Tom Ford's Sahara Noir is a scent in my cupboard I've long been ignoring and I couldn't tell you why. It's intensely evocative in an incredibly specific way, so first my nerd review and then a translation for those who don't have a tolerance for silliness. 

Sahara Noir is the blazing binary sunset seen from the still, dry heat of sand dune on the desert planet Tatooine; a midnight canyon campfire crackling with the spicy resin of the Japor tree, the aromatic blossoms of the molo shrub, and acrid ribbons of poonten grass incense while the ground rumbles with the snores and snuffles of a slumbering bantha herd nearby. 

Which is to say this is the driest frankincense, lemony woodsy pinon sawdust, a circle of fragrant burning woods, and brittle, smoky papyrus ash.

Whatever your preferred fandom or even if you stick solely to reality, Sahara Noir is utterly divine.

I've found interpretations of hinoki varies from perfumer to perfumer, ranging from lemony and coniferous, to tarry and peppery. This version is a deeply unpleasant boyscout campfire burning with bandaids and liniment and makes me feel the way I do when I'm dreaming and I walk into a darkened room and flip a light switch for illumination...and then nothing happens. At that point, the dream invariably descends into a nightmare, but I have learned to wake myself up at that moment, my brain boiling, electrified and panic-stricken. As a writer, at times I crave this scent when I need a freaky, feverish jolt of agitation. It's also great for layering to add a touch of artful anxiety to a scent that's pretty, but perhaps placid.

The Afternoon of a Faun feels like the olfactory equivalent of a proper meal after you've been subsisting on extremes of cheap, trashy snacks and the avant-garde weirdness of sneaking into a gallery opening to pilfer nibbles from molecular gastronomy art installations. It's not a rib roast or a tofurkey or any meal in particular, but it's that thing you dine on, whatever that might be for you, that satisfies your belly and nourishes your body and makes you feel good. I suppose this analogy is my way of admiring how extraordinarily well-balanced this perfume is. Inspired, I believe by both a poem of a faun recounting his horny dreams and the scandalous ballet based on the poem, The Afternoon of a Faun is a  mossy-spicy-woody-aromatic-green-floral subscription box of a scent wrapped in a bow of bitter herbs and peppery celery enveloping a heart of immortelle's smoky tea and burnt sugar note. If you enjoy chypre scents, you can't go wrong with this one. If you are not sure, or are new to perfume, this is a great one to start with.

Me Myself & I by Egofacto is scent marketed as a bewitching and disturbing floral with voluptuous tuberose, mysterious hemlock flower, and smoky and vetiver. At the time I first learned of it I thought, wow, OK YES PLEASE take my money. A few years later I still consider it an exceedingly sound investment. It smells overwhelmingly to me of an unlit package of cigarettes in an impossibly expensive leather handbag, and I love that smell. I should know better. My mother smoked all her life, and she died of cancer in 2013. Me, I'm a nerd and have never smoked the slightest bit of anything, but I've still got this romanticized notion of sitting in a Parisian cafe, drinking espresso, smoking French cigarettes, scribbling poetry, and looking very cool. You can't convince me otherwise. It's a fragrance that conjures a somber, moody atmosphere that hearkens back to its very name in that you'll want to be alone with it, and I promise you'll both be in exemplary company.

Ambre Noir from Sonoma Scent Studio is dense and intense and the darkest amber you could ever hope to meet. Both somber and smoldering, with notes of labdanum, rose, incense, moss, leather, and woods, it is a blackened forest fireside frolic when the veil between worlds is thinnest. See also: the final moments in the film The VVitch. If you like outrageously dark, spellbindingly smoky amber fragrances, I believe you'll enjoy this one.

I received so many samples of Nirvana Black in my Sephora orders in 2014 but I never took the time to try it. I was convinced it wasn't going to be very good. I have since procured a mini-bottle, which isn't too much of an investment in case I hate it. For the record, I do hate the clunky, ugly bottle, whatever size it is. This begins as Vanilla Fields from Coty, which I recall from my 20s as a fairly cheap, but unexpectedly lovely, dusty, musky vanilla sandalwood. If I wait a minute or two, it then becomes a simple combination of warm whiskey and deep woods. I'm not sure what/which woods, though? Maybe a wooden box, where you stored the whiskey? This isn't a complex scent, but then again, I believe there are only 3 notes listed and sometimes more doesn't always mean better.

When I was young, my mother didn't drive, so my grandmother tootled us around with her on errands and took us where ever we needed to go. Her purse was a bottomless supply of Dum Dum lollipops and if we were well-behaved, we got one as a treat. This was a massive thrill when I was 4, but some arbitrary switch flipped when I was 5 and suddenly I found them utterly vile. No thanks, grandma! Imagine shaking sticky shards of fruit punch, cherry, and butterscotch flavored candies out of your best Belk's church purse, and... that's basically Fancy. It is Dum Dum dust. Interpret that however you like. You might say, well, oh, Sarah, it's not made for you. Ok, I get that. But tell me... who is it made for? And do they keep their toy lipsticks on a hot pink plastic vanity and cook with an EZ bake oven?

I purchased Hwyl on a whim solely because someone included it in a listicle of fragrances that smell like camping-- noting that this one, in particular, smells like how they imagine Totoro's home might be scented. Did I want to smell like the woodland abode of an acorn-eating supernatural Japanese forest folk creature? Need you ask? Initially, I think due to the cypress and woody notes that they have in common, I thought Hwyl smelled very similar to Comme des Garcons Kyoto, and that perhaps I didn't need both. But where Kyoto is a meditative prayer in a cool forest temple, Hywl is earthier, greener, and warmer. A mushroom-strewn, leaf-littered path leading to that temple, the sun streaming through the forest canopy, the cypress, live oak, and bamboo swaying with an afternoon breeze and rustling with the invisible movements of racoons and foxes, and maybe little forest spirits, too. Is there a Totoro following you? Or does it wait for you patiently at the Temple? Maybe we do need both scents, just to find out.

Prada Amber is a scent that reminds me of Dior Addict, and not because they really smell similar, but they're both woodsy, sweet, resinous scents that take up a lot of space. They are voluminous, they envelop you in a wondrously dreamy cloud of fragrance ...but it's also a rippling billow of scent that can be sniffed several rooms away on the other side of the house, or on the other side of the globe, or maybe even on the moon. And I think you need to be okay with that to love these perfumes. Prada Amber is a beautiful honeyed, balsamic amber and velvety patchouli with a discordant herbal bitterness, perhaps from tarragon or bergamot, that adds interest and intrigue and keeps it just this side of cloying, while maintaining that overblown potent headiness.

With notes of nocturnal resins, smoldering incense, and cool, creeping midnight moss, Cathedral from DSH perfumes conjures visions of a lone lantern lit in a solitary tower window away from which runs a stumbling figure in a long, trailing nightdress. What is this poor, doomed creature running from, barefoot across these misty moors on a moonless night? Ghosts, phantoms, and strange sinister spirits? A brooding, turbulent love affair fraught with bitter betrayals?  Fearful family curses and dreams, illusions, obsessions, murders.  I mean…what isn’t she running from, right? It's not this perfume. With a resigned sigh, she turns and trudges back. Whatever else is going on in that wicked castle, she can't leave behind this haunting and quite possibly haunted fragrance. It's a Choose Your Own Gothic Romance in a bottle.