Whenever someone talks about so called, perfumes for sluts, I clamor for a whiff, only to find them barely distinct from any other. I suppose Shalimar by Guerlain is the most famous sultry perfume, but if Shalimar is a slut she's an expensive one, and therefore there's quite a bit of pageantry to all that seduction.
Sometimes I worry that I'll run out of things to talk about when it comes to perfume, but then you come across something like Putain des Palaces (hotel slut) that just grabs me by the nostrils I realise that isn't going to happen... to me when people describe slutty all I seem to get is sweet or fruity, both of which are pretty demure to me.
For those of you not familiar with Etat Libre, they are probably one of the most prominent niche perfume houses. They specialize in hilarious, bombastic concepts that aren't always wearable, some of the most humorous perfumes are called: Philippine Houseboy, Fat Electrician, Jasmin & Cigarettes. Most notably Secretions Magnifiques - the concept being a fragrance that smells like blood, semen, urine and sweat. I haven't sampled it, but aparently it really does. You have to give them props for originality, even if it smells like things that people actively want to clean off. So many perfumes have hinted at bodily fluids, Shiseido's Feminite Du Bois sonnet to lady parts, Aramis and sweaty pitts but this is straight up, the real deal.
Here is my favorite review off fragrantica:
It reminded me of my little cousin who used to wet the bed. Now, it smells just like a neglected child who is forced to wear her mother's generic hooker perfume to cover up the fact that nobody has given her a bath or washed her clothes in a very very long time. To add insult to injury, the child has been eating wet catfood straight out of the can and has some of the food stuck in her hair.Putain is far more... wearable. Perfume for me is about contemplation and imagination. They conjure up images of women, if a perfume really grabs me I have images of a woman, a type of woman, involved in some sort of scenario. Hotel slut is a bit derogatory. I imagine she's usually a rather serious woman, she's not young, not old. She is worldly.
She's almost forgotten she's got a body, a figure, but she does, she has long red hair, is wearing a silk evening gown, sits in a quiet bar all night sipping merlot all on her own. Her scent is animalic, lived in, there's a glutinous quality, a bit like rice, maybe it is her make up, her lipstick. Leather is the most prominent note, soft, buttery suede, the red leather couch she reclines on languorously. Then a subtle iris-rose, not prissy, just giving it a dewiness of moist, freshly washed hair. Amber sweetness binds it all, warm, syrupy and almost camphorous. Her face is intimidatingly beautiful and she can't bring herself to smile at strangers and so she sits alone all night and goes to bed, naked and drunk.
There's a gloomy vintage sadness to this one, like a sepia tinted memory of someone you fucked a long time ago that was actually really kind.
If I was a man and smelt this on a woman I'd be transfixed. Its so voluptuous and sexual. Its the antidote to sterility, she's a real living breathing woman with blood in her veins, sweat under her armpits, grubby underpants, and a brain full of desires and secrets.
