To catch up on the adventures of Nawt so far, if you’re new, you can go here.  This is the continuing adventures of Nawt Agin, rookie perfumer for Irrational Fruity Florals

When we last left Nawt, he was waking up from a very bad dream.  After a very sleepless night, Nawt was sitting in front of a big mug of coffee, inhaling deeply (smelling everything deeply was a habit) and reading the newspaper.  A story caught his eye.  Jean Claude Ellena was in town!  Could this be what he was looking for?  Could the perfect JCE help him?  And what truly did he want JCE to help him with? He knew he could make the Celebridrool that he had been assigned to do, it would be easy, could do it with his beakers tied behind his back, but maybe JCE could tell him how to turn it around into something really good, and it just wouldn’t hurt to meet The Man.

Nawt checked the article for JCE’s itinerary and picked up the phone and dialed.

Nawt:  (nasal, choked voice) Halooo?  Yes, dis is Dawt.  Dawt I said, N-a-w-t.  yes, Dawt.  Sick tuday, berry, won’t be in. With what?  Dose broke.  Dose, n-o-s-e.  Can’t sbell, sssssmmmmelllll.  Tanks.

He hung up the phone, headed into the shower and got dressed.  Two hours later, he was pulling up to the museum where JCE was due to receive an award.  He parked and waited.

Off in the distance he saw something odd walking down the street. It looked like a man, an impossibly good-looking and distinguished man — Nawt felt a little breathless just looking at him —  but around his feet was some kind of cloud.  He got out of the car to get a better look.

As the man got closer, he saw it was definitely a dust cloud of some sort around his feet, but there were things popping up out of it.  Really random things… like a… perfume bottle?  And was that a cunning Red Manolo heel in there?  Attached to a very shapely leg?

Nawt stood dumbfounded as the Man in Cloud approached.  From his chiseled cheekbones, graying hair at the temples to the luminous smile, this was the most perfect man Nawt had ever seen.  He could now make out what was in the cloud, it was women engaged in a catfight – two, maybe three or more — and perhaps some perfume? as The Man walked on, oblivious to what was happening under his feet.

And… it WAS Jean Claude Ellena.

Nawt:  Monsieur Ellena, Monsieur Ellena, I beg you, can I have a moment of your time!

JCE:  Slowing down, he stopped, and the cloud of women and perfume continued to swirl beneath his feet. He turned to Nawt and aimed his beatific smile at him and said:  Je ne parle pas l’anglais.

Nawt:  What?  You speak English, right?

JCE:  Looks perplexed, smiles radiantly, smelling divine, shrugs, starts to walk away.

Nawt:  No, no, wait. I’ll find someone to speak French. Just wait, don’t go anywhere!!

(Nawt looks around, starts stopping people and cars, asking them if they speak French, gets ignored, spat on or handed a quarter. He’s getting desperate and then he spies a familiar face….

Voracia:  Hey, Perfume Man, I know you!!!

To be continued…

Original artwork by Adam Smith

Patty

I love this fragrance blogging thing. It gives me welcome respite from filling out the twins´ preschool re-enrollment forms, which were 29 pages – one set for each kid — due today. I am hopeful their college admissions paperwork will be less burdensome. At least they should be able to do the forms themselves at that point, sparing me the job of coming up with insightful answers on questionnaires like the Family Home Life Survey. Sample question: what does your child especially like to do? Answer: “play in the mud” (Hecate) and “loves to play with his balls” (Buckethead). This second answer I had to go back and obliterate with Wite-Out once I realized what I´d written (I replaced the last word with “trucks”).

Yes, to my joy, the twins have been invited back to the Learning and Creative Play Correctional Institution for a second year! Hecate has, in fact, become embedded in their institutional memory, as they had to revise long-standing parts of their operating procedures in her honor. Guidelines regarding entry-door and side-door security were tightened, along with some adjustments in the nap protocol, restrictions on climbing structures, additional lessons establishing the maximum allowable playground perimeter, and minor changes to the footwear clause.

Anyway, I went to London to buy Micallef Gaiac and came home with Black Sea instead, and today´s post is both about the fragrance and the process, which interests me enough to blog on it. I´m hoping it´ll interest you, too.

I showed up at Fortnum & Mason 20 minutes before closing, having misread the closing time (FYI the building is undergoing substantial renovation, with two floors closed, including their famous tea room, and the fragrance floor just reopened.) I looked like hell. I´d arrived that morning in London in the same clothes I´d been wearing for two weeks. I had my game face on, though, which turned out to be irrelevant, because Frances, the SA, greeted me with the same polite, slightly reserved professionalism I think I´d have gotten in a Chanel suit. I told her I was a fragrance fan, I had cursory knowledge of the line, I´d only smelled Gaiac and something else which I couldn´t remember, and I was there for a quick sample and would be back on Saturday to buy – probably Gaiac, in the absence of something else that grabbed me even more. Also, I wanted to smell Pomelos, having a love affair with the (related) grapefruit. Also, I wanted to not smell the 20 or so fragrances lined up in front of her, because experience has taught me that I´d smell everything, have a ball, and go home with (potentially) nothing. I don´t know why, but it´s true. So could she please point me to a few things in our few minutes, and we´d have another go on Saturday?

Pomelos was off the list right away — on my skin it soured and had an odd bark-like note. She sprayed a card with the Watch, which is the sort of zaftig, baroque white floral (jasmine?) I associate with my mother-in-law, God bless her, and if she were still with us I´d have bought it for her on the spot. I´m hoping it´ll be all me in a decade or two, but I´m not quite there yet. I said, let´s move in the direction of the Gaiac and away from the Watch, because I´m interested in less sweet and more strange, even masculine, if you follow me. And she did follow me, handing me Winter, one of their four seasons, which was quite interesting but ultimately too abrasive – sandalwood? (and I´m guessing a pinch of cedar.) The Patchouli was too medicinal, with a mint-like note. We agreed to try one more thing, and I left wearing Autumn, which I thought might be The One.

By Saturday, though, I´d decided that Autumn had just enough cumin to remove it from the running. I´m long over my cumin-phobia, but it´s a note I tend to focus on when I´m wearing it, and I wanted my Micallef to be about something else. With Lee for company, I dove back in, pretty sure I´d be leaving with Gaiac.

Then she handed me a card sprayed with Black Sea. (Notes listed inside the box are: pink pepper, clove, cypress, saffron, gaiacwood, muguet, carnation, sandalwood, cedar, incense, ciste, vanilla.)

Micallef offers a custom-perfume service, for God knows how much money, and I´m having trouble imagining what notes they´d run together that would be more perfect for me than what I´ve just listed above. They might as well change the name to Eau de March. You start off with a dusting of spices and it´s a bit sweet-ish; I didn´t know the notes, and just as I was beginning to categorize it mentally (woody floral?) the saffron and gaiac appeared, and they´re what makes the Black Sea work so well. Because, yes, on its own, Gaiac is lovely (I´d place it somewhere between Donna Karan Wenge and oud), but framed by the other notes it´s part of a full orchestra rather than a single instrument. Maybe someday I´ll get bored with saffron, but it hasn´t happened yet, and its warmth is the perfect foil for the more somber gaiacwood. Smelling the fragrance over the first half an hour it just gets smoother and smoother, with the incense (gentle, luminous) and touch of vanilla ultimately giving you the softest of skin scents. The carnation and muguet, to the extent that they´re detectable at all, are only there on as a vague floral presence in the opening. Unless I misunderstood, this is part of the men´s line; after the first two minutes or so there´s nothing at all floral about it. I´d place it squarely in the unisex category. The bottle is lovely, hand-painted with stylized jewel-studded coral; if you read their printed blather it´s all about the artistry of the bottles (along with corkers like: “Influenced by the romance and passion shared by Martine Micallef and her husband, Geoffrey Newman…”) The fragrance, although smooth, is quite strong and much more suited for winter in my climate, and I´ll be tucking it away until then.

An opportunity to demonstrate my ignorance: I believe the fragrance Donna Karan Wenge is meant to evoke the dark, mottled beauty of the (endangered) African wenge wood used for flooring and other things, but actual “wenge wood” doesn´t have a resinous smell; in other words, DK Wenge doesn´t smell like wenge. I also think (possibly wrongly) that agarwood, aloeswood and oud are the same thing, although maybe in different formats (with oud being a resin?) The fact that they are sourced from various countries doesn´t help clarify matters. Research on guiac/gaiac has further muddied the waters; I believe it´s a resin as well, but nothing I found talks about its particular smell (it´s used in homeopathy and also in laboratory tests). If you can shed light on any of these substances, please do so.

Availability: In addition to Fortnum (they ship), some of the Micallefs are at first-in-fragrance, and one (Winter) is at luckyscent. I believe a commenter last week said they’re also at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

PS: Winners from last week’s post (samps of Black Sea, Courtesan and Fig-Tea): pitbullfriend, AngelaS and gail!

March

I’m not writing about robots in disguise, honest. Too old for all that. And probably too gay (though I have to admit that I did, as a small boy, have Star Wars figurines. Han and Luke had a lot of fun together when Chewbacca was looking the other way).

Instead, this brief post is inspired by what I was doing last night when I should have been writing it. I was scrabbling around in the house, and in our old outbuilding (the original Georgian kitchen) looking for material with which to cover my tender plantlings. A frost was forecast. A frost, in late May. Unheard of. So much for global warming. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the pattern of global warming is much more, at least here, a pattern of increasing extremes: increasingly mild winters, unpredictable dry patches, rain, rain, rain – and I know what you guys think about Britain, but I live in one of the driest spots in not only Britain but also Europe, apparently.

So, poor March got the raw end of this unpredictability when she arrived at the beginning of May. We’d had a glorious April – sunshine, warmth through to late evening, not even a glimpse of rain. On her arrival, all this changed and in May it seemed to rain a little or a lottle every single damn day. Ending up with a frost last night (which, if the soft growth on all my shrubs – too large to cover – is anything to go by, failed to materialise). I’m buying a ski outfit for July.

Now here’s my unconvincing and tenuous segueway. There are perfumes that are as unpredictable as the British weather – not because they depend on skin chemistry, perception, whatever – but because they transform so profoundly from top notes to drydown. Here’s my off-the-cuff top 5 of ultimately non-linear scents. What are yours?

At 5: I can’t pin it down, as it always seems so different every time I sniff it. It’s that shape-changing, shifting mélange of old school European élan with a new world name, Patricia de Nicolai’s New York.

At 4: Sticking with the old school, some people think of vomit or poop when this first kicks in, and it’s certainly a Dirty Gerty in its initial blasts. But wait: soon it’s nothing more than a flirty caress of vanilla and lavender, like the softest touch of the softest skin against skin: Guerlain’s Jicky eau de parfum.

At 3: It’s a man’s scent, but starts with a shrill screech of orange blossom that’s almost too much for me. I have to get the right headset on – this is conjuring up Mediterranean grooming in the heat, and the neroli is a refreshing stimulant, rather than a headache-inducing nightmare gas. Give it 30 minutes though, and the scent becomes Gucci pour Homme’s woody, incensy older brother. Rochas Lui.

At 2: It starts in the bright lights of lemon sherbet, almost too sweet, but so acid yellow you can forgive it, even if the roof of your mouth is made raw and your eyes dazzled. It dries down to a warm, velvety cuddle in the back pew of a rural church (wholly inappropriate I imagine, but all the better for it). Mona di Orio’s Lux.

At 1: It’s been there for a while, and it’s a predictable winner. A camphor rub in a car mechanic’s workshop. Bryan walks in with a bunch of his favourite blooms. Of course it’s Lutens’s Tubereuse Criminelle.

Lee

Let’s do something completely different today — well, maybe not completely, but a little.

We’re out in Kansas, and I brought something for my sister Shirley and my friend Kelly to sniff.  Today we get their impressions on a few things.

Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia - Shirley says she loves it about 30 minutes after it goes on, turns into sexy man — she loves it utterly, completely, passionately and without reservation.  Kelly says something smells like chapstick or carnuba wax?!?!?!  Kelly’s arm turns into dirty machinery, but she smells it on Shirley in the drydown and understands why she’s all drooly.

Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist – Kelly says lettuce and dirt and roots.  Shirley says dirt with worm shit at the open and it’s just weird.  Okay, I need to fire these two, how can they dis my beloved ISM?!?

Le Labo Patchouli 24 – Shirley says, “smells like whiskey, like I could just drink it.  Winter wood smoke, little spice, like you were burning a clove tree.  Kelly’s nose is broke, she says betadine and creosote, but the drydown is much better.

Christian Dior Diorissimo parfum -  Kelly says “Tinkerbell perfume she wore when she was 7, then it turns into Tinkerbell’s grinding up on her pole a little too much and then passed out.”  Shirley says, “fresh, clean flower, pure, petal-packed, full of smell flower — no stem, no shit, no bee shit, just pure flower.” (can you tell I’ve been shoving a love of dirt perfumes under her nose for a while?)

Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel – Shirley says earthy, dirty, a flower that should smell pretty, but go in and smell it and it smells like plant instead.  Kelly says B.O covered by sweaty flowers; i.e. sweaty French Whore, and then the hooker eventually disappears to leave a very nice floral.  Why did I agree to let these two do this?

CB I Hate Perfume Tea Rose – Kelly says perfect, all about the tea, almost nothing about the rose, “makes her want to drop and writhe.”  Shirley says this should be a rose with a glass of tea, but it’s all about the rose and nothing about the tea.  I mediated and found only rose on Shirley and only tea on Kelly. I put it on and get both. Mom was all tea with just a skosh of rose, but she adores it (she hates perfume!).  When it warmed up on them, they each got more of the other.  All of us love it.

Shirley wound up with Nostalgia, Patchouli 24 and CB Tea Rose on one arm… she calls that arm the “Highway of Love.”

So, what three perfumes on one arm would make up YOUR Highway of Love?

Patty

I’m postponing my Adventures of Nawt for a week because I’ve found an incredibly talented cartoonist, a reader’s husband, and he’s working on a drawing for the next episode, and I just can’t do it without that drawing — it’s my inspiration!!  Wait until you see it, it’s hysterical.  I’m going to put his art up on a t-shirt, etc., because it’s that good – I want it on everything in my house because it makes me laugh as it demonstrates our common obsession — you’ll see!  BTW, I did make a little Cafe Press shop where you can get the Let Us Spray… things on clocks, mousepads, hot pads, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. I did order some myself, I couldn’t resist — the link is over on the left, if anyone is interested.  Now, I do have other coffee mugs on order from a place that does a great job with them, but it’s going to be another couple of weeks before I get them.  But back to the cartoon, I love it when a plan unexpectedly comes together.

We are off to spend some time in Kansas with my mom and family – we do the grave crawl, which the only thing that can be worn for that is Cradle of Light with a little Black March – and mom has a little procedure to be done on her foot next week, so I’m staying, after sending the family back, to take her to her doc’s appointment and then bringing her back home with me for a few days.  Do I think you guys care about that?  You don’t? 

So while I’m waiting on some interesting stuff to get here, like the Spendy Sacred Tears, what are you guys wearing right now, old or new, that’s tripping your trigger, floating your boat, melting your shake?   I’m sorta in a Diorissimo rut these days, we are having a mad, passionate spring fling, though I occasionally cheat with Diorling parfum (when I’m feeling moody and all difficult). When I’m not hitting that, it’s violet and narcissus and dirt.  Has anyone tried those Brunos? And? Come on, I’m dying for info. I ordered a couple unsniffed, the Sballo because someone said “mostly hay,” and I had an out of body experience, and I don’t remember a thing until I came to staring at a Luckyscent ”Thank you for your Order!” screen.

We’ll be off Monday enjoying the holiday.  We always do the grave crawl in Kansas every Memorial Day. It has become one of those traditions that it hurts to miss.  It is that moment to pause and to remember all those before me, in a line from the gate to the fence, and those that will come after me. To borrow from Chesterton, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”  That’s how I always feel in the cemetery on Memorial Day, part of something bigger, in the company of all my fellow human beings, whether living or dead. 

All our love!

Patty, March, Lee and Bryan

Patty