Winter Picks 2010

So everybody else is doing their Top 10 Winter lists... I'm just presenting a few scents that I reach for in cold weather.

Teo Cabanel Alahine - I continue to insist that this is happiness in a bottle.

I always have a Dark Rose on hand, like Caron Parfum Sacre or Amouage Lyric Woman. Dark Roses like these seem particularly lovely in cold weather.  Both of these have a beautiful translucent rose, some cool, deep incense, and the warmth of woods.

Chanel Bois des Iles - warm, woody, elegant.  Acceptable substitute:  SSS Champagne de Bois is a remarkably similar fragrance, and it's reasonably priced, which is a blessing in these times when that 200ml bottle of Les Exclusifs runs $210, and the parfum is both difficult to obtain and horrendously expensive.  It may not have all the cachet of the Chanel (oh, that Chanel iris!), but Champagne de Bois is beautiful, and my second favorite in the Sonoma Scent Studio Line.

Parfums de Nicolai Vanille Tonka - totally unserious, totally joy-making.  Wearing it is like drinking Heritage Dr. Pepper (made with, gasp, sugar! the utter decadence of it!) - always a treat.  This one makes me giddy: aromatic lime and tangerine, spicy-floral carnation, a rummy vanilla, the smoky tang of frankincense.  This was my very first decant purchase, and I just love it all to pieces. 

There are days when I need the promise of spring, and that's when I want to wear a lovely Chilly Floral, like Diorissimo or Lancome Climat or (yeah, like I own this!) Frederic Malle Carnal Flower.   I love the cool florist-freshness I get out of them - I can almost feel the silky petals against my face.  Please note: I'd actually love to own some Carnal Flower.  Send me all your spare stash...

Other stuff I'm enjoying: Floral orientals like Amaranthine and Ubar and LeLong pour Femme, spicefests like Organza Indecence and Mauboussin, and the occasional dab of Shalimar.  Oh, yes, and tuberose... (at this stage, my tuberose choices would be Beyond Love or Carnal Flower - but I haven't tried everything yet.)

Image is Barn in Winter by James Jordan at flickr.

More Dumb Random Thoughts, Mostly Because I'm Having a Snarky Week

...and also because I'm avoiding doing laundry.

So what is UP with all these skunks lying dead on road surfaces around here over the last week?  Hmmmm? Skunk invasion that failed?  Big skunk party some of them didn't make it to?  There's one in the left lane of Rt. 100 near the airport, one in the right lane of Lee Highway not far from the bridge, and one on the road that goes by the high school.  Then there's the one on Broad Street near the bank, and the one I encountered this morning on Bagging Plant Road, on the way to work.  FIVE dead skunks, separated by at least a mile, mile and a half - and you know that if these five didn't make it, there are fifty in the surrounding area.  Eek.

And Perfume Posse is offline so frequently over these last months.  Is it their blog host? Is it their astonishing web traffic?  Grrrrr.  I need my Posse fix.  Hey, now they're online... off, on, off, on...

I've been so busy testing tuberose scents - and all the faaaaabulous swappie samples I've received lately, thanks to all of you wonderful Perfume Hussies - that I haven't had time to wear the scents I already know I really love.  Okay, okay, I did wear Diorissimo on Monday... Vanille Tonka, come to Mama, I've missed you. And don't worry, Tabac Aurea, you're next. Smooches!

And speaking of those tuberose reviews, I'm not gonna finish in January.  You knew already that I wouldn't, didn't you?  I have AT LEAST 22 scents left to review, with the possibility of nine more (if I can get my hands on them, curse Histoires de Parfums and their new tuberose series!).  New Plan: I review these over the next three months... or maybe five months... or maybe I make 2010 the Official Muses' Year of the Tuberose. Yep, I like that.  Year of the Tuberose it is.

Oh, hey, and apparently Sasha Cohen is back.  Girl is still fierce - if I'd gotten to choose what I'd look like, I'd have said, like that, all gamine and dangerous at the same time.

You know what? Turns out I like a hint of civet in my frags: Climat, Ubar, Parfum Sacre, vtg L'Origan, Diorissimo, Sortilege.  (Exception Joy.  But then I've always maintained that it's the indolic jasmine that bothers me in Joy, not the civet.  Why is it that indolic tuberose, or orange blossom, doesn't bother me but indolic jasmine is Total Ho Underwear?  I have no idea.)

Is there anything better than a spiral-sliced Smithfield ham? Sure, there are several things As Good, and lots of things that are Almost As Good, but better? I don't think so.  Okay, maybe filet mignon.  But ham is fabulous. Ham cooking liquid is very weird, though. It's a nice color, and if you strain out all the little brown bits and ham bits and fatty bits, and get the grease out of it, it would make nice gravy. Trouble is, the best way to get the grease out of it is just to refrigerate it and then scoop off the layer of hardened grease after the whole thing is cold. And then what you have is, essentially, Ham Jell-O. Ewwwwww. I guess technically it's gelee, which could become the very fancy-pants aspic, if I were insane enough, and bored enough, to suspend things like poached eggs in it, a la The French Chef. But still, Ham Jell-O. Who in blazes thought that would be a good thing to eat?

So Bookworm actually let me spray her this week with a couple of samples she considered innocuous: one evening it was Kenzo Flower, which we both like, and the next Kenzo Amour, which I like a lot on her, not so much on me, and which she finds “boring.” Progress is being made. Weird that Amour is very creamy on her but floury on me. I know a lot of people really like that rice steam note, but I don't find it interesting beyond the five seconds it takes to isolate and identify the note, sniff it twice for realism, and say, “Yep, there's that rice steam thing.” By the time I've done all that (all five seconds of it), I'm ready to move on. Next!

Perfumes Beloved on the Boards that I Just Don't Get, or, Huh?

I've tried.  Believe me, I've tried - mostly because people love these, and they're willing to say how much they love these, and why.  Anything a fellow perfumista loves has got to be worthy of at least some attention - and I will admit that I generally did not find these scents boring.  All of them have some personality, which is probably why they're not mainstream mall fodder.  But like anything unusual, opinions are going to differ.  These were the scents I tried, hoping for the nirvana that many people experience with them, but found utter FAILURE:

1) Mitsouko. La Grande Dame herself, beloved of many (most?) serious perfumistas, who mourn the latest reformulation and who haunt eBay like Dementors, looking for vintage parfum. I've tried edt. Vintage edt. I've tried edp from two different bottles. Thirteen tests.  I've dabbed, I've sprayed.  Now, I haven't tried the parfum, but that's because it's impossible to find. Also because I don't think it would do any good: Mitsy hates me. Sure, it's tailored and melancholy and autumnal; sure, it would make great armor (if it didn't pinch so much). But here's the thing: I don't think it smells good. Maybe it's that lactonic peach, which I haven't really liked in anything that contains it, or maybe it's the oakmoss, which I tend to find the epitome of standoffish. Aldehydes I don't mind, but Oakmoss = Unfriendly, in my lexicon. The only part of Mitsouko that I like is that warm amberish bit in the drydown, the labdanum, and that's just because it's labdanum and it smells good on its own.

2) POTL Luctor et Emergo. Salty cherry. Play-doh. The smell of preschoolers with sticky fingers. Gah. How do people get “comfort scent” out of this? It just smells like dirty work to me. (I suspect that the concept of “comfort scent” must be highly personal. My own comfort scents include Serge Lutens' La Myrrhe, which smells cold and disjointed to most people, Annick Goutal Petite Cherie, which apparently smells like wet dog and powdery rose to some noses, and the J-P Guerlain version of Shalimar Light, the blue version that is widely regarded to be inferior to the Mathilde Laurent original version.)

3) Insolence edp. Holy Screaming Meemies, Batman! I don't get “swirling bits of L'Heure Bleue,” I get a gang of shrieking parrots the size of Big Bird. Kill.Me.Now. If I'm ever kidnapped and tortured, Insolence would do the job.

4) Joy. Seriously, I don't GET it. It's pretty for five minutes, particularly in the edt, with all those fresh green notes. Then it's well-worn underdrawers, Ho panties, and slut bloomers. I don't smell jasmine and rose, as I do in Chanel No. 5 parfum. No, I have to get postcoital ladyparts. In case I have to explain here, that is not what I wish to smell like.  In public.  I should make it clear that I have tried edt, vintage edt, edp, and vintage parfum; sadly, all are far too X rated for me to wear.  Jasmine does this to me from time to time.

5) Chanel Cuir de Russie. “Leather luxury”? “Fancy leather upholstery”? No. NO. What I got out of that was full-on, 3D realistic, cattle working pens. Dust, iodine, dusty fur, raw cowhide (I live on a cattle farm, remember?) followed by the dustiest, powderiest, siltiest dry-mouth iris ever. Made me thirsty, all three times I tried it. I'm DONE with it.

6) Frederic Malle Une Rose. Now look here, I love me some Dark Roses, from C&S Dark Rose to the Montale oud-rose combos to Rose de Nuit, with many others in between. But this is a beautiful, voluptuous, velvety rose gone insane: Lucy Westenra in Dracula (the book, obviously), licking blood from her lips, or Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter movies, beauty corrupted and twisted, poisoned and savaged, love-lies-bleeding.

7) Chergui. Yet another one I thought I'd adore. Narcissus? Spice? Hay? Tobacco? The notes are right up my alley, and like Une Rose, this one just misses. Turns out I don't want sweetish spices in my dusty-sweet hay, and unlike Une Rose, Chergui bored me. Then it annoyed me, because it could have been perfect.

8) 100% Love. Okay, I get the idea: chocolate, strawberries, and roses, Valentine's Day in a bottle. I'll admit it's very interesting to sniff, and I sprayed it several times just to smell it happen in 3D: choco-berry-rose-chouli, whee! But no way do I want this anywhere near my skin.

9) Chanel No. 22. I like many of the classic Chanels, as well as several of the Les Exclusifs, and aldehydes are rarely a problem for me. In fact, it's not the aldehydes that bother me here. It's the unrelenting sugariness. Two hours into it, my teeth start decaying. You could call No. 22 superior to No. 5 all you want, but I'd still say you were wrong.

10) Bois de Paradis. Nine tests: the citrusy opening is always wrong on me; I nearly tore my hair out trying to figure out if it smells more like mint or like turpentine. (Either way, it's not nice.) Then there's that blueberry. And before I can even smell much in the way of woods, I get this very very sweet, caramelly amber. The effect is of eating blueberry pancakes with maple syrup at a wooden table, close to where someone has recently cleaned the floor with Pine-Sol. If you're thinking, “Hey, that sounds pretty good,” then clearly I don't want out of my perfume what you want out of your perfume.

A couple of these I do wonder if I ever might change my mind about. No. 22, Une Rose, Chergui... those have the feel of scents that were close to love. Maybe it's my head that needs to change. Maybe more exposure would help.

At the same time, there are enough fragrances that I do really, really love, to think that I need not bother to force anything. If any of those three fall into my lap at some point in the future, particularly at no cost to me, I'd probably manage to fall in love with them. The rest? It is a relief to officially give up on them. Whew.

Top image is from failblog.org.  (This pic was funnier than the "Baby Head Cemetery" one I had up earlier, and gets across the idea of "close but not quite" better, too.)  Middle image is Angry Parrot by Dave Womach at flickr. Lower image is Vampire Girl by *favole* at flickr.

A Dusting of Pepper

Pepper is one of those seasonings everybody always has on hand. It's a basic – a staple, if you will, although when I label the pantry shelf where I keep things like flour, sugar, and Life cereal “STAPLES,” The CEO is wont to snicker and ask where I keep the rubber bands and copy paper.

Ha ha. Very funny.

I always have pepper in the house, with a backup supply in the pantry.  The reason is my youngest child: Taz, aka The Picky One. Although each one of my children has grown up with the very same parents, the very same parenting style, and the very same on-site sous chef (that would be me, in case you're wondering), I have one child who will eat practically anything*, one child who is deeply suspicious of new things but can be convinced to try many of them**, and one child who resists any food that isn't his favorite with the will and cunning and ferocity of the Mossad, less the garroting skill. Which, incidentally, he may decide to pick up on his own, so I'm limiting his TV time to be on the safe side.

At one point, I realized Taz, then a preschooler, was subsisting on a menu that included only the following: Cheerios. American cheese. Goldfish crackers. Chicken breast nuggets. Milk. Red food (Jell-O, ketchup, and red apples, which must nevertheless be peeled and thinly sliced before he ate them).

At later stages, he added foods like plain meats and tilapia baked with parmesan cheese, broccoli, green beans, peas, fries, mandarin oranges, Mini-Wheats, gummy fruit snacks, and quesadillas. Of course, nearly all these foods – bar the fruit and cereal – absolutely must be covered with ketchup.

Or freshly ground black pepper. He'll settle for the pre-ground cheapie kind if he must, but he really likes the kind that has to be mauled before it can be eaten. (Am I reading too much into that, or is his testosterone level just that high?) Taz adores a buttered roll liberally sprinkled with black pepper – sprinkled, I mean, to the degree that the surface looks a little bit like our gravel road.

I myself love pepper -- pepper on salad, on beef, on salmon... One of the single most delicious things I have ever eaten, ever, was fresh ripe strawberries tossed with a little sugar and a profligate dusting of cracked black pepper. Sounds weird, I know, but it's synergy; the three of them together are amazing. Pepper smells hot and alive, almost like it might be vibrating inside your nasal cavities. Another favorite pepper recipe involves rubbing a mixture of salt, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, and cumin onto a pork tenderloin before roasting. Easy-delicious. Even Taz eats it!

I love pepper in my perfume, too. (Pink pepper is another item entirely, and that's a subject for a future post.) Two of my favorite scents involve pepper and rose, and I've mentioned them before: Ormonde Jayne Ta'if and Caron Parfum Sacré. Another gorgeous rose scent, Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Lumiere Noire pour femme, has pepper listed in its notes. Other peppery scents I like include Annick Goutal's odd little scent Mandragore, perfume blog fave and sadly-discontinued Fendi Theorema, Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur, and DSH Perfumes' absolutely-gorgeous, wish-I-could-afford-it Oeillets Rouges. Then there's Frederick Malle Noir Épices, which I haven't smelled yet but am hoping to find a sample of in my mailbox sometime in the next month or two.  And the ridiculously-expensive Caron Poivre, which I think I'd looooove but haven't come across yet.

I'm thinking of doing a side-by-side-by-side comparison with the three peppery rose scents soon: Ta'if, Parfum Sacré, and Lumiere Noire. To be honest, it was only when I went searching through my Excel file looking for any pepper fragrances I might have missed that I realized Lumiere Noire has pepper. That one's all about rose and narcissus doing their naughty tango, or so I remember, and perhaps I'd better wear it again on its own instead. I don't think it takes prisoners; it would probably eat Ta'if and PS for breakfast, and I'd be swoony and weak-kneed but no closer to a good compare-and-contrast description.

Coming soon to a blog near you: full-length reviews of the three peppery rose scents.

Top image is Yellow Pepper Mill by deardaisycottage; bottom one is Peppercorns by bazzinator, both at flickr.

*Bookworm will eat just about anything that's on your standard American menu, particularly vegetables, but doesn't like beets or brussels sprouts (both of which I really enjoy).

** Gaze tends to turn down sauces, and things cooked in them, unless the sauce is tomato-based, or Rachel Ray's lovely Orange-Thyme sauce for pork or chicken. He also does not care for beets or brussels sprouts, and, inexplicably, dislikes mashed potatoes and cheese – I'm thinking of having his DNA tested to make sure he's my kid.

STUFF. Christmas presents. Perfume divestiture. Giveaway drawing.

Yeah, I know... it's Christmas, that wonderful time of the year when we give each other STUFF, in honor of the greatest gift ever - which was not, I remind you, wrapped up in paper printed with Santa faces and tied with red sparkly ribbons.

I have way too much STUFF.  (The CEO tells me this all the time.  He's right, but I hate to admit that to him!)  Probably all of us have too much STUFF, and what we really need are things that can't be wrapped up in Santa-face paper:  Time.  Family.  Love.  Kindness.  Grace.  Patience.  Contentment.  Forgiveness.  Relief from worry.

How often do I assume that my friends and family members just need another gift card or sweater or jar of homemade raspberry jelly, rather than my love/kindness/forgiveness?  Pretty often.  It's embarrassing.  It's easy to spend money and hope that some of the feeling that inspires me to do so comes through, without making sure the gift recipients know that I love them.

I gave up making handmade presents a long time ago.  It was even more stressful than spending money, and difficult to make the right thing for the right person.  Cross-stitch makes my hands hurt these days.  So does crochet, and besides, once you've made someone a fuzzy scarf, you really can't give them another one.  Food gifts are handy, and making them doesn't induce unpleasant finger tingling - but they're not very personal.  Once you've made twelve jars of mulling spices, for all your aunts and cousins and the newspaper carrier and your hairdresser, one jar isn't very special, is it?

And if I do nothing, nobody has any fun.  Maybe the way to do this is to spend a small amount of money, and spend some of my personal time as well.  So I'll go ahead and get my brother that kitchen thingy he wants - and write him a personal note, too.  It's a plan, people.

As a side note to all these STUFF comments, I looked over my perfume collection and found things that I've discovered I just don't love.  I'd like these scents - they're mostly miniature bottles, with a few decants - to go to good homes.  So I just posted them on my notepad at makeupalley.com, and will be listing them on my profile at fragrantica.com as well (I'm mals86 at both sites).  There are a few small decants I'd love to swap for, but other than that, I just want these little bottles to go to people who'll enjoy them. 

If you're interested in picking out one of the mini bottles for yourself, post a comment.  I'll get Taz, my nine-year-old, to draw a name out of his bicycle helmet.  Winner gets to choose a prize from my list of Adoptable Minis.  Drawing closes on Thursday 12/10 at 12 midnight.

Image is 3 Presents Waiting by jonmatthew at flickr.

Five for Fall, 2009

Inspired by the Fall Picks posts on many perfume blogs this week, I’m doing my own. And I was going to make it Ten Picks, but since I’m hoping to be doing this again next year, I’ll keep the list short so I can explore different scents in 2010.

I love fall. Love it, love it. The temperature’s generally comfortable. The sunshine (when we get it) is a golden shade we never see in any other season. The wind is bracing rather than icy. The trees change colors; hickory nuts and black walnuts drop onto the drive. Squirrels and chipmunks are busybusybusy. Woodsmoke begins to fill the crisp air, and there’s frost on the ground in the mornings. More than that, autumn has always been for me a time of new beginnings. Feelings rise up in me and can’t be quashed – or forgotten.

For those warm golden days when the sun pours warm cider over distant tweed hills: Sonoma Scent Studio Tabac Aurea. To me, it smells of dry leaves, pipe tobacco, fresh hay, a worn leather bomber jacket, and the warm skin of one’s sweetheart, and an aromatic mossy forest floor, with spiced cider wafting by from somewhere in the distance.

For cold rainy days when you just want a sweater (and a good raincoat!), I want Givenchy Organza Indecence. This is spice cake eaten near a bonfire, so that you smell the spice and vanilla just as much as you smell the smoke and the wood. Cozy, it sticks fairly close to my skin and only wafts gently when I move. I like that.

For romantic evenings, Ormonde Jayne Ta’if casts a spell, with its peppery rose and saffron creaminess. It is delightful, sensual, and a bit dreamy, as if it can’t quite keep the memory of stars out of its head.

For dreary days, when the sun is slow to wake and the sky remains gray, I love Lanvin Arpege. I have a small bottle of the reformulated EdP, and also a tiny bottle of vintage extrait. I really, really wish there were some way to merge the top and heart notes of the reformulation with the drydown of the vintage – the new stuff just disappears when it gets past its harmonic floral heart, but the basenotes of the old are symphonic and jaw-droppingly gorgeous, with creamy sandalwood and crisp vetiver. The middle stage of development in the original is so rich it feels almost decayed. Of course, that effect still seems to fit with leaf mould on the ground and the richness of fruit that ripens in the fall.

For anytime I need a close-to-the-skin veil of loveliness, I would want to wear Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur. I still haven’t smelled the original Black Orchid, but VdF has plenty of personality, and I think the original would, um, scare me. VdF races through plum and very smooth florals (ylang and gardenia, prominently) through cinnamon and woods to a very creamy, luxuriously feminine ending. It’s like a bowl of Feminite du Bois with milk poured over, and it doesn’t disappear on me like Feminite du Bois.

Others I'm enjoying: Lancome Magie Noire, Chanel 31 Rue Cambon, Amouage Lyric, Gres Cabaret, and Shalimar Light.  It might soon be cold enough to break out the Bal a Versailles, too.

Image is Fall in Forest from nancymeowdrew at flickr; it was taken in Virginia in 1991.  This is very much what fall looks like around here.

A Few Swoony Rose Scents

I feel like going off the deep end with some luxuriant, voluptuous, carmined, velvety Dark Rose scents.  SOTD is Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur (did anybody think a name that long was a good idea?), and while it is lovely, I'm waiting for it to wear off. 

I simply want Take No Prisoners Rose at the moment.  I want to reread Philippa Gregory's sensual and frightening Wideacre; I want rose petals in my bath; I want a cashmere sweater in the richest deep red.  I am longing to sniff a couple of new ones - the Francis Kurkdjian Lumiere Noire PourFemme (you can read Helg's voluptuously-written review here- she's clearly smitten!), and DS&Durga for Anthropologie East MidEast (Kevin's more straightforward review is here).

I'm not sure what to wear next, but here are a few of my options.  Most of these are decants, the full bottles being a little out of my price range, which is why I'm careful with dosage - something in my brain goes cha-ching! every time I spray.  Not to mention that most of these are also Grande Dame Perfumes with corresponding sillage...

Amouage Lyric Woman - deep wine-y rose and dry, smoky, astringent incense.  Piercingly beautiful, Leontyne Price singing Vissi d'Arte.  Quite expensive, but in this case, price indicates quality.
Ormonde Jayne Ta'if - a rose of the desert, sweet and deep, dusted with pepper and saffron, standing barefoot under the stars.
Caron Parfum Sacre' - lemon-spice-pepper and rose, flowing into warm vanilla-woods and cool myrrh.  This is the mother that tenderly kisses her sleeping children before becoming a lover again in the bed of her marriage.
Gres Cabaret - rose curled atop a down comforter before the fire, letting its smoke twine through her hair.  Wonderful fragrance, ugly bottle, unbelievably great price.  I think I said something about "toasted marshmallow" before, but it's not sweet - what I was getting at was that cushy, pillowy musk.
Juliet Has a Gun Citizen Queen - rose dolled up for the nightlife, in a violet bustier, fishnets and leather stilettos - and a killer-diller red lipstick.  Very, very sexy.

That Slut Tocade is little too flirty and shallow for the current mood, L'Arte di Gucci a little too imperious.  I'll take my roses rolling in passion today.

Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars - alights,
And is lost in balms!
                                   - Emily Dickenson

At Home in Orientals

When I was young, Opium was the Hot Ticket in Fragrance. And not just Opium, but Cinnabar, Coco, LouLou, Poison, Obsession, Tabu, Youth Dew, and Shalimar. Seems like everyone was just drenched in resiny, spicy, heavy Orientals that, to my young nose, were related to Chemical Spills, Nuclear Power Plant Accidents (anyone remember Three Mile Island? Or worse, Chernobyl?), and Industrial Waste. Opium ruined more cultural gatherings than I could shake a stick at, and all I really knew about it was that it was, duh, an Oriental.

I had a friend at college who seemed to be going through the same things that I was – we suffered through first year together. We conferred, discussed, and giggled over all manner of issues. And we sighed, in tandem and at a distance, over Smoky Charles, who had stunning smoky gray eyes, and Gorgeous John from the Basement, who was as Cary Grant as a college freshman could be. We liked performing in musicals; we both played the piano (she far better than I); we both sang in the chorus; we loved novels and poetry and romantic English love stories. Suzanne and I dithered over whether or not to ditch our long-distance boyfriends, and rolled our eyes at our mothers' ridiculous worries. We haunted the thrift store for elegant vintage night wear and cashmere shrug sweaters – which, at the time, were long out of style - and diamante' brooches. Occasionally she let me borrow that thrift-store black velvet dressing gown with ivory crocheted lace. Together we counseled our friend Beth on how best to flirt with a fun, handsome boy we all knew: Mark ImpossibleLastName.

Three years later, Mark and Suzanne would marry, a few months before the end of college, telling her worried mother that they "just couldn't wait to live together." Gasp! How shocking! Getting married in order to have, you know, S-E-X!!

Suzanne had long wavy strawberry-blonde hair, loved Asian décor, and enjoyed making toast over the bulb in her desk lamp. She could make waiting for a bus fun. Her faults? 1) She simply could not manage to arrive anywhere on time. 2) She could be oblivious to other people's moods. 3) And she wore Cinnabar.
She wore it discreetly, instead of bathing in it as so many Opium-lovers seemed to do, but it was the one most frustrating thing about her. I remember saying to her once, when I was having a supremely bad day (it involved a calculus test, among other things), "I could never wear those Oriental perfumes. They're so heavy and dusty and strong."

She serenely told me, "I know you couldn't, but they're very Suzanne." She shook back her hair, releasing a wave of Cinnabar (ugh), and then smiled at me. "Let's go find something for you." The Something turned out to be a very, very small bottle of Coty Ex'clam-a'tion!, a straight-up sweet rose floral that I eventually ditched along with that boyfriend (um, yes, the one that SSS Tabac Aurea reminded me of). I don't regret saying goodbye to either one.

I spent years afterward saying to people, "I like perfume, but no Orientals please. I don't like them at all." I had no idea what, exactly, an Oriental was, but I thought it meant, "nasty thing that smells like Dust of the Crypt."

Fast forward fifteen to twenty years, and I've gotten interested in perfume again, now that the bombastic 80's and the soap-and-clean laundry smells of the 90's have fallen out of fashion. I rediscover an old love, Coty Emeraude… and am utterly stunned to find out that my Darling Emeraude is, yes, an Oriental.

Oh, yes, it is. And it turns out that many of the scents that I love, that I just adore and feel the most "me" when wearing, are Orientals too. Shalimar Light comes to mind, as does Natori, Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur, Amouage Lyric Woman, Ormonde Jayne Ta'if, Bal a Versailles, Parfum Sacre', Citizen Queen, L'Heure Bleue, Organza Indecence, Bvlgari Black, Rumba, Bois des Iles, Dolce Vita, La Myrrhe, and Tocade.  Whew. And I don't even own all of those – but all of them feel comfortable and warm and lovely, and in some way like a second, beautifully-scented, skin. They're weighty and smooth – ornate and lushly detailed – luxurious and beautiful.

Suzanne and Mark did finish college; they've been married now for nearly twenty years and have four lovely children. I haven't seen her since 1999, when Gaze was a baby and Suz was pregnant with her third. We've only been corresponding through Christmas cards for years, but I have recently found Suzanne's email address and will be contacting her soon. I'm hoping for more news than will fit on a Christmas card. I can't wait to find out what perfume she's wearing these days, and I can't wait to tell her how wrong I was about Orientals!

Oasis in the Desert

This is going to seem ridiculously familiar to some of my perfumista friends: The American Mall – at least in bucolic suburbia – is a perfume wasteland.

I had the rare chance to go to the mall yesterday. The CEO insists that all errands be combined as much as possible, so I don’t often go to the small city/big town in which the mall is located. It’s twenty miles away, a good half-hour’s drive – but I had a dentist’s appointment today, and afterward hit the mall. Our mall has four anchor stores: Sears, JC Penney, Belk, and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Only one of those, Belk, has sniffies available. They’ve got a big sale going on at the moment, so I went in.

I should explain that it always sort of depresses me to read a blog entry about some new commercial release, because I know that I’ll maybe possibly someday get to sniff it – but only if it’s at Belk, which is mainstream all the way, baby. I won't get to stroll into Aedes and smell the new L'Artisan, but things like Marc Jacobs Lola, Idole d'Armani, and Lancome Hypnoses Senses are available.

There were testers for all three at Belk. I sprayed each on a card, and they were either “Bleah, too sweet” or “Meh, boring.” What a waste of aisle space. Belk has all the Estee Lauders, except the new Private Collections – which does me absolutely no good because of that Horrible Lauder Base. They’ve also got some Escadas, the Jessica Simpsons, Queen, Juicy Couture, Ed Hardy, a few Lancomes (Tresor, Hypnose, Magnifique, and Hypnose Senses – no La Collection here), and Ralph Laurens. Oh, and of course they have Chanel (no Les Exclusifs, obviously).

The SA who came over to talk to me about Chanels… doesn’t like them. Oh, except for Chance Eau Fraiche. Which she pronounced Aw Fresh. I mean, I grew up here and I’m used to the local accent, but really. I told her that I liked Eau Premiere and got a blank look, like “what’s that?” I pointed. “Oh. I don’t like No. 5, it’s too heavy and old fashioned. But try this, it’s nice and soft.” She sprayed Allure on a card for me. This SA, at a guess, is at least 40, judging by her skin (and yes, I know that’s not nice of me). Hey, I’m 40… ish… too!

I asked to sniff Coco, having heard from a longtime wearer that it smells softer these days. “No, it hasn’t been changed,” the saleslady says. “You like that? That’s an old one.” She sprayed it for me anyway. I was hoping it would be less Opium-ish than it used to be. I don’t hate it as much as I used to, but… still NO. Dear God, NO.

So now I get why people are always complaining about the arid landscape of mainstream, and why they hate that SA’s are so uninformed about what they’re selling. True, all true. Recently over on Now Smell This, Angela reviewed vintage Millot Crepe de Chine as something of an antidote to an unsuccessful sniffing trip; the comments about perfume SA’s are interesting to read. You can access it here. I just hadn’t realized how bad it is – gosh, if you’re going to sell something as luxurious as perfume, perhaps you should find out something about it, hm?

Lost in the scented desert, trying to find my way out, I finally saw an oasis: Shalimar. At the bottom of the case, lovely blue-and gold tester bottle locked up, the only Guerlain in the place sat on a shelf and glowed at me from amid the dreck. I don’t even wear it – it goes pretty tarry on me and can scare the horses, if you know what I mean – but boy, did it look good! Shalimar is still the Grand Old Diva – and to quote Luca Turin, “God bless Guerlain for still doing this stuff.”

I went home and put on a drop of vintage Shalimar parfum de toilette, and then topped it with a little spritz of Shalimar Light.  It was lovely; the Shalimar TarNilla was just right in the woodsmoke-laced rainy evening.  Ahhhh.
Top image: Sahar (Kavir) by Hamed Saber at flickr; Shalimar extrait at ebay.

Rant: I Don't Want to Smell Like Shaving Cream!

If I can manage to keep from swearing, I would like to say something about fragrance that smells like shaving cream:

I hate it with a passion.

 Shaving cream actually smells good. It’s a good clean soapy smell, on its own, and I do really enjoy snuggling up to a freshly shaven man (thank you, CEO), but I don’t want to smell like that. Really. Seriously, Perfume-Creating Folks, JUST STOP DOING THAT. Please. I’m begging here.  It ruined another drydown again today, and I'm just getting really sick of that.

A short list of scents I’ve tested – either unisex ones or those intended to be marketed as feminines – follows, delineating scents I’ve found to contain whatever-the-&*##-it-is that smells like shaving cream.

• Pilar & Lucy Tiptoeing through Chambers of the Moon (tuberose, amber, shaving cream)
• Ava Luxe Midnight Violet (violet, earthy woods, shaving cream)
• Caron 3rd Homme (jasmine, woods, shaving cream) Okay, okay, this one’s ostensibly a masculine… but worn by many women.
• Les Nereides Imperial Opoponax (soap and shaving cream)
• Parfums de Nicolai Eau Turquoise (citrus, cedar, shaving cream)
• PdN Cedrat Intense (lemon zest, shaving cream)
• L’Artisan Iris Pallida (anise, florals, vetiver, shaving cream)
• L’Artisan Passage d’Enfer (pine, lily, and shaving cream)
• Slava Zaitsev Maroussia (spice, rose, and shaving cream)

GAH.  If I knew what note combination equals shaving cream, I could avoid it. (Lavender, tonka bean, musk? Opoponax?) I don’t even know. And half the time the lists of notes are so sketchy that even if I did know what combo creates sharp-edged-bathroom-sink angst for me, the accord might not be listed so that I’d know to avoid that scent.  Okay, I get it that not all people get “shaving cream” out of those scents. But I do, and I’m not happy. GRRRRRRR!

Fine, I give up, I'm scrubbing this off, and then I'm going to put on way too much vintage Magie Noire (two drops should suffice) and go for a windy walk.  A girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Image is "Angry Woman" at Acclaim Images (no, it's not actually me).

No Perfume Ennui Here... Not Yet, Anyway

I've been reading with interest the posts and commentary at Perfume Posse over the last couple of days: "Taking My Sweet Time" and "Serge Is Not Your B*tch." March and Patty are true perfumistas, fun and engaging to read, and I try not to miss their blog. (I enjoy reading Lee, Nava, Musette, and other posters there too, but March wrote the first post I've listed, and Patty the second. (Link here: http://www.perfumeposse.com/.)

The thrust of these articles is that sometimes, perfume critics/lovers get bored, either with the dreck currently being produced for the mass market, and/or with having to wear and review new things and therefore missing out on the scents they love. Or, with wearing a favorite scent but having to be very cerebral about it and thinking all the time about how one might write a fresh review - spending more time in one's head than in one's nerve endings.

Which I can understand, very easily. I like to cook, but some days it's a struggle to get something edible and nutritious on the table... the only reason I do it is Because I'm the Mom. Because I Have To. And this blog is fun, really fun, but that may be because it's not my job! I love to write, but I don't have to do it, so it's like a vacation.

And I love to sniff perfume, but it's also true that I don't have to do that. I'd be sniffing new things anyway, just for me - and since I'm pretty new to this perfume thing, everything smells new to me, whether it's Lucien LeLong Indiscret (1950's), Yves Saint Laurent Paris (1980's), or that new Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles (this month!)... It's the first time that "behind and needing to catch up" has any sort of benefit for me. And I haven't smelled a lot of dreck, either, although I have smelled a whooooole lot of "Nice, but not thrillin' me." Setting out to smell "the classics" really sorts out the dreck automatically. If some 1950's aldehydic floral or other didn't stick around for a decade, it was probably dreck, and therefore would not even hit my radar screen, unlike a lot of the fruity floral calone fresh berry melon patchouli blah that seems to bore so many perfume writers (and who can blame them?).

A quote from a favorite book of mine, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt:

"Well, it's nine-thirty A.M., said Joe, "and I ain't bored yet."
Joe goes on to describe his morning, describing the busload of tourists scheduled to stop by for a tour of his Savannah house and have lunch, the hairdresser friend working in the kitchen, and the naked couple he found in his bed when he woke up.
"Anyhow," he went on, "my two newest naked friends got dressed. The boy had tattooes on his arms... at this very moment, both he and the girl are in the kitchen helping make shrimp salad for forty polka dancers. Jerry's in there too, cutting Mandy's hair, and that's why I say I ain't bored yet."

And I ain't bored yet either - there's too much going on. So. There you have my two cents' worth (I take checks, if you're wondering) on the matter. Bear in mind that I am still new to perfume interest and new to blogging, and who knows? In five years I may be so sick of perfume that I'll choose to live the rest of my life with only a bottle of vintage Emeraude for sustenance. But I don't think so. We're fresh out of ennui here. If you're all stocked up, you have my sympathy.


Go pick up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil at your local library, if you haven't read it yet, by the way. It's a fascinating read - an unusual beast of a nonfiction book that reads like a novel, based on the time that the author spent in Savannah, GA in the early 1980's and focusing on a murder trial that took place during that time.

There also exists a movie based on the book, by the way, in case you haven't seen it either. I have seen it, and although I do luuuuuv me some John Cusack, I wasn't impressed. "Midnight" is the kind of book that loses a great deal in adaptation for film, since so much of the book consists of the author's commentary (or - equally striking - lack of commentary) on the eccentric people inhabiting Savannah, and the bizarre set of events he reports. Cusack does a great job, as usual, with his detached, ironic mien, but odd characters always seem less odd on the screen than they do on the page. I found myself not caring much about the drag queens, disturbed scientists, freeloading musicians, and rich antique dealers running around the set, although I found them rather compelling within the book covers.

Well, it's Friday afternoon, and I'm about to enjoy another utterly thrilling wet and chilly weekend, jam-packed with housecleaning, laundry, and cooking... but I'll be wearing Mauboussin and rereading "Midnight" at bedtime. My thanks to Bergere for the Mauboussin!

Top image: "Ennui" by Walter Sickert, at unframedart.com. (Note: Walter Sickert [1860-1942] was a painter of German-English extraction, who was a student of James Whistler and friend of Edgar Degas, and whose Impressionist paintings are sombre and often brooding. This is one of Sickert's paintings that helped to convince Patricia Cornwell, acclaimed murder-novel author and fellow Virginian, that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. If you're not easily terrified by suspense, pick up "Portrait of a Killer/Jack the Ripper: Case Closed." That one scared me for months. I won't comment on her conclusions, which are derided by many Ripperologists, but her research was extensive.)
Lower image: Jacket art for "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," photo of Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, by Jack Leigh, at amazon.com.

"Fragrance is the only thing that's about your being, your soul, and it's for people size zero to twenty two and ages twelve to ninety."

-Michael Kors

Image is of "Morning with Rocks 1994" by Alex Katz.

My gratitude to Divina of Fragrance Bouquet blog for the quote.

Vintage perfumes

Confession: I troll ebay. Unlike some of my favorite swap-partners, I haven't become buddies with the lovely Naz at Canada's The Perfume Shoppe, I haven't maxed out the credit cards at luckyscent.com, I haven't asked relatives making a trip to Paris to bring me Serge Lutens bell jars from the non-export line, and I don't have the Washington, DC Chanel boutique's phone number on speed dial... (you know who you are!) No, me, I'm an ebay shark... I have a constant search going for "Vintage perfume," and - not to toot my own horn - have snagged some real, rare bargains over the summer.

I like used bottles. I don't mind if someone has opened the bottle and used the juice inside; I don't care if the seller picked up a battered bottle at a thrift store or estate sale, or made a lucky discovery of Aunt Sadie's Stash of Vintage and Discontinued Perfumes. I don't care, particularly, if a scent is no longer in production and cannot ever be replaced with a backup bottle. I find that vintage perfumes have a presence. They open doors into a magic past, in which I can be that Film Noir Dame, or that Perfect Lady in Chanel, or that red-lipsticked Femme Fatale, or even my younger self...

Some of them I love. For example, I might sell my soul for some vintage, perfectly-kept, Emeraude parfum. In fact, if I had to downsize my perfume collection to one scent (the thought hurts my head!), it would be vintage Emeraude. And I have two bottles of vintage Chanel No. 5 parfum, one more beautiful than the other, that make it easy to see why it's sold so well over the years: this stuff is stunning. And I have a teeny-tiny bottle of Jolie Madame parfum that is so gorgeous that it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Some of the vintage scents are interesting, but not really to my taste. Balenciaga Le Dix was much like Chanel No. 19 in feel, if not in actual smell - cool and businesslike, but lacking the boot-stomping oomph that makes me love No. 19. Patou Adieu Sagesse was pretty for an hour, with a fresh carnation that made me smile, followed by a fast fadeout. Lucien LeLong Indiscret was a richly peach-citrus floral that felt like Real Perfume - and then it degenerated into a Youth Dew mess (as you can guess, I'm not a fan of the big resiny orientals; more on that tomorrow.) Coty L'Origan parfum was, yes, a near twin of Guerlain L'Heure Bleue, but without the angel's wings that lifts L'HB into the air. Vintage Arpege is so rich that wearing it feels like eating way too much dinner.

And some of these vintage scents are just awful! I cannot always tell whether the scent has suffered from age or problematic storage, or whether my tastes are sufficiently modern that I find these scents unattractive. Or, of course, whether I Just Don't Like Them, which happens with even well-received modern niche scents like L'Artisan Passage d'Enfer (Pine-Sol shaving cream!) or Iris Pallida (sweaty old man wearing faded cologne). Lanvin Via was a big ol' chunk of galbanum that never eased into the promised florals; so was Estee Lauder Private Collection parfum. Caron Infini confirmed for me that I must really dislike lactones.

Then, too, I've gone through the looking glass, searching for perfumes from my own scented past. Sometimes I think to myself, Wonder what the original Chloe, or Aspen for Women, would smell like to me now? or Sure wish I could remember what the original Victoria by Victoria's Secret smelled like, and I really wish I'd had the money to buy some way back when. Or, Boy, I really loved Emeraude and Tatiana back in the day; I'd love to wear them again. And then off I go to ebay, fishing in somebody else's closet for a piece of my past. These are the difficult ones to open and smell again. Am I the same person? Clearly not. My nose knows somewhat better than it used to know, and I'm older/presumably wiser/different.

WINNERS IN THE RECAPTURING-MY-PAST CATEGORY:

My 70's-era Coty Emeraude Parfum de Toilette is, unquestionably, Queen of the Drugstore Perfumes. It smells better than I remember, and I love it more than I ever did as a teenager in the 80's.

I had some Diane Von Furstenburg Tatiana eau de toilette in the late 80's - which I remember as being the scent that my mother, the White Floral Hater and wearer of No. 5, thought was the worst thing ever; that 70's bottle of parfum is beautifully spicy tuberose, and brought back memories of college.

I also own an early-90's bottle of Victoria's Secret Victoria - fairly easy to find on ebay, and usually cheap, because Victoria's Secret's marketing department was dumb enough not to put any sort of identifying label on that pretty glass laydown bottle, making it difficult to identify by people who don't remember what it looked like. Luckily (for me!), the bottle is distinctive by shape and by the deep periwinkle-blue cap. Anyway, the top notes have suffered greatly, and it doesn't seem to be just my own bottle - I have two other friends with bottles of this truly lovely chypre floral, and they both say the top notes are frightening, with various hints of Hairspray, Pool Chlorine, and Maple Syrup! However, patience is rewarded - ladies* used to smell like this airy concoction. Official notes are impossible to find (trust me, I've searched), but I can definitely discern rose, violet, a hint of muguet, a wisp of tuberose, and possibly peony, followed by a lovely drydown of what seems to be sandalwood, vetiver, gentle oakmoss, and a cool, dry amber.

* We won't even discuss the enormous changes in Victoria's Secret's inventory and attitude since I first became aware of the brand, mid-1980's, except to say that the idea of "pretty lingerie for women who want to feel feminine" seems to have been usurped by the idea of "garish undies for teenagers who want to show off said undies." Enough said.

My most recent vintage find? Balenciaga's Michelle. Created in 1979 and discontinued some time in the 90's, it was sold in parfum and in EdT. A review should be posted tomorrow - because testing it caused a seismic shift in my attitude toward perfume.

Why perfume?

I've been asked that question several times by my husband, usually in a borderline-suspicious tone of voice: "Why are you so interested in perfume all of a sudden?" I'll have a shot at explaining, because it is a relatively new interest of mine.

A bit of history: I always liked perfume. As a child, I was abetted by my grandmother, who was fascinated with Avon and their quirky fragrance packaging. (At left, Willie the Worm Solid Perfume Compact, ca. 1974. Bambaw bought this one for me. I don't remember how it smelled.) Growing up, I wore Avon's Sweet Honesty, which I seem to remember being packaged in a Rapunzel's Tower roll-on bottle. As a young teenager, I was given bottles of Cachet and Chloe, which I wore but never loved. Later on, I fell in love with Coty's Emeraude and used up a bottle of eau de cologne. As years passed, I wore Tatiana, Aspen for Women, Navy, Xia Xiang, and The Healing Garden In Bloom. My husband bought me Elizabeth Arden True Love, and when that bottle began to smell spoiled, I bought the bright floral Victoria's Secret Pink.

My fragrance choices were nearly always drugstore scents - because I believed that perfume should not be expensive. And if it was expensive, I didn't need it. I laughed at the L'Oreal haircolor commercial that stated, "I'm worth it." After all, perfume was a luxury item. Totally unnecessary. I could live with the cheap scents. Mom had always made do with her birthday-present Chanel No. 5 eau de cologne, or Anais Anais, or Coty L'Effleur. I didn't need the designer stuff.

I was slightly envious of my sister's perfumes: Christian Dior Dune. Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. Although they didn't seem like me, they were clearly classier than anything I'd ever worn.

And then came Velvet Tuberose. I was in Bath and Body Works late last summer, picking up some Aromatherapy Lavender and Vanilla lotion for the aforementioned sister's birthday, and I was wandering around sniffing things. I picked up Chocolate Amber - bleah. I sniffed Black Amethyst - not me. I picked up Velvet Tuberose and sniffed. Sniffed again. And in a daze, I carried that bottle of Velvet Tuberose ($17, on sale) up to the register to buy it, only remembering the Lavender and Vanilla when it was time to pull out my wallet.
I wore it all autumn, and it garnered compliments as well as making me feel wonderful. But I thought, you know, this is not going to be good for summer. There must be more than BBW and drugstore fragrances. There must be something out there that I will just love...

Futzing around on the 'net, I found perfume review sites like Now Smell This (http://www.nstperfume.com/) and Perfume Smellin' Things (http://perfumesmellinthings.blogspot.com/) and Perfume Posse (http://perfumeposse.com/). And a whole new world opened up... I wear perfume for myself. I like the way I feel when I wear it. I might occasionally wear something my husband likes, just because he likes it - but mostly it's all about me.

I like the way perfume changes the way I think: it brings up memories, or suggests new ideas, or invites comparisons to music, to images, to stories and novels and poems. It opens up windows in my head. Wearing it is no longer an automatic "wear pantyhose, put on perfume" act, or an attempt to attract masculine attention (actually, it never was that for me). It's become a form of art that I appreciate more and more each day.