Alexander McQueen "Kingdom"

"And then, I pulled my lover's still-beating heart from his chest, and turned it into this charming vial."

This is the sort of perfume that pretty much declares to everyone around you "I AM WEARING PERFUME". Not necessarily a bad thing, and "Kingdom" is by no means a bad scent. It's just not shy about making itself known. I was first reminded of a much stronger version of some of the Jayne Ormondes -- sandalwood and pine and a jumble of warm earthy spices, brought together in a heady mix that really seems to hang in the air, but escapes that weird "musky" flavour that some scents carry.

At one point, I actually stopped mid-sniff with the thought that maybe I'd picked up a man's cologne. And then I decided that it really didn't matter -- though the scent was aggressive and heavy and powerful, it could work just as well on either sex, something that isn't often true. On a woman, this is heavy-lidded, full-kohl perfume. There aren't any romantic delicacies here, no coquettish looks. Weirdly, to me it smells sort of like bottled feminism, or at least feminism as I'd envision it; confident and completely assured, grounded and unapologetic. So sexually assured that it wouldn't even strike her to be abashed about "unladylike" behaviour. This is not a "ladylike" scent.

There's also a blend of some sort of menthol smell, and a bunch of elements that strike me as masculine, but they don't sink very deep into the perfume. Most of these elements are actually things I typically associate with a clean sweat smell, deoderants and aftershaves, so I think I'm getting an echo of sweat out of my own scent memory, rather than in the perfume itself -- either way, the vague sheen of it is actually kind of sexy. If these odours were more embedded, then maybe the scent would trend too masculine, too typically cologne-ish. Instead, the male notes lay over the very sultry female elements underneath. It's an absolutely fascinating fragrance, though one that should be worn with care. It'll give you confidence in a dramatic setting, but if you wear it in a place too mundane, you could feel conspicuous.

Verdict: It smells like I've just had my way with a very attractive and well-kept lumberjack -- and let it be widely known that I shall do so again. And again. And again.

Elizabeth Arden "Provocative Interlude"

I just cannot win with the EA scents.

This was my first day of doing a perfume hall drive-by, so there are a few things I need to get used to. For one, I forgot one very key element of saleswomen, which is that they are trained to reel off the notes and influences in a fragrance as though they've memorised the press release (which they probably have). So when I sidled up to the giant poster of Catherina Zeta Jones and picked up the bottle, ready to spray and flee, I was totally blindsided by the woman who instantly materialised out of nowhere and told me it was a "floral gourmand with white chocolate, berries..." and a bunch of other stuff that I honestly don't remember. She was extremely fast.

I'm going to try to screen out any of that, but given the fact that I smelled apples in JLo's "Live" when I still thought it was "Be Delicious" (thanks, Frederik!), I can clearly be influenced.

But back to "Provocative Interlude". It went on sharply, though I can't give a great analysis of the first 5 minutes, given how much of that was spent fending off the vendor and not being able to scribble down notes. As soon as I got a chance to get a better sniff, I was disappointed to find out that there seems to be a nasty, fermented streak running through this EA that reminds me very much of the other EAs I've tried. I think I get the white chocolate that was mentioned, but boy, it is weird. I also picked up citrus, berry and floral, mixed in an unsettling way that made me think of a lime-infused chunk of white chocolate covered in thick pollen, sprinkled with dry cranberry skins. It made me think of how nice this could have been if it was, say, a Terry's white chocolate orange with raspberries and a sprig of freesia. It is not.

An hour later, it died down to something less offensive, but still with that musky, hot-mess quality that just drives me insane. I can only guess that this element is something that smells fabulous on some women, and those women are the ones buying EA perfumes.

Verdict: Weird and musky and bleh, the rogue Elizabeth Arden fermentation element strikes again.

Do you know this perfume?

I suspect this might be DKNY "Be Delicious". The green one, because I don't think the red one was out yet. It's unusual, to end up with a totally random (and quite generous) sample and have no marking on it and no idea of its contents. The reason I think it's "Be Delicious" is partly what I get off of it when I wear it, and partly because there's only one time I can remember getting unlabelled perfume, and that was at Sephora in DC with Olive. She might tell you that I ruthlessly browbeat a salesgirl into handing over a decanted sample of "Be Delicious" and in doing so, so terrified the poor thing that the girl also included a few other random vials in a panicked rush. In which case I would tell you that Olive is a recent engagee, and thus her head is so full of frivolous notions and taffeta and color schemes and wedding marches that she really can't be relied upon to give a straight account of anything as she's in a sort of meringuey bridal haze, and that she had better remember to be nice to her Maid of Honour if she knows what's good for her, because even though the MoH is very far away, the MoH is still in charge of the bachelorette party and is very skilled at evil plotting.

Anyhow.

Mystery Perfume With a Green Stopper is very nice. Straight on it reminds me somehow of "Flowerbomb", but for no good reason whatsoever. It's like "Flowerbomb"'s fruity, peppery, saner second cousin. Where one requests that someone devour you immediately, the other is a much more confident, understated, knowing scent. I think one of the big differences is that I would wear this one on a first date, whereas "Flowerbomb" would certainly be later on (you want to be careful with olefactory "Eat me!" cues).

This isn't a crisp, fresh apple sliced in half; it's not warm apple cobbler; it's not anything that makes your mouth necessarily water. This strikes me as more of an orchard scent, possibly on a sunny autumn day after apples have already been picked and only the occasional fallen one is still around, warming and slightly bruised in the sun. Which sounds a little awful, as a theme, if you're thinking of the entire dating-as-fruit-on-tree metaphor, but is also kind of nice in that it's natural. Fallen apples are the ones that produce new trees, and that's sort of what this perfume makes me think of -- an assured and good scent, an all's-right-with-the-world scent, with just that hint of peppery zing to stop it being too linear. It's even got a slightly arid/acrid tinge, like there might be a bonfire a county over and just a hint of it's snuck into the orchard.

The only downside I can see is that it fades on my wrist really quite quickly, so I have to load it on if I want to get anywhere at all with it. And even then, the end of it's a little too sharp on the pepper for my tastes -- I don't think it increases at all so much as the apple just fades away entirely, making the pepper seem almost ominous by comparison. Shame.

Verdict: Afternoon events or lazy Sundays curled up on the couch with someone. Sadly, it won't last longer than that.

Dear Reader...

Good lord, I am sorry.

Absolutely inexcusable, this entire vanishing act. As it happens, I did go to that job interview wearing Jo Malone's "Nectarine Blossom", which I absolutely treasure and makes me very happy. It also seems to make others very happy, because I got the job that night. And THAT is what I have been doing lo these many months -- full-time, nonstop work. Literally, 36 hours after having my passport stamped in Auckland, I received a contract via email at the B&B. Jo Malone works in mysterious ways, that's all I have to say.

So that stash of untried testers ended up languishing at the bottom of my suitcase. Frankly, I'd expected more down time while being deeply unemployed, during which I could amuse myself by sniffing at my wrist in a lunatic manner while basking in sunshine at sidewalk cafes -- but starting work within four days of arriving (and while still severely whacked-out from jetlag) sort of put paid to that. Due to prior experiences with demon concoctions like "Angel", I was really hesitant to start dousing myself in the unknown before either socialising with my new flatmates or heading into the enclosed space at the office. One prefers not to earn the moniker "The Woman Who Smells", even if that's later qualified with "...no, good! She usually smells good!".

There's been another hurdle as well -- I can't seem to find a department store in NZ willing to hand out testers. In the UK and US, you just stroll up to a counter, feign interest, and there's a 50-50 chance that someone will lob a vial of something your way. But I'm told that here, they only give them out if there's a promotion running, which means I'd have to skulk through the perfume department on an almost daily basis just to catch them when they come out. Which might seem dodgy.

And at that point, if I'm going to be vaguely dodgy, why not go the whole way?

So here's the plan, dear reader: given that I already work in Wellington's CBD, I am going to implement a cunning scheme wherein I take a detour through the perfume hall at about lunchtime and pick a scent to test, then spritz it directly onto my wrist. I'm only going to be able to do this a few times a week, because I actually DO have an embarrassment threshold, and even the slightest chance that the staff might start publicly querying me about using up all the perfume in the store would have me blushing deepest puce for a good few months. But as you can see from the image above, my personal stock is running perilously low (I've already tested most of those, I think) and drastic times call for drastic measures.

As for my current coworkers and what they'll have to suffer through as I attempt to test "Angel: Rose" or whatever the hell that monstrous house is currently trying to foist off on an unwary public -- I've tried to warn them. I've tried to train them to expect various scents with a rotation of Romance, Nectarine Blossom and Flowerbomb. And of course, they have met me now, so they're somewhat used to my personality and I doubt this sudden bout of perfumemania will come as a surprise.

All is well, though, and thanks to all who've left a note on the blog! I am happy and ensconsed and employed and generally in fine fettle for a person who's uprooted and travelled to the opposite side of the planet, and am now ready to get back to the taxing task of pursuing the perfect scent.

Eliza