Taurus Scents

The Venusian Bull

Walt Disney’s Ferdinand the Bull (1938) animated short

This week marks the beginning of Taurus season. Spring is warm, the flowers are blooming, and all the new and tumultuous growth of Aries season is beginning to stabilize into routine. Taureans are widely described as dependable, pragmatic, indulgent, and sensual. As a sign ruled by Venus, the planet associated with beauty, passion, femininity, and ease, is it any wonder that Taurus loves nice things? Café Astrology writes:

Taurus natives are sensual folk–and this includes sex, but extends to pleasures in all areas: they delight in the sensual pleasures of food, a comfortable blanket, a richly colored aquarium to look at, the smell of flowers or spring rain, pleasing melodies coming from their stereos, and so forth. Some might even say they live through their senses more than most.

Taurus Seal at Wisconsin State Capitol (Wikimedia)

As fragrance is both a personal and public sensual delight and a materialistic symbol of beauty and indulgence, it feels especially relevant to enjoy it as a celebration of Taurus season. Perfume is frivolous and unnecessary, expensive and exclusive, deeply rooted in tradition and culture, highly personal, and often the final culmination of years of development and hard work from everyone involved in the process, from finding new molecules to putting together the final composition; all qualities that Taurus exemplifies and delights in. What could be more Taurus than a wonderfully smelling expensive fragrance that announces their good taste to the public while also beautifying their own body?

Here are a couple of scents I think you should reach for this Taurus season. Some of them are fragrances I believe a bull might wear themselves, some you should wear to get in touch with your sensual and indulgent side, and some are just good embodiments of the lovely spring season that Taurus gets to call her own (as a sign ruled by Venus and encourages passion, indulgence, and sensuality, I believe the concept of the sign of Taurus is feminine despite the “bull” iconography. Cows can have horns too, you know).¹

These cows have horns and there's nothing you can do about it!

Universal Flowering - Heliotrope Milkbath

Concentration: Eau de Parfum
Perfumer: Courtney Rafuse

This smells like a sugar dusted, light purple floral mochi. Like if they made a those pink strawberry Creme Savers candies out of heliotrope instead. It’s soooooo milky and soft and creamy and sweet and powdery. I feel like an animated character sitting on a big pile of whipped cream.

When you first spray this on, the powder billows up and surrounds you. It’s almost a little scary and you may reach for the unflattering moniker of “old lady perfume” in your mind, but give it a second. It’s slippery and silky and settles down within 5 minutes, filtering down onto your skin like glamorous cartoon face powder, and then the rest of the composition begins to shine.

What Heliotrope Milkbath feels like (source)

The combination of ambrette, musk, and almond milk does a lot of the heavy lifting here, creating the majority of the body of this fragrance. The almond milk has the gentle nuttiness of a room temperature cup of it, noticeable but not overwhelming and balanced quite nicely. The musk and ambrette both give a “soft and creamy” plushness, helping it sink into your skin. There are two layers to the wear, one encompassing you and one nearer to the skin, like a bi-phase liquid. The airy silk powder hangs like a gossamer cocoon shivering in the air, almost translucent, tinged with the floral heliotrope to create a veil of purple. Then floating about 3 inches above the skin where the fragrance was sprayed, you cross the threshold, losing the floral and powder, sinking your nose into the warm white musk and milk that reminds me of pudding. The way the fragrance splits but remains completely complimentary is so divine and encourages exploration as you wear it.

(I am putting this as an aside, but every once in a while, and I don’t know what it’s from, maybe the combination of dried apricot and musk and milk, but it reminds me of sunscreen. Not a full smell, just a fleeting impression. It’s not the thick mineral zinc based sunscreen or the synthetic of American chemical based sunscreens, more like the watery ones from Japan; like Nivea Watery Gel, Biore UV, and Sun Aqua Tone Up. They are all nice, unobtrusive, slightly classic smells, but also had a bit of perfume and skin cream in them. This is not a negative statement, simply an observation. It just doesn’t gel with the powdery purple cartoon cutie imagery I’m trying to create.)

After about 6 hours the whole thing is melted down to a slip of butter on your skin, the last dregs of milk and musk combining to become a silky, nondescript thing sitting right where you sprayed it. It smells like a daub of very expensive face cream that you haven’t massaged into your skin yet.

This is such a beautiful wear that feels classic and youthful, indulgent and refined at the same time. The way that Rafuse plays with her ingredients is such a delight to experience.

April Aromatics - Calling All Angels

Concentration: Eau de Parfum
Perfumer: Tanja Bochnig

Decadent and indulgent indeed. Tanja Bochnig is a natural perfumer and her scents for her brand April Aromatics are rich and complex. She was born in April (hence the name, although she was born in Aries season) and makes all of her perfumes from naturally derived ingredients. Calling All Angels is a smoky incense curling up from a resinous, smoldering honey and amber laden wooden pyre.

Upon first application, there’s a gentle mustiness to it, like an attic, which I believe is the labdanum and woods combination. There’s a stillness, intensified by the incense. It hangs around you like a velvet cloak, heavy on your shoulders, weighing you down. Over the next hour the incense heats up and gets smokier, going from burning stick to the smoke that curls from a fire. It’s the lovely scent of burnt wood and ash that sticks to your hair after a night spent by a bonfire. The wood is strong and dry, a very sturdy hickory adjacent hardwood. The resins and amber wrap themselves close to the skin, simmering under the wood and adding a depth to the dryness. The honey provides heat, but it’s easy to overlook, like when the sun is warm but not hot and you’ve been sitting in it for so long you don’t even notice how warm you’ve become. The whole composition works together but each note is easily independently observed when you look for them.

After several hours the smokiness fades and you’re left with the beautiful, smooth resins at the base. They are warm and unobtrusive, sticking to the skin and not going very far. There is tendrils of smoke and woods left in the air, but most of the composition has eased back and settled down. It lasts for a generous 8-ish hours on me, but the last few hours have so little sillage that I could wear something else if I wanted to.

Interesting to note, the first time I wore this I applied just a light streak of it from a 1mL dabber wand and the overwhelming note was honey, sweet and warm like I was cooking it on my stove. There was incense faintly present around it and woods underneath but the majority of the air was choked out with the honey accord. The second time I wore it I accidentally dumped several full drops of it onto my skin, and despite patting it between my forearms to thin it out, it was applied much more heavy handed than you could out of a spray bottle. On this wear, the entire composition was dominated by the smoke and woods you see in the review. I am only adding this because I think it’s very cool that every note in the composition is present in the wear, but which ones play the star is determined by how (much) you apply.

The fragrances from April Aromatics are further heightened by “infusion with clear crystal and Herkimer diamond, evoking an ethereal essence. Each bottle contains shimmering 24 karat gold flakes, reflecting its exquisite artistry.” It might be a little over the top but I can’t deny a fun gimmick. I would never buy those gold flake covered steaks, but gold flakes in my perfume might work.

Pearfat - Rabbit Rabbit

Concentration: Eau de Parfum
Perfumer: Alie Kiral

What’s more spring than a cottontail bunny? As cute as the ones in my neighborhood are, the perfume name is actually based on a first of the month superstition. According to Pearfat’s Instagram page, “upon waking on the first of the month, if you say RABBIT RABBIT - luck will find you.” We’ve missed April 1st, so try this on May 1st and hopefully you will have a fortuitous month. In keeping with the spirit of celebration, Rabbit Rabbit has notes of cake, as well as more lagomorphic notes like carrot and barley.

Continuing the Disney animals (source)

I found this to be a very spicy, herbal scent on me. I wouldn’t say it was masculine, just very earthy. The juniper is very active in this fragrance, the sharpness of the leaves mellowed by the turmeric and carrot and given a little heat with the galanga, which is a ginger relative. I really thought this would be much more gourmand than it was, with notes of carrot and apricot listed, but it really was a very warm and sexy aromatic. I sprayed a good amount on and it didn’t overwhelm me, which was nice. I have a few spicy greens that can fumigate a room if you aren’t careful with them, but this stayed curled around me, moving with me like a loyal dog.

There’s something about dried greens scents (grass, hay, mate, tea, barley) that make me want to smell them even more than I can, if that makes sense. I will catch them in the air around me and then suddenly be seized with the desire to smell it even harder, and bury my nose into my wrist to try and amplify the scent I’m already experiencing around me. This is one of those. As much as I enjoy discovering it ambiently as it sits around me, I would occasionally be consumed with the need to smell it more loudly, and every time I did this it was like it was new again to me.

I found this to be quite linear on me. It stayed nearly the same for the several hours I could smell it around me, just getting fainter as the hours passed, but each hour was such a delight to have it on the wrist.

Cow - Zoologist

Concentration: Eau de Parfum 18%
Perfumer: Nathalie Feisthauer

Would this be a Taurus scent roundup without Cow? This is the softest scent in the line up, it’s nearly entirely airborne for me. I was expecting a lot more sweetness and fruitiness given the notes pyramid, but even while the sprays were drying on my skin I was wondering if I had even applied anything, it was so faint. There is so much powder in this fragrance, from the violet and heliotrope, that everything seems to be lifted off the skin and exist entirely in the air while being worn. It’s incredibly interesting, as I will catch sporadic whiffs of the milk and violet, but when I try to chase it down on my wrist, it almost smells like nothing, just a faint warmth from the amber and a creaminess from the musk. This has the same sort of “expensive cream” base as Heliotrope Milkbath, but where Milkbath smelled like face lotion, this smells cleaner and and thinner, like a wonderful hand cream at a spa. It’s also at about 40% strength compared to Milkbath.

The milk is very realistic, it smells like I have a cool cup of milk right under my nose, every time I smell it. I have tried a few milk scents that incorporate too much cream and start smelling like yogurt or ice cream, but this one is very light and easy on the sugar. No competing marshmallow or vanilla notes here. I also really enjoy the extremely subdued use of white and purple florals to create a very gentle atmosphere of fresh powder florals. Despite having two powerhouse white florals, neither weighs down or smothers the composition. The heliotrope, jasmine, and lily all act like backup dancers to the violet. While the violet is certainly the more noticeable presence, all of them work together to create an coordinated experience. Continuing the musical analogy, if the violet is singing mezzo, the milk acts as a soprano, heard separately above the florals, but still part of the melody, and the musk and amber are altos, below and supporting.

In the limited experience with lactonic fragrances I have, this has been one of the best milk accords I’ve smelled. Without naming names, there have a been a few that skim their milk and then slide into the “baby wipe” section of milk fragrances, and others that rely too heavily on supporting sweet notes like tonka and marshmallow and it turns the milk into more of a flavored latte. To each their own, but I love a “cold glass of milk” accord, plain and true.

This is another lovely linear, the same from beginning to end. This is not a complaint, I think it would make for a really gorgeous daily wear given how gentle and simple this is. It’s light and clean but the milk offers just enough intrigue to keep the fragrance fun to put on every day.

Overall

Any fragrance is a good fragrance for Taurus season, since it’s a sensorial delight. As long as it brings you joy to wear it, then I hope it helps you tap in to your inner Taurus! Remember to take pleasure in everything you do, savor every bite of delicious food, sniff all your perfumes and flowers deeply, and luxuriate in the feel of cozy blankets and soft caresses. Listen to your favorite song on single repeat and don’t spend too much money!

Watch the full Disney Buena Vista Ferdinand the Bull short below, and have a wonderful soft, kind, and sweet Taurus season. Sit quietly and smell the flowers!

1. Sources for my cow pics: Jersey Cow “Trinka” and Highland Cow