Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Peau de Peche by Keiko Mecheri


Yesterday I swung by Takashimaya and sniffed around. I had tried Peau de Peche once before and hadn't been particularly impressed, but Luca Turin rather had nice things to say about it, so I gave it another shot. Maybe I had Debby Harry on the brain, but this time the scent was wonderfully vicious and pulpy, like ripe peaches and plums that get stuck between your teeth. It had some of the woods that I like in Ume that keep it purring like a jungle cat rather than the peach fuzz kitten I was expecting.

The next day I found myself in the same neighborhood and thought I'd try it again, and maybe even get a sample to review. his time, it was smelling different and when I asked for a sample, he sales clerk said "We don't get samples. You have it on your skin, why don't you just smell that?" Well then.



Now maybe it was the brush off, or possibly the fact that I am premenstrual and my sense of smell is affected, but it smells radically different to me. As my boyfriend will attest, just before my period I complain that the scents of the world are keyed up. During this time otherwise innocuous things can smell distinctly like "raw chicken", "pools of blood" or "dead rats".

Peau de Peche's fate was less dire, but rather than the fierce fruityness of the day before I was hit with a loud waxy synthetic musk. As I sniffed it got a little funky and ultimately butyric.


And that was the final dry down, Molly McButter. Perhaps this is what people mean when they describe scents as "lickable". Perhaps we Molly McB lickers are Keiko Mecheri's target demographic.

My original perception was along the lines of Blondie's "Rip her to Shreds" but the final drydown on the second day was much more Backstreet Boys, simultaneously synthetic and a little greasy.

1 comment:

tmp00 said...

My pat answer to that is "uh, no, I can't 'just smell it on my skin'. I want to live with it and see what it's going to do."

Then I would write the store management and the perfumer to let them know how sh*tty the store is.

Because I have got waaaay too much time on my hands.