Weird Wonderful Wafts: Nail Polish, Fog, and Candle Wax Perfumes

We all love the usual perfumes with familiar notes like sandalwood, jasmine, and rose. But sometimes, I like to step outside my comfort zone and experience truly weird fragrances…

Nail Polish Perfume 

Borntostandout Angel’s Powder

Notes

Top: Nail Polish, Pink Pepper, Icing Sugar

Middle:  Vanilla Sugar, Raspberry, Cotton Candy

Base: Heliotrope, White Musks, Guaiac Wood

There’s a distinct smell to nail polish. As soon as you open a bottle and begin painting your nails, the strong, sharp chemical smell hits you. A lot of chemicals (alcohols, solvents, plastics) go into keeping our nail polish in liquid form and the formula from separating into different layers. The end result is not only a nice creamy formula you can spread evenly but a distinctive nail polish smell.

Though this smell in its sharpness is intolerable to some, I find some comfort in it. I find painting my nails quite therapeutic– sitting down in one place, focusing on the task, taking care to slowly apply thin coats of polish, and waiting for it to dry instead of hurrying off to get on to the next task. 

Borntostandout brought the smell of nail polish into their fragrance Angel’s Powder, a sweet and youthful fragrance. The inspiration behind the perfume is childhood nostalgia and they’ve done a good job at making me feel nostalgic for it. The plastic-y smell of the nail polish accord combined with the sugary, fruity facets reminds me of the joy of playing with a bright pink Barbie dream house. It’s youthful, naive and joyful with vanilla, raspberry, and fluffy cotton candy. The heliotrope, musks, and woods in the base reminds me of the emotional safety and comfort adults miss from our childhoods. 

Fog Perfume 

Solstice Scents Upstairs Window 

Notes 

I absolutely love foggy weather. There’s an aura of mystery around it, a little cold and a little damp, like something is about to happen. It always evokes something fantastical, like you’ve hopped into a novel with magic beings and you’re about to go on a life changing adventure with them. It feels calm, lulls one into an introspective mood. 

It’s a key note in Upstairs Window, a fragrance by niche house Solstice Scents. Perfumer and co-owner of Solstice Scents Angela St. John describes the fragrance so:

“Warm delicately spiced pools of glowing amber combine with rivulets of pure golden beeswax and liquefied dragon’s blood resin, wrapped in a sheer veil of fog.”

It’s a rich and mysterious fragrance. The dragon’s blood resin brings an earthy, spicy, resinous fragrance with some rosy hints. There’s something sweet and candied about the spices, not in the bright sugary way of Angel’s powder but warm and quiet. Like honey. The fog adds to the whole vibe, a touch of light in the darkness, something beautifully haunting that draws you in. It’s really difficult to find this fragrance as it’s from a small house, but if you can you absolutely must get yourself a sample.

Candle Wax Perfume 

Toskovat’ Take Me to Church 

Notes 

Top: Elemi Resin, Dust, Black Pepper, Aldehydes, Solar Notes, Pink Pepper, Saffron, Cloves

Middle: Elemi, Pepper, Frankincense, Candle Wax, Resin, Myrrh, Flowers, Cedar, Leather, Nagarmotha

Base: Stone, Ambrette, Tar, Guaiac Wood, Musk, Sandalwood

No list of weird perfumes would be complete without a bottle of Toskovat’. Take Me to Church has the same hauntingly beautiful and grand tone of Hozier’s song by the same name. I doubt the song was the inspiration, but you’ll hear it playing in your head as you experience this adventure of a perfume. Toskovat’ fragrances always paint a picture, making us familiar with places we have never been to and they do that again here. 

Take Me to Church is an old church. Sunlight pores in through the ornate windows, casting light on the old wooden pews. As you walk in, you disturb the layers of dust. It floats into the air, it feels dense, a little suffocating but it belongs. It’s an old church, but people still visit. A concoction of frankincense, myrrh, and elemi create a religious experience. Half melted candles sit at the altar with wax still warm and pooled around the base. The smell of candle wax has never felt so profound.