Serge Lutens Borneo 1843

What was the scoop on this one, the latest Shishedo Paris exclusive? It was "dark brown powder", the patchouli for patch-haters, a thing "long-forgotten, bone-dry... like something found in a temple", Louis Armstrong's constipation remedy, an immediate scrubber, dark earth and leaves and roots, deliciously sweet, skanky, dry and camphorous. It sounded like love.

I opened my sample carefully. Dear Lord, no! Junior Mints! It was like getting to the secret chamber and finding somebody had gotten there before you and replaced the diamond idol with a previously-viewed DVD of Congo (featuring silly animatronic monkeys and poor Tim Curry as Herkermer Homolka, the villian with the most mystifyingly terrible accent in movie history.) Now, don't get me wrong, I like Junior Mints. But this smelt wrong, all wrong, and there was something that told me I'd actually found that source of suburban legend, the fatally tampered-with Halloween swag. I had expected that the worst that could happen would be that I would smell like one of those neo-hippies who wear blond dreadlocks and rancid essential oils, and now this! Where was the powder, the dust, the bitter brown dryness? Oh, wait a minute. There it was. Okay, everything's fine. Five minutes of unspeakable candied horror, then two hours of a silky smooth burnt soil smell. The patchouli will convert you, but you'll never trick-or-treat again.

Tomorrow's post: Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge.