Fourplay — still flying the Missing Woman Formation

This week March is still gone….. but on her way home!!! We have picked two scents for this week, Frederic Malle’s French Lover, which is brand spanking new, and Christian Dior Diorella.

Is he butch or Metro?

Notes of angelica, pimento, galbanum, iris, bay rum, clove, cardamom, juniper, cedar, oakmoss, frankincense, patchouli, vetiver

Lee: Can’t he be butch and metro? Truth or dare time: I’ve had a couple of French lovers in my dark and sleazy past, and you know what, I think I picked badly. They weren’t all that. Now, not wishing to slander (libel? I always get those two confused) a nation, I’ll put it down to wrong choices. But if they were representative of French Lovers, this scent’d be all talk and rather neurotic action. It isn’t, thankfully. I do get the similarity to Ellena’s Angelique in the top notes – it was like the candied angelica that used to decorate fairy cakes in my childhood which, in spite of all the sugar, still had a bitter, gin-like quality to them. And then it becomes hirsute, and reminiscent of butch fougere stuff from the 80s. Elle said it reminded her of CDG2 Man, and it does me a little (the incense / wood / spice thang) but it’s almost a bang-on smellalike to something else in my nasal memory that tantalises me but remains out of reach… Antaeus? No. Bel Ami? No. Portos? No. Someone help me out, s’il vous plait…

Patty: I got nothing still, except what I can smell before it goes on me and the alcohol note that’s probably some musk note (styrene maybe? sturgene, can’t remember what CB said) takes over is really great. I’d love to smell it on someone without the alcohol. I think it IS butch and metro, at least before he puts my feet up in the stirrups, gets out the rubbing alcohol and tells me to open wide.  Now all it reminds me of when I smell it is that I’m due for a physical.

Bryan: I fell for this elegant, virile stud so fast my head spun. I was on the fripperies sight purchasing a decant seconds after it dried on my skin. Let me say that this scent, in theory, is absolutely not me. Let me write that again, NOT me. I usually fear what traditionally “masculine” notes do to my psyche…father figures and all those terrible connotations. In fact, I have completely written off Cartier (unfairly, no doubt) because my father wore Pasha. This however is a truly unique “masculine”. I only use the term masculine here the way marketing execs intend….clearly I do not believe in gendered fragrances. The angelica and cardamon dominate on my skin and it is DELICIOUS. I would love to smell this on a woman. I’m layering this with my Carnal lover as soon as my French one arrives.

Not Barbarella — Diorella!

Notes of lemon, greens, basil, bergamot, melon, jasmine, rose, carnation, cyclamen, oakmoss, vetiver, musk, patchouli

Lee: Nyaaargh! I’m easily confused. So, on Saturday, I sniffed Diorling in the Harrods Roja Dove place, thinking we were writing about that one. And I had some salient comments to make – about how not all chypres scare me, about how refined and severe and austere Diorling is, but how beautiful and true. But of course, we’re not blinking well writing about Diorling… Must’ve got the darling/lover thing trapped in my head. And then I thought, oh yes, I DID smell Diorella after all. Only to realise a moment later, that no, the soft, feminine voluptuous apricotty number was in fact Diorama. So, racking my oh so reliable smell memory, isn’t Diorella the one that’s like a softer, slightly warmer Eau Sauvage? In that case, I like it. But if that’s Dioressence, or Diordillydally, or Diorukelele, or some other bleedin’ Dior (apologies to Marina at this point) don’t go whinging if I’ve got it wrong.

Patty: No, lee, not soft, at least on the open. Green gassy herbaceous monster, like scraping the blades of my lawn mower after I’ve mowed a football field.  It is fierce green, but under all of that, I now recognize the genius of Dior, you have to wait for it and look deeper than that first blast or green herb.  As I scrape down the blades, there, hidden up under the mower is this beautiful little floral bouquet that is all soft and beautiful, still sitting in all of that green.  Diorella is a wonder.  Lee, we can do Diorling next. Would love to do that, especially in the parfum.  That one still just takes my breath away.  Diorella just makes me thing I wish I was young and in love and rolling around on the football field with my date after prom with my corsage on my wrist.   But I still want her to sit across the room when she’s all smoothed out, girl’s got a little skank going on.

Bryan: Wow, two for two this time. I also have a decant of this hot, chic, green babe coming my way. I love this green voluptuous scent. This was supposedly Roudy’s favorite to compose…in 1972 (my birthyear, so I wanted to love it, I’m cheesey that way). I do love it. I love the green blast at the beginning, but here it isn’t overwhelming as vintage vent vert can be. Then, the magnificent bouquet begins to enthrown its wearer. I became intoxicated during this stage and I would have done some really bad things to own a bottle of Diorella at this point. I get the sexy skank too, which makes me love her all the more. I will be wearing this all summer, oh yeah, all summer.