Thursday Scent of the Day: Ink On My Wrists, Autumn In My Head

I have a rule for Thursdays. If a perfume can’t slice through a stack of comics and a double espresso, it’s not earning its keep. Today, in honor of National Comic Book Day, I’m riding that ink high with Comme des Garçons 2. It is glossy marker, metallic shimmer, a whisper of church smoke, and it turns paper and skin into a clever little duet. If you want full-on graphite smudge, Byredo M/Mink is the feral option, animalic and abstract, like an artist’s desk that went rogue.

We’ve also got birthdays to toast. For William Faulkner, the scent is D.S. & Durga Mississippi Medicine. It is piney thrum, birch tar, and smoke, Southern Gothic in fragrance form, as if the woods swallowed a story whole. For Donald Glover, I vote Byredo Bal d’Afrique. It is rhythmic citrus and vetiver, camera-ready and playful, the olfactive equivalent of a hook that lives rent-free in your head. For Glenn Gould, minimal perfection demands Escentric Molecules Molecule 01. Iso E Super, all hushed resonance and clean wood, like a Bach prelude suspended in fluorescent light. And for Pedro Almodóvar, give me Loewe 001 Woman. It is sheer musk and lemon-kissed woods, morning-after brightness with cinematic eyeliner, Spanish sun meeting crisp white sheets.

If you’re side-eyeing your summer bottles, same. Autumn is creeping in and I’m lining up comfort with bite. Serge Lutens Chergui brings toasted hay, honeyed tobacco, and that dry wind effect I crave when the first sweater comes out. Diptyque Tam Dao is temple-smooth sandalwood, a quiet room in a loud week. Leather lovers, Tom Ford Ombre Leather still goes like a matte black jacket, buttery but not braggy.

My own wrists are a comic strip today, CdG 2 on one, a blot of M/Mink on the other, and my notebook smells faintly of both. If someone tells you perfume is just decoration, let them smell your sleeve after a long day with an inky scent. That is narrative.

Your turn. What is your scent of the day, and are you leaning into ink, leather, or the first crisp woods of fall? Drop your pick, especially if you have an unlikely match for one of our birthday icons. I love a left-field pairing, and yes, I will absolutely try it tomorrow.