Sensual from All Directions - Etat Libre d'Orange's Tom of Finland

I bought this during Sniffapalooza, after reading the notes and sniffing it on a beautiful friend. I openly admit that I never tried it on my skin before buying a full bottle. Smelling it on S and then noting that the purchase benefited a foundation dedicated to preserving erotic art was enough to warrant a purchase.

Given that, it's a damn fine scent on me.

But let me rewind. First things first: no one told me that the box would be so SILKY. I think I've spent about 30 minutes just stroking the box. It's like the subtlest suede ever - like those soft, velvety book covers in the 90s, the Bukowskis from Black Sparrow Press, the reprints of Miller's Tropics, or the selected poems of Anne Sexton. I don't know who else will know what I'm talking about, but the texture is unique. Skin-like. Like touching a young person's neck. For this particular texture to preface a fragrance is for someone to open my memories of a time when a young man said to me (whilst holding one of those books), "I want you to be my Anais Nin."

(Yes, that is a true story. Luckily, I didn't play that role for long.)

Therefore, the jump into Tom of Finland's briny, earthy playground seems apropos. According to the description inside:

This is fresh, pure water, with top notes of aldehydes and lemon, a water that washes away the sins of the night and leaves the skin luminous.

To me, that's hardly the water I get. I smell the lemon, but it's more the smell of the garnish of oysters - I smell the slightly earthy tone of seashell, from the birch and vetiver, straight off the bat. Those notes never die, and thus while I can grade it as a masculine smell, it smells incredibly good on my chemistry.

After a while, one's heat brings out the cypress and the pepper, but pine and geranium are never pronounced. Normally I don't smell good in evergreen notes, but this concoction makes it work. It's not particularly sexy on female skin, per se, but during the top and heart notes it is ultimately very playful.

Then it dries down.

Oh, dirty, dirty, dirty.

No, really. Romantic, but dirt. Lovely, springtime, wet musky earth. But with, oddly enough, really subtle yet gorgeous ambery sillage. Imagine a pretty amber with the lightest touch of lemon and birch, overlaid on a rich peaty whiskey scent. Heavy swooning on this end! Even better, your spring-earth-fecundity stage will only be noticeable by those who are close to you. As a quick note - vetiver earth is vastly different from patchouli earth, and it should be noted that there is no moment where the earthiness ever smells in any way unclean. Even the tonka bean note, which usually ends up as halitosis on me, is the tiniest, wispiest smell.

All in all, an incredibly pleasant, sensual, yet unthreateningly unique fragrance. The lack of anything particularly unsettling is unusual for something branded as racy. There is nothing brash or over-the-top about the way this smells. It is, all told, a scent that is charming with its surprises.

(In the meanwhile, I can still be entertained by the idea of me as a male Delta of Venus. Hold Nin's later works, please - I shall stay fervently within the non-contentious Four Chambered Heart.)

Notes:
top/aldehyde, lemon
middle/birch, leaves, pine, safraleine, pepper, cypress, galbanum, geranium
base/vanilla, tonka bean, iris, vetiver, styrax pyrogene, suede, musk, gray amber

p.s the box says "dirty drawing inside" but all I found was a drawing of two men kissing. I feel both cheated and sad for the society that thinks this needs a 21+ warning.