Oh, Thierry Mugler, you crazy Frenchman!  I love you and your olfactory genius!  I love Angel, I love Innocent , and now I love Womanity!

However, this is a love that, at first, did not seem meant to be. Let's go back in time to a few months ago, a time before my nose had ever touched this fragrance and my knowledge of Womanity was based purely on press releases and preliminary product reviews.  In spite of loving Mugler's other creations and a consistently concerted effort not to formulate opinions about scents I've yet to smell,  I hated almost everything I knew about Womanity from the first moment I read about it.

Let's start with the name: Womanity. What? Really, Thierry? When someone asks me what I'm wearing, I'm going to have to say that ridiculous "word" out loud? Yeah, no. I'm not doing that.

Then we have Womanity's ridiculous "bond between women" brand messaging -  I'm convinced there's an army of ad executives somewhere that are still working on replacing all the pants they ruined when they forced this campaign so hard they shit themselves. I'm extremely insulted by the entire concept and its components: 

• An "artsy" product website covered in platitudes submitted by "real" women with music I'm either supposed to use as a yoga backdrop or a soundtrack to a tear-filled epiphany about my vagina
• A separate Womanity "ambassador" site with a ridiculous splash page (REALLY? A SPLASH page? In 2010? ) plastered with a trio of  women holding the world's most unintentionally scary Halloween masks – women that I'm pretty sure would also like to advise me on yeast infection treatments, tampons, and what to do when I get that not-so-fresh feeling
• The overall presumption that women don't already have a bond, and that Thierry Mugler himself is the only one who can see this travesty and fix it – with perfume

The notes in Womanity are simply said to be caviar, fig, and fig wood, and early reviewers actually described the top note as being somewhat fishy which nearly sent me over the edge for reasons that should be obvious. Luckily for Thierry, my going over the edge would never affect him in the least and even if it magically did, I didn't completely fly off the deep end because:

•  The bottle with its kick ass Gigeresque embellishment is crazy awesome and -
•  Thierry Mugler is responsible for two of my favorite olfactory creations in the universe so I felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt until I smelled this perfume for myself.

Now let's fast-forward to 3 days ago when Megan finally caught me in a moment when I wasn't already doused in another perfume. She had me try on the Womanity she received in the form of a deluxe sample from a Mugler rep. and what can I say? I LOVE IT.

There's absolutely nothing fishy about it – the caviar note manifests itself in the form of the fleeting essence of a salty sea spray that almost immediately melds itself with the sweet, rich aroma of figs.  The heart delivers on Mugler's attempt to create a fragrance that is both savory and sweet, and the "caviar" note's transformation to just plain salt adds a dimension to the fragrance that, much like the hearts of his other creations, cannot be compared to anything else.  The base retains the salty-sweetness of the heart, but the understated fig wood note smooths things out and allows the scent to live out its extended dry down in a form that's still sexy but much less dramatic.

If you're not into sillage, Womanity is definitely not for you. In fact, neither the sillage nor the lasting power leave anything to be desired – I sprayed it on myself early in the evening and could still smell it the next morning.

Everything about it sings autumn and winter to me just as richly as Angel and Innocent do, but with less spice and more sugar. I love the smell of fig, but find it's usually executed in a way that's perfectly pleasant but just a touch too dainty ( Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Figue-Iris) , or with a cheap, heavy hand ( Bath and Body Works' Brown Sugar and Fig).

Womanity isn't cheap but it's not over-the-top expensive, and for a normal perfume user, even a 1.7 oz. bottle ( $78)  should last for quite some time. 

However, I still wish the ad campaign had been entirely different and it was named something I wasn't embarrassed to speak aloud, like maybe "Fig de la Mer" or "L'océan de la Figure" or even just, "Fig and Sea Spray." Really.

PERFUME NAME:
Giorgio

PERFUME HOUSE:
Giorgio Beverly Hills

PERFUMER:
Bob Aliano

YEAR:
1981

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Floral

DESCRIPTION:
According to the description on fragrantica.com, this perfume's top notes are orange blossom, peach, apricot and trails of sweet and fresh bergamot. The middle notes are ylang-ylang, seductive tuberose, gardenia, jasmine, rose and orchid. Base notes are warm sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla, amber, cedar, oakmoss and musk.

CONCENTRATION:
Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:

All I really knew about Giorgio before this smell test is that it was the ultimate symbol of luxury and decadence in the 80s. Now I imagine that the people who could afford this status symbol could also afford a lot of cocaine, which obstructed their sense of smell enough to prevent them from realizing the violent, headache-inducing pain they were inflicting on everyone within a 1 mile radius. Legend has it that one restaurateur actually banned Giorgio, and said he didn't want his restaurant to smell like his mailbox.  I certainly understand the inclination to ban this perfume from any eating establishment, but to be completely honest I don't understand the mailbox analogy. Did "mailbox" mean something different in the 80s? 

Anyway, when this little bottle first arrived I took the cap off for a quick sniff so I could prepare myself for the full-on smell test that was to take place later. That quick sniff just smelled like baby shampoo, and since Giorgio had arrived around the same time as my bottle of Love's Baby Soft, I suddenly wondered if it was very stylish in the 80s to smell like a baby. This theory was completely dismissed when I did the real smell test. The moment this perfume was released from its protective enclosure,  my nose was accosted so violently that it spread throughout my entire face and I briefly thought someone was stabbing me in my eyes and ears.

This perfume is a screamer, and I don't mean that in a novel, sexy way. Giorgio's unrelenting, chemically floral scent propels itself onto its victims in the form of a piercing, bloodcurdling scream – one so horrific that it could only come from someone who passed out in a dumpster after a night of drugs and binge drinking, then awoke to discover they were being crushed to death by a trash compactor. 

Do you want it? Just say the word and it's yours.

PERFUME NAME:
Love's Baby Soft

PERFUME HOUSE:
Dana

PERFUMER:
?

YEAR:
1974

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Technically I think this is a floral, but in reality it's…not.

DESCRIPTION:
According to one site, "powdery florals accompanied by wood and animalic scents."

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Cologne

MY EXPERIENCE:

I'm going to start by addressing the elephant in the room and point out that the Love's Baby Soft bottle looks like a dildo or a really large suppository.

Okay. Onward.

I really hate the smell of baby powder and consequently hate the smell of Love's Baby Soft. I thought it smelled terrible in middle school; it still smells terrible today.

If you genuinely enjoy the smell of baby powder, Love's Baby Soft will take you on a wonderful trip down memory lane in some dude's Z28. That guy is too old for you, by the way, and in a few years you're going to realize how creepy it is that he was 22 and you were only 15.

However, if you (like me) think smelling like a baby is repulsive unless you're actually a baby, Love's Baby Soft will cause you to grimace and make exaggerated gagging noises to convey your displeasure to any human within earshot.

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GIVEAWAY TIME!

Who wants some Love's Baby Soft? You do?! That's perfect, because I want to give it to you! All you need to do is tell me what it is about it that you like. I genuinely want to know what is appealing about it because this was once insanely popular; surely there is a reason. Tell me what I'm missing! This is for SCIENCE!

You can tell me in the comments area for this post or if you would like to keep your affection for Baby Soft a secret from the other readers of this website, you can just email me.

Oh, one more thing – I don't want to disappoint you, but the bottle for this giveaway is only .5 fl. oz. and therefore shaped like a heart instead of a suppository.

"If this smell was a flavor of syrup at IHOP I would love it, but it's not, so I don't."

- Kerry, on Samsara

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.

*      *      *      *      *

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.