Few notes capture spring as brightly and beautifully as lilacs. I have three lilac bushes around the front of my house that I’ve been nurturing for years, and they are surrounded by those monstrously big old-fashioned iris.

Lilacs have that sweet scent that borders on candy, but never quite goes there.  But it is one of the most beautiful, completely floral girly scents that I can think of.  Roses are more mature, more laid back, reserved.  Lilacs just don’t care how big and sweet they smell, they are unflappable in insisting on smelling great and looking cheerful.  And there’s no hint of smut laying behind their little blooms.

Liz Zorn tackled Lilac in two perfumes, not sure how new they are, Lilacs & Heliotrope and  Lilacs & Rose. I like them both, but between the two, the Lilacs & Heliotrope has my heart. Where the natural lilac doesn’t quite turn to candy, the heliotrope pushes it over into gourmandy territory without it feeling like candy.  From Liz’s website:

“A formidable pairing of lush iconic florals, opening with the green tinged freshness of lilacs in full bloom, settling to a rich heart of white and purple lilac, a touch of orchid, and the slightest hint of rose melding into the heliotrope, with a base of mosses, soft musk and benzoin.”

Fully lush, with an unbelievable softness, this is one of the most purely beautiful florals I can remember smelling.  If you’re not a big floral person, don’t bother, but if you enjoy a really beautifully crafted floral perfume, you do need to try this.  It’s absolutely perfect for spring, summer, and the heliotrope will take through the rest of the year.

I did get this large sample in an order I placed with Soivohle, and I’m going to happily give away some of it.  Just drop a comment to be entered. I’ll pick three winner for a sample.  If you want, you can tell me what perfume that is a straight-up floral that you like the most.  If you hate florals, well, you can tell me which one you hate the most.

Patty

Quite some time ago, Angie did a wonderful post on Now Smell This on becoming a perfumista – from Stage One (strong interest) to Stage Four – connoisseurship.  I think NST’s Robin later added a quasi-joking stage five along the lines of ennui.  Maybe defeat is the final stage for me.  Many of us have talked in various forums about burnout, both from the sheer number of new releases and, often, their lack of anything interesting to add to the perfume dialogue.

I’ll be honest.  I’m tired of sniffing new product.  All too often it’s a fruitchouli or insipid musk or another gourmand or – in the case of that Chanel Chance Eau Tendre I just gave away unopened – it’s reduced to the sophistication level of a body-care product.  I bet Coco’s spinning in her grave.  Even Guerlain has worn out its welcome with the new releases.  And when niche lines I’ve never heard of beforehand are releasing five or ten scents at once for their debut, I want to grab them by the lapels, gaze deep into their eyes, and say, How about just one?  Or maybe two or three? Faced with all that, I’d rather go dig up my vintage Mitsouko.

There are releases I seek out  – from Serge Lutens, say, or L’Artisan – because the chances are relatively good I won’t be bored.   But more and more, I want to play with what I own.  After years of steady, intense pursuit of perfume the way an obsessed person pursues an evasive lover, I have amassed quite a collection.  Not a huge collection by the standards of some, but more perfume than I will wear in this lifetime.  And in that collection are fragrances that are, for me, the most beautiful scents on earth.  Increasingly, I’d rather spend the day wafting an old favorite than trying the new Tom Ford or Estee or what have you.

Some new fragrances I love, of course; I am craving a bottle of Amaranthine.  And I’m always “discovering” scents from the past, scents I’d dismissed (Dune), or wore and then forgot about (Niki de Saint Phalle), or somehow missed the first time around (Theorema, Chaos and many others).  One of these scents is Guerlain Chamade.

It’s not hard to understand how I might have overlooked it.  First off, it’s not as widely available as some of the other classic Guerlains.  Second, the current iteration of Chamade in the EDT is (like most Guerlains now, in my opinion) much sharper and less lovely than the current EDP version, not to mention the extrait.  Finally, the top of Chamade is such a sullen, green oddity that if I ever sniffed it before, I probably thought, eh.  I doubt it would have made it past the blotter onto my skin.   However, having fallen in love with Chamade in Paris, I pursued a bottle of parfum de toilette (PDT, the slightly “vintage” version) online, although the newer EDP is great too, and the parfum is no doubt gorgeous.

Chamade was released in 1969, done by Jean-Paul Guerlain, and the notes (I’ve seen several slight variations to this list) are hyacinth, aldehydes, jasmine, ylang, rose, blackcurrant bud, galbanum, vanilla, amber, benzoin, and sandalwood.  Chamade-lovers worldwide can now de-lurk and tell me I’m an idiot, but I don’t care for that green opening that seems so utterly disconnected from the rest of the scent.  It’s like a Cristalle dupe without the same pitch-perfect, Marlboro-Light follow through.   Luca Turin says in The Guide that he lived near the Paris flagship store at the time Chamade was released, and it took him months to realize the two perfumes (top and heart) he kept smelling were in fact one and the same.  (He gives it five stars and calls it “a masterpiece.”)

The not-quite-Cristalle top fades, and then all is quiet; is the action over?  No.  Next comes the powdery floral of my dreams – i.e., less powder (not one of my favorite effects in a scent) and more floral.  It’s not remotely baby-powderish, more sweetly diffuse, with a liquor-like richness that’s exceedingly difficult to describe.  LT says it’s a “beautiful, strange, moist, powdery yellow narcissus accord that had the oily feel of pollen rubbed between finger and thumb.”  And I’m quoting that because I’m hard-pressed to do better – there is something oily about it, and it is both beautiful and a little strange – it has a luminosity that makes me think of fireflies in the night, in one of their rare displays of synchronous flashing.  It sends up its small golden flares in measured bursts as I wear it, the heavy vanillic white florals interspersed with the green-tartness of blackcurrant.   It is leagues and fathoms away from the current Guerlains of the quasi-edible variety, but it’s less old-school and “difficult” than Jicky, Mitsouko or Parure (to name three Guerlains I happen to love, but I certainly understand why others don’t.)   For a well-mannered floral with both powder and aldehydes, Chamade doesn’t make me feel like Aunt Nellie pinning on a brooch – it’s too wet and beautiful to smell old-fashioned.    The drydown after two or three hours is well worth the wait – the powder fades, and it’s a quiet, ambery benzoin with a touch of honey.

Chamade fits very nicely in the smell-pretty box, a box that at least for me holds rather more interest than it used to.  It doesn’t require careful consideration before I put it on, and I’ve garnered enough compliments on it to have concluded that others must like it too.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about that funny, mossy-green opening act.

image of fireflies: nature.com

March

Parfumerie Générale were kind enough to send me some samples of Bois Naufragé, Pierre Guillaume’s limited edition number for 2010,  released alongside Gardénia Grand Soir, which I haven’t smelled. The perfume was apparently inspired by Lucien Clergue’s Le Nu au Bois Flotté , a photo I can’t say I’m drawn to. Okay, it works as an abstract representation of forms, or perhaps by juxtaposing wood and torso, we’re supposed to see the likenesses and the differences. Whatever.  I’m not keen on that high art and headless women thing. It’s all a bit Herb Ritts to me. Aryan bodies. Flesh made stone. Desire demarcated within the frame. Slabs of flesh. Flat objectification. If I want bodies, I’d rather look at Helmut Newton’s more interesting challenges to the observer and the observed.

And the position the poor woman is in looks so bloody uncomfortable too. Though the snippet of armpit hair (look close) is interesting. I guess we’re supposed to think sea urchins or seaweed… Hmmph.

Anyways, Lee in dismissive mode over and done with, here’s the company puff: “In Bois Naufragé, green and salty notes – one vegetal, the other mineral — echo the memory of the sea that smoothed the wood, while the suave seawater facets of ambergris conjure sun-kissed skin, with a hint of tanning lotion washed away by a swim.” With notes of fig tree, fleur de sel and ambergris.”

No linguistic flouncing with that description really. Certainly couldn’t be entered for a prize over at Now Smell This. It’s quite a relief to read something that is straightforward, and uses most of its flourishes with care. Though I’m wondering exactly what vegetal stuff smoothed the wood – unless the sea itself is somehow supposed to make us think of plants, and I also wonder where the sea stores its memory (in the wood, silly!). I’m even happy with the way the description moves from the magical and romantic notions of island paradise (suave, conjure, sun-kissed), to the prosaic (you’re gonna need to reapply that tanning lotion baby, unless your sun-exposed buttocks are happy not to be used for sitting over the next coupla days).

When I’m testing a perfume to review (so infrequent these days!), I make notes as the smell develops. And here’s what I wrote down, near enough verbatim:

Starts arid fig woody – slightly coconutty, but not heading Carmen Miranda; three minutes in bam! with the bitter – dries out further, perhaps woody but more a little galbanummy, a touch of latexy rubberiness, like white plant sap – euphorbia. Ouch. Oh becoming lactonic. From a distant wafting, more figgy, more lactonic – but that woody coconutty vibe of Philosykos rather than fruitier, sappier qualities of Premier Figuier. Perhaps more ‘this is what we think fig smells like’ than ‘this is what fig smells like’. Green is GONE from a distance, and only there as a syntheticcy rubbery something close up. Dry still. In spite of that coconutty, now suncreamy, facet. And a little buttery something lurking in the background, shy and late. Salt maybe emerging now too – did that rubbery green smell slowly become the salty smell? One segued into the other. Sure of it. And maybe a hint of floral something. Like what? Dunno. White-ish? Quiet though, I’m sniffing close.

And now, three hours later, it is a sea scent, in hot weather territory – sunscreen, salt, and a hint of soap from the morning shower.

I like it. If I avoid thinking about the photo, I like it a little more. But it’s definitely a perfume in the ‘interesting ideas’ category, rather than the ‘wear often’ one. Not that those two categories can’t and don’t overlap for any of us. Just not for me, with this one.

I have three samples to give away. Leave a message below if you’d like one, and I’ll contact you via the email address you enter to leave a comment. I’ll declare the winners when I’m back here in two weeks’ time.

Oh, and p.s. reading recommendation of the month is David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I think we get the better cover this side of the pond – it’s a little shiny too. No matter: the contents are phenomenal either way.

Lee

Anyone else have this item come up in their eBay permanent searches for Iris Gris?  Oh, don’t be coy and try and tell me you don’t have eBay searches you get e-mailed every day for Djedi, Iris gris, vintage guerlain, etc.? Well, if you don’t, you should.

So this listing pops up, and they claim:

“Created sixty years ago, in 1947, by one of the best French Perfumers for Jacques Fath, IRIS GRIS is considered by most as a monument of perfumery. Jacques Fath passed away in 1954 which brought a stop to Iris Gris, too expensive to manufacture. It was taken off the market never seen again, until now.

We are relaunching this amazing scent, with quality in mind.

In our formula, we only use the Irris Pallida and particulary its rhizomes process the “old way”, as it takes no fewer than six years to process and extract the precious Orris buter.

Unlike any other Iris products, the scent open on a harmonious accord between the Iris Pallida and the downy peach, delicately sustained by a floral bouquet of Tuberose, Lilac, Lily of the Valley and Jasmine. Dries down to a soft layer of Cedarwood, Musk and Oakmoss.”

If you thought I wouldn’t spring for the $20 to try this and see, you don’t know me very well.  I have a teensy bit of Fath Iris Gris, like two drops, and I smelled it at the Osmoteque (sp?) in France a couple of years ago, so I have at least some famiarity with what it should smell like – rich iris, sweetened with peach.  It’s the perfect iris scent.

How does this new re-creation hold up?  Not enough peach, though it’s certainly been kissed by a peach similar to the one in the Fath Iris Gris.  They just don’t feel exactly the same, but I think that would be a hard thing to hit exactly with the changes in chemical production for perfumes that’s taken place in the past few decades. It’s a little heavier on the iris powdery effect than the original Iris Gris on the open, and it’s not that vaguely sweet like the original early on but it has a very smooth, rich, buttery iris feel that’s a little like L’Artisan Iris Pallida. I wish I had enough of the original left in my bottle to put on my skin, but I can’t get those drops out without them vanishing forever, which would make me cry.  Just as a stand-alone iris, without any comparisons to the legendary original, I like it a lot and will happily wear my little samples and may even go for a bottle. I’m a little too focused on it being a recreation for this, and it’s hard to separate out that assumption while I’m sniffing. It seems a little fleeting, but sometimes I get that impressions with iris scents because I keep sniffing too close, but I find they have a tremendously beautiful waft that I just can’t smell very long next to the skin.  The longer I have this one, and I did a big spray all over to try and get the waft of it , the more of a lilting peach scent it has in all that iris, and I’m pretty infatuated with it.  Still not sure that it’s a ringer for Iris Gris, I never dabbled much of the original on my skin ever, and my memory just isn’t that good, but it is in that mold, and it is well made and really lovely to wear as the notes delicately float around me.  People were walking through the room asking what that great smell was. Hey, in this house when smells are always getting tested and sprayed, that a scent gets asked about is pretty telling.

Has anyone else spotted this and bought? Of course I got more than one!  And I’m going to give away four (I’ll have to break two of the larger spray samples up into smaller amounts in a spray), but only if you promise to give me your thoughts for a future post. So tell me if you’ve smelled the original or not and if you have, what you thought of it. I’ll pick two people that have smelled the original and two that have not to send this to.

Patty

I dropped by our new Anthropologie, which has conveniently relocated itself from Rockville Pike to the nearby open-area shopping center (with Bloomies, Sephora, MAC) across Wisconsin Ave from the Wall o’ Bling in Chevy Chase.  For the uninitiated, Anthropologie is one of those stores selling everything from clothing to housewares to furniture, and it all fits together in a quirky/boho “lifestyle” way I’m not going to mock.  Because in the middle of a craptastic week of sleet in February, or a 99-degree day in August when the air quality is “don’t breathe,” I like to go in there and wander around among the tchotchkes and pretend I’m somebody else.  Living somewhere else, all alone with my robin’s egg blue bowls and adorable, matching dishtowels that nobody has used to gather up dirt for the worm-rescue operation in the driveway.

The scents they sell are clearly selected to fit in with their image – quirky, charming, and/or funky, generally not wildly expensive, and occasionally trending toward the boudoir/twee (scents called things like Wish or Relax) where I feel like 93% of the thought went into the packaging – not that this defect is unique to Anthropologie.  They used to carry the Paul & Joes, and they still carry Tocca (which you can now get at Sephora) and the TokyoMilks, which are fun, along with ancillary lotions, soaps, bath products and candles.  I don’t see L’Aromarine there anymore (I liked the Cola, which was weirdly great) but you get the idea.

I tried some of the Durgas, an NYC-based indie perfumer that’s doing some interesting, hippie-oil vibe scents which strike me as slightly out of character for Anthropologie.  “An exclusive collaboration between Anthropologie and Brooklyn perfumers D.S. & Durga yielded these stunning, worldly scents. Handcrafted in small batches using balsams, resins and plant oils, each scent comes in a sleek, vintage-style bottle.”  All of these quotes and notes stolen directly from the Anthropologie website.

East Mid East: “exotic silk road scents of saffron, cardamom, roses and mandarin.”
Royal Purpure: “an herbal tincture of dwarf pine and fig leaves, cooled by cypress and cedar.”  (This bottle didn’t spray, but it sounds nice.)
Smoked Amber: “a luscious and smoky blend of scents culled from Turkish fire pits, including frankincense, birch and cassia bark.”
1538 Rheims: “an enchanting blend of musk, patchouli, iris and ginger lily.”

My favorite is the Smoked Amber, and that’s because it smells almost entirely of cinnamon (cassia bark) to me, and I like the smell of cinnamon.   East Mid East and 1538 are surprisingly sugary on me at first, although the 1538 eventually becomes mostly patch and the EME becomes spice.

I found other sample Durgas at home and threw those on.  Orris is interesting because it smells both of violets and iodine; it reminds me of vintage Jolie Madame.  Cowgirl Grass (vetiver, sage, damask rose and tuberose) is wonderfully quirky and rooty before going green/floral, although Siberian Snow – gah.  Too Sweet.   The Durgas are about 17 ml for $48, and hey, anything less than $50 is free.   I do wonder whether there’s something about me that brings out the sugar in these, and while they’re not Aftelier, they’re not ho-hum boring either.  I loved the way I smelled after I’d put them all on together.  Let me know if you’ve tried any of these.

I wouldn’t touch those Oiseaus (e.g., “Darling Blue,” “The Charmer”) with a barge pole, not even for you.  I made that mistake once.  They’re musky, floral things and the nicest thing I can say about them is that they’re $28.

Most interesting to me was the Novel collection, and here I’m going to crib entirely from the Anthropologie website: “Not a travelogue, but a scent-o-logue: each fragrance in this edition was inspired by a different flavor of tea found in one of six global locales. Housed in book-like boxes, the titles of each are based on the tea’s place of origin. Crafted exclusively for Anthropologie by five perfumers from the fragrance house Givaudan.”

Hamarikyu Gardens by Mary Pierre: green tea-inspired, featuring sweetened lemon and bergamot zest, verbena and the softest amber. (March says: smelled very rose-y floral to me, much more than I expected, sweet, and unfortunately a bit fresh.)
1856 Darjeeling by Adriana Medina: touches of cardamom, mint, fresh jasmine and cedarwood highlight this yellow tea blend. (March says:  I’ll take this one!  Smells like mint tea, blissfully unsweetened.  Decent lasting power, too.)
Cape Of Good Hope by Claude Dir: a steeped blend of red tea leaves and lemon, gardenia petals and musk.  (March says: very nice crisp red tea, lightly floral, not sure if I like it more than Bvlgari The Rouge, but I think I’m the only one who liked Rouge in the first place.)
5 O’Clock At Belvoir Castle by Stephen Nilsen: crisp bergamot and heady jasmine, sandalwood and damp moss (March says: spiky wood.)
Silk Road Caravan by Stephen Nilsen: white tea buds and fresh apricot paired with peony and vanilla (March says: waaaaaaaay too sweetly floral.)
Taverns & The Hague by Caroline Sabas: exotic Oolong spiked with mandarin and lemon zest, violet leaves and rich musk (March says: wet.  Wet and citrus and … wet.  The drydown grew on me, though, and not like mildew.  Cool, earthy and musky.)

These are $48 for a 1.7, and they can all be found on the website.

I didn’t whip out the MasterCard for any of these, and the jaded can point to the fingerprints of the Anthropologie Experiential Ambiance team or whatever it’s called all over the lines chosen for the store.  But I appreciate the fact that a store chain that is, at heart, as mainstream as this one would carry unusual scents, including some apparently developed for them.   As an alternative to the fruit/floral/musks of many mass-market commercial scents, these are a welcome diversion.

Finally — the winner of the Chanel Chance Eau Tendre is … Carter! No, seriously.   If you were just on there to talk about Berger Cookies (and yes, you correctly identified my secret location!) let me know and I’ll pick someone else.  Otherwise it’s all yours, babe.

March