I’d like to talk about perfume today, but I can’t. I’m way too distracted with yet another winter storm overnight, snow-packed roads tomorrow, sub-zero temperatures.

Yes, it’s not even Valentine’s Day, but I”m over winter completely.  Tomorrow will hit 6, with 8 inches of snow.  Now, I know that may not sound like much, but for Colorado it’s annoying. We usually get almost no snow from December to the first of March, have 50s and 60s, lots of sunshine, and all that pesky snow stays in the moutains while we run around coatless here in Denver.  Then in March and often April, it dumps 2-3 feet on us, we all cozy in for 2-3 days until nature’s snowblower, our sun that is with us like 300 plus days of the year, melts it off, and we start enjoying the hyacinth show and budding of trees.

This year we are getting real winter, and it super-sucks.  The lack of sun is making me so grumpy.

This whine is completely not warranted, but I wanted to make it anyway, just to give all of you the opportunity to get off your chests in comments how awful your winter has been, which I think almost all of you have had far, far worse.   How many days since you’ve seen the sun or the street?  Did you ever think you’d get tired of snow days? I have like five pair of black boots, and I”m sick of wearing all of them, and I never thought I’d say that. Usually by now I’ve been wearing my Chacos for a week during a nice warm spell of 2-3 weeks.

And also I wanted to pose a question just as advice on how to do something.

Xerjoff has been super-nice and sent us a big old kit of shooting stars scents and samples of rosewood and irisss and Elle and some others, and I need to figure out how to do the giveaway on them.  The big kit is really cute all together. I haven’t opened it, it’s still sealed, but it looks neat.  Now, that’s a really big prize to give to ONE person when I could break up all the generous sized samples (I think 5 ml or so?) inside and give one away to each person, but sometimes it’s really cool for one person to win a really cool big prize.  What do we think? I have more samples to give away besides that that are carded.  One to a person, do some in a set?  Do two rounds, and first round gets to pick their sample, then I draw for the rest?  So many possibilities, and I want to thank Xerjoff for generously providing these so a few of our commenters can get them for free!!

The four winners of the three-sample set of Cartiers are:  Valentine, Occhineri, Kim and Geordan 1244.  Just click on the Contact us over on the left, send me your address with a note reminding me what you won, and I’ll get them sent out to you.

Patty

By Tom

Anya McCoy is one of those people who makes scents I consider my armor.  When I go into someplace and sniff the sad remains of a former favorite scent I can just walk away, rueful but sure in the knowledge that people like Anya are carrying the torch, away from the vicissitudes of bean counter, idiotic new “guidelines” or focus groups.

Kaffir would have been killed in committee before it could have gotten within 100 miles of your local Sephora, and that would have been a tragedy.  Anya balances a lime leaf and tarragon opening, a jasmine and wood middle, and a leathery, musky base that works in several different ways.  It’s playful in the way it flirts with Thai food, with the lime leaves’ winking Pad Thai echoes.  It’s also slightly retro in the middle with hints at old-school Gentleman’s Scents when the jasmine joins the party.  Finally it’s its own, wonderfully sexy self with the delightfully vegetal musk and leather.  I want to try the perfume strength one.

Ladies, if you are the sort of gal that wears Derby or Bandit, this slashingly, heartlessly chic little number should be on your radar.

Note: They are having a 25% off sale through Valentine’s Day.

Kaffir is available at Anya’s Garden website, $60 for 3.5ML of perfume or $100 for 15ML of EdP.  My sample was from her mini sampler set, $7 for the sample.  Image from Anya’s Garden website.

Winter seems to be doing that Guest Fish thing – and it even brought its mother in law!  So..if you can’t beat it (no matter how much you want to.  With a stick.  Covered in barbed wire..and a couple of nails for good measure….)

….thenlet’s talk about The Best of Winter 2010.  We have alllll the time in the world…Winter will be on the fold-out sofa for a few eons more…

Anita/Musette sez:

1Feb2011 – 30mph gusts. I can’t see the house across the street for the blowing snow. The Weather Channel is nearly incoherent with glee at the coming Snowpocalypse – their ratings must be through the roof!!!     Anybody who thinks I’m not going to list Cartier Les Heures Fougueuse as mine own is out of their mind.  It may have debuted in the chill of the last quarter but it’s all about heat, since the lifestyle this conjures means you can hop in the G6 and be in Belize for afternoon tea.  If you are wearing this and you are in snow, you are in Gstaad.  Because you wanna be.

The other one is Bruno Acampora Blu. There’s not a marine note in there but…It smells like this looks.  Trust me.

Tom weighs in from sunny LA:

I know it seems whiny that I’m typing that I need a breath of spring when I’m spending another winter in Los Angeles, the one place in the US that isn’t under ten feet of snow.  But after 20-odd years in the beautiful Hills of Beverly, 40 seems darned cold.  What’s the answer?  Sometimes it’s Andy Tauer’s Carillon pur un ange, the lovely lily with the shockingly sensual Tauerade drydown.  Sometimes it’s L’Artisan Coeur de Vetiver Sacre with it’s balance of cool vetiver and warm black tea.  One of the main ones I’ve been reaching for however is Etat Libre’s Like This.  Designed for (and by) Tilda Swinton, The mandarin, rose and neroli are uplifting and the ginger, immortelle and pumpkin are immensely comforting.  It’s like fuzzy slippers and a warm hearth in a spray bottle.

Nava, reporting from Toronto, in Canada, where all the snow is supposed to fall: Once again, my peeps in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions are getting hammered. And by the way, Musette, that was quite a party you guys had in Chicago the other day.

For me, it’s been slim pickins’ this winter, but I’ve more than gotten by: Serge’s Bois et Fruits has kept me warm. So has Barbara Bui Le Parfum and my old standby, Donna Karan Chaos. Thanks, cousin Simon.

Patty, frozen stiff in Denver, is thumbing her nose at Musette darling and putting Fougueuse on her list, along with Kilian Pure Oud,  Baccarat Les Larmes Sacree du Thebes,  Caron Parfum Sacre in all of its lovely iterations and Fendi Theorema, which warms the cockles of my black little heart.

So…those are our picks - we’re throwing it open to you now. Let us know what warmed (or is still warming, since it’s still winter) the cockles of YOUR heart!

For more top ten lists, please see Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc, Now Smell This, and Perfume-Smellin’ Things.

That gorgeous winter photo is US 61, Minnesota, 2010., courtesy of our own Catherine.  www.catherinemicheleadams.com

That gorgeous NOT WINTER photo is Costa Careyes.

FaNgRrrL reporting for duty.  There are two big challenges in writing perfume reviews – one is trying to write a review for a perfume you don’t really care passionately about  – even to pee all over it with words -  and the other is trying to restrain yourself from hoisting up your skirts and kicking your legs in the air with glee about a perfume that hits some freaky place inside you that makes you melt.  Neither challenge have I overcome, as you’ll see, well, now.

Mathilde – smooches, xoxoxoxoxox, you are frEAkiNg brilliant, I love you,  will you be my fren’? writemebackwhenyoucan, k?

Well, it’s not quite that bad, but I do feel like a bit like a 14-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert when I start bubbling over about Cartier L’heure IV Fougueuse.  To read more adult reviews, try Denyse and Victoria.

I don’t get all the mate that others have commented that’s about all they get.  If it were that mate-centric on me, I may like it fine, but not be so in love with it.  For me, it’s very light smoky leather gloves with tendrils of hay, tea, and a little green floating around in wisps.  It feels a little lemony on the open with the bergamot, which enhances that lemon tea effect, which I’m quite enamored of, but that’s just the beginning.

As an aside, the perfume someone could make me would be ginger-lemon-honey. Maybe that exists somewhere, but I need it to smell just like my favorite drink. I crush up fresh ginger, boil it for like 20-30 minutes (make sure you cut it up, then smash it before you put it in the water), strain it out or leave the ginger in, whichever you prefer, then squeeze in some fresh lemon, add delicious honey, stir, drink.  I drank this probably every morning I was in India, if I could get it, and it’s the perfect drink.  If you boil up enough ginger, you can hold the ginger over, put in the lemon, and reheat it. Just don’t put the honey in when it’s boiling hot, bad for the honey.

Back to Fougueuse.  After the more lemony open is when the hay/narcissus opens up, and that’s when it gets utterly charming.  You get a whiff of something that smells just a little off/dirty/funky, as Denyse puts it, and then it just relaxes into the embrace of the other notes with a sigh.  The smell of  a horse’s neck is one of my favorite things to smell, and that’s what this feels like to me, followed closely by my memories of being snuggled up in the hayloft with a book – blended together.  Fairly (! understatement! ) intoxicating.  The longer it is on, the more beautiful it gets, as the notes merge and soften, taking that memory you started with and weaving it with light and burnishing it with gold until it is your memory, but better.

I’m sure everyone else has some other leather/skin smell that it will conjure up – so feel free to insert your own lovely scented memory of a beloved bag or person or gardening or neckofyourownchoosing.  The nice thing about this is it’s a “feel” perfume – one that makes you think of some place, time, thing – but it is also incredible to wear – not always possible with scents that are keying off of nontraditional perfume smells.

With spraying, it has some heft and sillage that is light, but persistent.  It’s not a deep smoky or leather perfume that you’d want to be careful where you wear it. This you could wear anywhere – day, night, spring, summer, fall, winter.

Well, yes, of course it’s going to be on my Best of Winter list for tomorrow and for spring, etc., etc.  Okay, did I drool too much?  If so, I apologize.  What perfumes make you melt somewhere?

Patty

by the now-freezing Musette

Awhile back March said it would be January for a few more months – she wuz right.  I cannot believe the shockin’ amount of snow, the gale-force winds, the paralyzing cold.  Welcome to February, the new January.  It’ll be here awhile.

So while the rest of you are snuggling into your Snugglers, toasting by the fire, I decided to work my Inner Freak.  I pulled on the Sorels, the Fargo hat and the ski gloves and went outside to shovel almost a foot of snow.  Because I am Just That Crazy.

And I armed myself with two Nordic-type scents, just to take the cold amp to ELEVEN.

Andrea Maack’s Craft was courtesy of a lovely Swapper.  I am not sure what I was expecting here – there was some loose talk about aldehydes and frozen metal.  I was so ready to brave these scent elements, with the biting, hypodermic winds and all…I mean, FROZEN METAL?  What could be colder than that, right?

Sadly, all I got was a big ol’ blast of Pine-Sol.  I felt like I should be inside cleaning the bathroom, rather than braving the permafrost temps, watching the pine trees bow and sway in the swirling snow.  I did a sniff-check about halfway through, as the physics of moving all that snow around, altered the chemistry of the perfume a little bit (see? I was paying a bit of attention in Science – Very Little)…

Still no Frozen Metal.  No fjords.  No clashing Viking swords.  Just a nice riff on Clairol Herbal Essence.  It’s nice but no fjords.  Okay, I’m off to clean the bathroom.  Then I’ll shampoo my hair.

Notes, via Luckyscent: Aldehydes, elemi, cold metal, ice, cedar wood, patchouli

Softeistanz Im Nebel   – I got this one in a split. Softeistanz, which I first thought was the name of the perfume, is a tiny indie house in Portland, Oregon. It’s a great name and I think this tiny house will be one to watch in the future. Im Nebel means ‘in the fog’ in (Lord help me….is it Swedish?  You’d think I could find that out but noooo!)…anyway, this was another Total Opposite of What I Was Expecting.  The notes are Water apple, leather, silver linden, pepper leaf, ginger, milk cedar, green notes, floral notes, incense, per indiescents.com and I was hoping for a lot of silver linden, because I love linden (it’s very calming) and I love silver, especially in winter…and I imagined a walk through a snowy, foggy woods, with a rushing stream  (is there anything more beautiful than a swift-moving stream in the foggy woods in winter? )….but this one got all apple-y on me.  Four hours into it, that’s still all I’m smelling.  It’s actually very pretty – just not at all what I was hoping for.  Then again, I don’t even know if that exists!

So let me put it to my beautifulicious Posse -  what scents evoke cold silver in the foggy snow?  Bring it!  I’ll have plenty of time to investigate, as it looks like January is here to stay.