Monday Mus(ette)ings

 

I promise there will be perfume in here – but not just yet.    Here are a couple of  mindless musings:

Due to an unfortunate incident on Hwy 6, involving a 40- foot manlift, a foolish old man in a minivan and my own deeply insane self, Mistress March and El O have decreed suggested that I should no longer watch Criminal Minds!  Waaaah!  Where will I feed my Paranoid Warrior side?  How am I going to scare myself to flinders?  Fine. My time is now free to consider other things such as:

Am I the last dog over the William and Kate Wedding hill?  Didn’t they just get engaged yesterday afternoon?  Where was I when all this was happening?  I must be too old to have them on my radar.  I remember buying my first color TV the day before Diana married Charles.  Got up at o’dark-thirty to watch the wedding.   Totally silly dress – but she was charming and became a lovely and gracious princess, who seemed to have such love for her sons.  I don’t know much about William and that’s  a good thing, right?   I wish them every happiness.

Flora was right. You can have anything you don’t want anymore.  Case in point:  Mallomars.  Every Year.  Want ‘em.  Got ‘em.  SixBeautifulSix boxes in the freezer.  Meh. (no, you can’t have them!)  I’ll fall in love again, come June.

Armand Assante.  It’s just ridiculous.  He’s only getting sexier and hottier. He’s the Helen Mirren of (male) Actors – we’re talking  age/hot-quotient here, not talent.

Okay!  On to perfume.   Folks are always surprised that I love soft Spring scents.  Hey, knife-wielding psychos can like The Pretty, too, y’know.   Now that I can smell iris I am falling head over heels with all sorts of variations on the theme, from chilly 28 La Pausa to the rooty-carroty Xerjoff Irisss (s).  They match the mercurial April weather, going from a warm breath of air to a chilly blast of metallic, ozonic rain, in about the time it took me to type this sentence.  But none of them say iris ‘flower’  – a note  I hadn’t considered –I know I’m late to that party but it’s not like iris has been a big thing for me.  I couldn’t smell it, remember?  Then, some lovely, generous soul sent me a scrab of Donna Karan Iris.

It is Official.  I am hooked on The Pretty.   Robin reviewed it here and gets some interesting nuance.  I get a hit of rose and what smells like wisteria…then I get the iris (Robin got the iris first).   I sniffed it alongside one of those gorgeous sweet bearded purple irises and it doesn’t smell anything like that – what it smells like is what you’d expect an iris to smell like if you didn’t know what an iris actually smelled like. Donna Karan Iris is  a warm Spring day.  The pretty, MGM version.  Maybe with a chic hat.  There’s not one hint of aggression in this.  No broad shoulders or wire hangers.  I think I’m finally beginning to understand what the whole ‘buttery’ thing is about.  This has a tad of that carroty root thing in the middle, just enough to keep this from being zzzzzz-pretty and keeps it true to its name.  I could easily wear this whenever I wanted to enjoy being a girl..instead of a mace-wielding shrike – the Original mace, with the spikes – not the spray.  I do have my ‘pretty’ days, y’know…just not on Hwy 6, in the middle of a field.  Hey!  There could be psychos hiding in that minivan!

 

Available on the N-M website for $98/3.4oz.  I’ll be back in civ in a week or so, will see if it’s in-store.

 

 

  • Flora says:

    Not sure why I have never smelled DK Iris, but I am also looking for a floral iris rather than a “rooty” one, must try soon!

    I am old enough to remember when Armand Assante was a soap opera star, and a darn good one. He has indeed aged very well. Le Sigh.

  • Louise says:

    Funny how once one finally “gets” iris, it pops up everywhere. I, too, was largely anosmic to iris for years, and suddenly I can detect it everywheres. I don’t know that there was one breakthrough moment or scent, but I do remember actually smelling something in the LL about a year ago. Then came Iris Poudree, and a number of Chanels.

    Must try that DK. Pretty is very, very nice.

    Buckle up, girl, and enjoy the ride!

  • Shelley says:

    Hah….hah diddity ha ha ha…anosmic AND not interested. You, my friend, were doomed. ;)

    Yup, I still remember my one huff of Irisssss. Well, okay, more than a huff; one application on a test patch and repeated huffing. Beautifully smoothed out root without getting TOO creamy. All the best parts of being a root, and yet getting sophisticated. In the vein of…well, for one, L’Artisan Iris Pallida (the harvest offering). Not as uncompromising as Hiris. Not aldehyde-y like a Chanel. Verrra nice.

    I was of course a cheapskate, and had issues with the price. Not that I haven’t paid through the nose a couple of times…just that, being the iris ho that I am, I have oodles of iris permutations, and didn’t see that one as quite different enough + comfortable in the budget enough to merit justification. But, if I had more expendable dough, or fewer rooty irises, who knows…

    As for iris flower, is it that time of year again? Time to strike up the drums for the FLOWER??? March, you know I’m with you on this one. Yes, the deep purple bearded one. Not lemon iris, or that crazy swamp iris, but that not NuGrape but still outrageously present grape iris. I offered mine up for a perfumer, remember? Someday.

    Armand Assante. He’s like some foodstuff you forget you really enjoy, then have some and remember you are not really getting much nutritionally from it, and that’s why you turned away. (And by “you,” I mean “me.”) :)

    • Musette says:

      No, you mean ‘me’. I have a feeling he is way more interesting as a person than he is an actor, which is better than the other way around. He’s not awful as an actor and seems to know his ‘place’ which helps keep him on the radar and decently employed.

      He has a working 220+ acre farm in NY, did you know? Has had for years (it was one of the things I learned about him right after I fell for him in Private Benjamin). If he has Percherons, I’m on the next plane up there, baby! 😉

      Iris…you know this is the gods’ revenge, don’t you? I’m finding that I like ’em all, now. Rooty, flowery….bring it! Now that I am no longer anosmic to some of them, it might be time to revisit Iris Pallida (which I keep wanting to call Iris Padilla – sorry :”>

      xo >-)

  • Tamara*J says:

    Musette I ain’t surprised you got won over by “The Pretty”
    I love iris too! So we can be laydayzzzzz after all??? LOL

    xoxo~T

  • Claudia says:

    My iris come up every year – lots of green leaves, but no flowers. Anybody know what the problem might be? I have gotten flowers in the past, but now I just get leaves, or fronds, or whatever you call them.
    I love La Pausa. Isn’t Bas de Soie also iris? I love that one too.

  • DinaC says:

    Loved your random musings, Anita. I’m a big ‘ol iris fan, and, in fact, wore 28 La Pausa yesterday. Am wearing Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile edp today. It’s a big, lush, heady, gardenia-like iris. Actually, not too iris-y at all. But beautiful. I haven’t sniffed the DK Iris, but now, see, I’m gonna have to.

    My DD, age 11, and her pals planted a bunch of bulbs in our miniscule garden bed last fall, and we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of a couple of bearded iris. The big red tulips are blooming right now. :-)

    • Musette says:

      I forgot all about the AdP! I will have to sniff it when I’m back in civ. 😕

      Early spring bulbs are blooming and it’s 45F, which is nice. Means we’ll have them for a couple more days. Last year it hit 80, right when they opened, so they bloomed and died in 24 hrs. :((

      xo >-)

  • mals86 says:

    (WORK that mace, girl! The spikes give you spunk.)

    Never saw Criminal Minds… actually, I don’t watch a lot of TV. I came downstairs to the family room after lunch and found my 10yo watching a documentary on WWII, on the liberation of the concentration camps, and made him turn it off. (I have visited Auschwitz and was powerfully moved; this film was just not made for tender eyes.) Aaaanyway, documentaries and sports are about all we use our TV for – that, and old movies. Watched Tombstone on TV with The CEO this past week. You can keep Armand – I’ll stick with Kurt. Who might be graying, but still has dimples.

    And I would pay a LOT for an iris scent that smells like a big bouquet of my grandmother’s no-name mauve irises: floral, aqueous, happiness on the wind. Iris Ooki was NOT IT (celerycelerycelery).

    • Musette says:

      I used to be non-TV myself – in fact, I didn’t even have cable when I lived in the ‘burbs (which meant I didn’t have TV). It was glorious – I got so much more done. Now I watch way too much HGTV. The only other show I watch(ed) is(was) Criminal Minds (trying to cover my ykwhat there 😉 in case Missy March and El O are reading this)

      DKaran’s Iris is definitely NOT your grandmother’s iris, either. Pretty scent, though.

      No, see Kurt is another one – he has aged very well, imo. Like Ed Harris. Lord. Ed Harris. 😡

      xoxo >-)

    • jen says:

      Wait, isnt that the Tombstone with Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday? The best Holiday ever!

    • Francesca says:

      I LOVE Tombstone, especially Val Kilmer’s Doc. “I’m your huckleberry.”

  • March says:

    “I sniffed it alongside one of those gorgeous sweet bearded purple irises and it doesn’t smell anything like that – what it smells like is what you’d expect an iris to smell like if you didn’t know what an iris actually smelled like.”

    THAT. Why the heck can’t I win a bazillion dollars and commission, I don’t know, JCE or BD to do me an actual fricking IRIS scent?

    I was out walking with the girls yesterday, sniffed, swiveled my head around … half a block away in this crummy front yard was a single blooming bearded iris. I want that smell. :((

    • Musette says:

      Hey, doll! Are you drinking yet? :)) (sorry). Kids all week! I could barely manage one Saturday with my granddaughter! Aiiiyy!

      Iris flower reminds me a lot of Korean Spice Bush (viburnum) – it’s extremely elusive to my nose. I wonder if it’s more of a ‘notion’, like purple hyacinth? I spent an hour with a hyacinth last week and I’m still not sure what I was smelling. Dirt? the leaves? just the essence of hyacinth?

      xo >-)

      • March says:

        Okay, then, I think you’re anosmic.

        Those purple hyacinths? The short, ugly ones people line up like trashy soldiers down the sides of their driveways, you talking about those? I can smell those, like, a block away. Half a block for iris.

        Hyacinth in perfume smells very metallic to me, not in real life.

        • Musette says:

          No, I think it’s the sinus infection. Usually I can smell those a block away, too. Right now, though, all I get is that ‘spring’ smell, which is lovely but indefinable.

          What happens with the viburnum is I get a really intense blast of it, on the breeze, but right up in the flower it is undetectable. Wonder if it’s a ‘throwing’ scent or if it’s so intense that if you get right up in it it blows your sniffer out? I have never been able to smell it up close but a former neighbor’s viburnum bush could stop me dead in my tracks 4 houses away! 😕

          xo >-)

  • Catherine says:

    That sounds gorgeous, Musette! La Pausa is my favorite iris for spring (the only one in my collection anymore), but as the bottle is nearly finished (Yikes!), I will go hunting to try that one!

    • Musette says:

      Go to NM first, see if you like it. It’s not ‘iris’ like La Pausa. Totally different, more flowery. LP is chillier, in that gorgeous Chanel way.

      xo >-)

  • Francesca says:

    Not a big iris fan here (though I love the actual flowers) but maybe I just haven’t come across the right scent yet.

    Ever seen Assante in The Odyssey? It’s fantastic.

    • Musette says:

      F,

      The Odyssey was what prompted that musing! It was on yesterday afternoon. The last scenes…sooo yum!

      I totally disregarded him in his youth (funny that he started his career with Henry Winkler who, considered SO hot in his youth, has NOT aged well imo)

      xo >-)

      • Austenfan says:

        Assante is hot! Not a really great actor though, I agree. I love iris fragrances. You have made me want to try the Donna Karan.

        • Musette says:

          It is definitely a ladylike spring scent. I feel like I should be wearing, if not a dress, at least a skirt!

          On Assante, I think he knows he’s not a great actor and is smart enough to stay in the realm of workability – Odysseus is good because it doesn’t require a lot of introspection – it’s as much an action movie as anything. I would NOT like to see him attempt Lear. b-(

          xo >-)

          • Austenfan says:

            I have to agree with you there. What I have seen him in he did well. He is a bit like Roger Moore in that respect who was funny in what he did, and never really attempted more. (And never took himself to seriously.)
            All actors need not be Michael Gambons, who interestingly enough was once asked to do a Bond film.

            I am very good at wearing ladylike scents ( including Aromatics of Doom) in jeans. I hardly ever wear skirts, and I rather like ladylike fragrances.

  • Criminal Minds gains a new viewer (me) and loses one in the same week. The world has its way of evening the score, doesn’t it?

    I’m also recently getting into iris and exploring the many different ways it can come across in perfumes. I’m pretty smitten with Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir, it’s very earthy/spicy. I’m looking forward to finding more favorites.

    • Musette says:

      Oh, I think I can sneak in an episode or 12 ;-))

      (just don’t tell March, okay?)

      I was stunned to find out Mythique was full of Iris – I love Mythique. It stays pretty cool through the whole experience, which is nice. PtheG says Iris 39 isn’t really iris – and they’re prolly right – but I love that stuff, too!

      xo >-)

      • Le Labo perfumes are never exactly what you think they should be, are they? I think the way they name their scents is a bit misleading, but we all know that it simplifies things in their mind. Largest concentration of iris? Check. Does the ginger/musk/patchouli/civet punch right through that delicate flower? Yup. But, I love it too. :)

        Okay– also, let me share this: I’m slightly obsessed with Thomas Gibson, he’s a Kyle McLaughlin-type, and you can’t have too many of those, can you?

        • Musette says:

          Thomas Gibson is that insane-good combo of nerd/hot/weird. He was fun in Dharma and Greg and NO FUN in Criminal Minds, which is all the more fun because he is NO FUN.

          For sheer hubba-hubba, Shemar Moore (Derek Morgan) can’t be beat. Alas, he and my brother could be twins (20 years apart) so that kinda ooks me out. :((

          xoxo >-)