I was a complete witch to The Big Cheese. We were driving to another city, and we were already behind schedule, which wasn´t his fault. But I was annoyed and wanted to get going already. Then he wanted to stop for coffee on the way out of town to perk himself up for the drive, and I whined — so he didn´t stop. I´d left the house fragrance-free because everything I own just seemed wrong that morning, which should give you an idea of my general mood. Something in the back of my mind kept chafing me – a fragrance I knew I´d overlooked, one I could smell the hazy outlines of but couldn´t quite remember. (I know that sounds nuts, but has that ever happened to you?) Then I realized what it was. Mandragore! That pluperfect pamplemousse that makes me think of the Annick Goutal boutique in Paris, which is where I bought it two years ago – in February! That was exactly what I needed to put on, and then the entire trip would be back on the right track!
So I said to my husband, who´d just been forced to forgo his latte by his sullen wife because we were in such a big fat hurry, that we needed to go back to the house. What I said was, “We need to go back to the house right now, I forgot my Mandragore.” You know what? He turned that car right around. Didn´t even ask me what a mandragore was. My guess is either he was scared it might be some sort of Terrifying Feminine Article; or, he was thinking: yeah, and don´t forget to grab your broomstick and your cauldron while you´re at it.
The next day I let a good, dear friend – who likes to sniff my samples on occasion, and would do anything for me – smell some Donna Karan Chaos, among other things. She hoovered up that Chaos off her wrist, beatific smile on her face, and she said, wow! Wow, that is amazing! Where can I get some more of that?!? And you know what I said to this woman, who would cleave to my children and raise them as her own if I were run down by a bus, although she´d probably draw the line at having sex with my husband? I said, I´m sorry. They don´t make that any more, and you can´t fall in love with it, because it´s mine.
Okay, now it´s your turn. Tell me: have you committed any fragrance sins? Lied to someone about what you were wearing? Drove by Saks on the way to a party just so you could put on some Armani Prive Cuir Amethyste when you realized your decant was empty? Gave someone you hated a fragrance you hated? Refused to share? Trust me, nobody´s reading the blog today! It will be our little secret.
mandragore: embruns.net
I think I’m an awful big sinner, but with logical reason! My favorites like Amouage Dia, L’Instant Homme, Nicolai New York, Cannabis Santal, Parfum des Merveilles, Philosykos, AND NOW Coromandel and 31 Rue Cambon will never escape my lips if anyone asks, and they definitely have asked! They’ve been answered with a flat out lie naming a scent similar or just the name brand. The reasoning behind it? FIND YOUR OWN HOLY GRAIL(S)! I spent too much money and time finding scents that I can love and call my own. It’s my signature for the day…who wants to risk arriving at a party wearing the same clothes as another?
So many blind buys and decants, the research, the agony of losing a bid on eBay, the credit card bills…I’VE SUFFERED FOR THEM to acquire stuff that unites my mind, body, and soul!
I find this particular issue very interesting. Another blogger did a post on a variation of this — she was annoyed when a friend adopted “her” fragrance. Lots of ensuing debate, divided fairly sharply between folks who said, what is your problem?! — and folks who said, that conniving b!tch!
I have to admit I’d fall more in your camp, although I admit I’m a bit odd about my rules. If it’s something expensive but not *rare* (like the Armani Prives) I’ll tell, on the theory that they might actually stumble across them on their own.
LOL! I didn’t mean to sound like a righteous a$$, but it really means something to me when you can call something your own. True that a lot of the stuff I now love costs a bit more or harder to find, but I think it’s best to leave the rest of the world of women wearing Burberry Touch and the men wearing Acqua di Gio and me wearing “something else”. :d
I don’t know about everyone else, but it’s a weird feeling smelling someone else with the same scent you wear. Kinda exciting, invasive, creepy all at the same time. It can blow your confidence too.
:-?:-w:((
Yup, blogger’s playing tricks on me too. My response is beneath.
Well, at least I refrained from leaving strange, indelible stains on the clothes she was clearly buying him… If it happened these days, I’d splurge on a bottle of Sécrétions Magnifiques and soak his boxer shorts in them. But ex is long gone, and current beau hasn’t done anything worse than filch my Bornéo 1834 which he spritzes on with alarming abandon.
Secretions! That would have been sooooo worth doing. But why leave these little tricks only for misbehaving SOs? Don’t forget about co-workers, especially Bosses from Hell. One little squirt of Secretions on a chair might drive him/her out of his/her mind. Nobody would believe that smell came from a perfume bottle. Of course, you’d have to do it at the end of the day. You might not be able to spritz something as toxic as that without getting some on your hands and you’d want to allow hours for hand soaking.
I’m a really nice person, really. >:)
SM could definitely be employed as a weapon. For all our sakes we better hope it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Okay, I have no major fragrance sins–yet. I’m sure if a friend became enamored of my Tauer Orris, I’d suggest ever so gently that she/he check out the fine decant shops that carry it. (Hands off my Orris!)
But basically my scent sins tend to involve omission more. My only non-Internet friend who has any interest in fragrance whatsoever has recently fallen in love with Vera Wang Princess and is wearing only that. We live on different coasts, so I can’t just steer her to my closet and let her sniff wondrous alternatives. I’m too attached to every single little bitty sample bottle that contains a fragrance I like. And I don’t want her to smell like something I dislike. So I do nothing. Hmm. Wait. I do have a real bottle of The pour un Ete (insert accents where they belong). Maybe a sample of that is in her future.
Sorry. No colorful sin stories. I have thoroughly enjoyed your vengeance ones. >:)
Definitely send the The Pour Une Ete, that’s lovely, and I would like to smell that on someone else!
My reply to you is at the bottom. Didn’t hit “reply” properly.
Shoot! I switched to Internet Explorer because Netscape was causing my computer first to sound like a 747 revving up to take off and next to freeze. But it wasn’t letting me “reply” to posts. It treated them like new posts. I guess I’ll go for a pilot’s license.
It looks like everything’s okay? I keep posting in the wrong spot, so don’t feel bad.
That’s five gold stars for you, Carmen! (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)
Claiming your space is virtue.
Man, you ladies are naughty!
My only perfume sin (so far…give me time, I’m working on it) is wearing perfume (anything!) around a family member who is the opposite of anosmic, whatever that is. Always makes him scream and stay far away from me. So I guess my perfume sin is terrorizing bystanders. Not too bad, right?
Oh, what a pill! If I had that family member, he’d have left the country by now.8-x
Fragrance sins? Moi? Oh no, no, no, no, no. You must have me mistaken for some other sinner, dear. o:-)
Hugs!
HAH! I’m gonna put down here on my bulletin board, “sins too numerous to mention….”
My perfume sin is that of biblical Peter….denial! I confess freely here among the fragrance faithful that I have a pure and abiding love for Giorgio’s Red. This love has withstood– can it be nearly 20 years now? — all of the fads and stylistic changes that have taken place in the intervening years. And while I don’t wear it daily, or even weekly anymore, I still like to trot it out occasionally and wear it in all its overpowering glory.
But alas, not so long ago I was attending a charity luncheon and chatting with a group of style-forward women about various fragrance transgressions. To a woman, they were all bashing Red, which I happened to be wearing at the time. Did I pipe up proudly and defend my fragrance? No, I did not. I remained silent. And eventually, as we went around the table naming the particular fragrance we were each wearing that day, I lied through my teeth and named another perfume as my fragrance du jour. Such cowardice!
Surely there must now be a place for me in the stinkiest circle of the Inferno. :-&
Terry – we’re all guilty of taking the easy path once in a while. I feel happy to say no sin occurred.
From now on, be proud of your love!;;)
Teri, I have consulted my copy of the Fragccolta (it’s like the Raccolta for perfume) and it says: your sin was a minor one, and if you have repented you’re forgiven.
I don’t think I’ve ever smelled Giorgio Red.:”>
When I was 16 years my ex-bf bought me a huge bottle of Oscar de La Renta “Ruffles” perfume. A week later we had a big argument (you know I have “sangre caliente”) and I poured the whole bottle into the toilet. The whole thing. I feel so embarrassed now when I think about it 🙁
Princesa! Now that, my dear, is a sin. (I can think of other fragrances that would have counted as more major sins; also some that would be blessings.) But have we not all done something similar which we regret in hindsight? If we have lived at all, yes, we have.:)>-
I have gifted people with unopened back-ups of scents that I no longer love, but that’s hardly a sin.
A bigger sin was telling someone that a SL that I liked to wear dod not smell that great on her. Well, it didn’t really suit her and it was just a sample and there are others that she can wear! Okay, I’m terrible. >:)
Tom, that’s such a nice boy sin. You should have at least told her it made her smell like a skanky ho, refused to go near her, had a hissy fit when she tried to be friendly, and then vommed in her face…
*Come over to the dark side, young man*
(secret – I’m no good at perfume sin either)
too obvious, she would have seen through that. I gently steered her away from my precious Gris Clair and back to her preferred A La Nuit.
She moves in on MKK and she’s a dead woman. :d
Heh heh. And they say WOMEN are b!tches… as you know, I feel your pain. The thing is, if it’s something REALLY distinctive, like SL or Chaos, I feel more proprietary, you know?
I am perfectly willing to own my bitch-mantle. :d
After all, I am willing to let her have any of the white flower SL’s (that’s my justification to myself anyhoo)
March: Please be careful out there! With the way Metrobus really is running over pedestrians, we don’t want you to be the next victim!
I don’t have a skanky ho flirting with my (estranged) husband, that I know of. But I’d love to find out what fragrance my brother hates and give it to the childhood friend of my sister-in-law. Debbie (my sister-in-law) has a friend who is also named Debbie. That Debbie is always flirting with Calvin. If Debbie can’t see what Debbie is doing, it’s beyond me. (Boy, it that a confusing sentence!) It’s really sickening.
My mom, sister and I bought a house together. I give away my fragrance purchase mistakes to my sister. She happily accepts them. Sometimes she gets a real treasure. I already wrote in a previous posting how I bought 2 bottles of Shalimar at a CVS super sale. Couldn’t get into it. So Roberta got one bottle. Months later, tried to “get it” again with the remaining bottle of Shalimar. Finally, after using up about 1/4 of the bottle, I finally got it. But I can’t begrudge Roberta that bottle of Shalimar. She enjoyed it!
Christine, that minister and his wife are making a big mistake in raising their children. They need to be taught to respect other people and their property.
Karen — believe me, the bus drivers have been running people down for years. I’m always extremely cautious as a pedestrian. No lie, though — a lot of people here are hit by cars. Too much traffic, too many people in a hurry.
Eeew with the flirting! But SIL Debbie has decided to overlook it … yeah, I’d give that skank ho something nasty.>:)
Long-time reader, first-time commenter!
There was a girl in college who always smelled soo good. Boys would comment on her scent (“you smell like strawberries”), and we girls were entranced. When asked what it was, she would play dumb and mumble, “Oh I think I got it in Paris. Maybe it starts with a ‘B’?”. But SHE KNEW what it was, and I was determined to find out. After coming close with Bulgari Eau Fraiche, I finally realized it was nothing other than Byblos! So I bought the Byblos (even though it didn’t really suit me) and wore it whenever I was around her, just to say, “You’re not all that!”
Good sleuthing job! That can be really hard to figure out … BTW Luca Turin actually tells a somewhat similar story, of trying to discern what fragrance a long-ago girl had worn. The fascinating part for me was, he described it on his blog, gave the time period, various informed people weighed in, and one of them guessed right! He found it. It was fun reading. Oh, it was also Lancome Climat (the first time around, not the reissue.)
Well, I have two stories to tell. My husband refuses to wear fragrance. He has, of late , tolerated my sticking various scented body parts under his nose & offering a comment or two. (And you two, get your minds out of the gutter!)
One night as my unsuspecting hubby slept, I put some YOSH Omniscent on my hands, rubbed then together, leaned over kissed my spouse & litterally ran my fingers through his hair. So…call me the ninja perfumer! If my kissing him didn’t wake him up, tough titties! >:p
Story two…..
Crime against perfumista.
I was living with my pastor, his wife & two children. I had my own room & private bath. My doors were alwayed closed during the day, whilst I was at work.
One evening I noticed that my brand new bottle of Calandre was looking rather milky. I opened it & sure enough, it smelled like soapy water.
When I confronted the family at dinner >:/ with my destroyed perfume, the young master (demon child that he was) said he was in my room & was “playing” with my bottle. He dumped it down the toilet & refilled it with soapy water. The entire time, the pastor & his wife were chewing away smiling, as if the child had done something brilliant.
I was hurt. Was there no justice? :(( They didn’t even offer to replace my perfume!
If this was an example of being a “good” christian, I wanted no part of it. I moved out. My perfume & I have happily co-habitated ever since.
Christine
Man, you should have at least urinated in his bed or something…
I loved your Yosh story! Now that everyone keeps talking about a tee shirt, I think we should have, “call me the ninja perfumer!
And the pastor story just gives me the creeps. I swear I *knew* those people. Look at the lesson they taught that child!
OH, MAN! I want, no NEED one of those shirts, yes indeed I do.
b-)
Christine
I have so many perfume sins I don’t even know where to begin: I was given Burberry Weekend which I didn’t like, and when my sister gave it to me she said I had to use it all the time. I do use it – as air freshener! But I think the only one worth mentioning here is this one: there was this skanky ho who was always flirting with my husband and just never got a clue, so I gave her as a birthday gift a perfume I knew my husband hated – Red by Giorgio Beverly Hills – it was great! She always wore it and he always kept away. Till this day if someone brings up her name for any reason he’ll say, “Oh man, and she always wore this horrible perfume! It made me so sick I couldn’t stand to be around her”. I just smile and nod simpathetically and say, “I know, right?” 😉
priceless Flor
Flor-
That’s not a sin, that’s a pre-emptive strike, and a brilliant one!^:)^
Utterly brilliant!
Flor, you win today’s Perfume Sin award. That was a *brilliant* move. Although down there at the bottom of the comments is another reader who is shamed by her decision not to publicly defend her Giorgio Red … interesting that the same perfume is mentioned!
Okay, so I have to smell it. I guess I assumed it smelled like Giorgio, mas o menos.:d
So, you have commited a sin of not letting your husband stop for a coffee and a sin of not sharing a discontinued scent with your friend. These are not mortal sins, March. Child’s play, really :-)>:)>:)>:)
Colombina the Terrible!!! I cannot fail to notice … that you did not answer the Question!! What Terrible Secrets are you hiding from us, Colombina?!?!
There are no sins in perfume.:o
Hey, I think Elle gets the tagline of the day with the “Life is Short…perfumes are many.” Maria gets it for yesterday — shoot, I can’t find it. What was that?
I think we need a t-shirt and we’ll have a context for the best saying and the winner gets a free t-shirt.
Please don’t spill any magnificent secretions on that t-shirt though.:d
Hey, Patty: Do you mean “so many perfumes, only one skin?” That was my favorite Maria quote of late!
Hey, was NO ONE LISTENING WHEN I TOLD THEM ABOUT CHAOS AVAILABILITY? March, tell your friend she can at least get samples at Perfumebay for $10 per. That will undo some of your sin, won’t it?
Ah, yes, Mandragore — one of my all-time favorites. Did anyone else here used to buy from an E-bay seller named Parallax442? That was a delightful fellow in California named Martin Chung who died a year or two ago. He wrote the greatest perfume descriptions — I remember one on Lutens’ Douce Amere about a virgin kleptomaniac in a diaphanous nightgown — really, it made sense in context! His description of Mandragore was so beautiful I ordered it right up. I wish I had his descriptions — never thought to print them out. It is a GORGEOUS scent, but to me isn’t citrus — it’s anise plus je ne sais quoi.
Ellen
I remember Parallax442. The fragrance world lost a great eBay seller. He wrote delightful descriptions and e-mails. RIP Martin.
Ellen, I always listen to you. I ordered a Chaos sample. I am happy to report that I can live a happy life in spite of the fragrance’s having been discontinued. It’s Just Not Me. This means I do have a small sample of Chaos I could mail to someone. Please don’t stampede!!!!! FYI the bottle was less than half full.
Well, this brings us to another delicate perfume issue … the friends who would, you know, rather just come take it from me than *buy their own sample.* But that is a topic for another day, and I am sooooo not in a position to complain about people getting freebies, because one of the joys of my life is the surprises people send me!:@)
I love Mandragore. What is WRONG with everyone?!? You are the only pther person on here who said you liked it. Hrrmmmph.o=>
Well, apart from monetary sins aplenty, the only perfume sins I can think of are relentlessly sticking my wrist under DH’s nose and demanding an opinion (he doesn’t mind my sillage, but he sometimes gets weary of trying to have an opinion), and sometimes dousing him when he didn’t want it. Not very exciting, I know; I will have to practice sinning.>:)
“Go and catch a falling star,
Get a child with mandrake root,
Tell me where all wild things are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot. . . ”
–John Donne, Song
I never ask him. Never. He’ll let me know if he hates something, from across the room, but that’s about it.
I googled that John Donne to stick in the post, because I love those lines! But I’d never payed attention to the whole thing, and there he goes, nattering on and on about woman’s unfaithfulness blah blah blah, it just vexed me. Yeah, buddy, and poet-men are *so famous* for their faithfulness and constancy (and clean living):-“:-w
Ah, but Donne is the master of clever hypocrisy…
John Donne was a slashhound of the first magnitude.
Or am I thinking of Lord Byron?
Or both of them?
LMAO! Your husband is a saint. But your friend should be grateful she got to smell it – sort of like getting to see the Mona Lisa. You don’t *have* to own it – the joy of experiencing it should be enough.
I think my only real fragrance sin is that I’ve often gone to great lengths to hide fragrance purchases from DH. Yes, he would eventually see Beauty Habit or Lucky Scent (seriously, could they not have called themselves Toasters R Us?) on the cc and realize I wasn’t getting us a new mixer or something decently practical and it *is* my money, but I still have always felt life was easier if he didn’t actually see the evidence sitting on the doorstep. This is a man whose mother feels one perfume is one too many for a lifetime. Each morning I decide which four perfumes to wear just that day since life is short and perfumes are many – don’t want to waste a day w/ just one.
Ah, who cares what his mom thinks?!? It never makes sense, anyway — the Cheese’s mom often preached frugality for me, but wasn’t quite so onboard when it came to herself… it’s funny, those packages coming in the door, isn’t it? We both work out of the home, so he really *sees* them. It irritates him immensely, even when I point out that they’re mostly decants, and most of those are swaps… I do try to keep the office overflow to a minimum, since that’s where they come in, because it particularly annoys him. I bet there are 25 decants in there right now… another sin, huh?:-?
Elle, have you ever noticed that that rule of “it should be enough to just sniff it” only applies to other people and your own treasures? 🙂 Yeah, me too.
I DO love you, March.
Bigtime.
Of late, my long-suffering and patient DH has been intolerant of my sillage [despite the fact that most of us would consider it modest].
While I am not normally a passive-aggressive type, last night he complained [from another room, no less !]:
“WHAT is that powerful smell ?”
Sin of sins, Vintage Tabarome- for shame, DH- especially since he’s a Brit, and this IS Winston Churchill’s favorite !
What did sweet, compliant wifey do, pray tell ?
Douse herself extra, to blot out that heinous charge !
Did he complain?
You bet your as- he didn’t !
Chaya — hah! You fixed HIS wagon! However, we’ll probably have to ask Patty to break out the Raccolta for you, too — that sin is likely in there, or something similar… being married to Mr. Anosmic has its upside. He only complains if I leave enough samples in the office, and then the sillage starts to offend him.
Mea culpa time. I generally like to share my fragrances with any friend who cares to have a sniffing session, except one: Ormonde Woman. This is MINE MINE MINE, don’t want anyone I know to smell like that. It brings the worst, most possessive, Gollum-like instincts in me.
And March, yep I can also sadly relate to the husband/car thing. I get incredibly ratty if I pick out the wrong fragrance, ruins the day for me and for those loved ones around me.
Silvia — that’s very funny! mineminemine! I almost stuck a pic of Gollum up there when I was doing this post, but I couldn’t bear the thought of people looking at it first thing in the morning.
I have made everyone wait for me to go upstairs and shower and change to get rid of the wrong smell. b-) Doesn’t happen often, but it happens.
oh yes! A day can be ruined for me if a wrong fragrance decision is made. Funny about Ormonde Woman – I love it but when a good friend also fell for it I was happy to pass on the OJW mantle in our circle. I actually prefer smelling it on her than on me and bless her she credits me with generosity she says she doesn’t have. Thing is, if it had been another friend of mine (different group) I would have lied through my teeth as to its identity. So I know I’m a sinner in thought if not (yet) in deed.
I had a perfume crime commited against me. I was 12 or so, and received my first perfume as a gift for Christmas from my favorite Aunt. It was a mini of Magic Noir, in a tiny leather hot pink purse. Perfect. So, I never actually wore it, just took the cap off and sniffed occasionally. It was on my book shelf with my other treasures. One day I was babysitting a kid, maybe 5 years old, who spilled the whole damn thing on my carpet. :((
Sariah — that is so sad! Also contemplating an entire bottle of Magie Noire on the carpet … was it a *very* small bottle? Did your parents have to replace the carpet? I live in fear of a stoppered thing or two spilling, at which point we’d have to move out.
All right, this is my worst perfume sin… It goes back to a truly awful period in my life in which I was still sharing the apartment with my soon-to-be ex-husband (we had already iniated the divorce proceedings) because neither of us could afford to move and we both wanted to keep it. He clearly had a new woman in his life. Apart from the phone calls, I could tell because a bottle of Santa Maria Novella Cologne appeared on the bathroom shelf. For some reason, I just could tolerate that alien perfume. It seemed that the other woman (to whom I was glad to leave my ex) had invaded *my* space. So I poisoned the damn cologne. I added some other scent I didn’t like, don’t remember which one, but the witchy brew was icky. He never commented. Maybe he never noticed. There, I feel better for getting this perfume sin off my chest.
Carmencanada – that’s vengeance sin. One of the PP girls will probably know exactly the penance required to atone, but as a corrupt little devil, all I can say is ‘Good going!’;)
Ooooh, Carmen! Patty will have to break out the Raccolta for that one, there must be something in there ….
snickering, though. B!tch deserved it. Of course your husband didn’t notice, I think probably the Cheese wouldn’t notice if I added gasoline to something.
Not a perfume sin, that is a necessity. Unwanted female’s scent left in YOUR space? Please, the Law of the Jungle covers that.
I think I’m sin-free, except for the fact I keep sneaking in a purchase when I’m supposed to be saving for the house move, change of lifestyle etc. all coming this July. I somehow juggle my finances, and hawk some old toot on eBay and Amazon to try to cover up my crimes…
My other sin is I haven’t sniffed Mandragore…
And, in today’s did you know… Did you know that mandrake root was thought to grow under gallows? People believed it would spring up where the ground was ‘watered’ by the death ejaculation of a hanging man… Coming and going at the same time, I guess.
That’ll give us an R rating I guess. Oops.:”>
Lee! You just ruined my goal of having two consecutive obscenity-free posts!:d
I actually didn’t know that about Mandragore.
The fragrance … it’s just one of those things, every now and again it’s perfect, perfect. I don’t think it’s universally beloved, but I love it.
BTW those are a different KIND of fragrance sin, a minor one we commit all the time. (I swear I’m not getting any more samples until I smell what I’ve got, but there I’ll be…)
I’m thinking Mandragore IS death ejaculate, isn’t it?
That is SO wrong!!!! Etat Secretions is death ejaculate.
Mandragore is The Giant French Citrus of Love! It’s … it’s the Gerard Depardieu of fragrance!/:)
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to sniff Gerard Depardieu.
You know, actually, if you met Gérard Depardieu, he might want to sniff YOU! That’s what he does to people: sniffs them out like a truffle pig — and I think truffle pigs are charming animals, so that’s no insult. As for his own smell, well, when I met him he was freshly showered and I had no wafting to complain about.
=:-0 WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, no offense meant to the gentleman. Going up to people and sniffing them is something I don’t usually do on first acquaintance. I’m glad someone does–just because, well, it adds to the richness of the world. You met Gerard Depardieu!
I would make no objection to being hoovered all over by Gerard.