After the honey tasting, I pulled out some honey perfumes to smell.

Languid and thick, Hiram Green Slowdive has that Big Honey Energy™.

Naomi Goodsir Or du Sérail is a boozy, honey-drenched cornucopia of red fruits edged in tobacco and rum, sultry and autumnal, like a sexy Thanksgiving.

J Hannah Co. Hazel is a bright, ripe, juicy orange, herbaceously honeyed and darling.

Hermes Ambre Narguile is cinnamon raisin toast dipped in honey with tendrils of tobacco, reminiscent of hookah.

Aftelier Honey Blossom is a springtime meadow blooming with honeysuckle, mimosa, linden and orange blossom, a powdering of pollen floating golden in the air, lulling me into a nap in the sunlight.

Slumberhouse Sova is dark and dense, simultaneously herbaceous and animalic, with hops and hay fermenting in waxy honey.

Anna Zworykina Honey and Tar smells the way it’s named: a sticky vat of honey and tar, sweet and deceptively delicious.

Serge Lutens Miel de Bois is a dry wood infused with light honey, soft and beige.

Parfumerie Generale Intrigant Patchouli is a honeyed patchouli, ginger-spiced and smooth with sandalwood.

Xerjoff 1861 Zefiro is luxuriously cool and sweet, with cardamom, cinnamon, carnation, and fruit notes on a pillow of honey-softened resins.

L’Artisan Parfumeur Tea for Two is crystallized ginger with anise and cinnamon drizzled with honey.

Nasomatto Baraonda—I love the way Lucky Scent describes this one: “Baraonda takes the heavy oil paints of the boozy-gourmand genre and uses them to make a watercolor.” A tumbler of whiskey, the smell of old books and antique wooden furniture, honeyed red fruits and resins, all composed in such a way as to make them sheer.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a real sucker for lavender. Lately I’ve been reaching for DSH Perfumes Au Crépuscule de Lavande, which was recommended to me as a “candied lavender” perfume. When I first smelled it, I was simultaneously smitten and conflicted. Smitten because it’s such an easy-to-love scent. It makes me think of Cinnabon: coated in caramelized sugar and so delightful that it feels like a guilty pleasure. Conflicted for precisely the same reason: it was so easy to love that it made me suspicious. And besides, it doesn’t smell like what I expect from a lavender.

Even though I already knew that a good lavender could be soft, rich, and pillowy (broadly speaking: the difference between lavender absolute and lavender essential oil, the latter of which is more thin and herbal medicinal-smelling). I’ve smelled lavender complemented by vanilla-tinged tonka or spiced sandalwood, but never quite like this.

Then I put on some Aftelier Lavender Face Elixir and finally I was able to reconcile this particular quality of lavender. It feels to me like a difference in kinetic energy: lavender typically has a quality of restful stillness, but in Au Crépuscule de Lavande and Aftelier’s Lavender Face Elixir, I feel a gentle warmth as if generated by the friction of hands rubbing together, a kind of buzzing, or purring. In Au Crépuscule, this cinnamon-esque warmth is enhanced with sweet, golden resinous notes and tonka bean.

Thank you, Dawn and Mandy for showing me a new side of lavender. 

Chocolate notes in perfume: cozy, delicious, and delightful.

When I want straight-up chocolate cake batter, I go for 4160 Tuesdays Over the Chocolate Shop, or the lighter Profumum Sorriso with accents of orange.

My most beloved perfume, Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 (I’ll only vouch for the original formulation) is a velvety, vampy cocoa patchouli. Sammarco Bond-T has a similar character but goes in a more dense, smoky leather direction.

Fzotic Ummagumma is chewy chocolate incense smoke, and his Corpse Reviver is booze-soaked, fruity, chocolate-covered civet.

Slumberhouse Ore is cocoa in a deep dark forest cabin, autumnal and moody.

DSH Perfumes Piment et Chocolat is unsweetened dark drinking cocoa with chili powder. Arquiste Anima Dulcis also features cocoa and chili, but is sueded, lighter, with vanilla folded in. Orto Parisi Boccanera is dark, nutty wood dusted with cocoa and chili.

Lubin Upper Ten for Her is a bright-eyed, fruity raspberry-rose going out for the evening, a cocoa powder compact in her purse.

Meshaz Spiced Cocoa puts cardamom front and center, but dries down to a soft cocoa powder.

And, it’s not a perfume but Bright Black Candle’s candle for Cocoasavvy resonates with cocoa and cotton.

Do you have a favorite chocolate scent?

Three banana scent color schemes.

Yesterday I tried a sample of Hilde Soliani Donna Sentenza and was carried away on a banana pudding dreamboat, vanilla wafers swimming beside me like dolphins. So I pulled out a couple other banana perfume samples, along with my color-aid card deck from long ago art school. L’Artisan Parfumeur Bana Banana is a milky-creamy green banana, a light-hearted soirée full of sophisticated party dresses. Sarah Baker Jungle Jezebel screeches in on neon heels of peach lactones, tutti-frutti cocktail in hand.

Vetiver is a scent I had never heard of before I got into perfume, though it’s extremely common. I remember the first time I recognized it in Dasein‘s Spring—somewhere between woody and grassy, vetiver is both soothing and perpetually buzzing with kinetic energy. The essential oil is distilled from the roots of the tall vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) with backnotes ranging from smoke to peanuts and potatoes to mint or grapefruit. It’s complex enough to stand as a perfume on its own, but it’s also widely used as a supporting note in all kinds of perfumes, lending earthiness and structure, sometimes detectable, sometimes not.

If you’re looking for a no-fuss, pitch-perfect vetiver perfume, you want 33 by Chris Rusak. HEELEY Vetiver Veritas is another solinote vetiver, and it leans hard into the grassy, grapefruit-mint side of the material. Masque Milano Hemingway is a standout vetiver-forward scent composed by Fanny Bal, with cedar, ginger, and patchouli accents.

Hermes Terre d’Hermes by Jean-Claude Ellena is a classic vetiver scent, impeccably balanced with mineral, cedar, and citrus notes.

Nasomatto does wonderful things with vetiver in Absinth, a complex, sweet green fragrance with loamy earth and wormwood. J. Hannah Co. Skive is an exceptional leather scent woven with unmistakable vetiver and frankincense. Jovoy Incident Diplomatique is a captivating duo of vetiver and patchouli, velvety yet dry with a touch of nutmeg and juicy citrus.

Etat Libre d’Orange bridges vetiver and vanilla in the delightful, creamy-salty-grassy-resinous Fat Electrician. Serge Lutens does something similar yet more restrained with the elegant, ambered Vetiver Oriental.

Other vetiver-forward perfumes include Comme Des Garcons Clash: Radish x Vetiver (aquatic/mineral scent meets subtle dirt and grass), Essential Parfums Mon Vetiver (gin & tonic and light cotton with a touch of smooth green), HEELEY Espirit du Tigre (camphorous, herbal, energetic), Oriza L. Legrand Vetiver Royal Bourbon (spicy cardamom barbershop with an herby, grassy, leather texture), Olfactive Studio Ombre Indigo, and Escentric Molecules Escentric 03. Escentric Molecules Molecule 03 can be a helpful point of reference with its single note of synthetic vetiver—or you can just buy vetiveryl acetate from any materials supplier for a few bucks.