By March

Our mid-Atlantic summer has finally arrived with a vengeance.  It’s 98 degrees and humid, and I … could not be happier, really.  I’m a summer soul.  I don’t want to go run a marathon or anything, but sitting on the screened porch at night with some lemonade, watching the fireflies and the occasional shooting star, suits me right down to the ground.  The teeny, massively fragrant Darlow’s Enigma climbing roses I planted two years ago are scenting the porch and pretty much entire back yard.  They’ll bloom until October, even in the shade, for those of you who are looking for a versatile climber that isn’t a big long-limbed space-hog from hell.

The weather now hardly seems more wrong for a new floral-oriental perfume discovery, but it’s actually (weirdly) working in the heat, and I can’t resist its charms – Femme by Sabon.

Sabon is a soap-n-scrub outfit I’d never heard of, they have several retail stores in NYC, as well as Chicago and Boston, here’s a link to their website.  They have a few perfumes.    I got a decant of Femme from Anita.  Notes are: ylang ylang, Italian bergamot, floral notes lightly spiced with cloves, Egyptian jasmine, vanilla, sandalwood and musk, leaving “a soft, lasting, powdery aroma.”

There is an exception to every rule, apparently. I am not a fan of powdery scents, and while Femme is fairly powdery at the outset, it doesn’t overwhelm me the way that, say, White Death Teint de Neige by Lorenzo Villoresi does.  The powdery top feels dry rather than cloying, and it’s balanced by the bergamot and cloves; it’s playful.  It’s a powdery-floral for the first half hour or so, and it reminds me a bit of Habanita during that phase.  Then the powder settles and the dominant notes are cloves, vanilla and sandalwood, with the floral notes in the background.  Again, that doesn’t sound like a winner in hot weather, but somehow it really does work.  I put it on tentatively the first few times, then threw caution to the wind and drenched myself, but it never did overwhelm.  There’s something suede-like in the drydown that makes it interesting.  The jasmine’s clean, and so is the scent, but it’s sexy in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Or maybe jasmine, ylang, spicy vanilla, and sandalwood with a hint of suede is just a flat-out sexy combination.  But you can cuddle up with it too.  It’s like a really well-made white cotton summer nightgown that manages to be sweet and flirtatious at the same time.  The longevity is decent; after five or six hours it’s a spicy-woody vanilla skin scent that isn’t massive but doesn’t smell thin or cheap, either.

The kicker?  This stuff’s $42 for a big ol’ 100 ml bottle.  Isn’t that bottle cute?  It’s kind of retro, yes?  Retro, just like the price.  Seriously – I am often sampling fragrances at the $200 mark or more (retail, tax + shipping), now that $200 is the new $100 in perfume-ville.  To find something so pretty at a quarter of that price brings a smile to my face.  Now, would one of you go get me some more lemonade and maybe a teensy little slice of that red velvet cake from the icebox?  Thanks, I’ll be right here on the porch.

March

Derring-Do by Ineke

Memorial Day

Have a wonderful weekend.  Take a moment to reflect.  Say ‘thank you’ to a veteran.   Theirs is a tremendous service.

Now a FUN perfume question:

What’s your perfume for the weekend? Mine is that intoxicating concoction of  Eau du Grass Clippings, Grillsmoke and Trashy Novel.

Oops – sorry.  Taking that back.  My current scent is the scent of rain, rain, rain, toads,  mildew.

And rain.

Oh.  Did I mention RAIN?

We’ll see you on Tuesday!

photo:  Arlington National Cemetery

by Musette

The notion of degrees of virginity has always mystified me – imo,  you either are or you aren’t although apparently I am Jurassic  on that one.  I get a giggle with olive oil descriptors, too, imagining that the olives in extra virgin olive oil aren’t even touched by human hands (or other parts)! let alone relieved of their oil.  Instead the Archangel Olive  comes down and poof! The Immaculate Pressing.  Yeah, I know…but it is funny.  Oh, c’mon…

So I was disappointed when I met with The Different Company’s Pure Virgin.   I was hoping for a way more interesting name (or at least an olive note).   Celine Ellena is supposedly leaving the company and this is her swan song.  It’s such a departure from the line’s original trend that, at first, I thought she might’ve been mad at them – the equivalent of my friend peeing in her husband’s Aramis when she found out he’d cheated on her.  Then I got a little scrab of de Bachmakov  which to me feels totally different from the early scents so I started rethinking the motivation for PV.  Perhaps deBachmakov signals a different direction for the House and Pure Virgin is simply the next step.  March and I discussed the early scents – Rose Poivree is magnificent, smelling like (according to March) butt (she’s right).  Sublime Balkiss took the fresh/fruity genre and crunched it up with that marine note, like blackberries packed in kosher salt with a touch of vinegar.  Charmes and Leaves hews to the silver/green motif, combining the bracing freshness of mint with that greeny/slimy galbanum thing – all of those are a bit weird and definitely not for everybody but there’s no mistaking  the spare elegance that I equate with The Different Company.

Pure Virgin?  No weird or strange going on there.  It’s a pretty, sweet, powdery scent, like a sugared-up vintage 22.  It’s selling briskly, much to the delight of those SAs who make their living selling perfume and probably have to hump to sell some of the other, stranger offerings (and can you blame them?).  Notes are: Evanescent Musc, Light Wind, Linen Flower,White Rose Cedarwood, Calisson

alrighty!  we’re going to stomp right on past the “Light Wind’, eyes averted, and head straight to Calisson. According to Wikipedia Calissons are a traditional French candy consisting of a smooth, pale yellow, homogeneous paste of candied fruit (especially melons and oranges) and ground almonds topped with a thin layer of royal icing. Calissons have a texture not unlike that of marzipan, but with a fruitier, distinctly melon-like flavor.

And you know what?  That’s Pure Virgin in a candy-coated nutshell!   It has a pale yellow-white feel to it, like sunshine through dotted swiss curtains. I don’t get much melon but I do get the crystalline sweetness of powdered sugar.   I was going to snark on it because it’s not all complicated and philosophical but it’s not supposed to be.  It’s a powdery, sweet, skin scent done well.  I’m just surprised it’s come out of The Different Company.   I would classify it as a less terrifying Teinte de Neige.  And impure virgins can wear it, too!  Just not this impure virgin.

So…have any of you tried this?  What’s your opinion of powdery scents?  I like mine to have a whiff of rotting meat, myself.  Others go the route of the funnel cake.  What say you?

I spritzed this at Barneys where, after 3 days of sniffage, they were heartily sick of me!

Patty’s still swanning around Costa Rica, so today Musette and March are doing a joint “she said/she said” post about D’Orsay Etiquette Bleue.

One of the conundrums in perfumista-ville is whether a classic “cologne” which might last 92 seconds on the skin (hey, it’s designed that way) is worth the simoleans involved.  For example, if you’re looking at Guerlain, Sisley or Chanel colognes, for the same dough you could have a bottle of something stronger instead, right?  Why not buy yourself 4711 or Jean Nate at Walgreens?

And that’s not an easy question to answer…

March says: I’d really like a bottle of that Guerlain Cologne du 68 stuff, but not enough to buy one.  My other kinda-cologne-y things are the Annick Goutals like Sud and Hadrien, but then they stick around on me longer than a classic cologne does. I’m not going to do the math, but those ginormous bottles of the Chanel Cologne probably aren’t even that expensive if you figure it out per ml, so I guess I’ll leave them out of the equation.

Etiquette Bleue is (I think) a 2008 reformulation and re-release, and whatever the original smelled like, I have no idea.  The new one is a pretty cologne-smell — notes are lemon, bergamot, orange, petitgrain, rosemary, orange blossom and a woody-mossy base.  By the way, Etiquette Bleue and some of the scents in this post are EDTs and others are colognes; in theory the EDTs might be stronger and/or last better, but in reality that’s not a given.  I’m using “cologne” as the citrus-herbal scent-descriptor in this post, not as a technical term.

I love me some 4711, and the D’Orsay is a definite step up from that, both in terms of complexity of the scent and longevity.  It’s nicely herbal, unisex, less sweet than 4711, with a bright citrus and a mossy, musky base that feels more solid than cheaper things like 4711 and the Weil Eau Fraicheur (which is pretty fabbo, btw).

The D’Orsay is $100(ish) online for a 3.4, and so I asked myself: would I rather have 4711 or Weil plus the extra cash?  Or a Guerlain Bee bottle of one of their classic colognes like their heavenly Eau, or perhaps du Coq or Cedrat?  Or maybe a 2.5oz of the Chanel Exclusifs cologne?  The answer is that I’d like all of them, which isn’t very helpful, is it?  But since I already own Cedrat, a hefty decant of the Chanel, and a lifetime supply of 4711 (I keep my bottle in the fridge), unless the Guerlain fairies present me with a bottle of the Cologne du 68, I’m probably good.  Actually… now I’m thinking about all that coriander, cardamom, pepper and ginger spiciness in the 68 and really wanting a bottle for summer.  Dammit, Musette, this is your fault.

If anyone cares: I drenched myself in Etiquette Bleue and didn’t kill anyone around me, and I could still smell it (faintly) after several hours, and my girls loved it.  It sticks around longer on hair and fabric than on skin.

Musette says:

Heck, don’t blame me, blame Carol.  It’s CAROL!  (not me) and her amazing range of perfumery-things. I got the D’Orsay from her!

Alas, my love for 4711 is inconstant – on really hot days the musk rears up way too early and makes me wish I’d just rubbed some lemons on my poitrine instead.  But! it’s $19.99 at Loehmann’s so it’s perfect for those days I do love it, if  that makes any sense.   Guerlain’s Imperiale is my Holy Grail of Hot Summer Days  – but I confess to having some qualms about spritzing early and spritzing often as colognes were designed to do.  that’s what a hefty price tag’ll do to ya, unless you are hip-deep in simoleans.

Another beauty: I would wear Chanel’s  Eau de Cologne every August evening if I had simoleans to throw around.  But I don’t so I will make do with the 4711 and the lemons. As with the Chanel I do think the Etiquette Bleue is an exquisite interpretation of the classic cologne genre.  It lasted quite awhile on me and the drydown was considerably more complex and interesting than I was anticipating.  I consider very few colognes to be ‘pretty’ but this one is very pretty without  going all girly or challening its  Cologne Status.  I could see a man wearing this well,too, way easier than the Chanel.   If I had discretionary simoleans to throw down I would buy Etiquette Bleue in a nanosecond!

Update:  I don’t think it lasts as long on me as it seems to have done on March; then again, this vicious sinus infection I am battling means I cannot smell much of anything – I burned a pizza this afternoon because my nose couldn’t register the burn-smell-until the smoke alarm went off!  For all I know folks are lying, dazed and dying on the sidewalk from my sillage.  But I don’t think so – this stuff is lovely and pretty subtle.

So..what are your thoughts on colognes, dear Posse?  Are they worth the simoleans or when you think cologne, do you think that big ol’ drugstore bottle is the way to go?   Do you care about longevity?  Do you expect it to be proportionate to the price?  Questions abound!

March