Some time ago, I became interested in vanilla – shortly after hell froze over.  I still tend to like my vanilla with a twist, and one of these days I’m going to pull myself together and do a post on oddball vanillas.  In the meantime, I got busy and sampled Diptyque Eau Duelle, which has gotten raves both on the blogs and from a number of friends.

Diptyque was stocked at our niche frag boutique, Art With Flowers, when I was first getting into sniffage, and some of their scents are very strange (Vinaigre, anyone?  Eau d’Elide?)  I mourn the disappearance of the brand from shelves all over, chased off (like Rigaud) by cooler, niche-ier things.  Notes for Duelle are bergamot, cardamom, pink pepper, elemi, juniper, saffron, calamus, frankincense, cypriol, black tea, vanilla, musk and amber.

Eau Duelle opens with a hearty blast of bergamot and a bizarrely sweet note that lasts about ten seconds and reminded me of Daphne Bugey’s obscure 7:15AM in Bali by Kenzo, and I should point out right here that nobody else has mentioned finding it especially sweet, so YMMV.  It becomes more vanillic and smokier right away, and much more peppery after a few minutes, passing from Earl Grey tea to lapsang and then on to CdG’s coriander-rich 8 88.  There’s a hint of tobacco, the vanilla moderates, and it never becomes anything like a gourmand scent.

As Victoria notes (yes, she’s back to blogging regularly!  Hold onto your wallets!) Eau Duelle bears a bit of a resemblance to both L’Instant and Shalimar, the original oddball vanilla —  there’s that combination of citrus/bergamot, that smoky facet, and vanilla, after the spices have faded.

I admit to being very much on the fence about this, and I am having trouble deciding why.  It isn’t really vanillic enough to satisfy someone wanting a “vanilla” fragrance, in my opinion.  But it doesn’t seem enough of anything else, either.  Diptyques can resemble rough sketches, nice ideas that aren’t the most polished things out there, and that can be part of their quirky charm.  But Eau Duelle feels unfinished to me, like they came up with half a perfume and abandoned the project.  But, again, that’s just me.  It’s gotten lots of love, so if any of these notes sound appealing, go for it.

source: private sample

March

I foolishly was sure I’d be able to get a post written, surely, to post the day after I got back from India.

Well.  Um, no.  I am back, my clothes are slowly going into the very hot cycle to get all the pollution and smog and various other things out of them.  I threw away my sandals during my layover at Heathrow.  1,  because they need to be boiled.  2,  they weren’t that comfortable.

India was amazing.  It’s a random country where anything can happen – sub kuch milega, “anything/everuything is possible.”  You’ll stay in a dive one night and a suite with amazing views for $30 a night the next.  You meet people who touch your lives and are vivid characters you will never forget, like Raj Kumar, who is now officially dead to us after jacking up our taxi rates once he thought he had our business locked down.  Where roads are filled with bicycles, scooters, rickshaws, horse and cart, donkeys, yaks, trucks.

And I promise to tell you about it, but I’ve been up for like two days with only 6 hours of sleep and an emerging case of delayed Delhi Belly, and today won’t be that day.  I missed you!!!

Patty

And here I was worried nobody would show up and play.  As I type this, there are 1,010 comments on Swapmania! There are a few latecomers on there – the swappage continues Monday, the last official day (although I’m not going to turn comments off).  Newcomers – don’t assume a fragrance is taken just because there’s a follow-up message of interest. I got a couple things like that, and lost out on a couple others where I was “first.”   If you listed/swapped items, please go back and try to respond to people and/or mark the item “taken.“  I sort of lost track of what I did, but I think I wound up with five or six swaps. Or seven.

If you scroll down to the bottom, people are still posting (or reposting stuff they have left over.)

Let’s hold off on discussing the swaps for a bit – I’ll have a whole post devoted to it after we’ve had a chance to send and receive packages.  To be honest, having monitored it for the weekend as well as burying my face in the swap trough myself, I’d like a bit of recovery time before we get to discussing it.   Patty will, theoretically, be back and posting Tuesday, and I’ll do a review on Wednesday.

Useful Search Tip: to search all comments (if you’re on a PC) hit CTRL + F (think “find”) and a navigation bar with a search box appears like magic at the bottom of the screen!  Who Knew?  Not me.  If you’re Mac’ing, try (if you are in a browser like Chrome) hitting Edit, Find to search.  Thanks, ladies.

Finally: do we have anyone in Estonia who can get ahold of Kalev chocolates? Here’s a message buried in the swaps: Would any of the Scandinavian or European readers have access to a brand of chocolate called Kalev? YES WE DO! Because y’all are resourceful and excellent.  Thanks, Tommasina!

“A friend of my mother adopted 3 little girls (sisters) from Estonia, who are adapting well to the rural Deep South, but they are asking for this chocolate.

I have contacted the company directly, but they don’t distribute it here. I have yet to hear back from the Estonian American Society or the Estonian Embassy, who no doubt think I am nuts.

The youngest one, who is 7 with red hair and huge green eyes, asked Santa for it this morning!

I have a PayPal account, and would certainly reimburse anyone…but even a tip as to where to find it would be appreciated!”

If you could help out here, it would be lovely, please say so in comments.  See you Wednesday for a review, and thanks everyone for your initiative, innovative swappage, polite behavior and sense of humor!    You all are the bees’ knees, you know that, right?

March

The day you’ve been waiting for – welcome to the first (possibly semi-regular, depending on how it goes) Perfume Posse Swapmania!

Today you are invited to list, in comments, your bottles of perfume, partial bottles, minis, and samples.  For everyone’s sanity, I think it would be better to list items in separate comments if you’re offering more than one item (sample sets are one item).  Otherwise the threads can get confusing.

Please include:

• a brief description of the item you’re offering – such as oz/ml size, concentration (EdT, EdP), and any other info you think might be of interest (vintage/partial/used/boxed…)
• the country you live in (so people can take that into consideration for customs and shipping expense) and
• whether you are open to receiving NON-PERFUME ITEMS in exchange (see #4 below) or whether you really would prefer only other perfume items.
• You can also say if you are looking for a particular bottle of something(s) –hope springs eternal!

What can people offer to swap in exchange for your perfumes?  Other bottles/partials/minis/samples etc., or things – see #4 below.  When offering for a swap item, please say what country you’re from so they can take that into consideration

This will work best if everyone keeps an open mind – let us practice and presume honesty, good intentions, and respect. UPDATE — Folks, let’s see some horsetrading!  Don’t be shy!

Double update:  re MUA info:  folks, a LOT of people on here are new or do NOT have MUA access/accounts.  If it’s not too much trouble, PLEASE copy your wishlist/swaplist into a comment here.  That’s what it’s here for, do NOT worry if it’s long.    Thanks!

PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT:

1) Caveat swapper. This is NOT the place to list your bell jar of Iris Silver Mist in exchange for some vintage Joy extrait.  The bottles you list here should be things that, if they’re broken, damaged, consumed by drunken trolls or confiscated by the postal service, you’ll shrug and move on with no massive hard feelings.

2) Newbies: it is generally illegal to ship fragrance through the US Postal Service (Update: unless you specify parcel post and meet their packing requirements.)  Just pointing that out (we do it anyway). Wrap tight and seal, word your description carefully on customs forms (I go with “cosmetics”), and consider spending that extra 75 cents for tracking/delivery confirmation on your USPS packages.  Buying insurance is largely pointless because – hey, you aren’t supposed to be shipping perfume, remember?  They won’t pay up, and the scents you’re shipping for this swap shouldn’t be worth insuring.

3) I will NOT be mediating disputes. I am neither King Solomon nor your mother.  Again, caveat swapper.  Ages ago on the Posse, I sent out bottles to random commenters who wanted them and I said, send me back anything you want.  I got some extremely cool stuff – vintage jewelry, a bottle of First which proved JCE(!!) used to make some dense perfume, stationery, vintage hankies, and, from a couple of presumably well-intentioned people, I got … nothing.  It is possible that you might get nothing too.  I’ve lost maybe three perfume packages in the USPS in the last five years, either confiscated or stolen.  All things considered, not so bad.

4) You can offer NON-PERFUME items in exchange for a listed scent – candles, costume jewelry, stationery, something from your Etsy site, whatever.  To me that makes it more interesting; you’d be amazed at what you might get back.  Exercise caution when swapping cosmetics/foodstuffs with strangers.  I ate all the chocolate and coffee and tea you guys sent me and I lived.  Remember:  oakmoss kills.

5) This part I thought through for days; here it is.  This swap will work best, I think, if there’s a certain steady, organic flow to it — who knows how often people will get online to respond, etc.?  I’m looking at this as part social experiment.  So: you may fairly offer out a single item to multiple people simultaneously. One possible scenario: I scan the list of swap items and offer my bottle of YSL Paris to three different people.  Two of those people say yes (yeah, yeah, in my dreams).  I pick one of them, confirm our swap by exchanging contact info, and tell the other “sorry, I went with a different swap.”  This part will be the trickiest, I think, but if everyone has to wait for a polite “no” on each item before re-offering it, it’s going to take forever.  Again, I ask everyone to observe the Golden Rule, and proceed with (and presume) Good Intentions and Mutual Respect.

Your swap is not complete until both parties have agreed to it and exchanged contact info. Then go back to your original posting and mark your item as TAKEN so people don’t keep offering you things.

Once both parties have agreed and exchanged info, I will consider it poor form to back out of your swap (because you changed your mind or saw something better.)  If you have bad swap karma your bottles evaporate faster, and everything you buy will turn into Pink Sugar.

6) You will be responsible for arranging a way to exchange contact info – through a live link to your blog in comments, through sharing your username at FaceBook, POL, MUA, eBay, LiveJournal, etc.  I caution against typing your email addresses in comments.  If you must, spell it out thusly: “jane doe at gmail dot com” which is supposed to defeat the spambots.

7) In December I will invite everyone to comment about what they got, how the swap went, whether it was fun, and if we should do it again.

Okay.  Get out there and have fun, kids!   I plan to leave this up through the weekend.  I have never done this before and will try to address problems/issues if they arise.  Let’s keep our sense of humor, okay?   My swaps are in comments already.

image: Bill the Cat smells Borneo.   Image from Bloom County.

By Tom

I admit that I’m not a huge fan of LUSH, based upon a past Christmas gift that went horribly awry.  But I’d never been to the store so when charged with trying the “Gorilla” scents I thought, “how bad could it be?”

That, Tonstant Weader, is called “foreshadowing.”

I smelled the store before I got in there, which is usually not a good sign.  The smell wasn’t bad, mind you; it was just a little overpowering, like being mugged by a dryer sheet.  Luckily the scents were right in the front, showing either pride of place or the staff’s need of ventilation in their presence.  I tested on strips first, no fool I.  Then in the interest of science I tested three on skin.

Lust is jasmine, with an overarching, screechy metallic accord on my skin that was just god-awful.

Imogen Rose is powdery roses.  Not bad, but this garden path has been trod before, and far better.

Orange Blossom is neroli.  Tennis anyone?

Now I can’t call these serious reviews since I usually have to let myself live with a scent before committing myself to print on it.  I feel it’s my duty to readers to know that I didn’t just give this a cursory sniff and start typing.  These thankfully faded away after a few hours and I am not without being paid to going to re-apply.  For me, these are the scent equivalent of waterboarding.

In defense of the rest of LUSH, there were some great soaps, a shea-butter and rice scrubby thing and some (thankfully unscented) lotions, balms and salves that I would love to try.  I didn’t, not even to vigorously scrub Lust off.  Because I do it for you.

These are available at Lush stores and online, price dependent.  Personally I’d stick to the soaps.

PS from March:  The Gorilla Perfumes link on the LUSH U.S. website takes you to a UK page that displays the B Never Too Busy scents which LT and TS raved over in The Guide — if I recall correctly, several were 4 or 5 stars (and are listed in the appendix under B Never etc., not LUSH).  The LUSH website and the SA at the local store call these the “B sides” and they’re packaged in the Gorilla bottles — Breath of God, Ladyboy, Exhale, etc.  LUSH will ship from the UK but the local store says that with the possible exception of BOG, there are no plans to carry them stateside.  I’ve not bothered to hunt them down, but I am curious — have any of you tried any of the B sides?  Any opinions you’d like to share?  Thanks.