If you are ever up in Vancouver, and I am, you have to stop in at The Perfume Shoppe and visit Nasrin.  Any of you that have spoken to her on the phone, you know what a doll she is, but in person she is even better — warm and funny and a total perfume nut.  She has a beautiful shop, and she replenished me on my PG Bois Blond and Ether Lilas, which I am afraid they won’t see the light on and add to the permanent collection.  Anyway, we’re going to go out for lunch with her tomorrow or Saturday, and I can’t wait!

What else have I been doing in Canada? Catching up on Friday Night Lights via my video iPod. What?  These trips for conventions are a snooze, and you can only check your e-mail so many times before you are out of your mind, and my laptop has been misbehaving and will only run about an hour or so before it overheats, and my new one didn’t get in in time before I left… and…and  –well, anyway, anyone else watching that series?  Since it’s on the verge of cancellation, I’m thinking no? Well,  why not?? You should.  It’s great, and it would be awful if something that is actually good and worth watching were taken off the air.  I’ve been working my way through the series over the past two days, and it’s really done beautifully. Don’t avoid it or cringe because it’s about football, which is why I hadn’t watched it until now. It’s not really about football. It’s about all the life that goes on while people are busy thinking about football.  Well, watch it, you’ll see.

Oh, Ether Lilas, I haven’t talked about that, have I?  You know how the smell of lilacs can just knock you off your feet and be overwhelming?  Well, it’s not like that. It’s the whiff of lilacs you get when you walk by on a spring/early summer night, light and heartbreakingly beautiful, but with all the other beautiful smells of a summer evening. This is the perfect spring/summer scent.  I keep thinking I need to go find a beautiful sundress and a hat to wear it with.  Okay, gotta dash before my computer croaks again!!!

Patty

This is a perfume blog, right? So today´s post is about how I worked my fanny off smelling I don´t know how many things over the last week and I cannot find any fricking thing to blog on. (I actually went through and deleted five frustration-related obscenities in this part of the post; feel free to plug them in mentally.) I´m working on a post on the Yoshes, but it´s not ready yet. I´m working on some candy. I smell vial after vial and – nothing much happens. I can´t make something happen, even if it´s a great scent – I can´t rip the rose into bloom, you know? I think part of it is this weird 40-degree daily weather swing that makes everything seem wrong. Finally yesterday afternoon in a fit of desperation I grabbed something that´s been sitting there and said the hell with it, I´ll just blog on that. Only I can´t – because I hated it. I mean, it nauseated me, even the smell in the room made me sick. I had to go change my clothes because I´d gotten a little scent on it. But someone else blogged on it recently, and others really like it, and I feel uncomfortable blogging like that about something sent to me – a gift, in fact – that I hate, because I don´t want to hurt feelings, and who´ll ever send me anything again? What do you think about that? Should I just let it pass? If you sent me a sample of Parfumerie Generale Le Derriere du Pigeon, because you know I like skank, and I totally rag it, would you ever speak to me again?

Here, let´s test my theory. Elle generously sent me a sample of CdG Jaisalmer, along with some other goodies. I tried it on right away, looking forward to the riot of cinnamon and incense, and it went like this: YEEEESSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssscrruuubbbbber!! YECH. How can I do that to a fragrance? It´s criminal. It´s exactly that 0.00245 amount of Precisely The Wrong Cedar that turns Jaisalmer into the men´s locker room, smellwise, without the pleasant view. So, Elle … do I have to send the Yoshes back now? Are you going to send me a vial of Human Existence in an atomizer and thoughtfully label it “Spring Air EDC – apply generously”? Or can you make peace with the basic fact that I´m a cheerful idiot and we can still be fragrant friends?

I haven´t been totally worthless. I pinned on my badge, strapped on my sidearms, and found hausvonstone´s particular bottle of Bal a Versailles on eBay (she described it longingly and detail in her comment on a post awhile back) and sent her a sample. It turns out to be exactly the smell she remembered. In the meantime she´d bought a newer bottle, which, as she says, “smells like ASSSSSSS. I mean it is the skankiest thing I have ever allowed in my house. I had to wash it off my hand within 20 minutes today as I was trying to quickly compare them. Maybe it turned? Maybe they reformatted it??? I was thinking of sending it to you at some point since it’s the kind of thing I can’t allow in my house. And, remember, Musc Ravageur smells like creamsicle on me. And CB Musk is also quite pleasant. Weirdness abounds.” Guess what? We´re going to swap bottles.

I´ve been wallowing for three days in Christian Dior Jules. When my atomizer´s empty I´m going to cry, because I want some more of exactly the same juice Lee sent me. That´s the heartbreak of trying to recapture a smell you´ve fallen in love with, as hausvonstone´s experience demonstrates. I don´t want a different bottle; what if the scent is different, too? Has that ever happened to you when you´re hunting something down? Anyway, I did buy a bottle online from Retailer X (with a not-so-good rep on MUA). If I ever get the bottle, I´ll let you know.

Finally, I´d like to say thanks for the many, many book recommendations you all made last week. I was stunned. Seriously, who knew we had all these smart readers? I should have guessed; I think there´s a lot of overlap between perfume addiction and reading (no, don´t ask me why. I don´t know why.) Anyway, my plan is to type up that list in some sort of alphabetical order and post it, preferably as a permanent link on the left. I´ll let you know. In the meantime, I´m very much enjoying Temple Grandin´s Animals in Translation. She talks from the point of view of a high-functioning autistic person about all sorts of animal behaviors (particularly dogs and farm animals), and it´s a fascinating read. My perfume quests merged with the booklist and I have two gems to add in the Kicking and Screaming category: two books I was forced to read, at gunpoint, for a book club, knowing I´d hate them. I objected strenuously and lost. Turns out I was wrong. Here they are:

Jon Krakauer´s Into The Wild, a true-life tale of one callow, dreamy, unhappy youth who left behind his life of privilege and went to find himself in the Alaskan woods, discarding his map along the way so he could get back to the real gritty solitude he was searching for (SPOILER ALERT!) and ended up starving to death in his camp in the wilderness. My one-word summation going in: dummass. Reading the book, however, I found myself completely drawn into the story, and wound up being deeply moved and empathetic in spite of myself.

Dave Eggers´ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Come on – doesn´t that title make you a little queasy? But no. A beautifully written story of Eggers´ decision (with his brother and sister) to raise their much-younger brother after their parents´ untimely death. The writing style that seemed much too clever and self-aware going in, with all sorts of gimmicky devices, just tore me up. His newest book, What Is the What, the semi-biographical as-told-to story of one of Sudan´s lost boys, is even more powerful. This guy can write.

So: any stories you´d like to share of The Fragrance You Loved And Lost (and maybe re-found?) Or books you started against your better judgment that turned out to be excellent?

PS An early report in on car scenting suggests that the Soap Solution (leaving a bar of scented soap in your car) works great, according to commenter tmp00 who just tried it with a soap freebie he had lying around. I´m planning on swinging by our local soap store today or tomorrow for some of my favorite Pacifica soaps to give it a whirl.

PPS Straight from the horse’s mouth: that hot bod on the Tauer Reverie bottle? Is Andy. Heh heh. Andy … hon, thanks for the reverie.

March

Today we’re taking a stab at two fragrances with a niche fan base: Parfumerie Generale’s new(ish) Querelle, and Christian Dior’s hard-to-find men’s fragrance, Jules, from 1980. Are they the sexy/raunchy things they’re purported to be?

Querelle, part of the PG Private Collection, is named after the novel (Querelle de Brest) by author Jean Genet, and a 1982 film adaptation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with a plotline so confusing that six readings of the brief summary on Wikipedia left one of your blogmistresses puzzled (although she’s pretty sure she saw the flick at college, along with such classics as In The Realm of the Senses and Last Tango in Paris.) According to LuckyScent, “inspired by Jean Genet´s brutal and erotic tale of hidden desires and violence, Querelle is a scent of supreme elegance and forceful sensuality.” Notes are: citrus, Iranian black caraway, myrrh, cinnamon, Haitian vetiver, incense, oakmoss, ambergris.

• Lee: It’s a chypre for sure, and even if I like chypres, they often give me the mother of all headaches. So, I sniff this beauty, marvel at the playfully soapy / barber shoppy opening (that smells like some version of the past), and am about to admire the transitions when wham! bam! the throb begins and queasiness comes along holding its hand. So it’s difficult for me to be properly subjective about this scent. I love how it works vetiver, I love the dark menace underneath the clean, but my body is in rebellion when I sniff it. It’s the chypre effect. I’m not sure how I relate it to Jean Genet’s Querelle, but that film bored me I think (I only have a hazy recollection, but Fassbinder’s quasi-mystical masochism has never appealed). I haven’t read the book. Much more impressive was Genet’s own prison film (off to wiki it) Un Chant d’Amour. Anyone seen it? Very EROTIC. Overall though, I’d prefer a Genet scent based on the late 60s onwards, when he got all politicised. I can only do so much existential angst.
• Patty: I know I smelled this months ago and didn’t like it (hated it!) and gave it away (to you, March?). Now it’s back. I do get raunch – more buttcrack than siren – and that open just makes me slightly queasy, but this time it seems to blow off pretty quickly and leaves me with…. a scent I really like. How in the heck did that happen?
• March: This is the fierce, brutally erotic raunch-factory I’ve been reading about? Okay, I must be damaged, because I think it smells gorgeous — bold proportions that instantly conjured another classic, Guerlain Mitsouko, minus the peach at the top. The drydown gets rich and spicy, ultimately winding up on a fairly intense, more-or-less masculine note of vetiver. Lovely. I am completely missing the raunch.  You hardcore chypre/oriental types should check this out.
  

Jules is a much-sought-after men’s fragrance from 1980, hard to find, possibly discontinued? (Note from L: you can get it easily in Paris, ma cherie, so my grapevine tells me.) It contains galbanum, black pepper, cedarwood, sandalwood, and Russian leather. March wonders, based on pretty much nothing, whether this fragrance was inspired by Jules et Jim, the French New Wave classic (hey, another menage a trois!) from 1961.

• Patty: Okay, this stuff is hot. I feel like I just got transported to Pamplona and the running of the Bulls, and I’m not sure I mean the four-legged kind. Spicy and a little rank in a horsey sort of way, I’m thinking this is how Pullo would have smelled (Rome is over – sob!). It just screams for some brute with a swagger and the soul of a poet – or not – to wear it.
• March: I thought between the galbanum and cedar this would be a scrubber. Instead it reminds me, variously, of: the incense-y bits of Chanel 22; the leathery sparkle of vintage Kolnisch Juchten without the smoked meat; and a drydown I’ll Call Two Tons of Incense and You’ve Got Wood. Particularly interesting because on me it has sort of reverse development: I get the big guns of peppery leather up front, drying down into the lighter incense. Really, what is it about this juice that makes it so sensual? Lee, no offense, but are you sure you labeled this right? Why am I getting all this incense? Also, do you want to sell me your bottle? Seriously — I’m blowing through this particular nose-candy at a terrifying pace.
• Lee: I had convinced myself that the sample I sent the posse women was on the turn – it has the same quality as the drops of Guerlain’s Derby I have (which, by the way, is a men’s chypre I love, in case anyone feels like splurging on a 140€ bottle for me). However, then I wondered actually whether this is a turn, or just how both of these early 80s numbers start out – pretty sour and peculiar. And I’m sure it is, if my olfactory memory is right – Jules has an oddness to its opening that you don’t find in many men’s scents nowadays. It makes no excuses about manliness – it smells a bit sweaty (and not in the fresh-out-of-the-shower-into-a-hot-sunny-day-kind-of-way), earthy, leathery, bullish. As it dries down, it becomes softer and more of a gentle caress. Damn it though, it’s still virile, and that gentle stroke could go all thrusty any moment. Right, I’m off to curl my somewhat limited chest hair.

image: Jules et Jim, www.arnadal.no

March

What do you think????? Isn’t it adorable?  If you don’t think it is adorable, just lie to me. I positioned the Let Us Spray over on the right  the artist moved it for me and gave a smaller image that will load faster.  Better?  Okay, so now I just need to get my taxes done, then I can concentrate on calling around and getting quotes for mugs and sticky notes and notepads. BTW, the artist who did the artwork is Shano Studio, and she has some great artwork fitting many occasions.  I love her work and love what she did with this image.

UPDATE:  Andy is offering a limited number of samples on his website, go, get one!!!

Just got the a sample of Andy Tauer’s's newest scent, due to be released April 21 in the usual places, Reverie au Jardin. Notes of galbanum, fir, lavender, bulgarian rose, frankincense, abelmoschus seeds, vetiver and tonka beans.  It starts very green, the fir kind of blasts out with some lavender trilling through it, which scared me… a lot… and then it just hangs there like your breath on a crisp winter morning, and I got more scared, but I shouldn’t have.  Then it starts to thaw  and warm.  I’m always nervous about lavender in a perfume, we don’t get along that well, it just makes me a little oogie, but this one is gorgeous, in the way that Encens et Lavande is gorgeous — there is enough depth with the other notes that the lavender note plays, but it blends into the whole beautifully.  Abelmoschus seeds are ambrette seed, and in the drydown, this has a slightly musky feel, almost licoricey? but not? that’s pretty enchanting.  I kept thinking it reminded me of something, and then I finally sniffed it alongside the old Guerlain Fol Arome, and they’re not the same, but something about each reminds me of the other.  Beautifully done, Andy.

^^^^^^^  That Andy, he always gets the hottest pictures for his bottles. 

Patty

It´s that time of year – the birds, the bees, the flowers, and the sneeze – my seasonal allergies are back with a vengeance. It´s also winter-spring (Wing? Sprinter?) where the weather can go from 70 degrees to snow flurries, and nothing seems right, fragrance-wise. I cut way back on the candy sampling, because I´m acutely aware that the only thing standing between me and a migraine is one or two bad fragrance choices.

But my life was brightened last week by a joyful plant discovery and two fragrances which are similar (wildly expensive white florals) that turn out to be quite different in some interesting ways.

I love browsing the Forest Farm nursery catalog; three years ago on a whim I bought something called “white forsythia” because it looked pretty, was labeled FRA (fragrant), and cost $8.95. They sent me a pathetic-looking 8-inch twig which the dog promptly stepped on. I planted it in a sunny spot out front and, other than noticing last summer that it was still alive (or a weed had sprung up in its place) that was it. This Saturday in the rain I stopped sneezing on the path to our door long enough to notice the forsythia was covered in small white blossoms, just like the photo below – in terms of timing it is slightly ahead of the yellow forsythia (which is in heavy bud.) I stepped over for a sniff and — oh, happy, happy day! It´s got a strong, sweet, slightly earthy smell, somewhat like witch hazel, or honeysuckle with a note of hay. I have it growing in a sunny spot near our walkway with minimal supplementary water, and it´s survived our zone-6 summer heat and humidity. There is nothing else in bloom here yet except some random crocus, jonquils and the early magnolias. If/when that bush gains some height it´s going to be a showstopper.

On to perfume: first is Ellie, rocking the blogs right now, created by Michel Roudnitska (son of the legendary Edmond) and released by Jessica Dunne in honor of her grandmother Eleanor, after whom the fragrance is named. It contains white florals, vanilla, vetiver, and musk and is available only at Bendel in New York for a whopping $180 for half an ounce (approx. 15 ml). Something like jasmine and lily would be my best guess, although others have said lily of the valley – there´s the greenness of a Casablanca (and maybe a drop of galbanum?) at the opening, along with a small burst of something citrus-like, and eventually a mild indolic note. The vetiver is extremely light at the opening (it might be adding to the general perception of greenness); in the middle I get a bit more vanilla than I personally love, but it fades again. The vetiver becomes much more pronounced in the drydown, while the musk remains unobtrusive. It is a vivacious scent, strong but not heady, that I think would thrill you white flower mavens.

Cradle of Light is available at Bergdorf and online from CB I Hate Perfume, priced at $250 for 15ml. I don´t think I´d be violating any confidences to say that when Patty and I were there last summer, Christopher Brosius told us he was working on this fragrance, using the CB Musk I´d fallen in love with as part of the base (which is how we got on the topic), and topping it off with various expensive jasmine absolutes and some other goodies. I was, I admit, stunned enough by the sample price when it became available ($50 for 2ml) that I basically ignored it, figuring that my layering trick of CB Musk and various jasmines (like Montale Jasmin Full and Donna Karan´s) was close enough.

That illusion was effectively destroyed by my first taste of the fragrance. Cribbing directly from the CB website: “a blend of pure white flower absolutes: Moroccan, Indian, Egyptian and Tunisian Jasmine Grandiflorum, Indian Night Blooming Jasmine, Jonquil, Narcissus, Tuberose and White Lotus. The bouquet is set against a green background of Sumac, Tomato and Violet Leaves with a hint of Galbanum and grounded in a base of Sandalwoods and CBMUSK. The scent begins with a fresh green presence; gradually the flowers emerge becoming warmer and richer.”

I swear to God, Christopher Brosius is not paying me to shill for CB I Hate Perfume, and the sample didn´t come from him. The initial two minutes of this fragrance is a wonder – at first dab it smells of almost nothing (huh?) presumably while the oils are warming on my skin; then there is a broken-stem fusillade of galbanum and other shrubbery so intense I was worried I´d met my first CB scrubber where I´d least expected it, along with a damp-earth note that conjures my beloved Black March; the greenness suddenly subsides; there is a brief pause for maximum effect, then comes a storm of white flowers that manages to come right up to my pleasure redline but not stifle me. I do this again and again, and it never fails to enchant me.

I think a significant part of the success of Cradle of Light is due to the constant presence of the various earthy or leafy notes, which make the fragrance more complex while reigning in any tendencies toward something overly heady. This scent transfixed me so much that, at one point, I had to pull the car off the road just so I could sit there for three minutes with my nose glued to one arm. Like Ellie it is exceptionally long lasting – one small, oily sluice across my wrist scented me and the air around me the entire day.

The CB Musk (proper name: CBMUSK Reinvention) shows up slowly among the florals and is clearly there in the drydown. You can pick up that odd, sweet smell in an instant, and I wonder how various CB Musk-haters (or people on the fence) would feel about it, adorned by so much gorgeousness. I am on record as finding his Musk sensual and comforting, rather than offensive or even particularly assertive (a viewpoint not universally shared; Colombina the Terrible, who likes skank, finds it unwearable.) As Brosius says of the Musk on his website: “This is a very rich scent that wants to be worn only in specific places,” and whether he means only in singles bars, or on specific private parts of your body, I can´t say (maybe both.) As a dirty base for what I am told are some extremely expensive absolutes, it´s perfection.

Of the two, Cradle of Light is, unsurprisingly, more to my taste. Ellie is ethereally pretty; it´s the work of an artist, with a certain young, yet mannered feel (think Audrey Hepburn); its greenness and tenderness offer up a fresh, dewy charm that I appreciate while not being enormously moved by, if that makes any sense. Cradle of Light (interestingly, I keep accidentally typing “Cradle of Night”), is a darker, richer fragrance, with much less overt white-flower sweetness and more leafy, musky depth. If Ellie is a person (or place), Cradle of Light is a journey.

Speaking of which, you know where this is going, right? I had about three drops of Ellie left, so I layered them with Cradle of Light, garnering me the bright and the dark simultaneously in one glorious burst.

Unfinished Business: Winner of the Vicky Tiel Sirene, selected by Hecate’s nimble, grimy hand, is: Teri! Please Contact Us with your mailing address. Also, for anyone who missed it, here´s an article on scenting your car in this week´s Sniffapalooza.

White forsythia images: mtholyoke.edu; forestfarm.com

March