Paris Sniffage

Excuse all typos, it’s late, I’ve had dinner/champagne/wine. While not anywhere near circling the intoxication drain, I’m just tired and very relaxed.

Probably one of the highlights of any trip to Paris is getting together with Denyse from Grain de Musc and just catching up with her and sniffing all the things she’s gotten her hands on that aren’t in stores yet.

So just to make sure I”m a complete Smell-tease.  Keep an eye out for a completely great Duchafour scent from L’Artisan in the late spring.  Can’t say anything beyond that, but it’s love for me that almost turned into undignified begging to get more.

Sniffed the new Parfumerie Generale.  It starts out as a very sharpish green scent that dries down to into a softening of its edges.  Denyse pegged it to Estee Lauder Private Collection-esque. I’d agree with that, but without all the really perfumey aspects you get with Lauder perfumes.

Vero Kern is also making EDPs of her three scents.  If you’ve ever smelled the Djedi-inspried Onda, you know it’s a parfum that you have to make a full day or two’s commitment to when you wear it.  I’m not sure the EDP of it requires much less of a commitment, but she changed it in some interesting ways that make it, for me, a lot more wearable.  I still would have to intentionally put it on and know we were going to be circling each other for 24-48 hours, but the new elements add a warmth to it.  Well, you’ll see. She did a similarly great job with Kiki and Rubj in the Edp. I don’t know what the price point will be ont hese, but they will be at Luckyscent for sure when they are ready, and the edp conversions should lower the pricing enough that y’all can Onda-up as you wish without losing the beautiful weirdness of all of her perfumes.

Lastly, but not leastly – Dior has added another to that line that we can’t seem to find anywhere except in Europe or the occasional Dior boutique or maybe Neiman-Marcus, and when you can, it’s in those monstrous bottles, Ambre Nuit. Notes are listed as bergamot, Turkish rose, cistus Labdanum, and oriental and amber accents.   This is all ambery incensey goodness, with some little spicy thing running around in the background.  It has the charm of that spice note in Iris Silver Mist, but the two scents are nothing alike.  Why are they calling it a cologne mystifies me.  Whatever bergamot you get on the open is quickly shoved aside by a much more interesting perfume.  Longevity –  I dabbed a spot on about 6 hours ago, and it is just humming along, mellowing out from a pretty vigorous amber perfume to this very muted, skin-hugging , velvety smooth, warm, rich concoction.  Now, word of warning, Denyse hated this, so there may be a chemical in there you could be sensitive too. I thought I might be sensitive to it as well, and on the open, it veered off into that alcohol area that warns me I’m not smelling something accurately, but then it pulled back and just went into gorgeous.

So why is it that that whole series that Dior does, Bois d’Argent, Eau Noire and Cologne Blanche (? is that it ?) are probably the best things they’ve done in years, and they seriously hide them. Not even an exclusivity thing, they just don’t distribute it, whereas you can smell every other non-original thing they’ve done in every shop up and down the Champs.  It remains a mystery to me.

Dear Dior, repackage these great scents you keep in the Dior Basement in cute packaging and roll them out in some exclusive way like Cartier and Van Cleef did, but add a couple of slightly more feminine scents to it.  Stop making Dior Forever and Ever, which is a perfectly nice scent, but is that really what you want people saying about your perfumes?  Nice, but dumb. And then go make me some more Diorling parfum in China or somewhere where they don’t care what you put in your perfumes.   xoxo – Patty

Here, you can write  quick  note to the perfume house that’s jumping up and down on your last nerve with some helpful advice in the comments.

Tomorrow (today) is my always wonderful lunch at the Musee D’Orsay, probably a trip to the Rodin museum, quick run by Colette, Bon Marche because, well, it always has to be done, and a nice dinner down the street.