www.urbanearomatics.com More to follow, including an interview with founder Drew Goetz

As of this writing, the temperature in Silicon Valley is 86°F, with a projected high of 94°F by 4:00 p.m. Today is definitely not the day to wear my spiritual signature color, black. Instead, I decided to opt for a color rarely seen on me—white—and embrace a day where the only things I can control are my own actions, words, and scent. The perfect fragrance profile for today is a cocktail of aquatic, sweet, and citrus notes, rounded out by a touch of floral. Unable to settle on just one, I chose a tag-team duo: Floating Forest by Future Society and Pistil Whip by Heretic Parfums. Pistil Whip- Floral, Sweet, Fresh, and Aquatic TOP NOTES: Bergamot, Pink pepper HEART NOTES: Tiaré, Gardenia, Mexican tuberose BASE NOTES: Lapsang Souchong tea, Vetiver Floating Forest- Citrus, Aquatic, and Fresh TOP NOTES: Bergamot, Black pepper HEART NOTES: Water lily, Freesia, Rose absolute BASE NOTES: Cedarwood, Driftwood, Musk, Papyrus, Salt, Stone Here's some of the mind theater exploration I'm enjoying: Think of a summer trip to a beach where you see the aftermath of a beautiful Summer wedding and reception the day and night before. On a balcony of a beach house facing the shore, you see a stunning arrangement of white summer florals catching the warm breeze, while down on the sand, the faint smell of wood from the previous night's bonfire lingers in the air. The salty ocean breeze perfectly matches a surprise aromatic discovery by the ashes: an abandoned bridal bouquet, still beautifully fragrant. Its vibrant notes of tiaré, Mexican tuberose, freesia, and gardenia serve as the perfect warm-weather scents, seeming to aromatically bloom in the heat. Visually, the pure image of white—in the clothing, the decorations, and the flowers—tricks the mind, tying your body temperature to a distinctly cooler, refreshing setting. Because of the heat, I'm being asked what fragrance I'm wearing. I tell my co-workers two fragrances; left side has Floating Forest while the right has Pistil Whip. It's a different approach in wearing two fragrances and layering them (or not if that makes sense), but I know I'm not mad at it either.

Xerjoff is one of those houses that sits somewhere between true niche perfumery and luxury department-store niche. The presentation is extravagant, the bottles look expensive, the catalog is enormous, and the brand has enough recognizable names to attract people who are just beginning to explore niche fragrances. You can walk into a high-end department store, smell Naxos, Torino21 or Erba Pura, and immediately feel like you have stepped beyond the normal designer counter. That accessibility is both one of Xerjoff’s greatest strengths and one of its biggest weaknesses. The house has several collections, including Shooting Stars, Join the Club, the V Collection and Casamorati, along with collaborations and special editions. The official catalog currently includes familiar names such as Naxos, Erba Pura, Torino21, Alexandria II, Renaissance and Uden. At its best, Xerjoff can make fragrances that smell rich, polished, distinctive and genuinely luxurious. At its worst, the house can feel like an oversized luxury catalog where beautiful bottles, high prices and social-media popularity sometimes do more work than the actual fragrance. THE GOOD Xerjoff generally gives you a strong luxury experience. The bottles are some of the best-looking in perfumery, the packaging feels expensive, and most of the fragrances have enough richness and presence to separate them from the average designer release. The house also has impressive range. Xerjoff can do bright citrus, green aromatics, tobacco, honey, vanilla, oud, florals, musks and heavy amber fragrances. This is not a house where everything smells like a variation of the same basic formula. Some of the fresher fragrances are especially good. Torino21 is bright, green, minty and energetic without smelling like a basic department-store fresh fragrance. Renaissance gives you a sparkling citrus opening with enough body underneath it to prevent it from becoming ordinary citrus water. Uden is smooth, citrusy and slightly creamy, with an easy luxury character that remains very wearable.

Week 5: Finalizing the Build Hey guys, Joe A. here with another one for ya’! Welcome back to Shelf Control, where one man attempts to bring order to a fragrance collection that clearly stopped respecting boundaries! So now the brackets are up, the shelves are in, and the empty shelves are officially in position. In other words, the construction phase is largely done — which is both exciting and slightly terrifying, because now the wall is just standing there waiting for several hundred bottles to show up like it knows something I don’t!! For the shelves, I ended up going with birch panels instead of oak. And no, before anybody starts connecting dots, this was not an Aventus nod. I chose birch because the lighter white wood works beautifully with the blue tones in the room and keeps the whole space feeling clean, open and airy. Since I’m down here in Florida, I wanted the design to have a little bit of that bright, fresh, coastal feel without turning the room into a Tommy Bahama clearance rack. The shelves are roughly 4 feet long and 16 inches deep, mounted on heavy brackets, and you can clearly see the acrylic tiered displays fitting in nicely! Right now, everything looks clean, calm, and suspiciously under control, which means the bottles clearly haven’t arrived yet. The structure is there, the spacing is set, and the garage office wall finally looks like it was designed to become the Joe Average Fragrance Library! Next up is the big one: The Great Bottle Migration, when the collection starts moving from around the house into one central location. The stage is built. The shelves are ready. Now it’s time to see if Shelf Control can survive first contact with the actual collection. #EnjoytheJourney Week 6: The Great Bottle Migration (Part 1)!

Let me start by stating that as an enthusiast of all things Vampire, this fragrance to me is what I would imagine blood smelling from one emerging from a venue that serves spirits. Van Py Rhum by Lorenzo Pazzaglia is like rum being experienced with notes of vanilla and caramel standing by a fireplace. It’s so good and delicious at the same time. I’m about to head out to my cigar lounge and I’m at the two hour mark with this wear. Notes: TOP NOTES Rum Vanilla Bourbon vanillaTonka bean Tahitian vanilla HEART NOTES Caramel Patchouli VanillaWhite blossoms BASE NOTES Rum Indonesian patchouli VanillaOud Scent/ Projection/ Longevity: 10 I purchased this as a recommendation from King Unic from Instagram and from fellow member @John Linzmaier and his review here. As I really enjoy dark, smoky, and warm fragrances, this was a damn good blind buy made at Scent Split. Even at 81 degrees, this sweet fragrance works good and will be a great reverie until midnight when I close down my lounge.