It Never Ends: Three More Fueguia 1833 Scents

And after last week's wonderful surprise, we're back to awfulness.

Agua Magnoliana: Boring white floral.

Metafora: Incomprehensible desserty ginger-ale thing.

Malena: Horrifying floral musk. Horrifying.

Three more to go. Dare I hope for greatness from one of them?

Soldiering On: Three More by Fueguia 1833

Acacia ("mimosa, iris, acacia caven"): Genuinely weird floral, and not in a good way. Baffling cucumbery top, then too much iris. I am not a fan of iris but this one is particularly awful to my nose. 

Naranjo en Flor ("neroli, mimosa, petitgrain"): Angular green top, then cheap shampoo. I am not a fan of orange blossom (there are exceptions) but this one is particularly awful to my nose.

Humboldt ("bergamot, passionfruit, tangerine"): Synthetic fruit-scented air freshener.

My God, I can hear you saying, don't you like anything? Well, yeah, I liked Mbucuruya a whole lot, and if someone gave me a bottle I'd wear it all the time. But it is increasingly obvious that as a whole, the Fueguia 1833 collection is just not for me, at all. However many elements each scent actually does contain, the nucleus-plus-two-electrons focus makes most of them smell underdeveloped and thin, because there aren't enough other components to add complexity and draw attention away from anything that might not be quite working. And most of them just smell like knockoffs of established ideas: there's hardly anything that's new. (Of the 10 that I've tried so far, only El Mono de la Tinta smells novel to me. Even Mbucuruya calls to mind a vanilla-plus-fruit Comptoir Sud Pacifique scent — albeit a really sublimely good CSP.)

Only seven left to go. There's got to be at least one more winner in the bunch. I live in hope.

Airhead: Vidi by Histoires de Parfum

I was so delighted with Veni that I naturally assumed the other two scents in the series would also be excellent, so my expectations were high when I splashed on Vidi. My very first thought was, "What is that? Dill pickle? That can't be good!"

Vidi doesn't exactly smell like a dill pickle, but it does have a hint of that briny tartness. And then it immediately devolves into a grim twin of those deliberately, braggingly synthetic Comme des Garçons scents such as Odeur 53, Odeur 71, and Dry Clean.

The official list of notes includes such things as "ozone effects", "plastic rose", and "water effects", so you can immediately tell that it is meant to be a CdG knockoff crossed with yet another of those air-and-water men's scents that so contaminate our daily lives (I have two co-workers who wear nothing else), only even more artificial, if such a thing is possible. I think it's horrible: perhaps you'll like it better, but if you actually want to smell like this, you can find something similar (but less awful) in any department store for a whole lot less than $175.

The Judgement of Paris: What We Do In Paris Is Secret by A Lab On Fire

What We Do In Paris Is Secret is a tantalizing name, no doubt about it, as is A Lab On Fire, the house that launched it last year. They're not cranking out dozens of scents annually, for which they get credit: instead, they're hiring name perfumers — Sophia Grojsman, Thierry Wasser — to produce high-end fragrances (currently $110 for a 60-mL bottle) and apparently limiting themselves to three a year, which these days is an extraordinary show of restraint.

What We Do In Paris Is Secret was created by Dominique Ropion, who is also responsible for the literally flawless Casual Friday, cruelly discontinued (I have a big bottle which should last me years), and the baffling but much-loved Kenzo Jungle L'Elephant, as well as a number of other scents you may of heard of: Ysatis and Amarige for Givenchy, Mugler's Alien, and Dior Pure Poison, to name a few.

In the last twenty years, the dominant expression of fragrance for women has been the fruity floral, and presumably as a consequence of this, most of Ropion's assignments, no different from any other perfumer's, have been in this genre, which explains why he has had a hand in such popular unpleasantnesses as Gucci Accenti, Calvin Klein Euphoria, Very Irresistible by Givenchy, Paco Rabanne's Lady Million, and others it is best not to think too hard about. What We Do In Paris is a Secret is a heavy, sweet, cloying, chemical fruity floral as obnoxious as any I've ever smelled. With its radioactively pinging top note and its thick, mucky middle, it is horrible: just bringing the vial near my nose makes me wince. It's so dreadful that twenty minutes after putting in on the backs my hands (as I always do), I had to scrub it off. I could still smell it, so I scrubbed my hands again a few minutes later. Even then I couldn't stand the remnants of it, so I scrubbed a third time. I was finally reduced to spraying myself with CSP Vanille Abricot, something potent, something with covering power. A lot of people commenting on Luckyscent and Fragrantica just adore it, so go ahead, listen to them. But for the love of god, get a sample first, and try it out near soap and running water.