A bottle of Annick Goutal’s Musc Nomade just landed in my hands… and!

Perfect. 

Created by Isabelle Doyen with Camille Goutal, it has notes of white musks (muscone, angelica, ambrette), tonka bean, almond accents, labdanum, and Bombay wood (a papyrus derivative) *taken from Now Smell This.

Some musks, like Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur, are too sweet or oily.  I like MR, but after a couple of hours, it wears on my nerves.  Some musks like CB Musk Reinvention may be too harsh for most people or too not sweet, relying more on the musk without a lot of varnish. 

Musc Nomade is the perfect musk for me. It has just a little foody input from the ambrette, tonka and almond, laying on a wood, incense and musk base.  It doesn’t shout, but it whispers of sexuality, it shows a little bit of white lace instead of the top of the thong sticking out of the jeans.  There is a softness to it, but with enough musk to not make it dainty or feminine.  It stays close to the skin and smells just like the sun  on your skin — wait, not your skin, someone you love’s skin.

It’s very much a Goutal scent, understated and finished.

Sorry for the short post today, but work, going out for some fun and some insomnia has taken its toll here at the end of the week. So let’s do a giveaway of three samples of the Musc Nomade. Just drop a note in the comments to be entered!

Anyone keeping an eye out for alarming signs indicating the coming of the End Times need look no further than my recent infatuation with some Jo Malone scents. I gave up on Jo Malone quite awhile ago, not too far into my fragrance addiction – somewhere after French Nectarine, Verbena & Lime. Or maybe it was Orange Blossom, Basil & Lavender. I forget. An “edgy” JM scent like Pomegranate Noir was notable to me solely for its stubborn refusal to leave my skin no matter how much I scrubbed.

Then I smelled the new Jo Malone Kohdo Wood Collection at the Sniffa. The Collection contains two fragrances: Dark Amber & Ginger Lily, and Lotus Blossom & Water Lily, and I was stunned to find myself falling for Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. It’s a heavy amber, a Jo Malone, an allegedly limited edition – three strikes against it. I meant to buy some, forgot, and last week I found myself wandering over to Bloomie’s for a new pair of yoga pants and another sniff, because I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

Dark Amber & Ginger Lily is the night-time “sensual” scent of the pair, and features cardamom, pink pepper (which is in everything now, did they pass some law requiring it? not that I’m complaining), ginger, night blooming jasmine, orchid, water lily, rose, black amber, white pepperwood, leather, patchouli, sandalwood and Kyara incense accord. The JM boutique Sales Associate was at lunch when I stopped by, and I was amused at the very nice Chanel SA’s insistence on the “nighttime-only” appropriateness of the Dark Amber – it was pretty clear she thought the circumstances under which you’d want to wear something like that were severely limited. I know some of you have already fallen in love with it. The time of year for its launch seems wrong (it strikes me as a fall scent) but it is a wonderfully smooth, seamless mélange of amber, intense dark florals and woods, creamy, and in my opinion quite a departure from what I have smelled from the line. The incense and spices are strongest at the opening — the incense is lovely in both scents, but I feel obligated to point out that if you’re interested solely because of the incense, this would probably disappoint. I’d describe it as amber/woody with an incense twist. I get more woody incense right at the tail end of the day, after the florals depart. There is a faint odd note like tanning oil or milky coconut that drifts in and out for the first hour before disappearing. I can’t pick out any of the notes listed, and it doesn’t go through a ton of development – it’s warm and rich, and I can’t think of anything else quite like it. If it were a color, it would be a deep red. Contrary to the Chanel SA’s opinion I can see wearing this a lot — it’s sultry by JM standards, I guess, but Poison or Fracas it is not. Having said that, it’s got some decent sillage and might not be the best choice for close quarters at work, particularly if your cube-mate’s idea of heaven is a light citrus cologne.

The Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is the “energizing daytime” scent and includes aquatic notes (horrors!), grapefruit, bergamot, mandarin, lotus blossom, freesia, honeysuckle, water lily, jasmine, incense, amber, sandalwood, musk, aloeswood and guaiac wood. I knew I was buying the Dark Amber but tried on the Lotus Blossom to confirm my lack of interest, and I realized … well, there might be more to the Lotus Blossom than I thought. I put it on the way I hear a normal person wears perfume (squirt on my cleavage, one on the wrists) and went off for my yoga pants and further consideration. Fifteen minutes later I decided I needed a bottle of the Lotus Blossom as well. The citrus comes on fairly strong in the first few minutes, more grapefruit than mandarin, but then it settles into a mildly sweet, watery floral, with a enough of the woods and incense to move it in a more unisex direction and keep it interesting to me. (The aquatic bit isn’t “fresh,” that ironically-named deal-killer that smells sour, like a basket of dirty laundry.) For a relatively light scent it is tenacious – I can smell it on my clothing the following day – and it has the interesting ability to disappear and then suddenly halo around me. I think this would make an excellent, inoffensive work scent. Having discovered its tenacity on fabric, I sprayed my sheets one evening and enjoyed that as well. At $95 for 100ml, it doesn’t fill me with guilt, but you can get 30ml for $50, and anything for $50 is, essentially, free and thus doesn’t count against my perfume budget.

I have many, many scents for cooler weather, but comparatively few I want to smell in a Washington summer. In general, most florals, by the time they reach an appropriate level of lightness for the D.C. heat and humidity, are no longer interesting to me. This leaves a plethora of citrus and tea scents, many of which by definition don’t have huge lasting power. Lotus Blossom is a nice change of pace. This is one of those scents I would love some additional feedback on – I find myself quite hopelessly in its thrall, while at the same time suspecting that it is the perfume equivalent of 7-Up. By the way, they smell delicious layered.

Since I’d clearly lost my mind, and the exceedingly well-trained Jo Malone SA showed back up, I decided to sample some others. Having politely turned down most of the citrus-y JM standards, I accepted a paper strip with White Jasmine & Mint on it – and was, again, smitten. The sharp, sparkling wetness of the mint against the intense, creamy sweetness of a clean jasmine was such a perfect combination I wondered how nobody had tried it before. In The Guide, Tania Sanchez gives it three stars and calls it “an optimistic but crude cologne” (an assessment I agree with, by the way; I have a lot of three-star scents I love) and says is has been done before – and better – in L’Artisan’s The Pour Une Ete. I don’t have a sample here to smell, but my recollection was that the L’Artisan was more about the tea, and less minty. Also, Tania says JM “tries to make everything last longer by throwing in a tenacious musk” which is “vigorous but unnecessary.” To which I respond, and that’s part of what I love about it – L’Artisan lasts about 20 minutes on me. White Jasmine & Mint eventually collapses in on itself and loses its mint after an hour, and then it’s kind of flat. You can’t keep reapplying or you’ll kill yourself eventually with the jasmine. Nonetheless, I see at least a decant in my future.

The Jo Malones are all about layering. I like to layer, but am (perversely) annoyed by a house that deliberately encourages me to do that – shouldn’t their fragrances be good enough to stand alone? They’re just trying to sell more product! This thinking makes no sense, I realize. Anyway, the SA talked about layering the lighter/sweeter scents with some of the scents on the darker end of the spectrum, and if you haven’t tried it already, let me heartily recommend their Wild Fig & Cassis layered with the Black Vetyver Café, which – what kind of idiot am I?!? How have I missed that one? I’ll need some of that this fall, although I’ll test drive it first — tons of complaints about lasting power on Black Vetyver. How’s it work for you? On the other hand, Robin says the Kohdo Wood ones don’t last that long on her either. I must have some sort of freaky, molecular-vacuum-lock skin; I may complain all the time, but it’s seldom about lasting power. All of these lasted a full day (on in the morning; still there at bedtime) on me, and I could still smell them if I sniffed for them in the a.m.

For another take on the scents, please see Robin’s review from yesterday on Now Smell This.

image: jomalone.com

First, I have a new photoblog, and you can find it here.    I took the photo above when we were in NYC, and Judith and I were resting our feet outside of Bendel’s, sniffing the changes in Tom of Finland on our skin.  When we go to Europe the end of May and first half of June, that’s where we’ll upload all our pictures.  Now, I’m pretty new’ish getting back into photography, so don’t expect too much. I did it many years ago in high school… well, okay, decades.  After high school, I didn’t have the money to get my own SLR camera, so dropped the hobby.  When I stumbled back into it recently, I’ve been having a blast seeing the world through a camera lens.

In the future, when there are get-togethers, that’s where we’ll post the photos from those.

The most fabulous discovery I’ve gotten from reading Luca and Tania’s book so far is Yohji  Homme.  Notes of coffee, rum, licorice, cinnamon and leather.  This is probably the most beautifully, wonderfully addictive, warm scent I’ve sniffed in ages.  Jean-Michel Duriez was the perfumer on it, and it is showing up as discontinued, which is just a travesty.  Beautifully blended, it starts out perfectly balanced between those somewhat strong, gourmandy notes, none of them dominating the other, so it really doesn’t feel foody, just like a warm nose hug.  Some of it reminds me of Bond’s New Haarlem, but it’s not as harsh, woodier.  Those of you that hate licorice/anise, well, steer clear of this, chances are you won’t like it.  Either a man or a woman could wear this, but I suspect women like it more than men, though I’d love to snuggy up to a guy wearing it.  I add a very, very enthusiastic two thumbs up for Yohji Homme.

As promised, today’s a revisit of Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, now that more of you have had a chance to read it. For my earlier review of the book, click here. I propose a free-for-all discussion of any aspects of the book that interest you, with the gentle reminder that we are all adults, theoretically, and we can disagree and still maintain some civility. Please don’t make me come on here and moderate.

The Guide has been a hot topic and occasional source of hard feelings since its release. Obviously I don’t agree with everything in it. My personal approach is the grain-of-salt angle; if I’m in agreement with LT and TS, well, then – we are all genius. If I’m in disagreement – someone is wrong, and it isn’t me, is it? I’m grateful someone thought the topic was of sufficient interest to publish a book on it, and I welcome any converts to the brave new world of perfume obsession. Lurkers – today may be the day to let your hair down and post your first comment! I’m also sending a shout-out to Mercedes and other commenters on The Guide over the past couple of weeks to reiterate your criticisms.

I probably spend a little time each day, often before bed, browsing the book. I’ve folded down the corners of various pages, with the earmarked perfume reviews falling into three general categories, and here are a few examples:

Vindication. I’m going to leave aside reviews of classics like Chanel No. 5 and Mitsouko, which would have shocked me had they awarded anything less than five stars. More rewarding to me is to see scents I think of as underdogs get a little love from the authors. This is especially true when my admiration for a particular scent comes with a small but (I’m being honest here) persistent fear that my love for that scent indicates I have crappy taste. Gucci Rush would fall into this category. It’s a wonderful, weird, brash scent – warmly human but surreal, hairspray and milk. Having TS award it five stars (“… it smells so new, so confident, so reckless, so of-the-moment, Rush manages at every stage to feel cozy and alive…”) gives me an absurd amount of pleasure. A different kind of vindication is seeing LT give Serge Lutens Rousse two stars and call it “one fine mess” from “the periode bizarre.” Heh. Another example is Dior’s Hypnotic Poison (four stars, LT), the “almond” Poison, which I’m wild for, almost as much as the original, and which LT describes as “dark, velvety and autumnally muted, and … radiates in a way that only a great perfumer could have arranged… it was done by Annick Menardo, which explains everything.”

Provocation. Having the authors pan something I like, or love something I hate, doesn’t send me into the spasms of fury I’ve seen elsewhere on the boards and blogs. My reasoning: if I start with the construct that criticism is opinion, no matter how well- or ill-informed, and I disagree with that opinion – then I guess we have a difference of opinion, and I’m okay with that. I am sure it would feel more personal if I were the actual perfumer (and more about that in a bit), but as someone said elsewhere, if you put your creation out there for public consumption, someone, somewhere is going to hate it. Anyway, LT gives Hermes Hiris one measly star (lots of lame stuff got at least two) and manages to pay Hiris creator (and one of my favorite perfumers) Olivia Giacobetti a backhanded compliment at the same time, lauding two of her other fragrances as “great insofar as she manages to break with her usual manner: delicate florals with a pale, sour note reminiscent of clothes washed with unscented fabric softener.” Yeow, that smarts. And while we’re on the topic of perfumers, LT seems to have his favorites and not-so-favorites. Further, I generalize that he is not a big fan of pared-down, minimalist compositions. I could go on for paragraphs citing examples of ratings I totally disagree with, but will name just a few: Marc Jacobs Men (one star); MoslBuddJewChristHinDao (five stars, and puh-leaze), Serge Lutens Sarrasins (five stars), Secretions Magnifiques (ELd’O, five stars, kill.me.now), Apothia Velvet Rope (one star.)

Revelations. Perhaps my favorite part of the book, these are reviews of fragrances I have tried that highlight some aspect I hadn’t noticed or appreciated. Or, they are fragrances I haven’t tried and now want to try, desperately. A random sampling from My Must-Retry list:

L’Artisan Vanilia (“unfettered, hilarious, boisterous, totally devoid of chic” – that last bit is a compliment in context.) LT gives it five stars and makes it sound like a riot, which I totally missed.

L’Artisan Patchouli Patch – four stars from LT and an ode to its development, which he says includes my BFF helichrysum (everlasting flower or immortelle) in the middle. Wow, really? I’ll check it out.

Hermes Osmanthe Yunnan – this may be the only Hermessence the authors liked. TS gives it five stars and talks about the milky aspect of the fragrance, which gets my attention, and calls it “a perfume of pure happiness.” Need to unearth my sample.

A random sample of the New To Me and Must Try category:

Etro Gomma (LT, three stars) “a classic leather in the Knize Ten mold, but more floral, composed by the great Edward Flechier.” Never heard of it.

Profumo.it Grezzo (LT, four stars). “A beautiful woody-fruity confection based on an accord that smells like cedar and apricots (osmanthus?)” He goes on. I want it.

Lady Stetson (TS, four stars). She compares it favorably (and actually prefers it) to Chanel No. 22, which I like very, very much, and no, I am not kidding, although she describes the bottle as hideous. Buy It Now at your local CVS.

Mauboussin (LT, four stars). “An oriental situated somewhere between the first Kenzo Jungle and Fendi’s Theorema, with a skilful combination of warm, mouthwatering dried-fruit notes and clean, uplifting woody-resinous incense and olibanum,” done by Christine Nagel. What was that? Oh, look, and there goes my credit card levitating out of my wallet for an unsniffed purchase.

A couple more thoughts and I’ll shut up and let you dive in. First, I have a relatively high tolerance for snark, and I believe I heard/read that the authors axed a couple of their reviews as too mean. Furthermore, perfumers have to suck it up and take the criticism of their oeuvre just as other artists do. Having said that, LT’s reviews of Mona di Orio’s line seem so vitriolic I can’t help but wonder if there’s a personal element in there. This from a review of Carnation (LT, one star): “She also says she studied with Edmond Roudnitska, but her creations suggest she paid little attention.” Lux – one star, LT, “dire citrus.” Nuit Noire – one star, LT, “a hilariously bad fragrance” with “a loud civet fart.” Oiro – one star, LT, “third-world air freshener.” I spoke of respecting others’ opinions, and LT’s got me beat on any level of technical knowledge of perfumery, but … seriously, come on. One star? For all of them? Did their PR drone make LT mad? This is the only set of reviews that taken together make me uncomfortable.

And last – Do fragrances change according to the wearer’s chemistry? This is a question in the interesting Q&A in the book. TS starts her answer, “For a long time, LT believed the answer to be absolutely no, and that all assertions to the contrary were marketing ploys” etc., and reading that, one expects a paragraph later on in the question explaining how LT’s changed his mind. I’ve now read that question several times, and it’s never clear to me in what way he’s changed his position, which I think he’s held firm to on the various talk shows and interviews. If I read this right, they concede that skin maybe creates nuances in the top notes, but that all drydowns are equal. I am in no position to argue with LT on the technical merits – but, as almost anyone has experienced in a group sniffing situation, fragrances seem to smell different on different people. I know that’s not a reasoned argument; it’s merely a statement. Most folks who’ve sniffed fragrances simultaneously on other people would agree with me, science or no science, and I’m not just talking about the top notes. Fragrances go inexplicably wrong – sweet or sour, musky or strange – on various people at various times. For another educated view on skin chemistry, see Victoria on her recent post on Bois de Jasmin (and so wonderful to see you back, V!)

Enough from me. The floor’s open. Your thoughts?

We gave y’all three scents to sniff, and we are posting your reviews on those scents. Y’all had a lot to say, so this was really fun for us to do!

Clinique Happy

• Am I going to hell if I say I like this fragrance? It’s cheerful. I always get compliments on it. It’s one of those summer scents that works if you want something undemanding and fun, like a gal-pal you don’t make plans with but always have a good time with, spending a Saturday morning window shopping.
• Happy is a harmless floral, best on a very young woman. Keep in mind that it doesn’t keep well; the citrus top notes fade with time.
• Once smelled this on a waitress at a local restaurant, and it smelled divine on her. But on me, Happy is not so, well, happy! It smells harsh, strong and chemical.
• I had the misfortune to try Clinique Happy in a Foley’s (back before Macy’s) when I was young and impressionable and was lead to believe that Clinique was an upscale makeup line…*shudder* My thoughts were somewhere between “Does this contain DEET?” to “The horror! The horror!” Nothing but mosquite repellant.
• Pretty and inoffensive. I smell a not-quite-realistic orange (more like powdered orange drink mix) and some sweet, clear florals (freesia?). It reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on…and then it came to me. Bond No. 9’s new Union Square! Not exactly the same, but very similar in style. Plus Tang.
• Soapy, shower fresh scent. Easily wearable. I’m kind of over this one, but I don’t dislike it, it’s just that I used to like it much more.
• orange. If you want to be a giant orange…
• I dislike the initial fakey blast but once it settles down it’s very pretty, milky skin scent is really pleasant.

Clinique Aromatics Elixir

• For 20+ years I’ve tried to love this fragrance. I hate it. Picked up a bottle of Pure Parfum (perfect condition) last week at an estate sale for a whopping 30 cents. Sprayed just a touch in the air just inside the front door. THANK GOD it was a warm day. Fans going for an hour, with all the windows open….me outside. El O came home and said “wow! the house smells nice!”. Proof that there is something for everyone.
• Why spend a zillion bucks on Tom Ford Moss Breches when there’s Aromatics Elixir, its original? Be sure you give this only to someone who can carry a strong chypre. Someone gave my then-eighty-year-old mother a set, and it was just loud perfume overload.
• I used to hate this one, because it smelled so overpowering on everyone who wore it. But I discovered a secret: Just one spritz to the chest will do. It lasts all day, and smells like a fine French fragrance. It does, it really does!
• I have never hated a perfume as much as I hate Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir. Since I sold Clinique way back when, I HAD to wear it at the counter and I thought I would die. Anytime I read that something else smells like AE, I automatically know that I will hate it to death.
• I’m glad that I gave this one a good, long try. On a paper strip, it always seemed rather rough and scary. But on my skin, it turns into a smooth, velvety, classic chypre. It’s herby and casually sophisticated in a finely-tailored-tweed-suit sort of way.
• Hard core. This is a scent for people who want to announce their arrival with a megaphone. I hadn’t tried this in a really long time and it blew me away. There is a lot going on in this one. This screams 70’s all the way. There are some massive flowers in there (ylang ylang and jasmine, tuberose) that along with the oakmoss (and some really green notes too) really overwhelm. This is not a fragrance for the faint hearted. Bottom line, it’s a classy hippie scent that really makes a statement, but I would never wear it. Actually, I did put it on my wrist, but I was not happy.
• Harsh vetiver, florals barely discernible. When this is compared to Montale’s Vetiver Oriental, it’s enough to make you weep for the abuse of the note.
• I love Aromatics Elixir! I’ve worn it off and on since it was introduced in the early 70’s. My nose isn’t capable of defining each individual component of the fragrance but on me, the patchouli note is the most predominant. My friend also wears it; on her the rose and jasmine comes forward and it is much sweeter. I get undertones of that softness too.
• I’m very happy with my sophisticated chypre and tend to wear it when I want to feel “tailored,” whether I’m wearing clothes for the office or jeans.
• This will never appeal to me no matter how many times I smell it. Its astringent, green twiggy, herbal quality smells to me like an treatment for poison ivy.

Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl

• Perfume Shrine and Scent Signals have some thoughts on Tommy girl today, so make sure to check it out.

• This is a great weekend fragrance! I wear it when I’m kickin’ back or hanging out with my family. It’s fresh and uplifting with a slight spiciness to it (must be the tea) that makes it interesting and fun.
• I really like Tommy Girl. It’s such a perfect scent for jeans, T-shirt and All Stars day. Fresh and clean without being annoying. I get transparent florals, which I love. This perfume exudes confidence and doesn’t try to be sexy, because of this, to me it is. It’s like the way some people are the sexiest when they’re dressed down and in jeans – not trying too hard? That’s the way I feel about Tommy Girl. Oddly enough, my Mom steals spritzes of this one every once in a while, so I guess you could say that it’s not an exclusively “young” scent. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I don’t think it’s exclusively a “girl” scent either.
• I have a coworker who always sprays on a generous amount of the same perfume every day. I always assumed that it was something by the Gap. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it did strike me as harsh. One day, my curiosity overcame my shyness and I asked her what it was. Her answer: Tommy Girl. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t recognized it! Tommy Girl was my first real perfume, a Christmas gift when I was thirteen years old. I still have my near-full bottle from back then, so I must not have worn it much. I have some current Tommy Girl on my wrist right now, and it is the same as my bottle at home. I can describe it in one word: Soap. If I have to be a little more specific: Flowery soap. It smells like I’ve just washed my hands. It’s not a bad smell, by any means, and as clean-shower-fresh-soap scents go, this one is quite good, but if I want to smell like soap, I’ll take a shower!
• I gave this to my 16 year old daughter a couple years ago so I’ve been smelling it wafting through the kitchen at a very early hour for a couple of years now. On a good day it is bright, fresh and pretty — perfect for her age and I like smelling it on her. Tommy Girl has a high headache factor though and there is no way I can agree with the experts that it is extraordinary, or a “masterpiece”. It’s not interesting enough for that.

nose image: etc.usf.edu

Overmuch lately, I find myself ruminating on forgiveness and redemption.  How much can a person do before they have gone into the unforgivable, and there is no explanaiton or apology they can make for redemption in another person’s eyes?  It’s an individual barrier to be sure.  In my faith, we are called to forgive everything because we are all deeply flawed, and we should ask for the grace to do what we are completely unable to do when you are pig-biting mad.  No matter if you are religious or not, all of us must struggle with what to forgive, what to forget, and when it is too much.

Oh, no, you’re not going to get a Patty Soap Opera here, y’all.   

My next thought – as it should be for any good perfumista – what does forgiveness and redemption smell like?  Answering this question has been far tougher than I thought it would be.

Forgiveness smells cold and earthy, as you must set aside your own hurt coldly, take out the emotion, disengage, reach deep within your emotional capacity and rationally overlook the cracks and broken places in another.   But it must be a little bit warm because out of the cold must come pity and compassion enough to heat the heart to give genuine forgiveness.  It smells like Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist.

Redemption must smell of hope and promise, going on without ever forgetting what has gone before.  It must mix regret with desperation, and at its core must be the smell of humanity, slightly decaying, but beautiful for all of its flaws.  I turned over a lot of scents in my mind for this, but finally settled on CB I Hate perfume Cradle of Light or Strange Invisible Perfumes Lady Day…

… and I put them together, side by side, running my nose from my elbow to my hand, and I can smell the limits of forgiveness and redemption, and there are none.

What scents go with forgiveness and redemption for you?

Musette is hard at work on the Chicago Thingy – a get-together with perfume and chocolate in Chicago on a Saturday in September/October. Have you been to Chicago? Chicago has: great food; interesting architecture; excellent theater; amazing shopping. And did I mention chocolate? And perfume? Anyway, that is Musette in the photo, and … wow, look at her, does she not slay? (Musette, is that your bike? I think so.) She is working on a day of chocolate and perfumage including potentially: Saks, L’Artisan, Barneys, Nordstrom, Godiva, Lindt, Ethel’s, Vosges, Sarah’s Candies … wait, sorry, I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. We’ll also put together a list of other things to see/do/visit, in the perfume/chocolate world and beyond. I took the architecture tour on the river and loved it. We are not calling this a Sniffa – the Karens own that name, as far as I know, so we need something else. I find Chicago Thingy amusing, but Musette quite reasonably thinks we need something more mellifluous in terms of getting the stores to sponsor stuff and cough up goodies. What do you think of Chi-cocoa Scentsation, suggested by our other fab Chicago volunteer, Shelley? Any other ideas/suggestions regarding any aspect of this thingy?

* * *

Annick Goutal Sables seems to be enjoying a (deserved) resurgence, my having run across it recently on the shelf in various places. That’s one I thought would have gotten the chop by now, because it’s so odd, but I’m happy to discover it in the lineup next to the masculine bottles of Duel, Hadrian, Mandragore and the rest. But all the Sables in the world can’t really replace Eau de Monsieur.

I have been told several times that Annick Goutal Eau de Monsieur is discontinued, although I don’t know whether that’s true — it’s the sort of thing sales associates tell you when they don’t have any. I have never seen Monsieur in a retail store. It doesn’t appear on any of the AG websites that I can find, and it’s getting a bit harder to find on the internet. Osmoz calls it a woody chypre and lists citron, oakmoss, amber and sandalwood, a list that feels suspiciously incomplete to me.

I’m pretty sure it was tmp00 who sent me a decant of Eau de Monsieur eons ago, when I was on one of my immortelle benders; he thought it smelled like immortelle, and I agreed. Among other interesting nuggets in The Guide, I was happy to see Tania Sanchez describe Eau de Monsieur as having “the crispness of citrus, a mossy chypre background, all made interesting by a touch of the fascinating caramel-curry note of immortelle.” She labels it citrus mossy and gives it four stars.

Eau de Monsieur starts off as a very Goutal-ish confection of citrus, woods and the sprightly herbal greenness you get from Hadrian. At that point it’s merely enjoyable – the sort of thing, like a higher grade Muelhens 4711, that you’d throw on on a hot summer day. The oakmoss makes its appearance, but even then it is delicate and nuanced; despite its name, this barely qualifies as a masculine. I’d call it solidly unisex, along the lines of Duel or Hadrian. It isn’t until well into the drydown (30 minutes or so) that the immortelle begins its wonderful, distinctive dance on my skin, its maple-curry sweetness tempered beautifully by the dryness of the oakmoss.

I think in its own understated way, Eau de Monsieur is a perfect scent – managing to give just enough (but not too much) of several enjoyable aspects of perfumery. It doesn’t have the kill-me-now, 48-hour one-note persistence that Sables has, the only time immortelle has worn out its welcome, and then some. If it had more of a chypre feel it would conversely be less accessible in warm weather, which is when it seems most right, although you could argue it’s essentially seasonless. It’s a cologne that’s more than a cologne, by which I mean it’s not gone in 20 minutes, yet it retains that element of refreshment. In contrast, Dior’s Eau Noire is many things, but refreshing it is not, at least not to me. The only suggestion I can make to the house regarding Monsieur’s improvement would be to resurrect it if, in fact, it is dead, and place it prominently on the shelf at a Sephora near you.

My brother has presented me with a challenge, so I, of course, turn to all of you to see what I’ve done so far and to see if you have suggestions or additions.

Tom opened up a bar and grill recently, which is is doing an amazing business in a tiny town in Kansas called Hoxie – everyone loves his food because he’s a great cook - and he barely has time to sleep, though he is as happy as a clam,  It’s one the most fun place in the town world to go — one of those places where everyone does know your name and people talk all around the room to everyone in the restaurant instead of just across their own table.  I attribute that atmosphere to Tom’s personality, which is outgoing, brash, irreverent, and he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. The logo for the bar is “Beer, Burgers and Bullshit,” and that pretty much is just the way it is. He does look a little like Sam Elliott, but don’t tell him I said that because he has a monstrous big ego that needs no further feeding and watering.  He calls me lil lil sissah (as opposed to my big sister, Shirley, who is just lil sissah), and he is generally a charming, unrepentant rogue… and he will take that as a compliment.  Of course I adore him.

Success has its problems, though. Tom would like to get rid of the Eau de Grease scent that often follows him around, and he also likes to think of himself as a stud (*shrugs*).   He wants me to put together a “Sam Elliott Sampler Pack” full of all the scents I think Sam Elliott would wear, which would then be perfect for him.. I want it to be a wide variety of types, like some musk, leather, smoke, etc. This is what I’ve got so far, please let me know if you think one of these doesn’t work or if it needs something that I’m just not thinking of:

• Serge Lutens Musc Koublai Khan – it’s pretty likely he will sniff this and say something about it smelling like his pair after he’s been working all day (the language would be much more frank and graphic than my delicate version), but I think if he waits 30 minutes, he may find himself liking it – or not, but I have to be there when he tries it.
• CB Musk Reinvention – I’m iffy on this one. It will either be a big hit or a big miss, but I still think he should try it just so I can get a read on what his skank tolerance is.  Since I grew up with him and worked on the farm with him and he rubbed his sweaty armpit on my head, I’m thinking his skank tolerance has to be high.
• Etat Tom of Finland – I just think this is great smoky leather scent. Since his name is Tom, he’ll like that, too, plays into his ego to wear a scent with his name on it.
• Annick Goutal Eau de Fier – This may be uncomfortably close to the smoky bar and grill smell.
• Knize Ten – Great, classic leather, plenty rugged
• Caron Yatagan – why not?
• Helmut Lang Cuiron – iffy on this one. It’s a little less rugged, but could work great for his more refined moments, if he had any.
• Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Man – for special occasions, if he ever gets an evening out or just feel, well, um beautiful for the night, in a very manly way, of course.
• Parfums de Nicolai New York – because it is subtle and beautiful and perfect.
• Le Labo Patchouli 24 – sorry, every guy on my list gets this to try. It’s mandatory, they may hate it, but I don’t care, they have to sniff it.
• Hermessence Vetiver Tonka — again, always on any guy sampler list because I think it’s elegant and addictive.
• Hermessence Poivre Samarcande – great peppery scent
• Montale Black Oud — Needed an oud in here for him to try and see if he likes it, might as well start with the killer.
• Elternhaus kowtowingtoeveryreligiontothepointthatitsoffensive thing or Mark Buxton 03 from Biehl – Despite the goofiness of the Elternhaus, I think it’s a great incense, as is the MB03 from Biehl.  Both Mark Buxton, who I really ought to marry.  Does anyone knows if he plays on my side of the playground?
• Cdg Incense — can’t make up my mind on this. Thinking no on Avignon and Kyoto and leaning towards Zagorsk for the woody elements, which will cover a woody scent as well

Then I have a bunch of follow-on scents, depending on what he liks here. So…. the thoughts?

First off, a shout-out to Patty, who will be on NPR at 11:40 EST this morning, as part of a Perfumes: The Guide interview with LT and TS, I guess they’re going for the blogger perspective. Go, Patty! Second, a reminder, this coming Friday we are featuring your anonymous reviews of Clinique Aromatics Elixir and Happy, and Tommy Girl, so get those reviews emailed in to perfume dot posse at gmail dot com (with the correct punctuation marks substituted for “dot” and “at”) and we’ll print them. Third, next Monday, a week from today, is another free-for-all discussion on The Guide. Because, seriously, We Need To Talk. I Have Issues. Thus far I’ve flagged reviews that make me feel smug, a couple that make me want to try (or retry) something, and a couple that kill me. Okay, on to today’s topic.

The problem with reading about scents is you may learn something. Luca Turin has spoiled two scents for me in just this way recently. In The Guide he describes 21 Costume National as an “anisic oriental” and bam! Although anise is not listed among the 21 notes, when I smell it, anise is now the dominant note of this milky woody wonder (he gives it three stars). Anise being about as welcome in my fragrance collection as a bear at a picnic, my ardor for 21 has cooled. Also, I have had an on-again off-again relationship with L’Artisan Safran Troublant for quite some time, but it appears to be on again, my having acquired one of the small coffret bottles. Then I read LT’s review (four stars) in which he talks about the wonderful interplay among the saffron, vanilla and rose. Rose! Of course! The rose note was obvious as soon as I read it. Now, the rose having moved squarely to the forefront, it hogs the stage every time I smell it. I can barely see the saffron behind it.

Vexed by these developments, I dug around in all my samples looking for something different. Kelly had sent me some other Dawn Spencer Hurwitz scents, so I checked those out. Then I turned my attention to Gail’s package full of fragrances by Liz Zorn. (Thanks Kelly and Gail!)

The great thing about perfumery is, you can have sniffed so very, very much and there are still entire lines you know nothing about. I selected two Liz Zorns to put on – Grand Canyon, because Marina had blogged on it and I’d wanted to try it, and Pink Praline, because I was feeling perverse and it seemed, based on the label, to be the one thing I’d be least likely to enjoy.

LZ Pink Praline gave me an immediate masochistic satisfaction – I smiled, awaiting burial under a giant mass of what smelled like sugar and cocoa, with an odd discordant note I couldn’t place. I usually loathe chocolate in my fragrance, and this was no exception. After three minutes it quiets down quite a bit, the odd top note fades, and I began to … well, to like it. Go figure. I decided to look at the notes: pink grapefruit, cocoa, maple, dark roasted coffee, spices, cinnamon, honey, fenugreek, vanilla. The odd note at the top is the grapefruit – yes, a sweet citrus on top of cocoa. I can’t pick the coffee out until the drydown, when it becomes quite prominent. In the drydown it’s a seamless, not overly sweet gourmand confection – the smell of being in a bakery, but a nice one, and the maple/fenugreek gives an immortelle-esque twist. You choco/gourmand freaks should check this out.

LZ Grand Canyon (sweet orange, clementine, blood orange, neroli, laurel leaf, palma rosa, black pepper, labdanum, benzoin, honey, myrrh, sandalwood, spices, rose, jasmine, vetiver) starts out with a jumble of citrus, rose and laurel, and my immediate reaction was – nah. It had that kind of macerated green soup vibe that wasn’t working for me. Then the citrus fades into the spices, jasmine and woods, it becomes an warmly elegant comfort scent – the kind that’s pretty enough to wear out, more sophisticated than your favorite sweatshirt, but just as cozy. My favorite of the bunch listed in this post.

I sat out in the sun on the back porch, the first day it was warm enough to do so. I should have gotten out my sun hat. But I didn’t. Sitting there, wondering about sniffing the other Liz Zorn samples, my bad mood gone, cataloging my constant stream of perfumed thoughts (I never ordered those last DSH samples!, and do I already have a vial of Givenchy Vetyver and don’t realize it?), I suddenly understood. It wouldn’t matter if I smelled them all and never smelled them again, much less owned them. It explains my phenomenal sample collection versus my relatively sparse bottle collection. I watched those bees buzz all around me, looking for their next hit, and I realized: I am a perfume vagabond. I want to taste the honey from every single flower on this earth, and if I never own that flower… that’s okay. I’m just a bee, and it was worth it.

* * *

DSH Tamarind Paprika – this one fascinates me. Half the time – a bitter, sour, nasty, cheapo potpourri-from-hell smell. The other half of the time – an interesting tobacco-and-mulling-spices.

DSH Prana smells exactly like the inside of an Aveda store.

DSH Vanille – a rich, straight, gourmand vanilla I enjoyed sniffing on the edge of my thumb, and would probably kill me in larger doses.

DSH Arome d’Egypt – DSH does spice and gourmand scents really well. This is sort of a spice market/incense scent.

DSH Jitterbug – this is in fact a wonderful old-fashioned spicy oriental fragrance that one could imagine wafting up from various vintage bottles.

Liz Zorn Sunset Rider – huh. To the extent we’re developing a trend, what I’m discovering sampling her stuff is I find the top notes jarring, and then the whole fragrance opens up and shifts in a direction I like better. Having done this several times now, I’m kind of enjoying the construct; it gets my attention. Sunset Rider starts off with what I think is a citrus/sandalwood blast, then dries down into a fairly indolic jasmine, and you know I like my jasmine dirty.

LZ Vanillaville. From her website: “A rustic, smoky vanilla, with the essence of pipe tobacco and leather. Notes include Almond, Tonka, Tarragon, Birch Tar and Coffee.” To me it smelled like a perfect sweet pipe tobacco rather than leather.

LZ Solstice – (formerly Peace on Earth?). Balsam, white pine, rose, jasmine, violet, cassie, clove, sandalwood, agarwood, rosewood, frankincense, myrrh, amber, woods, balsam of Peru, orris, patchouli, tuberose, moss, ambrette, vanilla. A floral incense. I got the extrait. It’s very soft and comforting, lightly spicy. I want to spray this on and see how I felt about it, I think I would love it. For some reason it’s not coming up at all on her website.

LZ Chado – Green Tea, Blue Cypress, fresh herbs. The website describes it as GRASSY-DRY-HERBAL, which is not my sort of thing. However, that’s a perfect description.

LZ Oolong – a peach tea and tooooo sweeet on me. The only one of the bunch I really didn’t care for.

LZ Blood Orange and Vetiver – hey, remember Wickle Chestnut & Vetiver? No? Sigh. That was such a great scent. Its simplity in concept was part of its charm. This is along the same lines – a sweet/tart juicy orange mixed with a fairly rooty vetiver.

LZ Cordovan Rose – the big rose opening up and walloped my nose, but before I could scream in horror the birch tar and glove leather painted a smile on my face. I still wouldn’t wear it, because it’s rose, but fans of leathery roses might love this. The rose fades over time, leaving me with a soft, sweet leather.

Liz Zorn is, I think, moving her goods to her new website, selling them under a different name, Soivohle, and I’m going to gripe that I hate the setup, in which all the fragrances are sold using abbreviations – Sunset Rider becomes SR-05-N. Hon, why? They already have (slightly groovy) names, which I kinda like. I view this as a step backward. Alphanumeric reference-style naming is dull and hard to remember. It didn’t work well for Parfums MDCI, it didn’t work well for biehl.parfumkunstwerke, and it ain’t gonna work well for you either.

bee image: pdphoto.org

When I came across this gorgeous painting in the Louvre, many years ago, I was shocked.  Much in the way I believe Shakespeare’s contemporary audience was when they first saw the sleepwalking, murderous (at least complicit) Lady in the famous play.  I adore painting and Fusli was as yet unknown to me.  I pretty much stuck to the Italians and the Germans and well-known Dutch, etc at the time.  I adore Shakespeare and embracing the tragic romantic that is me, I tend to go back to the great tragedies most often.  Lear is of course the greatest, but I do love Macbeth.  It is the most dramatic.  What does this have to do with perfume?  I will tell you.  I see paintings like this and I immediately wonder….what do the doctor and the attendant in the background smell?  What kind of dark sillage does the Lady leave behind as she wanders the halls, oblivious to her mutterings?  Does she smell of bright, cheerful flowers to bely her foul heart?  She was after all trying desperately to appear sunny, almost flirty three acts ago. She tried to shed her humanity (she asked to be unsexed, which of course meant humanity, not womanhood)….so would she have doused herself in the softest of rose oils?  I think her sheets were heavy with sweat and tears and she, heavy with her deeds, smelled of darkness and despair….These are not Spring thoughts, but I can’t help myself.  I think Lady Macbeth’s vanity would have been filled with “pretty” scents, but she would have loathed them all.  She would have secretly longed to, “cross the aisle” as it were.  She would have doused herself in her fathers’ and brothers’ scents (I have invented a family for her).  I think her private collection would have been filled with birches and woods and other dark scents.  This is not to say that her actions were typically “masculine”.  I simply believe the character indulged a very distorted notion of what is feminine and what is masculine.  She was quite simply one twisted woman.  If I were to perfume this character, I think I would choose Lutens’ Rose de Nuit.  A dark gorgeous rosy chypre with so much red rose and so much depth, I can see Lady Macbeth’s damned spot each time I smell it.  So, whom would you love to scent and what would it be……doesn’t have to be the Bard. 

It’s that time of year again — our Top Ten Spring fragrances, even if it hasn’t felt quite as much like spring at this point as we’d hoped. Patty and March each offer up five’ish scents perfect for thinking about spring:

March

Spring is probably my least favorite fragrance season, which strikes me as not the right way to start this post, but there you are. It’s not that I don’t like spring — I do. But delicate florals and cheerful musks aren’t my cup of … dirt. So here are some other suggestions.

1) Dirt. Number one, of course, would be CB I Hate Perfume’s Black March, with its smell of thawing soil, spring air and unfurled buds. Neil Morris’ Dark Earth is a more classic take on the dirt smell. Or go dig into Demeter’s website — Wet Garden, Dirt, Beet Root, Earthworm...

2) Violets. Not sweet candied violets, but crisp, cool violets. L’Artisan Verte Violette is a popular choice. I much prefer Annick Goutal’s cool, sharp Violette, or Les Nez’ wonderfully strange, woefully underappreciated, frosted-cucumber Unicorn Spell.

3) Masculines. It’s counterintuitive, but something about cool, fresh spring air brings on a desire to splash on some retro classic like Guerlain Derby (which I was stunned to discover Luca Turin called “one of the ten best masculines of all time” in The Guide, five stars) or Christian Dior Jules (which he also loves, four stars).

4) Weepy florals. Malle En Passant (lilac, rain, bread, fence, wet tarmac). And of course, Guerlain Apres l’Ondee (heliotrope, iris, tears from heaven). When this fails to appear on my list of great spring scents, I will be dead.

5) Aldehydes. In general I admire the champagne fizziness of aldehydes more than enjoy wearing them. Spring, however, seems to bring on a desire for that peculiar smell. By the way, if you think “I hate aldehydes,” have you tried many different ones? I think sometimes people object to aldehydes that seem jaded (like Van Cleef & Arpels First) or formal and mannered (Chanel 5, 22). If those freak you out, try my personal favorite, Robert Piguet Baghari, with its roses, cheerful neroli and creamy vanilla-amber base — giving the aldehydes the warm glow of the sun than the cool glimmer of moonlight.

Patty

While I love spring, especially after this horribly long winter, spring scents sometimes seem a little too cheerful when I’m just lumbering up out of my long winter perfumes. Makes me cranky and decidedly uncheerful.

1) Cheerful without appearing to be. Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan. It sparkles, it reflects air and radiates good cheer, but it’s not grinning right in your face with its big toothy smile. Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist is studiously not cheerful, but it never fails to make my spirits soar, radiating the earthy goodness of the dirt and sun… a coldly warm, stunning charmer.

2) Weepy Florals. Ditto what March said. These two will always be on my spring list and my funeral list.

3) Underappreciated charmers. Marina had me sniffing L’Artisan La Chasse Aux Papillon Extreme when we were in NYC, and for some reason, I had never smelled it. It is richer and fuller than the regular Papillon and not as yappy as I sometimes find the regular version to be, while remaining quintessentially spring.

4) Ridiculously Overpriced. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it really is beautiful – Christian Dior La Collection Particuliere Passage No. 8. Gorgeous, full-throated iris – I feel like I’ve been swallowed whole by one of those gigantor purple irises when I put it on.

5) Anticipation - CB Memory of Kindness. Tomato leaves and garden smell leapfrogs me right past spring into summer up to my elbows in ice cold tomato slices from my mom’s garden, covered in garlic salt and pepper – the tomatoes, not me. Well, the perfume doesn’t have the garlic salt and pepper, but it should!

For other Top Ten Spring lists, see Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, Perfume-Smellin’ Things, and Scentzilla.

Do you ever just get tired of hearing about a somewhat readily available perfume that you’ve never smelled, so you finally just smell it and end your misery?  Yeah, exactly.

Tommy Girl has notes of black currant bud, apple, tangerine, mandarin, spearmint, heather, honeysuckle, violet, rose, magnolia, jasmine, lily, sandalwood and cedarwood.  Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have given it five stars and pronounced it a masterpiece in Perfumes: The Guide.  As I agree with about 80% of the perfumes that landed on that list, I figured I should try Tommy Girl with an open mind and see what I came up with.

The open is really horrible, it’s like a bad day at the playground and I threw up fruit and gum all over the wooden merry-go-round.   Not an auspicious start, and the open gets a one star. But we all know to wait on these things, it can and often does get better… or worse.   Or I could be an unwashed rube that just doesn’t get the shimmering brilliance of Tommy Girl. 

• 30 minutes in… slightly rancid Doublemint gum and fruit throw-up in the flower bushes by the side of the playground.
• 1 hour … Okay… now we’re seeing some signs of something besides a really horrible open.  How exactly did this perfume sell so well with that open?  That’s truly the mark of Tommy Love that people would stick with that.  Isn’t this supposed to be tea?  I mean, I get a little, but the florals are just burying most of the fun stuff so far.
• I’m going for a run, let see if some heat can give TG a little oomph.  Okay, that’s much better, getting the tea and a delicate floral accord, the fruity notes are gone.  This is very pretty, but it’s really not me that much, has a little too much fresh feeling floating around.

Is it a five-star masterpiece? Not for me, but if you like the interplay of the notes and the overall direction of the perfume, I can see how you would make it a favorite.  I certainly don’t dislike it, and it was better after an hour than I thought it was going to be.

So which one(s) of the five-starred perfumes are you sure you’ll hate, but think you’ll try just to see?

It’s me, March, posting on Lee’s day. I know — it feels weird to me, too. But since Lee’s abandoned us taking a break from blogging, we’re rearranging the schedule slightly – I’m back to Mon/Weds., Patty’s Tues/Thurs, and Friday will be a mixed assortment of pleasures while we try various things out. This coming Friday is a group blogging effort on spring scents. Next Friday you all are evaluating Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Clinique Happy and Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl, as Patty discussed yesterday. Email your brief reviews of any/all of these scents to perfume dot posse at gmail dot com (using the appropriate symbols in place of “dot” and “at”). Maria also suggested another discussion of Perfumes: The Guide after more of you have had a chance to read it, and I think that’s a dandy idea. We’ll have some guest posters. If nothing else we’ll have the occasional Trashy Friday and off-topic posts. Stay tuned.

Okay, my report from the NYC Sniffa last weekend. I think it was Judith who said to me that she once met a woman who had done the Sniffa on a Saturday and run in a marathon Sunday. The woman said the Sniffa was more exhausting. Which helped explain how poleaxed I felt by 8 pm on Saturday. There were a lot of people (150ish) and – news flash – you stick 150 people in a room for sniffing, lunch, whatever, and it’s hot and noisy. I lost my voice by the time we got to the last event, just from strain from trying to talk over the din, and I still haven’t gotten it back.

My favorite part is pretty obvious – I loved meeting all the folks from the blog, including lurkers who’ve never posted but who came up and introduced themselves. I wore my rhinestone tiara in the morning, starting at breakfast, as promised for easy identification purposes. Of course, the great thing about NYC is you can run around in a tiara and nobody bats an eye. I met and hung out with so many wonderful people, including Divalano (who I will never call Divalino again!), Judith, Alyssa, Francesca, Carol, Kirsten, Chaya, old friends like Sarah, Mary, Louise and others, the Karens, some of the other fragrance bloggers … too many folks to name. I’m going to irritate all of you now by saying I think I’m not going to put the photos up. In all the chaos I am not confident I made it clear to everyone why I was taking pics, and I’m sensitive about people seeing themselves identified on here without their permission, particularly if they also feel the photo sucks. Not to put too fine a point on it. Picture a lot of sweaty, grinning, mildly crazed looking women (and a few men) crowded together sniffing their wrists. I close my eyes and remember and I can smell them from here.

I bought … nothing. I know, I know, defeating the whole economic point of the Sniffa, but oh, well. Wait, not quite true – Patty and I ended up splitting an Epices coffret from L’Artisan (I took Safran Troublant). I did my bit for the economy in other ways, though, and not naming any names, but some serious monies were spent by various gals on both scent and makeup, which is a big overlapping interest of many of the attendees. And a shout out to Kristen, email me where you got those shoes again?!? Maybe shoes aren’t boring after all…

There’s no way I can talk about everything I sniffed, so here’s what caught my attention, in no particular order –

Serge Lutens Bois de Violette has joined the exports at Bergdorf, and they handed it around, and maybe I hadn’t paid the right kind of attention before. It’s lovely – a warm, woody violet rather than the cool combo you often get. It’s simple and strange and wonderful. Chanel’s new Sycomore was just okay to me, not being a vetiver freak, but I think it was a huge hit for other folks. There was some serious spending over at Guerlain. Mona di Orio was there (Bergdorf has picked up her line) and can I just say how chic and charming and lovely she is? Another big surprise for me was the new Jo Malone Kohdo Wood Collection. JM mostly doesn’t do it for me, I don’t know why. It’s often too bitter, or dank, or something. And you can read their blurbage on the Kohdo Wood Collection but sniff-wise, don’t be looking for anything that makes you think of Japan. Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is the “day” scent and it’s a nice, pretty, inoffensive floral-aquatic, which (kill me now) maybe I’ll find myself liking in the summer, but maybe not. It’s fine. But the other one, the Dark Amber and Ginger Lily, was delicious – so delicious I threw caution to the wind and drenched myself in it. Notes are cardamom, pink pepper (of course!), ginger, jasmine, orchid, water lily, rose, black amber, white pepperwood, leather, patchouli, sandalwood, incense. It’s a creamy jasmine-amber with some spice, sensual and dark. Maybe it’s the spices and jasmine working for me, mitigating the boozy tendencies of amber that nauseate me. I couldn’t believe how much I liked this thing. Also I think it’s less than $100, which these days is, essentially, free. Finally, I tried Piguet Visa, which is a hoot. If you’re willing to get in touch with your inner Carmen Miranda, it’s got a big fat fruit note up front that somehow never manages to get overly sweet. Look, ma – you can make a fruity floral worth loving. It’s simple in a way that makes me suspicious that it’s much more complicated in structure than I’m appreciating. I feel like it’s having me on a little, if that makes sense, but it’s so clever I’m happy to play along. I wish the drydown lasted a bit longer, but maybe my nose just gave out.

I got a chance to sniff the five Thierry Mugler Miroir thingies at Saks, and to me the most compelling thing about them is the mirrored box each one comes in ($150 for 1.7oz) I have seen zero attention paid to them, have you tried any? I thought I’d like Envies with its nutty note, but no – too fresh. Secrets is a sour aldehyde-patch combo. Vanites is licorice-citrus and not me at all. Travers is allegedly tuberose but all I got was the woody masculine accord. Dis-Moi is waaay more popular than the others according to the hot-looking but extremely poorly trained SA there, who could not name a single note of any of them. All five got 3 or 4 stars from LT/TS, so they’re getting more out of them than I am. I also got a quick sniff of the new Lancome in La Collection, Peut-Etre (they had a small tester but not the bottles yet) which is French for “I have no idea but it smells like a light, somewhat powdery summer floral.” I’ll take Sikkim (or Magie), thanks… oh, wait, here’s a link to Lancome’s goofy blurb on this scent, which means “perhaps.” Here, let me quote: “She hears footsteps, opens her eyes and looks into his. She sees a new and special intensity in his gaze. And is something hidden in his hand? The moment is electric.” Snerk. Roses, lilac, iris, jasmine. Hey, has anyone noticed most of La Collection is disappearing from the website? They kept Climat and Roses, and all the rest are … gone.

The new D&G The One for men? A standard-issue inoffensive, warm, woody number I couldn’t pick out of a lineup. (I rather like the women’s.) And after its glowing review in The Guide, I retried Narciso Rodriguez again, and … nope. I still can’t smell it. Cannot smell a thing. A little alcohol, maybe. So remember that the next time you disagree with one of my reviews. Think to yourself, but this is from the gal who can’t even smell Narciso.

Mugler Miroir fragrances: lexpress.fr

A Perfume Posse First – On Friday April 25, you all get to do the reviews for our first You Sniff It Friday.  If you have smelled it already or can get a chance to smell it, we want you to sniff Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Clinique Happy and Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl and tell us your opinion on those scents.  We don’t want a long review, nor anything poetic, just something short - a sentence is fine – telling us what you think of the perfume. You can do all three scents or one or two of them.  Send your brief reviews to perfume dot posse at gmail dot com (just put in a . where is says  dot and the @ where it says at).  We can’t promise we’ll publish all of them since many will probably be similar either in the like or dislike column, but they will be anonymous, so speak your mind freely.  We’ll remind you next week.

Update on the eylash extensions: Loved them for about 7-10 days.  I sleep on my side, and whatever side you sleep on, eyelashes get rubbed out quicker on that side, so one eye was looking weaker than the other, and then the other side kept getting thinner faster than I thought it should.  My eyelashes are just too fine for extensions, and I am NOT doing refills on them every two weeks.  So… on to try Revitalash!

Favorite new perfume at Sniffa was easily Etat Libre d’Orange Tom of Finland. I’m not a huge fan of this line, though I don’t hate it and have found some that work for me some of the time or were interesting, like Jasmin et Cigarette, Putain des Palaces, Rien and Vraie Blonde.  Tom of Finland was commissioned by the Tom of Finland Foundation and requires ID to buy the racy version of the bottle.  It has notes of crumpled leaf, suede, metal, pepperwood, iris, tonka, vetiver, and musks.  Antoine Lie is the perfumer given the task of creating a scent that “does not disturb the odor of men.”  Oh, please. I mean…. honestly, this sort of thing just gives me agita.

Despite that…. men will enjoy wearing Tom of Finland, whether it disturbs their odor or not, but so will women because it doesn’t disturb our odor either, whatever that may mean.  If you are a fan of Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia, Bvlgari Black or Annick Goutal Eau de Fier, this is one you really should try. Despite the goofy commission and sketch the perfumer was given, it seriously rocks for little girls and little boys.  Starting out like rubber on fire, there’s some metallic clanking in the background from the iris that just gives it this cockeyed feel that I really, really love. But lest you think this is just some Freak that Patty Loves because she’s partial to freaks, in the drydown, the tonka, vetiver and musks add their notes to the baying that is totally disturbing my odor in such a great way and it becomes less fun, smokey, metallic freak and very much a smokey leather scent a lot of you should love.  That whole process, I should tell you, can take a while, so be patient with it.

I’m easily pronouncing Tom of Finland the best thing in their line. It is interesting, well made, feels complete as a perfume, has an extensive drydown that goes through several phases. So put this on your boy or on your girl and get to disturbing their scent zen, it rocks.  With the proviso that if you hate some of the rubbery smoky scents I listed in the last paragraph, there is nothing about Tom of Finland that’s going to work for you.

ADDED:  As far as I know, this is available at Bendel’s in NYC and in a few other locations in Europe.

I wrote this post before I left for the NYC Sniffapalooza, given the rigors of the schedule and my travel.  I’ll report in later, if Patty doesn’t cover it tomorrow. Instead I thought I’d cover one of my fragrant surprises.

Two weeks ago I grabbed one of my gazillions of atomizers sitting on the shelf in my closet, intending to douse myself in (reorchestrated) Femme, because it was one of those craptastic sleety days, and I was feeling like a hefty dose of Femme’s cumin contrariness would be the perfect antidote. I could tell immediately I’d grabbed the wrong thing. It smelled like Feminite du Bois, sort of, and you can make worse mistakes in grabbing the wrong bottle. Only that flummoxed me, because I thought my decant of FdeB was a much bigger bottle. While I stood there pondering, the scent changed again, and I picked the vial back up, filled with hope and wonder and yet still incredulous. Yep. My newfound love – Idole de Lubin!

Regular readers – don’t you wish you had a dollar for every time on this blog I have whined about how Idole never opened up properly for me? Never did its thing? How it was clear that the fragrance should suit me right down to the ground, from the notes (saffron, bitter orange, rum absolute, black cumin and bitter orange peel, doum palm, smoked ebony, sugar cane, leather, red sandalwood) to the nose (Olivia Giacobetti) to the bottle? And how all I ever got was 15 seconds of Feminite du Bois, followed by generic hazy woody vanillamber sweetness?

Well, knock me over with a feather. I wore it three days in a row. It was absolute perfection. It was every thing I ever wanted. I have absolutely no fricking idea. The Perfume Gods took pity on me? I got a new nose? What?

Idole starts off with a glorious burst of saffron (my love!) over orange, the rum note adding a jaunty richness to the opening rather than an overwhelming drink-me liquor feel. The cumin adds warmth without coming on strong – I couldn’t pick it out unless I was looking for it. The drydown is smoky and resinous – I don’t know what doum palm, smoked ebony and sugar cane smell like, but sign me up. The whole experience has that Giacobetti seamlessness and lightness I appreciate. The drydown gets darker and richer, vaguely in the direction of Chaos, but never really dark. I don’t get a ton of leather in the drydown, more woods, and I’m fine with that. My only nitpicky complaint is the blast of alcohol in the opening; do yourself a favor and give it a minute or two to fade before you bury your nose in there. It’s less opaque and woody than FdB, easier to wear than Chaos, lighter while not being insipid.

For three excellent alternate reviews, check Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, and Perfume-Smellin’ Things.

Idole bottle: Luckyscent.com

I’m not going to sit here an whine about too many things.  I just want some validation.  Who amongst us is sick of falling in love with a beautiful, hypnotic gem of a perfume only to find it gone in 60 seconds?  31 Rue Cambon is one of the most gorgeous scents I have smelled.  I spray it on quite liberally and it’s like I missed my body.  I thought it might be my nose, so I ask those around me what I smell like…..after some convincing that I’m not completely insane they say they don’t smell anything either.  Bel Respiro and No 18 hate me too.   Let’s move on from Chanel….practically anything that isn’t heavy duty edp seems to disappear immediately after hitting my skin…like my skin is some frightening neighborhood and the molecules run away screaming. This next peeve is my own fault, so I’m calling myself out on it….buying unsniffed only to find the little sucker either horrific or completely and utterly boring….which is worse?  Each time I vow not to do it again (if it’s a full bottle) and within a week I’m sucked in by the notes or the reviews. On a completely unrelated topic….Perfumes: The Guide is one of the most hilarious gems to come along in a while.  My thoughts on the whole topic…it’s not as if Luca and Tania are trying to convince us that something we love is wrong and we should stop wearing it.  If we have no idea, in their opinion, the five and four starred reviews are worth checking out.  I was particularly impressed with Ms. Sanchez’ writing and reviewing capabilities.  I hope they continue to update the reviews and I would love some vintage reviews as well (some are included in the reviews of updated scents).   Well done guys. 

First, a quick perfume review from my favorite series of perfumes and perfumer, the gorgeous, brillian Jean-Claude Ellena:  Un Jardin Apres la Mousson, the newest editionin the Un Jardin series from Hermes.  Notes of cardamom, coriander, pepper, ginger and ginger flower, with a vetiver accord Ellen created.   Meant to create a monson in India smell, I’m going to have to get off on whether he succeeded precisely, never having gone to India or smelled any time before, during or after a monsoon… just your standard Kansas/Colorado dusty rain shower.  Mousson is spicy earth – yeah, exactly my thinking…huh?!?! It lacks any real sweetness, which I like. There’s a dry vegetal nature to it that leans in and nods to Terre d’Hermes briefly, then the pepper and ginger shoulder up and nudge the other notes to the side.  It is spare and minimal, as JCE does, but it does not lack character, it is its own creation, not just another Un Jardin clone with slight modification, but yet it fits in the series perfect as another viewpoint.  I find it leaning to the masculine side of the scale.  I suspect this may not have the broad appeal of the other two, Mediterranee and Sur Le Nil, but as a dryer, earthier entry, I think it is done well, but I’m not finding anythin really ground-breaking. I do know I’ll enjoy wearing it during the spring/summer months, much like I enjoy Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan.

March wrote a great review of this book already, soI’m not going to rehash it, even though I had on my plane here while I was whacked out on Xanax trying to calm my breathing (see below on flying nightmare) Both Luca and Tania are witty, concise, smart, evocative writers with a well-developed sense of humor that I enjoyed very much, finding myself laughing hysterically at some of the descriptions. They are never overwrought or given to a lot of purple prose, which I also like, though they capture the elegance and beauty of scents they love poetically. The opening chapters cover some very useful information on how to try perfumes, the history of them, etc.

Once you get to the actual reviews themselves, they are rated on a scale of 1-5 – 5 being a masterpiece. Some of the reviews are short, pithy and hilarious. Others are longer, full of history and information on that scent. You will find much you will agree with in their opinions; some you will be going, ‘What? Are you out of your mind?!?!?” For those of us who have been reading reviews online and on MUA and Basenotes for a long time, we can easily sift through and maintain our sensibilities of what we like and don’t like and won’t immediately glom onto the Masterpieces and discard our favorites.  Exhibit A for me is the Caron trashing.  Disagree vigorously. I’ve smelled the vintage of many of these and the new versions, and there is very little difference between them.  It perplexes me.  Now, the edts are a different matter, but not the urns.

My fear on this rating system is for the new perfumista, so this proviso is for them: Take it with a grain of salt. Tania and Luca are gifted writers and have an excellent sense of smell and great taste in perfume, but theirs is also an opinion, given the same weight as Freida down the road who likes things that skew to her own taste. If you try some of the Masterpieces and 4 star perfumes, you may find some new loves, or you may wind up puzzled about how they got that rating.  Listen, I’m going to take a shot at a few of them that I’m unfamiliar with, including, yes,  Tommy Girl. So as with my opinion, March’s opinion and all the other perfume blog writers and reviews on the various boards, we simply have our own taste too, which may or may not coincide with yours. If it intersects, great, you’ve got a good starting point. If not, then discard it.

Now, we totally are not talking about my flight to NYC on Thursday.  Suffice it to say I got caught in the canceled flights, found myself on another airline that was delayed, the confiscated about $200 worth of crap from my suitcase, which was supposed to be checked, but the lines were taking so long, I missed the 45 minutes before departure cut-off  for baggage check, so she told me to take it through security and check it at the gate.  They took my cleansing cream, my big bottle of hairspray, my great hand lotion, my toothpaste and something else, that was after they pulled me aside for a complete check by TSA… when I’ve got 15 minutes to make my flight.    Okay, one Xanax later once I got on the plane, and I’m feeling better now.

I’ve spent much of the past couple of weeks tucked into Perfumes: The Guide, to the dismay of the Big Cheese and my children, who kept interrupting me for trivialities like requests for food, or the location of some clean clothing. I was ostensibly issued an early copy for review (the publisher asked us to wait until today to talk about it), but instead I did what I assume every fragrance nut would do – I dug through the book to see what the authors thought of my favorites, feeling smugly vindicated by some and horrified by others.

If you’re reading this blog I assume most of you are familiar with the book and the format, and if you’re not, here’s a link to their website. It’s a long-anticipated updated redo of Luca Turin’s previous French-language Le Guide, an alphabetical list of perfumes, in this edition reviewed by Luca Turin (LT) or Tania Sanchez (TS) or, on a few occasions when they disagree or the fragrance is particularly monumental, by both. The Guide is probably best savored as one would a particularly delectable box of chocolates – devour three or four of them slowly, with a glass of wine or cup of coffee, although I’m not judging you if you do what I did and try to eat the whole box at once. Just warning you: it’s rich stuff, and you may put it down feeling a little ill.

I didn’t see it covered in the introduction, and I was curious: how did the authors round up the fragrances for their review? (From here on out, btw, I’m referring to them as Luca and Tania, because “Turin and Sanchez” sounds stupidly formal to me. LT and TS – mazel tov, and feel free to call me March.) So I emailed the publisher and received the following email response from Tania:

“We had a call for samples on www.perfumestheguide.com. I also phoned up or emailed everyone I could find a contact for, usually the PR department, and I asked them to send samples. Some did, some didn’t. Of those that didn’t, we managed to review some by going out to the shops. We just reviewed whatever came in, and we tried to chase down everyone who hadn’t sent anything. I spent half my day hunting and half my day reviewing, morning to night, throughout the writing of this book. Some firms simply refused to send, or promised to send and did not. Online perfume obsessives will find this hard to believe, but most people in the industry have never heard of either of us, by which I mean it was not simply a matter of saying, ‘Luca Turin wants samples,’ at which point twenty silk-clad servants come carrying goldplated bottles. In fact, it’s possible that those who did know who Luca was were even more reluctant. So it was a real task to convince people to send actual samples, not press releases. We hope they figure it out the next time around.”

I’d read bits of Le Guide, translated from French, so I had some idea of what I’d be getting. This new guide is opinionated, subjective and personal in the same way Le Guide was, and if that annoyed you then, here’s some more. If you love it, and I do, then curl up for a really fun read. I feel like I’m stating the obvious here, but given the way this topic flares up in various ways on various venues, I guess it bears discussing: this book is the labor of love of two obviously intelligent, fragrance-obsessed people, bolstered by a fair amount of technical knowledge and some insider access, but, at its heart, it is opinion. It is subjective. I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to get around the subjectivity of a guide to fragrance — do nothing but list the notes? Even those are suspect, provided by the perfume house. For some reason, a certain percentage of readers seem infuriated by the fact that the fragrances are judged, and some (perhaps their favorites) are found lacking. If having Luca Turin assign your Holy Grail one star (all fragrances are rated from one to five stars) and call it piss in a bottle is going to keep you up at night, fuming, don’t read the book. On the other hand, if you can read some criticism of a bunch of fragrances and be amused by it, even when they’re ragging something your love, well, then, bon appetit.

My chief complaint about the book will be shared by every fragrance nut who reads it – they can’t include everything, so invariably some of the particular things you’re looking for will be missing. As Tania said in her email, “We tried to review complete lines, but some samples clearly fell behind the bookcase.” They review some but not all fragrances of various lines like L’Artisan. Vintage, discontinued, and hard to find fragrances are not included, so no reviews of Coty Chypre, for instance, or Fendi Theorema, or Donna Karan Chaos, although I’d have loved to read their thoughts on those. (They do mention some vintage gems in passing in other reviews).

Any of those folks who’d read Le Guide might have been nervous about submitting their fragrances for the project (and I bet Mona di Orio’s wishing she hadn’t sent hers in. Ouch.) Still, though, in a perfect world they’d have had a perfume-nut friend/editor go over their (probably constantly evolving) list of fragrances to fine-tune any major omissions. For instance, and maybe I missed it, I find the absence of Feminite du Bois a glaring oversight. I bet there are some other niche classics missing as well. By the way, in her email Tania invites readers to send any omissions to the contact email on their website, for further evaluation/inclusion in any future edition. Luca might not know or care what the perfume freaks are interested in, but Tania certainly does, with her involvement on MUA. I’ll be curious, as more of you read it, what else might be missing.

Second, and this isn’t really a fair criticism, but then again I’m not The New Yorker: I wish the authors’ writing styles were more different from each other. Their individual styles are different, but not so obvious as to prevent me from glancing at the bottom of the review to see who wrote it, because I couldn’t necessarily tell from reading it (Tania sounds younger, and go ahead, shoot me; Luca uses more devices like opera references and more olfactory-science descriptors, like chemical components). They share a biting wit that provides some of the funniest moments in the book and at the same time has me wishing vaguely that one of them played the role of straight man. There’s a balance there, I know. They don’t want their review styles to be so disparate as to be jarring; at the same time, I would have enjoyed it had one of them been more measured and low-key in tone. Coming from me, the Queen of Brash, I know that sounds silly, but I still think more contrast in voice would have been refreshing. On the other hand, who wants to be the straight man?

Finally, while I find their one-star reviews amusing, given the space constraints, I’d rather they’d have dropped a few of those, particularly if it’s a series of consecutive reviews stating in various pithy ways that an entire line smells like drain cleaner. They also could have felt free to leave some of the flankers out – I’d gladly have traded the reviews of every single stupid variation of Angel for reviews of five or six other scents.

Overall, though, it’s a slice of heaven. I started to compile a list of shockers and amusing insults, but really, any list I make is going to reflect my personal interests, and your interests are bound to be different. I have no doubt some of the ratings and assessments will have people typing up a storm on the fragrance boards (five stars for Elternhaus’ MoslBuddJewThing?!?!?! one crummy star for Miss Boucheron, Chanel Gardenia, Coriandre and much, much more!) but to me that’s precisely the fun of this type of book. They can be absolutely cruel, and if that’s going to make you weep in pity for their victims, maybe you should save the $28 and buy a cute summer tee shirt and some flip flops. On the other hand, their concise, opinionated, thoughtful, interesting, stunningly articulate 40-odd page introduction and Q&A alone is worth the price. This section touches on taste, style, notes, history, masculines, feminines, and other goodies related to perfume.

I’d like to wrap up this post with a perfectly-timed comment about criticism, left on the blog recently by someone who was clearly chafed by my dissing of Serge Lutens and the Five O’Clock au Gingembre, and I quote:

“critique est facile, seul l’art est difficile..

Que vous ne soyez pas dingue de Five O’Clock est une chose, remettre en cause tout le travail de Serge Lutens en est une autre !

Lui qui tant de fois a osé et imaginé l’impensable…

Lui qui tant de fois a secoué le monde de la Parfumerie paupérisée par une bande d’incultes qui se croyaient plus fort grace à des moyens colossaux dont il n’a jamais disposé…

Seriez-vous capable d’en faire autant ?”

Running that through a cheesy online free translator, I get something like:

“Critical is easy, only the art is difficult..

What you be not crazy Five O’Clock is a thing, question the whole work of Serge Lutens is another!

Him that so many time dared and imagined l’impensable. Him that so many time shook the world of the Perfumery pauperized by a band of uncultivated ones that believed themselves stronger thanks to colossal resources of which he never had…

Would you be able some to do as much?”

Actually, I disagree. Criticism is damn hard. I struggle and fuss over ideas and sentences and sometimes individual words on these posts, and I am sure LT and TS struggled with Perfumes: the Guide. It is, as I’ve just demonstrated, perilously easy to lose things in translation, is it not? From the colossus to his audience, from the bottle to the nose, from the pen to the paper, from the brain to the hand, from the thought to the expression. I share your pain at the world of perfumery pauperized by a band of uncultivated ones (although as another commenter said, I thought Lutens was backed by the other name on the Palais Royal awning, Shiseido, which is somewhere in size between LVMH and Godzilla, and if so I doubt he’s lacking resources.) Ultimately, one of the chief glories of blogging is I can question the genius of Serge Lutens on here and own it, right or wrong. It’s called … an opinion. They’re free, legal, loads of fun, and — like Mitsouko all my other favorite perfumes — they don’t make my ass look any bigger in my jeans.

Today I’m on my way to NYC for the Sniffa — back at you all later.

1) Scentaholics are a curious breed. Seemingly feeling things more strongly than the mainstream, their faces show reactions to smells that for most would be hyperbole. For us, the curious few, those faces are normality.
2) Alongside this tendency to feel things strongly, many scent fans also express things in intense language. No shades of grey here – this is a world of love and hate, Italianate in style, full of flourish and visceral response. The squirting of an atomiser is a memento mori: Messe de Minuit makes me want to die; Santal de Mysore, to live forever.
3) The lemmings never end. You think you’ve turned the corner. You believe Serge Lutens is over, that there will be nothing new, that it’s time to retreat to the tried and tested favourites. However, you still keep hoping that only, if only, you could have one more hit like the first time you smelled X or Y (but never XY whatever by Hugo Boss), it would all be worthwhile. You claim you’re happy to stick with what you know, to stop increasing your bounty. For one fleeting moment, you’re tricked into feeling contentment. And then you hear of a new niche brand only available at First in Fragrance. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It goes on your sample list immediately. This is because…
4) To the scentaholic, perfume is a drug. That first remarkable hit of that first remarkable scent is a level of ecstasy that can’t be repeated. But you have to keep trying to regain the moment of bliss. To live in hope through addiction – this is the scentaholic’s motto.
5) Scentaholics are obsessive by nature. They probably have at least one other aspect of their life that keeps them awake at night in delicious (and sometimes despairing) reverie. This could be anything – from cake recipes to composting to conducting. It could be all three. At the same time. Scentaholics are a talented bunch.
6) Scentaholics are some of the loveliest people you can know. I’ve never met Patty (you lucky Sniffa people will have that chance), but she never strikes me as anything less than kind, thoughtful, sharp-witted and generous to a fault. I bet she’s great company. I know that March is.
7) Though we take our perfume seriously, we remember that it’s a trivial luxury. In spite of our intensity about it, it’s never really a matter of life and death. That’s why the scentaholic is often able to be irreverent, daft, and comic about the addiction. We’re prepared for the stunned silence of the acquaintance who finds out about our raison d’etre hobby; this is the funniest thing of all.
8 ) Shopping with another scentaholic is a transformative experience. Truly one of the best ways to experience perfume. I’m not good with crowds, but one or two people – just awesome.
9) Perfume copy seems more and more divorced from the real. Robin’s reductio ad absurdum competition over at Nowsmellthis summed this up with devastating humour – the half-digested post-structuralist gobbledegook, the relativist juxtaposition of high minded aestheticism and low culture ‘cool’, the claims for an ever more rarefied exoticism, the painful attempts at capturing erotic ineffabilities in lumpen prose – all these things are regular features of the niche world.
10) But it’s the notes in designer perfumes that take this journey away from reality. Headspace technology has allowed marketeers to place an empty space where a head should be. So we have a chain of premodified nouns now, whose adjectives are more for suggestion than for clarification (crystalline pansy; bejewelled tonka; iridescent musk; tactile oceanic breeze, ending with a base of vacuous guff). But what they suggest is anyone’s guess. I’m with Chandler Burr – let’s just be honest about the chemicals and be done with it.

It’s been a real privilege writing every week for the lovely readers we have here at the posse. But I seem to have dried up for now – my perfume mojo is no longer working at full power, and I’ve had to hand in my scentaholic swipe card to the Holy Trinity (Chris Sheldrake, Jean-Claude Ellena, Olivia Giacobetti). I hope to get the card back as and when my interest returns, but because of my decline in perfume enthusiasm, this is my last post for a while. I’m taking a break. I’ll be around in the online perfume world now and then, and I wish you all well ’til we meet again. And I send my thanks and love to Patty and March for making me feel so welcome, and so at home, here. They’re wonderful women.

There was another called Midnight something?  Seriously hot.  Lilybp wound up with it on the back of her neck, and it was stunning.  My memory should be better, there were others that were just wonderful.  We all found something to love, including my mom, who doesn’t like perfume very much because it usually goes bad on her skin, but she loved the Rainflower, and it smelled beautiful on her.

 I Hope Lilybp and Chaya chime in with the names and notes of the other perfumes. I knew I should have written them down. Most of them are new and not even ready to purchase yet, but should be soon.

So many hours later, smelling just gorgeous, we left the restaurant, Neil headed home, we walked Chaya to her stop, then we went on over to Chanel and Hermes for a little shopping. What?  You really didn’t think we’d be good, did you?

Are there pictures?  Well, no, der.  I’m a goof, I forgot to take my camera, and it never occurred to me to use my cell phone camera.

Now, I also know that y’all were pulling for K.U. Saturday night.. what a game! Of course, sitting in a bar with some great friends who are as loud and obnoxious as I can be when watching my team play is great fun to begin with, but seeing them pulverize-crush-destroy er, win would have been a treat anywhere.  

I’m writing this before the Jayhawks play tonight, but I do expect y’all to do the same as last week and root them on to victory.  If victory comes, I’ll do a drawing for some of my six favorite perfumes from last Friday.  No victory… hairshirts for everyone!

Added:  What a great game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Drop a comment if you want in the drawing!!!