When I was a young child there was a doll that was sold which had a tiny reservoir on the back for a child to put a fruit fragrance in. It had the scent of plastic soaked in fruit. I hadn’t thought about it for fifty years, probably. When I opened my sample of Moth and Rabbit Dolls it came back to me.
Moth and Rabbit is the new name of the previous brand Folie a Plusieurs. It still retains the ideal of interpreting avant garde films as perfume. I have not tried all of them but the ones I have are all unapologetically different. Asking wearers to embrace the oddness. The ideal perfumer for this is Mark Buxton who has made all the Moth and Rabbit releases.
Mark Buxton
I think it helps to know the film being interpreted. I had never heard of the 2002 film by Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. It moves through the seasons which is what Mr. Buxton wants to do beginning in spring and ending in winter. I can’t say I got any of the seasonal shift. What I did get was a dose of plastic doll head and fruit. Which brought back my childhood memories. Mr. Buxton has always found ways to explore the fringes of the perfumer’s palette. In Dolls he finds the plastic.
The plastic doll head accord centers on an unctuous ylang-ylang. Most of the time when I smell this I think a perfumer missed the mark on the right amount. I don’t think that here. Instead Mr. Buxton wraps it in the subtle fruitiness of cherry blossom followed by apple blossom. This is that fruity doll head I remember. The final stages transition to woods with maple and cedar over a selection of white musks. The latter is probably meant to evoke the snow of winter, but I never felt that.
Dolls has 8-10 hour longevity and average sillage.
I’m not sure how many will be running for fruit scented plastic doll head as something they want to wear as a perfume. I found it to be quite easy to wear even in the heat of summer. I’m sure I’m going to return to it in the cooler weather because I think this plastic is fantastic.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
