SOTD: Guerlain Mitsouko EDT

A busy day, so I didn't have time to pay attention to my latest Mitsouko Test. Himself reacted negatively to it when he walked into the room moments after I'd sprayed; I vaguely enjoyed the gasoline beginning, and then forgot all about it.

And the dry spell continues, so, more kitty!

Image: By Tomitheos. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTW: Mitsouko EDT (Modern), and Illusions

Musette has put me on the first step of the path to (possibly) loving Mitsouko. And, as an added bonus, Bois Blond.

I've always hated the smell of stale nuts or rancid oil. I seem to be particularly sensitive to that smell, so that when others are merrily enjoying nuts or a nutty pastry or something sauteed in oil of unknown age, I'm left wondering why they're not all joining me in saying, "eeew." I need my nuts to be so fresh that they have that almost-sweet scent, and I'm so picky about oil that Himself now has me sniff or taste the oil before we cook anything ambitious in it.

There are perfumes that have that stale nut scent. I've more than once noticed it in Bois Blond, and on Sunday when I tried Mitsouko again, I got a subtler version of it - subtler, but still dominating the fragrance for me.  I'm pretty sure that this is what's always put me off Mitsouko in the past.

Now, it's not as if that smell is inherently dreadful. The problem is that I associate it with food gone bad, and as long as that's true, it's dreadful for me. I've tried to dissociate it from food, but I've failed. Then Musette said this, about a "gasoline-edge" in Mitsouko. And then, on Sunday, I wore Mitsouko.

Oh. Yes. That note does definitely smell like gasoline. It smells like stale nuts, too; I can sniff it and let the interpretation go back and forth, like that picture up there. (Duck? Rabbit? Duck?) And just as I can decree that the picture is of a rabbit, I can choose to read that note as gasoline. And I'm OK with the scent of gasoline. It's weird, but I like weird. And it's not the least bit edible.

Now, this doesn't yet mean that I love Mitsouko, but it does mean that I can move past "Eew! Stale!" and have a shot at really perceiving it. This is a good thing. I owe you, Musette.

(As a side note, I've more than once mentioned getting a gasoline note from Tubereuse Criminelle. And I do still smell it, but it has essentially no resemblance to the gasoline note in Bois Blond. I don't get it.)

Image: Wikimedia Commons