One of my favorite treats at the ice cream shoppe is a root beer float. It is especially good when it is a small-batch version of the soda and a rich creamy vanilla scoop floating on top. I enjoy it because the almost medicinal quality of craft root beer is turned into an advantage as the ice cream melds with it. I stick my straw as close to the conjunction of both to enjoy the interface of flavors. Mrs. C thinks I make it look like an elaborate operation as she licks her cone. If I were thinking about a floral gourmand version of a root beer float, I would choose tuberose as the surrogate. I don’t know if that was where independent perfumer Josh Meyer’s head was at when he made Imaginary Authors Decisions, Decisions but it is where mine is.
Josh Meyer
As always in his perfumes there is an imaginary author of an imaginary novel. Our heroine is the leader of the Wishbone Girls, Jasmine Duchamp. Her epigraph on the box is, “I know that I should not, and yet I absolutely will. What can I say? I am defenseless when it comes to thrills.” What this translates to as a perfume is a step up from the transparent floral gourmand trend to one which has more intent.
In truth a perfume with this amount of tuberose could never be anything but extroverted. Mr. Meyer rounds the creaminess of the white flower with its stablemate jasmine. It is a fantastic accord of tuberose. As it gets plopped into the sarsaparilla it finds a syrupy matrix to infuse itself into. This is that smell of craft root beer verging on the medicinal. The tuberose is here to prevent that happening. Like the ice cream in a real float I imagine creamy tendrils of tuberose descending in slow rivulets through the sarsaparilla. Just as I’m looking for a place to insert my straw labdanum surrounds it with a leathery ambery embrace. Over time it gets more church incense-like as the tuberose continues to melt into the root beer.
Decisions, Decisions has 12-14 hour longevity and above average sillage.
This is a powerful perfume as Mr. Meyer allows his ingredients the space to fully express themselves. Even with that there always feel like a firm hand on the balance of it all. As I write my last review of 2020 it is great to end it in Mr. Meyer’s Perfume Shoppe sniffing a tuberose float.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample supplied by Imaginary Authors.
–Mark Behnke
This was the worst fragrance I smelled in 2020. Absolutely awful from it’s horrid opening to the way too long to get off my skin ending. My regret was hurrying to my local shop (which was a waste of half and hour each way) to test it because I knew it was limited edition and didn’t want to miss out. It still haunts my nightmares.