It is a perfume designed to be worn on a rainy Tuesday morning, standing in a crowded suburban train full of people on their way to work, each nursing a sleepy dream of early retirement while avoiding the others' glances. [on Givenchy's Very Irresistible]

Some companies have trained their sales associates to tell you that their fragrances are so pricey because they use a high proportion of natural ingredients, perhaps even all natural ingredients, perhaps gathered in rustic baskets among hillsides of heather and clover by barefoot virgin tonsured monks clad in brown burlap while they pray for your soul, as they have done since the late Cretaceous. But there are really very few perfumes you could honestly call all-natural.