This really is going to be one of those posts, and I do apologize, but I just have a bunch of stuff to talk about, some only a little bit about perfume.

First, I am going to just squeeze March to pieces for turning me on to these Not Your Daughter jeans.  If you are blessed with a figure that slips into 7 jeans, I’m pea green, but my boyish hips disappeared with the birth of my first son. These things are marvelous. I have hated to go jeans shopping forever because I hate the way they look, they fit or don’t fit. It’s just a trial and painful to shop for jeans. I ordered these without trying them on, just using the sizing guide, and they are perfect. Just enough stretch in them to be comfy, not enough that they are sloppy or loose. If you tend to wiggle around a size depending on the season/laxity of exercise, etc., these will accommodate those, um… size revisions.

Second, we need to organize all of you that are going to Sniffa so we can make sure we get together and meet.  March and I both are going, and it’s week after this, in NYC. If you’re going to be there, drop a note in comments, and if you put in an accurate e-mail address (which only we see), we’ll include you on an e-mail and try and plan a meet-up outside of Sniffa activities on Thurs or Fri or Sat or all three!!!  Like my life could get any better. I get to meet Chaya and lilybp and Neil Morris this week already, so I’m pretty jacked about meeting more of you next week.

 Third, it is your solemn, sworn duty as a perfumista to root for KU in the Final Four.  Well, okay, not really, but if you don’t have a team already picked, KU is a worthy team with a long, classy history of basketball excellence… and they are playing the coach that abandoned them IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT when he said he would stay — the Evil Roy Williams.  No, I’m not bitter, why do you ask?

A month or so ago, March sent me Estee Lauder Azuree to sniff because she thought I would love it.  She gets Aces for her powers of fragrant perception. Introduced in 1969, it has notes of Basil, Jasmine, Citrus, Armoise, Vetiver, Rose, Patchouli, Moss, and Amber.  It goes on like a moss blossom popped its little champagne cork, perfuming the air with lovely green bubbles.  It is your best day in the garden, your favorite, worn pair of leather gloves held up to your nose after you’ve been snipping Rose Bushes and catmint and lavender. If you are a fan of classic, timeless perfumery at its best, snag some Azuree for a run - it’s balls-out underneath a very gorgeous, feminime circle skirt — you know the one, it widens out for miles when you twirl around.

Image from Caryl Bryer Fallert

It’s peak allergy season, and I’ve responded by wearing tried and true fragrances for a few days, because bad allergies put me at the razor edge of migraine. I’ve got tons of samples calling out to me (thanks Kelly and Maria!), but we’re going to be a little random today.

1) Have I shared with you my best bonehead eBay perfume-buying stories? The first was the amazing deal I got on German eBay on a bottle of Floris Summer Limes. I paid something like $3.50. It turns out I’d bought a copy of a Summer Limes advertisement. Heh. Then, on French eBay, I bought a vintage purse spray (I think it was Rochas Femme) which, had I run the French through the translator, I would have discovered was … how you say … “empty.” The French word for empty was clearly on there. More recently I snagged a 3.4 of L’Artisan Mure et Musc, and was feeling pretty smug until I realized it’s the Cologne, which I didn’t even know existed, an aromatic-herbal variant with citrus and basil. That description did not make my heart beat faster with desire. So I did something for the first time in 5+ years of bidding on eBay – I emailed the seller, explained to her why I was an idiot (she’d had another regular bottle of Mure I’d lost out on, along with a bunch of other L’Artisans) and asked if she’d consider substituting something else from the inventory or possibly letting me off the hook, since there had been a lot of bids. She graciously relisted it, for which I thanked her. And now … having not learned from any of this … I have (I think) purchased a bottle of a wildly obscure fragrance from some wildly obscure website that is either actually a European alternate to eBay, or a scam. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? I used PayPal, so I think the damage will be mostly to my ego plus the cost of the bottle.

Okay, your turn! Any lame stories you’d like to share from your bidding/swaps? Drunk while sniping? Added an extra zero to your bid? Bought the men’s instead of the ladies’? Come on, I can’t be the only idiot on the internet.

We’re now moving onto two non-perfume topics. For those of you who don’t give a hoot about handbags or makeup, please follow the link here to the project now happening on Memory and Desire, in which various perfumers (Andy Tauer, Vero Kern, Christophe Laudamiel, Yosh Han and others) have been asked to describe a fragrance based on Ezra Pound’s 14-word poem, In a Station of The Metro. Don’t miss the extensive footnotes. You don’t have to understand/appreciate Pound to marvel at the concept, and I have very much enjoyed the various interpretations of the poem.

1) I went to this consignment store I love and bought a bunch of stuff. They get interesting clothes and I end up taking fashion risks picking through the fora and flauna, because the great thing about a rust-colored kimono-sleeve wrap sweater at $16 is, if you decide six months later it was a huge mistake, so what? Mistakes get recycled back at the same store. Anyhoo, I am not the bag snob, and I bought what I thought was some used/vintage brown faux-gator pocketbook, bigger than my usual size, but the price was right, and every now and again a big bag is useful. My sister-in-law Kate informed me it’s a fake Hermes Birkin. I’m weirdly embarrassed. No disrespect to anyone reading this, but I’m not a faux-bag kind of gal. Genuine, oui. Off-brand, fine. Vintage, yes. Ugly, sure. (Ask Kate about my pumpkin and metallic gold number.) But if I can’t afford the real deal — new or used — I don’t want to fake it. OTOH, while I don’t want to support the third-world knockoff industry, I bought it used, and recycling is the thing I love about used. So. What do you all think? Should I just get over myself already and use the bag?

2) And finally, a long tedious question about foundation for you makeup junkies, I need help. I could never figure out why all those crazy people on MUA talked endlessly about their fruitless search for the foundation Holy Grail — until I tried to buy a foundation.

Two years ago I wore tinted sunscreen (or tinted moisturizing sunscreen) and that was that. Then one day in a moment of boredom I tried Chanel Vitalumiere and I was hooked on the way it toned down the pink in my skin, evened things out subtly (it’s pretty light) and gave me a lovely glow, although I can’t imagine this on oily skin. I wear Limpide (nude) which I think in the US is the lightest shade of their fairly limited color palette. It looks nice on me, but because it’s yellowish I can wind up looking sallow if I don’t blend it carefully. In general, though, it’s the right idea. The easiest thing to do would be to replace my almost-empty bottle, and maybe it’s the Gemini in me, but I feel like there should be at least one other good match in existence, one that was just a hair less yellow than the Chanel, so I don’t have the occasional sallow day.

What I want is a light, sheer-to-medium liquid formula to tone down my natural pink color. I don’t care about sunscreen because I wear it over sunscreen, both my dermatologists being of the opinion that, unless you really cake your foundation on and spend most of your time indoors, foundation sunscreen alone is not enough. My skin is dry and sensitive (I use retinols) so I would prefer a minimum of Age-Defying Extras which are potentially irritating, although not necessarily so. Finish-wise, my personal preference is non-matte; while I appreciate the need for a matte finish for women with oily-combination skin, on me it looks mask-like and settles into fine lines.

Shade-wise I am pale but not extremely so – I’m at the pale end of lines with limited colors, like Vitalumiere, but not anywhere near the palest of extensive foundation lines in Estee Lauder or Lancome. While Vitalumiere Limpide is a slightly yellow but good match for me; their other pale one (Ivory?) is in fact almost exactly me but in being so is maybe too pink, I can’t decide. I don’t think subtly adjusting my skin tone on my face using sheer foundation is unreasonable. I didn’t find the right match in Estee, but the SA wasn’t into it. As I type this I am wearing Lancome Clair 20 from their Renergie line on one side of my face, and I-50N from Color Ideal on the other. (Lots of raves about Teint Idole on MUA but it’s discontined.) I like Lancome and wear a lot of their makeup. The Renergie is better because it’s dewier, the other tends to sit up on my face more, if that makes sense. The Clair 20 is close … but I still think it’s a hair too pink (orange?)

If you’ve read this far, you must have some opinion about foundation. Given what I’ve told you (and I think I’ve tried 10 or 15 foundations from various lines), any recommendations, either in terms of lines or how I better communicate what I’m looking for in makeup-speak? Because one more SA slathering me with Pink Bisque is going to break my spirit. Bonus points to anyone who wants to try to explain “cool,” “neutral” and “warm” to me, and whether those terms are consistent across the lines.

No this is not another post on tuberose, although Shakespeare’s character perhaps got it wrong with the rest of that line.  (I do adore rose, though).  Spring has sprung and now I am forced to bite my tongue regarding the chill in the air.  I try not to complain, but alas, bring on the heat. It took Lee, Dusan and a few others to point out to me over the course of a few years that I seem to be drawn to flowers.  The bottles I reach for over and over are all dominated by a single stem.  From the outrageous tuberose to the demure lily of the valley, I want my florals to showcase a leading lady. I do love tuberose to a fault.  I will buy unsniffed anything with tuberose as a dominant player.   And truth be told I am rarely disappointed.  (I did not adore By Kilian’s Beyond Love, but to me there just wasn’t much to love).  There are plenty of gorgeous florals in the bottles that crowd the shelves, so I thought I’d share my current favorites (because next week, they will all change….fickle  is such an ugly word. In early Spring, hyacinths always give me pause.  I hover over gardens of them even in public to inhale the intoxicating, almost sweetly astringent air.  It’s as though I am enjoying a scent I’m not supposed to love….like gasoline (not my cup of tea, but many do love it).  Diptyque’s Jardin Clos is a beautiful garden of hyacinths, but they’re screaming to be heard.  They are fighting over the bees and moths but the symphony begins to fall flat about 45 minutes into the show.  I do love it, but there just isn’t enough to hold my attention for long.  L’artisan’s Jacinthe des Bois is turly gorgeous…discontinued, the idiots, but gorgeous.  I spray this on and the power is intoxicating.  Then, the sweetness of the hyacinths (or blubells, I don’t discriminate) begins to temper the eau.  I do love it and now we’re forced to horde….to make room for what I ask you??If roses make you blush, Dior’s Collection Particuliere is magnificent.  Probably my favorite Rose to come along in years.  The Rose dominates, but in a classically sophisticated way.  The scent is simply stunning.  The pimento (a note I thought I’d hate) adds just the right “heat” for lack of a better word.  Frederic Malle’s Une Rose is dark and gorgeous, but I really have to be in the mood for such a rich rose.  So, what are your favorite flowers for the skin?

Once the temperatures start rising just a little, as I’m rolling through my decanting early in the morning, before my day job starts, there are always a few perfumes in certain seasons that I can’t pass by without spritzing. 

If it’s spring, it is Guerlain’s Apres L’ondee.  Violets in rain.  Created by Jacques Guerlain and launched in 1906, it has notes of bergamot, neroli, aniseed, hawthorn, violet, heliotrope, iris and musk. 

The scent of the time between death and life, clinging to the earth in the rootiness of the iris and musk, but stretching to life with the neroli and violet, with the anise and hawthorn giving it a little interesting rhythmic funk  just so you don’t forget how to really live in the in-between spaces.

For me, it is full-on, heady, unadorned, and unfettered joyous sorrow - tears in rain, where you cannot tell where your tears end and the rain starts; the joy racing through your veins because you still feel and are rejoicing and lamenting for all that life should be and is and isn’t.  Apres L’Ondee is the tension in life, weighty and weightless - perfectly blended, but always separate. 

March and I have joked forever that we will have Apres L’Ondee piped in during our funerals because that’s how we want people to feel when we go out — sad to see us gone, but forever glad that we lived.

Am I over the top in my love for Apres L’Ondee? Yes, absolutely. It makes my heart sing every time I smell it, rejoicing in all that life is mixed with regret for all it will never be.  There are very few perfumes that never fail to make me appreciate living as much as Apres does.  So what perfume “does it” for you?

Completely off-topic, can we talk about American Idol for a second?  That guy with the weird hair bangs that did Billie Jean — love him, just close my eyes when he sings.  Ramiele, why is she still there? At least Chikezie (sp) was interesting and entertaining.  Ramiele adds nothing to the show except shortness and whining.  Who is voting for her? If it’s you, stop it, I mean it.

Random visits, revisits and surprises.

Kenzo Amour Indian Holi - Rice Steam, Cherry Blossom, Incense, Rose, Red Berries, Frangipani Blossom, Peony, White Musk, Sandalwood, Vanilla Infusion. Those of you who think Kenzo Amour is total dullsville and find my love for it baffling can skip down to the next review. Nobody loves a creamy, woody comfort scent more than I do. So when I saw the bottle of Indian Holi (a flanker) in Sephora I gave it a whirl, expecting to like Indian Holi much less than the original, given that it’s been tweaked with rose and pepper. I have to say: I like it. A lot. So much so that it may in fact wind up part of my current bottle-buying binge. On top of the rice-steam-milk-woods of Kenzo Amour it’s got a mildly spiced floral accord that I wouldn’t identify as rose unless I’d read the notes – it’s more like champaca. I also get a lot of bright incense. Five hours later, it’s still grabbing my attention. I don’t like Holi better than the original, but I might like it as much, and that’s saying something; the original is one of my winter staples. I also think I’ll find Holi even more appealing in warmer weather.

Tommy Girl – I had to go resniff this after Tania Sanchez said in Allure (I believe as part of the excerpt of their book) that Tommy Girl’s built around a tea accord made from sampling the air at Mariage Freres. No, not pulling your leg. And given that information, how can I not retry it? Notes are: Apple tree, Blackcurrant, Camellia flower, Mandarin, Mint, Honeysuckle, Lily, Rose, Magnolia, Sandalwood, Cedar. You’ll note you don’t find the word “tea” there, and if I’m remembering right (Diva’s run off with the Allure) they dug around trying to figure out how to make the Mariage Freres tea smell work in a quintessential American perfume, so they hired a botanist who said most of the smells could be equated with florals found in our country. Anyway, if you look for it, the tea is definitely there. The citrus/mint opening smells great on paper but like hell on my skin. Get past that, though, and there’s your tea, and it does bear a resemblance to Bvlgari The Verte (which I believe Jean-Claude Ellena based on his version of the same tea shop smell), only Tommy Girl is more floral and soapier. It’s also more fleeting. Luca Turin loves this thing. I’ll take the Bvlgari.

Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise – and Luca Turin loves this thing too, so I sniffed it for, like, the 23^rd time, Looking For The Light. I have no explanation. His love for this thing is one of those eternal questions.

Ralph Lauren HOT – Hey, all those gals on MUA are right – this is a dead ringer for BBW Brown Sugar and Fig (at 2.5x the price.) And Brown Sugar and Fig lasts longer. And yes, I know that because I own it. In the body cream and the spray. So shoot me, it smells great. But not as great as…

21 Costume National – LuckyScent told me they’re probably getting this in April. Here’s my review: squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! I only had nine drops to sample, so maybe I’m a dope and I’ll change my tune. But it was delicious. Here are the notes: bergamot, spices, clary sage, orange blossom, olibanum, woods, oud, patchouli, milk, amber, and some other stuff I can’t jam through my French translator. I get the citrus, herbs and oud up front, and it’s got that raspy, zingy feel to it – woody, but a little rough. When it quiets down, though, it’s – yep, you guessed it – a mildly spiced, milky woods scent. More interesting than Kenzo Amour, I grant you, but not so interesting that you wish some part of it would vamoose already. I’m predicting this will be love, I can’t wait to get a bigger sample.

Guerlain Shalimar Light – and can we pause for a second while I gloat that Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, in their article called something like 10 Perfume Classics, picked five Guerlains? Proving that my slavish devotion to the house of Guerlain is not unwarranted? Even if they’re trying to kill off my desire with some of their recent releases? Anyway, it has always amused/embarrassed me that Shalimar, the iconic Guerlain that I’d guess more people could name than any other from the house, the one you can find everywhere from CVS to Macy’s to JC Penney to the Bergdorf boutique, is one I find completely unwearable. I understand the brilliance of it – I have smelled the extrait and basked in its glory on other people. I love Shalimar; it’s just the smell I can’t stand, and shame on me. Shalimar Light’s notes are: lemon, bergamot, jasmine, iris, orange, vanilla, amber. The original Shalimar is bergamot, mandarin, cedar, lemon, patchouli, jasmine, rose, orris, vanilla, benzoin, peru balsam, leather. As you can see, the composition’s been moved firmly toward the lighter end of things (the first version of this was I believe called Eau Legere, and with minor tweaking became Light). While I didn’t rush online and buy a bottle, I did leave my decant out for further wearing, because to me this is a lot more wearable – the Shalimar for folks who hate Shalimar. I can definitely see the connection between the two, but the part that kills me in original Shalimar – the contrast between that vanilla-coke sweetness and the dark, balsamy leather – is replaced by a frothy dose of citrus, so really you’re looking at a citrus-vanilla. The orris and jasmine lend just the right touch of spicy sweetness. I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried both, particularly fans of the original. Is this good, or is it blasphemy? The day they make Mitsouko Eau Legere Lychee Cocktail is the day I hang up my spurs.

PS I’m retrieving Enigma from her cousins’ house on the Eastern Shore, and plan to be back around lunchtime Thursday.

Kenzo Amour Indian Holi: nordstrom.com

I’m having a busy week. We have very close friends staying with us, it’s seed planting time, and there’s work. So today I’m recycling on the blog. Climate change and all that.

In January, a journalist contacted perfumeposse wanting some copy for an article to be published in the Spring / Summer edition of GQStyle, on scents and masculinity. As butchness personified, I leapt at the chance. And so, apparently little ole me is quoted alongside perfume legends such as James Craven of Les Senteurs. What follows is the copy I sent to the journalist - I’ve yet to see how much made it into the final version.

“1) Do you think it’s scent/ingredients or preconceptions that makes a fragrance masculine?

I think it’s both. First of all, there are ingredients, generally in specific combinations, that work as markers of masculinity, because they have been pretty ubiquitously used that way. Vetiver and tobacco for instance, in Guerlain’s eponymous scent. Or at least they have been in a certain time period. Therefore we come to think of them as masculine. The classic ‘masculine’ scent is the fougere, a somewhat catch all category that generally includes notes like lavender, bergamot, oak moss and coumarin. They generally have a barbershoppy buzz, without too much bright citrus stuff going on. A great recent example is Narciso Rodriguez - archetypal man juice. But, but, but, what is typically male varies historically and geographically. So, sniff Dior’s Eau Sauvage or Hermes’ Equipage, and you’re getting a vision of bourgeois masculinity in the 60/70s; shift to the late 70s and early 80s and Drakkar Noir, Paco Rabanne, Quorum and Azarro seem like stereotypes of the time - all hair and medallions, or shoulder pads and kipper ties. In contrast, the 90s (remember ecru? Sheesh) was washed out minimalist new man - overdoses of calone in Aramis’ New West led to an explosion of aquatic scents, and the unfortunate rise of Hugo Boss as a power player in men’s fragrances with its bland blap. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, men are wearing jasmine and rose, much as they always have done (and as they did here in the nineteenth century). And, at the same time as all this is going on, there are always perfumes worn by men that are resolutely idiosyncratic and buck the most obvious trends.

So, that’s a pretty roundabout way of saying that there’s a complex web of stuff going on in the construction of scents - there are trends that emerge through the creation or extraction of synthetics (calone, coumarin - and perhaps an iris synthetic in Dior Homme) that become markers of masculinity in certain time periods; there are accords that seem more solidly masculine for longer periods (such as in fougeres), and then there are scents which don’t easily fit in to the trends of the time. Like Dior’s Fahrenheit - creosote and honeysuckle - 1988. You know the real reason why I think so many men’s scents go with the flow and fit with the mainstream trend rather than doing a Fahrenheit? The teams who commission them don’t want to take risks, have tiny budgets for perfume development (most goes on the campaigns) meaning the perfumers can only go for cheap ingredients, choose the safest mods from the perfumers and water down any quirks or edges in those. So we end up sniffing the same thing, altered a little bit, time and again, in the men’s section. But hey, it’s what the consumer wants - they’ve used focus groups and everything!

There is some evidence of change occurring though, but that’s probably question 2.

2) In men’s perfumery, the 80s as you mentioned were characterised powerhouse scents, the nineties all those ozonic/water scents etc, and I’m wondering if you are noticing a new masculinity appearing with today’s men’s fragrances? If so, how would you sum it up and how does it differ from previously?

I think to some extent it’s more of the same. Though the extremes of the aquatic movement are disappearing, it’s still very much there. Acqua di Gio shows no sign of diminishing in popularity. Interestingly though, younger scent wearers seem drawn to sweeter, occasionally more gourmand fragrances, just as younger women are. It’s where the impact of Mugler’s ethyl maltol rich Angel meets the 90s citruses. And it’s the influence of JPG’s Le Male, a scent, that whilst not a favourite of mine, bucked the watery lemon mode of much of the 90s. So Paco Rabanne’s Black XS has a surprisingly fruity sweet accord, yet it’s marked out by the throaty rasp of some masculine aromachemicals - the only things really that indicate masculinity. Likewise with Clinique’s Happy, which could be entirely unisex if it weren’t for the same hint of growl.

More interestingly, there’s a fairly recent exploration of softer scents for men in mainstream releases (I’m not going to go on here about niche scents which are generally not targeted by gender, and have been doing all this stuff for a while longer) - so JPG’s Fleurs de Male and Dior’s Fahrenheit 32 are both milky orange blossom scents, although clearly screaming ‘I’m synthetic’ rather than ‘I’m a natural flower child, gender neutral’. For me, the most exciting is Dior Homme, though I think this might be a one-off rather than a trend (cf. Fahrenheit). It blends a bergamotty opening onto a wonderful synthetic iris and uses gourmand notes with subtlety and flair. Wonderful work by Oliver Polge. Where masculines go will very much depend on how much perfumers voices are heard, rather than those of designers - Hedi Slimane seems to have given a lot more creative freedom to Polge than most designers do. And that’s why we get something that breaks the mill the others continue to run on.

Get back to me on this one if I haven’t answered your question!

3) What are your favourite men’s fragrances? (You can be as personal or objective here as you like!)

Can I give you some favourites by time period?

Favourite early men’s scent - Jicky by Guerlain (1889). Named after Guerlain’s nephew, not an Englishwoman as Guerlain the company would lead you to believe. Go for the parfum de toilette if you can find it. Startlingly contemporary with a gasp-inducing use of animal notes which make this scent hover between the cleanliness of citrus and lavender and the dirtiness of your dark desires…
Chanel pour Monsieur 1955 (perfumerHenri Robert) - suited elegance, bottled.
Eau Sauvage by Dior 1956 (perfumer Edmond Roudnitska)- a wonderful citrus accord balanced against the use of hedione, a synthetic jasmine note. Classically male, yet pretty similar to his women’s Diorissimo.

Favourites from the 70s, 80s, 90s:
Jules by Dior (1980) - thrusting virility done right. It may smell a little dated, but this leathery rich beast is somehow mellow and understated rather than in-your-face. But don’t over-apply!
Fahrenheit (1988) - a unique scent that you’ll always remember once you’ve smelled it. Sublime.
Lolita Lempicka au Masculin 2000 perfumer Annick Menardo A chilly but sweet gourmand scent that moves from aniseed to more familiar woody territory as it dries down.
Terre d’Hermes 2006 perfumer Jean Claude Ellena - cedar, vetiver and grapefruit alongside some strange mineral accord - a contemporary classic. Perfumeposse writer Patty calls it crack in a bottle.
Dior Homme 2005 perfumer Oliver Polge - 21st century elegance. Some men say it smells like the inside of a handbag, but that might be why women love it on men…
Oh, and just one niche - Le Labo Patchouli 24 (available in Liberty) by perfumer Annick Menardo - smells like someones baking a vanilla cake in a car mechanic’s garage whilst a bonfire’s fumes are blowing in through the open window. Awesome stuff.”

Now, share with us your favourite men’s designer scents. Let’s have a range of options up for us all to choose from…

Other than some continuing laryngitis - may I say that I really love the huskiness of my voice right now as long as I stay in the low registers, don’t try to raise my voice and squeak, which really spoils the sex kitten voice vibe I’d like to have - I’m slowly returning to some semblance of health that includes a hacking cough from time to time and still diminished lung capacity - but improving! Well… that was sure fun.

My nose is working properly again, and it’s time to look at a couple of new things. Indult C16 is a new release, available only at Colette in Paris for about $250 for 50 mls, plus shipping. Created by Francis Kurkdjian, It is meant to evoke the smell of Tonkin musk. I’m assuming this is not the real deal, but a chemical recreation. It strikes me on first sniff as one that you will either hate (my sister’s reaction), love as a close skin scent, but not particularly groundbreaking (my reaction) or possibly love as the best musk ever (I don’t have a third tester here, but can see someone feeling this way). It is musk, and it appears that there may be some anosmic elements at play. On me, I don’t get any bad smell at all, like my sister gets, just this very soft skin-hugging musk that’s my skin but better. I think it’s wonderful, but given the varying reaction so far, I’m afraid I’m not smelling all of it and if I wear it out, I might be shunned – so I need more people to tell me what they smell because it seems to be either a direct hit or a direct miss. YNMV. If you love musk, it’s likely worth a try. It is limited to 213 bottles at Colette, though once you buy a bottle, you can get refills for, I guess, forever.

Comme des Garcons Hinoki has notes of Cypress, turpentine, camphor, cedar, thyme, pine, Georgian wood, frankincense, moss and vetiver. This goes on ultra-woody and with the tang of the turpentine and camphor buzzing through your nose like a mentholated bullet. CdG’s incense series has long been a big favorite of mine, and I admire each of them for how they are different from the other, but hanging together as incense through and through. Hinoki feels like a piece of that set, focusing very much on the woody side of incense, but with a rich loaminess overlaying it, like a moss-covered tree. It never loses that tang throughout the drydown, though it does settle down the longer it is on. Even though it’s not officially part of the incense series, I think it belongs there and is a good addition, not like any of the other five, though touching on several of them.

In celebration of my slow return to health, let’s do a drawing for a sample of each of these. Just drop a comment, and I’ll draw a winner or two next week.

When I read on Now Smell This about Australian niche house Tommi Sooni’s fragrance debut – a chypre called Tarantella, targeted at women age 25+ and inspired by a walled garden in Avignon full of native plants from Sicily – I was thrilled. It sounded like a far cry from most of the new batch of releases here in the U.S., and I’m a sucker for a classic-style perfume. So I emailed and asked for a sample of the fragrance, named after the Sicilian dance. The only remaining question being: was it any good?

The notes for Tarantella are neroli, galbanum, aldehydes, Sicilian mandarin, muguet, orris, rose, frangipani, Egyptian jasmine, clove, laurel, honey, leather, amber, oakmoss, sandalwood.

Looking at that list gives you an idea of the classic form of the fragrance, and while it is sensual, it’s a spill of ruffles more in the direction of Balenciaga Le Dix than something more dark (Jolie Madame) or imposing (Diorella). The galbanum and muguet give Tarantella a cool, green opening, and I find the aldehydes to be extremely moderated, so if you don’t love them, you don’t have much to fear here.

Reviewing the company’s marketing materials, I was worried the green notes and the “Sicilian flora” were going to translate into a sharp, herbaceous opening popular in some green chypres, the sort you get with bergamot, clary sage and/or a lot of citrus (and here’s lookin’ at you, Aromatics Elixir and Ma Griffe). Even from the opening, the rose, frangipani and jasmine set the tone with a playful, sensual sweetness. I admire Aromatics Elixir and Ma Griffe rather than enjoy them, so I was happy. The spice notes appear after a few minutes, the aldehydes fade and the green notes become more muted but still present, and at that point, 15 or 20 minutes in, the fragrance reaches a balance between its elements of green, floral, and chypre. The leather is soft and cured rather than bitter, and its arrival is quiet. It’s a smooth fragrance, and over the course of the next several hours it fades as a whole, rather than leaving me with just the base notes.

There’s nothing “light” about Tarantella, but it has a youthful charm. It adheres to a classic type while possessing a modern, unfussy feel. I think it’s lovely, a fragrance that would fit in with, say, the Teo Cabanel line. If you like your chypre on the soft, pretty side (more Molinard, less Sisley), this would be a fine one to try.

Tarantella is an EDP ($165 Australian) available from Peony Melbourne. I got a sample by emailing Tommi Sooni here.

Dancing the tarantella: virtualitalia.com; Tommi Sooni Tarantella, tommisooni.com

And furthermore …. Allure does it again! The current issue with Mariah Carey on the cover (and Mariah, call your lawyers, because that photo is terrible) has an excerpt from the eagerly anticipated Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, with a taste of the reviews (quick — what’s the relationship between Tommy Girl and Mariage Freres?), and an article with Sophia Grojsman telling us how to apply fragrance, and a short on berry-note perfumes that manages to cover Teo Cabanel’s stellar Julia. There must be somebody over there who’s really interested in fragrance.

As promised, y’all get to participate in my eyelash extension session from Thursday.

Background — I am fair complected, blonde hair, and my eyelashes are almost blonde as well. Not blonde enough that they stand out a little, but just enough that they fade right into my eyeline, so nothing frames my eyes.  Compound that with having lashes to curl down below the line of the eye.  For me to even appear to have eyes with a nice little eyelash fringy frame, it requires about three coats of mascara, much curling, some conditioner, and even then… did I mention my eyelashes are really fine?  Yes, mascara does not like to stick, so it starts peeling off midway through the day.  Disheartening.  I actually have pretty great eyes other than that -  it’s one of my favorite features.  The lack of eyelashes without slathering on a lot of chemical goo suuuuucks. 

 For some idea of what my lashes look like, go here and look at the before and after pictures eight down from the top.  Not me, but that’s pretty close to my befores and afters.  I would take snaps, but I’ve had acute bronchitis all week, and even with pretty lashes, I am not looking very spiffy yet.  BTW, my doc did concoct me a killer phenergan/codeine cough syrup that is knocking me out a little at night so I’m getting just a tidge of sleep– blessedly.  I thought I was going to have to cancel my appointment this morning or give it to my sister (she was gleeful) because of my nonstop coughing, but my Lung-shushing Elixir worked its magic, and I made it through the two hours without hacking my lungs up.

I had heard about eyelash extensions from my hair stylist since they do it at her salon, thought it sounded pretty nifty, but just never seriously considered doing it until recently.  Two reasons finally made me fork over the $250 to get them done – 1) with my fair complexion, mascaras just wind up looking harsh on my mildly aging face, and 2) I really pretty much hate wearing mascara, always have and wind up going without most of the time and looking like I have no eyes. 

Lisa went over the process, what to expect, how long it would take, we decided to do a mix of black and brown lashes because I was afraid all black may be too harsh, but I wanted enough color that they would pop up.  She got me all settled down on her table, put some cooling doohickeys under my eyes, some tape to pull my eyelids up a little, and my eyes stayed closed the entire time.  She went back and forth from eye to eye putting on one lash at a time.  It’s a tedious process, and it will take a couple of hours for a full set (you can’t do your bottom lashes, nothing to grab on to.  How full/long/thick you can go depends on your natural lashes.  They have to have enough structure to support the extension.  So if you have really thin, fine lashes, don’t expect to get glam lashes. 

Just having someone working on your eye like that can be irritating. My eyes are a little sensitive to begin with, and they are still sick, so while they aren’t all red and irritated now, they do feel a bit mishish - getting better as the day goes on.

They are perfect, not too much, not over the top like false eyelashes can be, you can’t tell they are extensions; my eyes get a nice frame that they deserve, no mascara necessary. The upkeep?  Well, you have to go get a refill once every three weeks, which runs 50-65 normally, depending on how many lashes you want added back in.

It is a spendy procedure, and for people with dark lashes or no aversion to mascara, I wouldn’t recommend it just on the cost factor. If you have fine lashes, hard to see, and you hate mascara or it doesn’t stick to your lashes long and your budget can handle it, I think it’s a great way  to look great right out of bed in the morning.

Next time… I’m thinking maybe a little color, like a dark eggplant or navy blue, which is softer on the eyes.

Today’s post evolved from my most recent fragrance acquisition, a swap on MUA that (small world) turned out to be with a Gail, a blog regular. Gail shares my fondness for comfort scents and included several interesting things in her package, which got me headed in a new direction.

Yves Rocher Neonatura Cocoon – okay, I see what appeals. I really do. But this is two or three tiny baby steps too far in the direction of Angel to delight me – I really bring the patch out. It is, to be sure, a much quieter, more streamlined composition of chocolate, vanilla and patch, and any of you who love that cocoa-patch dynamic should check it out.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH) – the focus of the rest of today’s post. The DSH line is enormous. How enormous? The reviews of her scents on MUA go on for 21 pages at 15 fragrances per page. You do the math; it’s crazy, right? Going on her website is so overwhelming I never end up ordering anything. The company’s based in Boulder, and a lot (all?) of the scents come with ancillary bath/body products. Thus, many of the scents are of the attractive-but-not-earth-shatteringly-complex type you might like in a body lotion. I can’t speak to the breadth of DSH styles – she does dupes and vintage type scents, and various “inspired by” fragrances. I have also read that she knows her way around roses.

To my nose, something she does really well is a particular style of comfort scent. Pick some combo of: woods, incense, vanilla or clean musk, spices, rice steam, subtle florals … you get the picture. Her gourmand, woods and spice scents have a wearable seamlessness to them. They are not particularly sweet, and they are not “foody” – even her highly popular Café Noir, while smelling very much of coffee, isn’t something you’d want to drink. The equally wonderful Cimabue, a riff on L’Artisan’s Safran Troublant, is chock full of spices, but you wouldn’t mistake it for something to eat. Anyhoo, here are some comfort scents from her line, which I am enjoying right now as chilly, blustery weather will not loosen its freaking grip in my neck of the (still leafless) woods…

Blond Suede. Bergamot, spice notes, violet, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, hay absolute, orris, amber, castoreum, honey, leather, sandalwood. There is exactly one review of this on MUA, and I ask you – where the heck are the other 85?!? This stuff is great. From the website: “While most leather scents are deep and overtly’ animalic’, Blond Suede is wonderfully light and subtly textured.” Blond Suede is a reasonable facsimile of suede; there’s that light buttery leather-goods note, and the faint tinge of pepper to give you the texture. But the beauty of the scent from my perspective is the other note that sneaks in a few minutes later — a dead ringer for the divine maple-hay-curry goodness of immortelle. I have no idea whether DSH was aiming for immortelle, or maybe it’s a trick of some combination of the honey, hay and spice notes, but why quibble about perfection? Blond Suede is, essentially, gentle spices, suede and immortelle – soft, velvety and comforting.

St. Valentine. Bergamot, nutmeg, Parma violet, Bulgarian rose, centifolia rose, raspberry, tea rose, amber, Bourbon vanilla, dark chocolate, French vanilla. This smells like a softer, incense-free, easier-to-wear version of S-Perfume’s 100% Love. Mostly chocolate, vanilla, roses and a pinch of violet. Having overdosed awhile ago on 100% Love, this wasn’t pure love for me, but the husband, two friends, and the girls adored it.

Mahjoun. Bitter almond, cardamom, cherry blossom, lavender, lemon, sweet orange, Bulgarian rose, fig, hazelnut, honey, nutmeg, orange blossom, sugar date, amber, Atlas cedarwood, cinnamon bark, clove bud, frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh. Comfort scent par excellence. I’d compare it to Chergui (okay, okay, minus Serge’s special je ne sais quoi sauce), only the drydown’s deeper and missing the honeyed amber sweetness of Chergui that sometimes makes me feel a bit ill. Much less sweet and smoother than you might gather from that list of notes; darkly spicy but restrained about it. Layers beautifully with …

Sienna. Cinnamon leaf, curry leaf, pink peppercorn, basmati, cinnamon bark, honey, white oak, civet, labdanum, leather, peru balsam, tolu balsam. This gets dissed as “not enough” on the boards, and I’d say that’s part of its charm. It’s a subtle scent, I grant you. It’s the level of subtlety you reach for when you want your scent to be discreet; the cinnamon is not blasting up your nose, and the rest is a faintly spicy resinous scent. Sometimes that is precisely what I want. Layers beautifully with Blond Suede, giving it a subtly sweet cinnamon/spice kick.

Having tried these, here is the list of ones I really want to try next: Chai Tea, Gingembre, Prana, Au Lait, Ceylon, Tamarind/Paprika, Lumiere, Poivre, Indochine, and Piment/Chocolate. Note the mellow, gourmand theme there. If you’ve tried any of those or any of the other DSH line and would like to comment, or add to my list, please do so.

On another subject: We (and you) do a fair amount of grumbling on this blog about how we wish fragrance came in smaller sizes. I was in Sephora recently when I noticed the limited edition set of Kenzo Amour bottles (below), which – come on! – are the cutest things – I think 3” - 4″ tall? (Guessing.)  When looking for a photo on their website, I see they now have a two sections (airplane-friendly and petite) devoted to smaller sized bottles or bottle sets.

Granted, this is generally mass-market stuff — what is Sephora if not mass market? But I’d love a little bottle of the Omnia Crystalline, those Kenzos, and some others. I think this is a great marketing strategy by Sephora; on average their consumers are younger and less well-heeled than those at, say, Nordstrom, and they’re probably more likely to buy a $35 fragrance than a $70 one. Or they’ll do what I’d do – spend the $70 and get two fragrances. I also like the small bottles because they’re easy to throw in a purse or a travel bag. My (perhaps completely meritless) hope is other retailers notice the small bottles sell and try to work something similar out with their own inventory.

chai tea image: everythingcoffee-tea.com; Kenzo Amour, Sephora.com

Okay, I’m dashing in today. Training teachers, writing curriculum material, implementing improvement plans - I have no room left for work folks! I’m all about the smells and the plants, people. Wish my bank would understand. So work it is, and hence the brief(ish) post today.

I’m a positive person. Us Brits don’t always do positive in quite the same way as our more upbeat American cousins do, but I’m pretty much at the ‘Rah! Rah! Yay!’ end of the spectrum really. And I normally have only good things to say about scents. So, for a little bit of variety, and seeing as I have next to nothing to say about new scents right now (secret - I haven’t been wearing much, as so busy with the gardening stuff - such a Brit stereotype), I thought I might slam into a few I truly hate.

I don’t hate many things in life really - I’m you’re live and let live sort. Whilst not exactly laissez-faire, I always try to see where something’s coming from and give it some room for manoeuvre. Hating’s a little too strong for me, most days. Hey, I might not like it, but someone surely does. And that’s good enough. And hate - it’s such bad karma, dude. I’d rather the positive than the negative hyperbole, any day.

However, there are a few things that even for placid ole me bring out the nasty side. And I’m not talking designer scents either - I can’t really think of any that I feel strongly enough about to hate… I’m talking my niche nasties, my leprous disasters of limited distribution, my … you get the picture. I’m not even talking those things you love to sniff because their repulsiveness fascinates you. I’m talking those things that make you shudder, scents that are abject horror, perfumes to make you puke, fragrances that are flagrant abuses of olfaction.

And here they are. Apologies if you love these; I don’t (secret - I don’t know how anyone can. Please explain). You can tell me your hates straight after. We can still be friends.

Lorenzo Villoresi Incensi. Quite simply vile. Bitter, cold, messy, an abhorrent cacophony of notes. I never knew an incense could be worse than Messe de Minuit, but here it is. I love cinnamon, I enjoy incense, but here this foul brew conjures up a Satanic anti-sacrament in which I’d rather be eviscerated than have to sniff it again. Knocks his Piper Nigrum - top notes might be great but wait for the murky sludge of the drydown - into the shade in terms of awfulness.

Montale Musk to Musk. Delightful commenter grizzlesnort sent me a decant of this, and I pray I won’t offend you too much, J, by saying ‘thank you for the reminder’. I mean thank you by the way - it’s good to have a baseline for what a terrible musk fragrance can smell like. I had a small sample of this a while back that I seemed to lose. This decant reminded me of how exceptionally powerful a scent-related shudder can be. Oh my. It’s aldehydic and white musky, with a dank fleshrottiness underneath all that ‘pwitty pwitty’. It’s putrescence purtied up. Like a well-rotted corpse in lipstick and rouge.

Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Jardin du Nil. Basenotes is down right now so I can’t access the reviews. But they’re worth reading. The MPetG site says of this bejewelled bilgebroth, “Returning from a voyage to Egypt, after having discovered mint and geranium rosa crops in the Nile Delta, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier created Jardin du Nil. The refinement of geranium, rose and jasmine is added to a fresh top note of hesperides, on amber, patchouli and vetiver warm notes.’ Guys, you should’ve just stuck some flowers in old water for a few days and sniffed the results. Unwearable. Unless you’re decaying brown silt sitting on a pond liner.

Over to you!

Finger image from ezthemes.com.

This winter has been brutal as far as this flu/cold thing.  I’ve been flirting with having it several times, sick a little bit for a few days, but not in the same over the top, horrible way everyone else in my family has wound up with it.

The damn thing finally ran me to the ground this week, wrapping me in that thermal dance that seems to be impossible - shivering everywhwere, but your head is burning up.  Little rumbling hacking, tight cough starts somewhere in the bottom of your lungs and it’s…. oh, no!  This is really gonna suck.  You have that moment of surrender when you know there’s just no avoiding this germy bullet, time to pull out all the Jane Austen and Lord of the Rings DVDs.

Much as I’d like to be sniffing some perfumes and writing about them, instead I’m only fit to describe the homey comfort of the smell of Ben-Gay.    When we were sick as kids - and I was sick all the time - my mom would smear Ben-Gay on our chests, give us a hot toddy (little whiskey, honey and hot water), put cloths on top of the stove, heat them up, pack them on our chests, get another ocloth heated up, change it out for the first one, and keep doing that until the skin of your chest was approximately the temperature of the sun,  Then we’d be packed off to bed.  Sometime during the night, we would sweat and cough and hack and the fever would break, we were cool once again and on the mend.

I don’t do the hot towels on my chest anymore because I don’t have one of those old farm stoves to heat it up on, but the Ben-Gay is a staple.  One whiff of that pungent nasal-clearing concoction feels like home and mom and love - the one person in the world who loves you in a way no one else ever will.

As for that hot toddy, I think I’m going to just go for a Tuaca and Coke instead.  Drink a cold, starve a fever? 

Something to look forward to this week or next – my vanity tour continues.  Next up is eyelash extensions.  Being blond  has some good things about it, but it also means my lashes have always been light and almost impossible to see.  Add on to that using mascara for 40 years, and they are thin as lady bug wings right now.  So I’m heading to the eyelash store to get a nice, full set of lashes.  Anyone else done that? Then the next thing I’m toying with is the eyeliner tattoo. A friend of mine did that, and they look great, but she said it took a lot of tequila before she had it done, and even then, it hurt like heck.  Advice? 

On its website Strange Invisible Perfumes describes itself as purveying “botanical fragrances and artisanal products” developed by Alexandra Balahoutis. The site doesn’t go on and on about SIP’s mission, at least that I could see, a fact that pleases me. So far as I’m concerned, their mission is to make something I’d enjoy wearing.

Vine – this is the weird one, right? Notes are black currant, lavender, osmanthus and grapefruit, and it’s a parfum. From their website: “Vine’s whispering decadence is evocative of red wine, black currant and lavender. Provenance: the intricate, sublime yet often cruel duality of nature and the unforeseen appetite of innocence. Character: ambrosia, poised, decadent.”

Um … okay, my balderdashometer just revved (although it didn’t redline – seriously, read that stuff every day and you build up some tolerance.) Anyway, Vine has a fruity, musky scent inside a larger smell that reminds me very much of the Elephant House at the National Zoo. From me, that’s a compliment. It’s an earthy, animal smell, dungy but not really unpleasant. It reminds me a bit of a JAR in its strength, liquor-like smoothness and overall peculiarity – it’s like a warmer, fruitier Ferme tes Yeux (the barnyard one, and apologies if I spelled that wrong). As you go deeper into the drydown I get an outstanding cured tobacco note. I’m giving this two large mammalian opposable thumbs up.

Lady Day – this one I think isn’t on their website, you have to call and ask. It’s the gardenia one. Patty said the notes are lemon verbena, blood orange, jasmine and sandalwood. Here’s her extensive review. I get the citrus-y opening, and the gardenia weaves itself in and out – it pops in, fades, and when it’s not there you’ve got a lovely green jasmine, no cheese note, nothing particularly indolic going on here, a little woods. I’m gonna quote Patty, who put it beautifully: “There is a richness to this perfume, hinting at dark longing, mixed with regret, but never toppling over into the abyss of despair. It is lush, almost too ripely indulgent at times, but manages to pull back before the serious decay sets in. Mostly, it is beautiful and has sillage that wafts gently around you - a soft, rich, velvety sillage. Exquisite, unique and haunting.”

Smelling it in the first ten minutes, I was verklempt – it’s one of those rare perfumes that make me cry. Malle En Passant and Serge Lutens’ Encens et Lavande have the same effect on me, and Teo Cabanel Julia did a little bit, too. En Passant is wistful; EetL is exquisitely mournful, like a rainfall in a cathedral graveyard in the spring. Julia is innocence of youth at the moment before it becomes knowing. Lady Day is sensual and celebratory and heartbreakingly sad. Lord, I do go on, don’t I? Hand me a Kleenex.

Heroine – Duh, I always thought this was “Heroin,” which I thought was a skeevy name for a fragrance, so I’m pleased to discover I was wrong. Notes are ginger, tuberose, frangipani, opoponax and Moroccan cedarwood. It’s murky on me at the start – kind of a mishmash of tropical flowers and wet mud – but give it a few and the ginger and opoponax shove the whole hot mess in the direction of a peppery, resinous floral. I wish the flowers were less present on me and the ginger were stronger; I find it a tad sweet, and it’s less interesting than Vine or Lady Day. Having said that, it’s very pretty, yet just enough off-kilter (there’s a wet, green, earthy note in there) that it’s not dull.

Black Rosette – proving once again that I don’t like rose unless you freak it up a little. Black Rosette is saved for me by the addition of leather and mint. The opening is just … very peculiar. It smells like a cross between artemisia and camphor. It’s medicinal but not unpleasant, I kind of like it. After the camphor fades I get a very leathery rose, but the rose itself is kind of new and green – that florist-fridge-rose smell never leaves, like a rose version of Tuberose Criminelle. I wouldn’t wear it, it’s not me, but I think it’s beautifully done.

Heroine lasted a little less than average on me (4 – 5 hours). Lady Day had a charming way of fading and reappearing suddenly over the course of 8 hours, like being haunted by a particularly lovely ghost. Black Rosette lasted most of the day before riding off into the sunset. Vine lasted, I kid you not, 36 hours on the back of my hand (which means: through many handwashings). I was thrilled, but if you hate it, consider yourself warned. I tried only parfums, and don’t know whether the EDPs wear differently. These had excellent sillage on me, with a little going a long way. I’m impressed with these, and I’m going to explore more of the line on my next trip to New York. They weren’t quite as bizarre as I expected, which was fine. Vine and Lady Day were a trip well worth taking. If any of you have particular recommendations from the line, I’d like to hear them.

Image: rothkochapel.org

Chandler Burr has trashed the new release Chloe in his reviews - in writing  and in person - so when it showed up as a sample in a Sak’s order, I thought… well, let’s give it a whirl and see if I agree or not. The little sniff I had before was on paper, and that tells me next to nothing.  Notes of peony, lychée, freesia, rose, magnolia, lily of the valley, amber and cedar wood.  Peony is a note I adore in everything, so I should be pre-disposed to liking this.  It goes on like a floral dud.  Seems big and then just bursts, scatters into nothing very interesting at all.  There’s almost the smell of bug spray in there.  Must be a synthetic note that’s just off in my nose.  But with that, and with the proviso that a note may be coloring the whole thing for me, this is awful.  It’s mushy with no definition, just a big ole floral soup.  Gah.

Now, why do we have the Vanity picture?  Well, I treated myself today to the first in a series of 3-5 IPL photofacials.  I used to be out in the sun a lot when I was a kid, either working on the farm or later just sunbathing trying to get as dark a tan as my very fair, English skin could manage.  Over the years, capillaries broke, there was a lot of underlying sun damage on my face, which is kinda cute when you’re young.  As I now am within spitting distance of that major age milestone, the ruddiness on my cheeks/nose was just bugging me.  I kept putting off doing the IPL (intense pulsed light) because it is costy and unnecessary, and it really doesn’t add anything to my life or my worth or well-being… except, well, I wanted to be able to once again run around without any foundation on my face and not feel/look like the ruddy washwoman fresh from the steamy suds. 

Listen, if you have rosacea or broken capillaries or acne scars or just a really uneven skin tone that makes you feel not as fresh-faced as you would like or that you always have to have your face on before you exit the house… go.now.do.IPL. Save your pennies, take out a second mortgage on your house, just do it.  With one treatment, even with the little pinkness the first day, my complexion looks clear as a bell, fresh, youthful.   I can’t even imagine what 2-4 more treatments will do, but I absolutely will be able to not even bother putting on foundation -  just throw on some eyeshadow and mascara and be done with it.  

What is the treatment like? It’s a little annoying.  You get all trussed up on your cot, they put on goggles, then she just pulses your skin with the laser.  It feels like a little bit of a rubber band snapping your skin.   The first few minutes are annoying, but then you get used to it.  When they are going over the more sensitive areas around your nose, cheeks, with the most damage, then it can get really annoying, but it doesn’t take long.  The forehead is the weirdest, because even with the goggles, you get the bright red light somewhere in your optical area - a strange sensation.  Takes about 60 minutes from start to finish.

Am I vain?  Not really.  And just a little.  Yes, those two opposites can live in perfect tension.  Nothing in me wants to be young again, I’m just not ready to be old.

How much vanity can a woman live with once she gets to a certain age, and how much aging does she have to put up with so she doesn’t become a cartoon character of herself?  This goes for men, too, because I know more and more men are doing cosmetic procedures.  How do we know when we’ve gone too far?

Warning: today is a really long post. Get your coffee first. This post was supposed to be an experiment, a rapid-fire sequence of impressions of a much-admired line I hadn’t tried yet, and will now remain nameless, a small perfumer. The scents are not me, and we’ll leave it at that. There’s a mini-review of something else at the end, you can skip ahead if you want, no hard feelings.

Instead, I’m going to post some notes I’ve been kicking around related to a post Robin did recently on Now Smell This, which I’ve been thinking about ever since I read it. I made some notes for this in the middle of the night. The link to her very interesting post is here, and the comments raise some good points too. The gist of it is, everyone has different tastes and she’s defending people’s right to like whatever they want (in part due to her own discomfort when she dismisses something popular, and people justify/apologize for their seemingly poor taste) but really it’s far more nuanced than that.

So. Here are my related thoughts triggered by her post, which I haven’t refined. And I invite your opinions and arguments as I flesh it out in my mind. Apologies for any typos or poor editing.

Classic perfumes are often admired for their structure – their composition, their architecture, their bones. Scents like Mitsouko or Jicky, or random Carons, can be discussed ad nauseam from the perspective of what they’ve added to perfumery, the characteristics that make them masterpieces, whatever. I love Mitsouko, and a lot of people don’t, and even I can see how difficult it can be. Mitsouko is to me a perfect example of the sort of fragrance about which one would say, I don’t care for it, but I admire it very much. Classic perfumes often become inextricably entertwined with their famous creators (Daltroff, Beaux, etc.). You are invited to admire the creation, to revel in it, even. But it does not bend itself to your whims — you must do the accommodating.

If classic perfumery is about the scent itself, then current mass market perfumery is more about the wearer. You may like Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue, or you may not, but I think most of us would agree: a) however you feel about it personally, Light Blue’s engineered to be appealing to a broad spectrum of people; and b) it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get into a conversation about the level of complexity of the construction of Light Blue in the same way you could talk about Mitsouko. (Here I will stop to argue with myself: at some point many of the “classic” fragrances of the past, like Ma Griffe, *were* the popular perfumes.) Mass market perfumery has its nuance – maybe it is supposed to make you feel sporty, or reflective, or happy, or be more successful on your booty calls, but ultimately you (or you, only better) are the focus.

Current niche perfumery falls somewhere in between (or combines both?) the focus on the scent and its wearer, and ranges to either end of the spectrum. I think I could argue convincingly that Serge Lutens did not release, say, Borneo 1834 thinking that it was going to be a blockbuster hit and make SL a household name. Some SLs are pretty (Rousse, Clair de Musc); some are not. Malle has some strange ones as well, although they can flirt with a popular concept and amplify it in interesting ways (Lipstick Rose, Une Rose.) Often, niche fragrances seem to be both about themselves and their relationship to you. Are you cool enough, or rich enough, or informed enough in terms of access? (Non export Serge Lutens, locally released Le Labo). Given the internet and the ingenuity of perfume fans, this hasn’t stopped many of us from, say, trying those limited releases, even if we’ve never been to Paris or Dallas. I wonder how much of our attraction to something begins with its inaccessibility. I also wonder how much the perfumers are in on the game. Do they erect obstacles for us to overcome? Do they know, or care, that we spread these things around?

Over the last couple of years, my admiration for some mass market and classic scents has increased, while my admiration for some of the niche houses popping up like mushrooms has waned. Okay, I hate x% of mass market women’s perfume, mostly because it’s too sweet and smells like something my daughter might like – I think of them as Barbie scents. But some of the niche stuff sucks too, not to put too fine a point on it. I’m going to pick on the By Kilians for a minute – which by the way do not suck, poor transition on my part. Kilian Hennessy is hot, and he’s also an heir to the Hennessy cognac family, which the fragrances tie into loosely (e.g., cask packaging, some of the notes.) I smelled these at Aedes, and they’re nice. Seriously, they’re really nice, and they smell expensive, however you want to define it. The packaging is gorgeous, and if you’re a packaging nut, you’re probably damp with desire, gazing at these. I think we’ve all had our little chuckle over By Kilian working its way from Rimbaud to Snoop Dogg in the marketing material, and I believe By Kilian at least partly inspired Robin’s Le Prix Eau Faux competition (where you make up laughably absurd perfume marketing material – and good luck competing with the pros on that one, folks.)

At the end of the day I’m left wondering, though, along the same lines as the Big Cheese and I (and a million other people) wondered – what did Eliot Spitzer get, sex-wise, for his five thousand dollars? Some of that dough was an advance on future sex, but still, that’s the big laugh – for five grand, seriously, you need a bigger imagination in bed than I have, and a larger cast of characters than I’m interested in. Apply that argument to niche perfumery – how much is too much? You can buy your own refillable mini-cask of fragrance from By Kilian, but do you need it? On the other hand, do you need any of this stuff?

While I’m dumping all this out of my brain for you to pick through, I’m going to mention Robin’s post on Tommi Sooni Tarantella. I love the fact that they’re producing a chypre for ages 25+ as their debut for their Australian niche line. I don’t find their marketing stuff any more over-the-top than most of what I read. Some of the comments suggested that the company should have made the scent more evocative of Australia rather than a walled garden in Avignon – you know, something they’d know more about. I take issue with this. Is the right to enchant the senses using “foreign” inspirations reserved for the refined noses of the French (and maybe the Italians?) Should perfumer Andy Tauer stop making his masterpiece Lonestar Memories, an amazing riff on America, cattle country and the Southwest, and replace it with something appropriately Swiss, like … edelweiss? Emmentaler? (I guess all that Moroccan stuff is off the table, too.) And what about American perfumers? Should everything American-made smell more like Tommy Girl and less like Donna Karan Black Cashmere or Estee Lauder Azuree? I’m thinking not.

Estee Lauder Azuree – the original from 1969 (basil, jasmine, citrus, artemisia, vetiver, rose, patchouli, oakmoss, amber, musk) They had it at Saks at the Tysons Galleria, so I gave it a whirl. Here, let me quote Rosarita: “My mother was an Aliage lady in the early 70s, but her crustier golfer sister wore Azuree. I remember it was hard to know where the cigarettes & bourbon stopped and the perfume began.” That gives you a pretty good idea of Azuree on the card. The SA insisted that I put it on my skin, and I’m glad I did. The sharp, smoky fizz becomes much more muted on the skin, and while this is a dark, leathery, aromatic chypre (it reminds me a little of Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir) it mellows significantly on the skin, in an interesting way.

Cribbing from the Estee Lauder website: “Azurée was inspired by the blue of the Mediterranean near Mrs. Estée Lauder’s vacation home in Cap d’Antibes, off the coast of France. The scent is radiant and earthy, with the subtle tang of citrus as if carried in from a neighboring orange grove. The feeling is light and sunlit, with a rich warmth.”

I thought the sole “connection” to Tom Ford’s version of Azuree was just the name (a convenient recycle).  Now I am not so sure.  Having smelled the original there is something peculiarly … and I am struggling with this … peculiarly “oceanic” about it. NOT aquatic. But in a way that baffles me, it works as described. Its herbal aspect, and some indefinable note in that drydown, make me think of the coast, and the sea, although seriously, at first sniff, beach is not what you’d think of. You’d think of leathery, tanned ladies at the country club, on the tennis court, smoking between sets. Still, though… I would love to hear from anyone who feels the wind and hears the surf in the background.  If you’d really like to mess with your head, try layering Bronze Goddess (the new iteration of TF Azuree) over the 1969 original.

image: Cap d’Antibes, petanque.org

In As You Like It (one of my favourites, just for the pure gender play frolics of Rosalind as Ganymede), Jacques famously talks of the seven ages of man, in his standard less-than-chirpy terms, the great big sulky drawers. 400 years ago, people’s lives were a lot shorter, and Jacques has men (and it’s avowedly men, folks - no women to be seen) leaping from adolescent love-mooning, to the passion of young adulthood, to a contented and girth expanding middle-age. In modern terms, I’m not sure where the ages fit, though I guess by now I’ve had between three and four of mine. That is, I’ve definitely been a child, an adolescent and a young man. I’m assuming I’m on the cusp of middle age, even though I’m pretty sure I’m right in it, in reality… A smell the coffee moment? Now, strangely, there are three scents which mark out the first three stages of my life, though my ‘fume promiscuity means that no marker exists from now on. So, I know you’re gagging to know. In fact, I hear some of you cry out, ‘So, what are they already?’ Okay, okay, hold your horses…

At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;

First scent memory of any note is my grandfather’s Old Spice. My grandparents had a vanity unit in their bathroom; we didn’t. There wasn’t much in it - some cotton wool, a few prescription medicines, always a brown glass bottle of hydrogen peroxide, white label, old fashioned even in the seventies. I’d sniff it and get that funny hair salon sensation up my nose. But the prize for me was the Old Spice bottle. I would hold the cold bottle as though it was precious porcelain, reimagine the strains of Carmina Burana and the iconic surfer as I lifted the stopper and inhaled that sweetly spiced powdery goodness. My grandfather was a long way from a surfer dude (just as the model in the old ad was too, I now know) yet for the pre-teen me, there was something immeasurably, ineffably, hopelessly cool about this bottled magic. It’s a scent I still adore as much as any niche fancypants work of ‘art’. Good ole mass market genius. The best of the best. Just like my much loved, and much missed, grandpa.

Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

At university, I attempted nerd chic. I bought old suits, wore them rolled up on the legs, above thrift store desert boots. Collarless Edwardian dress shirts, though I never quite got the nerve for the little round collars themselves. My glasses were some new graphite carbonised something or the other. And I was reading several books a week, smoking lots, partying, and generally thinking that no-one as witty or as wonderful as me had existed, really, except for maybe a few of my friends. In moments of doubt, I’d wrap my large camel duffle coat around me (second hand was the done thing, of course) and spray on some more Fahrenheit, confidence restorer that it was. Fahrenheit. The ghost of myself, arrogant young man, a performer without the worries of his allotted time on the stage, an aesthete without an understanding of the cost of aesthetics, a ponce, a frightened child, socially clueless, surviving on guile and a modicum of charm. We all know that feeling… The smell brings these things all back, and yet somehow it’s still wonderful. At times, I don’t like the carapace I wore in my undergraduate folly. I like the man hiding within - he’s a good guy, y’know. He was just too shy to show himself back then. But the carapace that is the startling, and over-familiar, green gasoline and honeysuckle jolt of Fahrenheit, well, that I’ll always love.

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.

My friend Sarah left for Paris as soon as she got her degree, and she’s lived there ever since, now works at the Sorbonne, and is raising two lovely kids with her Basque partner. I still make sporadic visits, but in my twenties, I seemed to be there a lot. She lived on the top floor of an old apartment block in the ‘less fashionable’ end of the Marais, on Rue Vieille du Temple. there were still old-fashioned shops around then - cobblers and keycutters, corner bakers. They’re mainly fancy boutiques now. Whenever Sarah came down her never-ending flights of stairs, the Portuguese housekeeper (oh, Parisian cliches!) would be out in flailings of floral dresses, tabards and dyed black hair, to remonstrate her for some misdemeanour or the other. Sometimes, where she’d stored her bike. Most often, playing music too loudly. We’d listen to rai, Natacha Atlas, and occasionally George Michael. We’d sit on the Ile St. Louis and watch the world and her lover go by. I’d miss Matt, who rarely accompanied me on such jaunts. I guess I’d sigh. Back at the apartment, I’d bathe, and use one of Sarah’s bath oils, scented markers of my times in Paris. My favourite was a Guerlain, but I didn’t really pay attention back then. One day, in my early thirties, I sniffed it once more. It was Eau de Guerlain, and of course I now have the perfume, though not the bath oil (it might have been bubble bath, but that sounds wrong for an epiphany, donchathink?). It’s a citrus begamot herbal eau de cologne, nothing more, nothing less, but the best of its kind. Like youth, it doesn’t last. But unlike youth, you can go back for more whenever you fancy. And that’s some comfort. If I need it. I rarely do.

So tell me. Three scents that are time markers for you in one way or another, fancy as you like or totally dime-to-the-dozen. We’re not proud here.

Georgian illustrations of Jacques’ speech come from http://artoftheprint.com