We’ll Always Have Paris

2009_0212julia0017_1.jpgHappy Valentine´s day, everyone!   I got Feminite du Bois in the parfum concentration.  It is outstanding – the focus more on the plum than on the woods, although I find it layers beautifully with the original FdB eau de parfum.  It´s also exceedingly rich, and a little dab´ll do ya.  For anyone who wants to try it in extrait and can´t quite stomach the price – eBay sometimes has little purse parfum pens (“parfum stylo”) on there, 1.8ml, so you can try it out for less than an arm and a leg.  Maybe just a finger.

Please tell me – what delicious things did you get for Valentine´s Day?

Also, before I forget, here´s a link to Chandler Burr´s favorable coverage of several DSH scents – congratulations, Dawn!  And thanks for the heads up, Posse reader Pikake (here’s a link to her new blog on natural perfumery).

So.  On to perfume.

I got to thinking about Yves Saint Laurent´s iconic 80´s scent, Paris, after Olfacta´s thoughtful post on rose fragrances and how she decided they weren´t all horrors after all.  (Certainly a Rosine might change one´s mind about rose.)   Paris seemed like a good fragrance to revisit this time of year.  The notes (from Michael Edwards´ Perfume Legends) are mimosa, geranium, bergamot, mayflower, hawthorn, juniper,Damascus rose, May rose, violet, sandalwood, iris, amber and musk.

In Perfume Legends Sophia Grosjman, the nose behind Paris, talked about her fascination with rose scents and the still relatively new damascones she jammed into her initial draft of Paris for YSL – yet another argument supporting idea that many great perfumes are driven by an overdose of one ingredient.

Love it or loathe it, there´s no mistaking Parisfor something else.  You might not be able to name it in a blind test, but if someone stuck it under your nose and said Paris, you´d say, of course!!  It doesn´t smell particularly like any other rose fragrance. There´s an enormous Phil Spector-esque wall of smell: tart, sharp, green and woody notes that draw attention from the rose without totally obscuring it.  It wasn´t until recently in my perfume obsession that I realized Paris was a rose fragrance.  (Interesting aside from Edwards´ book: inFrance the fragrance was marketed around the imagery ofParis itself, whereas theUS rolled it out as a rose fragrance with less than optimal results, because I´m not the only person afraid of rose.)

Browsing The Guide recently, I came across a review by Tania Sanchez of Annick Goutal Rose Absolue that summed up brilliantly my problem — and apparently Tania´s problem — with many rose scents:  “I´m always disappointed by rose soliflores; the material seems impressively complex but too sour to enjoy, like those wines that taste like they´d rather be vinegar.”  Elsewhere (Caron Rose) she says, “all expensive rose soliflores boast of sourcing only the best natural rose essences to capture the beauty of the flower, but somehow they all tend to smell a bit like this: part lemon soap, part wine vinegar, part green (as in boiled vegetables).”  Well, amen, sister.   The roses I can tolerate get busy doing something else – they get weirder (Serge Lutens´ Rose de Nuit), manlier (Rosine´s Rose d’Homme) or at the other end of the spectrum they become delicate and ethereal rather than liquor-like (MDCI Rose de Siwa.)  Paris worked for me not due to less rose, but the sheer volume of the other notes.  It´s like standing right in front of the orchestra.

So off I went to try it – first at Nordstrom where they told me it was discontinued and tried to sell me their last shower gel (discontinued being SA-speak for “I´m terribly sorry, we no longer stock Paris, perhaps you might try Macy´s down the corridor.”)   They carry Paris at Sephora and Macy´s, which has the EDT and the EDP as well as some ancillary products like lotion.  I picked up the bottle and sprayed a little on, waiting for the scent I loved and remembered.

Which brings me to the wistful, sad part of my post, because … maybe we won’t always have Paris after all.  Has anyone tried Paris recently?  Maybe it´s my nose.  Or my skin.  Or old bottles of juice killed off under the lights.  But my first thought upon smelling the EDT at Sephora was, where´s the rest of it?  A test of the second and third bottles at Macy´s produced the same results.  I´m sure I wore the EDT, which is all I could have afforded, and in any case the EDP is a different animal – rosier and more vanillic.(The current EDP´s got an interesting, slightly animalic incense-y drydown, and I´m trying to decide if I could stagger through the first half hour for the payoff.)

Paris today feels thin and muted, like someone took out a restraining order on all the towering, tart florals and woods that made it unique.  Eventually I gave up and went on a grocery run to Trader Joe´s.  At that point I was wearing five test sprays from four bottles of Paris and realized (apologies to my fellow patrons) that´s several sprays too many.  The weird thing was, while it smelled horrible on my skin, I kept getting the occasional waft of the old familiar around me.  The next day I woke up, walked into my closet, and — boom, Paris! on the jacket I’d been wearing, although it was gone entirely from my skin — my skin, which soaks up scent like a sponge.  I asked Robin at Now Smell This and she said the current version smelled mighty thin to her too (here’s her review of Paris.)

I cannot, no matter how I try, separate Paristhe fragrance from the time I wore it.  Paris owned the mid-1980s.  It went so well with Christian Lacroix bubble dresses and the champagne excesses that seem oh-so-sadly-familiar two decades later, particularly now that we´ve run off the cliff like Wile E. Coyote and it´s just a matter of seeing how far it is to the bottom.

In Perfume Legends, Grojsman cites Apres l´Ondee as an influence on her design – “the skeleton of a very creamy violet note.  Then I worked on the rose to put with it.”   I have always found Paris a wistful fragrance, and not just because of my nostalgia regarding it.  Roughly 25 years after its introduction, I can smell it again and appreciate both its strange, transcendent beauty and the feeling it leaves me with – a slight melancholy sense of unfulfilled dreams.

image: 6-year-old Hecate in the outfit she picked to wear for her Valentine’s Day parties.  She is a lovely, funny, quirky kid and she is definitely my valentine. (btw for recent alarmed readers: Hecate is her nom de blog.  I did not actually saddle my daughter with the name Hecate.  She shares her real name with a gorgeous fragrance, though.)

  • Natalie says:

    Ooh, what a cool kid! I love her alias as well.

    I spent my 15th year completely drenched in Paris (remember the bottle with the weird rubber stopper?), and even if it smelled just the same, there’s no way in hell I’d want to be transported back to that time. (I just posted this story on NST the other day, but I realized it was time to move on from it when a boy in high school sent me a note reading, “Impulse turns me ON!”) What’s more, my first real boss wore it, and the combined associations with high school and psychotic Frenchwomen will forever taint my scent memories of poor old Paris!

    • March says:

      Those scent associations are interesting. We’ve kicked the topic around before, it’s a pity how many fragrances are ruined by being in the wrong place/wrong time. 🙂 I think the most common one I hear is that whatever mom or dad wore religiously is automatically eliminated from the sexy-frags-for-my-man/woman list.

      • Natalie says:

        So true… I don’t mind smelling like my mother (Diorissimo), but I would be utterly weirded out if any guy of mine wore Old Spice!

  • Elizabeth says:

    Hecate is adorable!! I, too, am awaiting my FdB parfum, as well as a huge bottle of Musc Ravageur, my presents to myself.

    Paris was one of my first perfumes sometime around 1985 – my Dad bought it for me, and I still remember the smell, though the bottle has since disappearsed, sadly and I haven’t smelled it since.

    And I am so intrigued about your daughter’s name…the curiosity may kill me!!

    • March says:

      FdB and Musc Rav sound like excellent presents!

      Ah, you too on the Paris. I’d guess if your dad got it for you it has warm associations. 😡

  • pyramus says:

    I think, though I couldn’t prove it, that Paris was reformulated back in the late 1990s, before I even knew there was such a thing as reformulation. All I know is that I bought some for a friend who adored it back in probably 1985, and it was a HUGE rose, very much in keeping with all the other massive scents of the day. I like to re-smell things that I don’t own from time to time, and around 1998-99 I smelled Paris in a department store and it wasn’t the same AT ALL. It had clearly been thinned out and turned into one of those light-fresh-airy things that you couldn’t get away from at the time, as if it had mated with CK One. I thought it was just me.

    The same thing happened to Tresor (another piece of Sophia Grojsman genius). When I read people saying how much they hate it, I can’t help but think, Oh, but you didn’t know it back when it was beautiful! It was sweet and lush and so, so pretty, just peaches and roses and the warmth of sun-basted skin. Now it’s been “brightened” to suit the tenor of the times and it’s horrible.

    • March says:

      You too, eh? Well, at least I feel better knowing I’m not out of my mind or totally losing my sense of smell. It’s been decades since I smelled it so I’d have missed the reformulation and shame on them anyway.

      I loathe Tresor. And now you make me sad I missed the way it used to be. Brightened is right. There’s something horribly screechy about it. It’s in Perfume Legends too and I could not understand why. :”> You’ve enlightened me. I thought, how could Grojsman make this wretched thing? Of course I’m not her #1 fangirl anyway since I don’t love rose and she does…

  • Olfacta says:

    Um, sorry, the above was supposed to be a reply to March’s inquiry about a flea-market haul.:)

  • Olfacta says:

    Well, let’s see — they were (all vintage minis) Rochas Femme EDP 1/4 oz, Boucheron by Boucheron same, the Norell perfume, Givenchy “pi,” Molinard de Molinard which I think is perfume, and a half-bottle of Rive Gauche cologne which looks pretty old and smells exactly like I remember way back when (hated it then, not sure about it now, but I haven’t worn it yet.) I also got a very old Gianni Versace –just the name — which has mostly turned but I liked the bottle and it was $2.00. I haven’t been able to find out much about that one. All in all a good day.

    • March says:

      That’s a terrific find! I know nothing about the Versace. Of course there are lots of perfumes I know nothing about. 🙂

    • Elle says:

      Oh, that Versace is one of my fave perfumes of all time. The bottle is *definitely* in my top 3 faves – maybe even my all time fave. Simply brilliant design for the stoppered bottle (the spray is nice, but not as spectacular as the stoppered, which is I believe the same as the mini). It came out in 82 and my H&R guide lists it as being fresh/mossy/aldehydic. The top notes are aldehydes, a spicy fruity note and bergamot. Middle notes are jasmin (dominant), narcissus, orris, carnation, tuberose, lotv, gardenia. The base notes are oakmoss (dominant), amber, benzoin, leather, cistus, myrrh, sandalwood, patchouli. Breaks my heart that this scent was d/ced.

      • March says:

        That sounds like a great fragrance, and I’m sorry we missed out on it. 🙁 Not very of-the-moment, eh? Aren’t you looking forward to the time when all the fresh/fruity/gourmand florals smell dated?

  • Disteza says:

    Never had it in me to like any of the YSLs, just too much, in the wrong direction for me. There are a couple rose fragrances that I’ve fallen for, including Rose Barbare, Rose de Nuit, and, on the lighter side, Rose Ikebana. At this moment I happen to be wearing Rose Barbare layered with Chene, and what a loverly pairing it is! Like eating cake while sitting under a plump, jammy rose bush in the middle of a stand of oak trees.

  • Elle says:

    OMG! What an exuberantly, joyfully quirky, smart personality! She literally radiates fun. I also *love* her outfit. I actually think I want that skirt. I don’t think it’s really a good thing that someone my age wants to dress like a 6 year old. Sigh. But I *am* going to find some sort of age appropriate compromise for that skirt…and will resist the leggings part…but sadly. I think I want to jump forward to my 80s so I can dress w/ blatant eccentricity and just not care. Channel my inner Betsy Johnson.
    Used to love Paris. I’m sure I still have a partial bottle stashed away somewhere. Will have to try to find it and then compare it to what is now available at Sephora. How sad that it’s lost its “oomph”.

    • March says:

      I loved those clothes. 80s stuff. I was working that early-Madonna Fiorucci stuff… a little BJ … vintage. Little granny boots. Mixing it all up. Those were the days. The problem with getting older is what used to read as “whimsical” now just looks kooky. :”>

      Yes, please, if you dig up your vintage Paris, I’d love to hear what you think.

  • Meliscents says:

    I picked up a couple of big bottles of PARIS at an Estate sale not long ago (as well as a little Dolce Vita) and shared with the Mom. I think it’s just wonderful and I’m assuming these are older versions. The whole estate had a very 80’s feel about it. They certainly aren’t light little wall flowers because a light spray lasts all day! I did make the mistake once of over-applying & thought the smell was going to make me ill! I won’t do that again! Of the YSL line I also love Ysatis, Rive Gauche, Opium of course & NU is really underrated even though I sneeze with every first spray. And the bottle is a little awkward. I’d really like to smell the original Champagne version. I wonder if there is a big difference between it & the Yvresse version.

    • March says:

      I’m not sure how much the Yvresse has changed. Of course I went off in search of my decant and can’t find it. Harrumph, so much for my organizing skills. Your estate haul sounds fantastic! Two vintage bottles of Paris and some Dolce Vita are a day brightener.

  • Francesca says:

    I’ll second, third, twelfth etc everyone’s previous remarks on the adorableness of Hecate. What a great, funky little outfit, and yes, she does look tall and willowy.:x

    I’m not at all familiar with Paris. The 80s and 90s weren’t a big fragrance time for me—I felt like I was allergic to everything.

    I like some rose fragrances, though not every one I’ve ever sniffed. Liaisons Dangereuses is good on me. I didn’t care for Paestum Rose when I ran the sample under my nose, but Rick persuaded me to try it on, and it was great on skin. Something on my to-acquire list is Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier George Sand, a lovely, spicy potpourri rose, womanly, not girly. Oh, and I have literally 3 drops of Attar—hmmm, maybe I’ll splurge and put that on for Il Trovatore tonight.

  • Musette says:

    The outfit is tres fab….but the little twinkle in her eye is Ultimate Fab!^:)^ She is gorgeous. But you already know that!

    My life in Paris was weird. It came about because a man I’d just met at the perfume counter had my SA wrap up a bottle of Paris, along with the dusting powder. She knew him (he wasn’t a stalker or a wacko) and said it was all right to accept the gift. He left before I knew he’d done it – sort of like the Lone Ranger or Zorro or some other masked man…..

    …anyway, it was in heavy rotation for several years, what with that elegant connection and the sheer Parissima of it all.

    Sniffed it recently – you’re right…it’s not the same. And unknown men no longer buy me random gifts at the perfume counter.

    I’m on the fence with @};- the only one I have (that I know of) is a Rosine I got from Erin at the Chicocoa swap (she got my Aromatics of Death)…I’ve worn it a couple of times…..still trying to figure out if it works for me. Rose is a way rougher row to hoe than I would’ve imagined.

    xo>-)

    • March says:

      Wah! How come I can’t have a Parfum Zorro!?! :(( A Lalique Lone Ranger?!? That is so romantic! That’s like sending over a bottle of DP only less stalker-ish. Sigh…. that is not aromatics of death, young lady! That is a highly regarded scent!

      Rose IS tough. Who knew until we tried it? I can’t think of any other note that gives me such fits. Even vetiver is easier.

    • Shelley says:

      I think the one you have, M, is the Poussiere de Rose…as is our yin/yang way, I like it quite a bit…in the same vein as (I don’t know why, but when you hear it, there will be a thread of recognition)…Feminite du Bois.

      I also like Rosine Twill Rose. And Malle Une Rose. And, on the right days, Lancome Mille et Une Roses. Bulgari Rose. Even SIP Black Rosette. But you’re setting me up, because the place I cannot abide rose is…c’mon, you know…in the dissected heart bottle…(or, should I say, chunk o’ heart)…Kingdom.
      😮

      tee-hee

      • Musette says:

        that is your Forbidden Love, my dear.;) What did you wear for your concert? So sorry I couldn’t be there. I tried to leave you a FB message but it wasn’t having it.

        xo>-)

        • Shelley says:

          I wore (ta-da!) The Unicorn Spell. In my search for the right violet, it turns out it may have been under my nose the whole time…I just didn’t know what it was I had found at first.

          I, of course, have not decided for sure. Yet.

  • Nava says:

    It was actually a Rosine that changed my mind: Une Zeste d’Rose, I believe. Can you still get that one? My sample has long since evaporated.

    I never liked Paris (the fragrance) or any YSLs until I smelled Nu. I have these concrete memories of older female relatives enveloped in Rive Gauche and Opium back in the 70s-80s that to this day still make me shudder.

    Your daughter is gorgeous. Easy to see who she takes after. 🙂

    • March says:

      I don’t know. I’m thinking not. And my tentative embracing of Rive Gauche is always marred by memories of my freshman year roommate who bathed in it.

      Nu is a wonderful fragrance. I think its packaging really got in the way.

      • Nava says:

        I found Nu’s packaging quite endearing, actually. I love all things shaped like hockey pucks (Bulgari Black, too!). :d

    • Olfacta says:

      You can get some of the Rosines, including the Zeste, at an online store. I got the Poussiere from there, good price & fast service…am reluctant to give free advertising though. Email me at pborow at comcast dot net if you’d like the link.

  • kathleen says:

    That is one adorable little munchkin. And what a sense of style!

    • March says:

      She’s very picky, which I find humorous considering how odd her end results can be. I also have some excellent pics of her twin brother in various dresses and tutus, which I am sensing might come in handy at some point in the future. (He wanted to take her ballet class when he was 3, and then demanded a tutu and slippers like everyone else…)

  • Graham says:

    (btw for recent alarmed readers: Hecate is her nom de blog. I did not actually saddle my daughter with the name Hecate. She shares her real name with a gorgeous fragrance, though.)

    Awwww – you named her Koublai Khan….. How precious! 😉 You know – Hecate isn’t so alarming… I actually have friends that named their daughter Lilith. How’s THAT for saddling??!! 🙂

  • Maura says:

    Ok…how *cute* is she!! Love the pose too!

    I’m not a rose person myself including the Rosines which all smell similiar to me. The ones I do love are MDCI Rose de Siwa, Ormonde Jayne Ta’if and Amouge Lyric Woman. Oh…and Le Labo Rose 31.

    I’m expecting Feminite du Bois parfum as well for Valentines day and can’t wait to finally get it. It’s taking FORever to arrive and should be here Wed…can’t wait! :d

    • March says:

      That’s a very nice list of roses to love. I hope you enjoy the Feminite du Bois. I didn’t think the original could be improved on…

  • Olfacta says:

    Wow, thanks for the link March! I always read Posse as I drink my (first) coffee — feel like Queen For a Day today, complete with the tiara and the dozen roses.

    Your post on the watered-down Paris made me sad. I never smelled the original in its heyday. Now I wish I had.

    Anyway, V-day — the DH knows better than to try to buy me perfume any more, but it’s what I want (well, that and flowers jewelry) so I “gift” myself. I stopped by a flea market looking for something else and noticed they had a perfume shelf. I got a great haul (think I’ll write a blog entry about this) for $33. It makes me wonder if we should all be looking for the old stuff, as reformulations like you describe are so common now. And, since the dealers are usually trying to sell the bottles, they generally don’t know what they have, so the informed can get some classics for very little cash (better than fleabay, that’s for sure.) I lucked out; none of these had “turned,” although one was a little off on top — no matter, it was a mini of Norell parfum for $5. I wondering if these old ones might make good bases for the newer, thin-as-water scents bearing their names. Maybe a good way to refresh the top notes, meanwhile getting to enjoy the depth in the base, what do you think?

    Your little Hecate is adorable!

    • March says:

      You are welcome. And I would love to hear about your haul! Norell in parfum is something… I got a set of parfum minis (including Norell) for $3 – $5 a pop, have not given them proper attention yet. I’m looking forward to trying Emeraude (in theory) the way it was meant to be! Fingers crossed… it’s a shame about those top notes, but if you can muddle past I find usually the drydown is still worth it.

  • Sweet Sue says:

    I’ve tried two YSL’s this year: Paris and Yvresse.
    I didn’t even know that Paris was a rose fragrance; it’s just some huge candied violet bomb on me-truly awful.
    Yvress, on the other hand, is lovely. The sweet, sparkly, little sister of Mitsouko of all things.
    Same house, same “nose”, I believe, but two very different reactions.
    Btw, I wore Yvresse to the dentist and he swooned. Made me spell it and write it down so he could buy some for his wife. Now that’s what I call feedback.

  • Louise says:

    Oh, my, what a great pic of the babygirl! It so captures her beauty and impishness. And I think her style of dressing reflects her mom’s creativity :d/

    So glad you yielded to the FdB parfum…it is so lovely, and especially important for me, really tenacious. I forgot I had remains of BC on yesterday and dabbed a bit from the stylo-oh, yum!

    I am wandering a huge mall today while DS is off to class…will give Paris a whirl, though I usually like my roses very thick and dark, to the edge of goth 8-x

    A great true, not-sweet full rose, best for layering, is Montale’s Ta’if @};-

    • March says:

      Hey honey! I hope you’re having a good time… yeah, go smell Paris and tell me if I’m nuts. A huge new mall sounds like fun.

      I can’t wait for our package to arrive. Fingers crossed!

  • Silvia says:

    Yesterday I had a craving for Apres l’Ondee, which lasts 1/2 hour tops on me. Anyway, as I was savouring it, my right wrist started developing something weird and lovely which kept my nose glued to it. It took me a while to figure out that it was interacting with the sleeve of my jumper, impregnated with Une Rose from a week before (that stuff is THE most tenacious perfume ever). I didn’t make the Paris connection, but now want to replicate the accidental experiment.

    Rose really works for me in all its manifestations:from the buttery richness of Une Rose to the crystal perfection of Rose de Siwa, from the ouds combos to the dark resins of Paestum Rose.

    It saddens me to think that the big bomb that Paris was in the 80s has been thinned down. My sister wore it in the 80s and to me she will always smell of the real Paris.

    • March says:

      How interesting. Apres interacting with Une Rose would be something wouldn’t it? I loved Une Rose but cannot wear it (I have a small decant.) It gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER until it’s like there’s an elephant in the room and I’m afraid of getting squished. 🙂 I drycleaned a shirt once to get the smell to go away, you’re right about tenacious. But wow, what a fragrance! And roses bloom beautifully on the right skin. Paestum Rose is lovely, isn’t it?

      Of course they tinker with fragrances all the time… Opium smells thinner to me too, but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter. If they’d taken Paris in a slightly different direction I might understand. But just thinner and more watery works against its beauty, part of which was its power.

      • Joe says:

        I’m glad you wrote this reply, because after the things you wrote about rose in the original post, I was going to ask what you thought of Une Rose. I have just a small sample, so I’ve never spritzed so much that it’s taken over the room, but I think it’s quite an amazing scent. As a guy, I love wearing some of the rosy Montale aouds (Black & Red). I also really want to revisit both the Lyrics (though my wallet resists).

        And dang you :-w for throwing Feminite du Bois in my face, and especially for mentioning that plum is prominent in the extrait! It’s been near the top of my “need to sample” list for awhile now.

        • March says:

          The FdB stylos! I’m telling you, they’re the gateway drug. And I was sort of oblivious to the extrait until Louise shared hers, at which point I went …. oh. Well, I need me some of that. 🙂

          I’m trying to think. In terms of largest initial impressions, Une Rose is up there. I thought it would be the one for me until it took over the house. I also loved the original Different Company stinky one, but agree with LT (?) in the guide that it’s been tinkered with and smells less interesting.

          • Joe says:

            Woman, are you earning commission on those stylos? 😕 [finger hovers over ‘buy now’ button] How long would 0.9ml last? But I never bought a decant of the Poivre, so I can easily afford FdB, no? I love the sick thought process.

            You know, I love that TDC Rose Poivree, but I’m not sure which formulation I have. I bought the 3x10ml set on the bay about a year ago, and I get a really good sharp hit of civet from it, so I can’t imagine it being even MORE skanky.

          • Joe says:

            Update: Signed. Sealed. Waiting to be delivered. It’s mine. Sigh. :d

          • March says:

            Let me know how it works out! And PS yeah, if you didn’t buy the Poivre, you deserve the FdB, right? With your savings?

          • March says:

            I swear, no profit on my end!! They last long enough for you to make up your mind about whether a bottle of extrait is a necessity. I hate buying unsniffed, my track record is terrible. I’m wearing a sample spray from eBay right now that makes me think, whew – glad I didn’t spring for the bottle. :)>-

            The Poivree… it’s not like they’ve admitted to anything. But silly, uninformed people used to complain about … you know … that rank butt smell. The last couple of times I smelled it in a retail store I thought, where’s the naughty bits?

  • Divina says:

    Hi March sweetie.. this makes me sad cause so far I thought I was alone in thinking Paris had changed, well apparently not. So sad! I do think it is gorgeous. (Or was..)

    • March says:

      It was gorgeous. This post was already way too long (I do go on, don’t I?) so I took out a couple of paragraphs about my love for it back in The Day. I worked through most of a bottle and I sure wish I had the rest of it now. Even the tenuous smell I got from new Paris made me want it.

  • Lee says:

    Hecate aka Samsara aka Mitsy aka Charlie is adorable, though it looks like the door wreath is part of her hair…

    • March says:

      Oh, that IS part of her hair!

      I keed, I keed.

      Oh lordy. Can I tell you how much I wish I’d named her Mitsouko? And she’d be the right one of the three girls, I can tell you. She’s prickly and is shaping up to be tall (which baffles me, we’re all rather short.)

  • fountaingirl says:

    I just tried Paris yesterday at Nordstrom, what a coincidence! I somehow hadn’t before. I love the opening, but it goes thin so *quickly*! Maybe it is worth another try.

    BTW I think that Hecate would be a nifty name, myself. :d/

    • March says:

      The current Paris feels like half the original Paris (it was a huge scent in terms of sillage) but I was happy to have the 6-hour ride the next day on my clothing.

      Hecate’s okay for a grownup girl :d I don’t want readers thinking less of me, at least for that! 😉

  • Trish/Pikake says:

    What a lovely pic! I of course am dying to know what perfume she shares her name with LOL.

    I absolutely love Paris. In fact I was so pleased that Helg mentioned it the other day. My favorite though is Paris Roses des Bois. I love how the woods temper the candied sweetness that Paris sometimes possesses. (Did I spell that right? so many s’s)

    Anyway, I also love the FdB in the extrait and have the parfum pen. eBay does have them right now for like $35 and I highly recommend snapping one up. It’s worth it! One dab is all you need and you get 3 or 4 refills?

    Also, thanks again for the blog support. Ya’ll rock.^:)^

    • March says:

      I saw that stylo set and left it on there for someone else 🙂 since I have one and the extrait on the way… heck, four of those stylos would probably last awhile!

      And you’re welcome. Your blog is beautiful.

  • Amy K says:

    Hecate is a snazzy dresser! I’d love to own the grown-up version of her shoes.

    I’ve always had good luck with rose fragrances (one big exception is PW Tea Rose…blech) until recently – I’m pregnant with my first child, and now most roses have gone from glorious to sour on my skin. Hopefully everything will return to normal at some point, because Fleur de The Rose Bulgare is one of my longtime favorites and I miss it. The rosiest thing in my current rotation is a tiny sample of Amouage Lyric Woman that I’ve been savoring. Now I can’t remember if I’ve ever tried Paris or not, so I guess I’ll need to hunt down a sample bottle the next time I’m at the mall.

    • March says:

      Hecate’s clothes are so random, but often in a good way.

      With you on the PW Workshop rose, and fascinated that you can wear fragrance at all during your pregnancy. You’re not sensitive to those smells?

      Paris deserves (deserved?) its popularity, although not three spritzes at a time. :”>

      • Lindsey9107 says:

        I third the PW Tea Rose sentiment. Yikes. And I love almost every rose fragrance I try.

      • Amy K says:

        Oh boy, I definitely couldn’t bear fragrance for the first 4-5 months. A co-worker often wore Pink Sugar (foody AND strong…the double whammy) early in my pregnancy and I had to avoid her like the plague when we were both in the office at the same time. After a while, though, the aversion faded. I’ve found myself reaching for lighter, fresher fragrances this winter instead of my usual comforting orientals – no clue if it’s a temporary or permanent change in taste. My little girl is due in three weeks, so I have a feeling I’ll be forgoing fragrance entirely in favor of new baby smell!

        • memorie says:

          Oh, you might be surprised, Amy K! As much as I love the smell of new baby, I’m really digging the way Dzing smells when it rubs off on my 3 month old son’s head. The perfume bug has already gotten to my 3 year old son who makes me spray Creed’s Silver Mountain Water on him all the time. I’m not a fan of it, but I gotta say it’s starting to work on him!
          Perhaps you will have a little perfumista on your hands. BTW, congratulations and good luck!

  • tmp00 says:

    I dunno, I don’t think I’d mind being named Hecate.

    Buckethead however…