Lisa Hoffman is the wife of Dustin Hoffman and has apparently been whipping up some skin care on the side, along with some perfumes.  I had no idea.  But I did get some samples recently, and two of the fragrances were up for Fifi Awards last year.   Again, I had no idea.  I mean, I’m sure I saw them, and then just thought, well, nobody is talking about them.

She takes a different approach to the scents. They are oils in roll-on bottles, and they go just at the pulse points, but there is a different variation of the scent for morning, daytime, evening and bedtime.   Well, okay.  The entire set I got to try is Japanese Agarwood, which was one of the nominees for a Fifi Award, along with Madagascar Orchid.  I’m fairly enchanted with the Japanese Agarwood. It’s pretty simple and direct with notes of Italian bergamot, spiced ginger accord and warm amber.  There are very definitely different angles at the scent, depending on which of the four you try.  My preference is the morning or daytime.  They are fresher and very airy. The evening tends to be more woody, but I still like it very much.  I wasn’t as crazy about the bedtime one, not sure why. It just seemed soapier or something. It is intended to be soothing, so maybe that’s it.

Madagascar Orchid has notes of jasmine, lily, ylang dew and pink peony. This one doesn’t work so much for me. I’m not sure which variation I got in the sample, but it was just way too soapy and didn’t work on me, though I suspect it will work for other people.

Tuscan Fig has notes of amber, woods, musk, French jasmine, honeysuckle, osmanthus, madagascar vanilla bean, madagascar gardenia, tahitian tiare and tuscan fig.  This one is most definitely a gourmand, hitting pretty squarely on the vanilla and fig notes, though the florals do find their way through.  As it’s been on a while, it settles in a really soft area still between the vanilla and the fig.  It’s a pretty great gourmand, and I would be interested in smelling all the variations of this one.  The sample doesn’t say which one I have, but it’s a pretty easy to wear gourmand scent.  Rich enough to give you a lushness, but not overpowering, just a soft, lovely gourmand.

They also have French Clary Sage and  Tunisian Neroli available as scents. I did a quick sniff of both, and they are nice scents, but pretty straightforward as what they are, and I don’t really have anything else to say except I did like them, and they’re pretty much what they say they are.  If you like those notes, you would like these perfume oils in those scents.

The price point isn’t ridiculous. You get four perfume oils in a cute little pouch for $95.  I’m not sure exactly the size of the bottles, but I think each is about 5 mls maybe?  Refills for the bottles are $60.  It’s certainly an interesting angle on perfumery, and I’m interested to see what they do with it. In the meantime, I’m really happy with my Japanese Agarwood, that is just a lovely, floating, easy to wear scent.

They’ve been nice enough to extend a 15% discount to readers if you use the code PERFUMEPOSSE at checkout.

Patty

Ladies and gents, I have a happy confession to make.   I just got my perfume mojo back.

For the past few weeks, I was worried (I can only admit this now that I am safe.)  Nothing was doing it for me.  I wasn´t that jacked for any new scents, or compelled by the old ones.  I kept reminding myself it´s the summer, we all have our lulls, our dysfunctions, blah blah blah.  But it was … freaking me out a little.

Who would ever have guessed that a single shopping trip could break the spell?  Yes, it´s true – I was cured by a visit to our local Saks, which is such a ghost town in August that the remaining salespeople have been reduced to trying to shill each other.  And there, my friends, I discovered not one, not two, but three new things to be excited about!  Today I´m posting on the first – Issey Miyake’s A Scent.

The way some of you feel about my love for Kenzo (ie, wth?)  is the way I feel about Issey Miyake, which translated into English means “watery grave.”  The thing that scares me most about Issey is when we go to our watery grave, we get there via some hideous fresh/marine/aquatic note (maybe with some melon), and y´all know how I feel about aquatics.  I´d almost rather spray myself with urine (which I hear is sterile… whoops, you aren´t reading this at breakfast, are you?)  Yes, I know — at one point L’Eau D’Issey was groundbreaking and fresh and new.  Well, guess what, folks?  Once upon a time,  Hammer pants were groundbreaking too.  And I love that video, but I never want to see those stupid pants again, and here’s a shout-out to all the designers currently trying to resurrect them, along with jumpsuits:  I will drive a stake through your heart, do you hear me?!??  Stop it NOW.  I am not playing around.

Anyhoo, desperately reeling myself back to the point of this review, my expectations for a scent (that is how it’s written on the bottle, and hey, won’t that name suck in ye olde Google searches?) – uh, my expectations were less than zero, but the poor ladies at Saks had nobody to play with and they were nice, and it was air conditioned, so I sniffed the new Miyake on a card, expecting… well, nothing.  If I was lucky.   (Melony aquatic ozone if I wasn’t lucky.)

Instead, you´re getting this post, because wow, how freaking great is that?!?  Notes for A Scent are hyacinth, verbena, galbanum, jasmine.

Let’s be clear: I wouldn´t wear this if you gave it to me.  It’s a riot, and it is very much not my sort of thing.  It´s a big green green green (did I mention green?) sour floral that in terms of initial aggressiveness on my skin reads somewhere between Shrek and the plant in Little Shop of horrors.  It’s Vent Vert with a shiv, updated somewhat for modern times.  If you took Vent Vert and sent it out clubbing with Cristalle, and they got sloppy drunk and split a pack of Marlboro Reds at the bar and then staggered home, A Scent might be their love child.  It´s got that goes-with-cigarettes smell that Cristalle and a lot of the Estees have, and I don´t mean that as a criticism, either.

I am still trying to wrap my mind around this coming from Issey Miyake.  I can´t imagine walk-of-shame is what they were going for, as I think this is supposed to be all about the crystal airy freshness of a mountain high on liquid clarity or whatever marketing fluff they´re spinning, but there you have it.   If you like galbanum and/or hyacinth and/or Cristalle/Vent Vert makes you feel a little dirty in a good way … check it out.  The jasmine only comes into play well into the drydown on my skin, and while the entire thing becomes more palatable to me at that point, I think it would start to lose its appeal for you galbanum freaks.  Five-hour update:  okay, the fun’s pretty much front-loaded, after five hours it’s just sweet  jasmine and verbena, reminds me a little of Jo Malone White Jasmine Mint.  But the first part!  The first part is great fun.  If you’re into that sort of thing.

I am obliged to link to Grain de Musc’s review of A Scent, because our reviews are so similar in some parts it’s funny and also because she makes some great additional parallels with the new Estee Jasmine White Moss (Denyse adds oakmoss to the list of notes.)  I have to quote this part of her review because it really resonated with me: “ I can´t exactly figure out why the Lauder inspired me to grumble while I´m feeling quite happy about the Miyaké: they clearly have the same lineage. After all, I bear a lot more of a grudge with Issey Miyaké who´s been poisoning my airspace with Calone for over 15 years.”

Also:  I am such a dope, I just noticed two days ago that Basenotes had announced their awards, which is sorta embarrassing because I’m over there all the time reading reviews, etc.   So, congratulations to Robin and the gang at Now Smell This for taking the Gold, and thanks to everyone on here for voting for us — squeeee, we took the Silver!!!! — and also congrats to Octavian at 1000 Fragrances for the Bronze.  I promise never to discuss spraying myself with urine again and I’ll try not to gross anyone out in comments for … what … the next seven hours?  There’s some restraint.  Lee and Louise I can’t take any responsibility for.  Or Carter.  Or Musette.  Or the rest of you smutmuffins.

March

When we bought this house over five years ago, there were a number of things to, erm, sort – structural, functional and aesthetic. It hadn’t been loved, and its neglect told in the stained and sagging ceilings, the loose floorboards, the squalor of the basement kitchen (now long gone), the patches of weedy grass in the blank canvas of the rear garden interrupted by exposed earth and heaps of Weimaraner turd, the filthy carpets, and so on. The ceilings, whilst still not perfect, are now presentable. The floorboard are tight, man. The kitchen is now a thing of unfussy beauty. The rear garden is turd free and full of plants (new plans for that this autumn), and the carpets – top quality wool no less, are clean. However, I’ve always wanted to replace them and we’ve still yet to get round to it – budget and other priorities. A 200 year old terraced house with four floors always has a list of pressing things to be done… And not all of them get done. But those carpets are still somewhere on the list.

And the reason? Moths. When we moved in, we inherited something (something? Ha!) of an infestation. Every carpeted room had loose patches of pile, and as the first few days passed, we discovered more and more of them. And the small male monsters resting during the day on walls and ceilings. Hundreds of them.

We’re cleared most of the infestation, but it’s been a long battle where pest controllers have failed, and internet bought remedies didn’t do what they said on the tin. What did work – persistence. Moving furniture every time we vacuumed. Lifting carpets and vacuuming under them. Strips of moth killer paper forming random floor patterns in all the relevant rooms. And lavender and cedarwood oil, dissolved in vodka, sprayed liberally on every woollen surface.

We still get one or two appearing on a weekly basis, and might well have to live with that, unless until we finally lift or replace the carpets. They never invaded the wardrobe, and so no holey sweaters, no pockmarked jackets, no coats half digested by tiny caterpillars. And the house always smells goooood.

So, in thinking about what to write this week, and having just killed a moth as it dithered across the bedroom, I was drawn to the fact that what insects find repulsive, we often love. And how, in scent, a touch of the repulsive can be a GOOD THING. Musette commented the other day – hilariously and wonderfully – how she had to change perfumes for a visit to the ER to give off a ‘don’t you go messing with me’ message. Now Musette is never repulsive, of that I can be sure, but here she seemed to be using perfume as repeller more than attracter, and though the message may be conveyed through social association rather than the inherent qualities of the scent itself, that power of perfume to repulse is impressive, no?

I think in their review of Lutens’ Chypre Rouge, Turin/Sanchez stated something along the lines of how it was made of elements that were repulsive in nature, and how these combined – at least in this instance – to make themselves repulsive in perfume too. And they didn’t mean that as a good thing. Now, I’ve always found the aforementioned non-Chypre quite-Rouge, to be a quite harmless, pretty thing, dusted with melancholy like the memories of eating favourite childhood candy. Not repulsive at all.

But I can see the repulsion that some of y’all feel for Borneo 1834. After all, patchouli, like cedar and lavender, is a moth and bug repelllent, and I indeed add a few drops of high grade oil to my moth spray in the colder months. And that perfume also has camphor at the start. And yeah, the cocoa/patchouli combo can smell a little parmesanny/vomitty if you sniff it from the wrong angle.

But you know, in spite of because of these repulsive facets, I love Borneo 1834. Sniffing it, and wearing it, whenever, however. I didn’t at first, and it’s one of those ‘fumes that took me a couple of years to grow to love, but now it burns with an intensity that can’t diminish, even as I know, oh boy, this stuff pretty well stinks.

So tell me, what repulsive perfumes (and smells, if you want to be less specific) do you love, and why? And I’ll rustle up a batch of samples for one lucky commenter – to include both lovely and repulsive, familiar and strange. I’ll send em next week. And there’ll be no moths included. I now have plenty of sample sprays (thanks L!) so I can at last deliver on my promises.

Moth image by Ellie Curtis. She has an Etsy shop.

Lee

After the last scent from Parfums Delrae, an orgy of melon, Emotionelle, I was not incredibly excited to try out their newest scent introduced this year, Mythique.   Inspired by Diane de Poitiers, the Duchess of Valentinois and mistress of Henri II of France, Mythique has notes of Florentine iris and flowers found in the gardens of Chemonceau, the Loire Valley castle given to her by Henri II.   Can I just say that if a man wanted to give me a chateau, I’d be on board for that mistress bit. It also features notes of mandarin, bergamot, ivy, peony, jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli and ambrette.

So far I believe just Les Senteurs and First in Fragrance have this scent.  I’m still waiting on my bottle from les Senteurs to be shipped, they were out of stock on it when I was there in July.

Several people have reviewed this already positively, and I just want to add to the admiring chorus. This is a slightly fruity, but not syrupy, iris scent, almost slathered onto your skin like butter, with the same sensuous feel to it. Created by Yann Vasnier (Divine perfumer) and not Michael Roudnitska, it has a whole different, lighter feel than the other Delraes.   Not light like Ellena’s  barely-there creations, but light like bordering on myth.  We spent time in the Loire Valley last year, crawling through chateaus. We didn’t make it through Chemonceau, but the notes in this absolutely feel like those charming places from another world, like history wisps lifting up from your skin, inviting your mind into another time/place.  This is one gorgeous iris scent.  That’s saying a lot for me because iris is one of my favorites, and it takes a lot to put one in my Top Five, but this is one that should be there.

Les Senteurs was nice enough to send a couple of larger samples to me while waiting on the bottle to show up, so we’ll do a giveaway to two commenters today.  Okay, Top Five Iris Scents, what are yours?

Mine:  Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, Fath Iris Gris (I know, not fair, you can’t get it anymore), Parfums Delrae Mythique, Odori Iris, and… yikes!!!  TDC Bois d’Iris or L’artisan Iris Pallida?  But Guerlain’s Apres l’Ondee really should go in here, even though it’s not strictly an iris scent. What to do, what to do.  Well, that’s my list.

I do have to mention that I’m very studiously trying to ignore the pleasantly howling Roja Dove No. 4 on my left arm.

Patty

Getting ready for a party recently, I put on an old tried-but-true and realized I´d never given it much attention on the blog.  So here´s my brief, hot-weather kids-underfoot paean to Annick Goutal Passion, and the AG brand in general.

For some perfumistas, Annick Goutal isn´t niche enough.  Pick an argument – they sell it at Nordstrom; it´s too pretty; it´s not sold in $900 casks and available only on alternate Tuesdays at the general store near the airstrip on Rarotonga.  I´d counter-argue that any perfumer with Eau du Fier, Sables and Vetiver in its repertoire is plenty strange enough to qualify.  I also happen to agree with Grain de Musc´s intelligent division of the AG line into various family members, with Passion being very much in the “mama” camp.

Passion has notes of tuberose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, vanilla, patchouli and oakmoss. The fragrance was created in 1983, on the early end of the AG spectrum, and (probably like everything else) seems to have been subtly reformulated over the years – I used to remember less vanilla.

Passion is a heady, Harlequin-romantic white floral that is very much not in my personal style, which is why my continued fondness for it confuses me.  It´s not quite Fracas (what is?), but I wouldn´t want to find myself trapped in the theatre next to a woman wearing too much of it.  There is something faintly lemon-candied about it at the opening that makes me think of PdNs like Maharanih; at the same time it smells very, well, Goutal.  The hazy velvet of oakmoss is apparent from the start, grounding it while keeping it from being overly sweet.

If I were to assign temperatures to my perfume – and hey, it´s my blog, so here I go with my crazy theory – Passion is a warm scent.  Its tuberose does not have the sex-bomb aloofness of Fracas, or the chilly hauteur of Carnal Flower. There is a casual sexiness about it; it´s the sort of scent that should be sprayed on before a date, with the hope (expectation?) that someone else will be helping you out of your pretty sundress later that evening.

In terms of technical merit I´d be forced to choose either Fracas or Carnal Flower as examples of why I am “into” perfume – the creative side, if you will.  If, on the other hand, I wanted the men near me to lean in close, I´d choose Passion.  Granted, people like what they like; maybe you are aroused by the smell of gunpowder, or mint.  We´ve all seen the studies that say men dig the smell of bacon, or cookies.  In spite of the name, Passion is stealth-sexy.  If I wear Organza Indecence to a cocktail party, women look at me with suspicion.  Its vanillic man-candy vibe makes it clear that I´m toying with their drunken husbands.  Passion simply smells good; it´s the sort of scent that other women ask me what I´m wearing, while inducing cheerful flirtations from men.

My bottle is older and (knock wood) hasn´t turned, which AGs sometimes do.  I have read online that the new formulation of Hadrien is wretched – apparently it´s been IFRA´d into something that smells like Lemon Pledge.   I wonder whether the other Goutal eaux with citrus have been damaged.  I can´t bear to think about it.

Do you have a favorite Annick Goutal?  Hey, has anyone seen Mandragore Pourpre in stores yet?  It says August release… I love the original and I think the notes for this one sound great.  (via Fragrantica: bergamot, mint, star anise, amber, rosemary, geranium, pepper, patchouli, myrhh, incense and heliotrope.)

March