"It's Good To Want Things."

CB I Hate Perfume I Am a Dandelion

"Dinky Dean Bossetti, is that the yellow sweater I bought for you last week? That was a thirty-two dollar sweater, missy, and you dyed it black, didn't you? After you promised me you wouldn't."
"Correction. I didn't promise I wouldn't. I said I'd try not to."

One of my all-time favorite films growing up was Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael a little indie flick starring Winona Ryder, the poster girl for teen angst and misunderstanding for my generation. One of my favorite lines involves a the former lover of a famous woman (the eponymous Roxy Carmichael), long gone from Dinky's home town, relating a story about roxy's preference for dandelions. He tells Dinky, "She loved dandelions. She said it was because they were wild and free and didn't give a shit where they lived."

There were a lot of dandelions where I grew up. So many that my mom would yell at me if she caught me blowing their delicate heads right off, spreading their seeds around our yard. I used to make jewelry out of them. Rings on my fingers, necklaces and crowns. I'd weave and twist their stalks and chew on them. I didn't realize they were a weed, not really. I thought they were beautiful, doubly so because they got to be two distinct incarnations, both beautiful yellow flower and delicate seeded head. I didn't understand why the world wouldn't want as many of them as would take root.

Charles Brosius clearly agrees with me and Roxy. The scent of CB I Hate Perfume's I Am a Dandelion is described simply:

This perfume is the simple scent of a Dandelion newly picked from the lawn

The story he writes to accompany the scent is so much more. Dandelions, Brosius writes, are "beautiful," "innocent," "fearless," "resilient," and "simple and humble." I tend to agree. What is a weed, really? According to Wikipedia, "[t]he dandelion plant is truly a weed in the classical sense: "a plant for which we once knew the use but we've forgotten it." there is a lot of beauty in the world we seem to have lost the purpose of. it doesn't make it any less beautiful. Luckily for us, we have Brosius to remind us.

I am a Dandelion, on initial application, smells so strongly of the smell of freshly cut grass that if you close your eyes you will forget that you aren't standing in the middle of one. You will smell the scent that dandelions' hold, milky and sweet and almost cinnamon spicy. It won't matter how old you are now, how dreams didn't turn out, how lonely life can be, how the world can see only a weed where your purpose and beauty used to grow.

Instead, you will remember the milk on your fingers, the stems in your teeth, the flowers crowning your head, your own innocence, your beauty, your resilience, your youth.

At least I do. Every time.

And that is truly magical.

CB I Hate Perfume I Am a Dandelion is available direct from Brosius's store in NYC.