Fragrance Banter

A few years ago, Myke tried Le Labo's Tonka 25 and hated it more than anything he had previously smelled... Fast forward to the Fragrance Banter Podcast, and he listed it as his most disappointed fragrance in a previous episode.. Now, he's giving it another smell. What is he going to think? Support the show

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Myke and Steve didn’t plan on trouble that afternoon, but trouble often comes disguised in glass bottles. The YSL counter gleamed under the fluorescent buzz, a temple of temptation wrapped in black lacquer. The sales associate, eyes sharp as razors, sprayed a cold mist of MYSLF L’Absolu onto a strip of paper. The scent rose like smoke from a ritual fire—bitter citrus, damp woods, something almost metallic. Myke’s nose twitched; Steve smirked like a man about to confess to a crime he didn’t co...

The air was thick with anticipation as Myke and Steve sat across from each other, the dim glow of the streetlight creeping through the window like an unwelcome guest. They leaned in, their voices low, almost conspiratorial. "You ever tried this one?" Myke asked, a sinister smirk curling at his lips. Steve's face contorted, the memory of it almost physically painful. "How could I forget? It was supposed to smell like an exotic garden, but instead... it was like inhaling a vacuum bag full of re...

Steve stood before his cologne cabinet like a general surveying fallen comrades—thirty-seven bottles, each with a story, none with a clear alibi. The vetiver reminded him of that ill-fated camping trip where a raccoon stole his pants. The citrus blend brought back memories of a Vegas bachelor party that ended with a black eye and an unpaid bar tab in three currencies. And the oud—God, the oud—smelled like horny mahogany and regret. His wife called from downstairs, asking if he was “still bott...

They said it was a joke. A cologne bottled like a toilet and christened Pinnace, as if a perfume could escape ridicule by sailing under a name better suited for a sinking ship. But the first man who wore it—Frankie Dobbins, a retired mortician with a limp and no sense of irony—entered a deli in Queens and left with three phone numbers and a free pastrami. The smell, they said, was unnerving. Not because it was bad. Because it was beautiful. A haunting kind of beautiful, like jasmine blooming ...

No one remembered when the decree came down, but it was signed in gold ink and smelled faintly of bergamot—official enough. From that day forward, every citizen could only own five colognes. Not six. Not a sampler set. Just five. Myke and Steve took this as seriously as a will-reading. They met under the usual circumstances—mid-life males, existential dread, matching leather jackets—and began their quest like scholars assembling a sacred text. They smelled their way through boutiques, airport...

He stood in the doorway of their now-too-quiet walk-in closet, surrounded by the ghosts of her shampoo scents and a thousand sarcastic echoes. The duffel bag on the floor glared up at him like it, too, was disappointed. The rules were simple: one cologne. Just one. He eyed the sleek army of glass bottles, each with a memory like it's own experience — Date Night in Tuscany, New Job Confidence, Apologizing Without Actually Apologizing. In the end, he chose the one he felt the strongest relation...

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