What Came In The Mail

A couple of weeks ago I picked eight people as part of my weird bottle swap – my eight unloved bottles went to more deserving homes, and those folks were free to send me, well, whatever they wanted to, and I´d blog on it. (Each box also contained extra samples from my goody bag.) Here´s what I got back thus far. I´ll do another post later with Part II (packages arriving after this post).

I sent Matt a smallish bottle of Estee Lauder Pleasures Delight (he said he´d take whatever bottle nobody else wanted, and that was it.) For the record, it´s a pretty fragrance, it’s just not something I’m going to wear. I got back: an Elvis CD (“Aloha from Hawaii!”), several samples, tea, a yummy-smelling bar of ayurvedic soap, a pack of Post-Its, a postcard, and a fridge magnet with Andy Warhol´s pic that says “I am a deeply superficial person.” I loved the randomness of it — anyone who´ll send me tea and Post-Its is okay in my book. I also love that he gave the Estee to his mom. Regarding the sample he sent me of CB I Hate Perfumes´ new Fire From Heaven, an incense scent I have been anxious to try (notes are frankincense, myrrh, opopanax, cedar, sandalwood, styrax, labdanum) — it starts off medicinal, you get some peat, smoke, woods, and obviously incense. It´s nice – it smells like the base of a great fragrance, but it doesn´t seem …. finished somehow? I’m Christopher Brosius’ number-one fangirl, and I love incense (I’d actually bugged him about doing an incense frag when Patty and I met him in NYC last year), but I feel oddly let down by this thing. If you´d like to read CB´s thoughtful journal entry on what he was after (including his own struggle to come up with a fragrance he considered finished), click here.

I gave Louise a decant off the Floris Malmaison bottle (which got sent elsewhere) since she wanted to try it and it’s a pretty big bottle, along with some other samples, including the SMN Acqua di Cuba, and she gets honey sans manly essence, if you are wondering. I expected a couple samps/decants in return. I got back: a bottle of Montale Jasmin Full (heh heh! a gloriously skanky soliflore, a bottle of which will last me approximately forever) and a bottle of Versace Crystal Noir, both of which she knows I love. And a sample of Guerlain Spiritueuse off her decant. Oh, yeah, and samps of the new Roja Dove scents. I loved all of it, except the nagging guilt involved in publicly mentioning a score on this level, but I´ll make it up to her somehow, I promise. I´m aware there are readers of this blog who undoubtedly view Crystal Noir as beneath them, and, hey – more for me, baby! Now that I have the bottle in my possession, I´m happier than ever with its goofy, giant-sized purply-black plastic gemcap. It precisely and joyously meshes with my perception of Donatella Versace´s concept of classy, if you follow me. I plunked it between two bottles of Serge, and they´re resolutely refusing to acknowledge it.

I gave Sariah the bottle of Diptyque Eau d´Elide, she loves its herbal goodness. I got back: First by Van Cleef and Arpels, housed in a big, gorgeous, gold cocktail-shaker of a bottle that looks sort of like the refillable Guerlain sprays. (And I´m laughing that´s it´s labeled a “purse spray” – you would need a seriously large purse for that thing. How big do they make those Kelly bags?) This floral aldehyde manages to both embrace and transcend its 70s-era provenance (notes are: bergamot, mandarin, blackcurrant, aldehydes, jasmine, rose, ylang, hyacinth, vetiver, vanilla, amber, civet): it is glorious and aloof. Instead of the clean champagne-bubble aldehyde notes of Baghari and Le Labo 44, it´s got a faint smell of cigarettes, which I happen to love in this instance. First smells a little louche to me, like something Jerry Hall might have worn to Studio 54 back in the day. It makes No. 5 smell almost cuddly by comparison. I got a bunch o´ Demeter samps, which are always fun (hey, you´re right – Beetroot is wonderful, a great, earthy scent.) The other bottle was Le Labo Vetiver – an identical bottle of which I gave away recently, and regretted ever since. Le Labo Vetiver is on a short list of fragrances The Big Cheese would prefer I never wear, and so mostly I don´t. Vetiver as a dominant note I don´t care for. Vetiver Tonka, Encre Noir, Sel de Vetiver – no, no, and no. I´m not sure Le Labo even is proper vetiver (Lee says no, it´s incense, and at the end I´m inclined to agree). To me it´s the smell of a tumble in the mud with Mr. Wrong, followed by picking twigs out of your teeth and vows to renounce your evil ways and live a better, cleaner life. I love it. This time I´m keeping it.

I gave Catherine the S-Perfume 100% Love {MORE}. I got back: three beautiful, handmade bound paper journals, along with a note suggesting that I give two of them to my daughters, which … okay, how lovely a gesture is that? I´m really feeling a little overwhelmed by these goody boxes. Now I´m wanting to save them to open individually on crappy days so I can cheer myself up. That idea would work wonderfully if I had any self restraint, which, sadly, I don´t. I also got some great samples (including a set of the Givenchy reissues, whee!), and a sample of Malle Noir Epices, which thrills me because mine just ran out and now I can stave off buying more temporarily. (Notes of orange, rose, geranium, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, pepper, patchouli, cedarwood, sandalwood.) It´s more elegant – like something by Guerlain – than the niche spicefest of, say, the original CdG. Noir Epices is not for the faint of heart (you geranium freaks – that note is huge on me in this thing), and I wouldn´t be throwing it on with abandon, either. It´s an odd combo of spicy and sort of sour. But if you´re a fan of spice notes, this is definitely one worth sampling.

I gave Gail a sample of the Diptyque Elide because she wanted to try it, along with a couple other things I owed her. I was expecting nothing in return. I got, out of the blue, her bottle of the original Donna Karan (that great robo-duck black and gold bottle) along with some most-welcome decants – Sushi, Te Nero, and my new BFF, Lostmarc´h Lann-Ael, which I had not tried and I´m wild for and now working into my separate vanilla post – which I know I keep mentioning and which, like Godot, never quite manages to show up. But it will, soon. I can never decide whether I like that Donna Karan, although I´ve always found it interesting. Spraying it on and writing this, it´s definitely growing on me. Apricot, ylang, apricot, cassia, rose, jasmine, Casablanca lilies (of course! I had no idea), sandalwood, patchouli, amber, suede. The opening I´m learning to understand better, and the suede-like drydown is killah.

I sent Rosarita the Prince Jardinier. Her package back was really touching. I got dressups for Hecate and Buckethead; a giant bag of Amish-made cashew crunch — it´s like peanut brittle, only leagues better– that I have hidden and am refusing to share, on the grounds that nobody here would appreciate it as much as I do; a jar of pear butter; an old-fashioned manual fruit/vegetable chopper with Rosarita´s family recipe for apple crisp, which I will most definitely be making; and a small bag for me with chic scarves (I am particularly fond of the large black-and-white check one) and costume jewelry (I have the flowers pinned to my mohair beret because – yes – I am the sort of person who wears berets without irony) and, most unbelievably, a very thin, beautiful pair of navy kidskin gloves that – you guessed it – fit me like a glove. Another great exchange.

I had absolutely no idea how this was going to go. I mean, I figured if I got rid of my unloved bottles and got back a few samps, it was a win-win situation. As a general comment to all the packages I´ve received, I´m interested in the fact that almost all the samples were things that are very much “me” – whether folks are sending me things they think I´d like, or things I´ve said I liked, really — they did a great job hitting the target. As you can imagine, I am pretty blown away by all the thought and care that went into these packages that came back to me, and the extraordinary generosity behind the fragrance gifts. I´ve been having a tough few weeks, to be honest – the Cheese is on an extended trip – and I´ve got my game face on, but still. I actually cried a little over this stuff and the good feelings that came with it. All of you – thanks.