Today’s review is of the iconic Mugler Angel created in 1992 featuring notes of honey, vanilla, chocolate, caramel and patchouli (and some fruits/berries, depending on where you look up the notes.) Whether you love it or hate it, it was (and remains) an undeniable, unmistakeable, ground-breaking fragrance. We also review The Different Company Jasmin de Nuit, with notes of jasmine, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, sandalwood and amber, for no other reason than we dithered and dallied in our decision-making regarding a man’s scent to review. But it’s undoubtedly worthy of a word or two.

Mugler Angel

• Patty: Whyyyyyy did I agree to this? Just stick razor blades in my coffee next time… I’d rather that than ever have Angel on my skin again. Years ago, I put on Angel, and was seized with a fit of snerfuffling (this is like when you spit out something really awful out of your mouth — think Tom Hanks in “Big” when he ate the caviar — but with your nose). And this is the weird thing about this scent. The actual notes don’t bother me, and if it were a room spray, candle, etc., I’d happily have it around, but having this gooey mess on my skin is just awful, and… it.won’t.come.off. Good thing I have a good set of choppers, I’m going to have to gnaw my arm off now.
• March: One of the joys of being a mother of four is that I have, with each child, experienced the magic moment when they throw up their Easter candy. Angel evokes for me – literally – the smell of chocolate vomit. It is the smell of 18 Cadbury eggs, a hollow milk chocolate Peter Rabbit and a few marshmallow peeps dropped on an otherwise empty stomach before breakfast, with natural consequences. I´m aware this is not the prevailing viewpoint regarding Angel, and I´m prepared for some trash talk (Apres L´Ondee smells like gerbil pee!), but I am sorry to report that´s what I get when I smell Angel. Given the endless popularity of this scent, clearly I am a bonehead. Please don´t flame the blog on my account.
• Lee: I didn’t put this on my skin. In fact I never have. I’ll tell you why. I spent a large number of my formative 20something years in London. I used to catch the tube everywhere. It’s always warm and damp down there and you can feel the fungi start to grow in your pits if you wait too long for a train. I used to entertain myself by watching the little dun coloured mice run along beside the tracks, imagining their funny little nocturnal lives. That’s if the platform wasn’t crowded, because then my nose would take over as my chief sensory domain. Body odour, burgers, stale hair grease (how does fresh smell?), perfume. And the dominant force, striding ahead of the pack in all her glory throughout the whole of the 90s was Angel. She could slay any other smell at 20 paces. If she wasn’t busy mating with them. Angel and burgers and fries = nice babies monsters from hell. And she was omnipresent, no matter the season. A dark underground tunnel where the exits are blocked by heaving bodies is not the place to have your bronchioles close up. I choose to avoid her nowadays. She’s Lucifer’s own juice.

The Different Company Jasmin de Nuit

• Lee: Now, if the London Underground smelled like this, that place would be transformed into a bower of bliss. Naiads and dryads and other ads would nimbly caper across the platform, laughing merrily and singing hey nonny nonny. It’s gorgeous. A very pretty scent that goes on a gentle journey from floral (rather than indolic) jasmine, with a touch of zing and pinch of powder, to a spicy ambery mix. It’s more spice than flower, at least from an hour in. Give me sinful nocturnal blossom over heavenly wings, any day or night.
• Patty: There is nothing not to love here. That is all.
• March: I appreciate TDC fragrances more in theory than in practice. Mostly I don´t like the way they smell on me, although Bergamote and Bois d´Iris smell gorgeous on normal people, and I´m particularly terrified of Sel de Vetiver. My favorite is probably Rose Poivree, confirming any doubts you might have that I am, indeed, a bonehead. Somehow I seem to have missed Jasmin, which (and I´ll be checking this tonight) I believe our local niche perfumer doesn´t stock. Now this one is working on me. Jasmine is a tough note. It´s such an ass-kicker; what are you going to put with it that can stand up to The Force? I have a particular loathing for “jaznilla” (does Scentzilla have a copyright on that word?), that unfortunate confluence of jasmine and vanilla that can produce a nauseatingly sweet result. This scent is a completely different way of looking at jasmine: it toys with jasmine´s indolic aspect (that slightly-rotten note of skank) by enrobing it in cardamom and cinnamon (the main spices I smell), although there might be a dab of pepper in there, and the anise is very subdued (a good thing, in my view.) The drydown is less sweet and more subtle than a typical jasmine soliflore — it makes me think of a milky, jasmine-scented dessert — with just a whisper of sandalwood. Wow, I do go on, don’t I?

March

Yeah, that’s right, we have been brainstorming, and there’s a cloud of smoke and fumes coming off of our collective brains that is just fierce.

It is time for some Perfume Posse gear and just good perfume slogan gear, so we have a double contest to get us there.

First part of the contest — what do we put the slogan on? We are thinking t-shirts are… out… too many sizes, just difficult to plan for without spending a small fortune. Maybe we’ll do that later once we become a worldwide perfume-reviewing conglomerate *heavy snark*. Well, yeah, the t-shirts are right out. So the potential choices are good-looking ball caps, the ones that fit closer to the head and aren’t “trucker” hats — which mystifies me why those ever came back in style. They are worn by farmers and truckers, usually covered in dirt, sweat and completely bent out of shape. No self-respecting farmer ever wore a brand new hat anywhere but out to the field to break it in. Sorry, off topic… again. So a hat, a USB jump drive, a mouse pad, a travel mug — insert your entry here. If you can come up with something else, that’s a part of the contest. Suggest your idea for “thing to put it on” in the comments, and the thing that we wind up using will be put up as a choice for you to vote for the winner.

Second part of the contest — logo. Maria and Elle already have entries, even though they don’t know it. I hope i wrote these down right, but Elle’s is “Life is short… perfumes are many.” Maria’s entry is “So many perfumes… only one skin.” Those are the first two entries, and we are looking for more! We’ll leave the comments open for a week to take entries. Once it is closed, we shall confer and vote and narrow it down to a manageable number, and please don’t be hurt if we don’t take yours — there are no hurt feelings in perfume. But as incentive to have you give it your best shot, I’ll have another drawing from those making an entry in either phase of this today, and be giving out their choice of two Serge Lutens samples.

We’ll then take the slogans and the “thing to put it on” in a vote for all of you to decide. The winner of the slogan contest and the winner of the “thing to put it on” contest will each get the first “thing” we put the slogan on, plus a couple of perfume sample goodies I’ll put together as a thank you for everyone’s entry that gets used in the vote.

Okay, you clever people and even unclever people, the comments are open for your submissions. And if you think you are unclever, give it a try anyway. I was so unclever as a child, my my daddy always used to tell me … even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then.

Patty

Our spam filter caught 1068 spams in a 20-day period recently, mostly pornographic, including the one that inspired the title of today´s post (I guess that´s in contrast to your prosaic, workaday shemale). Anyway, for those of you (pitbullfriend, etc.) who´ve been mistakenly caught by the filter – if it makes you feel any better, I am now routinely identified as a spammer on my own blog. The same thing just happened to me on Made By Blog. Is there a message here? Can the spam filter see into my soul? If your comment goes *poof* – you´ve just been filtered. Contact Us and we can undelete it. Next time it happens to me, I´m going to experiment with changing comment identities and see if that helps.

I´d like to start off today´s Candy with a review of Le Labo Aldehyde 44 – a fragrance so exclusive that it´s sold only at Barneys in Dallas, so you can´t have any unless you live in Dallas. Because it´s exclusive – it excludes you. Okay, maybe you can have some if you live near Dallas and can drive there. Or if you fly through Dallas on business – or, if you have friend in or near Dallas, or know someone who flies there on business. Or, if you sign on for a bottle split (thanks Amy!), which is how I got my sample. Or, if you live anywhere in the United States, you can buy a sample on eBay, because it´s just that exclusive.

I had my makeup done at a Clinique counter in Dallas years ago, going for something typically Clinique (youthful and subtle), and emerged into the daylight looking like one of those exotic shemales in a Robert Palmer video from the 80s. In my hometown of Washington, D.C., it would be just the opposite: you could go to the fly girls at M.A.C., or sidle up to the goth SAs selling a new Dior makeup line called Midnight Strumpet, and ask for Full Face, and you´d still emerge looking fresh and ready for a game of tennis at the club …. where was I? The truth is, I love Aldehyde 44, which breaks new ground by being all about the aldehydes and not much else. It doesn´t go anywhere, it doesn´t do anything, it just sits there and shimmers like a bottomless glass of champagne, and what is not to love about that? It´s …. aldehydes. Okay, trying again with something less stupid-sounding: it´s not perfume-y. It´s not an aldehydic opening grafted onto anything, like the wonderful opening of Piguet Baghari, which then goes on to become a different fragrance – a fragrance with strong references to a vintage classic. 44 has a more contemporary feel, but it manages not to veer in the other, too-powdery direction either. It´s a study on a single smell, although it is not in any way simple – in fact, I think the “44″ refers to the ingredients list, and it feels quite complex. There are some sort of white florals in there (jasmine?), and maybe that´s part of what makes the aldehydes feel so beautifully balanced.

KISS Her: from the ULTA website, “features top notes of apple-tini, wet fig leaves, racy bull accord and red peppercorns followed by middle notes of red poppy, black orchid, sueded frangipani petals and calla lily. Base notes of amber crystals, musky bare skin accord, patent leather and mahogany give the scent a sensual finish.” Yeah, whatever. I am old enough to remember this goofball band (pictured at the top in their KISS stage makeup), and I really wanted to love this – come on, wet fig leaves and racy bull accord? They could get away with something pretty weird, right? My first draft looked something like this: “a sour-fruit, fresh accord that dries down into an extremely familiar musky skin scent that´s not very interesting.” Then I spent several days sniffing things to identify which skin scent this is a blatant ripoff of. Guess what? I can´t find it; in fact, the more I sniffed, the better I liked KISS Her. It´s not “me:” put another way, it´s not a bitter, jaded 40-something with a not-so-secret soft side. It´s fresh, fairly subtle, and does, indeed, smell of warm skin. It´s like a white cotton camisole on a lovely 22-year-old girl. Maybe it´s the hormones talking, but KISS Her’s almost anti-glam charm won me over completely.

KISS Him: again from Ulta: “top notes of bergamot, white pepper, anise and black cumin over mid notes of lavender, cypress, dark rum and fir balsam. The scent closes on masculine base notes of sandalwood, tonka, moss and honeyed amber crystals.” Now this was totally weird, and I wish some more guys would try it and report back on Basenotes, but maybe it´s just too déclassé for your averages Basenotes guy? I mean, would you men die of shame if someone saw this on your sink? Oh, look! Three guys have tried it on Basenotes, and as one of them said, “I saw this in Dillards and laughed… until I smelled it.” A peppery stankfest of cumin, cypress and sandalwood, this smells like sweat, but clean sweat. Like a hot young guy in a tee shirt. Like Harry Potter in Equus. Okay, thinking about something else now. Guys: maybe you could hide the bottle in your underwear drawer? Women: if you liked Kingdom, or Femme (reorchestrated), but want something a little more butch, this is for you.

Annick Goutal Chene Imperiale – I can´t find out anything at all about this. I assume it´s a home fragrance. It´s smoke and earth, with a faint breath of florals. On the campfire scale it´s somewhere between the new Kolnisch Juchten and Diptyque John Galliano. Stunning.

Heeley Cardinal — notes via Luckyscent are: incense, cistus, grey amber, patchouli, vetiver. Every time I put this on I think, maybe you can have too many incense scents. This one makes me think: so what? I need another incense frag like I need a third eye (or another kid; a third arm would be helpful, because then I’d have somewhere else to try scents.) Then I make my little squinchy-face and get back to my regularly scheduled life. Maybe four or six hours later I get a whiff of myself and think, wow, what is that great fragrance? And I realize it’s Cardinal, which almost fits into the CdG incense series, standing closer to Kyoto’s slightly sweet dryness than Avignon’s heavy cathedral. Hmmmm. Maybe you can’t have too many incense scents after all.

images: KISS band photo, gamasutra.com; Kiss Him and Her from Ulta.com; Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” still, sterago.com; Daniel Radcliffe: fantasymundo.com heh heh. For a side of Hairy Potter you’ve never seen, click here or here. If you’re reading this at work … WTH, aren’t you supposed to be working?!?! Anyway, don’t visit those images unless your cube-farm spot is private.

March

Sniffapalooza has a new magazine! You must go visit it, their first issue is up and is chock full of interviews and reviews and links. Raphaella Brescia, and I’m really looking forward to what she’s going to be doing with this — it’s off to a great start!

Patty

Brit’s shaved head…. WTF? Brit, babe, rehab, stay more than a day, chain yourself to the toilet if you have to this time. It won’t be fun at first, but surely… surely it will be worth not losing custody of your boys. I’ve gone through a divorce, and I know it’s a killer feeling that you failed at something you had so much hope for, but you need grow up, lose the selfish crap, quit wallowing in pity and pull yourself together. Easier said than done when you seem to be losing your damn mind in such a public way. But trust me, we are all out here pulling for you and want to see you back healthy and happy.

American Idol — who watches, and do you have a favorite? I’m going for the bank teller that belts out a song like Etta James. She may not win, but I’d buy her albums.

Anyone watch About a Boy? That movie with Hugh Grant and the goofy looking kid? You can see him in the inset photo on the right to nudge your memory. That bigger picture is what he looks like now. Yeah, exactly. It was a great movie, one of my favorites, despite having Hugh Grant in it.

So those mornings you wake up, look in the mirror and think…. ugh…makeup may make a difference, but I just don’t want to even make the attempt on this fug (extra points for any who knows the origin of this word, which is different by about 10 years from the place I first heard it). Because, sometimes, trying to make it better makes it look a lot worse. I used to do stained glass, and I’d sometimes (often?) make a boo-boo with my soldering gun or with the foil, and then I’d try to fix it. The longer I tried to fix it, the worse it looked. This rule applies to tired faces too, and the older you get, the more it applies. Sorry, Pam, you just do no makeup so well.

These are my favorite products for those days when you have to put on something, but you just can’t do a full face because you’ll be risking the “I have a Mask instead of a Face” look, which also serves well in the dog days of summer. Becca shimmering skin perfector in opal — makes you look like you have a glow when your face-bulb has gone dim or out. Beauty Addict pointed this amazing product out a couple of weeks ago, and it is perfection. It is even more amazing if you dust some Caron La Poudre in Radieuse over it. Caron’s powders are simply the best thing in the world –finely milled, they make your face ultra smooth and NOT powdery. The powder starts out light, but just melts into your skin and gives you a great glow and smooths out your complexion. I don’t even like face powders and wear none, and I adore this. Then I go directly to the Chanel Winter Nights quad, which is quite simply the best eyeshadow quad ever made, the colors are perfect and can go from subtle to smoky, and it’s a complete shame that they did this as an LE, it should be a staple in the line. You can do this as light or as heavy as you want. On the crap-face days, take a really light hand there, Astro. Finish it all off with the YSL gold tube mascara in the color green. I have lots and lots of mascaras that I love and use for different reasons, but I adore the YSL mascaras, and the colors they make them in are just perfect if you want to make sure to avoid raccoon eyes. Now you can head out the door without worry.

Drawing for this Friday — I have been remiss and not expressed my deep love, affection, admiration and lust for the House of Caron this month, so let me do it in a drawing. I have most of the Caron urn parfums. So (my most overused word, Lee) drop a comment that you would like in the drawing, and the TWO winners can choose two Caron samples each they would like sent to them.

What is/are the product(s) or fragrance you use on those days when any attempt to make you look better has a 75% failure rate?

Patty