Hey, everyone – thanks for all the wonderful warm anniversary wishes, I really enjoyed reading them upon my return.  We decided not to take the laptop because there we’d be, on our trip, compulsively checking it since we’re both kind of addicted.  Instead we devoted ourselves to eating embarrassing amounts of sushi, and lipstick shopping.  (Erm, okay, that last part was just me.)

Someone asked, what fragrance did I wear to my wedding?  The answer is: probably nothing at all.   I was young and a little disorganized and, hey, it was my first time getting married.  And we’d had this huge summer storm the night before, the power was out in various places and so the wedding breakfast for guests was candlelit and fairly hilarious (food heated in the neighbors’ gas oven.)   I wasn’t there; I was too busy trying to get my hair done and get across town with my nervous dad, locate the cake, etc.

I will tell a story here for the amusement of one lurking reader, before moving onto perfume.  A friend made my dress, white embroidered lace in a simple strapless column style quite popular now, with a wonderful detachable satin train that fell directly from a large bow in the back; I wore elbow-length gloves to complete the look.  In those days, though, the popular style was those enormous Lady-Diana-meets-bride-of-Shrek gowns, which is way too much dress for me.  If my mother had been alive she’d have told me to wear a shawl or jacket to cover my shoulders modestly at the ceremony, and my mother-in-law never saw the dress until it was too late to do anything about it.  Anyhow, my dress (or rather my bare shoulders and decollete) caused a minor scandal in the staid Episcopal church of my in-laws.  The priest stopped a wedding there once when he realized the wedding flowers on the altar were silk.  There was a 20-minute pause while someone ran down the street to the grocery for some real flowers for the altar, that must have been awkward.  But nobody was ready to take on my formidable mother-in-law, a longtime member of the church, regarding my wanton deshabille.  So the show went on, albeit with some muttering in the pews.  Here’s to you, A, for sticking up for me.  I hope your martini glass is full as we speak.

So my timing’s a little off weather-wise, but I felt I had to mention how much I enjoyed the Carla Fracci Giselle that Patty blogged about, which led me to get some (hey, I’m susceptible too!).   One of the many things I love about perfume is the low-end discoveries.  Here I am, getting a little jaded about stuff in $2000 crystal flacons made from ingredients gathered at dawn on the summer solstice by velvet-cloaked castrati (okay, I made that up) and then I run across some discount dreck that seriously smells great.  Such is (are?) the depths of my ignorance that I had to google to discover that Carla Fracci is a ballerina famous for her role as Giselle, and why she needs a perfume is beyond me, although I still want to smell Renee Fleming, what can I say?  Cribbing directly from the Perfumed Court: Introduced in 2004, Carla Fracci Giselle has notes of ylang-ylang, cinnamon, freesia, jasmine, tuberose, vanilla, coconut, caramel, musk and white honey.

We all like what we like, and I still tread pretty carefully at the sugar-coma end of the perfume spectrum.  Straight-up super-sweet gourmands from Laura Mercier or much of the Comptoir Sud Pacifique line are impossible for me.  However, I seem to have a remarkable tolerance for sweet/syrup if you add a dollop of strange/spicy; I love Givenchy Organza Indecence, Poison (Hypnotic and Original), even the oft-maligned Dior Addict.

Giselle (my sample is an EDP) wears a little lighter than most of these – more in the Organza Indecence neighborhood, with a generous top of something sweetly green that makes me think fleetingly of what Estee Lauder scents would smell like if Patricia de Nicolai created them, if that makes any sense at all.  The florals are front-loaded, with the ylang ylang and freesia leading the pack.  Then they fade and I get a lot of vanilla, and I was tempted to write it off as a less-interesting Indecence until the cinnamon, musk and honey started to assert themselves.   I can’t smell the coconut or caramel at all, which is fine by me, and Giselle never becomes foody.

I’m not elevating this to the status of The World’s Greatest Perfume, and there’s something a bit off in the first five minutes – that mildly plastic-y note I get from Laura Biagiotti Roma – but only if I put my nose super-close to my skin.  Considering you can buy an EDP for $35 online, I can forgive it a small rough patch.   If I work through my generous sample I’ll consider adding this to my arsenal of guilt-free sweet stuff.  I’m actually kind of interested in the body milk (7.3 oz, $27!), and TPC has the parfum – I bet that’s worth a sniff, anyone tried it?   Eight hours later I still get a decent drydown, enough that the girls told me unsolicited how much they liked it when I went to say goodnight, and I like that it doesn’t cross that line that Indecence occasionally does when it’s just too sweet and I regret putting it on.  And I really want to try that new PdN Vanille too…

Carla Fracci image: guidoharari.com

March

It´s only fitting that two weeks after begrudgingly parting with my gas-hogging, decidedly environmentally unfriendly SUV, I discovered a really intriguing line of organic fragrances. I must say, this discovery has somehow softened the blow of once again being behind the wheel of a Toyota Corolla – which also happened to be my very first car 18 years ago. Not that a Corolla is an embarrassment on 4 wheels; Toyota has definitely come a long way since the days of their “Punch it, Margaret!” commercials. Oh, if only I could get back about 10 of those 18 years… Alas, there is currently not a fragrance on the market capable of accomplishing that task. If there is, I´m hoping someone will tell me.

I´ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the idea of “organic” for a long time. I´m all for living as chemically-free as possible and leaving as small a carbon footprint as my size 10 feet will allow, but it isn´t always easy. Purchasing organic produce and groceries is a noble but expensive undertaking, as is using organic personal care products and fragrances. It seems ironic that the less you get, the more you have to spend, be it for pesticide-free, non-genetically modified fruits and vegetables, hormone and antibiotic-free meats or paraben-free, naturally based skin care products. And don´t even get me started about high fructose corn syrup.

Organic perfumery has been a controversial subject, mainly because of some ridiculously expensive price points, and the argument that a perfume cannot be completely natural due to the irritant potential of some of the most commonly used natural materials. I´m not going to go down that road either.

Acorelle fragrances carry the “EcoCert” and “CosmeBio” labels, certifying that they are comprised of natural and organic ingredients. Of their 100% natural ingredients, 92% are certified organic. They do not contain chemical fixatives, colorants or something called “nitrated musk”. Instead, wheat alcohol, organic corn flower water, essential oils and other raw materials are what make up these scents. They are divided into three aromatherapeutic categories: Dynamysing (stimulating, invigorating, anti-fatigue), Balancing (revitalizing, harmonizing, comforting), and Soothing (anti-stress, relaxant, soothing). Each category has three corresponding fragrances; following are the ones I tried:

Amande de Blé (Wheat Almond): this one is the revitalizing scent from the Balancing category. Notes of almond, ylang ylang, mimosa, apricot and essential oils of shiu wood and palmarosa make this scent smell for all the world like a hunk of marzipan candy, but in a way that is not tooth-achingly sweet. For me, it is more of a comforting scent because it makes me think of those marzipan candy fruits I loved as a child; so much so that my mother would routinely hide them from me. Of course I always managed to find them.

Lotus Bambou (Bamboo Lotus): From the Soothing category, this is the relaxing scent of bergamot and mandarin, along with spearmint, tarragon and patchouli essential oils. It manages to be soothing and refreshing at the same time, and is a perfect warm weather scent. You definitely get a bit of a bite from the spearmint and tarragon, but not in a mentholated chewing gum sense, and the patchouli is there in the background to warm things up ever so slightly.

Baies Sauvages (Wild Berries): From the Dynamysing category, this is the invigorating fragrance of wild berries, roses and violets, with essential oils of geranium, cardamom and sandalwood. The rose note is definitely not lost among the berries and the cardamom adds a gentle spiciness that you typically do not find in fruity fragrances. The sandalwood is clean and warm in the drydown, making this another perfect scent for warm weather wear.

There are 3 more scents currently available, Jardin des Thés (Tea Garden), Orchidée Blanche (White Orchid), and Verveine Agrume (Citrus Verbena), to be followed at the end of the year by Vanille Ambrée (Vanilla Amber), R de Rose, and Terre de Cà¨dre (Land of Cedar).

Acorelle is brought to us here in the U.S. by Susan Anapol, one of the first North American distributors of Comptoir Sud Pacifique in the early 90s. I had the pleasure of meeting Susan for the first time in New York last year, and realized that she was the one filling my orders for Comptoir fragrances back when my vanilla obsession was in its infancy. I saw her again at Art with Flowers in Tysons Corner last Sunday, where she introduced Acorelle to the Metro DC area perfumistas, along with the promise of more exciting fragrance lines to come.

Acorelle scents are priced at a very wallet-friendly $68.00 US for 50 ml. You can find them at Art with Flowers, and on Susan´s new website, www.lushoasis.com.

Image: lushoasis.com

Hey, how about a perfume post and a drawing today!

Parfums de Nicolai’s newest entry in the perfume market is Vanille Intense.  Notes of Orange, orange blossoms, immortelle, cinnamon, woods, patchouli, amber and musk  make up this perfume.

Okay, just love here, love, love, love.  I have a love/hate relationship with Vanilla anyway, so whether I’ll like or despise vanilla is a coin toss. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s just cloying and won’t let go of my skin far beyond the time I need it to get the hell off of me.  This vanilla concoction has all the hallmarks of  Nicolai – just not what you’re expecting exactly.  For me, I get a lot more immortelle, orange and cinnamon than anything else. The vanilla is a trickle somewhere in the back that vaguely tickles, but isn’t overwhelming in the least.  This is spicy and warm, but has that restrained elegance that marks all of the Nicolai perfumes, with just enough of a kink in it so it will never be like something else you already have.  The longer this is on, the more immortelle I get, which is just gorgeous. There’s a little bit of booziness in it, but in the perfect quantity so I don’t feel like I just tossed back a shot that’s making me a little queasy.

Patricia Nicolai is one of my perfume heroes. I think she does everything well and has an unerring sense of taste that is off the beaten path, but she never makes it weird.

So let’s do a giveaway of two samples of the Vanille Intense. And I also have two samples of Andy Tauer’s Une Rose Chypree to give away too.  So drop a note in comments, tell me what you favorite Nicolai is or one you really want to try to be entered in the drawing!

Also, I do have a favor to ask of someone if you live in NYC and could run out and pick up some Cradle of Light from CB in Brooklyne.  Just click on the contact Us button if you might be able to do it.

Patty

Assuming I haven’t been hit by a bus, I’m off to an undisclosed location with the Big Cheese for the rest of the week celebrating our 20^th anniversary — which is, in fact, today.   It’s hard to believe we’ve been married 20 years; it feels like three years and 70 simultaneously.   His brother is watching our kids (sucker!), so they won’t be with us, and we won’t have internet access.  I guess we’ll have to think of something else to do to fill the time.  I have some ideas.

The blog still appears to be named Perfume Posse, so in theory this should be a perfume post or, if not, one of my sappy treatises on fambly dynamics.  I guess I’ll aim for the middle.

My obsession with perfume arose out of pretty much nowhere a few years ago, connected to nothing.  As with any passion acquired later in life, my perfume addiction has required my domestic partner to develop some patience and a modicum of understanding.  Well, mostly patience.  As I type this I notice the scent of the retro-fab Dana “Gardenias in the Snow” is still wafting up from tissue paper it leaked onto in the mail, tissue paper now in the trash can under my desk in the office the Cheese and I share.  The smell is like a big white floral presence wearing maybe a little too much face powder.   Given that this is where I open the mail, our office is littered with small envelopes and boxes and the air is always reeking of something.  I try to keep my endless bottles and decants and vials out of the way, but I don’t think you’d have to take more than a few steps anywhere in my house to find some fragrance to sample.  (We won’t discuss the nail polish.   The Cheese is gritting his teeth and pretending not to notice that burgeoning collection.)

I have often replied to the perfume question with the answer: because it makes me feel happy.  But that isn’t entirely accurate.  A better answer would be: because it makes me feel.  Because perfume became, perhaps by default and in place of, say, opera or baked goods, the quickest way to trigger my emotions.  I’m not sure how good a perfume critic I am, but I’ll never be a dispassionate or objective one.  I just walked around the second floor.  It’s raining, hard, and has been since last night – the road through the woods down by the creek is closed.  I can hear the water gurgling in the gutters and dripping from the eaves and hissing down the brick and across the driveway, dripping from the leaves of the roses nodding their heads outside.  The air is humid but cool, just the way I like it. My guest bedroom has taken on a tangible air of nostalgia – it’s where most of my vintage fragrances reside.   I suppose I should be worried, the perfume smell in there means something isn’t properly sealed.  Instead, each time I walk through that room on the way to the library to read, I am transformed for a few seconds into a willowy girl from an earlier era, wearing a shirtwaist dress, red lipstick and sassy shoes.

Perfume trails me everywhere.  It reaches out to me from the hall table, the armoire in the bedroom, from beside the toaster in the kitchen, from the counter in the laundry room.   I have created a house of ghosts – laughing, pleading, mournful, playful.   I wonder whether anyone else living here sees them, feels them the way I do.   I sniff my wrist, lost in time, standing in front of the kitchen sink making dinner, or at the bathroom mirror.  Or while reading contracts at my desk.   Driving my children everywhere, running errands, always running.

The road we’ve been on for the last year is pretty weird.   I don’t know how I got here, and I sure as hell don’t know where I’m going.  But I got what I wished for – an interesting life – so I’m not complaining.  Just turn the radio up and hand me that little bottle, it’s vintage Mitsouko PDT.  It’s the bees’ knees, it really is.

I’ll see y’all next week.  Perfume, I promise.

Photo:  I know I’ve stuck this up here once before, but that’s me and the Cheese (center) on our wedding day, this pic still makes me smile.

March

Okay, I indulged in too much planting/painting/drinking this holiday weekend and find myself with no perfume review for today.

So it’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, but they never stop being fun.  You have been transferred to a hut in the Congo for two years – a very small one, with room for only 10 perfumes.  Which perfumes will you take?

I’ll post my picks in comments too.

Winners of the Two new Guerlains and two new Hermes scents are:  Annie and dea.  Just click on the link to contact us on the left and send me your address, remind me what samples you’ve won, and I’ll get them sent out to you.

Patty