Hello Dear Readers,
As we bask in the sweet smell of spring — full of new life, fresh rain, flowers, and the occasional burst of barely-composted manure from the hardcore organic gardener next door — let’s take a moment to appreciate our good fortune. This is the kind of weather that makes everything and everyone on Earth seem fresh and lovely. Yesterday, with the windows open to the fresh breeze and singing birds, I browsed the May issue of Lucky. It’s a fashion magazine for women about 10 years younger than me, but whatever. What I wore: vintage (2008) black Pro Spirit athletic shorts from Target, the latest gray Nikes available for under $39, and a pink Under Armour shirt that was expertly washed and faded (over 100 washes!) Just thought you’d want to know. Somebody make a Pinterest board for me.
As I was stylishly flipping pages that lovely spring day, I saw an ad for a perfume called Alien. Yes, that’s right. Alien. This may be old news to those of you who pay more attention to fashion, and if so, WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN US??? I subscribe to a couple of fashion magazines, but I usually scan for articles to make me feel redeemed, such as “Weak ankles rule! 4 inch heels are for losers.” I have yet to find that article. But I’ve never noticed this Alien ad before so it’s news to me.
Anyway, let’s get back to the warning at hand: Someone wants us to stop smelling like Earth. Sweet, springtime, life-giving Earth. That someone is French designer Thierry Mugler, and he’d prefer us to smell otherworldly. He’s trying to convince human women that our pheromones and natural body odor, even after a coconut & sugarcane bubble bath, are not enough. Neither is jasmine, gardenia, citrus, sandalwood, or any other conventional fragrance. Not even ylang-ylang or tonka bean. Perfumers even have milked juices from beaver anal glands to make us smell sweetly musky and bizarrely desirable, but that’s not enough either. We should smell like seductive, golden beings from another universe, says the Alien brand.
Human is not good enough 'cause aliens are hotter.
I’m all for seductive and golden, but how are aliens more attractive than humans? Is this the guy-fantasy version of Twilight? Chicks like vampires, dudes like aliens? Captain Kirk and the guy in Avatar were seduced by feminine extraterrestrial creatures, but other explorers have tried to destroy alien ladies, like in V (the awesome tv show that got cancelled). That chick was an evil lizard underneath her fake skin, and she laid creepy eggs and wanted to enslave humans. The people in the show didn’t really have any choice but to fight her, but maybe during the whole battle they imagined how she would kiss if she didn’t have all those rows of teeth. Tell me: Do you, too, find aliens attractive?
Guys like alien chicks, even those who didn't get dental work.
And what do aliens smell like? Nobody even knows what odors space holds because we can’t breathe up there and all the moon rocks are locked up. I called my friend V, not to be confused with the tv show, to see if she knew about this perfume. She said that the thought of Alien the fragrance brought to mind green slime and anal probes. Trust me, she doesn’t usually think about green slime and anal probes, that I know about, anyway. Research on the smell of Alien the perfume turned up a YouTube video from username lotsofcurls. Lotsofcurls reveals that “the box is nothing special, but what’s inside is,” and “the bottle has a nice grip.” She mentions suspiciously little about the actual chemical warfare components fragrance. Aha, but the Sephora website describes Alien as “radiant and mysterious….Be seduced by the soothing solar energy of this extraordinary fragrance from elsewhere.”
Upon searching Thierry Mugler, I found lots of references to his “passion” and some information that leads me to believe he might be jaded. One site says this: “He took courses at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg ……(people) stopped him on the street to ask where his clothes came from, or to insult him!” I think he hates humans.
Lo and behold, my daughter happened to have a tiny bottle of Alien the perfume. Alien is sold at Nordstrom, and a nice lady who works there gave my daughter some samples. The Nordstrom employee was even an alien herself, but the kind from Croatia, not S-XBAX Planet 99. To quell our curiosity, I’ll sacrifice my wrist by applying a sample. Please call 911, Bruce Willis and Will Smith if I don’t respond after this.
I'm spraying strange chemicals, I mean Alien, on my wrist.
Overwhelming scent of molted lizard skin, a mild bouquet of oxidized metal, with underlying notes of putrid slime. That’s what aliens smell like. Go fantasize about that, male humans. Oh, and beware because Mugler wants to turn you into a zombie.
- This guy reeks of art and digested brains.
I guess now would be a good time to wish you an early happy Earth Day. It may be the last chance we get to celebrate our home planet.
I can’t seem to mentally get past the fact that I clicked a “beaver anal glands” link. I’ll probably still be thinking about that as I’m being led at laser-point onto the Mother Ship of our new benevolent alien overlords.
2 things: 1) This isn’t the first or even the second time I’ve researched beaver anal glands, and I’m not paranoid at all that absolutely everything I eat or wear has butt juice in it.
2) The alien overlords are NOT benevolent as evidenced by food and perfume scientists who were sent here as spies several decades ago to fill our bellies full of beaver secretions.