As we´ve complained ad nauseam, we’ve barely had a spring here in the east, only to suddenly wake up to ninety degree temperatures. It´s been a bit disorienting to say the least, but it definitely puts into perspective the approaching misery of summer. I say misery because my bikini beach days are decades behind me, and my mid-forties are fast approaching. That means loading up on sunscreen and setting the air conditioning at a temperature somewhere in the vicinity of meat locker. This will be my first Mid-Atlantic summer, so please feel free to inform me what I am in for. As of now, there is no escaping to north of the 49th for me, so unless I can get a cheap ticket to Antarctica (passage on the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin, perhaps?), I´ll most likely go crazy in the heat. And, I´ll be bringing along some of my favorite kitschy summer scents:

Creed Virgin Island Water: I never thought I would refer to any Creed scent as “kitschy”, considering they´ve been around since 1760, but this scent is a total departure for them. From the quintessentially feminine Fleurissimo to the bracing maleness of Green Irish Tweed, Virgin Island Water does not smell like a typical Creed scent. Even their more recent compositions like Spring Flower and Silver Mountain Water have that Creed signature something that Virgin Island Water does not. It is a tropical cocktail in a bottle, with notes of coconut, lime, white rum, bergamot, Mandarin orange, hibiscus, ginger, ylang ylang and jasmine. Is there such a thing as a “refined” pià±a colada? Virgin Island Water is a fun and easy scent to wear, regardless of your frozen cocktail of choice.

Bond No. 9 Coney Island: When I was a kid in Brooklyn, Coney Island had a somewhat dubious reputation. You didn´t go there for any reason but for a few rides on the Cyclone, the landmark roller coaster that the Astroland amusement park was famous for. After that, you hauled what was left of your cookies to Jahn´s Ice Cream Parlor on the corner of Avenue U and Gerritsen Avenue, and ordered their Kitchen Sink Sundae, which was 16 scoops of ice cream along with various toppings. A couple of plates of French fries would inevitably arrive at the table, to use  in lieu of spoons. Hey – don´t knock it; think of it as dipping pretzels in chocolate.

None of Coney Island´s notes have anything to do with the Coney Island experience, but it still manages to strike an emotional chord in me. The combination of margarita mix, guava melon, cinnamon, chocolate, caramel, musk, vanilla, cedar wood and sandalwood might strike some as noxious. But, if you´ve ever gotten a whiff of the real Coney Island – Nathan´s hot dogs, ripe garbage and the polluted Atlantic Ocean, you´d beg for the bottle. I think it´s what I always wanted Coney Island to smell like, but it never did. Coney Island the scent makes me smile, and gives me a serious craving for ice cream and French fries. A ride on the Cyclone, however, would now be followed by a recuperative forty minute rest before I could even think about food.

Bond No. 9 Fire Island: If this one was named Bain de Soleil Orange Suntan Gelée, it would be instantly recognizable. Having only been to Fire Island once in my life, I have no memory of what it smells like, only that I was totally paranoid about going in the water and getting bitten by a shark. All these years later, I still can´t watch the movie “Jaws” without shuddering. The notes of cardamom, neroli, white musk, tuberose and patchouli don´t exactly scream suntan lotion, but I can´t think of a better interpretation of the iconic orange gelée than this one. It only has an SPF of 4, so anyone as pasty as me wouldn´t be caught dead wearing it. Thank goodness for Fire Island.

Marc Jacobs Daisy: The kitschy-est thing about this scent is the bottle; those white vinyl daisies on the cap instantly bring a smile to my face. And the green ones on the new limited edition bottle totally remind me of my family´s green vinyl kitchen chairs and white Formica table. Yeah, that kitchen set was the epitome of  late 60s-early 70s stylish home decor. With the exception of the plastic slipcovers on my grandmother´s chesterfield, nothing hurt worse than having to peel myself off those chairs in the summertime. I think enduring simultaneous laser hair removal and a bikini wax probably doesn´t hurt as much. As for Daisy the fragrance, it just works in the hot weather. Not too fruity, not too sweet, just enough sparkly grapefruit to keep me happy.

Here are a few that are no longer with us, but deserve honorable mention:

Ava Luxe Coconut perfume oil: This was quite possibly the most perfect coconut scent I have ever smelled. It wasn´t overly sweet, and not at all plasticky. It had a boozy rummy-ness to it that gave it depth and personality. If you´re reading this Serena, please bring it back!

Majenty Hidden Cove: I can´t remember what the notes were, but this oil was a tropical masterpiece without the dizzying intensity of pikaki or gardenia. It doesn´t seem to be available anywhere anymore, and the bottle I had is M.I.A. Figures. Update: I’m trying to find out if the company is still producing the scents, or if they’re out of business. Their website is still up, but I’m not sure if it is active.

VIP Room: I have a bit left in the bottle I bought at Aedes de Venustas, and I could swear I had a backup somewhere in my stash, but no such luck. This was a limited edition scent named after the famous Parisian nightclub, and now it is nowhere to be found. The combination of leather and pineapple shouts insanity from the highest peak, but it is genius; even on the doggiest of summer days.

The title of this entry is from the song “Escape (The Pià±a Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes. My apologies for any earworms.

Image by artist Bella Pilar: magnetreps.com.

Gourmandish floral perfumes normally don’t do it for me, with a couple of exceptions like Lostmarc’h's Lann-Ael.  One recently just captivated me into swooning.  MUA has been chatting this one up for a few weeks, so I had to try it.

Carla Fracci Giselle has notes of ylang-ylang, cinnamon, freesia, jasmine, tuberose, vanilla, coconut, caramel, musk and white honey.  It opens on this weird ylang-cinnamon combination.  It’s not totally ylang, it has a spiciness to it that’s really charming.  The middle floral notes have about the right touch, warming it up and sweetening it a little. It’s shocking that the freesia doesn’t make it too sweet, but it’s balanced well with the more earthy jasmine.

Wafting through all of this is the honeyed warmth of the gourmand notes.  It’s never too sweet, it always feels more like a floral, but those gourmand notes just make this smooth as silk and snuggly and warm and completely enchanting.  The drydown just makes it better, more vanillic, like a softly warm bakery.

I truly adore this, it is great from start to finish.  There’s a rumor around that this may be or is discontinued, which would significantly suck now that I’ve found it.  Anyone know on this?

So what has been your biggest perfume love that hit the discontinued pile?

Patty

Hey, friends — I’m dealing with some unexpected family stuff today, an overflow from yesterday, sorry.   So, hard as it is to believe, there are things that take precedence over fragrance, and today you bear the burden.

The weather’s warm and weird and right now all I want are the perfumes that are my (seasonally appropriate) friends, the ones you call up when you’re stressed and feeling out of sorts.  For me, for really no good reason at all, that scent is Annick Goutal Mandragore.  I find it briskly reassuring and not demanding too much attention.  Parfums de Nicolai Fig-Tea is like that as well.  I wonder what yours are?

For anyone who’s interested, Carmencanada at Grain de Musc has thrown her hat into the IFRA regulation ring, here’s her letter at Perfumer & Flavorist.

Hope to be back soon.

March

Hello all. Lee here. On a Tuesday. I know. I’m feeling a little funny too. Let’s go with it though, eh? Just kind of find out what happens. You see, I’m off to Scotland on Friday and I have to take my sporran out of storage…

Before getting to the review itself, can I first clear up the whole geranium / pelargonium thing? Because, quite frankly, they’re not the same, and dear Freddy Malle, in promoting his top end fare, is also promoting dubious botanical nomenclature. Geraniums, let me be clear, are largely herbaceous perennials, frequently called cranesbills in everyday parlance, after the beaky form and motion of their seedheads. You’ll find them in borders designed by your Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West types, used for their soft mounded forms, their interweaving manner and often pastel-hued flowers, and come highly recommended if cottage style gardening is your thing. I deliberately grow a few myself (the so-bright-it-hurts-your-eyes Ann Folkard is one of them), and one accidentally – an extraordinarily irritating and surprisingly smelly weed called Herb Robert. I pity the Robert this miserable creature was named after.

Pelargoniums, in contrast, include the pot plants we associate with whitewashed Mediterranean houses and sunny climes – vivid red flowers and evergreen foliage. The flower colours of this genus have an apparent unceasing variety, and the leaf shape too. It includes Pelargonium graveolons, the plant from which the rose-lemon geranium essential oil is most often extracted (so really, the confusion is not Freddy’s fault. I blame those essential oil extractors for this nomenclature snafu). However, virtually all pelargoniums have scented leaves, and some species and varieties have been developed explicitly for this purpose. They’re easy to grow and don’t need much looking after. Scents can range from the minty (the wonderful ‘Lady Plymouth’ and downy leaved Pelargonium tomentosum) to the balsamy (‘Royal Oak’) to the spicy (‘Old Spice’) to apple-y (P. odoratissimum) to stagnant (‘Frank Headley’ is a beauty to look at, but boy does it smell like the top notes of Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier’s bizarrely bilgey Jardin du Nil). I recommend everyone having a few scenty leaved wonders or species pelargoniums in their homes – they’re the nicest of guests (P. sidoides is a long time fave of mine – and google the health benefits!).

Onto the perfume. A wonderful woman called Audrey sent me a hefty sample of this, with Editions de Parfums’ usual generosity and elan. And I’ve been wearing it ever since. It took me a while to like it before I even tried to understand it. And now I think I love it.

Pelargonium bicolor from chestofbooks.com

It makes me think of triangular collocations and how wrong they can be. Let me explain myself. If I were to say cool and fresh, and ask you to add the next adjective, you might say bright. Or if you didn’t know what an adjective was, you might say ‘weather’. You wouldn’t -or at least I don’t think you would – say ‘dark’, but that’s precisely the triangular collocation Geranium pour Monsieur throws into my head (I think visually, hence the triangle).

Geranium essential oil makes a strong appearance in another Malle perfume – Noir Epices – that also happens to be dark. Ropion’s darkness in Geranium pour Monsieur is a surprisingly brilliant darkness  – it is the cool of a grotto you retreat to when you’ve had too much heat, the dew before the rising sun appears, the humid twilight world of coastal tropics as the sun sets and life begins. I could go on, Harlequin romance style, though I hope you get the picture. Unlike Roudnitska’s Noir Epices, which, though a strangely transparent scent, I find solitary and angular in its beauty, Geranium pour Monsieur is affable, friendly almost bon chic bon genre in its likeability. It could be a scent for the (bourgeois, good taste) masses, this generation’s Eau Sauvage, if it weren’t so expensive or limited in availability. And that is a serious compliment.

So it starts with a vibrant minty geranium, toothpaste- or chewing gum-like perhaps, but beautiful. There is an animal purr in there somewhere too, though I have no idea how that’s achieved. There’s also a touch of citronella, declaring ‘no flies on me’ or something. I like the suggestion of a repellent in amongst the beauty – it adds to the charm of the whole. And then the other, non-minty geranium facets kick in, oscillating between floral, anisic, spicy and citrus, but never losing that cool, dark allure. A hide and seek perfume, it seems to fade before returning with a delicate incense trail and some musks which I’m not sure I’m actually smelling or imagining I’ smelling. And the geranium itself, something I thought was a highly volatile oil, hangs around for most of the journey. I have a gaping hole for a fresh floral green perfume (if that’s what this is – and it is so different to what I normally enjoy, I have no idea) – this has just filled. It’s rare I sniff a perfume that has no immediate smellalike, and that in itself makes this fascinating. Its immediate and most obvious bedfellow is Miller Harris’ Geranium Bourbon. But that perfume’s all giggle and play in a summer dress. The two might have sex as a one-off ‘feeling fresh and frisky’ thing, but they’re never going to get close. Different worlds, you see.

So, a fresh ‘man’s’ scent in the Malle line up. Though this isn’t a ‘hang out on the beach and crack open the beers’ fresh masculine. Rather, like Chanel pour Monsieur, Monsieur Balmain or even Eau Sauvage, three classics that also draw upon fresh appeal, it’s a smartly turned out chap oozing charm and savoir faire. I may well wear it in beach shorts and nothing else, but it’ll be happier with a linen suit and a bone dry Sauternes.

You’ll find reported elsewhere that this perfume fuses ‘the beauty of nature’ (essential oils) with ‘the precision of the digital era’ (molecular distillation). And that it uses Chinese geranium (which might just mean geranium oil imported from China as far as I’m aware). All I know is that geranium oil is extremely cheap, yet I’ll be more than happy to fork out for this atomically spliced and diced natural wonder. It is that damn good.

Lee

As predicted by me, we had our endlessly cold Spinter of Discontent through most of April into last week; then we went from rainy fricking 50 degrees to sunny fricking 90, thus transitioning directly from heat to A/C.  Which is okay because everything outside is coated in the green stuff — whatever trees or other flora are busy pollinating all over everything and making eyes itch and skin crawl.

Oddly, this is perfect weather for anise, representing the brief window of time each year I think: huh, that smells really nice.  Maybe this year I’ll come to love it all summer like normal people do.  Etro Anice is a great, easy anise scent, although I wouldn’t say no to a bottle of Caron Eau de Reglisse, which I googled and is cheaper than dirt online — how about $35 for a 3.3 at perfume.com?  And now I kind of want the Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Laurier Reglisse, although I still haven’t seen it at any huge discount anywhere, have you?

Of these I find the Etro (rosewood, anise, bergamot, caraway, iris, jasmine, dill, amber, musk and vanilla) the most linear and evocative of pure anise in spite of that impressive list of notes.  It also starts off the sweetest, although the drydown is delicately pretty with a hint of musk, and it’s light enough you can reapply.  The Caron is slightly more nuanced (aniseed, licorice, green mandarin, verbena, nutmeg, ginger, patchouli, vanilla,  musk) in terms of composition — I love the mild spiciness — although it’s still relatively straightforward, and if you had to boil it down to a one-word description it’d still be anise.  I find it quite refreshing and entirely missing the standard Caron base, in case you’re wondering.

The same herbal/anise combination is used to slightly different effect in what I think is the least sweet of these, AA Laurier Reglisse (Bay Leaf, Licorice, Amber, Violet, Bergamot, Orange Blossom.)  The bay leaf and bergamot lend an herbal/citrus twist more traditionally associated with cologne, and the florals are muted.  If I could wave my wand and make one of these appear I’d probably take the Guerlain, but seeing that $35 Caron online, my finger’s hovering over the Purchase button.

I don’t think I ever smelled the Guerlain AA Anisia Bella, which is supposed to be quite nice (it’s discontinued but easily found by Googling, and cheap.)  If anyone’d like to weigh in on that, go ahead.

Finally, I resniffed Lolita Lempicka regular and Au Masculin for the umpteenth time today and … huh.  I just can’t get behind them.  Maybe it’s too hot outside, or I’m too sneezy, or something.   I am still unable to appreciate their genius; they never seem right for any season on my skin.  I don’t want that licorice smell in the winter, and then they’re too heavy for the heat.   But I know lots of people are wild for them, so I guess I’ll try again in the fall.  In the meantime, feel free to name any of your favorite anise scents, or (conversely) voice your opinion as to why licorice should be confined to jelly beans rather than unleashed in a fragrance.

image: giardinaggio.it

March