I was far too cautious when I first tried bogue profumo I Love YY. A tiny sniff.  A ghost whiff of waiting outside a heaving-shelved bodega in low sun, holding bad coffee in that blue and white cup. Closing my eyes to map out a remembered smell of a first day in a new city: the sewers and subways and still-leaded traffic fumes, boxes of fruit, wet leaves, thick paint on rust, old wee. I wondered where my old journals were, my old self, and put the sample aside, distracted.

I was wrong. It’s a scent to fling yourself into exuberantly. You could look down from wind-whipped rooftops at all the stories you’ll never know, or immerse yourself.

Moving weightlessly in golden light through the middle of the crowd –those Fisher King moments where the surging chaos turns into a dance– that moment of pause before turning on your heel and choosing a different path.

This version has all the ylang-ylangs, all the New Yorks, all the multiverses and stories and lives and possibilities pushing against each other in the same space. Like mixing a lifetime’s supply of different sweeties in one big tub so you end up with overflowing handfuls of accidental apple-banana and lemon-caramel and violet-mint custardy grapefruit chews. It sounds slightly horrifying but it’s so compelling you eat the lot. And you’re sticky, sugar-high, and surrounded by a whole hamster nest of wrappers.

That swirl of signature Bogue camphor rising from a denser nest of benzoin and bed-warm flesh. The massed flowers, showy, lush, bordering decay, like fresh makeup on last night’s unwashed face, crusted mascara which somehow looks better than fresh. The menthol gives me all the different chills: from dance sweat cooling in the too-bright early morning air to sitting on cold museum floors, drawing, to deep-shadowed canyons below endless glittering windows.

I Love YY is everything, now.

Damn it, Gardoni. I thought I’d escaped those NY dreams.

My sample was a gift, for which I’m grateful. Though I’ll be kicking myself if I’ve left it too late to buy a bottle…)

Originally posted 9 January 2020 (edited december 2025 to add: aye, of course I left it too late. Gone, all gone. I’m pretty certain I’d not have worn it often, certainly not as often as the other bogue scents, but I would have snuck sneaky sniffs at the spray and thought again about the scent maps of cities.)