Holiday in NYC, Part 2

Takashimaya is not a huge store, but for some reason I felt a little overwhelmed by all the fragrance lines on display. I decided to save SMN and a few others for another trip, and concentrate on a handful I’ve really been interested in sniffing. Of course I tried all the Neil Morris scents that were out. Afire was definitely my favorite—more sweet than hot, but not at all heavy or sticky. It’s going on the wish list along with Quest and Intimate Lily. The private label fragrance he created for Takashimaya is not something I would wear myself, but it’s a scent I’d love to live with, whether it was perfuming the bodies of the people around me or just wafting through the air in my house. It’s basically a hesperidic/woody fragrance that is both uplifting and meditative, like a very sheer, light-hearted version of Temple from Anya’s Garden.

I was eager to try Parfums DelRae after reading a few reviews. They’re beautifully done, not a tacky loser in the bunch, but they left me completely unmoved. I saw the Miller Harris, Noix de Tubereuse, that I fell for so hard during my Chicago trip. I waved it under Dave’s nose, and got the shrug of dismissal. “It’s just kind of a basic tuberose, isn’t it?” he said. Well, yes, it is. I still love it, but I have to admit that it’s not all that interesting.
















The Yosh scents, on the other hand, were very interesting. I had read the Yosh story—“destiny,” and all that—which is the sort of marketing that makes me narrow my eyes a little. I didn’t expect much from the Yosh line, so I was pleasantly surprised when a tentative whiff of White Flowers awakened stirrings of scent lust. Then I tried Ginger Ciao and actually fell in love.

I enjoy coconut scents (Hove’s Plage d’Ete is my favorite) but somehow they never quite seem like real perfume. Ginger Ciao does not have that problem. It’s a real perfume, in spades. It has a frankly weird herbaceous opening—the source of all the nasty “It smells like dill pickles” reviews at LuckyScent—but it slowly blossoms into a gently spicy/sweet mélange of coconut and ginger, with a hint of white flowers. The basil note hangs on, though, to save it from becoming yet another insipid, vanilla-soaked gourmand. It has something of the head shop about it, like the best possible coconut incense, without the smoke. Dave’s usual response to coconut fragrances is “Smells like dessert,” which is not a positive assessment. He loved Ginger Ciao in all its phases. I left Takashimaya with a bottle.

Next stop: Aedes de Venustas, where I had a lovely time, and two minor heartbreaks.


Photo of Yosh Ginger Ciao from Luckyscent