The first impression of Game of Spades Emerald, Extrait de Parfum, by Jo Milano, utterly astonishes: clean, fresh, unmistakably fruity.  It opens with a smashing combination of gingery citrus so intoxicating that it causes a physical reaction: eyebrows raise: the bottle gets held slightly out from the body for a better view.  A “symphony”of scent brought to life. The bergamot sparkles, the grapefruit provides zest and the ginger provides a sharp, crisp edge that not only creates space between the notes but also allows them to work in perfect harmony. It’s loud.  But loud in a way that a feeling is loud.  Loud in a way that confuses the senses in the most alluring way: scents seen, colors heard, textures tasted. So crisp, so well balanced are the fruits and ginger in this composition that the very space between them can almost be felt, seen. This is the essential experience of Emerald Extrait; a synesthetic trip through scent.

Once the fragrance begins to settle, it becomes no less sharp.  Not sharp as in astringent; sharp as in clear, vibrant. Moving around the edges of the scent, the nose closes in, and each note maintains its distinct character. Ginger, bergamot, grapefruit, all in conversation, heard with perfect clarity, individually, even though they are all speaking at once.  That is to say, they do not emerge sequentially but concurrently. It’s like hearing an entire orchestra play at fortissimo, while each instrument somehow sings its own song. This is the peculiar effect of ginger’s sharpness on this composition.  The sharpness refers to the scent, yes, but also to space, a space between the citruses that creates intimacy and harmony rather than distance. A harmony both seen and felt.

It’s funny how cold things evoke warm memories. Emerald Extrait creates that experience. The cool, departing citrus resembles something stretched, like light trails in long-exposure photography, accentuated by the ginger, which releases its hold gradually, allowing the citrus to linger longer than it otherwise might, their fingers entwined, unwilling to release their mutual embrace. As the bergamot and grapefruit fade—neither before nor after, but in that contiguous in-between—the sweet honey and white florals of the neroli and orange blossom, along with the musk and ambrette in the base, emerge, creating what can only be described as the taste of a summer day: a creamsicle dream, the pursuit of ice cream trucks and loose change begged of parents, warmed by a sweaty palm. One note comes, the other note goes, and the sillage summons the memories that inhabit the space between. A smell that remembers.

Emerald Extrait is an olfactory trip and the last of the dry down is the realest part.  After the scintillating sparkle of the ginger and citrus fade, what remains is a clean musk, a textured, velvety ambrette that sits very close to the skin.  It’s nutty, creamy and smooth, just like the hand softened by the perfume’s oils. A relic that proves something real happened.  What remains is not more real than the memory of sunny days, but it is more mature. The colors, smells and memories of the opening and heart are the ideas and experiences in the writer’s mind: all sparkle and shine.  The remnants of the dry down are him at his desk, writing his memoir.