Quick Sniffs: Fresh Patchouli Pure; Ligne St. Barth Patchouli Arawak; TokyoMilk Paper and Cotton; TokyoMilk Ex Libris

So while the stock market is melting like a cake left out in the rain (my apologies to Jimmy Webb), the march of niche fragrances still goes on — though one wonders just for how long.

Between the market meltdown, financial crisis, the mortgage debacle and the one hundred gazillion dollar taxpayer funded bailout of Henry Paulson’s friends the entire banking industry, will I still have enough cash left for that bottle of The Party in Manhattan? And would you guess that every single independently run niche perfume company is feeling a little nervous about such questions right now?

Wait! Am I discussing a stumbling economy just when I should be reviewing new fragrances and whetting your charge card’s appetite? Fortunately for your bank account, none of the stuff below is very charge card inspirational, but I should probably leave that for you to decide.

Sensitivity is one of my strongest character traits, you know.

FRESH PATCHOULI PURE: living up to both its name and reputation, Fresh Patchouli Pure is about the freshest patchouli scent on the market. I’m not exactly certain where the “pure” aspect rears its head, since this is nothing remotely resembling a pure patchouli scent (I nominate Profumum Patchouli in that respect), but Patchouli Pure does live up to its Fresh label by being as far from an unwashed hippie as one can get without completely stepping off the face of the planet.

Patchouli Pure opts for the company of white musks instead of the dark and dirty, a light and clean feel over the usual dark vetiver and sharp cedar suspects, and while I disliked this approach intensely in Etro Patchouli, there’s a subtlety to the way that Fresh accomplishes the task that keeps it from landing on its head in laundry detergent territory.

What we get, instead, is a green and leafy patchouli that gilds itself in a slight edge of sweetness. A spritz of citrus, a dash of cinnamon, a jigger of vanilla and voila! — you have a patchouli fragrance that’s both office safe and family friendly. The vanilla becomes more pronounced in the drydown phase.

LIGNE ST. BARTH PATCHOULI ARAWAK: a more traditional approach to patchouli, though still not fully committed to the sharp, earthy edicts of its patchouli overlords. Patchouli Arawak adds a spicy amber to its base for a rounded but still pungent (and lightly camphorous) patchouli experience.

Definitely not office safe, and probably not as family friendly as Fresh Patchouli Pure, but the drydown moves in a quite similar direction, just minus the vanilla.

TOKYOMILK: PAPER AND COTTON & EX LIBRIS: TokyoMilk Parfumarie Curiosite is a low-cost line of light scents that appears geared toward the teen to twenty-something consumer with its faux vintage labels, nail polish bottles and cute as a button titles — I Want Candy, Honey & The Moon, French Kiss, Song In D Minor, etc.

Or maybe it’s just geared to the trendy Japanese market?

TokyoMilk reminds me of the Demeter line in its lack of complexity and singular focus — these are not perfumes so much as party favors. Paper and Cotton is light and a bit grassy, while Ex Libris is billed as a floral mixed with the now ubiquitous fig, but both smell simply cheap and synthetic and not like any genuine cotton, floral or fig found in nature.

Definitely not fragrances I would recommend to anyone over 16 years old, and if you have a job where you make more than minimum wage, you can afford a whole lot better.

Though, if the economy completely collapses into oblivion, maybe this kind of cheap crap is the only option we’ll all have . . . god help us.