Last Tuesday, Neroli, and Geese: Sending 2025 Off With Style

If National Bacon Day and six geese a-laying are not a proper test for your nose, what is? On this odd, glittering last Tuesday of the year, I wanted clarity, not smoke. I went straight for Chopard Néroli à la Cardamome du Guatemala, because sometimes the most subversive winter move is a citrus floral that refuses to be cozy.

The neroli opens clean and sun struck, that bittersweet orange-blossom sap with a white-shirt snap. Then the Guatemalan cardamom starts to glow. It is not bakery-warm. It is green, lifted, slightly camphoraceous, like brisk air cutting across hot skin. The whole thing feels like crisp sheets in a December window, which is exactly the energy I want while the calendar slinks toward midnight.

My cup is holding steady with a house blend of Bombay Breakfast and Hao Ya Select Keemun from The Jasmine Pearl Tea Co. The Keemun is cocoa-edged and disciplined, the Bombay blend brings a bit of swagger, and together they behave like a dry, tannic frame around neroli’s brightness. That interplay matters. Perfume needs contrast the way a guitar wants an amplifier. Speaking of guitars, cheers to the birthday chorus today: Rudyard Kipling, Paul Bowles, Bo Diddley, and Patti Smith. Four names that remind me that restraint is nothing without attitude.

It is also the fifth day of Kwanzaa, Nia. Purpose. There is something quietly purposeful about wearing a summer-coded floral in winter, choosing light when the world keeps handing you smoke. Let the geese lay, let the bacon sizzle. I will keep the wrist clean and bright.

One more nudge before the year turns. On 1/2 we are dressing our senses to match Pantone Cloud Dancer, the 2026 color that whispers soft white and fresh air. Think textures more than trends. Skin-like musks, airy iris, a puff of aldehydes, the suggestion of clean cotton rather than detergent. If neroli and cardamom were my exhale today, Cloud Dancer is the inhale waiting on the other side of midnight.

File this as the last tidy click of 2025. Bright citrus, green spice, black tea, and a purposeful heart. Tomorrow can be loud. Today wears its polish quietly, which is its own kind of provocation.