Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations Part 6: Scent for a Spring Emergence and Scent for a Big Chop
lost in the sauce
Helloooo my perfect-smelling homosexual cherubs! It’s time for another edition of Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations!
This is a recurring column where I answer some of your questions about perfume and offer up my best recommendations to help you smell hotter, richer, meaner, gayer – whatever you’re going for!
Each column kicks off with a perfume recommendation from me for an incredibly specific queer scenario, and then we get to reader questions.
If you’re new here and wondering why we’re talking about perfume, please check out my Why Perfume post, and then come back here, because I wanna huff your wrists like a bloodhound!
Scenario: So it’s spring and it’s sunny and oops you just broke up with your partner and wow, you feel so free, you knew it wasn’t working months ago, and now you’re single and in a tank top on a crowded gay bar patio and it’s about to be warm out for the next five months.
Well, look at you. You’ve emerged from your stifling hibernation cave, blinking in the sudden sunlight. You’ve survived another winter. You’ve cancelled your Hulu subscription, thrown your fluffiest sweatpants into storage, and swapped out your lentil stew leftovers for a full – not a half – share of a CSA membership. You’re a sleek animal, lean from pleasure deprivation, shiny-coated from marinating in your own oils under blankets all season.
You’re mateless.
Vitamin-D deficient.
Starving.
You are not alone. This is your season. Polycules are opening up, situationships are exploding, the WNBA season tips off in a month, and your favorite coffee shop has a brand-new barista who has an enamel pronoun pin clipped to the leather chest harness she wears over everything.
Looks like it’s iced coffee time, my good bitch.
It’s time for a fresh start, no? A new scent; something you’ve never smelled before. A perfume free from the heavy thicknesses of winter. Free from memories. Something… breezy. Easy-going, but still a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Something that’ll make the babes lean closer.
Encre Noire (Pour Homme) by Lalique is that scent.
Everything you need right now in a tidy square package?
Yes.
OK, bear with me for this FANTASY SCENARIO: Imagine that you and I are in Paris and have gone perfume shopping at the largest perfume store in the world. We have infinite money, but you are a minimalist (i’m crying!!!why do this to me), and you’re only willing to consider buying a single bottle of perfume. We are both extremely hungry, verging on hangry, and our lunch reservation at the Ritz Paris begins in 15 minutes. I have no idea what your tastes are – in fact, I know very little about you, except that you’re queer and willing to go shopping with me – and you are depending on me to select the one bottle of perfume for you that I am positive you and everyone you know will love forever.
Time is ticking. Together, you and I stare at the wall of thousands upon thousands of perfumes. A bead of sweat trickles down your temple. The Ritz is famous for their caviar blinis, and they’re booked out for months, you think. We’ll never make it in time.
Yes, we will. Without hesitation, I stride confidently forward and select a single black bottle. I give it to you, and your hand sinks under the bottle’s generous weight. You pry off the dark wooden cap, spritz once…. and your face lights up. My god. This is it!! It’s a miracle; we’ve done it!! This is the one!! Blinis and champagne at the Ritz, here we come!!!!!
But wait; there’s more. This one-in-a-million scent, this holy grail of a queer perfume? It’s only twenty-five dollars.
Yes. Yes. This is the perfume I am choosing for you – you, a person who definitely has infinite money!!! Encre Noire (Pour Homme) EDT is the one perfume I am secure in selecting for you without knowing anything about what you like. It is exactly what you need. It’s exactly what we all need! For a fresh start, to shake off winter, to feel reanimated at last!
Encre Noire (which means “black ink” in French) is a warm, windy spring day – the kind where the trees are rocking overhead and just beginning to leaf out with that electric green color. The kind of day where the sky switches from sunny to overcast so quickly you don’t know how to properly dress yourself. A single spray of this stuff fills you with a sense of zinging aliveness, as if new sap were suddenly surging though you. It’s the scent of damp earth, dry woods, vetiver, and crushed pine needles, all smoothed into something comfortable and well-worn, with no prickly bits or scratchiness. It’s cool and warm at the same time, without even a tiny bit of sweetness. It’s dry and woodsy; mysterious. A perfect perfume. A lean-into-you kind of perfume.
You will love it. Anyone you get close to will love it. I've never met a queer person who Encre Noire did not suit. Not liking it is simply not a possibility.
It is $25 on this website right now, and this fact fills me with alarm, because why is it so cheap?? IS ENCRE NOIRE BEING DISCONTINUED???
Take advantage while you can, my loves! And do not buy any other version besides the Encre Noire Pour Homme eau de toilette bottle that exactly matches the picture I’ve posted, or the gay magic will not work!!
Reader Question: “What perfume do I wear after I chop all of my hair off?”
-MGK
How fitting for today’s theme of emerging from a winter cocoon, MGK! I love it.
Y’all, MGK clarified a few things for us on the form where you can ask me for a perfume recommendation. They mentioned they usually gravitate toward subtle scents. They also said, “So I'm shedding my mane of trad-femme hair soon to finally embrace the queerer, edgier side of me. I'm thinking Amelie bob or shaggy pixie, like hopefully WEIRD hot, or something severe – to dance between masc and fem on a tightrope. This is a huge change for me since I am usually a mouse when it comes to personal expression. But no longer! I want to be able to match the bold bubbly ALIVE energy I'm coming for with my smell – but also keep a note of sincerity so I don't get lost in the sauce :~)”
DELIGHTED to be of help, MGK! Weird hot is the best hot!!!
Here are a few recs for dramatic haircuts and dancing upon the delicious tightrope of masc and femme:
Colonia Futura by Acqua di Parma
Colonia Futura is my first rec for you, MGK, because this is a subtle, almost herbal scent, yet it’s also bright and alive and extremely!!! fresh. Also ALSO, it is 100% the scent of the aromatic bitters a hot alien puts in its drink?? does that make any sense??
ANYWAY, Colonia Futura opens with all the puckery citrus you could want – think grapefruit, lemon, and bergamot, but just the peels and the bitter white pith, not the fruit – and then shows its bone-dry lavender and sage heart before lingering for hours on a base of cool, quiet vetiver.
This is a refined scent; awake and interesting. It smells calm and expensive, like sailing off the coast of Capri and watching the spangles dance on the water. I’ve never smelled it on anyone else, and it would make phenomenal contrast with an edgy or severe haircut.
Twilly d’Hermes by Hermes (EDP)
You said “bold bubbly and alive” and I’m gonna give you bold bubbly and alive, MGK. Twilly is young and bubbly and so fucking fun. Twilly is pink, yes, and marketed to rich teens and women in their 20s, OK sure, but you know what? It’s great, and spicily witty, and anyone could wear it, and goddamn, would this be great on a queer person with a subversive haircut!! It would feel like a surprise; no one would be expecting this!
Twilly overflows with good gossip, winning people over with a huge, warm ginger note at its core that’s wrapped with bitter orange peel and feathery tuberose petals and set on a base of sandalwood. It smells friendly and adventurous and smart, leaving a trail that smells how you hope Amélie would smell as she passes you, laughing, on the back of a scooter.
Is it sweet? Yes, but not overpoweringly so; there’s a creaminess to it. Is it edgy? No. But it’s not trying too hard to be anything but itself, and – while it’s beautifully blended – that almost-rasping ginger note is unforgettable.
Don’t blind-buy this one – make sure you try it first. Twilly is not for everyone, but that’s because it’s the scent of someone ready to experiment with what they think is fun.
Wild Card Rec: Égoïste by Chanel (EDT)
Hear me out, MGK: I know you said you gravitate toward subtle scents, but this is… the opposite of that. What if you went for something completely different – different enough to match your edgy new look and feeling of wanting to be seen? Everything we really want is found outside of our comfort zone, right?
So let me introduce you to Égoïste, which is BIG and BOLD and TAKES UP SPACE. Designed to be a men’s fragrance, it:
of course is not one, because let us not forget how ridiculous it is to assign a gender to smell; and
sure as hell features a lot of classic “femme” notes for a “masc” perfume.
Égoïste is wildly sexy and definitely straddles traditional gender lines. It’s spicy, woody, and enveloping. It’s addictive; you want to keep smelling it. Warm with cinnamon and tobacco, it’s got discernible dry rose and carnation notes, but its woodiness is softened by a base of lightly sweet vanilla and amber notes.
It’s powerful. It’s in charge. Did I mention it’s sexy??? Also, “Égoïste” means “self-centered” and I love that for you. Time to think about you, boo boo!!
That’s it for this round of Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations! I’ll be back next time to answer more questions.
In the meantime…
Do YOU have a perfume question?
Ask me here on this form that is linked right here!
Bye bb!
Your descriptions are so joyful to read, thank you!
Love your writing and this post had me remembering with love and elderly Italian relative who was always superlatively scented. He developed a love for Chanel Egoiste in his 70s, but often forgot the names of things. We have a fond family memory of him, when we asked if we could bring anything from the airport when we visited, of him yelling excitedly -" oh yes! Bring me some of that stuff I like, you know, that Bastard! Cologne". We all knew which one he meant. In our house, it's now always known as "Bastard!"