I´m thinking about getting a big roll of those Mr. Yuck stickers to carry around in my purse and stick on store testers as a warning, as a public service, sort of. What do you think? I´d start with…

Stella in Two. The genius here is that there are TWO parts. Part One is an amber solid perfume, in a case that must be made out of lead (what´s heavier than lead, anyway? Plutonium? Kryptonite?). Honestly, I thought it was magnetized and stuck to the counter – it´s almost funny how heavy it is. It smelled like … waxy amber. Part Two, a peony fragrance in a triangle-shaped bottle, seems to have trouble standing up on its own; more than once I have seen it beached there on its side, leaking fluid all over the counter in an oozing, baking mess under the klieg lights of the Saks fragrance corner. The bottle was all wet and sticky so I just sniffed the puddle instead. No thanks. (I´ve also sniffed this twice since. Ugh. I love peony; not sure what it is about this one I dislike so much.)

Gaultier2 – Reviews say “sweet” and “bubblegum.” Also “sweet.” Some also mention “powdery.” (Did I say “sweet” already?) So I went over there with my barf bag and some rubber gloves and had a go. What is wrong with everyone? I thought it was great. It´s unisex, and at least it´s not a marine scent, or some gourmand thing. It reminds me a little of the weirdness of Versace Dreamer, with less auto parts and more tootsie roll (I love the Dreamer!) It´s allegedly simple (amber, vanilla and musk) and it´s extremely linear, and so what? WYSIWYG. Rock on, Gaultier! Plus you can stick it to your fridge (assuming you don´t have a stupid Sub-Zero) because it´s MAGNETIZED. The oil smelled fabulous, the same general effect as the monoi stuff. Everything doesn´t have to be eating at Le Cirque, right? Sometimes I just want a really good burger.

That New Crap From Valentino – they´re spraying it on silk rose petals. I am guessing here: Praline Accord? Oh, my god … Mr. Yuck, hold me! Okay, Neiman Marcus says … bergamot, black currant, and crunch green. Middle notes of orange blossom, gardenia, muguet, and rose. Base notes of sandalwood, orris, musky notes, vanilla, and heliotrope. It´s called Rock n Rose. I´ve … I´ve been heliotroped! Call 911!

Ormond Jayne Orris Noir. Patty, I think I´d like it, but each time I put it on I go into a wild, sneezing fit. The other OJs don´t do that. Jeez. In fact the only other frag I can think of that makes me sneeze is Trouble. I´ll keep trying.

Hilary Duff Love Ya! I love Hil. She´s the only one of the Former Child Actresses My Girls Love who hasn´t starved herself down to 90 lbs. smoking and doing blow all night at Bungalow 8. Not naming any names… notes are mangosteen (fruit and blossom), spices, cocobolo wood, amber milk, musk. The fragrance is nicely done, not at all what I expected for a teen queen´s first foray. Gourmand – like chai, sort of, with musk and woods. It´s a bit sweet for my taste in the opening, but I must be 25 years over the target demographic, and I wouldn´t hesitate to give it as a fragrance gift that doesn´t scream Pole Dancer in Training. (Not naming any names.) Can I say the bottle is beautiful? No, really — lovely to hold, too. (Additional comment – huh. For one of those pretty, sort-of-forgettable frags, I´ve tried it several times now, and … and so help me, I might actually buy this. I need some more comfort scents. Ack! They´ll probably card me and refuse to sell…)

Marc Jacobs Fall Splash Tri- – uh, Duo - I finally tried the Violet, and Ina´s right – it´s nicely done. On me it´s a musky (rather than candied) violet, with a dust of cocoa and a little ginger, and for such a gentle comfort scent it´s surprisingly long-lasting; any violet fans should definitely give it a sniff. It also has what I´ve come to think of as the Insolence Effect - every time I wear it I get compliments from strangers – men and women – who are wild for it. The Ivy isn´t so bad – just a basic citrus/herbal cologne. But the mystery is … where´s the Amber? It´s gone from the shelves. In fact, the SAs at both Sephora and Nordstrom assured me confidently that this set was issued as a duo, and I´m mixing it up with the summer set (and what´s the point of arguing? None.) So riddle me this, batgirls: was the Amber that bad? Is it gone from your shelves too?

Donna Karan New York – the one in the weird, black mutant bottle that reminds me of Darth Vader or a robotic duck (see photo) – not DKNY, which I think is a lighter, summery scent. Notes of rose, lily, apricot, suede, amber, jasmine and patchouli. Anybody remember this? Somebody else weigh in here. It´s interesting. It doesn´t smell like anything else I own. The opening is very rough going, and I´m not loving the drydown either – it doesn´t really smell floral at all – more like spice. I am trying to figure out who this is targeted to … no, I´m not being a snot, I mean it. What do you think it smells like? It’s so … weird on me. Maybe I´m having a skin chemistry issue, I need to try it on someone else?

My question to you: it´s that time of year – all the fragrance gift sets of the season, a million of em! What looks good to you? Anything with a particularly great bonus or packaging you´ve seen?

March

March and I tried the new Tom Ford on the exact same day, isn’t that fun? So we’ll review jointly.

From March: I´ve read all sorts of things about Tom Ford´s Black Orchid in the months leading up to the release. I remember something about his magicians capturing the smell of the rare black orchid (maybe bred just for Tom?) using headspace technology. Looking at the advertising, the fragrance is presented as sultry, seductive, and a little retro. The ad campaign (featuring the daughter of French Vogue´s editor) gives off its own sensual, Black-Dahlia-esque vibe.

I´m not sure what I was expecting – something a little edgy, maybe a balance between the sharpness of orchid and something creamy, like musk? Or darker, incense perhaps, and/or aldehydes for that retro buzz. Whatever I was expecting, what I smelled on Friday wasn´t it. It´s early yet, and part of the fun of being among the first reviews of a new fragrance is the chance to look like an idiot when everyone else weighs in, but here´s mine. Black Orchid is not a bad fragrance, by any stretch. The SAs at the Neiman Marcus I´ve been stalking relentlessly were still unpacking the bottles. They´d gone through their new-scent training, and they described the scent confidently, in unison, as: vanilla; chocolate; pineapple, patchouli; sandalwood. And that´s more or less exactly what it smells like. I get a fair amount of chocolate throughout, more the mildly bitter cocoa-hull smell. The pineapple is juicy and not overly sweet. The patch arrives 15 minutes in, and it´s very civilized; if there´s sandalwood I can´t smell it. In fact, I can´t smell any woods at all – I´d describe the overall feel as fruity, rich and slightly gourmand. It´s a very pretty fragrance; the friend I was shopping with really liked it. It´s not a “casual” fragrance, but there´s nothing particularly smouldering about it, either, and to me it smells quite modern.

Here are the notes for Black Orchid listed on the NM website:

Sensuous top notes of Black Truffle and Ylang mingled with fresh Bergamot and delectable Black Currant.
Dramatic middle notes of dark, tempting Florals and rich Fruit Accords. The heart is deepened with the intoxicating Lotus Wood.
Decadent base notes of Patchouli, Incense and Vetiver. Vanilla Tears add a fluid creaminess to warm Balsam and smooth Sandalwood.

Here are the (somewhat different) set of notes cribbed from Robin´s brief, excellent writeup on Now Smell This regarding the launch: “The fragrance, by Givaudan, has top notes of French jasmine, black gardenia, ylang ylang, bergamot, mandarin and effervescent citrus; a heart of Tom Ford black orchid, spicy floral orchid accords and lotus wood, and a drydown of patchouli, incense, amber, sandalwood and vanilla.”

Well … you tell me. I have no idea what juju is in there, but I´m smelling … chocovanillapineapple, just like the nice ladies said. I also get an unfortunate whiff of what I can only describe as a faint, metallic “marine accord,” that fresh, breezy smell that´s in everything these days, although I do wonder whether it´s a skin chemistry issue. My verdict: if you gave it to me, I´d wear it.

From Patty: Um, March wrote a damn book, so I’ll be much briefer. I quite like the opening notes, whatever may actually be in there, whether it is the capturement of the rare black orchid or whatever — it’s really dark and different and just a little haunting. What I don’t like as much is where it goes after that very dark, different opening. Can everyone just give Black Currant a rest for a while? I like the scent well enough, but I’m just weary of it. It’s the New Black this season, but it’s not very black and doesn’t go in every perfume like flour goes in every cake, so stop it already, it’s boring. I wish this had stayed darker and left out a lot of the fruit accords that show up after the open, but they don’t stay that long before they get modified, so I’m not unhappy with the juice, just don’t like that part of it.

So the middle is a little too fruity for me, but not in a way that makes me hate it, just in a way that makes me want to go back to the beginning of it or let it dry down so I can get to something I like more. I don’t get any woods in this either, but the bottom notes are very well behaved, and even though I’m not a Patch person, I’m quite relieved to see it show up fairly early on and knock down some of the fruit, which then makes this a nice perfume overall, leaning a little to the dark side. It’s just not as dark and haunting all the way through like I hoped it would be.

Now, can I talk about the bottle? I LOVE that damn bottle, it really is just gorgeous in its simplicity and shows where Tom’s strength is… in design. I’d buy this for the bottle alone — simple, elegant.

From us both:

Since Tom’s fragrance, while nice enough, seems too lightweight to live up to this wonderful ad, what modern fragrance do you readers think of when you look at that image?

March’s vote: Carnal Flower

Patty’s vote: Musc Ravageur

Also, respond with a comment and be entered in the drawing for a sample of this fragrance!

Patty

Donna Karan Gold has notes of casablanca lily, white clove, jasmine, balsam, amber, patchouli. Casablanca lily is one of my favorite flowers when it’s in the garden, but bring it in the house, and, man, it is overwhelming in just the strength of its perfume. So while a favorite smell at a distance, it’s a tough thing to do in a perfume uniquely and to keep its ferocity under wraps.

The amber and patchouli tamps down what can be a cloying lily smell and makes it softer, never too much, but adding a nice twist on it that is very different. Normally the department store scents do little but deliver up an overamped heart note to satisfy the masses, but leaves the perfume obsessed like us sighing and rolling our eyes at doing the obvious. This time, they’ve done the lily right, leaving it warm and a little green, as if the sun had kissed the the slowly opening blossom. This is much, much more interesting than what I expected and seems FBW, though I may wait until it hits the discounters.

For those of you who have smelled the EDP and the EDT, how much of a differentce is there? I tried the EDP and liked it a lot, but don’t want to get the EDT and lament that I saved money for something I don’t like as well.

So far this fall’s crop of scents have been quite good as far as being interesting. I’ve liked most of them — Dzongkha, Fleur de Narcisse, Mandarine-Mandarin — and now DK Gold. Still on the horizon are Tom Ford’s Black Orchid and the new Hermessence. I’m worried about the Hermessence Paprika Basil, it’s been panned as weak to quite weak so far by everyone, but now that my expectations are very low, maybe it won’t be as disappointing? How could JCE have gone so wrong? Holding out hope that I will like it regardless, it should be in my hands this week or next to try.

What’s been your favorite new release this fall?

Patty

We’ve all had them, perfume accidents. You get a promising sample from your best perfume buddy, one she/he has been raving about for weeks. The notes sound spectacular, your friend assures you there is nothing else like it, you will smell like a slice o’ heaven, it will be love at first sniff, you MUST.try.it.now. Instead of just lightly dabbing it on, you dump it on your arm, thinking something that is so great, more is always better. Well… it’s not so great smelling right out of the vial. You’ll wait, it has to get better, your perfume pal would never like something this horrific, and you know that the real test is in the drydown, screw those top notes, they’re just the sprinkles on top of the cupcake.

30 minutes later… ohmygod, Becky, this isn’t getting better, it is getting worse, turning into something that is a cross between burning tires and a Toni home perm. You hold your stinking arm away from you, and you don’t care about the drydown, this is foul, your nose is in pain, there’s no way Anderson Cooper would ever hook up with you smelling like this (I don’t get the Anderson love, I don’t, sorry!), it must go.

So how do you get those stinkers off? I’ve tried soap, nail polish remover, just alcohol, makeup remover, and the only thing that’s ever foolproof gotten rid of a stink-bomb perfume is a hot shower, plenty of soap and a fresh set of clothes.

Someone asked me this question recently, and since I didn’t have any easy solution, I thought I’d ask all of you

Patty

I wrote the folks at Parfums M. Micallef recently, inquiring politely as to the possibility of purchasing some samples of their product. Alternately, if no samples were available, could I make some arrangements to buy a full bottle, and in that case, what would be the price?

Here is the reply in its entirety: Sorry we don’t sell by internet and our fragrances are not available in United States

Now, isn´t that the perfect, breezy Gallic blow-off? I never got used to it in Paris, and I´m still not used to it, really. After all, I´m an American. We may not be able to adequately house and educate our poor, but we shop like gods. What does he (she?) mean, I can´t have any? I have my Mastercard right here, locked and loaded. I´m indignant. We have invaded countries over less. In fact, he´s lucky I´m not Mrs. Dick Cheney, or we´d be parachuting our boys into Cannes right now. Then we´ll see who gets to try Les Exclusifs, hmmmm, monsieur? Let us see you try and stop us from sniffing your oudhs…

But this will not happen. For one thing, I would rather gouge out my eyes with a spoon than marry Dick Cheney. I will have to come up with a more workable plan. (Do I really have to go to Dubai to sample it?) One thing´s for sure – I´m not giving up. Their website is worthless. Does anyone have any idea if Micallef is sold in, say, London or Paris? Or down the block from your house at Chez Parfums Le Snob? I´m particularly interested in Avant-Garde, Pomelos, Gaiac and the oudhs, although I´d smell any of them. Do let me know.

Coty Chypre This was the first fragrance on my Must Smell Before I Die List. Having discovered that one of my favorite eBay Sellers, Dragonfly Scent Me, sells it in decants (how did I miss that one?) I bought a sample of the EDP. I have no idea what vintage it is, but it is vintage, having been out of production at this point for decades. I was anxious, honestly. What does the Mother of All Chypre smell like? The sillage of Dorothy Parker? The famously dangerous jus of girls gone wild? Coty Chypre is all bottom – like turning the bass way up on your stereo – and was fascinating to smell. It´s sweeter than I expected. It´s also less shocking – and this makes sense, of course. To my modern nose, tripping along the niche trail daily from birchtar to barnyard, what was I expecting? It also has essentially no development — just a three-part harmony of pickled grapefruit, dirty suede, and oakmoss – that perfect, humpy thrum of chypre that makes my knees weak. Nobody smells like this. I could go off on one of my ten-paragraph tangents about my longing for the time of fully clothed women broadcasting their ripe sexuality via perfumes, but instead I´ll stick a link here to my post about Houbigant Apercu and say in closing that if I were Empress, the house of Coty would be blowing the dust off its old recipe books and whipping some of this up for the masses.

Lorenzo Villoresi Teint de Neige – proving unequivocally that, having spent years (lifetimes?) smelling baby powder, breast milk, Balmex and barf, I never want to smell any of those things again. Ever. Your powdery comfort scent is my own personal hell.

Matthew Williamson Incense – another one of my long-fantasized-about discontinued fragrances. The first five minutes are really the only “incense” part – afterwards it settles into mostly creamy saffron and (I´m winging it here) some woods on a base of gentle musk. It bears a passing resemblance to Chaos, so of course I was pleased by the smell and I liked it very much. But I did not swoooooooon, and I can give up mourning its unavailability. On me the chief annoyance is the lasting power is poor, an hour or so, and that´s generally not a problem I have with scents. We´ll see. I´ll finish off my generous decant and maybe by the end of it I´ll need more, but probably not.

Guerlain Bois d´Armenie – the whole L’Art et la Matiere part of their line is starting to resemble some elaborate practical joke to me. Or maybe I should set up a new blog and call it Perfume Contrarian? What everyone else got: the delicate smell of sweet powder, woods, smoke, vanilla, and/or benzoin, inspired by the scented papers you can burn as an incense alternative. What I get: Vicks Cherry Cough Syrup, erasers and, okay, benzoin. Ugh. If you burned this in my house I´d hit you with something. I hear that brand-new Nuit d´Amour at Bergdorf in New York is insipid. If Voilette de Madame doesn´t smell amazing, or at least interesting (Madame´s unwashed undergarments?) I´m hanging up my stupid Guerlain spurs and never pimping for the house again. I mean it. I have had it with Guerlain. But let´s not judge. Instead, let´s move on to the happier note of…

Jean Paul Gaultier Classique parfum – You know the bottle – vulgar, Madonna-esque corseted dress-dummy with the big boobs, decorated over the years in various ways. Ina reviewed this and sent me a sample of the parfum, which she characterized as “Eau de Posh” and “opulent.” It is, in contrast to its trashy container, extremely expensive-smelling, sexy rather than stuffy. I wouldn´t call it Classique. More like Vixen. Or Bombshell. Notes are orange flower, Bulgarian rose, Italian mandarin, star aniseed, orchid, iris, Ylang-Ylang, ginger, vanilla, amber. The most pleasant surprise to me (follow along here) is: parfums with this level of opaque richness tend to smell almost like sweet liqueur to me in a way I don´t care for. JPG parfum manages that level of va-va-voom but moves in the direction of sharp/tartness, what I´m guessing is orchid, a pretty neat trick. If you have some tolerance for over-the-top sillage (think Joy, Fracas or Poison), give this a sniff.

An aside on L by Lolita Lempicka - Patty sent me her Little Mermaid bottle (I love you, Patty!) In person, those bottles are adorable – heart-shaped rather than the weird lumpen look they have in photos, and all the bling is actually kinda charming. So I take back all the mean things I said about the bottle based on the photos.

The winner of the night with Anderso—uh, the Chaos sample, chosen by the filthy (but morally unsullied) hand of a toddler was… Natalie! (#28). Please email me with your address. For the rest of you … okay, these drawings are starting to make me feel guilty. Maybe I should start giving away crappier stuff? I certainly own some. Anyway, if you check on eBay, often there are original sample sprays (which is what I bought) for sale for $10ish under Buy it Now, and there are always decants. Or go look at that stunning icicle-shaped 15ml bottle of parfum on there for $499 and weep at the sheer beauty.

March