Since I´ve relocated to the Washington DC area, I´ve met a number of interesting, smart and articulate people, and we all have something in common: a love of fragrance. Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending an event at Art with Flowers, the wonderful floral, home décor and fragrance shop in Tysons Galleria in McLean Virginia. The event was in honor of the launch of Apothia´s newest scent, Pearl. Ron Robinson, the founder of Apothia was on hand to introduce Pearl, the fragrance created to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his stores within Fred Segal, the famous Los Angeles area shopping destination. Pearl is the fourth scent in his Apothia collection, joining IF, Velvet Rope and L. It was created by perfumer Stephen Nilsen of Givaudan, whose other creations include Tom Ford Private Blend Moss Breches, Bond No. 9 Andy Warhol Union Square and With Love Hilary Duff. Pearl´s notes consist of shiso leaf, plum blossom, peony, orris and warm golden amber.

I´ve dispensed with the pertinent factoids of Pearl early on because the most fascinating aspect of my introduction to this scent was meeting and chatting with Ron Robinson. My typical fragrance shopping experiences rarely include speaking to the individual responsible for a scent´s inspiration, concept and development. Usually, I get steamrollered by someone spewing rehearsed marketing jargon, or completely ignored. Generally, I prefer to be left alone while perusing scents; nothing is a bigger turn-off than a pushy sales associate who could just as easily be hawking kielbasa at Costco, rather than the current gift-with-purchase that accompanies whatever fragrance, cosmetic or skin care item they´re attempting to entice me with. To quote Jack Nicholson, one of my favorite actors, from the movie “As Good As It Gets”: “Sell crazy someplace else; we´re all stocked up here.”

Mr. Robinson articulated his fragrance´s missive in plain language without any phantasmagorical scenarios or far-fetched descriptors of the notes. He simply stated that Pearl is a fragrance he considers to be a “modern classic”, one of “quality”, utilizing only “a handful of high-quality ingredients” and created with “lots of care and direction”. After forty years in the business, Robinson knows his customers, and what they want. Pearl is representative of “how beautiful it feels to wear something elegant and simple, yet edgy and groundbreaking; just as a beautiful string of pearls is easy to wear with either your favorite pair of jeans or your sexiest black dress. Pearl eau de parfum is understated yet powerful.”

What I think is so appealing about Pearl is that it really is a well constructed, unfussy scent. It takes you on a journey from its initial burst of bright, energizing citrusy notes, flowing into an earthy base of orris and amber, with a tinge of musk. The transition from bright light to warmer depths is seamless. There is no jolting, in-between stage that can develop in some scents that have too many competing elements. If I was pressed to describe Pearl in one word, I would call it effortless; you don´t even need an actual string of pearls to appreciate this one. But, if you admire elegance and simplicity, then Apothia Pearl is a slam-dunk.

I would be remiss if I didn´t mention bits of a subsequent conversation I had with Ron Robinson two days after the launch event. He was charming and effusive and loves to dish about fragrance and fashion. He´s always on the hunt for things that are unique and special, as is evident when you visit his newly revamped website, www.ronrobinson.com. In addition to fragrances, beauty, skin care and interior aromatics (scented candles and diffusers), there are many unique items for men, kids and home. When I asked him what he thought of the subjective concept of reviewing a fragrance as one would a movie or a restaurant, he said, “I don´t like to judge”. Instead, he´d rather opine on what he believes is “quality” and “well-constructed”. He´s not particularly interested in “what smells good on someone else”, rather in “how well we relate to fragrance.”  Since Pearl is the fourth scent in the Apothia line, I also inquired as to his feelings about men and women having a signature scent. He said he considers himself a “modern man” who embraces “change” and is “open minded to trying new things.” He “enjoys variation” and believes that “being open to life is what we are all about.” I couldn´t agree more.

You can find Apothia Pearl at Fred Segal of course, and other locations listed on www.ronrobinson.com. 15 ml is $35.00 and 50 ml is $80.00. A sample vial is also available for $5.00. If you happen to be in the Washington DC area, stop in at Art with Flowers in Tysons Galleria in McLean Virginia. In addition to carrying the entire Apothia line of fragrances, candles and diffusers, the store is a whimsical treasure trove of home décor items, flowers, fragrances, teas, bath, body and skin care products. The owner, Bill Hervey, is gracious and accommodating, and will allow you browse to your heart´s content.

Image courtesy of www.apothiaaromatics.com.

First, American Idol brief recrap.  Okay, I get the genius that is Adam this week. What a strange, talented kid he is.  Johnny Cash would have loved that.  I’m not entirely sure I like Ring of Fire being messed with in quite that way, but I still think it was genuis. Megan did more shimmy porn on Patsy Cline.  This was my favorite thing she’s done so far, but why does it sound like the exact same thing she’s done on every other song, just this one slightly less sucky than the others?  It makes me miss Patsy, who was brilliant and one of a kind.  Lil made some poor choices.  Scott?  I really want to root for him, but I start nodding off every time he sings.  This whole season, so far, is staring to make me really sleepy.

Let’s move on to ludicrously priced stuff in our new feature, “Let Patty Buy it so you Don’t Have To – yet.”  This is where I’ll buy something overpriced by any normal standard and tell you if it’s even remotely worth it.  Today is Serge Lutens Compact Foundation and their makeup base.  A nice SA/makeup artist made me up with Serge this in Beverly Hills.  Let’s get the price out of the way. The compact foundation kit is $160, but the good news is, the refills are only $80 (yeah, I did say only, but that’s on par with the Armanis and Cle de Peau and some of the other pricey foundations, so it’s high, yes, but rolling in that same high rent makeup district that’s already been breached. )  I’m assuming you can just get the refill foundation and use your own sponge if you don’t want the little compact.  The foundation base, is $80, and I can’t tell if it’s refillable.  My hunch is yes because their lipsticks are refillable at $55 instead of $75 and, well, about everything they do is refillable.

Now, I’ll start off by just warning you that after the SA did this makeup, my face looked flawless, and she used all Serge products, base, foundation, blush, powder, lipstick, everything.  I’ve had that done a few times in my life by gifted makeup artists, so the real trick is – can I do it myself?  I know she’s talented, but I’m always in a hurry and usually have mediocre lighting,so my face is too often left for the 2 minutes leftover in the morning.

The base is white and was touted as covering discoloration in your skin, redness, etc. The MA (makeup artist) put it on in what she called a warpaint configuration.  A swipe on your forehead between the eyes, on the furrow lines, then a swipe under each eye, one swipe down the  nose and a swip on the chin.  You blend that in with your fingers/sponge/brush (I picked my fingers, it just seems to smooth better, the heat seems to melt it into your face).  This does an excellent job of coverage and priming your face for foundation, so no complaints there. I’m not sure it’s worth $80, unless, of course, it works better with the Serge foundation than other concealers.  Haven’t tested the foundation with anything else under it, so I don’t know.  But the product itself is superior to about anything I’ve used.  Most concealers are too light for me and just seem to  show up on my face as concealer instead of blending into the skin - and I include in that the much vaunted Cle de Peau concealer, which is too dry and slightly cakey looking on me. So to find one that isn’t drying and doesn’t read completely in neon signs on my face as “CONCEALER HERE” makes this work for me.

The foundation uses nano dispersion technology (as does the blush, etc.).  I have no idea what that means, but it is a powder-type foundation that comes in a compact. I apply it with a sponge, finishing with a little bit of brush in the areas a sponge doesn’t do as well with.  My shade is B40.  The finish on this is silky smooth and completely flawless, not dry or flaky in any way. It covers great and doesn’t look like you’ve just “done” your face.  I’ve tried a lot of the powder compact foundations in the past (Longo, etc.), and this has been the best on my skin.  Not just for powder foundations, but any foundation I’ve put on, and I can say pretty emphatically that I am a foundation whore and have tried most of them out there.  Lots of them go on pretty, but a check in the mirror in full sun finds some brush strokes or dryness, places it didn’t spread evenly.  I do know how long it wears, and it’s pretty much until you take it off.

Is it worth it?  Probably not for most people, unless it is the perfect foundation and no others have worked to give you the level of coverage and flawlessness this one does.  I’m not sure if Shiseido makes something similar that may not be as pricey.  If anyone has info on that, let me know.  For me?  I’ll be buying refills, it is a match and goes on like nothing else I’ve used before.

Next up – Cire Trudon candles.  If you have something you’d like me to test, let me know.  If I can fit it into my budget or get plenty of interest in it, I’m your tester!

Patty

Have any of you noticed that in some of my reviews I sound … insane?  Or possibly like there are several of me, and depending on which personality is blogging you get anything ranging from Prrfume Grrrl to Miffy McSnob?  Another blogger once did a post where she aped our review styles, and it´s both funny and a little painful to see.  Anyhoodle (prrfume grrl!) I´m going to try to tighten it up a bit.  I know, and good luck with that.

We all got samples of Andy Tauer´s new Une rose chyprée at Scent Bar on Saturday; some of you lucky readers had already received samples during his advent giveaway late last year.  To use some technical perfume jargon: squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!  Totally swoon-worthy.  I agree with Tom that it´s likely to be a big hit.  Like everyone else´s line, some of Andy´s scents are easier to love than others.  Une rose chyprée has the radiance of scents like Orris and Incense rosé while embracing a more traditional style of perfumery.  For those of you who´ve maybe liked Tauer in theory but think, dude, I can’t wear creosote, you might want to give this a whirl.

I asked Andy if there´s some sort of base or signature he uses in some of his scents, as I detect a unifying theme running from this through Orris and the Rosé.  He says: “The signature thing. A truly interesting question.  I do not have a set of compounds that you would find in every fragrance of my line. Well, maybe there is this Orris-root line combined with a woody-ambergris interpretation that you find in most of my fragrances. Not if you look at a formula, but if you look at how the fragrance manifests itself. Yes, this probably is one aspect.”  Which is Andy´s elegant way of saying what I feel: while maybe there´s nothing like the Guerlain or Caron base afoot here, people who already like his fragrances will find again in Une rose chyprée his striking trick of working airiness and radiance into a scent that is still a relative powerhouse. 

According to Tauer, Une rose chyprée is an oriental rose on a chypre base. It is built around two natural extracts from rosa damascena, the absolute and the steam distilled essential oil.  Other notes are, bergamot, lemon, clementine, green Bourbon geranium oil, bay, cinnamon, labdanum, orris, oak moss, patchouli, vetiver and vanilla. 

At first sniff it´s almost girly, a tad sweeter than Incense rosé and faintly edible for reasons unclear to me. (On the other hand: it smelled tremendous on Tom, so don´t let me scare you menfolk off.  When we met him the next day our first question was, what gorgeous thing are you wearing?!?!)  The citrus is a little soapy but not at all unpleasant.  It goes through a phase where orris is relatively prominent, and I wonder whether this will be problematic for you who had trouble with his Orris LE.  The geranium, herbs and spices at the heart are wonderful and the scent really opens up here in terms of sillage.  It loses its sweetness and becomes rich, resinous and almost buttery in the drydown.  This is easily the most elegant scent Tauer has done, but for all that it´s not stuffy.  Nobody´s going to use the word “grandma.”  Interestingly, for something driven by a lot of rose it´s not especially rose-y – more chypre, but soft.  Less Mitsouko and more 31 Rue Cambon.   However Andy does rose, he avoids that cough syrup/sour wine effect. The drydown is mossy and the vetiver and vanilla set each other off beautifully.  It´s a little crisp and earthy without being dirty. 

More good news from Andy:  “With this rose, I start a new line within my line of fragrances, named Tauer Perfumes “mémorables”.  Une rose chyprée is the first scent of a series of things to come. They will not be limited editions. All of them will either be eau de parfum or perfume concentration (Rose chyprée is eau de parfum), all of them come in the same size of 15 ml… a price tag in the US of about $65-70 is a reasonable guess. In my online shop I will sell it for around 55-60 Swiss Francs. In these recession times I do not want to charge too much. Launch will be somewhere in the coming months. I apologize for not being able to be more precise as I am still manufacturing all my fragrances here in Zurich, more or less by myself…” 

Andy worked on the scent for about a year, you can find a link to his blog here.  I´m delighted with Une rose chyprée, and thrilled to hear we have even more to look forward to.

March

To all of our L.A. Enablers:  You were great companions, especially Tom, who made sure we saw all the best of L.A., and Robin, who kept us company, and for both of you for keeping us laughing in your warm, lovely companionship.  Also thanks to Franco and Adam at Luckyscent, who opened up their shop for all us sniffing freaks on Saturday morning and did some amazing gifts for everyone and door prizes for some very lucky perfumistas. [March is blogjacking this post in these brackets, let's see if Patty notices.]

We arrived on Thursday morning, and with an exhaustive shopping guide from the fabulous Musette, we headed off to Venice.  What a lot of cute little shops, but we soon gravitated to Strange Invisible Perfumes to smell all the ones we hadn’t smelled yet.  I was enchanted with the new floral trio of Gardenia, Rose and Lily.  The gardenia is pretty much spot on and is a great gardenia if you haven’t found one that makes you happy yet.  I still prefer Untited/Lady Day, but since it is discontinued (though still available as a special order) because of all the other things it is, but do love the Epic Gardenia.  The rose is really well done and has a full-on rose angle, meaning stems, leaves, all of it.  The lily still haunts me as the one I think I need from the three new ones. But I found some existing perfumes in the line I hadn’t smelled yet that have my full attention – Lyric Rain and Trapeze.  Lyric Rain is, I think she said, somehow related to Dorothy Parker. Interesting perfume, one I need to sample more, my nose just got too overloaded.  Trapeze is a definite keeper, it has a spicy thing going on that’s just lovely, lot of carnation, if my memory is staying decent on this.  [March sneaking in -- I loved Trapeze too.]

After a lovely late lunch at a Japanese restaurant, we — what in the world did we do? Checked in at the hotel, caught up with Tom by phone, and we must have done something? [March - the La Brea Tar Pits!!!  P, how could you forget?   Also --Roscoe's, on Gower I think, we had fried chicken and waffles for dinner because that is apparently what you have there.  It was amazing, and I am not joking.  Some of the best fried chicken I've had.  Bring your Tums.  Don't order the red wine.]  How could I have forgotten?  Srsly, waffles and chicken, who knew?  I’m still a little disappointed I didn’t get that side of gravy to dunk the whole mess in.

Tom (Perfume Smellin’ Things) picked us up at the crack of 10 on Friday for a great drive down to Santa Monica, including stops at lots of vintage/resale shops.  Lunch was at R&D Kitchens on the main street in Santa Monica, and it was just really great.  If you live in the area, go eat there, it was perfection.  My shopping for the day came in after I changed into sandals that morning, looked at my unfortunate feet and felt in need of a pedicure. So I stocked up on some polish, foot files and what I thought were some cheap lip balms I had read about in Allure, and off we went back to the hotel until we met up with Tom and Robin (violetnoir as a commenter here) for dinner.

Now, have you ever had those moments when you think you’ve bought something cheap, you weren’t really paying attention to the final price when you sign the cc slip, then get home, take it all out and see the price?  My shopping accident of this variety was Sara Happ Lip Slip (Luckyscent is carrying these now, so you can pick them up there).  It had a brown sugar exfoliator that goes with the Lip Slip, though they are available in other flavors, and they are $24 each!!!  I about croaked.  You think you’re picking up something for $5 or under, so that was a shocka.  Having said that, I also have to say that these are some amazing products.  I used the exfoliator first, and my lips were smooth as could be, plus seemed to leave a nice waxish, but not waxy, residue for the Lip Slip to go on and adhere to.  The Lip Slip is a very light, but effective, conditioner and hangs onto your lips like a great kiss.  I think I’ve finally found the lip products that really work for me.  Try them if you get a chance.

Tucked in for a good night’s sleep after a lovely dinner with Tom and Robin, we rolled over to Luckyscent for a great sniffing session on Saturday morning that lasted about three hours.  Franco and Adam are great hosts – and I didn’t get the name of the lovely young woman who was ringing us all up, but she was incredibly helpful and gracious – and it was just a great time with friends old and new. I won’t remember everyone’s name, so I won’t even attempt it.  We got a sneak preview of the new Tauer, Rose Chypre, which is really beautiful. [March - I think I'm reviewing this tomorrow.] It’s very much a traditional Tauer scent with that rich, incense spice base, and the rose is full and dark over the top of it.  The blurb on the sample says citrus, but I get very minor citrus on it.  I also sniffed the new Delrae Emotionnelle.  Wow, melon hell. If you like melon in your perfume, this is the one to get.  If you don’t, run across the street and hide under a manhole cover if it passes by.  [March - kill.me.now]

If you are anywhere near Los Angeles, you have to go to Luckyscent, it is just full of smells and life and warmth and a great place for any perfumista to journey and spend a few hours.

After we thanked our lovely, gracious hosts and grabbed a nice lunch, March and I headed off for Barneys and Rodeo Drive.  Now, I brought my GPS with me – I never go traveling without it if I’m driving – and did you know that if you put in the 9000 block of Wilshire and also put in Los Angeles instead of Beverly Hills, the GPS seems to be completely in the dark that these two cities could touch on each other?  Bizarre.  After a couple of false starts, we did find Barneys because, well, I had a mission.  Serge Lutens makeup, which I will cover in Thursday’s post, which will become part of my partly regular assignment “Let Patty Buy it so You Don’t Have To.” [March - P's got a Garmin GPS that sits on your dashboard, wow, it is incredibly useful.  Except Hilda the GPS had this one quirk where she kept insisting we get to our Century City hotel by turning onto a nonexistent road that would go through the middle of another hotel and it really chafed her when we didn't.  She'd mutter "recalculating.... recalculating...." I mean, you could hear her thinking, dummasses.]

Now, as we we into Barney’s, we both needed the ladies room desperately [tmi?], and we finally found it on the third floor.  We walked in right behind another woman, and the stench in that bathroom was just rank. I haven’t smelled anything that bad even when I had to use the outhouse on camping excursions.  [March - different than outhouse.  I am not sure how you generate that scent.  Muskier.]  We waited for a stall to open, and the woman who went in ahead of us exited, and March took that stall. I waited patiently, holding my breath, for something to open up so I could get the hell out of that cesspool of noxious smell.  The other occupant exited, and I was still holding my breath, but stupidly went right into the stall she exited.  And, voila, now I knew who was the source of that smell.  I took a deep breath once I was in the stall and then promptly died inside.  I’m just not a fussy person at, having grown up on a farm, and I believe the germs that don’t kill you will make you stronger, But me, tough farmgirl, used not one, but TWO toilet covers before I would sit down on that seat.  After we left, we followed the smelly trail back to the first floor, where she was leaving all comers gasping for air in her wake.  People were going behind her spritzing things. Apparently she is a Beverly Hills person who comes in regularly just to pass some time.  I also have to say, other than the smell, she looked pretty fabulous.  A kind of dashiki boho thing with a great scarf around her head, and she had a brilliant smile.

AND we made out first star sighting. I looked up from having my Serge makeup put on and saw someone very familiar that I knew I didn’t really know.  Tall, willowy, quirky, yet beautiful face. It was Maggie Gyllenhaal.  She is lots more gorgeous in person than on the screen. Flawless, luminous skin, just beautiful.  Then I noticed the vaguely familiar guy shadowing her patiently.   Pretty sure it was her character actor husband that I can never remember his name, Peter Sarsgaard.

Sniffed the new Ron Robinson Pearl, which is very nice, there will be more on that later this week from Nava.  Also traveled to Saks and Neiman to sniff the Narciso Essence and the new Annick Goutal.  Essence is very nice, but pretty indistinguishable from all the others, though I do like it.  The new Annick Goutal.  Hated it.  Not sure what they’re trying to do there, but it was just an aquatic foul mess.

Sunday was further adventures in tourism with Tom, with a quick stop by a market where I couldn’t leave without a bag full of strawberries. They didn’t travel all that great, but they survived!!!  [March - LA peeps - the Sunday farmer's market on Larchmont, across from Larchmont beauty more or less.  They have this stall called -- wait for it -- The Flan King.  If I lived near The Flan King I would weigh 435 lbs.   Also I have produce envy like you can't believe.  The asparagus!]

[Also.  Tom has the patience of Job.  And is very funny.  Tom, be sure to check under your seat and make sure we didn't drop any more fruits under there.  You're delicious.  Please come visit us and we will return the favor.]

Now we are home and missing all the fun and adventure and thinking – where can we go next?

Patty

Hey, everyone — please welcome Musette as today’s guest poster, complete with her wacky fonts!  Sorry for the late start, we had the time wrong…

* * *

Is 22 Blue?

Three is yellow.  Five is a pale pink.  Six is a shocking pink.  Two is pale blue.   But 2+2 equals a very dark blue-violet.  22 is silver and white while one, which is black and eight which is green, becomes bronze when it´s 18 and russet when it´s 9.  And 28 Rue Cambon is black and green and very pale pumpkin.

Is this synaethesia at work?  Wikipedia defines synaesthesia thus: from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), “together,” and αἴσθησις (aisthÄ“sis), “sensation” — is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.^[1][2][3] People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored

 It is, perhaps, the most regular´ version of it for me.   I tend to speak Common Grapheme:  numbers have colors and days of the week have colors, too (Wednesday is a lovely leaf-green, since you asked)  And I mostly think in color and when I am stressed I can´t always remember if I´m speaking normally or in color, which drives my accountant crazy ( you try working with a nutjob at tax-time who says, “it´spale violet- blue and black´ when what I meant to say was “47“)

But all too often my locked-down´ color references shift when fragrance, colors and numbers collide.    And fragrances have their own color preferences that often are very frustrating because they don´t correspond to the number I have put down for them (for example, Shocking is, of course, the number 6 – but it really isn´t because the SMELL of Shocking is a deep brown, shot with gold, so it´s the number 9.  Lucky for me Chanel No 5 smells black and white and always has been, though I suspect I´m influenced by Mme and her elegant label.  The number 5 will just have to get over it, with its jaunty, cotton-candy pink self.

Awhile back Shelley @ Scentscelf  posed the question “can a fragrance be in black and white?”  There are a couple of them, to be sure, like Chanel 5, but for this poor grapheme most fragrances go tromping through the crayon box, singing a jaunty tune.  A lot of them, of course, are colored´ by their names – it´s tough to not see violet´ in a fragrance named thus (though there is one violet scent that isn´t a color or a number – it´s a dress!) and let´s face it, Vent Vert is just that (at least the vintage is.  The reformulation is more like Vent Acid).  For 30 years I´ve felt I should be swayed by Vacances´ charming green bottle top and liquid gold color but no matter how I try, it remains an intense near-white, like a sunspot, with a smack of bright blue.  Every time I sniff Vacances, for a moment time stands still, the sun blazes white-hot and all the birds stop singing, like  high noon in August.  Her quieter sister, Lucien Lelong pour Femme, is crisp tan with an edge of aqua, though there isn´t a hint of water in the scent.  It´s a yacht I fell in love with 20 years ago – those colors exactly replicated in a fragrance.  I suspect Vacances would be mortified to know she isn´t a Parisienne´s holiday – unless said Parisienne is holidaying in a Wisconsin cornfield.

Mitsouko smells very pale bronze with touches of pale green and mercury bubbling through.  Her number is 37.  I just fell head over heels for PdG´s Drama Nuui – you´ll have to guess the color(s)!

But why on earth is L´eau d´Hiver pale slate-green with hints of very pale lilac? And for such an elegant scent it has a goofy number: 18.

And that´s just the tip of the iceberg but to bore you all to death with my color/number references would just be – you know – boring!  Way more fun to hear what color references you might have.  Or maybe they´re not color references – maybe they´re dress styles or shoes or dog ears or whatever. 

Tell me I am not the only grapheme (or nutjob, as my CPA would say) in the bunch – come play with me!!!  Do you have these same kinds of experiences with perfumes?

And one more question, since I am in a Questioning Mood: have you ever liked a perfume you would hate on its own but you are oddly drawn to because it reminds you of a fragrance you loved at an earlier time? Such it is with Miss Rocaille.  By itself it would drive me insane.  It’s a bit screechy and very thin and not very interesting, but for some reason it reminds me of something I wore in my late-teens, perhaps Coty’s Elan?  The funny part is, I cannot remember a single thing about the actual smell of Elan!  Are there any perfumes that do that to/for you, conjuring up associations with no concrete basis?

 — by Musette/Anita

 Color wheel: webdesign.org