SOME NEW PERFUMES I HAD A SNIFF OF TODAY : METAL LAVENDER by MATIERE PREMIERE; TOBACCO CHOCOLAT + FIGUE EROTIQUE by TOM FORD; and LA NUIT TOMBEE by SERGE LUTENS (2026)

VERY cursory reviews, be warned ;: Metal Lavender : I don’t know; I love lavender but am incapable of accepting any synthetic notes that don’t suit my aggrieved, neurasthenic system in recent times and this perfumer – Aurelian Guichard – really plays to the market for brash chemicals. All I want to do is roll in the hay of a French lavender farm – I need no electrified undercurrent. Figue Erotique : plugged up with coarse aureoles I don’t ever personally need : why must ‘figs’ be so damn pheromonal? Tobacco Vanille is a Modern Monument that has sold by the truckload : one night this summer in Tokyo I spent most of the evening – a club event underground called Egomaniac – beauteously like living in a Soft Cell video – talking with a Russian girl – one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen – positively drenched in the now classic Tom Ford. Its proportions felt right : a potent chiascuro. Will this new cacao variant add to the hall of fame ? It might. The name will surely be…