Okay, class.   It’s been in the high 90s this week, although lovely today.  Welcome to summer!  So nice to be back online!  There are still a few glitches, please bear with us.

1) My kids are home for the summer.  Also I’m working on a real estate deal (I have this annoying thing called a ‘job.’)  Both of these are interfering with my blogging.  Comment response may be slow.  Do not adjust your screen.

2) Has anyone else noticed how boooooring our spam has gotten?  It’s all innocuous stuff like (direct quote): “I bookmarked this site a while ago because of the interesting content and I have never been unsatisfied. Continue the outstanding work.”  Click on the link and it gets you a whey-protein drink site.  It almost makes me nostalgic for the spam we used to get – the spam that made me put on my special eyeball-bleaching goggles and hip-waders before I wandered into the filter to retrieve someone’s legit comment.   That spam contained absolutely nothing fit to describe here and made me wonder whether anyone on the planet was still interested in an old-fashioned, garden-variety horizontal bop, if you catch my drift.  Anyhow, that’s gone, and I wonder why?

3) So: perfume.  In my July issue of Allure there’s an interview with Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez called “The Sexiest Fragrances (Ever)” in which they name five: Chinatown, Insolence EDP, Bulgari Black, 31 Rue Cambon, and …. Secretions Magnifiques.

Okay … sort of.  I get it.  Black’s kinky, 31RC has that ice-princess thing going on (but do guys find that hot in a perfume?  I wear 31RC for me, frankly).  But … Insolence EDP?  I really like Insolence, but I bet a lot of guys wouldn’t; too cloying and powdery.  Also, what’s sexy about Chinatown, exactly?  Chinatown does not whisper, come and get it.  Wouldn’t your average Joe (as opposed to our Posse commenter Joe, who’s anything but average) think you smelled, you know … kinda like a dude?  Also, can’t you just see the looks on the faces of the Allure readers when their unsniffed purchases of SM show up in the mail from Bergdorf and they pop them open and spritz?  I wish I was there to watch, although not standing so close as to get hit with any of the atomizer mist.

Here, I’ll take the first 5 things that pop into my head, truth:  Narciso Rodriguez; your favorite white musk (pick one, like Coty Wild Musk); Dior Addict (smells like candy porn; for bad girls only); Organza Indecence (or substitute your favorite vanilla, like L’Artisan Vanilia or Guerlain SDV, because I only want one vanilla category); and Angel.  If that last one makes you scream, pick your favorite kink-animalic.  (Mine: Jicky parfum.)  Animalics reel in the most interesting men, even if you end up throwing them back.  What do you think is sexy?  What do you think of LT/TS’s list?

4) Perfume In Public:  I went to have Hecate allergy-tested, the one where they prick your skin with various allergens.  When I made the appointment I was told specifically: no perfume, scented body care products, etc. in our office. Okay, fine, they’re an allergy office.  Also FYI in general I try to be scent-free on days I’m visiting any sort of medical building.  So early that morning I took a shower, and I was careful to wear just-washed clothes.  My first glitch was: I realized my shirt smelled faintly of Liquid Tide, because I got tired recently of my craptastic uber-green unscented detergent that leaves all my clothes smelling sour.  Also, Liquid Tide is great for removing hideous perfume scrubbers.   They didn’t tell me I had to have unscented laundry detergent, which got me thinking: where could a doctor’s office reasonably expect to draw the line?

In the elevator up to the allergy practice I was standing between two men, one in a suit and the other a construction dude.   Hard-Hat Man was … smelling all freshly sweaty.  And I was thinking about sweat, and how much I like that smell.   Fresh sweat is sexy.  The body odor emanating from someone whose last bath is a distant memory is not pleasant, but a freshly sweaty guy?  Delicious.  One interesting exception is guys at the gym, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because they don’t wash their clothes after spin class every time?  Do their gym bags make their clothes smell rank?  The lockers?  I don’t know.  I’m married to a man who perspires so copiously that squash matches have been stopped so he can mop up the floor with a towel before somebody slips and breaks a leg.  To the best of my knowledge he has never worn deodorant in his life.  The man simply doesn’t stink.  If it weren’t so great, it would be annoying.

Anyway, the other guy, Mister Suit, was wearing a heavy-handed woody-fresh gigolo scent that made me cringe.  Call me old-fashioned, but I would so much rather smell a discreet man-smell, or some sweat, on a guy.  Or, something ridiculously femme, like a whiff of tuberose.

The allergists’ office is a big group practice, and the man I sat down next to was clearly a smoker.  I could smell it.  Or, he’d been in an enclosed space (maybe a car?) with someone who smokes.  And that smell to me is every bit as noxious as any body spray.  But what are the office workers going to do?  Again, where can you draw that line?  Excuse me, sir, you smell like the Marlboro Man. We’ll have to reschedule your appointment.

So Hecate had her skin test, they draw on your arm with marker and then jab it with a bunch of different things.  I’ve never done this before.  We sat there for maybe five minutes watching her arm puff up, and the PA came back in, looked at her arm, and said wow.  And went to get the doctor.  It was upsetting, sitting there watching Hecate’s spindly little arm blow up and realizing, no wonder she’s climbing out of her skin all the time.  No wonder she’s so sensitive and twitchy and scratchy and sniffly and the rest of it.  That kid probably feels like hell 10 months out of the year, and she says nothing.  The last time we went to the ENT again, and he told me she has a sinus infection and both her ears are full of fluid, he kept looking at me like, What. Is. Wrong. With. You?   But I swear, that kid never says a word.  Because to her, that’s normal.

When I got home and got Hecate anti-histamined and settled and fed and playing with the visiting cousins (yay!), I opened my box from Tigerflag.  Did anyone else get their box?  I think I ordered samples of all the attars and a larger bottle of the majmua.  When I opened the box, that smell …. that smell of everything together rose up and embraced me.  Just the smell of everything in the package, all of it tightly sealed.  Because you can’t really seal in smells like those, can you?  I put on a teeny tiny dab of the majmua, undiluted.  It comes in this bottle that gives you a single drop.  And a drop of the mitti attar, the one that is essence of dirt.  And then I curled up on the bedspread with my nose to my wrist and listened to the dog-day cicadas, which have come out in the last few days, and breathed.

image: Edna Mode.  She just felt right.

March

It’s me.  Daph.  Isn’t it delightful to be back here!    I spent the weekend pondering which two new colors to dye my hair, and whether I should buy another yacht, but mostly I yearned, positively yearned for my sweet darlings on the Posse.

We seem to have developed an unattractive case of the text glitches, but I’m sure there’s medication available for that.  We’re working on it.  Speaking of medication, naughty March was out rather late last night watching the Fourth of July fireworks in her neighborhood …. yes, it’s true.   They gain their independence and what then?  Why, they move their Independence Day fireworks to 29 June, that’s what they do!  Because it’s more convenient.  How deliciously …. American.

At any rate, March is now locked in her laundry room, sniffing her attars (sounds dirty when I say it, doesn’t it?) and resisting the temptation to duct-tape her children to the roof of a passing mail truck.  In the meantime, our lovely blogmistress Patty is once again unable (!) to access her own blog!   I’d love to hear from any of you around the country …. can you see me?  Hear me?   (You can’t touch me.  Sorry.)   I have … I think … 26 or 27 emails sitting here between Patty and the blog-fixers, teasing me with their silly little techno-speak.  CPU and cms and propagation and so forth.  I think I’ll go paint my nails and have the Bentley washed.  Hopefully we’ll have a post up tomorrow.  Until then …. cheers!

March

Do you list? I don’t in any other walk of life except my obsessions hobbies. And these days the listing is not generally of what to try, but what to buy. You see, I attempt to limit myself to one new bottle a season, and summer seems like the season for which I have least. I need something, and I need to whittle down the choices.

For the UK, it’s been quite sultry, as poor Nicolas Mahut and John Isner can no doubt attest, and my lack of crisp’n'clean scents is disappointing. So I’ve been listing. Here’s the shortlist, including those perfumes that have since been withdrawn and the reasons for that withdrawal.

Humiecki and Daft Bosque – I’m loving the memory of this, now my sample vial is long since drained, but perhaps it’s too odd for refreshment. Maybe straightforward refreshment isn’t what I’m after though, if it’s still on the list… Good bit of warped logic, that.

Editions de Parfum Bigarade Concentree – dude, you’ve got a 20 ml decant of this in sample box 4. Just because the sprayer’s feeble, doesn’t mean you need to go splashing out on a bottle.

Terre d’Hermes parfum – your EdT bottle is almost drained by your pesky live-in lover. You could buy him the parfum and still not be breaking your rules about one bottle a season. I like your my thinking!

Nuit de Tubereuse – in spite of all the loving, I’m finding this just okay and way too sweetly femme for me. I’d rather shock with the Criminelle, myself.

Diptyque Oyedo – I love the fun of this, but maybe I’ll smell like a melting popsicle/ice lolly when I wear it. Bugs will stick to me. And nestless wasps will hone in on me as their food source til death. And I’m not sure if I mean them or me.

Ninfeo Mio – sniffing it would help me decide, but I like the idea of a green figgy citrussy garden – like that Hermes series, but different?

Mandragore – lovely, sour, disappearing.

Caron Eau de Reglisse – the lemon and licorice popsicle to Oyedo’s sherbet orange?

Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufrage – not love enough. Nava is this one’s BFF.

l’Occitane Verbena – the cheap and cheerful option. It’s oh so chirpy, but sweet again and perhaps I need more atringency, even at this price.

Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel- probably my favourite on the list? I love it so. But it only comes in 100 ml bottles, and that may be too much for me and I’m too lazy to enter into all the splitting business. Clary sage herbality and salt. Oh my. You siren, calling me to the Bay of Biscay for foamy frolics!

Creed Selection Verte – replace the 100ml above with 250mls. Oh but it’s lovely – the most refreshing of refreshing smells ever made.

The Different Company de Baschmakov – they sent me a sample, but the envelope arrived, sans sample, but in a La Poste transparent plastic bag. Envelope torn. Nothing to be sniffed. For me, the one that got away. The idea remains lovely; the scent an enigma. French postal service – heading the way of its soccer/football team?

Hermes Vetiver Tonka – it’s time I bought you. You’ve been on every list for the past 4-5 years.

So, help me decide. Do you have a preference? Something not on this list that you think I might not have tried? Lemme know. And, just because, I’ve got a partly used 30ml bottle of Tom Ford’s loud and tropical Black Orchid to give away to one lucky commenter. Let me know if you are interested.

I might be slow to reply tomorrow. Allergies and asthma permitting (the bane of this week), I’m planning to be here for much of the day. I’ll be dealing with a very different – and much longer – list. The photo is from last year, I think.

Lee

As I mentioned earlier this week, the two lovely angels that decant for me are on vacation this week, so my youngest son, Harry (20). and I are taking over that task.  I had forgotten how many callouses I used to have on my fingers from pushing in those 1 ml stoppers and how many bleeding wounds I had to tend when one of the bottles would crush under firmly applied pressure to get the lid on.  Also forgot how much it hurts to get alc0hol-based perfume in a freshly healing cut.

Ah, memories.  What’s been the most fun is listening to Harry’s running commentary on perfume as he opens bottles and smells them. I jotted a few down:

Tom Ford Amber Absolute – (this was in a smaller decanting bottle instead of that big 250 mls behemoth) “What is the shelf life of this stuff, 3 billion years?” after he had tried 14 times to wash his hands after getting  some backspray from it on his hands.

“Lots of this stuff smells like shit.”

Rochas Tocade – “This will scare men away. Well, not necessarily bad, just strong.  Wait, it does smell kinda good. Oh, I do like it, once you get past that ferocious smell when you uncap it.”

“I have better handwriting than you.”  Oh, what?  Like I haven’t heard that from every person on the planet, except coming from him, I’m still in shock. He scribbles and calls it handwriting.

“That is just solid Baby Diaper.”  I think this was Penhaligon’s Scented Night Stock, which I just have no idea where he got that from.

“You have to be &*%^ kidding me” when I pulled the missing Zadig and Voltaire perfume out of the middle of the White Book.

It’s been a fun week so far – we’ve avoided most arguments, which is a shocker. We’ve talked a lot about perfume, and he’s asking for men’s scent recommendations (anyone want to suggest some things?), we’ve laughed, bumped into each other too many times trying to get to the Chanel drawer or the Jo Malone drawer, reached up, over, across, only for the whole thing to come down in a wreck.  By the end of the week, he should be able to walk into the perfume room and find any perfume on his own.

Now you know a little about Harry. He’s also 6’4″, lifts weights, and has a great math/engineering/scientific mind. We need to scent him. The one thing he has the he wears so far and likes is Le Labo Patchouli 24. He wants some other stuff, so let’s help him out!

Patty

As I remarked on here not too long ago, we seem to be in the middle of a Big White Flower Moment in perfumery.  Two recent favorites of mine – Amaranthine and Nuit de Tubereuse – have been built around white flowers (jasmine and tuberose respectively).  Even Kim Kardashian’s gotten into the act, with a mass-market jasmine/gardenia/tuberose that, while I won’t be rushing out to buy it, ain’t half bad in my opinion.  If Kim Kardashian leads the general public away from sugary, mass-market gourmands into a sultry, sophisticated, skanky white flower fandom, I’d be eternally grateful.

So when I heard that Olivia Giacobetti, a perfumer whose work I much admire and usually enjoy, was doing Vamp à  NY for Honoré des Prés, I was all over it.   Giacobetti and tuberose?  Along with some mouthwatering early reviews – Octavian, for instance, called it like a “nectar of gods” on his blog. Uhhhkay… sign me up.  Where do I type in my credit card info online?  Wait, what do you mean, I can’t have it in the U.S. until September?!? Vamp is the first fragrance I really wanted to try from this organic-botanical-perfume house; the previous releases sounded both fleeting and not especially interesting to me.

Accusations of dullness or poor lasting power won’t be leveled at Vamp.  It starts big, with a piercing top that is intensely sweet and syrupy on the skin.  It reminds me of the brown, barrel-shaped root beer candies of my childhood, evoking in a larger sense the candy shelf at the drugstore.  In a botanical scent, this stage has a peculiarly synthetic quality to my nose — it’s just sooo much and so odd, with its root beer, banana Runts and vanilla-caramel Sugar Daddy.  It shifts and becomes more recognizably “rum” – a boozy note that is still intensely sweet and makes me think of a fruity rum drink, something made with coconut.  Eventually the next phase arrives, which is tuberose overlayed with a powerful shellacking of a combination of two smells: specifically, a giant tub of greasy, movie-theater popcorn popped in tropical oils, along with a hint of coconut tanning-oil.   And there the fragrance stays.

I tried Vamp in various situations, hoping for something different.  I tried at 74, 84 and 94 degrees.  I tried it with lotion, without lotion, on alternate Tuesdays, before showers, early, late, after showers, under the quarter-moon, at the solstice, and standing on one foot.   I tried it until Hecate came wandering up to me in my bedroom yesterday, watched me glare at the traitorous atomizer, and said, what’s wrong, mommy?  Ew … what’s that smell?

Honoré des Prés Vamp à  NY will no doubt be a raging, ravishing torrent of tantalizing tuberose to everyone else on the planet.  Here are the links to the original reviews on Grain de Musc, 1000 Fragrances and today’s new review on Perfume-Smellin’ Things.  The first two reviews, written by folks who know more about raw materials than I ever will, are positive bordering on ecstatic.  I wonder what Marla on PST will think.

Note: I got my sample of Vamp from Grain de Musc, along with a bunch of other people who I think are over there giving their mini-reviews in comments on a special blog post on Vamp today.

March