30 Demeters in 30 Days: Day 11, Waffle Cone

The real pleasure of Demeter is twofold: a scent that smells exactly like its real-world counterpart, and that also smells like something you'd never expect to find in a bottle. A cologne that smells of lemons or roses or even a piña colada is pleasant, but not startling: but spraying a liquid on your skin and discovering that it's an exact replica of gingerbread, a barn, or a recently smoked pipe? That's magic. Even if you know a little bit about how the aroma-chemicals are researched and created, it's still magic.

If you clamp your nose to your skin just a second or two after spraying, before the alcohol has had a chance to dissipate, Waffle Cone smells a lot like amaretto, though there are no almonds in the composition: this almond-liqueur smell vanishes almost immediately, and what you're left with is the most delightful aroma--the exact scent of waffle cones freshly baked in an ice-cream shop, dark and sugary and vanilla-drenched. It's fantastically accurate.

Surprisingly, Waffle Cone has very little lasting power: you'd think something so sweet and vanillic would hang around for a few hours, but it starts to change character within ten or fifteen minutes and is for the most part gone in less than an hour. But whatever, right? Spray on some more. I can't imagine anyone complaining.