Quick Sniffs: S-Perfume 100% Love; L'Artisan Parfumeur Piment Brulant; Stephanie de Saint-Aignan Tobacco Mucho; Balmain Ambre Gris

It's raining cats and dogs outside thanks to Hurrican Ike off the Texas coast, so what better way to spend a grey, rain-soaked day than spraying my arms from various sample vials?

Right, I didn't think you could come up with an answer, either. So let's get down to business!

L'ARTISAN PARFUMEUR PIMENT BRULANT: Alleged to be based on an ancient Aztec love potion consumed by Emperor Moctezuma, my first mistake in approaching Piment Brulant was in assuming that the "red pepper" listed as an olfactory note meant that I was hopping on the spicy-hot car of the chocolate train (chocolate is also listed as an olfactory note). I couldn't have been more wrong.

You know the smell you get when you're chopping fresh hot peppers to use in a sauce, soup or stew? The smell that's more like a green bell pepper than a black spicy pepper? Well, that's the essence of Piment Brulant -- a very prominent vegetal pepper that leaves you smelling more like a produce aisle than a wham-bam love potion. I don't know about you, but the desire to reek of vegetables is not why I fork over my hard-earned sheckels for a bottle of scent.

The chocolate/vanilla/clove triumvirate eventually battles its way to the front of the line (though it never fully shakes the veggie curse), but by that time I've paid the cashier, bagged my own groceries and headed out the door. Thanks, but no thanks.

S-PERFUME 100% LOVE: I'm not exactly certain what to make of 100% Love. It has foody elements (dark chocolate, fruit pulp), but it's not a gourmand; it contains a dark rose scent, but it's not a floral; and there are some smoky notes, but it's not an incense fragrance.

Is it muddled or balanced? A mess or perfectly blended? Honestly, I don't know. I lean towards the idea that it's a bit of a muddled mess, with too many stars competing for the spotlight and not enough supporting players to help any one of them shine. It has its moments where I think it's going to pull it off, a brief flash now and then of "A-ha! So THAT'S what this is all about!" and then the narrative is lost and I'm back to square one.

It's entirely possible that 100% Love was created as a sort of rich, velvet-curtain backdrop against which your own winning personality is meant to sparkle, but there's a difference between standing in front of a velvet curtain and wearing the velvet curtain -- the former enhances your presence while the latter smothers your wattage. Guess which one 100% Love is?

"Thank you. I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist . . . "

About two hours in, 100% Love finally gets all quietly smoky and pleasant, but two hours is too long to make me wait for the good stuff, and besides, am I wrong for wanting to love (rather than merely like) something that dares call itself 100% Love?

STEPHANIE DE SAINT-AIGNAN TOBACCO MUCHO: starts off like green tobacco leaves soaked in sugar water, then eventually finds its way to a dusty-sweet pipe tobacco finish. Not great, but not particularly awful, either. I realize I've just damned the thing with faint praise, but when faint praise is the shoe that fits, there's no point in asking for a different size.

BALMAIN AMBRE GRIS: a stick thin concoction with a slightly acrid chemical wake. No heft, no weight, no rich honied layers, nothing like what you'd expect from an amber perfume. Escentric Molecules Escentric 02 does this zero-calorie amber concept to much better effect.

Damn, that was zero for four in the enjoyment stakes! Perhaps there actually were better ways for me to spend a rainy afternoon. Now excuse me while I go scrub the skin off my arms . . .