There is a Barry Manilow song that I love called ‘Why Don’t We Try A Slow Dance,’ and I think it is most romantic. I think of it as a moment when you have just met someone, ad you go to the dance floor and have danced a couple of fast songs. And after getting a slow song comes on and you look at each other and say, ‘you wanna try this one?’  It comes at a moment when a flirtation levels up to something a little more, and there’s that exhilarating possibility of…something. That song captures that moment, and when I saw that ‘Slow Dance’ was the title of the new Byredo scent, I wondered if the perfume will capture that as well.

Jerome Epinette is the nose for this perfume and the inspiration is from ‘a high school dance, a heady collision of innocence and experience, of knowing and not knowing.’  Well, I don’t know about that. The scent feels pretty mature to me, and is quite sophisticated smelling. The top notes are supposedly opoponax and cognac, hardly stuff at the school gym. I get some kind of berries that dominate (well, maybe that’s the punch at the gym) and some vanilla. But this doesn’t go gourmand – there’s geranium here, and some sweet violets. It’s all very transparent, too, but not fleeting. The one spritz I had on my arm lasted a very long time, and I found myself wanting to sniff it over and over. Yes, I kind of fell for this – it’s hefty enough for colder weather days, but feels gauzy and clear. I thought it kind of smelled a little incense-y or woodsy but not overly so. It smells very Byredo-ish, and fits perfectly with their aesthetic. And above all, it smells heavenly.