the getaway car - Serge Lutens' Tubereuse Criminelle

anyone who has driven with me knows how much i love the smell of gasoline. therefore, when i read over at Bois de Jasmin that the top notes were reminiscent of gasoline and menthol, i was excited. it took me three years to acquire some of this, and now that i have, there's a whole slew of impressions that go with it.

my first blast, i was expecting tuberose with a cold rubber note, laced with petrol. boy, was i disappointed. a tobacco note drenched with supersaturated tuberose greeted me, with a faint human-sweet spiciness underlying it. most people know the smell of that spiciness, though they don't usually acknowledge it: it's the smell of hair unwashed for a day - the smell of a lover's discarded shirt; the one that you treasure as their absence turns from hours into days. it's hard to get past the supersaturated tuberose, though... the initial blast gives me a faint headache.

i toughed it out, though, and after an hour and a half, underneath the mellowing tuberose there was something unusual. something metallic. something akin to - the smell of opening cans. was it combined with... was that gunpowder? sure enough, a chalky sulfurous note combined with the smell of hot cut metal, binding down the tuberose and tobacco smoke into a more complex, "it's America in midsummer, we're in the deep South, and we're loading the cannons now" kind of smell.

when you add the vivacity of the name, it has a serious Bonnie (of Clyde fame) vibe going on. on my skin, it isn't until another hour later that the smell of gasoline comes through to me, making everything into a straightforward exploration of the moll, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes in the getaway car before loading her gun, getting her heist partner out of there, shooting out the window and screeching away in a hail of police gunfire. sure, i'm overly poetic, but it really does have a 50s crime serials, smoking-blonde sense to it. when i was younger, i had a fondness for a Ms. magazine collection of old 40s-50s Wonder Woman comics. her archenemy Doctor Psycho (z-z-z-zut!) had, at one point, a gorgeous blonde ally. it is her that i think of, squinting one eye against a curling plume of cigarette smoke, when i think of the progression of this scent.

all told, this isn't the scent for me. it's too deliberately provocative; too direct in its effort to seduce and depart. but it is a gorgeous and fascinating scent, and i can understand why it is legendary and loved.