Strange Flirting: Gorilla Perfume's Ladyboy

*Current Fragrance: After My Own Heart by Ineke
*Currently Listening: Keep Your Shoes On by Scissor Sisters

I really wanted to name this entry "Banana Flirting" - but I was a little weary of the traffic it would bring to my page

Here's some advice that I have: embrace the strange in life. "Strange" comes in all sorts of manifestations. There's strange bad, strange good, strange fun, strange wrong, strange what the F just happened, strange giddy...you get my point...

BUT WAIT!!!!!! THERE'S PERFUME! (and bananas!)

This blog entry is going to break one of my initially set blogging rules. I was going to not really "review" any of the perfumes that LUSH creates through for their Gorilla Perfume range. I've decided I think my rule is hogwash! The actual readership that my blog gets is small; and I'm pretty sure that what I say here isn't going to effect the bottom line for ANYONE! Besides, I really don't do that much "review-ing" as I do story-telling the perfume scented key-strokes. (I've found that I've been talking a lot more about Gorilla perfumes, but I thought I'd just clarify things now.) Perhaps the fact that I work for a company that sells perfumes will "tarnish" my "reputation" as a creditable perfumer blogger - oh well. I don't have any REAL qualifications to be a perfume blogger....wait, what do I think my qualifications are? Here we go....

1) I f-ing LOVE perfume and fragrance. Always have.
2) I like to tell people about things I love.
3) I have a computer.
4) I can type.
5) I have an internet connection.
6) My blog brings joy and happiness to my life in the same manner perfume and fragrance does.

Wait...what do you know!!!??? I think I'm qualified! YAY ME!

Back to Ladyboy!

There are scents that I like, there scents that I love, there are scents that I fulfill a purpose in my life, and then there are the scents that feel truly "at home" on my skin. This is a rather short and quite special list (in order of "discovery"):

1) Sexy Graffiti by Escada
2) Liaisons Dangereuses by Kilian
3) Ladyboy by Gorilla Perfume

There's something about these three that just meld with both me, my memories, and my body chemistry in a way that I find to be blissful; they just BELONG! (Dear Lord! I am rather glad that one of them is SUPER light hearted!)

I never had a chance to smell Ladyboy (or any of the fragrances) from the Be Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful days, so I really can't compare if this Ladyboy is the same as that Ladyboy. Here are the main notes that the website lists: banana, seaweed, violet, chamomile, labdanum, and oakmoss.

Just in case you weren't quite clear with how I feel about the banana in Ladyboy: THERE SHOULD BE MORE BANANA LIKE THIS IN PERFUMERY!

You know, for clarity's sake...

On my skin, Ladyboy starts as a flippantly-fun blend of banana, and ultra-mild currants. You know when you're trying to be that cute/snide/endearing combination and you do the combination closed mouth smile/nose scrunch/head tilt/shoulder shrug? THAT! IT SMELLS JUST LIKE THAT! It's silly, but rather earnest at the same time - rather whimsical!

Right after that initial banana/currant hit wears off is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE part of the perfume. It's my favorite because it is just flat out weird, but in the most endearing way possible. It transforms into a chewy/yeasty/putty smell. Dare I say that I detect a play dough note in there? It's subtle and I don't want to scare you off by saying that Ladyboy smells like play dough, because it doesn't; there's just a play dough-like feel to a part of it, and it's bloody marvelous!

As Ladyboy lingers on my skin, the banana is still faintly on my skin, there's a "skin" note on top of your actual skin (more on this later), there's violets handing out...really doing nothing more than smelling like violets (that's their job anyway, right?), all being held together by a slightly creamy amber.

I think the "skin" note is the play dough/chewy/yeasty/putty note mellowed out. It's no longer yeasty, just fleshy. (This is now the most oddly sexual perfume writing I've ever done!) It's like another skin on top of yours. It smells familiar, it's just not yours - yet it still belongs.

As I write this, I realize that my descriptions of Ladyboy, might seam more bizarre than whimsical in an odd sexual-fleshy sort of way. After all, I DID title this post strange flirting.

If Ladyboy - in its entirely as a perfume - were an "action" it was be closing your eyes, smiling, shaking your head while silently laughing. If you know me - even if the slightest - it should be pretty clear, given this description, why Ladyboy feels so at home on my skin.

*Currently Listening: Today Was A Fairytale by Taylor Swift
**Photo Credit: lush.co.uk