Jungle Jezebel

Jungle Jezebel. The perfume with either an adorable or over the top tacky bottle, depending on your personal tastes. I was in the “yikes!” camp from the time I first saw it. I found it shockingly....bad. And because of the bottle I had no interest in trying the perfume. I tuned out all the reviews, I literally had zero interest. Then about a week or two ago, I learned it was inspired by Divine, the famous drag queen who died in the 80s. Hmm. This changes things a tad. I googled Divine and read a bit, then looked at pics of the bottle again. It was strangely starting to appeal to me. Even starting to look kinda cute. I watched videos of Divine. And googled more. And read some VERY mixed reviews. Some wonderful. Some downright frightening. Okay, I HAVE to smell this thing. I searched sample sites and had no luck. I didn’t see how to buy one sample from Sarah’s site. So, I reached out to a generous fragrance friend who had told me previously to let him know if he ever had anything I wanted to try. The sample arrived last night but I had to go meet a client and there was NO WAY I was putting this on before going to meet him after reading those reviews. So, I had to wait until today. I can’t recall being quite so curious to smell anything in a while. I literally woke up thinking “oh boy I get to try it today!! ”. Almost a Christmas morning sort of feeling. I’m excited but also a little scared, because let me tell you, some of the reviews are NOT flattering. A few semi-traumatized me. But this feeling of excitement was thrilling. Okay, so here goes. I go to the little taped up box with the sample, lift the lid off...heart semi pounding, there it is...“Jungle Jezebel”. I really don’t know what to expect but I’m feeling pretty positive and brave, so I go ahead and spray on plenty on the back of my hands and wrists, and bravely dab some on my neck. Okay, okay, not so bad! It’s sweet...bubblegum and banana. Not so scary! What is so scary about this?! I’m happily sniffing this banana Bubble Yum scent and something else starts happening. Something that’s not so yummy. Ah boy, it’s the civet. And it’s the type I have issues with. While I love vintage civet immensely, there is a synthetic type used in modern perfumery that can send me for the hills. I just can’t abide. It smells too butt-like, too funky and it’s just not the good kind of funk. It’s just funk. For me at least. So, I’m like okay, I see what they mean, this stuff is just not wearable. Like how could I get around people smelling like this? Musty butt and banana. I mean....just no. So, while I’m sniffing it, I decide to listen to the Divine song, Jungle Jezebel, her trademark song, so I can experience it fully before scrubbing it off. See if I’m missing something somehow. I sat there watching this 300 pound actor, dressed in drag, sweating up a storm, spewing profanity, just generally acting vulgar....and it hit me, this perfume “is” Divine. It’s vulgar. It’s trashy. It flashy. It’s over the top. It’s a work of art. It tells a story. It describes a human. The good and the bad. The sweet and the sweaty. It’s not exactly “pretty”. Neither was Divine. But he thought he was. And “she” convinced us she was. Right up until she dropped dead of a heart attack at age 42. That’s what Jungle Jezebel does. She’s not pretty...but she bats her eyelashes and makes you believe she is and she won’t give up until she’s gone. So...I’m left trying to decide if Jungle Jezebel is an absolute disaster or some sort of masterpiece. I wonder the same thing about Divine. And I think the answer is the same for both: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 💋 Harris Glenn Milstead aka Divine (1945-1988).

Okay, I love this. I admit, there are times when this is hard to take, particularly midway through. Not animalic, indolic, or pissy, as some here say, but almost like the smell of perfume that has gone bad. It's that horrible, synthetic civet which in some perfumes reminds me of the smell of used motor oil. I get that same smell in the reformulated Paloma Picasso too. Yuck! Fortunately, I only smell that if I smell it directly off my skin. If I didn't know better, I would have thought the perfume was shot. But since I've never heard of a perfume deteriorating only in the middle while leaving the top notes and base notes intact, I know that it hasn't gone bad. As for the fragrance, as crazy as this sounds, I love that delicious banana gum opening which reminds me more of the scent of Bonomo Turkish Taffy that I loved as a kid, than bubblegum. If anyone grew up in the 60s, you'd know what I was talking about. That banana taffy scent last about 30 minutes on me. Then it goes through that crass, funky, motor oil stage, which also last about 30 minutes, but that too is swept away as the florals, in particular a huge, full blown, Tuberose, along with a custardy ylang, come busting down the door. I'm still getting the banana, but it is much lighter and adding creaminess and a little sweetness to the florals. The scent does eventually lighten up somewhat as it wears on, but this is so well made that it was evident until I showered it off. Even though I love this in the end I decided against having it in my wardrobe because it is such an oddity that I really don't know where and when I would ever wear this novelty. But if I were to ever purchase a bottle, it would be the regular bottle and not the special edition. For if I cared enough about it, which I don't, I could dress it up myself with a pair of false eyelashes from the $ store and save myself $100 bucks. Just putting that out there.

The first hour of this is mindbogglingly good. It’s got the rotten fruit/banana in the garbage can thing that I adore.( If you’ve been slumming it in the tropics you know). It’s got squeaky fleeing bats and freaky luminous mushrooms with its cave mould accord. There’s chemical bubble gum from the bin. My sample is not even remotely fecal, I don’t know what the sheltered pearl clutchers are smelling. But then it seems to fizzle out, leaving a pleasant amber almost old fashioned musky base. (I suppose that’s the problem). In that first hour I can’t compare it to much else. Edit Trying to eke out my 2ml sample because when I run out I’m in the firing line for a fb. This consequently is only my third wear. So now I’m tortured by having to wait for the dry down again. I’m strangely putting it into the God of Fire category atm. That was a perfume that I quickly put into the same male category as ... La Capitale, the red leather one from Xerjoff that I found profoundly masculine. But then after trying GoF more I fell in love with it for myself. But you know, I often think I’ve smelled it all, but this jezebel is quite unique. It jangles. It’s got a psychic loudness totally marrying smell-word-image-sound with what I’m thinking of as my memory of the drag artist. Like a toucan, larger and gaudier than anything you could imagine in the bird kingdom. Edit WTF is a tonsil stone Edit II Fecal, poopy? Yah nah not going there, no wonder the human race is self imolatiting HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY SMELLED POOP Okay now I’m going to revise Peaches Revenge which is just bangin stonkin brilliant and I don’t care about influencers

I have fallen completely head over heels for this stuff. After a rocky start when I Initially smelled it (and saw it) I came to appreciate it for the art of making Divine come to life. I didn’t see it as something I would wear but more something I could appreciate. I’m not sure what has happened but the overpowering civet and “filth” that I initially smelled seems to have nearly disappeared into an embrace of the exotic fruity bubblegum heaven heart, and all I’m left with is some kind of eyes rolling back in my skull bliss. When I first smelled this fragrance and I heard some influencers raving about it, I thought they had to just be “acting” because it was just so.....well, “daring”. I have to take all that back, maybe they just appreciated it faster than me. But I think the animalic aspects are not as apparent to some people and for whatever reason (hormones maybe?) that part just isn’t as overwhelming as it was to me at first. Maybe what I smell now is what the others folks were smelling all along. What actually made me fall in love with this perfume, believe it or not, was the hand sanitizer in this scent. I put it on my hands and it was really curse worthy how good it smelled to me. I started splashing it on myself like perfume. And it actually lasted quite a while!! I didn’t expect it to last more than a couple of minutes but it lasted a couple of hours! Long enough for me to become mad for it. Anyway, I couldn’t get the scent out of my head. I don’t know what it is about this perfume but it’s haunting, it buries itself in your brain and I crave it like a drug.

I was torn whether to blind buy this thing or not...at the initial release i was so intrigued by the name and the cute (or garrish?) bottle... But i couldn't find this at that time. I was like, okay, let's wait a little more meanwhile i kept reading people's review on Jezebel. It got many negative reviews, and people kept saying how nasty this perfume was, so I cancelled my plan to find this. 1 year later, I found this online, from a shop in my country, and was still affordable, I was still torn. But review from Forever Neil, saying if one likes Zoologist, then they would love Jezebel, so I decided to get this. Wow, I'm so glad I bought this. I don't regret it a bit. As mentioned by others, Jezebel opens with a loud bang of bubblegum and banana, much like the ones that I always consumed as a kid, then the tuberose comes out, and it feels like Miller Harris' Tuberosa. The civet is detectable but for me it gives off indolic atmosphere to the tuberose, just like indolic jasmine, except that it's civet. It was nothing, and I'm still waiting for the worst. 4 hours deep into the Jungle, the civet is now appear in all its glory... And it's beautiful. I you have smelled Hyrax from Zoologist, this is a very tame and beautiul civet, it even creates a vintage (80's) nuances, a time where Divine lived, and I guess that's what Miguel Matos attempts to create. In the 5th or the 6th hour, the civet return at the back, and the floral going upfront and this phase goes on until the rest of Jezebel lifespan. It's wonderful, very niche indeed.