Invidiana

This takes me right to a library where I'm warming my cold hands, breathing in the warm and bitter steam of espresso, poring over the pages of an old book whose cracked bindings and yellowed pages smell like centuries of history. The vanillic undertone of the paper adds another aromatic element to the espresso. I could get lost in those pages for hours. Of course libraries don't allow coffee, but bear with my fantasy here. 

This is an ethereal veil of snow and white musk, starting out with a blast of bitter cold that gradually softens into a white blanket whose chill clings close to the skin. Everything is white, white and more white. Chionophobia is not so much snow itself as it is the phantom of snow that haunts those who fear it. 

Pages yellowed with age are barely legible in the amber glow of beeswax candles, and dusty leather bindings are covered in the wax of a thousand more candles that have long since burned out. There is a faint smell of ink that touched paper centuries before. Among stacks and stacks that never end, tendrils of incense linger in air that is musty with memory. If someone bottled the lost Library of Alexandria, this would be it.

Besides the label having an embarrassingly creepy resemblance to a sweatshirt I wore as a kid in the '90s, this is a delightful answer to howling winds and driveways slick with ice. Snow bubbles over with champagne and lands softly on musks that cling close to the skin and are flushed like cheeks that were just out in the biting cold. There is just a whisper of lavender, the last glimpse of winter twilight before darkness freezes everything over. 

Wearing this, I feel like a squirrel holed up in a cozy oak tree hollow next to my stash of hazelnuts, which I've somehow managed to toast to perfection in my fireplace without burning the entire tree down, and now I'm sitting in front of that fireplace sipping butterscotch rum to warm me down to my frosty toes. 

This is just like getting the sticky amber sap of a Christmas tree between the seeds of pinecones and on your fingers, and as much as you try to get the sticky stuff off, you secretly don't want it to come off because it smells so good. That was me was a kid and now I'm wearing it as perfume. 

The is all buttery warm spiced pumpkin bread, the kind that fills the house with that unmistakable autumn aroma just like Pumpkin Zucchini Bread and last year's Pumpkin Nut Bread atmo, dredged in chocolate sprinkles that are exactly like the real thing, with a slightly powdery cacao not that is not overwhelmingly sweet. There seems to be an undertone of coffee even though it isn't listed in the notes. The bitter aspect of the cacao is probably translating to having a slice of chocolate pumpkin bread next to a steaming cup of coffee.

Autumn is falling over a seaside town where vacationers have long since gone home and the locals have packed their umbrellas up for the season. Under gloomy skies, blue-gray waves crash against the abandoned shore over and over, as if trying to reach for something that is no longer there. It swallows the ghosts of footprints and sandcastles. Winds moan in the distance, scattering dead leaves at the edge of the sand. Strange magic happens when the salty breath of the ocean mingles with dry leaves further inland, creating a beach scene that attracts few to the shore, but those who experience it are utterly bewitched.

There is something about baking pumpkin bread that just fills the entire house with autumn. There's the yellow-orange warmth of pumpkin and squash, just enough cinnamon, and the slightly caramelized crust you can't help picking pieces off of. Now you don't have to bake an actual loaf of pumpkin bread to inhale that heavenly small all day long.

The first thing you see is a huge cherry clown nose, made even redder with redcurrant, before it settles down into layers and layers of white vanilla cream-to-powder makeup, which is not unlike Clown White. The tattoo ink beneath is subtle, but definitely there. If you loved Clown White, you need Clown Flash. Even the coulrophobes will dig this one. 

Hairy with soft, fuzzy patchouli, this tarantula is covered in red-orange stripes of cranberry and caramelized pumpkin with that golden brown candied crust that makes it all the more tempting, especially with a splash of sweet bourbon venom. Underneath all that deliciousness is an undercurrent of what can only be tattoo ink. Don't worry, this one doesn't bite. 

An overflow of cherry cola fizz spills in the backseat of this hearse, seeping into the cracks of tan leather seats form the '80s. Nothing like cherry cola to mask the smell of death. With a poof of exhaust fumes, the hearse is off to claim its next customer.

Dressed up in a Halloween costume of orange pumpkin-flavored dust and decked out with a subtle sprinkling of spice, buttered popcorn gets into the spirit of the season. You can just feel your fingers turning orange from digging fistfuls of it out of a vintage tin. 

When I was a kid, we used to go apple picking in upstate New York. There were packed dirt roads throughout the orchard so cars could just barely make it through to park on the grass. Tires were always crunching on fallen apples, most of which had already been gnawed on by insects or squirrels, some more fermented with others. There were always apples lying on either side of the road among drifts of dead leaves. This is the scent of deep nostalgia: breaths of crisp autumn air and sweet-tart apples riddled with blotches of brownish fermentation, always with a few dry leaves carried on the wind.

Despite the overwhelming decay in this story, Air and Sunshine Galore is a breath of clean air in an open room flooded with amber sunlight. It is a a sunny and uplifting type of yellow which rushes in with a welcome breeze of citrus and aldehydes that carries the scent of heliotrope petals. Behind the yellow is just a hint of gleaming metal that has been touched by the sun and is not ominous in the least. It is what the smell of that house is supposed to be like before must and mildew start to creep in.

This is indeed a yellow smell, browning at the edges like peeling wallpaper. You can almost feel the thick golden beeswax, honey and amber oozing from those haunted walls where that wallpaper, with its yellow curlicues of hay and saffron, is coming unglued to reveal scorched wood with an undercurrent of sweet fig. The sweetness is not sickly sweet, just evocative of decay that would be. It's something you actually do want to get in your hair.

So, which band does he want me to name three songs from? Bauhaus? Sisters of Mercy? Rosetta Stone? Cocteau Twins? The Cure? I could go on. For an undead record store dickhead, he smells amazing. You know the smell of pleather when you smell it, plastic but leathery plastic. There is just something tactile about it. In his bony hands are several fresh vinyls, and behind him, rows and rows of vinyls. Somewhere in the back of that record store sweet, dark nag champa incense is burning. Ghostly tendrils of smoke surround him as he flashes a grin while trying to decide whether you're worthy of entering his domain.

The scene begins shrouded by a miasma of intensely indolic jasmine, but once the indole fades, an empty room emerges. Whatever gauzy light is left from the late afternoon filters through moth-eaten curtains. Marigolds are scattered on the floor among the shards of a porcelain vase. Ectoplasmic gobs of vanilla ooze from the plaster between curls of peeling, mildewed wallpaper. Everything is a shade of yellow like a pervasive stain, sickly but defiant of what we perceive as beauty. 

This is the classic autumn vision of a freshly baked apple pie cooling on a windowsill, with smells of sweet apples and spices wafting outside where leaves are steadily raining down. Children stop and take deep breaths of the forbidden pie. It tempts the squirrels and chipmunks and raccoons that rustle through piles of dead leaves, hoping for a taste. The ultimate fall comfort has been bottled. 

Deep chocolate evokes the deep shadows of autumn. Decadent molten chocolate is the thick and unapologetic heart of this scent, with a dusting of dark cacao that creates an earthy backdrop where dead leaves flutter down. If there was ever a way to make chocolate autumnal in another way besides adding spices or more gourmand elements, this would be it. 

Imagine raking leaves on a bright October day, with orange, red, yellow and brown leaves dancing in sudden gusts that kick them up at your feet. Some swirl above your head as they drift down from the trembling branches of oaks and maples. Dry leaves brush against clean skin. When the sun begins to sink and porch lights switch on, you come inside from the chill but still carry the unmistakeable scent of autumn with you. It mingles with your skin,  and you drift to sleep as if in a bed of autumn leaves.

Halloween hues swirl together with the purple of ube and the orange of pumpkin.The deep vanillic flavor of ube merges with sweet buttery pumpkin in a luscious, creamy cheesecake filling made even more decadent by the crunch of graham crackers and brown sugar.  It's the type of dessert where one more bite turns into one more, and one more, and one more...

Everything about this is orange and gold. Pumpkin, roasted to buttery perfection, is glided by a boozy glaze of vanillaed brandy and spiced with clove and nutmeg. The spices are present and warming but not overwhelming. The scent warms you from the inside, much like the pumpkin-infused bourbon (not brandy but close enough) I sipped at the now-defunct Lovecraft Bar on an October evening years ago. 

The Woman Behind It All is reminiscent of gauzy off-white curtains, of shadows flitting back and forth on plaster walls, making you wonder if the vaguely human silhouettes are a trick of light or something more. Something like the fuzzy glow of lamplight buzzes in the background. Phantoms of a woman's perfume hang in the air. Haunting and realistic, this is a dimly room where ghosts are not afraid to show themselves in some form. 

This is heady, indolic jasmine in full bloom, with an intensity that reflects the glare of eyes watching you from every direction. Jasmine unfurls its petals right away. Over time, the indole softens and gives way to gauzy tobacco and vanillic lace, though it still remains an intoxicating white floral dominated by jasmine. A Recurrent Spot, like the story it is inspired by, is beautifully intense but definitely not for the faint-hearted.