Happy Holidays and see you next year!

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.

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

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.

Best of the best 2009: Joint blog project

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

In Which I Consider a Trip to Paris, Again

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

Mood: blustery

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.