Thursday Scent Dispatch: Candy Corn Day, Carry-On Chaos, and the Oddballs I’m Wearing

Happy Almost Friday. I’m typing this with a lipstick-stained coffee and a too-light carry-on, commando today except for a quick swipe of my DIY lotion in sweet orange and ylang ylang. Maybe it’s National Candy Corn Day, maybe it’s the pre-Halloween static in the air, but I want perfume that misbehaves. If your scent has never made someone lean in and say wait, what is that, you’re playing it too safe.

A nod to today’s birthday crew, because I love a thematic excuse. Christopher Wren had baroque drama, John Adams had backbone, Clifford Brown swung with velvet bite, Louis Malle filmed the shadows, Grace Slick lit the match. Channel any of that energy on your skin.

My short list for quirky, spooky, or candy-coded wearing:

• Etat Libre d’Orange Like This - gingered pumpkin and immortelle glow. Cozy, but the edges sparkle with strangeness.
• Zoologist Bat - cold fruit, cave air, damp soil. Eerie in the best way, like reading by flashlight under a blanket.
• Serge Lutens Baptême du Feu - gingerbread embers and gunpowder. Sweetness walks into a smokehouse, refuses to apologize.
• Tom Ford Black Orchid - truffled chocolate, humid florals, a gloss-black mirror that stares back.
• Dior Poison - grape-tinted tuberose with venom. Eighties shoulder pads for your aura, and yes, it still slaps.
• BPAL Samhain - cider steam, wet leaves, bonfire ghosts. Indie Halloween, bottled.
• Heretic Dirty Pumpkin - roasted squash and spice that sticks to leather. Flirtatious and a little feral.
• Papillon Anubis - resin, smoke, saffron-lit leather. Funereal chic with a heartbeat.
• Comme des Garçons Avignon - cathedral incense that hushes a room, then haunts it.
• Demeter Candy Corn - literal sugar triangles. Wear it ironically with black eyeliner, or layer it for a whisper of mischief.

If you want to nod to the candy corn without going full novelty, layer a citrus like Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine over something vanillic and resinous like Guerlain Shalimar. The sweet orange dances, the base purrs, and nobody suspects you packed light.

Tomorrow I’m leaning into the weird with Baptême du Feu. Consider this your friendly dare to reach for the odd bottle that makes your pulse quicken. Perfume should flirt with trouble.