Iced lemon slices in a cut glass bowl, encased in ice; fresh, crisp herbs soaking in ice water, subtle as a lacy front or two. The memory of a glass of sweet white wine, a honeyed, floral Gewürztraminer wisp; round, rich, luscious, and strangely absent for all its suggestion. Somewhere between charming and refreshing, gentle with a glint in its eye; Not overly polite yet definitely inoffensive, nothing weird you can put your finger on, but there's a phantom shimmer, a flickering presence, an impossible-to-name thing, which makes it either perfectly frustrating or frustratingly perfect.

Marissa Zappas Carnival of Souls An involuntary grimace quickly smoothed into polite blankness, a gagging masked by a throat-clearing. "Is everything ok?" "Oh, it's nothing, I'm fine" and proceeds to throw up in mouth just a little, not too obvious. Honeyed floral cream turning sour, saffron like dried grass mixed into warm milk that's started to separate. Coconut cream sweet and plasticky with oddly-spiced grave dirt patchouli sediment settling at the bottom. An eerie seriousness that doesn't land and instead evokes a wobbling, wonky naiveté, dewy-eyed and desperate so much as to be repellent. I've found everything I have tried from Marissa Zappas too subtle, too fleeting, stories in which the characters and plots are instantly forgettable, leaving you wondering if anything ever happened at all. Carnival of Souls continues this pointless parade of almost-perfumes.

Cold, coiled, calculating. A soupçon of weaponized sweetness. Wilhelmina Slater corner office with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, fashion dungeon once her interior decorator works their dark magic. Absinthe-laced champagne vanilla, green and subtly herbaceous, aromatic poison in crystal stemware. Dusty-woody-musky shadows, slithery spice as hissed barbs between bathroom stalls. Mean girls who devoured high school bones and all, used losers' broken phalanges to pick their teeth; earned their MBAs in rancid witch she-devilry and leveled up into the cuntiest of lady bosses; perfected the art of smiling while sliding knives between ribs and stabbing square in the middle of the back while smiling with their perfect veneers. Creamy almond undertones, just enough sweetness to mask bitter herbs. Fake pleasantries/ menacing undercurrent, espionage in every conversation, veiled threats disguised as small talk. How's business this quarter? How are your kids? I'll cut a bitch. I'll strike when you least expect it. More canapés?

Limey effervescence, lacto-fermented tang. Enzymes and culture, whey-sharp brightness, ginger root and sugar, bacterial starter. Lemongrass stalk steeped in Rose's lime juice. Makrut lime leaves crushed between fingers. Raffia tote abandoned, sandals kicked off. Umbrella shade, cold citrus fizz, slow whirring ceiling fans. Paperback novel pages soft from humidity, airport-bought and quickly abandoned. Cafe corner, afternoon nowhere. Electric effervescent amnesia. Fleeting fizzy forgetfulness fun Fun FUN.

A rose I immediately enjoy is a rare creature indeed, and this one conjures the fierce tenderness of Yosano Akiko's verse. I don't know how this extraordinary poet would feel about this fragrance, but I am channeling her spirit for these impressions.

Ancient wood smoke drifts between scattered fog. Morning bell echoes— I taste metal on my tongue, spring's sharp, necessary cut.

Green leaf floating in the temple's shallow puddle reflects my true face. A mantis waves its thin arms in mock benediction.

Thorn-pricked finger traces rose oil, crimson poems on sleep-soft limbs, bitter sutras cannot wash this sweetness from memory.

Ramshackle wooden pier, salt-bleached planks sea wrack rot, shifting scrim of slate sky. Miss Akranes contest, bright bunting wilting in salt spray and sea mist, dripping gown and cracked rubber boots. Icy rain of butter and brine, each drop a tiny oyster on the tongue. Fishing nets of pearl grey silk tangled with kelp and hollow percussions of fish bones; the iodine tang of seaweed rotting in tide pools where lobster traps rust and seashell sibilance gurgles, whispers, salted and cured. Sea glass teeth, crowns of crab shell, scepter of driftwood and whalebone. Something ancient stirs beneath the harbor, pageantry for drowned gods. What the tide brings in, the mayor photographs for the brochure. What it takes away, no one admits to their children. Velkomin til Akranes. Sjórinn heilsar þér svanglega.

A hooded figure watching from beyond the shadows, but shadows of what, and why in a place no shadow should be? The insidious intrusion, the confounding juxtaposition, the thing found in the wrong place. The stirring of things best left unstirred. Resinous orchid musk, feral balmy, rotting-earthed humidity. Milky murk, like looking through the eyes of the dead. Honeyed spices part buried, cinnamon-cardamom-disinterment deferred, the ground is wrong, a terror in the terroir. The boundless and hideous unknown, a carnal effluvium of the eerie and the weird, reinterpreted as a not-too-bad fragrance. Actually, kinda lovely.

Myrrh Shadow 403 smells like the Crypt Keeper's signature ice cream flavor, an inexplicable combination of sour medicinal powders and resinous, demulcent sweetness. Apothecary ice cream served in dusty parlors where softly spiced cola syrup was dispensed by skeletal hands, bittersweet olde-timey remedies dispensed, ironically, in a dusty tomb lined with crumbling marble shelves and cobweb-draped medicine bottles, stone walls saturated with the balsamic phantasmagoria of centuries-old incense. It vaguely recalls the whispery smoke and mysterious veils of Annick Goutal Myrrh Ardente - except Myrrh Shadow 403 emerged from the freezer creamier, sweeter, colder: mystical tree resins churned into midnight, ghoulish horror host gelato.

Incense Rori feels like building an altar to the temple of dreams - not that it smells like any of these things individually, but the way someone in a dream can be your mother even if they look nothing like her, the golden balsamic woodiness conjures walnut and mulberry and rosewood; the creamy gentle spice suggests whipped orange blossom honey, marigold-infused sandalwood attar, ink perfumed with clove and honey and musk. Applied before sleep and still whispering the next afternoon, it becomes a nightly ritual for dream incubation, precious enough to justify its price not for special occasions but because sleep itself is the special occasion, the potent pantheon of dreams deserving its own sacred preparations.