mossyloomings

Summer favorites list, and signing off, at least for a while

2011-06-26T09:07:00.004-05:00

I might as well admit it: as my reluctant and sporadic posting suggests, I have lost the will to blog, folks. I still love perfume, and love reading all my fellow perfumistas' clever and fascinating perspectives on perfume. I love reading about new discoveries and vintage treasures, but I think I may have reached a saturation point in my own life with perfume, and writing about it in this format isn't the joy it used to be. Perfume is still a solace, a delight, a charm of protection, a call to the hunt, and a disquieting mystery. I think I just need to explore it in different ways, and am not very articulate about the experience right now.

See you on the (other) blogs!
Aimee

Here's a summer favorites list to sign off with:

Kiehl's Original Musk
For some reason this used to smell very powdery and uninteresting to me, but now it's just the right mixture of sweetness, salty skin, and hippie funk.

Givenchy Le De vintage eau de toilette
I've been a fan of the reissued "Mythiques" version of Le De for a year or two now, but I never had the chance to try the vintage until recently. It's a lovely, slightly melancholy, minor-key garden-herb jasmine in the eau de toilette.

Ormonde Jayne Champaca
As always, I find the basmati rice and creamy florals in this scent to be supremely comforting but never boring. It makes me feel luscious!

Gucci edp II
This is a new and oddball scent in my collection, but for some reason I keep falling for it. Berries and greenery, then it disappears. But for some reason, it satisfies my heretofore-unheard-of craving for a light berry summer fragrance for the office.

L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!
Great in the winter, and scarily great in 100-degree summers, this is the furry masterpiece I never want to be without.

Vero Kern Onda extrait
When I read the notes list, at first I thought: mace? Like the medieval weapon? Like that sledgehammer spice that seems to pop up only in brick-weighted holiday fruit bread? Nope, like velvet, this is. A more dangerous, transporting, and seductive use of spice and vetiver I have never experienced, and it works in the summer just as well as in the winter.

Givenchy eau de toilette, vintage
Let's see, there's oakmoss, more sweet, bergamot-tinged oakmoss, with a little tender florals in there somewhere. And oakmoss. The perfect summer cologne for those of us who can do without the citrus.

Annick Goutal Un Matin d'Orage eau de toilette
Resisting the urge to hoard much more of this right now. The bitter shiso and petrichor in the topnotes just hooks me every time. Then it subsides into an unsweet but somehow creamy and green floral. Definitely not a perfume to buy unsniffed, but I'm addicted to it.

Miller Harris Un Petit Rien eau de cologne
A more translucent and summery version of L'Air de Rien, or "the lair" as I like to call it. Still very recognizably the skank-monster's little sister, but she opens the windows to let some fresh air in once in a while.

Donna Karan Chaos eau de parfum
Tangy chamomile, woody cinnamon, and musky, nongourmand cardamom are the strongest impressions I get from this strange but compelling perfume. I have to admit after comparing it to my tiny sample of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's sadly discontinued version, Anarchy, I find the DSH slightly better blended, because the cinnamon quality is a little less linear and overwhelming in Dawn's version. But nonetheless, this is a great example of one of my favorite categories: oddball comfort scents.

Wanting What I Have

2011-05-06T09:20:00.001-05:00

I am a lucky, lucky woman, both in life and my perfume hunt! I have been thinking this week: I can't even believe I've had the good fortune to own two different bottles of Lanvin Scandal, in two different states of preservation. I haven't been wearing them nearly enough. I'm taking advantage of the cool, spring weather here in Austin to wear the better-preserved of the two. Whereas one is tarry leather cat-o-nine-tails studded with clove buds that I wear in winter, the one I've been wearing recently is the soft floral leather everyone talks about when they talk about Scandal. It's a supple, bring-the-Bentley-around-I'm-going-to-town floral leather.

I have plenty of many wonderful perfumes. A collection many would be envious of, even. Why do I keep wanting more and different smells? Sometimes it seems like pure greed. For instance, I realized the other day that that bottle of Rosine's Secrets de Rose I'm so coveting? It has nothing on the gloriously weird rose in Magie Noire parfum I already have sitting in my cabinet. That almost-certainly awesome leather I've never smelled yet? Can it really hold a candle to the Cuir de Russie parfum and vintage Lanvin Scandal? I already know the answer to that: hell, no, it can't. I bought Etro Gomma as a blind buy before I realized that. Thank goodness for return policies! And take that lovely white floral on my wish list: Van Cleef and Arpels Gardénia Pétale. Is there really any reason why I would choose to wear it over Balenciaga's La Fuite des Heures, or the reissued Le De Givenchy, Ormonde Jayne's Champaca, or Goutal's Un Matin d'Orage? (Hmm, I might still have room for another white floral in my collection...) Finally, why do I find myself lusting for Agent Provocateur at all, when I have so many lovely chypres and musky sexbomb orientals that I barely wear them? I won't bore you with starting a list--just take Miss Dior alone. Sometimes I don't know why I bother with any other perfume at all, and I've stockpiled enough to keep myself marinating in vintage Miss Dior for years to come.

You can say it's all about the new experiences, the journey, and that's why we keep craving new things. And I know enough about myself now I can say finding the holy grail perfume is not the point. But sometimes even a devout perfumaholic needs to say: enough's enough--I have to give my attention to appreciating what I have already!

Two Very Different Spring Flings: Week-end à Deauville and L'Heure Fougeuese

2011-05-02T10:10:00.001-05:00

Two spring perfumes I've been testing lately are Week-end à Deauville and L'Heure Fougeuese. These are very different takes on a spring perfume. One is an uncomplicated month-long holiday in a bottle, and one is brainy and rather challenging for me. Both are worth a test, though!

Week-end à Deauville, Parfums de Nicolaï
I thought I'd get lily of the valley out of the gate, but instead I get a men's cologne opening. A soft, classy one, to be sure--salty sea air keeps it from starting out as an Eau Sauvage clone or from having any relation to those chemically "brisk" notes of cheap violet leaf colognes. Then the lily of the valley sneaks up on you, but at the same time something warm and mossy, so this is no screeching lily whatsoever. Those of you who are LotV-averse, the floral element here could almost be a water lily or cyclamen. A gentle floral, a bit aquatic, but nothing "China Rain"-ish. Oddly, even though this is purported to be a lily of the valley, it's mainly the hint of mossy undergrowth that reminds me of the structure of vintage Diorissimo, not any resemblance to its iconic LotV. The light-green mossiness purrs away on my skin for a nice long while for a cologne. Uncomplicated and lovely.

Octavian of 1000 Fragrances likes it lots, too. So does Abigail at I Smell Therefore I Am.

Verdict: Makes me ache for a European beach holiday to wear it on.

IV: L'Heure Fougeuese, Cartier Les Heures du Parfum
I know that the top notes are supposed to be a tannic mate tea, but it smells for all the world like bitter, dried-up orange peel to me. Then it turns into a recognizable tea, but not any tea I'd like to smell like. (Actually, the only tea I'd like to smell like would be jasmine tea.) Not a very pleasant smell for me, sadly--just dank tea. Then later it morphs into dank hay, like a hayloft that's gotten rained on and a little rotted.

Don't get me wrong--I love weird scents, I love to drink tea (the danker and murkier and more fermented the better), and a hayloft in the rain is one of the most romantic places there is. But frustratingly, the magic just isn't there on my skin.

Grain de musc loves it. It's on Patty at Perfume Posse's best of winter list. It's even got narcissus, which is a new obsession of mine. Drat.

Verdict: This certainly is a compelling, evocative spring smell, but I want to visit this damp hayloft, not smell like it.

Vero Kern Onda extrait: An oddball balm

2011-04-19T11:54:00.009-05:00

On a whim I sprayed some Onda on this morning from a sample I've had sitting around for a while. Totally wasn't thinking about how very wrong it could be on a humid spring day here. But it's not. I absolutely love it. Want it. Need more of it. I could get very hooked on this stuff, and I know there are others of you out there in the perfublogosphere. It seems bitter at first, but warms into a thing of somber beauty. It's just what I needed as a balm right now, 'cause I'm feeling a bit banged up: my knee is keeping me off my bike, and I sliced my fingers this weekend pretty good, so I'm all bandaged up and sore.

There's an extraordinary quality to Onda. It's quite magical. Here's how it feels to me: You've just rolled around on the moors under an early evening sky, casting spells with the loamiest, peatiest, most fertile, most gorgeous dirt you can imagine. Upon contact with your skin, this dirt instantly vaporizes into the warm glow of single-malt scotch. It's like the glow you get drinking scotch, only all over your skin. That gets you all hot and bothered, what with the glow and the loamy dirt and all, so you call your boyfriend over to your peaty moor, and after getting it on, you curl up together in his leather jacket, which is warm from his body.

Fantasy bubble squashed when you once again realize: "Gosh, it's pretty seriously expensive!" I'm gonna get a sample of the EDP to try that out, too, then decide which one I can't live without.

Onda by Vero Kern has notes that include: vetiver, ginger, mace, coriander. It is available on Vero Kern's own website and on LuckyScent. Anyone want to do a split of this stuff?

P.S. I also just realized that the far drydown of Onda transmogrifies into nearly a twin of Habanita's strange, insistent vetiver-powder accord, which for some reason just endears it to me even more.

Mary Chess Tuberose Roman Bath Oil

2011-04-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

Mary Chess Roman Bath Oil in Tuberose is the flower in all it's gas-huffing, man-eating, waxy, sultry glory. This was the infamous Lana Turner's signature fragrance, and I absolutely believe the stories that she ordered it by the case and had a baby cow if anyone in her vicinity wore it besides her. Look at her over there--she's about to pull some of your hair out if that's Mary Chess Tuberose she's smelling on you.

Luckily for me, Lana isn't around to snatch the bottle I found at an antique mall recently. I didn't know anything about it, and bought it on the reputation of Mary Chess perfumes having an extremely high percentage of natural oils. And yup, this is uncut, unadulterated tuberose, probably darkened in character (not oxidized, though--the oil is still a viscous buttery yellow) and intensified by age. It's almost unbelievably high-octane, even for this jaded smellophile. Unlike Serge Lutens's Tubéreuse Criminelle, whose gasoline-fume opening eventually settles into pretty, sniff this tuberose and you'll understand what a lady with a shady past would truly wear. Feverish, unsweetened, even a little bit bad-tempered. I highly recommend it if you can find it.

Van Cleef and Arpels Gardénia Pétale - Summer is almost here!

2011-04-07T08:56:00.001-05:00

I don't know why I picked this picture except that I thought it was funny and illustrated the manic mindset of everyone here in Austin; we're all trying to enjoy every moment of this lovely spring weather before it turns hellishly hot. The perfume I've been sampling also teeters between fresh spring and sweaty summer, it seems. Part of my swap haul that I received from the lovely Sherri during that Perfume Posse swap a while back included an unanticipated decant of Van Cleef and Arpels Gardénia Pétale. I never would have tried it otherwise, and I'm so thankful I was gifted with it! I want to twirl around in a big circle skirt when I wear this. It's a self-confident gardenia that's alternately leafy, buttery, pretty, and mushroomy raspy. It dries down to a lovely jasmine with a tinge of coconut milk on me.

Has anyone else noticed that raspy quality in the GP? There is a similar velvety/raspy textured nap in another well-behaved floral I'm really familiar with: the new formulation of Le De Givenchy. I really love that dewy jasmine fragrance, and even have a backup bottle. Both GP and LDG are both perfectly ladylike florals, but they have character and laugh lines that I admire.

In fact, GP is so pretty that you may think I'm nuts, but there is a distinct possibility that the thing I like most about this perfume is its trace of Les Nez's Manoumalia man-eating, sweaty, shroomy tropical florals in all their richly pollinated glory. Whereas Manoumalia goes all out, of course, GP just has a little shading of that. Since I can't afford both, the awful question becomes: which do I get? Ladylike, or balls-to-the-wall floral? I'm thinking that maybe I need a full bottle of the more reasonably priced Manoumalia, but another decant of GP when I go through the one I've got. What do y'all think? Which would you go for?

80s Designer Originals: Princess Marcella di Borghese, Calvin Klein original cologne, Gianni Versace original parfum

2011-03-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

Today's three-way review sounds like a weird fume-nerd joke. Three 80s perfumes with the big shoulder-pads and war paint walk into a bar: an aldehydic floral chypre, a fruity chypre, and a fruity-floral oriental.

A while ago I received my sample (won in a draw from the adorable meg at parfumieren, who wrote about it here and here) of Princess Marcella di Borghese. First impressions are of some lily of the valley flowers soaked in nail polish remover, and as it settles into the heart notes, there's a ravishing puff of animalic narcissus and oakmoss. Sadly, there's also something slightly screechy and off. It may be the the acetone that Meg points out in her review of Di Borghese, or it may be a make-up accord of rose, iris, and lily of the valley that has gone off slightly with age. Frankly, it makes me a bit headachy. But the payoff in the heart notes, once they settle, is pretty extraordinary, if short lived. I've been absolutely fascinated to try scents with narcissus in them, and now that I know what to smell for, I can definitely detect the dirty hay quality of narcissus along with the iris, which thankfully develops its way out of the makeup powder. As it dries down, it suddenly mutes itself and leather-purse-interior scent comes to the fore, then it's gone but for the wispiest traces. I think all the money went into that lovely narcissus in the heart notes.

The original Calvin Klein fragrance is at first just "perfumey," which is what I call it when a perfume has wonderful top notes creating a complex little halo effect, but gives me a overstimulated headache in the bargain. It has a provenance that suggests early, before-they-started-pumping-out-flankers artistic credibility that makes it worthy of seeking out for the jaded perfumista. Add in a favorable review from one of my favorite bloggers on vintage perfume, who calls it indispensible, and I was sold on the first cheapo eBay bottle I found. It was $20, so, ya know, not bad for a blind buy. After a few seconds, this fruity-floral chypre mellows into a surprisingly pleasing, slightly raspy concoction of fruit and florals, not at all as hollow-cheeked as many dry 80s chypres. It dries down to a beautiful soft tonka and sweet oakmoss. The off bit in this case is a plasticky quality that the fruit develops near the dry down. I like the top notes and dry down of Calvin Klein better, but the heart of Princess Marcella (that narcissus!) is more appealing.

In comparison to both, the original Gianni Versace is altogether warmer and more oriental in style, glowing with personality and quality materials. It is much more roundly ambery than either. This is why I love reviewing perfumes by comparison. When testing it on it's own this winter, I did not register just how ambery and golden it was. In fact, the amber gets to be a bit cloying for me after smelling it alongside more nimble, quicksilver chypres like di Borghese and Klein. Keep in mind that I'm not an amber fan. But finally the amber lifts its heavy cloak and you catch glimpes of some naughty leather and myrrh. This one is very nice in the far dry down.

So there you have it: three designer 80s perfumes, and between them they make up one well-designed perfume. Wish I could go all Dr. Frankenstein on them.

Image is of Jennifer Beals in The Bride, a campy and awesome 80s remake of The Bride of Frankenstein with Sting playing the doctor.

Fresh Funk: Un Petit Rien by Miller Harris

2011-03-18T08:46:00.007-05:00

Gosh, it takes a while to pull myself back into perfume reviews after the past couple months of moving madness. It takes a discovery that changes my viewpoint, or a desire long held and finally fulfilled, to really get me to write any more. But I'm happy to say that Un Petit Rien scores on both points. I've been intrigued by this flanker to Miller Harris's L'Air de Rien for quite a while now, but have been unable to find anywhere to get a sample, and very few helpful reviews online, except for Katie Puckrick's review. So I finally broke down and bought a bottle during my latest Beauty Encounter order. I'm happy to say it is a win!

Being a dirty-musk lover and someone who really wants backup bottles of Serge Lutens's Muscs Koublai Khan and Annick Goutal's Musk Nomade, along with many more, I've always felt it was a moral failing on my part that I couldn't wear L'AdR. Too much bum-crack, and too much of a fetid lair, not l'air. So Un Petit Rien seemed like the perfect solution, but I kept finding reviews that suggested it was a completely different, blander cologne version of L'AdR. Common sense beat back the yearning for a L'Air I could get with.

Well I needn't have worried. UPR is all up in L'Air's business, with unsweetened neroli to lure you into the musk and slightly ambered oakmoss of it's musty base. It's still a creaky old manse-turned-hippie-squat with moldering books and "stale joss sticks" (as Luca Turin says), but this one is out in the country with wholesome wafts of from the barnyard coming through the windows, along with some encroaching, shaggy green vines. It has a similar quality to Dior's Eau Fraiche--the juxtaposition of good, fresh dirt and citrus with a distinct funkiness in the base. In UPR's case, it's all the awesomeness of L'AdR, but without the year's-worth of dirty underwear in the corner.

You can find Un Petit Rien in the states at MiN New York (which has a retail website) and at the Beauty Encounter website. It is an eau de cologne, so it has less tenacity than L'Air, but I don't find it thin or lacking in oomph at all.

Moving Day Comfort Scents

2011-01-18T22:10:00.003-06:00

I'm moving this weekend--I'll be living with a man-type person for the first time in about six years. This has awesomely exciting prospects and some daunting ones, too. But hey, my books and my perfume are already over at his house, so I'll just have to go through with it, now! It's a new adventure and most of me can't wait, but I'm one of those who also struggle to let go of the comfort of the old and familiar. So as I say "off to goodwill!" to my old life and living in the total chaos of mid-move, I'm craving soothing things, needless to say. Fitting, then, that my comfort scent is one that reminds a lot of people of cardboard and circus animals -- Dzing! by L'Artisan Parfumeur is my bestest bud right now, keeping me from getting all "grrr," myself. And L'Eau d'Ambre by the same company and Ormonde Jayne Woman are the supportive, snappy sidekicks. Can you tell I've been watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as distraction while I'm packing?

I'll be back with a real perfume review in a few weeks. Until then, do me a solid and send me some "just get rid of that sh&^**##@t" energy, wouldja?

Happy Holidays and see you next year!

2010-12-22T09:46:00.005-06:00

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone! I plan on seeing my mom and step-dad, going to some parties, hanging out at a cabin in the woods, and relaxing away from the computer as much as possible. I hope you all have joyful and fun holiday plans, too!

I think my holiday perfumes will probably include a lot of my new crush, vintage Beloved by Prince Matchabelli. I also really want to wear Comme des Garcons Avignon out in the woods. And since I won't be going to work for a whole week, I'll probably wear a lot of skanky wonders, like Muscs Koublai Khan. I'll also be enjoying my new set of travel sprays I finally got in the mail from Ormonde Jayne--I finally broke down and bought Champaca at their Thanksgiving sale. Basmati rice is just as comforting a scent as any old vanilla! OOOhh, and I will be testing a lovely set of Amouage perfumes that I got from a way generous swapper (thanks, Sherri!) during the Perfume Posse swaparama over Thanksgiving.

Fifi Chachnil, Or, A Flirty Angora Sweater Scent Is All the Tobacco Manliness I'll Ever Need

2010-12-09T08:40:00.010-06:00

I've finally gotten around to testing Fifi Chachil's eponymous fragrance, and I've realized that all my searching for the perfect tobacco scent was an eyes-too-big-for-my-stomache situation. I kept trying tobacco scents and never found the right one. Tabac Aurea is lovely but too sweet, La Via del Profumo's Tabac is too butch, Hilde Soliani's Bel'Antonio is too brooding ... you get the picture. An all-out tobacco scent is something I really *thought* I should like, because I love the smell of a pipe-tobacco store that I used to visit in Harvard Square. I didn't really want a tobacco scent, though. I wanted the tobacco backdrop setting the stage. This is why I love Habanita, and that's -- O-KAY.

Fifi Chachnil edp is straight-up pin-up girl in the top notes, but the coriander keeps it from straying toward the gooey, and its green-spicey tartness bridges the tobacco with the rest of the girlie notes. It doesn't rely on the amber except to create a slight angora-sweater fuzz around that tobacco. The only thing that is a tiny bit disappointing is that in the far drydown, I get mostly amber, not the lovely melding of amber and tobacco that I smell earlier in the scent's development. I love the juxtaposition of tobacco and rosy floral, and I think I can put my tobacco hunt down for good.

Some other reviews of Fifi Chachnil are at Perfume Smellin' Things and Legerdenez.

Obvious perfume observation of the day (OPOD)

2010-12-07T15:55:00.004-06:00

My obvious perfume observation of the day: many body lotion formulations of amazing perfumes just don't work at all. I'm curious about which you all feel do and do not work, if you have experience with such weighty and significant matters!

Body lotions that seem to work: florals or chypres without dissonant or aldehydic topnotes, like Joy de Patou, or Le Dix by Balenciaga. Both of these have wonderful body lotions. My Miss Dior body lotion is gooooorrgeous.

Body lotions that don't work: aldehydes or salicylates seem to be particularly difficult to pull off in body lotion form. This is just a guess on the actual cause of the problem, but both YSL's Rive Gauche and Lancome's Magie Noire body lotions were nasty and urinous on me. It could be just a problem with the quality of the ingredients, though. Chanel #5 in the body oil is just...weird, and not at all like the perfume. It doesn't smell bad, exactly, just...oddly loud and herbal. Some fruits can be a problem too, as revealed in my much-longed-for Philosykos body lotion, which smells distinctly like cat pee for a few minutes after my shower. Ew.

I remember the discussion of formulation problems for the different versions of Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely in A Perfect Scent, and I am guessing that lotion formulations are prone to disaster. Does anyone else have this problem? What body lotions do and don't work for you?

YSL Rive Gauche and cool weather

2010-11-29T09:25:00.004-06:00

Hi all! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I feel a somewhat recharged after being as lazy as possible for the last three days. After a flurry of activity to get the dear bf into his new house, and get said house prepped for my having my mom and stepdad over for Thanksgiving dinner, we spent the large portion of the last three days lazily bonding with the new place. What is it about being in a bright little house and having light surround me from windows on all sides that just makes me so happy? It was really a great break.

So CyberMonday, here I am at work, glorying in the rediscovery of Rive Gauche eau de toilette during the cool weather today. I have a bottle of the eau de toilette (even the recent eau de toilette is amazing, though not quite as naughty as the vintage parfum) that has been languishing sulkily in the back of my perfume cabinet. I finally pulled it out today. It's so sad to me that this stunning fragrance just does. not. work. for me in the Texas heat 90% of the year. But hooray, today it does! In cool weather, those famous shimmery-cold aldehydes part to reveal something velvety in the basenotes. The velvet is unfortunately buried by the metallic topnotes in warmer weather. But now that I've read Dane's wonderful review in Pere de Pierre, I'm convinced: it's a yeasty chypre! And y'all know how much I'm into yeasty and bready right now.

SOTD: Dioressence + Philosykos body lotion

2010-11-01T10:19:00.006-05:00

Dioressence (I have an older edt bottle like the one pictured, but it's not exactly vintage) layered over Philosykos is an unexpectedly soft, awesome combo for a Monday morning.

I am fascinated by Dioressence; my bottle must still contain a smidgen of that vintage glory so vividly described by the extraordinarily talented Angela at Now Smell This. It does have an... um... unUSual undertone more than likely caused by cinnamon and patchouli. You spray it and it conjures a magical carpet made of pillows, but then a few moment laters, you start to wonder what, exactly, that funk IS that you're lounging in. Pillows made of roadkill, maybe? Yikes.

Philosykos body lotion likewise has a bit of a challenging opening--there's a distinctly urinous quality to it when you first smear it on, but that goes away in a few minutes, and I like it very much otherwise. I bought the lotion online, hoping it would be a perfect complement to my solid version of the perfume without splashing out on an entire edt bottle. I can definitely say the formulation is a high-quality, emollient, ungreasy lotion that feels wonderful. The scent, after the unfortunate first few minutes, is lovely--a slightly woody and creamy whisper. Sadly, it doesn't satisfy my need right now for more! more! Philosykos. Sigh. The solid, the lotion, AND the edt may be in my future.

Anyway, you'd think that putting these two challenging scents together would be a recipe for disaster, but the creaminess of the Philosykos tames the Dioressence a smidgen, without ruining the luxurious distraction from Monday morning that it provides.

Does this perfume exist? I've been searching...

2010-10-12T09:33:00.009-05:00

I have a holy grail perfume in my head that I don't think has been created yet. It's what I'd call a baked-bread chypre.

I've been collecting perfumes for a few years now, and have yet to come across it. Vintage Guerlains such as Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue have a yeasty quality on the right day, but I have something a bit more buoyant in mind. The new Mitsouko edt is like catching a whiff of baked bread and jasmine incense wafting down the street, which I really like, although it's a bit unsatisfyingly linear. Chanel's Bois des Iles is an incredible gingerbread sandalwood in an explosion of aldehydes. And of course there's Bois Farine, but that's more of an limp, unbaked, wet flour smell, which to me makes it completely unappealing. Some iris materials have a powdery, bready quality, but usually they have a sweetness to them that are more patisserie than boulangerie. Mitti attar, which is an attar made of baked earth from India, has an earthy and dry dark bread (rye bread? pumpernickle?) scent, and of course real Santalum album, or East Indian sandalwood, can have a chewy, balsamic, bready facet to it.

I've always loved the smell of beer and yeast, too. I remember childhood drives to Milwaukee, and getting that hit of yeast from the brewery as you entered town. That was a magical moment when I was young, since I was more used to the godawful rotting eggs smell of sulfur that permeated paper-mill towns in central Wisconsin. Yeastiness is a human smell, too. Muscs Koublai Khan has it; it smells like eating warm monkeybread naked under the blankets, after doing (ahem) other things. The dear boyfriend has a clean, yeasty smell that I love, too.

So because of all these lovely associations with bread, I have this totally imaginary baked-bread chypre perfume all composed in my head: it has the smell of bergamot in the top notes, a heart of baked bread, smoky narcissus, iris, and animalic ylang ylang, and a base of dry sandalwood, civet, oakmoss, benzoin, and styrax. Because it's my imaginary holy grail and only exists in a world where I'm Queen of the Fucking Universe, the perfume's basenotes must dry down to an old leatherbound books and baked bread accord.

I don't know how an accord of fresh baked bread would be created, and it's certainly not a common one, that I can tell. So to all the perfume world: please tell me if anything close to this perfume exists! Or tell me: is this a disgusting idea to everyone but me, which is why it hasn't been created? Do you have a holy grail perfume that hasn't been created yet?

By the way, in searching for a photo for this post I came across this awesome blog post about a bread recipe that I'm going to try:
http://www.ceresandbacchus.com/2006/12/02/Holey-Bread-the-no-knead-phenomenon/

UPDATE: According to the lovely Elena at PerfumeShrine, Serge has heard --nay, anticipated!--my desires and has a new fragrance that smells like toast. Can't wait!

Photo came from here.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!

2010-10-06T14:06:00.005-05:00

It's another spoilaciously beautiful, crisp fall day here in Austin, Texas. I'm wearing Dzing! for work and feeling majorly rebellious, counting the hours left before my ladies cruise (a weekly evening bike ride organized by a friend) tonight and the Austin City Limits music festival this weekend.

Dzing! was inspired by the smells of the circus--cedar chips and hay, animalic funk, leather, and caramel apples --and it has an awesomely incongruous combination of sass and sex. A carny's appreciation for the odd, libidinous, and reckless, let's say. With a dash of bad judgment and a soupçon of wayward foolishness. It's perfect for my anticipation of the music festival, into which I plan to dash headlong.

SOTE: Cuir de Lancome SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie parfum

2010-09-22T10:43:00.007-05:00

I'm on a leather kick lately. And a boot kick. Wore my gorgeous new rubber boots and Cuir de Lancome last night to get out for a drink with a girlfriend. We had such a blast, and it was so lovely to get her out of the house and get her laughing. She's a new mom, and the sleep deprivation and anxiety has really been getting to her.

The minute I woke up this morning, I knew the scent of the day had to be Cuir de Russie. So I have that luxurious thing on, and my leather wedge boots that lace up in the back. I feel much better than yesterday. Every time I wear Cuir de Russie, I think all I ever want to wear is leather scents, and I go on a rampage looking for yet more. But it really is so rare to find good birch-tar-based leather scents. My other favorites are the saffron-infused suede of Cuir de Lancome, the extra-tarred, extra-cloved vintage Lanvin Scandal parfum, the endearingly furry leather of L'Artisan Dzing!, and the heavenly burnt rubber of Bvlgari Black. I would love to get some of Heeley's Cuir Pleine Fleur, but am worried that when I want the luxury leather thing, I'll inevitably go to my Cuir de Russie.

I'm probably weird, but my nose doesn't really read the isobutyl quinoline-based scents as leather. They are more like ashtray. Not that I dislike ashtray -- vintage Cabochard parfum is my favorite ashtray scent, and the recent Diorling reformulation is a close second. But I just can't do Bandit. Well, maybe I will someday when a bottle of the vintage parfum falls out of the sky and into my lap.

But until that day, what should be my next leather, do you think? What's your next leather scent going to be? Knize Ten? Etro Gomma? Serge Lutens Cuir Mauresque? Maybe I should wait for Traversée du Bosphore?

SOTD: Amouage Ubar

2010-09-21T15:42:00.007-05:00

Emotional upheaval again. Shaking with anger and rejection? Check. Barely clinging to composure in the office? Check. So I pull out my stash of perfume samples from my purse. Whew! I find a great scent to help stoke one's inner turmoil and nobly restrain one's more uncivilized urges: Amouage Ubar.

The soaring lily of the valley, the basso leathery civet, the succulent rose and jasmine in between the two -- it's just balanced perfectly and on the grandest sustainable scale, it seems to me. It practically confers noblesse on the wearer. It's grandeur makes you pull yourself upright and keep hold of the raging conflagrations inside. It's a liquid version of winning your spurs -- hmm, maybe you can deal with it all. In fact...you ought to be knighted for your surpassing self control! OK, maybe that's taking it a bit over the top. Again.

Amouage Ubar is ridiculously expensive and beautiful. I got my tiny sample from The Perfumed Court, I believe. You can find other, much more informative reviews at Perfume Smellin' Things,
Perfume Shrine, and Now Smell This.

Serge Lutens Sarrasins

2010-09-20T14:07:00.003-05:00

On my first test of Sarrasins, the initially lovely, juicy bergamot and jasmine top notes (for a few moments on a par with Montale's Jasmin Full) turned into a plasticky grape soda on me, sadly. As it dried down, however, it started to grow on me. That first try may have been an unfair assessement, given that I tried about a half-dozen perfumes in the span of an hour on that particular day.

Now that I try it again on a day when I haven't been overdosed with perfumes, I love it much more. A delicious, subtle, musky, sweet-savory leather reward awaits those patient enough to sit through what seems at first to be merely another restrained, middling-sweet, barely indolic jasmine. The effect sneaks up on me. It's a perfume equivalent of beautiful Moorish tilework that, though it first may seem to be only a humble necessity, can attain a breathtaking artisanal opulence. Sarrasins is low-key and unintimidating for a jasmine perfume, but like those meditative geometric patterns in Moorish tilework, its effect is a harmony that transcends its unassuming materials.

Bois de jasmin says: "Sarrasins includes notes of bergamot, jasmine, carnation, woods, musk, coumarin, patchouli."

Perfume posse has a great review of Sarrasins, too.

Sarrasins is only available in Paris and samples are available at various perfume decanters. Just chalk it up to the days/weeks/paychecks I'll have to spend at the Serge Lutens shop once I finally get back to Paris!

SOTD: Chanel #19 extrait

2010-09-09T09:06:00.005-05:00

Confession: I have what I would consider an extravagant amount of Chanel #19 in extrait. And for someone with an already ridiculous collection, that's saying something. Before getting such things was as obscenely expensive as it now is on the flea bay, I bought two (why on earth did I think I'd need two???) 1-oz flacons of extrait. It was early in my perfume obsession, is the only way I can account for such silliness. Now I know better: if I have a half ounce of something I absolutely love in extrait, I'm pretty much set for life on that one. When I have a lot of something, I feel the need to wear it frequently in proportion. With #19 this is difficult, because it just doesn't go that well with sunny weather, and, um, well, I live in Texas, of all places. Not to mention the buttoned-up quality of the scent, which has often been described as having a bitch-on-wheels kind of severity. I only wear it to work, because it just doesn't fit with my weekend life in laid-back Austin. But today! In overcast, post-Hermine, muggy weather, I biked to work in #19, and it was perfect. So for today at least, I'm a bitch on wheels, wearing #19 to kick some editorial ass.

SOTD: Caron Narcisse Noir extrait

2010-09-01T07:18:00.005-05:00

The scent of the day, in my current recalcitrant mood, is the expansive, sweetly terrifying Narcisse Noir in extrait. I don't think my bottle is vintage, because it has that soapy rose heart with which many recent Carons have been marred. But I don't care. It's the big, sloppy, honeyed orange blossom opening that drew me. Maybe the story about Gloria Swanson having the movie set of Sunset Boulevard sprayed down with this narcotic hot mess matches my own sulky mood today, as I drag myself off to my own, much less glamorous workplace.

Luckily for my coworkers, Narcisse Noir pulls itself together as the rose gives the emotional orange blossom a talking to, and by the time I actually get to work it'll have dried down to the somewhat incensey and synthetic sandalwood base.

The Foggy Hour and the Frugal Perfumista

2010-08-26T09:12:00.008-05:00

I just came back to Austin from an impromptu five-day trip to San Francisco, where I stayed with very kind friends and enjoyed a few days away from the miserable 100+ degree heat. From 100 degrees to 60 with a three-hour JetBlue nonstop flight! It was awesome. Highlights were many, and included: going on a pilgrimage to Muir Woods via ZipCar with a critical stop at the In-N-Out Burger in Marin (the people-watching is awesome), Dynamo Donuts in the Mission (the Caramel de Sel donut blew my mind), City Lights Bookstore, Ten Ren Tea Time in Chinatown, getting good sushi and udon at a neighborhood joint (impossible in Austin) called We Be Sushi, getting in some wonderful geeky friend time playing Settlers of Catan and listening to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings with my hosts, and the list goes on!

I did what I could to buy some new perfume, but it just didn't happen. I talked to the very sweet SAs at Diptyque, who sent me off with some samples. Vetiverio may get a review soon. I used up the entire Eau de Néroli sample on my winter pajamas, which smelled musty after bringing them out of storage for the trip, and it was very nice and not a thing more to be said about it, really.

At Barneys I tried the new L'Artisan Parfumeur, Coeur de Vétiver Sacré, but didn't have my wits about me to ask for a sample, so all I can report is a very nice first impression, darnnit. I know how much I hate it when other people make slight mention of eagerly anticipated new releases, so I'm sorry! I also finally tried Lutens Fille en Aiguilles and was impressed. I expected the fruit compote aspect I'd heard about to ruin my enjoyment of the dry pine needles and incense, because I'm just tired of that stewed fruit thing in Lutens fragrances. I wore the original Féminité du Bois to death in Boston, and it just doesn't work in the climate I now live in. So further testing in Austin would be required, but I really thought the Fille en Aiguilles was excellent--the fruit just gives it a tanginess to offset the dry qualities of the fir resins and incense. I almost pulled the trigger on a long-desired bottle of Une Fleur de Cassie, but after teasing the SA and deciding against it, I may have redeemed myself by helping her sell a bottle of Sel de Vetiver to somebody else.

At Saks, the highlight was Dior's Bois d'Argent. They were very lovely SAs at the Dior perfume counter. Oh WOW, that stuff is so breathlessly beautiful and just keeps going and going... gah, I almost whipped out my credit card for an entire ridiculously priced bottle. It was a close call, but decant it will have to be. I also had a quick sniff of the new Eau Claire de Merveilles, and liked it very much. The original Eau de Merveilles is another perfume I can't ever wear again after loving it to death at a different point in my life, but I suspect that once the Eau Claire hits discounters I may be happy to have a bottle of this.

Well you may not be able to tell from this report, but I actually spent very little time on perfume sniffing in this trip -- it's not a huge thing in San Francisco, from what I could gather. But I did have another perfume love on the trip. I brought a travel-sized decant of my vintage L'Heure Bleue parfum, and as I suspected, it went perfectly with the foggy weather and gave me a chance to love on it during my vacation from the heat. A spicy, sweet, baroque masterpiece to complement the grey fog.

Two Sandalwoods: DSH and Eden Botanicals

2010-08-04T15:00:00.005-05:00

I've been on the hunt for sandalwood, and have been sampling two oils that purport to be sourced from East India. As I understand it, the production and harvesting of true Mysore sandalwood is now so restricted as to make it, if not impossible, at least highly unlikely as a commercial perfume material. Of course sandalwood doesn't only come from the Mysore region or even India for that matter. But having heard so much in the blogosphere about the differences in sandalwood quality, it made me highly curious about said material, so I found some on which to train my shnozz.

DSH Mysore Sandalwood

Impressions: initially pale, astringent cedar-shavings; dusty floral undertones; austere. This is the "white musk" version of sandalwood. I can no longer find this on the DSH website, but when I ordered the sample I believe the description indicated this was a sandalwood essential oil, not a blended scent. If so, it may be very low in concentration.

Eden Botanicals Santalum Album essential oil

Impressions: powerfully rich, creamy and comfortingly scratchy all at the same time; slightly plummy undertones; seems to give off a comforting, heated glow more than a sillage. OK, you can easily figure out my preference: this is amazing stuff.

What's also amazing about the Eden Botanicals oil? I have a teensy amount of very old, dark, congealed vintage Bois des Iles parfum, and pretty much all you can still detect of its once-certainly-breathtaking beauty are the base notes. Those base notes, I swear, have a distinct similarity to this stuff. Am I tripping? Can I say for sure this is the real deal? Nope. But I have decided that my little vial of this oil stays with me in my purse at all times, and the dear boyfriend periodically gets whiffed right out of bed when I accidentally overapply at bed time. Oh well, he always comes back! And in the mean time, I have my santalum album to keep me warm.

SOTD: Encens Flamboyant and Private Collection layering

2010-07-29T08:58:00.007-05:00

This morning I'm really happy I layered Annick Goutal's Encens Flamboyant with Estee Lauder's Private Collection parfum. I initially loved Encens Flamboyant, but it's now only in the heat and humidity that it really appeals to me. Otherwise, it's just way too insistently sweet, ashy pine needles. And the fir sap quality of Private Collection that used to seem so prominent to my nose is now overwhelmed by the florals. But put the two together and it's a magical, dark fir-tree forest. Another combination that works well is the EF with Molinard Musc, because the musk is sweet enough that it doesn't clash with the EF, but quiets it's strident "pine tree! pine tree! pine tree!" I've been feeling from it lately.

Yesterday's Magazette Article: Fabulous Fragrances

2010-07-10T08:26:00.011-05:00

Hi all! Just dropping to share a perfume article titled Fabulous Fragrances that my great-aunt Madonna (not Ciccone!) and I wrote. She is a talented writer who finds interesting stuff to write about at every opportunity, so when she found out through the family grapevine (a.k.a. my mom) that I was all perfume obsessed, she suggested writing an article about perfume. And yes, in the article, that's a picture of just one shelf in my perfume closet of crazy. Here are a few more pics of my closet:

Nuit de Tubéreuse by L'Artisan Parfumeur

2010-05-25T20:49:00.012-05:00

This perfume starts out cold and candylike in equal measure. The candy quickly turns to gasoline fumes and decaying roots pulled straight out of the dirt--but not just dirt. Dirt mixed with overturned chunks of asphalt and cement in an abandoned urban lot. Then a cool, slightly weedy, angelica-tinged tuberose steps out of this chaotic scene, like a Hitchcock blonde on a hot, sticky night who mysteriously steps out of a grave, wipes a smudge of dirt off her satin pumps, and fixes her lipstick. Exhilarating opening.

But I should start from the beginning. At first sniff I thought this was going to turn into the vegetal musk of Strange Invisible Perfumes, which I'm sorry to say I loathe. But I tried it again on another night, and find, thankfully, it doesn't get too damp and dank. After that breathless, candy-asphalt-and-decay-opening, it gets softer for a while, then its complexity spirals out into a familiar but still impressive Duchaufour signature incense. The top notes (Robin at Now Smell This attributes them to a spicy mango in her astute review, and I'd agree) of mango mixed with orange blossom gives way to a mesmerizing, juicy floral and wood mixture warmed by cardamom and just a bit of tuberose. Then as it continues to dry down it gets even more familiar to Duchaufour fans (of Timbuktu, especially) with its strangely beautiful, tart incense.

Nuit de Tubéreuse, after living in it for a while, has a most indelible likeness to sweat and skin mixed with asphalt and flowers on a hot summer night. How does Duchaufour make incense that is both ethereal and tartly sweaty? I'm not sure I can wear it, but I can imagine finding it gradually more addictive, like I now find Les Nez's Manoumalia, which I first briefly described as a flesh-eating floral. This is likewise a truly astounding corrupted floral. It may start like the cool, self-possessed Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, but ends more like her good girl pulled over to the wrong side of the tracks by Brando in On the Waterfront.

I obtained my sample from a prize draw hosted by the kind Marla at Perfume Smellin' Things, and you should read her impressive review too.

And if you're yearning for yet more on this truly weird and beautiful perfume, read the fascinating interview that Denyse of Grain de Musc did with the perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour: Parts I and II.

Picture of Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant in Hitchcock's North by Northwest from suspense-movies.com. Picture of Eva Marie Saint and Marlon Brando in Kazan's On the Waterfront from cinepatas.com.

Camping, Biking, and yet, Perfume

2010-05-16T22:23:00.006-05:00

So I'm not posting much, it's true, but am still a perfume freak. How to tell? Well, I had a scent of the camping weekend, so that must earn me at least some of the perfumista points I'm losing with every blogless week. So what was my SOTC (scent of the camp)? Ormonde Jayne Champaca. Got positive comments on it, too!

The picture is our view from the tent of the Pedernales River in Texas Hill Country on Sunday morning. After a rain-drenched Friday night (dry tent, though, so yay!), we were a teensy bit worried, but the skies cleared up as if on command for our Saturday morning group cruise. On Sunday our whole group put our many talents together and focused on eating, eating some more, swimming, and slooooowly packing up the tents to go home.

Amouage Tribute Attar

2010-04-05T08:18:00.001-05:00

Amouage's Tribute Attar perfume oil bursts out of its tiny bottle with a slightly astringent, almost lemony (is that just an incredible, nonbitter saffron? that's what the notes say) and silvery frankincense, like a combination of the rarest silver-tip Assam tea leaves and velvety fir tree needles.

As the frankincense mellows, it transforms into an unbelievably beautiful forest scent, one so vivid I can almost hear the creaking of the ancient trees around me, and the earth under my feet is padded with a thick, loamy bedding of leaves and fir needles of past seasons. Rose and jasmine pop in for a little while to keep everything from getting too unrelentingly masculine. They feel not like florals so much as shafts of light penetrating the depths, and then gradually they get nudged away by rich tobacco and animalic, leathery, dark beauty.

This is the most powerful perfume I've ever smelled. Seriously, I at first had only a tiny sample, and I just barely scraaaaaape the barest smidgen from the plastic applicator onto my wrist, and it just blooms for hours. Other bloggers have talked about a drop lasting for hours, so I feel the need to specify that one drop would probably kill me and everyone else in a three-block radius. This stuff costs 350 dollars for 12 ml, and that amount would last several lifetimes on me. It'll probably take me a couple of months to get through the 0.25 ml sample, and I keep applying it in microscopic amounts compulsively, since I'm addicted to the path it takes me on each and every time. I put Amouage's Ubar on my best of 2009 list, but Tribute Attar may be on the way to a best-of-all-time level, along with my vintage L'Heure Bleue, Dzing, Cuir de Russie, Muscs Koublai Khan, and Apres L'Ondee. I now own a treasured 3 mls in a tiny bottle.

Annick Goutal Un Matin d'Orage

2010-03-23T21:07:00.002-05:00

This is wet garden loam and beautiful gardenias for about 30 seconds. After which, at first I got only grapefruit in the heart notes, which was very acrid. I've never liked grapefruit -- it smells like cat pee on me. But there's something about it that made me keep coming back in the weeks after I bought this in a blind buy. Its fizzy, unusual delicacy along with a bracingly sour, mineral quality makes me compulsively want to smell it. For me, it's a bit like wanting another candy sour.

So as my head twists around this thing, I get the grapefruit combined with the herbal shiso (also called perilla leaves), and I find myself compelled to say I... really like it. It's got an interesting quality like unripe fruit--or perhaps better described like the smell of grapefruit rind, not the fruit--which all eventually calms down into the florals (jasmine, champaca, and is that maybe the return of the gardenia there after a while? I can't be sure...) and a soft base of indistinct sandalwood.

Have you ever smelled the Shiso fragrance from Roger et Gallet? If you can, you may want to try it in combination with UMdO. I think there's a discontinued Shiso fragrance from Comme des Garcon, too, but I've never smelled it. I happen to have a sample of the Roger et Gallet fragrance spray, and it helped my nose recognize the basil-ish, cilantro-ish scent of shiso and distinguish it from the cat-pee of grapefruit. That, in turn, really helped my nose get past the grapefruit rind and start appreciating the complexity and uniqueness of this scent.

Other reviews of UMdO can be found at Now Smell This, at Perfume Shrine, and at Bois de Jasmin, among others!

Image courtesy of zigmasolutionse.com

Gianni Versace vintage parfum

2010-03-14T17:17:00.001-05:00

The original Gianni Versace parfum is something I've been wanting to try since reading Marina's mighty tempting review in her Perfume-Smellin' Things blog. So the other day, after occasional hunts, I lucked out on fleaBay and found an inaccurately listed bottle of the parfum for $9.99. Whoohoo--here are a few thrills left on the flea, I guess it goes to show.

I can't tell a whole lot about the top notes, because they're a little damaged in the bottle I've got: rich, subtle fruit (no jam or stewed fruit, thank goodness) and florals is my main impression. After a few minutes, though, I get the love. This has a similarly raspy, animalic quality as the vintage Rumeur I reviewed a while ago, but with sweeter, tuberose-laden florals in the middle notes. It's both earthy and nectarous.

And perhaps because this is the parfum, it's quite deliciously relaxed--not as much an '80s-shoulderpads and warpaint type of fragrance as I expected. I definately smell the myrrh and especially the benzoin in the dry down, doing its resinous, sexy thing. But I wouldn't have a problem wearing this to lunch with a girlfriend. Not at all what I was expecting from the Versace fashion house, which I'll always associate with Liz Hurley in thigh-high-slit dresses embellished with silly couture safety pins. But then again, Liz in the first Austin Powers movie may be a good metaphor for this perfume. She had a smart, fun-loving, tongue-in-cheek take on the sexpot superagent in that movie, and that does indeed match this fragrance. It doesn't take its juicy, balsamic sexiness too seriously.

One online source lists the following notes. Top notes: aldehydes, spices, fruity notes, and bergamot. Middle notes: carnation, tuberose, gardenia, orris root, jasmine, lily of the valley and narcissus. Base notes: benzoin, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oakmoss, incense and myrrh.

Reversal of expectations: Havana Vanille and Vanille Galante

2010-03-08T15:01:00.006-06:00

Two short reviews have been calling my name--calling me out of my writing malaise. I often feel like I don't have much to say about perfume anymore, until I come across either a vintage find or a comparison that might be helpful to others. The spiced, rummy opening of Havana Vanille by L'Artisan Parfumeur already has me reaching for the dish soap to scrub it off. I wrinkle my nose and bear it, but after that it just gets worse, with helichrysum (read: maple syrup) gooping up all that ethereal, smoky tobacco-leaf I was expecting.

On the other hand (literally), I'm shocked to like the gently aquatic opening of Hermes' Vanille Galante from the Hermessences line. Its topnotes hush quickly, almost as if it's been chastised, to a soft murmur of lily. A sexy librarian's scent for sure: it makes the velvety lily in L'Artisan's Passage d'Enfer seem positively screechy in comparison. There is fruitiness, but it's a really intriguing mixture of salt and sweet--a banana-ish sweetness, almost like licking up the most delicate tropical dessert you've never eaten off warm skin. I think if Vanille Galante were a dessert, in fact, it would dissolve in your mouth like a traditional hard meringue. There's something endearingly introverted and lisping about it. It makes me feel a little like Apres L'Ondee does--a bit shattered, watery, tender--and that's high praise.

Diptyque Philosykos Solid Perfume

2010-01-20T19:12:00.001-06:00

Like a comforting little worry stone, I like to keep the solid perfume version of Diptyque's Philosykos close, and I take it out when I want a quick dose of comfort at work. It has almost no projection, but it lasts longer than the edt, I find.

Philosykos is often described as the smell of an entire fig tree: fruit, branches, leaves, and the soil it grows in, even. I think the branches and soil come through more strongly in the edt, and the solid perfume emphasizes the green leaves and creaminess. To me, it smells a bit like an avocado shake that you'd get at a Thai restaurant. With a shade of coconut, as well. I usually don't like fruity scents, but fig is just too perfect for even a hater like me to resist.

I absolutely adore the elegant black metal case, too. It reminds me of a little intaglio jewel, it's weighty, the hinge is bomb-proof, and it has a little grey pouch to slip it into to protect it from scratches.

Highly recommended!

Image from beautyhabit.com.

Best of the best 2009: Joint blog project

2009-12-30T00:01:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I wish everyone only the best in 2010. Here is my very random "Best of" list for 2009. Hope you like it.

Best experience:
Happily relinquishing my illusion of control and contented self-sufficiency, because I want this man to always be on my team.

Best home project finally realized:
Building the back deck I've wanted since I bought my house, and then finally having a deck party with dear friends and visiting parrots.

Best trip:
Going to Florida to see my dad get married, even when I was driving back to the airport after three hours of sleep and every time I stopped for gas I kept finding more magic-markered wedding wishes the kids wrote all over my rental car.

Best creative activity:
Haiku postcard exchange, which meant I received not just bills and junk mail in my mailbox, but lovely words such as these from my friend Shawn M.:

your song, a current
strangers walking parallel
sad note sunshine air

Best songs to sing along to at the top of your lungs in the car:
"I Never Had Nobody Like You," M. Ward
"Carbon Monoxide," Regina Spektor (Couldn't find a link to this one, sorry!)
"Twist the Knife," Neko Case (Couldn't find a link to this one either...)

Best musical rediscovery:
The Smiths, all of 'em, but especially live versions of "What Difference Does It Make" and "London" almost make me long for teenage angst again (almost!) so I can do it properly and with a better soundtrack.

Best cheesy pop songs to dance around your house to:
"Umbrella," Rihanna (Thanks for reminding me of the joys of commercial pop, Aimee G.!)
"Heartbeats," The Knife (Synthesizer yumminess.)
"St. Petersburg," Brazilian Girls (I defy you not to dance to this one, sniffle-ushka.)

Best fragrance discovery:
Timbuktu, L'Artisan Parfumeur
How can incense be both smoky and green and speak like a living thing? I have no idea how Bertrand Duchaufour did it, but this one has just the most intriguing things to tell you. Robin at NowSmellThis did a review of Timbuktu that is so similar to my experience that I'm gonna be lazy and just link to that rather than bother with my own at the moment.

Best full-bottle purchases:
Muscs de Koublai Khan, Serge Lutens, from the lovely Nazrin at the theperfumeshoppe.com -- I've repeatedly contemplated traveling to Paris for the sole purpose of getting this skanky wonder, and it finally went export. So when you think about it, I just saved the cash for an entire trip to Paris by buying this bottle. Man, I'm so thrifty!

Woman, Ormonde Jayne, at ormondejayne.com when they had their fall sale -- I've wanted this one for a while, too, and now that I can indulge in spraying it rather than dabbing it from a little vial, it has revealed even more hidden depths and twisty hemlock notes up front. This stuff makes me feel all mysterious, even when I'm just in my pj's sick in bed with a cold.

Best website discovery:
thehypemachine grabs and compiles music tracks people post on the web for free. It's a total win for those of us who hate assessing a new iTunes purchase with a 20-sec-or-whatever clip, and I couldn't have linked up this post without it, either.

-----

There are many other participants in this "Best of the best 2009" project--go read their blogs, too!

First of all, many thanks to Elena at Perfume Shrine for initiating and organizing this joint blog project.

http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/

http://ayalasmellyblog.blogspot.com/

http://bittergracenotes.blogspot.com/

http://qwendy.typepad.com/shoescakeperfume/

http://www.eiderdownpress.com/Perfume_Journal.html

http://www.scenthive.com

http://olfactarama.blogspot.com/

http://journal.illuminatedperfume.com/

http://arosebeyondthethames.blogspot.com/

http://thenonblonde.blogspot.com/

http://underthecupola.blogspot.com/

http://sonomascent.wordpress.com/

http://www.savvythinker.com
http://alliam-aredhead.blogspot.com/
http://scelfleah.blogspot.com/
http://ismellthereforeiam.blogspot.com

Joint blog project! Falling in love: scents and treats for fall

2009-10-15T20:24:00.015-05:00

I've been more interested in music lately than I have been in perfume (gasp!), so I thought I'd merge two sets of favorites together for this joint best-of-fall project, matching perfume treats with musical ones. Hit the play buttons throughout to hear my fall musical treats, and enjoy! Too bad you can't hit play to smell the scents, too, huh?

These are not new scents, for the most part, but they are ones I've fallen in love with recently, haven't flogged too much already, and are in production. I look forward to wearing them all this fall. I own all but four of them, and would like to own them all, but I doubt I'll ever actually shell out for the spendy Ubar and the Party in Manhattan.

**NOTE** So sorry if the music files aren't showing up! The site on which I stashed the files is telling me I've exceeded the bandwidth limit. I'll do what I can to fix it asap, but you might need to try playing during a time of day with less interwebs traffic. I'm a newbie on posting music files online...

What to wear to live a lush life in some small dive: Diptyque Philosykos
Song: Regina Spektor, "Lady"
Regina Spektor flaunts her technique and quirky humor like the perfumer Olivia Giacobetti. The verisimilitude of the fig tree--including leaves, fruits, and especially dark branches--in Philosykos makes it match up well with Spektor's homage to Billie Holiday's plush voice and thorny life. The lyrics, the timbre, the phrasing of "Lady" are all about art not only stemming from life, but demanding, conjuring more life, especially when Spektor tells us she'll make us "cry little wet tears."

What to wear to howl at the moon: Caron Yatagan
Song: Taraf de Haïdouks, "Hora Din Caval"
Feral wormwood, pine, fennel, patchouli, and leathery goodness, not about to be pushed around by anybody, and certainly badly behaved enough to be sent to bed without dinner. This wild gypsy violin groove by Taraf de Haïdouks is the perfect scented equivalent to wearing Caron Yatagan. "Inside all of us is a wild thing," as Maurice Sendak wrote in Where the Wild Things Are, and thanks be that he did. Wear Yatagan when you want a wolf suit.

What to wear to invoke a goddess: Amouage Ubar
Song: Renee Fleming, "Casta Diva"
I'm sure the connection between this luxurious scent and operatic drama has been made before, but I'll just have to be unoriginal here. There truly hasn't been a fragrance in recent memory that so exquisitely performs its aria; every element--diva, orchestra, chorus--is effortlessly modulated. The lily of the valley note is not screechy, but more like Renee Fleming's perfectly trained and mature soprano voice. This fragrance has that magic of live performance in it. The natural materials are almost tangible, like the feel in your head and your chest of a swelling orchestra in an opera house with world-class acoustics. That feeling can't be captured in an mp3, but Fleming singing "Casta Diva," in which Norma invokes the goddess in Bellini's opera, may be as close as we come.

What to wear to a rite of passage: L'Artisan Parfumeur Passage d'Enfer
Song: Cat Power, "I Found A Reason"
Chan Marshall's voice is achingly tender, heartbreakingly, willfully sentimental and also self-consciously artful. I immediately thought of her, and this song, as a match for a perfume with cedar (this gives the scent a body odor feel that makes it feel imperfect and human, and is the thing that makes me love it) and incense (comforting and hazy), but also with a sweet lily note. I normally despise lily, but welded to incense here it is really sublime. The lyrics of "I Found A Reason," simple and repetitive, include the phrase, "what comes is better than what came before," which links this song to the idiomatic meaning of the phrase "passage d'enfer," a "rite of passage." Sadly, the shortness of the song also matches the lack of lasting power of the perfume.

What to wear for a wistful holiday evening: Diptyque Tam Dao
Song: Nina Simone, "Little Girl Blue"
Luxuriating in sadness with a comforting, Christmasy piano-tinkle in the background. Sticks around too short a time. Guh. I could do a whole series just on Nina Simone songs; she owns me. What more is there to say?

What goes with single-malt scotch and stilettos: Chanel Bois des Iles
Song: The Black Keys, "All You Ever Wanted"
This one, the current parfum of Bois des Iles snuck up on me. When I first sniffed it, I was all prepared to be disappointed in its comparatively modern, spare sandalwood in contrast to the vintage juice. Likewise, I can get a little snobby about preferring old Delta blues over new-fangled rockers "doing" the blues. Bois des Iles won me over like The Black Keys won me. Asphalt and scotch blues that smooths out and writhes its way to an unexpectedly melodic, moan-worthy crescendo. Whew. Seriously satisfying, not to mention all you ever wanted without even knowing it. Thanks, boys.

What to wear to take a call from your ex-boyfriend in the middle of the night: Coty Wild Musk (perfume oil)
Song: Joan Baez, "Diamonds and Rust"
Protest-song earnestness can get a little boring, if you ask me, but this song is Joan Baez with a little bitter devilment in her: getting a call from an old boyfriend in the middle of the night, swamped with memories and a tinge of resentment over his stratospheric success (since he's Bob Dylan) and emotional distance. Wild Musk is not a "white musk," which is why I like it best among all the old drugstore musks. It has a tinge of that comforting, woody, unwashed scent that reminds me of being snuggled in a musty comforter in some old home hand-built in the 70s as as refuge from the military-industrial complex. I grew up in the 70s and heard Joan Baez from the womb, thanks to my mother, so this is a nostalgia scent for me.

How to be a hard-hearted lover scent: Ayala Moriel Espionage
Song: Etta James, "Don't Cry Baby"
Unsweetened, commanding, hard-headed soul that softens like Etta James after her initial gun-shot delivery, turning into a woman working her wiles with an unexpected string section.

What goes with gold lame? or, how to be a fame-whore: The Party in Manhattan
Song: The Decemberists, "Los Angeles, I'm Yours"
Okay, it should be "Manhattan, I'm Yours," but this bitingly sardonic, clever hate-f**k of a song is so perfect for this skanky and ultimately hollow wonder that I can't resist. The floral-civet indulgence of the perfume matches the venal self-promotion and greed in gold lamé portrayed in The Decemberists' song. To wit: "but oh the smell of burnt cocaine, the dolor and decay, it only makes me cranky." Wear The Party in Manhattan and you'll feel oddly debauched and dissatisfied.

What to wear to a cabaret of the damned: J'ai Osé
Song: Diamanda Galas, "Twenty-Five Minutes To Go"
Apocalyptically, chokingly tarry, then steadies deliberately into an urgent purr, like the heroine of this live, spine-tingling, avant-cabaret showpiece, who is counting down the minutes before she's hanged. Nina Simone's version of "Pirate Jenny" would also work, and is even more harrowing, but I'd already included one of her songs in the list.

More fabulous blogs are participating in this themed post. Go visit them, too!

The Non Blonde http://thenonblonde.blogspot.com

Under the Cupola http://underthecupola.blogspot.com

Mais que perfume http://maisqueperfume.blogspot.com/

Ayala Smelly Blog http://ayalasmellyblog.blogspot.com/

Savvy Thinker http://www.savvythinker.com/

Olfactarama http://olfactarama.blogspot.com/

Notes from the Ledge http://scelfleah.blogspot.com/

Ars Aromatica http://arsaromatica.blogspot.com/

I smell therefore I am http://ismellthereforeiam.blogspot.com

Tea Sympathy and Perfume http://tea-sympathy-and-perfume.blogspot.com/

Perfume Shrine http://www.perfumeshrine.com

Image credit: Autumn in Sepia by Rick Lundh (via gallery.photo.net).

DelRae Mythique: a true Florentine smell

2009-10-08T10:38:00.010-05:00

I'm sure that one of the main reasons I love iris is because I love Florence. The two are forever linked because the highest quality iris, or orris butter, comes from the Florence region, and has for centuries. I studied art history and Italian there for a semester as an undergrad in the early 90s, so obviously the movie that informed my romantic expectations was Merchant and Ivory's A Room with a View, of course! I rewatched the movie recently, and I swear I can vividly smell Florence again in those street scenes. Remember what the florid lady novelist Eleanor Lavish (the sublime Judy Dench) says? She stops in her tracks on a side street, commanding, "A true Florentine smell. Inhale, my dear."

So when I smelled Mythique, I thought: this is a true Florentine smell. And I inhaled deeply and diaphramatically, as Dame Judy commands. I always do whatever Dame Judy tells me. Here's what I smelled. The candied violet aspect of iris when paired with mandarin is there in the top notes, but this is a modern, creamy, and musky perfume, not powdery or tooth-aching as most violet/iris fragrances are. The candied quality is quickly balanced by that cold stone feel of iris, which is what really gives it the feel of Florence.

So okay, maybe the streets of Florence don't smell like violets, iris, or mandarin (sadly), but the perfume fits with the visual and architectural aesthetics I associate with that city. What I always remember about Florence was the intimidatingly business-like, elegant citizens; the forbiddingly stony building exteriors (massive-looking blocks of rusticated pietra forte and beautiful, grey pietra serena); and most importantly, the experience of going inside those buildings and finding wonderously confectionary interiors and candy-colored fresco paintings that are the sweet, indulgent heart of all that seeming coldness. The color combination of light green and pink is often used in that sweet side of Florence, and the epitome of that aesthetic is the pastel-colored marble of Giotto's campanile (belltower), which is truly the most beautiful, most fantastic piece of architecture I've ever seen. Who builds a big, functional slab of religious architecture in pastel pinks and greens, for goodness sake? It's extravagantly nutty in such a restrained city, which is why I love it.

The perfume Mythique is an expression of all these aesthetic experiences. It would definitely appeal to Florence's restrained city-dwellers. It is like grey stone hiding gleaming, luxurious cafe interiors. It is like a green, pink, and white marble belltower ringing out to the faithful. But I'll leave off speaking metaphorically and tell you that the peony and jasmine turn the fragrance into a warm floral blend after a half-hour or so. The base notes of patchouli and sandalwood are so subtle I can barely detect them as a warm, raspy hum in the background, keeping everything from getting at all dessert-like. The velvety ambrette muskiness I can definately smell.

It's much less girly than the Frederic Malle Iris Poudre, less dramatic and muskier than the new Van Cleef & Arpels Bois d'Iris, and it has a more juicy quality than The Different Company's Bois d'Iris. It's nothing like the chilling coldness of Serge Lutens' Iris Silver Mist. Mythique's notes include mandarin, bergamot, ivy, peony, Sambac jasmine, iris, sandalwood, Indonesian patchouli and herbal musk (ambrette). The perfumer is Yann Vasnier.

Happy 800th Birthday, Rumi

2009-09-30T14:52:00.006-05:00

Today is the 800th anniversary of Rumi's birth, so I wanted to celebrate by posting one of my favorite lines of his:

In drawing and drawing
you his pains are
delectable; his flames
are like water.

I first discovered the line where it appears in a beautiful series of Cy Twombly paintings titled Untitled (Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair), 1985. I just visited these paintings in the incredible Cy Twombly Gallery, The Menil Collection, in Houston. If you can ever get to Houston, please do not miss a visit to this incredible collection.

Image from The National Gallery of Art.

Thank You, Billy Collins

2009-09-18T15:08:00.008-05:00

I was reading this poem today, because it's one of my favorites, and it struck me how apt it is for those of us who try to put scents in words. This poem so gently, so amusingly and so effortlessly teaches me that putting any person or any sensual experience in words is arbitrary and ultimately a barrier to knowing. But what delectable fun you can have with arbitrary associations! But then you can also see the assignment of imagery in the poem as transcendent knowledge that acknowledges arbitrariness and knows something deeper, because by sharing the nourishing imagery (like the bread and wine) and assigning it to a loved one, the poet is partaking in a symbolic communion. One that is so playful it invites the reader to join in.

Anyway, I so adore the spiritual playfulness of this poem, and it struck me that I get a lot of joy from playing "pin-the-tail-on-the-perfume" in the blogosphere for sort of the same reasons. It's a playful way to exercise my writing and observation skills trying to describe something that is ephemeral and emotional. Whether I hit the nail on the head, or scatter arrows wide of my mark (to wildly mix metaphors while I'm at it--why not?), that's part of the fun. I'll shut up now so you can read this awesome poem.

Litany, by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
—Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Mitsouko is for today

2009-09-11T10:09:00.002-05:00

It's raining. What's the big deal, you ask? No, you don't understand: it's Texas, and it's finally raining. What a relief. I could cry.

Well, okay the crying might also have something to do with it being 9/11 today, and I couldn't help reading some of the articles on The Morning News today, and remembering what it was like being in Boston on that day.

But this is not a 9/11 post. I just wanted to say that Mitsouko is perfect on a rainy day, and it's perfect on a sad day, and it's just abso-fucking-lutely perfect on an emotional bender day.

Today, Mitsouko is glowing like living creatures and undergrowth and funk and the sweetness of wet living tree bark and leaves. It's a whole, wet forest, even though I'm sitting in a cubicle copyediting precalculus activities. It's feeling. Tomorrow it'll feel different. And I'll feel different.

Image from parfumsdepub.

Impressions of a cranky perfumista

2009-09-10T11:25:00.001-05:00

Usually you only hear about the rare successes among the many perfume samples I smell in a given month. That's just created too much pressure to find something I LOVE to talk about. But just like in getting out to hear some music (which I finally did with a dear friend from out of town recently) the fun is just getting out there. If you don't hear the bestest thing ever, well, you shrug and critique/make fun of/learn what not to do with the band you've got in front of you. Y'all may have noticed I'm just a teensy bit on the cerebral side, so squinting geekily and critiquing is almost (I said almost!) as much fun as the joy of surrendering to the transcendent when that rare beauty does comes along.

In that spirit, here are some of my recent, somewhat frustrating experiences with perfume samples. Keep in mind these are just first impressions--quickie glibness--so I hope nobody gets put out with me if I dis your new favorite!

Heeley - Cuir Pleine Fleur: This is wonderously medicinal leather, like the love child of Chanel's Cuir de Russie and vintage Guerlain L'Heure Bleue. Well, okay, maybe not *that* amazing--the world would probably implode with it's greatness if it truly were their love child. How about a cousin of Cuir de Russie plus the raspy but soft saffron of the new Cuir de Lancome? Pretty damn good, and even though I have all three of those other perfumes and it doesn't break any new ground, so I need this like a hole in my head, I may need to keep the sample around for a while.

Ego Facto - Me Myself & I: Well, I was so looking forward to the supposedly intriguing tuberose-vetiver combo here. And honestly, on paper it did smell a balance of those two notes, and it wasn't bad. But on my skin? Holy hell, what a scrubber. Cheap-smelling, cloying, and thoroughly unpleasant.

Les Nez - Manoumalia: Appealingly raspy tropical white flowers with a slightly menacing vetiver overtone. I can imagine these flowers would be the flesh-eating kind.

Annick Goutal - Eau de Camille: Similar to vintage Vent Vert but without the devil-may-care attitude. More prim.

Frederick Malle - Parfum de Therese: I'm so sad not to love this one. I just get pale, stale flower vase water with some decayed blooms still swimming in the bottom. I'm hoping my nose changes its mind.

Ava Luxe - Madame X: Yummy and tremblingly naughty, but when I go for naughty, this would always have to take a back seat to my vintage Bal a Versailles. I think. Well, I better make up my mind soon, 'cause the talented Ava Luxe isn't selling this lovely stuff anymore.

Le Labo - Oud 27: Cold, but still smoking, cedarwood firepit on a chilly autumn morning. It's a beautiful and unusual scent, but I get tired of smelling like a cedarwood firepit. Very linear, to my nose.

Dior - Bois d'Argent: Strange, doll's-head-plastic scent that morphs into a sweet, woody iris.

Hermes - Osmanthe Yunnan: I get orange, then some more orange, then a bit of sharpish tea leaf with some more...orange. I usually love orange, but this is a fail for me. And I love tea, so I always think I will love tea scents. But I don't. Too...tannic.

Perfumerie Generale - Psychotrope: Aquatic, salty violet. Very weird, and intriguing on a sporadic basis, but then does that boring plasticky thing that all PG scents do for me.

Guerlain - Nahema edp: A mandarin-rose blast with the half-life of plutonium and for some reason reminds me of the color palette in Disney's "The Sorceror's Apprentice." You know, with the trippily animated mops and pails going berserk? Kinda like that.

Etro - Vetiver: Nose-hair-searing smoky vetiver. My vetiver touchstone is Guerlain's, which I love for it's perfect weight and subtle tobacco that took me a while to get, but this scent is for those truly committed to the heights (depths?) of vetiver barbarism.

Dior - Jules: Although coming from someone who bought a bottle of Yatagan, and loves it btw, this will sound weird, but it's too mucho mucho manly for even little ol' moi. The pepper/galbanum combo is about as subtle as getting run over by a Mack truck.

Divine - Divine: Gosh, as this dries down, I get the butteriness peeps talk about! This is named appropriately, I must say. For the first hour it's too tastefully peachy-tuberose to excite me, but then the creamy drydown as the florals start to melt into some kind of vanilla-moss goodness in the base almost enough to make me want a bottle. Just not really me--the combo of tuberose and vanilla is not my style, unfortunately.

I got the photo from an article entitled "64 Things Every Geek Should Know." It doesn't include any tips on perfume appreciation, sadly.

Fancy free

2009-09-07T12:08:00.004-05:00

Hey you guys are awesome! Thanks for taking all that perfume off my hands. I feel like I can better enjoy my perfume cabinet of crazy because I'm reminded less of the misses I've made. All I have left is these:

Vintage Worth Je Reviens edp boule 1 oz. ($25)
Vintage Mary Chess White Lilac toilet water 6 oz. ($10)
Vintage Coriandre mini ($5)

So anyway, I'm kind of fancy free in another way, too. I've bought a lot of samples this summer, and very little has been inspiring. I'm trying to think of this as a good thing. Two things I might want are the Diptyque classics Tam Dao and Philosykos. I'm trolling the Labor Day sales for a good deal on one or both. I might need Egoiste this fall at some point. Maybe Divine by Divine. I can't quite decide if I need it's rosey-peachy-tuberose goodness or not. And of course I'm hoarding my Muscs Koublai Khan decant until I can finally get a bottle when it goes import this winter. I keep telling myself to wait and not buy anything else until I can get the one I REALLY want (a difficult standard to live by in many respects!). But I did, in a moment of weakness, buy Coty Wild Musk oil blind. It's on it's way to me now. It's just filler, sure, but any opinions on that one?

Some meh sample quickies:

Miller et Bertaux = a quiet morning
~ maybe I don't like saffron as much as I thought--surprisingly this seems a little nose-searingly spicy on me, not quiet at all

Donna Karan = Chaos (reissued)
~ lovely and quiet with its unexpected camomile-incense combo, but has a slightly sour edge on my skin

CB I Hate Perfume = Musk Reinvention
~ sour rotten berries and unwashed wino. yikes

Byredo = Bal d'Afrique
~ undistinguished ambery fruity thing with an herbal tinge

Miller Harris = Figue Amere
~ really nice bitter fig for about ten minutes, then collapses utterly

The picture I've used for this post is in honor of a different passion that has re-emerged lately: music. This is a great shot (not mine, I got it from here) of the band Dirty Three performing. One of my favorites. Maybe I'll post some about music until I get my perfume mojo back.

Help me clear out my perfume closet

2009-08-15T10:20:00.019-05:00

What happens when this perfume obsessive inadvisedly watches Grey Gardens, looks around and starts getting panicky about the sheer amount of stuff she's managed to hoard? A summer perfume sale! So if you're interested in trying out any of these lovelies for practically zilch, without the bother of a fleabay auction, send me an email and I'll be happy to send you a package. No, I'm not giving up on my love of perfume, as my long silence has suggested. I'm just going through a fallow period, I expect. Most of the stuff I test lately has been misses, or I'm just exceptionally cranky. I will probably do a "missed-the-mark" review post soon, to catalogue the disappointments!

Just let me know if you want to make an offer. Sales are final. I can only ship within the U.S. The non-vintage stuff is all in great shape--I would never sell something that had turned. It's just lost the love from me! The vintage stuff is all in good shape, but I can't promise they are in perfect, not-a-topnote-missing shape. Missing topnotes are just the nature of vintage perfumes, in most cases. My email and paypal account name are both: quipus72 (at yahoo dot com).

You want pictures? You got 'em. See pics and more details of everything here!

--- Listings updated Monday Sept. 7th ---

Vintage stuff I've collected from various vintage/antique stores or fleabay:
(Insured ground shipping: $5 for 1 or 2 bottles, $10 for 3 or more)

((SOLD))Vintage Nina Ricci Coeur-Joie edc 200cc (more than 6 oz.) ($40)
((SOLD))Vintage Balenciaga La Fuite des Heures parfum (empty, sealed bottle and box) 1 oz. ($20)
((SOLD))Vintage Lanvin Arpege parfum .5 oz. ($20)
Vintage Worth Je Reviens edp boule 1 oz. ($25)
((SOLD))Vintage Emeraude edt 1 oz. ($15)
((SOLD))Vintage Millot Crepe de Chine edc 1 oz. ($15)
((SOLD))Vintage Coty Muguet de Bois toilet water 1 oz. ($10)
((SOLD))Vintage YSL Y parfum sample set (set of 3 micro-minis) ($10)
Vintage Mary Chess White Lilac toilet water 6 oz. ($10)
Vintage Coriandre mini ($5)

Recent-ish lovelies for which I've inexplicably lost that loving feeling:
(Insured ground shipping: $5 for 1 or 2 bottles, $10 for 3 or more)

((SOLD))YSL Rive Gauche parfum, .25 oz. ($20)
((SOLD))Chanel No. 22 edt (pre-exclusifs) 3.4 oz. ($50)
((SOLD))Chanel No. 19 edp 3.4 oz. ($25)
((SOLD))Guerlain Chamade edp 1.7 oz refill bottle ($25)
((SOLD))Lancome Sikkim edp 1.7 oz. ($35)
((SOLD))Rochas Mystere edp 1.7 oz. ($35)

Cheapo thrills for $15 each (or 3 for $40), shipping included:

((SOLD))Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Anisia Bella edt 4.2 oz.
((SOLD))Balmain Ambre Gris edp 3.3 oz.
((SOLD))Niki de Saint Phalle edt 1.7 oz.
((SOLD))Magie Noire set Magie Noire edt 1.7 oz. and body lotion 6.8 oz.

More cheapo thrills for $10 each (or 3 for $20), shipping included:

((SOLD))Weil Antilope edc 3.4 oz.
((SOLD))Trussardi Donna edt 3.4 oz.
((SOLD))Royal Secret II edt 1.7 oz.
((SOLD))L'Aromarine Oceane edt 1.6 oz.
((SOLD))Guerlain Meteorites edt 1 oz.
((SOLD))YSL Rive Gauche body creme 6.6 oz.

Wandering Roots: Annick Goutal Musc Nomade and Hermes Eau de Gentiane Blanche

2009-07-12T10:10:00.012-05:00

Today I'm reviewing two refreshing, non-floral, non-citrus summer fragrances that I have been enjoying lately. They both use unusual root materials to impart a dry, vegetal quality that is quite a tonic in the humidity and heat of a record-breaking Texas summer. I haven't had much energy to blog, or do much of anything, really, so forgive the long pauses between posts, by the way.

I think what entrances me about Musc Nomade is the Bombay wood, which various bloggers have identified as cypriol, a woody, grassy root that is a relative of papyrus. It provides a papery, barely-green, celery-ish tone that balances out the musk. This tone could also be due to the the particular vegetal musk used, which is produced from angelica root, according to Octavian of 1000fragrances. In either case, although the musk glows and almost coats the skin like sunlight and saltwater at the beach, the cypriol is a translucent counterpoint. It makes me think of watery, morning light glowing through a piece of papyrus. As MN dries down I do smell a teensy touch of almondy-ambery-rosey warmth, but there is not much sweetness and I don't detect any laundry musk. This is all about rooty cypriol balancing out the salty musk.

Hermes Eau de Gentiane Blanche uses the gentian root, a note unusual to perfumery but common in Old World digestifs and aperitifs. Arnaud, Bonal, Campari--gentian root is a ingredient in all these beverages, as it is thought to improve digestion. Another common ingredient in the old digestifis is quinine, so it makes sense that EdGB reminds me of a gin and tonic, with real quinine tonic water. So Monsieur Ellena, the perfumer, has nabbed this uncommon material to create EdGB --as beautifully dry and unsweet as any good tonic should be. It also has a crisp, minerally quality, a bit like a Portuguese vinho verde. That's about it--it doesn't go anywhere, except to gradually free a tinge of iris and musk to moderate the bitterness. I don't know why this association keeps coming to mind, because I haven't seen the movie in ages, but this is the Mary Poppins of colognes. Pert, no-nonsense, unique, and supremely capable of convincing anyone to think what's good for them can be fun. Then she disappears on the breeze. Practically perfect in every way.

Cruel Summer: Experimental Layering Spree

2009-06-22T20:22:00.010-05:00

The Texan's version of cabin fever is a danger to my sanity lately, so if you will, kind reader, picture me with Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" playing in the soundtrack in my head, not wanting to brave my 5,000-degree car to go anywhere, watching DVDs, painting, and trying new perfume combinations whenever I am home from work. I've been madly experimenting with layering some of my summery fragrances to satisfy my craving for new combinations while staying within the translucent fragrance family that is all I can stand during the 100-degree days here in Austin.

Diorella deodorant spray + Creed Jasmal
(The Diorella, by the way, is one of the old bottles you can get at parfum1, and it's damn good. At $22.50 minus 25% off, they're practically paying you to get it--what're you waiting for?)

Gap Orange Blossom + Estee Lauder Private Collection parfum
(weird, I know, but the Gap stuff gives the somewhat ponderous PC a nice little effervescent lift)

Guerlain Vetiver + Madini Azahar oil
(I end of layering the Vetiver with just about anything right now, actually, but this is a particularly nice combo)

Diorissimo edt + Monsieur Givenchy
(the Diorissimo femmes up my beloved Monsieur, then the Monsieur drydown makes me imagine I'm smelling the old Diorissimo with the oakmoss naughtiness that alas, is no more)

Guerlain Anisia Bella + Annick Goutal Musc Nomade
(the Musc Nomade is another favorite layering base right now--here it magically takes away the acrid tinge I often get from Anisia Bella)

L'Aromarine Mousse de Chene + Givenchy Le De
(warm, sweetened oakmoss/jasmine tea)

Prada Infusion d'Iris + CdG Avignon
(quiet but eccentric incense iris)

What are you layering lately?

Image from mainetoday.com

Diptyque L'Eau de Tarocco vs. Prada's Infusion d'Iris

2009-06-12T18:59:00.009-05:00

I came home today and eagerly ripped open a small package of samples to find a precious little vial of the new L'Eau de Tarocco cologne just released by Diptyque. I dabbed some on, stuck my nose in my wrist, and thought: what does this remind me of? Well, I just marched myself right over to my perfume cabinet of crazy (aka the wunderkabinett, aka my perfume storage) to compare. Yep, the orange opening of L'Eau de Tarocco is a dead ringer for Prada's Infusion d'Iris! Or more precisely, it's a ringer for IdI's mandarin orange topnote.

For a moment there, all I felt was a deep sense of relief--I mean, Diptyque don't discount, dude. If I could live without it: whew, close call.

But not so fast! After giving both more time to develop, I find I'm not let off the hook at all. As alike as these seem at first, the two really highlight the difference in quality of materials used by the independent niche Diptyque line vs. the prestige department store brand Prada. I am a firm IdI fan--I think it's a great summer fragrance--but in comparison with the more subtle L'EdT, the IdI suddenly seems to be a sledgehammer of iris-and-incense-tinged synthetic musk. I never perceived IdI as lacking in transparency until I compared it with L'EdT's diaphanous and creamy veils of cinnamon, ginger, and saffron sliding over that stunning blood orange backdrop. That now-obvious musk of IdI seems a poor attempt to approximate the sort of skin-melding smoothness of the L'EdT. But there is a compromise. You have to smoosh your nose right up to your wrist to smell it after 20 minutes; even so, the unsweetened quality and integrity of the notes continues to amaze.

I'm not a huge citrus fan, and have a definite preference for orange, unless it has a pride of animalic notes (Dior Eau Fraiche) or has an impeccably soft-spoken mossiness (Monsieur de Givenchy). I can't do sharp citruses like Eau de Rochas or Eau de Guerlain. L'Eau de Tarocco, therefore, may indeed be indispensible, and I can already see it sitting next to my treasured bottle of Fendi's discontinued Theorema (another transcendent orange) in my wunderparfumkabinett. (Hey, I can make up German words if I want!) They would make a fabulous, complementary seasonal pair: Theorema for winter, L'Eau de Tarocco for summer. I have to set a condition on buying it for myself, though: I need to finish up that bottle of Infusion d'Iris first.

Image of Tarocco Blood Orange is from biggestmenu.com.

Dewy vs. Raspy: Givenchy Le De (Mythiques edition)

2009-06-11T17:54:00.007-05:00

One of my favorite summer perfumes is both a typical example of modern musky-floral perfumery and also shows a really interesting textural contrast that I rarely find in that genre. Le De, the recent reedition of the vintage Givenchy fragrance from 1957, is a study in delicacy.

I won't say the opening is an aquatic lily of the valley and jasmine combo, because I don't want to turn off those, like me, who loathe aquatic fragrances, but it's a bit... dewy. Yeah, dewy! No sharp lily of the valley topnotes here. The perfumer has, obviously with some synthetic slight of hand, muted the white flowers so they evoke a humid summer morning.

What is intriguing, though, is that the dewy floral quality is contrasted by a gently raspy coriander note that is just my favorite thing ever. It's all quite simple and dries down to a low-key musky sandalwood. I love it on days when I want something undemandingly lovely. It's a mental health day in a bottle. In fact, I'm wearing it today while playing hooky from work, hiding out from mental effort and the 100-degree weather, napping in front of the TV, on which I'm playing favorite comfort DVDs like Jeeves and Wooster and the latest Harry Potter. I have to admit, some times I'm just not equal to vintage Rumeur or Cabochard! Today is one of those days.

I'm curious, though (aren't I always?) about the vintage Le De and how it compares to this reedition. I haven't smelled the vintage, and if you have, I'd love to hear what you think. Is it worth seeking out? No wait, on second thought, don't tempt me!

Top notes are coriander and lily-of-the-valley; middle notes are jasmine, ylang-ylang and bulgarian rose; base notes are sandalwood, vetiver and incense.

Jean Patou Vacances and Mary Chess White Lilac

2009-06-06T14:44:00.001-05:00

I was lucky enough to be able to sample a couple of lilac perfumes this spring, and I'm finally writing about them. I found a large, pristine bottle of Mary Chess's long-lost White Lilac toilet water at a vintage shop here in Austin, and it intrigued me. And a friend gave me a sample of Jean Patou's lamentedly discontinued Vacances, so I thought I would compare them.

Honeyed and haylike and linear, Mary Chess White Lilac is a wonder of sustained lilac, insistent beyond what I could hope for, especially because this is supposedly a toilet water, and lilac notes are notoriously evanescent. Sadly, it gets more generically nectarous and soapy as it dries down, and wearing it reminds me of grandma's bathroom in Iowa, with the new-plastic-shower-curtain-liner smell, shell-shaped guest soaps and towels, and the window open with the lilac bush outside. Sorry for the tired "old lady" imagery, all! I can't help it; I associate lilacs with my grandma, and she just cannot be banished from my head when I wear this.

Vacances starts out with a green ivy-ish note, smoother than the galbanum overdose of vintage Vent Vert, and the lilac pads in on kitten paws, subtly sweetening as it dries down in whiffs of of a vaguely woody musk. There is nothing like grandma's bathroom about this one. The lilac makes this fragrance a nearly photorealist representation of lilac week at the Jamaica Plain Arboretum, near where I used to live in Boston. On a certain week early in Spring, I would take strolls through the grass and sample the scents of dozens of varieties of blooming lilac bushes in the mild New England weather. Like lilac week, Vacances is short-lived, or at least wears very close to the skin after a half hour or so. I am testing either an edt or edc version.

White Lilac was introduced in 1930, according to basenotes, and Vacances in 1936, I believe. Both are very tender, springlike fragrances, and I find them both a little melancholy, perhaps because of the sweet, aquatic nature of lilac scents. Neither are really me--perhaps they are a bit too innocent-seeming for my jaded tastes lately. Vacances is really lovely, though, and I think I would enjoy it more if I were spritzing with abandon. Unfortunately that's not an option because it is so rare!

Perfume Smellin' Things has a lovely review of Vacances, as does Bois de Jasmin, if you'd like to learn more about it.

Go to your happy place

2009-05-27T12:38:00.008-05:00

You know how visualizations for air travel (and other) anxiety often recommend you go to your happy place? Pretend you're not on a plane? I can tell you right now: bullsh*t. No way, no how, do those work for me.

I just got back from visiting my dad, and the trip convinced me that the airsickness to which I've always been prone is getting too awful to handle on my own. I need to get some help, and some serious, prescription-strength meds. I can't even describe the misery. Even drugged to the gills with Bonine or Dramamine, I'm a mess: shaking, sweating, gulping in deep breaths of air, and convinced I'm going to vomit every second of some descents, while in others I can relatively easily keep it together. I never know which it's going to be, and my life-long history of being so ill during flights has made it worse and worse, so I work myself up into a state of terror before most flights.

Okay, taking a deep breath. I feel nauseous just *talking* about airsickness. I joke that it's just exhausting trying to keep the airplane up in the air by sheer will-power, and that's why I need a full day to recover from any flight, but it's not really a conscious fear of the plane dropping out of mid-air. I know that it won't. Really I do! It's that my body, for some reason super-sensitive to that feeling of the plane fighting gravity, anticipates every bobble to be a possibly endless freefall. That's why the only visualization that helps is for me to imagine that the wobbles and bumps are of wheels on a road. I have to visualize that I'm somehow in more control than I really am: I can see the horizon, as if I'm on a bus or something, watching the countryside whizz by. Even flying the plane, visualizing that I can control the forward trajectory, is a better imagined scenario to stave off the panic.

So I have steadily been accumulating an arsenal of precautions and strategies to not let the airsickness get the upper hand. Eating something bready before the flight, taking an anti-emetic, taking a mild muscle-relaxant, bringing a baguette or crackers for the flight, staying hydrated, chewing gum, keeping my head still and looking out toward the horizon, deep breathing, visualizations, noise-cancelling headphones. Geez, what a neurotic mess. I wonder if perfume could be part of this arsenal. I mean, why not? It could be put to good use that way.

Believe me, I've tried all those homeopathic motion sickness remedies like the acupressure wristbands, ginger, peppermint, etc. etc. All useless when you're talking neurosis of this magnitude. But I did find that one recent flight was made a little more bearable when I huffed on my vintage Rumeur. (I didn't wear enough of it to assault anyone else's nose on the plane.) I have to wonder if perhaps this animalic carnation scent that I've been so fascinated by lately has therapeutic qualities. I find the costus in it to be a very comforting skin/body odor scent, myself, although I know most would not find those notes to be anything like a comfort scent.

It's probably just that my familiarity with and affection for my vintage juice calms me and distracts me from my misery. But it made me curious: how do other people calm themselves on plane flights, and do others use perfume as aromatherapy in stressful situations? Do you have a scent that you wear when you fly? Do you find aromatherapy oils to be useful when you're anxious, or do you consider Cristalle aromatherapy? Or do you say to hell with aromatherapy, just never fly sober, like my friend M.? Personally, I would prefer to be knocked unconscious upon strapping myself into my seat, because I hate hangovers. But until that great day, I'm hoping you, dear reader, have suggestions or experiences regarding how to survive air travel or other similarly stressful situations. Because I *gulp* have to get back on a plane again in less than a month for my dad's wedding.

Thanks! And happy travel season!

Frakking Fabulous

2009-05-15T19:51:00.012-05:00

I've been tagged as a f'ing fabulous blog by two very lovely fellow bloggers: Mary from Tea, Sympathy and Perfume, and Divina of Fragrance Bouquet. Thank you! I hope no one will be offended if I don't follow all the rules. I love all the blogs in my blogroll at the right, and many more besides, but I don't feel comfortable tagging others. Dunno why, exactly. I'm cranky about following rules.

But here, submitted for your enjoyment/mockery/head-shaking disbelief, here are five addictions I have besides perfume:

1. Rewatching the entire (recent) Battlestar Galactica series. I was so upset by the finale I had to go back to the brilliant beginning. I don't know if I've previously let on about my sci-fi love, but can I just tell you how excited I was that Peter Berg is planning a new adaptation of Dune? Squeee! He can't possibly screw it up more than Dino de Laurentiis, right? Right?

2. Blues music: John Lee Hooker and The Black Keys have been long-time favorites, but I'm especially obsessed with pretty much every singer on an amazing compilation called Men Are Like Streetcars: Women Blues Singers 1928-1969. Betty James, Georgia White, Blue Lu Barker; I can't believe they aren't more widely recognized. Have you ever watched a pre-code movie like Trouble in Paradise or Dinner at Eight? I'm always stunned in awe at the frank sexuality and loose morals flouncing around those movies like Jean Harlow's ivory-satin-clad hips, and this is the musical equivalent. Songs about toking, drinking, f*ing, losing in love, getting yours, and getting away with it. Not to mention, erm, metaphors involving chauffers, vipers, swings, hot nuts, and feeling mellow. What's not to love?

3. All things British. In fact, as a transplanted Texan, I'm perversely obsessed with rain, gloom, anything gothic, and anything British. I am that geek who can discuss the merits of just about every Jane Austen adaptation vs. the books, idolizes Emma Thompson for her adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and has watched (or own) just about every BBC costume drama ever. made. From North and South, to Cranford, to Wives and Daughters, to the Woman in White, it goes on and on, and I even crush hard on Hugh Laurie as the nitwit extraordinaire Bertie Wooster and David Tennant as an unlikely Casanova (not to mention as the Doctor, but see #1 for my weakness for sci-fi). And the newish adaptation of Jane Eyre with Toby Stephens as Mr. Rochester? OMG don't get me started.

4. Researching a trip to Ireland, because what could possibly be better than walking through the countryside every day and always finding yourself within relatively easy distance of chips, beer, and a decent bed? Heaven!

5. Learning how to bake a decent sourdough loaf. My dad will help me with this, because I'm going to visit him in a couple days, and he's built an old-world brick bread oven in his back yard.

Instructions and Rules:
1. You have to pass it (the award) on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.
Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then “add image” it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the “picture” widget. Also, don’t forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

Vintage Rumeur revisited, with a digression on costus

2009-05-15T17:42:00.012-05:00

I've done glib dismissals, one-liners, and now: crow pie.

Previously dismissed by me in favor of Scandal, Lanvin's (original) Rumeur parfum I now acknowledge to be a wonder. I've become more attuned to the scent of costus nowadays, since I fell for Muscs Koublai Khan, and now the vintage Rumeur is unfolding depths I just didn't catch before. The clove that had seemed so overpowering and medicinal now shifts back and forth from spice to floral quite mesmerizingly, taming the unwashed-hair and wine-soaked-leather character of costus (although I'm sure the effect is created in combination with other chypre-ish basenotes, of course) in the drydown. It's poetically unwashed, as in "I just spent two weeks swaying on the back of this damn camel, staring at the desert, and I'm not quite ready for civilization yet."

Frustratingly, I've found nearly nothing about this perfume's history or descriptions of what it originally smelled like, but Octavian of 1000fragrances has a post about costus in which he identifies it in the older formulations of fragrances including Cabochard and Rumeur. Now it jumps out at me in both. What does costus smell like? Well, apart from the camel-driver's-armpit allusions often pulled out for musky scents like Muscs Koublai Khan, this source describes the scent as "at first like violets, but as it ages it can become more fur-like or eventually become unpleasantly goat-like." Is the goat-like quality what makes it seem so challenging but at the same time makes me think: man, that's some good stink? Mmm, goat. Okay, well, I hope it's the furry quality, not the goat.

Like many plants/resins/etc. mentioned in ancient texts, there is a lot of confusion about whether what the ancient world knew as costus is the same as what we know today. In Pliny's natural history, he says that costus "has a burning taste in the mouth and most exquisite odor," and that a locale renowned for its white costus was the island of Patale, at the mouth of the Indus River, which is in present-day Pakistan. I can't find many geographic records of Patale online, although some studies of ancient Indus Valley civilizations say that Patale was a name for the land of the Indus delta.

Pliny's description is unlikely the costus we talk about today in perfumery, though, given that plant directories like this source on costus (scientific name Saussurea lappa or Saussurea costus) identifies it as a high-altitude plant known to grow at the other end of the Indus, in the Himalayas. I love all the common names for costus that this source lists: kuth, kushta, patchak, and mu xiang, to name a few. It has a long list of medicinal attributes, and it has long been used in both Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines. Maybe Pliny was confusing Saussurea lappa with the tropical herbaceous family of plants named the Costaceae, also known as spiral gingers. Nigel Groom's The New Perfume Handbook also identifies costus as a Himalayan plant. Interestingly, he says it may also have been cultivated in Arabia and used in early perfumes there.

Why I'm idly digressing on the history of costus is that I really enjoy imagining the extension back into ancient history of the elaborate links between geography, botany, trade, medicine, and perfumery, romanticization though it certainly is. The sophisticated (inaccuracies just add to the sense of a wild, unreliable, exquisitely varied world) reports of location, characteristics, cultivation, and value as a commodity reveal the ravenous acquisitory lust of empire that doesn't seem much different from the hunt for the new new thing today. Pliny notes both sources and costs in dinarii when he catalogs botanical finds; he's scouting resources for Rome, isn't he? It's both disturbing and exhilarating. What a find! What precious treasures are still hidden in the Himalayas, or at the Indus River delta, that we may lose or find today? Do we exploit or revere if we seek them? Does it have to be one or the other? Good questions for a perfume-lover, I suppose.

Image is of the Indus River, which I got here.

Sultry summer lemon; Or, Dior's Eau Fraîche

2009-05-08T13:25:00.008-05:00

A lemony cologne can't be sultry, you say? I thought the same thing. Colognes are all about the sunny citrus fruit–cool and dry or juicy and sweet–and not much else, so I thought. I wasn't much interested. But then I found Dior's Eau Fraîche. I had no idea Dior had bottled the formula for an ideal summer "vacances."

Eau Fraîche is all warm, savory lemons on a bed of naughty oakmoss and civet. The citrus isn't sharp or sweet, but very rounded, making me feel indolent rather than refreshed. Having smelled Guerlain's Mouchoir de Monsieur lately, I would describe this as a more unaffected, more effervescent, and more interesting version of fresh lemon on an animalic base. I haven't found any confirmation that there is civet in this perfume anywhere else, and I almost couldn't believe it when I first sniffed. I mean, civet skank in a juice with "fresh" in the title? You gotta love that. It's so perverse, and in only the best way. This perfume is best suited for Adriatic breezes and drinks after a swim at the Lido, or an amorous siesta on crisp sheets at the Grand Hotel Excelsior, Venice, circa August 1928.

I am turning into a Dior girl, that's for sure. Lately my Guerlains have been too heavy, my Chanels too powdery, my Lanvins too dark. In summer, the old Diors just have that perfect husky but effortless tenor to them. I fell for Miss Dior and Diorling long ago. I started loving Diorissimo this spring, and now I can't live without Eau Fraîche. Now all that I need is to get over my anti-melon stance to truly appreciate Diorella and Diorama, and to find the untraceable Dior Dior, and I'll be a true fanatic. Well, okay, it may be too late.

Perfume Shrine wrote a very knowledgeable review of Eau Fraîche that you'll enjoy, I'm sure, if you want to learn more.

You can find Eau Fraîche on fleabay and on some perfume discount websites still, but I don't know details on its production status. It is really rare in the U.S., at least, from what I can tell. Does anyone know if it's still being produced by Dior?

My Top 12 of Summer

2009-04-24T19:50:00.009-05:00

I've seen lots of fabulous spring fragrance top 10 lists lately, which I love reading, but here in Texas let's face it: spring was sooooo two weeks ago. It's summer, really. So I thought I'd start a best of summer list, and I can't seem to stop at ten, so here's twelve. Gosh, I can't believe I haven't reviewed all of these yet. I have much blogging to do, don't I?

o1. Miss Dior (recent parfum or vintage edt/edc)
02. Givenchy Le De (This recent reissued edt is so lovely and subtle, it's easy to overlook. Easy like a Sunday morning, baby.)
03. Dior Eau Fraiche (A Dior-lover's heavenly dry cologne)
04. Diorling (This is the recent edt, which is more of a gorgeous jasmine and tobacco fragrance with an astringent top than it is a leather. Addictive.)
05. Guerlain Vetiver (Refreshing, tonic, palate-cleanser)
06. Vent Vert (vintage edt)
07. Frederic Malle Une Fleur de Cassie
08. Chanel No. 19 (The iris and vetiver edt is essential to me for summer, but the parfum works in summer too, with that beautiful galbanum in the top notes.)
09. Prada Infusion d'Iris (Another iris-vetiver combo for when I feel like a more modern, understated mandarin burst in the topnotes.)
10. Worth Je Reviens Couture
11. 1000 de Patou edt (Anyone else find Luca Turin's description of this as "dowdy" just uncalled-for? This has a self-assured, I-don't-need-to-impress-anybody beauty.)
12. Jasmal by Creed

Image is Rome from Mount Aventine by J.M.W. Turner

In Which I Consider a Trip to Paris, Again

2009-04-22T19:41:00.012-05:00

On top of the recent Now Smell This report of the Perfumes Exposition taking place in Paris this September, I've have fallen deeply in love with Muscs Koublai Khan, a Paris exclusive from Serge Lutens. Both have me seriously considering a trip to Paris.

As the (lamentedly) ex-perfume-blogger Ina of aromascope described it, Muscs Koublai Khan is my "favorite olfactory pet." And I love that she described it that way, because that sense of a creature with a beating heart connects MKK to another animalic charmer for me: Joy parfum. That jasmine wonder, once I got past the petrol whiff it's jasmine initially gives off, has always seemed to me more closely related to a furry creature than a perfume. I've never "gotten" civet until I smelled it in Joy, and I've never "gotten" musk until I discovered it in MKK. Both seem to take on lives of their own on the skin.

In MKK I have found another pet. I might even "love him and hug him and call him George" (You know you want to watch the classic "Abominable Snow Bunny" Bugs Bunny cartoon if you don't know what I'm talking about). It's salty; it's naughty; it's utterly transfixing. To my nose, it has none of the soapiness of some musks such as Kiehl's, and it's also not the gentle woody musk of Annick Goutal's Musc Nomade. Furthermore, its perfection is further confirmed because it has none of the "soiled underwear" that Luca Turin so accurately describes in Miller Harris's L'Air de Rien. Your mileage may vary, of course, but let me just say I thank my lucky stars that MKK is the scent of my fantasy (i.e. bathed) horseman-warrior revealed by the warm, flickering light of a few beeswax candles. L'Air de Rien is Mick Jagger's skidmarked undies, circa 1968.

I need to go to Paris, obviously. Seems like a reasonable trek to take for such a beautiful beast.

The last time I felt this way, it was brought on by another Serge Lutens beauty: Iris Silver Mist. Hm, a pattern may be emerging here.

**UPDATE**
I've seen on the fantastic blog Serge Lutens: Nearly All the Facts that MKK may be joining the export range of fragrances this coming holiday season. squeee!!!

Image of a musk deer from A Manual of Materia Medica and Pharmacology, uploaded by chestofbooks.com

Shaken not stirred: Niki de Saint Phalle

2009-04-13T18:34:00.009-05:00

I've had a bottle of Niki de Saint Phalle's eponymous perfume (edt) for several months, but didn't really know what to make of it. I've finally figured out what it reminds me of: a dirty gin martini, straight up, three olives, shaken not stirred. Now I love gin, but with NdSP I understand why some people don't. As soon as I put it on, and continuing through the drydown, it feels too moonshine-ish, too heady-flowery, too high-test. No matter how much I like a good dirty martini, I don't particularly like feeling as if I've bathed in one. That's what NdSP feels like. I guess this all could be summed up as: it wears me, not the other way around.

I hoped it would turn me into the immortal, smart-mouthed Myrna Loy in The Thin Man, martini in hand, but alas. I've heard much about the oddity, the bitter tagetes (marigold), the vetiver. However, it's not bitter in the sense I expected, from my love of leathery chypres like vintage Cabochard and Diorling. Now with those perfumes I feel like I could make an attempt at pretending to be the witty, irresistible Nora Charles. But with NdSP I get only an overwhelming, sharp, woody-flowery spike through my head, which after a while feels not like the buzz, but like the morning after a few too many martinis. Oh well, I'll give it another twirl another time. With my often-changing perfume tastes lately, I may well fall in love with it next time I try it.

Notes: Jasmin, Rose, Marigold, Ylang-Ylang, Vetyver, Sandalwood, Patchouly, Amber, Musk

Mood: blustery

2009-04-04T12:32:00.015-05:00

Wallace Stevens can usually be counted on to be right--irritatingly so. We are the weather, he says, and like the weather right now, I'm feeling ambivalent and fickle. Reading Wallace Stevens' Harmonium is perfect for my mood. What's a better description of Spring's blustery changeableness than this:

The sovereign clouds came clustering. The conch
Of loyal conjuration trumped. The wind
Of green blooms turning crisped the motley hue

To clearing opalescence. Then the sea
And heaven rolled as one and from the two
Came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.
-- Sea Surface Full of Clouds, Wallace Stevens

Some more quickie, fickle Spring fragrance reviews to go with my mood:

Dior Escale a Portofino
A nice orange blossom cologne, with a bit of almondy notes. I have a decant of L'Artisan Parfumeur's Fleur d'Oranger limited edition, though, and this is not as nice. Redundant.

Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan
Wow, this is supposed to be intimidating? You cuddly-wuddly warrior-horseman, you. Who's a big, bad Mongol emperor? C'mere.

Guerlain Jicky edt
Hot mess of overbearing lavender and tumid vanilla, completely unbearable to me, sadly. I can't do lavender and vanilla--doesn't work for me in Caron's Pour Un Homme, either.

Guerlain Mouchoir de Monsieur
Like an eccentric and frustrating boyfriend, first repellant (an initial hit of civet, i.e. poo) who becomes more attractive (lemony citrus warmed irresistably by civet). I'm going to try layering this with something floral, since it is a bit too linear once it calms.

Kiehl's Original Musk
Floral, powdery musk, with none of the sweaty tang that makes Muscs Kublai Khan so comforting.

Jil Sander #4 parfum
Smells like panettone, the spiced, raisin-studded Italian holiday bread.

Narciso Rodriguez edt
Floor-cleaner citrus that appears to be not quite well-blended with a barely perceptible (to me) musk.

Anticipations, Quickies, Cheapo Finds, and Ambivalence

2009-03-25T18:38:00.020-05:00

Do you have any scents you're yearning for, or a frustrating ambivalence, lately? Here are my recent anticipations, tests, finds, and fickleness.

Most anticipated new releases:

Robert Piquet's Futur (as reported in Sniffapalooza Magazine)
Lubin's Gin Fizz (as reported by Carmencanada in Grain de Musc)
Ego Facto's Me Myself and I
Ego Facto's Jamais le Dimanche (a new brand currently only available at Marionnaud, as reported by Octavian Coifan at 1000fragrances)

Recently tested:

Parfums de Nicolai Odalisque
Just like other PdNs I've tried, the topnotes are just an unreproachably lovely bouquet with a gentle touch of green sparkle, so well blended that I can't tell where the lily of the valley begins or the iris ends, because it all just melds so smoothly that it...then starts to bore me silly, for some reason I just can't fathom. Why me? Why can't I love these? So unfair.

Strange Invisible Perfumes Urban Lily
Ummm... I can't say yet if this is urban. Moldy lily of the valley juice crushed weeks ago into a sidewalk-crack by passersby, maybe?

Profumo.it Tabac
Beautiful. An unambery, non-gooey, non-gourmand tobacco leaf scent. I'm still not sure I've found my tobacco holy grail, though.

Jasmal by Creed
Waxy to the point of fruitiness and green jasmine. So simple I tend to think it isn't necessary, until Joy parfum is just a little too creamy and complex and brainy to deal with on a Texas summer's day. Sweetens into a banana-jasmine in the drydown.

Givenchy III
Raspy, silvery-green, and velvet-furred like lamb's ear leaves. The coriander always has me entranced up front, but then I end up getting a bit tired of it; it feels a bit too linear, even for a confirmed green chypre lover. I love it, then I'm bored, then I love it, then I don't. Another one I'm ambivalent about, to say the least.

Messe de Minuit by Etro
The first time I sniffed this, in the dry, dry, cool Texas winter, it repulsed me like a dank, moldy basement. Now, with some spring moisture in the air, it is a lovely citric-tinged incense with a musky undertone.

Cheapo finds:

Vivienne Westwood Libertine
This is making me doubt my sanity. I actually LIKE a fruity floral. With pineapple (shudder) in it.

Bvlgari Black
Thank goodness I was able to return the stinker watery bottle of this I bought off eBay a while ago, and now have a good bottle from a reputable online retailer. I already knew I loved it, but I'm newly overjoyed by the rubbery black tea topnotes.

Geoffrey Beene Grey Flannel
See recent review for my slavering adoration.

Perfumes I'm afraid I've fallen out of love with:

Oh dear, I have full bottles of these and I'm not sure I can stomach them anymore. I may need to wait until next winter to make a final stay-or-go decision on these, but I'm feeling fickle and overloaded with perfumes I don't love. I may need to clear out some bottles from the collection.

Chamade
Annick Goutal Heure Exquise

A wet black bough, or, I discover Grey Flannel

2009-03-22T15:50:00.010-05:00

The perfect March scent is not what I expected at all. I'm finally getting out from under the workload, and the SWSX madness has awakened me a bit from all-work-no-play tedium. I've been working my way out of a perfume lull, as well. It's just getting warm enough in Texas for me to starting wanting something crisp, austere, and preferably androgynous. I've got enough girly perfumes, and my mainstays through the winter have been vintage, bosomy, animalic floral parfums like Joy and My Sin. So I was at TJ Maxx one mid-March morning, and what do I find for $16... Geoffrey Beene's Grey Flannel.

This is what I wanted Black March by CB I Hate Perfume to be, but wasn't. I was disappointed with Black March: it's nice, but too aquatic for my taste, and disappears too quickly. Why is it that aquatic scents don't capture that cold, wet, blustery, wind-chapped-cheeks feeling I actually want? How do they manage not to be envigorating? That aquatic note is like a still pond, not a rainy day, I guess.

I seem to remember having recoiled like I'd been slapped on previously sniffing this wonder. Now I'm fantasizing about finding a man just so I can spray him down with it. It's that good, people! Hm, I wonder if my next-door neighbor would let me...okay, better not go there. That initial smack of citrus and violet (is it also violet leaf, I wonder?) is a little scary at first, especially if you've grown to loathe department stores' harsh, chemically masculines, 98% of which seem to flay your nose with violet leaf topnotes, but hang in for a sec, don't judge, and ... ah, there it is: like a comforting wool sweater after walking through the woods on a moody, scratchy March day. I get rain-soaked, just-budding March branches, and the dewiest, unsweet violets nestled in wind-whipped, bitter green leaves that probably come from the geranium and sage notes, but which to me smell like artemisia. That's probably because I have tons of artemisia in my yard, so smell it all the time. As I compulsively sniff my arm, I keep thinking: not just bitter-sweet, but bitter-warm and bitter-soft, to boot. Perfection.

Notes include: lemon, violet, sage, geranium, oakmoss, patchouli, cedar, sandalwood.

So why did I ever feel the need to go niche to find a moody, rainy-day atmosphere perfume? Do yourself a favor and hit a Marshall's or a TJ Maxx and buy some of this stuff before they change it.

Image of Loch Ness from Sunny Scotland.

Surreptitious sniffery: Vol de Nuit vintage parfum

2009-01-22T09:44:00.010-06:00

Sadly, there comes a time in every perfumista's life when the self-indulgent, gleeful exuberance of exploration and waftage is interrupted, and I've been going through such a break. No it's not because of the economy. I've got enough perfume to keep me happy for decades without buying anything new. No, the problem is a combination of two factors: I find myself relatively more content with what I've got than in trying new things lately, and (dum dum DUM) I've got a scent-sensitive coworker in my work team.

I've had to go covert in my work-a-day perfume life, and it's not fun, people. It's stifling and frustrating, in fact. The day that this scent-sensitive coworker told me my precious Joy parfum, amplified during a meeting in a tiny office with five copyeditors gathered around one computer screen, was making it hard for her to breathe, I have to admit I struggled with a combination of sympathy and irritation. I'm an awful, horrible, no good person, but there it is! Wearing perfume is...a part of me. I feel like there's something missing all day if I'm not wearing something. But there are positives to being covert as well. It's put the mellow, luxurious parfums in my collection front and center, because of course there's little sillage to worry about my coworker objecting to. A little Cuir de Russie, a dab of My Sin, or one drop of Miss Dior is the sort of thing I wear at work lately. I'm always surprised at how sustained these classics are at low volume.

So today, for instance, I am wearing a teensy tiny little smidgen of Vol de Nuit parfum on one wrist. Thanks to Alyssa for the sample! And oh dear, I wish I had more to say about it. I have tried and failed to write a review of this perfume before, and I still feel stymied. So let me compare it to my beloved L'Heure Bleue (vintage parfum to vintage parfum).

Whereas L'HB starts out with that anise-heliotrope-scented Band-Aid (which I love!), VdN is sharply tomato-garden-and-spice green from the galbanum and woods, and perhaps the daffodil is an element in that first note as well (but honestly I'm not sure I am discerning that note correctly). Jasmine, iris, and woods are in the mix, as well. I'm a huge fan of galbanum, and I just love, love, love the stage in which the bitter greens struggle with the base notes of amber and the signature Guerlain vanilla. However, the base notes very quickly take over the composition on my skin, which is probably why I can't love it quite as much as L'HB, which continues the juxtaposition of bitter aniseed and carnation to sweet heliotrope, vanilla, and musk long into the drydown. It's that baroque contradiction that I love in the vintage Guerlains, so the longer that effect seems to last on my skin, the more I love the perfume.

Work is still crazy, so posts will still be few and far between, but thanks everyone for the lovely recent comments, and happy sniffage, all!

Image originally uploaded by Perfume Shrine.

Winter Favorites

2008-12-29T19:05:00.015-06:00

It's best-of-2008 list time! But I'm no good at that. So here's what I'm enjoying the most over my Christmas/New Year's Eve vacation:

Perfume:
Dzing! L'Artisan Parfumeur
This smells like the ultimate used bookshop with leather club chairs. My happy place.

Cuir de Lancome
Saffron-leather, medicinal and buttery in turns.

Joy de Jean Patou parfum
The thing that's so fascinating about Joy parfum is that underneath the satin skin of this jasmine-and-rose lovechild beats the warm heart of a tawny-furred creature. It seems to amplify your own heat, smelling like golden, sun-warmed fur as it dries down. So amazing in the winter.

Books:
Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse
I'm such an anglophile geek that I'll read anything by Wodehouse and giggle uncontrollably at any number of newt-fancier jokes. This is a great read so far.

Twilight saga by Stephanie Meyer
There's nothing I love better than devouring a good fantasy series for a relaxing vacation, and this is...well, not exactly that good. It's no Harry Potter, and it gets kinda boring in places. The third book is definately the weakest, but I'm finishing the fourth book, in which Bella *finally* gets to be badass rather than the constant helpless victim. It's about time. But have I also mentioned that I love a good vampire romance? So they shouldn't be rotting teenagers' brains with this stuff, but the scent stuff in this series is kinda fascinating.

So who knew, but vampires are the ultimate perfumistas of human blood. Well, more like the ultimate gourmands, I suppose. But Edward is a gourmet. You see, he's ignored human blood for a century; only the smell of Bella is nearly unbearably "luscious." He can barely control his urge to rip her throat out upon first sniff. How romantic! *snort* Her blood's smell is floral (freesia and lavender are tentatively used to describe it), and as their relationship gets closer, he sniffs her wrists, "enjoying the bouquet while resisting the wine." For all the emphasis on her scent, he barely describes it, really. Her scent is all about the effect it has on him, and about his power and control in resisting its allure. Bella notes more specifically Edward's "strange honey-lilac-sun perfume." Of course scent has nearly always been a way to describe erotic yearning, but as someone obsessed with perfume, I have to say: I love that vampires are perfumistas, too!

Music:
Bon Iver = For Emma, Forever Ago
My friend Emily made me listen to this, and I now crave this CD weekly at least.

Morphine = Cure for Pain
When my old friend Jonathan came to visit, it reminded me of nights in Cambridge, Mass. at places like the Lizard Lounge, listening to bands like Morphine and Dirty Three. So I just had to dig up my old CDs. This stuff is still awesome.

Neutral Milk Hotel = In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
"The King of Carrot Flowers" is one of the best songs ever. Glorious, epic family dysfunction.

Andrew Bird = Armchair Apocrypha
"Scythian Empires" mesmerizes me.

MGMT = "Time to Pretend," Oracular Spectacular
The Walkmen "In the New Year," You & Me
I actually had time to dig through some "best of 2008 music" lists and check out some new dance-around-my-house music, and success! These are my newest favorites.

TV:
30 Rock, complete first and second seasons on DVD
As the inimitable Liz Lemon says: "nut up, Jack." So by the hammer of Thor, nut up and watch this!

Life Magazine on Perfume

2008-12-13T21:45:00.009-06:00

An archive of Life Magazine's photos is now hosted by Google, and I looked up perfume. Here are some of my finds:The Perfumatic perfume vending machine, loaded with Tabu, Chanel #5, Lentheric Tweed, and Yardley (?) Lavender. Possibly the awesomest photo I've seen all year.

Greer Garson spraying perfume on her dogs, which is apparently some kind of veterinary-approved procedure, from the look of it.

Shoveling petals in a perfume factory, 1947.

A perfume vase found in Tutankhamen's tomb.

Mitsouko, at last

2008-12-12T21:53:00.013-06:00

At last, I get it. You know the holidays are magic when the consumate vintage lover actually falls for the new formulation of Mitsouko edt. I mean yeah, I knew Mitsouko was *important*, yeah I knew it was originally created in 1919, yeah I knew it defined the chypre, yeah I knew it was named after an tragic opera heroine, all that. All those things certainly should have guaranteed instant love from me. They didn't, but I kept trying it over the last couple years.

This winter, though, my skin soaks in Mitsouko like it's thirsty for it, smelling like sex on a bed of moss combined with the yeasty, smoky, nectared smell of... peach pit. It's not fruity, though. It has an earthy quality halfway between bread and wine. It'll sustain you in hard times, this will. In fact, I think of Mitsouko as having vintages like wine does. I'm sure earlier vintages (say a bottle of the 1944 extrait) have greater complexity, I'm sure all you lucky perfume geeks out there who have bottles of vintage juice are scoffing at me, but this one still smoulders with the noble rot and delicious tragedy of great French perfumery.

Does that mean I'm going to stop stalking vintage Mitsouko on the fleabay? Hell no. The vintage juice will be mine eventually. It will be mine.

If you've tried Mitsouko and didn't like it, all I can say is: keep trying. It's been around for almost 100 years now, and there's a formulation for everybody. No pressure, don't feel like you have to love it now, but take it from me, it's inexorable. It'll get you eventually. Other reviews of Mitsouko that you might find as fascinating as I do:

Ode to Mitsouko, Perfume Posse

Mitsouko, Scentzilla
Perfume Memories: Mitsouko, GlassPetalSmoke

Speaking of fleabay, I've recently scored bottles of two jasmine favorites: Joy parfum and La Fuite des Heures parfum. I've written about my love of La Fuite des Heures, but Joy will probably get a review very soon.

First image my own watercolor, Snakes in Trees. Second image is a Mitsouko ad originally uploaded by Scented Salamander.

An enabler's Madini

2008-12-01T23:26:00.011-06:00

Now y'all may be familiar with Madini oils, which are of high quality and are sometimes discussed on discussion boards. I've got a bunch of small bottles and samples here, and I just got an email from the Talisman website, which has a 15% off coupon code going right now: HOLIDAY08. So here goes a late Black Monday post for you!

I find oils really fascinating, and I crave their viscous intensity sometimes during this cool, bone-dry winter we're having here in Austin. Oils don't have the note separation of alcohol-based perfumes, and they wear close to the skin, so the florals tend to flatten out, but the balsamic orientals bloom with body heat.

Olive Flowers: Some people call this Madini's version of Shalimar, but I could swear this smells like Vol de Nuit extrait, at a ridiculously tiny percentage of the cost.

Musk Gazelle: Spicy, salty dark musk. Some might smell headshop, but I tend to think this is a cut above.

Hanane: This one is weird. It's got a salty-sour musk quality that keeps me sniffing and wondering "what IS this?" that seems completely unlike it's parts: galbanum, jasmine, rose, patchouli.

Jasmine: A deeply green, almost smoky, fairly indolic jasmine. Flattens quite a bit on the skin after a little while, but remains unsweet and interesting.

Nardo: A rich, heady, camphorous, intense tuberose that tames itself on the skin pretty quickly. On me, the camphor lasts longer than the floral aspects, so kills the joy a bit.

Azahar: At first it's a slightly screechy orange flower, but calms nicely 'til it's green and just the tiniest bit honeyed.

Alma de Alma: Amber headshop oil balanced nicely with a sunny citron oil, but too sweet for me.

Henna: Starts out promisingly, smelling very similar to Chamade's sharp green hyacinth topnotes, but turns into a powdery sweet mess.

Le Galion quickie reviews

2008-11-29T08:40:00.012-06:00

The set of Le Galion parfums de sac that I found at an antique mall was probably made between 1968 and 1978, because it does not look that old, and it includes Snob. I read in perfume intelligence that Paul Vacher's original Snob was relaunched in 1952 and discontinued in 1978. Also, the original Galion d'Or was reformulated and relaunched in 1968. I don't know how much to trust that source, since I don't know anything about them except that I found it by googling Le Galion.

Don't you love the galion/galleon brand illustration on the box? I took a close-up because I love ship images. There's a fabulous exploration and treasure theme in many of the names of the perfumes. The term galion, or galleon in English, was a particular type of ship sturdy enough, and well-armed enough, to transport gold and other precious cargo.

So anyway, some quickie reviews of the fragrances in this set:

Le Galion d'Or: (The gold galleon) Very sharp aldehydes, like Chanel #5 on steroids, plus a smidge of the violets as in Le Dix.

Bourrasque: This name means a gust of wind, and is a feminine noun. A resinous oriental that smells like the red-headed stepchild of Femme and Tabu.

Brumes: This name means a fog or haze. Smells like sticking your nose in a tin of herbes de provence, including lavender and tarragon, perhaps, then catching a whiff of the seashore at lowtide, which smells like ambergris, but is probably more likely the nutmeg, heliotrope, and benzoin merging. It does dry down to something like L'Origan, as Octavian Coifer mentions. Kinda loving this.

Snob: A lot like Joy, with a lovely, slightly indolic jasmine, turning slightly soapier than Joy, with a more old-fashioned sweet rose that gets more prominent in the drydown. Really lovely.

Lily of the Valley: Nothing like Diorrissimo, much more sweet and less sunny than vintage Muguet de Bois, and barely recognizable as LotV. It's a cloying LotV and orange blossom syrup.

Rose: Very sweet posy of roses settled on embroidered doilies.

Jasmine: Niiiice jasmine, not too indolic, reminds me of the banana quality in Montale's Jasmin Full.

A much more knowledgeable resource on the history and make-up of Le Galion fragrances is Octavian Coifan, and he has a couple posts about them in 1000 fragrances. This fragrance maker has a great look and history--wouldn't it be great if they were resurrected like Lubin has been attempting?

Le Galion parfums de sac, and decision-making time

2008-11-22T19:00:00.007-06:00

Today I discovered another treasure at the local antique mall: a boxed set of Le Galion parfums de sac, almost complete, and in great shape. The set includes: Snob, Bourrasque, Brumes, Galion d'Or, Lily of the Valley, Jasmin, La Rose, La Violette. Sadly, there are two perfumes missing from the original set of ten. Tubereuse was probably one of the missing, and I would have loved to have smelled that one. Perhaps Sortilège was the other, since misplaced or emptied, bottle. Except for La Violette and La Rose, all the bottles are full or nearly full, and the bottle size is 1/5th oz.

I'd nearly given up on finding anything new at the antique mall when I walked over to one last stall for a quick glance, and saw some perfumes bottles in the corner. When I saw this set for $10, I smelled the Jasmin, and it smelled great, so I grabbed it and went straight to the cashier.

So far, my first impressions are: Jasmin is a yummy jasmine along the lines of Montale's Jasmin Full, Galion D'Or smells a bit like Le Dix--aldehydic violets, Snob smells like something along the lines of Baghari--fruity aldehydic, and Brumes smells very interesting indeed--herbes de Provence and jasmine, perhaps.

Those are just first impressions, and I could be totally off, so in the next few posts I'll probably go through them with more thorough reviews of my favorites, when I get a chance to test them properly and do some research.

I haven't been posting much due to work--our production cycle is in full madness right now, so posts will be thin for a while. I've also had no Internet connection at home for the last week. Although the Time Warner customer service representative would have happily set up a service call earlier, had I only been willing to sit at home from 8am-8pm on a weekday. Um, seriously? What is wrong with these people? Have they no concept of customer service for people who, shockingly enough, work 40 hours a week?

Speaking of working, I think I've been working hard enough to deserve a holidays perfume gift for myself. I've been so good! Really! So the very, very difficult choice I have to make is which perfume to get. I've narrowed it down to three options for which full retail price is nearly unavoidable, and therefore any of them would be a very rare treat for me:

Dzing! (the big bottle, which is the only one available)
Bois des Iles parfum (I hope I can get it if I call around the major Chanel stores)
Une Fleur de Cassie (probably the small bottle is all I need)

So hm, I'm leaning toward Dzing!, since Artisan Parfumeur is so slutty about tossing their treasures into the discontinued bin, and I've been craving it so this winter, that I've gone through my decant. So share your special holiday treats. C'mon, I know you're already plotting what to buy yourself, or what you'll ask for as a present...

Happy Thanksgiving week to one and all! Happy perfume hunting, too!

Annick Goutal : Encens Flamboyant and Comme des Garcons : Kyoto

2008-11-09T09:06:00.010-06:00

Of the new "Les Orientalistes" trio of Annick Goutal fragrances, Encens Flamboyant is far and away my favorite. It is the least sweetened of the trio, and has that smoky evergreen quality that for some reason I suddenly crave this fall. As usual, my perfume cravings are tied to sensory experiences I can't have. With my recent balsam cravings, I know what I really want is a walk through a Wisconsin evergreen forest, pine needles scenting the air and silencing any sound of my steps, with snow and woodsmoke in the air.

According to the Annick Goutal website, the notes in EF are: three different types of frankincense, balsam fir, roseberry,
cardamom, sage, nutmeg, and mastic.

But as I sat with my nose pressed against my hand, whimpering with happiness, I thought suddenly about the mostly neglected sample vial of Comme des Garcons Kyoto I have in my perfume closet. Of the CdG incense series, I own and love Avignon, but I thought this turnaround on fir scents might mean I'd finally understand the love out there for Kyoto as well. And this was, in fact a revelation for me!

According to LuckyScent, Kyoto's notes are: incense, cypress oil, coffee, teak wood, vetiver, patchouli, amber, everlasting flower, Virginian cedar. The incense is unmistakeably frankincense, but this is a drier and woodier fragrance than EF. Nonetheless, the two fragrances were much more similar than many other pairs I've imagined might be twins.

Now many others have already covered the seemingly magically ethereal yet sustained incense of the CdG fragrances, so I will try not to go on and on, but I wanted to share a comparison of Kyoto with EF (each dabbed on, with K on the left and EF on the right). The remarkable, dry, delicate frankincense smokiness of Kyoto just goes on and on, perfectly balanced with and weaving in and out of the woods. That may sound linear, but the CdG scents achieve that amazing shifting, swirling quality of incense wisps in the air, and it is anything but boring. In EF, which is extraordinarily similar, there is a juicier quality with the balsam, and it turns into more of a fir-tree sap with a hint of spice in the drydown.

Looking at the notes for Kyoto, I think the drier quality is probably due in part to the woods, which are not balsam, but cypress and cedar. In the drydown, EF smells more and more like laying under the Christmas tree when I was kid, or the fir sap that I got it on my hands after climbing evergreens in the woods, but Kyoto gets drier and woodier.

Both have much to love, and as I alternately sniff hands, my preference changes throughout the drydown. Kyoto demands my appreciation with its ascetic beauty, but Encens Flamboyant captures me with nostalgia.

(Image is my own, all rights reserved.)

Random things about me

2008-10-23T19:48:00.017-05:00

Anya tagged me, and I thought it might be a good opportunity to share some photos. I love taking pictures, so here's a photo list of six random things about me:

1. I love natural history museums! I took this pic in Oxford, England: The Rivers-Pitt Museum. Doesn't he look like he's saying, "Hey baby, how YOU doin'?"

2. I spent a semester in Florence, Italy, when I was studying art history as an undergrad. This is one of my favorite pictures I took in Urbino:

3. When I bought my money-pit of a house in Austin, it came with a bonus: these two kittens were found by the termite guys checking under the house. I took one look and fell in love with their little (at the time) 6-week-old selves. Delia is the little tortoise-shell troublemaker and Virgil is the buff-and white big guy.

4. This is how I feel wearing a really great perfume:

5. I am a morning person!

6. I don't have a picture for this one, but I bought two big nightblooming jasmines on crazy cheap sale last weekend, and I can't wait to have all that jasmine goodness wafting all around my house.

Here're the tagging rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (above)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (okay)
3. Write six random things about yourself. (above)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (nuh-uh, thanks)
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. (nope)
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. (will do)

I'm not a wabbit! I need some west.

2008-10-16T22:52:00.008-05:00

I'm coming down with a cold, and when I get a cold, and my voice gets hoarse, I like channeling my inner Lily Von Shtup. I walk around my house in fuzzy slippers doing impressions of her saloon performance, since my voice gets all froggy like her Elmer Fudd meets Marlene Dietrich alto. Man, I miss Madeline Kahn! The woman was so damn brilliant.

So in honor of the genius of Madeline Kahn, I must ask: what perfume would you put on Lily Von Shtup, the Teutonic Titwillow herself? Don't know what I'm talking about? Go rent Blazing Saddles, you philistine. Or Young Frankenstein, for that matter.

I think she would be perfect in the new Femme de Rochas, because when I think of her in it, suddenly the humor in its spicy overblown cumin-jasmine makes perfect sense and I appreciate the scent so much more than I thought I did. Or perhaps Lipstick Rose would be more appropriate for such a bawd? Perhaps that one, or Dioressence, has the naughty soapiness for one caught up, morning, noon, and night, with "dwink and dancing, some quick womancing. And then a showah."

What do you think? Please share, and Blazing Saddles quotes encouraged as well.

Goals for the Voyage

2008-10-13T20:36:00.011-05:00

We perfume fanatics, I've just realized, have a lot in common with pirates. Take the sign above, for instance. It pretty much sums up my own perfume voyage motto. Being an aficionada of anything related to pirates, I followed a link from the awesome design blog *DesignSponge to the 826 Valencia shop, which promised hilarious pirate-themed indie-designed posters with mottos such as:

Cannons Don't Sink Ships, Pirates With Cannons Sink Ships
Pillage Before Plunder, What a Blunder. Plunder Before Pillage, Mission Fulfillage.

But what did I find as well? Yosh Han's Pirate Perfumes! Yargh, that's right, ye scurvy lubbers. Has anyone tried these? There are no notes, no descriptions, not a detail to be found, except for the fragrance names: Swashbuckler, Cavalier, El Capitan, Buccaneer, Buxom, Siren, and Damsel. Apparently they were created exclusively for, and are sold only at, 826 Valencia.

I think I'll e-mail the scallywags to see if I can find out more.

In which our heroine takes drastic measures...

2008-10-04T22:30:00.007-05:00

for a bottle of Scandal.

So this is my report from the Round Top Antiques Show. After a hard day's scrounging and slogging through booth after booth, I brought home my treasure: a few cool old prints (two Buffon natural history prints and a book illustration of a ship on a stormy sea) and the precious: a full 1 oz of Lanvin's Scandal. But here's the rub: those old Lanvin bottles with the ground glass stoppers are notorious for the stoppers breaking off in the bottle. Yep, there was just a black stub wedged inextricably in the bottle.

But did that stop me, for a 6$ bottle of Scandal? Hells no. I found myself spending an hour sitting on the floor in my living room drilling a hole through the stopper with a special glass and tile bit on my trusty DeWalt drill. Basically acting like a maniac and practically demolishing the bottle. But success! I've safely decanted the precious into another bottle. I can sit back in satisfaction, knowing two things: I've really gone 'round the bend, and being crazy smells awesome.

Dioressence : Dior : Guy Robert

2008-09-30T11:22:00.013-05:00

Dioressence (original tag line: le parfum "barbare") is a wise child, and an odd one. Since I'm an ex-academic and a copyeditor, I could go on about the quotation marks around "barbare" and how they attenuate the word so it merges with the Orientalist fantasy of the image, blar de blar. Anywho, some people just smell boring old french soap, so the point is moot.

However, if you get the same oddball beauty that I do--one that veers from animal stink to Miss Havisham's dusty velvet drapes to fancy knickers to makeup powder laced with violets and cinnamon--you'll love it just as much as I. This complexity probably depends a lot on what formulation you're smelling. I'm not sure how old my bottle is that I've got, but it smells plenty odd to me, which is a good thing! It's not one of the old Dior bottles with the strip of blue along the bottom. Mine is an all-clear-glass spray bottle with a clear cap and the perfume's name printed in white in the middle of the bottle.

Dioressence is a wise child: insouciant, knowing, inconstant, self-assured.

Image originally uploaded by Perfume Shrine.

Some fall favorites

2008-09-25T21:26:00.013-05:00

Leathers...

Chanel Cuir de Russie
A loving embrace and a glimpse of the privileged life. Notes: iris, Birkin bag, expensive lipstick, trust funds.

Lanvin Scandal
A surprising rush of endorphins, hitting like the snap of a whip, brought on by a kiss from a great-smelling, cashmere-sweatered stranger. Notes: floral bouquet, leather whip.

Luscious iris...

Chanel No. 19
Too perfect to be loveable, too haughty to be anything but invincible. Notes: galbanum, iris, vetiver, leather.

Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist
Magical thinking will get you here. Carrots and beanstalks pulled out of the ground turn into fantasy delicacies. Notes: carroty iris, icy iris, bready iris.

Rich green florals...

Malle Editions Une Fleur de Cassie
Lazing in a string hammock smelling the mud, the sea, and the acacia during a monsoon. Notes: acacia, mimosa, jasmine, sandalwood.

Ormonde Jayne Woman
Like handling malachite worry beads: almost too smooth to get a grasp on, but comforting. Or, a cool, spiced, dark green, shadowed forest. Notes: cardamom, coriander, black hemlock, jasmine, woods.

Pure creature comforts...

Guerlain L'Heure Bleue
All the colors of dusk, from dark violet to peacock to midnight blue. Notes: anise, bergamot, Guerlain's magic ochres and Prussian blues.

Jean Deprez Bal à Versailles
Necco candies and sex. Notes: Rose, jasmine, civet, musk.

Shiseido Féminité du Bois
Pulling full-test pure cedarbark pancake syrup in Hansel and Gretel's violet-strewn forest. Notes: cedarwood, violets, undergrowth.

Fendi Theorema
The most delicious mandarin sandalwood cream liqueur in the entire world. Notes: mandarin orange, osmanthus, wood.

The Manor Library

2008-09-21T19:33:00.010-05:00

I just had to share a discovery. After reading carmencanada's fabulous review of No. 5 Eau Première in grain de musc, I thought why not sully the perfection that is Chanel No. 5 parfum with some tinkering myself? You know what I found out is the perfect combo to dirty it up a bit? L'Artisan Parfumeur's Dzing! Together, you get fabulous old library, like the pictured Magdalen College's Old Library in Oxford. Or perhaps a library in an English manor mouse that was renovated out of the old stables or mews, with mouldering leather Chesterfield sofas and crumbling 18th-century volumes piled on oak bookcases. Adding No. 5 adds aristocratic elegance, of course. Dzing! on it's own is purely a fantastic circus midway.

Photo courtesy of Magdalen College.

Choices, Choices, and Lists

2008-09-20T10:46:00.007-05:00

So you'd never know, unless you read the subtitle of my blog up there, that I intended this to encompass more than my perfume geekery. But after a brutally hot and dry Texas summer I've got a front yard garden that's gasping for water, a shamefully abandoned community garden plot with 7-ft tomato plants that never produced more than a handful of pear tomatoes (but quite a lot of purple Thai basil, at least), crumpled chainlink fences to get rid of, a half-painted back door, and a still-empty spot where I plan my screened porch. Geez, no wonder I prefer researching luxurious vintage perfumes, when I see all that listed out.

Count this as a moment of homeowner panic at encroaching reality. It's starting to cool off enough to thing about all the stuff I need to do. Gah! If I keep buying perfume I'm never going to be able to afford my long-dreamed-of screened porch! So in the hope that by creating lists I can expiate some of my consumerist desires:

Here's my desperately-want-a-full-bottle-but-I'd-be-just-plain-stupid-to-spend-the-money list:

Dzing, L'Artisan Parfumeur
Une Fleur de Cassie, Malle Editions
Bois des Iles, Chanel
Iris Silver Mist, Lutens (+ trip to Paris, of course)
Jasmin Vert, Miller Harris
new Mitsouko edt, Guerlain

And because what's better than a list? Two lists! Here's my want-a-big-sample list:

Iris de Nuit, Heeley; Escale a Portofino, Dior; Love in Black, Creed; Monsieur de Givenchy; Eau de Guerlain; Jasmin et Cigarette, L'Etat de Libre; S-ex, S-Perfumes; Bluebell, Penhaligon's; Vetiver Pour Elle, Guerlain; Wild Hunt, CB I Hate Perfume; Acqua di Parma Profumo; Jasmin Noir, Bvlgari; Beige, Chanel; No. 23, Red Tara, and Madame X, Ava Luxe; Dan Tes Bras, Malle Editions; Jitterbug, Opus Oils; and probably a billion more I'm not remembering at the moment.

Help me choose! If I can get just two of my need-a-full-bottle list, which should I get?

Une Fleur de Cassie : Frederic Malle : Dominique Ropion

2008-09-19T11:07:00.009-05:00

There are two perfumes I've been sampling off and on for months: Ormonde Jayne Woman and Une Fleur de Cassie. I associate them not because they smell alike, but because they are all highly respected, complex floral blends in a modern style, and because when I'm on a vintage perfume tear, as I had been all summer, it's hard to appreciate them. But grand perfumery they are, and they deserve some love! I'm focusing on Une Fleur de Cassie today.

So after a rough day at work, I pulled my little toiletry tray that I use to organize samples out of the perfume cabinet which is in my bedroom. (By the way, I measure how bad the perfume bug has hold of me by how many shelves I fill with perfume rather than folded pants and blankets.) I sat down on the bed and browsed for a sample to try this evening. When I finally decided on and dabbed some Une Fleur de Cassie on my wrist, I fell over onto the bed in full swoon.

This is the perfect perfume to loll about it after a rough day: langourous, rich, muddy, smoky, juicy and strange. It is a bit similar to the Fangorn Forest quality (in which the trees come alive to threaten unwelcome intruders) that I get in Ormonde Jayne Woman, but UFdC is more sinister and more stately. They are both subtle forces of nature, though. They aren't rough or scratchy. They turn the teeming undergrowth into a balconied opera house.

There's definately what Annie Dillard calls fecundity in them:
"The driving force behind all this fecundity is a terrible pressure. I also must consider, the pressure of birth and growth, the pressure that splits the bark of trees and shoots out seeds, that squeezes out the egg and bursts the pupa, that hungers and lusts and drives the creature relentlessly towards its own death." (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 163)

Oh, you want an actual description? Well, I get chalky violet (some smell a wet paper note here) which turns into an indolic jasmine and cassie, all anchored with cinnamon-flavored dirt. It doesn't last all day, unfortunately, but the tenacity isn't bad (3-4 hrs). It's sublime, and I may need a full bottle of this even before the rounded, shadowed, spiced evergreen of Ormonde Jayne Woman.

Bois de Jasmin's review of Une Fleur de Cassie is really helpful, and lists the notes as: bergamot, rose, violet, aldehydes, cassie, mimosa, jasmine, clove, cedarwood, sandalwood, musk.

Cuir (new) : Lancome : Calice Becker and Pauline Zanoni

2008-09-15T19:09:00.010-05:00

Refreshingly, for once I am not talking about how much better a vintage formulation is, and for a very simple reason: I've never smelled the original Révolte (later renamed Cuir) created in 1936.

The top and heart notes of the new Cuir de Lancome have an odd, sharp, medicinal saffron and mandarine, which combined together strike me as almost camphorous--or is that the patchouli, perhaps? However, just underneath, and more apparent as my nose gets acclimated to the odd top notes, is a creamy ylang and hawthorne combination. The fragrance is well-balanced between those two poles.

I agree with Angela's review on Now Smell This in that Cuir is not at all as rough as Knize Ten, and has more in common with Cuir Ottoman or Daim Blond. However, Cuir is different in its subtlety and in the balance of bitter and floral. The medicinal quality cuts the gooeyness that I dislike in both Cuir Ottoman and Daim Blond. The drydown is sweeter as the saffron fades and the patchouli and a warm (but still comparatively dry) balsamic quality advance in its place. In the far drydown I can detect a tinge of my beloved iris if I spray it at least three times and snorfle (the technical term) my nose right up to my wrist.

I'm trying to place the type of leather this is. It's not the inside of an expensive bag, and it's not a saddle, that's for sure. It's not glove-leather or a suede car coat. Before I can place it, the bottom kinda drops out of the thing, so hm. But although it's a bit ephemeral, and even though it has nothing in common with Chanel's Cuir de Russie or Lanvin's vintage Scandal, my two favorite leathers, I think this will grow on me as a more wearable daytime leather.

Notes: bergamot, mandarin, saffron, jasmine, ylang-ylang, hawthorn, patchouli, orris, birch, and styrax.

Fall Perfume Fantasy: YSL Rive Gauche

2008-09-14T09:16:00.011-05:00

OK, so there's the slightest hint of cooler (meaning 80s instead of 100) weather this week, so I'll post a quick fall fantasy inspired by one of my vintage perfume bottles.

Yves Saint Laurent's Rive Gauche in vintage parfum fits this imaginary purple prose scene from Jules et Jim perfectly:

In a Parisian cafe near midnight, Catherine, a brunette woman in a pullover and slightly disheveled trench coat, is talking animatedly with Jules and Jim at a cushioned Art Deco booth. Outside, the streetlights shine on frosted cobblestone streets and the air has the dry, metallic feel of snow, but the cafe is warmed by the fire, bringing out the scents of woolens, woodwork, and the zinc bar. The roses that one of the men has given her lay on the booth. She ignores them as easily as she overlooks the obvious rivalry of the two men over her attention, giving them both only capricious, lighthearted banter instead of any explanations.

Hee, hee. Have you read any of those crazy scenes Lancome's marketing department writes up for their La Collection perfumes? They oughta hire me to write some more of those. What a great job that would be!

For a more thorough review of this masterpiece, read this one at the always fascinating Bois de Jasmin.

Le Temps d'Une Fête : Parfums de Nicolai

2008-09-08T10:20:00.015-05:00

This is just a quickie review of a perfume I'm sampling today, although I'm worried I won't do it justice! Le Temps d'Une Fête is an unusual floral green chypre. It starts out very juicy, but tart and sparkling--no sweet tooty-frooty. There's a bitter edge to the juiciness that holds my attention. After just a few minutes there's a hint of the fleshy white floral heart, which gets closer and closer, and just when you think it's going to turn into a full-blown, over-ripe, skanky narcissus, that bitter edge balances it again, and it turns radiantly green. There's definately my beloved galbanum in there, but it's more like dandelion sap than green pepper. I'm probably detecting a really amazing melding of galbanum with the resins and woods.

Luckyscent says the notes are: galbanum, mastic, opoponax, narcissus, hyacinth, daffodil, styrax, oakmoss, sandalwood.

The fruitiness could be in my imagination, I suppose. There is no fruit in the notes. However, my nose is so attuned to bitter green vintage scents that perhaps it's affecting my perception on modern perfumes, with their very different aromachemicals. Or perhaps I'm just super-sensitive to the heavily overripe quality of hyacinth, and it reads as fruity to me. As this lovely perfume dries down, I'm finally getting some oakmoss and--oh! some warm, delicious sandalwood just popped in! It's continuing into a whole new stage of yumminess, even though it is a bit shy on the oakmoss and sandalwood drydown for my taste. This is definately a modern style of perfume, with lots of airiness rather than the density I'm used to. But it is also a really interesting perfume, and the dandelion sap quality is my favorite part. It reminds me of making dandelion chains when I was a kid, splitting the stems in half and smelling that sticky, white sap inside, then knotting the slippery stems together. Did you ever do that? Incredible stuff!

Iris Silver Mist : Serge Lutens

2008-08-29T09:13:00.007-05:00

If Jadis, the White Witch of the Narnia series, had doled out bewitched carrot cake instead of Turkish Delight to corrupt young innocents, it would have smelled like Iris Silver Mist.

Although for the first half-hour it smells uncannily like barely matured carrots, pulled out of the dirt right after a rain, the highly composted loam they were pulled out of soon dominates, with whiffs of nearby coriander plantings. This isn't a snappy, juicy, vegetal perfume, though. That's the weird thing about it. Its silvery quality--seemingly opalescent--transforms what could have been merely vegetable-garden verisimilitude into something magical. I have a lot of iris perfumes, but the iris here is otherwordly. In fact, the dirt that many reviewers have referred starts to transform into something shimmering and bready and spicy and--oh my! It's a Turkish Delight carrot cake.

As soon as my nose hits carrot cake, the perfume almost disappears, making me snort my wrist frantically trying to find that gorgeous scent again, convinced I cannot live without it. I rest my nose and a few minutes later -- sigh. I can smell it again. As it dries down, I could swear this has a similar quality to vintage L'Heure Bleue's drydown. This stuff is scary good. Once you taste it, you crave it again and again. I understand Edmund a lot better now.

P.S. I think the ephemeral quality is due to being dabbed from a sample I've got. After a few hours my wrists still have a lovely little iris-incense glow, and I think if it were sprayed, the drydown would have more intensity.

Also, this perfume is so fascinating, one entirely subjective review (as all reviews are) is certainly no where near enough! Check out the wonderful reviews at Bois de Jasmin, Perfume-Smellin' Things, and Now Smell This.

Image from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)

Private Collection, Estee Lauder : Vent Vert, Balmain

2008-08-23T15:50:00.011-05:00

Private Collection extrait is a striking, elegant green chypre that in perfume reminds me quite a bit of vintage Vent Vert, but with a hint of pine trees and moss instead of that purely peppery snappiness of galbanum. So I thought I would compare them.

I just scored some PV extrait minis at an antique store, and I've had the VV edt for a while. I went through a phase last summer in which I felt the need to huff on that VV every morning, although I find it a bit difficult to wear until it dries down quite a bit. I love galbanum and dislike evergreen scents, generally speaking, and had tested PV in stores before and didn't like it, so I was surprised at the antique store to find the PV so compelling in extrait.

Sniffed side by side, I'm struck again by how effervescent the Vent Vert (Germaine Cellier, 1947) is. I've got a vintage eau de toilette, and I've never smelled Vent Vert extrait, but the edt has such charming I-don't-give-a-damn quality (I love that galbanum!) that I can't but imagine the extrait would be extraordinary indeed. After the green peppers subside a bit, it smells like the most delicate and wild meadow grass and a smidge of pampered lily of the valley. There's no aldehydic sparkliness; instead, it's as if these elements become a straightforward, refreshing ether to take in, like you'd take the waters at Bath. Wholesome but not boring. How does it do that? The floral quality gets more intense in the heart notes, and I think I can discern the hyacinth and jasmine, as the murmur of oakmoss and musk gets louder. The notes (for the original, which I think is what I've got) are sometimes listed as galbanum, citrus, gardenia, peach, lily of the valley, rose, hyacinth, jasmine, iris, oakmoss, vetiver, styrax, and musk. Sniffed at the same time as the PV, they aren't as similar as I thought they'd be. VV seems suddenly a bit more floral in comparison with the slight astringency of PV.

As is to be expected with a high-quality extrait, Private Collection (Vincente Marcello, 1973) is much deeper, with an initial fresh-air and mossy-pines vibe that mellows and becomes more floral (the jasmine and chrysanthemum?) over the next half hour or so. It is the smell of distances and horizons, and has almost the same peaceful, analgesic effect as looking out over a vista of pine woods in the White Mountains from a luxurious mountain-top cabin's balcony. But this is not a sporty scent, in the least. What is so surprising about the extrait is that there is a velvety quality to the bottom notes. I smell the sandalwood, certainly, and perhaps the sweet heliotrope is what makes the base so velvety. Although all the sources I've read disagree, Osmoz says that the top notes are green notes, orange blossom, linden; heart notes are jasmine, reseda, chrysanthemum, rose; base notes are sandalwood, heliotrope, musks. No galbanum? How can this not have galbanum?? The more research I do on this perfume, the more I think it must be the chrysanthemum that is the unique element here, adding a raspy quality to the greens that is slightly smoother, less juicily vegetal than galbanum. Gosh, I'm liking this. Isn't Niki de Saint Phalle supposed to have chrysanthemum in it too? Drat, this is where you can see my OCD coming out to play. Now I've got to try other chrysanthemum perfumes.

Vintage Vent Vert is of course available mainly on fleabay. I'm afraid to find out if Private Collection is available anymore in extrait. Anyone know?

Magie Noire : Lancome : Gérard Goupy (with an aside on Habanita)

2008-08-20T10:29:00.012-05:00

Magie Noire parfum--does anyone know more about the evil sorcerer Goupy who created this? It drives me a little whackadoodle when I wear it, trying to figure out why I can't stop sniffing my wrist, even with its Pledge-furniture-polish-and-fruit moments. But that's what this perfume does to most folks who love it, I think. It's restless; it keeps you off balance.

I'd compare it with Habanita edt, another unlikely fruited love of mine, in its powers of conviction. Yes, I do mean powers of conviction, because these perfumes have intentions--improper ones. You try it on and say: "hm, not so sure ..." And Habanita answers: "You better believe it." Habanita starts as a powdery fruit compote that you would think would be about as seductive as, say, a quivering bowl of ambrosia salad on a cheap vinyl tablecloth, until it morphs into the most unexpected vetiver-vanilla-leather creature on the prowl, enveloping you before you realize it's even gotten a hold. Every time it happens I'm flabbergasted at the mysterious alchemy that turns such seemingly unimpressive materials into such a stunner. Whew, erm...I get a little carried away about the Habanita (pant pant).

What I'm reviewing today, however, is Magie Noire parfum. I am not dissing Lancome, but I can only stand the parfum. It does strike me that the Magie Noire edt must have been tinkered with rather... disastrously. The ivy-green lemony smell (is that the blackcurrant?) reads in the Magie Noire edt as ammonia. Frankly, people, it smells like cat pee and Pledge. So after smelling the recent edt and body lotion, I wasn't expecting much from the parfum. But it's true, a magic act similar to that of Habanita happens. It's not the transformer that Habanita is on my skin, but after a bit of a rough start, there is a stage at which I am won over. The early stages of greens (sharp, twiggy ivy-like greens ready to claw the unsuspecting) and bruised, darkly juicy floral (hyacinth) swirling in an animalic, nocturnal brew (honey, civet, castoreum, patchouli) are unsettling, to say the least. Just when I think that they are just going to sit and sulk, like the demon in Fuseli's The Nightmare, the purple-berry-ish top notes finally mellow a bit into the tuberose, rose, and narcissus. Finally, after several hours, the gorgeous drydown completes its alchemical reaction with your skin, smelling like you've had a naughty post-berry-picking roll under a bramble.

Osmoz lists the notes as: blackcurrant, bergamot, hyacinth, raspberry, honey, tuberose, narcissus, rose oriental, patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, and civet.

Darnit, this review was *supposed* to be of something available online, at least, if not in stores. But the online source from which I got my .25 oz. parfum only this winter seems to have dried up in the meantime , so unfortunately I have only fleabay to suggest if you wish to acquire this strange beauty. Le sigh. Perhaps I should just give it up and call this the Sadly Now Inaccessible Fragrance blog and start my own 12-step program called Sadly Now Inaccessible Fragrance Addicts Anonymous (SNIFAA)©.

Image of Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare from The Artchive.
Image of Magie Noire bottle is blogger's own.

L'Heure Bleue : Guerlain : Jacques Guerlain

2008-08-19T11:35:00.010-05:00

In 1912, L'Heure Bleue was born, and the world is a more beautiful place for it. The character of vintage L'Heure Bleue is hot tears on flushed skin, I realized this morning. I've taken advantage of a rare rainy day in Austin to wear it. It exudes from my skin like it is the natural scent of catharsis--the tremblingly uninhibited, floating feeling that comes after an emotional storm, when your anger and sorrow seem almost magically released through the pores. Have I had such a catharsis lately? No, but I'm wanting one, which may explain why it strikes me this way. It balances bitterness and comfort: after the first gasp of bergamot and flowery (heliotrope, carnation) spiciness, it keeps transforming. Its gingerbread-like accord is one moment brandied, one moment tarry; its anise is one moment candied, another moment medicinal. As it dries down, the tonka bean and iris continue to play out the drama of catharsis, with the warmth of the tonka bean countered by the cooling iris, like the effect of tears drying on flushed cheeks.

Bring on the purple prose, right? It's just perfume, woman! Snap out of it. Hm, okay, well suffice it to say, L'Heure Bleue can really put me in a trance like no other perfume. It just seems to keep going and going when you sniff it--the depths keep revealing more wonders. In any case, as you would probably expect, coming from a vintage-lover like me, the recent version of this parfum does not contain the same magic. There is a rubbery, synthetic note in the recent version that mars it. I've noted that rubbery scent in the recent body lotion (although in a body lotion I kind of like the new-doll-head smell), and was disappointed to smell it also in the parfum at the NYC Bergdorf Goodman's Guerlain shop a couple of weeks ago. This is such a fascinating perfume that anyone who tries it is certain to have a different response, however. Try both, if you can!

NYC and Some Cheapo Finds : Worth's Je Reviens Couture : Balenciaga's Le Dix edt

2008-08-10T14:38:00.004-05:00

First off, a quick report of NYC sniffage. While I sniffed scads of perfumes on my trip to NYC, and even fell in love with some of them (Guerlain's Sous le Vent, Miller Harris's Jasmine Vert), I brought home NONE of them. Mainly that's because there are few bottles of perfume I would spend $200 on, and a subtle jasmine and hay affair like Jasmin Vert certainly does not fall into that category. Why can't companies start selling smaller bottles???!!! And Sous le Vent was gorgeous but surprisingly short-lived on my skin, so that was out. I think the most I've spent on one bottle of perfume was either a new .5 oz. of Cuir de Russie parfum or a fleabayed 2 oz. bottle of vintage L'Heure Bleue. I'll let you know when I find a non-extrait perfume that is FBW at $200. It might just be one of the new bottles of Bois des Iles edt, but I'm trying to hold off on that until I'm looking for a Christmas present for myself. Oh, and re-focusing on my sniffage: I also liked Muschio d'Oro and Calycanthus from Santa Maria Novella, but like all their perfumes, these two turned into powdery indistinct meh after a half an hour. Another favorite was L'Artisan's L'Été en Douce. And I tried the new Mitsouko edt formulation (I haunted the Guerlain counter at Bergdorf's shamelessly) and actually really liked it. I choke on the Mitsouko edp, and the current parfum even leaves me cold, so this was a breakthrough.

But in any case, I will celebrate my unlikely forbearance by reviewing two cheapo aldehydes this lazy Sunday afternoon; they are my favorites for the office and the interminable Austin summers. Well, not cheapo quality, mind you, but you can get both of these old-fashioned beauties at various perfume discounters for next to nothing. I highly recommend both if you like aldehydes.

Balenciaga's Le Dix (1947) is a lovely violet powder fragrance at first, but it has a tinge of citrusy bergamot and lemon that keeps it from turning into the saccharine violet of Guerlain's Les Meteorites. If you, like I, can't stand strong citruses, don't worry. Everything is so well-blended that you there is no sharp eau-de-fruit-peel. The notes as listed on Osmoz also include coriander, which I can only detect as adding some musky-green complexity to the top notes. As the fragrance dries down the powder dissipates and the violet gets deeper, given structure with sandalwood smudged with perhaps a bit of vetiver.

If you'd like to read more, see this great review of Le Dix by Angela at NowSmellThis.

Je Reviens Couture (2004) is a recent eau de parfum version of Worth's oldie-but-goodie Je Reviens. Now, I haven't smelled the old Je Reviens in any form but the bath oil, but I can tell you from that experience that it is uh-maaay-zing. From what I've read, the more recent Je Reviens that you could find in drugstores is dreck, but I haven't sniffed it. However, the Couture edp version is strikingly similar to the old Je Reviens, if a smidge dryer and paler due to those missing nitro musks that Luca Turin mentions in Perfumes: The Guide. So what's so great about the old Je Reviens and the new Je Reviens Couture, and what ties them together so recognizably? For me, it's the absolutely addictive, smoky, ashy overtone to the flowers. I don't really know for sure, but I believe this effect is created by a type of aldehyde that to some smells like nail polish remover. But to me, it is an almost pyrocaustic scent, like getting a teensy whiff of petroleum fumes mixed with your Chanel No. 5. It's not at all ashy like cigarettes or ashtrays; on the contrary, it has a metallic shimmer like a sparkler lighting up the fragrance's cool floral bouquet heart.

With all this talk of ashes and petroleum, you wouldn't think this is an office perfume at all, but really this is a ladylike scent with unusual aldehydes, I think. What little sillage there is registers as a bit on the metallic-vetiver-floral side, not freakish or fumey. It's only when you huff your skin directly while sitting at your computer in an office cubicle that you realize it's a cyborg impersonating one of the Upper West Side's ladies who lunch. It's my subversive office scent.

Rumeur, Scandal, Arpège : Lanvin : André Fraysse

2008-07-26T18:41:00.015-05:00

I'm continuing my foray into Lanvin's discontinued greats with this set of vintage Rumeur (1934), Scandal (1933), and Arpège (1927) parfums, my latest fleabay find. I'm stunned with the beauty of these three. I've come to adore My Sin, so I was very eager to get my hands on more Lanvin perfumes. I have no idea how old this little set of .5 oz. bottles is, but I felt as if I'd discovered long-buried treasure when I opened up the package to discover three perfect, still-sealed bottles.

Let me start with what I consider the strangest and most challenging of the three, surprisingly: Rumeur. I've yet to find a list of notes for this perfume, and I've heard it described sometimes as a floral leather. I'm not sure if my nose is out of whack, but I could swear there is an intensely camphorous, medicinal opening here. Could that be, or has this seemingly perfectly preserved bottle gone off? Bless my bloomers if this isn't a carnation and clove scent! A bit of a winey rose and leather accord could be in there as well, and it is certainly bone dry. What a shock, compared to the recent sweet little frooty-floral reformulated version. I say it's challenging, but only because it is very assertively clove-like, which is not a favorite note of mine. It does dry down to a lovely leathery, if still medicinal, spice-and-moss concoction. If you have experience of this in its original state, I would greatly appreciate any details/notes/memories you can provide!

Scandal is the most mouth-wateringly gorgeous leather I've ever smelled since Chanel's Cuir de Russie. Before giving my impressions, though, let me admit to some strong opinions on leather scents, so that you'll know where I stand. I'm often somewhat frustrated with reviews when I have no idea of that person's preferences and/or prejudices, so if you feel the same frustration, bear with me and maybe you'll find this sorta helpful, if pedantic. I am one of those who cannot stand anything remotely syrupy in a leather perfume. Nope, can't do Lutens' Daim Blond, or even (gasp!) Caron's Tabac Blond parfum (recent formulation). The Parfumerie Generale leathers have a synthetic, thick, gooey quality that turns me off entirely. There are also some leathers, such as Knize Ten, that are a bit too tough and arid for me. Bandit (recent edp) and Jolie Madame are both close to the experience of licking a wet ashtray--not bearable, in other words. Other leather references? I do like the new Diorling edt quite a lot, but it is more jasmine and tobacco than leather, it seems to me. I like Dzing, and absolutely adore vintage Miss Dior and Chanel no. 19.

Whew, okay, if you're still with me, the point is: above all of the others, Chanel's Cuir de Russie has always been my floral-leather touchstone, and with Scandal I've now twice the joy. In a side-by-side test of the two (both in parfum), my recently bought CdR is immediately all luscious, aldehydic iris laced with mellow spices, with a tasteful leather handbag in the background. In Scandal, the opening leathery snap is sharper, but when the florals arrive, the result is an uncannily similar iris-leather. Both are elegantly dry, without a smidge of syrup. The leather in Scandal just lasts and lasts and lasts, compared to the new CdR parfum. If you hear a "squee!!" and a thump, that would be me, falling over in ecstasy. "Wow," is all I can say.

Finally, does anything more even need to be said about the plush, velvet-sandalwood and rose that is the original Arpège? On my previous sniffs--perhaps of the new formulation, in my defense--how could I have thought the rose and sandalwood combination sour and matronly? I'm not a rose lover, but in the vintage parfum, at least, the rose is so well blended that it adds only a translucent blush to a fragrance that could have otherwise been slightly opaque. Arpège is like a woman with such effortless grace and elegance you'd almost like to hate her, but can't, or--how about a less catty description?--a captivating gesture made by a sultry, brainy woman in passionate conversation.

If you'd like to learn more about the Lanvin classics, I highly recommend reading reviews of Scandal by NowSmellThis and the original Arpège by BoisdeJasmin.

Kindly tune in again as this blogger continues with reviews of some favorites you don't necessarily have to hunt down on fleabay: Je Reviens Couture, Magie Noire, Bal a Versailles, and perhaps new treasures yet-to-be-discovered on an upcoming trip to New York!

My Sin : Lanvin : Mme Zed

2008-06-20T22:24:00.009-05:00

Yep, it's another post-fleabay-binge vintage perfume post. I scored a quarter ounce of My Sin in a sealed box and it appears to be in great shape. Wooo!

Lanvin's My Sin surprisingly starts with what smells like candied bergamot and violets suspended in an aldehydic shimmer. Hm, violets aren't in the listed notes, as far as I know, but maybe it's just a violet quality to the aldehydes? It's not as much like Chanel no. 5 parfum as I expected. It seems, oddly enough, like a combination of Arpege (you can smell that gorgeous sandalwood base immediately) and the smell of Smarties candy that I get from the new Chanel no. 5 flanker, Eau Premiere. Not unappealing at all. But thankfully, that impression doesn't last long, because prowling and purring just behind the aldehydes is a sandalwood and civet combination that is pretty damn stunning.

From a candy-necklace version of no. 5, My Sin transforms into an unrestrained and naughtier no. 5. Much better, that. The animalic basenotes are exceedingly creamy in combination with the ylang, jasmine, and vanilla, but the tiny hint of an edge (probably from the vetiver, cloves, and styrax, but I can't distinguish any of those notes individually) keeps it all from feeling too pillowy or gooey.

Sorry about the confused jumble of heart notes and basenotes, but my nose just doesn't seem to work in the pyramidal structure of topnote, then heartnote, then basenote. I probably haven't trained it enough, most likely. And since no. 5 parfum is such a huge reference point in this review, I should really link to some detailed reviews of that colossal icon. How about this one: Legerdenez has a wonderful and informative post on Chanel no. 5. Also, PerfumeQueen's review of no. 5 is very nicely done.

Read the tempting and thorough review of My Sin at Bois de Jasmin. According to that review, the notes are: aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, clary sage, neroli; heart notes of ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, clove, orris, lily of the valley, jonquil, lilac; base notes of vanilla, vetiver, musk, woods, tolu, styrax, civet.

La Fuite des Heures : Balenciaga : Cellier

2008-06-16T09:39:00.016-05:00

**Public service announcement: If anyone is reading this who is in the least bit susceptible to vintage perfume lust, this review raves on about a discontinued, obscure, and frustratingly little-known vintage parfum. It's gotta be done, though, so I beg pardon in advance.**

On one of those dangerous fleabay whims in which I too often indulge (I can stop anytime, I swear. A-ny-time now...), I bid on and won an ounce of an almost-forgotten perfume created by the legendary Germaine Cellier for Balenciaga in the late forties (1949?). It's called La Fuite des Heures (Fleeting Moment), and from what little I could glean on the web, it was a subtle jasmine and thyme affair.

When I unsealed the bottle (so pretty! it rests inside the sweetest little oval cylinder box printed with Balenciaga in gold), I found out the scent was perfectly preserved, at least to my nose. I was surrounded by the most radiant herbal jasmine scent I've ever encountered.

I've never been a fan of jasmine, mainly I think because of its ubiquitous and synthetic use in department store perfumes, which to me smell a bit like ammonia. This perfume finally acquaints me with the wonder of jasmine. That doesn't mean it's purely sweet and light, however. I have often heard of Lutens' Tubereuse Criminelle described as having a gasoline-menthol edge to it on first whiff, and La Fuite des Heures has a similar, faintly petrol cast to the herbs in the beginning. Did Serge study his Cellier? I'd like to think I've found a missing referent, because that would give my obsession the justification of archival research. In any case, I can certainly say that petrol edge spotlights the shift from green leaves and herbs to a warm, sunlit jasmine such as I've never smelled in perfumery.

Now I have, and love, Fracas, also created by Germaine Cellier, but I've often suspected I'm missing something about it--a note beyond the frequencies I can hear. I've tried to love her Bandit, but I get only wet ashtray. But in this third example of her work I feel like I've made a huge discovery. Why is it such discoveries most often come with rarity, inaccessibility, and the anticipation of inevitable loss? 'Cause they're my discoveries (obscurity-lover that I am), that's why! And that's why the name of this perfume is so perfect from my perspective, as well--the literal translation is the flight of hours.

See Scented Salamander's more detailed review of La Fuite des Heures.

Gardening for Perfume

2008-04-28T12:32:00.005-05:00

One of my gardening dreams is to grow a garden of plants used in perfumery, but not just roses, or jasmine. I want to also grow some of the non-florals that have been used in medicine, ritual, and perfumery for centuries.

For instance, Rock Rose (cistus ladanifer) is a mediterranean bush with fragrant sap that is used in perfumery and called labdanum. This does have lovely white flowers with four or five red spots and yellow stamens (see the picture), but it's not the flower that's used in perfumery. Egyptian pharoahs used the sap, and it was used medicinally, and in a twisty chain of associations was eventually confused with the opiate laudanum.

Or what about one of my favorite perfume materials, galbanum, which is extracted from an Iranian grass? I wonder if I can buy seeds? Vetiver grass is another possibility, as well. Fennel also is one of my favorites--and butterflies love it too, as a bonus. Oh, and I can certainly plant more Artemisia (similar (or the same? I'm not sure) in scent to angelica in perfume), because I can't even kill that stuff in my front yard. Artemesia loves the heat.

Of course flowers shouldn't be neglected, should they? I have a couple of osmanthus plants, (also known as tea olive) to plant in my shady, east-facing backyard, and I hope their scent will waft into my yet-to-be-built screened porch. Jasmine (I've read that night-blooming jasmine, a.k.a. jasmine sambac varieties, have the scary-wonderful indoles by the truckload to help insects find them in the dark) and tuberose are other possibilities, and coral honeysuckle is supposed to be bulletproof in Central Texas. Hm, I wonder if heliotrope and anise grow well here? I'm sad that hawthorne probably won't do here, nor will lilac.

And I definately have to plant florentine iris (iris pallida), which likes sun and not-great soil. Perfect! I've got plenty of both. The iris root, called orris, is my absolute favorite perfume material, and smells like a cross between a root vegetable and a heavenly powdery flower. The iris flower itself produces no extractable scent. I want to smell me some iris roots!

Picture from desert-tropicals.com.

Community Garden Progress!

2008-02-17T18:55:00.008-06:00

It's almost spring in Austin, and I'm having a blast helping out with the initial stages of a new community garden in my neighborhood. That's Nathan on the right, the guy who's gotten the funding and is leading the charge. That's James on the left. This was taken later in the afternoon, but today a bunch of us were out there shoveling compost around, laying out the plans, and terracing the slope at the back end of the lot. See that terrace wall in the foreground? That's partly my handiwork! That space they're evening out is going to be the patio area where we'll put a few seating nooks, a picnic table, and maybe a fire pit. Surrounding the patio will be individual plots, all organically shaped, with a twisty path around them. Then at the front of the lot is going to be long group-planted vegetable rows - eight of them! A few fruit trees will go near the sidewalk end of the lot, which is the north side. A few fruit trees and possibly a grape arbor will go at the far south end of the lot, partially shading the patio area. Gosh, we need a name for the garden! So exciting!

'Cause It Makes My Apartment Smell Mossaayy

2008-02-07T11:04:00.004-06:00

Steve Zahn, how I love thee. A lone goof of a personality in super-polished rom-coms like the Meg Ryan vehicle You've Got Mail, his delivery of the line: "'Cause it makes my apartment smell mossy," cracks me up and makes me want to take him home with me. In his honor I'm picking that line about prepping his apartment for a date to introduce one of my favorite smells: moss.

Oak moss is probably the main reason for my love of vintage perfumes. And by vintage perfumes I mean vintage Miss Dior, of course! That preternaturally stunning perfume is the ne plus ultra of oak moss, a note that is essential to the chypre family of perfumes. It is sadly disappearing from perfumery--it's been labeled a toxin and is buried in an avalanche of cheaper, more fruity, more sparkly olfactory chemistry.

Vintage Miss Dior was my gateway drug to a world of green, greener perfumes, many vintage. It introduced me to oak moss and another favorite, galbanum. Once started on the green path, I can't seem to stop. Thankfully, I now know Chanel no.19 is a masterpiece required for my survival. Smelling the original Vent Vert is now a compulsion, although I can't wear it often. I'm dying to get my hands on vintage Givenchy III, having smelled the paler new edition and currently waffling on buying it. Jacomo's Silences is the slightly flinty, green aftermath of a thunderstorm. Moss is a required element in many violet perfumes I like, as well: Fresh's Violet Moss is lovely, Ava Luxe's Midnight Violet is addictive, on account of their moss. Has anyone smelled LesNez's The Unicorn Spell? That's next on my list of violet mosses.

But back to Steve Zahn's mossy apartment. I need to re-watch You've Got Mail, because I don't remember what he was getting to make his apartment smell mossy, and I want some. I want my house to smell mossy! I've recently bought Voluspa's Champaca Bloom and Fern candle, hoping it would make my place smell mossy, but no luck, even though I like it a lot. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Image from photoeverywhere.co.uk

Après l'Ondée : Guerlain : Jacques Guerlain

2008-02-06T14:44:00.005-06:00

Since I've become rather obsessed with perfume this past year, I've been fascinated by the idea of a perfume evoking a place. But I've discovered that, for me, it almost never does. I'm not saying it doesn't stir the imagination. Perfume satiates some combination olfactory/spiritual hunger of mine. I know -- what the hell is that? I don't really know either. But it was a hunger I didn't even know existed until I started learning about perfume. Perfume suits my imagination by allowing me to select a protective avatar to pull around my overly sensitive little self like a cloak against the world when I want, or a glamour to expand my effect on the world if I want that. But a perfume evoking a place? I love traveling, so I'm disappointed to say that perfumes don't transport me.

But there's an exception: Guerlain's Après l'Ondée, created in 1906. Just smelling this perfume is time travel in itself, since it's formula is over a century old. It's been name-checked by Nancy Mitford in The Pursuit of Love, for criminy's sake. I like to imagine all the women who have adored this scent. But beyond the history of the perfume itself, it's scent is magically the smell of a sunwarmed, serenely arranged garden patio in France. The pea gravel and limestone garden borders have just been cooled by a summer rain shower. There's a remote, tawny, aromatic meadow in the distance, with a big thunderhead looming over it. Closer, there is the comfort of garden beds containing yeasty, pampered garden soil full of rain-battered violets and heliotrope.

So I have to admit something that other passionate perfumistas have also admitted: Après l'Ondée makes me cry. It is a magic perfume; it is a release of ancient breath. The anise is both dusty and brilliant, the violets and heliotrope are tender, and the combination is incredibly moving, because it both comforts and makes you feel vulnerable at the same time, somehow.

Notes, according to the lovely review of Apres L'Ondee at Now Smell This: bergamot, neroli, aniseed, hawthorn, violet, heliotrope, iris and musk.

Image from Savvy Gardening

Ex-Academics Anonymous

2008-02-06T13:54:00.000-06:00

Hi there, my name is Aimee, and I'm a recovering academic. That means I use big words and then wonder who the hell I'm trying to impress in my workplace, or among my friends, that would require me to do so. And yes, as you can already tell, that means I'm working under a crippling load of internalized super-critical hyper-reflexive awareness of every thought I've ever had. Ever.

But on the plus side, it also means I can laugh at this animals have problems too illustration. Thanks, Zach VandeZande! You get me! Brilliant.

Tropicals in Winter

2008-02-06T10:32:00.003-06:00

After almost a year of resisting it, suddenly this morning I love Ormonde Jayne's Champaca again. I've often wondered, since moving to Texas, whether tropical perfumes are just redundant here. Too much in the summer, and not even a necessary ray of sunshine in winter. Or perhaps I've always had a negative reaction to them, associating tropicals with the herds of Americans yearning for a cheap paradise, and substituting an even cheaper perfume touting "exotic ylang ylang" and "sparkling mango." Man, I'm such a snob.

Anyway, my bigoted cultural assumptions aside, tropicals have not appealed to me in central Texas's steamy climate. Champaca's basmati rice base chokes me in the heat. And it even seemed to have a slightly too-thick, savory rice-pudding opaqueness in winter.

But finally! Today it worked. I sprayed some right in my cleavage, and yowee, delicious! The rice and the champaca blooms are perfectly lush, and the lack of transparency doesn't bother me at all. The sillage is like fleshy white flowers wafting through the air on 99.9% humidity. I thought I must make a note of this: so the first two weeks of February are safe for Champaca. In Austin we've just had our first proto-spring days. Hm. Probably don't need to replace my decant with a full bottle juuuuust yet.

Oh! I should mention that in the interest of documenting my odd layering experiments, I actually layered Champaca with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's Anarchy (her Chaos dupe oil). It must have cut some of the fleshiness of the Champaca, somehow.

I don't like many tropicals, but Champaca, along with Carnal Flower and Sand & Sable, do get to me from time to time. Okay, so I haven't mentioned the latter two perfumes yet? Sand & Sable I like to think of as the poor woman's Carnal Flower. No, S&S doesn't have the mouth-watering, green, petal-like luminescence of Carnal Flower, blar de blar blar. And no, it doesn't entirely satisfy like Carnal Flower does. But then it also costs 8$ a bottle instead of $250. If you haven't tried this tuberose-laden (though surely very synthetic) tropics-of-drugstore find, please get to it!