Winner of the Guerlain samples: Cheryl

Just click on Contact Us over there on the left and remind me what you’ve won so I send you the right thing!

Amouage’s latest entries into the perfume new release overload (though I do think it’s slowed down this year, no?) is Reflection – one for her and one for him.

Amouage Reflection Women has notes of  Water violet, freesia, tropical green leaves, magnolia, ylang ylang, jasmine, amber, musk, cedarwood, sandalwood.  When it went on, it scared me. It was skewing off into an aquatic swamp.  I’ve read other reviews where it stays there on some people.  I didn’t find that to be true for me.  It pulls back into a much more woody floral territory – a decent amount of nose space seems to be magnolia, which is nice – that is soft, feminine, and very fresh feeling.  I do get some aquatic floating around in it vaguely, but not enough to  bother me.  Those of you that despise aquatics of all sorts may want to give it a miss.  It’s a well done, great summer fragrance, but it just doesn’t do it for me like a lot of their other scents. It is a nice departure from the normal oud/incense/skank area they dwell in most of the time, but I sorta like their normal territory.  At their regular price tag, it’s not all that compelling.

Amouage Reflection Man has notes of Rosemary, red pepper berries, bitter orange leaves, neroli, orris, jasmine, ylang ylang, vetiver, patchouli, sandalwood, cedarwood.  This is a nice, cool, masculine scent.  It covers a lot of classic men’s territory, but the red pepper and rosemary give it a little bit of a slant so it does and doesn’t smell typically masculine.  I’m sort of enamored with this, it’s definitely a power scent that would be great on your investment banker type.

As you probably already know if you read Monday’s post, I dug up my bottle of Van Cleef & Arpels First when I was rooting around looking for fragrances that reminded me in some way of the new Estee Lauder Jasmine White Moss.  I enjoyed my revisit of First so much that I thought it deserved its own day, because my sense is it’s one of those classics that has fallen through the cracks and doesn’t get the attention it deserves from the perfume community.

I do go on and on today, so in case you can’t read much further than this: in a larger sense, this post is about my experience of falling in love with a fragrance I didn’t much care for initially.  Many of us have learned the hard lesson that some of the scents we dislike at the outset (although there’s often something compelling about them, as opposed to craptastic) end up being scents we come to treasure.  So if a fragrance you’ve smelled haunts you, even if you hated it: do yourself a favor and don’t give up just yet.

According to Michael Edwards’ Perfume Legends, a reference book I love which I hear is now out of print, sadly — there’s one used on Amazon for $340, God help us… where were we?  Oh, yes. First was created for Van Cleef & Arpels in 1976, and done by Jean-Claude Ellena  — his second major perfume commission (the first being Sisley’s Eau de Campagne in 1974).  The idea of a jeweler doing a perfume was something of a radical idea, apparently, with detractors saying it would never sell.

Notes via Perfume Legends are bergamot, blackcurrant buds, mandarin, jasmine, narcissus, aldehydes, Turkish rose, ylang-ylang, cloves, sandalwood, vanilla, musk, tonka bean, amber.

First is a difficult fragrance for me to appreciate.  I have trouble with aldehydes; they can seem either too powdery or too sour (or both.)  Going back and looking at my mini-review from some time ago, I was amused to see that I repeated the same idea in Monday’s comments – the initial blast of First smells like a glammed-up disco fragrance, something that is very much not me at all – too dressy and too louche, simultaneously.

So why did I fall in love with First?  When I look at my notes jotted down over several sessions, I kept coming back to the overall idea of the sun coming out from behind ominous clouds.   The first ten or twenty minutes are sharply aldehydic and formal to me, and my guess is any number of folks who are not fans of aldehydes or green notes have taken a whiff of that and promptly given up.  But hang in there, people!  (Hey, if you like the top, so much the better.)  Watching the opaque sharpness of First’s opening notes give way to the jasmine in its heart is, in my opinion, one of the most glorious transitions in perfumery.  There’s a point in the shift from the top to the heart notes that’s particularly moving; it smells like champaca to me, both floral and resiny.  Even knowing how it unfolds doesn’t dim my sense of being in the throes of a revelation.  The sweet florals of the heart linger, cradled by the sandalwood, musk and amber of the base.  The drydown is stunning, with the spicy sandalwood offset by the sweetness of the vanilla and amber.

Jasmine lovers — take note.  “First is about jasmine,” says Ellena in Perfume Legends.  He goes on to talk about its importance to him (“Compare Sophia Grojsman’s work with roses; she’s into roses, I’m into jasmine.”)  So why does the sun come out in First?  Ellena jammed in a huge amount of Hedione, or methyl dihydrojasmonate, derived from a molecule found in jasmine absolute and patented by Firmenich in 1962.  Ellena reports that Hedione was used in much smaller quantities in Eau Sauvage in 1966, and that he put ten times the amount into First.  Hedione has a sort of solar effect on fragrances; Victoria of Bois de Jasmin in her review of First describes Hedione as “a material which has a subtle scent on its own, but in combination with flower notes, especially jasmine, its dazzling qualities are brought to life. The flowers kissed by Hedione unfold in translucent layers, with the composition preserving its clarity, while attaining wonderful complexity.”

Ellena had the center of the fragrance but kept trying to extend its boundaries, ultimately stretching it in two directions – he upped the dosage of the bitter narcissus/cassis/mandarin at the top, and the musk and amber at the bottom, to give the scent the longevity that his clients wanted.   Quoting from Perfume Legends, Ellena said he was told, “Make something very nice.  Afterwards we’ll talk about the price.”  Ellena talks about how much this freedom meant to him; apparently there’s not much of that going around these days.

Fans of JCE’s less baroque scents for Hermes, particularly the Hermessences, might find a sniff of First informative.   First feels as deliberately constructed and ornate as a Faberge egg, and it would be tempting to dismiss it as something very much of its time and, as such, a little dated.  The soft, surreal radiance of the heart of First pretty much ends that line of thinking.  In Perfume Legends, Ellena says First has become an archetype – “People say, this fragrance smells like First, or it came from First.”

I have the EDT, which can be found ridiculously cheap (under $30 online.)  I’m really thinking I should spring for the EDP, and I bet the parfum is stunning.  There are also a number of flankers (First Love, First Pour l’Ete, etc.) none of which sound interesting to me except possibly First Jasmin de Chine.  Has anyone tried any of these?  Finally, I’m looking forward to the Collection Extraordinaire, although … do those bottles remind anyone of another collection?  Yeah, me too.

Okay, I finally have the little devils in my hands.  I’m not sure why I always rush for the Guerlain new releases so quickly. Hope maybe?  Hope that they’ll hit something magical again like Double Vanille or Bois d’Armenie or even – Yes, I know, I’m crazy – another Jicky or Mitsouko.

As far as the bottle size. I look at this two ways, and can’t decide which is worse or better. Though the price is in the neighborhood of the La Matiere line, $200′ish, at least you get 200 mls in the bottle instead of 75.  The other way I look at it is that they could have put them in a 75 ml bottle for $100, but more likely is that they would have put them in a 75 ml bottle for $150.  Hermes does this crap too.  100 ml bottle is $120. 200 ml bottle is $200.  I mean, seriously?  Oh, well, they clearly are marching to the beat of their own marketing people with these choices.

Marina reviewed these on Monday.  I spritzed New York first, just based on Miss Marina’s thinking it was the most interesting.  Notes are narcissus, roses, daffodils, plum blossom, cherry blossom; fir cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla and orange.  This is a wearable Winter Delices for me. The florals balance out all of the spices and fir, which are so over the top in Winter Delices, and it renders them soft and warm instead of whacking you in the face with a fir tree and a cinnamon stick. It definitely has a nice smoky leather note that is enchanting and just about right for those of you that like leather, but don’t want to smell like you’re outfitted head to toe in rawhide.  I definitely do like this one and will happily wear it on those days I don’t want to be a dominatrix, which is most days, kinda.

Moscou has notes of fir, white musk, mimosa, lilac, incense, rum, saffron, fruits (cranberry, redcurrant, raisins, plum), bergamot, lemon,  absinthe, almonds, chocolate, vanilla and  tonka bean.  Marina thought it was Flowerbomb lite. I sorta get that because it leans sweetish, but they added in a lot of gourmand notes to make this a great floral gourmand, and on my skin it veers way off into a lovely gourmand territory instead of sweet flowers.  I seriously do like this one.  It’s got the perfect balance of a gourmand – rich enough, but not so sweet that you’re gaining weight smelling it.  The saffron, I think, really saves it on all counts.  This is my favorite of the three, hands down. Not because I like the notes so much better, but I think they did a great job ot blending them and rendering it a compulsive sniff on my hand.  My nose has been glued there since I put it on, it’s just charmingly gourmand.

Tokyo has notes of jasmine, violet, Hinoki cedar and green tea.  It’s a great floral woody tea.  It’s my least favorite of the three. Not because it ’s a bad scent, but I just don’t think it’s very memorable.  I like it well enough, it’s well executed, and it’s a fairly perfect spring/summer scent or just a scent you’d like to wear to an office or wedding when you don’t want your scent to wear you.  I don’t get much jasmine in it, it’s way heavier on the wood and tea.  It is fresh without having that “fresh” nasty smell at all. So I do give them props for that. At least Guerlain knows how to make an open, fresh perfume without resorting to the tampax fresh accord that is prevalent in every nook and cranny of the world.

I do have enough in my sample set to do a giveaway of one set of samples to a commenter.  So of all the new Guerlains in the last 10 years that they have released, which are your favorites?    Or which do you believe to be the most Guerlain-esque, if any, or do you think the whole house has just crumbled into ridiculous?

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting when I sniffed the new Estee Lauder Private Collection Jasmine White Moss, but it wasn’t what came out of the bottle and landed on my arm.  I scuttled home and did some online research, which made things clearer – the scent is (allegedly, I take all this with a grain of salt) an unfinished formula of Estee Lauder herself from the 1980s, completed by granddaughter Aerin – and can’t you just see her huddled there, over the beakers?!?  Anyway, once I had this info, things started to fall into place.

Upon my first sniff of Jasmine White Moss, I thought:  hello, Azuree! (The 1969 original, not the new Soleil one.)  I dug some of that up, but that’s not quite it.   The opening notes of Jasmine White Moss are closer, I think, to the original Chanel Cristalle EDT.

Notes are mandarin, blackcurrant bud, galbanum, bergamot, jasmine sambac, violet, orange flower, orris, ylang-ylang, patchouli, vetiver and white moss mist (a Lauder exclusive) and it’s categorized as a green floral chypre.  If “white moss mist” is the Lauder secret sauce that’s going to replace bad old oakmoss, hey – it’s gorgeous.  Congratulations, chemists hidden behind door number three!

The opening of Jasmine White Moss is astringent and dry, dry, dry, reminding me both of Cristalle and Azuree’s drydown.  Like the other fragrances I’ve named, it makes me think of an elegant woman smoking a cigarette (did Estee smoke?  Coco did.  A lot of their classic scents go great with cigarettes).  Then I dug up my Van Cleef & Arpels First, and while Jasmine White Moss doesn’t have quite the same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel to it, I definitely get the same balance between the mossy elements and the sweet ones.  Indeed, a quick check of First reveals many of the same notes as Jasmine White Moss – although, what isn’t in First?  Also, First is spicier and sharper and … wow, people, someone stage an intervention, because First is really growing on me.  First is the sort of big-shouldered 1970’s Statement Fragrance I have admired rather than wanted to wear.  Until now, I guess.  (Six hours later: my goodness, First’s drydown is gorgeous,  it needs its own review.)

Which leads us back to Jasmine White Moss and my ultimate lack of enthusiasm.  As it dries down, I lose most of the moss, galbanum, patch and anything else that would evoke a green chypre. The jasmine (which is very clean), orange flower and ylang dominate the drydown, which is soft and sweet and, I’m afraid, a little tepid for me.  It smells “modern” in that peculiar, safe way mainstream perfumery does – a little spicy, some sweet florals, a slightly sour finish that makes me wonder if their Lauder musk is lurking in there.  It’s also, and this is weird, the teensiest bit edible – orange almond shortbread?

EDIT IN AFTER THIS WAS POSTED, PROMPTED BY COMMENTS:  in theory this should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — we perfume freaks are clearly the target market for this scent, and I for one am incredibly grateful (and a little surprised) that something this “mature” was even made.  My daughters backed away from me in the car when I waved my arm at them the first time I tried it, which is an excellent sign; why the hell should everything smell like it was made for high school girls?   I hope the thing sells like hotcakes, and fake oakmoss (fauxmoss?) becomes the new pink pepper, although I’m not holding my breath.  Anyway, Estee Lauder — thanks for the pleasant surprise I received when I sprayed it on my arm.

In the end, it’s my head-to-head (arm-to-arm? nose to nose?) comparison to good ol’ Azuree, Cristalle and First that leaves me shrugging my shoulders at Jasmine White Moss.  Whether you tilt your tastes towards aldehydes, galbanum or oakmoss, this particular vein of beloved old-lady fragrances has a signature, and that signature, ladies and gentlemen, is moxie.  It is assertiveness.  It is trouble on the hoof. It is take-no-prisoners, stiletto-heeled attitude.  Starting off smelling like Liquid Danger and then drying down to a cross between Mariah Carey M and a plastic scented My Little Pony reeks mostly of disappointment.  I bet you can get Azuree and/or First online for less than fifty bucks.  Or how about some Norell?  Or the original Private Collection, or Jacomo Silences?  Feel free to name your own additions, but any of these scents have more personality and interest than the Lauder after the first half hour.  It’s not that the Jasmine White Moss is terrible.  It’s just been done, and done better, elsewhere, for less money, in my opinion.   No offense to those of you who’ve found a new love; remember, I really liked Amber Ylang, which most everyone thought was a snooze.

Estee Lauder Jasmine White Moss is slated for release in July, but is already at Nordstrom and I assume will pop up at Saks and wherever else they’re selling the other two scents in the Private Collection.

PS Lipstick Freaks — come play on yesterday’s pink lipstick post, In the Pink!

We’ve done our part to promote Red Lipstick Love on this blog.  I think a post on the fabulousness of pink lipstick is overdue.

Pink can be harder to pull off than red lipstick; the wrong pink is aging, or juvenile.  I’m old enough I avoid pink frosts and glitter like the plague.  When I say “pink,” I’m referring  to the dimension between red and the browny-pinky-taupey lippies we refer to as YLBB (your lips but better.)  YLBBs brighten your complexion, and the lipstick may be visually detectable, but the effect is lipcolored, whether it’s your actual lipcolor or not.  I and others use YLBBs to correct our liptones a little – my lips are really blue, and not in a good way.  A very slightly warm YLBB diminishes my been-in-cold-water-too-long blues.  Other women with washed-out no-colored lips (your lips may lose color as you age) use YLBBs to bring their lips back into proper perspective.  It doesn’t have to be YLBB lipstick, either.  I know ladies who use YLBB pencils and liners, alone or over lipgloss (pencils can be drying) to get the same effect.

The way coloring (lip and face) affects the appearance of a lippie can’t be overstated.  I was fascinated when Friend A, a fair-skinned blonde with brown-toned natural lips, picked up a new tube of her “regular standby” pink she wears all the time.  On her lips it’s a soft, friendly shade – sort of a pale bubblegum pink without being too girly.  In the tube?  It’s a hot pink, like NARS Schiap.  On me with my blue lips, it’s a laughably lurid fuchsia, the sort of shade I’d wear if I were … I don’t know, 19 years old and wearing a rubber dress to a sex party at Hef’s house?  My point being, try before you buy, and don’t be surprised if the effect on your lips is totally different than someone else’s, even if you consider your skin tones to be kind of similar.

I am going for a soft look when I wear pink, I don’t use any liner (pink, taupe or otherwise) with these, I think pink lined lips can look … hard (cheap? Maybe that’s the word I’m looking for).  Whereas lined red lips look finished.  Feel free to argue with me, I’m not a makeup artist or expert.

Also, if you ever feel like your lipstick’s too pink, apply a quick swipe of taupey-nude lippie or pencil on top to tone it down.  Bobbi Brown gloss in White is also excellent for this purpose, I always have a tube for emergencies (it’s called White 1, and it dials down the wattage on pinks and reds nicely).  More than one makeup artist has said to me that they pretty much never use one shade of lipstick, so have fun experimenting with layering.  If it’s awful you can wipe it off!

Finally, those of you who bought lipstick during the Red Lip Feeding Frenzy on here and have now shoved those tubes into the back of the drawer until the first frost – red lips are still all over the fashion rags, even for summer.  A heavy red lip doesn’t work so well in face-melting heat, but if you use your finger as an applicator, you can lightly dab your red lipstick onto clean, buffed (use a washcloth or your toothbrush) lips, add a little gloss et voila – a soft, pretty popsicle pink-red perfect for summer.

So here’s a random list of some of my favorite pinks, with the stipulation outlined above that my lip/face coloring (fair skinned, pink undertones, blue-ish lips) affects the results.  Your Mileage May Vary.   Be sure to mention your coloring and favorites in comments, along with anything else you’d like to say about pink lips!

I lost my pink lip virginity with Bobbi Brown Peony lip sheer, a soft pale pinky-brown shade that is clearly pink rather than YLBB and of course appears to be discontinued (welcome to the world of lipstick!)  Bobbi puts brown in most (all?) of her pinks, which makes the line a nice place to start if you’re looking for something less bold, although some people find them too drying.  FYI – I just checked and Peony is in their Rose Lip Quad with three other great-looking shades, no glitter(? pictured at left, Peony’s in the upper left corner, the one on the right might be shimmer) and not too girly, I might have to check it out, looks like a good starter set for pink lipstick virgins if the tones work on you.  The pink quad looks a little girly to me, at least in the online images.

Poppy King’s Lipstick Queen Rose Sinner is too dry, even for me, but my gosh it’s a gorgeous color – a matte, dark rose petal pink that catches the eye of men who dig lipstick (and believe me, they’re out there.)  I wear it to parties and get hit on, but it’s less of a statement than red.  I apply over lip balm and check my lips after an hour to make sure it hasn’t caked.  Extraordinary lasting and lip-staining power, even over balm.  Saint Pink is my sheerest pink, emollient and close to a pink-toned lip balm.  Nice on its own (tones down my blue) or slicked over a darker shade. Saint Rose is a stunning, glossy dark neutral toned rose with good coverage, very moist but doesn’t travel.  Finally, I rebought Lipstick Queen Medieval after sending it back during my red binge.  No, it’s not bright; it’s a soft cherry popsicle red stain that I’ve taken to slicking over my other lippies in the car when the color needs shine and refreshing.

The newish Shiseido lipstick range by Dick Paige has some fantastic colors.  I can’t pull off the Cerise, but those of you who like megawatt pinks should check it out, it looks gorgeous on darker skin tones.  Bubblegum is also a slammin’ shade if you like a fun pink.  Their formula is super-moisturizing and looks great on.

Finally, as several of you know, months ago I fell in love with the images of the Dahlia lipstick from the new Dolce & Gabbana makeup line.  Dahlia’s a dark plum color that looked amazing on the pale-skinned models.  Unfortunately, on my blue-toned lips Dahlia does the full Morticia Addams and is not the effect I’m looking for outside of Halloween.  The D&G makeup artist steered me toward Bahia, a slightly lighter, pinker color that I never would have tried on my own.  It’s the darkest lipstick shade I think I could pull off and satisfies a long-held craving of mine for a deep pink that is vampy against my pale skin but not Morticia.  At the same time I bought Splendid, a retro pink that looks better (softer, less of a statement) on my lips than Shiseido Bubblegum.  This is a slightly warm tone and would probably look great on you warm-toned ladies.  As far as I’m concerned the D&G lippies live up to the hype – they’re moist but they also last, and for anyone worried about the rose scent, it’s there but not overpowering.  The gold case is a little flashy (yeah, big surprise) but not unattractive.

I’ll wrap this up by saying that if you think you can’t wear pink lips, you just haven’t found the right pink.  Suggestions and direction from a good makeup artist are so useful; several of these lippies I certainly wouldn’t have tried if they hadn’t been recommended to me.  It’s impossible to judge the color, coverage or saturation in the tube.  Pink lips are fun and less of a precision commitment than red.  I can’t imagine my life without them now.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

pink lips erotic poster, popartuk.com

Finally; words typed on a keyboard into a PC on soil north of the 49th parallel. They look the same, they sound the same, but they are different. I am different. I am Canadian.

 I know I’m making much more out of this than I probably should, but I cannot seem to help myself. I keep thinking of Aaron Arkaway, the ancillary character in “The Sopranos” who was Janice Soprano’s short-lived evangelical boyfriend. He kept asking anyone and everyone, “Have you heard the good news?” His response was “He has risen”; my response is, “I am Canadian”. And, just like Aaron, I find myself telling anyone and everyone. Sooner or later, someone will answer me, “Yeah, I know, you told me.”

 I arrived here last Friday with only two fragrances. My aunt and a close friend of mine have pretty significant sensitivities to fragrances, so I didn’t want to bring any scents that would cause problems for them. I packed my hot weather standby, Philosophy Pure Grace, and their newest scent, Unconditional Love. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized these scents are significant not only for their subtlety and understatement, but for their names as well. Times have been difficult for me in addition to the Canadian border fiasco, and I won’t pretend that I haven’t had a few meltdowns over the course of the past couple of years. I did, but I had them in the privacy of my home and not with cameras rolling and people gawking, the way so many meltdowns seem to happen these days. And even if someone offered me major dollars to have an on-camera Oscar calibre breakdown, I’d refuse. It’s nobody’s business but my own. Wasn’t that the title of a song back in the 80s?

 I’ve never been particularly graceful physically; I can be a bit of a bull in a china shop, and I’m not sure if I believe that human beings are capable of unconditional love. However, there is a graciousness inherent in all of us, and it will reveal itself when we least expect it. My aunt and uncle have been gracious to a fault during this rather difficult period in my life and I don’t know if I will ever be able to repay them for their support and generosity.  Perhaps it is time for me to reveal my inner graciousness and embrace the upheaval and change that have become the permanent landscape of my life. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to start believing in unconditional love. And, as always, smelling good doesn’t hurt, as long as no one starts sneezing. So far, so good.

Lily has chosen: After much coaxing with yummy treats, I managed to get Lily out from under the bed in my aunt’s spare bedroom, so she could choose the three winners of the Carol’s Daughter Pearls samples. They are: Janet in CA, Bev and Linda. Ladies, please e-mail your info via “Contact Us” at the top of the page. And thanks to everyone for your interest in this wonderful scent.

First, the winner of the shimmer Chapstick is: Kathryn

Winner of the Q-tips is:  Kathy T.

both of you should just click on Contact Us on the left, remind me what you’ve won and send me your address.

I do have another giveaway today courtesy of Perricone MD, they offer cosmeceuticals, and you can click through to their website to see the giveaway item.   They are giving a full sized Advanced Face Firming Activator, which is a $120 value, to one of the commenters on today’s post.  Now, they can only ship in the U.S., so apologies to our international friends, you’re not eligible for this!  Just drop a comment to be entered.

Okay, moving on to paint and kitchens for a sec. This is a slice of my kitchen.  I’ve got one color swatched by the window that I’m considering. I have a larger picture of it next to another color I’m considering.  The cabinets stay for now, even though they are old and need to be overhauled one day. The tile is going now to be replaced with something complimentary. I was thinking ruby/gold’ish glass tiles, but I’m thinking that may be too much, and it may need another color instead that won’t compete with the adobe’ish color I’m planning for the walls.  I think this color by the windows is just a little too much.

The picture  to the right shows the color by the windows on the left side of the picture, which is Rust and the color on the right, which I think will work better, which is Benjamin Moore Firenze. The picture really doesn’t pick up the color as closely as it should. It’s a little more brown and a little less Salmon.    I’m now thinking maybe a coffee colored with gold accent glass tile may work better for the backsplash.  Thoughts? And should I repaint the cabinets or leave them and all the trim that same bright white for now since I intend to replace them in a year or so?

Perfume?  Listen, I got no perfume for you today. I’m waiting for those new Guerlain thingies to show up, and nothing else do I want to talk about. But I do have a new eyeliner that’s great.  I love soft colors in eyeliners.  I just can’t wear dark, harsh colors at all, so I tend to like wheat, gold, blue, purple, green around my eyes, it just softens age.  The main problem with eyeliners, though, is they smudge. I workout a couple of times a day usually, and I sweat.  If I’m not sweating, I haven’t been working out.  Keeping eyeliner on my eyes, even if I’m not working out, especially in summer, is a challenge, so it needs to be waterproof.  Makeup Forever has some great waterproof eyeliners too.  Shu Uemura has a new painting liner that is just gorgeous AND waterproof. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!  These, unlike the MUFE pencils, are in little pots. So you use an eyeliner brush to swish them on, which gives a nicer line, I think, than pencils, and this goes on like a dream and stays put. They have a bunch of gorgeous colors. I went fo the gold, silver, green, purple, but I also want that white one, which is great for giving an inner line on the lower lid to make you look more awake.

One last thing. I’ve got plans to meet up with some Londoners while I’m at Sniffa in July, but would love to meet others. So if you’re gonna be at Sniffa, even if you’re not from London, or if you’re gonna be in London then, give me a shout, I’d love to get together for  a cup of tea, a pint of beer or a glass of wine.

Everybody loves Knize Ten.  You.  Your grandma.  Your neighbor down the street with the annoying dog that barks late at night.  Luca Turin loves it.  I’d read Marina’s review of the Knize line right before my trip to Vienna, and I was ready to join the choir and sing out my praise for Knize Ten too.

Knize Ten has all the right ingredients – leather, check.  Animalic, check.  Knize Ten was going to be my leathery souvenir from Vienna.   I went to the elegant Knize store on the Graben several times, trying to talk myself into the Ten, but … well, no.  Knize Ten is animalic and leathery, but on me there is also a faint, persistent note of something resembling pickles that I just couldn’t work around.  That pickle thing pops up in odd places (chypres, men’s colognes) and I don’t know what causes it, but it’s like having a pebble in my shoe when I’m running.  For something so small, it begins to annoy me all out of proportion.

Instead, Knize Sec became the fragrance I wished I had bought in Vienna.  But I never went back for it, and have spent the ensuing two years with a wistful longing any perfume fancier has probably had, the scent edition of the One that Got Away, whether it’s being outbid on eBay or searching in vain for that funny little fragrance boutique on the Left Bank with a quirky name that you can’t find the next day when you go looking for it.

My own particular longing was answered recently with a generous decant from a lovely friend who knew about my Sec desires, prompting today’s post.

First in Fragrance says Knize Sec has sage, lavender, exotic woods and white musk.  The reviews on Basenotes indicate its male fan base, but it’s not any more manly to my nose than, say, L’Artisan Passage d’Enfer, which Sec reminds me of just a bit.  Marina says the opening reminds her of a gin and tonic; it makes me think simultaneously of lime seltzer and that crypt-keeper note in Etro Messe de Minuit.  I find Sec’s initial unfolding odd, but in a way that’s interesting rather than unattractive.  I can pick out the lavender if I’m looking for it, but it’s so seamlessly blended there’s nothing potpourri about it.  Sec is warm and cool, simultaneously, and a little strange.  I am with Marina that the drydown is my favorite bit; she smells labdanum.  There is certainly something very incense-y about it.  The drydown reminds me a bit of Christian Dior’s Jules, but less dark; like many of my favorite fragrances there is nothing really that close to Sec.  I’d recommend Sec for people who like incense fragrances, but also as a gateway scent for people who want an incense but gag a little if it’s too churchy or dense.  Sec is elegant and it’s clearly a dress-up fragrance, first and foremost, not a virtual-reality cathedral.  I’m finding it a perfect fit in our not-quite-seasonal weather, but there’s something about it that makes me want to try it when the thermometer climbs into the 90s.

My ardor for incense fragrances had cooled over the last few months, probably as a result of overexposure.  I haven’t worn anything incense-y for awhile.  The benefit now is, I can sample some of them in the summer weather.   I think incense in the heat can be surprisingly refreshing, like walking out of the sun into the cool interior of an old stone building.  I want to give Armani Bois d’Encens a go when it’s 90.

Knize fragrances are hard to come by in the U.S.  I know there’s been some complaining about Knize Ten’s lack of availability recently, although it seems to be available from perfumenetwork.com.  Sec and Ten appear to be available from First in Fragrance, a relative bargain at 75 euros, although I don’t know what shipping is.

This is the view coming up first set of steps to my house.  My roses are just ridiculous, especially the one on the right, which is about 7 feet tall  and 4-5 feet wide and deep. The one next to the house is about 6 feet, and that’s after I trimmed it to within an inch of its life early this spring.  The small one by the lamppost is, well, a little disappointing compared to the others.  Walking in any direction from or to my house right now is a scented heaven.  Nothing can match the scent of fresh roses.  It is so delicate and ephemeral, but at the same time almost fierce in its relentless “I’m going to make you happy if it kills me” attitude.

Unfortunately, when it is the centerpiece of most perfumes, it can often be tragic, capturing a plastic fierceness, but none of the delicate spiciness.

But I do have some favorites that seem to “get” the rose.  Miller Harris Rose En Noir, an exclusive to Liberty in London, is really magnificent.  Slightly jammy on the open, it slowly descends and undulates into an incredibly sexy leathery rose that I think is one of the best dark roses out there. That it is exclusive to Liberty is unfortunate, but I believe they do mail order.

Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit is a little woody and fruity, veering away into a more dark forest rose than Rose En Noir. But it places the rose in its natural surroundings to some degree, then the rest in some smoky nightclub full of women who have embraced their flaws and stopped running from their past.

MDCI Rose Di Siwa couldn’t be more different in approach from the other two.  Where they go dark and woody or leathery, Rose Di Siwa lilts and for me is the closest to that smell I get as I walk through my front yard that always makes me smile and feel so glad to be alive – and like I’m about 12 – and that’s a feeling that I can’t live without.

Those are my three favorite modern perfume roses. What are yours?  I am going to post some pictures of my kitchen on Thursday so you guys can finish helping me paint it. Well, I wish you could help me paint it, but just picking the paint would be fantastic. It will have swatches of some of the colors I’m thinking of on the walls.  BTW, thanks to everyone who suggested links, paint colors, etc., it was incredibly helpful, and I was happily googling.  This kitchen is doing a short-term cosmetic makeover for now until I get around to gutting it and redoing all the cabinets and reconfiguring it.  Hopefully I’ll also put up a picture of what I hope to be my finished foyer as well and my bathroom, which is painted, but needs a touch-up.  It’s incredibly helpful to get more opinions on things that I might not have thought of, y’all are wonderful!!!  xoxox

This morning I wore a sweater to walk over to the market in the rain, which – hello?!?  A sweater in June in Washington, D.C.?  What’s next, frogs raining from the sky?  A plague of locusts?  Seriously, I’m waiting for further signs of the coming apocalypse.  I think some of you are having mad weather elsewhere in the country as well.

I visited my sister-in-law Kate and family this weekend in their small town on the Eastern Shore and played country mouse.  I love going there.  I read their local paper and recognize half the names.  People know who you are when you go downtown.  They have a saltwater pool, and the flat terrain’s perfect for aimless bike riding, one of my favorite childhood activities.   Kate has this gift of making a house into a home. Every house of hers, from the Santa Fe pueblo to the Eastern Shore four-square, is timeless and magical and feels old and full of secrets in the best possible way.  It’s a gift I admire.

Anyway, this weekend for my birthday, she gave me a hand-knit throw in a chunky, funky wool that captures the pink-to-pale variations of the lip of a seashell.  (This is the same gal who gave me that outstanding mohair sweater.)   The coolest part?  This throw smells like it’s been sitting next to a woodstove, or knitted beside the campfire.  It’s all smoky, and I don’t know why, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.  That smell is perfect in this cool, damp weather, like the smell that drifts from my unswept fireplace in the summer after a hard rain.

It got me rooting around for my decant of Annick Goutal Chine Imperiale, a scent so obscure that my googling produced exactly one hit – a mention in a comment thread on Basenotes. a discontinued room spray (and it’s Chine, not Chene, see comments!   Searching for Chene gets you the Serge Lutens.)

It makes me sad when people dismiss Annick Goutal as a chick mecca of bosom-heaving operatic scents like Gardenia Passion, or standbys like Hadrien.  AG has done a few things that are frankly strange – the maple-syrup immortelle-fest of Sables, along with Oh Do Fear (okay, really Eau du Fier) which conjures up the La Brea Tarpits, or asphalt in July.  If the world were a better place, every Annick Goutal counter would stock their sublime, difficult to find Eau de Monsieur, a unisexy mossy/citrus fragrance with an unlisted but obvious dose of immortelle (here’s a link to my old review.)

If Monsieur can be viewed as a more conventional riff on the love-or-hate-it Sables, then Chine Imperiale is Fier cross-pollinated with Diptyque Essence of John Galliano, then diluted by half and hooked up with something like Dior Eau Fraiche, maybe, or even Monsieur without the immortelle.  I don’t know what the notes are, but Chine Imperiale is quite smoky at the top.  It’s not as intensely smoky as John Galliano or the recently offed Patricia de Nicolai home scent whose name escapes me but was very much wet-fireplace.  (Au Coin du Feu, and maybe you can still get it abroad?  People mention it, at any rate, but they were on clearance when I was in London, never a good sign.)  Anyhow, the smoky smell slowly fades but never goes away, and an oakmoss-heavy cologne scent emerges underneath.   It’s the oddest combination, but it works.  I’d love to know if anyone thinks Chine Imperiale is still available.  Actually, I’d love to know in general what the distributors are thinking.  Sables, for instance, and Duel both have a habit of popping up unexpectedly on retail shelves locally, only to disappear again for awhile.

My kids (and other victims) really loathe that smoky smell.  It got me pondering.  Why do we love what we love?  Why am I entranced by the idea of smelling like a bonfire, but not a rose or a caramel?   Like a grapefruit but not a melon?   Linden, but not lavender?  Musty crypt but not mint?  In the midsummer doldrums, I bury my face in that glorious woodsmoke-and-wool-scented throw and I can’t help but smile.  Woody-smoky-birchtar scents make me feel the same way.  Y’all feel free to throw out your favorites.  (Off the top of my head:  Lonestar Memories; Kolnisch Juchten, new and vintage.)  Maybe summer’s the perfect time for smoky campfire scents after all?

image: Oak Tree in Winter at Lacock Abbey, salt print from a calotype negative, early 1840s, foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk

Memories, like the corners of my mind. Misty water-coloured meeeemorrrriiiiiiiies, of the way we were.

Ahem. I’ll begin again.

The act of remembering is less a willed experience, and more a reminder of the deus ex machina nature of our minds. Like an ever-spinning Rolodex whose cards jump out at will, half-formed snapshots leap forward of their own volition, their edges blurred (misty, water-coloured), the details filled in with estimations of the truth.

Some of these might be trivial and are only recalled because of their shock effect at the time or physical reminder in the present – the birthday party runaround where my hand got hooked on a rusting nail on the gate and I needed stitches; the actual photo of our family – so funny – that allows me to believe I remember the sequence of events surrounding it being taken.

Most are more significant because that’s why they’re remembered, and like spectres, move through the rooms of our minds. Organisms we’ve brought to life and no longer control.

That’s why I’m haunted by a film, and more specifically a particular sequence from it. I’ve never seen the film since, and it’s probably laughable now, but on my very young self, it made an intense impression. It’s a western ( a Euro-western?), with Sean Connery. Stop tittering at the back; the thought seems ridiculous too – no more ridiculous than Zardoz though. I think it involves a convoy losing their stagecoaches in Injun country and somehow striving to make it through the badlands alive. One by one, the stock characters are wiped out, and only those with compassion, or ‘true grit’ survive. It’s a death of one of the stocks that has remained with me, and likes to spring up, half-formed in my thoughts, on a regular basis. I could google it to find out the detail and remove those points that lack clarity, but though the memory isn’t particularly pleasant, it’s part of me. I don’t want to, yet.

A woman is part of the party, and she’s obsessed by material goods, distance from the labouring world, and the spotlessness of her appearance. I can’t remember much else about her – she might be gentry or nobility. She wears a string of pearls, and much is made of this. Eventually, when surrounded by the baddies, she is made to swallow the thing she loves, and, in my rewritten memories, this act kills her. I like to think this sequence has imprinted itself on me because my proto-self was already appalled by the explicit misogyny of most 70s film-making; unlikely though. The transparency of the metaphor is probably what got me, at all of 8 or 9 or 10. Her avarice, represented in that luxurious byproduct of true grit, eventually led to her demise. For a poor boy, from a poor family, there was both justice and horror in the outcome.

And so, I went on to have an awkward relationship with luxury, label and the status apparently inferred by both. I’ve never bought designer clothes, at least not first hand. My university days were spent in a pretentious parade of early twentieth century suits (legs rolled up, desert boots) and Edwardian shirts without the button on collar. When less effort in appearance became mandatory, I was resolutely middle-brow. I either wanted to subvert the codes of dress (ha!) or try to skip ‘em completely.

And therefore it’s some puzzle to me why I’m so accepting of the ‘allowable’ luxury of expensive niche perfumery. The last one I bought, and I can’t see myself adding any more for quite some time, was Amouage Dia. I can’t justify spending on it, and yet its quiet beauty, its poise and balance, make luxury have meaning to me. It whispers, which always helps.

It’s a frankincense scent, but done with such subtlety and balance, there is nothing which jars or clashes, and nothing which stands out beyond a quiet thrum of loveliness. It defies description in its blending of spice, dry winds, and a powdery heart. And I thought I hated powder. Wearing this on the stagecoach run would court disaster, I don’t doubt.

Which perfume justifies luxury to you? Makes you gulp on the price but go for it anyway? And which doesn’t?

p.s. Sorry if you checked in earlier. I forgot to post and dashed this one off lickety-split. Please by kind with in accuracies and non-seqituurs. I wrote faaast.

p.p.s. And oh, reading recommendation. Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger is quite marvellous.

p.p.p.s. Winner of the Chamarre draw is Veronica. Please get in touch via the contact us button, V!

I have some free samples of new products that came in the mail, and I really like both of them, and I have extra of each to give away.

ChapStick has a True Shimmer lip balm in several flavors.  I’ve tried a couple of the flavors, and they remind me in flavor a lot of the Bonne Belle Lip things, remember those?  Nice flavor and smell, and it goes on incredibly smooth. Not sure if the formula is changed with this since they put shimmer in it, but it glides on and gives just a hint of shimmer to your lips, which is reallly perfect for summer. There’s no color at all, which I like a lot more than lip balms with color.  Not drying at all, works great and looks great.  I do have one extra of these in Peppermint Rush.  If you’d like to be entered to win it, just drop your name in comments.

Other product is Q-tips Vanity Packs.  Gone are those blue and white cartons, and now then have brightly colored, pretty flowered containers so you can leave your Q-tips in the box for your counter.  The Q-tips are the same, no changes there, they are still as versatile for mopping up your face as ever (does anyone in the world not use Q-tips or some generic version of them?) but the boxes are so darn cute.  I have one extra of these as well.  If you’d like to be entered in the drawing for one of them., again, just drop your name in comments.

New perfume discovery that’s old?  For me, Kenzo Flower.  I’d never smelled this, so I tried some recently, and just wow.  It’s so easy to wear.  I found online a Kenzo Flower Summer, and I’m just perplexed. Kenzo Flower is summery, how do they get it more summery?  Yeah, I’m slow, but I eventually do try everything.

Now I need advice.  I’m almost paralyzed in picking paint for my kitchen. I was thinking of going with terra cotta, but decided no because I want to do a bronze/red/gold glass tile backsplash, and that would just be overkill on color.  Then I was thinking of a dark celery green, which works and would work with the backsplash, but I have a pale green in there now, and I’m just greened out.  Ideas? I’ve toyed with orange and decided no, I’m just sure I’ll get tired of it if it’s all over my walls.  I’m thinking of a paint color called Cumin. It’s a medium reddish brown, not really dark, but definitely not light.  I want my kitchen to be warm and inviting. Any other thoughts on color? And if you have a specific brand/color or links to kitchen photos that are warm, would love to have that.  This painting this is so hard, the color picking.  I mean, yikes!

The nice thing about being a sample fiend is, if I root around long enough, chances are I’ll find either the perfume I’m looking for or I will be surprised and excited about something I’d overlooked or dismissed.  This time I dug up a decant of Chanel Eau de Cologne, which got completely ignored in my mad rush to try the other Exclusifs (my favorites:  31RC by far, followed, oddly enough, by Beige.  Although Bel Respiro is really growing on me.   Bois des Iles I don’t actually count because I consider it a separate release… there, enough waffling?)

The Chanel EdC got all sorts of raves on my recent cologne post on Guerlain 68, and so I was eager to try it.  I can’t find a decent list of notes anywhere, but it’s very much in the tradition of a classic cologne a la 4711, so let’s wing it and call it bergamot, citrus, neroli, petitgrain and according to my nose, definitely some musk, although let me remind you that I am the Musk Magnifier.   The initial dominant note to my nose is neroli, and that baby-aspirin-ish smell of petitgrain.

Um.  Well.  I tell you, I am seriously stymied by this Chanel.  Maybe it’s my decant, but gosh, it’s tepid.  On second thought, it’s so straightforward it’s probably exactly what the doctor ordered for someone who smells, say, the 68 or Dior Eau Noire and thinks, eh, that there is a whole lot going on in a cologne.  The Chanel certainly smells like a high quality fragrance, and … um, excuse me, where the heck did it go?

I am the Queen of Every Fragrance Lasts Until I Am On My Knees, Begging It To Leave, and yet this Chanel EdC goes missing so quick its picture should be on the side of a milk carton.   Yes, I get it, it’s a cologne, but – come on, five minutes?  Five minutes, tops.  If I hold my nose to my skin and huff I get a lovely citrus-musky smell, but I look like some sort of perv/doofus in public enough already without walking around with my nose glued to my hand.    Gone In 60 Seconds is not going to be my favorite fragrance, not even in sticky DC midsummer.

I guess today’s going to be one of those days when I won’t be winning any online popularity contests, although I’m going to work my March Magic and invite y’all to comment below on any much-loved or recently ballyhooed fragrance you find overrated or otherwise just don’t “get.”

I’ve become a big fan of the Amouage fragrances, though I’ll never be happy with their price tag. Though given the way other perfumes are coming up, they are looking more reasonable than they used to.

Ubar had been off the market for a while, recently reissued. I have no idea whether the new incarnation is different or the same as the old. If anyone has smelled both and knows, please speak up in comments!  Notes of Bergamot, lemon, lily of the valley, damascene rose, jasmine, civet, vanilla make up Ubar.  It goes on bright and crisp, a little milky green, and then it’s like the whole darn flower garden just all bends over at the same time and shows its naughty bits and gigles.  I mean, the civet!  Amouage is one of the perfume companies that do skank in the most elegant ways, like Guerlain used to.  Gold Woman was my first exposure to that full-on elegant whore thing they’ve got going, and it just blew me completely away.  Ubar isn’t 5th Avenue and Valentino evening gowns like Gold is.  Ubar could be worn about any day, but just realize when you wear it that you are hitting on people without even winking or opening your mouth.  Getting past that part, it’s got a great floral blend, just enough  sharper notes to keep the jasmine from lolling around in its most rotting format.

I’m a fan.  though Lyric Woman and Homage Attar stole my heart long ago as favorite Amouages, Ubar has a position of deep like.

It’s allegely almost summer here, but you’d never know it with the daily rain/tornadoes/wind/hail we’ve been having for the last, well, ever.  On the one hand, I’m ready for summer; on the other, I still need to get my AC hooked back up (long story, replete with horrible customer service by the contractor who put in my new furnace last year – never use R & L Heating in Denver or ServiceMagice, they both completely suck on making sure the work gets done).  Is the whole country having like a cloudy/rainy thing, or should I tune into my news?  If so, what are you doing fragrancewise to combat it?

Today was the annual screen porch clean-off day, finally.  It’s a three-hour job involving children, brooms, garden hoses, scrub brushes, bleach, and lots and lots of squealing over icky dead bugs.  This year’s wet spring led to a particularly generous deployment of bleach on my part to combat the heedious mildew, and unfortunately I have just enough pride you will not be getting the Money Shot of me in my standard porch-bleaching getup: hair up, rubber gloves, ratty old swimsuit and my gold-toned kayaking Crocs with the orthotics.  Diva wanted a photo of me to put up on her Facebook page, in an album no doubt entitled Further Proof My Family is Crazy, or possibly The Bitter Pill of My Everyday Existence.  I’ll reek of bleach until Thursday at least.

But all that screen-porch scrubbing and lazy summer dreaming got me thinking about mint in fragrances.  I have several patches of different kinds of mint in the backyard, and any of you who’ve grown it free-range know how obnoxious it can be; I’m pulling it out all the time where it’s riding herd right over some other plants.  I love mint in tea, and in foods, and even picked right off the plant for a meditative chew while I glare at the mile-a-minute vines choking my rose beds, but as a dominant note in fragrances?  Not so much.

I tried, I really tried, to wrap myself around Geranium Pour Monsieur, but on me it’s just one Giant Squeeze of Minty Freshness.  I get none of the subtlety and leafiness and other notes that many of you discerning fans get.  Seriously, it might as well be called Demeter Mint (which probably exists, right?)

One mint I really do like and brought out for the occasion (and to take the edge off the bleach smell) is Jo Malone’s White Jasmine & Mint.  I find the fragrance cheerfully tackola – like it should be spelled Jazzmin n’ Mint.  There’s something fakey about it in a good way.  The jasmine is sweet and effervescent rather than indolic, and it’s the perfect match for the mint, which is cool and sharp in a way that makes me think more of vetiver and less of Crest or Peppermint Patties.  That’s pretty much the whole story, and it’s a nice, simple scent for summer.

I was trying to think of any other fragrances I like that have a strong hint of mint to them, and it seems to me that one of the Comme des Garcons Leaves series I tried and liked had mint – maybe I was thinking of the actual Leaves: Mint, which seems to have been discontinued (? along with Shiso?), although you can find Tea (which I love, maybe that’s the one with the mint in it?), along with the other two, Calamus and … something.  Sneezy?  Dopey?   Oh, never mind.   Lily.   Let Me Google That For You.  Hah, I love that.

Or … wait.  Maybe I’m thinking about a CB I Hate Perfume?  Something with tea in it?   Maybe Russian Caravan Tea, but that’s not it, but on the other— hey, look, on the CBIHP website there’s 2ml travel sizes of many of the absolutes, where have I been??!   Also it’s only available in the shop, but he has a Mint Tea, I need to get back to Brooklyn at some point.

Late night sniffing and – yep, the White Jasmine & Mint is still going strong.   How do you feel about mint?   Does a little become Too Much fairly quickly?   Do you find it refreshing, or annoying?   How’s that Guerlain AA Mentafollia?  And is Lemon Fresca the greatest perfume name ever?   You know it is, I could drink one of those right now.  Any of you ever try that particular AA?  I think Herba Fresca has mint too…

Every once in a while, the cynical perfumista must put her cynicism on a shelf and acknowledge the good in the world. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is worth mentioning.

Carol’s Daughter is a company founded by a fellow Brooklynite, Lisa Price. After spending time as a pre-law student at City College, a United Nations messenger, and a writer’s assistant on the taped-in-Brooklyn Cosby Show, Lisa became a successful purveyor of handmade bath, body and hair products she concocted in her kitchen and initially sold at flea markets and craft fairs. As word of mouth spread about the fabulousness of her formulations, she managed to find herself a cadre of influential backers, Jay Z, Mary J. Blige, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith among them, to help her open her first retail store in Brooklyn, in 1999.  I was long since removed from Brooklyn at that point, and I don’t quite remember how I became aware of her products, but somehow, the words “Almond Cookie perfume oil” came into my sights, and the rest is history.

Since 1999, Lisa’s one store on DeKalb Avenue in downtown Brooklyn has evolved into a chain of 8 retail locations (one in the DC area at Fashion Centre Pentagon City), including the original DeKalb Avenue “heritage” store and a flagship store on Harlem’s Grand Concourse. She is also in many Sephora locations, as well as a number of Macy’s and Dillard’s department stores. Her success can be credited to the strength of her investors as well as the ubiquitous “Oprah Effect”. Apparently, pitching Oprah will send you on a rocket ride to the financial stratosphere if she likes your product. I don’t pay any attention to Oprah’s likes and dislikes, especially now since the whole world is hip to her powerful influence. I am quite capable of thinking and deciding for myself. To the contrary, I certainly do not begrudge anyone the success her endorsement can bring. After Lisa’s products were featured on Oprah, her sales exploded from $2 million to $20 million. And her products, originally targeted to the African American community, went mainstream.  

Sadly, Almond Cookie perfume oil is no longer made, but it was replaced by an equally delicious eau de toilette, which I love. I wrote of my love for marzipan in my last post, and if you’re attracted to that sweet, almondy goodness, Almond Cookie is spectacular. It is warmer and sweeter than Acorelle Amande de Blé, and just so snuggly and comforting. Almond Cookie bath and body products are just as delicious, especially the Shea Soufflé body cream, which is a can’t-do-without for me in winter.

Last November, Carol’s Daughter unveiled a signature fine fragrance, Pearls. I gave it a perfunctory sniff at Sephora once or twice, but didn’t really think much of it. When I recently re-sniffed and sprayed it on my skin at the Pentagon City store, I fell in love. This is quite monumental and significant for me since Pearls is considered (gasp!) a “fresh aldehyde” scent. The notes are lemon verbena, apricot, peach, jasmine, rose, violet leaves, vanilla and caramel. Before all you vintage jezebels (you know who you are) get up in arms about the inclusion of the dreaded “v” note, I implore you to open your hearts as I did and embrace the beauty of this concoction. It is actually quite reminiscent of Mitsouko eau de toilette. You heard me. And at $45.00 for 75 ml, it is another wallet-friendly gem.

In the spirit of open mindedness and generosity, I’d like to offer up three samples of Carol’s Daughter Pearls to three random commentators. Please express your interest, and I will allow my cat, Lily, to pick the winners. She doesn’t have opposable thumbs, but she can Simonize a chicken carcass to a high gloss shine.

 Another reason I decided to shelve my cynical self for the time being, is because I officially became a Canadian citizen this week. You may remember my post from January (Chaos – 1/13/09),  recounting my harrowing ordeal last October at the Thousand Islands border crossing in New York/Ontario, and my subsequent one year travel ban from Canada. Well, all is now right with the world and I am truly a citizen of North America. I was advised by my immigration attorney that this would take quite a bit of time to unfold, and neither one of us was expecting this resolution as quickly as it transpired. So, I am now the proud owner of yet another piece of photo identification that makes me look like a serial killer. What I wouldn’t give for a mug shot of Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan right now. In the words of fellow Canadian Mike Myers: NOT!!

 I am no longer persona non grata, or an enemy radical. Je suis Canadienne.

Image: carolsdaughter.com

The Heeley line is a sleeper for me.  I keep finding a lot to love there at a reasonable price point – or they were reasonable, but I never put them at the top of my list, despite my admiration for many of their scents.  I remembered them being under $100 a bottle, so how did they get up over 100? Is my faulty aging memory to blame?  Anyway, the newest entry they have is Ophelia, with notes of Italian orange, green flower stems, jasmine, ylang ylang, tuberose, moss, white musc.  It’s $178 for 100 mls, where the rest of the line is $148.  It’s still not as high as some, but I’m just going to block out this new information and keep remembering them as being less than $100, it helps me sleep at night.

They don’t list Lily of the Valley in the notes, but I suspect that’s in the green flower stems catch-all. It’s defintely LotV smelling for me on the open – am I wrong?   It feels very much like Diorissimo, which is one of my all-time favorites.  Ophelia is luminous, it seems to glow from the inside.  The tuberose and ylang give it a nice roundness and depth as that greenish note fade quite a bit in about 20 minutes. This is a seriously beautiful perfume, it just radiates white lush without smothering or choking you like some white florals do. I’m thinking poor man’s Shalini, though it doesn’t have quite that trilling sillage that Shalini has. It’s all white flower. If you aren’t a fan of the white flower, well, you know what to do.

Speaking of Diorissimo, I have a question, did Dior and Hermes both tighten up their distribution?  You used to be able to get all of the Diors and Hermes fragrances for cheap on discounters, but lately, like the Guerlains, they are  impossible to find at a discount.  You get used to paying $50 for a bottle of Hiris, ya know?  Anyone heard anything there?

As I type this I am reeking of Absorbine Jr., which my equestrienne sister-in-law assures me is in fact horse liniment, repackaged into a dab-on bottle for humans at 50 times the price of the per-gallon stuff you get for the pony.  I don’t care.   The sultry arms of Patou’s Joy may drive you wild with its embrace, but nothing says I love you to me like the smell of Absorbine Jr.   We always had an old stained bottle sitting around the house when I was growing up and, assuming a bone wasn’t poking through the skin, my mother dabbed Absorbine Jr. on whatever bite, burn or scrape I was whining about and sent me on my way with a popsicle, assuring me I’d live.  I put it on now just so I can smell it, not because I pulled a tendon in the Belmont Stakes.

Absorbine Jr. smells strongly herbal/medicinal; ingredients include absinthium oil, iodine, calendula, echinacea and wormwood (btw it’s also got acetone and FD&C Blue No. 1 and Yellow No. 6, which I am sure is great for my skin.)   I wouldn’t drink it, but it’s good for what ails you.  To me it is the quintessential smell of summer.  I uncap that bottle and release memories of hot pavement burning the soles of my feet, ripe white peaches dripping down my chin, cold grape soda by the pool (don’t go in for an hour after eating or your stomach will cramp up and you’ll die, remember that?), and setting off the requisite quasi-legal explosives at night, since I grew up in Virginia.  The smell of gunpowder and the beauty of fireflies is inextricably entwined in my memory at this point.  I wonder if you can still buy M-80s and other things large enough to take off a hand?  Probably not.

Weleda Calendula baby cream is also an excellent scent, a less piquant version of Absorbine Jr. that makes me think of Santa Fe in the summer, and anything that makes me think of Santa Fe is good, obviously.  I rub it on my hands when I need some moisture and a smile.

Perfume-wise, here is my random, totally subjective short list of fragrances that have been mis-labeled:  perfumes that should be room sprays and vice versa.

Fracas.  Okay, I admit this smells amazing on lots of people, especially men.  (Men reading this: wear it, please. For me and those you love.)  I am not a Fracas hater, so don’t flame me.  At my house it’s best enjoyed one spritz at a time in the air in my bedroom.  Eventually the smell permeates the entire second floor.  I am not complaining.

Diptyque Essence of John Galliano. This is a room spray that has not caused any rashes or parts to drop off despite my using it regularly on my skin.  One of my all time favorite non-perfume smells, I might like it even better than CB I Hate Perfume Burning Leaves.  Why?  Because underneath all that Damp Fireplace lurks a heart of something cologne-ish, like a virtual reality Weekend Ministering to the Needs of My Lord the Duke in his Drafty Medieval Castle.  I will spare you further details of my fantasy to avoid getting trapped in your spam filter.

Apothia Velvet Rope. I have a couple of friends who love and wear this, but I have the candle and a decant and seriously, I think the whole deal works better as a room spray.  Considering it’s inspired by a nightclub, this makes sense.

Serge Lutens Encens et Lavande. Okay, I should probably be shot for writing this, but it makes such a great room spray.   I love incense fragrances on my skin, but I don’t want the house to smell like a cathedral.   For the record, I don’t like lavender much either except on my linens.  But EetL in the hallway?  Heaven on earth.

Malle Une Rose. It seems so wrong.  And yet.  The perfect room spray.  Um, one spray, no more.

What room spray or other household/medicinal product do you wear for the smell?  (Tiger Balm?  Band-Aids?) And what fragrance do you use to scent your surroundings, and not just because you’re stuck with a bottle of something you’re trying to use up?

Climbing School was this last weekend.  I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the two-day outing, but I did, and I even rappelled down, which was something I thought I’d never be able to do. I wasn’t mindlessly afraid, just apprehensive.  The rock was really sharp, and I slipped just a little in one place and tore up my leg, which didn’t seem like anything happened until I looked down at it about an hour later and was horrified.  I’m very afraid of heights. Rather, I’m afraid of edges.  So backing over an edge, even with a rope on, is jaw-droppingly terrifying.  The climbing part isn’t as bad as long as I can stop wherever I want to and come back down.

The one thing I’ve figured out about fear for me is low, slow pressure works.  Not high pressure because I won’t get over it in one day or one weekend or one week, and I’ll buck the thing or person applying the pressure.  But if I keep on really low level pressure and continuing to try, even when I don’t want to, pretty soon, I’ll be a lot further than I was before.  I’m fairly optimistic about the climbing thing in helping me conquer my fear of heights, or at least the irrational fear of edges.  It’s like yoga. I’ve been trying to do a crow pose for months, and I kept getting into position and trying, but never got frustrated because my feet wouldn’t come up, just would keep trying.  Last week I got into the crow pose, expecting the same thing, and magically my feet lifted, and I was completely in the pose.  Then I got so jacked, I fell right out of it, but I did it again and again.  Over time, with pressure, you can change anything into what you want.  Well, except perfume, which just is what it is, but always different for everyone.

Washington Tremlett’s latest entry in the perfume market is Clove Absolute.  Notes of Lemon, Heliotrope, Rose, Incense, Clove Absolute, Patchouli, Vanilla Absolute, Cistus Absolute, Musk make up the perfume.  Great list of notes!

This goes on strong, a pretty straightforward combination of mostly clove and incense.  As it dries down, it seems much more incensey and sorta, well, soapy?  I normally, at minimum, like clove perfumes, so I was prepared to have love with this, and I just can’t make up my mind if I’m even in like with it.  There’s just something that seems to not balance quite right.  It never seems to go completely over into an incense perfume with abandon, which would make it gorgeous, nor does it full on do a clove perfume.  I don’t hate it, I just can’t seem to figure it out.  There’s almost a barbershoppy feel to it, guess that’s also the soapy thing I’m getting.   It does seem to trend more traditionally masculine.

It’s nice, I’d wear it, but I think I’d have my brow furrowed most of the time it was on trying to figure it out.  I’ve tried it twice now, thinking my first reaction could be because I was smelling too many things.  But now.  You know, it’s just not me, but I think it would  smell really great on a guy. And I have a feeling some of these notes would go better on someone else’s skin or nose that didn’t pick up that soapy smell.

But I will give away the remainder of my sample vial of this to one lucky commenter.  Just drop a comment to go in the drawing.

The winners of the Pure White Linen Pink Coral samples are:  Tiara, Junebug and Guatami.  Just send a note by hitting Contact us over there on the left, remind me what you won and I’ll get it mailed out to you.

First, let me announce the winner of the Benefit sample set -  Pattie!   Contact Us with your address, thanks.

Well – the weather is warm, sort of, and I think we’re really ready – in spirit if not in body – for a roundup of your favorite cologne and cologne-type scents.

All this was brought home to me when I savored an armload of Guerlain’s Cologne du 68, which I’ve given short shrift to, only because if you actually see it on a counter somewhere, it’s standing between, say, Sous le Vent and a bee bottle of Vetiver Pour Elle, and oh, look! here’s Bois d’Armenie and Derby and some other interesting stuff you hardly ever see and whose dumb idea was those bulb atomizers blah blah blah and I end up leaving the counter 45 minutes later with my nose hairs singed, and the 68 has long since disappeared from my mind.

I was in a cologne-ish mood, though, recently, so I sprayed Guerlain Vetiver Pour Elle all over one arm and the 68 on the other.  Pour Elle was the one I was really interested in, and … eh.  I don’t know.  Luca Turin’s pretty wild for it, it’s a more floral vetiver, but my vote for the money is the original (men’s) Vetiver, which LT describes as “reference vetiver” in the Guide.  I’m sure many of you have vetivers you like better, but I am not the Vetiver Queen and I find Guerlain Vetiver to be a pretty perfect summer refreshment.  Added bonus: you can pick it up online and at your local discounters.

But the 68 was the one that really swept me off my feet.  I’d put it in the cologne-plus category – something slightly more interesting and long lasting than the bergamot-petitgrain-laden tradition.  Allegedly its name comes from its 68 notes and the store address on the Champs-Elysees, and I have no idea how those 68 notes stack up to the number of notes in a “regular” cologne, but it smells more complex to me.  There’s a list of notes on the front of the bottle (in French), and the most comprehensive list I’ve seen is on Now Smell This, so here’s my link to Robin’s review.  It used to be terrible distribution, I think only the store in Paris?  But the price is cheaper now (smaller bottle) and you can find it online for $100.  The bottle itself is kind of cool, isn’t it?  It’s handsome and looks a little out of place with the retro styling of most of the rest of the line.  It reminds me a little of the Caron Reglisse bottle, although it’s not as tall.

Notes via NST are bergamot, green mandarin, citron, clementine, cedrat, blood orange, limette, grapefruit, basil, fennel, star anise, lavender, bay leaf, cypress, elemi, thyme, myrtle, bigarade, mandarin petitgrain, lemon petitgrain, pear, violet leaves, ivy leaves, gentiana, sap, blackcurrant, freesia, lily of the valley, hazelnut leaf, cyclamen, cardamom, coriander, black pepper, pink pepper, nutmeg, ginger, jasmine, frangipani, magnolia, orange blossom, peony, rose, carnation, ylang ylang, lychee, fig, blackberry, immortelle, lentisque, opoponax, amber, benzoin, vanilla, cistus, heliotrope, iris, tonka bean, sage, musk, patchouli, agarwood, cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, vegetable musk, praline, myrrh and moss.

The first two minutes of 68 are a little warmer and sweeter than I’d expected.  I’m standing there thinking, yeah, this is nice … oh, really nice … you know, about as good as it gets mentally for cologne.  Then really nice moves on into legitimate fragrance territory, by which I mean I start mentally evaluating 68 as more than something I’d throw on when the thermometer reads 92 and I want to run away from home.  It goes through several phases – the citrus/sweet top, an interesting fruity interlude that made me think of lychee, then a couple rounds of anise, then a really great nutty section that made me think of sesame but must have been the hazelnut.  At that point I was really enjoying myself, and we hadn’t even gotten to the immortelle or the drydown that, on me, goes on approximately forever and smells equally of musk and cut grass with a tiny nibble of almond macaron (the praline?)

There’s always a place in my heart and my fridge for a big ol’ medicinal bottle of 4711, and I am pretty sure that somewhere on here in the past I basically said, hey, how many colognes does anyone need? Just as some of you are testing new waters (florals! oud!) and feeling the love for the first time, I’m really re-evaluating my relative lack of respect for cologne scents.   I think this and Escale a Portofino are at the top of my list right now (speaking of another cologne-plus scent), and I definitely need to retry that Mugler, I know a bunch of you are nuts over that.

Also, I think it’s terrible that Dior seems to have killed off all their giant colognes in local stores (Blanche, Noire, Bois D’Argent) – where did they go?   Did I miss the memo about them being discontinued or something?  Does anyone still see them around?  What’s your favorite cologne?