I must admit, it’s been a very long time since I’ve given anything at The Body Shop more than a passing glance. But, if I can wax nostalgic for a bit, I’ll tell you that years ago, I spent countless hours trolling in their New York City shop at Madison Avenue and 52nd Street. I’d while away entire lunch hours in there, leaving myself just enough time to grab a street pretzel and a can of Coke to take back to the office for lunch. They used to sell cute little 2 ounce bottles of most of their products, and I think I had one of everything at some point. Back then, they were the pioneering mainstream, natural, not tested on animals, eco-chic British brand that everyone was enamored of. It was before they had a store in every shopping mall, and before brands like Bath & Body Works and their ilk took over the world.

Last month, I briefly recounted how I breezed by their store in Yorkdale  and was assaulted by a sickeningly sweet fruity aroma as I passed. I had heard they were releasing a new scent, Love Etc…, but it wasn’t out yet. I got an e-mail on Tuesday from The Body Shop saying that it was finally in store, so I went back to check it out.

Another interesting tidbit is that the nose who created Love Etc… is none other than Dominique Ropion. He of the Editions de Parfums gang of noses who authored Une Fleur de Cassie, Vetiver Extraordinaire, Geranium pour Monsieur, and the larger-than-life Carnal Flower. He’s had a hand in many other commercially successful scents including Calvin Klein Euphoria, Jennifer Lopez Live, and Burberry The Beat. Among his other collaborations was one of the flankers of Lancôme Tresor: Eau de Printemps Sheer.

Two thoughts were running through my mind as I contemplated Love Etc… First, I thought, why not? I used to adore The Body Shop’s products. Their Passion Fruit Cleansing Gel and Sage and Comfrey Open Pore Cream saw me through the whole of my 20s, when my face was an oil slick comparable to that left by the Exxon Valdez. Their Banana shampoo and conditioner soothed my senses as well as my hair,  after a severe lapse in judgment caused me to succumb to a perm that was supposed to be a body wave, but left me with an impressive “Jewfro” the likes of which have only been seen on Barbra Streisand, circa 1976, and Juan Epstein from “Welcome Back Kotter”. 

Second, The Body Shop’s press for Love Etc… is actually giving kudos to Mr. Ropion, something that in their target market, I don’t think anyone really gives a toss about. We perfumistas would rush out to smell floor cleaner if we knew one of our favorite noses developed its scent. But the consumer shopping for fragrances, bath and body products at The Body Shop wouldn’t know Dominique Ropion from Donald Duck. That’s not a diss, by the way; I’m all for these talented artists being recognized for the remarkable work they do. They create the ultimate form of abstract art and they should be celebrated for it, rather than closeted away in labs and conference rooms watching the marketing bigwigs get all the credit. So, since I am something of an aficionado of Mr. Ropion’s work, it was definitely worth checking out.

Love Etc…’s notes are pear, neroli, bergamot, jasmine, heliotrope, lily of the valley, vanilla, sandalwood and musk cream. Certainly, these are far from groundbreaking, and so is the result of their mingling. It is however, fruity in all the right places, flowery and sweet. You could blindfold me and stick Love Etc. or Lancôme Tresor under my nose and I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. I wasn’t expecting another Fleur de Cassie, and certainly not Carnal Flower, but the end result will probably be another mainstream mainstay that wouldn’t cause me to recoil in horror if I smelled it on a crowded bus or subway. The price is right ($29.50 for 50 ml) and it certainly compliments The Body Shop’s current incarnation. Speaking of which, as luck would have it, they are re-introducing some of their old “80s Favourites”. Banana shampoo and conditioner, Passion Fruit Cleansing Gel, Dewberry shower gel and some other classic goodies will once again be available starting November 2. I don’t sport a “Jewfro” anymore, and my skin has mercifully dried out to the point where I no longer glow in the dark, but that’s not going to stop me from trolling back down memory lane.

 Do you have any former favorite scents or beauty products you’d love to see make a comeback? If so, I’d love to hear about them.

Okay, I promise, no more deeply personal and downer posts for a while.

Let’s finish up with the Cartier Les Heures.  I am very much relishing these as an artistic theme.  It allows me to overlay my own interpretation within the framework Mathilde Laurent has set out.

There are only five of the thirteen released right now, available at Saks in NYC for about $250 for a 75 ml bottle.  Do we need to even complain anymore about the exclusivity and the price? No, it’s the standard complaint that nobody is listening to, so just insert that boilerplate bitching in here.

VI, L’Heure Brilliante (the shining hour) is an “aldehydic cocktail,” with a lemon, lime and gin accord.  It’s pretty much the Happy Hour perfume.  Happy, bubbling laughing just a little too loud sometimes, but not so much that it raises eyebrows.   And then it quiets down into a cozy conversation with a man who has admired her for ages, with soft, trilling giggles and  sighs of contentment.  You know, that vaguely sounds like a happy ending, and it is, but not that kind. The one where things do turn out okay, even if it’s not the way you want.

I, L’Heure Promise (the promised hour) has notes of green iris, petitgrain, fresh herbs, sandalwood and musk.  A stunning iris scent.  This scent is so very much about spring and earth, with some carroty notes on the open and then it relaxes into that smoothed-out iris that wears like a perfectly tailored pair of suede gloves.  For those of you that like your irises incredibly silky, but not as sweet as some like Guerlain Iris Ganache,  not as rooty as, say, Iris Silver Mist,  or leaning heavily on woods, this is a great camel that threaded the iris needle.  Is it beautifully rendered on me  with no touch of melancholy, just hope unblemished by reality.

XIII, La Treizieme Heure (the 13th hour) has notes of leather, mate tea, birch tar, narcissus, bergamot, patchouli and vanilla.  This just chugs patchouli-infused smoke on the open, like you were sitting on the back of an old locomotive.  Of course you all know I mean that in the good way.  The tea, tar and narcissus fuse together to give this smoke fullness and interest, but it doesn’t feel as heavy as Le Labo Patchouli 24 or Bvlgari Black.  Can I just say that VII and VIII are amazing together?  Yes, pretty sure that I could.  This, along with XII, will absolutely be the best-sellers of the five released so far.  Partly because they are done beautifully, but also because they are perfect for winter – when we all like to fanny about trailing smoke and incense like Cathedrals on the Orient Express.

Now, how does this collection compare to the Van Cleef & Arpels, which is another very cohesive collection released this year?  They just have different themes and approach.  As a set, at least those released so far, they adhere to their theme very cohesively. The VCA CA’s are set around nature and do an excellent job of showcasing some beautifully rendered florals.  Cartier LH revolves around distinct periods and has a pretty wide latitude to interpret what the hours of the clock means for you.  The five I have smelled, while all very differen, mesh well together, and  several can sit next to each other happily and make an even more beautiful and complex scent.

Like Monday, we’ll do comment entries for another set of samples of these. I’ll announce the winners of the two sets next Tuesday!

Wow, did you have as much fun as I did with the dress-your-age and related perfume post on Sunday/Monday?  That was some great discussion, eh?

I had another post lined up for today, but after Patty’s excellent, introspective post yesterday I’m just not feeling the snark.  Look for it next week, no doubt I’ll be back to my usual self by then.  In the meantime, here’s a candy post and one fall lipstick item.

Profumum Fumidus – Essence of distilled scotch, vetiver root, birch bark.  I’m stealing the blub from LuckyScent:  “Fumidus means smoky, and smoky it is. The smokiness of aged Laphroaig scotch served neat, It is also earthy – the earthiness of rich, freshly tilled land surrounded by uncut forest. Deep and magnetic and commanding, this blend of rich peat, grassy vetiver and brisk birch conjures up a vast estate and its moody young lord making his way through the fog on an unruly stallion…”  Hehe, don’t you want to fan your loins now?  I kept hearing folks rave about this, and I figured the name means “smoke” or thereabouts, so I got my hands on a sample.   Well … it’s really interesting.  That’s not damn-with-faint-praise, it’s just not me at all.  I have ZERO idea what scotch smells like, although maybe I’ll go down and look in the cabinet, I think the Big Cheese likes a good scotch.  The drydown of this is pure vetiver on me, and … I am just not the queen of vetiver, ya know?  Not even Chanel Sycomore.  And the first bit, with the scotch, is not smoky on me so much as muddy, in the style of the vast majority of Bertrand Duchaufour’s compositions for L’Artisan and Eau d’Italie.  I almost scrubbed it.  I’m sure any number of you would be thrilled with it.

Calé Fragranze d’Autore Mistero – Shoplifting from The Perfumed Court this time:  “With hints of saffron, mint, rhubarb and basmati rice, this is an incredible fragrance.  Created by Silvio Levi and Maurizio Cerizza, Mistero features top notes of rum, rhubarb and mint; middle notes of pimento, elemi, saffron and basmati rice; and base notes of oakwood, agarwood, labdanum and musk.   It is an EDP and is not available in the United States.”   You know I got this for the rice, yes?  Well, and the saffron, and the rest of it.  This one I just can’t decide on.   The top is sharp and a bit bitter and (okay) not my favorite; the saffron has that extra edge to it that reminds me why so many people cut it with rose.  Then we get to part B where I get a lot of the basmati rice (squeee!) on top of the woody base, and I alternate between loving it and feeling it’s a little light, maybe I’m somewhat anosmic to the musk?  I’m pretty sure I am, I would not describe this as a super-light fragrance.  So jury’s out on this one.

Finally, Calé Fragranze d’Autore Preludio d’Oriente (stealing from TPC again) “was based on A Thousand and One Nights, the allure of the Maharajah’s gardens and the love story told by the Taj Mahal.   Created by Silvio Levi and Maurizio Cerizza, Preludio d’Oriente features top notes of bergamot, lemon and mandarin; middle notes of artemisia, incense and chamois leather; and base notes of patchouli, sandalwood and agarwood.  It is an eau de parfum, edp.”  Ding ding ding!  And we have a winner!  This is predominantly incense on me, and I can never have too many incenses.  It reminds me a bit of Heeley Cardinal (the incense part) only more so, the Cardinal was never quite what I wanted it to be, crossed with the raspy drydown of Black Cashmere, only less so – BC can kill me on the wrong day, and like Chaos, man, it is persistent.  The leather and artemisia add some interest and keep it from being a basic woody incense.  I kept thinking the citrusy top would leave but it stuck around for a couple hours, not that I’m complaining.  I’m glad I have this to add to my winter lineup.

Finally, in lipstick news (it’s been awhile, hasn’t it) – I don’t know if you remember but I was obsessed with the Dahlia lipstick as part of the Dolce & Gabbana makeup line after I saw the spread in Vogue where they used it (image at top, I’m sorry I can’t find a page with a close-up of the lips — while they’re clothed).  I think you can get D&G only in two places in the US – Saks NYC and … somewhere else (?)  The Dahlia color sold out right away but they got it back in.  I went there a couple months ago to check it out.*  It’s not that dark, purply goth lippie that everyone’s showing this fall, you know what I’m talking about, and I am too pale and too old for that business, I look like Cruella de Vil in those shades.  Dahlia is a lot of effect on me, only less eggplant.   I am now recollecting that there are two Dahlias, and/or possibly two of most colors, depending on whether you get the gloss or the cream formula, or some sort of variation like that…. Yep, browsing Saks online you can get the shine (#80) or the cream (#160), I got the cream.  My guess is on someone with warmer and more olive skin, it would work great but register as more of a wearable pink, and here is a link to the Gaia the non-blonde’s post on Dahlia, I think I’m right (she calls it a red-based rose.)  On me it’s a delicious, slightly transgressive dark-toned non-red that strays as close as I can get to the goth line without looking stupid.  I’d have named it something like Berry Noir.  It’s a cool color and I don’t have anything else like it.  Here’s another Dahlia link with application tips by Pat McGrath, they call it an “intense merlot” which I think is an apt description.

*And now I’m going to tell a story on myself – I was sure I’d bought a different, lighter color, Dahlia having proven to be too dark.  I even blogged about it.  I guess I need reading glasses, I’ve checked carefully and my tube is definitely Dahlia!  I swear the one I tried in Saks was too dark, I’m wondering whether the Dahlia Shine formula actually registers as darker on the lips? (Which makes no sense at all.)  Maybe I’m just a dope and picked up the wrong tube on the display, or it was in the wrong slot, which is perfectly plausible.  Anyone with insights?  In the meantime, Dahlia’s shaping up to be a color that works on warm and cool skin tones, if Gaia and I are both wearing it, although based on her arm swatch it looks like it would be a much more subtle color on her.

Oh, also — here’s a link to French Essence, a great blog on things French, with lots of fetching illustrations, which I wanted when I was trying to contemplate French style.  Thanks to Angela (and Carter) for recommending it.

First — the other two winners of the MFK sample set:  Carter and Hilary.  In case you don’t know what to do, click on Contact Us on the left, remind me what you won and give me your address.

Seems like I should leave a warning before I spiral off into something more personal, which I usually just avoid doing, but the part below isn’t a comfortable subject for lots of people, so feel free to skip down to the perfume review below it.

This last weekend I went through hospice training. I have another session this weekend for 11th Hour training, which is to train people to be at the bedside of someone who is actively, imminently dying so they don’t have to be alone – because they don’t have anyone or their family member just needs a break.

For all of my life, if someone had asked me what volunteer activity I would be most likely to do,  working in hospice would have been last on the list.  I’m not sure when that changed – that I lost most of my fear of death or else just overcame my aversion to the subject or just felt more comfortable with my mortality.

I think it was after my dad died. We all knew he didn’t want to check out in a hospital or wind up in a nursing home, so the DNR was signed without anyone really talking about it.  And then he got to come home, but got sick a day later and was actively dying, but he was taken back over to the hospital — I’m not sure why?  Because that’s what we thought we were supposed to do. We didn’t want him to die, so we just wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t talk, and we never asked him how he wanted to finish unwinding from his body and where.   I know he wanted, without him saying it, to check out at home, quietly, with the people he loved.  Instead, he wound up back in the hospital, nobody really told us that he was actively dying, we all just thought he was sick, so all of us living hours away from home stayed put, my mom was with him, but got the flu and had to go home, and he died early that next morning before anyone could get back over. It happened 13 years ago, but it still haunts me that he didn’t check out the way I know he wanted to go, and not one one of us was sitting by his bed holding his hand to tell him goodbye and thanks for sharing his huge,  sometimes infuriating, wonderful life with us when he took his last breath.

Well, that’s how I got to hospice.  They do amazing work in helping people go the way they want and giving the families support and help in honoring those wishes.  But that’s not why I’m writing about this, it’s just an explanation because we all have a story for why we wind up where we do.  During the training, we did an exercise where we had to envision that we were unwinding from life, we were sitting in the chair beside our bed for probably the last time, we knew we probably wouldn’t have the strength to do it again, and we wanted to write one last letter.

So we all wrote our letter, with lots of sniffling and sobbing and tears.  What I found in writing my letter is what most of us would expect.  First, I couldn’t write a letter to my kids in that setting because I was not prepared to sob that much in public. But I made a note to myself that I want to write those letters in my own time so they will have them forever.  My letter didn’t mention things I had or things I had done, places I had gone, work successes.  It was about how much fun my life had been and thanking all the people in my life for sharing their lives, joys and sorrows with me, that it had given all the color and meaning to my life.

But in the midst of all of that emotion while writing that letter, I could smell my life.  Those feelings took on smell and shape.  I’ve always known that smell is the direct conduit to emotion and memory, but I didn’t know it could work the other way, memory and emotion would bring up smell in my head.

What in the world does all of this have to do with Cartier Les Heures?  Not that much directly, but, hey, it’s my blog, I write about what I want to.   Partly it is a thought I pass along to treasure the people in your life, for good or ill.  It is what you will remember at the end and what brings meaning to the tolling of your days.  Make your end of life wishes completely clear to those close to you now, sign a Medical Durable Power of Attorney for someone you trust to make those decisions for you if you can’t.  If someone you know is terminal, or they have a terminal family member, don’t avoid them because you don’t know what to say or do – the absolute worst thing that will happen is they will cry or sob around you, and it may make you sob or cry,  or you may not know how to comfort them, and you may feel really uncomfortable but, you know?  It doesn’t matter.  All of us will be experts on loss before we get to the end.  Dying can be incredibly isolating and lonely, and there is no wrong thing to say – your presence makes your silence or stumbling absolutely fine.

Okay, end of the PSA portion of this post.

The concept of Cartier Les Heures makes me think of the smell stages of my life – whether that is style or taste or simply my age and emotional makeup at the time.  When you start sniffing them, you can keep drawing those same comparisons of time passing, but that the scent you have passed through will always remain a part of you, even if it’s just the memory in your head.

Les Heures X Folle has notes of red currant, pink pepper, grenadine, blueberry, black currant, ivy, violet, boxwood, shiso and aldehydes. When I read that list of notes, I thought, Cartier? Seriously?  Fruity ivy and trees? This is for “The Mad Hour.”

Before I go on, Denyse did a whole series of posts on these fragrances and an interview with Mathilde Laurent, who created them, and you really should go read the whole thing.  Very instructive.

This really is the whole fruit experience with joy and zest.  I’d think of this as my late teens and early 20s perfume. Not that I wouldn’t wear it now, but that is the period of my life that this encompasses – mad, irrational, joyous, thoughtless sometimes, illogical, sweet, naive, innocent.  It’s absolutely fruity, but not in that sweet, killmenow way, though it certainly does not avoid the inherent sweetness that you do get with fruit. It just brings along the rest of the fruit bouquet to keep it from being linear.  It’s easy to love, and it completely fits the description, The Mad Hour.  At the end, it rest in a soft bed of mad green sweetness that lets you recall how it all began, but leaves you separate and beyond that time.

XII, Les Mysterieuse, is going to be the runaway bestseller from this fragrance collection.   Patchouli, juniper, coriander, jasmine, elemi, nutmeg, incense.  This is the mysterious hour.  All the material says XII, the 12th hour, but the bottle I have says IIX, the 8th hour.  I think it would be the 12th hour, it smells like that mystical period in your life when you come closer to the end. The contemplative scent that is full of comfort, but it won’t sit easy all the time.  The patchouli starts big, softens, letting all of that gorgeous incense roll in, but the patchouli continuously stirs up the other notes and makes them fuller, richer, bigger because they are infused with life.  This is a beautiful, warm woody incense.

Of course we are!  You can just make a short comment that says hi to be entered, no need for anything insightful if you don’t want.  But drop a comment, and I’ll be giving a full set of samples to one person.

I joked with someone recently that I was going to do a blog post of the fragrances I love that nobody else does.  I could list them, then quote from places like Perfumes: The Guide, or Makeupalley reviews, articulating the many ways people mock and dislike these sadly misunderstood gems that are dear to my heart.

Today’s pick: Serge Lutens Cèdre, which garners a tepid 43% rebuy rating on MUA along with comments like “mishmash” and (not entirely undeserved) criticism along the lines of, where the hell is the wood?  You’d think something called “cedar” from the line that’s killed us over and over again with cedar would have some cedar in it.

Fortunately for me I am an idiot.  Having avoided this thing like the plague, because it’s called Cèdre, which I learned in Serge-speak translated to “hamster-cage”  early on in my complicated relationship with Maison Lutens, I am pretty sure I had never actually put this on my skin.  But there we were at Sniffa and the guy was showing us some of his favorites, not the usual stuff, please, and Santal de Mysore was nice enough.  And of course I love Fleurs d’Oranger.  So when he waved a scent strip under my nose I wasn’t paying much attention to the name, and …. gosh, that’s gorgeous.

The folks at Serge Lutens don’t usually issue a list of notes, or anything else coherent for that matter, but I found this: cedarwood, tuberose, musk, amber and cinnamon.  And that, I suppose, would be a decent guess.  The cedar is there, but it’s in the base and buried under a lot of sweetness; this would kill me in the summer.  The tuberose is nicely counterbalanced, not to say smothered, by the amber and spices.  And I, the person who might reasonably be expected to dry-heave at what I have just written, found that on my skin everything came together.  It is … zsheenyus.  I get something that smells quite strongly like honey, with a little of honey’s muskiness, and a soft sweetness that is simultaneously woody and milky.  It’s a strange smell, I admit, and one I find quite beautiful.  I bought a bottle.

Cèdre is going to fit quite nicely into my Serge Lutens lineup that seems to be the perfect complement to my recent experiments in improving  my wardrobe (see yesterday’s post).  I’d expected that donning a pretty scarf, say, or a pair of pearl earrings, would have me reaching for classics like Mitsouko or Jolie Madame, and I’m sure they’ll get plenty of wear as the weather gets cooler.  But my Lutens scents seem to complete my new outfits in exactly the way I want.  They are chic but a little strange, warm but unfamiliar.  Instead of falling into my familiar matchy-matchy trap of wearing a fragrance like vintage Rochas Femme with my pearls and pumps, the unexpected richness of something like Fleurs d’Oranger, Santal Blanc, or Cèdre makes everything old feel new again, a classic with a twist.

PS If you find yesterday’s topic interesting, please read down for Carter’s informative, lengthy comments on personal style.  I need to hire that gal.

This is a two-part post on clothing and style, with today’s thoughts leading into tomorrow’s perfume post.

I’m in the process of revamping my personal style.  The contributing factors:

• For years I worked in businesses (e.g., commercial real estate, financial services) with defined, conservative dress codes.  At work I wore the “uniform” of tailored suits, none of which I wanted to wear at home.
• I don’t lead a white-pants life – four kids underfoot and their friends, a dog, working out of the house, gardening.
• I’ve always viewed clothing as costume.  Specifically, vintage or ethnic costume.  When we lived in Santa Fe I worked the whole concha-belt velvet-blouse thing.  Also, I’m petite, I’m sized and shaped for vintage clothing and accessories, and I collect and wear vintage stuff regularly.  I like its uniqueness.
• I’m a magpie in terms of pattern.  If you look in my closet, there are a lot of patterned dresses and separates.  They’re sized proportionally for me, but there’s a lot going on.

I no longer have to “dress” for the office, and I’m doing the mom thing, but I have steadfastly resisted the I-give-up approach I see around me among women in similar circumstances.  I eschew looking like an ad from the LL Bean catalog, and I do not wish to live out the rest of my days in yoga togs.  I believe that adults, or at least this adult, should get dressed to face the world.  But in what?

The problem(s?) which I expressed to a couple of gals recently, while we were sitting around one afternoon over coffee talking about personal style, is that I am no longer the ingenue, my default setting for dress.  I always looked young for my age, getting carded well into my thirties.  My “youth,” real or imagined, was the basis for whatever style I had.  I am now in my late-ish forties, and in my considered opinion, I need a style upgrade.  (I am making these rules/statements about nobody other than myself, let me clarify that right off the bat.)    I need to be tidier.  And I need to ramp down the vintage and froufrou a little.  Too much vintage or boho on me doesn’t look charming or whimsical.  It starts to look a little nutty, frankly.  Like I’m one of those nice socialites living in mummy’s English basement rental property on my trust fund check, with three golden retrievers and a tenuous grip on reality.  This, my friends, is not the look I am striving for.  Also, with a few exceptions, I have decided that something that looks appropriate on my 15-year-old is too young for me, and I’m going to stop borrowing her clothes.

I was already thinking of all of this when I saw Coco Before Chanel at the Sniffa in New York.  As I left the theater in a predictable swoon over the costumes and the set locations, I had gained some clarity.  The thing is, I own a lot of clothes in that style.  I had some already because they’re appropriate for dressing up in my suburban DC life.  And courtesy of The Big Cheese’s mom, who was a sharp society dresser, I have several knit suits and dresses I couldn’t bear to part with, and lovely pearls, and some conservative accessories.  I have stylish flats that I don’t pull out and wear often enough.  I just need to make a little extra effort to dress like a grown-up.

So for the past week I’ve been experimenting.  Have no fear, I’m not turning into a mini-Gloria Vanderbilt.  But it was really fun meeting my father at the National Gallery of Art with my hair put up neatly for a change, in a navy-and-cream Adolfo knit jacket (okay, with dark wash jeans) and red lipstick and low-heeled pumps and a decent handbag.  Whether or not you’d have loved the particular outfit, I looked pulled together and fully adult.  I felt good about the way I looked.

I am sure there will be plenty of days when I’m lumping around in practical corduroys and clogs and a heavy sweater, if for no other reason than we keep our house chilly in the winter, and I’m not ready to pack my motorcycle boots and jacket away forever.  But I find I like looking like a grown-up, and it didn’t take all that much longer to put on than whatever I’d fish out of the laundry basket.  For the longest time I rebelled against that type of clothing as a restrictive uniform, but I am beginning to appreciate its value as a uniform as well.

Tomorrow: the perfumes that seem to go with this look, with one new-to-me discovery.

Have you had any style revelations?  How do you view clothing for your current self vis-a-vis your younger self?

Written by the Whole Gang

Once again we turn our attention to the fall fragrances we’re most excited about — whether it’s something new, or something old that’s captured our attention.  For some of us in the States it seems like we barely had fall — parts of the country have already been clocked by their first snowstorms.  But there’s always time to celebrate fall fragrances, even if fall itself exists only as a state of mind.

(Nava reports from the Northern Territories: And wasn’t it just yesterday we were schvitzing like crazy? The weather patterns are unbelievable. Seemingly overnight, every leaf on every tree has turned yellow or red. I refuse to even speak of snow!)

Anita – It’s autumn.  Bored with summer’s citrus and lacy folderol, I am loving the opportunity to don my heavy hitters,  the Empress Mitsouko and her Western counterpart, Jolie Madame.  But I’ve yarked on about those two ’til even I am sick of talking about them.  Soooo…..how ’bout a little leather?  I love leather in this weather.  Cool, sexy, a little fierce.  But not quite Kinky Boots.  A little more understated, with the sex coming from the buttery perfection of the leather……okay, you can add  those fabulous little leather strappy ties that look so incredible (for about 2 days, until you forget how to tie them and they get all wrinkly).

Lee – Here in the silly old UK, we are definitely having a gentle journey into autumn. No frost yet, but a nip in the air at night, and first thing. Great planting weather.

Unlike Patty, I’ve sniffed nothing new. But right now, I’m ODing on Dior’s Eau Noire on those ‘ gimme all I can take’ days (these sort of days roll into each other – good job EN hangs around…), and Dia pour Homme for those that are more restrained.

March – Louise called me something like a secret amber whore recently, which I vehemently denied, but … maybe she’s onto something.  Don’t tell her I said so.  I’ve always thought of amber as liquid death.  Speaking of which, I’ve been having a huge Serge Lutens bender recently.  Our weather has been all over the place, but that hasn’t stopped me from bustin’ out some Serge, including a new one for me which I’ll be touching on in my Sunday/Monday post.  Serge Lutens I have esteemed and admired more than worn, but man, that seems to be changing.  If I start raving on here about Tubereuse Criminy or that damn Borneo, call the FBI, I’ve been abducted.  Right now I am wafting Fleurs d’Oranger in all its cuminy blossomy magnificence and laughing, what is wrong with me that I won’t just buy it?  I’m on like my third sample, I should buy a bottle already.    Also been loving Serge’s Santal Blanc layered with Clair de Musc.  And speaking of musk, when I’m not killing people around me with Serge I’m wearing relatively simple, clean wallpaper musks like the Clair de Musc, Narciso Rodriguez Intense (yes, I bought a bottle) and the oddly vegetal Kiehls Original.

Nava – Once again, my fall-winter-spring standby is Donna Karan Chaos. I’ve been thinking a lot about her fragrances lately. I’m betting she thinks they’re all very spiritual scents; Ms. Karan being the raw foodie, yogi, zen 60+ ageless wonder that she is. I’ve even broken out some of her Essence Wenge and Labdanum to mix with my beloved Chaos. Adding those scents to the mix just makes the whole concoction that much more beautiful. My other choice is the new Si Lolita by Lolita Lempicka. How can you go wrong with flowers and spice? Ever?

Patty – Two for me on my hottest wearing list – Kilian Pure Oud and Francis Kurdjian’s Pour Le Soir. Cuddly warm loveliness.  But others that are in constant rotation is the Gardenia, Muguet and Bois d’Iris from the Van Cleef & Arpels CE line.  They don’t seem as fall-like as the other two, but I can’t seem to tell my nose to keep them on hold until spring.

For more Top Ten fall lists, please visit Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc, Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin’ Things.

image: www.fs.fed.us

We come to the last four of the Francis Kurkdjian scents today.  I’ve very much enjoyed discovering them.  I like some better than others, but it s a good mix of complicated and uncomplicated, differing price points and approaches.  And each of them has a nice surprising twist to it that takes it out of what you think it is at first.  Beautifully and creatively done.

Cologne Pour le Matin has notes of Bergamote from Calabria, Lemon from Sicily, White Thyme from Morocco, Lavender from Provence, and Orange Flower from Tunisia.  This is a lovely, crisp, refreshing day cologne in the style of 4711 or Eau de Cologne from Chanel.  No surprises here, but it’s well done for what it is and smells delightful, like you just bit into sunshine.  The drydown blows off some of the cheerfulness and reveals more of the herbal notes.  This, like the Soir, I could happily spray everywhere in my house.

Acqua Universalis is billed as the universal water, something you can use anywhere, any time, on anything.  I really expected to hate this because I was sure I’d be met with that TFA that makes my lower lip curl up.  Yeah, it’s got that a little, but almost like an inside joke. Notes of Bergamote and Lemon from Sicily, White Bouquet (Lily of the Valley and sweet mock orange), and Light and Musky Wood.  the Lily of the Valley and woods save it from my hate until it gets to the part I like. It’s got some quirky turns in it that I read as that fresh thing, but then I get some musk.  It’s much  more interesting than I thought it would be.  It’s that chipper girl that used to smile big and chirp a big “Heeelllooo” every morning at you in the coffee shop when you were still asleep and more than mildly cranky that you grudgingly grew to like and look forward to seeing.

APOM (short for A Piece of Me) Pour Femme has notes of Orange Flower, Cedar wood, Ylang-Ylang flower.  this is just lovely. Perky and still elegant, the orange flower and ylang unfold beautifully into a more woody feel so it doesn’t stay over the top in the white flower range, but it keeps a very heady feel all the way through, but not obnoxiously so.  There is just the lightest touch of skank in the drydown that unfurls slowly and adds a whole new dimension to white floral and then it brings in an incensy feel too.  Again, restrained, just like the big white florals in this scent.  It takes a pretty neat trick to make a big white floral skank monster that is all those things, but restrained so it is none of those things in the way I usually think of them. The scent was inspired by Kurkdjian’s trip to Lebanon.

APOM Pour Homme has notes of Orange Flower, Cedar wood, and Amber.  There are similarities between the two, but the Homme deepens with the amber and has much more emphasis on the woody notes.  If a guy found the Lumiere Noire Pour Homme just a little too ambiguous to wear, I think the APOM would be a perfect fit.  It has a restrained, warmed-up elegance.  Not to worry, the skank note isn’t in this, it’s got much more of a cuddly guy vibe radiating off of it.

On the APOMs, how unisex are they?  Honestly, I see no reason why guys can’t wear the femme and girls can’t wear the homme.  Gender transfer as you will.

Okay, last drawing for another set of MFK set, so just drop a short comment if you want to be entered. for those of you that were at Sniffa and smelled them, if you’d like to talk about them a little and give your favorite, that would be lovely.  I’ll announce the last two winners in next Tuesday’s post.

As expected, Sniffapalooza in New York was a blast, even though the weather was craptastic (cold, blowy, rainy and inside-out-umbrella-ish) and I am still getting over a cold and sound all raspy.  Here’s a report of my personal highlights and helpful tidbits from Saturday –

For me, Bergdorf is the highlight of the day.  Those people really know their customer service, and the more time I spend shopping elsewhere, the more I admire their CS overall.  I spent a long time chatting with the wonderful Tom Crutchfield at Annick Goutal, I know some of y’all know him.  He’s full of great stories about Annick and working with the brand, and he really loves fragrance.  Anyhoo, he had literally unpacked his Mandragore Pourpre the day before the event, he was not expecting his shipment until November.  So they have it in, he can hook you up, they have the square and the round bottles.   So I soaked myself in it to see if I felt the same way as I did in my review, and … well, I do.   It’s a little darker and sweeter and missing the sharp-clawed top of the original.  But if that part gets on your nerves, hey – try this one.   I think my notes say $115 for 100ml.  I also wanted to tell you about the AG Noel room spray he’s got on preorder, he’s waiting for his shipment, it’s a seasonal LE thing.  No, it does not smell like potpourri or Christmassy – in fact, I can tell you what it smells like!  It smells exactly like the smell when you walk into a chiller at a high-end florist – sweet white flowers (think lilies, tuberose, freesia) with a little green and a slightly mentholated chill.  I thought it was lovely, I can’t wait to try that in a room.  I ordered one.  It’s $44 for 3.4 oz(!), and here’s Tom’s number – 212-872-2768.   Also btw he says he’s been told they’re going to stop shipping the Ambre Fetiche to the US due to poor sales, although that doesn’t pose much of a barrier to us determined folks in perfume-land.

The new Robert Piguet Futur is loads of fun as well, a retro-modern 60s scent that is green and woody, but still floral (ie not too green and woody for me).  The drydown on my card makes me think of something along the lines of Norell meets vintage Vent Vert, but softer.  This is a reintroduction and has been done (and I can only assume, reorchestrated) by Aurelien Guichard.  I’ve really liked most of the offerings of the line, and this is another worthy addition.  I’m bummed that I missed the sample handout of this one, my own fault, I’m going to try to get ahold of it and do a decent review.  Notes are bergamot, neroli “a green spring-like bouquet of violet and the sweet richness of jasmine and ylang,” vetiver, cedar and patchouli.  And, they had a bottle of the parfum, which smelled tremendous.

I spent a ton of time, as did everyone else, with the delightful, totally up-for-it Francis Kurkdjian, who … look, the dude did scented bubbles, you know he’s going to be fun, right?  So he was blowing those in the air over us and we were popping them, it was hilarious.  The hordes of crazed perfumistas did not faze him.  Now, the fragrances … there are seven, including two colognes, and I got to try them twice, Catherine and I snuck over there for a preview Friday night.  Here’s a link to FK’s interview with Sniffa, also Patty’s been reviewing them on here including yesterday.  I have samples, I’ll likely do a more comprehensive review when I’ve had time to reflect on them more, not surrounded by 150 other things.  They are interesting and worth smelling, they seem very unified as a line… oh, the bottles are cool, the caps are I think zinc?  They’re spotty-looking, so the bottles are spare and clean but also organic-looking.  Attractive.  So, there’s homme and femme for two EDP scents, to me the vibe of the line is a little herbal/aromatic.   My point being, these are not sweet, “perfume-y” scents.  I’m getting the feel that FK did exactly what he wanted, which is as it should be, no?  They’re all unisexy.  My two personal favorites?  Acqua Universalis, which was featured there as an EDT and apparently you can get it as a laundry detergent, how fabulous would that be?  I can’t even tell you why I thought it smelled so great (notes are bergamot, Sicilian lemon, lily of the valley, sweet orange and blond musky wood) but it did, and not like a conventional cologne.  My other favorite was Cologne Pour le Soir (notes of cashmere and leather) and OH MY GOD (insert moaning sounds here.)  It’s … it’s not uber-heavy.  Let me be clear here.  These are not, say, something with the weight of Caron.  They’re newer and cleaner smelling.   Having said that, ask Tom how long the group of us stood around and sniffed it on his wrist, I mean, it was a little embarrassing.  It’s a glove/book/belt leather, not some ol’ birchtar thang, but if you like a refined leather, hooboy.  THIS.  Tom said his boyfriend liked it!

Also there were the new Van Cleefs, which I didn’t pay as much attention to because they gave us a sample set and I know I can sniff them here.   I also sniffed the Boisé Torride at Guerlain and while I can’t exactly say that I gave it a huge chance, it didn’t make much of an impression one way or another, except to make me giggle at the name.  I guess I was hoping for, you know, more wood.  (Why oh why won’t someone do me a fragrance called Morning Wood? in French, of course – what is that, Bois de Matin?   I’d buy it.)  Oh, and they have the new Acqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile, and I thought it was awfully pretty (I could see a decant), but it doesn’t smell a ton like actual magnolia.

In the Someone Else’s Fault category – Edward Bess was there, he’s the sweet young guy with his own lipstick line and a couple other products (blush and eyeshadow?)  I want to call him cute as a button but it doesn’t sound very respectful and I have nothing but respect for the business acumen and drive that got him a counter in BG.  His lipsticks are lip-colored and very nicely done, nothing radical just good basic colors, I bought a lippie and a gloss.  I bet he can’t buy a drink in a bar without being carded.  I talked to him and his gals for quite some time about marketing and yadda yadda, he was loads of fun.  He tested and developed the colors on his mom and sisters, how sweet is that?

I skipped the Sniffa lunch so I could indulge my favorite thing, which is eating lunch in the BG café on the beauty level.  If you have not done that, you need to.  Seriously, tea sandwiches, deviled eggs and chopped salads the size of your head?  And strong coffee?  And great people-watching?  What’s not to love?  Also right this second BG is having a multi-floored show of Chanel vintage.  Check out the accessories in the Chanel boutique on 1, the vintage clothes in the store’s exterior display windows, and the dresses upstairs (floor 6, maybe?)

Takashimaya offered us cupcakes, mango tea, and Keiko Mecheri, who was there very helpfully explaining her scents and matching people up with new favorites.  They have the Ineke line, and I tried Field Notes from Paris, but need to sniff further, it made me think of L’Artisan Navigateur a little (coffee and spices.)  They still have the Fragonards but seem to have gotten rid of The Different Company.  I’m still mad at them, I confess, for moving their beauty floor down from the top floor, which I think worked better as a space.  The cool think about Tak is I see lines there I never see anywhere else, but their selection is so small now that I couldn’t get excited about anything new on this particular visit.

Bendel has jammed their entire fragrance department into one of those back alcoves, the one on the left.  No, seriously.  I wish you could have seen 120+ of us trying to wedge ourselves into a place that would probably feel claustrophobic once you had more than ten bodies.  So I only lingered in there long enough to hork down some black and white cookies alongside Chaya (yes, in case you are worried – between that and the cupcakes at Tak I did get my daily dose of sugar.)  I managed to sniff Etat Libre’s new Fat Electrician, which is mostly vetiver, and sure it smelled nice but I am not the queen of vetiver, so I can’t make some dazzling pronouncement about it.  I answered a friend’s question honestly while standing there – for as much as I liked a couple of the Etats when I reviewed them, somehow I never felt moved to pursue it further, I don’t wear samps or have decants of any of them.  Just not my thing somehow.

Then we were supposed to do a couple more things, but … did I mention how craptastic the weather was?  And I was getting sniffed out?  And so an anonymous partner-in-crime and I ducked into the ginormous theatre that is in the side of BG, directly across from The Plaza, and watched Coco Before Chanel, which – let me tell you – was a damn fine way to finish up a day of sniffing.  It’s probably a good thing that nobody was sitting right next to me, because I am sure I was wafting some pretty intense sillage at that point, including from a frag or two that are not new at all but that I’d somehow overlooked and now love, reviews to follow soonish.  A great time was had, if not by all, then certainly by me, even on a blustery day that feels more like February than October.

Oh, and PS — I got several compliments on my understated stormy blue-gray mani, for the two gals who asked me to put it in the post, it’s Barielle’s Slate of Affairs from the All Lacquered Up collection, I got mine from barielle.com

Anyone have any questions or comments, fire away!

So.  Ever have those moments in your life where you look up, shake your head a couple of times and realize that you are living the life of your dreams, even though it doesn’t look exactly like what you thought it would be?  Yeah, I have been easing into one of those for months.  What makes it real is that my complete contentment and happiness is dependent on no one person.  I’ve had times before where I thought life was perfect, but it was because I was in love or some other outside thing was happening that precipitated that, and it was transient and cosmetic – it left as soon as that relationship hit bad places or the new wore off of the promotion or new house or Laboutin shoes.  This is a deep-rooted to my bones happiness that comes from my heart and soul.  Wow, that took a long time, just 49 years.

This is also the contentment of abundance season for perfume.  I’m awash in things to try that I’m admiring and/or loving. The FKs, the new Cartiers, the VC&As.  It’s a pretty great fall for perfume. Yes, there’s a lot of releases, but so many are really good and great.  I just can’t figure out what to review next!  So I’ll keep working through the Kurkdjians.

Lumiere Noire Pour Femme has notes of Spiced Rose (cumin, hot pepper), Patchouli and Narcissus. Lumiere Noire Pour Femme is just ridiculous – this is a fully grown, bosom-heaving woman who knows how to cast a come-hither invitation while never looking like a tramp.  There was a scene in Mad Men last year where Betty Draper was standing in her front yard in a beautiful white negligee, perfectly coifed and made up, a cigarette dangling from her lips, eyes squinty to keep out the smoke, and the camera scans down to the shotgun in her hands, which she hoists up to her shoulder and shoots the neighbor’s pigeons because he threatened to kill her kids’ dog.  That’s Lumiere Noire – it is dark because the light can’t penetrate, but it lacks nothing and needs nothing.  Rose, patchouli, spices, warm, lingering,  and hot, naughty narcissus. Caron’s Narcisse Noir meets Amouage Lyric woman and conspire to ensnare your soul.  Denyse reviews it and Pour Homme beautifully.

Lumiere Noire Pour Homme takes masculinity and binds it.  Notes of Spiced Rose (cumin, cinnamon) , Patchouli, Narcissus, Mugwort herb.  On first blush, I thought this was going to be a much more traditional masculine scent.  It opens that way, and then somehow it is captured and bound and starts radiating some heat that’s closer to the Pour Femme, and that dusting of cinnamon as it hits the heart is completely unraveling me in the bet ways.  As Denyse notes, it is a little bit of a sexually ambiguous perfume, which means we chicks can happily wear it, but it’s not anywhere near feminine enough to scare macho guys away.  Well, maybe a little if they scare easy.  They’re not the same scent at all, but wearing one on one arm and one on the other is pretty intoxicating.  The Femme strikes me as being a little dirtier in unexpected ways, and the Homme strikes me as being a little primmer in unexpected ways.

These are two surprising, unexpected, classic scents.  Okay, winner from last week’s FK review post is:  Margot.  Just click on the Contact Us on the left, send me your address, and I’ll get you out a set of samples of all the FKs.

So let’s do it again!  Just drop a comment in today’s post to be entered in the drawing for another set of the new MFK scents.

I am throwing this post into our blog before I go to Sniffa.  If all went well, I arrived home on Sunday night and will be around here eventually today to read this.

So, I found this NZZ Folio post by Luca Turin worth pondering.  And NO, in case you are wondering, I am not his paid shill.  I just happen to find many of the things he writes entertaining.   In this article he talks about finally hunting down a smell from a long-ago scent memory, and discovering that it is the combined smell of chamomile and rose.  He talks about this in the larger framework of the unfinished business of life, and if you can spare five minutes, it’s very much worth the read, in my opinion.

Anyway, here’s the part most relevant to today’s post, regarding the smell of chamomile and rose together: “There is a proportion at which the heavy sweetness of both materials, instead of adding up, magically cancels out and the perfumery equivalent of the biblical pillar of flame surges up before you. I smelled it endlessly until there was nothing left to understand. The monster still follows me, now smaller and friendlier. It recently reappeared in the form of a rose and chamomile shampoo made by EO. I now habitually shower in the company of a medium-sized creature of light.”

Of course there was nothing to do but to go online and order up some EO Rose and Chamomile Shampoo, right?  Because I wanted to smell the smell that had moved him so much, even though it wasn’t my smell-memory to hunt down and vanquish.  I ordered the shampoo  from this joint because they had a flat shipping rate of $4.99, and I wish I’d thrown some other things into the cart, the chamomile and honey sounds rather nice, doesn’t it?  I got my bottle quickly, maybe three days after ordering.

I am not sure what I was expecting from this shampoo in terms of smell, but it wasn’t what I got, at least not initially.   The shampoo smell is a bit medicinal-smelling poured into my hand, a very spa-herbal smell that was nice but did not seem particularly special.   Diffused in the steam of the shower for several minutes, however, the rose begins to assert itself in a way I found charming (I, who do not like rose, remember?)  The smell reminds me a little of the smell of L’Artisan Safran Troublant — the smell of rose cut with something rich and hay-like.  While I don’t have LT’s same scent associations with this shampoo, I really like the way it smells.

Performance-wise: I have dry, color-treated hair; the shampoo is for color-treated hair, but I’ve always assumed such shampoos are perfectly fine for non-color-treated hair, why wouldn’t they be?  Maybe they’re gentler, I have no idea.  Anyhow, it did a nice job cleaning without stripping my hair, wasn’t too foamy, and left a discernible, very pleasant but not overwhelming scent in my hair.  I am contemplating getting the shower gel, and a couple other of the shampoos.

So, are there body products you particularly love the smell of?  Bonus points if they also work well (insert smiling emoticon here.)   It’s always fun to hear about new (or old) favorite products.  I expect I’ll be reporting on Sniffa on Weds.

The purpose of this essay is twofold; first, I want to relive a bit of Sniffapalooza glory since the festivities are this weekend in New York (and I do miss New York, damn it!). Second, I still have not gotten the opportunity to do any real sniffing yet here in Toronto, mostly because of my new job. For the past three weeks I have been performing “SEO”, search engine optimization, for a couple of guys who run a content management company. Boiled down, I am writing content for websites; the SEO part is the art of using keywords in such a way that you optimize the sites’ ability to appear at the beginning of a search on Google. These are not the “sponsored” sites that pop up first every time you perform a search. They are the sites that appear “organically” after those sponsored sites, due in part to extensive keyword research and writing the most searched-for keywords into website content.

For all you tekkies out there, I am aware there are “black hat” SEO operations that just want to spam the living daylights out of you. Rest assured I am not working for one of those outfits.  The guys I work for are painstakingly “white hat” and SEOing for them so far has been more difficult than any paper I ever wrote in my last career as a student. Milton and Donne ain’t got nothin’ on this stuff. But the research is downright fascinating. So the next time you’re on Google, performing a search for whatever it is you are looking for, think of me. I’m watching you…

About 2-1/2 years ago, I attended a private Sniffapalooza event at Henri Bendel to get a sneak peek at the Memoire Liquide line of fragrances before they were unveiled to the rest of New York City. It was an unseasonably warm night at the beginning of May, and since it was right around the time I turned 40, I was pretty hell-bent for scent. I knew nothing about the line, other than it was brought to Bendel’s by Robin Coe-Hutshing, and her sister, Jennifer Coe-Bakewell, the other creative forces at Fred Segal (the other one being Ron Robinson) The line has been in existence since 1984 and it is deemed a “bespoke perfumery.” Mind you, this is not the same “bespoke” as paying tens of thousands of dollars to commission a scent that will be yours and yours alone. Memoire Liquide is an extensive line of perfume oils that can be blended, mixed and matched in infinite combinations. The sheer number of scents they had when I first discovered the line was overwhelming; it was the most fun I had shopping for perfume in my life. It was fascinating talking to Robin and hearing all her insights on fragrance and the industry. And it was really nice to be at a more low-key event than the Fall Ball or Spring Fling. I had a blast talking with The Karens and the other Sniffa ladies who were there that night. And, I bought 11 different Memoire Liquide scents; 11 out of a possible 200, if I recall correctly. The oils were hand-poured into adorable 15 ml black glass bottles with roll-on applicators. They were $45 each back then, and 2-1/2 years later, they’re all still fresh as daisies.

My favorite ML lately has been Soixante-Six. That’s the number 66 in French, and it is Robin’s fragrant tribute to the Summer of Love in 1966. I remember joking with her that I thought the Summer of Love was in 1967, the year I was born. She said for her it was 1966, and given the fact that I was either non-existent or an infant during that time, I didn’t argue the point. The scent is this gloriously musky-patchy concoction that is not at all head-shoppy. Hippie, yes; crunchy granola, no.

My other choices that night were, in no particular order: Ambre Ancien, Voile de Soie, Nudite Absolue, Café Royal, Mystique, Figuier, Musc Lumiere, Sensuel, Exotique and Vanilla Moire. Believe me when I tell you it was tough to narrow my choices down to just those. Honestly, I could have filled a suitcase.

Check out the notes for the scents I chose as well as an extensive selection at studiobeautymix.com. You can also find a well-edited selection at BeautyHabit.com and in person at Fred Segal, Bloomingdales 59th Street flagship, Henri Bendel, and in the MD/DC/VA area at the lovely Art With Flowers at Tysons Galleria.

All of you lucky ladies going to Sniffa, have a glorious time. Please give my love and best wishes to the Karens and everyone else.

LILY HAS CHOSEN: In all her purring feline glory, Lily has chosen to bestow the sweet Si Lolita 5 ml miniature on HollyGolightly! (Si Lolita by Lolita Lempicka, October 1, 2009). Please hit “Contact Us” at the top left and leave all the pertinent details. Lily promises to mail it right out as soon as she finishes those last bits of apple fritter and poutine gravy.

This is  PSA – never use Vonage – Vonage sucks.  Somehow they sneaked in, and I may have just missed it, a two-year agreement for their service, which they charge a $49.99 early cancellation fee for. That’s not even the worst of it.  The sound quality was always bad, sounded like I was in a well, people would ask me to stop talking on that phone, so I just quit using it and never bothered to cancel it.  That’s my bad.  Finally decided it was ridiculous to keep paying for something I didn’t use or want, so I went online to cancel it.  Oh, no, you can’t do that. You can set up service, add lines, upgrade service, everything can be done online except cancel.  Fine, I’ll call them.  Well, you can’t call them at night or on the weekend, you have to call them M-F 8-5.  You know, I have a lot of real work to be done then, so I kept putting it off. Finally called them, irritated that I had to do it this way, and they then reveal the true purpose of making you call — trying to keep you as a customer, asking you questions, quizzing you on why you don’t want their service, would you stay if they gave you a discount. My final response was stop asking me these questions because at this point they all have the same answer – I’m canceling, and I won’t change my mind simply because your cancelation hoops are draconian and ridiculous. Then he told me to dispute the charges, I needed to- hold your laughter – write a letter.  This is an internet company that provides VOIP, all their business is done online except, of course, cancelling your account and disputing charges. For those complicated, weighty matters, you have to phone and write a letter and put it in the mail.  JM&J.

I hate them, srsly.  I lost an hour of my life that I’ll never get back speaking to supervisors to try and not have to pay the $49.99 and telling them why they should let people cancel service online.

Hey, let’s talk about something else, like a brand new line of perfumes from Francis Kurkdjian (is this pronounced kourjaun?  I think that’s the way I’ve seen it, but my mind always sticks every time I read the name.

He has three colognes, and the most interesting on the surface of the three, or at least that I think you guys will get all wiggly about is the Pour le Soir.  Yes, it is light, it is a cologne, and it has notes of Infusion of Benzoin from Siam, Bulgarian and Iranian Rose Honey and Incense absolute.  Now, I’m not sure if it’s rose or honey or a honey rose?  These are just the notes Neiman Marcus provided. The colognes have that vat price tag of $195 for 6.8 ounces.  The price per ml is reasonable, just the quantity is a little excessive.  But whatever.  This is cuddly and snuggly incense.  There’s nothing terribly complicated about it, but the simplicity renders it simply perfect.  I want this in a room spray, candle and bed linen spray and bubble bath. Shower gel too and maybe a soap. I want my whole home to smell like this.

My grandpa Walter was this incredibly quiet, gentle, peaceful man. He was sick from the time I can remember him, he had emphysema, so he didn’t move around a lot because it made him cough.  Despite all that, he just radiated comfort and kindness.  He had those metal lawn chairs on the front porch, the ones that you could rock or sorta bounce in, and I loved sitting with him on the front porch and saying nothing, just being with him.  The peacefulness that surrounded him was a bubble I never wanted to leave.  Pour Le Soir is that kind of bubble. Warm, honeyed comfort, the way you want all of your sweaters to smell.  Yeah, I know, I’ll stop, I’m just oozing love for this.

For a cologne, it does have a nice hang time.  It’s not really lengthy, but it softens so beautifully even as it weakens that you don’t really even care, the fade on this is like that lovely dream that you can barely remember in the morning, but you just keep trying to hang onto the wisps.

Well, that went on for a while. I had intended to review another of his scents, but this will get long fast, so will stop there.  I am loving unfurling these seven scents of his, though, it’s like digging around in an old trunk of your aunt’s and finding the coolest things you forgot about or didn’t even know you needed.

I think what I’ll do on these is each post where I review them, until I get done, I’ll draw out one name to get a sample set of all seven scents.  Let’s see, you can just say hi in comments if you like or you can tell me the most frustrating company you’ve ever had to deal with and why nobody should ever give them any business.

Unfinished business – I’ll be at Sniffa on Saturday, if you’re going to be there please come up and say hi! We’re wearing name tags, I am pretty sure.  I have zero face-recognition skills, I can barely identify my own children.  Please come up and stick your paw out and say hello, meeting folks from the Posse makes me so happy!

Okay, today’s post — La Prairie Life Threads fragrance collection.

Browsing in Saks on my recent sniffing trips, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful new bottles displayed at the front of the La Prairie counter.  I know nothing about La Prairie – I’m under the impression they make skincare products I’m too cheap to buy, and a perfume (Silver Rain) I don’t care for – but these seemed worth stopping for, if just to look at.

I’m going to talk about the Life Threads bottles first, although I hope you’ll read past that.  The photo does not do them justice at all, they are gorgeous – heavy, sleek and elegant.  Just when I get to a point that I think I’ll never see another interesting, lovely bottle again, something like these show up.

At the counter they are displayed side by side in a matching Lucite stand, so the first funny piece of the puzzle is: I thought the Lucite exterior surfaces of the bottle were part of the stand, and the wire-wrapped glass bottles inside were what needed to be removed.  But they’re one piece, and the Lucite cap pops off.   The Lucite panels are on the front and back, with the sides open to expose the wired bottles, and again – if you have any sort of sleek, modernist sensibility in your bottle desires, you might want to look at these.

The Life Threads collection is about celebrating “the most cherished connections of our lives,” according to the lengthy brochure, if you’re into that sort of thing – hey, I’ve read worse.   A celebration of the many roles women play in the course of their lives, etc. They are called Gold, Silver and Platinum, with the threads reflecting the names (Platinum is the green-ish one with the darker threads).

So, how were the fragrances?

Platinum is the unisex frag, “an elegant and edgy chypre floral,” notes of plum, violet leaf, galbanum. jasmine, Persian rose, leather, cardamom, iris, Indonesian patchouli, vetiver, golden amber, oakmoss, labdanum.  It’s the one the SA told me women are buying for their menfolk, to go along with whichever of the other two they select for themselves.  Obviously a woman could easily wear this, and obviously yours truly did not find it “edgy,” a word I’d reserve for something … well, a lot edgier.  It’s cut somewhat from the same cloth as EL Jasmine White Moss, and/or Miyake A Scent.  I am now curious whether all the different companies are taking this opportunity to trot out their new faux-oakmoss patented ingredients now that (I think?) IFRA has banned oakmoss?  Or whether this is just a mini-retro trend now in perfumery.  Anyway, I approve.  It ain’t Cristalle, but it ain’t half bad.

Gold is “a seductive spicy floral” featuring tangerine, plum, clove, pepper, cinnamon peel, coriander, Kyoto rose, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, cedar, patchouli, golden myrrh, vanilla and incense  It’s quite nice, if a little staid and not spicy enough for me.  I wish I got more plum, I adore plum.  I would consider this as an elegant fragrance gift for another woman who had more modernist but still conservative tastes.   I’m going to guess this will be their big seller.  It didn’t blow me away, but it’s very pretty and doesn’t smell like a vanilla gourmand, so hey – two thumbs up.   I’m going to retry it a couple more times because I love the list of notes.

Leading up to Silver, the one I personally found most interesting and compelling, although not necessarily on me.  I got a clue when the SA hesitated in that this-isn’t-for-everyone way as she was introducing the line.  She also put this last, which usually tells you either: it’s terrible, or the SA personally hates it.  In this case, I was grateful, because this thing is huge.  “An enchanting woody floral,” notes of bergamot, green leaf, tuberose, Indian jasmine, ylang-ylang, pepper, orange blossom, sandalwood, vetiver, solar musk, peppery moss.   Yo, shout-out to you White Flower Freaks – seriously, make me smile and go try this.  I know that I am sometimes the stank magnifier, but this is a parade-float-scale tuberose doing the dirty with a dirty, dirty jasmine.  Also it is a bit Roquefort-ish, like gardenia can be, although that isn’t listed.  The whole thing made me giggle; my teenager jerked her head away as if my forearm had bitten her.  It has some serious sillage, so I wouldn’t be spraying this all over on your lunch hour before you head back to the office, either.  It’s sort of Fracas-ish in feel… I mean, I’m not here to judge, but I wouldn’t wear this to most work places.  It’s very, very sexy.  Also, have I mentioned the sillage?  How about the extremely ripe jasmine?  It was like running errands in a silk peignoir and ostrich mules.  It is deeply fabulous, if very much not me, although I kind of want it to be me.  I really struggle with tuberose, but this I found lovely, and I admire the courage of whoever had the nerve to make such a big, niche-y scent.  If you’d told me this was from, I don’t know, The Different Company, I’d have believed you.

These are EdP, 50ml for $125 at La Prairie counters.  I don’t know whether they’re exclusive to Saks or not.

Mexico was great, for those of you that knew where I was going last week.  Every person is entitled to once a year go sit on a beach anywhere in the world by themselves and not have to worry about anything more strenuous than why the seaweed washes up the way it does some days and doesn’t other days or whether you can make that great avocado salad the same way they do when you get back. It was so far beyond relaxing, I was almost comatose. My feet went naked for seven days, I never combed my hair, just showered in my open air shower looking at the ocean, then sat out in the sun and let the ocean breezes blow it dry. Why is it that sun blowing your hair dry looks so much better than what I can do with a blow dryer?  The sad part to that is I had to leave 90 degrees every day without fail to 22.  So do yourself a favor and book a few days on a beach by yourself. 4-5 will do.

Juliette Has a Gun has been a brand that I think it just darn cute and can’t help but like and root for. I like the packaging and the name, and most of the scents have been good or better than good.  When I saw they’d stumbled into oud with their new Midnight Oud, I sorta shuddered after the recent great entries from Kilian and Soivohle.

Moroccan rose, geranium, saffron, oud note, patchouli, sandalwood, amber, and animalic musks are the notes in Midnight Oud.  It goes on pungent and Oud-Fierce, reminding me more of the Montales than anything else at the start, with a nice strong rose background.  Sorta Lady Vengeance in 6-inch smokin’ (literally) stilettos.  There’s a nice leathery, smoky sensibility around this, with some additional interesting aspects from geranium and saffron, a bitter and a smoothness.  As it dries down, it loses the most pungent aspects of the oud, which is good, smoothing out into a more smoldering rose, dark with smoke rolling off of it.  I like this a lot, not quite as much as the Kilian Pure Oud or the Soivohle Oudh Lacquer, but this is nicely done and a good departure from the Montale ouds that I just can’t do – wearable in public without choking your neighbors, reallly beautiful, but with distinct dark notes that will appeal to you that like your roses closer to black than red. I know the Montales have a lot of fans, but for those of us that like our oud to stop burning at some point and making us choke, these new entries are a welcome relief, but let us still enjoy all that oud has to offer.  Available at Luckyscent for $135 for 100 mls.

I hadn’t intended to include Liz Zorn’s Bottleneck Blues in this post, but I can’t help myself.  Notes of grasses, animalic musk, damp earth, tonka beans, lilac, rose, tuberose, jasmine, woods, moss, ambergris,  and castoreum.  The Delta Blues are then inspiration for this scent.  It starts out watching the clouds laying in the grass and earth on a fall day, until you feel a little dirty and a little cold, but the sun comes out with a floral bouquet that adds sweetness to your day and your life, so you linger a while, enjoying the contrast between earthy and soft.  Then that dark, dangerous boy from the farm next door happens by without a shirt on, and all you can hear is Nina Simone growling out:

I want a little sugar
in my bowl
I want a little sweetness
down in my soul
I could stand some lovin’
Oh so bad
I feel so funny and I feel so sad
I want a little steam
on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up
so they’ll go
Whatsa matter Daddy
Come on, save my soul
I need some sugar in my bowl
I ain’t foolin’
I want some sugar in my bowl

Yeah, like that.  If you like skank with lots of class and soul, you will adore Bottleneck Blues.    $35 for 5 ml of parfum and $90 for 1/2 ounce of parfum.  In this day and age, that’s a bargain, and you know it.  I would have never worn this on my running away from home vacation or I would have jumped one of those cute Polizia that went up and down the beach on their four-wheelers.

Out of curiousity, and having to do with nothing but my continuing interest in finding the next great beach to gaze at my navel on, what was your favorite place you’ve ever been for relaxation?

(Painting is Delta Blues by John Carroll Doyle � 1996)

As many of you already know, I am a shameless Annick Goutal Mandragore fangirl (actually, I’m pretty much an Annick Goutal fangirl).  Mandragore is one of the few fragrances I wear often enough that I have had to replace the bottle.  So news of the overseas release of Mandragore Pourpre, a flanker, had me all atwitter.  Having gotten my hands on a few precious ml, I’m reviewing it today.

Some people are meh on original Mandragore EDT – the most common complaint I think is its lack of tenacity.  Other people find it a bit urine-y, which I’m assuming is an unhappy result of the boxwood.  I bought my first bottle in Paris, having fallen deeply and totally in love with it, and thus have no complaints about the original whatsoever.  I believe at some point they released an EdP, which would in theory have lasted longer, that was reputed to smell pretty much like the EdT (they don’t always).  If anyone tried the EdP, please chime in.

Mandragore Pourpre’s notes are bergamot, mint, star anise, amber, rosemary, geranium, black pepper, patchouli leaf, myrtle, incense and heliotrope.   (For comparison purposes: the original EDT’s notes are bergamot, black pepper, ginger, spearmint, star anise, boxwood, and sage.)

The fragrances smell enough alike that my mind said Mandragore before I popped the cap off the sample vial.  If you loathed the original, I’m not sure you’re going to like this one.  The first significant difference is that Pourpre starts off richer and sweeter on me, although it’s still very much unisex.*  Gone is much of whatever it is at the top of the EDT that is screechy – quite pleasantly screechy to my nose, unpleasantly so to others.  I’m going to hazard a guess that if you think you might like Mandragore without that urine-y note, you might want to try this one.

Then we go through fifteen or twenty minutes where the anise is much more pronounced on my skin, and this phase I am less delighted with.  It’s not that I’m against anise; but anise is one of those notes that, on me, tends to take over a fragrance, to the detriment of almost anything else interesting that might be going on.  I have a couple of anise frags, thanks very much, and am not looking for more.

Then that goes away, leaving a base that is somewhat richer, rounder and deeper than the original, although rich and deep are pretty relative here – we’re not talking Serge Lutens.  I would describe it as a warmer fragrance than the original, more ambery incense.  It certainly smells less like the freshly-squeezed grapefruit that Mandragore has always made me think of, even though it’s not part of the notes.

How do I like it?  Well… I am not sure.  I tried very hard to think of it as its own separate fragrance, since I’m so fond of the original it seems likely that any flanker will come up wanting in my mind.  And I’ve failed on my original mission.  If the pissy-grapefruit part of the original were unpleasant to me, or if I wanted something less astringent, I think I’d like this very much.  As it is, I found myself longing for the sharp edges of the EDT.

When I first smelled Mandragore, it was on one of those bone-chilling February days in Paris when we kept ducking into shops just to thaw our faces on the way back to our hotel, which is how we’d wound up in the Goutal boutique on Place St Sulpice.  I was only trying things to be polite to the very nice sales associate.  Mandragore was one of the strangest things I’d ever smelled.  I thought it was a little ugly and utterly compelling.  I still go through odd little Mandragore attacks where I’ll be doing something and realize I need to drop everything, run upstairs and put some on.  It would be nice if everyone had a fragrance they felt that way about.

So I’ll stick with the original for now.  For those of you for whom the original was close, no cigar, maybe you’d like this one better?  I assume it’ll show up stateside eventually.  I believe you can get it, like the original, either in the femme round bottle or the big square bottle as shown.

*Unisex.  Clarifying: I am a huge supporter of the idea that everyone can wear any style of scent they like.  Regular readers know I am particularly fond of men wearing very “feminine” things like rose and tuberose scents, which I find wildly sexy.  Fragrance knows no gender boundaries as far as I’m concerned.  So when I use terms like masculine, feminine or unisex when talking about fragrance, I am in no way suggesting that those scents should be bought and applied based on stereotype.  I’m simply trying to convey in our imperfect scent-language how the fragrance feels to me in terms of traditional styles of perfumery.

Compound

by Loren Eiseley

Plant quiet like a seed within your heart
And let it grow and split that organ through.
Let the fierce root rive all such walls apart,
Let the dark flourish, let your words be few.
Out of the earth and dreaming in the sun
Though the years burgeon, it is well to know,
After the lightning and the wolves that run
In the tense mind, the quietude of snow.
Thirst, if you thirst, for all the elder things--
Lie with the worm against the forest's root.
Eat of the granite, plumb the deeper springs,
Burn with the acrid and the bitter soot
Packed in the puff ball. In that leathern cover
Taste the last taste: compound of life and lover.

I’ve removed it from under all of my fingernails, but it’s stuck, godammit, under my left thumbnail. The dirt. So when I’m dressed up smart, advising senior leaders in schools, there’s always a reminder of my basic scruffiness underneath; that I am, to some extent, pretending my workaday role, and what I really am about is rolling  in mud, fondling foliage. The calluses and blisters on my hands don’t diminish the picture, either.

And somehow, when I wear Nicolai’s New York, as much as I love it, this role-performing aspect of my identity seems highlighted and to the fore. That elegant mix of spice and warmth is too well cut, too debonair, for an essentially slovenly type like me, who prefers to shave twice a week and wear jeans with brown toned knees.

Patchouli Homme is cut from the same cloth as New York. Patchouli’s a dirt smell, I tell myself, yet here it’s the dirt in a belle epoque orchid house, where a gentleman with waxed moustaches and a slightly crumpled cream linen suit moves languidly from plant to plant, admiring a blossom here, removing a browning leaf there. He’s the type who can eat a croissant without a flake left on the plate, and whose cigarette holder – ostentatious in most cases – is exactly right for him. All in all, it’s just not me.

Opening with a rounded spiciness – cinnamon and bay according to the notes – this new perfume never becomes so male that it’s easily identifiable as such. There is a lavender warmth to begin with, but this never veers into chest-puffing braggadocchio qualities. The elegance is a patchouli tamed by floral notes – clearly rose, but there are other supporting facets there too. It’s slightly bitter, slightly green, pretty floral, a touch leathery and too complex for someone as inexpert as me to unpick. The overall effect is understated elegance, and it’s so reminiscent of… of… of… something I can’t yet name, that it haunts me. A chypre, I think. But I’ll never buy a bottle. It’ll make me fixate on the left thumbnail at all the wrong moments.

Today our fabulous Guest Poster Anita/Musette talks about her cool construction job, and her other construction work — layering perfumes!

A piece of angle iron.  Simple.

A 30’ container loader.  Complex.

But it starts with a piece of angle iron.  And a genius partner.  And some serious cojones if one is to translate that genius and angle iron into a 30’ container loader in 2 weeks.  We did it.  But it took a lot out of us.  18-hr days for 16 days means at the end of it all you hate everybody – and you want to smack the daylights out of somebody just to blow off some steam.  And it’s Delivery Day.  And there’s a 40mph crosswind.  Driving rain.  And a 70’ high bridge to get across.

That is NOT the time for Mitsouko.    On good days, Mitsouko is my BFF, armoring me so I can take my poor, frail psyche out into the world to try to sell a match or two.  On days like Container Delivery Day, Mitsouko is good for an assault charge!  On those days she not only gives permission for you to be a flaming, vicious shrike, she actually ENCOURAGES it!   I’ve said that before and you know it’s true.  But she’s supposed to be my go-to gal for difficult business days.  What to do?  Construct.

A little note here:  I am not, by nature, a customizer or layerer (layer-er?  Lay-erer?  Oh, forget it!).  I’m just a gal who likes perfume and whatever I spritz, as long as it doesn’t have the heave-y musk drydown, is pretty much okay with me (not you, Catagan – sorry!).  And Mitsouko is perfect Just the Way She Is.  Except When She Isn’t.

Enter Liz Zorn, another genius.  Miss Liz constructed an Historical (a Historical?  Oh, forget it) Chypre that is absolutely gorgeous!  Lush, bloomy/plumy (what is it about chypres that reminds me of plums?) – but a tad too soft for a workday, especially when that workday is at the tail-end of two of the most stressful weeks of my life.    Alone, neither of them quite worked and Jolie Madame made my nose itch (only because I was so damn tired – don’t beat me).    Together?  ZZZZZZZZZZIIIIING!  The Zorn HC softened Mitsouko’s normally-fabulous bladey edges and Mits shaved off a bit of the pillowy plumpness of the HC that was smothering me in downy softness.

Each of those scents is perfect and I adore them as they are– just as a piece of angle iron is perfect in and of itself – but construction (and a genius partner) makes for wonderful things.  That construction was a lucky fluke and it kept me going even when, after all the construction Drama, the blasted thing was too tall to get out of the shop! I will love that duo forever.

Another is my summer construction, which I never even thought about until now – I just always toss them together – I thought I loved Malle’s Bigarade Concentree. Until I bought a FB.  Damn you, Full Bottle!  Could it be JCE slipped in a little bit of that sweat note? – not exactly the thing I want to smell in 100o heat – but layered with a bit of Fresh Lemon Sugar…..(it’s a good thing JCE is still alive or he’d be spinning in his grave)…. Now that’s some good stuff right there!

So that’s my construction story for the day.  And the loader is in the hangar.  And my 18-hour days are done for awhile.   And I’m too whipped to write anymore (we’re doing process piping this week.  Mercy!).  So it’s your turn – and I know you all do it – what are your constructions (good and bad – oooh!  Tell the BAD ones, too, okay?)

Deputy dawgs!!!  Lo, behold, I, your lovely Sheriff, bring you… a threaded comment upgrade with the return of the emoticons!!!! As we say on the Posse, squeeeeeeeeee!!! So leave a comment even if you think my review is crap, just so you can say hi to Mr. Clown or Miss Pig etc. again!  Also there are gravatars (temporarily, anyway) and maybe I’ll even figure out how to use them!  Also, the loading time should be significantly improved, please comment if you notice a difference.

Nobody has ever accused me of being a neutral, dispassionate reviewer of perfumes.  So it amused me when poking around that I can find almost no blog reviews anywhere of Laura Mercier’s fragrances – because I figure that must mean lots of folks hate her gourmand scents as much as I do.   Those massively sweet things appeared on the scene (or at least on my radar) at about the time I was at my maximum gourmand-hatin’ self, before I came around a little to the idea.  I like vanilla, but I still don’t want to smell like a bakery item.  I admit I find them extra irritating because I consider Laura Mercier to be an adult-woman brand in terms of its often very nice makeup, so I would expect something more interesting and sophisticated from Mercier perfumes than Tarte au Citron and Almond Coconut … and kill.me.now, frankly.  These are the liquid handsoaps they stock the Bergdorf bathroom with, which I avoid like the plague, because you will never, ever wash away that smell.

But I remember liking last year’s Mercier limited edition Nuits Enchantées, which I sniffed once or twice in Nordstrom and then poof—it was gone.  The notes for that one, which was classified as an oriental, were mandarin, orange, cardamom, tuberose, ginger, guaiacwood, pimento, cedar, rose, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, musk, coffee, vanilla, vetiver and cedar.

Today’s review is their newest LE, Minuit Enchanté, which sounded good in Angela’s review on Now Smell This.  Cribbed from Nordstrom: “Laura Mercier Minuit Enchanté parfum, developed as a flanker to the original Nuit Enchantées EdP, evokes the deepest moment of night with deep incense and rare wood accords. Minuit Enchanté is a deeper, darker, more mysterious and more concentrated fragrance than the original Nuit Enchantées.“  The notes are somewhat similar to Nuits, here they are: juniper, mace, ginger, clove, pimento berry, rose, jasmine, tuberose, peach, vanilla, musk, labdanum, benzoin, amber, myrrh, guaiacwood, cedarwood, sandalwood, agarwood.  Please note that’s not a typo, it’s a 50ml bottle of parfum for $90.  When I sprayed it on, it left a sheen on my skin.

It’s lovely.  It starts off with a lot of vanilla and tuberose, and skated in the direction of Too Much for maybe five minutes, but pulled back pretty quickly with all the woods and spices.  Then there’s an interlude of about half an hour when it made me think of something like Shalimar, only a Shalimar I could get behind (actual Shalimar hates me.)  It had this dry thing going on top with the big, non-edible vanilla base that reminded me very much of the Shalimar Dichotomy.  Then we move on to eight or twelve (!) hours of my favorite part, the drydown, which is some excellent but not overpowering vanilla grounded by the last eight ingredients on that list of notes.   I know absolutely nothing about perfume quality in terms of material, but man, this thing!!!  The vanilla/woods/incense angle is spectacular.  Raspy in a great way, that raspy thing you get with sandalwood, cedar and oud, with some incense notes thrown in for good measure.  It reminded me a bit of both Annayake Miyako (which I find a hair too raspy on the wrong day) and Annayake Tsukimi, only Tsukimi is sweeter – I compared them.

I know of at least one person who tried this and loathed it, so I wouldn’t be buying it unsniffed.  But if you like Miyako, and/or the concept of vanilla/woods appeals, you might want to check it out.  Having gone back twice to sniff, I bought it.  I don’t know how truly “limited” this is, but Nuits is relatively hard to come by, and my Nordstrom was down to two bottles.

Mercier has a standing line of three other fragrances I’ve ignored – a Neroli that I find uninteresting and That Other One (Lune?)  But while I was there I sniffed the third, L’heure Magique, because it seemed related thematically to the LEs by name, if nothing else, and a sniff of the cap seemed reassuring.  I’d have guessed floriental.  It’s classified as a woody floral musk, released in 2001, notes are: spices, sandalwood, amber, musk, bergamot, rose and geranium.  No, no – don’t wander away bored!  Because I kept sniffing and sniffing and sniffing, trying to think of what L’heure Magique reminded me of, and call me crazy, but I don’t care what the notes say – it’s TEA.  Glorious, glorious tea!  Now, it’s not just tea – it’s more a floral tea.  But the more I sniffed it, the more taken with it I was, because a great tea can be so impossible.  They tend to skedaddle way before I want them to.  Give this scent ten or fifteen minutes for the citrusy top notes to blow off and I’m getting a strong, dark, not overly sweet tea with a little floral-musky filigree to keep it from being Bettie-one-note boring.

So now I want a bottle of L’heure Magique, and I’m tempted to buy one of those Nuits unsniffed on eBay.  And if I buy three bottles of stupid old Laura Mercier the week before I go to Sniffa I’m going to throw myself under a bus.   I know, I know – break out your tiniest violin.