(Hey, folks — since the Posse was down much of the day Tuesday, we’re leaving this post up Wednesday, and March will be posting on Thursday.)

I was going to talk about Comme des Garcons Monacle II – Laurel.  But I don’t have a lot to say about it.   Nice, woody, laurelish.  Definitely very laurel’ish, wish it were a candle.

How about Juliette Has a Gun Calamity J? Well, okay.  Little powdery on me.  If something has a Calamity Jane tie-in, why would you make it powdery? Why not some leather, gunsmoke and sass?

Trying to work up some enthusiasm for anything on my desk.

What have we here?  Oh, dear, the Limited Edition DKNY Delicious Candy Apples.  Raspberry? Raspberry apples with the Tampax Fresh Accord TFA is just what I was hoping to smell after I spritzed it on my hand.  How much worse can the Sweet Caramel version be?  That one could have actually been fun if it didn’t have the TFA curling up in the background.  Both of these are actually really fine for young girls. They have this cute little stick coming out of the top like a candy apple, but I think they are marketing this to girls above the age of 18, right?  Just say no and pass it along to your favorite young niece.  It’s absolutely appropriate and perfect for them, how little girls should smell.

None of these are the worst thing I smelled this year. That honor goes to Marc Jacobs Lola, which not only was foul, but let me down because it was so unnecessary. Daisy wasn’t a breakthrough of any kind, but it was a great little scent that wore well and easily and fit the name.  Lola could have been great, and they snagged a great name that should have been on one serious floozy of a perfume and instead put it on a big mess.

As we wind up the year, and before we start talking about the bests of the year (are we doing that, ya’ll?), what was your worsst for 2009?

Patty

Hi there, snowbound friends of the Posse!  We’re still digging ourselves out on the East Coast and the kids are underfoot because school’s closed (anyone want to place bets on whether they’ll reopen this week, or are we headed right into winter vacation, which starts Wednesday afternoon?)

I’ve been getting my champagne and shovel on.  Those of you familiar with the DC area know that Sunday in the mid-Atlantic was warm enough after a typical snowfall that if you don’t get that 16 inches of snow off your car and out of your driveway by Sunday night, it’s 8 inches of icy mush by Monday.  But we had a great time playing.

Before I forget – thanks to the many commenters who came by on Friday to enter the Tauer Perfumes draw.  I won’t include Andy’s email here, because I don’t want to embarrass him, but he was very, very touched as he read them, and congrats to Tara for winning.

Okay, today’s review: The Different Company’s Oriental Lounge, the new oriental (duh) from the line.  Here´s a link to Grain de Musc, in which Céline Ellena explains how she was tinkering with the genre to come up with the fragrance.  Notes via LuckyScent are: Bergamot, curry leaf, pepper, red rose, labdanum, tonka bean and satinwood.  (Satinwood, according to Ellena, is a blend of a synthetic sandalwood note and a powdery note.)

To be fair, you should read the Grain de Musc interview, which explains Ellena’s intentions.  I started to try to quote from it, but I’d end up quoting most of it, which feels too plagiaristic for me.  Also, here´s a link to 1000 Fragrances’ review, and Octavian knows way more about perfume structure than I ever will, and hey – he liked it.

Me?  Eh.  Seriously?  This could have been straight from the Macy’s bottle of Usher’s newest flanker for men, maybe called something like Usher IV: Love Machine.  To me it smells like a midrange woody guy cologne, subcategory: barbershop shaving cream.  I am pretty sure it’s Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez who’ve noted that if you take a classical feminine and cheapen the ingredients enough, it starts to smell like a cheesy masculine.  Well, Céline Ellena has apparently worked the same dark magic using expensive ingredients and all her technical skilz.  Congratulations, Céline, I’m (sort of) speechless.  I note, again in her Grain de Musc interview, that “Oriental Lounge arose from the need to compose a warm oriental, which was missing from the brand´s line-up. It was also missing for me, because to speak bluntly, orientals aren´t my favorite perfume family…”  So, this is an oriental developed by someone who doesn’t even like orientals?  Well, that explains everything, I guess.  Since I’m too lowbrow to appreciate this result of the subverting of the aesthetic, I invite you to comment if you’ve tried it.   It’s not terrible.  It’s more … pointless.  I can’t think why I’d put this on instead of … well, pretty much anything else I own.  I think I’ll dab on some vintage Cinnabar parfum and go downstairs and scare the children.  Cinnabar goes with sledding, yes?  I promise I’ll put my champagne flute down first!

March

For those of you in the know, Andy Tauer’s been busy doing his annual Advent Calendar Giveaway on his blog – each day he’s giving away samples of “Eau d´épices” (“experimental, fresh from the lab”) – plus maybe something else (teaser set, bottles, etc.) depending.  It’s also fun to look at the traffic feeds on the right.

Today, Friday the 18^th, the Posse is honored to host a giveaway here, which is simple: leave a comment below.  Every comment that shows up here before midnight tonight, Friday the 18th, will be eligible for a special draw, directly from Andy Tauer:

“a Thuja root box, with a full bottle of a fragrance from my line, free to choose, value of 130 $US, shipped from Zurich, at no cost to the winner.”  So, folks, you get to choose the fragrance.

Seriously, how great is that?  Here is a picture of the box I grabbed off his site, aren’t they gorgeous? (see below right)

Okay, so for the giveaway post today I was invited to blog on any topic, and I think the topic is clear – the awesome love we feel for indie perfumer Andy Tauer and his super-cool fragrances and various interesting fragrance experiments (like sending a traveling fragrance around the globe for review.) Also he makes incredible soap, which you didn’t hear from me.  Also his scents make me feel inappropriately cuddly, mushy sentiments toward him, a man I don’t even know, which I won’t be expressing because I don’t want to scare him off.

But you can do it!!!!  He’ll come by and read these comments, sneaky thing that he is.  Let’s share the Andy Tauer love – here’s your chance to write a comment telling Andy how much one of his scents means to you, a Tauer fragrance memory or moment from your life, which one is your favorite, or whatever. (All comments will be counted in the draw, whether or not you tell an Andy fragrance story.)

Clarifying/reiterating:  I’m not going to be responding to comments.  IF YOU COMMENT BELOW ON THIS POST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, FRIDAY 18 (notice the comments are timed and dated) YOU ARE IN THE DRAW. I WILL USE RANDOM.ORG TO PICK THE NUMBER, AND I’LL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER DEC. 19 and forward that contact info to Andy, so get it right.

Have at it.  Oh, and this is March posting.  I have it set to “guest poster” so the entries don’t flood my inbox!

*****

DEC. 18 UPDATE WITH THE WINNER: CONGRATULATIONS TARA C!!!  I’ve forwarded your contact info to Andy.

I’ve been staring at the sweaty armpit that’s on my finger for the last 30 minutes trying to figure out what the hell happened and will it ever turn into something besides a body builder’s hair armpit fresh from the gym and how did I miss seeing that.

Okay, Sven just backed up a little bit.  This from?  L’Artisan?  When I heard they were doing an oud, I sorta skipped over the “Duchafour is going to do it” part because, you know, it’s L’Artisan. I love a lot of their concoctions, but they tend not to ever get near the locker room.  Dzing may be elephant butts, but they’re like cartoon elephant butts that only seem like they smell bad, but only in that wierd squiggly line way in the word bubble by their heads. This in my head was going to be an oud that was more in the Candy Ass variety - â„¢ via March – like Micallefs, which I love, but really have no bite to them.  No way was I expecting a cumin-fest on the open.  And we can’t talk about what I went through image googling for sweaty armpit.  Who actually puts a picture of their butt with writing across it on the internet to be indexed by Google Images?

Let’s examine the evidence that Patty ignored about L’Artisan Al Oudh.  Notes are Cumin, cardamom, pink pepper, date, rose, neroli, incense, saffron, leather note, oud, Atlas cedar, castoreum, civet, sandalwood, patchouli, myrrh, vanilla and tonka bean.

This is a cumin factory Serge would be proud of.  Do I have anything else to say about it? Nope!  I have no idea if I like it or not.  Sweating Sven only backed away so I could breathe, but he’s still filling all my airspace with the results of his 20-mile run. At this point, I think it’s me.  My nose is getting some other notes, but I can’t even concentrate on them at all, and I’m going to just label it shock and take another stab at it another day.  I wish I were a little more coherent on this, but that’s all I’m getting.

Winners of the Teensy amouage Tribute Attar samples:  zeezee and Maha.  Just click on the contact us on the left, remind me what I’m sending you, and include your address!

Patty

Hello, darlings!   As you know, there are some fragrances of which one whiff is enough to make you want to vomit (EldO’s Secretions Magnifique springs immediately to mind.)  There are other fragrances that are, in some way, reminiscent of actual vomit.  (Oh, look, it must be March posting today…) For me, as many of you know, one such fragrance is the ubiquitous Angel, which is redolent of the smell of upchuck after your kid’s eaten a little too much of the Easter Basket.  I think that choco-vanilla-patch combo is one of the most disgusting smells ever concocted by a legit perfumer, and Angel’s vast popularity continues to baffle me.  (Angel lovers, don’t bother flaming me.  Look, I love Light Blue.  And Dior Addict.  Obviously I have no taste at all.)

Another category of sick-making fragrances is typified by the spice-market scents, and I happen to be quite fond of those.  Those of you who aren’t fond of them really, really hate them – they are, I suppose, The Souk Threw Up On Me.  Get Melissa started on Laura Mercier’s fall LE, Minuit Enchante, which she found anything but enchanting.  She couldn’t get that thing off her fast enough, although, unfortunately, Minuit Enchante isn’t in any hurry to leave.  It would be a fantastic/terrible scrubber.  I bought a bottle.  I looooove eeeeet.   I love that screechy agarwood at the bottom, and all those yummy spices at the top.  Everyone stayed far, far away from it at my perfume party.  Melissa probably begged them not to touch it.

Daphne, the new fragrance by Daphne Guinness (who I am pretty sure is an heir to the Guinness fortune, yes?) was done by Antoine Lie for Comme des Garcons. Notes are bitter orange, incense, saffron, Centifolia rose, Tunisian jasmine, tuberose, iris, patchouli, aoud, amber and vanilla.  It is decidedly in the spice-market category, where there is no such thing as Too Much (and correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s sort of the impression I get of ol’ Daphne.)  At $150 for 50 ml it is expensive-ish, but since you’re not talking about real money any more until you hit $250, I guess it’s not ridiculously priced.  Also, is it just me, or does reading someone described as a “muse” make your eyes roll back in your head reflexively?

Melissa gave me her sample vial, with her blessings and strict orders never to spray it anywhere near her again.

Two sprays of Daphne is probably one spray too much, this thing is huge.  And for the first thirty minutes, it’s nothing but love – it reminded me quite a bit of Bal a Versailles, the parfum, overlayed with something containing even more candied sweetness.  I thought it was kind of a riot, although – WARNING – then I went through a ten-minute phase in there of almost total anosmia, but it’s there, people!  Please, for the love of God and other humans, don’t reapply!  I was in touch with Daphne then, I was digging her, I was feeling her hippy-dippy Morocco vibe.  I was sort of channeling that other heiress who used to swan around Marrakesh all the time in her fabulous caftans … Talitha Getty?

And then things started to come apart, and then turn ugly, in a way that was fascinating but I can’t quite bear to repeat.  Daphne got bigger and bigger and bigger, like a Macy’s parade float, while at the same time it stretched and stretched until all the interesting bits – the candied part, the bitter orange, a great leather-glove note, the white florals that gave it some lift – fell away, and I was left being slowly strangled by this web of terrible, bedizened bitterness – saffrochouloud, I guess, all sour and raspy and hateful and strange. It was expensive and awful, like those evening dresses at Neiman Marcus that look like they’ve been attacked by a psychopath armed with a BeDazzler.  Daphne combines the subtlety of Liberace with the warmth of Darth Vader.  It is oversized and grim and have I mentioned bitter?

Which is weird, because I swear, hasn’t everyone been complaining about how the sweetness was killing them?  Like the unbearable gagging sweetness of those giant faux party-balloon dog sculptures by (crazy-like-a-fox) Jeff Koons?  Man, I hate those things.  And those sliced up cows and sharks in formaldehyde by that other wanker  – and good luck unloading those pieces of dreck in the current art market, suckas!  But where was I?  (Sorry, we switched over to the modern art screed channel briefly).

So.  Good news: I killed off all the sweetness in Daphne.  Bad news:  I was left with the blanket of bitter tears of saffron, patch and oud that forced me to come home, scrub my arms with Liquid Dawn and change my sweater while trying not to breathe through my nose.  After which I applied a healing, head-clearing balm of Annick Goutal Mandragore.  (And later: Gucci Rush, my adorable new mini!  It dribbles just the right amount, no overspray.  See, I told you I had no taste!)

Any of the rest of you tried this thing?  How do you feel about spice-heavy scents?  Isn’t Malle’s Noir Epices the most fabulous thing you ever smelled?  (hehehe)  Go ahead, ’tis the season, hate on it.   Or tell me your favorites, what if I’ve missed one?  I love DSH’s a lot, by the way — Cimabue, Mahjoun, Sienna…

image: Daphne Guinness, British Vogue, March 2008

March