From Disco to Depravity:

Six fragrances (& a candle) that feel ‘Out-Out’ even if you’re staying ‘In-In’

If you are reading this on the eve of the New Year, you might perhaps be excitedly planning a night on the tiles? I must admit that I am most certainly not, and I’m unsure if it’s because my tolerance for such enforced jollity has gone down, or that aged 51, my field of post-festive fucks to give is completely barren. No, it will be an evening of sipping Bailey’s while wearing slippers for me. I will, however, and for reasons I shall explain, be wearing a perfume that promises otherwise – a scent that suggests sequins, dancing on tables in a speakeasy, and furtive fumblings somewhere fabulous.

Oh look, is it even the festive season if you’ve not at some point donned a glitzy outfit to try and make an effort, but accessorised with slippers? I think this style v comfort compromise set in during lockdown, when many a work zoom or pseudo-social gathering was conducted thus: Party up top, PJs on the bottom. But I wasn’t always this way.

As a little girl, I would endlessly beg my mother to read Cinderella as my bedtime story, insisting that I was shown each picture of her increasingly gasp-worthy gowns as the story continued. The Ladybird edition I had was beautifully illustrated, the voraciously studied images suffused with a magical glow that I believed would accompany my own invitations to balls in the future.

In fact, no balls have been forthcoming (fnar), or indeed any meetings with a Prince Charming (though he seemed like a judgey sap, didn’t he? And who chooses someone based on their shoe size?)

My peak period of ‘going out’ took place in my early twenties, when the locations were not palaces, but sticky-floored dives with dubious names; and the suitors were not princes, but even more dubious dudes. But now, with the disinfectant of time having cleansed the worst realities of the memories, those nights out are suffused with their own glow of nostalgia. And they’re something I think of fondly, while only occasionally wincing.

Most strongly, they are scent memories of the best bit: The Getting Ready. That haze of Elnett and cheap metallic choke of glitter spray; the clouds of face powder (a ‘dewy look’ was certainly not the 90s vibe) and lashings of Rimmel Black Cherry (or Heather Shimmer) lipstick that presaged a night on the tiles.

The clubs we frequented contained smell memories by the end of the night which I’d rather not revisit now, but ah, how the waft of Snakebite & Black (the 90s goth drink du jour) with a soupçon of patchouli woven through with sweat, flecks of fag ash and chewing gum-flavoured snogs can take one back.

Now, if I do go properly out-out it’s mostly fragrance press launches, and I’m lucky enough to be invited to some ultra glam parties in gilded, glamorous, swoon-worthy locations; so I guess I did get to go to the ball. Though if the invite is for a 10pm start and mentions a DJ, I will, so sadly, likely find myself ‘otherwise engaged’.

Images of a perfect night out are something we’re bombarded with during the festive season, especially during Betwixtmas - that time between Christmas and the new year – when all we really want to do is hunker down in cosy clothes, surrounding oneself with softness, a nest in which to slouch and amiably fester awhile. Meanwhile, an onslaught of emails and algorithm ads suggest skin-tight gowns and vertiginous heels should be sought, lounge wear swapped for feather-trimmed fabulousness and fancy furbelows with which to strut our stuff on dance floors.

The supposition is that, now we must be gagging for New Year’s parties. But I feel, having stuffed the turkey - and ourselves - many of us are not ready to give up the soporific slump for going all out-out quite yet. No, as someone who’s made no secret of the fact that I LOATHE New Year’s Eve (I once accidentally ruined a would-be marriage proposal from my then boyfriend, having denounced the whole NYE thing as “the most heinous of all enforced jolliness occasions,” snarling “IMAGINE if someone asked you to marry them on NYE?! It would just be even more SICKENING!”) I think NYE can go stuff itself. I’ve not frequented a club for many years, but wild horses couldn’t drag me there on THAT of all nights.

However... occasionally, just sometimes, I get a craving for the seedy thrill of less salubrious venues, where glamour (or our version of it) was sharply contrasted by the craven scenes surrounding us. It drifts to me, this lust, in the wake of following someone smoking a cigarette, in wafts from passing a pub garden, when wedged on the last train with 100 strangers’ competing colognes and Eau de Kebab. It’s thankfully fleeting. I wouldn’t actually want to go out clubbing again (I didn’t even really enjoy it back in the day – it was the getting ready I loved, and the gossipy picking-over of next day recollections). But it’s nice to be a tourist in your own anecdotes, sometimes.

This is where fragrance can wave its magic wand – transforming a kitchen disco or even the sofa into something far more interesting: a place for your imagination to run free. So, I’ve put together my list of fragrances to spray if you are experiencing a twinge of FOMO because you’re staying firmly in-in this New Year’s Eve; or if you’re going somewhere terribly chic but might perhaps like to re-ignite your own rather more hedonistic tendencies. I encourage you to find a fragrance that serves such a purpose to have at the ready in case such a nostalgic lust comes to visit you, not only for NYE, but for any time you might like to play olfactory dress-up and have a dalliance with your darker side.

I’ve arranged them in order of depravity for your delectation – from debonair to devil-may-care, so you can choose to tiptoe in or wade waist-deep in the dissipation, whenever you wish...

[What follows is a free post, but if you enjoy it, I do hope you might consider becoming a paid subscriber for the New Year – we freelance writers appreciate your support more than we can ever tell you, and it truly makes our day! If you can’t afford that, I totally understand, and I will occasionally post free features in the coming year.]

Discotheque Baise Moi on the Dance Floor

£120 for 50ml eau de parfum discothequefragrances.com

I’m fully behind this brand who made their mark a few years ago, launching with candles based on iconic (some might even say notorious) nightclubs, and clearly aimed at two markets: those who used to go but can’t be arsed with all that anymore, and those younger souls who wished they’d lived in such Interesting Times. Now, they have fine fragrances composed to evoke the notoriety, and this one is utterly sublime. It's based on the Parisian club Les Bains Douches, which was based in an old Victorian bathhouse (and I urge you to look at the wonderful scene-setting contemporary photos accompanying each scent in the collection). Described as ‘Silky waters, crystal goblets and champagne bottles, iris sprigs, wild vines of jasmine, intertwined limbs and steamy handprints, a timeless ruse, a poet and a muse, an ocean of violets in bloom, “love is a reciprocal torture,” breathed through a cloud of powder...’ you might imagine scenes from Sodom & Gomorrah, but it’s a lot more sophisticated than that. The powdery iris is forefront, with a touch of carrot-y sweetness that slinks into the Champagne fizziness; a froth of aldehydes that do somehow feel steamy, along with a sense of high heels clicking on marble floors, and smooched-off makeup hastily reapplied by candlelit compact mirrors. Divine.

Maison Margiela Replica Untitled

£135 for 100ml eau de parfum theperfumeshop.com

I like the fact that this, alone, remains Untitled in the Margiela Replica library of scent memories, because it allows you to write your own story. For me, this is the best – and most chicly subversive – fragrance they have. It’s an ambiguous facebook post (known as ‘Vaguebooking’ in my circle) made after a night out, which likely contains a wink emoji and some slight, illusory details that suggest a dalliance. They describe it as a bit ‘butter wouldn’t melt’, saying it’s ‘a distinctive unisex scent that speaks for itself – the green and crisp olfactory image of a spring morning in the countryside. It features contrasted key notes of galbanum, musks and incense for a floral green finish.’ But I’m here to tell you that this is a morning after the night before scent, worn by someone who’s had an emergency sink wash instead of a shower, and you can still smell the cigarette smoke in their hair. There’s certainly a lot of verdancy – freshly rained-on grass, a shiver of cold air clinging to a silk dress – and a clean white soapiness, which nearly masks the delicious filthiness that lurks below those niceties. Is that yesterday’s outfit worn with someone else’s jumper, you might wonder; and are those telltale smudges the remains of last night’s eyeliner? It is. They are. Something naughty has occurred and they’ll never tell you about it, but that faint smile, the subversiveness behind the soap, tells all.

Dior Diorling

£69.99 for 100ml eau de toilette dior.com

A much-overlooked scent in the Dior stable, this will forever have a place in my collection, and in my heart. In spirit, it’s the older, cooler cousin to many of the classics which in fact preceded it, this one having launched in 1963. Diorling, they say, is ‘a chypre full of spirit, just the way Christian Dior liked perfumes to be. A fragrance with British overtones, a composition with attitude, and the ideal accomplice for all-conquering femininity.’ To me, those ‘British overtones’ are reflected in a kind of tweediness that imbues the fragrance, but don’t imagine a buttoned-up, pursed-lip of a perfume – this is a house party à la Jilly Cooper, with all manner of shenanigans a go-go in this country manor. It is sneaking out for a cigarette at midnight and flicking ash into a discarded glass of fizz while flirting outrageously with the equally tipsy host. It is Old Money elegance, rich patchouli rising through the white floral bouquets and rambling roses; supple leather stroked with eager hands, a marvellously textural oakmoss-y base that comes back to the party with straw in its hair and one couture earring strangely missing...

Celine Nightclubbing

£230 for 100ml eau de parfum celine.com

I must admit that I wasn’t expecting this to be nearly as naughty as it is, even when

Sali Hughes

and

Alice du Parcq

told me I absolutely must try it. ‘But surely Celine is the last word in chic?’ I thought, and momentarily forgot that all their fragrances are based on Parisian life – and Parisians do naughty/chic better than anyone. So yes, this is ‘a perfume for the night birds, fed by the memory of Parisian nights during The Palace and Bain Douches era.’ (Clearly that bathhouse was the place to be!) The ‘galbanum top note immerses us in an electric atmosphere with accents of nicotine, on a musky and addictive patina, somewhere between the scent of crimson velvet seats and the sensuality of a nape of a neck fragrant with vanilla.’ It smells of paired-back glamour in a sense, being the immaculate tailoring of a tuxedo worn with a crisp, white shirt that happens to be unbuttoned scandalously low. Earthy and green, yet whipcrack dry and moreish-ly musky, it is the velvet-roped after party for The Beautiful People; a heady cocktail of chain-smoking Gitanes and smeared lipstick, a telephone number written on a packet of matches, the expensive leather interior of a 1970s limo that drops you back home. One imagines a black and white French movie scene, the camera slowly pulling away, a fading image of you standing on a balcony, backlit, gazing lovestruck and glassy-eyed at the silvery rippled reflections of lights on the Seine, as somewhere across the city, someone writes a poem inspired by the lasting heat of your kisses.

Eau de Boujee Quir

From £30 for 7.5ml eau de parfum eaudeboujee.com

Well now we are on a whole other level of naughty, and this club is certainly one requiring membership, and quite possibly a stiff drink beforehand, being ‘Explicit acceptance and subversive joy in a secret world of leather and pleasure.’ Well golly. They continue, explaining it’s ‘A celebration of defiant exuberance, the spectrum of individuality and identity. Patent leather glistens amid well-worn biker jackets, adorned with spiced floral corsages.’ with scent impressions of ‘Moreish leather, tobacco and someone looking at you like you're the best snack they've ever seen...’ I totally get the patent leather thing – it is highly buffed, ultra black, and skintight. We’re talking custom-made, and the kind of ensemble that requires a goodly amount of baby powder sprinkled before one can wriggle into it. My days (or nights) of powdered wriggling likely well behind me, I delight in wearing this and revelling at the ribaldry – a smouldering, glowering gleam of joyously improper behaviour that lingers, beguilingly, for hours. It isn’t all handcuffs and smarting buttocks, though. As it settles, there’s a surprisingly fluffy Cashmeran base, because even self-declared sinners need a bit of a comfort blanket in which to snuggle.

Beaufort Rake & Ruin

£125 for 50ml eau de parfum beaufortlondon.com

I have a friend, whom I shan’t name to spare their blushes, but who says they couldn’t wear this scent to meet the parents of a partner (for example), because it “smells exactly like a walk of shame.” Nowadays we do not use this phrase, but we all know what it infers; and I think in the case of this fragrance it can be knowingly applied, being as its inspiration is moral decline, or as Beaufort put it: ‘Inspired by the works of satirist William Hogarth, this fragrance summons his characters from a gin-soaked 18th century London. This debauched Eau De Parfum incorporates the botanical ingredients of gin; dark woods, civet, musks and amber bringing to life 'all manner of Vice and Wickedness.’ Up top we get an unexpected greenness – the angelica, coriander and fennel-like liquorice together create an almost snapped celery stalk freshness, the sense of clear liquid swirled in a glass and slammed on a wooden counter; the salty savouriness of lasciviously sucked olives. Tendrils of grey smoke cloud the scene, and we awake in a house of ill-repute – powdered violet at odds with sticky labdanum, ink-smudged fingers from fluttering piles of I.O.Us, raucous laughter and the waxy hiss of guttering tallow candles the last sounds before degeneracy’s bosomy embrace. Marvellous stuff.

Perhaps the act of wearing such subversiveness on your skin isn’t for you, or you require some building up to the boldness? May I suggest, then, a candle that smells like a languorous recovery in a decadent boudoir?

Velvet Smoke Filthy Rose Candle

From £49 for 250g velvetsmoke.com

I wrote about this fabulous candle some months ago, having purchased one as soon as they launched, but given the subject matter of course I wanted to re-visit it, here. You can read my description in full as part of my Smoke & Roses feature on SubStack, but if it isn’t too gauche to quote oneself, in essence I said it was ‘...for you if you like your wine red and so full-bodied it feels like it could stand a spoon upright in the glass. We’re talking SEDIMENT and SEEDINESS, and a gleefully smoky backdrop that’s all Revlon Black Cherry lipstick prints on cigarette butts. I’m sorry if that image upsets you, but as an ex (mostly) smoker who sometimes still craves the sticky floored lascivious glamour of the 90s, I cannot pretend this is a polite rose. It will waft becomingly for hours after you’ve blown it out. It will haunt your dreams. It’s a flagrant affair captured in a fragrant candle, and I bloody love it. Politeness be damned.’

LOVE Alice D P’s description too, which is resplendent on their website, and which captures the heady glamour of it all (and makes me wish all over again that I had kept my BOY London red velvet corset top (purchased in their sale, because I could never afford a Viv, but worn with my Westwood pearls on many a scurrilous night out).

I ADORE the fact that this reminds me of the other best bit of a night out (for me) mentioned earlier – the aftermath. That slumping on the sofa still sequinned and be-feathered, with a gaggle of your best girlfriends, laughing at everything and unpicking the scandals of the evening (while attempting to locate a lost shoe). So, if you didn’t manage to make it to midnight, or had no intentions of leaving your cosy nest, but wanted to give the impression of having done so: this candle is your fragrant ticket to relive scandalous scent memories, all the debauchery with none of the regrets.

‘I Quit in 1984’ Ceramic Vase

£185 velvetsmoke.com

As if I couldn’t love it more, but they only sell vases shaped like cigarette butts, too! One day, one of these will belong to me, and I shall fill it with shamelessly blowsy roses. It’s the kind of softly subversive décor that I aspire to, which makes you smile every day and keeps guests guessing.

Surround it with vintage Champagne glasses, the telephone number written on a book of matches, and perhaps a single bejewelled shoe, I say; and let them wonder.

Meanwhile, I’m pouring myself a cocktail, liberally spritzing myself with one of these (haven’t quite decided yet), lighting my candle, popping on my brightest lipstick, my biggest 1980s style earrings, and yes, my leopard-print slippers. Happy New Year and all that.

Love Suzy xx