I found myself digging through some boxes last Monday that I had placed some where in the deep depths of a dark hell, aka-my closet. As I clamored through everything, making sure it was three in the morning, and disturbing the household, I caught a smell from a little tattered cardboard box. It smelled like something a little alcohol like, “hmm,sweeeeet!” I thought as I tore open the flaps. After sifting through some papers, I came across a beautiful bottle with a goddess like face raised in glass and a Greek style pattern at the top of the bottle. “Oh, yes! The Versace I was given awhile back” I said loudly.
A few years ago my grandmother passed on.I was given some various this and thats to remember her by. For some reason, she had a bottle of men’s Versace, specifically Versace The Dreamer. I never figured out why she had this, as she was a strictly floral oriental type of lady, and I’m sure it wasn’t some sentimental action towards my grandfather that made her have this bottle. It was only about one fourth full, and why I packed it up is still a mystery.
It’s a oriental woody fougere fragrance, and it hints at sage, lavender, and tobacco. I smell the lavender right off, it’s a very manly lavender, and the citrus was just enough to make this a delight to my senses. There was floral, from the notes of rose and I’m guessing geranium? The only flaw I saw with the floral notes, is that when they are first on the skin, there are at times during the first five to ten minutes, a medium strength synthetic note, which so far has been apparent on every person I  have tested it on. The tobacco notes are not offensive to me, although I think tobacco notes in  perfumery are given a unfair judgement by some. People sometimes associate tobacco notes as cigarette or ashtray notes, and that’s not necessarily true. It is easy to relate those aromas together, since they share the same source. Yes, there are some perfumes that smell closer to a cigarette or cigar,but the majority of quality perfumers just play on the sweet and natural plant note tobacco. Sorry, I went somewhere else for a moment….
Anyway, Dreamer is nice, and was decent on me, The silage is ok, it doesn’t reach it’s invisible aromatic arms out and strangle anyone in a two to four foot radius . It lasted on my skin for roughly three to four hours, and cedar mingles with the tobacco and sweet citrus, with the  floral taking a rest in the background.This was all good with me, but I sprayed this on the owner of the site, and wow, it was nice. The tobacco and lavender rolled around on this guy,making you think of a serious man with laughter behind the eyes, at your cost. The tobacco notes stayed on him, and the cedar made waves after a hour or so.It is floral but this guy is all manly and such, and it worked well with him.
Now to the incense. I have one of the large boxes of Shoyeido’s Ranka. You may see it listed sometimes as one of their daily incenses, but is not in the daily line (think Nokiba, Haku- un, and Kyo- noshiki .) This was one of my first Japanese incense purchases, way back in the day. I liked it then, but was always irritated by the subtlety. It is still subtle in my opinion, when compared to other Japanese incenses, which are usually described as that already. It’s basically a floral sandalwood, which I like alright. It wasn’t floral sweet, it was floral powdery, and it is nice for those times when you are kind of wanting to just zone off in a book or television. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s inferior, or disinteresting, it’s just provides that sort of atmosphere for me. I would totally suggest it to those that are getting into Japanese incense because they heard of it’s less in your face trait.