I take it all back – the French are hateful.  They made me eat all sorts of things in Paris.  I was walking ten hours a day and I still managed to gain four pounds.  It was outrageous – when I wasn’t downing duck pate and crepes and wine by the carafe, I was following my Pastry Porn google map all over central Paris (Mulot, Herme, Fauchon, Aoki, Carton, Laduree, etc.).  This leads to soul-searching questions like: is this caramel éclair from Fauchon, which tastes very slightly of salt, really worth the $8 I just paid?  (Why, yes.  Yes, it is.)  I tried to restrain myself to just three desserts a day, plus all the regular eating.  The only really bad meal we had was the most expensive, at Alain Ducasse’s Aux Lyonnais.  Seemed like a combination of lack of managerial oversight and maybe a little cocaine problem, I can’t be sure.  Angie and I laughed our asses off – I can’t think of a more pathetic meal I’ve had – and as that was the low point of the trip, I’ve got no complaints.  A city in which every third store seems to be shoes, perfume or something fabulous to eat can’t be all bad.

A visit to the Mothership was required – the Guerlain mothership on the Champs-Elysees.  My First Time.  You know what?  It’s not even that the store is so gorgeous, which it is.  The service is perfect.  They’re all over the place — ready, willing and able to assist as necessary, but if you want to hang out in there for two hours and sniff on your own – well, go right ahead.  All I had to do when I had a question was look up and meet a pair of eyes.  And there are tester strips everywhere.  Knock yourself out.

(Note right here – my handwriting during this visit was terrible – must have been the sugar rush.  Apologies for French and other misspellings.)

Downstairs they were displaying the Eau de Shalimar Edition Charms, which according to the charming SA is basically Shalimar Light (EDT and EDP) in the cutest bottle.  For a Guerlain fangirl I’ve never been able to cozy up to Shalimar.  This Eau didn’t smell quite as lemon-Pledge as I remembered from my Light tester a year or two ago.  It’s not my favorite.  Shalimar is … well, it’s a thing, isn’t it?  I respect it, even if I don’t want it.  I don’t really see the point of Shalimar Light.  Also (quelle surprise!) the SA says that Idylle is the big seller among the younger gals who come in.

Browsing the men’s stuff (this was also true at Sephora) … honestly, why can’t every man around me be wearing Habit Rouge (that leather bottle!), one of the colognes, or L’Instant Pour Homme?  Can I just whine for two seconds about the heinous tragedy that is the lack of attention paid to L’Instant Pour Homme, a stunningly attractive anisic-spicy thing which I think gets ignored because it’s tainted by the L’Instant name?  Wah wah wah.  Or …. let’s get everyone to wear Derby!!!  Mmmmm.

Giggled at the Elixirs Charnels – example: Boise Torride – a sexy perfume for a subtly androgynous woman. Uh … ooookay.   Also, memo to design/production – those super-tall bottles with the atomizers?  Suck.  The atomizers are fussy, they break, and they don’t form a tight seal, letting air into the bottles and contributing to evaporation and spoilage.  Other than that, they’re great.

It was fun trying so many of the scents in extrait, and I did a browse (they’re arranged quasi-chronologically?) of some of the less-loved and less known among perfumistas.  Champs-Elysees, not so much, but I kind of warmed up to Jardins de Bagatelle, a big, heady 80′s style aldehydic floral.  Also, what is wrong with me that I have never paid any attention to Chamade?  It must be the green bit at the top that first put me off, but the spicy drydown is glorious.  No, don’t tell me about the rose in there, la la la I can’t hear you.

They also had a special display for the new Aqua Allegoria Flora Nymphea – that was interesting.  (I’m not wild about the bottle re-dos.)  The set right now also includes Mandarine Basilic and the hilariously named and delicious Herba Fresca, and two others.  Nymphea seems like a departure for that particular line – it´s a more complex, orchestrated scent than what I think of for the AAs, which is often built around simple two-note compositions.  The longer I smelled it (a floral-y musk?  Musky floral?) the more I thought of Idylle.  It’s kind of Idylle Fleur d’Ete.  Since I bought a bottle of Idylle, that’s not a huge criticism, but it doesn’t have the often herbaceous/citrus crispness I’ve come to expect from the AAs.

They have four candles for 50 euro each.  Tahitian (tropical), and Indes (sandalwood) weren’t especially interesting.  However, Hiver en Russie was stunning – “hot tea from a samovar blends with the scent of wax.”  Also, myrrh and incense.  I’ll take one of those, please.  Boudoir Venetien was makeup, rice powder, silk and flowers – a bit like Annick Goutal’s Le Sac de Ma Mere, only where the AG is homey and nostalgic and comforting, Boudoir is bigger somehow – an expanse of old room with wood and peeling paint and grandeur.

I smelled Eau de Lit, their “glove, hankie and bedsheet” spray, which I of course sprayed on my skin, and nothing swelled up or dropped off.  (Also, I think this was originally marketed as a regular EDT?) It got me thinking.   I’d smelled Serge Lutens’ new Eau several times by then – it’s all over Paris – in an attempt to understand what the heck the man was after with that one.  And I guess I do understand – he was aiming for the smell of fresh ironing, a really clean, non-perfumey smell that wasn’t a cologne.  It smells vaguely like a Laundromat to me.  I can’t help but wonder whether it’s because I’m an American – and thus bathed relentlessly, every day, in every public venue, with “clean laundry” smells – those white musk and supermarket-soap-aisle aromas.  Yes, Serge’s Eau is probably the quietest, classiest, most elegant Laundromat I’ve ever been in, but I still don’t want to wear it.  I’d take Eau de Lit instead, thanks very much.  I still have the feather (!) I sprayed in the store.  It conjures up both a very clean linen closet and a sense of air – as if the sheets had been hung out to line-dry in the sun instead of starched and ironed?  Extremely subtle and very pretty, 125ml for 62 euros. (Nose: Francis Kurkdjian, aka Mr. Clean Laundry, notes of coriander, vanilla, star anise, sage, neroli, bergamot and white musk.)

And then, of course, before I left, was the question – what to soak myself in?  A difficult choice.  Liu?  Vol de Nuit?  Vega?  In the end I went with Sous le Vent in all its herbal-chypre glory.  And then I headed off to Fauchon for that salted-caramel éclair.

PS.  Here’s a link to Angela’s last post on our trip, which also contains links to her previous Paris posts.  Say that three times fast.

March

The absolutely lovely, generous, sweet, talented Andy Tauer, in conjunction with Franco at Luckyscent wants one of you to have a bottle of his newest perfume creation, Orange Star.  Just one of you, don’t hyperventilate yet.

Let’s go to the marketing materials:

A rich citrus fragrance with a clean orange flower in its heart. The natural essential oils of clementine and red mandarine render the fragrance all fresh and natural, and add to the unique vitality of the head notes. The citrus notes give room to lemongrass essential oil: With its unique hesperidic earthiness it bridges to the heart of the fragrance. There, a clean orange flower chord is central, with a hint of translucent violet flowers that support the vibrant and elegant heart notes.  The base of the fragrance mirrors the vibrancy and clean lightness of the heart. The body of the fragrance is centered on elegant ambergris, with a hint of soft woods. It plays with a fine vanilla line, a hint of patchouli and is enriched with a drop of a natural resin from cistus, known as Ambreine.

This is one of those days when I’m super-irritated that we can’t get images to upload (BTW, we are going to switch hosts since they can’t/won’t fix this for us) because the picture of the new bottle design is so gorgeous. Cobalt blue, angular, really fetching.  I’m loving the change.  Any Tauer fragrance is worth sniffing, but this sounds so great, especially heading into spring/summer.  I don’t have any to sniff yet (cries!!!), but you know as soon as I do, y’all will hear about it.

The official launch for Orange Star is at Luckyscent Scent Bar in Los Angeles on April 17 from 1-4 p.m.  If you are anywhere near this, just go.  Any event at the Scent Bar is worth going to, and I’m still waiting to meet Andy one day, so you’ll have my envy for that as well.

Samples and pre-orders for bottles will begin sometime before May 1, 2010 at Luckyscent.

Now, how do we pick a winner?  Normally we just do a random number generator and then count down comments to find that number.  I’ll do the same thing this time, but tell me about your favorite Tauer or if you’ve been so unlucky not to have tried one yet.  Seriously, I am so jealous that one of you is going to win a full bottle of this!

Patty

This was, I think, my fifth trip to Paris.  I was in eighth grade the first time I went, one of the many kids from our middle school’s French and Spanish classes (I was taking Spanish) slogging through those two countries over spring break.  What I remember of that trip: four francs to a dollar, more or less; the crepes (and the fact that they hurled your change at you); and that I could get served alcohol at a bar, so I spent evenings consuming things like White Russians and Grasshoppers and then throwing them up later, thereby giving me a lifelong aversion to nasty, sweet liqueur drinks.  I also remember our group tour going to a generally off-limits part of Notre Dame cathedral where if you stepped another fifteen feet the wrong direction you’d fall several stories to the ground — no guardrail.  My interpretation was that the French assumed that if you were stupid enough to walk over there, well … (insert Gallic shrug here.)  I didn’t disapprove.  I wonder if you can go up there now.

I am no faux Parisienne, no Francophile.  I don’t know what it is that has brought me back again and again to this city.  It is familiar (the Metro, the Left Bank, the walk along the Seine, the Palais Royal and the Luxembourg gardens, etc.) and yet pleasingly foreign.  I have just enough extremely basic French that I can get by and not offend (e.g., bonjour, excuse me please sir/madam/miss, thank you, pardon, yes, good-bye) but I don’t speak French, and so I can tune out most of the spoken language around me.  I can wangle a pastry any time I want to, but otherwise I can disengage and wander.  I am happy in Paris.  Ten days in Paris was just the ticket.  In case you are wondering.  In case I freaked you out a little with my Snowmageddon/drinking/I-need-a-vacation post, about which I am a little … embarrassed.  But hey — this blog is part social experiment for me, as you surely know.

A commenter on Angela’s first post about our Paris trip on Now Smell This was amused by the adorably wide-eyed enthusiasm of Americans abroad, and — hey, I’ve had worse truths said about me.   I did not detect any massive offense or disdain by the French at my obvious delight, or at my expressions of appreciation for what I have been served or shown or told.  In fact, I would say that overall the French people I met in Paris have been nothing but helpful and accommodating, and appreciative of my basic (if amusing) efforts to learn and use new words and admire my surroundings, whatever they were at the moment – from the man selling the artisanal honeys to the beauty of the overblown roses spilling their petals on the zinc tabletop one rainy morning.

My next few posts will probably be Paris posts, and each post should have a specific perfume section.  As I didn’t blog from Paris (or even take a computer) I’d rather organize my thoughts this way than one huge, sequential laundry list of here’s-what-I-smelled.  If the personal bits bore you, you should be able to scan until you get to the perfume bits.  Bon appetit.

I got to smell the two new Prada Infusion scents – Tubereuse (which was on the ladies’ side of Sephora) and Vetiver, which was on the men’s, although certainly I wouldn’t let that hold you back.

The first of the series, Prada Infusion d’Iris, was a scent that grew on me over quite a long time, probably more than a year, as I came to appreciate its subtlety and its surprising longevity.  (Prada Infusion d’Homme is so similar to the original Infusion d’Iris to my nose that I am missing its point, but it’s supposed to be a tad more woods/incense.  My personal theory is that the marketing machine was worried that a man wouldn’t buy a scent with “Iris” in its name, no matter how unisex it looked and smelled.)

Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger was (literally) a bitter disappointment – I love orange scents, whether they’re blossom or fruit, and Oranger is a strangely sharp, sour soapy, unpleasant little thing on me.  I also think it was supposed to be a limited edition, which was just fine by me, and I don’t see it on the shelves much over here, but it was all over Paris.   While I’m blathering, their L’Eau Ambree from last fall, in the short, rectangular, original Prada bottle, is so sheer it would fit nicely into this line.

I tried the Prada Infusion de Tubereuse first (twice, actually, because I had trouble getting my hands on a Vetiver tester.)  I wish our image function were working on here, but you can google them – it’s the standard Infusion bottle, but it’s got a little abstract decorative detail down the side – pink and gray for Tuberose, green and gray for Vetiver – with matching caps and a little dangling silver tag, and I think they’re really nicely done – a little more playful then the original bottle, maybe, but still restrained and chic.

And that, unfortunately, is the nicest thing I can think of to say about Infusion de Tubereuse. Given the concept, I was prepared for sheer and subtle.  But I wasn’t expecting anything quite so … generic.  It could be almost any vague combination of florals – not too sweet, not fruity, not interesting.  I got the same impression on my skin as I did on the paper strip, so out of curiosity I soaked the sleeve of my wool coat with it – four healthy sprays – and after an hour it was essentially gone.  The notes I have are tuberose, petitgrain and blood orange, and I’ll take their word for it.   Other than “floral” with some citrus I wouldn’t have had a clue – not even “white flowers.”   Folks who don’t care much for Infusion d’Iris would probably shrug their shoulders and say, well, what do you expect? But if you can smell it, the original Infusion d’Iris is a great addition to a fragrance wardrobe, and I don’t have anything else quite like it.  Tubereuse I’ll be taking a pass on.

And so it was with a heavy heart that I sprayed on Vetiver (it took me visits to two Sephoras and a Marionnaud to find a tester) and … well … honestly?

It was great.

Now, before you start drooling on your keyboard, let’s have a reality check – Onda this is not.  It’s one of the Infusions, yes?  And so it has a similar lightness, and if you’re underwhelmed by Infusion d’Iris, maybe you’d feel the same about this.  Notes are vetiver, tarragon, Madagascan pepper and purple ginger, and that sums it up nicely.

I put on Givenchy Vetyver from Les Mythiques on the other hand, and the contrast was interesting.  The Givenchy is at once rootier and more elegant; it smells like, well, Givenchy – a dressier fragrance calling for a nice, starched shirt.  The Prada Vetiver reminds me a bit of that Lubin Vetiver reissue which I was wild for and which I wish I still had a sample of – it’s cheerful and peppery and citrusy and a bit effervescent, that gin cocktail effect, although remember we are talking subtle.   The vetiver stays green, sheer and cologne-like, designed to refresh rather than to challenge (although there’s nothing “fresh” or watery in the scent.)   And for those in on the joke, the punchline is much like the Prada Infusion d’Iris — it is extraordinarily tenacious. While Givenchy Vetyver, ever the gentleman, departed after several hours, the Prada joined me in the shower, lasted through several handwashings, spent the night, and was still there in the morning, all smiles.  I had no objection whatsoever.  If you like your vetiver on the light side, and/or you were remotely charmed by any of the others in this series, you might want to give this one a whirl.

Special thanks to my partners in crime, Louise and Angela from Now Smell This, with whom I shared an apartment on the Blvd. Montparnasse (a view of the Eiffel Tower!), some amazing meals, excellent walks, vulgar jokes, and quite a few belly laughs.  Also thanks to Ange for graciously allowing us to use her laptop to check our emails when we discovered a dearth of internet cafes in our area (WiFi and smaller, cheaper laptops are taking their toll, even in the student neighborhoods.)   Finally, ladies – I blame both of you for the necklace you forced me to buy, which has already garnered compliments.  Let’s do it again, maybe in Portland this summer…

March

On still days the garden, until recently, was near overwhelmed by the beautifully clean white floral aroma of Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’. Defoliated in our unusually cold winter, its flowers arrived later than usual, but with their always unsettling purity and sweetness.

This scent has now been replaced by the headier and brasher hyacinth overload – those ugly bottlebrush flowers pump it out. With hyacinths, you have to tolerate their ungainliness by either opting for the pure white, or go full on with total saturation of colour, such as the beetroot purple ‘Woodstock’ that I grow.

Though I love the scents of winter – the honeysuckle, Christmas box, lily of the valley wonder of Mahonia – it’s spring that really brings the outdoors perfumed world alive for me. Last May, in Scotland, Matt and I were constantly laughing at the surprising juxtaposition of wild garlic and bluebells in the woods where we were staying. A contrast between savoury acridity and pure spring light. Quite wondrous.

And still to come: the rich warmth of wallflowers and sweet williams, the most scented of tulips (yes, some are quite scented) ‘Ballerina’, pheasant’s eye narcissus, the roses, the lilies, Hemerocallis lilioapshodelus and ‘Marion Vaughan’, sweet rocket, the cistus on warm days, its resinous dirty intensity stopping me in my tracks, honeysuckles, the cherry pie of heliotropes, the Sambac jasmine making the greenhouse almost too petroleum floral for delicate sensibilities, phloxes, nicotiana, night-scented stocks, the honey sweetness of the alliums, the palate cleanser of the lemon verbena, the salvias ranging from tom cat spray (nice!) to blackcurrant. And more, more, more. There’s never quite enough.

There’s plenty I’d grow in addition had I the right soil or conditions. Top of the list would be Rhododendron ‘Fragrantissimum’, the Katsura tree for its comedy effect candy floss and apple wonder in Autumn, wisteria (I could grow this over the front of the house – and it is about time I reworked the front garden…), green coconut scented gorse, clove tinged carnations, custard-fuelled Azara microphylla. I’d also opt for the ladies of the night, had I but heat enough – the gardenias, tuberoses (never seem to last from one year to the next – viruses I think), plumerias and stephanotis. All together, they could overwhelm a sentient being, and I think that’s exactly what I’d like.

Tell me the scents you have in your garden, or on your balcony, or in your living space. And what you’d supplement this with, if only time and conditions allowed.

Lee

Because of course you guys get tired of perfume, right?  Well, yeah, I know, you don’t, but every now and then you run across a that is perfect and you need to share.

Trying to get lipstick shades to show up as the color they are is terrible work.  I bitch constantly about having to figure out what color a lipsitck is from a swatch on Bergdorf’s site.  I’ll be nicer because I can see why it’s so tricky.

The lipstick on the bottom, the pinkish coral, is the one I’m deeply in love with – Kanebo Sensai The Lipstick in 07 Sekuchiku.  It goes on perfect and amazing. Creamy, long-lasting, great color coverage, but feels like you have nothing on but a light creamy balm.  I need more of these in other colors, but how can I choose more without seeing them in person?  Ack!  I got lucky with this one because I read a couple of reviews that told me this was coralish, and coral is a color that always works on me.

The other two, one up from the Sensai is the new Chanel Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle.  This one apparently is quite sold out. I found one on Ebay.  Vanessa Paradies models this in the ads, and it is a perfect neutral. I really do love the consistency and colors in the new Chanels, but Chanels always feel just a bit stiffish and standoffish.  I’ve learned to be okay with that, but I far prefer the Sensai for just easy to wear and not having to think that it may be running around my mouth where I don’t want it to be.  The one on top is also the Chanel, but in Gabrielle, a gorgeous cool red.

I did dabble in one scent today that I missed last year, Etat Libre d’Orange’s Fat Electrician.  Yeah, I know, Plumber Butt isn’t something I want to be thinking about when I splash on perfume, but with notes of vetiver, vanilla bean, opoponax and myrrh, I was pretty sure I couldn’t go wrong when I frittered away the sample with abandon on me.  And I was right.  Incensy and comforting, not what I ever think of when I think of Fat Electricians.  Usually I feel more like hiding my wallet because it’s going to cost me thousands.  That could be because I have to replace my AC this month for several thousand dollars, but it’s not a fat electrician that’s doing it, it’s a fairly cute one. Maybe I can get him to wear this around while he’s racking up those fees and that will make me feel better?

So spring lipstick season, have you found a new love, tried any of the other colors of Chanel?  Mostly I need more colors of Sensai that you think would work with my skin tones.  I’m ruddy’ish in skin, pale, though, right now I’m in a red phase in my hair color, though it will likely wind up blond before the summer fully hits.

Patty