Incredible Things (EA Fragrances)

I'll admit to some bias with Incredible Things; my girlfriend wears it and it smells terrific on her. I don't believe in "skin chemistry" (although I do believe in hygiene), so I'm not saying that there's anything about anyone's skin that makes a fragrance smell differently. This scent seems to be tailored for her though; it fits her personality, her liveliness, her beauty, and I'm impressed with this inexpensive celebuscent. I can't deny that it smells great, and the body lotion works well with it.

Taylor Swift apparently likes eating ambrosia for dessert, because that's what Incredible Things smells like. It's an appetizing gourmand featuring soft analogs of pineapple, coconut, mandarin orange, and vanilla. The sweetness gently drifts into marshmallow, without being obvious and overbearing. There are no piercing accords, no loud ethyl maltol notes, and nothing that screams DRUGSTORE into my nostrils. It's a very happy scent, and yes, it's sweet, but it's also a touch green (a little minty), and it comes together as something classy and mature. It doesn't smell like teeny-bopper crap. It's not "sneaker juice." It's sexy, it's demure, and it works.

When it comes to fragrance, the label and box mean nothing. Taylor Swift's association begins and ends with the ink they used to print her name. Nothing about Incredible Things evokes Ms. Swift, nor should it. What you find is that celebrity scents are just like the rest: they smell good or they don't, and the marketing is irrelevant - it's the quality that matters. I don't know who is really behind this fragrance, but I applaud them for having the sense of off-kilter romance to take an old-fashioned dessert and make it into a perfume.

Arden Men Sandalwood (Elizabeth Arden)

I recently purchased a bottle of Arden's Sandalwood cologne for men from a cute Indian girl working at a tiny brick-and-mortar here in Milford. She said she liked Connecticut, but would return to her native India in two months, presumably to go back to school or something like that (I didn't ask any further). I thought she was really sweet, but she didn't know a blessed thing about perfume. It's curious that roughly ninety-five percent of the people who get into the world of perfume retail don't know anything about perfume. Maybe I'll write more about that another time.

Meanwhile, finding the Arden Sandalwood was like finding the lost ark. This stuff is reputedly discontinued and extremely difficult to find at reasonable prices online, but from reading reviews, I'm suspicious. People are describing a reformulation, which means that either (a) EA still makes it, and has it in limited distribution, or (b) it was reformulated recently, and then discontinued not long after. Either way, the bottle I have is "new" in the sense that the box is in pristine condition - no dents, wrinkles, scratches, or color fading - but I'm pretty sure from the commercial markings (or lack thereof) that it's a somewhat older bottle - but don't quote me on that. I could care less either way, but for those of you who are obsessed with reformulations and "updates" of older colognes, just know that I'm talking about something that appears to hearken back at least four or five years.

In all actuality, Arden Sandalwood was released in 1956 or '57, and was likely one of two or three proper EDT-strength colognes available to European and American men for the remainder of that decade. Back then there weren't many fragrance releases each year, and men had far fewer options than their wives did. My guess is the wealthier, or at least upper middle-class men who could afford more than Old Spice and Acqua di Selva dropped coin on Arden Sandalwood, but I'm just speculating. Today it smells very "vintage," a scent from another era, and oh what a scent! Classified as a woody-ambery fougère, Arden Sandalwood is very much a rich lavender fougère, loaded with citrus and herbal nuances in the top and heart notes. There's a great big blast of bergamot, lavender, petitgrain, clary sage, and geranium in the top notes, which persist together for about five minutes, before the lavender separates from the pack and takes center stage.

The heart accord is lavender, sandalwood, coumarin, oakmoss, patchouli, and opoponax for some spicy sweetness. Fougères from this era often get pigeonholed into two categories, either lavender-green or ambery-biscuit, based on how coumarin is handled. Here it is treated in a very dry-ambery manner, with none of the "biscuit-like" effect. I smell opoponax and patchouli more prominently, and surprise, surprise, there's actually a vibrant labdanum note in there as well. The labdanum is extremely well blended and doesn't come across as piercing or animalic. It simply compliments the patchouli, opoponax, and sandalwood, lending the accord some additional nuance and texture. For the record, Arden Sandalwood's labdanum surpasses Guerlain Mitsouko's and Chanel 31 Rue Cambon's in both quality and temperament. Guerlain and Chanel are using synthetics - Arden is using the real stuff.

The thing to keep in mind with this cologne is that it's more than just a simple citrus-lavender-sandalwood progression. However, the sandalwood is very distinct, and upholds the fougère structure from the early heartnote phase, all the way into the basenotes, some seven or eight hours later. The lavender note sidles up to the sandalwood note early on, and the former basically conjoins itself to the latter's dry spiciness, creating a crisply aromatic smell that is too beautiful for words. Another thing to keep in mind is that this isn't your niche sandalwood note, which is usually plush and a bit sweet. No, Arden Sandalwood is bone dry, with very minimal sweetness. Whoever designed this scent wisely played up the dryness instead of trying to hide it, and added a smoky vetiver note to the base. It's clever work, and adds to the richness. The combination of brisk lavender, sandalwood, and vetiver creates a refined, slightly outdoorsy feel. It wouldn't be out of place on a fox hunter riding through autumnal woods, nor would it be wrong on a bookworm smoking cigars in his study. Arden Sandalwood is perfect for men, any and all men, wherever they may be. One caveat: this is for men only. It's not for boys.

As far as fougères go, this is one of the best I've ever encountered, better than Azzaro PH, Third Man, Rive Gauche PH, and many others. That's saying a lot, because I really love all of those scents. But Arden Sandalwood smells natural, complex, and quite deep, deeper than many woody ferns from the same general time period. Wearing it is a pleasure, an exercise in elegant masculinity, and something every man should experience at least once in his lifetime. Finding a bottle of this for under eighty dollars is a no-brainer: buy it. I'm sure glad I did.

Wings for Men (Elizabeth Arden)

I'll get right to the point here. I've worn a lot of fragrances in the past few years, but Wings for Men rates as one of the worst I've ever encountered. This bad news comes in one heavy little bundle, tied with noose-rope: Wings is a reference for "chemical mess" in contemporary perfumery. Its structure, from top to bottom, feels two hundred percent synthetic, and beyond functional - it's industrial. A quick comparison proves that Wings on one wrist and the original Windex on the other leads to instant olfactory fatigue, a sign that there are few divergences in how the two carry themselves. This thing is a mess.

The better news is that Wings is a reference for the value of oakmoss. I've grown weary of reading about how irreplaceable oakmoss is, because I wear fragrances that contain it, and find little to no extra benefit in either the overall quality of their scents, or their compositional strength compared to similar non-oakmoss formulas. Oakmoss is not a magic bullet. Brut aftershave contains none, but smells great, while Pinaud Clubman contains oakmoss and treemoss, and is equally competent but overbearing, sometimes even headache-inducing. The current version of Eau Sauvage contains zero moss, yet elicits positive responses all the time, while Grey Flannel is a virtual Nabokov novel about oakmoss, and barely registers with anyone (although I love it).

Last month I compared two different versions of Halston Z-14, and found that the truth behind oakmoss in a formula is pretty simple - when the composition is conceptually good to begin with, the presence of moss adds freshness and mossiness, which is a good thing if you happen to be someone with an intractable need for mossy effect, but otherwise inconsequential if the perfumer remained true to the fragrance's original concept in the reformulation. Oakmoss is an allergen, and for me the older formula of Grey Flannel (and Halston 1-12, for that matter) causes occasional bouts of labored breathing and raspiness. The quantity of moss in EA's second-to-last Grey Flannel is large enough to sometimes have my lungs tickling all the way to work, a severe, unpleasant side effect, and an unnecessary price to pay for smelling great. The latest Grey Flannel scales back the moss, but holds true to what the moss is a part of, and now I can wear it without any side effects, while enjoying the same design as before.

Because of its allergenic properties, and in light of the fact that many comparisons of moss-laden to IFRA-compliant formulas are usually biased and skirt the points made here, I point to Wings for Men as the golden idol for "oakmoss moderates" like myself. You can smell reformulations and gnash your teeth all you want, but the truth is that it isn't oakmoss that made your love - it was the design of the fragrance as a whole. Wings contains both oakmoss and treemoss, yet smells awful. Why does it smell awful? Because the design is awful. Comparisons to Aqua Quorum and Cool Water are not very apt. Two of the three use Calone to different effect, and woody spices to vaguely similar effect, while one (Cool Water) bears no relation whatsoever, and never needed oakmoss to begin with anyway. If the moss were taken out of the current formula of Wings, it would still smell atrocious. So where does that leave me?

It leaves me with no choice but to declare that oakmoss, as an allergen and a cheap crutch for cheap formulas, needs to be viewed with the rose-colored glasses off for a change. While moss certainly lends depth and longevity to a great many classics, its removal isn't a deal-breaker in reformulations. The deal-breaker is whether or not whatever remains can stand up to scrutiny after the moss is removed. If you think of a great, oakmoss-laden perfume as a beautiful woman in a pretty dress, and she takes that dress off, is she any less beautiful? If it was being used to hide something misshapen and flabby-looking, then yeah, you want that dress back on. But if it was simply accessorizing a gorgeous body, then its removal is not, deep down in your heart, something you're really missing.

We need to love conceptual designs, and not just on a material level. The materials are always changing, but if the concept stays true, then you will not be cheated. If your bias about certain materials gets in the way of recognizing the success of a design, then you are cheating yourself. And nothing about this blog post will make any sense to you if you hold the deeply-seated belief that perfume is a form of art, and therefore majestic and transcendental in some abstract way. 

Fine fragrance is, first and foremost, something that should simply smell good, and is therefore always a part of the functional world, which arguably puts it above art, depending on your orthodoxy (which you need only divulge to yourself).

Green Tea Lavender (Elizabeth Arden)

EA Fragrances has plenty of money machines in its lineup, but none so popular as the Green Tea franchise, which has spawned nine or ten flankers since its introduction in 1999. The company, which is based in New York City, is responsible for some major American classics - Arden Men Sandalwood, Blue Grass, and Sunflowers among them. The range has precious few official masculines, but I've taken the progressive position of considering the Green Tea sprays to be unisex, and occasionally even blatantly masculine. In the case of Green Tea Lavender, they're definitely selling a gentleman's cologne.

I had a brief debate recently with an annoying basenoter on which gender can lay claim to lavender. My point was that lavender has always been a note used in traditional masculine perfumery; her position was that women enjoy lavender just as much. She mentioned Jicky, saying something akin to an Irish Spring soap ad, "Manly, yes, but I like it, too!" Evidently men used Jicky before women, and despite its feminine marketing nowadays, men still like it. Whether or not women actually wear and like Jicky seemed beside the point; marketing trumps statistics (kidding).

Lavender is currently more favored by men than women. It is a vital component of traditional fougères, which are generally just for men. Caldey Island Lavender is the brainchild of Caldey Abbey monks, who have an abundance of the purple stuff and see no reason to let it go to waste. They wear the soliflore and have it shipped out to the rest of the world, but you'll find men are its target audience if you peruse wetshaver sites. 

The inclusion of lavender in feminine perfumes often tends to sway the fragrance more toward the masculine - take Oscar de la Renta's famous feminine, Oscar. This fragrance is rather mis-marketed in my opinion. Sure, women can wear it well, but the boatloads of sandalwood and lavender comprising its top and heart notes make it something I'm completely comfortable wearing - in fact, I can wear it better.

The same goes for Green Tea Lavender. This fragrance opens with a very aromatic lavender note, very nicely rounded, save for a hint of opaque chemicals in its earliest stage. After ten minutes the synthetic twinge vanishes, leaving a purple mark on the familiar green tea note accompanying it. The remarkable thing about GT Lavender is that it never loses the lavender - the note accompanies the simple structure into the far drydown. Naturally this makes it seem more synthetic than its scent indicates, but it's no problem because it smells quite good. In fact, between this and the original Green Tea, Lavender is an improvement.

It also lends this simple "fresh" fragrance some much-needed structure. GT Lavender feels very loosely like a fougère instead of a sport scent. It also feels a touch more formal, and I could see wearing it to spring functions, like graduation ceremonies (not so with Green Tea). While the other flankers may waffle in character, GT Lavender holds a very confident and mature poise, imbuing the air around its wearer with a clean and dignified attitude. 

This version is available exclusively at Macy's and other department stores. I have yet to see it at discounters like Marshalls or TJ Maxx. But if you're the kind of person who only uses one cologne in the summer, then this is a worthy investment, especially if you like the original Green Tea. Go ahead guys, check it out. It'll fit right in with your fougères.

Tommy Girl (Tommy Hilfiger) & Green Tea (Elizabeth Arden): A Tale of Two Tea Florals

When I read the press releases on Tommy Girl, I was filled with curiosity. This scent is a modern tea floral, a well-organized construct of green tea and floral notes that form a thoroughly enjoyable fragrance. Since its inception in 1996, young and middle-aged women have adored it, and in more recent times, men of all persuasions have taken to it also. Having worn the masculine Tommy back in high school, I was familiar with the level of quality this brand is capable of, but had qualms about buying its feminine counterpart blind. After lengthy consideration, I did, expecting something affable, nondescript, pretty, and totally unwearable. I was in for a real surprise.

Tommy Girl opens with a kick of potent aldehydes and camellia tea, which is a very crisp, sheer, green-hued tea note with a subtly sweet edge. For the first minute of wear, this tea note is central. Eventually sweet black currant, apple tree blossom, honeysuckle, and jasmine notes bubble out from under the camellia, forming a fairly linear floral perfume of considerable strength. The floral notes coalesce into a prominent jasmine and tea accord, with a watery calamus underpinning it. Calamus lends the scent an aquatic dimension, although it's worth noting that isoeugenol is the chemical component at work here.

You would think with all those fruity floral notes that it would strictly be a young girl's fragrance. Amazingly, the camellia and calamus propel things in another direction entirely. The tea is a supporting player to the central roles of the flowers, but it tinges the sweets with a strident crispness. The scent of tea, with its uniquely Eastern flavor, is very specific, and an acquired taste, something considerably beyond the mores of teeny-bopper sensibilities. Furthermore, the floral elements are darkened by black currant, a note that for whatever reason denies gender classification. Tommy Girl's currants are sheer, but they help to anchor things to the middle of the spectrum. It's the jasmine that keeps this scent on the women's counter at department stores. That buoyant jasmine is so rich and wet that even the homeliest woman could benefit by having its grace on her skin.

But it's not alone. Surprisingly, it's not even unmatched. Considering the dearth of interest in tea scents, one would suppose that Tommy Girl has a monopoly on the mass market. After all, how many people want a tea smell wafting from their personage? What company could compete with such a well-crafted and well-timed perfume? Why, Elizabeth Arden, of course. Conspicuously missing from all the positive press that surrounds Tommy Girl is a reference to a terrific fragrance that emerged only three years after it: Green Tea.

Herein lies the rub for Tommy Girl. While it offers a splendid composition through synthetics, it lacks any natural infusions, and natural tea infusions in particular are nowhere to be found. One might suppose this is understandable, considering how expensive such an infusion would be, right? I mean, after all, natural elements are relegated to top-shelf stuff, things by Creed, Czech & Speake, Frederic Malle, Guerlain. No mass-market scent could successfully employ the same standards held by such companies to their own little tea floral, could they? Well, as it turns out, Arden's scent contains a generous amount of camellia sinensis leaf extract. When you smell it, you're smelling real tea. You're smelling the sort of thing normally found in those $285 Creeds. It smells really, really good. Oh, and by the way - it only costs $5 an ounce.