Oops, sorry, my vacation time ran a bit over and left no time to put a post together.

To make up for it, I’ll give away to four commenters a sample of the new L’Artisan Nuit de Tuberose that just came out (and that I’m wearing and loving beyond belief).

You can just say hi in comments to be entered, or let us know what you think of the new L’Artisan if you’ve sniffed it already or if you think you’ll ike it based on notes.

Patty

It’s Memorial Day weekend here and between today’s event at Art With Flowers (familiar and new faces there from the blog, so much fun!) and also Diva’s 16^th birthday today, and her party, and All That Entailed, including brunch for her and her friends and a shopping trip… I’m a bit tired.  But I smell amazing, if I do say so myself.  (Keiko Mecheri Paname on left arm, L’Artisan Nuit de Tubereuse on right arm, vintage Diorissimo EDT on back of right hand.)

This weekend my nephew, whom we all love very much, came home to us Saturday from his tour of duty in Afghanistan, and we are grateful to have him back, in a way I can’t put into words on here right now.  I’m grateful for all my family, from Hecate and Buckethead on up to my dad, who’ll be turning 88 in a couple of weeks.

When I was growing up, on Memorial Day we’d drive around the cemetery next door (as I’ve mentioned, it’s a literal stone’s throw from dad’s house) and put flowers on the graves of my mother’s family.  I never knew any of her people, but it always felt special and even a bit magical – our childhood wonderland/playground infused with a sense of mystery and responsibility.  In my memories, the sky was unfailingly blue.  My sister and I toted the water buckets from the pumps to fill up the flower vases.   My mom is right there in a shady part of the cemetery under a big old oak tree, next to her folks.   Some years the flowers were bought, and other years they’ve been cut from the huge wild rose bush that still grows next to the gravel driveway, with its prickly stems and fragrant open-faced white blooms that tend to open just in time for this weekend.  I have a cutting from that bush, which is growing like mad in my own back yard.

For me, cemeteries are for the living.  I’m glad I have a place to go and say hi, to sit on the grass and think, to pay my respects to ancestors I never met.   I also try, every day, to remember look up from the daily distractions and think of that cloudless sky, and to open my arms and my heart, even if it’s only a little (and sometimes that’s all I can manage) to those around me who are still here to be loved.   Right this second it’s those twins, who are giggling in their room way past their bedtime and arguing over which night light to use.  Everyone’s a little caked up (sugar!) and sunburned (pool!)   On another night I’d be cross and fuss at them.  But I’m going to go give them another hush, and then step outside and say hi to the fireflies.  It’s sultry out there, my favorite kind of summer evening.

PS  — I went into American Apparel at the mall for the first time in my life, with the teenagers, and up on the checkout counters they have some very cool nail polish colors — the bottles look sort of like the StrangeBeautiful ones.   They are all matte (I think), I didn’t have time to fully investigate.   I have no idea how they wear, but they’re 3 for $15.

March

First things first – LindaB, Zazie and Daniele are the winners of the Bois Naufrage samples, as selected by random.org.

The delightful Andreas of Humiecki and Graef sent me a sample of all the H&G scents to try, including the two latest, Clemency and Bosque. This review’ll be about Bosque, with a word or two about Clemency on the side. But first, the preamble.

Like most of you reading this, I’m a perfume freak, but also a little jaded. Humiecki and Graef’s schtick did little to win me over. Slavic tears, referencing to the horrors of war – it just didn’t work for me. More suited to Now Smell This’s Prix Eau Faux than reality, it somehow conjured up new levels of absurdity – star shaped perfume structure, scents for older women with young male lovers, a bald-bodied but bearded man holding a vase. Perhaps it was and is genuinely felt and genuinely meant, but in a saturated marketplace, any authenticity looks suspect. However, I enjoyed their first release Skarb, supposedly about melancholy, but to my mind about the world where celery meets immortelle and breeds lovage. The herb. Not some strange neologism (I’m gonna have some o’ dat loveage, baybee). I hated Askew (it certainly made me feel passionate) and Multiple Rouge (alien fruit and raspy musk and loudness in combo don’t make my heart skip a beat) but thought Geste was beautiful (dirty/clean musks and powdery violets). Eau Radieuse, though too metallic for me, does interesting things with that whole men’s cologne vibe, changing its direction to something, well, askew.

So what about Bosque? Here’s H&G’s details:

BOSQUE
A fragrance about contentment
The HUMIECKI & GRAEF brand is pleased to announce the addition of
another new fragrance to the line, the seventh eau de toilette concentrée:
BOSQUE – a fragrance about contentment. The scent describes the feeling of
being fully at one with the moment, immersed in all-encompassing relaxation.
“Arrival”. Being at one. To give yourself over in ecstatic abandon to the one
whose boundless intimacy you pine for. BOSQUE is inspired by this singular
blissful moment of profound satisfaction. It is the sense of togetherness and
deeply experienced intimacy revealed in the primal authenticity of this
moment. BOSQUE, Spanish for bosk – a copse or grove – represents this
feeling. Since ancient times the bosk, as a sacred grove, has been considered a
place of peace and happiness and a sanctuary of the Gods.
BOSQUE speaks of a modern form of quiet sensuality. It is not showy yet can
be provocative due to its natural quality and physicality. It is joyous and
relaxed without ever being overtly salacious or one-dimensional.
LES CHRISTOPHS (Christophe Laudamiel & Christoph Hornetz) are the master
perfumers who developed this intimate fragrance. Primrose notes symbolize
both contentment and new beginnings – their softness together with Narcise
Absolute (narcissus poeticus) creates a subtle floral scent. The unusual
combination of buffalo grass and musk notes is reminiscent of the smell of
warm skin. Grapefruit, vetiver and saffron notes complete the sensual
experience, conjuring the palette of glowing, warm yellow tones that give
BOSQUE its radiant grace.
As with all HUMIECKI & GRAEF creations BOSQUE is a fragrance for both
women and men. It is available worldwide from March 2010 at selected
perfumeries and concept stores.

I don’t know about the sanctuary of the Gods, ( the Pan in the picture is certainly a contrast to the alabaster maiden, even if I think he’d be more at home in a Berlin ‘special interest’ bar with a name like ‘Sanctuary’,  than a woman’s arms…And what is he holding onto?), but there is something weirdly comforting about this odd little scent.

The great thing – it smells like nothing else on the market. As far as I know. Actually, the grapefruit, vetiver, saffron thing is a totally accurate set of notes for my initial impression. And mine was ‘saffron custard poured onto a lawn. Someone’s eating grapefruit and watching’. There’s a touch of Angostura bitters added to the mix to make it both gourmand and slightly toxic, in that adult-only comfort sense. It’s closest corollary is probably Bois Farine, but that smells much more foody, and seems almost normal compared to this hairy and smooth wonder. It’s soft – maybe that is the primrose, but for someone who has them as a weed in his garden, I don’t recall the smell. And the narcissus kick gives it that slightly off quality that you get in Fleur de Narcisse – as though you went for floral but ended up somewhere oh so much stranger. Narcissus poeticus – and here I do know as they’ve just finished flowering – is the last narcissus of them all to bloom, with the tulips and even the alliums, and whilst they have a rich floral, some would say classic old lady scent, there’s a whole lot of nasty going on there too. In fact, I picked a bunch for the house, went out for a couple of hours and thought I’d brought dog doodoo back in with me. It was the feral skank lurking underneath all that pretty pretty.

There’s a hint of the beast here, but only a little. Occasionally, I think I get a whiff of something generic men’s cologney, along the lines of dihydromyrcenol (sp?) or somesuch. And then it leaves. It might be the saffronish aromachemicals  playing metallic games with me. Or perhaps indeed there is a spermy something lurking deep at this scent’s heart.

But most of the time this is a softly spoken, quirky but cuddlesome geek of a perfume. Loveable, leftfield, and the most curious fragrance I’ve smelled this year. Its relaunched my love affair with scent. And I’ve run out of the sample. Which means something. It’s on my ‘might buy’ list, alongside plenty of others. Only one of which will be selected, though.

With this and Clemency, a slightly austere linden blossom-cassie-rose number that is striking with all the right angles, I’ll forgive Humiecki and Graef nearly all their purple prose.

Both Clemency and Bosque seem to be unavailable in the UK and US right now. My samples were scent via Aroma Company in Germany, and First in Fragrance also stock the whole range, and ship worldwide, both samples and bottles.

Which perfume house can you forgive? And which ones still fail to win you over with their sales patter? Please post – I might not be able to answer for a while as I have a day of meetings follwed by a five hour drive home… Sheesh. I need more Bosque!

Lee

As I’m sitting here sipping my newfound drink love, Kir Royale, I started thinking about what raspberry perfumes there were out there and came up pretty blank.  Are there any, I wondered?  And I thought I’d ask all of you because I know you guys know everything.

Before we go on, we have some winners.

Winners of the Iris Gris recreation samples – Mary, Denyse (she has the original in some quantity!), lilybug and Mariekel. Just click on the Contact us over there on the left and shoot me your address, and I’ll send you a sample.  I do want your thoughts after you’ve smelled it.  I’m most anxious to hear from those of you that have smelled the original.  I don’t find it the same, but I do find it really lovely, just didn’t have any of the original left to put on skin to get a better comparison or what was different.

Winners of the Soivohle Lilacs & Heliotrope samples:  Adrianna, Bunny and Beth. Same thing, click on the Contact us on the left, remind me what you’ve won (since we have more than one thing here), give me your address, and I’ll send you a sample!

Where were we? Oh, yeah, summer drinks and raspberries and smells, which is timely since we are one day away from the beginning of the summer season, which for me officially begins on Memorial Day.  Memorial Day, as all of you who have hung around here for a while know, consists of me and my mom and whoever else is around trolling through three cemeteries, visiting the graves of dead relatives, putting out flowers, usuallly in the rain or wind or muddy country roads or all of the above.  It’s a tradition that I love, it’s a day out of the year that I spend remembering and talking to all my dead people.  My mom worries about who will do this once she is gone. Well, mom, seriously, me and my sister, of course.  But one day those graves will no longer be remembered or visited by anyone, forgotten as so many others are in those cemeteries, with no descendants nearby who can visit or want to.  That should make me sad, but it doesn’t, it just seems right somehow that we all fade into time.

There will be beer and Kir Royale and ribs and bierocks, fresh-cut grass, the morning after a Kansas thunderstorm.  We’ll likely have to take shelter once during the weekend from a potential tornado.  And berries. In my drink, in my mouth, in bowls to pluck out as you pass by.  Perfumes keep using that berry scent in there, but it’s never right. It’s too sweet, too overdone.

What perfume would I pair with my Kir Royale for my summer? I think either Le Labo Aldehyde or MDCI Peche Cardinal.  Not for the raspberry, but for the bubbly parts, though the Peche is a little tart.

Let me wish all of you a wonderful Holiday weekend (if you are outside of the U.S., just celebrate it anyway) and a great summer season.

Patty

1) For unknown reasons, the comment notifys that come to my email inbox when you comment are a little spotty, so apologies if I missed you.  While we’re on the subject, I’m slamming through a couple of work-related things right now.  If you’ve emailed me, and you don’t hear back, just email me again.  Even during the best of times I lose track of emails – ask any of my friends who’ve been annoyed by this.  I am excellent at some things, and email correspondence is just not one of them.   I admit my failing and ask only that you not take it personally.  Please.  Nag me.  I will answer.

2) Art With Flowers at Tysons II in VA is having a perfume shindig on Sunday, for those of you in the DC area who’ll be in town, looking for something to do.  It’s from 12 – 6, the guest is Keiko Mecheri, and I haven’t gotten my invite postcard yet but Bill who runs the store says there will be tons of samples, goodies, they’re getting in the new (export?) Serges MKK and Borneo, and I think he said the new L’Artisan Tubereuse, but don’t hold me to that one.  I’m probably going to be there mid-afternoon.  If you haven’t visited and you’re looking to try some niche product and meet some new people – well, here’s your opportunity.  They’re tucked away on the top floor of Tysons II (the fancy one with Neiman Marcus and Saks) down at the Macy’s end.  Their phone number is (703) 903-6837.

3) So, thanks everyone for your words of support and encouragement on Monday – it sounds like I’m not the only one feeling a little burnout and wanting to spend some more time with some of the beautiful scents I already own — hence the title of this post.  I’ve been playing over the past month with a cluster of scents with some overlapping characteristics, but that post hasn’t quite come together.  So today I’m heeding my own advice and blogging on just one of them, a quirky, gorgeous thing  – Parfums de Nicolai Maharanih.

My guess is for every dollar PdN spends on perfume production, 97 cents goes into the juice and three cents goes toward the packaging.  I am all for substance over style, don’t get me wrong; but their cheesy bottles and boxes make me laugh.  They look like cheap dupes, even though you’re buying it from their store.  I wish their line were carried somewhere – anywhere – so that more people could know and love it.  The only place I have ever seen the line in a store in the U.S. is at the wonderful Clyde Chemists on the Upper East Side (Madison and 74^th?) and I have no idea whether they’re still there.  Finally, I love that PdN makes 30 ml bottles (carried at LuckyScent and Beautyhabit) that are quite reasonably priced.

I have been trying and trying and trying (and failing) to fall in love with PdN’s Sacrebleu, which by any and all measures I should love.  It has the perfect notes (blackcurrant bud, mandarin, peach blossom, jasmine, carnation, cinnamon, clove, tuberose, vanilla, tonka bean, sandalwood, incense) and it’s a riff on/homage to Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue, which I love love love.  Furthermore, Patricia de Nicolai is the granddaughter of Pierre Guerlain and was trained by Jean-Paul Guerlain, so it’s destiny between me and the line, right?  So what is my problem with Sacrebleu?  I don’t know.  I love the first 90 seconds of huge green and fruits, and that amazing tonka/incense drydown after five hours, but the middle part is … flat?  Too flat on me.  I’m not giving up, though.

Maharanih, on the other hand, makes me smile every time I put it on.  It’s got that peculiar, tart-candied top note that I think of as very PdN – like the orange smell of St. Joseph baby aspirin, only this aspirin is being handed to you by angels in heaven while the harps play.  I mean, it’s so beautiful it’s ridiculous, but in this unabashed, cheerful way. Coming out of that funky little bottle with a label that looks like my 7-year-old glued it on?  Man, talk about hiding your light under a bushel basket.  The notes are sweet orange, bitter orange zest, rose oil, carnation, cinnamon, patchouli absolute, sandalwood, synthetic civet.

With the orange orange ORANGE (baby aspirin), which is perfect because it’s sweet but also sour, comes the rose and the spices, and that would all be too sweet and cloying except through some perfumer’s sleight of hand that I do not understand one bit it’s not – it dances up off my hand and over my head like a kite in the sky, pulling me along cheerfully behind it.   I’m careful with the atomizer because at least on me a little of this goes a very, very long way, and I’ve learned not to apply it right before I’m sharing an enclosed space (like a car) with someone who’s not wild about perfume.  It’s much rose-ier on my daughter’s skin, but I can smell the rose too, and this would be one of a tiny handful of fragrances with prominent rose that doesn’t trouble me, mostly because the rose is being kept firmly in check, perhaps even throttled, by that orange orange ORANGE.  Did I mention orange?  Oh.  Also I should probably mention the dirty knickers.  I always thought it was the indoles in the orange, maybe with the spice of the rose, but our friend the civet is lurking there in the orangerie, lending a hint of delightful reek that keeps this angelic fragrance grounded on terra firma.  This is girly, but not innocent.  It’s for big girls, pinup girls, saucy, naughty girls and – in my opinion – for those boys who are man enough to wear Fracas.

sample source: my own bottle

March