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.

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.