Puckrik on Perfume

Katie Puckrik: Photographer Martin Shaw

Perfume Pen Pals: Katie & Dan Talk ‘Fumes’

Dan,

I recently heard from a kid I knew in 5th grade at the Anglo-American School in Moscow. Except now he’s a law professor at an Ivy League university. He’d stumbled upon KatiePuckrikSmells and wanted to share his love for Jean Desprez Bal à Versailles. Are you familiar with this one?

I checked it out on the fume blogs and it sounded right up my furry alley: opulent, incensey, civet-y, so I tracked down a teeny bottle of parfum.

It’s so interesting: Nag Champa hippie incense, overripe jasmine, dirty leather and “clean” horse poop. With hay. It smells old-fashioned and a little cheap, too. Of course, I’m desperate to know what those vintage bottles on eBay smell like. But I tell you what: I love layering BàV with Le Labo Labdanum 18. Good clean dirty fun.

When I reported my horse-poop findings to the former 5th-grader/current law professor, he was rather discomfited. There he was tipping me off to a lovely, cherished scent, and then he gets an earful of manure from me. Sometimes, it’s best not to know the darkness that lies beneath loveliness.

My big love at the moment is Chanel Coromandel. Got a “Land of the Giants”-sized bottle of that in the fridge.

Katie

Jean Desprez Bal à Versailles

Katie,

Coromandel is a marvel! I, too, have the big Exclusifs bottle. But here’s the thing: no one else likes it. Or at least no one else I know. And that’s the conundrum of wearing fragrances: how much do you let the people around you influence what you wear? A loved one? A lot, I guess. A once-a-month brunch friend? Screw ‘em. But with Coromandel, I’ve literally had three otherwise sane women tell me they hated it.

I was shopping for a loft a few months ago and an agent was showing me one place with cute little library. And on the shelves were all of these vintage bottles: Chanels and Guerlains and stuff I didn’t even recognize.

“Wow, a perfume collector!” I said. And the agent, without missing a beat, said, “Yeah, the guy who lives here is kind of creepy.” Ouch. No respect, Katie. If I ever sell my place, I’m hiding all my bottles.

Have you tried S-Perfume’s scents? They’re very odd and maybe up your alley. I have the faux-leather S-ex, which will remind you of sex only if you have sex fully clothed in brand-new cars with thick vinyl interiors.

Dan

For more of Katie’s fragrance rants and rambles, visit KatiePuckrikSmells , or click here

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