Do You Really Want to Smell Like a Cocktail?
Image credit: Demeter Fragrance Library
Hermès has just come out with a new fragrance called Épice Marine (marine spice), produced in collaboration with French chef Olivier Roellinger. Food and beauty’s relationship is not a new one, but whether or not you want to attach those kitchen scents to your very being is questionable.
As beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June wrote in the March issue of Lucky magazine, “I love a food. But, weirdly, I do not love a ‘gourmand’ (a.k.a. food-ish) perfume. Chocolate, macaroons, pineapples—all good, but not on my skin/in my hair.” Godfrey-June is down with Epice Marine, though, and we imagine we would be, too: it combines notes of Brittany’s salty sea, smoked cardamom, cumin, and hay.
But what if you’re not feeling Hermès-level splurgy? We took to the website of New York-based Demeter Fragrance Library, those folks behind the much buzzed-about Pizza perfume, to see what foodie scents were on their winter grocery shopping list-long roster. And we found that there were an overwhelming number of cocktail-related scents:
Which begs the question: Do you really want to smell like a cocktail? In some cases, it turns out, no. Martini oddly smelled of gingerbread, White Sangria was more Pledge than pretty perfume, Irish Cream and Hot Toddy brought Play-Doh to mind, and bourbon, which we so wanted to like, was too alcohol-forward. It smelled like that frat dude who was sweating out last night’s party on the elliptical next to us at the gym this morning. But some others, we found when we tested them this morning, were downright pleasant.
Gin & Tonic: Light and refreshing, this has that peppery bite that G&Ts have, and as it fades, it reveals a pleasantly soapy undertone that softens it.
Frozen Margarita: We were shocked that we liked this. It smells exactly like the original Vitabath—clean and herbal—and we want to wash ourselves with it.
We should point out that Piña Colada, Sambuca, and Mulled Cider all really hit the mark, in that each truly smells like its drinkable counterpart, we just don’t personally want to smell like those things. But if you do, by all means, spritz away.
Now, we’re going to pour ourselves a real drink.
