Smells like indie sleaze
Four perfumes to wear in a heather grey American Apparel hoodie and more
Remember 2007? M.I.A. blasted from your laptop while your Tumblr feed filled with photos of Sky Ferreira. Justice and Peaches played Bushwick warehouse parties. Uffie might have shown up after hours, rapping in autotune. Alexa Chung was anorexic and perfect. If you were lucky, Cobrasnake caught you smoking a Parliament Light. Below, four perfumes that evoke lamé leggings, semi-ironic internet fame, and PBR spilled on the dance floor.
Named after a “skyquake”—an unexplained crash heard near water—Mistpouffer is bloghaus AF: foggy, ethereal, and too cool for school. It opens with marshy ozone and immortelle, drifts through fig leaf, pine, and smoke, and lands somewhere supernatural. Someone on Fragrantica said it smells like Laura Palmer riding on the back of a motorcycle through Twin Peaks. Fittingly, it’s made by the indie sleaze-coded Stora Skuggan, a Stockholm house founded by four design students who treat perfume like conceptual art. The label looks like a lost Hot Chip EP. Mistpouffer comes on like a dream and lingers like cigarette smoke in your heather grey zip-up hoodie.
Night or day? 3am on a Slavic lake.
Glitter or grease? Glitter when the moon hits.
Album? Floating Into The Night by Julee Cruise.
Animal? Lynx.
Driver or passenger? Passenger staring into space.
Signature drink? Gin fizz.
Texture? Misty like your breath on glass.
Color? Ice blue.
Favorite word? “Vapor.”
Vampire or angel? Angel melting into the ether.
-Anna
Mississippi Medicine by D.S. & Durga
While we were busy buying American Apparel and using the Valencia filter on Instagram, D.S. & Durga was being born in the depths of Brooklyn. What’s more indie sleaze than a pretentious fragrance “based on the rituals of the proto-Mississippian death cult of the 1200s”? Poorly appropriated Native American aesthetics just hit different back then. D.S. & Durga is one of those entirely Williamsburg-ian things that the aughts spit out into the rest of the world (complimentary). This scent is Grimes trying to sail a houseboat from Minnesota to Mississippi in 2009. It’s a guy in a really loose, low-cut tank top wearing a headband and smoking an American Spirit at a backyard party in 2011. Medicinal, smoky, and kind of druggy. It’s as if the woodiness of Santal 33 went to a thrift store and put on a mothballed leather jacket before heading down to your local speakeasy. Corny in conception but classic in effect.
Night or day? 12AM as the good boat Velvet Glove Cast in Iron sinks off the coast of Bemidji, Minnesota
Glitter or grease? Green glitter eyeshadow.
Album? Oracular Spectacular by MGMT.
Animal? Snake that some guy at the after hours keeps bringing too close to your face.
Driver or passenger? Passenger asking you to drive more carefully so they can roll a joint.
Signature drink? Old fashioned made by a guy in a fedora.
Texture? Painfully sharp hay.
Color? Sterling silver.
Favorite word? “Secondhand.”
Vampire or angel? Ironic angel Halloween costume.
-Crissy
Fat Electrician by État Libre d’Orange
Parisian house État Libre d’Orange was making semi-ironic edgelord fragrances before indie sleaze even had a name. With notes of scorched wires and whipped cream, this scent is in the spirit of a 2008 Vice article. According to the brand, it’s “based on the true story of a once beautiful man who ended up a Fat Electrician,” you know, the guy who used to look like Fabrizio Moretti but now wears his Doc Martens to the Trader Joe’s in suburban New Jersey. The vetiver is green and dry, softened by vanilla smeared across old leather. One person on Fragrantica said it reminded them of their dad working in the garage. Another said it smelled like the inside of a TV on Christmas morning. It’s a little sexy and a little sad, just how we like our scents.
Night or day? 3pm, at the bar.
Glitter or grease? Grease, obviously.
Album? LCD Soundsystem.
Animal? Oddly beautiful stray dog.
Driver or passenger? Driver who says nothing while the music’s loud.
Signature drink? Warm beer in a paper bag.
Texture? Hot wires.
Color? Cobalt blue.
Favorite word? “Trash.”
Vampire or angel? Retired vampire.
-Anna
Sorry for being honest and vulnerable but Lush had me in a fucking chokehold in college. I discovered it via my older sister who went to Bryn Mawr and hung out with a lot of vegans. Of course, Lush is a mass market brand now, but back then it was just beginning to go viral for bath bombs and shit. Karma was the first perfume I wore outside of like, stuff from Victoria’s Secret and Aquolina Pink Sugar (brought to me by my roommate Cristina from Long Island whose parents pronounced her name like ‘Cristinuuuur’). And so I honor Karma here—no longer anything I would ever put on my body again (citrus and patchouli are not the mix for me), but still. An origin story of sorts. Karma is the perfume you’d smell on the hot girl selling soap at the farmer’s market. Creamy, powdery, swirled in patchouli and garnished with a clementine rind. It’s Coachella but the version of Coachella where everyone wore peasant tops. It’s Lana Del Rey living in a trailer and uploading her first video to YouTube—undeniably sweet with something nostalgic at its core.
Night or day? Sunrise at a yoga retreat.
Glitter or grease? Hannah Horvath’s forehead grease.
Album? Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant.
Animal? Your roommate’s friend’s pet bird.
Driver or passenger? Driver of a fixed-gear bike.
Signature drink? Cold-pressed green juice.
Texture? Surf wax.
Color? Tangerine.
Favorite word? “Haze”
Vampire or angel? Vampire but like, ethically.
-Crissy
Camera roll!
We’re introducing a new section where we pair scents with recent photos on our camera rolls—it’s pretty self-explanatory, let’s go!
Poodle with curtain bangs at a hotel rooftop pool in L.A. to be paired with Portrait of a Lady by Frederic Malle.
Addison Rae’s belly-out street style to be paired with Fantasy by Britney Spears.
Jacksonville, Florida church from the car at 6:09am to be paired with Burning Palm by 19-69.
Two hummingbirds taking shelter from the rain inside of a flower to be paired with Venus in Tuberose by Universal Flowering.
Fat Electrician is so deeply indie sleaze, could not agree more.
This was a delight to read.