Top 10 Best Perfume for my Life.

Ms. Mimi’s comment yesterday about the tale of Marie-Antoinette going to the guillotine with a bottle of perfume clutched in her hand got me thinking about what bottle of perfume I would take the to the guillotine, what is the best perfume to describe my life? But before I talk about that, can I just say the idea of Kirsten Dunst playing Marie-Antoinette may make me wish for a guillotine?!  I would like to go see this movie, but I’m hoping I can just forget that she is in the title role, maybe if I wear a flip-down visor so I can just cover my eyes when she is on screen — wait, the voice is as bad.  Ayeeeeiii. If Sophia Coppola makes another “think piece” like that abominably boring Lost in Translation, it will truly be a movie that will make you roll your eyes at Kirsten, just to find your eyes staying up at the top of the eye sockets, asleep from lack of anything remotely interesting or entertaining on the movie screen.  I’ll watch Bill Murray over and over in Groundhog Day, it was the pinnacle of his career and one of the best movies ever made, but LiT was just a pale copy of that middleagedguyangstthatcanbeverytediouswihtoutsomehumor, but Scarlett Johannsen was lovely.

If I had lost everything in my life, my family, my position, my dignity, and was about to lose my head and there was nothing left, what bottle would bring back the memories of how sweet my life had been, even as it was ending?  So I have a poll that I’ll answer first, put your answers in the comments!

Best Perfume for my first date: L’Artisan La Chasse aux Papillon for the obvious virginal reasons, along with a carefully rehearsed “why would I want to do that, I don’t want to MARRY you!” in my verbal pocket.

(Art found at this site, scared me!  but it did remind me of my first date… a lot!)

Best Perfume for my wedding: Hermes Eau de Merveilles.  Beautiful and perfect.

Best Perfume for my honeymoon: Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan or Yuzu Rouge or some other tarty thing because I read somewhere that men see you as younger and prettier if you are wearing citrus scents, and heavy, sin-filled perfumes would just get in the way of my beloved seeing my in all my youthful gloriousness.

Best Perfume for begging for forgiveness for something really horrible I have done: Bond No. 9 Eau de Noho, which should make me appear more innocent and forgivable than I really am, or Guerlain Apres L’Ondee if I know forgiveness will never come.

Best Perfume for a long lunch with my best girlfriends where there will be liquor and gossip: Serge Lutens Tuberuese Criminelle, so I can feel all grown up and dangerous and sophisticated while I’m getting bombed with my buddies.  The tuberose shouldn’t conflict with the lime smell from my margaritas.

Best Perfume for my coronation as Queen of the F*&^ing World (Laurie, I kept that t-shirt, you know and wear it when I feel my fiefdom falling apart) — Caron En Avion.  No reason needed, it is the most confident perfume on the face of the planet. Yes, I know that is the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor, but I like to aim high and hope for a return of my rightful dominion.  (queue crazy Sunset Boulevard music)

Best Perfume to take to the Guillotine:  This one was so hard, and it came down to three — four. Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Woman, Frederic Malle En Passant, Hermessence Vetiver Tonka and TDC Sel de Vetiver, all for very different reasons. The Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Woman because it just feels like my life and me.  The Sel de Vetiver because it smells like so many of the best times of my life, vacations on the ocean, lazy days drinking with the rain pattering outside, the salt, the wet, just happy and not very serious.  Vetiver Tonka because it is smooth and intoxicating and may let me forget they are about to separate my head from the rest of me.  The En Passant won because it smells like all of my life, a little wistful, but content, as it looks back at more time than it can look forward to, and it brings me comfort like the others do not.