A little light snobbery can be fun and self-affirming as long as you don't take it too seriously. Yes, I'm allowed to criticise one fragrance because there's another in my cupboard that cost an obscene amount of money. Ultimately that's just silly and meaningless, isn't it?
I don't hold with guilty pleasures and I'm patently not a music snob - you should see some of the monstrosities in my iTunes library. And I like to think I'm not a perfume snob either.
May I present some concrete evidence for that...? Alongside my bottles of (excellent) Old Spice and my (cheap and amusing) Denim shower gel, I'm really rather fond of Body Shop's White Musk for Men. At £16 for 100ml, you know you're not getting high art or gold standard quality but what you do get is very, very good and has become one of my 'spray with abandon' staples.
The bottle is a handsome block of glass, bleeding from clear to a deep purple and the scent itself is a bright, cheerful blast of cleanliness. Of course, it's not the rich, animalic, spicy musk of Frederic Malle Editions de Parfums 'Musc Ravageur' or Calvin Klein's 'Obsession', the kind that sends captive big cats crazy in experiments; rather it's the soapy, nitro-musk of fresh laundry, a skin-friendly, freshly-scrubbed, undersexed musk. Lasting power's minimal but it's so inexpensive that you can just reapply freely.
If some of your scent choices are big, baroque, bombastic tunes then White Musk for Men plays a bit of undemanding pop music that can provide some welcome light relief.
[By ANDREW]
I love this stuff, and especially your comparison to "undemanding pop music"! Great blog guys, just found you today and put you straight onto our blogroll :)
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, Nick. Gin, showtunes, Alison Moyet AND excellent scent reviews - like your style!
ReplyDeleteAndrew x
:)