It was supposed to be fun.
It was just for the summer.
They promised sun, sea, sand and…., well if not exactly that then young men.
And what was got? The worst gig in history.
Now, first things first, the sun doesn’t always shine in Seattle, in fact, even in Summer, the sun doesn’t shine that much at all in Seattle.
There’s plenty of sea in Seattle. Oh yes, sea, sea, sea, but no sun and no sand and no one you’d want to … well, no eligible young men.
There is a seafront though. Sorry, waterfront.
By which is meant miles of concrete slab with semi converted fishing piers, punctuated with half hearted attractions and populated by bored tourists and grungy locals.
There are though fish: fish to fish in the sea, fish to watch in an aquarium and fish to eat in fish and chip shops.
There’s a lot of fishy stuff going down in Seattle.
And in the midst of this piscine paradise, there was she, me that is, on Pier 59 between the ‘Crab Pot Seafood Shack’ and the ‘Prospectors’ Place’ bar.
There was I: Queen of Candy at the Seattle Seafront Sugar Stop.
I kid you not.
Each morning I am hoisted into position, wedged in a workspace approximately two feet square between the seedy sources of unsurpassed satisfaction for the sweet-toothed folks of sunless Seattle and their hapless visitors.
Before me a cornucopia of the crudest two cent candy you’re ever likely to see: jellied cola bottles, fake marshmallows (how can you fake a marshmallow?) tropical fruit salads (that have never been within a thousand miles of the tropics or a piece of ‘genuine fruit’) white chocolate flavour, chocolate-shaped, not actually chocolate things, and lots of pink stuff that tastes of fairy farts.
The joy continues.
To my left a ‘Slushy Joy’ station, anyone remember them?
Here a variety of radioactively coloured, toxic tasting, ominous, luminous secret recipe syrups can be summoned into unholy matrimony with smashed ice in the blink of eye to procreate a cold and vile semi-frozen form of fresh torture in flavours such as ‘Pink Litchi’ and ‘Kaleidoscope Kiwi’.
Across from my half melted glacier, the piece de resistance: an ‘I can’t believe it’s not white chocolate’ not white chocolate fountain. Unceasingly slurping a steady scalding sludge of saccharine, corn starch saturated fats , flavours and stabilizer , it is a monstrous and furiously unpleasant smelling, almost volcanically menacing presence.
Between fire and ice you might say.
At this stage I must tell you that it is true what they say, the body does become accustomed, and half hour with this odour and I could smell as little of my surroundings as the proverbial sewer man can of his…
That would be of course if I were left to my own devices and their excreta. Sadly, the Seattle Seafront Sugar Stop, nestled between the Crab Pots Seafood Shack and the Prospectors’ Bar is immediately adjacent to the shared restrooms of these venerable institutions.
I’m not sure if anyone has ever actually wished for the smell of human waste, but when you have experienced the wafts of calypso haze industrial detergent as employed on the half hour, day and night, for the cleaning of said restrooms 
by the Crab Pots Seafood Shack and the Prospectors’ Bar at Pier 59 on the sunless Seatte waterfront alternating with the aroma of a fraudulent white chocolate fountain, the chocking scent of cheap two cent candy and the radioactively radiant aroma of ‘Pink Litichi Slushy Joy Ice Drinks’ a little human waste would be a blessed relief.
It was the worst of all dead end imitation summer jobs.
It had no opportunities whatsoever for progression or indeed toilet breaks.
Frankly, it stank.
*************
Britney Spears Fantasy it turns out is a sunless, airless, joyless synthetic concoction of a scent.
It is the odour of half-evaporated sugar-saturated alcopop-induced teenage puke melded onto manmade luminous pink fibres and shone on too brightly with a harsh fluorescent light.
It is a fake white chocolate meets genuine industrial tropical fruit flavour bulk bought bleach meets all too real vomit of a fragrance.
In short is it a smell without any, I repeat, any redeeming features.
It doesn’t even have the dignity to disappear that quickly.
It claims, officially, to smell like a cup cake.
It claims, officially, to be a love potion locked up in an attractive bottle.
I can only hope that someone has found an equally attractive fattice bottle big enough to lock up the perfumers of this love potion in, permanently.
I claim, officially, my right never to have smell this again.
************
Man? Woman?
I wouldn’t perfume a permed and pink-rinsed pet poodle with this atrocity.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
The Perfumed Dandy. 
Oh, Seattle and Fantasy aren’t that bad!
Well, Seattle isn’t for sure. We only tell people that it isn’t sunny here in the summer so we can keep people from moving here and ruining all of our fun.
We don’t want their Fantasy stinking up our glorious waterfront 😉
The Dandy would like at this juncture to appologise to the City and people of Seattle.
The review is in this respect intended to be firmly tongue in cheek, whim could have taken me anywhere on the globe but landed me in this fair port in a storm.
The Dandy, however, retracts nothing in regard to Ms Spears Fantasy. Except his nostrils if it is ever worn in his company ever again…
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Oh, I know. Your post is loads of fun. Keep ’em coming.
I could have chosen the little sea side town of Saundersfoot near where the Dandy grew up, but I felt it lacked the requisite resonance!!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I can’t stop laughing! I’m going off on a tangent here, but architects used to get these spec books with all kinds of charts and data and according to statistical analysis it was recommended that if your client was allergic to the sun you should design a home in either Seattle, WA, or Syracuse, NY, because these cities had the least amount of annual sunlight in the continental United States. What a summer you must have had.
Cheers,
V
I think that’s the statistic the Dandy read that gave me the whole jolly well idea!!
Thank you for taking the time to peek V, I’m so glad it brought a smile to your face though, please, trust me the fragrance itself is no laughing matter.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
My family lives just south of Seattle in a town called Puyallup. (Named after the Puyallup Native American tribe) They have the huge Puyallup Fair every September.(right Victoria?) Well it could have been worse, you could have had to wear B.S.F. there and run the human sling shot ride wearing Daisy Dukes and a too small tube top.
Really a rip roaring fun house ride of a review. A real Pee You to Miss Spears.
Loved it!
L
OMG! LOL! 🙂 Perf!
Monsieur Dandy, I would be stretching the truth if I told you I wasn’t waiting for this review. I really hope you are going to turn these reviews into a book years end. If you do please remember the small fries like me and put aside a signed copy!
Your writing wonderfully captures the image of that poor bored teen who is forced to endure the crap that marketers tell her – is what she wants. Yet, even with the power of the initial sell – she is too smart for it and sees right through it for it is – boring to the point of nausea. No lights or fancy signage is going to sway her otherwise – but bravo for the courage of enduring it with a sense of super-dry humor! Albeit with more than a tinge of disdain.
Thanks again for the trip – it’s more then my comfort level can muster but I am actually thinking about spraying this if I find it on a counter and the opportunity presents itself!
Once again, a hearty Bravo Sir!
Good Day to you good Sir Imsookool
‘Perf!!’ Is that the new small talk? I must say, you do it most awfully well!
I see you have, as ever, got to the heart of the review without any delay.
Yes this is an ode to the deceived teen who has been sold a duff dream and knows it… I fear to may have been hoodwinked this way.
I could never encourage anther human to go close to this biohazard.. but ‘once more into the bleach… &c’ dear friend.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
You had me laughing out loud! Thanks, Perfumed Dandy!
Oh Baconbiscuit
The Dandy is delighted I managed to raise even a smile – a positive chuckle is an honour.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Oh such a scathing review that makes me almost choke on my morning Earl Grey and biscuit!!! Seattle may be gloomy, but your reviews certainly brighten our days. They make the reader envision following The Dandy on his unique world travels while catching whiffs of the fragrant trail he leaves. Be the reviews yeah or nay, we are addicted.
Dearest Rose of Cairo
Please do not choke – especially on a cup of Earl Grey!!
Thank you as always for your kind words and sending some of your sunshine this way for it is a bright almost Spring day here today.
Hurrah.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
I have never been to Seattle ( never been to mainland USA – Hawaii a couple of times ) but I have to say – crabs and Britney sort of go together if you get my drift and I think you do….. LOL
My word my Dear Lady Jicky
The Dandy flushes slightly, loosens his starched collar and raises a nowing eyebrow or two!!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
Wonderful post, I love Seattle and it’s smells (your description brought back some good memories of the sea – ahem – waterfront) but will be sure to avoid the offending scent when it wafts over here to the UK! Will repost your blog 🙂
Welcome Smellandthecity
I fear that the pungent aromas of this warped Fantasy have already reached the shores of this Sceptred Isle, fo rthough Seattle bound into The Dandy’s mind the scent was tested in London Town.
Gracious thanks for the reposting and for the courtesy of informing me in advance.
I do so hope to see you round these parts again soon.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
OH NOOOO! I’ve just bought 100ml of Fantasy.
That was a lie,
Portia xx
Portia!
Put that down!
Ohhh. Thank heavens… you set the Dandy’s heart racing and eyebrows raising then!
You incorrigible Oz-ster.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
There, there. Poor Perfumed Dandy. I hope you have recovered from the trauma. Because that’s what I pick up in this review: trauma. 😦 The things you put yourself through for the sake of your faithful readers! What interesting signs for the men’s and women’s toilets. I’ve never seen ones like those before.
I’ll second imsokool’s suggestion; a book yes – go on!!
I’ve never actually sniffed Britney’s Fantasy, which is remiss of me – one mustn’t jump to assumptions about a perfume, although your conclusions don’t come as a surprise. Your courage, Sir, is beyond doubt!
OMG, I do have my moments of morbid curiosity, but after reading this I know I’ll never ever spray on a big spritz of Fantasy 🙂
It was a very good writing but I can’t stop wondering if the perfume in question was actually worth all that attention and especially at the expense of a very nice city 😉 (I really like Seattle!)
Dear Undina
The question you propose is quite a profound one, it goes, indeed, to the heart of The Dandy’s undertaking.
We all know that many critics give the shortest of all possible shrifts to perfumes that they do not like, andd that I feel is a fair position.
However, The Dandy is a voyager on an adventurer in the foreign lands of female perfume and his route is set by you my dearest correspondents.
Not to give a full account under these circumstances would I feel be discourteous.
On which point, as I hope I made clear in my first comment above, dear Seattle is merely a tongue-in-cheek, subject.
It is a fine city and more than robust enough to withstand the petty assault of my small wit.
Thank you as ever for your incisive interjections Ms U – your presence here is a constant source of pleasure to The Dandy.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Reblogged this on The Perfumed Dandy. and commented:
Apologies to Seattle and everyone who selected this as a guilty scented secret, but I couldn’t resist revisiting the world of Britney one more time… Yours ever, The Perfumed Dandy
Dearest Dandy
I’ve never been to Seattle but I have reached for Fantasy many a time. I’d say it’s my guilty pleasure but I don’t feel any shame at all – it’s the best example of a fruity cupcake scent one can buy.
Yours ever
The Candy Perfume Boy
Dearest CPB
Indeed, all guilt is shame-free and purely for show chez Dandy!
One supposes it all comes down to whether one likes cup cakes or not!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Agreed! 🙂
Sounds to me like Fantasy smells more like Blackpool! I do hope you never have to endure the smell again – but thank you for enduring it for the sake of the hilarious review.
Dearest Bee
Blackpool indeed, complete with end of pier drag shows if you ask me!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I remember that review. I didn’t like Fantasy either (even though I fell for the purple one). But I loved Pink Sugar. I fell in love with it on a beach vacation at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina: arcades, junk souvenir shops, flip flop shops, carnival rides, bars with alcohol added to the toxic neon fruity slush. PInk Sugar really came into its own in that setting. 🙂
Dearest Lily
Pink Sugar is due a scented letter sometime, perhaps I should save it for a summer’s day and wear it to a ‘traditional’ British seaside town?
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
If you do review Pink Sugar, and I’m sure it will be an ordeal for you, even major trooper that you are, Mr. Dandy, then a salty breeze-seaside town on a summer’s day would be just the time and place.
Dearest Lily
I have that particular pink letter day marked down in my calendar already!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Dear Dandy,
Ha! Brilliant and hilarious to boot. I know its awfully crass of me to judge a celebrity perfume based on what I “know” about the celebrity her/himself, but somehow the image of Britney Fears’ “nether regions” sometime ago, became inexplicably linked with any perfume she may launch in my demented brain. I am therefore not in the least surprised to read this review as I fully expected any such frag to be “cheap and cheerful” (cheap in this sense meaning trashy) – but as you indicate, this isn’t even cheerful. I officially claim the right to never have to smell this at all as you have so generously done it for me…
Dearest Sally
Oh dear… I feel quite queasy at the mention of ‘Britney Fears’ ‘down bellows’. I may need to lie down in a darkened room and take an aspirin.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
My kitty went nuts over this one. He was sniffing my wrist with really wide eyes and a crazed look on his face.
Dearest Nena
Interesting. I wonder what’s in it that attracts the cats? Also, is that necessarily a good thing. *He looks thoughtful and bemused*.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Lol!
After experimenting with different scents, it appears that he is fond of gourmands, or anything with a prominent vanilla note. Unfortunately, he turned his nose up at Portrait of a Lady.
Dearest Nena
Now I’ve heard tell that cats don;t like floral scents(even when they come directly from flowers), so that is unfortunate, but unsurprising.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Dear Mr Dandy
Oh I do love it when the Dandy gets icy! You are exactly right of course. What is it with this obsession to smell like sweeties? I will say this for Britney Jean- what pretty bottles!
Your friend
IScent