Dear Scent Diary, December 15-22

Tuesday, Dec. 15: Parfums de Nicolai Vanille Tonka. I adore this scent – it makes me so happy. Instant good mood. I had nearly forgotten about it, actually, and then I put on my green sweater, the one that's the color of apple leaves in summer, a little too blue to be spring green. I'd worn VT the last time I wore this sweater, and the turtleneck smelled faintly of it. It made me smile, so I reached for the decant bottle. I was cheerful all day.

Wednesday, Dec. 16: Caron Parfum Sacré. Weather chilly. Every time I wear PS, I think – gosh, why don't I just live in this stuff? It's a cashmere sweater. It's gorgeous. (And cheap, wink wink.)

Thursday, Dec. 17: Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur. (I hate typing that out. It's such a stupid name.) Weather chilly; VdF is plum and edgy white flowers – beautiful, but they're wearing Goth eye makeup or something – and then a milky-woody drydown that makes up for keeping me wondering when those white flowers were going to plunge in their stiletto. Wait. That sounds as if I don't really like this stuff; I do. It's just, well, edgy.

Friday, Dec. 18: Dior Dolce Vita in parfum. Weather cold and sort of itchy, pre-snow. It began to snow about 3pm and didn't stop all night. The weather guys were saying 18 inches, but we only got about 9 or 10. DV was gorgeous, all fruit liqueur and creamy ylang and woods.

Saturday, Dec. 19: an unplanned perfume-less day. I slept late (snow will do that to you), got up and cleaned house. By the time I had my shower in the afternoon, I didn't feel like wearing any scent.

Sunday, Dec. 20: Ormonde Jayne Ta'if and Caron Parfum Sacré, for comparison testing. Also for pleasure, as I love both. Weather still cold, with snow on the ground, but we had a beautiful fire in the fireplace. No church due to snow; we stayed home and I wrapped presents.

Monday, Dec. 21: Shalimar Lite (Blue Juice), with a dab of vintage Shalimar pdt. I find that this combo approximates the effect of the original Shalimar Eau Legere, except that it lacks the lovely, lovely jasmine of said original SEL. (And I'm not even a jasmine fan!) I'm actually not in the mood for this often – Shalimar can get a little TarNilla Godzilla on me – but it's terrific when there's woodsmoke in the air, as there was that cold morning.

Tuesday, Dec. 22: Mauboussin. Still quite cold, though warmer than any day since last Thursday. I think Mauboussin is upscale fruitcake, with really good dense cream cheese icing, in a bottle. It smells great. I only have a mini, and I keep dithering on whether I need some. I probably don't, with all the similar things I own.

I didn't test anything new this week, which I blame on my general pre-Christmas busy-ness.  I'll be getting back to testing samples in January.  The scent I did wear this week were good choices for the weather, no kudos to me – cold weather and orientals/florientals just go together. Duh. But I'm really, really looking forward to Friday, when I can OPEN MY ALAHINE!!!

Image is Perfume Bottles by WoOd5tOck at flickr.  Somebody sure likes their Intuition...

Dear Scent Diary, December 13-14

I'm planning on making this a recurring feature, in which I document the fragrances I wore and/or tested during the week, including the circumstances and whether they were right for the occasion or not.  To be blunt, my Excel file is getting really bloated, and I'm not keeping track of samples very well at the moment. 

Then, too, I figure this ought to be an easy way to oversee which bottles are getting used, and which aren't. 

I'll start back a week ago, because I had an epiphany, and didn't blog about it because I didn't think it was worth a whole post.  Turns out I changed my mind.  Last Sunday and Monday, the 13th and 14th, my community chorus held its winter concerts.  They went well, no major screwups.  (Hey, you can't count on that.  Last concert, two separate soloists went totally off the rails: one skipped a portion of her solo, which you might not have noticed unless you were familiar with it - the accompanist picked up where she was, and there was no big hole; the other got completely lost and there were several measures of either silence or wrong notes.  Weird, the stuff that happens to amateur vocalists.  Both of those ladies had been just fine in rehearsal.)  I was fortunate this year to be picked for a solo, and for those (few) of you who wanted to know how it went - it was fine, and Monday I'd say was even pretty, although I don't think I ever did it justice.  I was afraid of screwing it up and never really relaxed, which is sort of a metaphor for life, right?  You can overthink things.  Anyway, I think Mozart's music is like whipped cream: perfect to start with, sheer heaven if you do it right, but even bad whipped cream is better than no whipped cream.

Here is the lovely voice of Lucia Popp with the Ambrosian Singers Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Laudate Dominum.  Please click on it to enjoy it - c'mon, it's Mozart.  It's beautiful.  You should never turn down beauty, unless you're in a hurry because somebody is bleeding.  (Oh, and I could only dream of sounding like Lucia Popp.  Sigh.)

My epiphany: I've been singing with choral groups since I was five.  (My mother made me.  That's definitely a story for another post.)  One of the cardinal rules for choral singing, along with Always Have a Pencil and Never Chew Gum During Rehearsal, is Please Don't Wear Perfume to the Concert.  Last week, I Broke The Rule.  (Gasp!) There are people who break rules all the time - a few months ago, The CEO decided to turn left at a red light, because, as he said, "We're late for church, and nobody's coming toward us for half a mile, you can see that far," - but I'm not one of them.  Breaking rules for no good reason gives me hives.  (I gave The CEO down the road for that one, especially since the kids were in the car - let's all chastise him together now: bad, bad CEO.  Bad Example.)

But I was really stressed.  I've had this cold for seven weeks now, off and on, and while it's not really hindering my daily life - it's winter, nobody's freaking out over my tissue use - I haven't been what I'd call In Good Voice since about September.  And I was dreading the possibility of screwing up Mozart, which is a crime against humanity, or at least a crime against the ears of humanity.  So, I confess, I broke the rule, and snuck a spritz of Mariella Burani.  Just one, in the cleavage, so I could lower my chin and catch a tiny breeze of it if I needed it.  MB is a comfort scent for me - it's vaguely reminiscent of Chanel No. 5, which is what my mother wore when I was a child, although it's far quieter and less immediately recognizable to the noses of many.  The low sillage and the metaphysical hand of Mom on my shoulder made it just right.

You know what?  Nobody noticed.  And later, it occurred to me that the whole perfume ban probably came about primarily because of those killah sillage monsters of the 80's.  Which I wouldn't wear to a concert, so I think I'm safe.  And I had a great time singing and smelling Mariella.

Image is Some Perfume Bottles by parfumgott at flickr.  I don't know whose collection it is, but I'm envious.  Check out the vintage Dior in houndstooth, and those Goutals in the gorgeous butterfly boules.  There's also J'Adore and Ungaro Diva, both in pretty bottles, and I recognize at the right front a vintage bottle of Nina Ricci, probably L'Air du Temps.

Perfume Reviews: Ormonde Jayne Ta’if and Caron Parfum Sacré, or Two Peppered Roses

In my Pepper post of a few days ago, I promised reviews of these two scents. (I also promised a review of Lumiere Noire pour femme, but that one’s going to take me awhile; it’s very complex and I need some more time to process it.) It also occurs to me right now that there’s a pretty famous Peppered Rose I haven’t smelled: The Different Company’s Rose Poivree – notorious for its first version smelling like a sweaty jockstrap. Apparently it’s been reformulated for polite society – but no sample has come my way as of yet. Ta’if and Parfum Sacré are two favorite scents of mine; they share a spiciness and a warm, winey rose. I tend to associate them in my head for that shared spicy rose, but of course during the side-by-side test I confirm for myself that they’re different.

This is good. How else could I justify having both? Actually, I own only a decant of Ta’if, which is by far the more expensive of the two, and which I obtained in a swap with dear Daisy the Enabler. Parfum Sacré I have only worn in eau de parfum, as the extrait is no longer made and is both hard to find and ridiculously expensive. Just yesterday, an eBay auction for a 7.5ml bottle of Parfum Sacré extrait sold for just under $150. Yes, $150, for a quarter-ounce! No matter how gorgeous it is – and it’s reputed to be The Bee’s Knees – I can’t afford that. Good thing that the edp is wonderful. I have heard that it’s been reformulated as well and is thinner than the original. My bottle, which came from an online discounter in Feb. 2008, must be old stock. It smells just like the samples that came from The Posh Peasant and a swap friend who bought her bottle in 1998: wonderful.

Today’s experiment was to wear Ta’if on my left wrist, Parfum Sacré on my right. Here are the notes for each:
Ta’if: Pink Pepper, Saffron, Dates, Rose Oil, Freesia, Orange Flower Absolute, Jasmine, Broom, Amber
Parfum Sacré: Lemon, Pepper, Mace, Cardamom, Orange Blossom, Rose, Jasmine, Rosewood, Vanilla, Myrrh, Civet, Cedarwood

The similarities are apparent – pepper, spicy notes, orange blossom, rose, and jasmine are congruent. At the beginning, each scent is strongly peppery and spicy. (And yes, I know that pink pepper is a dried berry, not a true peppercorn. It smells like “fruity black pepper” to me. I like it. Kwitcher whining.)

Ta’if smells quite peppery to me at the start, and it takes a few moments for the saffron to show up. I like that saffron note, whatever aromachemical it is – saffron seems creamy and smooth to me in perfume, and it’s a texture I enjoy. But very soon the dates come to the fore, and for several hours Ta’if is all about creamy saffron, the sweet dried-fruit character of dates, and that beautiful rose. Bookworm likes Ta’if; it’s probably the sweetness she finds appealing. There in the heart of the fragrance, there’s a fresh floral presence which could be the orange flower but is probably freesia, since freesia has a cool, dewy, florist-case quality that my brain calls “fresh.” This is such a pretty fragrance. I wouldn’t call it girly – but gosh, neither would I term it Edgy, as Luca Turin seems to imply in his review of it in Perfumes: The Guide: ‘Wear it when the desert wind blows, as Raymond Chandler put it, “one of those hot dry Santa Anas that … make your nerves jump and your skin itch…”’ Good grief. Wonder how he got Edgy out of the not-quite-gourmand saffron+dates+rose, which I consider the true character of Ta’if, and which lasts for a good three-four hours on me. As the drydown continues, it gets a little less pleasant; the amber is not my favorite type (labdanum cistus), and there’s nothing else in the base with anything near the rich sweetness of the heart. However, by the time the drydown arrives, the fragrance is nearly gone. There is a dreaminess about Ta’if, a head-in-the-stars sort of innocence about it.

On the other hand (literally!), Parfum Sacré begins with very “kitcheny” notes – it’s primarily lemon pepper, both aromatic and a little dusty. Just as I begin to think, “Well, if there’s lemon pepper, I must be cooking fish tonight,” the nutmeggy mace and the cardamom come in, hand in hand with that beautiful winey rose PS shares with Ta’if, and it’s not kitcheny anymore. I smell a good bit more orange blossom in PS than I do in Ta’if, but PS is still largely a rose fragrance in my mind. Oddly, Bookworm smells only pepper and wood in PS, no rose at all, while I get mostly rose and incense. The wood is there, of course, and I sometimes think of Dolce Vita when I wear Parfum Sacré, but I smell a great deal of myrrh too. There is supposedly vanilla in there, and civet, but I am not conscious of smelling them. The drydown of PS is beautiful; it is rich and mysterious and layered. Parfum Sacré is one of those rare fragrances that I wear for comfort, but which also seems very sensual to me. I think of phrases like "the eternal feminine" in connection with PS.  When I wear it, I feel very feminine: both very motherly, and very… well, interested in doing what women do in order to become mothers. It also has that magical quality of melting into the skin, becoming part of me instead of being simply a scent I wear.  It was one of the first scents I fell in love with over the past year, and every time I have worn it since, I’ve been glad I bought it.

Summing up in a few words:
Ta'if is a rich, sweet rose, with saffron and dried fruit, idealistic and young at heart.  I love it.
Parfum Sacré is a rich, warm rose, with pepper and wood and incense, emphatically womanly.  I love it deeply.

Top image: Rose Bouquet Well-Defended by bartholmy at flickr.
Second image is from ormondejayne.com.
Third image is from fragrancenet.com.

Mind Your Language, Part One

So I've been reading Julie and Julia: A Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell, lately, and I have this whole gigantor list of things I want to say about it, but it's difficult to know where to start.  Also, I know that I'm going to tick somebody off, because not everything I have to say is positive.  (No, I haven't seen the movie yet.  Yes, I know I'm about three years behind everybody else in reading this thing, but - hey, I have a life, you  know.)

I'm going to come at this from an oblique angle and talk about one of the things that bugs me most about the book: the language.  It is, shall we say, Not Suitable For Public Consumption.  Bookworm asked if she could read it, and I had to say no.  (She's fourteen, and easily shocked.  I'll never forget the time I picked up The Godfather from my high school library, not knowing what my 16-year-old self was in for, and about six pages into the thing got slapped in the face with a raucous sex scene.  I nearly swallowed my tongue.  Not that Julie and Julia is that bad, but it does have some adult themes.)

And last night, "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was on TCM, so after the kids went to bed, The CEO and I watched the whole movie - straight through, no cuts, no commercial breaks, and definitely no editing-for-TV.  If you've ever seen the thing, you'll know that for the first five minutes or so, nobody says anything other than one swear word, over and over.  Charles (Hugh Grant) wakes up late for his friend's wedding, says, "BLEEP!"  Shows his housemate Scarlett what time it is, and she says, "BLEEP!"  And of course they've got that "the hurrieder I go, the behinder I get" thing going on, where hurrying just makes everything more difficult, so every few minutes something else goes wrong.  Formal clothes are a problem, BLEEP.  The car won't start, BLEEP.  They take the wrong turn, BLEEP. They get to the church just as the bride's car drives up, BLEEP.  Charles, the best man, has forgotten the rings, BLEEP.

As much as it embarrasses me to admit this, I find it hysterically funny.

If you've ever seen it on network TV, where it's been edited for language (and some adult content), the word dubbed in for the F-bomb used in the original is "bugger."  Yep.  Bugger.  A lot of Americans have no idea what that word is, other than it's something British people swear with and it's not considered offensive here.  In case you don't know what it means, I'll post a link and you can go check it out here.  Go ahead, I'll wait. 

Is that not worse than the F-word?  I thought so.  I still think it's bizarre that somehow "bugger" was an acceptable substitute to the FCC.

Back to Julie and Julia: it too is hysterically funny in parts.  I read a bit or two to the kids over the breakfast table, editing on the fly.  They laughed.  Really hard.  Which brings me to my point: if you do a Find and Replace with all the swear words in the book, and it's still funny, why did it need the swear words? 

If you do the same thing with "Four Weddings," it's not funny.  Your exercise is to imagine Charles' and Scarlett's dreadful morning with a different word expressing frustration.  I like "blast," for its plosive and sibilant consonants and quasi-British sound. Or Winnie-the-Pooh's favorite, "bother."  Try "dang," "darn," or "shoot."  Here goes:
              Charles, waking, sees his alarm clock.  "BLAST!"
              Scarlett is woken by Charles, and sees how late it is.  "BLAST!"
              Charles' suspenders won't cooperate.  "BLAST!"
See?  Not funny.  Okay, maybe the FCC was right.  "Bugger" is funny, and maybe nobody but me cares what it really means.

Julie Powell, at one point in the book, remarks that during her year of blogging about cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, some of her blog readers complained about the language she used.  Her comment:  "...Somebody I don't know from Adam takes the trouble to lament the fact that I use the word f**king so much; people who object to my choice of language always use a lot of asterisks."  Ms. Powell certainly doesn't use the asterisks.  Oh, no.  And she doesn't limit herself to the use of "f**king," either.  If you're interested, you can go and read her blog.  She began posting Aug. 25, 2002, and by the 29th, there's the first of the many swear words.

I will use the asterisks.  Call me hypocritical and prissy, call me a right-wingnut, I don't give a -- ahem, I mean, I don't care.  (Little blogger sarcasm there, please forgive me for that.)  My take on this is that if she feels free to display these offensive, or  potentially offensive, words buck naked on her stage, I can certainly feel free to give them some darn underwear on mine.  Plain white cotton, because it might be boring, but it won't scare your grandmother.

So why is it that the swear word in "Four Weddings..." makes the difference between Funny and Not Funny, but Julie and Julia is Funny, swear words or no?  My opinion is that spoken swear words seem spontaneous, and written words were chosen consciously.

Okay, okay, I acknowledge that "Four Weddings..." had to have had a written script.  Fine.  But they were going after real-life verisimilitude.  And never mind that for your mouth to shoot off an obscenity, you had at one point have had to learn said obscenity.  The book of James, chapter 3, says that the tongue is a fire, and that no one can tame the tongue (but that we should learn to control it!). 

It's a far different, and easier, thing to control the words that come from my keyboard.  I'm just sayin'.  I'll have more to say about Julie and Julia soon.

The image is from a German DVD version of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," from imdb.com.

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.

Winners of Drawing, Dec. 2009

Well, there were four commenters, and I still have a bunchaminis... tell you what: Taz drew names out of his plastic knight's helmet one by one, and you'll each get to pick a mini or decant in the order in which your name showed up in his little paw.

1. Odonata9
2. pitbull friend
3. mittens
4. Patty

Please contact me at malsnano86 at gmail dot com with your email address, so I can offer you the list.  And thanks very, very much for commenting!  I may not mail these until after New Year's, but I promise they'll be forthcoming.

Perfume Review: Teo Cabanel Alahine, or A Joyous Christmas Memory

When I was at college, my university chorus group put on a Madrigal Dinner every year.  It was a longstanding tradition that our director would prepare us to sing eight or nine madrigals, and the students would be in charge of everything else.  And I do mean everything else:  Rent the Newcomb Hall Ballroom.  Plan the menu with Dining Services and pay their employees to cater the meal.  Arrange for the medieval-music club to play instrumental music for recorder, tambour and violin, during the event. Organize the costumes - some owned, some borrowed.  Print and place flyers; organize publicity; print and sell tickets; print programs.  Write an original play set at Christmas in 15th century England; cast it and memorize lines.  Arrange for the fencing club to do demonstrations.  Give each member of the chorus a character to inhabit for the event while conversing with guests.  Learn and perform a medieval dance.  Select certain members to form small groups to roam and serenade dinner guests during the evening.  Prepare decorations, including fabric wall hangings, fresh evergreen garlands, and clove-orange pomanders, and place the hangings and garlands in the ballroom to cover up the white Federal-style mouldings on the fourteen-foot-high eggshell-blue walls.  There are 50 students and twelve weeks in which to get everything done - Ready, Set, GO!  

We called it Mad Dinner, and those four evenings were some of the happiest of my life.  (They were also some of the most stressful, especially the year I was Costume Co-chair.  I think I still have a bald patch on the back of my skull from that experience.)  I loved it - every Mad minute of it.  Pure joy, from wandering minstrels to cloved oranges to funny hats to candlelight to beautiful music.

For me, Teo Cabanel's Alahine is Mad Dinner.

Notes for Alahine:

Top: Lavender, bergamot, ylang-ylang

Middle: Jasmine, Bulgarian rose, orange tree, pepper plant

Base: Iris, cistus, patchouli, benzoin, vanilla, sandalwood, musk

I probably wouldn't have gone after Alahine on my own - I like amber, but if you've read my posts about Opium you know how I feel about resiny Orientals (hint: I'd rather slide down razor blades than spend any time cooped up in a room with them).  I'd ordered a sample of Oha, a dark spicy rose chypre that I thought I'd adore, and a sample of Alahine arrived with it in that package from The Posh Peasant.  Oha I found very beautiful but eclipsed by the stunning L'Arte di Gucci, with which I had already fallen in love; Julia, a soft floral with tangy fruits in the top, is also beautiful in a wistful, innocent way that feels a little naive for me to wear at this stage of my life.  I wasn't expecting to love Alahine, and in fact upon my first test of it, its opening notes skated close enough to "Citrus-aromatic-masculine" that I almost wrote it off then and there.  But by the end of an hour, I found it heavenly.  Upon second wearing, I knew I wanted a bottle.

If I am paying attention to the notes - to what I actually smell - Alahine opens with a zesty burst of lavender and bergamot, which is highly aromatic and therefore difficult for me.  I am coming to expect it, and I know all I have to do is wait ten minutes before a lovely, creamy ylang-ylang will appear and soften the aromatics to a level I enjoy.  Shortly after that, the curtain rises to reveal a floral heart so well-blended that I can't tease out any note except rose, and then only because I've become familiar with the deep winey rose in Caron Parfum Sacre' and Ormonde Jayne Ta'if.  Spices swirl around these abstract flowers, spinning down into the ambery labdanum that is weighty and smooth as a heavy gold-colored satin shawl.   The scent hovers over this rich amber for hours afterward, caressing it with vanilla and patchouli and benzoin, and wrapping it up with a resiny thread.  I don't actually smell any iris, but there is the effect of something cool there that I think must be due to the iris - it does seem like satin, after all, rather than velvet.

If I don't pay close attention to what my nose tells me, but lift my head and go through my day only registering my impressions, I smell this: pine branches, curried fruit, flowers, mulled cider, cloved oranges, candle wax, vanilla liqueur, and the very faint mustiness from a costume that has been stored in the basement under Old Cabell Hall for several months.  I sense candlelight, and laughter, and the faces of friends, voices raised in song, and the excellent feeling of hard work that has paid off handsomely. 

When I wear Alahine, I smell joy.

For a few other reviews of Alahine, click on these links:

March at Perfume Posse

Abigail at I Smell Therefore I Am

Brian at I Smell Therefore I Am

First image:  Natural  Christmas decorating! by LDHumes at flickr.  Second image: Medieval Group by tights&costumes at flickr.  No, it's not my group, although we dressed similarly - I haven't been able to find any photos of the Real Thing, probably because none of us could carry cameras in our costumes!

Madrigal Dinners produced by the University Singers of the University of Virginia are no more.  When Dr. Donald "Coach" Loach retired in 1994, they went by the wayside - seen, I think, as being too much work.  I raise a glass of mulled cider in honor of Coach, who was pictured recently in the alumni magazine, still looking his natty self in a pink polo shirt. 

(I hereby remind myself to someday post about the Kamikaze Tenors.)

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.

Perfume Review: Penhaligon's Amaranthine, or Amaranthigh, or Amaranthingy

Amaranthine by Penhaligon's London, New for Fall 2009
Amaranthine is a corrupted floral oriental for those private moments when everything is anticipation. It opens with a dramatic flourish of spices and tropical green. This unsettling lick of drama is beautifully ambushed by an unctuous accord of jasmine and ylang-ylang, a heady bloom renowned for its aphrodisiac properties, and clove swathed in spices, tea, musk and the rounded beauty of tonka bean absolute.  The perfume is reportedly “reminiscent of the scent of the inside of a woman’s thigh”. *

Head notes - Green Tea, White Freesia, Banana Tree Leaf, Coriander Seed Oil, Cardamom Absolute  Heart - Rose, Carnation, Clove Oil, Orange Blossom, Ylang Ylang Oil, Egyptian Jasmine Absolute   Base  - Musk, Vanilla, Sandalwood, Condensed Milk, Tonka Bean Absolute

You know what? For once, the ad copy is pretty accurate, although perhaps it overstates the "drama" and "aphrodisiac properties."  * The hilarious quote about thighs is purportedly from composer Bertrand Duchaufour, from cosmeticsinternational.  It alone made me want to smell this thing, and people seem to be associating the scent with the word "thigh" now.  Maybe it's just that "thigh" is a funny word, which it is.  Say it six times in a row: thigh thigh thigh thigh thigh thigh.  Kudos to you if you said it without snickering; I couldn't.

And look at those notes, too - does that sound anything like thighs to you??  The notes say "tropical floral with oriental base" to me, and that's a category I like in general.  So here it is the beginning of winter, and I've spritzed Amaranthine four days in a row, to make sure the experience isn't a freak occurrence.  I think, honestly, it would be better in warmer weather.  It's a bit light when one is wearing sweaters and shivering in a cold rain.  But even though it's been less satisfying in early December than, say, Alahine (about which, more coming next week), I say this:  Amaranthine is beautiful.

It starts out with fresh, dewy florals only lightly dusted with spices.  I get very little tea from it, although other reviewers find it more prominent; I get more general "green" notes.  And yes, there's a banana hit to it, probably from the ylang, although it's a green banana thing, not an overripe squishy vibe.  I can't identify rose in there, but the carnation is prominent, as well as the orange blossom. The jasmine is grassy and fresh, as opposed to that indolic heavy Joy-type jasmine that makes me think of dirty panties, and it doesn't stand out. 

Eventually I get down to the base, which is soft and clings to the skin, and still retains a veil of freesia and orange blossom.  I was a bit worried about that "condensed milk" note, but although Amaranthine is a little sweet, it reads as floral sweetness to me rather than gourmand.  At this stage, it smells a bit like skin smells if the weather is warm and it's been most of a day since it's been showered: not squeaky-clean, but not smelly-sweaty either.  Like, you know, skin, warm and slightly moist.

It may be my nose, but I'm not getting of the weirdness some other reviewers have discovered.  Nor do I get the smuttiness that some people have described.  Is it just too cold and/or dry? Is my brain twisted? I'm not sure.  All I get out of Amaranthine is tropical, relaxed, fresh beauty.  I'll be putting my decant away for a few months, at least, and wearing things more appropriate to this chilly weather.  When the time is right, I'll know.

On a related subject (THIGHS!), I'm going to talk about body image.  I have a daughter in her early teens.  She's healthy and fit; she's petite; she's still wearing a few things from the girls' department, particularly dresses, as she finds the juniors' department offerings immodest.  (I'm not complaining.)

But she said to me the other day after track practice, "You know, Mom, I have big thighs." I looked at them and raised my eyebrows.  "They've got muscles.  I mean, you can actually see my thigh muscles. They're runner's thighs."  I nodded.  "I think that's the reason I have trouble finding jeans that fit."  (Yeah, tell me about it.)  But I'm not going to apologize to my kid for giving her the thunder thighs genes, because - honestly? - she's got great legs.  She complains that her broad shoulders make her shirts fit funny, and her muscly thighs make her jeans tight, and how her jeans are always too big in the waist if they fit her hips.    

And she's looking around her high school at all the girls with thin thighs and thinking, How come I don't look like them?, while I'm looking at her and thinking, Hey, that is my basic body shape, just younger and shorter and much, much thinner, and it's beautiful.  It's a swimmer's body (okay, a short swimmer's body!), and it's healthy and athletic and beautiful. 

And I think I want it back.  I've been avoiding exercise for way too long.  Time to remedy that.

Ad copy from Penhaligon's.  Top image: Amaranthine in the limited edition crystal flacon, from Penhaligon's.
Center image: Shield Bug on Globe Amaranth by innermt at flickr.
Bottom image: 2008 Cross Country by nmhschool at flickr.  No, it's not Bookworm, but she runs cross-country and distance track.  I'm so proud of her.

Holy Cow, It's December!

Wow, I can't believe it's the last month of the year.  Time does march on... (duh!)

I have so much to do.  I'm really glad I completed my National Novel Writing Month project a few days ago (yeah, okay, I'll shut up about it now), but I'm very far behind on the whole Christmas thing.  It's December 3:  three days before Bookworm marches in the local Christmas parade, ten days before my community chorus concert, twelve days before we'll go get a Christmas tree, and three weeks before the Small People Living In My House will be pounding down the stairs, demanding to open their stockings and eat homemade cinnamon rolls.

I need a lot more time.  I haven't bought any gifts; I haven't baked anything; I haven't decorated anything.

Next project: Make Christmas happen, simply.  I mean, I need simple and inexpensive and easy ways to make it feel like Christmas around here without doing a lot of the work myself - and I could pick up Better Homes and Gardens or Woman's Day or some other magazine, but that would feel like wasting time.  (Blogging's not a waste of time, is it?  Please tell me it ain't!) Might have to go check out the emergency holiday missions at FlyLady.org, too.

As I'm formulating the Christmas plan, I think I'll start by cleaning up the joint.  (Eek!)  Get all the fall stuff put away, help the kids pack up anything they won't need over the winter months, ditch the "I haven't used this in months" items lying around.  We'll see how it goes.

As an aside, I smelled the Laura Mercier Minuit Enchante' parfum that people are raving about on my favorite perfume blogs.  I don't live anywhere near a Nordstrom's, but managed to hit the one in Richmond a few days ago, in the course of  attending a farmers' conference and, incidentally, visiting my brother in order to hold the new baby.  (He's precious, of course. I got to snuggle him and kiss his little fuzzy head, but not for long enough.)  Anyway, I was expecting a big ol' dusty resiny Opium-like thing, and instead what I got was a gorgeous spice overload.  It spends about twenty minutes in the too-sweet zone, but then it's a pileup in the spice aisle, with freshly ground cinnamon tackling clove, and nutmeg jumping on top of vanilla bean.  I thought it was terrific.  Better, I got some on the inside wrist of my jacket sleeve, so my jacket still smells great too.

On the other hand, my brother, when invited to sniff my wrist, jerked his head back as if he'd been slapped and asked what I'd done to tick off the sales assistant.  As if you couldn't guess, he doesn't care for perfume. Minuit Enchante' is a bit linear, and seems more like a Generally Good Smell than a serious perfume.  I'd rather have Teo Cabanel Alahine, otherwise known to me as Happiness In a Bottle, Winter Variation.  But ME is a nice thing to see in a mainstream release.  Bottle's pretty, too, with that heavy magnetic cap.

Well.  I'd better get cracking on that cleaning-up thing.  I plan to be back tomorrow with a review of Penhaligon's Amaranthine (better known to my swap buddies as Amaranthigh, or Amaranthingy).

Here are links to a few other reviews of Minuit Enchante':
Abigail at I Smell Therefore I Am
March at Perfume Posse
Angela at Now Smell This

Image is Advent Calendar by laurasjoquist at flickr.com.