I smell following purge, awareness essentially shot (10)
I believe the answer is:
iridescent
'shot' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'i smell following purge awareness essentially' is the wordplay.
'smell' becomes 'scent' (scenting is a kind of smelling).
'following' says to put letters next to each other.
'purge' becomes 'rid' (I've seen this in other clues).
'essentially' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle of 'awareness' is 'e'.
'rid'+'e'='ride'
'scent' after 'ride' is 'ridescent'.
'i'+'ridescent'='IRIDESCENT'
(Other definitions for iridescent that I've seen before include "Sparkling" , "shimmering with colour" , "Shimmering with rainbow colours (anag of 1 across, 9 and 23)" , "flashing colours" , "Eye-catching" .)