Going to a Fragrance Pop Up and Chet Hanks

Yeah, there's not much in common between the two

Hi! I’m back. As everyone is aware, media is in a dark place so I’ve been pretty creatively blocked and stressed about work and you know the world. From here on out, Middle Notes is going to be a mix of fragrance and pop culture with scent as a throughline. I’ll be doing some more pop culture related things, interviews, and other types of franchises including Scraps which will be a bit about stuff from the cutting room floor from interviews I’ve recently done. I’m going to start paywalling some posts, so please consider subscribing—I have a cat to feed.

What I’ve Been Into

The White Lotus has taken over my brain—I saw the first six screeners weeks ago and that brotherly hand job has been haunting me. I have a few theories for the final two episodes—the Russians are the robbers and I’m convinced the man who is Walton Goggins’ (hot!) Rick is going to maybe attempt to kill his father. But I still have no idea who I think the shooter is. In terms of movies, check out Misericordia, from gay auteur Alain Guiraudie who did the sinisterly delicious Stranger By The Lake, is a darkly funny thriller about Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) who returns to his hometown to attend the funeral of his former boss and his presence in the lives of old friends and family makes everyone go bonkers. It begs the question—what if you go home again to become the person everyone wants to fuck?

I’m dying to try the new Chopova Lowena perfumes, the bottles remind me so much of old school Moschino fragrances of my youth and their fragrance descriptions are so cute. My beloved Andrea Maack launched a new fragrance, Flux, which has notes of berries and woods. I believe I saw on Stele’s social media that it’s like woodsy cotton candy—I need to check it out ASAP.

The Fragrance Foundation Hosted a Pop Up for National Fragrance Month

The Fragrance Foundation is a group that represents the interests of the fragrance industry while simultaneously getting the public into the artistry of scent. With National Fragrance Day on March 21st, The Fragrance Foundation hosted their first Fragrance Gallery and Pop Up Shop on Madison Avenue last weekend to celebrate the day and Fragrance month.

I decided to go after doing a Q&A for Being Maria (see it!) and began my journey uptown to see what was going on with it. In a nondescript storefront was a perfume daydream, bustling with other fragrance freaks. Upon entering, I realized that there were free samples of those still available. I immediately talked with a friendly perfume rep who swears by Aroma from Costa Brazil—a gender neutral scent with notes of patchouli, cedarwood, and white jungle flora. He told me he always gets compliments on it and it’s a unique smell unlike a certain 33 scent we all know about. We had a laugh.

It was a super fun way to learn about some new scents (ones I can’t wait to try are House of Bo Ave Maria, Brown Girl Carousel, Worlds of Chris Collins Savant Manhattan Cherry) and be able to get some samples of them. There were also classic standards like a new version of Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb (now EXTREME) which I wore as a youth and Vera Wang’s bestseller Princess. However, many were hot ticket items so fragrances like Elysian Rose by Nomad Noé and Gritti Duchessa which smells exactly like adult Dr. Pepper, I’m going to have to find my way to try both. You were able to walk around in a loose circle of the room trying all the fragrances and chatting with reps for each brand—this woman Molly and I ended up on the same path and chatted a bit about the scents we each smelled and it was a fun reminder of just how different scent is for everyone—some things Molly loved, I didn’t like and vice versa.

All in all it was such a fun idea and one I hope the Fragrance Foundation does again next year and hopefully in a more expanded version. One piece of advice I got during the pop up is going to stay with me for the upcoming warmer months, where one of the fragrance reps said “spray behind your knees so everyone will smell you as you go.”

Scraps

I can’t take credit for this idea but the wonderful Melanie Ehrenkranz came up with this idea who runs the vital newsletter and community Laid Off, talking to people who have lost their jobs and has really been a salve in knowing all my feelings about having trouble finding work aren’t just my own.

One of my bucket list items was to talk to Chet Hanks, the so-called black sheep of the Hanks family and source of internet fascination for the majority of my group texts. What hasn’t he done—remixed rap songs, spoke in Patois, coined white boy summer. However, with a new role in Mindy Kaling’s basketball comedy Running Point and a country music career—Hanks may from here on out tone down his previous antics. I got to chat with him for Men’s Health and he was much more serious than I expected—I guess my parasocial relationship with his internet persona expected something different. But there was one quote about his style of making music that got cut that I was disappointed did.

Bless him.

Perfume Ad of The Week

I mean it just felt appropriate, but my question after watching this is “why is it basically one of those Coca Cola Christmas commercials?”