Cow

Cow. Just Wow. Cow simply smells like cuddling my freshly bathed, powdered, changed, fed, bounced, and burped baby boy! It’s not a newborn baby because I can detect some faintly sour fruit vomit in the medley of breast-milk and rice cereal puke that’s still engrained in the weave of my shirt and has survived several wash cycles. The smell is so endearing, it is maternal and calm, an invisible aromatic forcefield that my infant and I have built up together over the course of seasons, a signal to the world and to myself that maternity leave will lull on into infinity in an oxytocin-induced soporific haze while event other poor sucker on Earth is slaving away, nine to five, metaphorical testicles stapled to the office keyboard. My sister and I are slowly sniffing our way through the entire set of Zoologist samples. My husband copped a whiff of Cow on me and said, “Woah, this one doesn’t smell like something crawled up its own arse and died.” Cow is the first in the range so far that has caused me to shed a tear. How can a fragrance that is so crowd-pleasing and safe be so deeply evocative, so bittersweet? Hindsight has 20-20 vision. The reality of raising babies was less than blissful; in actuality I felt sleep-deprived and smelled, well, shat on and spewed on. But now that my children are both big boys in full-time school and I am back working for the man, the lenses in my rose coloured glasses are gleaming and the smell of Cow makes me pine for those precious, perfect, but lost-forever baby days. The scent gives me the Mother Guilts. And for that reason, I will never be able to buy Cow.

I was recently gifted a full bottle of this fragrance by a loved one, in the old packaging currently still pictured here. This was not a blind gift; I'd tested it a few times last year and remember developing a fond impression. It was cute, and as such I told that person I wouldn't mind receiving it. The rest of the story tells itself. "Cute" really is the best way I can describe Cow. It is a creamy floral given a green watercolour wash by the apple, sage, and lily of the valley. It skews ever so slightly warm, which I think is what really sells the bucolic vibe -- even in the dead of winter, our most idyllic imaginings of the pastural countryside are kissed by the sun, and the promise of greener days never goes unfulfilled. Cow only projects within arm's length but has good longevity, sticking around for the better part of the day. This isn't the kind of scent I would want to scream, anyway, else it really wouldn't beat the apple shampoo allegations. One last note: the vaporizer on my bottle works wonders. It doesn't feel flimsy or weak, but it doesn't feel overly pressurized either, producing a tight and continuous mist as the pump moves down. I hope that the new packaging retains this quality, as there are other scents from Zoologist that I would like to have one day.

I was determined to love Cow. Partly because of the absurd scenario where a stranger might ask me what I’m wearing and I reply, deadpan, “COW.” And I did like Cow, quite a lot. It’s apples and cream. (I’m a little lass that loves apples and cream!). But inedible apples and cream. The apple is grass-green, waxy, beaded with dew. It’s very much a kid’s shampoo apple, sweet and tear-free. The milk is the gelid tallow of a thick conditioner or artisanal soap. Fatty, creamy, cosmetic. Not yogurty or eggnoggy. To my nose, there’s nothing sour or earthy about Cow. It’s a beautiful just-out-of-the-shower scent, office-safe and accessible, and longevity is not bad for a freshie. However, I wasn’t ready to spend over a hundred bucks just to smell freshly-shampooed. Mental Snapshot: A stock-photo perfect apple. An A is for apple apple. Then a field of dairy cows, roving across a Swiss meadow. The vivid green field crests across a spotless sky, like a 21st century Great Wave off Kanagawa. You’re in a Windows screensaver. tl;dr: Granny Smith conditioner 🐮🍏 EDIT: apparently I will spend over a hundred bucks to smell freshly-shampooed. In the words of Ms. Doja Cat: "bitch, I'm a cow." Holy cow I cannot get enough of this stuff.

Zoologist has really grown on me as a house. Initially I was intimated by their branding but after being encouraged to try them by a niche fragrance store owner (after expressing my disappointment with these newer releases), I was blown away. Zoologist fragrances are so creative and wearable despite many of the reviews, and clever albeit quirky animal names. I am also impressed with the performance and quality which is becoming harder and harder to find these days. Now onto the fragrance itself - Cow is such a clean, feel-good, green fragrance. It reminds me more of a milky generic shampoo vs. a full on lactonic fragrance. It is not a head turner, nor stop-in-your-tracks compliment getter, but it is so calming and agreeable. Like other reviewers have mentioned, it is reminiscent of a breezy meadow on a sunny day. I would rate this is an easy reach for a casual warm or spring/summer day. If you have not tried any Zoologist fragrances Cow is a good one to start with to get a better feel for how they wear, and familiarize yourself with their vanillic, balsamic, ambery base.

Cow. This perfume is very complex and I feel like there’s many angles that I could write about it from. Firstly on my skin, Apple is the most recognizable note and it lasts the longest into the dry down . It’s a bright tarte maybe even a little sour apple that reminds me a bit of shampoo, or maybe what an apple would smell like in my dreams. This note is surrounded by fresh aromatic green notes you would find in a pasture. Sage, a hint of grass, it makes for a very soothing and familiar scent tapestry that zoologist is great with. I think the combination of milk and amber in the perfume gives it a very distant creaminess that doesn’t interfere with the other notes but instead rounds the scent out, softening the edges into a very wearable spring time perfume. Over all my mind is taken to a beautiful green field and cloud filled blue sky with in an early 2000s computer wallpaper. What isn’t seen in the landscape however, is a baby calf, freshly shampooed and blow dried, it’s fur glimmering in the sun as it sleeps peacefully without worry.