We have been having our first heat wave in Poodlesvile. Which means I have made my first visit to the local ice cream shop. There is a scent to the mixture of chilly air and vats of frozen treats. There have been few perfumes which have tried to capture this particular scent. If you were going to guess a brand which might try it would probably not take too many attempts to end up saying Demeter. The 2014 release Pistachio Ice Cream is an ice cream parlor in a bottle.
For the purposes of this column I could spend a year discussing the perfume brand run by Mark Crames. For over twenty years their brand identity has been in creating fragrances for less than $20 which are essentially single accord perfumes. Except these are not the single accords you might expect. Two of my favorite entries are one of the earliest releases Dirt and Funeral Home. Both of these capture exactly what is advertised on the label. The latter is particularly apt to compare to Pistachio Ice Cream because Funeral Home evokes subdued floral notes in a very chilly room. Pistachio Ice Cream embeds some gourmand facets inside a similar refrigerated accord.
Mark Crames
Pistachio Ice Cream uses a nutty note along with a light green note to form the pistachio. If you’ve ever smelled actual pistachio ice cream you will recognize this. It isn’t the nut it is the processed version crushed into a vanilla cream. The cream accord is vanilla and something which makes it creamier. Then the chill air accord settles over it all. I have not figured out exactly what produces it but the Demeter team does it as good as anyone. It pulls together the ingredients into two scoops of fragrant fun.
Pistachio Ice Cream has 6-8 hour longevity and average sillage.
If you’ve ever had an interest in what single accords in perfumery smell like Demeter is like a reference library. The entire collection is an educational experience in that regard. Most of us just want to smell good and the Demeter perfumes also achieve that. In the best cases, of which Pistachio Ice Cream is, it can be educational and fun at the same time. Take a step into Mr. Crames’ fragrant ice cream parlor and chill out for a while.
Disclosure: This review is based on a bottle I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
