in need of a smartening up so yesterday morning we went into Ofuna, marvelling how truly ugly and profoundly banal the plastic grey and beige Japanese suburbs can be architecturally as we got off the bus and made our way towards salariman megastore Konaka to get me a new suit (yes, of course in an ideal world I would be getting one made by Saint Laurent or some other fabulous garment producer: ideally, I would have my own personal clothes assistant in the form, say, of Kristen Stewart, just like the character she plays in Olivier Assayas’ brilliant Personal Shopper) but I live in a very different financial universe and the one I ended up getting, black as always, was by an actual London tailor I checked later – or rather, he had licensed his name out, which is still better than some of the fake Italian suit brands you get here who are actually based in the Japanese manufacturing zones. It fit. It looks okay.  

Scent wise, I was in the mood for something male. This is very rare. I just can’t do that profile any more. But the Shiseido lady continues to throw stuff out – how much product does she have; how many objects has she accrued over the decades?! We keep scoring with choice kitchenware, notebooks, bizarre ceramic animals and other tchotchkes  – and of course old perfume and cosmetics. She was getting rid of an Auslese shower cologne from the seventies which I thought I would give a try; I can do a herbal green manly aromatic much more than I can a typical fougère, whose aggravatory truisms evoke true detestation in me now to the point of phobia and madness; this is pleasant enough, and precisely the kind of thing that retired ex Japanese businessmen continue to wear when they play golf with their old buddies and their worried, strategic combovers. I wouldn’t not wear it again. 

It reminded me a bit of something: ah yes, Gucci Nobile, an ultra macho Italian eighties hey baby hardbodied casanova kind of a scent, which I have reviewed before and do rather like as a kind of cosplay; I had a little on my right wrist as a comparison to the Shiseido on the other, which faded quickly. Nobile just kept getting stronger, but there is a white powder under all the green and granite that is indeed kind of noble, although again, once the novelty began to wear off I could feel it slightly getting to me, as we sat in the cinema in Sakuragicho watching Laura Poitras’ brilliant documentary on the photographer Nan Goldin, All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, which won the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice Film Festival but which has only just come out here. A tripartite film that examines the artist’s tragic childhood, blossoming into a fearless pioneer of documenting her own life and that of her friends in the underbelly of New York in the 70’s and 80’s, it is also inspiring on the political level; she was one of the first people to try and bring the Sackler family to account for their knowing and willing role in the opioid crisis; as the makers of Oxycontin, which Goldin herself become addicted to and almost died from, she led a group of protesters who would occupy art galleries – which often featured her own work, as she has now long been an art icon – funded by the Sacklers. It couldn’t have been more riveting – I could happily have watched a 28 hour version as I was so fascinated by every single person in the film –  nor more scuzzily, darkly glamourous, even if the perfumes rising up from me at this point, now in Yokohama, not the greyness of the burbs, were starting to grate. 

D was wearing Meo Fusciuni’s Spirito, a neo-classical take on the masculine fougere, a trope, that just won’t go away, although in truth, thank the lord it has never really taken off in Japan and men here simply don’t smell like this, only barbarian foreign tourists. The beginning is nice; very sylvan, green, herbal, with cypress and hyssop and angelica; carrot seed and myrtle, elemi and chamomile, a convincing start. But by the end….ugh. Unlike the gentle but resilient beautiful creatures on screen, we just smelled like billiards. Blokes. Boring as old hell. Every once in a while, I would catch some Parfum Hermès, with its roses and ylang ylang and costus amber musk, rising up from somewhere – had D some got on his bag when we were performing a couple of weeks ago? Was it on a scarf? Wherever it was coming from, it filled me with a strangely soul deep sense of yearning. 

MY PRIVATE GARDENIA

A gardenia appeared in the front garden a couple of days ago. It doesn’t look like much now, but it was planted by Jiro, our landlord’s son who is a landscape gardener and sometimes works at the Meigetsuin temple and other places down the hill, attending to the famous hydrangeas and shōbu irises in the ‘secret’ back field – so I feel confident he has put it in the ideal place.

Is there any chance it will flower this year, or will I have to wait until next? The smell of gardenias in Japan is so raucously delicious I always find myself pinching them from neighbour’s gardens even though I know it is illegal. It will be ravishing to have a gardenia of one’s own.