Pilar & Lucy "tiptoeing through chambers of the moon"

Stupid name? Check. Maddening grammar? Check. Silk flowers and a feather boa? Check.

Welcome back, ditzes.

I know, I know, just let it go. The bottle's cute! The name's quirky! Don't be such a snob! Yeah, well, I don't care. And this time round it's even worse, because I actually kind of like the fragrance. But will I buy it? Hell no. To pay for this bottle means that the silk-and-feather cabal win.

Not to mention that the bottle makes it look like it's all about roses and romance, which are the furthest thing from my mind when I wear this fragrance. My mother has a giant candle she keeps for Christmastime. She uses it mostly as a centrepiece and rarely lights it, which is why it's been present at every Christmas I can remember. She puts it on a low table in front of the fireplace, which is usually home to a raging fire. Without ever being lit, that candle can perfume the entire room in a cranberry, woodsy, piney, spicy, slightly waxy way.

That's exactly what this fragrance smells like to me. There's even a gourmand current running underneath, a jumble of delicious and warm foody smells like the aftermath of a fantastic dessert course. To me, this scent is the bit of Christmas you remember the rest of your life: a dreamy ambiance of decoration and family and food and warmth and happiness.

And I still wouldn't buy a full bottle due to the irk level of the packaging. Gah!

Verdict: Merry Christmas, depressing packaging. Ditzes.

Jo Malone "Lime Blossom"

This was brilliant at first! Smelled just like a cool lime grove, very breezy and very powerful, but somehow perfect. There's not a single false thing about it when it hits your skin, it's a big and enthusiastic fragrance.

But then my body chemistry struck again and brought in that milky carbonation edge I get so often with citrus notes, especially on the wrist sporting my watch. The other wrist's okay, but not the exhilarating burst from the first 15 minutes. If only the opening had some staying power, I'd be hooked, but much like a real lime you pull off the branch and slice up to garnish cocktails, time and heat get to "Lime Blossom" and just make it "blah".

Verdict: Might be suited to cooler blood than mine (would make a lovely air-freshener, though).

Issey Miyake "L'eau D'Issey"

"L'eau D'Issey" is green. Green like a bent sapling, green like a flower's stem, that sharp and watery and aggressive scent. Usually I like green, because when combined with other elements it freshens everything up a bit. But here the main focus is the green tone, and it's really a turn-off. Just imagine getting a lovely bouquet of beautiful flowers set off with twigs of berries and woody boughs... and then someone chops off the top half of the bouquet and hands you the beribboned stump. Not something you'd really want to bring to your face and inhale, is it?

And that might be my problem with this entire fragrance: it has elements of very nice concepts, just gone horribly awry at some stage. There's incense sticks that have been kept in a moist basement for too long; thawing spring earth that's been dried out in a hot attic until it's a sharp dusty powder; the ghost of Thérèse Roudnitska wafting about with her peppered honeydew melon slices. Top that off with a decapitated bouquet, and you've got "L'eau D'Issey".

Verdict: Bertha Rochester might have worn this -- mad, off-kilter, and gothic in a bad way.