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!

Dear Scent Diary, December 23-29

Wednesday, Dec. 23: Chanel Bois des Iles, Les Exclusifs edt decant.  Family party (well, minus my brother and his wife and the New Universe) at my parents' house. Dinner was ham and turkey with all the usual side dishes; it was delicious.  Nobody cooks classic food better than my mom.  It turned out to be Chanel Day, with Mom in her new (vintage via eBay) No. 5 parfum, my sister in her Coco Mlle., and me in BdI.  Sadly, I was the only person who thought I smelled great, but I did smell great.

Thursday, Dec. 24: Guerlain L'Heure Bleue parfum.  I like L'HB in parfum, though definitely not in edt, where it resembles the medicine cabinet of some evil apothecary.  All the same, I continue to wonder why Perfumes: The Guide includes it in the Top Ten list.  It smells good, and it reminds me of... of... of precisely nothing.  It does not clutch at the heartstrings.  It never brings vivid pictures to my mind.  I mean, honestly, I don't even like Mitsouko, and even I think it's a better perfume than L'Heure Bleue.  Wearing it, I smell sort of like almond pastries, but not really. Why do I own it? It Was Ridiculously Cheap - a slightly-used bottle, missing its front label and being sold by a rejected wife facing divorce, whose husband had given it to her.  (I did get a sample of the real deal from TPC, just to check.  It's legit.)  Why did I put this on again? Oh yeah - Christmas, almond bear claws... I think I actually like this better in the summer: more anise, less pastry.

Friday, Dec. 25, Christmas Day: my new, lovely bottle of Teo Cabanel Alahine, which I reviewed a few weeks ago as I was falling in love with my sample.  The parfum is beautiful, but extremely spendy, and I actually prefer the sparkle of the edp (lucky me!).  I kid you not, this is what joy smells like.

Saturday, Dec. 26:  Morning test scent was Frederic Malle Carnal Flower, a sample I've been saving up for some time.  It was still cold today but not frigid; the snow that's been clogging our streets for a week did melt somewhat. The crystal-clear air made me think of the air inside a refrigerator, and that made me think of a description of Carnal Flower I read somewhere (Donna's, at Perfume-Smellin' Things? I think so), so I dabbed some on.  Review of this one coming soon, probably next week or the week after.  Baked a pumpkin pie, thirty yeast rolls, and that sweet potato souffle' casserole that went over so well at Thanksgiving.  Also made a bunch of country green beans (actually that should be, "I cooked up a mess o' country green beans") and a tossed salad - twelve people for dinner at my in-laws' house.  In the afternoon, I put on some more Alahine.  Someday I may get to the point where I don't feel unreasonably, outrageously, happy when I wear Alahine.  But I devoutly hope not.

Sunday, Dec. 27: Took the extremely crunchy cedar tree down this morning, as it was becoming quite the fire hazard.  We typically cut a cedar around the 15th of December, and then take it down New Year's Day, but I could tell this one wasn't going to make it another day.  We probably swept up a couple of gallons' worth of dead needles - still green, but totally dead.  Eeek.  It's a good thing we weren't all charred to cinders in our beds. In any case, I wanted something very floral, so tried a new layering combo with some samples: DSH Perfumes' La Fleuriste (her version of JAR Golconda - very florist-case carnation) and Parfum d'Empire 3 Fleurs (rose, tuberose, and jasmine).  It's pretty.  It's not sending me into ecstasy, but it's pretty.  After that wore off, I was still feelin' some tuberose, so I grabbed a quick spritz of Bath & Body Works Velvet Tuberose.  Yeah, you can be snobby and turn it down, but I like it.  It's no Fracas, it's no Carnal Flower, it's no DSH Tubereuse, but it's a nice (cheap) warm tuberose with a woody drydown.

Monday, Dec. 28: Back to work. Very cold, sunny but windy.  Tested sample of SSS Winter Woods.  This feels like somebody took a chunk out of Tabac Aurea and bottled it... pleasant but boring, I say.  Read March's partial review of her Lancome La Collection set, and now I'm lemming Climat like you wouldn't believe.   Oh, heck, I have given up on liking this Winter Woods thing... I'm going to go spritz some vintage Emeraude pdt on top.  That's more like it.

Tuesday, Dec. 29:  The dishwasher has chosen this week to start not cleaning dishes, and with five people in the house all day (three children home from school, The CEO home from Virginia Tech until the second week of Jan.), we're piling up a lot of dishes.  Repair guy scheduled for January 14; will I make it to then?  Tested SSS Femme Jolie this morning, which I've heard described as a version of Feminite du Bois, and... no.  Just no.  Remember my shaving cream rant? 'Nuff said.  SOTE: Bulgari Black.  I don't wear this often enough, but it is some Seriously Good Stuff.

Image is L'air du temps RICCI RICCI CHANEL Delice de Cartier FACTICE by parfumgott at flickr.

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).