I also smell cigarettes with the 'Flower Market' soap from the March Kitchen box... but I am both confused and in love with the scent and I am so glad that Lush made it for exactly that reason. I got the packaging out of the bin so I could learn more about the ingredients. 

I've not encountered the OG flower market perfume, but it makes me feel that Lush is still trying to push some more complex, less 'safe' fragrances and widen the comfort zone of the nose of the market. After the discons, this has won me back... the bastards.... 

Disclaimer - I'm not a scientist or botanist, but I do a lot of gardening, I love fragrance, and I'm a trained sommelier - so this is just as a person who loves weird smells, and this damn cigarette soap and I think knowledge helps enjoyment so maybe it might help someone else?? maybe?

**The cigarette smell**

There's eugenol in the ingreds list - part of a group of molecules called phenolics. Eugenol is what makes cloves smell like cloves and gives some dentist offices that warm/spicy antiseptic scent. More importantly - phenolics show up in wood smoke (think Lapsang souchong tea, wine aged in oak or smoky whisky) and even in the leathery, slightly dusty smell of old books.

Flowers like carnation and ylang-ylang naturally produce these compounds. If you’re most used to encountering that chemistry in cigarette smoke rather than a bunch of freshly cut up carnations (I live in London so feel u if so), it makes sense that it can be read as ashtray.

**Why I think it works** 

It’s genuinely how some flowers smell in nature - particularly these spring flowers. Plants produce phenolic compounds to attract pollinators and protect against microbes. Older soaps and perfumes used these materials much more freely, which is why classic florals often have that spicy, powdery depth.

**Is it worth a second chance**?

I think so!! if you give it a little time on the skin rather than judging it straight from the dry bar, it starts to smell less like ashtray and instead, like a florist’s workbench: cut stems, crushed leaves, spicy flowers and powdery petals.

A lot of the notes I enjoy in niche fragrances today come from the same family of molecules. This soap shouts that structure a little more loudly rather than smoothing it into sweetness, but I think that it makes it more alive.

It's still likely not be for everyone, but potensh worth giving it a second smell once it’s actually washed off your skin rather than straight from the dry bar.

To me it feels like catching a small glimpse of a fragrance style that used to be everywhere and I love that its unique but so classic 

Thank u Lush for making it, I am so impressed with this box - I hope we get to see more of this off-beat double-back takes two-smells-to-love-it type stuff!!

In defense of cigarette soap