Bond No. 9 - West Broadway

Another Bond No. 9 fragrance. This one's unisexay!

The description at Saks says that West Broadway, the street, is "a hipper, cooler, downtown Madison Avenue, especially for the free-wheeling man or woman with eclectic taste." Whatever. I've never been to New York, although I'd like to go sometime soon. But, I have to say, I'm pretty over the arrogant trendiness of New York City. New York's all like, "We're the greatest, coolest, and most important city in the world. That's right, the world. When people say 'the city,' they mean us. We're the city. We're The City. We're going to copyright the word 'city' so no other city can be called a city. Because Oklahoma City? Carson City? Salt Lake City? Please. We are just way too out of their league. Who do they think they are, asking us to the dance? Gross." I'm over New York being all full of itself, though maybe it's just the rich Manhattanites who do it, but I don't know my boroughs or my New York geography, because guess what, New York? I don't care!! And by extension, I'm over this Bond No. 9 gimmick of smelling like various neighborhoods. Because if you were really going to be faithful to what a city smelled like, you'd smell like dumpster and pee.

Stupid New York.

Oh, and I was going to mention this up there: I don't really like the word "freewheeling," and yes, it is one word, no hyphen. I can't help thinking it means "driving recklessly in a flashy car with the top down."

Okay. I'm glad I got that off my back. West Broadway is a pretty great fragrance. The description says lime and greens, but I'm not sure about that. It starts off smelling like some kind of spice--I don't know what, but it's definitely reminiscent of an open jar in the spice rack--and then morphs into sort of a carnation smell. And I tell ya, there should be more carnation perfumes in the world. Specifically, one that I can actually afford.

West Broadway fades to a light, clean, nondescript sweet scent that I'd classify as more feminine that masculine. It's something of a disappointment after the initial ten minutes. It lasted a total of maybe four hours on me--not bad, not great.

I have yet to find something from Bond No. 9 that I'd consider worth the high price, but I've got plenty more samples to go through. Considering my finances right now, maybe it's best I continue to be unimpressed.