The results are in! Megan and I now know what scents defined the 80's for you, and we've even managed to whittle the list down to 5 scents. They will all be reviewed during the week of March 15th, after I have journeyed long and far to exotic places, cultivating samples of rare and precious scent relics so that you may relive the glory or the horror of your youth via internet perfume reviews. In the meantime, I'll be providing you with equally valuable content that will be useful and impress upon you my vast knowledge of global economics.

I know that we are still in the midst of a recession and perfume collecting is an expensive hobby. If you are not careful it will consume you.  I have, on more than one occasion, actually thought to myself something along the lines of, "If I only eat dinner 3 times next week, this bottle of [expensive perfume name] could be mine right now!"  I am not alone in this; other collectors will tell you similar stories, and I'm pretty sure the Santa in today's photo was, in fact, a fully employed, well-adjusted perfume collector with a home and a family up until just last month. You see, that bottle in his hand is not booze or urine as one might suspect, but actually his very last perfume flacon.

Also, many people over the past week have been approaching me with perfume questions but they have been prefacing their questions with, "This is probably beneath you, but…"  Let me take this opportunity to set the record straight: the only perfumes that are beneath me are ones that smell bad. Its bottle, store of origin, and socioeconomic background are not part of my judging criteria. My hobby is focused on my olfactory senses, so it would be ridiculous to claim to be a perfume collector and then pass judgment on a fragrance by anything other than whether or not I like the way it smells. A beautiful bottle is always a bonus, but never a requirement. The juice just needs to smell good.

All that being said, this week will be a Themed Review Series, and the theme is "Amazing and Obscenely Affordable Perfumes Vol.1"

This series will only include perfumes that are favored, so if you're a fan of my ripping things to shreds with cat piss analogies, which I hope you are, you may be a little disappointed this week. However, I plan on replacing that disappointment with priceless knowledge and by the following week you'll be fresh and ready for the imminent bitchfest that will no doubt accompany at least part of The Scents of the 80's.

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Oh. One more thing. Archives are still broken, but I'm working on fixing that real soon like.

Compared to some perfume collectors, my stash is modest. Compared to the average person on the street, I have every perfume ever conceived of in the space time continuum. In my defense, my purchases are all calculated, each perfume serving a specific purpose. Some of those purposes include:

• Making me feel rich while I'm grocery shopping
• Ensuring my perspiration smells like fruit so strangers will think I'm magical
• Keeping people's attention during work-related meetings
• Confirming that life is devoid of all hope as I'm crying alone in my bedroom during week 4 of my birth control pill pack every month
• Alleviating the symptoms of spring fever
• Boosting my self-esteem by eliciting compliments from total strangers

and obviously the most important of all:

• Exponentially increasing my chances of making out with someone really hot

Given that the aforementioned purpose is usually pretty high up on my list of priorities, it makes sense that I have more perfumes that serve that purpose than any other, and even more sense that my personal Holy Grail of all the fragrances I've worn is the one that has brought me the most success in that department.

So, here it is. My Holy Grail of fragrances:

PERFUME NAME:
Miss Dior Cherie

PERFUME HOUSE:
Christian Dior

PERFUMER:
Christine Nagel

YEAR:
2005 ( reformulated in 2007 )

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Chypre Fruity according to fragrantica.com but I'm going to veto that and say it's a Floral Fruity.

DESCRIPTION:
Top notes include wild strawberry leaves and something called "green tangerine". I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a green tangerine, but I appreciate the sentiment. The heart notes claim to be caramel popcorn, violets, wild strawberry, and pink jasmine. The base is musk and patchouli.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:
I am not looking forward to the day I look 35 (which at the current rate I am aging should happen when I'm about 46) because that will be the day this sweet, intoxicating smell will officially be age inappropriate and I will have to retire it. This fragrance is clearly marketed to the hip, modern gal in her early 20s to early 30s as evidenced by its fruity, carefree scent and this commercial directed by Sophia Coppola:

While I'm not much of a bicycle rider and my French, though persistent, is really fucking terrible, this young lady and I clearly share the same MO: Making out with hot dudes then immediately flying away with a bunch of balloons, allowing everyone in town to see our underwear.

This fragrance is criticized by many as not being "sophisticated" enough for the Dior line, but those people are missing the point of this fragrance entirely. The name of this fragrance is Miss Dior Cherie after all, not "Matronly Dior" or "Dior Spinster".  

Miss Dior Cherie is a joyful blend of sweet, ripened berries and a hint of soft, romantic flowers – probably pink ones ( definitely not violets, as claimed in Dior's description). This fragrance comes dangerously close to being a gourmand scent, which based on my scientific research is a positive attribute for me and about 70% of the heterosexual male population. 

This perfume smells like warm, sunny days free of obligation, silk bows, heart-shaped lockets, reckless abandon, and someone who has really shiny hair. The dry down lasts for quite awhile and remains faintly sweet, but that faint sweetness comes with a tart, woody accord that prevents it from turning into maraschino syrup. This aspect is especially appreciated in the event that you still need to smell good when you…you know…wake up in the morning.

I wear it often and for many reasons: when I need to lift my mood, when my outfit is particularly well accessorized, when kittens are cute, when pink is for girls, when the sky is blue, when rainbows have colors and because of its track record of success, when I need to achieve a minimum of second base with a hot guy and subsequently fly away.

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THERE'S STILL TIME TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

The prize you receive probably won't get you any hot action unless you're going for the 70+ set, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to win! All you have to do is leave a comment on any entry on this website and you will be entered in a random drawing to win a gag-inducing miniature bottle of Shatimar – err, I mean, Shalimar. The winner will be chosen on the evening of March 4th and announced on March 5th. 

The problem with starting a perfume blog or anything for that matter is that you're starting something, and beginnings are hard. Do I do an awkward introduction? Do I apologize for my broken archive page? Or do I just dive in and lay my negative review of Shalimar right here on the Internet table? I guess I'll do all of those things.

Hi. I'm Kerry. My archive page is broken right now and I'm not sure when I'll fix it. My deepest apologies for that inconvenience.

I curse a lot, so if you do not think "fucking" is a good adjective for a smell, you might want to avoid this website altogether. I'm in no way trying to be the Andrew Dice Clay of personal perfume blogs, but when I hate things, I like my hate to be peppered with curse words, and when I love things, I love the fucking shit out of them.

I should probably also be up front about how I love fruity florals even though it's apparently gauche and pedestrian to do so.  It's also not okay to dislike Shalimar according to most perfumistas, but I hate it, and instead of leaving it at that, I'm going to take this opportunity to segue into my official Shalimar review:

PERFUME NAME:
Shalimar

PERFUME HOUSE:
Guerlain

PERFUMER:
Jacques Guerlain

YEAR:
1925

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Oriental

DESCRIPTION:
Named for a garden in a story of an Indian emperor, Shalimar has notes of bergamot, iris, opopanax, and vanilla.

CONCENTRATION:
Although I have smelled the pure parfum in the past, this particular review will be written using the strongest sample I have at my disposal, which is an Eau de Parfum.

MY EXPERIENCE:
I'm actually resmelling it right now – right this very moment, in fact – and my nose is burning with a smell that is almost citrus-like except that all the pleasant things I might find in a bergamot note are completely obstructed by an overpowering nail polish remover accord. That pesky almost-citrus smell is now giving way to a complex blend of varnish and cat piss. The more minutes that pass, the more acrid the stench becomes. I must say,  this aspect of it is impressively just like real cat piss.

( I'm letting some time pass now in order to describe to you the "radiance" of this fragrance.)

Aaah. Here it is. RELIEF. The ammonia smell is fading out and being replaced with a blend of baby powder and some sort of inedible vanilla. This isn't so bad. I'm not going to be replacing my bathroom spray with it anytime soon, but still. When I think about how my eyes watered and my sinuses burned less than 35 minutes ago, this is…better.

I understand that this is a classic and there are scores of perfume fanatics who would name this perfume as their favorite without letting a fraction of a second pass. Many of those people have suggested that I learn to love it, just as they have. Here's the thing though: I don't want to learn to love it. There are literally tens of thousands of other fragrances for me to choose from, and at least several hundred of those are smells that I already know I like; some I even love. Why on earth would I waste my time training myself to like something simply because it's considered a "classic"?

Perhaps it's just my peer group's lack of refined culture ( my peer group being "people born way after WWI" ) showing itself, but I can't help but think that if I have to train myself to like something, what the hell are other people thinking when they walk past me covered in this awful smell? I can assure you that it's not "Gee, that smells like a classic!"

I mean absolutely no disrespect to Jacques Guerlain; he's created plenty of masterpieces, ones I truly love, and I'm sure Shalimar is a chemical opus, but for the love of all things that can smell, please do not put that on me. Or near me.

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AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

Do you love Shalimar and think it would be better off in the hands of someone who can appreciate its ethereal beauty? Have you never smelled Shalimar before and want to know why I hate it ( or why others love it so inexplicably)?  Do you also hate Shalimar and wish you had a bottle of it so you could pour it through the open window of your enemy's car on your lunch break? Well, today is your lucky day!

While I don't have any of the EDP sample left, I do happen to have a mini of the Shalimar EDT right here next to me.  If you'd like me to mail it to you, simply leave a comment and a winner will be chosen at random on March 4th.