Poise

I wore Poise to negotiate a merger. By the third hour, the CFO leaned in and said, "Whatever you're wearing. It's making me concede." Bergamot's precision softened by vanilla's depth became my tactical advantage. Twelve hours later, the deal was signed, and the scent still clung to my collar like a secret weapon.

The first spray hurled me back to my grandmother's rose garden. But this isn't nostalgia. It's her defiance reimagined. The oakmoss feels like her hands, rough from gardening, tender when she braided my hair. Strangers stop me to ask, "Who are you mourning?" I smile. "No one. Everyone."

Poise turned my commute into a thriller. A detective followed me off the subway, convinced I was hiding something. "Your scent," he admitted, "it's...suspiciously compelling." Jasmine's innocence juxtaposed with vetiver's smokiness creates an aura of delicious guilt. I've never felt more alive.

As a cardiologist who paints nudes, I crave duality. Poise's citrus cuts like a scalpel, while the vanilla swaddles like a Renaissance drape. Patients relax. Gallery patrons lean closer. My husband says it's the first perfume that smells like my soul: sharp, sweet, and relentlessly curious.

I sprayed Poise before signing the papers. The bergamot's bitterness mirrored my courage. The rose's decay mirrored hers. At midnight, alone in a hotel, the vanilla remained a promise that endings have drydowns. My lawyer asked for the name. I said, "Survival."

As a mathematician, I value elegance in complexity. Poise's layers of citrus top notes fractaling into floral heart equations which haunt my lectures. Students now stay late to debate theorems, lured by the sandalwood's whisper. My colleague accused me of "olfactive pedagogy." Guilty.

Bella, my Great Dane, used to ignore commands. Since wearing Poise, she sits before I speak. The vet says it's the oakmoss which is earthy and authoritative. I say it's the jasmine, which makes me stand taller. Either way, our walks feel like parades now.

Night shifts in the ER demand steel nerves. Poise's bergamot sharpens my focus. The vanilla steadies my hands. A grieving mother once gripped my scrubs and breathed, "You smell like hope." I've worn it daily since. Not for me. For them.

At the opera, a pickpocket took my cashmere but tossed my Poise bottle into the bushes. The police found it by scent alone with rose lingering on frost. Now I keep extras in my safe. Some things are irreplaceable.

Ran into him at the Guggenheim. He mocked my "hipster perfume" until the vanilla hit. Then he froze. "You smell...happy," he muttered. I replied, "I am." He left before Jackson Pollock's drips dried. Poise isn't a fragrance. It's a closure.

Dr. Ellis paused our session to ask, "Is that new? It's...transformative." We spent 20 minutes dissecting why vetiver's smokiness comforts me more than my childhood. I now invoice her for perfume analysis.

At 68, I'm told to smell like "powder and regret." Poise's jasmine is my middle finger to that. My bridge club gasps when I arrive. Bergamot sharp as my wit, vanilla sweet as my vengeance. The vicar complimented me. I winked.