Bizarro Fresh: Womanity by Thierry Mugler

I finally get Womanity it just took me 6 years and finally trying it in the middle of a heat spell. Although every time I wear it, I think this will always be my first thought "This is fucking weird."

I want to take a trip down memory lane with this one. The first time I tried Womanity was a total "GET IT OFF!" moment in 2010, fast forward to January 2016 and I buy a random sample of it, it is not "GET IT OFF!" bad but still not doing much for me but there is a glimmer of something interesting. And now lets get to last week, Versus by Versace suddenly awoke a bizarre desire for fruity in me, which frankly you really cannot find in my personal perfume collection. So I rummaged through my samples and found Womanity. I then finally gained clarity on this fragrance, enough clarity that I finally bought a little bottle of it.

The clarity I finally got is that Womanity needs heat. In cold weather the vibrant fruit note gets drowned out by the salty animalic note it makes for something akin to smelling slightly pickled. In the heat though the fruit of Womanity gets to shine. Which is where it gets a little weird for me. Womanity touts a fig note and yet my nose does not read it as fig, instead the first thing that pops into my head when I put it on is salted strawberries and, I mean heavily doused in salt, what follows is the enhancement of the pungency of the fruit note with spicy floral fruit note of pineapple guava (I am actually surprised the scent of this fruit has not been mined by perfumery).

The beginning fruit stage is then followed by the addition of something fresh, green, and spicy. Katie Puckrik compares it to green bell pepper, to my nose it is more akin to bruised coriander leaf and chopped pine needles. Either way this is the stage where the pinkness of the scent starts to take on a salty woodsy aspect. Eventually the fruits give up center stage in Womanity and what happens in the dry down is a glowing musky creamy woodsy thing that somehow retains the neon-ness of the opening fruits yet does not smell inherently fruity.

This is my favorite stage because it smells like the best rendition of Northern California coastline at certain part of the day, its right as the fog is rolling in on sunny afternoon, you can smell the sea, and coastal scrub brush heated by the sun, intermingling. There is one type scrub brush that at the right time of day has a spicy fruity scent, I still don't know what it is, but over the years I have known it well from all my visits and hikes near the beach. I find this scent in Womanity. Womanity is also like that scrub brush in that it needs the heat to be understood properly.

Thierry Mugler discontinued Womanity, you can still find it at online discounters, but this is considered his big flop, it is also the only fragrance of his to this date that has caught my fancy. The thing is I am pretty sure released now it might have done better with the prevalence of niche now being found at the fragrance counter. Still this is a weird one, it is definitely a part of the solar family of fragrances. It is one of those ground breakers that tried incorporating savory for the first time, which is now that salty aspect that is now found in many scents currently. I would also like to mention that the tenacity on this scent is amazing and it smells great on clothes.

Try if you like MikMoi's Ao or Jo Malone's Wood Sage & Sea Salt.

First imageThe Scent of Self
Second image Miho Hirano
Third image Travel & Leisure

It's the 90s Yo But In The Future! (Basically Imagine Andy Samberg as Connor4Real saying this): Versus by Versace (2010)

I know it's been too long. Long story short: Wedding planning is an insane hobby that will take over your life and after you are done you have to recuperate. That's right I am married person now and thus I must go to Lowe's all the time and talk about scheduling maintenance (at least that is what t.v. has taught me). Yet, I finally have the time and energy to take care of this little blog.

Between the resurgence of brown lipstick and pants that don't cut off your circulation I think we can all officially say that 90s fashion is back. The funny thing is the iconic perfume styles of the 90s stayed around a lot longer than the fashion, remember this is the era that gave us aquatic, fruity florals, and the gourmand patchouli bombs aka Angel. The grand irony is and never did I think I would think this with a nostalgic gaze but lets face it once you have your nose assaulted by the upteenth "praline" sugar bomb of the current era you sort of end up missing the fresher fruity florals that used to populate the landscape known as the perfume counter. Yeah, I still can't believe I just typed that. So on to the perfume.

Supposedly Versus by Versace (2010) is based on the beloved Versus from 1992, from what I can tell the notes have nothing in common. The joke on this perfume though is if they released it now with the mention of the 90s connection I sort of wonder if the sales would be better. You're getting two different perfumes from the 90s with Versus, the first is the creamy fruity bubblgum musk thing you find in Herve Leger and the opus to that genre Light Blue by Dolce Gabbana what follows is a switcheroo into the Calvin Klein's CK One territory with a dry down of clean peppery unisex slightly mineral cologne.  It is bizarre yet intriguing, you want to keep smelling it just to try and decipher what the hell is going on in this scent.

In the end all I can think is this is what I always imagined the Spice Girls to smelt like. A lot of rambunctious pink and neon lime with cologne thrown in. A bizarrely nostalgic scent that decided to cover all the bases of what the "cool" kids were wearing.

First Image from NST


Second Image Chronicle Live