Ôponé is a fragrance so revolting you’d think someone was joking, that it couldn’t possibly be real. But it is real, and I have a sample of it. It’s a vile cocktail of the following: a freshly-opened bottle of goopy, boozy-but-not-nearly-enough booze bitter berry Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough and Chest Congestion (possibly the one with Dextromethorphan and Guaifenesin), the most repellent, unpalatable artificial fruity-sour energy drink on the shelf with the most outrageously obnoxious packaging, the one so disgusting and foul that even the people you think might be into it would never buy, and the saddest long-stemmed fake rose wrapped in dusty crinkly plastic at the gas station. Nobody wants any part of this. Throw it in the trash immediately.

Moth is the cool glooms and musty melancholy of antique lace and silks tucked away with camphoraceus mothballs, there’s a smoky rose musk aspect, the spectral embers of a rose that lit itself on fire for love, or vengeance, or maybe both, and a bittersweet powdery element, like dried honey mixed with grave dust from a tomb. But the longer this wears, the more familiar it begins to smell, and I realize I am actually just wearing the musky vanilla and dusty florals of Hypnotic Poison, or alternately, the Bewitching Yasmine from Penhaligon, or Fleur Cachée from Anatol Lebreton, which to my nose, all smell like kindred spirits. And do I really need another perfume in that vein? And then I remember that I actually only own one bottle of those three scents and that one doesn’t have the thing going for it that Moth does: ultimately, Moth smells like a twilight shadowplay of austere embraces, a haunting chorus of forgotten languages, and basically what you wear to convince the ghosts that you are in fact a ghost.

I know better than this, but I purchased a bottle of Fantomas from Nasomatto without having sampled it first, and I'm surprised to say...I actually rather enjoy it? It reminds me of ELdO's Ghost In The Shell, that bit of speculative lactonic peach, but I then realized what I was smelling in Fantomas was more along the lines of those Japanese milky honeydew melon hard candies. There's also a bit of sterile, plastic-y musk and digitally-rendered powdery porcelain heliotrope, and the more I sniff my wrist, the more I am convinced that this creamy floral/vinyl musk is what the uncanny valley of a really expensive sex doll smells like. I've not smelled any sex dolls, either of the budget or the big-spender variety, but I have got a big imagination, and I'm pretty sure I know what I know. Anyway, I like it!

Koala from Zoologist is an aromatic-green-soapy incense-balsamic black tea-geranium sandalwood cologne with eucalyptus and pine. It’s dapper somehow, but the ironic dapper of a 25-year-old in 2013 with a handlebar mustache and a pork pie hat. It’s the refreshing, relaxing scent of a spa, but these dapper, ironic hipsters run the entire spa. And I don’t even know if I want to call it irony or absurdity or even farcical, but after a while, it doubles back on itself, and it’s almost painfully earnest, it’s got a genuine “love is real and I was pounded in the butt by my sentient spa experience” Chuck Tingle title vibe. I don’t know what that means. I’m all over the place for what is probably a very approachable and wearable perfume. That’s kind of wild, that I have no problem describing the weirdies, but the normies are the ones that give me pause. Anyway, I think this is both a sincere and sardonic eucalyptus scent. That’s my final word on it.

When I envision perfumes inspired by pearls, I expect something opalescent and luminous, maybe something with notes of white musk, rice milk, or coconut. Nope. Not here. Bosphorus Pearl is a pearl envisioned by someone who has never even seen the ocean, let alone a pearl. They saw a child clutching a sticky cherry lollipop in their grubby fingers, and thought, eh, good enough.

Jovoy Paris’ La Litergie des Heures is meant to evoke burning incense in an old monastery, but with its notes of sour, fermented ketchup and cheesy bitter bile, it smells less like peaceful prayers at the hermitage and more like a priest being demonically puked on in the frenzied throes of a non-church sanctioned exorcism.

Myth from Ellis Brooklyn is initially the sort of crisp, dry, cologney-fresh fragrance I typically don’t love because it borders on the standard generic cliche of the guy with the abs and the towel wrapped around his waist in any old perfume ad. Except in this instance...there’s nuance or detail here working in its favor. So imagine instead of the cruelty and foolishness of the Echo and Narcissus myth…let’s say the gods kept their dicks in their pants and didn’t get carried away with petty vendettas, no one was scorned, humiliated, or shamed, and these two just got to fall in love and live their lives. Maybe they opened up the blissful sanctuary day spa together. Maybe it features a reflection pool fed by a cool, clear spring, energetically charged by healing crystals, in the middle of a lush garden surrounded by shady woods and teeming with heady, fragrant jasmine and beautiful orchids. Maybe after a session of massage therapy, light healing, and intuitive counseling, they encouraged their clientele to spend a moment gazing at themselves in the still, crystalline waters, muscles loose and relaxed, skin pumiced and oiled, and then boop their own watery image on the nose and say “babe, I love this journey for you.” Myth is an uncomplicated, clean, woody mildly floral musk that just embraces and epitomizes feeling good about yourself.

CdG Monocle Hinoki is mildly terpenic, peppery cypress, stiff black waxy leather, and that creepy sterile electrical spark ozone-y aroma that you smell on the jet bridge gangway when you’re waiting in line to board an airplane. This is overall a deeply anxiety-inducing fragrance, conjuring imaginary but highly plausible scenarios wherein I have a connecting flight in Atlanta and that I have only 13 minutes to make it to the gate and the gate is all the way at the other end of the terminal. I don't need this stress in my life!

Do you want to smell like a queer feminist dark academia anime fairy tale with dangerous duels, creepy cryptic Greek chorus shadowpuppets, trippy plot details, gorgeous imagery, and bombastic symbolism? With notes of lush rambling rose, zesty, herbaceous lemon verbena, and luminous white tea leaves, Alkemia Perfume’s The Lover Tells of the Rose will scratch this highly specific itch for you. Which is to say: the weirdos who get it, get it. And those who don’t, don’t.

Imagine the acrid smoke and smolder of a peaty whiskey and the antiseptic minty chlorinated burn of an off-brand mouthwash. Now stir up those stinging, eye-watering fumes with a half-melted lime freezy pop. Gosh. This is bafflingly terrible.