sea

Ellis Brooklyn Rives Review

Posted on by elemonated

A fresh yet addictively wearable combination of orange flower, lavender, petitgrain, cashmere woods and white suede.

Rives smells like what everyone says an Italian garden is supposed to smell like, all yellow and white flowers and lemons cut by an undercurrent of sea water, because when we talk about Italy, we talk about the places on the sea where the mangroves produce citrus for the gods and the basin’s salt does some reverse magic and sweetens the earth instead of kills it like it should.

Read More

Cheap Fragrances Review – Amazon Edition

Posted on by elemonated

Now that I’ve graduated school and have a job, you would think I would be less broke but that assumption is incorrect. Being a hedonist in a city is quite the balancing act, though I think I’ve been balancing it well, and my business school education definitely comes in handy when it comes to budgeting and restraint.

Because of my limited spending money, I think it’s worth taking the time to troll grey market sites and second-hand stores for gems. This time around, I stumbled around on Amazon and ended up picking out three that I thought would be diamonds in the rough.

IMG_20160418_205630271-01.jpeg Read More

Imaginary Authors: Stories III (Every Storm a Serenade)

Posted on by elemonated

IA-logoI’ll preface this to say that when Mr. Chokkattu got Every Storm a Serenade in the mail, it also came with Cape Heartache and Yesterday Haze and Yesterday Haze had leaked all over everything. Mr. Chokkattu, who is not a big fan of fig, was not pleased and we tried to scrub it off our hands and off the other bottles and were unable. The other samples still smelled ostensibly like Yesterday Haze for a whole week, and it stuck to our hands for hours afterwards. Mr. Chokkattu also reported his clothes smelling like it the next day. So for all of you that really like fig and woods, but were concerned about longevity, don’t be. Yesterday Haze is a great fig. Get a bottle, have fun.

I have a lot to say about this one. Every Storm a Serenade is Imaginary Author’s “traveling by ocean” aquatic scent (read: woody) in comparison with their Falling Into the Sea aquatic scent, which is more “at the beach” and not a little soapy in execution. And Falling Into the Sea lasts an awful lot longer, which is unfortunate because I’m not that fond of Falling Into the Sea at this temperature, and like Every Storm much better.

Read More

Imaginary Authors: Stories II

Posted on by elemonated

IA-logo

Here comes installment two! In my previous post about Imaginary Authors, I decided that for these fragrances I would do something different and write some short stories based on what comes up when I smell them. These stories are based on a vigilante concept that Mr. Chokkattu and I discuss whenever someone who’s a waste of space shows up on the news, and the style hopefully smacks of Brandon Sanderson as well as a tiny hint of Haruki Murakami perhaps. Hope you enjoy!

Cape Heartache: pine, oak, embers, strawberries, vanilla Read More