A few weeks ago, I dreamt that I was texting my therapist about rescheduling and then I randomly told her that she should give her patients perfume samples based on their psychiatric diagnoses. “Give the borderlines Ariana Grande’s Cloud,” I insisted. The suggestion was maybe a tad on the nose because Ariana Grande has a song called “borderline,” which is allegedly about her ex, the out-and-proud borderline personality disordered Pete Davidson. And while Ari herself has never come out as BPD, her dating history definitely has a whiff of personality disorder. But we’re not here to diagnose Ari, or the girlies who choose to wear her love bomb of a perfume (ok, maybe I just did). The bigger point is that my dream presented the perfect prompt for Sample Sluts! Because here at Sample Sluts, Crissy and I are the type of women that people write books about, and that book is the DSM-5. Now let’s pair our fave diagnoses (not necessarily ours, but also not not ours) with perfumes, because that’s what we freaking do best.
—Anna

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Narcissistic Personality Disorder // Flowerbomb by Viktor&Rolf

It’s the one we all have now! Just kidding. Sort of. The term ‘narcissist’ has become vastly overused in the last five years, mostly because of self-styled experts on TikTok and Instagram who have convinced everyone that their shitty ex, dad, mom, and boss are all, in fact, certifiable narcissists. It’s tricky, though, because garden variety narcissism has become incredibly common: you can learn therapy terms on social media without ever actually stepping foot into a therapist’s office, deftly weaponizing those terms against anyone who upsets you so that you’re never meaningfully in the wrong. While I do think that narcissistic behavior is plaguing us all, I believe that actual, bona fide, diagnosable narcissists are much harder to come by. While Jax Taylors and Larsa Pippens are everywhere for those with eyes to see, those are mere impersonators—once you tango with the real thing, you’ll look at the ruins of your life and wonder what the fuck happened. Just watch Vanderpump Rules, honestly. (Side note: I found a really incredible reddit thread about how all narcissists are fragrance addicts. We’re an elite group.) I’m going a little rogue here and choosing Flowerbomb to represent all the true narcissists out there. Why? No fragrance has ever inserted itself into my life so hard. A true bomb of cloying floral notes, Flowerbomb is *the* scent of magazine inserts and Sephora samples. I feel like it has been placed into exactly 30% of my Sephora orders for the last two decades. It’s inescapable. It smells like binging in a candy store and frying all your dopamine receptors beyond repair, and isn’t that inability to feel true joy kind of the baseline problem for a narcissist? I rest my case.

Hot or cold? Cold to the core but hot to the touch.
Who wears it? People with eight hours of daily screentime.
Place? In front of any reflective surface.
Animal? Dog who gets brand deals.
Song? “Shadowboxer” by Fiona Apple.
Texture? Snakeskin.
Signature drink? Hailey Bieber Erewhon smoothie.
Favorite word? “I.”
Vampire or angel? Energy vampire x 10000.

—Crissy

Histrionic Personality Disorder // Gardenia Passion by Annick Goutal

Borderline this, narcissistic that, but not enough people talk about histrionic personality disorder, BPD’s more entertaining cousin. Both my parents and therefore extended families are from the American South, i.e. the land of histrionics. To quote Little Edie Beale in Grey Gardens. “I have a hell of a temper—it’s Southern!” Histrionics storm out of rooms and throw drinks in peoples’ faces, yes, but they’re also fantastic story tellers and very fun at cocktail parties. Annick Goutal’s sadly-discontinued Gardenia Passion is a Southern histrionic in full bloom. She’s loud, she’s seductive, she’s drenched in white flowers. She’s Scarlett O’Hara stealing her sister’s fiancé, she’s Kristen Doute slapping James Kennedy in the street, she’s Blanche DuBois screaming, “I don’t want realism, I want magic!” Wearing her makes me feel like it’s a steamy August night in Mississippi and I’ve just thrown a plate at my husband’s head. Am I overreacting? Definitely. But I made my point and I smell fabulous.

Hot or cold? Hot like a steamy summer night.
Who wears it? Former debutants with anger issues.
Place? Antebellum mansion during a thunderstorm.
Animal? White peacock.
Song? “Fever” by Peggy Lee.
Texture? Smashed porcelain.
Signature drink? Mint Julep.
Favorite word? “Heavens!”
Vampire or angel? Angel with a hell of a temper.

—Anna

Major Depressive Disorder // Iris Silver Mist by Serge Lutens

It’s me! I’ve had this diagnosis stamped on paperwork on and off since I was seventeen, not to brag. I am not going to Google how many Americans would qualify as having major depressive disorder, but I will venture to say that it is a lot. Our lifestyles are a perfect recipe for depression: car-centric suburbs, nutrient-deficient food, wild socioeconomic inequality and rogue individualism. The list goes on! All of this to say: it’s not my fault, okay? At the risk of taking it to a place of Tumblr, we must also acknowledge that there are parts of being depressed that feel beautiful and singular. The way the world moves around you like you’re in a dream. The long nights without sleep with unparalleled quiet and the even longer stretches of nonstop sleep in which your entire life surrenders to your subconscious. Wearing a black turtleneck and no makeup...and that’s about it. Anyway, while being depressed is horrid and ugly, I have to give it the sad-but-gorgeous scent it deserves, and that is undoubtedly Iris Silver Mist by Serge Lutens. If you read any of its reviews, the words “cold,” “sad,” “distant,” and “depressed” will pop up multiple times. It’s a pure iris scent, as if an evil witch stole the soul of powdery iris and cursed it to live as a perfume forever: there’s ethereal metal, cool dirt, and eventually the slightest hint of warm musk. Luca Turin deemed it one of his five-star scents, calling it appropriate to wear to a “a huge gray ostrich-feather boa to wear with purple dévoré velvet at a poet’s funeral.” Depression, but make it fashion.

Hot or cold? Anemic.
Who wears it? People who are way past lexapro.
Place? Bedroom with blackout curtains.
Animal? Eeyore.
Song? “Devil Town” by Bright Eyes.
Texture? Crunchy dead flower petals.
Signature drink? Water with wellbutrin.
Favorite word? “No.”
Vampire or angel? Angel in need of serotonin.

—Crissy

Bipolar Disorder // Angel by Mugler

While a personality disorder mostly seems like a good reason to break up with someone, bipolar disorder feels classic and chic and a sign of artistic genius. Although more people have suggested I have the former than the latter, my ex’s life coach did say I was “bipolar and incapable of love,” which I still hang onto when I’m feeling bad about myself. I also often think a lot about Layla Halabian’s iconic tweet, “I come from a long line of people in weird moods.” Girl, same. The nice thing about bipolar is the weird/dark/sad moods are followed by bouts of euphoria and mania. So I knew I needed a perfume known for its opposite extremes, for its embodiment of light and dark, and of course, artistic genius. That perfume is Angel by Mugler, a revolutionary fragrance that rocked the fragrance industry by combining the euphoric sweetness of cotton candy with dark, earthy patchouli. The result is a perfume that feels ecstatic and dark at the same time, a little unhinged, but very innovative. Like all the best perfumes and people, she’s in a weird mood, but we can’t look away.

Hot or cold? Both, always.
Who wears it? People who are either not sleeping or always sleeping.
Place? Padded cell.
Animal? Black swan.
Song? “I Am a God” by Kanye West
Texture? Glitter tears.
Signature drink? Cocaine.
Favorite word? “More.”
Vampire or angel? Half vampire, half angel.

—Anna

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📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
💊🧠💊 DSM edition 💊🧠💊

Panic Disorder paired with Threat de Toilette by Kaspersky UK

OCD paired with Byredo Blanche

Paranoid Personality Disorder paired with Paranoïaque by OHTOP Paris

Insomnia paired with L’Heure Bleue by Guerlain

ADHD paired with Rouge Chaotique

Social Anxiety Disorder paired with Phlur Missing Person

Ivy: Long Distance (2000)

I’m forever trying not to embarrass my Gen X gf with my cringe millennial taste, and I’m almost always failing. Except very occasionally, like when I listen to Ivy. New York sophisti-pop with a French lead singer is Vanessa 101. She nearly choked from excitement when I told her I was listening to Long Distance, Ivy’s third album. It was made during a rough stretch for the band, after they were dropped by Atlantic, lead singer Dominique Durand was pregnant, and their NYC studio had just burned down. They turned toward new wave and trip-hop, more melancholic than their previous records for obvious reasons. I’m pairing Long Distance with Frédéric Malle’s Iris Poudre, released the same year (2000), and also moody, French, and sophisticated beyond belief.

Boards of Canada: Inferno (2026)

While this album is contemporary, my girlfriend does not protest when I play it because Boards of Canada is a quintessential 90s dark downtempo band, her shit. Also, they aren’t American, which is crucial for Vanessa. But enough about her! Inferno is the Scottish duo’s first album in 13 years and brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin are still doing what they do best: ominous loops, analogue synths, crackled voices. Inferno is spooky like much of their early work, full of apocalyptic religious imagery and cryptic voiceovers. I’m pairing it with Jorum Studio’s Firewater, a smoky Scottish fragrance inspired by the Isle of Jura. Built around peat, seaweed, black tea, and charred woods, it matches Inferno‘s scorched apocalyptic atmosphere.

The Durutti Column: LC (1981)

I’ve always loved Vini Reilly’s circular, spectral guitar playing for reading and writing, which I do for most of my waking hours. And lucky for me, the Manchester band just announced Renascent, their first studio album in 16 years. Until then, I’ve been playing their second album LC—from the Italian anarchist slogan Lotta Continua, meaning “the struggle continues.” Apparently Reilly recorded the whole thing in five hours and cut it in two. I’m pairing it with its contemporary, Alfred Dunhill’s Blend 30 (1978), a restrained British fougère, featuring lavender, hay, leather, and incense to match the album’s precise and shadowed Englishness.

The Field: Now You Exist (2026)

Swedish ambient producer Axel Willner has been making hazy, looping micro-house as the Field since the mid-2000s. I love writing to all of his records and Now You Exist—his first in 8 years—is no exception. It’s slightly warmer and more buoyant than his previous albums. I’m pairing it with Swedish brand Stora Skuggan’s Monkeyflower, which smells of sunscreen, buttercup, and chamomile, sun-baked yellow florals that evoke the album’s Scandi summer vibe.

Sibylle Baier: Colour Green (2006)

German actress and singer Sibylle Baier recorded Colour Green at her home between 1970 and 1973, then put the tapes in a drawer for 30 years. Her son later compiled them onto a CD as a family gift and passed a copy to J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., who then passed it to Athens, Georgia indie label Orange Twin. They released it in February 2006. I’m pairing the quiet, melancholy folk that recalls Vashti Bunyan with Diorella (1972), sun-on-sliced-fruit brightness over damp moss and dry hay. Not only is it contemporaneous with the recordings, but it also matches the album’s intimate and slightly overripe feeling.

Yu Su: Foundry (2026)

Chinese-born, London-based producer Yu Su has spent the last decade drifting between Vancouver, Ibiza, and eventually London. Her similarly placeless but compelling second album Foundry recently dropped on Short Span, the buzzy young Sheffield label focused on dub techno and ambient. I’m pairing it with Abduction by The Eyes Are Always There—visual artist Joe Merrell and perfumer Christopher Gordon’s attempt to bottle what meeting an alien smells like! Metallic and ozonic top notes melt into spice, wood, and earth, like Foundry’s beating heart beneath the electronic sheen.

Tracks on repeat:

“linknb” - Kelela

“hate that i made you love me” - Ariana Grande

“Close (feat. POiSON GiRL FRiEND)“ - Jump Source, Patrick Holland, Priori, POiSON GiRL FRiEND

“SS26” - Charli xcx

“What You Want (Fcukers Remix)” - Angèle & Fcuke

“Someday” - Hekt, Valeria Litvakov

Rachel Green is a lifetime beauty junkie and former Estée Lauder Co. beauty exec who recently launched L’Epoque Parfums, a fragrance brand dedicated to marking your moment through scent with their 30mL fragrances. I first met Rachel in 2025 through a mutual friend and instantly loved her vibe—while we have never met IRL, it was easy to imagine that each of our conversations had taken place over martinis and french fries. She’s funny and candid, the opposite of a gatekeeper: she answers all of my questions about the fragrance world with absolute truth, a stark contrast to the more cagey, artsy types you tend to encounter in this space (no disrespect to bohemian creatives, but sometimes you just want to know how much something cost). She is currently running L’Epoque as a team of exactly one—I highly recommend following her antics on Instagram and TikTok. We talked to her about who each of her fragrances would be as pop stars, going for the jugular with perfume application, her forthcoming Serotonin Spritz scent we’re dying to smell, and more.

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First things first: how many spritzes and where?

One on each wrist, a few on my shirt, and I know some will consider this serial killer behavior, but my last spray is always straight to the jugular. Then I do a little mist in the air and walk through it.

What was the first perfume you ever bought? Most recent?

The first perfume ever was probably Love’s Baby Soft but the first real perfume I remember buying was Stella by Stella McCartney in the ombré purple bottle.

Most recently I purchased Torino 21 by Xerjoff which is an herbal summer citrus scent, my favorite summer scent profile, and I am planning on layering it with our upcoming summer launch.

Describe yourself in top, middle, and base notes.

Top: dry shampoo, cold brew essence

Mid: crisp cotton sheets, roses, chick fil a mints

Base: tonka, white wood, hot yoga musk

You founded the fragrance brand L’Epoque all by yourself. Could you tell us a bit about how you decided to do it and what the process of developing your fragrances was like?

At the end of my career at Lauder, I was feeling frustrated with how long it would take to get a cool idea to market, which is super hard at a big company but a lot easier to do when you’re doing something much more entrepreneurial. So the seeds were planted about doing something on my own. It took a lot of soul-searching to actually make the jump from having an idea to putting it out into the world. Fragrance was having such a moment, and I knew if I didn’t put my idea out there, someone else would, so I decided to take the leap of faith. Last September I literally slapped labels I made on Sticker Mule on 50 lab samples and just decided to see if anyone would be into the scents I created…and here we are.

It’s been incredibly interesting and educational to create our fragrances. I had some product development experience at Too Faced but not at the level of detail I put in for L’Epoque. Every fragrance starts out as a brief with fantasy scent notes and moodboard where I basically curate the vibes I’m going after and we go from there. I also almost always start with the Scent Name before developing a scent because it helps me to visualize (scentsualize???) the fragrance in my head. From there the perfumer and I go back and forth on honing the actual scent, making tweaks on specific notes or intensities (aka mods) and then a L’Epoque fragrance is born….

Match each of L’Epoque’s fragrances with…

A pop star:

Delusions of Grandeur: Addison Rae

Dopamine Rose: Zara Larsson

Inner Child: Tyla

Dreams and Nightmares: Julia Wolf

A TV show:

Delusions of Grandeur: Sex and the City

Dopamine Rose: Gossip Girl (OG Version)

Inner Child: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Dreams and Nightmares: Game of Thrones

A place:

Delusions of Grandeur: Paris at night in your 20s.

Dopamine Rose: Barbie’s Dreamhouse.

Inner Child: The biggest, softest bed with the perfect mattress and crisp, clean, 1000-threadcount sheets.

Dreams and Nightmares: Poolside at the Belmond La Residencia in Mallorca, Spain (literally the inspo for this scent!!)

Serotonin Spritz (our upcoming summer fragrance): Diving off the back of a boat in Italy, then getting out of the water and being handed a fluffy white towel and a freshly made cocktail.

What fragrance houses made you fall in love with the world of perfumery? Who inspires you?

A personal favorite in recent years has been Ex Nihilo: it was the first perfume house I came across where I loved their scent DNA and so many of their fragrances which I find to be a rare experience. While no brand can be everything to everyone, I think about this a lot as we expand L’Epoque’s portfolio of scents. I want to have a recognizable scent DNA and have people coming back to us over and over again, even if the scents themselves are different.

In general, I am super inspired by other brand founders who have built something from the ground up. It’s something that I didn’t fully understand until I started doing it myself, and the grit and effort it takes to get from point A to point B to point Z is truly astonishing. I find so many other brand founders inspirational and aspirational, but a few I follow closely are Sofie Pavitt, Bram Niessink, and Brian Bordainick.

You live in Texas and you previously lived in New York City, could you assign scents to those very distinct eras of your life?

NYC - Le Labo Tubereuse 40, MFK Baccarat Rouge 540, Byredo Rose of No Man’s Land

TX: Delina by PDM, Angel Dust by Fugazzi, Bois d’Amande by Van Cleef, Dopamine Rose by L’Epoque

If you had to pick a signature scent for life right now, what would it be?

This is hard because I am always rotating my scents, but I’ve been hyperfixated on Inner Child since we finalized it. I’ve probably been through about four lab pumps and three full size bottles. It is such an easy everyday scent, especially when I am always testing other fragrances. Something about it is just so comforting and clean.

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Introducing The Note, where we round up our favorite perfumes centered around a single note or concept. First up: rose. I’ve always been a fan of roses—I literally cannot pass a rose bush without stopping to smell it, and whenever I’m given a pen and paper, I inevitably find myself drawing a rose at some point (I’m very Georgia O’Keeffe in this way). And after researching Régime des Fleurs’ Little Flower for our Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking post and learning that Chloë Sevigny exclusively wears rose perfumes, my rose predilection ascended to clinical hyperfixation levels. Truly, I’ve now tried them all. Rose is one of those notes that can go in a lot of different directions: powdery and old-ladyish, fresh and green, juicy and bright, dark and gothic, sexy, vampiric, diva-ish—some even say it smells like death. I honestly enjoy most of its iterations. Rose is the flower for women who claim to “not like florals.” It’s also one of the few flowers men seem to fuck with. I personally believe there is a rose for everyone, even the haters. Now for my faves, and please drop yours in the comments!

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Ladies of London: The New Reign feels like vintage Bravo—the version of the network that got us supremely hooked, back when every cast member was a functioning alcoholic, didn’t have a therapist, and had little to no plastic surgery. Sure, some of these women have Botox, but one gets the now rare sense looking at Martha Sitwell that the face we’re seeing on our TV screen is actually the one she was born with. And it’s gorgeous. She’s a billion times sweeter, but she recalls an early Bethenny Frankel in that she’s living in a tiny, shitty apartment—something we haven’t seen on a Bravo show in a very, very long time. It’s refreshing! The first season is over, but consider this post our attempt to manifest a second, then third, and so on. Because these bitches really understand the assignment. Now let’s scent them.

—Anna

Mark-Francis Vandelli // Naxos by Xerjoff

“Xerjoff” does not sound like the name of an Italian luxury fragrance house, and “Mark-Francis” does not immediately strike me as the name of a Russian-Italian nobleman. Xerjoff is indeed Italian and so is Mark-Francis Vandelli (okay, the last name helps), the gay-in-residence keeping the Ladies of London in line. Raised by a literal Russian princess-turned-model (who was a muse to Vivienne Westwood) and an aloof Italian industrialist/gambler who seemingly abandoned him as a toddler (classic), Mark-Francis is a true child of the world. On FaceTime with a housewife, he mentions that he’s just bought a place in Tuscany. A brief look at his Wikipedia tells us that his Knightsbridge townhouse once belonged to Oscar Wilde. He is posh, filthy rich, and completely unashamed of it. He has the classic cutting tongue that any gay on Bravo must possess, but his insane pedigree and British way of never really emoting whatsoever really put him a cut above the rest. I knew I had to pair him with a scent from Xerjoff, because their bottles and composition also have a way of saying “we’re better than you” without saying anything at all. I was tempted to give him Alexandria II due to its obvious nods to nobility and opulence, but its powdery bomb drydown really couldn’t do Mark-Francis justice. Instead, I see him in Naxos: a sweet crowdpleaser with a softer sillage, so it’s never too loud or gauche. A tribute to Sicily, Naxos smells like a classic al fresco breakfast there: a pastry overflowing with citrus cream, best enjoyed by an herb garden as you check your investment accounts—delicious.

Hot or cold? Warm like the Tuscan sun.
Who wears it? Someone whose cashmere collection costs more than your car.
Place? The White Lotus resort in Taormina.
Animal? Cavalier King Charles with an attitude.
Song? “A Well Respected Man” by the Kinks.
Texture? Creamy ricotta.
Signature drink? Caffè corretto.
Favorite word? “Ghastly!”
Vampire or angel? Vampire cheekbones, angel wardrobe.

—Crissy

Martha Sitwell // Libertine by Vivienne Westwood

Lady Sitwell is among the most genuinely beautiful and entertaining Bravo stars I’ve seen in a long time. Like most women made for television, she’s had a lot of horrible things happen to her. She was born into an aristocratic family but had disciplinary issues—her parents threw her out as a teenager and she was briefly homeless, before being discovered by Vivienne Westwood. She later married an aristocrat but was left with very little after the divorce, meaning she now lives in what she calls a “grottage” (garage cottage), covered in bird droppings courtesy of her pet magpie, Haggerty. We’re talking good old-fashioned eccentric here: classy, broke, heart of gold. During the season, her friends have to scold her for giving her house key to a random con artist. This breed of messy high-class Englishwoman smells like Vivienne Westwood’s Libertine, a discontinued chypre inspired by the British monarchy. With grapefruit, honeysuckle, oakmoss, and soft musk, it evokes the overgrown British garden of a crumbling estate that’s seen better days, a fabulous fur coat with ripped lining, and antique furniture covered in bird shit. Glamorous, strange, and hanging on by a thread. Like Martha, Libertine smells like rags to riches and back again.

Hot or cold? Cold like a draughty grottage.
Who wears it? Former debutants gone wild.
Place? The back of a thoroughbred in the English countryside.
Animal? A magpie, obviously.
Song? “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush.
Texture? Ripped velvet.
Signature drink? Whatever your ex-husband left behind.
Favorite word? “Divine.”
Vampire or angel? Angel who accidentally gave her house keys to a vampire.

—Anna

Lady Emma Thynn // Mind Games by Prodigy

What perfume do you get for the woman who has everything? Lady Emma Thynn waltzes into the show with Rihanna-level posture, a million dollar smile, and the kind of demure attitude that has no place on something that streams on Peacock. But thank god she’s here! Best friend to fellow rich bitch Mark-Francis Vandelli, Lady Emma is the Marchioness of Bath, whatever that means. Born to a Nigerian oil billionaire father and English socialite mother, she became the first Black woman to marry into aristocracy when she wed Ceawlin Thynn in 2013 (before Meghan Markle joined the club, the cast notes). She runs Longleat House, a truly insane Elizabethan mansion acquired by the British in 1798—it’s officially the biggest house in the U.K., worth upwards of £200 million. They also manage the largest “safari park” outside of Africa??? They have everything from rhinos to red pandas to kangaroos. Call me basic, but I simply love when a socialite takes a special interest in wild animals and filth. Anyway! Like any good socialite, Lady Emma has oodles of brand deals: she became the face of Victoria’s Secret’s ‘Daring’ perfume in 2024, but of course, we know she doesn’t wear that shit. After a cursory bit of digging, I found this video of her applying what one genius Redditor deduced to be Mind Games by Prodigy. It’s a very large, hefty bottle: it looks like an oversized chess piece that could be used as a murder weapon. I ordered a sample instantly: it’s a creamy rose scent with plenty of vanilla, woods, and spice. Lady Emma Thynn paired it with a diamond necklace that required a bodyguard.

Hot or cold? Cold like diamonds.
Who wears it? Women who go to Cannes.
Place? A residence that people can buy tickets to see.
Animal? Red panda with an English accent.
Song? “Country House” by Blur.
Texture? Cream stirred into your cup of English breakfast.
Signature drink? Champagne alongside said teacup.
Favorite word? “Marchioness.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire sitting on many acres.

—Crissy

Kimi Murdoch // God of Fire by Stéphane Humbert Lucas

When Kimi finds out her castmate’s brother was murdered, she says “let’s not make it into some sob story.” When she finds out said castmate is upset by these remarks, Kimi says, “sorry, I didn’t realize you were so sensitive.” This is all to say, Kimi is one ruthless bitch. Every Bravo show needs a provocateur, and Kimi appears more than happy to play one. Raised in Florida and Haiti, she says she moved to London in part because “Americans can be a bit judgey when you start drinking before noon.” Now fully British in her approach to alcohol and emotions, Kimi retains her Florida/Caribbean flair in her clothes, which are often tropical-colored and patterned. Put simply: loud. Kimi therefore wears Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ God of Fire, a tropical fragrance inspired by the Aztec god of kings, warriors, and volcanoes. The flashy jewel-encrusted bottle likely caught Kimi’s eye first, but she stayed for the notes of mango, lemon, and jasmine, which reminded her of home. While Kimi emotes like a Brit (in that she doesn’t), she still smells like Florida.

Hot or cold? Hot like a Caribbean summer.
Who wears it? That friend who can drink you under the table.
Place? First class cabin from MIA to Heathrow.
Animal? Flamingo.
Song? “Murder She Wrote“ by Chaka Demus & Pliers.
Texture? Silk blouse on sweaty skin.
Signature drink? Rum punch.
Favorite word? “Boring.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire who loves a statement hat.

—Anna

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
👑🫖🇬🇧London edition 🇬🇧🫖👑

Julia Roberts in Notting Hill (1999) paired with Chanel Cuir de Russie.

Geri Halliwell in a Union Jack dress at the 1997 Brit Awards paired with Classique by Jean Paul Gaultier.

Cara Delevingne dropping a bag of white powder outside her London home in 2013 paired with My Burberry.

Princess Diana at the Serpentine Gallery on June 29, 1994, the day her husband announced his adultery on television, paired with 24 Faubourg by Hermes.

Oh, marriage! I, Crissy, love other people’s weddings, but I lowkey hated planning mine. It’s a shame, because it turned out pretty chic, everyone got really drunk (including the bartenders and coked-out jazz band), and I still get compliments about it to this day. Another shame: I cannot remember what perfume I wore on my wedding day. I feel like this must have been a pretty important choice at the time, but I really have no recollection: it was the end of October, so something like...that? I don’t know! But you know who will remember their wedding scent? My gorgeous gen Z friend Hannah, the reason why we are gathered here today.

Hannah is in search of a perfume specifically for her wedding day, so that it will remind her of it for many years after (I love the way this works, as every time I wear Ichnusa I am plunged into the sweaty, green world of my last trip to Rome: this scent also fits Hannah’s brief, imo). First, I asked Hannah what her wedding vibe would be: “drapey, silky. Sprawling outdoor venue, euro villa, sunny. Black tie affair but not stuffy, fun fun fun, we will be dancing til 2am.” Perfection!

The most important question, of course, is what kind of scents she loves and hates. Her love list: Maison Louis Marie No.05 Kandilli, Jo Malone Wood Sage and Sea Salt, the smell of Weleda Skin Food (same), and the scent profiles of her hair products (Kerastase hair oil, Biolage shampoo, k18 heat protectant). “In general,” she said, “I love the scent of jasmine, leather, wet dirt, and nice hotel lobbies.” Now we’re cooking with gas.

Hannah doesn’t love a rose note, cologne-like spice, or heavy smoke. After the jump, join us as we recommend 22 perfumes for Hannah to date before she marries one.

Fracas by Robert Piguet

One thing I’ve learned about Maison Louis Marie is that all of their perfumes are essentially dupes of iconic perfumes. Bois de Balincourt is a Santal 33 dupe, Antidris Cassis is a Diptyque L’Ombre Dans L’Eau dupe, and Hannah’s preferred Kandilli is a Fracas dupe. Fracas is the queen of white florals, a legendary 1948 creation famously worn by Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Madonna, Courtney Love, and, let’s not forget, Martha Stewart. I paired it with Catherine Trammel from Basic Instinct. With massive doses of the very powerful tuberose, Fracas is a perfume for strong, perhaps intimidating personalities—main character energy. Fragrantica agrees that while Kandilli and Fracas no doubt smell similar, Kandilli is “more approachable.” So Hannah, it depends on what you’re going for. If you want to make an entrance, I say there is no better fragrance than Fracas. If you want a slightly softer, more drapey tuberose, I might go with Diptyque’s Do Son. But I personally think Fracas would be an iconic wedding scent.

—Anna

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I first discovered Molly Young when my friend Nicola forwarded me her IG story in 2020. Molly had posted my first novel, Vagablonde, a book pretty much no one read. Nicola said Molly was aspirational, and even a cursory glance at her IG suggested this was in fact true. Her grid featured photos of a Brooklyn warehouse lush with the healthiest plants I’d ever seen, a stylish brunette with the healthiest hair I’d ever seen, said stylish brunette freaking surfing, baking delicate pastel cakes, and putting her pet cat with piercing green eyes in a pink tutu. I was thrilled to learn this enviable woman liked my book enough to post it, even before I knew she was a literal book critic for the New York Times. Molly has since left the Times, but she remains a stellar book recommender here on Substack. She’s also a fraghead who wrote a delightful profile of Italian gourmand queen Hilde Soliani for The New York Times Magazine. So we were thrilled to pick her brain on the scent of the perfect wave and more!

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

Four. One per wrist, one on my neck, one on my hair.

What was the first perfume you bought? Most recent?

The first was Clinique Happy, because all I ever wanted was to be happy, goddamn it. Happy smelled like a mall fountain, which was close enough.

The most recent full bottle purchase is D’Annam White Rice. I wanted a scent that smells like a ball of sticky rice sitting on a jungle floor and I finally found it.

Describe yourself in top, middle, and base notes.

Top
Vodka

Middle
Honeysuckle
Printer toner

Bottom
Inner peace

Given your literary expertise, can you pair scents with: your favorite book of all time?

The Crime of Sheila McGough by Janet Malcolm

A true story about a woman who went to prison for being annoying.

Pair with: Delina by Parfums de Marly.

Favorite recent read?

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

The world’s most bulletproof argument for misandry. No I’m kidding. Sort of. I reread it every 5 years to bask in the glow of true feminine genius.

Pair with: Warm Bulb by Clue.

Most underrated book on your shelf?

The King’s Evil by Will Heinrich

Sick and twisted masterpiece about a demonic orphan who moves in with a retired lawyer and tortures him. It is 190 pages and immediately went out of print after it was published in 2003. People really couldn’t handle this novel.

Pair with: Bitter Peach by Tom Ford.

Your IG reveals you’re a baker. Do you have a favorite gourmand perfume?

AKRO Bake is the only lemon scent that doesn’t remind me of hospital sanitization fluid. I drench myself in Bake before bed so I can drift off under the soothing delusion that someone is preparing a lemon pound cake for me while I sleep.

Drink Menta by Hilde Soliani smells exactly like Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream. It disappears after 90 seconds so you’ll burn through a bottle in one month but hey, it is a luxury.

You’re also a surfer. Have you found a fragrance that evokes riding a perfect wave?

It would be the smell of Mrs. Palmers: a pillow of paraffin surf wax wrapped in cardboard and smelling of coconut, marshmallow, honey. It looks so edible they have to print DO NOT EAT on the package. Not that that stopped thousands or millions of children.

Were there any memorable Hilde Soliani moments that didn’t make it into the profile?

Everything she did was memorable. Hilde is a grande dame. She is learned, mischievous, opinionated. Doesn’t suffer fools. Hates the smell of oud (“Why people spend a lot of money to smell like a sheep, I don’t know”), hates influencers, hates stupidity. Loves her sister, her work, Madagascar vanilla, nettle risotto, friendship. During the week I spent with her she ordered all my food at restaurants. It wasn’t even a question. When you’re with an Italian who has spent a lifetime refining her tastes, you surrender to her superiority and say grazie.

Are there any other perfumers you’d like to profile or at least meet?

I want to meet the person who came up with the “Black Ice” car freshener smell that comes on a little cardboard tree.

If you had to pick a signature scent for life right now, what would it be?

slightly-b!tch by Filippo Sorcinelli, but only for the name. It smells like a roadside toilet.

Slayyyter: WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA (2026)

I need to give a shoutout to my bff Eric because he has been repping Slayyyter for like seven years and I basically ignored him. But as with many gay-endorsed artists I originally brushed off—Charli xcx, Ariana Grande, and yes, Britney Spears—I eventually came around on Slayyyter: hard. WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA brings me right back to 2006: it’s giving Crystal Castles, it’s giving Justice, it’s giving Ed Banger records by way of early Ke$ha. This album is trashy, it’s indie sleaze, it’s a party and an absolute blast. I’m therefore pairing it with P*rnstar (Noyau Doux) by Toskovat, which has notes of bubblegum, martinis, and suntan lotion. “Cheap love costs everything,” announces the brand’s copy, “and I loved you more than all the bottles I’ve seen the bottom of.”

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Here at Sample Sluts, we are Euphoria apologists. We loved the hyperstylized makeup and pretentious cinematography of Seasons 1 and 2, and we were even loving the start of the third season, which takes the show out of high school and into the most insane early adulthood imaginable. (We don’t need to talk about anything that happens after episode two, honestly. Not canon!) According to creator Sam Levinson’s vision, everyone who graduates high school becomes either a pimp or a prostitute (sorry, sex worker). Cassie, the sad slut from Seasons 1 and 2, is trying to blow up on OnlyFans. Maddy, the former Queen B, is rich from basically representing porn stars. Rue, the walking crisis, is working at a strip club (and dealing guns?). Jules, the manic pixie dream girl, is a high class sugar baby. And Cassie’s A-type sister Lexi is working in Hollywood, the most sex worker-coded profession of all! Sam Levinson’s world may not be realistic, but it’s glossy and sexy and high stakes, and that’s all we’re really looking for in an HBO show. So let’s scent these freaks.

Rue Bennett // Eros by Versace

Oh, Rue. Zendaya is at her best when she’s embodying this slouchy, smirking, scheming imp. In season 3, we find her gayer than ever, looking like a kid in a candy store as she picks up shifts at a desert strip club. She’s basically interning with drug lords, learning the tricks of the trade and enduring long speeches about pussy as she does so. Rue probably smelled like some combination of weed, pills, and cigarettes for most of her adolescence, but I think the ‘start of season 3’ Rue is picking up bottles of cologne on her kingpin’s dresser and trying them on for size (while also trying to find God, of course). I imagine her spritzing on Versace’s Eros before buttoning up a silky johnny collar blouse and lacing up her usual converse: it has an obscene gold and teal bottle that screams “money laundering” and it smells like a guy you’d meet in Miami at 2AM. It’s fresh and clean like your classic ‘blue’ scent, but it has a strong vanilla note that gives it that powdery, ‘guy who won’t text you back’ vibe. Lexi will probably find it disgusting and take Rue to ScentBar to find a clean musk, bless her.

Hot or cold? Seemingly cool, but internally panicked.
Who wears it? Lesbian with a money clip.
Place? Anywhere that’s open late.
Animal? Dolphin plotting to escape captivity.
Song? “DHL” by Frank Ocean.
Texture? Feels like silk, but it might be polyester.
Signature drink? Tequila shots for everyone.
Favorite word? “Cool.”
Vampire or angel? Angel soul with vampire vices.

—Crissy

Jules Vaughn // Suspended Water Lily by Syd Botanica

I’ve said it here before, the word “ethereal” is overused to the point of being almost meaningless but sometimes it’s just true. And the Jules of Seasons 1 and 2, with her pink-tinted platinum hair, shimmery eyeshadow, and pastel wardrobe, is one ethereal bitch. Not quite annoying enough to be a manic pixie dream girl, she looks, quite simply, like an angel. After high school, she unsurprisingly goes to art school, where she quickly learns that being poor is not for her. After her roommate suggests sugaring, Jules ditches school to paint in lofts funded by wealthy men. At that point, she’s likely wearing department store designer perfumes purchased by the daddy du jour. But I’m going to scent an earlier version of Jules, the one who arrives at art school and likely discovers Syd Buffman, the LA-based niche perfumer who likens perfumery to painting and who makes fragrances tailor made for ethereal nymphets like Jules. With notes of roasted seashells, ozone, gardenia, and moss, Suspended Water Lily is vaporous and celestial, a perfume not for humans but rather for mermaids, angels, or fairies. A perfume for Jules Vaughn.

Hot or cold? Warm like the sun on the roof of the art school you’re about to drop out of.
Who wears it? Girls who are always wet.
Place? A tide pool.
Animal? Jellyfish.
Song? “Life in the Vivid Dream” by Grimes
Texture? Sea foam.
Signature drink? Lavender spritz.
Favorite word? “Unreal.”
Vampire or angel? Who made her own wings.

—Anna

Maddy Perez // Lost Cherry by Tom Ford

It’s a shame that Euphoria didn’t come out in the 2010s, because GIFs of Maddy Perez would’ve run the fuck out Tumblr. I guess this show was just made to be GIFed into moodboard oblivion actually, but whatever. Every version of Maddy is the girl that every girl wants to be: undeniably sexy and savvy, with a sweet core and commitment to loyalty that makes her the definition of “ride or die.” Sam Levinson definitely tends to box her into the ~spicy latina~ trope, but Alexa Demie plays her with pathos that always makes Maddy feel a bit deeper than any storyline gives her credit for. Anyway, what the fuck am I on about? Let’s focus on Maddy’s scent wardrobe. Reddit fraghead sleuths figured out that Maddy’s high school locker displayed a bottle of a Victoria’s Secret Scandalous fragrance dupe, a slutty little gourmand that was heavy on raspberry and praline. I think early-20’s Maddy would still reach for something sugary, but in a “fur coat doing business at the pool” way rather than at “Sol de Janeiro shoplifted from Sephora” way. I’m putting her in Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry: she might dabble in indie scents, but a Hollywood power manager isn’t wearing anything but designer. Lost Cherry opens with pure cherry that quickly turns into amaretto, drying down into something woody and subtly sweet—some people think it finishes off like Baccarat Rouge, others feel like it lands in cologne territory. I think all of this sounds great for a woman in business: femme and masc all at once, for a lady who believes in capitalism.

Hot or cold? Hot and cold attitude.
Who wears it? Girls who didn’t peak in high school.
Place? Gifting suite at an awards show.
Animal? The Jaguar Alexa Demie pretends to be when crawling around her house.
Song? “Girl Like Me” - Alexa Demie
Texture? Mink fur coat brushing against your bikini top.
Signature drink? An aperol spritz with a frenemy.
Favorite word? “Deal.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire who drains your bank account instead of your veins.

—Crissy

Lexi Howard // Orphéon by Diptyque

Lexi is a character close to my heart because she is the introverted writer who pisses off everyone she loves by making a play out of their lives in Season 2 (my fave plotline). In Season 3, she’s in Hollywood working as an assistant to a TV showrunner played by Sharon Stone, but before that, she surely went to Paris, as every bookish, romantic, out-of-place suburban American does when they come of age. There, I imagine Lexi developed a taste for Beaujolais, jazz bars, patterned Sézane blouses, and, of course, perfume. At the Diptyque boutique on boulevard Saint-Germain, she was likely drawn to Orphéon, named for a 1960s Parisian jazz bar and smelling of powdery woods, juniper berries, and tonka bean. It’s less ubiquitous and more importantly less American than Philosykos and Eau Duelle, but still classic Diptyque. Confident but not loud, artsy and offbeat, but accessible enough for television, just like Lexi. And when she’s having a stressful day on set, I imagine Lexi just spritzes a cloud of Orphéon and is taken back to the Latin Quarter, to rereading The Sun Also Rises at a café with a fresh skin contact wine, before her sister was dressing as a slutty dog on OnlyFans and life was oh so much simpler…

Hot or cold? Cool like your gin martini at Bar Hemingway.
Who wears it? Girls who studied abroad in Paris and never shut up about it.
Place? Corner table at Café de Flore.
Animal? A moorhen on the Seine.
Song? “Ce Mortel Ennui” by Serge Gainsbourg.
Texture? The worn pages of a first edition.
Signature drink? French 75.
Favorite word? “Chouette.”
Vampire or angel? Un ange.

—Anna

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
💎💊💎Euphoria edition 💎💊💎

Cassie Howard with Kayali Vanilla 28

Nate Jacobs with Dior Sauvage Elixir

Fezco O’Neill with Polo Blue

Kat Hernandez with Lady Vengeance by Juliette has a gun

Laurie with Kouros by YSL

Faye Valentine with Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire

Specifically, a $5/month (or $50/year) paid membership will give you access to:

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We’ll also have a premium Founding Member tier for $125/year where you’ll receive all of the above, plus twice-a-year fragrance fittings—in which you can ask us for four scents that suit whatever you want and we’ll do your bidding. We love to be personal shoppers!

Sample Sluts is a true labor of love for us. In creating our XXL spreadsheet of all the scents we’ve ever featured (and what we said about them), we actually had a little moment of pride: we really enjoy being obsessive about the things we love, and we appreciate all of you for obsessing with us. We hope that the support we get from paid subs will allow us to invest even more time into our fixations, and to develop new ones—like making really gorgeous merch one day, watch this space.

Thank you for being slutty with your time and attention! And for any new paid subs, look out for your first exclusive content right after this paywall—the spreadsheet of every scent we’ve ever featured is waiting! <3

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First things first: how many spritzes and where?

I can’t lie, being complimented on the way that I smell always makes my day, so I’m pretty generous with my application. Maybe five spritzes total: both sides of my neck, wrists, and on my chest. Six sometimes. Is that crazy!?

What’s the first perfume you ever became obsessed with?

The first perfume I ever religiously wore was Chance by Chanel, which I stole from my mom. This was my high school scent, which is pretty hilarious because the scent itself is this powdery floral that’s actually quite granny and mature—a far cry from the sweet, girly Marc Jacobs Daisy scents that all my pals were wearing. It has very intense projection though, which I think is why I liked it, and because it made me feel grown up.

Describe yourself in top, middle, and base notes.

Top
Jasmine
Tarot cards
Aquaphor

Middle
Candle wax
Marine fog in the morning
Rosemilk
Skin

Base
Lipstick
Green apple
Clary Sage
Creepy hallway at night

You create such fun, wearable makeup looks (shoutout to blue eyeshadow), do you ever match fragrances with your glam?

Well, I used to just have a few signature scents that I would rotate through, but these days, I’ve been much more interested in matching fragrance to my moods or activities, which is what I have always done with makeup. I actually find it very inspiring.

I’m currently working on a horror project, so I’ve been wearing a lot of spooky, otherworldly scents like Andrea Maack Coven (which smells like a mossy forest under a full moon) or Byredo De Los Santos (which I think smells like a ghost).

You have $500 to spend on things that smell good at Sephora (could be perfume, body mist, candles, body care, even hair products that smell amazing)—what are you buying?

Ah!!!!

I’m obsessed with the way Soft Services Theraplush hand cream smells. It’s very cozy, woodsy, and musky.

Roz’s hydrating shampoo and conditioner have this really beautiful clean and verdant smell that I adore, plus they’re great hair products.

And probably Sacred Santal body wash by Cyklar, which is a favorite in my household. Me and my husband are both obsessed.

I really wish Sephora had more candle options.

You’re a skincare expert and licensed esthetician: is fragrance of all kinds a huge ‘no’ for anything you put on your face, or are there any products with a smell that you will use?

Strangely, I’ve personally always been more sensitive to natural fragrance, like a higher concentration of lavender essential oil, than a synthetic fragrance like a perfumy cream. But everyone’s skin is different—for some folks it’s no problem at all, and for others any kind of fragrance will irritate their skin.

What fragrances are you loving lately? What are your forever favorites?

An underrated sleeper hit is Billie Eilish’s Your Turn—I get compliments every time I wear it, without fail. It’s spicy and woody and gingery at first, probably my most unisex scent initially, but as it lingers on the skin it gets a bit sweeter with peach peel, coconut water, and jasmine. The bottle is also stunning.

Diorissimo by Dior is one of my all time favorite fragrances, because it’s my mom’s scent too. It’s this very rich, vibrant white floral. This one is for jasmine lovers, and jasmine lovers only. I think there is something really tender about sharing a perfume with a loved one. It really reminds me of her, and sometimes I find myself channeling her behavior when I wear it.

We couldn’t help but notice you getting weird on Fragrantica, one of our favorite pastimes. Can you share a fantasy fragrance you found?

I’ve never created anything on Fragrantica, but here are some of my favorite fake perfumes that I’ve found online.

Feverish viewers (us) are now calling the whole debacle “Scamanda” for several reasons. First, West is Amanda’s alleged bff Ciara’s ex, a man she’s been publicly smitten with and or grieving for several seasons on camera. Second, Amanda’s ex-husband Kyle is friends with West and brought him on the show. Third, viewers suspect the affair began nearly a year ago, when Amanda was still with Kyle. The prevailing theory is that Amanda left Kyle for West, which is bleak because he is essentially just a younger version of Kyle: a drunk party boy with commitment issues to the Nth degree. But unlike Kyle, West seems to lack a heart. Meanwhile, Ciara, the real victim, has a heart of gold and is a literal nurse. This is a tangled web even Shakespeare herself couldn’t weave. Last week, Andy Cohen reported on his IG story that the latest Summer House reunion was the “most intense” he’s ever filmed (and he’s filmed a lot). And the next day, leaked audio from the reunion appeared on Reddit—the first time that’s ever happened, somehow, an act Andy called “disgusting and illegal.” Bravo is conducting a full investigation to find the culprit! Now, let’s scent giant mess…

Amanda Batula // Le Labo Another 13

I don’t want Amanda to “unalive” herself like many of the psychos on le internet but I can say I’ve never been a fan. Well, that’s not entirely true: the first episode of Summer House I watched (I believe it was Season 4) I was impressed by her extremely low BMI and the way her clothes hung off her. (I’m toxic.) But then I got to “know her,” and realized there really isn’t much to know! She’s one of those very pliant, malleable girls, the ones who have the right clothes, who laugh at your jokes and seem to move through the world with ease, but then after a few weeks of gal-paling you give her a good look and realize she is completely, 100% dead behind the eyes. There is no one home. She’s not a robot, because she’s too lazy, but there is something a bit algorithmic and unfeeling about her. Hence why she can steal her bff’s ex without blinking an eye, then post that people need to stop hating so she can “start living life with some sense of normalcy.” This kind of slinky, sociopathic bitch is radiating Le Labo’s Another 13. One of the original your skin but better scents in the vein of Glossier You and Dedcool Milk, Another 13 is one of those chameleon-like musks that smells wildly different depending on who is wearing it and who is smelling it. Just perusing Fragrantica: some can’t smell it at all, some say it smells ethereal and cozy, like a hug, others say it smells like corporate and sterile, still others say it smells like glossy magazines and cocaine. In other words: who the hell is this bitch? To me, Another 13 smells like the cast’s favored antidepressant Prozac, vacant and anesthetized, the scent of Miss Batula herself.

Hot or cold? Tepid.
Who wears it? Girls skinny enough to make baggy clothes look chic.
Place? West Village pilates studio.
Animal? Longhaired dachshund.
Song? “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift
Texture? Chipped beige manicure.
Signature drink? A rosé you couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
Favorite word? “Fine.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire you mistake for an angel for like three seasons.

—Anna

Ciara Miller // Princess By Kilian

The thing with Ciara Miller is that she’s not only drop dead gorgeous, she’s also very kind. One of those people who you wish you could hate, Ciara has shown herself to have very few flaws in her years on Summer House—she loves to dress up in a funny outfit for a theme, have a good time, gossip in bed with the girls, and she always stands up for her friends. I think the bitchiest thing one could say about Ciara is that she was always kind of better than this show and she has kind of shitty taste in men. First it was Luke Gulbranson (hot but dumb as rocks), then it was Austen Kroll—famously called “the Honda Civic of male attractiveness” by a fellow castmate—and finally it was West Wilson, who didn’t seem so bad when he was the new guy. Her taste is not to blame there! West pursued her heavily for three months before revealing himself to be a Tom Schwartz-ian mumbler and commitment-phobe of the highest order, slowly backing away when shit got real. And now, well, you know. Anyway! Ciara has gone on record to say that she loves fresh scents and gourmands: a few of her favorites are juicy Delina by Parfums de Marly, Amber Nemat Oil, English Pear & Freesia by Jo Malone, Boy Smells Vanilla Era, and Prada Paradoxe. A fraghead after our own hearts! It’s hard to match a scent to someone who already has an excellent wardrobe going, but I’d encourage Ciara to try Princess by Kilian. I find the bottle really corny, but the scent itself is a gorgeous, balanced blend of matcha and marshmallow. It gives vanilla without being too winter-y or cloying, with a little kick of ginger. Everyone will notice you when you wear it—maybe it’s like being Ciara for a day? We can dream.

Hot or cold? Warm and fuzzy.
Who wears it? Women who get followed by Rihanna on Instagram.
Place? Having a matcha at SoftBar on a rainy day.
Animal? One of Taylor Swift’s spoiled cats.
Song? “Sweetest Pie” by Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa.
Texture? Soft serve with sprinkles.
Signature drink? Margaritas made for the whole house.
Favorite word? “Costume.”
Vampire or angel? Angel with really good genes.

—Crissy

Kyle Cooke // Chanel ÉGOÏSTE

Like Amanda and many other Summer House castmates over the years (Hannah Berner, Lindsay Hubbard), Kyle is a Leo. It shouldn’t come as a shock that a show about being dramatic in summer share house is filled with Leos. And Kyle is the most quintessentially Leo among them: he has a golden head of hair, demands absolute loyalty from his friend group, and is always driving an expensive car. Oh, and he’s a businessman slash DJ. Apparently there is a current epidemic in New York of finance bros segueing into DJing instead of having kids in their 40s, and I hypothesize that they’re 92% Leos and 100% wearing ÉGOÏSTE—a fragrance that translates, quite simply, to selfish. I have a soft spot for Kyle because, like I said, I do think he has a good heart and really cares about his loved ones, but he is also an extremely selfish doofus. And every night before going to some godawful club inside a casino in a small city no one has ever heard of, I imagine he’s dousing himself in this fratty spicy fragrance with a hint of rose. It is, according to Chanel, “bold and rich woody fragrance for the man whose power of seduction lies in his strong character.” Put simply, this is a fragrance for men with main character syndrome, of finance-bros-turned-DJs, of the dude you really want to hate but can’t because he just made you laugh so hard you shot Loverboy out of your nose. It’s the smell of Kyle Cooke, ladies & gentz!

Hot or cold? Hot like your Hamptons sunburn.
Who wears it? Dudes with MBAs and Pioneer DJ decks.
Place? Surf Lodge Montauk.
Animal? Horny dolphin.
Song? “Call on Me” by Eric Prydz.
Texture? Perspiring can of anything alcoholic.
Signature drink? Loverboy, shotgunned.
Favorite word? “Legend.”
Vampire or angel? Blacked out angel.

—Anna

West Wilson // Dive Bar-Fume by Miller High Life

West Wilson was an unfortunate “would” for me before this entire situation. Sorry! People who are saying now that they “never understood his appeal” are being dense and annoying. He’s funny, first of all, which goes a very long way for a straight man on Bravo. He’s cute and had a whole bashful/nervous act going on about it. And he lowkey looks like a young Robin Williams, which lowers one’s defenses significantly. But West has really fucked up on this one. On the season currently airing, we watch him oscillate from whining about missing Ciara’s friendship and not being in her good graces to getting blackout drunk and pawing at her all night long. These were not the actions of a man who was totally over that woman! And certainly not the actions of a man who was plotting on her friend all along. Because he works at Complex and seems to exclusively hang out at bars on the Lower East Side that are frequented by college kids, I’m going to assign him a scent that only a media guy dirtbag would have. Dive Bar-fume was a PR stunt scent that Miller High Life put out in 2024, claiming it smells like the citrus-y oils of a clean bar top, salty drunk snacks, and leather-y barstools. It’s definitely West’s scent. I could see him picking it up from the ‘free shit’ desk at the office to wear ironically. You don’t need to pray on this man’s downfall—he is bound to discover that he doesn’t have the Tom Sandoval sauce to make it as a villain buffoon on reality TV, and he will be left as nothing but a sports/food podcaster. Tragic.

Hot or cold? Very red and sweaty.
Who wears it? Men from flyover states.
Place? Blind Tiger (derogatory).
Animal? Cocaine bear.
Song? “Sharpest Tool” by Sabrina Carpenter.
Texture? Sticky basement floor.
Signature drink? Cheap beer through a funnel.
Favorite word? “Casual.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire frozen at age 22.

—Crissy

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
☀️🍹Summer House edition 🏖️👙

Paige deSorbo with Prada Paradoxe

Lindsay Hubbard with Neroli Portofino

Carl Radke with Ralph Lauren Polo 67

Luke Gulbranson with Cape Heartache by Imaginary Authors

Hannah Berner with Crush Balls by DS & Durga

Jesse Soloman with Layton by Parfums de Marly

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

One on each wrist and one on the chest. Sometimes I like to spritz the collar of a jacket or scarf.

What was the first perfume you smelled that made you want to make your own?

Dzing! by L’Artisan. I think I first smelled it in 2006, and I actually didn’t like it at the time – but the combination of circus animal dung, sawdust and concession stand candy really sparked my imagination. It seemed like perfumery could be everything I wanted to achieve with my art. I loved the way it could pull on our memories and make people feel things.

What was the most valuable lesson you learned from your mentor Dawn Spencer Hurwitz?

I love this question! In addition to being a perfume genius, Dawn is also a painter. It was really amazing to study with someone who comes from an arts background. I think the most valuable lesson was learning that all the same principles of visual art/design apply in perfume formulation. Contrast, colors, hierarchy, balance, transparency can all be considered. The empty spaces are just as important as the more prominent elements.

Other than Dawn, which perfumer has inspired you the most?

Christopher Brosius for his passion for the artform and innovative way of thinking. CB I Hate Perfume had a huge impact on me early on. He was punk rock and made poetic perfumes for tender hearted introverts way before it was cool. Burning Leaves unlocked some beautiful childhood memories for me.

Jean Claude Ellena also for the elegance and spaciousness of his work. Jardin Sur Le Nil was the first perfume I ever bought for myself when I was 20 and living in France for the summer. That perfume is still a favorite.

How does a new scent begin for you? What’s your process like?

It often begins with the name or a concept. I try to have a really clear idea of what I’m trying to accomplish before I even begin sketching. I meditate for an hour every morning, so when I’m in creative mode I imagine I’m walking around inside the perfume as an imaginary world, bringing back artifacts. Those artifacts become the notes of the fragrance or they prompt lines of poetry. I see perfume as four dimensional poetry. Then I sketch away, and fail and make mistakes and trust my intuition until I get a sparkly feeling that I know it’s done.

Which of your perfumes are you most proud of making? Which do you wear the most?

All of them, but especially the ones that challenge me. My most recent release, Earth Star was an exercise in finding the beauty in death, decay and rot. The perfumes work on me just as much as I work on them. I feel changed by them in some way, every time. Earth Star taught me about transformation through patience and letting go, like a leaf rotting in the soil – being consumed by the biological fire of decomposition.

I wear Protean Desire, Romantix, and Ribbon Dance the most. These feel the most “me” and Ribbon Dance is especially personal because it’s a perfume about love, connection and belonging with some of the heartbreak and bittersweet elements of that too.

Do you imagine making fragrances for a particular type of person? If so, who?

Kind of, but it’s loose, and in reality I am surprised by what appeals to whom all the time! Perfume is so personal. I focus more on trying to achieve what I set out to do, and the end results are informed by my preferences. That being said, I often feel like I’m formulating for other people broadly speaking, instead of for myself. I’ve done a few collaborations (Romantix, Angelface and Meteorite) and for those projects I think a lot about the person and try to match their energy and aesthetic.

What do you want people to feel when they wear your fragrances?

I don’t like to tell people how to feel, but I do hope they feel something! There’s an underlying theme to my work that’s centered around healing and transforming difficult emotions. I think the body of work has quite a lot of range. Some of the perfumes are fun and lighthearted, and some are meditations on painful themes like grief, death and limerence. I work out my feelings through my creativity, with hope that the end result can do the same for others. People have picked up on that and sometimes my work can provoke an emotional response. Many people cry when they smell Ghost Flowers for the first time. Honey Body and Butterfly Tamer often invoke a sense of nostalgia. At Fumed, someone called Earth Star “erotic,” I’m guessing because of the mushroom and costus root notes, which smells a bit like the musk of a clean scrotum. I love the way people go deep with the work and form some kind of intimacy with it, and it’s totally unique and special to who they are as a person. People have told me they’ve worn one of my scents to their wedding (or some other important milestone event), specifically because they wanted to create a smell-memory associated with their special day. That’s the highest honor imaginable as a perfumer.

If you could only wear 5 fragrances for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Impossible to answer, so here are 5 that I have recently enjoyed! Vetiver Ambrette by Jean Robert, Onsen Minerale by Cult of Kaori, Impermanence by Christéle Jacquemin, Saffron Flour by Universal Flowering, Angelique by Papillon.

Today at Sample Sluts it’s Christmas American Spirits release day, aka a new Anna Dorn novel is born. I remember with cringeworthy clarity the first time I met Anna: it was at a party in East Hollywood and I promptly asked her if her girlfriend was her sister. Somehow we still became friends, built on a foundational love of Lana Del Rey and an eternal quest to get the perfect highlights. We often send too many texts about the hairstyles and life choices of celebrities and Internet famous friends-of-friends-of-friends, always wondering if we’re being too parasocial. American Spirits is what happens when that light social media stalking turns into full blown obsession and then IRL entanglement—the danger zone! It follows controversial musician Blue Velour as she releases her biggest album yet: it’s provocatively titled Blue’s Beard, a reference to the fan-run subreddit obsessed with the idea that she might be fucking her enigmatic producer Sasha Harlow. When one of those fans manages to worm her way into Blue’s inner circle and onto her nationwide tour, everything combusts. It’s hilarious and full of everything I love: diet sodas, ridiculous song titles, snack foods from convenience stores, Italian greyhounds, the beauty of California’s coastline, mentally ill social media addicts and plenty of cigarettes. Join us as we choose a few fragrances for this universe—and order the book today, duh.

—Crissy

“A Vape Cartridge Named Desire” // Mistpouffer by Stora Skuggan

Blue Velour’s hit single off her critically acclaimed darling Blue’s Beard is called “A Vape Cartridge Named Desire,” which is probably my favorite fake song title in the book. It’s obvi a reference to Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire, starring iconic hysteric Blanche DuBois, whose need to hide her true self from a judgmental society is widely read as a proxy for Williams’ own flamboyant gayness. The novel’s Redditors have a field day with this, naturally, because in the manner of the Gaylors, they’re convinced Blue is secretly gay and encoding it in her lyrics. But the song title is also just a reference to vaping, which Blue is doing incessantly throughout the book. And no perfume better evokes the euphoria of a glorious vape hit than Stora Skuggan’s Mistpouffer. There are notes, presumably, but it really just smells like beautiful mist: foggy, ethereal, utterly unbothered. Someone on Fragrantica said the fragrance evokes Laura Palmer riding on the back of a motorcycle in Twin Peaks, and really, is there anything more Blue Velour?

Hot or cold? Chilled vapor dancing through redwoods.
Who wears it? Girls who’ve watched Twin Peaks at least twice.
Place? Between dimensions.
Animal? Silver fox.
Song? “Mysterious Girl” by Neggy Gemmy.
Texture? Condensation on the dashboard.
Signature drink? Sugar-free Red Bull.
Favorite word? “Lynchian.”
Vampire or angel? Angel who plays mind games.

—Anna

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“Pink Cocaine” // Dopamine Rose by L’Epoque

One of my favorite aspects of American Spirits—and Anna’s writing, generally—is how well Internet culture is woven into the characters’ daily lives and identities, never feeling like a gimmick. In this novel, the psychotic Redditors really come out to play. Rose Lutz is Blue Velour’s superfan-turned-friend: she moderates the gaylor-esque BlueBeards subreddit that obsesses over Blue’s life, but she manages to work her way into Blue’s inner circle (to disastrous consequences, obviously). Rose also has an enmeshed and lowkey dangerous relationship with another mega poster on the BlueBeards subreddit, a user who goes by PinkCocaine because it’s her favorite Blue Velour track—and she has a tattoo of little pink lines as a tribute to her song, obviously. Dopamine Rose smells to me like these girls would: sweet, narcotic, and a little delusional. Unlike your typical dusty rose, this one is airy and addictive. It’s like Rose herself, driven entirely by hits of dopamine with zero consideration of the consequences. A girl after my own heart!

Hot or cold? Flushed cheeks after your first line.
Who wears it? Aging Tumblr girls.
Place? Cozy two-bedroom apartment where every lightbulb is connected to an iPhone app.
Animal? Italian greyhound with a high net worth.
Song? “Florida Kilos” by Lana Del Rey.
Texture? Silk nightgown worn to the club.
Signature drink? Pinot noir from Sonoma Valley.
Favorite word? “Famous.”
Vampire or angel? Clout vampire.

—Crissy

Mood Onyx // L’Orpheline by Serge Lutens

During the pandemic, Blue Velour surprise drops an album called Mood Onyx. The title references Nina Simone’s “Mood Indigo” and the trap production is inspired by Travis Scott and Future. The polarizing & gothic album pairs perfectly with the polarizing & gothic L’Orpheline. From Serge’s Collection Noire, this dark and solitary fragrance translates to “the orphan,” and it’s the ultimate goth girl perfume. Specifically, it smells of seared frankincense, black pepper, myrrh, and cold church stone. That is, the scent of isolating in a forest cabin to record an edgelord album. It’s skeletal and dry, like a girl playing with matchsticks alone in the woods, dangerously close to starting the next massive California wildfire.

Hot or cold? Cooled ash from your cig.
Who wears it? Inside girls.
Place? Studio in the woods.
Animal? Night owl.
Song? “BUTTERFLY EFFECT” by Travis Scott.
Texture? Incense smoke.
Signature drink? Cold brew.
Favorite word? “Nothing.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire, no doubt.

—Anna

“Drive Me to Macy’s” // Wild Bluebell by Jo Malone

Is there anywhere more beautiful than the American mall? I was devastated when the local mall where I was raised was destroyed, and it is with a heavy heart that I will always remember its pastel-meets-neon color scheme. (Look at this forlorn skylight, I mean my god, the beauty!) Miss Blue Velour would understand my plight: when she needs to decompress, she escapes to the mall in Thousand Oaks to cruise Macy’s. It’s there that she and her assistant Rose find the matching sparkly gold dresses that they’ll wear to the Grammys, much to the disappointment of everyone who’d prefer Blue to wear designer. Blue also purchases fifteen Jo Malone Wild Bluebell candles, a scent Rose “had come to associate with euphoria.” Wild Bluebell is what I would call a classic mall scent: it is light, floral, inoffensive, and sunlit. Fruity and musky, it smells like a rich person who hates being rich and yearns for a department store dress. It’s Lana in denim cutoffs and a Brandy Melville tank top in her iPhone footage music video, it’s Addison Rae with no makeup on the red carpet. Blue Velour is constantly escaping her celebrity life into what she deems more ~real~, whether it’s the deep south, an ex-con on a motorcycle, a roadside burrito, or a trip to the mall—she’s the people’s mentally ill princess.

Hot or cold? Morning dew cool.
Who wears it? Basics who are anything but basic.
Place? The perfume counter at Macy’s.
Animal? Little duckling by the lake.
Song? “Aquamarine” by Addison Rae.
Texture? Your skin underwater.
Signature drink? Gin and tonic.
Favorite word? “Whatever.”
Vampire or angel? Angel with a secret identity.

—Crissy

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📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸

💙🌹American Spirits edition 💙🌹

Pop My Cherry with Tom Ford Lost Cherry

“Marlboro Never Dies” with Vampire Husband by Sorce

Oleander with Pretty Deadly Lethal Oleander Flower by Drew Barrymore

“Tulips on the 405” with Wavey Tulip by Syd Botanica

“A Thousand Oak Trees from You to Me” with Oak in Oak by Scents of Wood

“Rose Ghost” with Lucid Dream by Ex Idolo

“Neon Bruise” with Tom Ford Velvet Orchid

“Death Baby” with Death and Decay by Lush

Here at Sample Sluts, we are massive fans of Audrey Robinovitz and her Substack, Eat Your Lipstick, which believes, as we do, that fragrance is fine art. Audrey is a fragrance writer, critic, Diptyque shop girl, and one of the most brilliant perfume writers alive. Her work spans olfactory arts, post-structural feminism, and radical orthodox Christian theology. She approaches fragrance with a rigor typically reserved for other, “more serious” art forms. In other words: sit down and read, people. This is church.

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

Good question. I’d classify myself as a relatively chronic oversprayer, so I realistically end up doing two or three on my wrists and four or five on my decolletage and blouse. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine when people rub their wrists together after atomizing perfume. If it’s an oil, or even if the fragrance comes in a dabber bottle that’s more acceptable, but still not my favorite. I think an underrated tip is to spray down your coat or outerwear in the winter before leaving the house… It’s like a fun little treat to open your closet the next day and still smell it lingering.

What was the fragrance that got you to start thinking seriously about perfume?

That’s a really fun question. I think in a very on-theme move, the first real niche fragrance I ever bought for myself was Diptyque Olene. It’s a gorgeous, skanky, indolic jasmine that really got me to see the potential of fragrance to be both naturalistic and evocative. From a critical perspective, following the burgeoning careers of makers like Marissa Zappas, Clue Perfumery, and Universal Flowering got me to start applying a more sophisticated and interdisciplinary approach to scent writing, and developing a more direct auteur-style relationship to the people behind the scent’s formulation.

Describe yourself in Top, Middle, and Base notes.

I’ll do a straightforward answer with standard perfume notes, and a fun one with abstract notes. If I was a perfume I would be an incensey iris, somewhat like Naomi Goodsir Iris Cendre. Top notes of violet and carrot seed, heart notes of iris and cedar, base notes of frankincense and smoke. If it was all fantasy accords, maybe top notes of dusty incense, heart notes of white waxy church lilies and embroidered linen, and base notes of sweaty makeup powder and tears. That might just be Passage d’Enfer, which is probably my favorite fragrance of all time.

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You work for Diptyque: what is the very best Diptyque perfume? Which one is most underrated?

I do! I have a lot of thoughts about this, and most of my customers are not often ready to hear the true answer to this question. I think in terms of both its popularity and artistic merit, you don’t get any better than Olivia Giacobetti’s Philosykos in the EDT form. It’s utterly photorealistic, airy, and bittersweet. No other fig perfume has ever been able to match the emotion this evokes, it’s in a class of its own. I think my objective favorite is Volutes, which now only exists as an EDP. It’s kind of like the sister to Lutens’ Chergui: a tobacco and honey accord but set on a powdery iris note and warm opoponax. It’s truly one of my most worn fragrances of all time, and if I had to pick a signature scent, that might just be it.

Easily all of the vintage formulations we keep in stock are our most underrated. My favorite among them is L’eau Trois, which if you can believe it, is a weird church incense perfume with top notes of herbal Greek spices like rosemary and oregano. I also adore our first ever fragrance L’eau. It’s a potpourri-inspired cinnamon bomb, similar to Comme des Garcon’s original 1994 debut fragrance. It’s always reminded me of Tilda Swinton’s Orlando: like a well-groomed androgynous dandy on horseback in Elizabethan England.

You write a lot about Catholicism: what are your holy grail Catholic incense perfumes?

I think if I were to recommend one to someone on the fly who was looking to explore this category it would probably be With the Candlestick. It’s the one I wear the most, and while it certainly has a great deal of smoke to it, feels so much more approachable because of the cinnamon and cherry accents. Avignon is a great place to start too, but sometimes I find that’s much more of a lemony-soda take on frankincense than a Gothic cathedral. One that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough is April Aromatics’ Calling All Angels, which is honeyed and sticky and enthralling. The pinnacle of church incense scents is undoubtedly RELIQVIA by Filippo Sorcinelli. I mean he literally makes vestments for the Pope, so it doesn’t get more Roman Catholic than that. Plus he’s a flaming muscle daddy who’s clearly a mainstay in the Italian gay scene, which is beautiful.

What do you see as the emerging scent trends of 2026?

No one’s ever asked me this before, but I actually have a lot of predictions. I think we’re starting to reach the end of the provocative accords for shock value thing that’s going on lately, and I think as DIY perfumers who started during or shortly after the pandemic start to hone their skills, people are going to want to return to more sophisticated fragrance types like chypres, powdery violets, or aldehyde-based florals. I see a big moment for oakmoss coming soon. Outside of that, on the ground at my job clients are constantly asking about alternative gourmands - the pistachio craze is played out, but everyone is becoming obsessed with the idea of almonds, rice, matcha, custard, things of that manner. I don’t think every iteration of this trend has been good, but it’s nice to see some departure from straight vanilla. I hate to say it but the Glossier You flanker empire probably means the skin scent psychosis is going to hold for a year or two longer than I thought it would. I do think eventually the mass market fragrance industry is going to have to backpedal on the sheer amount of fixatives they’re putting in perfumes, as the public collectively grows fatigued of beast mode performances and overbearing synthetic musks. It’s similar to why D&G Light Blue and Elizabeth Arden Green Tea were able to become so insanely popular in the 2000s. The market certainly seems rife for the success of straightforward and beautiful natural blends made in a similar tone. Anything to break the chokehold Australian sandalwood has had on Givaudan for the last ten years.

What scent trend do you see as completely played out?

I guess I touched on this before, but I hate the concept of a skin scent. There are certainly musk based fragrances like Fleur de Peau EDP that I adore, I just think the cultural obsession with “skin chemistry” blending is basically just pheromone pseudoscience and is incredibly boring. It’s just marketing perfume to people who don’t like perfume. I love perfume. I don’t want to smell like I’m not wearing any fragrance. I am wearing fragrance. It’s very expensive and tasteful, thank you very much.

Who is your favorite perfumer and why?

It has to be Olivia Giacobetti. I feel like I’ve waxed poetic about her work for years now, but it truly never gets old. I think of the fragrances she makes as a completely different category of scent. It’s sort of the way I feel about certain directors like Lynch, Naruse, or Hitchcock. Her work is so unequivocally her own - from Tea For Two to En Passant, I can pick out her aching and photorealistic style from the crowd every time. Other candidates for second place could be Courtney Rafuse, Olivier Pescheux, Christopher Sheldrake, or John Biebel.

If you could only wear five perfumes for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Honestly I hate to miss the opportunity to shout out any more wonderful perfumes, but I’ve mentioned pretty much all of my picks already. Passage d’Enfer, With the Candlestick, En Passant, Philosykos, and maybe add my two favorite Serge Lutens: La Myrrhe and Fille en Aiguilles. I don’t need anything else. Maybe I’d also secretly steal sprays from my precious decant of the vintage version of Guerlain Après L’ondée. I’m constantly on the lookout for a full bottle.

Of the girlie perfume genres, we at Sample Sluts tend to lean more vanilla than floral. That said, we smell a lot of perfume for you bitches, so our tastes have naturally expanded. Some of these perfumes have genuinely humbled us. You could even call us recovered floral skeptics. If you think you’re too tough for flowers, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s put the leather and incense away for one sec and try to smell like spring because word on the street is that it has sprung. Also, please share your favorite florals in the comments—we’re always on the hunt to expand our bouquets!

Lilac no. 4 by Universal Flowering

We all know I am a Courtney Rafuse superfan. The Toronto-based perfumer makes and bottles every scent herself at Universal Flowering, and is one half of Gummamina with Marissa Zappas, another icon. Rafuse’s work is “formulated in dialogue with the liminal, the erotic, and the unsteady autobiography of memory,” and her bottles are fucking gorgeous. She also writes poetic copy that originates from her diaries. For Lilac no. 4, she writes: “the lilacs are at it again! the whole block drunk on purple light.” Lilac no. 4 is that kind of drunk on purple feeling: it’s a photorealistic lilac bush right after it rains, the suburbs in the spring—pastel-colored and soaking wet. It converted me to purple florals entirely (I actually have a full bottle of this; rare!). This is quite literally the scent of spring.

Hot or cold? Cool like a spring rain.
Who wears it? Your high school best friend’s cool older sister.
Place? Suburban garden in full bloom.
Animal? Purple butterfly.
Song? “Butterfly Net” by Caroline Polachek.
Texture? Damp petals.
Signature drink? Lilac wine.
Favorite word? “Dewy.”
Vampire or angel? Wet angel.

—Anna

No. 44 Fire and Rain by Cognoscenti

I recently fell in love with Dannielle Sergent, the artist and perfumer behind Cognoscenti. This is the first and only Cognoscenti fragrance I’ve sampled so far—thank you to the kind geniuses of Decant Planet for throwing it in my last order—and it certainly will not be the last! No. 44 Fire and Rain is a perfect petrichor scent, yes, but to me it’s like being in a fantasy botanical garden after a storm. The floral notes here are at once incredibly light and immersive. Like the great Carnal Flower, it has the ability to turn me feral in seconds. I normally have a deranged streak of body dysmorphia, but wearing Fire and Rain makes me feel obsessed with myself. This is the kind of perfume that merits a new dress, fancy dinner reservation, and possibly a round-trip flight somewhere warm. It’s my new favorite dirt scent—an extremely high bar to clear, even though it is literally underground!

Hot or cold? Sweaty but also shivering.
Who wears it? Hot L.A. woman in a silk slip dress.
Place? Griffith Park garden after a rare downpour.
Animal? Two hummingbirds sheltering inside a rose.
Song? “Crystallise My Tears” by Danny L Harle, Oklou, and MNEK
Texture? Wet dirt, duh.
Signature drink? Ice cold lemonade garnished with edible flowers.
Favorite word? “Elemental.”
Vampire or angel? Angels making out in the bushes.

—Crissy

Little Flower by Régime des Fleurs

Before I was into purple florals, I was into rose. And Little Flower is in my rose hall of fame. I’m picking her here because she is the greenest, most springlike of my favorite roses, truly the happiest, coolest rose around. Régime des Fleurs founders Alia Raza and Ezra Woods teamed up with Chloë Sevigny for this, so it’s obvi cool. Chloë is apparently a lifelong rose obsessive who wore Comme des Garçons Rose for years before it was discontinued. Little Flower is what she wanted next: freshly bloomed rose with tart blackcurrant, sharp green leaves, pomelo, black tea, and a palo santo base. Think a more indie Delina, a more complex Rose Struck by Liis, a sexier L’Ombre Dans L’Eau. This is not your grandma’s rose.

Hot or cold? Cool like Chloë’s shade of blonde.
Who wears it? It Girls trying not to smell like the subway.
Place? A rose bush in Tompkins Square Park.
Animal? Rose-breasted grosbeak in Central Park.
Song? “Let Me Kiss You” by Morrissey.
Texture? The laces on your ballet sneakers.
Signature drink? Baudry Greene’s rouge claire negroni.
Favorite word? “Crush.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire in blush pink.

—Anna

Freckled and Beautiful by What We Do Is Secret

Another incredibly horny scent! Don’t say we ever let you down. Freckled and Beautiful lives up to its name, conjuring images of perfect summers, skin-on-skin, and bikinis on the floor. To me, it smacks of honeysuckle in the best way, swirling with something like sunscreen, coconut, vanilla, and fresh neroli. It’s the most floral gourmand I’ve ever encountered, and as they say on Love Island, it ticks all my boxes. They say it has notes of ‘warm milk and pastry crust’ and they’re not wrong, but it’s like a freshly baked confection served with a side of fresh orange blossoms next to the pool at a five-star hotel. I’ll be wearing it all summer.

Hot or cold? Sunburnt.
Who wears it? Dua Lipa on her 37th vacation of the year.
Place? Under a floral trellis at Chateau Marmont.
Animal? Papillon in a picnic basket.
Song? “sweetener” by Ariana Grande.
Texture? Gingham mini skirt.
Signature drink? Bottomless bellinis on someone else’s tab.
Favorite word? “Golden.”
Vampire or angel? Bloodsucker with a perfect smile.

—Crissy

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
🌻🌹🌺 Floral edition 🌹🌺🌷

New Order’s Power, Corruption, and Lies (1983) paired with Ombre Rose by Jean-Charles Brosseau (1981).

Kate Moss with calla lilies in the 90s paired with Michael by Michael Kors (2000)

Lily-Rose Depp with rose bush paired with Chanel No. 5 L’Eau.

Joni Mitchell with a lily in her hair paired with Clinique Aromatics Elixir (1971).

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) paired with Ame Toscane by ID Parfums (1996).

If you even care about beauty at all, you know Sable Yong. She’s spent over a decade as a beauty editor, with bylines in Vogue, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, New York Magazine, and more. In 2024, she released her debut essay collection, Die Hot with a Vengeance, a sharp and funny dismantling of beauty culture. Especially exciting to us, she also dropped a perfume to go along with it, a scent for “stylish villains,” “morally ambiguous main characters,” and “disgraced heiresses”—i.e., our people. Relatedly, she co-hosts the fragrance podcast, Smell Ya Later, and publishes here on Substack on Hard Feelings. Below, we pick her brain on 2026 scent trends, her top five perfumes of all time, and more.

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

I’m a 4-5 spritzer: one on each side of the neck, under each armpit, and one general front-aimed spritz at my decolleté. Too many times it ends up on my cheeks, on my general face, occasionally in my mouth, but that’s just mechanical happenstance, depending on the atomizer.

What’s the first perfume you ever bought? Most recent?

First?? Genuinely I don’t remember. But it was most likely a Bath & Body Works body spray (freesia, cucumber melon, and/or sweet pea) or GAP Heaven or GAP Dream. I also had tons of rollerball scents from Claire’s that all smelled like girl-flavored candy.

Most recent perfume purchased was this scent I created with Algorithmic Perfumery. I was invited to try the machine and create my own scent (you take a very extensive online quiz and a machine creates 3 samples in real time that you can tweak), and I loved one of the tweaked mods so much I bought a full-size! I named it Forever Yong (hehe) and it smells like milky rice, musky, powdery florals, and woody almonds.

Tell us about creating a perfume for your book, Die Hot with a Vengeance.

I’ve always wanted to make a perfume, and figured since I had the cash injection from my book advance I could fund it that way. I worked with Joey Rosin, a perfumer I met because he worked at a local perfume store in my neighborhood and he happened to be a Smell Ya Later listener! Making the juice was the fun part because he was really receptive to my brief and the kinds of notes I like. The rest of it — sourcing bottles, packaging, printers, etc — was kind of chaotic, but thanks to Alibaba, I found stock bottles I liked that were actually affordable (seriously, NO small businesses can Made In America their shit, it’s SO expensive!!), and Joey found an affordable printer in PA to screenprint the bottles. We filled and sealed all the bottles at Joey’s, and then I packed them all in their mailing packaging at home, which became my de facto warehouse.

We did it all in less than a year which is kind of nuts, and I understood why most people/brands take at least 2 years to launch a scent: the juice changes! I guess maceration is the term. It stews in its bottle and the scent evolves over time. Die Hot now is a lot more fruit-forward than the mod I originally approved. The original was a bit grittier, ashier, and dirtier. The plum and sweet orange pulled up a lot over time, which ironically I think makes it a bit more universally pleasing, but now probably makes me sound a bit melodramatic in the product copy lol.

Joey and I were chatting about fucking with the formula, maybe doing a flanker that’s an intense or an extrait. I still have 60 empty bottles left (had to overorder to meet the factory’s MOQ), so we’ll see!

Describe yourself in Top, Middle, and Base notes.

Top: Espresso, croissant butter, barley tea

Middle: Nail polish, fresh magazine paper, tiramisu,

Base: Warm radiator dust, 2700K light temperature, soup

If Smell Ya Later had a fragrance, what would it smell like?

I think within the Venn diagram overlap slice that encompasses Tynan’s and my scent preferences, it’d be coffee, vanilla, warm spices, incense, marshmallow, and ozone.

What do you see as the emerging scent trends of 2026?

I’m seeing a lot of Y2K nostalgia emerge in scent trends now! Lots of fruity-florals and fresh, airy body mists. Also, more “for men” scents (likely banking on those teenage boys buying up the Xerjoff and Le Labo). But we’re still riding that gourmand train, but with kookier notes, like banana, matcha, pandan, and rice. Everything seems to launch with some really esoteric concept or obscure-but-specific reference. I guess it’s another way to world build, in the parlance of branding. Oh, and also lots of random non-beauty/non-fashion brands will likely launch fragrances this year (again, world-building!).

What perfume or scent profile do you think is completely played out?

I think a lot of fragrances made for/marketed to men are very same-same. It’s always sporty fresh, intense leather, or boozy/woody. If there are any fruity or floral notes involved, they’re often quite subtle. I mean, there are nuances, but I smell them and immediately get that familiar “men’s cologne” smell. Let a man smell like a beautiful cloud, or a flower!! Let a man have to choose a fragrance based on scent itself, not because it’s marketed to him by Adam Driver on a horse! (Although I do like that Burberry Hero frag.)

Who is your favorite perfumer and why?

The first person who comes to mind is Aurélien Guichard — the perfumer and French person who made me realize that it’s not that all French people are rude, just Parisians (he’s from Grasse). He makes so many of my favorite scents, most notably Crystal Saffron from his brand Matiere Premiere, and Oud Delice from Robert Piguet (He’s also made scents for all kinds of designer brands though). Maybe it’s just that his palette is compatible with my tastes, but I find his scents are always well balanced, complex and robust, no matter the scent profile. He can do it all: woody, floral, gourmand, musk! I think he has a very acute understanding of how certain notes or accords affect one another to influence the whole composition, which is a skill that only very experienced perfumers develop. Everything he creates surprises and delights me, and often makes me reconsider scent profiles I thought I didn’t like (like florals!). And whenever I’m wearing one of his creations I am GETTING compliments.

If you could only wear five perfumes for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Oof, this is brutal, but:

Matiere Premiere Crystal Saffron

Prada Paradoxe

Byredo Animalique

Benefit Maybe Baby

Die Hot With A Vengeance (duh)

Several of our readers have suggested that we scent The L Word and, well, ask and you shall receive! Airing from 2004 to 2009, this prestige-adjacent lesbian soap followed a rotating cast of exceptionally chaotic gay women in Los Angeles. For example, a few plotlines: the slutty hairdresser Shane does hair for a wedding, sleeps with every bridesmaid and the bride’s mother, then escapes by jumping into the back of a getaway car. The rich British bitch Helena Peabody steals money from her girlfriend after being cut off by her mom and ends up in prison, where she promptly develops a steamy romance with a butch inmate named Dusty. There’s an East LA limousine driver named Papi—yes Papi—who has allegedly slept with 1,300 women, even more than Shane! The bossy femme art director Bette produces a show she’s incredibly proud of called—wait for it—Provocations. And then of course there’s Jenny Schecter, the Midwestern transplant who, like many women before her, moves to Los Angeles and goes absolutely insane. By the end of the series she’s faked identities, killed a dog for revenge, written a book called The Demons That Tempt Me, and turned every single friend she’s ever had against her. Put simply: the show was unhinged, occasionally offensive, and in many ways perfect. It gave us The Chart, the greatest fictional murder mystery never solved, and a theme song that’s impossible to forget. So what do these bitches smell like?

Alice // Tea for Two by L’Artisan

Whenever I take one of those online which L Word character are you? quizzes and, trust, I’ve taken many, I either get Jenny or Alice. Jenny is the side of myself I loathe—melodramatic, self-absorbed, emotionally unstable—and Alice is the side of myself I’m fine with—she’s a witty gossip and a good friend. She’s certainly the only character on the show with a sense of humor, and I think she also has a good heart, too. When picking a perfume for Alice, my mind immediately went to tea because homegirl loves nothing more than to spill it. Enter L’Artisan’s discontinued Tea for Two—smoky lapsang souchong over warm spices with a base of honey, vanilla, leather, and tobacco. It sounds heavy but ethereal fragrance queen Olivia Giacobetti keeps it airy, which is very Alice: she carries a lot of heavy information and somehow stays bubbly. (I am convinced she is a Gemini.) Tea for Two is certainly what she wore to The Planet in 2004 while avidly dishing on who’s fucked who.

Hot or cold? Piping hot tea.
Who wears it? Girls with the gift of gab.
Place? The Planet at tea time.
Animal? Orange café cat.
Song? “Gossip Folks” by Missy Elliott.
Texture? The steam off your mug.
Signature drink? Chai latte.
Favorite word? “Allegedly.”
Vampire or angel? Angel who is actually pretty tight with a lot of vampires.

—Anna

Jenny // Coeur Noir by Heretic Parfum

I am going to be so real with you: I have not gone deep into the L Word. I didn’t know that Jenny killed a dog when I chose to pair her with a perfume! Dog stuff is unforgivable to me, even in fiction, but we must forge on. When Jenny pulls up to the scene, she’s all Midwesterner wearing mall perfume. But then she hits her first lesbian party and starts trading lines of poetry with a sexy European and suddenly I saw who she really was: a total Carrie Bradshaw. No, she has none of Carrie’s blonde effervescence or addiction to straight men, but she does share her “I’m smoking and writing and squinting” vibes. Both are tiny, sexy, addicted to fame and dabble in piss play. And to me, both of them would smell addictive and basic but also slightly off-putting. Enter Heretic’s Coeur Noir. I find Heretic’s whole ~dark~ branding pretty corny and it seems like all their scents are like “whatever plus incense.” I enjoy that whole thing in Coeur Noir, though, because it smells like you poured vanilla extract onto an old book and lit it on fire. It screams “I’m a writer with bangs and vintage furniture.” I don’t know if it’s quite psycho enough for who Jenny becomes, but it’s a great starter scent for her descent into madness and autofiction.

Hot or cold? Braving the cold to blast a cig.
Who wears it? English majors.
Place? Dusty writing shed.
Animal? Fox who yearns to be domesticated.
Song? “Sullen Girl” by Fiona Apple.
Texture? Ash from a poorly rolled joint.
Signature drink? Big glass of red wine poured by a delusional boyfriend.
Favorite word? “Published.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire back to solve her own murder.

—Crissy

Shane // Bvlgari Black

When I first saw The L Word in high school, I lowkey loathed Shane. I can now see that I was jealous because all of my straight female friends who watched the show wanted Shane! But now that I’m older and more mature, I can admit that I, too, want Shane. I don’t typically go for butches but Shane has that intangible factor that can turn anyone. She’s a fuccboi with a heart of gold! And given her all-leather ensembles and the fact that she works at a WeHo hair salon in the aughts, she is absolutely drenched in Bvlgari Black. Launched in 1998 and sadly discontinued, the iconic scent opens with a blast of leather and burnt rubber—which is to say, it’s Shane in a bottle. But beneath the baddy, androgynous top notes lies a heart of warm sugar cookie. It’s Shane riding a motorcycle at 3am to her latest conquest she’s already secretly falling in love with.

Hot or cold? Hot rubber on pavement.
Who wears it? Girls with black hair and more than 3 leather jackets.
Place? Someone else’s bedroom.
Animal? Gorgeous pitbull.
Song? “It Could Be Sweet” by Portishead.
Texture? Worn leather.
Signature drink? Tecate.
Favorite word? “Whatever.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire who sleeps with angels.

—Anna

Bette // For Her by Narciso Rodriguez

One thing I know Bette Porter would smell like: expensive hair products. Her hair in season 1 had me dangerously close to making a moodboard and taking it straight to my stylist for a chop (which she would deny, because she knows me too well). As a powerful businesswoman—lowkey, she seems to be the only one in the group to have a real job to show up at—she definitely needs something alluring and expensive, but not overpowering. She can’t be pulling up to the gallery smelling like patchouli and coffee beans like these other hoes. A wealthy woman with iconic hair in the early 2000s would be no stranger to For Her by Narciso Rodriguez. I was reminded of it recently when watching Love Story, since Narciso designed CBK’s slinky slip wedding gown. For Her could’ve been inspired by CBK too: it was one of the first clean and musky skin scents with mass appeal. It’s bright but sensual, the kind of classic “you but better” scent that screams success. It’s the kind of scent that makes people forgive you for being late to couples therapy. No matter how messy your life is, For Her says you have it together.

Hot or cold? Ice queen.
Who wears it? Women who own property.
Place? Walk-in closet in your renovated craftsman.
Animal? Hypoallergenic dog that won’t fuck up your house.
Song? “Dream” by Alice Smith.
Texture? Worn leather duster.
Signature drink? Single flute of champagne at the gallery opening.
Favorite word? “Sold.”
Vampire or angel? Angel with a few incidents of infidelity.

—Crissy

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
🌴💋🌴 The L Word Edition 🌴💋🌴

Tina Kennard paired with Intuition by Estée Lauder.

Helena Peabody paired with Penhaligon’s Bluebell.

Cherie Jaffe paired with Eternity Purple Orchid by Calvin Klein.

Dana Fairbanks paired with Jil Sander Sport for Women.

Kit Porter paired with Halston.

Marina Ferrer paired with Tabacco Toscano by Santa Maria Novella.

Phyllis Kroll with Knowing by Estée Lauder.

Max Sweeney paired with CDG Wonderwood.

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

I’m like a five spritz girl - one on each wrist, one on neck, one into the back of my hair, and one into the air in front of me before I walk on through it.

What was the first fragrance you ever bought? Most recent?

The first fragrance I ever bought was either Gap Grass or Tommy Girl, I can’t totally remember which one but they were both around the same time, in middle school. The most recent fragrance I bought was a replacement of my Xinū Monstera for spring and summer (my old bottle burned in the fire, tiny violin alert).

Do you wear perfume to record Bandsplain? If so, what?

I usually don’t! We record in a windowless studio so it’s not the vibe but I spray enough of it in my day to day life that my clothes and hair usually smell faintly of Moonmilk.

Who is the best-smelling musician you’ve met and what did they smell like?

Bre Morell of Crushed always smells incredible. I asked what she was wearing last time I hugged her - Daddy by Universal Flowering.

What are four albums you currently have on heavy rotation and what do they smell like?

Angel Du$t COLD 2 THE TOUCH - smells like metal and tobacco and lime.

Real Lies We Will Annihilate Our Enemies - smells like grass and wet pavement and yuzu.

The Cure Disintegration - smells like petrichor.

Prewn System - smells like bergamot and wood and resin and ash.

What’s the best perfume to wear to a show?

Someone should make a perfume INSPIRED by the smell of a show - sweat, booze, cigs, leather, pleasure, release.

What musician needs a fragrance and what house would make it?

Courtney Love by Marissa Zappas.

Are there any perfumes or notes you’d like to see banned from the planet?

This is controversial but I hate the smell of rose. It smells like decay and slow suffocation to me.

If you could only wear one fragrance for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Honestly probably Moonmilk - it has so much of what I love: tea, wood, citrus, pepper. Also I’m a Taurus sun and rising so I’m not huge on changing it up (until my Aries moon flips its wig).

The most annoying thing about being an elder millennial—besides the fact that the economy crashed when we entered the job market and 9/11 happened during our formative years—is that pretty much every musician who shaped our taste has been irredeemably canceled. Nicki Minaj, whose verse on “Monster” felt like one of the most important things to ever happen to womankind, is now BFF with Trump. Speaking of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West went from turning up our dance floors and turning Calabasas into a beautiful gospel church to—there’s no polite way to put this—praising Hitler. Razor-tongued “212” rapper Azealia Banks has been performing shows draped in an Israeli flag. Our art pop icon M.I.A. is now an anti-vaxxer and born-again Christian. Our indie darlings Ariel Pink and John Maus were at Jan 6. And Lana Del Rey has been cancelled too many times to count. Below, we pair perfumes with the cancelled artists we can’t help but continue to stan.

M.I.A. // Dot by Comme des Garçons

“Paper Planes” is one of the best songs ever made. Kala, Matangi, and Maya are all gorgeous albums. M.I.A.’s short verse on A$AP Rocky’s “Fine Whine” makes me want to listen to it three times every time I remember it exists. And yet it’s difficult for those things to surpass how annoying M.I.A. has become on social media. I can’t offer you a comprehensive rundown of the shit she says, but it’s all like this. I choose to pretend that time froze in the 2010s when she was incredibly cool and possibly less online. She was too busy having hit songs and performing in a see-through polka dot ensemble while pregnant at the Grammys—so ahead of her time! That look and performance are burned in my brain, so I had to pair her with Dot: a loud, mossy, citrus-y Comme des Garçons fragrance worthy of the chaotic good side of her free spirit.

Hot or cold? Too cool for everyone.
Who wears it? It girls who need their cell service cut off for their own good.
Place? Basement rave.
Animal? Chic-but-reactive dalmatian.
Song? “IT TAKES A MUSCLE”
Texture? Solid gold.
Signature drink? The paper plane, duh.
Favorite word? “Oi.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire who can be killed with 5G.

—Crissy

AZEALIA BANKS // Tubéreuse Astrale by Maison Crivelli

Azealia Banks’ first single “212” remains one of the best not just rap songs but most exciting songs I’ve ever heard in my life, period. Her debut mixtape Fantasea and her sole studio album Broke With Expensive Taste are two of my favorite releases of the last 20 years. Her flow is next level, she’s incredibly witty, and she’s created a distinct 90s ballroom-rap sound that feels tailor-made for sassy gays (hi). She’s also fucking FUNNY. Remember when she called Elon Musk “apartheid Clyde” after being stranded at his house when she was scheduled to record with Grimes? She’s also a MESS. I’ve gotten tickets to see Azealia live 4 times; she’s shown up twice. She’s had public feuds with: Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, T.I., Erykah Badu, Lil Kim, Beyonce, Kreayshawn, Pharrell, Lily Allen, Rita Ora, Action Bronson, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Remy Ma, Lana Del Rey, Doechii, and Grimes—to name a few! I sense that if she’d just gotten out of her own way, she would have been widely recognized as among the greatest musicians of our generation. Instead, she’s selling bussy soap, declaring herself a Zionist on Twitter, and popping off at every single person or thing she gets close to (she’ll turn on Israel shortly, I’m sure). Maison Crivelli’s Tubereuse Astrale is a similarly obnoxious and polarizing but also genius fragrance. The Max Martin of perfume, Quentin Bisch, takes the already extra tuberose and combines it with cinnamon and leather to make it even louder and more confrontational. The result is gorgeous and bold, sharp like Azealia’s tongue, and best appreciated in incredibly small doses. Much like Azealia’s Twitter feed, it projects aggressively and lingers for hours. When someone is wearing it, it’s nearly impossible to escape.

Hot or cold? South Florida heat.
Who wears it? “The don diva, by the everlasting diva.”
Place? Miami high-rise balcony during a thunderstorm.
Animal? King Cobra.
Song? “New Bottega.”
Texture? Red pleather.
Signature drink? Soda.
Favorite word? “Diabolical.”
Vampire or angel? Vampire with bars.

—Anna

GRIMES // The Ghost in the Shell by Etat Libre d’Orange

Azealia’s enemy Grimes is another one of my favorite musicians of the 21st century. Visions hooked me with its nocturnal synths, Art Angels hypnotized me with its glossy hyperpop, Miss Anthropocene got me through the early pandemic with its industrial urgency, and I’ve since come to adore her dreamy lo-fi second studio album Halfaxa. And despite what the average coastal elite millennial will have you believe, I don’t think Grimes has actually done anything wrong. She had babies with someone people strongly dislike. Well, a lot of women have done that, and it’s sexist to attribute her baby daddy’s political views to her. To me, Grimes’ draw to Elon was always obvious: they’re both sci-fi nerds. Azealia said Grimes “smells like a roll of nickels,” but I think she smells like Etat Libre d’Orange’s The Ghost in the Shell—named for the Japanese cyberpunk manga that inspired The Matrix and asked whether a soul could exist inside an artificial body. It’s built around biotech aroma molecules like Aqual™, Mugane™, and Orcanox™, which smell engineered—and yet, somehow, it’s genuinely pretty. The yuzu and milky skin accords make it warm and a little strange, like something just human enough to pass the Turing Test. Which is frankly exactly what Grimes’ music sounds like.

Hot or cold? Cryogenic.
Who wears it? Someone who names their children X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Tau Techno Mechanicus.
Place? Akihabara Electric Town, Tokyo.
Animal? Bioluminescent jellyfish.
Song? “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth - Algorithm Mix.”
Texture? Silicone.
Signature drink? Vodka Soylent.
Favorite word? “Sentient.”
Vampire or angel? Artificial Angel.

—Anna

LANA DEL REY // Jazz Club by Maison Martin Margiela

Oh, Lana. My queen. My forever problematic fave. I will likely never abandon my post on the Lana Defense Squad, but we’ll see what the future holds. She’s had several moments: her question for the culture, her mesh mask, and her use of the ‘he hit me and it felt like a kiss’ lyric, and most recently, her marrying a bayou boat captain who used to like MAGA posts on Facebook. I can feel my cancellation brewing for pairing Lana with this fragrance, but hear me out. At her core, Lana is a jazz singer! Her jazz collection’s rare...she’s a jazz singer and he’s her cult leader...I could go on quoting her lyrics that mention “jazz” but we would be here all day. And she’s also a proud basic: she loves to wear denim cutoffs and Brandy Melville tank tops, and you can find her “just talking shit at Starbucks.” Jazz Club is a basic crowdpleaser. It smells like a guy who wears a leather jacket as a personality trait—but he’s still hot enough to have sex with. It feels like sipping matcha out of a thick plastic straw while you shop at Sephora. You can accuse it of being annoying and cloying, but it will always be around. Most importantly, it was created by genius perfumer Alienor Massenet (the woman behind Lolita Lempicka, Narciso Rodriguez For Her, and Flowerbomb). And Lana is forever a genius...even if she wore a mask with holes in it that one time.

Hot or cold? Sunburnt in the bayou.
Who wears it? A woman who wears a dress from Ross on the red carpet.
Place? A dive bar in New Orleans so secluded that you’re safe from Shia Labeouf.
Animal? Two allegedly rehomed German shepherds.
Song? “White Hawk Feather Tail Deer Hunter.”
Texture? Velvet hair ribbon.
Signature drink? Espresso martini.
Favorite word? “Question…”
Vampire or angel? Mall angel.

—Crissy

📸📸📸 Camera roll 📸📸📸
💣🧨 CANCELLED! Edition 🧨💣

Sinead O’Connor tearing a photo of the Pope paired with Heresy by Chapel Factory.

Kanye saying “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People” on live TV paired with A*Men by Mugler.

Matty Healy on the Adam Friedland show paired with Roasted Coffee Cigarette Whisky Comes And Get Your Suede Honey Baby Strangers Parfumerie.

Shia LaBeouf telling Channel 5 that he doesn’t have a drinking problem, he has a “small man complex” paired with Napoleon I’s Saint Helena Eau de Cologne.

Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the 2003 VMAs paired with Ménage à Trois by Agent Provocateur.

Doja Cat showing feet in racial chatrooms with Candy by Prada.

Dasha Nekrasova looking insane at the SAG awards paired with Rose Elixir by Montale.