I’m sorry to tell you, I’m sick. A sinus infection that had me drive three hours home today in a state of semi-delirium/dubnium/Deuteronomy. You see my problem? So, to save my throbbing grey matter, I’m going to list ten things I love the smell of – or that I’m longing to smell soon – when spring finally gets sprung and rolls into glorious summer. You do the same please.

1. A plate of olive oil seared (and home grown, of course) pimientos de Padron, sprinkled with sea salt and consumed rapidamente.

2. Pavements/sidewalks drying oh too quickly after a late summer downpour.

3. The earth I scrape from under my nails after digging/ planting/sowing.

4. Sliced jalapenos.

5. Basmati rice, simmering.

6. Monsooned Malabar coffee beans, poured into the grinder. Or sitting on the seat next to me in my car, on the way home from the store.

7. Dogs’ paws. Any dogs’, though some are better than others.

8. Daphne bholua ‘Jaqueline Postill’, at its best right now, that sits by the front door and hits you with its intense voluptuousness on arrival home.

9. Matt. Anywhere. Anytime.

10. The scent of expectation.

Your turn please.

Photo of Daphne courtesy of the oh so wonderful Cambridge Botanic Gardens, UK.

Lee

Sorry this is late today, I forgot to set it to Publish! 

I had planned on talking about DKNY Men today, but, bleah.  Typical men’s cologne, and I don’t really have anything bad to say about it, but I don’t have anything good either.  It just smells like everything else.

Is anyone else a Geek Girl like me and has their tickets for The Watchmen on opening day, March 6?  If so, you can share your showtime with me in comments - major love for anyone that’s doing a midnight showing.  It’s my most anticipated movie this year, along with The Soloist, with yummy Robert Downey Jr who seems to get ridiculously more good looking every time I see him, and Sunshine Cleaning Company.

Instead of DKNY Men, I’m plunging into the more difficult area of perfume to describe, and that’s ouds.  Ouds tend to smell somewhat the same. They’re oudish and usually have some rose or vanilla or jasmine or all of the above.  Calling them dark and exotic is the starting point for all oud reviews.  If you like ouds, you can almost not go wrong with any of them.  If you only like a few ouds, then I have the one for you.

Arabian Oud Shah Gold is the women’s side of a dual perfume experience, and my favorite of the two.  The set is ridiculously expensive, but like most oud oils, you really do need just a drop to perfume you mightily. so on a cost per drop basis, it’s only very slightly less costly.  Now, Shah Gold is the one I briefly mentioned in our Paris adventures that Shirley put on, and we all kept burying our noses in her neck.  It has notes of 1,000 flowers, jasmine, myrrh, white musk, cardamon, sandalwood, cedarwood.  I’ve never been quite sure what 1,000 flowers is exactly, but I suspect it’s the perky floral note you get on the open that’s very bright and lends a sunny aura to all those other notes.  The incense, woods and spices are really perfectly balance in this so your nose can smell all those aspects, but none of them overpower the other.  Mahmoud told us when we were there that traditionally they way you are supposed to perfume yourself is you start with incense and you hold your robes over it and let the incense smoke permeate your clothes.  Then you use several different oud oils so when people smell you, you will never smell like just one thing, you will always smell unique and richly fragrant.  I can tell you absolutely that when we came out of Arabian Oud, we must have stunk to high heaven, but in a good way.  Shah Gold is the best single oud oil that captures that profusion of smells.  The drydown is so mellow and slightly florally sweet, with just enough oud sharpness so you remember it’s an oud, I’d love to have this smell all over my pillow every night. It’s become my favorite oud oil ever, and I guard jealouslyl the teensy drops of it that I have.  For those of you who want that very sharp, distinct oud scent, this one isn’t the one for you.

Patty

You know what we need?  We need a break from March´s ponderous explorations of 80s big-hair scents and her other navel-gazing posts, complete with lint.  Well, thanks to a mercy box from someone (not naming any names) March can pull her head out of her Poison and report on the first hopeful signs of spring.

1) Snowdrops all over the neighbor´s yard.

2) These three new Kenzo Eau de Fleur dealies.  You know what a Kenzo gal I am, right?  (And no, they do not send me this crap to review as their BFF, although frankly they should.)  According to their website, “Kenzo flower waters are picked from Japanese trees.” {Note from me: one assumes this is not literal.}  “Each eau de toilette in the collection evokes a delicate trail of tree blossom. Three new fragrances made of natural, clear and streamlined floral notes. Every year, Kenzo will enrich this collection by picking another flower.” 

Let me point out (courtesy of NST) that the perfumers are: Jean Jacques (Soie), Aurelien Guichard (Tea), and Francis Kurkdjian (Magnolia), which might slow down any instantaneous dismissal of these as duty-free dreck.

So, we have:

Eau de Fleur de Soie Silk – look, they do the Franglish translamation from the Japanese for you right there on the label!  Fleur de Soie’s “shameless allure conceals its secret charm: a crimson floral note with a tender, fruity heart.”  As far as I can tell it´s an impression of Silk Tree mimosa (Albizia julibrissin, not to be confused with regular mimosa) with some watery notes and slightly tart fruit.   In Japan, silk tree is used for bonsai.  If you google you get gardening sites of people begging you not to plant silk tree mimosas – lovely as they are, they reseed rapidly and are considered an invasive exotic throughout much of the U.S.

Eau de Fleur de The Tea – “special edition.  Musky green floral. A white cowbell with a heart of gold. Sheltered under its leaves, the tea flower diffuses a floral concoction with notes of green tea and a hint of musk.”  Um… okaaay.  This is a floral tea.  It´s delicious.  This made me so happy because I had to grab several tea scents at random to compare, and what is more sprightly and happy and evocative of warmer weather than tea?  Anyhow, this Eau de Fleur is: less sweet than Nicolai Fig-Tea; not as weirdly rubbery/black as the Speziali Fiorentini (which is $24 and rocks at BE, here’s the link); kinda sorta in the direction of Bvlgari White without the herbs; heavier than L´Artisan The Pour un Ete.  I´m not sure I´ll run out and buy a bottle, since I have a lot of tea scents already, but if it appeared on my dresser I´d wear it.

Eau de Fleur de Magnolia – “Perched on their branches, magnolia flowers flaunt their dignified and willowy allure. A radiant floral bouquet, bursting with hesperidian notes, dances beneath a cloak of petals.”  A citrusy floral with a slightly funky undertone, which makes sense – magnolias smell weirdly lemony/mushroomy.  In my opinion. 

What did I think of these?  I thought they were a nicely done, in a cheerful, Kenzo-esque way.  If you think Kenzo is an inexplicable waste of time, these aren´t going to change your mind.  If you appreciate Kenzo´s lighter scents and slightly offbeat whimsy, they´re worth sampling (they´re on the Nordstrom website, not yet in my local store, but I assume they will be.)   Magnolia was my least favorite, the drydown being slightly murky-woody.  I found the Silk Flower surprisingly wearable – it´s less sweet than you´d guess and lasts decently without becoming cloying or edible, although please note that I was dabbing.  The Tea was my hands-down favorite.  It has an attractive musky base and doesn´t do any of the odd things tea scents can do on the skin (too sweet/sour/bitter/dank).

Kenzo bottle image: Nordstrom

P.S.: if you´re dying to feel the vintage YSL Paris love all over again – I bought an older bottle on eBay, please look carefully at this image at left.  I don´t know when they changed the box, but the newer ones are all pink, whereas the older ones have that wide black stripe down the middle and across the bottom of the box.  They show up pretty regularly on eBay, be sure to ask about the box if they’re using a stock photo.  I’m not sure whether there’s anything about the bottle that’s different, but this is definitely the box I remember.

My new, vintage EDT was the same nuclear blast from the past I remembered, and I couldn´t be happier.   The ones currently stocked in stores with the all-pink box are wan dupes of old Paris, and shame on them.

March

One of my favorite new websites, This is Why You’re Fat.  Ponder the Turbaconucken, which is chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, covered in bacon.  Seems maringally more healthy than the deep fried s’more on a stick.

Evody Parfums  is a perfume shop in Paris near the Odeon Metro stop.  They sell niche perfumes, but have also developed their own line.  At 60 euros for what I think is 50 mls (it doesn’t say on their website), it’s at least at a halfway decent price point.  Funny how my concept of that has changed over the last five years.

But are they any good? Let’s start with Reve d’Anthala.  Their website lists nots of tropical flowers, orchid and tiare, Madagascar vanilla, jasmine, musk and benzoin.  This is a nicely made tropical gourmand, if you’re a fan of that.  The vanilla is not too sweet, somewhere between Indult Tihota and L’ann-ael maybe?  The musk and benzoin give it a nice base to sit on and keeps it on the mild and not overpowering side of the perfume fence.  It has a nice, soft drydown that seems like a soft tropical summer night.

Pomme d’Or has notes of lime, oak and juniper, and it is light and brisk and refreshing and right in SMN Eva territory.  Just a sparkling, happy brew that would work for men or women.  Its best season would be spring and summer, but just wearing it any time for a pick-me up would work for me.

Note de Luxe has notes of bergamot, white flowers, iris, woods, spices and balms.  It’s not exactly an oriental and not really a wood. It has a sharpish note in with the floral,  a little rooty iris. It starts to go a little soapish early on, but the bitter note pulls it back into a really interesting drydown that wound up being the one I kept returning to to sniff over and over again, trying to figure out the interplay.

Bois Secret is a powdery woodsy scent.  It has a little of a Bois des Iles feel too it, with a more sharpish woods note.  They do describe it as powdery, but I don’t find it drifting off in that direction too much, it stays very nicely woodsy and refreshing.  This is one you could spray on with abandon, it’s not overpowering, and it’s just a well-rounded, nice scent

Ambre Intense is incense, flowers, balms and woods.  This is a really nicely done amber that stays fairly dry and has a nice play between the amber and incense, some tang to it, and then some sweet. Sorta like when you sit down to eat potato chips, and they get too salty, so you eat a chocolate, and then your mouth is too sweet, so you eat another couple potato chips.  It has that kind of balance to it.  It’s not overly amberish, and for me, I mean that in good way.  Some ambers are just tooooooo much and I can’t seem to shake them off my nose once I smell them. This one is really just rght.

All five of these scents would work for men or women, except maybe the first one, the d’Anthala, it leans probably more feminine early on, but I don’t think that femine aspect lasts long enough to be of concern.  The entire line is well done, has a decent price point, you can order directly from them, so they’re not trying to be all haughty and exclusive. The nicest thing is, after putting on all five?  I really adore the smell of all of them together.

Let’s do a drawing for a couple of sample sets of all five of these since I still have some left in my little sample bottles. Just drop a comment, and you’ll be entered in the drawing!

Patty

One of the hallmarks of a fragrance obsessive is to obsess, right?  Which I´ve been doing, weaving several threads together in my mind.

Nancy generously gave me a bottle of the original Estee Lauder Azuree, and I was thrilled.  (Aldehydes, bergamot, gardenia, jasmine, cyclamen, ylang, orris, patchouli, oakmoss, amber, leather, musk.)  She laughed and pointed out that she´d given it to two people previously, both of whom had given it back in disgust.  I can see that.  I love Azuree now, but it would have repelled me two years ago.  Like learning to love oysters, I´ve worked my way up to that kind of heavily aromatic fragrance bomb.  Still Too Much: Clinique Aromatics Elixir, which I admire rather than enjoy.  (How did I love Mitsouko from first sniff?  I still have no idea, except to say that I think it smells really good on my skin.)

At the other end of the spectrum are fragrances I swooned over at the first sniff which now make me almost physically ill, and (unlike, say, a bad plate of oysters) they´re not associated with some terrible experience or person.  Exhibit A:  S-Perfumes´ 100% Love.  It still has a lot of fans.  I still think Sophia Grojsman´s combination of chocolate, labdanum and rose is daring.  I still can´t believe I wore this.  I wouldn’t last 15 minutes now before scrubbing.

Then there´s the annoying pool of fragrances I can never make my mind up about.  Case in point: Yves Saint Laurent´s Cinema EdP, which is wafting at me from my left arm as I type this.  Cinema is a floriental created by Jacques Cavallier in 2004 that smells like YSL´s entry into the gourmand marketplace.  Notes are: clementine, almond blossom, cyclamen, jasmine, peony, amaryllis, amber, musk, benzoin and vanilla. The opening smells a little fresh and soapy; then we reach a point ten minutes later when I think, yes, creamy, I need this.  It´s somewhere between Organza Indecence and Armani Code, and as comforting as a creamsicle.  Then I sniff it some more and it seems sour; maybe the musk?  On the other hand, isn´t the fact that I´ve worked through three sample atomizers indicative of something besides my inability to make up my mind?  I just … don’t know.

I don’t have this kind of shifting relationship with anything else in my life — not with clothing, not with food.  Sure, I may get temporarily tired of a favorite food if I eat too much of it, but I don’t get up one day and say, I never want to eat mint chocolate chip ice cream again in my life, what was I thinking?!?!.   And while I recognize some of my past fashion decisions as … unfortunate with the benefit of hindsight, I never pull on a beloved shirt one morning and think, ugh, I hate this.  This is hideous.   Nor do I run into stores and embrace previously despised fashion looks (hammer pants, 5-inch heels, blue eyeliner) as suddenly “me.”  Although … actually … my red lipstick obsession feels sort of like my fragrance obsession.

How do our feelings change about fragrance?  The only piece that seems obvious and natural to me is developing a tolerance for “difficult” fragrances through repeated exposure.  But how to explain the sudden infatuation with, say, vanilla scents that prompted sneers of disgust the previous month?   How to understand the sudden discarding of a beloved scent as vile, or merely dull?   How to come to terms with an inability to decide how to feel about a particular fragrance?

So.  Eliminate, please, from your thoughts all the fragrances that have been tainted by some terrible mental association, or redeemed by some positive connection.   Have you changed your mind about some previously loved or loathed scent?  And why?   Is there any scent you simply can’t decide about, and why do you think that is?

image: www.annetaintor.com, I love her quips

March