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.

March

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.

Patty

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.

March

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)

Patty