12/7/2025 Safe Synthetic

I don't want to do my work. I want to wax poetic about fragrances. But I have so much work to do.

I had a sudden craving, to buy a fragrance. For irrational reasons. To impress fictional characters. In case I get isekai's into their world.

Boy Kavalier would have some genuine affinities. Which could possibly be inferred from his character traits, but more than likely would depend on specific life experiences and associations.

Kirsh would have no innate affinities. For him, detecting that a person was wearing a fragrance would be no different from observing that an animal specimen has rolled itself in dung to increase its chances of finding a mate.

But. He still might find it an actionable data point. If he wished to pursue further investigation into the matter.

Well, I'll admit, impressing B.K. and Kirsh isn't my sole reason for wanting to find a new fragrance.

I have a sort of superstition about scent. That it can be used as a sort of anchor to specific points in time. And thus can be used to perform actual distortions upon reality. So scents should be interspersed non-contiguously or else portals between the past and present can't be created.

There may be something neurochemical taking place within me. Like a salmon returning to spawn. Because, suddenly I had the urge to smell Red Door and Poison by Dior.

The scents I remembered seeing in mysterious bottles on top of my mother's dresser throughout my childhood. I can't remember what they smell like. I cannot. But I had the sudden urge that I must find out.

And I had to stop myself. Because surely, that would send me to points in time to which I have no actual desire to return. Smelling those might send me into a spiral that could take me out of commission for days. And I don't have time for that.

I read some fragrance descriptions online. And some sounded appealing. But when I went to the mall and smelled them in person, they did not live up to expectations.

But now, I think, I've finally found what I've been looking for.

It does not smell at all like the product description. And it's in a much more attainable price range than the other scents I'd sampled.

Maybe I like that. A cheap scent. There's that line in that Journey song "smell of wine and cheap perfume", doesn't it make you feel like a cheap perfume is more alive than an luxury one?

As though hard working people have carved out a little indulgence and adventure in the middle of their busy lives.

And it's synthetic. I think it does smell very synthetic. Which is good since it's a very low risk for triggering my son's food allergies.

On the company's website the origins of each ingredient is listed as either "botanical" or "safe synthetic".

Most of the ingredients for this particular scent are listed as "safe synthetic".

It's "safe synthetic", "safe synthetic", "safe synthetic" all down the line.

LMAO doesn't that sound so fucking ominous!? "Safe Synthetic"??? ...Sounds so much more concerning than just saying "synthetic".

That's how David 8 would describe himself, surely. Perfectly safe synthetic, I assure you.

Well, I love it. Certainly. I would love to smell like a Synthetic.

And finally, the company is chemistry themed. The fragrance comes in a beaker shaped container.

And I do have an undeniable affinity for mad-scientist type shit.

*Sigh*... I am supposed to be making the finals week lesson plans.

Fuck.