Happy 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.  The Perfumed Court has it as well.

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 Paris for 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: in France the fragrance was marketed around the imagery of Paris itself, whereas the US 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 Paris the 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.)

March

My memory dances and shimmies – I can’t trust its movements. In childhood, winter was a time of snow, outdoor adventures and breathing out ghosts over my face. On the walk to school, we’d shiver and stay warm by pulling lengthy icicles from gates and signposts, playing first Musketeers and then later, when I was all of 8, Kenobi vs. Vader. There’d be sheer pools of black ice on the pavement, and skids would end in success – a monumental speeding up across land that was no such thing, with a stumble back to terra firma – or failure – a bruised posterior whose tenderness would be an echoing reminder of the laughter we’d shared in the days to follow.

But these are highlights, moments that my memory has inked in luminous yellow and pink so brightly that the rest of my childhood text disappears under their dayglo brilliance. They’ve become posed portraits of my experience, rather than representative snapshots, and that’s why trust and memory, for me, are awkward companions.

In adulthood, winter disappeared somehow. No real snow, and a handful of frosts throughout the entire period that would melt before the day was halfway through. Instead, winter became a season of browns, umbers and dull greens, soggy underfoot, smelling of mushrooms and old leaves.

This year however, we’ve had more winter than I thought possible now, given our increasingly temperate conditions. Snow storms that have halted journeys. Last week, I had to turn home after my car decided the route I was taking along the road would be made more interesting by diagonal sliding. This weekend, floods have covered much of the countryside surrounding me, so that back routes are cut off and I’m in a land of lakes. I want log cabins to materialise beofre my eyes. They haven’t yet. Most rivers and streams have burst their banks, and the ditchwater dirge of the water is made glorious in the morning by winter’s etching on its surface. And, on a handful of days, the frosts or snow have lasted for more than a day. It’s actually been cold. Cold for here.

But the variability, the shifting from one unexpected element to another – snow storm, flood, snow storm, sunny ice day, mild dullness with lowering cloud, fog, sudden mists – is too much. It makes me yearn for simplicity: perhaps the endlessly democratic sunshine of southern California, or the true winter of the Sami inside the Arctic circle. And this yearning for simplicity is reflected in my daily habits too – what I am eating, what I am wearing (clothes), what I am wearing (scent).

In perfume, I’m generally a lover of the baroque, the bizarre, the scent that leads to olfactory shock, pleasure brought about by the unexpected. For every modern minimalist number in my collection, I have ten heavy syrups of kohl-lidded decadence.  Though today, I’m tired of those. I want clean. I want pure. I want constancy.

I’ve been wearing the marvellous Eau de Cartier, a summer favourite. Its parma violet hush is surrounded by the glitter of citrus (a glitter I could live without quite frankly, but fortunately it doesn’t last). If it could preserve only the middle notes as an elongated chord, it would perfectly capture my mood – green violet wood that whispers of its tranquility. Unfortunately, the drydown isn’t such perfection – a perfumey melange of musks and woods that nudges into a powdered thickness when what I want is something ‘like gold to aery thinness beat’. Still, it’s as close as I can get right now.

What do you turn to when simplicity calls? And can you recommend anything else? I’m guessing the new Vanille Galante might just fit the bill.

WINNERS! Expect an email from me, if I don’t hear from you first.

Voleur de Roses stolen by Pantera Lily.

Rocabar rocks out with pyramus.

Dzing! sings for hongkongmom.

Vetyver roots out Tommasina.

Bois d’Ombrie gets wood for Christine L.

Lee

Somehow my day just completely got away from me, and now I have to go to yoga class, won’t get back until late, and no time to do any sort of proper review to anything.  I am so sorry!

First, the winners of the last drawing I had for the sample of the Bond No. 9 Brooklyn are:  Arwen, pavlova, Amanda, Maitrey, Cheryl, dogloverinnm, and Joe.  Just hit the contact Us button over on the left and remind me that it’s a sample of Brooklyn that you’ve won.

I’m waiting for that Serge Cellophane thing to show up and the Hermessence Vanille Galant, so I sorta have my nose out of joint waiting for some things to sniff, and nothing else seems to jump out at me to even try and do a quick review on, and I can’t wear anything to yoga and report back later.

What I am doing is gardening shopping. I’ve got my new roses picked out for the revamped backyard, some old vintage roses with strong, overpowering scents.  I’ve ordered a Wisteria tree. Who knew?  I don’t want the vine, which kills everything in its path, but the tree looks promising.  Check back with me next year, and I’ll tell you if my fence is still intact.  Also got carpets of lavender coming and a ton of big old bearded iris from Schreiner, who has the most beautiful irises I’ve ever seen. All of those are planted around the pond/waterfall.

It just seems almost like spring, doesn’t it?  So please chime in on what are your spring perfume plans or other scented garden plans.  And if you comment, you’ll go in the draw for a sample of the new Hermessence Vanille Galante. I may even do a few entries.  It’s my very contrite apology for my very poor planning!

Patty

Thanks to all of you for participating last week in the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Q&A post, she was thrilled with the feedback.  In the meantime we´re in our annual House of Ill (I´ve had sick kids home since last Tuesday) so here´s a quickie on my new DSH favorite comfort scents, which are certainly getting the workout right now. (“Skin” scents mean they wear extremely close to the skin on me with minimum sillage.)  Notes courtesy of DSH website. 

Lumiere (Holiday 2007) – Bergamot, Cardamom Absolute, Cinnamon Leaf, Coriander Seed, Nutmeg, Almond Milk (accord), Hazelnut, Rhum, Sweet Cream, Amber, Australian Sandalwood, Coffee Absolute, Oppopanax, Peru Balsam.  A soft, seamlessly blended fragrance that on my skin is milky spiced coffee without being sweet or gourmand – the balsam and sandalwood keep it comfort rather than foody.  A skin scent on me.

Special Formula X-treme (oil essence, there´s also a regular SFX) – another skin scent, this is DSH´s blend she uses to gauge your skin chemistry.  Enough customers liked the test fragrance itself that she sells it on its own.  Perfect on its own when you want a light, musky skin scent for layering to unsweeten something or give it a little more body.

Sensual Spice – Again, an extremely simple scent – notes are honey, nutmeg, vanilla, and that´s just what it smells like, although I´d have guessed a little clean musk at the base. 

Toast – “an ambery oriental that is warm, delicious and fun.”  Cinnamon bark, amber, moss, vanilla.   It must be the moss because the fun here involves the interesting base that keeps the fragrance from being cloying.  I´d have named this one Sensual Spice by the way – there´s something sexy about it.

Lush Honey – Bitter Almond, Muguet, Violet, Hazelnut, Honey, Honey Beeswax,, Ambergris, French Vanilla, Heliotrope, Musk, Tonka Bean.  This should probably come with a warning label.  It is intensely sweet the way honey is sweet, and fairly heady, and on the wrong day it´s a little Play-Doh on me (hey there, heliotrope!)  On the right day it´s like burying my face in some sort of dessert featuring nuts, phyllo and honey, without the caloric damage.  Delicious.  If all that sounds horrifying let me recommend instead…

Sweet Honey – Honey, French beeswax, musk.  A lighter, less cloying, charming honeyed musk that is a great skin scent.

Previous DSH favorites of mine in regular rotation:  Sienna, Mahjoun, Fete Nouvelle (an interesting almond/hay skin scent that is what I wanted L´Artisan Jour de Fete to be as opposed to the Play-Doh horror it actually is).  Of all I´ve listed, Mahjoun is probably the heaviest.   Blond Suede is a great sweet leather.  Finally, no post on DSH should fail to mention Cimabue, possibly her best known fragrance that is big and bold, and I know several of you mentioned DSH Piment et Chocolat and Tamarind/Paprika as favorites.

Finally, having read about Serge Lutens’ new scent on Grain de Musc, I think I want to try it!  Here’s hoping The Perfumed Court has a bottle on the way…

image: Avalon Spa, Portland OR, howstuffworks.com

March

      “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” 

So! A random thread at Basenotes got me thinking – does anyone really need a 1 liter bottle of perfume for 8-9k U.S.? I thought I’d come here and ask a few thousand of my closest friends.

It is parfum concentration and has notes of orange blossom, jasmine, bitter almond, wood, vanilla and musk. It was created by Sylvaine Delacourt and Randa Hammani.  And I did love Quand Vient la Pluie and am so glad I worked out the split for that so I could sniff it and enjoy it. Worth it if the bottle could be split?  How many of you would be interested in that?  Price, including in decanting costs, bottle costs, shipping, etc., would probably run about $9-11 a ml, selling in splits of 8 ml, 15 ml or 30 ml.  If there’s enough interest so most of this bottle could be paid for, I think it could get done.  So jump in on comments if you would seriously be in and for how much and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might be interested.  I just hate to have one of these 60-some bottles not out there for those who want to to sniff it.  The cost would wind up being about the same or a little less than Guerlain charges for an ounce of any of their pure parfums, about 300-330 per ounce.

A more than generous friend sent me the Soivohle Violets and Rainwater. It is pretty much straight up what’s in the title, beautiful, subtle violets and fresh rainwater.  It’s like crystal rain droplets with the sun hitting it. I can see why this is such a favorite.  It’s what I hope my weather turns out to be one day when it stops going from 10 degrees to 70 degrees.

Purple Love Smoke from Soivohle, on the other hand, is not as straightforward.  Violet, violet leaf and earth.  Wow, it is all darkness where Violets and Rainwater is light.  A rich, pulsing purple, I’m sorta thinking a decadent king - plush and overripe and slightly decayed – living in the 1970s with strobe lights and blotter acid. Between the two?  I can’t decide. PLS is perfect for your dark, poetic days when you want to lock yourself up with a tragic novel, a forbidden love and your inner sorrow.  V&R is perfect for the days when all is bright and lovely and no sadness can touch you.

Two great violet offerings. 

This weekend I finally watched Jane Eyre.  I didn’t expect to like it in the least.  All my life, I’ve just heard how overwrought the Bronte sisters are, so I avoided both of them, and I still need to read the book, but the movie captured beautifully the story, and I was enchanted.  So do I need to read the book, or can I just stop with the series?

Warning, if I seem a wee bit cranky over the next three days, I blame it on my juice fast. I’m trying this three-day vegetable and juice fast because?  Well, I don’t know, but I just feel the need for spring cleaning of several different varieties.

Purple haze all in my eyes, uhh
Dont know if its day or night
You got me blowin, blowin my mind
Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

Patty