First, the winner of the shimmer Chapstick is: Kathryn

Winner of the Q-tips is:  Kathy T.

both of you should just click on Contact Us on the left, remind me what you’ve won and send me your address.

I do have another giveaway today courtesy of Perricone MD, they offer cosmeceuticals, and you can click through to their website to see the giveaway item.   They are giving a full sized Advanced Face Firming Activator, which is a $120 value, to one of the commenters on today’s post.  Now, they can only ship in the U.S., so apologies to our international friends, you’re not eligible for this!  Just drop a comment to be entered.

Okay, moving on to paint and kitchens for a sec. This is a slice of my kitchen.  I’ve got one color swatched by the window that I’m considering. I have a larger picture of it next to another color I’m considering.  The cabinets stay for now, even though they are old and need to be overhauled one day. The tile is going now to be replaced with something complimentary. I was thinking ruby/gold’ish glass tiles, but I’m thinking that may be too much, and it may need another color instead that won’t compete with the adobe’ish color I’m planning for the walls.  I think this color by the windows is just a little too much.

The picture  to the right shows the color by the windows on the left side of the picture, which is Rust and the color on the right, which I think will work better, which is Benjamin Moore Firenze. The picture really doesn’t pick up the color as closely as it should. It’s a little more brown and a little less Salmon.    I’m now thinking maybe a coffee colored with gold accent glass tile may work better for the backsplash.  Thoughts? And should I repaint the cabinets or leave them and all the trim that same bright white for now since I intend to replace them in a year or so?

Perfume?  Listen, I got no perfume for you today. I’m waiting for those new Guerlain thingies to show up, and nothing else do I want to talk about. But I do have a new eyeliner that’s great.  I love soft colors in eyeliners.  I just can’t wear dark, harsh colors at all, so I tend to like wheat, gold, blue, purple, green around my eyes, it just softens age.  The main problem with eyeliners, though, is they smudge. I workout a couple of times a day usually, and I sweat.  If I’m not sweating, I haven’t been working out.  Keeping eyeliner on my eyes, even if I’m not working out, especially in summer, is a challenge, so it needs to be waterproof.  Makeup Forever has some great waterproof eyeliners too.  Shu Uemura has a new painting liner that is just gorgeous AND waterproof. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!  These, unlike the MUFE pencils, are in little pots. So you use an eyeliner brush to swish them on, which gives a nicer line, I think, than pencils, and this goes on like a dream and stays put. They have a bunch of gorgeous colors. I went fo the gold, silver, green, purple, but I also want that white one, which is great for giving an inner line on the lower lid to make you look more awake.

One last thing. I’ve got plans to meet up with some Londoners while I’m at Sniffa in July, but would love to meet others. So if you’re gonna be at Sniffa, even if you’re not from London, or if you’re gonna be in London then, give me a shout, I’d love to get together for  a cup of tea, a pint of beer or a glass of wine.

Patty

Everybody loves Knize Ten.  You.  Your grandma.  Your neighbor down the street with the annoying dog that barks late at night.  Luca Turin loves it.  I´d read Marina’s review of the Knize line right before my trip to Vienna, and I was ready to join the choir and sing out my praise for Knize Ten too.

Knize Ten has all the right ingredients – leather, check.  Animalic, check.  Knize Ten was going to be my leathery souvenir from Vienna.   I went to the elegant Knize store on the Graben several times, trying to talk myself into the Ten, but … well, no.  Knize Ten is animalic and leathery, but on me there is also a faint, persistent note of something resembling pickles that I just couldn´t work around.  That pickle thing pops up in odd places (chypres, men´s colognes) and I don´t know what causes it, but it´s like having a pebble in my shoe when I´m running.  For something so small, it begins to annoy me all out of proportion.

Instead, Knize Sec became the fragrance I wished I had bought in Vienna.  But I never went back for it, and have spent the ensuing two years with a wistful longing any perfume fancier has probably had, the scent edition of the One that Got Away, whether it´s being outbid on eBay or searching in vain for that funny little fragrance boutique on the Left Bank with a quirky name that you can´t find the next day when you go looking for it.

My own particular longing was answered recently with a generous decant from a lovely friend who knew about my Sec desires, prompting today´s post.

First in Fragrance says Knize Sec has sage, lavender, exotic woods and white musk.  The reviews on Basenotes indicate its male fan base, but it´s not any more manly to my nose than, say, L´Artisan Passage d´Enfer, which Sec reminds me of just a bit.  Marina says the opening reminds her of a gin and tonic; it makes me think simultaneously of lime seltzer and that crypt-keeper note in Etro Messe de Minuit.  I find Sec´s initial unfolding odd, but in a way that´s interesting rather than unattractive.  I can pick out the lavender if I´m looking for it, but it´s so seamlessly blended there´s nothing potpourri about it.  Sec is warm and cool, simultaneously, and a little strange.  I am with Marina that the drydown is my favorite bit; she smells labdanum.  There is certainly something very incense-y about it.  The drydown reminds me a bit of Christian Dior´s Jules, but less dark; like many of my favorite fragrances there is nothing really that close to Sec.  I´d recommend Sec for people who like incense fragrances, but also as a gateway scent for people who want an incense but gag a little if it´s too churchy or dense.  Sec is elegant and it´s clearly a dress-up fragrance, first and foremost, not a virtual-reality cathedral.  I´m finding it a perfect fit in our not-quite-seasonal weather, but there´s something about it that makes me want to try it when the thermometer climbs into the 90s.

My ardor for incense fragrances had cooled over the last few months, probably as a result of overexposure.  I haven’t worn anything incense-y for awhile.  The benefit now is, I can sample some of them in the summer weather.   I think incense in the heat can be surprisingly refreshing, like walking out of the sun into the cool interior of an old stone building.  I want to give Armani Bois d’Encens a go when it’s 90.

Knize fragrances are hard to come by in the U.S.  I know there´s been some complaining about Knize Ten’s lack of availability recently, although it seems to be available from perfumenetwork.com.  Sec and Ten appear to be available from First in Fragrance, a relative bargain at 75 euros, although I don´t know what shipping is.

March

This is the view coming up first set of steps to my house.  My roses are just ridiculous, especially the one on the right, which is about 7 feet tall  and 4-5 feet wide and deep. The one next to the house is about 6 feet, and that’s after I trimmed it to within an inch of its life early this spring.  The small one by the lamppost is, well, a little disappointing compared to the others.  Walking in any direction from or to my house right now is a scented heaven.  Nothing can match the scent of fresh roses.  It is so delicate and ephemeral, but at the same time almost fierce in its relentless “I’m going to make you happy if it kills me” attitude.

Unfortunately, when it is the centerpiece of most perfumes, it can often be tragic, capturing a plastic fierceness, but none of the delicate spiciness.

But I do have some favorites that seem to “get” the rose.  Miller Harris Rose En Noir, an exclusive to Liberty in London, is really magnificent.  Slightly jammy on the open, it slowly descends and undulates into an incredibly sexy leathery rose that I think is one of the best dark roses out there. That it is exclusive to Liberty is unfortunate, but I believe they do mail order.

Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit is a little woody and fruity, veering away into a more dark forest rose than Rose En Noir. But it places the rose in its natural surroundings to some degree, then the rest in some smoky nightclub full of women who have embraced their flaws and stopped running from their past.

MDCI Rose Di Siwa couldn’t be more different in approach from the other two.  Where they go dark and woody or leathery, Rose Di Siwa lilts and for me is the closest to that smell I get as I walk through my front yard that always makes me smile and feel so glad to be alive – and like I’m about 12 – and that’s a feeling that I can’t live without.

Those are my three favorite modern perfume roses. What are yours?  I am going to post some pictures of my kitchen on Thursday so you guys can finish helping me paint it. Well, I wish you could help me paint it, but just picking the paint would be fantastic. It will have swatches of some of the colors I’m thinking of on the walls.  BTW, thanks to everyone who suggested links, paint colors, etc., it was incredibly helpful, and I was happily googling.  This kitchen is doing a short-term cosmetic makeover for now until I get around to gutting it and redoing all the cabinets and reconfiguring it.  Hopefully I’ll also put up a picture of what I hope to be my finished foyer as well and my bathroom, which is painted, but needs a touch-up.  It’s incredibly helpful to get more opinions on things that I might not have thought of, y’all are wonderful!!!  xoxox

Patty

This morning I wore a sweater to walk over to the market in the rain, which - hello?!?  A sweater in June in Washington, D.C.?  What´s next, frogs raining from the sky?  A plague of locusts?  Seriously, I´m waiting for further signs of the coming apocalypse.  I think some of you are having mad weather elsewhere in the country as well.

I visited my sister-in-law Kate and family this weekend in their small town on the Eastern Shore and played country mouse.  I love going there.  I read their local paper and recognize half the names.  People know who you are when you go downtown.  They have a saltwater pool, and the flat terrain´s perfect for aimless bike riding, one of my favorite childhood activities.   Kate has this gift of making a house into a home. Every house of hers, from the Santa Fe pueblo to the Eastern Shore four-square, is timeless and magical and feels old and full of secrets in the best possible way.  It´s a gift I admire.

Anyway, this weekend for my birthday, she gave me a hand-knit throw in a chunky, funky wool that captures the pink-to-pale variations of the lip of a seashell.  (This is the same gal who gave me that outstanding mohair sweater.)   The coolest part?  This throw smells like it´s been sitting next to a woodstove, or knitted beside the campfire.  It´s all smoky, and I don´t know why, but I´m enjoying it while it lasts.  That smell is perfect in this cool, damp weather, like the smell that drifts from my unswept fireplace in the summer after a hard rain.

It got me rooting around for my decant of Annick Goutal Chine Imperiale, a scent so obscure that my googling produced exactly one hit – a mention in a comment thread on Basenotes. a discontinued room spray (and it’s Chine, not Chene, see comments!   Searching for Chene gets you the Serge Lutens.)

It makes me sad when people dismiss Annick Goutal as a chick mecca of bosom-heaving operatic scents like Gardenia Passion, or standbys like Hadrien.  AG has done a few things that are frankly strange – the maple-syrup immortelle-fest of Sables, along with Oh Do Fear (okay, really Eau du Fier) which conjures up the La Brea Tarpits, or asphalt in July.  If the world were a better place, every Annick Goutal counter would stock their sublime, difficult to find Eau de Monsieur, a unisexy mossy/citrus fragrance with an unlisted but obvious dose of immortelle (here´s a link to my old review.)

If Monsieur can be viewed as a more conventional riff on the love-or-hate-it Sables, then Chine Imperiale is Fier cross-pollinated with Diptyque Essence of John Galliano, then diluted by half and hooked up with something like Dior Eau Fraiche, maybe, or even Monsieur without the immortelle.  I don´t know what the notes are, but Chine Imperiale is quite smoky at the top.  It´s not as intensely smoky as John Galliano or the recently offed Patricia de Nicolai home scent whose name escapes me but was very much wet-fireplace.  (Au Coin du Feu, and maybe you can still get it abroad?  People mention it, at any rate, but they were on clearance when I was in London, never a good sign.)  Anyhow, the smoky smell slowly fades but never goes away, and an oakmoss-heavy cologne scent emerges underneath.   It´s the oddest combination, but it works.  I´d love to know if anyone thinks Chine Imperiale is still available.  Actually, I´d love to know in general what the distributors are thinking.  Sables, for instance, and Duel both have a habit of popping up unexpectedly on retail shelves locally, only to disappear again for awhile.

My kids (and other victims) really loathe that smoky smell.  It got me pondering.  Why do we love what we love?  Why am I entranced by the idea of smelling like a bonfire, but not a rose or a caramel?   Like a grapefruit but not a melon?   Linden, but not lavender?  Musty crypt but not mint?  In the midsummer doldrums, I bury my face in that glorious woodsmoke-and-wool-scented throw and I can’t help but smile.  Woody-smoky-birchtar scents make me feel the same way.  Y’all feel free to throw out your favorites.  (Off the top of my head:  Lonestar Memories; Kolnisch Juchten, new and vintage.)  Maybe summer’s the perfect time for smoky campfire scents after all?

image: Oak Tree in Winter at Lacock Abbey, salt print from a calotype negative, early 1840s, foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk

March

Memories, like the corners of my mind. Misty water-coloured meeeemorrrriiiiiiiies, of the way we were.

Ahem. I’ll begin again.

The act of remembering is less a willed experience, and more a reminder of the deus ex machina nature of our minds. Like an ever-spinning Rolodex whose cards jump out at will, half-formed snapshots leap forward of their own volition, their edges blurred (misty, water-coloured), the details filled in with estimations of the truth.

Some of these might be trivial and are only recalled because of their shock effect at the time or physical reminder in the present – the birthday party runaround where my hand got hooked on a rusting nail on the gate and I needed stitches; the actual photo of our family – so funny – that allows me to believe I remember the sequence of events surrounding it being taken.

Most are more significant because that’s why they’re remembered, and like spectres, move through the rooms of our minds. Organisms we’ve brought to life and no longer control.

That’s why I’m haunted by a film, and more specifically a particular sequence from it. I’ve never seen the film since, and it’s probably laughable now, but on my very young self, it made an intense impression. It’s a western ( a Euro-western?), with Sean Connery. Stop tittering at the back; the thought seems ridiculous too – no more ridiculous than Zardoz though. I think it involves a convoy losing their stagecoaches in Injun country and somehow striving to make it through the badlands alive. One by one, the stock characters are wiped out, and only those with compassion, or ‘true grit’ survive. It’s a death of one of the stocks that has remained with me, and likes to spring up, half-formed in my thoughts, on a regular basis. I could google it to find out the detail and remove those points that lack clarity, but though the memory isn’t particularly pleasant, it’s part of me. I don’t want to, yet.

A woman is part of the party, and she’s obsessed by material goods, distance from the labouring world, and the spotlessness of her appearance. I can’t remember much else about her – she might be gentry or nobility. She wears a string of pearls, and much is made of this. Eventually, when surrounded by the baddies, she is made to swallow the thing she loves, and, in my rewritten memories, this act kills her. I like to think this sequence has imprinted itself on me because my proto-self was already appalled by the explicit misogyny of most 70s film-making; unlikely though. The transparency of the metaphor is probably what got me, at all of 8 or 9 or 10. Her avarice, represented in that luxurious byproduct of true grit, eventually led to her demise. For a poor boy, from a poor family, there was both justice and horror in the outcome.

And so, I went on to have an awkward relationship with luxury, label and the status apparently inferred by both. I’ve never bought designer clothes, at least not first hand. My university days were spent in a pretentious parade of early twentieth century suits (legs rolled up, desert boots) and Edwardian shirts without the button on collar. When less effort in appearance became mandatory, I was resolutely middle-brow. I either wanted to subvert the codes of dress (ha!) or try to skip ‘em completely.

And therefore it’s some puzzle to me why I’m so accepting of the ‘allowable’ luxury of expensive niche perfumery. The last one I bought, and I can’t see myself adding any more for quite some time, was Amouage Dia. I can’t justify spending on it, and yet its quiet beauty, its poise and balance, make luxury have meaning to me. It whispers, which always helps.

It’s a frankincense scent, but done with such subtlety and balance, there is nothing which jars or clashes, and nothing which stands out beyond a quiet thrum of loveliness. It defies description in its blending of spice, dry winds, and a powdery heart. And I thought I hated powder. Wearing this on the stagecoach run would court disaster, I don’t doubt.

Which perfume justifies luxury to you? Makes you gulp on the price but go for it anyway? And which doesn’t?

p.s. Sorry if you checked in earlier. I forgot to post and dashed this one off lickety-split. Please by kind with in accuracies and non-seqituurs. I wrote faaast.

p.p.s. And oh, reading recommendation. Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger is quite marvellous.

p.p.p.s. Winner of the Chamarre draw is Veronica. Please get in touch via the contact us button, V!

Lee