Tempo conjures an atmosphere of dolorous elegance, patchouli’s murky woods and dusky loam, with a wraithlike metallic chill and an herbal shiver of something green and strange simmering underneath. It carries a disquieting heaviness, the shape of a feeling impossible to give voice to; like having to climb into bed with someone and tell them they’re dead. It also reminds me of this passage from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within… and whatever walked there, walked alone." This is a patchouli that has walked the long shadows of Hill House, has become lost in the thick, unspoken secrets of its notorious halls, and suffered its mad face in the growing darkness. This is a twisted, haunted patchouli that has seen some shit, but all the edges of that unnerving terror have been blurred by the creeping of moss, the settling of dust, and the softness of time and memory, of unreality and dream

Under My Skin is the extraction of musk from shadow; it’s an immersive and hypnotic portal where you feel yourself slipping slowly under the depths of a lightless pool scented with leather and sandalwood and iris and--this could just be my brain’s association with the name of the perfume and a similarly titled movie-- it’s an olfactory interpretation of the eerie minimalist strings track that lends fear and mystery to the alien temptress's methods for luring and capturing her quarry in Under the Skin.

Grimoire from Anatole LeBreton features a lemony-balsamic sweetness suggestive of curative sweets and a cryptic dustiness evocative of brittle parchment and rare texts, all encircled with a pungent fog of bitter, caramelized cumin and decomposing mosses and herbs. This scent conjures imagery from a 17th-century oil painting steeped in alchemical knowledge and symbolism and ancient traditions mingling science, philosophy, faith, and artistic spirit: “A shadowy scenario unfolds as a lone wax candle burns deep into the night. Various lenses and prisms refract the faint glow of the flickering flame to vaguely illuminate a crude, darkened laboratory, whereupon an oaken table, dusty flasks precariously balanced, bubble with a disquieting phosphorescence and engines of distillation chug and clank murkily nearby. Brittle scrolls and yellowed manuscripts, embellished with colorful emblems and arcane symbols scribbled hastily in the margins, are scattered haphazardly on a dirt floor to further illustrate this scene of curious chemical phenomena and scholarly chaos. A wan, stocking-footed man with a funny cap alternately pores pensively over massive tomes or perhaps pumps a small bellow to encourage a sullen, smoking fire, while lost in analytical reverie.” Yes, this is what Grimoire smells like. Yes, I did just quote a passage from The Art of the Occult, a book that I wrote. Is that tacky to mention? Maybe. Is it relevant? Entirely!

Sycomore is a fragrant chorus of cool autumn foliage, rich, mossy soil; soft smoke, and damp greenery. All the best smells of a forest ramble in late October with the promise of winter heard in the whispering flutter of a straggling sparrow migration. But! The hiker on this path is garbed in expensive elegance, a leather Prada bag, a silk Hermès scarf, that iconic Burberry checked coat. This is the scent of a woodland elf turned posh socialite; Galadriel who quit the forest, and is now living in a penthouse on the Upper East Side

Briny saltwater and shiny leather and two craggy stones rubbing against each other in a vaguely suggestive way over the course of a thousand years; alternately, Aquaman x Tom of Finland mashup fanart interpreted as a Chuck Tingle title.

This is probably my favourite scent in the world - it’s austere and meditative and calls to mind a dark prayer in a cool, shadowy forest temple.

I am having an interesting moment with Bee from Ellis Brooklyn. Which is to say I don’t hate it. But I definitely don't like it. This is strange because typically gourmand scents aren’t my thing. I want to smell like a mossy bog witch or bioluminescent flora on an alien planet, or mottled parchment poetry penned by a lovelorn bookbinder. And honey is such a weird note, with its aromas both attractive and repellent, that ambrosial golden syrupy floral note that eventually devolves to the pungence of a filthy feral flower urinal in the height of August. Bee is not a super realistic honey, which is fine with me, I don’t want realism in my perfume anyway. It’s a floofy, poofy vanilla and sandalwood marshmallow dusted liberally with dehydrated buckwheat honey and clover pollen and layered with this dark, balsamic rich woody rumminess that’s not quite rum and at all, and it took me a few days but I worked it out. At its heart, Bee conjured the sweet, full-bodied warmth and vaguely fruity tobacco notes of a hot cup of rooibos tea. I don’t often want to smell like this, and I don’t even like rooibos tea, so while it's not the worst, it's definitely not for me.

(This review is for the original formulation, bottle purchased in 2015.) Bat is undeniably, the strangest, most wonderfully unique perfume you will ever smell. Opening with a nearly overwhelming note of damp, primordial earth both vegetal and mineral in execution, this immediately conjures inky caverns and pitch-black, damp limestone caves. The scent then morphs into something I can only describe as “night air and velvet darkness”; I cannot say how she has done this, I only know that it is the very essence of the vast, temperate midnight sky, the glowing moon high overhead. At this point it becomes something quite different, and–quite possibly–even more beautiful. Soft fruits, delicate musks, and resins lay at the heart of this enigmatic scent and combine to create a fragrance that lightly circles around the wearer to surprise them with a mysterious sweetness at the most surprising times. According to Dr. Covey who has spent a great deal of time researching and studying bats, with this quality the scent has succeeded pretty well in doing what she envisioned

ELdO's Spice Must Flow  is less of Frank Herbert's space spice and more a hybrid of late-90's English pop group members Posh Spice and Ginger Spice. It's a lone, lush, rose, cool and fragrant, and mysteriously blooming in the dry, hot sands where only the prickliest, most pungent, and peppery spices survive. I don't think there's any citrus listed in the notes but there's a mild, sour zing when you first spritz that gives the impression of brightness, and a beautiful cardamom incense note at the dry down that lends a shadowy balance. I would actually call this a rose for people who think they don't like roses rather than a gateway to Arrakis for denizens of Spice World. Wait...what were we talking about?

I have been wanted to try Paloma Picasso for a while now and I am happy to say that it’s what I was expecting, but the best version of those expectations, I guess. It’s a sort of balsamic chypre, you know-- dirty florals jasmine and ylang-ylang, alongside carnations balmy spice, and bitter herbal coriander and angelica, brightened by sour, sparkling lemon, and velvety mosses creeping over a sort of moody, fermented amber and sharp woody vetiver. It's got a retro-futurist vibe, as if it were created by some sort of vintage visionary. If I were to embody this perfume, I’d liken it to the uncanny, vulnerable sophistication of Sean Young as Rachael in the original Bladerunner film.