Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori Beats WFH Gloom

Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori is not for shy or retiring types.

Is it time to burn our Work From Home outfits yet? I am so ready for a Visible From Space™ bonfire of faded t-shirts and elastic-waisted sweatsuit bottoms. Until then, I keep trying to distract from my practical (yuck) ensembles by accessorizing with fuzzy new Birkenstocks and drowning myself in fragrance.

The perfect scent to counteract the endless parade of boring, machine-washable everything is Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori, (50 ml, $119) the most recent addition to the Gucci Bloom family. A longer-lasting take on original Gucci Bloom’s riot of white flowers, it brings even more tuberose to the party along with powdery iris and an undergirding of sandalwood and musk to keep it modern. Tuberose has an almost narcotic effect, so a good dousing of Profumo di Fiori can easily take you out of your day-to-day.

This floral overload head-fakes me into believing that my stretched out t-shirts are actually box-fresh $200 cotton and cashmere numbers and that I’m sipping an iced latte and covertly people-watching in an overseas airport lounge, instead of just shuffling from couch to kitchen to put the kettle on.

Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori is what we need right now as we count down the weeks (ok, maybe months) to vaccination and real zip-up trousers. I can hardly wait.

Take a Perfume Walk with Chanel Sycomore (the World's Best Vetiver)

Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore is the greatest vetiver fragrance. Fact.

TikTok-er @itsmetinx, has her wine walks (fill an opaque Simple Modern cup with wine and stroll through the neighbourhood getting quietly tipsy) but I have been taking perfume walks. As a counterpoint to living in sweats 24/7, I drown myself in perfume and walk the streets of north Toronto, leaving a beautiful-scented wake, like a Catholic priest swinging a censer during Mass.

Right now, my perfume of choice is Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore, (75 ml eau de parfum. $240), the greatest vetiver fragrance there is. (I should change the name of this site from Oldish to ‘Vetiver is my boyfriend.’) Genderless and nuanced, this classic from 2008 is for anyone who craves an earthy, herbal smell but is either repelled or just bored by anything patchouli-dominant. It’s kind of sticky, a little bit smoky and herbal, indisputably very fancy and very Chanel.

Sycomore plays beautifully with other scents. If you have an ethereal floral that needs grounding or toughening, a blast of Sycomore can do that easily without even breaking a sweat. But I prefer it on its own, both as a fragrance and as a critical counterpoint to my WFH wardrobe.

Knock on Wood by Tory Burch Eases You into Autumn on an Orange and Vetiver Cloud

Tory Burch Knock on Wood is a vetiver and blood orange fever dream.

Tory Burch Knock on Wood (50 ml extrait de parfum $135 CAN, Sephora) is semi-deranged but in the best possible way.

It’s as if the brand had a safe, rose-and-magnolia ‘elegant lady’ scent, but after hours, when everyone had gone home, someone snuck in and topped up the tanks with gallons of blood orange oil and resinous, jungle-humid vetiver. (That’s how perfumery works, right? Giant vats at the office?)

The blood orange cleanly slices through vetiver’s darkness, although it doesn’t stick around long. What you are left with is a sunlit earthiness with a spicy aspect and a hidden floral undertow.

It’s the perfect scent for a walk on a rainy November day. With social distancing a fact of life into the foreseeable future, one should go full-on with fragrance, because no one around you will smell it otherwise. I like to give myself a good blast and then stroll through the neighbourhood, leaving a brilliant sillage.

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale #perfumeeverydamnday

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale

One of my lesser-known skills is the ability to rationalize pretty much any expenditure, no matter how extravagant. Apparently this need to surround myself with “nice” things is standard issue Taurus behaviour, so I don’t fight it. (Besides, I still appreciate a good Cheeto. There is no snack too lowbrow for me. But I digress.)

Take fragrance, for example. A good eau de cologne should be considered a critical element in your daily toilette, ergo it’s as quotidian a purchase as TP or dental floss. So what that it costs a bit more than a 12-pack of Charmin?

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale (The Bay, $121) is an essential with some screamingly fancy bona fides, having been created for Napoleon III’s wife, the Empress Eugénie in 1853. Its formula is very citrus-forward, anchored with traditional notes of lemon, neroli (oil from the flowers of a bitter orange tree), petitgrain (oil from the leaves and green twigs of that same tree) and bergamot to add complexity to the lemon. “Lemon could be sharp,” observes Guerlain’s in-house perfumer Thierry Wasser. “Bergamot is a little delicate, floral.” So you get floral complexity along with that citrussy bite.

Because of all the citrus, Eau de Cologne Impériale won’t last long on your skin, so make sure you give your clothes a good blast as well as your hair, so you can maintain that aura of fancy European clean for hours. It’s some much-needed armour for grey days.

Oh, and if you need me to rationalize any upcoming pricy purchases, just ask. I am happy to help in any way I can.

Eau de Givenchy #perfumeeverydamnday

Eau de Givenchy

There’s a breeze blowing through Eau de Givenchy, a 2018 reimagining of the 1980s classic. This new version gets you with its fizzy bergamot, lemon, orange and grapefruit opening, before veering into a greenish bitter almond and then resting on a featherbed of pillowy floral hedione, the synthetic jasmine note created in 1958 and reputed to drive women wild with desire (Steve McQueen allegedly wore it.)

Before you leave your house and head out into the world, spray Eau de Givenchy into the air in front of you and walk through it, so your clothes are imbued with the scent. You will feel like you hung your laundry to dry in the garden of Hubert de Givenchy’s Saint Jean de Cap Ferrat mansion, le Clos Fiorentina.

I know it’s highly unlikely that a mansion would have laundry lines near its gardens, and the staff probably wouldn’t even let us anywhere near them. But such details interfere with my fantasy, so I ignore them. And if now is not the time to construct elaborate parallel universe fantasy lives, then I don’t know when is.

Clos Fiorentina, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat

Clarins Eau Dynamisante #perfumeeverydamnday

I swear I’m not making this up. Years ago, in February, I saw a staffer at Toronto’s Clarins spa mopping the floor with the contents of a giant bottle of Eau Dynamisante, so even in the dead of winter the whole place smelled of citrus and summer. 

An extravagant hand with an energizing scent is the approach we need in the midst of swampy July. At $60CAN for the 100 ml spray, Eau Dynamisante encourages liberal spritzing. 

Its mix of petitgrain (bitter orange oil) and Amalfi lemon with rosemary, thyme and cardamom is eau de cologne with herbal energy for a lift when the hot weather has laid you flat. 

Or if you’re feeling extra louche, use it as fancy room spray, when the thought of lighting a scented candle in July seems wrong.

Serge Lutens Des Clous Pour Une Pelure #perfumeeverydamnday

A deep blue fragrance is par for Serge Lutens.

The mysterious, deep blue-green colour does not give you a clue what it smells like. Des Clous Pour Une Pelure (loosely) translates to ‘cloves for an (orange) rind’ and while it initially smells like a clove-studded orange Christmas pomander or a potion from the apothecary, it comes to life on your skin (men’s skin, women’s skin, it truly is genderless).

if you are spending this month hiding indoors or in the shade, Des Clou Pour Une Pelure proffers just enough bright orange to feel summery, but without going full-on eau de cologne.

It opens up brazenly, all energizing and grapefruity with a hint of sweetness. But soon the clove retires into the background and what remains is a citrus scent with enough spicy depth to convert anyone who thinks that citrus scents can be rather ho-hum. It’s refreshing and richly layered at the same time.

And while it will not turn your skin blue, I wouldn’t spray it anywhere near that white cotton dress you have on repeat this summer.

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Orange Soleia #perfumeeverydamnday

Like walking through an orange grove that is also an herb garden.

Spraying Guerlain’s new Aqua Allegoria Orange Soleia is like splitting apart an orange and breathing in that exploding arc of juice. The blood orange, bergamot and petitgrain (oil from leaves of the bitter orange tree) are an almost fizzy fortification against that wall of humidity you’ll encounter when you step outside this time of year.

Citrus fragrances have a notoriously brief life on your skin, but the addition of mint, floral-yet-biting pink peppercorn and a gently warm, woody note extend Orange Soleia’s presence well after that initial mood-altering orange burst has fled.

The scent is meant to evoke a Calabrian citrus grove in the hot sun, but imagine it’s your citrus grove with a pool at its edge. This is a fantasy after all. You walk through your citrus grove, eat an orange, jump in the pool to cool down and then dry off on your sun-warmed, wooden deck chair. There are worse ways to spend the summer.

Calvin Klein Eternity #perfumeeverydamnday

Some people use the expression ‘laundry musk perfume’ dismissively, like it’s bad to want to smell like the sensation of sliding between freshly washed sheets at the end of a long day.

When it’s gross and sticky in the summer, and two showers a day isn't enough (didn't Tom Ford take four baths a day?) Calvin Klein Eternity, a subtly powdery, 1988 scent by star perfumer Sophia Grojsman full of white flowers, green fizz and clean musk is instant laundry day serenity and calm.

Wear this and you’ll feel like your life is ordered and that someone has put crisp, freshly washed and ironed, blindingly white linen slipcovers on all the chairs in the house and even left a pitcher of cucumber water in the fridge for you. 

Valmont Casanova 2161 #perfumeeverydamnday

Vetiver makes an appearance in a lot of men’s fragrances because someone once decided that this resinous grass with a smoky punch smells ‘masculine’. But it’s really for anyone who appreciates a subtly mossy scent with a sharper greenish bite than patchouli.

Valmont Palazzo Nobile Casanova 2161 ($240 Can) elegantly deploys earthy vetiver to deftly lighten the powdery, violet aspect of iris, making it modern and transparent. Add the herbaceous tang of juniper berries and Casanova 2161 easily transports you to the stone patio of a grand cliffside Mediterranean hotel for drinks as the sun slowly sets. (I really want a holiday. Is it obvious?)