Get a whiff of this:
You’re inside the meth lab of Walter Hartwell White Sr., also known by his clandestine name Heisenberg in the hit TV series Breaking Bad. Only today he’s not cooking up his usual chemicals to concoct his almost 100% pure, beautifully blue, illegal, and very dangerous brand of methamphetamine.
No, today, he is in your dream, inhabited by the spirit of a master perfumer, and is working away on an assortment of plastics and flowers to create something monstrously unforgettable. There is a pretty French maid milking a cow in the corner of the lab, and a huge bowl of overripe peaches and other indistinct fruits is sitting in giant bowl on top of one of the chemical barrels. The maid starts scolding Heisenberg for not eating enough, and tries coax him into having some fresh milk and fruit to pack some meat on his old bones. Walt, however, is concentrating too hard and doesn’t want distractions. The maid reminds him that the fruit will start to attract flies if he doesn’t chow down, and that we all know how crazy he’ll get it a fly is found in the lab. She bares her full cleavage at him and pouts, and Heisenberg relents. After glancing at the her breasts, He peels off his plastic skins, gloves, and mask, and dives into the juicy bowl of fruit. Oils spray out of the peels and mingle with the chemicals in the air, and sweet juices roll off Heisenberg’s chin and dribble off onto the floor, where they somehow increase in volume and snake their way over the buckets of fresh milk nearby.
You, watching it all, feel slightly nauseous but also very giddy and inexplicably naughty as the plastic floral mix in bin number 2 starts overflowing a bit, spewing up spices, liquified sugar, white flower particles, and something very much like hair spray into the air, mixing with the creamy fruitiness already heavy in the immediate atmosphere. You feel you may soon faint into a state of pure bliss, perhaps after painlessly vomiting.
Rush, created in 1999, is like a poison you know may just kill you, but you cannot help being attracted to it anyway. It’s interesting to make the analogy with drugs, because the perfume itself seems to have been inspired by them – by so-called “poppers” to be exact, a slang term given to the chemical class called alkyl nitrites that are inhaled for recreational purposes, especially as an aphrodisiac. They started initially in the homosexual community and were very popular in the 70s, 80s, and 90s club scene, and cause light-headedness, giddiness, and heightened sensual awareness, all known together as a “headrush.” Yes, headRUSH. Umm, yes, I recall having had a sniff or two of some sort of popper early in my adulthood, though I never knew what it was called until recently.
Fortunately poppers are nowhere near as potentially deadly as methamphetamine, and neither is the fragrance that poppers inspired. Perfume experts have given Rush a lot of interesting commentary. Luca Turin once said that Gucci Rush smelled like “thanks to the milky lactone molecule… an infant’s breath mixed with his mother’s hair spray.” TS says Rush is an outer space creature with “a little bit of the shock of Dylan going electric.” Critic Chandler Burr describes the fragrance as “strong, loud, irresistible, a sultry wind fit to keep everyone stark awake and plotting indiscretions.”
The scent is highly unusual and beautifully constructed – a modernist perfume that is now a classic, even though its bright red, plastic, rectangular packaging was inspired by an outdated video cassette. Yes, this marvelously, explicitly and unapologetically unnatural fragrance created by Michel Almairac and contained in the appropriately loud casing is flawless – indeed a 5-star perfume to me.
Rush is the perfect fragrance for a night out, but as this scent will unabashedly intrude upon its surrounding, it’s not recommend for the office or dinner outings. Rush races into the noses of those it sees in a jovial, confident, devil-may-care manner, indifferent to any other scents that may have been vying for the attention of those same noses. Woe to those smells, as Rush will recklessly and energetically steal the limelight.
I see it as peach fuzz dipped in milk and wood shavings rolled up in chopped jasmine petals and other synthetic florals, then gently pounded with a massage compress made of lycra, and placed temporarily into an unwashed empty yogurt container until ready for its lacquer casing. There is also a va va voom to Rush’s cuddly voice due to the undertones of patchouli, vanilla and vetiver. I’m not sure how this happens, but Rush manages to be clean and dirty at the same time. Astonishing, really, and the scent not only has decent longevity and projection, but can be had for better than a fair price.
From Fragrantica:
- OLFACTORY GROUP: fruity chypre
- MAIN ACCORDS: white floral, patchouli, aromatic, vanilla, fruity, earthy
- TOP NOTES: gardenia, freesia, peach
- MIDDLE NOTES: Damask (Turkish) rose, coriander, jasmine
- BASE NOTES: vanilla, patchouli, vetiver