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

Anticipations, Quickies, Cheapo Finds, and Ambivalence

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

Tropicals in Winter

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!