I was kicking around ideas for perfumes for a dame with Angie at Now Smell This and Alyssa at Perfume-Smellin´ Things, and we decided to do a multi-blog post on the topic.  I´m looking forward to seeing what they had to say on the subject, and I bet you are too, so be sure to check the links.   Here are my subjective, random thoughts on the topic.  

Dames are broads, but not all broads are dames.  Dames are larger than life.  They demand and command respect.    Some dames are beautiful; some are wicked; some are wicked smart; and some are all three.   Dames can stand up to men like Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.  Whether they´re obvious or coy about it, dames are running the show.

Perfumes for a dame are by definition big fragrances.  They have sillage; they have personality; they have power.  They are often classic fragrance and if not, they may have retro overtones.   Perfumes for a dame may not be for everyone, but whether you´re channeling Lauren Bacall or Dame Edna, there´s probably at least one dame fragrance in your wardrobe.

Trouser Dames can wear pants, and may even wear the pants in a relationship.  Trouser dames include Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauren Bacall, Kate Hepburn.  They´re a little … bent.  Love and fear them.  As I type this I am wearing a lovely gift of Chanel Cuir de Russie in extrait, and there, my friends, is a fragrance for a trouser dame.   How can you resist its earthy powers?   Trouser dames wear:  Chanel Cuir de Russie, vintage Femme, Caron Tabac Blond or Narcisse Noir, Bulgari Black, Knize Ten, Vero Kern Onda.  Lips: MAC Film Noir or Ruby Woo, NARS Red Lizard, or (for a neutral look) MAC Twig with Chanel nude liner.  Nails: Revlon Raven Red or Sephora OPI Never Enough Shoes, or just short, buffed nails or maybe some Essie Ballet Slippers, depending.

     “A dame that knows the ropes isn´t likely to get tied up.” – Mae West

Lipstick Dames are at the opposite end of the spectrum from trouser dames.  They are all about the pretty, although they´re still not to be trifled with.  Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, and Ava Gardner are lipstick dames.  Lipstick pretty scents conjure up dressing tables and silk robes, but they´ll throw a drink in your face and stomp you with their stiletto heels if you misbehave.  Lipstick dames wear:  Piguet Fracas; Malle Lipstick Rose or Iris Poudre; Fifi Chachnil; Cuir de Lancome; Patou Joy, Molinard Habanita; Guerlain Apres l´Ondee.  Lips: Christian Dior in Red Premiere, MAC Bombshell, NARS Schiap.  Nails: Revlon Cherries in the Snow, Zoya Morgan, NARS Schiap.

     “You treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.”  – Frank Sinatra

Corsage Dames love big white flowers, maximum sillage, fine champagne, and Tahitian pearls.  They are elegant but tough.  Corsage dames include Billie Holiday, Rita Hayworth, Jean Harlow, and Elizabeth Taylor. Corsage dames wear: SIP Lady Day; Malle Carnal Flower; Donna Karan Gold; Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia; Parfums de Nicolai Eclipse, Montale Jasmin Full, Christian Dior Poison, Serge Lutens Un Lys.  Lips:  MAC Russian Red or Brave Red, Lancome Absolute Rouge.  Nails: OPI Malaga Wine or Blues for Red; Chanel Gold Fiction.

     “I´m the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.” – Bette Davis

Corset Dames wear their fragrances like a force field.  All dames wear fragrance to please themselves, not necessarily to attract those around them – and this is especially true of Corset dames.  They can be as aloof as they are beautiful; they are not everyone´s cup of tea.  They can be dangerous or difficult.  You may only find them alluring if you´re a bit jaded and like a challenge.  Corset dames include Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo.  Corset Dames wear:  Guerlain Mitsouko; Malle Noir Epices, Musc Ravageur or Un Fleur de Cassie; Desprez Bal a Versailles; Vivienne Westwood Boudoir, Mona di Orio Nuit Noire.  Lips: Chanel Vamp.  Nails: OPI You Don´t Know Jacques or Russian Navy, Sephora OPI Metro Chic.

I could have added dozens of perfumes to my lists, so please chime in with your additions and comments, and thanks to Louise and Musette for their thoughtful suggestions as I wrote this.

icons, top to bottom:  Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Ava Garder, Billie Holiday, Greta Garbo

March

Awhile back I mentioned I was looking for a retro creme red nail polish, and you all had a bunch of suggestions.  Here are some winners, with the caveat/explanation that I started with what was easiest to find locally rather than purchasing online.

Cheery cherries – the sort of bright, retro red you can imagine on a set of 1940s dishtowels.  These reds are great on me and would be fun in the summer on my toes.  Winners:  Sephora/OPI And A Cherry on Top, Sally Hansen Cherry Red (a fab red for, like, $2.39?!), OPI Red.

 Classic deep vixen red – Revlon Raven Red got rave reviews from several of you.  I admit, I don´t think it´s my best red.  It’s slightly brown on me, and would look better on someone with a little darker or warmer skin tone than mine.  Having said that, it is indeed a gorgeous color, and I´ve gotten compliments when wearing it.   Another gorgeous deep vixen that isn´t as dark: Sephora/OPI Personal Shopper. Yowza.

Revlon was having a BOGO when I bought Raven and the colors were pretty picked over, so I wound up with Revlon Red.  It´s funny – on its own, Revlon Red is a great color.  It´s a bright, slightly warm generic red that´s like the red crayon in the box of Crayolas.  The problem is, if you´ve spent much time playing in reds, you can come up with colors that are so much better, even though on some level it´s practically splitting hairs.  Revlon Red is a perfectly fine emergency red purchase, but it doesn´t have the shine or the depth of a great red.  Ultimately I decided to Franken it into a deeper red with the addition of some black.  (Frankening hint gleaned from my art background – you can darken a color much, much faster than you can lighten it.  I add black two drops at a time and shake shake shake.)  I wound up with a color I like much better.

Blue red – y´all were right, OPI´s I´ve Got the Blues for Red is an excellent color.  It looks a little cool on warmer skin tones but on me it is a true, neutral classic red that is neither bright nor vixen-y dark.  It´s gorgeous.  I also had difficulty finding it, one site having labeled it as discontinued, so if you´re in love with that color you might want to scrounge up a backup.  Sephora/OPI Le Beau was an interesting, lighter blue red.

And my own personal winner is … OPI Malaga Wine!  I tried on so many colors, and while the differences can be subtle, the final effect can be huge.  I wound up with Malaga Wine sort of by, um, accident on an order of spring pastel creme nail polishes (yeah, stay tuned for that) because you mentioned it and I´d noticed it on several color wheels on Nailgal and thought it looked pretty.

Malaga Wine isn´t what you´d expect from the name – it isn´t purple, or maroon-brown.  On me (fair skinned/cool toned) it is precisely the color I had in my mind´s eye for my classic retro red.  It´s deep rather than bright, a true red rather than blue or orange, and stays red even in dim indoor lighting, rather than going vampy.  My only minor complaint is that it took three thin coats to achieve the opacity I wanted, rather than the two I usually get from OPI, but I might have a bum bottle.  At any rate, the color is stunning – as dark a red as you can get and still be red.  It gives me movie star hands.

I´ll drop an additional bit in here – one of you mentioned a MAC Lippie named Classic Dame.  And I was beside myself – how did I not own something with such a fabulous name?!?  Well, because it´s been discontinued, that´s why.  It was part of their Mattene collection, so it´s in a thin tube and it´s a matte finish, with a color somewhere between Brave Red and Russian Red.   I got busy and found one online (eBay, but there are other etailers). It.Is.Killa.   Do I need another red?  Um, at this point, probably no.  Do I regret my purchase?  Not even a little.

So.  Tune in Monday for more about dames.

cherry image: sweetgaldecals.com

March

I discovered Stephen Colbert in a somewhat unlikely manner: it was in a required graduate class, “Critical Theory”, during which my professor invoked Colbert´s signature word, “Truthiness”. Mind you, this was in the middle of countless invocations of Freud, Nietzsche, Kant, Foucault, and Derrida; enough philosophical jargon to simultaneously curl your hair and short-circuit your brain. Being the “mature” student and feeling the need to set an example for my younger classmates, in addition to being a shameless academic butt-kisser, I watched my first episode of “The Colbert Report” that night, and have been glued to it and “The Daily Show” ever since. Both have been a balm to my tortured American soul, especially now when they poke fun at that country north of the 49th parallel – you remember; the one where I am persona non grata.

About two weeks ago, Colbert´s “WORD” was “The Sweet Smell of Success”. Apparently, there was a study done at the University of Liverpool involving men who did not shower for two days, and men who were wearing Axe body spray (known as Lynx in the UK). Women were asked their opinions of these men, not from having smelled them in person, but by viewing them on video tape. The results of the study showed that the women picked – just from viewing, not from smelling – the men wearing Axe body spray. The conclusion was that the Axe men projected more confidence. In typical “Stephen Colbert” fashion, Stephen Colbert found a few interesting things to relate to this study. He pretended to huff some Axe out of a brown paper bag claiming that it was “just like huffing money”, proceeded to spray it on a U.S. Treasury bill, and claimed that Axe could be used to deodorize bad debt to make it more attractive to fund managers. Lastly, he sprayed a healthy blast of Axe in the direction of his audience, saying that it would give the American people, and our downtrodden economy, a much-needed boost of confidence. The irony of the whole bit is that Axe stinks to high heaven, and all it really does is deodorize crap, preventing us from sniffing out what´s really going on.

Seeing this segment got me thinking about what all this really means. I went in search of the study and ferreted out the details on the website cosmeticsdesign.com. Here are some of the findings:

• The research suggests that the effect may not rely on the sense of smell of those around the individual. Rather, the secret seems to lie in the increased confidence that the product gives to the wearer, who will then appear more attractive to others.
• The study involved 35 heterosexual male volunteers, half of whom were assigned a commercially available deodorant product. The other half of the study group were assigned the same product but without the active fragrance and deodorant ingredients.
• Questionnaires were used to estimate the men´s self confidence and self-perceived attractiveness before any product had been applied, 15 minutes after the first product application and then after 48 hours of use during which the volunteers substituted the test deodorant for their normal and did not wash.
• After two days the volunteers recorded a short video introduction which was then rated for attractiveness and confidence by a panel of female participants. In this way the panelists never smell the volunteers and attractiveness is judged solely on appearance.

Coincidentally, I was reading the latest novel by author Siri Hustvedt, “The Sorrows of an American”, when this episode of “The Colbert Report” aired. In it, the main character, Erik Davidsen, a psychoanalyst, judges several secondary female characters by their individual scents. Although Erik Davidsen is a fictional character and the people who took part in the Axe/Lynx experiment are real people in the real world, it is still a conundrum worth grappling with: is it fair to judge others only by appearance or only by their scent? Am I guilty of this? Are you guilty of this? In the words of a public figure whose meteoric rise and swift decline some of us watched with clenched teeth and fists, “You betcha!”

Personally, I feel that certain scents can be capable of covering up dirty little secrets. Blasting the Axe or applying half a stick of deodorant in an attempt to cover up our unwashed muskiness is pretty lame, but necessary on occasion. To do it regularly is just plain wrong, especially if one has to interact with others. But, who among us has worn a scent in the hope that it will project a different side of us, someone we are not entirely comfortable being, and ultimately, to instill confidence? I´ve done it, you´ve done it, and I´m sure Caribou Barbie has done it. I hear she´s partial to coyote musk and moose dung, er, chili.

There is a segment of my scent collection that is quite capable of masking a multitude of neuroses. I have numerous decants and several bottles that don´t see the light of day very often, but there have been specific occasions when their presence is appropriate if not absolutely necessary. I find I gravitate towards big, bold florals when I attend weddings. I wore Frederic Malle´s Carnal Flower and Donna Karan Gold eau de parfum to the last two weddings I went to. If men are in suits and women dug the good jewelry out of the sock drawer and are carrying purses the size of postage stamps, I feel the need to conform; even if I´d rather be home sporting sweats, curled up in my favorite chair with a book and a mug of tea. Then there was my failed Mitsouko attempt at Bergdorf Goodman last spring. It wasn´t going to work no matter what the outfit or setting. And I am totally fine with that. Maybe we don´t identify with every scent we wear, but we do owe it to ourselves to be honest about what we love, and what we are willing to put up with. But, how much do we really care about what others think? I´ve never worn fragrance to a job interview or to classes during my later-in-life tenure as a student. I just felt it was inappropriate. However, I do wear fragrance around those members of my family and friends who know how much I love it. My best friend refers to me as the “Stinkwater Queen” regardless of what I wear, and her husband has made several less than diplomatic remarks over the years about my choice of scent. I don´t care.

When it comes to masking the stench of what´s wrong, either with ourselves, or what collectively ails us, we eventually need to come clean. Axe, Lynx or any other eau will always wear off, leaving us right back at square one. We need to get past the “Truthiness” in order to uncover the truth. And that´s the WORD…

UPDATE FROM MARCH: okay, maybe it’s my sinuses aggravating me, or the phase of the moon, or the sound of the dog barking endlessly across the street, but I’m pulling the plug on this post.  Full disclosure: I had to reread this post three times to see what people were upset about, which I guess says something about my own sensitivities, or lack thereof.  At any rate, I am, for the first time ever, turning off comments, and I have asked our bloggers to leave out any further references to politics, because I really, really hate moderating comments.  Sorry for the dustup.

You can never have red lipsticks enough, right?  If you’re me, one is too many… or so I thought.  March is fully to blame for this red lipstick thing, it’s just insiduous how you just start thinking about it and then wondering if you really could pull off red lips.  This is the ridiculously overpriced Serge Lutens No. 1 Mise en Mort, I think it’s called, but SAs refer to it as 1.  So does it work with my coloring, etc?  Or am I just thinking it does and will be laughed at when I go out in public? Can I really pull this off?  I’m depending on y’all not to lie to me, I need the truth.  Do you all also know how hard it is to take a picture of yourself?  You just feel so self-conscious and weird, and it always takes about 30 photos before you find even one you can live with.  Not like, mind you, live with.  The beauty, as I said in Tuesday’s post, is this lasts forever. Sure, it’s 75 smackeroos, but when almost every lipstick I’ve put on comes off in about 10 minutes. This one has been on for an hour and counting, with almost no change, no bleeding, no moving around, all fairly important things in your dark reds.  Is it worth $75?  Good Lord, of course not, but it is for me because it’s the only lipstick, especially red, that I’ve put on so far in my life that hasn’t wound up all in the corners of my mouth in 10 minutes.So if you think this shade doesn’t work, despite my thinking it totally does, what other red would you recommend for my coloring?  And while we are making recommendations, I think I need to trim my hair back up about a half inch or so, yes?  Or should I go a little longer?

Winners of the Peche Cardinal samples from last week should hit the contact us button on the left, e-mail me your address, remind me that it’s for the Peche Cardinal sample, and those people are: rachaelg, annie, Charlotte V,  hollyb, dekfina, Erin T,  Louise, pyramus, Lys and London.

Patty

To google Maja, Myrurgia’s iconic fragrance from 1918 (probably most familiar to people in the U.S. in soap form) is to find everything and nothing.  Its ubiquity – the Spanish equivalent of Ivory Soap?  Jean Nate? – means there are dozens of places to buy it online and a simultaneous total lack of information about the brand or the fragrance.   I never did find a complete, plausible list of fragrance notes.

One website featuring products from Spain enlightens: “Hints of rose, jasmine, and other flowers.  Esteban Monegal, an artist, sculptor, and violinist, decided to create bath products that would be as much a work of art as his musical contributions. This is the result: a luxurious brand unrivaled throughout the world.  The classic Maja fragrance, unchanged in 100 years, is now available in a remarkable bath and shower gel…” The website notes (with an apparent lack of irony) that the products are now made in Mexico.

Shifting over to Basenotes and MUA, where the reviews are thin, offers up a strong case that “unchanged in 100 years” is a fiction — the fragrance has not only been reformulated recently in its move to Mexico but (according to furious reviews) is a ghost of its former glorious Orientalist scented self.

If you´d like to read some interesting information about the brand, Carmencanada at Grain de Musc has forgotten more than I´ll ever know, so here´s a link to her Myrurgia blog post and another to her great post about Carmen Tortola Valencia, the person who appears on the Maja label, and thanks to Carmencanada for educating me.

So.  There I was in our local Perfume Discount Mart, sniffing around with the proprietress, who has the patience of Job, as far as I´m concerned.  I saw the bottle of Maja and sprayed it on absentmindedly while sniffing two or six other things.

Every now and again a cheap, fun fragrance dances into my life when I least expect it.  Maja does smell like the kind of fragrance that should exist as soap (which is the only way I´d thought of it).  It smells like good carnation and jasmine soap, not “soap” as in Clean Laundry.  It smells lightly spicy and gently floral.  There is a touch of green and citrus, and nothing “fresh,” thanks very much.  It is a skin scent with surprising longevity.   It´s the sort of thing I´d use in warmer weather instead of cologne.

I bought an older bottle of the original Maja EdT on eBay for comparison.  I can see what people are complaining about – it´s a different scent.  It still smells like soap, but it´s darker and spicier and almost masculine.  The older version smells sour, in a nice way; it is muskier and smells of incense.  The vintage version really wins in the drydown — the guest-room carnation and spices gives way to a honey-soaked richness that the new stuff just can’t match.  The newer version has been gourmandized a bit, with a creamier, warmer base. Smelled side by side the contrast is fairly striking.

The older Maja EdT is stronger, although it´s not a fragrance powerhouse.   Neither of them is the stuff of genius, but both of them are welcome, simple fragrances when I want my sillage to be minimal and uncomplicated.  The original is the obvious classic, and the drydown is delicious, but I have to say, I rather like the new one too.  They smell nice layered.  I cheerfully shelled out $14 (!) for a 1.7 ounce bottle of the new stuff and the vintage can be found pretty regularly on eBay.  And now I need to try the actual soap.

PS.  You can friend Patty and me on Facebook.  There’s a Perfume Posse group you can search for, and we (and some other people you will recognize) are attached to it.  I’m a newbie on Facebook, I joined recently along with a bunch of my friends from college.   Come find us, we’d love to meet you!

Maja perfume poster: allposters.com

March