As you know, I hauled a bunch of my less-common stuff downstairs recently for my perfume party, which allowed me to revisit some of the things I never smell, including my bottle of Guerlinade.  Back before the Earth’s crust cooled, and pterodactyls soared overhead, and Guerlain still made interesting perfumes… I used to call myself a Guerlain fangirl.  I was all over Jicky and Mitsouko, in particular, but had opened my arms wide, embracing the house in general.  Okay, with a couple of exceptions.  But still.

And so I came to realize that if I was going to be true to my Guerlain-ness I obviously needed to own a bottle of the so-called Guerlinade, right?  The heart, the soul, the essence of Guerlain?  The only problem was, the bottles were fancy and pretty and it was a discontinued LE, and I kept getting shut out of the bottles on eBay.  I think for awhile they sold for $200 – $300, which used to seem like real money.  Here, here’s a pic of a bottle that just sold on eBay for $124 and it’s empty.  (Hint: there’s a bottle on there right now, UK eBay – 2 days left, no packaging.  $16.00?  No bids?  Have at it.)

Anyhow, having failed to get a bottle, one day I whined to Patty about my streak of bad luck, and she offered to sell me a partial bottle, which almost got confiscated at the airport when she had to do carry-on (she didn’t bring it at the last minute), and how much would that have hurt?  A lot.  So I got my bottle, and I said:  Oh!  Hey!  So!  That’s the Guerlinade! And that was the end of it, because I thought it smelled boring.  I put the bottle away.

Anyone who is looking for something with the intensity of Mitsouko, or the animalic exoticism of Mouchoir de Monsieur or Jicky, is going to be disappointed.  Conversely, it doesn’t replicate the powdery genteel sweetness of L’Heure Bleue or Apres L’Ondee either.  To me Guerlinade is less about some universal Guerlain base than a higher plane, a lofty realm to which, frankly, I wish Guerlain still aspired.  Notes are bergamot, rose, jasmine, tonka bean, iris, and vanilla.

Guerlinade starts off with a strong hit of bergamot over the florals – I can really pick out the rooty/powdery qualities of the iris – and as the bergamot falls off the rich vanillic aspects of the base rise up, although it never becomes remotely like something you’d call edible.  Although there’s nothing listed in the notes to suggest it, in the middle stretch I get what smells like musk, nothing like the animalic reverb of the Guerlain classics but definitely there on my skin.  There’s something — like hay, or suede – in there that creeps out later as well.  The drydown on my skin is stronger, drier and less sweet than what I’d expect given the list of notes, and the way it smells when I first put it on.

If you haven’t smelled Guerlinade, I personally wouldn’t kill myself getting ahold of a bottle.  And on eBay, anyway, if the outer packaging is there, you’re probably going to be bidding against bottle collectors.  But having worn Guerlinade on and off for several days, I moved the bottle out of its display box and onto the shelf of fragrances I actually reach for and wear.  It smells elegant and expensive without, in fact, boring me.  I have no idea whether Coco Chanel really said elegance is refusal, but something about the luxe yet spare Guerlinade works for me like a single strand of pearls.

March

There are many garden smells I love. The evening scent of honeysuckle in June, pure, bright, overwhelming. The evening scent of angels’ trumpets in November (no frost here yet) – heady, intense, overpowering. The fresh loaminess of turned earth. The sweet floral crispness of stored cooking apples, their springlike zing always surprising me. The greenhouse smells of wood and geranium and salvias.

But of all the smells that halt me in my tracks, it’s the scent of cistus or labdanum that halts me most, and then haunts me. I can’t pin it down; it oscillates between categories too much – balsamic, leathery, animalic, resinous, green – for me to move on. Defying categorisation, it’s become one of my favourite perfume ingredients.

I’ve had all sorts of cistus shrubs over the years, most notably Cistus creticus with its shell pink flowers and its reputation as the best source of labdanum, and the variety ‘Sunset’ with brighter flowers, often described as rose pink but tending towards magenta in the best (or, if your tastes are less garish than mine, worst) examples. All of them have sticky leaves, from where the gummy resin is extracted (I’ll leave the details to better people than me – perfumeshrine has explored this with great eloquence). My current favourite cistus I grow is the hybrid x cyprius, whose leaves become lead grey in cold weather, as though metalwork rather than plant. And its aroma is everpresent – in rain, sun, or on still, dull days.

Cistus flowers don’t last, and they seem to be short day plants, at least with me, the flowers blooming best in spring and sometimes again in autumn. The flowers open in the early morning and if the day is hot, shatter by midday, their papery petals lost, their yellow stamens fading.

And in many perfumes, the aroma doesn’t last either. Take Donna Karan’s Labdanum from her Essence series. This is a perfect cistus scent for 20 minutes but fades to a creamy sweetness, that hints at everyday amber, way too quickly. I like it, but wish the wonder lasted. And Poivre 23 by le Labo has a wonderful journey through labdanum a few  minutes in. Here, I don’t mind its loss: the many facets of this scent are the reason to wear it.

Perhaps Andy Tauer’s l’air du desert marocain is the best example of a cistus note that lasts, held up and supported by other equally rugged aromas. This is a rough-hewn perfume, in all the right ways, and undoubtedly still Andy’s masterwork. ‘Learning to be satisfied with what I have’ has been my motto for this last year of the first decade of the 21st century (what an elaborate way to avoid using noughties, which makes my toes curl); perhaps I should stop with my cistus hunt and just accept I’ve found the best already.

What note haunts you, and why? And, cos I’m a contrarian type, if you think, ‘What a dolt! He hasn’t sniffed x or y for his labdanum fix? Man, that guy’s like a noob.’, please lemme have your recommendation toot sweet.

Lee

March’s great post from yesterday about all the fun they had with the D.C. perfumista party has me thinking how great it would be for those in and around Denver to get together to share perfume, drinks, just have a great time.  So if you are in the Denver’ish area, could you either comment or e-mail me (contact us on the left) or both?  I’ll post this on Facebook tomorrow too.  I’m thinking we could do something in February, and I’d have it at my house, I’ll padlock the perfume vault, but bring out lots of things to play with.   But I’d love to do it like March did hers – everyone bring something to play with, bring your things to swap or sale that you don’t want anymore.  I’ll chase out all the dogs and kids, and it will be a blast.   Oui?  If you know someone that doesn’t read this blog or hasn’t friended me on Facebook that you think would be interested, let them know!

L’Artisan Havana Vanille was something I sniffed briefly in London in July – loved immediately, but couldn’t talk coherently about it because my brain won’t hold much smell data at a time -  and then March reviewed it in August as did Robin in August. I finally have a sample in my hands that I can play with instead of trying to sniff it on the fly.  How come it took me almost three months to get my paws on a real sample, I ask?

Note of rum, clove, dried fruits, narcissus, tonka bean, helichrysum, vanilla, smoked woods, moss and balsamic notes.  The open for me is seriously boozy gourmand, sorta like you woke up face planted in a fruitcake after a long night with a particularly potent bottle of rum.  You all know by now that I mean that IAGW (in a good way).  Then you shake your head a little, splash some water on your face, pick the rum-soaked raisins out of your eyebrows, put the mostly empty rum bottle in the trash and find that mess your life concocted out of some drunken  hours  just turned into this delicious smoky vanilla that’s carrying some hints of the more lurid memories of the night before that you can’t talk about in polite — well, any company around with it, but you’re only seeing it cross-eyed because there is this lovely, silky, vanilla patina on top of it.  Those lurid memorie would be the narcissus’ fault.

What a nice departure for L’Artisan.  I like their Vanillia very much, love a lot of their scents, but this one is something a little different than normal, sorta like Dzing is – another L’Artisan that I adore and can’t live without.  From what I hear, this is one of L’Artisan’s most eagerly anticipated releases.  It won’t be for everyone, but it will be perfect for a lot of someones.  Worth waiting for, y’all, but when do you suppose they’ll actually start shipping bottles?  I’d love to give a sample away, but all I’ve got is this teeny vial that I’ve got locked in my drawer so the cats don’t knock it off the table or steal it outright.  Oh, fine,  I’ll squidge out a partiall sample to one commenter.

Patty

Every now and again a group of crazy folks get together for a perfume party. Here’s a peek at the ‘do I threw at my house last Saturday night for various DC-area perfumistas, I’ve misplaced the list but I think there were 12 of us.

In addition to my homemade vegetarian lasagna and my beef stew (the secret’s in the two bottles of wine, laydeez!) we had a fabulous drinks menu courtesy of Nancy; let me quote you a few samples – “Lipstick Rose – sparkling wine + rose and violet liqueurs,” “Yuzu Rouge – tea liqueur + ginger liqueur + yuzu syrup,” “8:00 Gingembre – ginger ale + ginger liqueur.”  Yep, inspired by perfumes, and full of scented, flavored goodness, how cool is that?!?

People brought stuff to sample, share, swap and sell, and the party forced me to dust my various perfume areas upstairs, which – well, you know how that is.  I brought anything that might be more unusual or interesting down, plus some classics and anything I might have that was fairly newish – the OJ Tiare, the Van Cleefs, the Cartiers, etc.

There was a lot going on at the same time, so I’m going to invite anyone who was there who reads this post to chime in with personal highlights.  I’m so sad not to be able to post my favorite photo, which was a bottle of Regina Harris perfume oil nestled in the cleavage of one of our bosomy members who shall remain anonymous.  I tell you, I have never seen a bottle of Regina Harris displayed more beautifully.  There was a lot of spraying and sniffing and silliness,  and I am thinking I am possibly not the only person who woke up the next day with a headache.  My sister-in-law, the famous Kate, came in from the Eastern Shore for the event and was (unsurprisingly) welcomed warmly, because who’s nicer than a bunch of perfume nuts?  By the way, Kate called me tonight to report in a worried voice that she had either 11 or 17 bottles, I forget, but this is up from – oh, I don’t know, zero?  She’s afraid they’re reproducing on her dresser.  Hehe.  I told her to be careful, next thing you know you’ve got a hundred of them.

Perfume highlights that I can recall are:  having some of the gals experience the green-gardenia joy that is Strange Invisible Perfumes’ Lady Day; all the feedback on the Cartiers, particularly XIII, the leathery one that some people love and others hated; getting to inflict my beloved monster Worth Courtesan on those who hadn’t tried it, one of whom (Nancy) loved it and one of whom (Kristy) was still bitching the next day about how craptastic it was and how it wouldn’t leave, which is the sign of a true scrubber.  I was blown away by the Penhaligon Amaranthine that Melissa brought – what a weird, interesting, twisty perfume ride that was — it’s Bertrand Duchaufour and it didn’t throw up on me!  I love their bottles but their scents don’t do a ton for me – kind of prim and staid – but that thing was gorgeous.  The new Daphne Guinness was a big ol’ riot, and that is definitely a love it or hate it – that thing is a monster.  Huge.  Melissa tortured us with that one, I believe.

I snagged a bottle of Dioressence, which made me happy … oh!  I almost forgot!  Here’s another highlight!   I have this bottle of perfume I’ve never opened, marked Chypre (by Carnay) I’m guessing from the 30s?  I’m not sure.  I couldn’t get the stopper out and that was … two years ago, I think.  Anyhoo, the evening’s event was I handed it to Louise and Melissa, who buy a lot of vintage, and asked if they’d take a stab at it.  It took them, I think, five minutes?  Ten if you factor in their cocktail preparation.  It was lovely – rich and sweet, rather than the caramel swill you get sometimes with those old bottles. I’m looking forward to playing with it some more.   Also, Michele was loving the Poison extrait which I’d left upstairs out of pity for the other attendees, it smelled great on her – what is up with the Poison hate?!?  Just because you sat next to someone who bathed in it in 1987 doesn’t mean it’s not a great scent.   Also, I think people liked my Dior Jules, judging by the number of racks bodies it wound up sprayed on.  Some decanting went on in the back rooms… Le Labo Gaiac was passed around … I’m sure I’ve missed something, chime in here.

Non-perfume highlights include Kristy showing us the gorgeous ombre dress she got for her big dress-up boyfriend’s-office-party holiday bash, an important first in any gal’s life.  And I busted out my naughty boots for inspection and try-ons, where …. it was discovered that I had two different sizes!   Naughty Nordstrom!   So you will all be relieved to hear, if it is keeping you up at night, that I took them back and exchanged them for the correct (matching) size, and while I was there sold a $275 pair of red satin pumps to a lady who was waffling because they weren’t more practical blah blah blah.   I told her they looked fabulous on her, which they did – she smiled every time she looked down at her feet.  They were for a party.   Sometimes, practical is over-rated.

Photos, top to bottom:  the spread on the table (giveaways at one end, sniffage in the middle, sales at the other end); the exotic drinks bar with Michele and Kathy — btw I’m sorry, I don’t know everyone’s MUA names!; two of our resident beauties you may recognize (Melissa and Louise); a couple more shots of the goods and the goody bags, Michele brought two shopping bags of samples; my bottle of Carnay Chypre; that’s me in that black-and-white optical print shirt.

March

You know.  I always cringe when I write a Creed review because I know someone who loves most things Creed will eventually pop in and get all squeaked out that I don’t like it that much or think it’s okay, but not fantastic and post kind of a meh review.  Yes, when I’m not very enthusiastic about a perfume, but feel I need to review it, it does show in my lackluster comments.  So I’m bracing myself.  Or am I?

Vanilla is the new black this season, apparently. There have been a number of them released this year – most quite good.  It took a long time for me to warm up to vanilla in perfume after some o the  travesties of the CSPs that almost sent me away from vanilla perfumes forever.  Guerlain’s Spiritueuse Double Vanille was my first big exception to vanilla, followed by a sweeter version of vanilla in Indult Tihota and the mostly lily Hermessence Vanille Galante.  Then the vanilla dominoes really started falling this year with Jo Malone Vanilla and Anise and L’Artisan’s Havana Vanille and Van Cleef & Arpels Orchidee Vanille. BTW, when in the heck is L’Artisan going to get those bottles out the door?  I smelled this in July, for crying out loud!  Snap to it, L’Artisan, I needs this now.

Creed’s latest entry, Sublime Vanille is a limited edition, available, as far as I know, or at least for now, in the big old 8.4 ounce flacon.  Notes of Tahitian orchids, South American Bourbon vanilla, tonka bean, bergamot, and Calabrian lemon are listed.  On the open, with the bergamot and lemon, I was so prepared to hate this. I had the haterade in the glass and was getting ready to take a big swig.  But, hey, those bright cheerful notes vamoosed – Lemon Pledge and vanilla are household plug-ins, not perfumes -  and I was left with this slightly smoky vanilla that’s not sweet in the least, not as dark as the SDV, though, doesn’t go as close to the floral feel like the Cartier does, it’s a really  nice straddle of a lot of vanillas.  I keep reading that this is aimed at men?  Yeah, maybe the open, and it’s certainly a vanilla that a guy could wear.  It’s a lovely vanilla scent – not heavy or sweet or too smoky or too floral or too much like Watkins.  A middle of the road vanilla, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  It’s a nice, neutral vanilla that has all the great aspects of vanilla covered, and few of the bad, nor does it exaggerate any aspect like some of the more distinctive vanilla scents do, which, for me, isn’t exactly a plus – I’ll explain later. I don’t find the sillage on it to be great. That’s a feature for some of you and a bug for others. I suspect, since it is geared for men, that they wanted to tone down the waftage so guys weren’t thinking they smelled like snickerdoodles – though why anyone wouldn’t want to smell like that is a mystery.  Lasting power seems okay, but not great. I had a couple of good hours of it, and then it receded to a much softer, harder to smell version.  Still nice.

So now we get to talk about the limited edition and price point.  $475 for 8.4 ounces (250 mls) is a bargain almost.  L’Artisan is up to $140 or so fo 100 mls. Cartiers are $180 or so for 75 mls.  SDV is over $200 for 75 mls.  But I read on Basenotes that Bergdorf or NM or whoever was carrying it is already sold out, they have a waiting list.  I totally get that sometimes a perfume takes off unexpectedly, and the company is left flat-footed (Waaaazambaaaaa!!!) and trying to catch up with production, but my reading is Creed did this intentionally.  I suppose it works, but I think as many people find it annoying as the people who are happy to be one of the few snaggees.  And the bottle size and limited edition and small first production run?   Many times you can have a perfectly fine fragrance with severely limited availability become much more desirable just because it’s hard to get.  My guess is that will happen with Sublime Vanille – partly because it is a Creed, partly because it is actually pretty good.  I’m not going to call it great because of the same factors that make it good.  It has no distinctive angle on vanilla. It’s pretty much a straight-up nice, wearable vanilla scent.

Patty