Cher Amis
Inspired by the storms which, if not quite raging, still persist around us, and being ever one for joining in the sensations of the season, this week The Dandy takes trip to the dark side, the realm of the olfactory occult.
Over the next few days a pick of perfumes, fair and foul, that speak to the time when witches, warlocks, phantoms, ghouls and horrors of all kinds abound.
I beseech you, remain close by my side as these adventures may place your dear Dandy in mortal peril.
Perhaps indeed danger might be warded off if I too appeared, or at least smelt, as one of the undead.
So your suggestions please as to perfumes that might be best worn when consorting with those from the ‘other world’…
What are your favourite and most frightening fragrances?
Yours ever, in spirit…
The Perfumed Dandy.
The Perfumed Dandy. 
A very dank and dirty patchouli smells graveyard to me (if I squint). Hippie oil. Or something that smells like Frankenstein’s laboratory – electricity and chemicals and metal, maybe Commes des Garcons would have something like that? Or something chocolaty for the Trick or Treaters.
Dearest Lily
Now, that’s given me an idea for another one to add to the list…. deep patchouli, yes indeed.
Something green and sci fi too, can do… oh this is measuring up to be quite a compilation.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Demeter Dirt?
Dearest Lily
Check.
Like a handful of dust just as the casket is being lowered into the ground.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Hmm, I would say a bit frightening, with an image to prove, No.4 of the first Six Scent series – Diagonal.
Dearest Ines
Off to check this one out online as it’s not one I know off the cuff…gosh that skull and the notes read almost like a spell too. Also, can;t help noticing they have a scent called Wicken 3000 to boot.
What a find!
Thank you.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Smell Bent Exquisite Corpse – Tuberoses and some rats rotting on a graveyard compost pile
Hermessence Gentiane Blanche – the cool, damp and dusty air in a crypt
(actually I like this one)
AB Blood Concept – scalpels and saws cutting through cold flesh, the smell of an autopsy
and of course there is always Secretions Magnifiques…
Dearest Miss Misty
All wonderful suggestions.
Gentiane Blanche is a particularly subtle and most apt recommendation. In fact I thin Narcisse Bleu could keep it company in the gothic camp.
Thank you for some truly skin crawling recommendations.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Not exactly scary, but my favourite Halloween scent is Lolita Lempicka. To me, if gives off an “ethereal gothic” vibe. Demeter released some zombie perfumes a while ago, and while they sounded interesting, I was too scared to try them.
Dearest Nena
Now that is a thing. a scent too scary even to try.
I must say I’m leaning to a few Gothic perfumes in this panoply of awful odours… Lolita Lempicka, that is a thought.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Secretions Magnifiques scares me even more than the zombie one. Also, Alkemia has some Halloween appropriate perdume oils, if you’re interested in giving those a try.
Dearest Nena
You’re the second one to mention SM (an appropriate acronym don’t you think), as for Alkemia I don’t know them… so these are all splendid suggestions of new scary scents to try.
Thank you.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Such brilliant pictures!
Have you ever looked at Black Phoenix Alchemy’s selection? They have some of the best, and most hilariously dark titles ever thought of. I have never smelled any of the perfumes, but the names alone…..
Dearest Ginza
No, I haven’t, but a quick peek on line and I’m hooked. Who could fail to be by ‘Asp Viper’, ‘Cordelia’ ‘Mme Moriaty Misfortune Teller’ and ‘Kill Devil’. There are so very, very many of them though (more even than Angel flankers) that one wonders after the possibility of many being good.
Where would possibly sell them too now that haunt of the goth Kensington Market is no more…?
Youre ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I can’t imagine they smell decent AT ALL but the names are an absolute el gotho riot!
In Birmingham we had Oasis, downstairs : the goths……oh the goths….
Dearest Ginza
Never has so much mascara been so misused by so many.
Interesting that you have a pop star past….
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Hilarious, isn’t it.
If only I had actually liked the music…
(but then I would have been bitter with regret, which now I am not: I wouldn’t be on here now, for a start..)
Dearest GInza
And if you were not there (and here) we would be all the poorer.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
How about Forsaken by True Blood or, Elvira’s Zombie, Elvira’s Vamp and Elvira’s Black Rose by Demeter. Then there is always Immortal Twilight. I think the ones by Elvira have a sense of humor in their creation… the others are DEAD serious. Not that is more frightening than the Canterville Ghost!
Dearest Lanier
Who knew that such a sub-genre of olfactory-nasties existed? Certainly not I…my readers you are forever an education for The Dandy.
Now, I do like the sound of Immortal Twilight.. romantic and darkly menacing at the same time!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
For me personally it would be Frederic Malle Carnal Flowel (dreadful stuff!) but fitting your task… Maybe CB I Hate Perfume Wild Hunt?
Dearest U
You hate Carnal Flower? Now that is ineteresting, one learns as much about others tastes by what they dislike intensely as what they wear.
Wild Hunt…yes, I see or (in memory) can smell how that might work.
Thank you for the exquisite suggestions.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Not only I strongly dislike tuberose in general, but I was seriously emotionally traumatized once by Carnal Flower š
Dearest U
My goodness… off I go to find out all about that incident!
I hope you billed Monsieur Malle for all the therapy! He laughs.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Although I haven’t smelled it, I’ve read that Lutens’ De Profundis has chrysanthemum and evokes the scent of a funeral arrangement.
And then there’s always Poison – a perfect name for a Halloween fragrance, and more than one person has run screaming in the opposite direction upon smelling it!
P.S. How could I have forgotten Spellbound? Unbelievably, this was my signature fragrance for a short time back in the late 80s. Out of curiosity, I recently re-tested it, and wished I could chew my arm off to get away from it. I understand some people feel that way about Giorgio as well.