I loved L’Artisan Parfumeur Dzing! from the moment I first smelled it, and even before letting the scent settle, I’d bought a bottle. I loved the caramelly leather and gasoline and the musky, animalic drydown. In the throes of enthusiasm, I raved to a good friend about Dzing! and sprayed it up her arm. She liked it, too. Before long, she’d bought a bottle and was telling me how often people complimented her on it.

Perhaps you are a bigger person than I am, and you would have been happy that the perfume brought her so much pleasure. Not me. When she told me she wanted to wear Dzing!, too, I was irritated. I encouraged her to try Bvlgari Black and tried to stack the deck in its favor by telling her she could buy it less expensively; it was a groundbreaking scent; I knew a really sexy guy who wore it; etc. She still wanted Dzing!.

To some extent, it was my own fault that she’d taken over Dzing!. I’d been sharing perfume samples with her and even gave her my bottle of Guerlain Vetiver when it turned soapy on me. I told her where she could buy a large bottle of Patou Vacances for fifty dollars, and I spent way too much time on my soapbox about how the art of scent takes a back seat to arts associated with the other senses. Plus, I was complimented that she’d adopted a few of my other loves, including Caetano Veloso, hand-tooled wallets, Lillet, and Thin Man movies.

Then she told me that she’d introduced the bartender at a pretentious bar, one I’d regularly dissed, to my favorite summer cocktail, a tasty but obscure drink that used to be served at the Ritz in Paris just after World War II. The bartender promptly added it to the menu of special cocktails (curiously naming it the "David Niven"). That was the final straw. Like a baby, I began to proselytize Dzing! everywhere I went. If I couldn’t have it to myself, no one else could either. Now, three of my friends, one friend’s sister, another friend’s husband, and the owner of my favorite vintage clothing store are all Dzing! fans. L’Artisan should notice a sharp regional spike in Dzing! sales.

Of course, Dzing! is still in my top ten, but, as is true of every fragrance I’ve loved, others have come and gone as favorites since then. If I’d thought about it, maybe I wouldn’t have been so petty about Dzing!, especially with a friend I value so much. After all, it’s not like I invented it. I’m ashamed of my jealousy, and I really am trying to be a better person. But I’ll tell you this: she’s never going to see my bottle of Ormonde Woman.