April 24, 2006
I opened up a package from The Unnamed Friend (but you know who you are à¢â‚¬” hugs!) and there were small tastes of not one but TWO things that are too special to drop in the Candy Samples: Guerlain Djedi and Guerlain Plus Que Jamais. For a dedicated Guerlain Love Slave like me, this is about as good as it gets, fragrance-wise. I exercised superhuman restraint and tested them on separate days. My samples, so generously sent, were already close to depletion and I didn´t want to waste a drop.
So, here goes:
Guerlain Plus Que Jamais (à¢â‚¬Å“more than everà¢â‚¬?) is a new release I hadn´t smelled yet, although I´d read a very funny essay about it in the Washington Post when a local columnist ended up spending the $300+ it cost (by his reckoning, an outrageous fortune) as a present for his wife. I am going to link here to Bois de Jasmin´s review, which I´m not going to pretend I can improve on. (It also contains a link to the Gene Weingarten essay.) Instead I´ll point out that her comments stayed with me because, as she puts it, à¢â‚¬Å“the fans of house will no doubt find it enchantingly wistful and unapologetically glamorous.à¢â‚¬? In short, I was expecting to love it, while simultaneously sort of hoping I wouldn´t, because that is a LOT of money for one bottle of juice… notes are lemon, bergamot, ylang ylang, rose, jasmine, orris, vanilla, amber, tonka bean, vetiver.
There is no mistaking it for anything other than Guerlain à¢â‚¬” this is, to me, the Guerlain essence, its gestalt, the warm, powdery breath of the Guerlinade on my skin. This is the one they should have named Guerlinade, not that emasculated floral that is conspicuously missing its signature skank. Do I love it on its own merits? Unfortunately, that question will probably have to wait for a trip to Bergdorf in New York (or the 68 in Paris) for a larger, atomized sample. I need more juice to render the decision. Until then, I will offer two comparisons: it is most like Attrape-Coeur; it is much like Jicky EDT with less citrus and naughty bits. I am afraid I am going to love it.
Djedi dates from the days of the Perfume Dinosaurs à¢â‚¬” the early part of the 20th Century à¢â‚¬” when Guerlain´s hat hadn´t got knocked sideways and Coty wasn´t a name that made you think of the drugstore and Pink Musk. I remember reading a review of it (I think on Luca Turin´s defunct fragrance blog) wherein Roja Dove described Djedi´s extreme dryness. It is a leathery chypre that has always sounded faintly shocking to me, along the lines of Bandit; here I am going to cop out and link to Marina´s excellent review of the fragrance. It didn´t sound like a Guerlain that would break my heart with love, but it was certainly on my list of things to try. My taste is not from one of the original bottles, but from the 1990s reissue of only 1000 numbered bottles. As you can imagine, the price of this stuff on eBay is astronomical, with bottles going for more than $500 last time I checked. Cribbing from Marina: à¢â‚¬Å“the perfume´s list of notes supposedly includes rose, vetiver, musk, oakmoss, leather, civet and patchouli.à¢â‚¬?
English is a rich language, but I think I need a whole new vocabulary to describe this fragrance. My initial reaction was: this is unlike anything else I have ever smelled. Djedi is not leather, but it is chypre, of the darkest, most severe sort. It is almost mineral in its austerity. It is the smell of hot gravel in the sun. It is the smell of smoke in the desert. It is the smell of dry sticks, or sunbleached bones, baking in the sand. There is a short burst of vetiver, but it is carried past you on a hot wind (the Santana) from a long way off, and it does nothing to relieve your thirst. There is a brief, bizarre twist (as Marina noted) where it smells faintly like some sort of spiced savory food.
All this sits on a base of some mysterious reverse-image Guerlain à¢â‚¬” someone took the powder, civet and oakmoss of the Guerlinade and beamed it back and forth a few times to an alternate universe that contained nothing sweet at all. By the following day (this is some tenacious juice) it has regained a little of the vetiver and the quite attractive savory-spice-stew smell (cinnamon, cardamom, maybe nutmeg or clove?) on top of the moon rocks.
In the end what fascinates me about this composition is not the presence of anything à¢â‚¬” there is no gentle rose, no healing rain, no worn leather. Instead, it is defined by the absence of the familiar roots and flowers and any of the velvety vanilla whisper of the Guerlinade, leaving me stranded in a desolate place where nothing is familiar, and yet I am not afraid.
April 21, 2006
A feature you can all “look forward to” (wink-wink) on the weeks when I post on Fridays is my penchant for goofy reality shows and celebrity gossip, but since I’ll also be giving things away, this seems like a good time to indulge my classless idiocy.
I was talking to a friend, who shall remain nameless, recently, and we both go out on Fridays (for me, sometimes Sat or Sun) and pick up the trashy celebrity gossip magazines like People and Us. I lurve them, I really do. Then I spend the weekend, or at least a couple of hours of it, flipping through them and indulging in one of my favorite guilty pleasures. The best weeks are when “In Style” comes out. Anyway, go see Gallery of the Absurd, if you don’t already visit it, for some of the funniest celebrity cartoon art around, like the cartoon on the left of Tom-Rat. So the baby has arrived, and coincidentally at almost the same time as Brooke Shield’s baby. Coinkydink? I don’t think so. It’s some evil L. Ron Hubbard plot to something something Xenu something. I’ll fill in the blanks later. But did you see that the name of the baby, Suri, doesn’t mean what they said it meant, Princess? It apparently means pointy nose pickpocket. Suri is seriously going to be pissed one day about that, among lots of other things.
And who will get that part in the Dallas move, Lindsey or Jessica? I have no idea why Lindsey would want it, that’s not a part with a future. She laments that she doesn’t get the Scarlett Johannson roles, then fights for crap roles?
A new book that I heard about at Beauty Addict (not sure about this one, sorry if I heard aboutit somewhere else and you didn’t get credit) – Free Gift with Purchase – my Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup by Jean Godfrey-June should be here tomorrow, wheee!!! I 
also bought this book, Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard because it sounds kinda interesting and because it’s set in Kansas. (Oddly enough, I’ve never read In Cold Blood. It’s sent in Kansas too, but I just can’t do it.) It shows up tomorrow too. Now, if I could only concentrate for more than 35 seconds so I could read just one book. If only I had longer arms so i could see those books without the 30 pairs of reading glasses we have laying around the house. I used to read a book every couple of days, but my mind and eyes are shot, and now the only time I manage to read anything is when I go on vacation on a beach somewhere, and usually I’m drinking too much on vacation and can’t remember what I read.
American Idol – Did the bottom three this week surprise anyone? Two yawners and a tart are safe, and, well, Taylor. Now, sending home Ace was okay, though I will miss me some Eye Candy, and Paris needs to just be herself, but Chris?!?!?!? You can always catch recaps of all trash reality TV at TVGasm. I haven’t had to watch America’s Next Top Model yet this Cycle, thanks to them. But I watched it last night, and I don’t remember why I ever watched that show, and I won’t do that again — well, until the next time I forget that I really hate that show.
For those of you that are Catholic, remember that this Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday, my favorite day of the year! If you aren’t Catholic or religious at all, just skip this paragraph. If you have not done confession yet, it’s not too late to get your No Purgatory for the Crap I’ve Done So Far Ticket punched by Jesus. For those of you that think I make light of this, I’m not! Good grief, I’m a horrible person most of the time, I need all the help I can get, and aiming at and hitting this little window is harder than you think, I’ve missed it three years in a row. It is a good thing I’ve stayed healthy. Now I can go back to drinking and sloughing off on the health stuff for a while. This is the end of my Sinful Catholic PSA.
Perfume — oh, yeah, this is a Perfume Blog. Sorry about that! So I couldn’t just pick one winner, I had too many entries, so I pulled out three:
*****Drum Roll******* 
Flora, Rachael and Dusan
Send me your snail mail address by hitting the Contact Us Button, and I’ll jet you off the two Malle samples you picked, plus other goodies. Thanks so much to all of you for your comments and for reading what we write. The comments are the most fun thing of writing, hearing what you think and learning something new.
Now, time to…Trash the comments.
Comment on whatever you want, celebrity gossip, Brangelina having a baby in Namibia, is Brad really about fed up with her yet, reality TV, whatever occurs to you that is the opposite of high brow and erudite.
I’m off to get my hair cut and highlighted — shinified. Have a great weekend, everyone!!!
April 20, 2006
Spring´s bustin´ out all over, and here are March´s Top 10 Scents for Spring (yeah, okay, I cheated a little and slipped a few more in there). These are things I´m loving now that I won´t necessarily be wearing in a couple of months when it´s Sultry Summer in my humid climate:
1. I Profumi di Firenze Arancia Dolce in a tiny bottle of concentrate, which is really designed to be mixed into a larger bottle of lotion. I love it because it´s a bright squeeze of orange and it reminds me of Florence, which is where I bought it (and as far as I know, the only place you can buy it à¢â‚¬” the concentrates are not exported to the U.S.) My other orange loves: SL Fleurs d’Oranger and L’Artisan Fleur d’Oranger, and it just killed me to leave them off. There is no such thing as Too Much Orange.
2. Lorenzo Villloresi Garofano à¢â‚¬” I must have been having a Bad Skin Day when I panned this on our blind sample swap. It is a gorgeous burst of fresh, spicy carnation with a little leaf to keep it interesting. My other carnation love is Floris Malmaison — A perfect carnation with a little clove that will be too heavy once the temperature hits 80, so I´m wearing it now.
3. L´Artisan La Chasse aux Papillons à¢â‚¬” a confection of blossoms (linden, lemon, orange), jasmine, and tuberose that makes me smile every time I wear it. My also ran: Pre de Provence Linden, if you want your linden straight up. If you want your linden to stay the hell away from you because it smells like buttered socks, you’re reading the wrong blog. P and I are All About the Linden.
4. Guerlain Eau de Fleurs de Cedrat à¢â‚¬” because what list would be complete without Guerlain? By the way, I´ve smelled the new juice in the Bee Bottle, and à¢â‚¬¦ my old juice in the ugly bottle is better. They must have taken out the stuff that was making people´s arms drop off in that worldwide Guerlain epidemic and replaced it with the stuff that makes your nose fall off and doesn´t smell as good.
5. Annick Goutal Mandragore à¢â‚¬” I smelled this for the first time last spring in the boutique near my hotel in Paris and bought it on the spot. On me it´s pure grapefruit, with a little bergamot, and I think it´s perfect.
6. Laura Tonatto Eleonora Duse — The only LT I´ve fallen for. A dark, sweet violet along the lines of Molinard’s — but richer.
7. Santa Maria Novella Eva — Patty turned me onto this one. A happy, springy citrus-bergamot scent.
8. Frederic Malle Carnal Flower – the perfect smell of the tuberose while it is in the florist’s shop. The faint, almost camphorous chill of the wintergreen is either delightful (my view) or unpleasant (Colombina’s view), but it is much less intense than SL Tubereuse Criminelle, which I find essentially unwearable (go ahead, all you TC fans — comment on what a bonehead I am.) I am not a huge white-floral fan, but this one is astonishing.
9. Bond No. 9 Eau de Noho à¢â‚¬” a bouquet of violets with a big wet smack of linden. This and the Chinatown are my only Bond loves so far.
10. Hermes Hiris à¢â‚¬” Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist is judged superior by greater noses than mine, but on me ISM smells like the cedar tree fell on the iris and squashed it. Hiris is my Iris Holy Grail, the closest I can get to my idea of the way iris blooms smell.
10. Shiseido Saso and Tentatrice – I can’t leave these off. I mean, they’re perfect for now, they’re fairly strong (which I like) but will be too much in our sultry summer weather. Saso is the most amazing smell, vaguely osmanthus-jasmine-ish, and if I’m lucky my New Mexico transplant Russian olive will bloom this year so I can smell it again.
Finally — check out this Ines de la Fressange (Original Price $65, now on clearance at $20 at Sephora)
“This quintessentially Parisian fragrance is a lush blend of white roses and peonies that seduce with their alluring aroma, deep and mysterious iris, zesty mandarin and blackberry, and finished with rich, lingering neroli, musk, and patchouli.
Notes: Neroli, Mandarin, Bergamot, Blackcurrant, Lily of the Valley, Peony, Orris, White Rose, Patchouli, Benzoin, Musk, Vetiver.”
C’mon, how fuh-REAKING gorgeous is that bottle? I’m way overdue to fall in love with something they’re discontinuing. Thanks to Cheezwiz for the heads up! Hey, Patty — I’m gonna buy this. If it’s too rose-y I’m sending it to you, you rose-lover.
carnation image: www.kidlingtoncameraclub.co.uk
April 18, 2006
This is my top 10 for Spring and Summer, in no particular order. And I have to say this was so hard. There are a bazillion great spring and summer scents, and I wish I could have a top 50! So because I can’t, I’m going to cheat like crazy to make it seem like I’ve picked only 10 when I’ve really slutted a few extras in. Now I know what Hugh Hefner feels like. I’m normally an intensly loyal person, to the point of being a huge, yawning snore, but when it comes to perfumes, I just can’t keep my hands off the little darlings and want to make sure they all feel loved and admired. I will stop short of putting bunny tails and ears on them, but I do think all the bottles would be cuter like that.
Santa Maria Novella Eva — Spring in a bottle — convertible with the top down, breezing down the Pacific Highway. The cheaper version of this is 4711 in a Yugo on the Gulf Highway. Both are great for what ails ya. Rainy out? Spritz on some Eva. Everyone forgot your birfday? Spritz on some Eva. Everyone remember your birfday? Spritz on some Eva. Not enough time to shower before you run to the store? Spritz on some Eva. Fat pants not fitting? That’s right… spritz it like you have it.
Osmanthe Yunnan – I’m not sure why I like this one so much, but it haunts me. It’s that sour, dry grapefruity open with that tea under it all. Just when I think it is gone, it will waft so delicately around me and sends my nose hunting for it again. Much as I love Vetiver Tonka and Rose Ikebana, and they please me more than OY generally, this is the Hermessence that will be heavenly for me in summer. Laying in the hammock in the shade of my weeping birch, just pondering how this wispy scent can be so enchanting.
Ormonde Jaynes – all of them, but Frangipani has found a special place in my heart this spring. It is just charmingly lovely. Rich, buttery, like a hot island filled with flowers. The base in the OJs scream joyful weather, and I wear them all year round, but they seem to be even more ebullient in warm weather, like a wonderful flower that smells heavely year round but saves its sweetest perfume for the heat.
de Rosine Un Zest de Rose – Y’all didn’t really think I’d miss out on doing a Rose perfume in this list, did you? Love this one, citrusy rose done like no other, I just want to drink this darn thing. Right behind it is Rose D’Ete. More fruity rose, but also summer in a bottle.
Hermes Un Jardin Sur le Nil – Anyone disagree? I didn’t think so.
Malle En Passant – As I mentioned before… laying in a pile of grain with a little bouquet
of lilacs pressed up to my nose. This is a perfume that makes me feel young again, and that’s all about springtime. Just stunningly beautiful.
(painting is Girl with Lilac by Sophie Anderson)
Chanel Bois de Iles – I can’t leave this one off of a list again. I tend to ignore this during the winter months, but it is just perfection once the weather warms. Woody, Chanel-y perfection. I always feel like I need to put on my little sundress, pearls, hat and little white sandals, grab a bottle of gin and find a garden party to crash. (Picture from the artist Judy Free found at this gorgeous Seattle Gallery site)
Serge Lutens Un Lys or Malle’s Lys Mediterranee – Lillies have to be on a spring list, and these are my two favorites (oh, no, I know I’ve forgotten one!). Lillies don’t remind me of sad things, like funerals. They remind me of renewal and beginning, of rebirth and hope, of finding great beauty when you least expect it. They are such an impractical flower, and they don’t grow so well in Colorado some years, but I must have them because they are always beautiful against the odds, and then they flop over and wilt and get brown, but they come back again just as beautiful.
Either SL Fleurs D’Oranger or L’Artisan Fleur De Oranger or Le Labo Fleur D’Oranger – Again, there must be an Orange Blossom or nine on the list, and these three are gorgeous, but different aspects of the same smell. See March’s wonderful review from a while back on the SL and FM (what, like I have a link?). Sunshine in a bottle, but not all-out sunshine. It is shrouded, muted, in shade some of the time and out burning hot other times.
Marc Jacobs (Essence, Blush or the regular) – White flower heaven, any of these are just beautiful and made for the warm weather months, though they work perfectly well any season. One of the few designer perfumes I am totally smitten with.
SL Bois de Violette – Has to be a violet on this list, and this is my very favorite. Runner Up is Laura Tonatta E. Duse. She might have been in first place, except I haven’t gotten around to buying a bottle and drowning myself in it — I really need to do that soon!
AND
MY TOP SUMMER SCENTS
The Daphnes that grow outside of my old house, Russian Olive blossoms, the salty skin of sweaty babies who have been in the ocean, and smoky barbeques. As much as I love perfume, the smells in nature will always show them to be just imitations. But imitations though they may be, getting a sniff of one that brings back a time and place and emotion is just magic and why perfume is the most fun thing to have as a hobby — obsession – fun thing to do!
April 18, 2006
Last week I shared my thoughts on acquiring samples. This post covers a different kind of acquisition, the Scent Bender. Does that sound like fun? Well, then, just hop in my car and ride along with me.
Our destination is the Tysons Galleria in suburban Washington, D.C., the kind of high-end mall that is anchored by NM and Saks and patronized by blown-out neutral-polish uber-mommies, the bored international set, and ghost-thin, ethereally beautiful Asian women wearing the kind of wildly chic clothes that whisper Anywhere But Here.
I stop briefly at the Cartier counter in Neiman Marcus to smell the Delices de Cartier that Robin reviewed, and I have to say I prefer the parfum, which is all fruit (cherry) and much less jasmine (they are so proud of their three-part jasmine!), although I don´t like it enough to buy it (and am guessing it is fairly expensive.) I am in a hurry, because I am heading for Art With Flowers.
I owe my thanks to Robin at NST for pointing me to Art With Flowers, which I might eventually have found on my own, but I doubt it. It is on the top floor, in the most rarified atmosphere of the mall, and from the front it looks like a very expensive flower shop (which it is), along with a tastefully edited collection of objets d´art that would probably get my attention if I weren´t in such a hurry to get to the back where they keep the fragrances.
Art With Flowers is the only local source for Serge Lutens and carries an alphabet soup of niche perfumes: TDC, SMN, MPG, CSP, etc. Les Parfums de Rosine, Carthusia, Nanadebary, lots of candles, stuff I´ve forgotten, and some one-offs that are carried at, say, Takashimaya in New York. I love this place. I love this place because attitude-wise they are the polar opposites of the department store fragrance counters. They couldn´t care less if I stay all day, drink my lattes, eat their expensive chocolate, and clear my nose using their coffee grounds before applying yet another niche productà¢â‚¬¦ and then leave with nothing but a bag of free samples. I go there for a semi-monthly Scent Bender with purchases, because I owe them, because it´s fun, and because if they close, then what will I do?
I especially love Bill, because he obliges me by spraying himself with all the things I love that smell wonderful on him and terrible on me (like Apothia´s Velvet Rope). I have buried my nose in his chest enthusiastically more than once, huffing Serge´s Un Lys. Bill has put the entire Diptyque line on sale at 40% off because he wants the shelf space for other things, and he complains that it´s still not moving. (Diptyque junkies à¢â‚¬” that´s $36 for a bottle of EDT! They have the soaps and candles on sale too. Interested? Call 703-903-6837, I assume they can send it to you.) I pass on the Diptyque Oyedo, which is citrus but smells completely boring on me after 90 seconds, but purchase a bottle of my beloved L´Eau Trois, which I am fairly sure they will discontinue since nobody else will wear it (although Bois de Jasmin gave it a thumbs up, and I think Robin doesn´t hate it), and then the Eau D´Elide (bitter orange, aromatic shrubs), which (this is how the mind begins to twist when you smell a lot of product) I cannot say smells good on me. However, it smells very interesting à¢â‚¬” an intensely green, macerated-herb scent that I buy only after I realize I´ve been compulsively re-sniffing it over the previous hour, in between the other dozen-odd things I´ve applied. I smell Apothia´s L, which smells infuriatingly like fruit crap on me, I was wishing for something edgier, and almost buy Apothia´s If EDP, a gorgeous gardenia-bouquet (the roll-on oil version has some citrus) except it´s gone in 15 minutes, so I decline (although I notice I´ve come home with a sample of it, and L, and Velvet Rope.)
Wow, look, another lost Guerlain! Well, no, not really. It´s Rosine´s Rose d´Homme, which is God´s gift to those of us who are not entirely on board with the rose. I was expecting a masculine rose-guy-cologne thing, but the bergamot-vetiver-citrus-vanilla-hesperidic base makes it, I swear, smell on Bill (and on me) like a classic, not overly sweet Guerlain. This is not simply a great rose fragrance. This is a great fragrance, period. By the way, there is nothing particularly masculine about it, although it would smell wonderful on a man.
I linger awhile over Tann Rokka´s Kisu (ylang-ylang, rose, cedarwood, musk) because the Japanese-motif black bottle with plum blossom spray is so beautiful, but the juice is just a slightly gingery musk on me. Instead I purchase a box of what looks like beautiful nuggets of frankincense and myrrh resin, but which are actually Burn´s Rare Ambient Rocks à¢â‚¬” à¢â‚¬Å“naturally crystallized acacia resin permeated with amber, copal resin, palisander, Javanese ebony, Sandarac balsam, and cascarilla bark.à¢â‚¬? Does that sound heavenly? It is. I also buy the faux-tortoise bowl they´re using for display in the store, because it´s just so perfect. Now I have to think of a place to put them that will escape the attention of the twinsà¢â‚¬¦
March
Patty
