The traveler returns, much poorer in the wallet, but much richer in all the great sights and culture I was surrounded in.  It is always so good to get home, make my dogs and cats happy just because I exist where they can see me (does it get any better than that?), sleep in my own bed, catch up on all of my trashy Housewife shows (OMG, can Atlanta or Beverly Hills get any trashier?), and just move back into my life that I love so much.  I know, I’m disgustingly smug about my own contentment.

Cartier de Lune, created by Mathilde Laurent, who is also doing the entire L’Heure series (will be reviewing some of all of those on Thursday), is the first mainstream women’s fragrance they’ve done since Delices.  Now, Delices was not met with universal love, but I still adore that little fruity frothy thing because it makes me smile, and it tickles my nose – kinda like a nice rose’ champagne.

The most interesting piece of this perfume to me is the contrast of the L’Heure series and the mainstream Cartier de Lune, done by the same perfumer. Clearly this one is geared for the mainstream, not for all of you little freaks that like your perfume dressed up with leather and civet as an amuse bouche before you dive into some musky bottoms as a side dish.

Let me just cover de Lune on its own.  Notes of pink pepper, juniper berries, honeysuckle, wild rose, cyclamen, bindweed (morning glory), lily of the valley, musk, woods.  This is a very standard feminine clean musky floral, there’s nothing breakthrough about it. It’s easy to wear, floral, clean musk, little green, it’s smooth, elegant, not too heavy or too sheer.  I’m going out on a limb here and say that I think this was a good choice by Cartier.  So much of their historic perfumes are more heavy, outspoken – Baiser, Must, even Delices isn’t shy – and this fits in a place that I think was empty, and it’s well done, completely commercial, but not in a cheap commercial way like so many of the mainstream scents are.  It fits their brand and will speak easily to a younger customer.  I imagine this is a scent that you would garner a lot of  ”you smell so nices” as you waft through the office or a cocktail party.  Nothing wrong with that, I have a great appreciation for commercial fragrances that have been done well, have wide appeal and will broaden a company’s bottom line, which, lets face it, every company has to do to succeed. They simply can’t make a profit selling to us.   This one can easily be gifted to anyone from the age of  16 to 105 and worn by them without them feeling like they are wearing too young or too old.  That’s a pretty remarkable thing on its own.  Despite the broad appeal, it still smells expensive and fits the luxury Cartier branding.

It’s when I contrast this with the L’Heure series that I’m most interested in how the perfumer shows restraint, curbs some errant notes, smooths it out, gelds it so it is appealing to a wider audience.  I keep thinking that has to be the hardest thing in the world to do for an artist.

I had the same thought when I was going through the Uffizzi in Florence. So much of the art created by the masters were commissions – portraits, requests for religious persons that looked just like what Europeans looked like (hey, Botticelli and Raphael!), including Mary getting painted in various shows of riches that couldn’t be further from how she lived,  but I’m off on a tangent again – and not nearly as much of their work was what they would have chosen.   None of us are ever truly free to do and express ourselves as we like – we just have to show how great we are in what we are given to do.

There’s a full life lesson in that one sentence for me.   Source for the Cartier de Lune sample was Cartier, along with samples of the three new L’heures.  I’ve got a small bottle of it, and I’ll happily carve it out into like 5 samples to give to commenters.  We can talk about whatever you like today!  Tell me about your pets, what you’re reading.  I got sucked into those for-teenage-girls Vampire Academy books, and I really need to find an exit point for them, except I’m on the last one.  Not sure why I’m on a young adult reading tear lately.   I intersperse something more difficult between my teenfic truffles, but I keep finding interesting ideas in those books, even if some of the writing makes me cringe a bit.  Well, sometimes a lot.

Patty

by “is it May yet?” Musette

Winter nights find me  in bed, with hot tea and my picture books of warmer climates spread all around me – by 7pm.  It’s barbaric, I know, but I Just Hate Winter.  We will go into the pathology of my living in the Midwest at another time, thank you.  Ignore the fact that it’s 50F in Cannes right now.   So what?  A gal is dreaming of Summer on the Riviera.

Bruno Acampora didn’t dream it – he lived it.  A handsome, jet-setting fabuloso, it seems he was Everywhere Beautiful – and mostly in the sun, returning again and again to his best love, Capri.  Capri, with its sunny ,carefree beauty, is evidenced in all 7 of his Essences.  Carol Sasich (WAFT by Carol) sent me this charming sample pack and I admit to a bit of trepidation.  Full disclosure here:  Carol and I are well on the way to becoming ‘real’ friends and she reps Bruno Acampora and she sent them to me to review.  That’s a beautiful thing!  But what if I hated them?  What if they were awful, made me break out in hives and babble in tongues?  What then?

Well, I’m pleased to say that not only did they not hive me, they did the unexpected:  They put mein a baby-blue convertible, on the road from Cannes to Monte Carlo clad in a New Look summer dress,  Hermes scarf and Pucci sunglasses, a snappy soundtrack….uh, you know this picture, right?  That’s Seplasia, (awful name, gorgeous scent).  This is absolutely lovely, all golden light and beautiful flowers – but not ‘twee’.  Notes are violet, rose, orange blossom, geranium, tuberose, jasmine, Lemon, bergamot, musk, patchouli, vetyver, rosewood, ylang ylang.  For me, the geranium and ylang really shine in this one, with the lemon giving it that sunny, carefree elegance.

Oooh! … Joao Gilberto.  Suntan lotion. The gentle clang of sailboat masts and zippy little speedboats headed to the mouth of the harbor.    That’s Blu. It’s  – hey, you know how you are in shallow turquoise waters and there’s a sudden drop off and suddenly it’s that deep jeweled turquoise-blue?   yeah, it’s just like that in color and idea – but that’s the only marine-y reference.  Blu is straight-up tuberose with a big dose of reflective heat.  Cocktails on the terrace.  Bridget Bardot in white sharkskin, Sophia Loren in midnight blue.   Tuberose always smells ‘dark’ to me (which is what I love about it) – and very structured.  This tuberose is the first ‘sunny’ and carefree (there’s that word again) tubey I’ve ever sniffed.  It’s ultra-feminine without girlishness.  Blu notes are: Tuberose, Orange, Sandalwood, Ylang Ylang…..I have it on right now and am in an oceanview suite at the Hotel de Paris.  And Rossano Brazzi just sent me a box from Bulgari.   Ooooh, Rossano!  You really shouldn’t…

There are seven …..but y’all have lives so I’ll just do one more:  I took one for the team and tried Musc.  Cary  and Sophia (she gets around) yachting from Monte Carlo to Tunisia.  Can you imagine what that cruise might’ve been like?  This is that first kiss after a long grown-folks  flirt.  Not at night  – high noon on the deck, with the sun-warmed teak radiating heat through the soles of your bare feet.  This might actually get a gal to think about coming out of a couple layers of fleece.

And yes, like the rest of this line, there’s a charming, sunny cheerfulness about it that is very beguiling.  Musk, Rose, Violet, Vanilla, Cloves, Amber, Sandalwood.  Personally, I think it’s the cloves.  Y’all know I have that Constant Comment love-thang going.

In fact, the whole line – all 7- are carefree.  I don’t mean ‘cheap and cheerful’ – far from it.  These are elegantly, gorgeously crafted, of excellent materials.  These have the heft of serious perfumery – but the inspirations are from a privileged life, at a time when the world seemed sunnier and way less terrifying.  Right now, in these dark days and darker times….well, a yacht with Cary Grant sounds just grand.

I’’ll share the sunshine with one lucky commenter.  Just drop a line letting me know if you think I should be committed for living in the Midwest.  Just kidding.  Really.    Hey!  Just tell me your favorite place, that says ‘summer’.

Caveat:  these are concentrated oils.  When I first got them I was all “you sent me dregs?”  Haw.   These ‘dregs’ will last forever.  One touch of the wand gives you enough scent for the entire day.

image:  french-riviera-hotel.net  some rights reserved

other image:  Bruno Acampora ca. 1965, courtesy WAFT by Carol

By Ann

(our guest-poster you previously met for tea!)

“I wouldn’t touch (insert brand name here) fragrances with a 10-foot pole.”  How many of us, as perfume fanatics, have thought that about one line or another? Maybe we think its scents are cheaply made, over-hyped to the heavens, too commercial/mainstream for our highly developed tastes or some other reason. Some less charitable souls might call it a kind of scent snobbery.

But whatever it is, I’m guilty of it, too, in a few instances. But recently I got a little attitude adjustment that sent me reeling.

I was aimlessly wandering around the fragrance area of my local high-end store, chatting with one or two of the SAs that I know, not really looking for anything in particular.

“Well, hello there,” said a familiar voice. It turned out to be a very nice woman I knew from another line, and whom I hadn’t seen in a while.  And as we caught up, I looked over at her hand and saw that she was holding an amber bottle with a fancy gold cap. I remember thinking, “That kind of looks like … oh, it can’t be … nooo, it’s not Clive Christian!”  My first instinct was to mumble a few feeble excuses, back away quickly and make a dash for the door.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the brand. It’s a classy line, beautifully presented and all, but it is waaay expensive and has a sort of uber-exclusivity surrounding it (“world’s most expensive perfume”) that bugs me a little. Not to mention that one or two of their scents that I tried ages ago were not so great on me, so I wasn’t eager to tangle with it again. But my wish not to offend her overcame my urge to flee and I gamely held out my wrist when she asked to spray me. We chatted a few minutes more and I walked off, hoping I wouldn’t have to make a beeline for the bathroom and wash it off.

I headed over to another store, and promptly forgot all about it.  A while later as I was browsing a clothes rack, something wonderful wafted up to me. Mmmm … that’s nice. What is that luscious, rich scent? Oh my. Oh my! OH MY!! It’s just so yummy GOOD on me! I wracked my brain trying to remember what I had put on before I left the house.  And then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was that Clive Christian “C” for women that the lady had spritzed on me. The more I sniffed, the more I loved it, and the more I wanted it. The only thing that kept me from sprinting back and buying a bottle was that whopping $375 price tag.

I’ve since gotten my mitts on a small amount of it and am using it sparingly, but oh, so lovingly.  For me, the moral of this story is: “Never judge a scent by its name (or older siblings).”

So please jump in and share your “wow” moment. I’d love to know what, if any, fragrances have knocked you back like an unexpected left hook. Was it love at first sniff or did it take a few dates before you were hopelessly smitten?

Yesterday when I was walking in the cold light misty rain around Florence, I was trying to think about what this city feels like. It’s steeped in history like Rome, but it doesn’t feel old or historical, it feels just like it should, that the old buildings and museums are exactly as they should be, no matter what century we were in. Then I thought – oh, the food, yes! When I travel to a new place, I normally check out TripAdvisor or some other site or guidebook to steer me in the right direction on food. While I’m sure I could get a less than stellar meal in Florence, I’m not sure how. Even stopping at Joe’s Ravioli Shack seems to net a delicious homemade ravioli in a perfectly spiced sauce. Not the best one in Florence, but certainly better than almost anything I could get back home.

So, yeah, the food. Gelateria. I did try the one ya’ll recommended on Tuesday, and the darn thing was closed, closed until April. There are some drawbacks about coming in the off-season. The good part is there’s no crowds, you can get into any museum the same day, no lines, you can sit on the benches around David with the other four people there and contemplate a world where someone chiseled away that masterpiece out of a block of marble no one else wanted.

The wine? Well, absolutely, Diane, I did try that Antinori restaurant with their own wines. I can’t even talk about the papardelle with the pigeon sauce without drooling, but what’s not to love about cheap’ish Italian house wine that’s, well, not cheap anywhere else, but is reasonable at that one restaurant by the glass.

And nothing really explains it except Florence is a city that is completely comfortable being exactly what it is, which is indefinable.
Everyone should spend three days in Florence, and throw out the guidebook and just get a map and wander, but do it in the offseason. You may miss a few choice gelato-makers, but what you’ll get in return is the city that breathed life into Michaelangelo and Dante.

And tomorrow I go home, and that doesn’t seem possible because there’s so much more I want to see, and today won’t be enough time. Hey, that means I need to come back.

Perfume? Oh, yes, I do have a date with IPDF. March, that place is across the street from the Rivoire, which is closed for the off-season, but is the home of delicious hot chocolate and desserts – according to what I’ve heard, but not experienced. So I’ll have to wing it without the Rivoire to curl up and sniff at. Santa Maria Novella is not far away, and if today doesn’t turn into a drizzlefest, it’s on my list of places I’m going to try to get to – well, unless I wind up mired down in that wine bar I want to get to on the other side of the river.

I better hit post here soon. My European insomnia is out in full force this week, where I can’t get to sleep until 2 a.m., and then I sleep in until noon, except when I need to set my alarm and write a blog post.

Of all the places all of you have traveled, what has been your favorite and why? Feel free to have more than one favorite and one reason. I’m hitting the far end of my wanderlust since I’ve been traveling too much in the last three months, and I’m ready to be home for a good long while.

Patty

Monday night brought the classic “wintry mix” to the Washington area – a custom blend of sleet, hail, ice and freezing rain that translates into good luck getting out of your house.  I spent much of today shoveling ice and praying that the children will be back in school tomorrow.

It seemed like the perfect time to write up a review of Yves Saint Laurent Cinema, created by Jacques Cavallier in 2004.  Notes are clementine, almond blossom, cyclamen, jasmine, peony, amaryllis, benzoin, amber, musk, vanilla. Here, let me paste in some hilarious copy from Fragrantica:  “Cinema can make every woman feel like a star. It is a fragrance for glamorous women who live under the spotlights, self-confident and elegant, women who know how to draw the attention. A seductive flavor reminds of Hollywood beauties from the romantic love movies, glamourous evening gowns, Hollywood hairstyles, high heels, black seamed stockings…”

Uh … no.  Maybe this is partly why Cinema’s one of those fragrances that seems very under-the-radar to me in perfumista-ville, because once you’re done with all that bodice-ripping copy up there you’re bound to be disappointed in the scent.

Cinema could easily have fit into my oddball vanilla post from last week and, in fact, I thought about including it, but decided it was worth its own review, given how often I wear it.  I worked through five (!) small manufacturer’s sprays, deciding if I even liked it, one of my longer-range scent indecisions, before finally getting my hands on a bottle during the Posse swap.

I can definitely smell the clementine at the top, a juicy burst of orange that cuts the sweetness of the floral notes that follow.  I can’t pick any of that list of flowers out individually, just a hazy, sweet suggestion that keeps Cinema from being a straight-out vanilla, and also keeps it from being gourmand in the way that some vanilla scents drive people nuts by smelling too much like vanilla extract.   It’s a little powdery (maybe the almond blossom?) but not terribly much so, as I don’t especially like powdery notes and Cinema doesn’t get on my nerves.  The drydown is a warm amber-musk with that smoky-balsam benzoin, over a solid base of vanilla.  Again, this might be a vanilla scent to try if you’re looking for an edge of vanilla rather than a deluge.

Cinema is one of those soothing scents that seems perfect at bedtime, which is mostly when I wear it, or during the day when I want warmth and comfort the way I want hot cocoa, home-baked cookies and a fire in the fireplace.  It reminds me a little of L’Artisan Vanilia, only less weird and with a hint of sophistication, but not too much.

The bottle – a tall, glamorous thing that looks nice on the dresser – is clearly in line with the marketing message, but at odds with the scent itself, which seems perfectly content to put on a cashmere bathrobe and stay in for the evening, reading a good mystery novel, rather than head out for a night on the town.

Endnote: I have a bottle of the eau de parfum, which I find vastly superior to the thin, watery EdT.  They also make a parfum, and I’m trying not to duplicate my scents endlessly in terms of concentration, but I’d be curious if anyone has tried it.  Cinema strikes me as something that might be quite lovely and different in the parfum.

March