Review and SOTD: Cheeky Smile by Jusbox

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Before you read this review, go look at the notes for this bad boy. I've attached them as a handy picture to this post.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

Back? Great. Now.... what in the BLUE HECK is that about?!

It's fair to say that I came into this one with a sceptical bent. Generally, I like to smell like, well, THINGS. Y'know, fruits, or leathers, or flowers, or nuts, or ANYTHING really. I can extend that out to smelling of stuff like memories or situations, I guess, but THIS? How can I smell like something if I have no idea what it is? Can I really smell like a mismatched set of Scrabble tiles?

Aside from Amber, I had little hope for recognition and excitement here. Okay, so I know Ambroxan; Sauvage is a powerhouse popular smell, after all. But ISO-E-Super is an accelerant to me, and everything that concetrates on it smells like a fragrance just waiting for the bloody smells to be added at a later date. And the others? Variations on a theme, and that theme is "confusion".

So it came as a shock, when I sprayed this on, that I really liked it.

It has a fizzy woody vibe from the get go, which smells resounding, and while it's synthetic it's also much deeper that I anticipated. It's a masculine scent, to me, and it's strangely fresh for a woody offering, but it's absolutely interesting and delicious and cool. As a starter, it absolutely fulfills the brief.

Unfortunately, as the notes and the conceit displays, we don't move on to a main course or dessert.

The nice opener scent? It becomes the nice middling scent. Eventually it becomes a nice endgame scent, albeit a little more intimate than before. Then it says its goodbyes and sashays away.

It's a pleasant smell. But it's one note, copy pasted. For the price, I expect a little... modulation.

Interestingly, I feel it does a fine job of conjuring up the essence of its musical pairing. The playlist takes a trot down the chemical boulevard of Acid House, with its synthetic edge and rattlecan repetition. After two hours of the music and only about three changes of pace or tone, I was screaming for something more nuanced, something different. Sure, I liked the song about the robots, but that's it. This smell? The olfactory version of a song about robots. Nice in isolation, but ultimately unfulfilling over time.

So despite my attraction to its singlular note, and despite the fact that it projects well and lasts for an age, it's a NO from me.

Tomorrow? Feather Supreme, the house's feminine-coded tribute to Aretha Franklin. Gotta RESPECT that.

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