Moving Day Comfort Scents

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?

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.

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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

Some fall favorites

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.

Une Fleur de Cassie : Frederic Malle : Dominique Ropion

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.