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.

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

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)

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

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

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...

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!

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.