Today’s star in the horror scents series (click here for part 1) is the champion of horrible fragrances, the master of yeuch, the one that sends all, but the most hardcore perfume lovers for the shower in under two minutes is…..(drum roll, please!)

Etat Libre d’Orange Secretions Magnifiques

What else did you expect! (If you had something else in mind after that buildup, please let me know in the comments, so I can include it in this series).

This scent has a reputation preceeding it, that is almost as bad as the scent itself. If you don’t know it and think, how can she slag that poor perfume so much, then, well, you don’t know it. But the clou here is, it is not badly made. There are plenty of perfumes that aim to smell good and fail miserably, which is worse in my opinion. Most of these are easily found at the department store.

And then there is SM (see, even the abbreviation has a meaning totally fitting the theme). It is not made to please, not designed to smell good in the least (well, maybe for vampires, and they sure are an up and coming demographic!). What it is meant to do, is conquer through shock and awe.

Notes are iodine accord, adrenaline accord, blood accord, milk accord, iris, coconut, sandalwood and opoponax. Perfumer Antoine Lie created this gem in 2006.

Etat Libre d’Orange is known for its propensity to provoke and Secretions Magnifiques is the star pupil of this concept.

So what does it really smell like?

I wish I didn’t know. I wish I could unsmell it somehow…

It is the equivalent of your first horror movie, the one you are really to young to watch, but you sneak into the cinema anyway, you try to be brave, but you wish you were at home with Mommy. Some of the images stick with you for the rest of your life.

It is the equivalent of the screeching brake of a train, that desperately wants to stop but still crashes into a car on the tracks, just imagine that sound of the brake and the crash followed by silence…

It smells like the inside of a wastebin in an operating room after the operation.

It smells like a pale, sweaty, pimply youth the morning after his first major drinking binge.

It smells like misery and despair.

Now you know what I mean about wanting to unsmell it. I had a very strong reaction to it, although I went in with open eyes. How it would hit someone who is unsuspecting, I don’t know.

A scarily beautiful review of Secretions Magnifiques is to be found on Perfume Shrine, including one of those images one rather not see before breakfast.

You have to see the wonderful Katie Puckrik’s review Secretions Magnifiques for a visual input as well. Her reaction perfectly shows what SM does to people, but watching Katie’s sunny personality takes out the grimness.

The moral of the story: There are things I just don’t have to experience. When I was younger I had an almost masochistic need to expose myself to all kinds of scary or repulsive things, probably in an attempt to harden myself against the sometimes cruel world, to inoculate myself against pain. Now I know that is not the way to go, some things I can choose to stay away from, to stay sensitive to the things where my compassion is really needed.

Smelling Secretions Magnifiques was a relapse of sorts. I’m done now.

Image Source: metro.co.uk, fimormitchell.wordpress.com some rights reserved, thank you!