1) The cover of my new issue of Vogue has a photo of Jennifer Aniston and it says, “Don’t Feel Sorry For Me!” Well, okay, hon. I mean, Brad did dump you (he of the refined design aesthetics who sneered at your comfy-couch boho-Victorian style) for that big-lipped bimbo who just happens to be spread all over the inside of this issue, the new model for St. John, looking for all the world like she’s trying to remember how many orgasms she’s had today, or possibly where she left the keys to the Mercedes (are these thoughts connected?) And he knocked her up and you can’t even tell in those pics. But you’re right. I’m already bored with your new role as jilted celebrity wifey, consoling yourself with the cover of Vogue. You’re right, I don’t feel sorry for you.

2) I want the old Pier 1 Imports back. The new Pier 1 is a downscale Pottery Barn, with cheaply made furniture, candles in scents I don’t want, and wall art I don’t like. I want my funky old Pier 1 with that fell-off-the-ship hodgepodge of hemp clothing, ancient powdery teas, mystery spice bags, ratty posters, weird creepy wood bibelots, etc. Not because I really need any of that stuff. I just miss the smell. If you could bottle the unique, spicy, musty, foreign smell of the Original Pier One, I’d be first in line to buy it. I’d use it as a room spray. They don’t even carry baskets any more. Yeesh.

3) What is going on with the super-sizing of soap bars? It’s like a 32-oz. Coke … no wonder I buy so many guest soaps, at least I can pick them up! Wielding one of those new giant soaps in the bath is like trying to keep a grip on a greased brick.

4) Finally, new on the Rose Love Front: I have decided that powder is not something I love with my rose, although objectively it’s beautiful (think Lipstick Rose). My newest Rose Love (thanks, Patty, you enabler! mwah!) is Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit, which is deeply animalic, a filthy, drrrrty thing that curled up in my ear and whispered sexy obscenities to me for hours. It is so magnificently skanky I am guessing this was not a great love for Patty.

5) I was stumbling around our local Anthropologie looking at all their cool stuff, which includes not just unusual bath soaps and lotions but often fragrances I’ve never seen elsewhere. On this trip there were some L’Aromarines (which, okay, I have seen elsewhere), and three different Oilily scents (who knew?), all of which were fun enough that maybe I’ll review them as a set sometime, and one of which, Papillon, I especially liked — a lily and tart cherry combo that absolutely works. But the best find was Paul & Joe Bleu Eau De Toilette (30ml). Robin at NST actually reviewed the other one, Paul & Joe Blanc, which was very pretty but which I couldn’t pick out of a spring-floral lineup, so to speak. Bleu actually got me to stop, turn around, and go back across the cluttered store, trawling for the bottle (um, excuse me, does this smell familiar, what the hell did I just try on?!?)

Notes: Bergamot, Cilantro, Caraway, Cardamom, Ylang-Ylang, Jasmine, Rose, Magnolia, Heliotrope, Patchouli, Vetiver, Oud, Myrrh, Sandalwood, Incense, Vanilla, Ambergris.

I think this would be a bit much in the middle of summer, but (bear with me here) it had the olfactory resonance of sassafras. What I mean is, it didn’t smell like sassafras, but it had roughly the same level of root-beer-ish refreshment factor, and about the same weight. I liked it because it was interesting, and quite pleasant along the same general lines as, say, a cucumber cologne, but with more legitimate-perfume depth and complexity. As my aunt would say, nifty. Definitely a unisexy fragrance, too. The guy at the POST OFFICE said, you smell wonderful! Postscript: 1) The Big Cheese, who mostly doesn’t comment on my ever-changing reek, said hey, that smells really good. 2) The scary part? After a couple of hours I thought, that smells a tiny bit like my friend Chergui. So I sprayed some on the other arm for a comparison. I am probably going to get myself drummed out of the perfume corps as an drooling idiot, but here it is: I liked the Bleu better. It’s not as sweet on my skin, and a little green.

March

Regina Harris Rose Maroc Oil — $125 at La Creme Beauty for .5 ounces.

Rose Maroc, Frankincense and Myrrh are the notes in this long-lasting and you only need a little oil. It goes on with the sharp incense notes, and the rose is very subtle in there. The sharpness makes your nostrils flare and reminds me that I’m way overdue for confession. This is a really beautiful, soaring incense, and the rose softens it just a smidge, but not enough to take away from what it is — a smokey, rich incense. And that bottle, I’d sell my mother — oldest teenager for that bottle. Is it worth that price tag? Normally, I’d say no way, but this really is lovely. For incense lovers, it really is an extravagant incense, much warmer than Armani Prive Bois D’Encens. Which gives me an idea! Maybe I should mix the BdE with some rose, like the Micallef Rose Aoud, which I still need to order. (picture from La Creme website)

Annick Goutal Petite Cherie – March and I are pretty sure that we are the only people on the face of the planet that love Petite Cherie. Notes of freshly cut grass, musky rose, peach, and vanilla. I never smell the vanilla in here, I just get all that peach and grass, and this is the perfume that makes me feel frilly and girly and young and frivolous and giggly. It needs a plug in the spring, it deserves it, it’s been reviled and spit on enough. Girlie Girls UNITE in support of a sweet fruity scent that doesn’t make us feel stupid for wearing it!!!!

Costume National Scent Gloss — I’ve had a sample of this forever, and for some reason, I’ve just never put it on. Time to fix that. Notes of spicy rose, purple orchid and fresh musk, it goes on with a little rose and some other stuff that made me sneeze. Okay, sweet candy rose with a little musk in there. Not terrible, not memorable.. what was it I put on?

Patty

It must be time for some new candy samples, which also gives me an excuse to drop in a thing of beauty by one of my favorite painters:

John Singer Sargent — Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

Floris Malmaison: I was jonesing for a nice carnation, and Boisdejasmin recommended this one. Victoria, I kneel at your sweetly-scented feet. The smell of a spicy carnation with a kiss of cloves and a warm base of a lightly powdery, delicate musk. Gorgeous.

S-Perfume Lust: Some fragrances go wrong on my skin through no fault of their own (Serge/Sheldrake Bois d’Anything springs to mind here). Some things are just all wrong straight from the bottle, and Lust is one of them. This falls squarely into my Rasputin’s Armpit category a photorealistic rendition of a hairy, unwashed underarm in humid August. If unwashed armpits are your lust thing, or if you think I’m wrong, email me and I’ll send you my large-ish sample. Possibly the nastiest smell I have ever deliberately applied to my person.

Shalini: it costs $400 an ounce, notes are tuberose, neroli and tiare à¢â‚¬” so don´t spill it, honey. A soaring, ethereal white flower arrangement, created by Maurice Roucel. It manages to be every glorious thing it promises on the Aedes website, without the cloying aspect I would usually find from a fragrance this rich (in all senses).

Mona di Orio  Carnation: Top notes include bergamot, clove and geranium. Middle notes include ylang ylang, violet, jasmin and precious woods; Base notes include musk, amber and styrax. This is a faintly spicy, face-powder smell, with a touch of a musty, sweet mildew. Meh. Nuit Noir: Top notes include orange flower, cardamom, ginger and orange guinee; Heart notes include olibian, cinnamon, tuberose, sandalwood, clove and cedarwood and base notes include amber, leather, musk and tonka bean. I wanted to love this one, Columbina says it’s a winner. On me it is, well, animalic to the point of zoo-smell, served with a generous dusting of cinnamon and a squeeze of orange. Lux — Top notes include Sicilian lemon, litsea cubeba, petitgrain bigarade. Heart notes include vetiver, cedarwood and sandalwood Mysore. Base notes include musc, amber, vanilla bourbon and labdanum. A cheerful, lemon-y winner. Not an entirely novel concept, but still quite pleasing in a fresh citrus-cologne way.

Creed Fleur de The Rose Bulgare: What a bitter disappointment. Many sophisticated fragrance friends said this is the most true of roses. On me it manages to be (paradoxically) thin and cloying, a high-end-catalog silk erose, rather than a rose. I might as well give up writing fragrance reviews right now, after all, I’m the flake who found Malle’s Une Rose to be the most realistic thus far. My 11-year-old Junior Nose pronounced it “fake like cherry candy.”

Escentric Molecules Escentric 01: is based around the radiant warmth of Iso E Super, taken in an unprecedented concentration of 65 percent. Ornamenting the radiant wood tonality of this fascinating aroma-chemical is the sweet piquancy of pink pepper and the verdant tartness of lime peel. Orris incense veils the velvety composition with sweet delicate smokiness; its subtle sensuality underscoring the darkness of Iso E Super — Aedes. Ooooo-kay. I’ll take their word for it. I figured anything with this chemistry-set approach was worth smelling if only because it’s such a refreshing antidote to the ‘natural perfume is better’ cant. (Natural how? Better than what?) I’m not going to begin to pretend to understand the mechanics of this fragrance. (There’s also a whole precious blurb about the brilliance of their binary-code bottles, which I’ll spare you). I am simply going to tell you that I did one of those road-runner-type screeching stops when it wrapped itself around my olfactory receptacles. It is a really, really cool incense smell, brightened by lime and some other juju like somebody’s holding the whole thing up to a powerful source of light. Unisexy.

Molecule 01: is composed solely of Iso E Super, an aroma-chemical with a warm woody tonality. It possesses a velvety quality that is simultaneously elusive and tenacious. Well, not that elusive — it smells like Windex and pepper, and half an hour later it’s just pepper. It’s interesting, but I much prefer the Escentric 01, even though I’m not sure it’s worth $135.

Image: www.returnoflight.com

March

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had beautiful, shiny, bouncy hair. It was a wonderful shade of honey blonde. Thick and luxurious, it looked good short or long. Then she had children. Something happened to her beautiful hair. It got some gray in it, and those gray hairs weren’t shiny and pretty at all, or bouncy. They were tough and wiry and dry and oogy.

The Mommy-with-the-now-gray-strands had an idea!! She went to the nice lady at the beauty shop and asked her to please give her some shimmery golden highlights for her hair that would cover up that icky gray hair, and she did! How pretty and blond her hair is, but, ohmy, it is a little dry, isn’t it? Well, it is either the gray or the dry, so dry it is.

And the Nice Lady got older, and her children turned into teenagers, and her hair got dryer as she fried — er, colored her hair and permed it and pulled it out when the teenagers started driving.

Alas, one day she looked in the mirror and decided something had to change– her hair hung there like a mop, it wasn’t shiny or pretty, it was dull and lifeless with dry, split ends. There must be a way to get back her beautiful tresses. She thought and she thought and she googled until she found the answer… Kerastase in the pretty pink bottle! Yes, this might work, so she pulled out the battered credit card and ordered the shampoo and the hair masque and the conditioner. Then she watched out the window until the man in the blue uniform delivered her packages with the magic elixir.

She shampooed and conditioned and slowly but surely over a few weeks, her hair started being soft again and shiny, but not as much as it could be and not so bouncy. Then she found the Chi flat iron, which was very, very spendy, but her hair was shinier and softer after using it, too. Then just a drop of Chi Silk Infusion right out of the shower just made it silkier and shinier, but it needed something else, something she had been lusting after for months…

the thing that was supposed to not damage your hair at all when it was drying, the thing that was was supposed to leave hair even shinier after drying, the thing that could leap damaged hair in a single bound and stop lifeless locks with a puff of air. It was all silver slickness and even spendier than the flat iron, but she finally gave in during a moment of weakness and ordered it (eBay, natch, way less than Sephora). The T3 Tourmaline Evolution!!!

It showed up on its UPS Carriage, and she took it and all of her other shampoos and conditioners and infusions and flatirons, closed herself in the bathroom to see if she could recreate the hair of her youth.

20 Minutes later (ionic dryers are super-fast!) she at last had swingy, bouncy, shiny hair, full of lovely golden highlights.

The moral of this story? If you spend enough, your hair doesn’t have to turn into Old Lady Hair.Is it worth it? Probably not, but, damn, my hair looks good!

Patty

For the throngs of people who stopped by today and noticed that the comments section doesn’t work on my brilliant Life Gives You Lemons post (just how prescient was that title?), stay tuned, the forces of good are at work on this glitch.

Here’s a great image I haven’t been able to work into a post:

March