Message from a sick Musette:

The Haiku winner is OrbWeaver! She came closest with 3 match-ups.   Scents (in order)  En Passant/Angelique/Bigarade (either)/Lys Mediterranee/Carnal Flower/French Lover/Fleur de Cassie.

Get in touch. baby.

And I’m out of sorts too. Insomnia due to restless legs = lower back nerve problems = whiplash neck = alignment treatment = serious spasms = grumpy twitch face.

I’m getting more mobile but this week is a write-off. Top tip – if your spine is out of alignment, get it seen to, and pronto!

Love to all.

Lee

I am feeling very ambitious at this moment that I’ll get all five of these reviewed.  Ethiopian night (yesterday) at the newly vegetarian YMCA cafeteria has created some delicate problems that manifested all night.  In other words, I wound up skipping half a day of classes to recuperate. I am eating again and have my glass of red wine (hence the optimism), so we may get all five!

The Dorins are a recreation that are now being sold at the Haute Parfumerie in Harrod’s in London.  The official tale -  Maison Dorin is an 18th century perfume company which became the official purveyor to the Royal Court of Versailles in 1780.  The house boutique on the Rue Grenier Saint-Lazare in Paris was founded by Marguerite Montansier, a celebrated actress and changed hands several times over the following years getting its name from JIM Dorin in 1817.  In January 1998 the Maison Dorin was given a new lease on life thanks to Bashar and Imane Nasri.  They released several fragrances that were originally created in 1921.

The problem usually with recreations is the state of perfume-making back in the 18th century was pretty different. They just wanted perfume to smell like what they wanted it to smell like. Think of it as the realism period for perfumerie.

Un Air de Damas Fullah has a top note of bergamot; a middle note of jasmine; and a base note of musk. This is a straightforward jasmine scent with a nice musky base.  For the time, if it’s fairly true to its original scent, a wonderfully made oriental that stays nicely jasmine and not lethally indolic.  It’s really lovely.  It may or may not have been groundbreaking back in the day, but if you’re a fan of historical perfumes to track the progression through time, I think you’d find it interesting.

Un Air de Damas Taif Rose has top notes of bergamot and lily-of-the-valley; a middle note of rose; and base notes of woods and musk.  I don’t know about the other notes in this. I sprayed this on before meditation class, and for three hours, it’s  been a seriously wonderful taif rose, rivaling the rose you find in the Arabian ouds.  I have no idea if this was revolutionary for its time or if they made the roses this strong, but if you love roses strong and thick, this should do it for you.

I know, I sorta suck at reviewing historical perfumes.  Shoot me, I like modern perfumerie.

Made in Italy is this teeny brande we saw at Harvey Nick’s that I wanted to just keep walking past ( on the way to the Alexander McQueen scarf), but Lisa made me stop and sniff. I was expecting a bathtub of mediocrity, and it surprisingly exceeded my expectations.  Not all of them did, but three of them were pretty excellent

Sicily has notes of amber, neroli, freesia, jasmine, immortelle, hay, cedarwood, amber, patchouli, agarwood and myrrh. This thing is a cornucopia of smell. There’s so much going on on the open, I have no idea what to pay attention to.  It’s like what everyone tells me my first hour in Delhi will be like.  Sweet, hay, pancake syrup and church.  It all smooths out some,  the cacaphony of smell becomes more rounded and blurred, but just that sweet pitch of hay, immortelle and myrrh and that someone put it in one perfume and somehow made it work makes me happy.

Sardinia has notes of tea leaves, heather, juniper, artemesia, honey, broom, mastic shrubs, cedarwood, vetiver and ambrette.  Wait, they left of one note – armpit skank.  This thing has my bosoms heaving, certain there is a swarthy, sweaty Sardinian guy outside my window.  Lots of honey, I don’t get much smoke, and zero heather, juniper or artemesia. They could be there, but the swarthy Italian guy sitting on my arm sweating obviously tucked them into some nether part just to see if I’d look harder for them.  Two Elks were rutting outside the building we had the Tantra class in.  It may be them sitting on my arm.

Rome has notes of notes of bergamot, mandarin, elemi, orris, rum, olibanum, cedarwood, vetiver and patchouli.  I’ve got mixed feelings on this one.  There are some things I like in it, but ultimately, with the list of notes in it, it winds up too smooth, too slick for me. It’s interesting, and I keep thinking I should like it more and finally decided maybe, since it was the last thing on a long day of  being sick I tried, it needs another shot with a fresh arm.

Patty

By Anita

(March sneaking in here — winner of the bottle of Tauer is Melauriga, I’ll email you, congratulations!  On to Anita’s post….)

6 October 2010: God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, Frederic Malle himself will be at the Chicago Barneys.

Alas, he will not be available to the hoi polloi, amongst whom I reside.  Just 20 of his spendiest BFFs will get to enjoy an elegant hour with him.

Dangit

So I’m kicked to the curb – no matter.    IMO the man is a genius and a true respecter of the perfumer’s art.  And he looks to be a charming person, passionate about what he does.  And I’m in Big Love with several of his scents.  And there won’t be a cow or a pig in sight. So it’s a beautiful thing.  Perhaps I can press my nose against the windowpane..

In the meantime, in honor of M. Malle’s pending visit to the Windy City, I’ve thrown down a couple of haiku-riffs on his Editions.  Oh!   not so fast, my little daisies!      Can you bust the Haiku Mystery?!   Some are easy-peas, some are a bit more abstruse and one or two are just silly!  These  are not intellectual exercises – I’m just channeling my inner numbskull – and the riff might be the only way I could juice the haiku.  So don’t get mad if I crank on your favorite.  Nothing personal! And don’t get all note-phobic on me, either.  Remember, these these are the brainchilllun of a crazy, Benadryl-addled old bat.  Try to think like a cranky,crazy person and you’ll do fine.

The winner (the first poster to get all 7 right – or however it shakes out within 48hrs of this post going up) will get 3 samples of Malle fragrances (don’t ask me what – I ain’t tellin’ cuz I don’t know yet!   If there’s a Malle you’re dying to try,  make note in your reply and I will try to accommodate!)  And feel free to throw down a  Malle/Editions 5-7-5 of your own! I’d love to read them!  Don’t tell what you’re haiku-ing – it’ll be fun for us to guess!

1.Round loaves of warm bread

Wet,broken pot of lilacs

Oh, Liv..I love you

2. Cough syrup floating

on the frozen Zuiderzee

How does he do that?

3.Crabby little fleur

Spitting mean, green pith at me!

Don’t be so cranky!

4. White-throated ladies,

plump pink strumpets beckon…. Crap!

Who invited Musk?

5.Dark pink spun-silk sheets

The Rock, stretched across the bed

Yum! This is good stuff!

6.Yes.  I had one, once

Twice. Okay !!!  yeah, MANY times!!!

It was lots of fun!

7.Nipped-waist, grey New Look

Elegance personified

Then Dad came to stay

photo:  wallpaper .jpeg (you know I SO wanted’ to use Fred Flintstone and his bud but I lost my nerve!)

samples:  Barneys New York and my personal stash

In the survey last week, y’all wanted to hear about the new Monas since they were easier to get ahold of, so we’re going to cover those today, along with the new Diptyque, Eau Duelle. All of these are from Luckyscent, and you can get samples and full bottles there, so they are accessible, yeah!!!  But for those of you that wanted to hear about the Dorins and the Made in Italy, we’ll get to those on Thursday.

This week is Yoga Journal conference in Estes Park.  Usually I’ve just gone for a day of this, but this week I signed up for the whole week, intermixed with work  – I’m not zen enough to do nothing but meditation and yoga for a week.  There’s really very little better than to spend a week doing yoga and meditation in the Rocky Mountain National Park, surrounded by beautiful scenery, lovely people and working out your life one breath and downward dog at a time. My only complaint is the food.  I’m not sure why they asked YMCA of the Rockies to do an all-vegetarian menu.  It’s just not their normal thing, and it shows.  Definitely should have a great vegetarian menu, but is it that offensive for me to be chomping down a fatburger in front of nonmeateaters?  Maybe, I don’t know about these things. I love great vegetarian, but doing great vegetarian is not a YMCA chef skillset.  I’m running away to the Stanley Hotel later in the week and snacking on some elk or buffalo or something equally red and full of blood.

When I brought up my sample of Diptyque’s new Eau Duelle, I hadn’t read much about it, but I vaguely remembered it was a vanilla.  Official notes are Cardamom, Asian cyprus, elemi, juniper, saffron, calamus, black tea, black African olibanum, amber, Firnat Vanilla, Bourbon Vanilla, white musk.  So the soft fall mountain rain was coming down outside my open window when I spritzed this on, and I had no idea what to expect.  You can make fun of me, if you like, but I really haven’t smelled many Diptyques. Not sure why. I love the fig one, great fig, and… well, I know I’ve smelled a few more, but the line has never captured my attention through no fault of theirs.  Eau Duelle is a great vanilla, which I just didn’t expect from them. Definitely vanilla, but not sweet at all, with an understated spice/tea punch that adds interest to what is a decidedly smokey vanilla.  Not as smoke-dominated as some of the other smokey vanillas,  like Guerlain’s Spiriteuese Double Vanille, but really well done.  And absolutely perfect for where I am and the weather.

Let’s go to the Monas.   I like Mona. I know Luca trashed all of her scents, but I’ve found most of them to be outside of the norms and interesting and never deserving of harsh criticism, whether you love them, hate them or just don’t care about them.  People may not like her style of perfumery, but she is no crowd-follower, and I admire someone who does what she wants.

The Les Nombres have three variations, Cuir, Ambre and Musc.  Needless to say, I am not expecting anything shy from her.

Ambre has notes of Cedarwood from Atlas, Ylang Ylang from Comores, Benzoin, Tolu, Absolu Vanilla Madagascar.  This is a softer amber than I expected, tempered with the Ylang and vanilla.  I keep sniffing it, not sure if I like it, don’t care or hate it.  It’s almost a little soapy at points. Is that better than Rasputin’s underdrawers?  I guess his freshly laundered underdrawers. That’s what I always think of when I sniff most amber-centric concoctions – not the freshly laundered part, the full-on, took them off before bed part.  Okay, soapiness went away, but this thing just isn’t sticking. How can that happen with amber?

Musc has notes of Neroli, Angelica, Rose, Heliotrope, Absolu Tonka Bean, Precious Musks. Okay, we’re clearly not going down a conventional path.  I don’t know about the musc in this, I don’t really care, I’m loving the angelica, tonka and heliotrope.  Wow, what a great combo this is, and completely unexpected. I thought I’d be hit over the head with a subway musk at 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning, but this is so far from that.  The musk is the underpinning for the heliotrope and tonka, and it feels like  Mona and Guerlain had a tryst after throwing back too much tequila on a rain-soaked night, and this is what was left in the morning. Lovely, ethereal, haunting with a wee bit of smut leftover.

Cuir now has me worried. Are we going to smother the leather in honey?  Or cotton candy?  Well, let’s go to the notes, which are  Cardamom, Absinth, Leather, Cade, Resinoid Opoponax, Castoreum.  Whew, this seems to be a great list of notes for leather, somewhat traditional.  And, yes, it surely is. Rich, luxurious leather, slightly roughed up, like how your Kelly bag would smell after a night in a seedy bar.  This is a leather to love for you leather lovers, you won’t be turning up your nose and going, “what the hell was she thinking?” when you sniff it.  The spice and absinth get some minor play, which is enough of a differentiation from all the other great leathers out there to make this one worth seeking out.

Okay, big yes on the Cuir and the Musc, and I slipped into the hate pile on the Ambre. I tried it again, it went to soap and then slid down the drain into nothing. Huh?  Two out of three, as Meatloaf says, ain’t bad.

And I have enough of all of these to give a sample set out to a commenter.  So let’s think, if we wanted Guerlain to fall into bed with any other perfume line so they could create little love children of interest, who would you have them smoosh with?

Patty

The only thing that makes me happier than a surprise package from Andy Tauer with a sample of his new scent is a surprise package with two new scents.  So today we’re having a Tauerfest, because he sent me their five-sample set.  Look at that image at left, it’s adorable, no?  People can order any five samples, they come in a little metal box, here’s a link to the page on his website.  I’m reviewing the two new ones, Eau d’Epices and Une Rose Vermeille, with some random Tauer-perfume asides.

First up, the new Eau d’Epices, with notes that made my heart go pittypat the first time I saw them in Patty’s post.  Here, I’ll crib from the website:  “Head notes: An Indian basket of spices with cinnamon, cardamom, clove and coriander with red mandarines. Heart notes: An opulent heart of orange blossom, jasmine, orris root and incense. Body notes: A woody cistus ladaniferus resin, softened with ambergris, tonka beans and vetiver.”

In general, Andy’s scents have a lot of presence; they are not shy little things.  L’Air du Désert Marocain?  Lonestar Memories?  Orris?  Rose Chyprée?  If you spray them on unsniffed I hope you love them, because otherwise you are going.to.die. Before sniffing, I’d placed Eau d’Epices in my mind near Desert Marocain  – it’s got a similar spicy/resin-y thing going on in the notes list.  However, the spices in Epices, at least on my skin, are sheer and subtle.  The fragrance starts out sweet and citrusy, with lots of juicy mandarin, and just a touch of spices, very well-blended.  At this point it seems almost closer to Orange Star than to Marocain.  The orange blossom and jasmine add to the scent’s rich, waxy sweetness.  The flowers fade and then the fragrance shifts toward the incense and resins, and the vetiver, like the orange blossom and jasmine, is clean rather than indolic.  There’s a hint of the orris from his Orris scent, and that ambergris base of Andy’s, and that’s essentially the story.

Epices was a fragrance that didn’t wow me at first, mostly due to its quiet opening.   There’s something seamless and rounded about the fragrance, although it’s not exactly unobtrusive.  Like most Tauers it lasts forever on me, and the soft woody/spicy/incense drydown lingered for days on a sweater.  My 14-year-old (who isn’t wild about a lot of my perfume) told me twice how very much she liked it, probably to encourage me to wear it more often.  Over the course of five days, two other people also mentioned how pretty they thought it was – and, given that I was wearing a single spray on all those occasions, you can draw your own conclusions about its sillage.  The drydown falls between the cool incense/earthiness of Marocain and the warm, sweet woodiness of Donna Karan Chaos.  If you can get yourself past the fact that Eau d’Epices not going to perform any wild gymnastic gyrations before becoming the perfect comfort scent, it’s worth checking out.  I’m looking forward to wearing it in our cooler weather.

Tauer’s Une Rose Vermeille manages a miracle a third time – a rose fragrance that I, not much of a rose-lover, can embrace.  (His earlier scents, Une Rose Chyprée and Incense Rosé, manage to fold the rose into a chypre and a balsamy-woody incense, respectively.)   Notes for Vermeille are: “Head notes: A citrus chord with lemon and bergamot with a whisper of lavender. Heart notes:  Sumptuous bouquets of roses and violets, kissed by luscious raspberries. Body notes:  The richness of vanilla, sandalwood and tonka beans, touched by the elegance of ambergris.”

And … LOL, Andy Tauer.  In Vermeille, he throws the rose under the berry bus. The resulting mash-up is worth slowing down for, so you can do some serious rubbernecking.  There is a lot of rose.  And yet it’s been macerated and turned into something quasi-edible, like raspberry trifle, heavy on the clouds of vanilla cream and topped with rose-water-scented jam and maybe some orange marmalade – the tartness of the berries and the lemon keep things from getting too sweet.  I have long suspected Andy Tauer of possessing a sly sense of humor, and there’s something very playful going on here.  Its rose-liquor-fruit-green effect calls to mind a vintage bottle of YSL Paris EDT  Also, while wearing Vermeille I got the full backaway (sillage alert!) from a woman in the elevator at Trader Joe’s, an effect you can reproduce with Paris.  Two spays of Vermeille was apparently one spray too many, at least on me.  Une Rose Vermeille dries down into the spicy/sandalwood/vanilla goodness of something rather like Organza Indecence, one of my all-time favorite comfort scents, only this is the luxe version – a parfum, maybe, and made with better ingredients. (He’s using essential oil from Fiji sandalwood, btw.)

Finally:

1) Test driving five of these together (I also received Orange Star and Rose Chyprée) reminded me that Andy’s scents often smell great together – not layered necessarily, but if I had a little bit of one of these on my left arm and the other on my right, all combinations were pleasing to the nose.  (Wearing Orange Star at the same time as Eau d’Epices was particularly nice.)

2) Orange Star really needs to be sprayed on, so give up right now on dabbing your sample.  And man, I wish that astonishing mandarin-clementine opening could go on forever, it’s the juciest, zestiest, most realistic squeeze of orange note I’ve ever smelled in a perfume.

3) I am a big fan of incense and Andy’s esthetic, but I might as well admit: I never really understood all the raves over Marocain.  It seemed a little too herbaceous and masculine for me to want to want to wear.  Well, this time I got more incense plus this huge, long smoky note in the middle – like a distant bonfire burning in the desert – and promptly fell in love.

4) For those of you who’ve read this far, here’s a reward – Andy’s offered me another giveaway, a bottle of either Eau d’Epices or Rose Vermeille, you don’t need to specify which one you want now, just leave a comment saying you want in, and I’ll use random.org to choose a winner. Drawing is now closed, winner of the draw is Melauriga, hope I spelled that right, I’ll email you.  Congratulations.

Sample source:  Tauer Perfumes

March