Stoned is a ridiculous scent. When I first received a decant, I wasn't instantly smitten, but over time the absolute decadence of it has endeared it to me: it comes in a red crystal decanter, claims "diamond dust" as one of its ingredients, and is named "Stoned". I mean, really. The nose behind the scent is Lynn Harris of Miller Harris, who created it for the London-based jewelry designer Solange Azagury-Partridge.
What initially put me off is that on first application, Stoned has what Lucky Scent refers to as " an incredibly attractive retro quality to the fragrance, making it reminiscent of the luxurious perfumes of the past." Tania Sanchez also touches on this in Perfumes: the A-Z Guide, saying "This hybrid of Habanita, Shalimar, and Vanilia attempts the ultimate amber oriental by combining features of past greats." These are both colorful ways of saying that Stoned has something of an old lady vibe.
Inevitably, though, embracing old lady chic is key to enjoying classic perfumery, and having a greater appreciation for perfume in general. My journey into perfumes began as I tried to find a signature scent more original, niche, or underground than my beloved J'adore and Hypnotic Poison. Many a time I gleefully dumped vials of perfume onto my wrist or carelessly spritzed my neck, expecting descriptions of "rose and jasmine" to deliver a sweet, clean, department store floral, only to find myself recoiling at labdanum, vetiver, civet, tree moss, and other unknown but definitely not clean smells. Such was my reaction to Stoned. At that point, I related to Sanchez's initial reproach of Angel: "I suffered then from the naive belief that women should smell only like flowers or candy." Yet somewhere between Shalimar and Le Galion's Snob, I learned to love the bomb, because at the end of the day, interesting almost always trumps nice.
Despite my initial horror, what saved that little decant of Stoned from being sent out in the next Makeupalley swap was a delicious, warm, rosy vanilla skin scent that emerged hours after I applied it. Baffled but intrigued, I put the vial back on my shelf and forgot about it.
Revisiting it now, the first application is still stuffy, all labdanum, treemoss, bergamot and heliotrope, like a large, old woman wearing ornate jewelry and a mink coat. Yet after 20 minutes or so, these notes become a luxe backdrop to the rose, jasmine, and sweet vanilla, giving the effect of keeping the ornate jewelry and mink coat but replacing the wearer with a Helmut Newton-style Amazonian model. Put a drink in her hand and you have the amazing bourbon vanilla skin scent drydown.
Just putting it out there, anyone who wants to drop $285 on a bottle of this for me can also pick up any of the Gatekeeper jewelry from the Stoned Collection while they're at it. It'll complete my look as I drive off into the red, apocalyptic sunset blasting this:
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