Cruel Summer: Experimental Layering Spree

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

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)

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

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

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

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.


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Vintage Rumeur revisited, with a digression on costus

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.