**What Do I Currently Smell Like?
(A Seasonal Confession)**
by Anthony Amadeo
There’s a running joke that if you’re standing within twenty feet of me, you’re inside my personal weather system. A micro-climate. A fog bank of oud, smoke, balsam, civet, aldehydes, apple skins, and whatever else I’ve decided to coat myself in that morning. Fragrance for me isn’t an accessory—it’s a psychological experiment I willingly run on myself and the unsuspecting public every day.
This season, I’m living inside ten scents. Not ranked. Not organized. Not meant to make sense. But somehow, in the way of chaos becoming cohesion, they all work together to guide my day: sunrise, errands, afternoons in the studio, dinner, night walks, bed. Here’s what I currently smell like—spelled out so you can follow the breadcrumb trail of sillage I leave behind.
Black Orchid Reserve — Tom Ford
There’s a moment at sunset when the city gets impossibly cinematic—when the sidewalks feel like the set of a noir film and everyone suddenly looks more interesting. That’s when I spray this. It’s the older brother of the original Black Orchid, the one who went abroad, got mysterious, and came home with secrets.
The truffle at the top hits like a velvet punch. Dark. Smooth. Mature in the way a dimly lit hotel bar feels mature. It gathers people the way streetlights gather moths. I wear this when I want strangers to wonder if they’ve met me in another life.
Promise — Frederic Malle
This is my crisp-leaf, bright-sun morning. A cold autumn day in New York where everything feels like it’s glowing in 4K. The apple in this is not “apple,” it’s apple skin under a fingernail—fresh, crisp, bright, and a little defiant. It has the type of spice that feels optimistic.
I wear this on days when I need the world to feel lighter. It turns an ordinary coffee run into an orchard stroll.
Jungle Jezebel — Sarah Baker
Chaos bottled. A Bazooka bubblegum pop followed by a rotten banana drop. A civet-streaked performance art piece. It’s one of the only fragrances that makes me smile while also slightly terrifying the people around me.
When I wear this, the day becomes unpredictable. People either lean in or walk away.
The longevity? A full-day novella in scent form.
I wear it when I want to break the fourth wall of daily life.
Khanjar — OmanLuxury
This is the scent equivalent of rolling on the forest floor beneath a canopy of oud-soaked branches. Barnyard but opulent. Dirty but couture.
It’s a scent with gravity—people orbit around you without meaning to.
I save this for the darker hours—when the air gets still and the night feels like a secret. It’s warm, damp, feral elegance.
Hinoki — Bottega Veneta
My human-sized wooden cabin in a bottle.
Warm, resinous, meditative. The type of scent that doesn’t just sit on the skin—it wraps itself around you like a wool blanket that just came off the line.
When I wear this, I feel grounded. Present. A little more human. It clings to coats and scarves for days, like a ghost of good memories.
Occur! — Avon (1965)
My bedtime ghost of the 60s.
I wear this after a shower, right before bed, when the house is quiet and the world feels soft. Aldehydes, civet, musks, oak moss—memories of great aunts adjusting their jewelry, uncles kissing cheeks, and the hum of warm kitchen lights.
This scent is comfort. It’s lineage. It’s time travel.
Saffron Secret — Maison Crivelli
Imagine walking through an old spice market at golden hour—warm wood underfoot, everything glowing amber. That’s this scent.
It’s prickly and silky at the same time, like velvet warmed by sunlight.
I wear it in those in-between hours—when the day is fading but the night isn’t ready to begin. It’s one of my favorite cold-weather spices.
Basilicum — Fueguia
My morning shock to the system.
A blast of basil and lavender—like sticking your head in a summer garden when it’s still dew-wet. I use this when I need oxygen for the brain.
It’s the olfactory equivalent of putting one foot out from under the blanket to cool down.
Secretions Magnifiques — Etat Libre d’Orange
This scent is misunderstood.
I adore it. Marine, metallic, milky, iris-driven strangeness.
Most people think this is chaos in a bottle, but on my skin it blooms into something intimate and magnetic. I layer it under heavy ouds to give them a pulse. Or I wear it alone if I want to confuse people in elevators.
It’s bright, cold, and familiar in an unsettling way—like déjà vu.
Né il giorno né l'ora — Filippo Sorcinelli
I wore this in Paris and spent the entire trip wondering if I smelled incredible or like someone who had just walked uphill for too long.
It’s brutalist. Severe. Blunt cedar to the face that dries down into something surprisingly quiet.
I still haven’t decided if I love it or if I’m traumatized by it.
But I need a bottle.
To remember Paris.
To chase the confusion.
To re-live that scent-psychology experiment.
So What Do I Currently Smell Like?
All of these.
At once.
Layered, rotated, mood-dependent, weather-dependent, curiosity-dependent.
I wear fragrance like someone building a world. Each scent is a portal into a different version of myself—the cozy one, the feral one, the nostalgic one, the experimental one, the Paris one, the “I need to shock my system awake” one.
Scent moves me through the day.
It changes the way I walk.
It changes the way people look at me.
It’s a conversation I’m having with the air around me.
This is what I currently smell like—my seasonal olfactive diary. Ten bottles, endless stories, and a very crowded coat.