Louise came shopping with us Tuesday — and can I just say how much levity she injected into the new-fall-dress-for-my-12-year-old expedition?  It wasn’t quite the job from hell that it was for the more curvaceous Diva, who at 14 now looks like she’s a high school senior, but still — no stroll in the park.  Bonus points to mom for not having a smackdown with the insane sales clerk, who talked about his desire to be a comedian when he wasn’t macking on the woman ahead of me with his prison stories … no, seriously.   Ask Louise.  (Me to clerk, eventually: “I feel your pain, and yet, I just want to buy these dresses and get out of here.”)  Louise is like the cool auntie — both girls have really taken a shine to her — and is a big riot to shop with.   Today she showed up toting a ginormous bag of nail polish she was getting rid of and being Louise, we are talking about purple, blue, green, black, etc.  The girls are in heaven.  Mom, too, since I get to borrow!

So, happy October!  I am thrilled to be digging some of the heavy-handed favorites out of the closet.  Soon everyone around me will be able to enjoy once again the seasonal miasma glory of such magnificent scents as DK Chaos and Black Cashmere, SL Chergui, CB Burning Leaves, Gathering Apples and Musk (the musk knows no season), CdG original and its tipsy cousin, Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant, Versace Dreamer, Dior Addict, Malle Noir Epices — the list goes on and on.  Doesn’t it?   I know, I know.

I finally got to try the Lacroix Tumulte Pour Homme (thanks, Kevin!), and call me daft, but the first few seconds I thought: Chaos!   Notes are juniper, laurel, bay, violet leaves, incense, plum, atlas cedar, Virginia cedar, Chinese cedar, Virginia cedar.  I know the big joke about Tumulte is it’s being whomped with the cedar-cedar-cedar stick, but on me there’s so much incense — the woody incense makes me imagine this as Chaos Pour Homme — absent any of Chaos’ sweetness.  I would definitely wear this though, it’s unisexy, and I am not even a huge fan of cedar, although now that I think about it, I also loved Rochas Lui and then looked up the notes and it’s mostly cedar, so what do I know?

The new L’Artisan Aedes scent is … very bitter on me.  Not sure why.  It starts off so promising, all peppery incense, and then gets too sharp.  The same thing happened to Louise.  I like the actual room spray on which this is based a lot, so not sure where the misfire is.  For a completely different perspective read Robin’s review, as she generously sent me a sample.  The notes (orange, cardamom, incense, black pepper, rose, iris, cedarwood, resins, patchouli, coffee, opoponax, benzoin, treemoss, immortelle, white musk, vanilla) sound like heaven, don’t they?  Like Robin, I don’t get much in the way of immortelle or coffee either.  Wah.

In this transitional period, I have been wearing the new Chanel Beige — a lot.  It wins this fall’s award for humorous name disconnect — I am deeply NOT beige.  I dislike beige and its wan stepsisters, ivory and cream.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be interested in Beige.  But not only does its honey-musky warmth make me smile, it also lasts — it even passes the Louise test, and many of you know how fast she burns off fragrance. It was delightful and luminous on her.  Also in rotation right now — Lubin’s Idole, which is perfect for the fall but not too heavy when it warms up mid-day, and I have a question to ask my fellow sinners — have you accidentally bought a second bottle of fragrance having forgotten you owned the first?  Duh.  I’m thinking that’s the fragrance equivalent of one of those warning signs of addiction quizzes.

Finally, I want to flog another fall fragrance, relatively cheap, that makes me smile - Esteban’s Sensuelle Russie.  It’s such a warm, cheerful thing — notes are bergamot, orange flower, pine, white cedar, cinnamon, cardamom, amber, woods, patchouli.  The spices are fairly pronounced while retaining a certain transparency; I have seen this described as a poor man’s Ambre Narguile, but AN’s cloying richness makes me queasy — this is more like Fendi Theorema in my book.  What I like most about it is that, while it is not “light,” it’s not so heavy that I have ever regretted applying it, which is more than I can say for some of my other fall favorites.  It has historically been impossible to find online (mine was shipped from France via a friend) but researching this post I discovered it here for $45.  Has anyone tried any/all of those yummy-sounding Voluspa body sprays on there?  Burmese Rosewood, Cardamom Fig, Champaca Bloom and Fern, and etc.?  Heh.  Not that I need any more perfume.  But I want it.  Twenty bucks is free, right?

This has been a heck of a week - more on that later. First, let’s give away those six Tauer Vetiver Dance samples that Andy sent out.  The winners are:

1. Sylvia
2. DPearson
3. Noyna
4. Pam
5. Gretchen
6. Linda B

Just click on Contact Us over on the left and let me know your address, and I’ll send you the samples!

Now, my excuse for no perfume review. My mom broke her ankle about three years ago, a couple of days after her brother died. She had to go to his funeral before they set it.  From that day to now, a woman who despises painkillers has pretty much been on them nonstop, getting worse in the last year.  She hates them, and I can’t state that strongly enough.  There were times in the last year where she would talk about just sawing her ankle off. It was shot through with arthritis, not set straight, and bone was grinding on bone. 

Last Friday she had a Total Ankle Replacement.  With my mom, surgery is hair-raising. She reacts badly to anesthesia and winds up sick after and can’t eat, can’t take pain meds, it’s just a mess.  I’ve gone through this with her so many times, and it scares me every time.  This time, they gave her some great anti-nausea meds, then dumped her to the curb the day after surgery, and I could tell she was getting sick again. Then I did a bad thing… it was the evening, she needed to not be sick anymore, and I had some leftover cough syrup with phenergan in it (helps with nausea), and I gave it to her.  And it worked until morning and I could call the doctor and get a prescription for her.  Sunday she started eating again and had her appetite back and had the best night of sleep she’s had in three years last night and headed home today to finish recuperating.

I can’t tell you how much better she seemed. Even with the post-surgery pain, she was in less pain than she’s been in for the last three years. She said her post-surgery pain wa sa 5, her pre-surgery pain was a 10 almost constantly.  So she’s feeling pretty snappy and frisky now, and it was great to see.

What perfume did we have on for surgery? I wore Chanel Beige, and Shirley had on Guerlain Double Vanille with a shot of Le Labo Vanille 44. She wafted beautifully.

My apologies for no perfume post today, but it’s been a long few days, and perfume has been the last thing on my mind.  Of the new releases you’ve sniffed so far this fall, which one have you liked the most?  Cartier Roadster and Chanel Beige are pretty much doing it for me so far, but I haven’t sniffed many of them still.

First off, thanks to everyone who recommended Marc Jacobs’ Daisy as a possible fragrance for my young niece.  I smelled it yesterday and found it entirely (indeed, almost humorously) devoid of sex appeal — if there is an iota of musk in there, I can’t smell it.  And while it is a generic sparkling fruity-floral, it’s neither syrupy nor crass.  I wouldn’t wear it, but it is a light fragrance perfect for a girl, with the bonus points of the adorable bottle and being mercifully free of any unpleasant celebrity-laden associations.  Right now various retailers like Sephora and Macy’s are selling elaborate Daisy gift sets with solid-perfume compacts, teeny cute mini-Daisy purse sprays, fun makeup bags, etc.

Second — UPDATE — I apparently managed AGAIN to paste some code in here rendering half the post invisible in Internet Explorer. I am sorry. I’ll make an effort to recheck the darn thing in IE before I take it live.

Okay, today’s topic. I’ve been putting this off, but here goes:  am I nuts, or does the re-released Donna Karan Chaos smell … different?

There.  I said it.  Flog me with some Yatagan or a plastic decanting pipette, but I can’t help it, it doesn’t smell quite right to me.  Something’s missing.

Granted, we’re talking about my comparisons to samples from old-formula Chaos bottles of various vintages, many of which are different enough they already smell like dupes of each other.  Some are spicier; some are darker; the top notes might have gone off a bit.  I think Chaos’ stunning bottle probably got left out on display more often than other, plainer bottles.

Prior to the re-release of Chaos, when things were looking desperate, I wrote a review of Anarchy, the Irma Shorell dupe, which is  — seriously — to my nose a credible effort.  It does not smell materially different than a couple of my samples of vintage Chaos from different sources.  It’s missing something at the top, and it’s not quite as darkly mysterious as my full bottle, but it’s less prickly as well.

So here’s the new one, and nobody could be happier than I was when they appeared.  And … well, I don’t know.  I wish I had Octavian from 1000 Fragrances here to help; he could sniff it and tell me they’d tinkered with the  dextromethampetamine or whatever.  He’s got a perfume chemist’s nose and knowledge, and I don’t.

The notes from Basenotes list (for the original Chaos): sandalwood, cardamom, cinnamon, padukwood, agarwood, saffron, clove, amber, musk, sage, lavender, chamomile, coriander.

The new Chaos is brighter.  It seems more focused on the top (the saffron is quite prominent) and less on the gigantic, raspy bottom — the gap to me between vintage and new Chaos is like the gap between Chaos and Black Cashmere, if that makes any sense.  Black Cashmere is a gorgeous scent and I adore it, and it will take the top of your head off if you look at it wrong — I’ve had to scrub that fierce, growling beast off more than once. Also, the new Chaos seems sweeter — more amber and clean musk, less spices.   Since my time machine’s broken, and acknowledging that I have no way of knowing precisely what the original Chaos smelled like in 1996, the new one, while quite nice, seems more muted and softer.  It’s a narrower bandwidth focused on the soft, creamy comfortable middle of the scent without quite reaching either the heights or the depths of the original.  In my opinion.  While I’m going out on a limb and sawing it off, does anyone else get this… this cola-syrup-deal that pops up in the new Chaos faintly every now and again?  It’s not unpleasant, just kind of odd.  (On the other hand, if I recall correctly, “cola” was a word that turned up occasionally in reader reviews of the original, so maybe the scents are closer than I thought.)

If I’d never smelled the original Chaos — or Anarchy, to be honest — I’d be raving over this new Chaos as the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I only have one sample of the new, which I dumped in an atomizer, and I will try to get some more samples and re-test it. But somehow the reissued Chaos does not fly out of the bottle, reach down my nose and rip my heart out of my chest the way the original did — that jaw-dropping smell that made me shrug and roll over to eBay going, I don’t care what it takes, I’ll pay it.  At the time it was the most expensive bottle I’d ever bought, and (unlike some others) I never regretted it.  I wondered at first whether I’ve just gotten jaded about Chaos, but a revisit of my older samples and my bottle — nail-varnish top notes and all — still grabs me in a way my new sample just doesn’t.  Your thoughts?

Coming soon: reviews of Chaos Pour Homme — okay, not really, but that’s the first thing I thought of when sniffing a new-to-me fragrance last week, and my feelings about DK Fuel, now that I’ve managed to retrieve it from behind my work station where it had slunk off to… occupational hazard.

image, Marc Jacobs in a tutu and Naomi Campbell from a funny photo spread in Bazaar last year

I came home today with a headache, having smelled a gazillion tween-y frags in search of something appropriate for my grade-school-aged niece, at the request of her mother (and my close friend) Kate.   I am telling you, sprinting through a field of land mines would have been less fraught for me.  I want Kate to like me after I present the fragrance(s).

It was an interesting conundrum: given all the complaining I do about the fruity-floral-fresh hell of mass market fragrances that seem like the equivalent of cupcakes on the sophistication scale, how hard could it be to choose one for a young girl?  I am here to tell you — way harder than it sounds.

It doesn’t bother me buying perfume for a girl who’s outgrown Disney’s Tinkerbell cologne, at least in her own mind. But girly fragances are tricky.  This is not the time for the entry-level adult stuff you got from your aunt in high school, like Joy, which can be forgiven (or even admired) for a whiff of sexuality.   Even a middle school girl can be forgiven for a little musk — but a girl less than 12, no. There are three legs to the girly-frag stool: sweet/fruity; fresh; and musky.  Kate had already asked me not to go too gaggingly sweet or strong, which eliminated a lot of scents off the bat (hello, Pink Sugar!).  But what I was left with either tended to smell pretty fresh — which I don’t personally like — or surprisingly musky, which can read as too sexy for a girl in minute amounts that would barely register on me, a woman who (stupidly) wore Addict to go shopping.  Also, I wanted the bottle to be cute, if possible, rather than hip or plain or weird.

So here’s a short list of what was left after I eliminated everything else:   Tommy Hilfiger Dreaming; Mariah Carey M or Luscious Pink (bonus points for cute butterfly bottle); the Ferragamo Incantos (okay, a little sweet for me but the girls love the scents and the bottles); Lacoste Inspiration or Touch of Pink; Vera Wang Princess or Flower Princess (bonus points for cuteness) and can I say in hindsight how surprisingly well done Princess smelled compared to most of the competition in the pale pink universe?  I feel compelled to mention the Harajuku Lovers here — in some ways their light scents are perfect, and the wee ones at Macy’s are only $25!   But I think the hip humor of their whimsical doll bottles are better appreciated by slightly older tween/teen girls who are in on the joke and have clearly outgrown dolls themselves, whereas for my niece who is probably unaware of the brand, I thought they looked too much like the Disney-figurine scents she was fleeing from.  I still haven’t made up my mind, and I’m heading for Sephora and Nordstrom next week (MJ Daisy?  the Guerlain AAs?), so any other suggestions you have are welcome.

Brands for slightly older (but still young teenage) girls with more hip factor: the Ed Hardy fragrance, which is apparently all the rage in 9th grade; the Ralphs (Hot, Rocks, Cool, take your pick);  Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche, the J. Los.  Full disclosure: I bought a bottle of J Lo Live and have decided the sweet vanilla-musk drydown, pretty and young as it is, reads as too sensual for my niece; I am giving it to my girls, who liked it a lot and in fact helped me choose it.  Better that than giving them their own bottle of Addict, which they want but would probably kill me in the quantities they put on.

My personal favorite discovery of the day for me rather than my niece: the new Calvin Klein Secret Obsession.  One whiff of the cigarette-tinged beard that is the 1985 original Obsession (and how could I have forgotten that?) reminded me how much popular conceptions of “sexy” have changed in the last two decades, and I cannot imagine that bitter and strange and twisted original topping the charts in this Age of Angel and Pink Sugar.  Secret Obsession is a somewhat different proposition.  Notes are plum, mace, rose, jasmine, orange flower, tuberose, cashmere woods, burnt amber, vanilla and sandalwood.  So, while being considerably less pushy than Obsession, as you can see, it’s not a light fragrance, and I predict it will be irritating the fragrance-averse in a mall near you very soon.  It’s got something akin to that cracked-out hairspray note of Rush, and a perfect balance of ambery sweetness and a slightly naughty cigarette-in-the-next-room spiciness.  The longer I wore it the more I admired it; like Rush it is simultaneously comforting and profoundly strange and synthetic-smelling, all big hair and dance music.  In the far drydown it reminds me a bit of Eau de Merveilles’ salted amber.  I find Secret Obsession less engulfing than Rush — which on the wrong day is like squirting Aqua-Net up your nose — while retaining Rush’s sense of playfulness.  Bottle’s fun too.

PS A Question for Club Kids, Current and Former: In Denyse’s review of Rush, a commenter said Rush has the smell of amyl nitrites or “poppers,” of which Rush is a known brand.  This was news to us, and of interest given the fragrance’s peculiar synthetic vibe (and the hunch that Tom Ford would know what poppers smell like).  Chandler Burr made a similar comment about the smell of poppers in the new Dianne Brill fragrance, which would make sense as Brill was an 80s club queen.  The wiki article was somewhat informative (apparently the larger drug class is alkyl nitrites) but nowhere is the smell discussed.  Do they all smell the same?  Are poppers “scented,” like room spray?  What do they smell like?  Anyone care to share any light on the topic, please do so in the comments and no, not gonna call your mommy and tell on you.  BTW clarifying — I am not suggesting that these fragrances contain poppers, and won’t be shooting them up my nose to test that theory, as I am sure they don’t; I am merely curious as to whether there is a recognizable “popper” smell in either, and wondering how you’d go about recreating that for a fragrance.  Same way they fake everything else, I suppose.

The kitty’s attempt to “hide” my Guerlain Femme Fatale Chypre Fatale sample have been thwarted, and I finally found it on the floor hidden behind the leg of the desk.  Notes of White Peach, Rose, Patchouli & Vanilla.  The peach is very pronounced on me, with some really nice underpinnings of patchouli and vanilla. I don’t get a lot of rose at all from this.  It’s not my favorite of the three at all, it reminds me a little of a, um — cough drop?  I know others liked this more, so maybe it’s me, but I just don’t care for it.  Slightly overhyped with the ad copy? Yes. 

Moving on to one of the most beautiful rose/incense/vanilla (take your pick) entries in forever, dahlinks, Amouage Lyric for Women, consisting of bergamot, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, rose, angelica, jasmine, ylang ylang, geranium, orris, oakmoss, musk, wood, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka bean and frankincense.  This makes me want to weep. Marina gave a great review already, and I don’t have a ton to add to it except my breathless panting about how freaking gorgeous this thing is.  It strikes me that people who are NOT a fan of the rose may wind up happy with this. It’s really not about the rose as much as it is everything else surrounding it.  Roses wafting happily over a bed of smoking incense and vanilla, infused with a myriad of spices.  Just when you think that’s all (!) there is, you get a little geranium nosing around or musk or a note you’re not quite sure of. I swear, I sometimes almost get a horsey smell from it, that wonderful burrow your nose in the neck of a horse smell that is like nothing else.  Complex and just shimmering with shadow and light, this is a stunner and not like anything else I have, which is… well, that’s a fairly large statement.

 Amouage Lyric Men has notes of bergamot, lime, rose, angelica, orange blossom, galbanum, ginger, nutmeg, saffron, pine, sandalwood, vanilla, musk and frankincense.  The male counterpart to the women’s, I wish I knew what Amouage does to their men’s scents of what note they’re using that goes to alcohol on me. I get a heady blast of angelica and  incense, little citrus on the open, and then that note  infects the rest with the smell of alcohol (this is just my nose giving me fits, not the scent itself), and I can’t give you much more about this except I know I would very much like it. it’s less intense than the women’s, almost no trace of vanilla to my nose, where the Women’s is pretty head with their vanilla-incense-musk blend.

1) I am so excited by early reports from Patty and Chandler Burr (see Patty’s post yesterday) about the new Dianne Brill fragrance!  I remember Brill from the bad ol’ 80s, that’s her up there on the right with Andy Warhol, when she was the NY club queen with the ginormous rack who looked like a lot of fun.  I haven’t thought of her since and had no idea she had a cosmetics line, and now here she is with a fragrance and bath milk.  Here’s a link to her website, she’s (ahem) aged well and seems like a gal with a sense of humor.

Of course I (perversely) wanted it to be wonderful, right?  And it sounds like it’s at least very good, and interesting. The packaging is a ripoff of … something, help me out — a cross between (among?) Rochas Femme, Bal a Versailles and Myrurgia Maja?  Who else has that black lace bottle?  Xtina?  Driving me nuts that I can’t remember, and that va-va-voom bottle shape is very familiar.

2)  Here’s a piece in the UK Daily Mail about perfumistas, with mentions of The Perfumed Court and the Posse, and also an article in BizBash about the Scentsation with a photo of Liz Zorn showing her line;

3) Here’s a link to the new free quarterly updates to The Guide, I am soooo happy we have some new material to argue about, thanks Luca and Tania!  Off the top of my head, expect drama over the reviews of Serge Noire, Heeley Cardinal and Figuier, Dolce Vita, Insolence EdP, Armani Cuir Amethyste and more… (and for anyone wondering, no, I don’t know either author and I frequently quote the Guide because it’s fun, not because I’m shilling for them).
Dianne Brill 80s image, operagloves.com, bottles from beautyhabit.com

Lee already did a great review on Serge Lutens El Attarine, but I got some different mojo from it, so I just have to comment on my, um, experience.  Am I the only person getting a healthy dose of MKK on the open under the ethereal boisees series?  Yes?  It’s a heady mix, like hot, sweaty sex in the forest.  Is this how moose feel?  I mean, damn, this starts out fierce on me, and it is the open that I completely have fallen in love with  - the perfect blend of naughty and rutting nature.  It’s just charmed the pants off me because it has enough  of all the boisees in there to distract me from that funkiness going on under it, but all of that going on underneath never strays from my mind.  The longer it’s on, the less overtly saucy it gets, but that almost makes it more sensual, not less.  Less is the new more.

Chandler Burr has already reviewed the new Dianne Brill perfume, and he notes from Brill that the smells she was going for were leather, wood, figs, the smell of Cuba, old books, and nutmeg.  Brill herself writes some horrible copy about not wanting to give notes, that you must experience it melting, blah, blah,blah.  If I never have to read another one of these horrible perfume pitches screaming for attention like Lindsey Lohan withing 50 yards of a camera, it won’t be too soon. 

Burr likens it to Ambre Narguile on Nitrous Oxide.  Oh-kay….  On me it has the resemblance of something more traditional on the open, but quickly veers off into some completely new territory, then back to traditional fruity-ish floral, then completely heads down the path of something far more interesting.  I get a little of the ozonic quality that has been mentioned in passing in comments on other blogs at first, but that lasts not at all in any noticeable way.  Once it starts to settle, then that leather shows up, but it’s slightly rubbery, and I mean that in a good way.  Librarian meets rubber pants?  But no Ambre Narguile in sight.  There is a gourmandish aspect to it, even though I can’t quite figure out what note is causing that or if it’s just the combination of notes that twirls it away from fruity floral into rubbery gourmand.  There in the background is something closer to a mainline fruity floral scent, just jacked up -  emulating it, but not, and then giggling when you notice.

I got two things in the mail recently that made the topic of today’s post glaringly obvious.

Not to drag up anything from the past, but one of the interesting pieces of fallout about Perfumes: The Guide was the frequent complaint that it’s just the writers’ opinions!   To which I would respond: well, yeah.  Any form of critical review is by definition opinion on some level, from Robert Parker on wine to the dine-and-vote masses of Zagat — Zagat being proof in my view that popular opinion is often contradictory, uninformed and wrong.  When it comes to criticism of anything, from food to movies to music, you can disagree with the bona fides of the reviewer, or you can nitpick individual reviews as uncharacteristically dimwitted mistakes made by normally sane individuals.  For me it’s easy, at least regarding fragrance:  if The Guide and I disagree on a fragrance, then they’re wrong.  Or another way to look at it:  YMMV, or Your Mileage May Vary, which to me jokingly acknowledges the very real possibility that we are smelling things, or describing them, differently.  For instance, what struck me about trying Serge Lutens’ new Serge Noire at the Chicago Scentsation was how cumin-y it was on me — an assessment other people I asked to sniff (on my skin) totally disagreed with.  I find these disagreements interesting and amusing rather than alarming; surely there’s room for your Borneo and my CB Musk Absolute, although possibly not in the same room.  In the spirit of toasting our differences, today I have:

1)  He Wood by Dsquared2, which I have been wanting to try since its release (that name!) and which Kevin graciously sent me a sample of.  Notes are fir, musk, amber, violet leaf, aquatic accord, cedarwood, vetiver. Kevin says: “He Wood produces a lovely blend of violet leaves and flowers and holds on to that accord for almost the entire life of the fragrance on my skin” and “He Wood provides a new take on ‘wood’ — its smooth, bleached woods float on sweet, cool, lightly flower-scented water.”  I say: only my fondness for Kevin kept me from posting the traditional Mr. Yuck symbol next to this review, although judging by Kevin’s writing the man has a great sense of humor.  I got a giant smack of sub-Mousson level melon-y aquatic that left me sprinting for the sink.   I think I am an aquatic-note magnifier. I did get to test the theory of stainless steel as a scent remover, though — you just use running water and the back of a spoon in place of one of those soap-shaped devices that are supposed to remove garlic and onion from your hands.  It didn’t get rid of it 100% but it definitely removed most of the scent.  Thank God.  Kevin — peace, and feel free to rag anything I love in a future review, like the Montale Jasmin Full on its way to you now.

2) Chanel Beige, which Marina says “is a cold, somewhat arrogant beauty, a “better than thou” scent … a Proper Perfume in that it is abstract, complex… I happen to adore this kind of dressed-up, ladylike, slightly bitchy, coldly intense floral fragrances… whether you are attracted by this concept or not, you should smell Beige anyway, if only to refresh a memory of what a Perfume is supposed to be like. In this age of Smells, when perfumes are not supposed to be perfumey anymore, Chanel should be applauded for sticking to their guns and (once in a while) doing what they do best- timeless classics.”  I bloglifted several quotes from her review because I love her point about Chanel issuing Perfumes in the age of Smells, but I disagree with her characterization of the scent as cold and bitchy.  In fact, one of the things that strikes me smelling Beige is the luminous warmth it shares with No. 5 Eau Premiere, a gentle embrace instead of the slap you might logically be expecting from such a scent.  Notes are hawthorn, freesia, frangipani and honey.  The opening ten minutes of Beige are some rough road, akin to choking to death on the world’s most expensive triple-milled French bar of fancy muguet soap — it smells like the death-tendrils of muguet to me, although maybe it’s just the hawthorn being petulant.  I was literally heading for the showers when the sun broke through — something expansively Chanel-floral, between Eau Premiere’s creamy ylang-ylang and 31 Rue Cambon’s raw-silk vigor.  The third part an hour later is even weirder and my favorite; the honey becomes so pronounced and the scent simultaneously takes on a strange metallic note, and it came to me — Versace’s The Dreamer!  Not the same, but something reminiscent of that wonderfully dissonant Tootsie-Roll auto-part accord, which I think most folks either love as I do or loathe.   As Patty commented, this beige-named scent is “anything but bland,” and the lasting power of this particular addition to Les Exclusifs (which have been criticized for their wan performances) is extraordinary — still going strong 24 hours later on the back of my hand.  Delicious.

PS For those of you who wanted it — I posted Musette’s Brownie recipe yesterday.

Down below is Anita/Musette’s Eleventy-Million Brownie recipe (she made a bunch o’ batches with different additives).   She made every single kind, and then set them out on this ginormous platter at the Scentsation afterparty (if you look carefully you can see them in the photos).  They were also magic because even though we each horked down 27, the pile never got smaller.   They are really rich, so you can cut them small.

But first some unfinished biz:

1) For all of you who’ve asked me/commented about the morphing alien emoticon and I thought you were nuts, frankly: the alien definitely morphs!  I discovered this when I used a browser I’d never visited the website with (IE as opposed to Firefox) when I was checking on our recent invisible-post problem in IE.  Anyhoo, it only did it the first time I visited and I assume it has to do with cache-clearing or some other internetty thing I don’t understand (just ask Patty about everything I don’t understand) but the alien head starts off as a smiley face like the others and then becomes the alien and yes, it is creepy!

2) To the many people I hectored in Bigelow’s asking what is that song?!?, which they were playing on the store speakers and which I remembered from the bad old 80s — I have a page in my silly notebook on which I scrawled maclaren will pwers?  And I knew that wasn’t quite right but I was in the neighborhood, so I concentrated some more on the voice in my head … okay, we have “earworm” for the song you are desperate to forget, but what is the word for the song you have a snippet of and are desperate to remember?  I don’t think there is one.  Taking my evening walk, there it was, out of the blue: Jon and Vangelis (sure, laugh, I don’t care.)  I’d totally forgotten Jon Anderson was the singer for Yes, which is why the voice was so familiar — and State of Independence, which he did with Vangelis in 1981, is the song, and I had the 7″ single.  People reading this who wonder what a 7″ single is, ask your parents.  Thank you Wikipedia for your assistance.  I downloaded the Jon & Vangelis and two other covers Wiki had noted: Donna Summer in 1982 (who knew?) and the fabulous Chrissie Hynde with the Moodswings in the 1992 version.  I think that must have been the version Bigelow was playing, because they’ve picked up the beat (the Vangelis version is very electro-pop, and Donna Summer’s is kind of funk-reggae).  And finally, I will note that buying my umpteenth Starbucks coffee in Chicago I noted their new CD: The Second Wave, songs of the 80s including XTC, Roxy Music, The Cure, and the one that caught my eye — the uber-mope song Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.    When Joy Division is next to Harry Belafonte/Nancy Sinatra, I guess I am … really old.  Gah.  What’s next, Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead in a Saturn commercial?

3) It really did rain in Chicago on Saturday — 6.5 inches, a record for the day.

And now, drumroll please, the recipe, pasted directly from her email and I can practically hear Anita reading this to me, it sounds so like her:

Anita’s brownie recipe 

here ’tis (this is so stupid-easy it makes sneezing look hard

1 cup sugar

6 tablespoons cocoa (for the dark ones I use 2T Dutch cocoa to 4T reg  or 3/3- all 6 Dutch make it too chalky).  Nothing precise about the Ts.  Heaping okay.  Level okay.  Half heap/half level, okay!

1 stick of butter (8T - for max moistaliciousness I substitute 2T ’spread’ - seriously.  The 0 trans-fat kind, of course, but something in the spread, which allows for liquid suspension, makes for a moister brownie.  My mother used ALL margarine (Imperial) but I  have a rough time with that.  When I do, though, folks go wild for ‘em.  Weird

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1t vanilla (I  go as much as 2t if I’m in the mood, especially Mexican vanilla for the Firecrackers but that’s only if I remember)

3/4 cup flour (unsifted)

pinch of salt

mix cocoa and sugar together, add eggs/vanilla, stir.  Stir in flour, add butter and pinch of salt.

That’s it.  350F for about 28 minutes.

Then you add your fixin’s.  I do:

• a sea-salt brownie (requires a heavier moisture content, else they taste weird - go 3T margarine to 5T butter).  Check brownies about 22 minutes into the baking - sprinkle some sea salt on them and let them finish up their stint in the oven (these require a heavy chocolate taste so I add a bit of melted bittersweet chocolate to the mix, about 2 squares, chopped (I usually just throw it in the butter after it melts).  Some chocolate chips in the mix boost the chocolate taste as well.

• Firecrackers.  Add a pinch of crushed red pepper and a dash of cinnamon and the aforementioned bittersweet chocolate.  Chips are optional but appreciated.

• Traditional.  Chop up some black walnuts, throw them in there.

• Dulce de leche.  As you pour into the pan, swirl in some burnt caramel (I am afraid to give that recipe - the potential for 3rd degree burns is great - so folks who don’t make their own caramel can just buy a high-grade caramel at the store and cook it a bit).  Add some marshmallow (store-bought is okay but chop them fine - if you make your own marshmallow (okay, I’m trippin’ 4 kids does NOT equal homemade marshmallow when it comes to the soft-ball stage, add some cream and swirl it into the brownie mix - but gently!  You’re looking for thick mallow streaks.

• Chocolatechocolatechocolate.  Add semisweet chips, bittersweet chocolate and coarsely chopped unsweetened chocolate (about 2 squares).  Add a touch of ground espresso beans (or any finely ground coffee bean) for a little zing!  Sometimes I coarsely grind the beans which is really good, too, but I wouldn’t give those to kids unless you are okay with a little bouncing off the walls.

That’s it, I think. If I did anything else I swear I don’t remember but the master recipe hasn’t changed in 80 years, except for the butter-to-margarine-backtobutter.  It was my mother’s mother’s recipe.

If any of this sounds odd or suspicious (or just plain stupid) holla back.   It’s basically a one-bowl hit, I usually don’t even pre-beat the eggs because I am a lazy coot.

If I have time I freeze them for a day and then thaw…..let them come to room temp, they are really moist. 

I really like Parfums d’Empire. Cuir Ottoman was lovely, Fougere Bengale interesting, and Ambre Russe the largest amber I know (and unwearable for me, but ymmv). I haven’t sniffed Yuzu Fou, their other latest release, but I’ve now tried Aziyade. The richness of Ottoman Turkey turns out to be this - supermarket brand cola spilled on an old leather jacket. I like it enough, but it’s sub-Arabie (probably sub-Dinner by Bobo, but I’ve never smelled that) and didn’t excite me. I wish I got some curry.

On the other hand, I’ve fallen for El Attarine.Now, a caveat. A Serge Lutens fanboy like me is easily accused by other folk on the interwebs of gloating, sycophantic adulatory praise for everyting dear ole Serge produces. So I just want to put this out there - not so. There’s plenty in the line I don’t love - Miel de Bois is unbearable on my skin, Gris Clair leaves me cold - burning metallics and iced lavender,  Clair de Musc is a vapid gesturing towards ethereal femininity, Fumerie Turque now suffocates me, and his latest export release, Serge Noire, struck me as an unpleasant reconstitution of too many old ideas. Just my humble two penny’s worth you understand.

There seem to be two strands to Lutens’ work (there might be three, though I’m sticking with the two for now): a movement towards asceticism, refinement and apparent simplicity of form on the one hand (perhaps reaching its peak in Iris Silver Mist, but also there in Serge Noire, Encens et Lavande, Chene, Borneo 1834); or a full-bodied voluptuousness with curves and kohled eyes, lids half-open and plump lips moist in languorous expectation (Rahat Loukhom the most gourmand expression of this, but all of those rich sweet orientals too - Santal de Mysore, the Bois series, Arabie, Fumerie Turque). El Attarine, his latest non-export, is firmly entrenched in the second camp, although for me there’s much more of a lightness of touch about this scent than most of those also inside the perimeter. It’s not the sensory assault of Arabie, nor is it the cavity-causing sugar overload of Rahat. Like its compatriots, it is very sweet, so Serge Lutens haters will have plenty to knock,  but the spiciness is muted, filtered.

So, in brief: it has the waxy quality of the Bois series and Rousse, a nod toward the spices of Santal de Mysore and Arabie, without any sharp edges or shrill calls. In drydown, its powdery and woody. For the first few hours it’s a radiant glowing thing, like light illuminating motes of dust, in flickering streams, through lattice -work (I think Carmencanada may well have said that first), but it’s also an abstracted fruit (Luca Turin says apricot, and though it is apricotesque, it never quite lands there for me), powdered at one end and dirtied at the other. It’s utterly Serge Lutens - a new smell - but it does somehow manage to retain the quieter, and perhaps more commercial, voice of Gingembre and Rousse. Neither feminine or masculine, it’s only a perfume for the body because it’s bottled as such. Like most Lutens’ fragrances, it’s a long way from an everyday kind of number, though it’s hushed enough to be made to fit that role. Not that it doesn’t have sillage, or diffusion. In fact, it’s stunnningly diffusive, but likely to be something you stop noticing you yourself are wearing and would be so much more striking worn by other people. Familiar on me, outstanding on others. That makes me both happy and a little disappointed.

Now my rediscovery: I had a decant of Borneo 1834 that I gave away almost as soon as I got it, never thinking I could wear it. Too patchouli, too odd, too angular. And now, with that slight coolness in the air presaging change, I crave it. Unlike el Attarine, it’s a scent that can never feel familiar on me, and it’s a smell in argument with itself, not really resolving its own i nternal battle until it disappears. And perhaps that’s what I love - the buzz that comes from this camphoraceous patchouli socking it out with dry cocoa keeps me on my toes, makes me reawaken to my love of sensory pleasure and all the power of perfume.

Tell me your disappointments, delights and rediscoveries.

By Lee (don’t know where my downhome fella went).

(Images ‘borrowed’ from Osmoz and Basenotes)

Hey, I have three little samples of the new Guerlain Bodice Rippers in my hand, so let’s take a stroll through the smut-section of the perfumarket and see what we have.

 Guerlain Femme Erotique Oriental Brulant - notes of Clementine, Almond, Tonka Bean & Vanilla.  Goes on a very typical well-made Guerlain, smelling similar to some of the Matiere line.  I don’t get a lot of the clementine, if any at all, just a warm, gourmandish incense.  It’s very nice for what it is, but I’m not ripping my bodice over it.  It seems to bridge a gap between maybe Angelique Noire and Bois d’Armenie, going not to far in either direction and finding a really quiet, elegant valley that makes it quite beautiful.  I quite like it, but the price point is a little sproingy - for all of them.

Guerlain Femme Fatale Chypre Fatale - notes of White Peach, Rose, Patchouli & Vanilla. Oh, damn flibbertigittet cat, Rex, knocked this one off the table and who knows where, so no review of this one, sorry!!  Perhaps someone who has smelled it could chime in? Denyse covers in in her reivews.  I’ll try and cage another sample of it to review later on.

Guerlain Femme Enfant Gourmand Coquin - notes of Black Pepper, Rose, Rum & Chocolate.   It’s a big fat old chocolatey boozy gourmand.  I gained five pounds on first sniff.  The pepper/burnt aspect of it keeps it from being a cliche.  The longer it’s on, the less confectionary it feels, while continuing to shout gourmand at a low whisper.  Its treatment of chocolate in perfume is one of the few that don’t make my stomach start heaving, so that’s good!  I like it quite a lot, but it’s not my first choice of Guerlain.  Great sillage and long-lasting.  Fans of the gourmand will find it pretty charming, I suspect.

What I think they should have done with this trio is roll it out as a set in little 1/2 ounce bottles.  At least the two I sniffed are charming and well-made and probably one or two worth having in some small quantity, but I don’t know that I’d need a full bottle of any of the three.  Maybe the Oriental Brulant. Well, yeah, probably.

For many of us, Saturday morning’s Chi-Cocoa Scentsation started off with some coffee and a mad dash to the nearest Walgreens for an umbrella, because the rain appeared to be setting up for a constant barrage for most of the day.   Patty and I got to the meeting place (Ethel’s Chocolate at 900 N. Michigan Ave. next to L’Artisan) pretty early to meet Anita/Musette, and I was already wondering how many people might take a gander at the rain and decide, sensibly enough, to stay home.  Fortunately fragrance people aren’t too worried about some rain, so we were delighted when most of the attendees had arrived by the 10 a.m. kickoff.  I couldn’t get anyone to stand still long enough to count, but I think our attendance was in the low 30s — not bad for a day with an agenda that involved walking from place to place in that super-soaker downpour!

Can we digress for a minute and discuss how incredibly stylish many Chicagoans are?  Of course, since they’re from Chicago and the surrounds, the first thing they do is modestly downplay their stylishness.  And come on, ladies.  We could have been lunching in some swank joint in D.C., only you all were much more stylish.  From the hipster gals to the foxylicious foursome of Vida, her mom Rima, her sister Elena and their friend Kristina, I am talking some nice threads.   In the words of Christian, our ladies were fierce.  Also in attendance were three actual males!  Anyway, here we go, and all you readers: feel free to correct/add to my report.

So: first stop, L’Artisan Parfumeur (left).  The lovely ladies there gave us a nice swag bag, and they had a drawing for goodies.  I think all of us had a great time sniffing and resniffing favorites from the line, and since that’s a stand-alone L’Artisan boutique they have gloriously oddball things like Oeillet Sauvage and Fleur de Carotte, both of which I think are “discontinued” but seem to be hanging around nicely.  We smelled the new Fleur de Liane, which is a light melon-y aquatic thing that reminds me of Hermes Mousson, with less of the stuff that summons the grim reaper.  My favorite finds: the Bottega Veneta candles and room sprays (Nos. 2 and 4 are extraordinary), their other room sprays, including the delightful Ile Bourbon, a vanilla/citrus/spicy nutmeg deal that had me moaning in ecstasy, and perhaps my favorite: L’Eau de Navigateur!!!  I had never even smelled this thing, and honestly, I thought it was GONE.  As in, GONE.  Am I nuts, or is this the one people lament about having been replaced by the (inferior) Navegar?  It’s listed as d/c’d on Basenotes, and is not at Lucky (which has many/most of them, including the LEs,) but here’s a grab from the Perfume Shoppe in Canada: “Created in the honor of the King’s adventurers and buccaneers, L’eau de Navigateur is a powerful marriage of exotic woods, resins, tobacco and rare flowers enhanced with the unusual note of coffee. A richly dark and smokey fragrance.”  I thought they told me at the shop it was done by our favorite homeboy Jean-Claude Ellena, but I can’t find independent confirmation of that anywhere, although it’s certainly been around long enough (1979) and he did some others for L’Artisan.  What I get: coffee and sweat.  Stunning.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  I’m gonna call our gals at 312-787-7788 and order some.  BTW they’re having a fragrance event on Sept. 26 from 7:30 - 9, with nibbles and champagne, call them for details.

Next up: Barneys (right).  Their fragrance area is so spread out, we fanned out and sampled it all.  Big draws in the store that I could see were the Malles and the Serge Lutens fragrances.  Many people were, I think, sampling parts of these lines for the first time and it was wonderful to see their reactions, particularly to things like Serge Noire and Chypre Rouge.  Therese still smells like cilantro to me, but I am amused to discover I am developing some tolerance for the heavily spiced SLs like Arabie and Douce Amere.  It was fun sniffing the CdGs as well, and I think Luxe Patchouli was a big hit there, as well as their weirdo scents like 2, 3 and the Guerillas.

Then we staggered up the street to Hermes in the downpour, only some of us stopped first at Sarah’s for their incredible black-and-white cupcakes, a little treat in all that rain.  I was sitting at a table (ahem) polishing off my second b&w when suddenly Anita and the first part of the group were back.  Apparently when the 12 of them arrived at Hermes, a sales person approached them and said they didn’t have authorization to be there as a group and asked them to leave (!) and that they should have contacted the store first.  Anita pointed out that she had contacted the store, I think via 3 emails and 2 phone calls, none of which were returned.  Well then, the harridan psycho employee said, and I wrote this down so I could quote it correctly, the store must have “declined the event.”  Like you need a special pass to enter the hallowed halls of Hermes.  Or a fricking secret handshake. I mean, God forbid they get a bunch of perfume nuts in there on a day when it was raining so hard there were almost no other shoppers out.  I knew they could be heinous beeches but that really takes the cake.  I wasn’t there to witness, but Musette gave her some what-for in the ensuing smackdown, and btw I wouldn’t pick a fight with Musette, if I were you.

Next we did a quick run by the fancy Chanel boutique, where they treated us as if we were human (!) and I know two or three bottles from Les Exclusifs left with our party - paid for, not stolen.  They did ask us very nicely not to take photos in the store.  Maybe the folks at Hermes could call them up for some tips on customer service.   At that point it was pouring so spectacularly we hung out in the lobby for awhile, but it wasn’t really going to get much better, so we jumped out running and laughing and screaming and hustled up to foodlife in Water Tower Place for some hot food and a welcome sit-down.  How big is their famous chocolate cake?  Our table of six split a piece.

In Bigelow I was flagging just a bit, thinking, yeah, this is nice, but what I really want is a cup of coffee — and voila! — they appeared with a giant tray of cups of coffee!!  Bigelow as I think most of you know is a big apothecary-style store, so while some folks stuck to the perfumes (Floris, Carthusia, Keiko Mecheri, etc.) others of us wandered off looking for foundations, sunscreen, etc.  Let me put a plug in here for the Lipstick Queen line.  It turned out there are several hardcore Lipstick Queen fans in the group, and their lipstick is awesome with no aftertaste (a lipstick pet peeve — for instance, Bobbi Brown and NARS have that waxy flavor, and some folks hate the perfumed taste of Lancome, although it doesn’t bother me.)  Anyhoo, Lipstick Queen is the Poppy King stuff, and they come in two lines: Saints (sheer) and Sinners (matte opaque).  They are lovely.  I am now going to make an Allure-worthy pronouncement: the color Saint Natural is one of those universally flattering tones.  It turned out three people in our group were wearing it that day.  It’s the proverbial bite-your-lips pinky beige that is a little sexy rather than boring and seems to brighten everyone’s complexion.  The Sinners have 90% pigment and wear like iron.  Great stuff.

From there it was Neiman-Marcus, where they gave us an energizing drink and another great gift drawing and showed us the Creeds, and I … failed to take any notes!   Oh, wait, here they are.  The new Annick Goutal Musc Nomade … heh heh.  That’ll peel the paint off your barn.  It’s a skankfest, much more so than I was expecting.  Gives MKK and CB Musk a run for their money.  I sniffed the new Ferragamo Tuscan Soul, which smells pretty much like Light Blue, and something is wrong with that picture!  (Isn’t that the one Chandler Burr wrote about in reference to fragrances being designed/released for the Asian market?)  It was also a reminder of how gorgeous Chanel No. 5 Eau Premiere is — now that it’s being released more widely, I run into it more.  It’s warm where the original is cold, and I find myself wanting a bottle.  I am pretty sure they had the Hermes line including Mousson, which seemed appropriate for the weather, although I am so grateful nobody sprayed it anywhere near me.

On to Saks, where people spent some time with the Bonds, including the new Lexington Ave, and I trolled furiously looking for someone in our group to buy what might have been the last bottle of Jo Malone Dark Amber & Ginger Lily in U.S. stores, and Catherine humored me and did so.  By the way it layers beautifully with JM Black Vetyver Cafe. In the meantime, Patty picked up the gorgeous new Chanel Eyeshadow Quad which I think is exclusive to Saks, all lovely shades of gold, definitely worth checking out if you are one of their makeup fans, she blogged on this yesterday.

We finished up at Nordstrom, which has a huge range of fragrance from the Amouages to D’Orsay and lots of other things you don’t see too often.  Can fragrance make you cry?  One of our group, Rima, Vida’s mom, was so overjoyed with the Nordstrom exclusive Herve Leger that she wept — wept — tears of joy!  I get all verklempt thinking about it.  (That’s her up there carrying her shoes, it was so ridiculously wet outside.)  We were so happy for her fragrance epiphany.  It’s wonderful watching someone fall in love.  Nordstrom served some Mexican hot chocolate (they know a caffeinated customer is a happy customer.)  That Nordstrom is amazing, so we might have also spent some time in their outstanding shoe dept., and someone might have bought a new watch.  Maybe.

Then came the afterparty at Outsider downtown, and I still can’t figure out how Anita squeezed that amazing spread out of our meager $20 registration fee.  Neil Morris fragrances were available for sniffage, Liz Zorn came from Cincinnati to present her line and chat, and we all attacked the Miracle Brownies that Anita made for dessert, which somehow kept reappearing on the platter now matter how many we ate.   After I’d had a few glasses of wine, Vida’s sister Elena scared the crap out of me (see photo above) by reappearing in a power suit with her hair up and a pair of big, rectangular, blingy glasses as Sarah Palin.  She “introduced” herself, shook all our hands and reported in a chirpy voice that she could see Russia from her house.  Tina Fey, watch your back.

Patty and I rolled into our hotel room around 10 p.m., more than 12 hours after our perfume day had started.  We both said to each other (and to Anita, Shelley and Erin the next day) how nice it was to really get a chance to chat with so many people, the advantage of a relatively small group.  You can’t find nicer people than perfume people.  Thanks to all of you who made it such a wonderful day.

PS Thanks to Vida and Anita for these photos; soon we’ll upload Patty has uploaded other photos on the photoblog in the left-hand column.

First, I want to add my thanks to Anita and Shelley for all of their hard work in planning the Chicago event. It was a blast, rain and all, and such a great group of people in all. Truly a perfect day with some of the nicest, most fun, intrepid perfumistas you could hope to get together.  I plan to start uploading pictures to my photoblog (look for the link on the left) tonight and the rest of this week, as well as other pictures send me.  I’m not sure how great I’m going to be at doing names, I may need some help!  Truly one thing I am horrible at - names.  It will be under the heading Chicocoa Scentsations.

Today is all Beige and all Chanel in two flavors.

First, Chanel’s new Limited Edition Eyeshadow Quad called Beiges de Chanel consists of a light beige as a highlighter on the upper lid, a wheaty gold color for the lower eyelid, a mocha with hints of gold for the crease and a chocolate with more gold for the liner/outer corner of the eye. I’m going to put up this picture as well, but I think capturing eyeshadow colors on film are tricky, but hopefully the descriptions help.  This is a gorgeous, understated, elegant set of colors.  If you want more drama and color in your eyeshadows, this probably won’t work as well, but if you want a gorgeous set of brown/neutrals that blend perfectly without either being too plain or too dark, just get this quad.  As far as I know, only Saks has the quad right now, but I’m guessing it will go in wider distribution this fall.  Remember it is limited so it will eventually be gone.  I bought two so far and may get two more just in case.

Chanel’s new addition to the Les Exclusifs line is Beige, with notes of hawthorn, freesia and frangipani, and honey. The hawthorn is big out of the open in a great, slight sharp way, which takes this just far enough out of the “just another white floral” territory.  It is also beautiful, so floral lovers shouldn’t fear that this is too weird, nor should the honey scare you, it brings a soft richness to the fragrance.  It is understated in a way that only something beautifully crafted can be and not shout. There is a graceful artlessness with this fragrance  - not contrived or overwrought. Far into the drydown, the hawthorn and its slight woody bitterness evens out into this balanced floral musk with no sharp edges, but stays far short of anything bland.  This is officially my favorite Les Exclusifs.

We rocked Chicago for the Scentsation.  It rained buckets the entire time, I guess the remnants of Ike — an inch an hour on occasion — with those umbrella-grabbing winds shoving us up and down Michigan Ave.  We were a little worried Saturday morning that nobody would show and we’d just have to eat all Musette’s brownies ourselves, but midwesterners are not easily cowed by a little weather, and the turnout was excellent.  Patty’s got some fun pics of us looking (variously) fab or sopping wet as we worked the itinerary, ending up with some fine food and mebbe a little too much to drink at the after-party.  Special kudos to travelers like Tigs who came from Canada, and our Ohio contingent, esp. Emily whose car broke down in Indianapolis, making her trip just that much more exciting.  We had a little drama getting out of Chicago on Sunday at the end of a busy convention week, I heard a bunch of flights got cancelled at O’Hare due to flooding, and so they all rolled over to Midway, and the scene there was pretty chaotic.  Thank goodness for Midway and my reservation there on Southwest Airlines.

Tune in on Weds. for my report with the details (yes, as usual I took notes in my handy dandy notebook), including the sugar binges, some non-perfume retail therapy, getting thrown out of Hermes, and a surprise visit from a Veep Candidate!   Yup, we have the photos to prove it.  They will be up whenever Patty gets home, dries all her stuff out and uploads them, stay tuned.  In the meantime it’s late, the kids are needing mommy for some snuggles, and then I’m going to unpack and go to bed, I am whipped.  But I smell marvelous.

Moving is never fun; especially when you tend to “collect” things. I wouldn’t classify myself as a packrat, but I do have a tendency to amass many items: shoes, clothes, purses, books…oh, and fragrances. Not to mention dishes, glasses, mugs, rubber duckies… I have a collection of rubber duckies living on the counter in my bathroom. OK, maybe I am packrat.

For the next few weeks, I will be gathering my things and moving from the house I’ve lived in for 11 years. I’ve experienced a bit of upheaval in my life over the past year, and, what I was hoping would not happen, is happening. In a crappy real estate market, and during what I consider to be the worst economic climate of my adult life, I am essentially leaping before looking and embarking on a fresh start. Did I mention that I will be making this fresh start in Canada, not far from my wacky but eminently lovable family? Not only am I moving to new digs – I’m moving to a different country. Why couldn’t it be England or Italy? Maybe one day. For now, it is important for me to have family close by, in addition to a brand-spankin’ new Shoppers Drug Mart, a famous gourmet supermarket, and an apartment where I will never have to worry about snow removal or finding a parking spot. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Then why am I scared out of my freakin’ mind?

Part of my fear stems from having to part with material possessions that for years, I never gave a second thought to. I am never one to walk out of a bookstore empty-handed, and when I schlepped six large boxes and three shopping bags full of books into the local Goodwill earlier this week, I was greeted with some strange looks. I wasn’t quite sure if those looks were ones of utter shock from the sheer numbers; or because no one could possibly read that much without physically injuring themselves. I almost felt the need to exclaim, “Yes, I’ve read every one of these books!” I’ve still got one completely stuffed bookcase to contend with; those are books I haven’t yet read. And I can say with utter certainty that I will never own one of those Amazon Kindle things. For a booklover, downloading books is tantamount to treason; I don’t care how much space it saves.

I’ve almost reached that Zen point where I’m considering selling my CDs, and contenting myself with the over 3,000 songs on my iPod, but I don’t know if I can. I grew up with record albums, and the physical presence of music still means something to me. I have memories of lying on the floor of my bedroom, and my friends’ bedrooms, poring over album covers and liner notes; an activity as obsolete as having to get up to change channels on the television or dialing a rotary phone. Downloading music on the computer still feels unnatural because I have those memories; I can’t help but think the younger generations have missed out on an integral part of life. Stuffing tiny headphones into your ears while holding an electronic device in the palm of your hand that contains more music than could be packed into an average size house is indeed a technological miracle, but it cannot replace the physical act of holding a record album and feeling the throb of stereo speakers vibrate throughout your body. Man, I miss that.

I’m not going to cover every category of possession, but I’ve saved the most difficult for last: my fragrance collection. I’ll confess to accumulating way more bottles over the years than I’m willing to admit; not on the scale of someone like Donatella Versace (wasn’t it her collection photographed in Allure or Vogue that showed hundreds of bottles displayed in her palatial bathroom?), or someone else who might have the square footage to accommodate an obnoxiously large collection. For me, fragrance exists on the periphery of life; particularly because I’ve always stored my bottles in drawers and closets to keep them as fresh and pristine as possible. It wasn’t until I pulled them all out and attempted to gather them in one spot that I realized, “Damn, I didn’t think I had that many!” Yeah, I have that many.

So, what’s to become of me and all my fragrances? I don’t know. Right now, I’ve divided my collection into two categories: keeping and chucking. Sadly, I’m not one who has the patience to list my unwanted wares on ebay; keep track of auctions, deal with potentially dishonest buyers, and haul my cookies to the post office everyday. All that is not something I have time for right now. I’m procrastinating at levels I never reached, even as a student; I keep reminding myself that life isn’t just about possessions. But, every time I look at those bottles, I think: these are an expression of who I am. Why do I have to get rid of them? Then, I spy scents that I haven’t worn in years and realize there is no point in taking them with me. If I haven’t worn them in a very long time, why keep them? Sentimentality is weighing heavily one me, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom and my grandmother and the stacks of Irish linens sitting up in my attic – the one room I have yet to conquer.

Here is my plan as it stands: Into the car go the contents of my Serge drawer, the scents I have in heavy rotation, and the plastic totes I’ve designated as the vessels the remainder of my collection will travel in. There’s no way I will allow my bottles to bounce around in a rented moving truck. I’ve yet to decide what will hold pride of place in the passenger seat: my dear, sweet, loving cat Lily, who will be tranquilized for the trip, and no doubt traumatized when we get there, or my Serge collection; tough decision. Much as I love Serge, I’m sure my bottles will be fine on the back seat.

 This will be my last essay here at the Posse, probably until the end of October or the beginning of November. I look forward to sharing with all of you the experiences of my move and what storage I have devised for what will eventually be a significantly smaller collection of scents. Thanks again to March and Patty for graciously allowing me to post. Hope you’re all having a grand time at Chi-cocoa Scentsation this weekend. See you soon!

Today is the annivesary of  9/11, and I’m just not quite feeling it for a perfume post, plus I’m packing and trying to get work stuff tidied up before I’m away, so let’s find some ways to waste time with a few of my favorite newfound links.  I promise to be back next week with reviews on the new Guerlains and hopefully the new Serge, just waiting for them to show up!

 In what will definitely be our only nod to politics in this election year, Amazon has an interesting feature that shows what people in each state are reading in political books from the red and blue books. Does it tell you how clueless I am on reading about any of these books that I haven’t heard of 3/4 of them?

This link is a lot more fun, but a little more brutal.  It juxtaposes death in the insect world with some really great quotes on life and death. Make sure to click on Page 2.  A couple of my favorite quotes:  “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.” - Leonardo da Vinci  AND “You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.” - Ian Fleming (You Only Live Twice).

I really think the blog poster should make a book out of this and expand it to the entire animal world.  I’ve always thought that our society’s insulation from death numbs us to life’s fragility and the very natural and always eventual end in very detrimental ways.  Growing up where I did, death came daily to something on the farm, and you didn’t become hardened to death, but accepted that it comes for us all and it was an intrinsic part of living.  I can’t really say why the insect death pictures touched me, but they did because they are beautiful and fierce and real.

Yesterday was my first horseback riding lesson, after having not rode in a few decades. It was more fun and harder than I thought it would be.  We’re just working on the balancing while riding bareback with no reins part, which is harder than you can imagine, but a great way to get a feel for the gait and pacing of the horse.   Any riders out there with tips for any way to practice for when I can’t get to the stables?

My friends!  I am so excited!  This weekend is the Chi-Cocoa Scentsation!!!  Yay!!!! Patty and I arrive on Friday (along with 85,000+ other people — I hear this is a big convention weekend in Chi-town!) and we do the big ol’ perfume and chocolate binge on Saturday!  I’ve selected my outfit (shoes with orthotics!  elastic-waist pants!) and bought a brand new Timex for $14.99, tres elegant, for the occasion… you know what chafes me?  I am so bummed our message board imploded.  Who’s going to this thing?  Any of you guys?  Tigs, I know you are.  Bryan, I think.  Who else?  Hello, hello?  (knocks on glass)  Anyway, we are really excited for the event.  I’ll be back Sunday night, and we’ll take things from there.  One more special shout-out to Musette for going to extraordinary lengths to make this happen, and to Shelley for lending a helping hand!

So today I have … no perfume post!  Okay, I sniffed some things… that new Lolita Lempicka Fleur de Corail (in the lil’ mermaid bottle) smells very light to me, just sweet, creamy floral (notes are grapefruit, bergamot, frangipani blossom, orchid, vanilla, amber, musk, driftwood) and the blue bottle pictured there to the left is not as cute in person as the original.  The Black Amethyst at BBW — their sexxx-ay new scent — gah, okay, I am delighted that it’s not some lollipop floral, but that walk-of-shame sour woods (like a downmarket Euphoria) is starting to wear a bit thin.  Can we have something else, please?  How about … leather?  That’s sexy.  (The day BBW comes out with Russian Leather I will eat my tube of BBW Brown Sugar and Fig.)

Also, the new Coach Legacy.  I don’t ever think I ever blogged-in-hindsight about how nicely done the first Coach fragrance was.  I don’t have a bottle of the original and it’s not me, but I thought it was a terrific example of on-target design, from the gorgeous, heavy, monogrammed square bottle (shown at right) to the pretty fragrance inside to the ancillary products (like the cute solid perfume keychain in the Coach tag shape, etc.)  It fits in perfectly with the revived brand’s new image of youthful sophistication, and while I miss their dowdy old original bags, of which I have several because I am that old, I’m happy to see the company doing well.

I’m a little less thrilled with Legacy, at left in the round bottle.  The online description is: “A unique blend of soft florals combined with amber, vanilla and precious woods.”  So, one might guess it would be a slightly heavier, fall fragrance?  And one would be wrong.  This falls squarely into dull flanker territory for me — Coach Eau Legere, so to speak.  It may be my old nemesis, musk anosmia, rearing its pointy head, but I can barely smell this thing — it’s wan and watery compared to the first Coach.  Has anyone else tried this?  Maybe it’s fabulous and I just can’t smell it, like I clearly can’t smell 50% of Estee Lauder Sensuous’ molten river of woods. There’s a whole line of fashion items (scarves, totes, etc.) with that Legacy color scheme, though, and they are pretty darn cute.  Maybe it’ll grow on me.

Finally –  a little perfume discovery that gave me pleasure last week.  I sprayed some Balenciaga Rumba in the air in the guest bedroom (thanks, Angela!), one spritz, and the scent has lived on — and on, and on…. glad I didn’t do two spritzes.  I walk past the guest bedroom all the time, and I get the funniest sensation, like I am smelling a room in someone else’s house, because I haven’t worn Rumba enough to associate it with myself.  Now I go in my guest room to read, while pretending that I’m actually in a lovely, quiet B&B as opposed to my house, and nutty as it may sound, the smell of that “stranger’s perfume” completes the illusion. There’s something perversely pleasurable, as we know, about being in someone else’s bedroom — at a hotel, an inn or another person’s home.  (I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s the vague sense of impropriety or just the thrill of knowing that you don’t have to wash the sheets and vacuum under the bed.)  Discovering how I can be a guest in my own home for a few stolen moments of slothful reading while the family is otherwise occupied has been quite a treat.  Although now the bed’s full of cookie crumbs, so I suppose I’ll have to change the sheets after all.

Lancome Magnifique has notes of saffron essence, cumin, Bulgarian rose, Mai de Grasse rose, jasmine, sandalwood, nagarmota and vetiver.  Hey, this could work.  Eh, maybe… not.  Fruity’ish on the open, it does improve quite a bit in the first 15 minutes.  The sweetness in the open fades nicely, then it smells just a skosh spicy/earthy, and then it pretty much drops off the fragrant earth and there’s nothing, nada, a little bit of a floral something. So I’m either slightly anosmic to this or it truly doesn’t work with my skin.  But have I ever said how much I love their mascaras?

But I had better luck with Cartier Roadster.  Created by Mathilde Laurent with notes of mint, lavander, patchouli, cistus labdanum, vanilla, and Cashmere wood, it goes on slightly mineralic and very, very earthy.  There’s an understated, firm-footed elegance in this that’s really, really great.  It’s fresh in what should be a traditional men’s cologne way, but that earthiness from the vetiver and incense pins it firmly to the ground and makes it completely different from about any other men’s scent I’ve smelled in ages.  I’m smitten with this, and its one of the first men’s scents I’ve loved in a long, long time.

But can we chat about the bottle?  I’ve seen this in person, and it really could sub in for, well… you know.  It takes the top prize for me easily of most sexually suggestive perfume bottle of the year.  If this one isn’t the most erotic for you, which one would you nominate?

In spite of thinking several of the Bond No. 9 scents are nicely done, I’ve never felt moved to buy one.  My favorite is Chinatown, but I finally gave my decant away because it just doesn’t wear right on me – there’s some note in the drydown I find shrill and annoying on my skin, like a friend at a party who is no longer as amusing as the evening wears on.

Bond’s first in the Warhol series, Silver Factory, is really, really nice, and if Bond gave me a bottle (hah!) I’d probably wear it, but my heart belongs to several other incenses.  The second Warhol is some fresh-floral thing with a name I can’t even remember.  Given the good reviews for the third Warhol scent, Lexington Avenue, I thought I should give it a try.  I find the notes particularly intriguing — blue cypress, fennel, cardamom, pink peony, iris, crème brûlée, pimento berry, patchouli and sandalwood.  I think this thing is pegged by Bond as a floral chypre, but I’d call it a woody gourmand.

So here’s the humorous reveal – the first time I sprayed it on, I inhaled deeply and thought:  Serge Noire!   It bears a passing resemblance to the new Serge while feeling less … French?  Like if Estee Lauder made Serge Noire?  And I don’t mean that as a criticism – it’s more full-bodied and less subtle, if you will, while still being completely engaging.  I get a hint of delightful sweatiness, resin-y incense, and lightly spiced woods. (The typically vague notes for Serge Noire are patchouli, cinnamon, amber and dark woods.)  I would love to hear comments from anyone else who has tried both whether I am out of my mind?   The Lexington Avenue is more opaque, and smoother.  The fennel is pretty subtle and adds to the soft spiciness, and the florals seem really abstract.

As I was writing the review’s first draft in my head, suggesting this as an easier-to-get alternative to the Serge, there was an amusingly rapid shift to a gourmand – the quite distinct Part B of the scent.  This could be really jarring, but it isn’t – the sweet creaminess in the woods of the first part and the spices carry over to the gourmand part, making the transition interesting and charming rather than unnerving.  It’s the crème-brulee phase I’d see a man having a bit more trouble carrying off, but in my general experience men tend to “butch” fragrances up on their skin, and anyway, I’m the woman who thinks all men should try wearing Fracas and Datura Noir for a change of pace.

When the transition is done, the drydown of Lexington Avenue ends up being strongly reminiscent of – wait for it – CB Musk on me, the sweet ambery warmth rather than the dirty bits, as if I were smelling CB musk layered with something like Sushi Imperiale or Organza Indecence.  There’s a vanillic, spicy sweetness still tempered enough by the woods to maintain a plausible unisex vibe.  Great timing on the release, too – a this would be a perfect fall scent.

I find myself wanting a bottle of this.  A lot.