June 13, 2011
by Tom
Fathers Day is coming on the 19th so I thought I would give a list of 5 scents that I think Dad would like. I’m not going to be totally niche-y here since A) I don’t know that the average Dad really needs or wants to be smelling of glove leather, Tikka Masala and sweat the way I do and B) when this is posted there will only be 5 shopping days for to one to purchase. So this list is going to be very Mall Friendly.
Bloomingdale’s carries Annick Goutal, and any Dad would love a bottle of Eau de Sud. It’s citrusy and green, wholly wonderful and often overlooked. At $115 for 3.4oz it’s a bit on the high-side, but it’s worth every penny.
They also carry the gorgeous original Acqua di Parma Colonia in the huge 6oz bottle for $136. It;s a gorgeous classic citrus that was a favorite of Cary Grant. Nothing wrong with that..
Sephora is of course one-stop shopping for this type of thing and they have them practically on the moon, the one place that Bloomingdale’s has not yet reached. So here’s 3 that I like from them:
Dior Eau Sauvage is a classic for a reason. It’s a gorgeous scent with its petitgrain, citrus and vetiver. It’s entirely work friendly; I’ve been wearing it since I was a teen and will continue to do so. Heck, I might want to be buried with it. 1.7oz is $54.
Bvlgari Black would be for the more adventurous Father, with its black tea and hint of rubber. But it is a masterpiece and at $77 for 2.5 oz, a bargain.
I wrote about Tom Ford for Men last week on PST, and I have to add it to the list of scents that would be perfect for Dad’s day. It smells expensive and suave, like the interiors in “A Single Man” look. You can’t go wrong there. At $62 for 1.7oz it’s also a steal.
If you have any suggestions for easily available scents for Father’s Day, leave a comment.
June 12, 2011
by Musette
We have had THE weirdest weather lately. Last week it was 93F – All Day, Every Day. Every Night. Just stupid-hot. Too hot to breathe, let alone move. Then, in less than 4 hours it dropped 30 degrees – Hellloooo, Midwest! It’s a delicious thing, this coolness but it really messed with my Perfume head. I was going to write all about Carnal Flower and Tribute Attar in the extreme heat…but now it’s 65F and foggy.
I’m not going to spoil your morning coffee with my original plan, which was to set the stage in Victorian England, where a flower seller encounters a scary gentleman on a foggy London street, asks his name (“it’s deHyde, though Mr. Hyde is what most call me. But you can call me Al”)…he doesn’t rip her heart out, instead carrying her off to his town house where he transforms her into a lady and they have perfumed tea and twins Albert and Alicia deHyde. ….noooo…instead, I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you about what I’ve been wearing since the weather took this massive dip.
Aldehydes. See? You knew there was some point to that boneheaded story, right? The coolish weather allows them to sparkle without turning them into a greasy, powdery mess (like a reverse funnel cake. Yes, the first two bites are sheer, sugary heaven. Then it cools down, the sugar gets all clumpy and greasy and Tragedy Awaits)…I wore 4 sparklers this week, just for you, my dears, while I dug up the garden and chopped wood – with interesting results. They are as follows:
Le Labo Aldehyde 44. I fell in love with this when it was showcased as a traveling LE at the Chicago Barneys. Then I got a bottle. I dunno….I’m not sure what happened in the interim. The Barneys bottle was a fizzy sparkling pop! but I’ve been getting a sour note from this one …maybe the woods, with their hint of incense? Once it gets to the church phase it stays there. It’s fine. …. but I’d love to say better about something that costs as much as a Le Labo ‘exclusive’. Boo. Notes are addehydes, tuberose, narcissus, jasmin sambac, musks and woods. I wore this to separate a 5′ specimen hosta. Two hours into it, it got on my nerves. Whither went the love?
Robert Piguet Baghari. I used to wonder what Chanel No 5 edt must’ve smelled like, back in the day. I imagine it was very light and sparkly, with a hint of warm powder (not as warm as the parfum, of course). Baghari comes close to what I imagine vintage No 5 edt must’ve smelled like when it was fresh out of the bottle. Vaguely thin – but thin-on-purpose, it has an old-fashioned feel, in a very classic way. The iris plays beautifully off the aldehyde opening – iris and powder, done right, is an irresistible combination. I wore this to turn out 155 gallons of compost. Wearing it, I could pretend I was Gigi’s Aunt Alicia instead of Ma Kettle. Notes are aldehydes, bergamot, violet, neroli, jasmine, orange blossom, rose, iris, vetiver, amber, vanilla, musk.
Chanel No 5 edp. I was going to run with the vintage parfum but that’s like bringing an ICBM to a peashooter contest. I’ve always had a bit of trouble with No 5 edp. It has this funky-doodad sandalwood drydown thingamajig and I thought it was just me and my wonky nose. Then I read Luca Turin’s take on the difference – and I am NOT crazy! turns out Jacques Polge composed this in the 80s as a modern version of Number 5 and that explains a lot. I wore this while moving a truckbed full of logs. It’s perfectly fine, especially if you like an incense/sandalwood drydown. It’s just not …..
Chanel No 5 parfum. I know some hate the beejeesus out of this and now I’m wondering if it’s because you spritzed the edp? Because…if you haven’t tried the perfume, you must. You. Just. Must. If you still hate it after that I’ll leave you alone, I promise. I have an older bottle of parfum and every time I wear it I can’t believe how gorgeous it is. And the current is just as delish. Yeah, the aldehydes. Yeah the tons of jasmine and roses. But it is so beyond the sum of its parts that I can’t describe it …this is the perfect aldehydic floral and may just be the perfect perfume. I could wax on about this but so many have done it better – the waxing, I mean. Not the perfume. There are very few perfumes in this class. This one transcends anything Weather can throw at it. I wore this at the close of yesterday, all day today…heck, I think I’ll wear it the rest of the week!
What’s going on with your Weather? Has it affected your perfume choices? I’m going to go get a sweater – I’m chilly!!!
samples and bottles are all mine, from various personal sources
June 09, 2011
I had every intention of getting out there this week to do a sniff…but by the time I thought I had time to do it, it’s now. And I got nothin’.
I was even right across the street from Holt Renfrew on Monday, but I was heading to a meeting and didn’t have time to go in.
I will try to be back this weekend, but I can’t promise. If you don’t see me, I will surely be back in the saddle next Friday with something new. I’m curious about a bunch of scents; I just haven’t had the time to try them on.
In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!
June 08, 2011
Y’all might have picked up on my perfume doldrums since I think I’ve posted on everything else but perfume for the last few weeks/months.
It’s not that I love scent any less – probably more! – but nothing is really exciting me or moving me to drool all over it or even gets me breathing fast. So what to do while I’m in the down phase of perfume lust? Back to the old stuff, my favorites, taking more time with them, reminding myself why I love them.
L’Artisans, for instance. I really do love that line. There’s so much of it that works for me on so many levels. Tea For Two, Passage d’Enfer, Bois Farine, the orange blossom and narcissus special harvests. Just working my way through all of them again, feeling how special each one is, easy to wear, effortless at creating a fragranced space around me. Then I’m rolling through the big white florals for summer, hunting through gardenias and lillies and jasmines, pretending that early summer will last forever and not bloom into unbearable heat that I’ll eventually sigh with relief to see go about mid-September.
And I plant flowers and veggies. I took a lot of you guys’ suggestions on what to plant – thank you so much!!! y’all are a treasure trove of information for scented things to grow, as I knew you would be – and they are in the ground or going in the ground soon or will arrive by fall, so I meander around my front and back yard, watering and pruning and plotting, sniffing all of it, thinking of scents in bottles that I remember I want to play with.
In time, something will captivate me, and in the meantime I wait and luxuriate in the embarrassment of so many scents that I love.
What do you do when you just hit a lack of enthusiasm for sniffing new things? And if you’re still new to perfume, are you just shaking your head wondering how this could happen? I remember the early stages where I had entire spreadsheets tracking scents I had heard about and wanted to try, crossing them off as I got to them. I had no idea a day would ever come when I’d read about something new and go – yeah, yeah, I’ll get around to it eventually. Or maybe not.
June 07, 2011
By March
Unfinished business: First, I got equal requests for June and July for the next Swapmania, so let’s split the difference and annoy everyone equally – Wednesday, June 22 – that’s the weekend BEFORE the July 4 weekend – I’ll put the post up on Wednesday and let it run through the weekend, okay? That way everyone should have time to play.
Second, next week I’m going to do a “Regrets, I’ve Had a Few” revisit of stuff in my collection. Your assignment is to pick one or two scents you own (samples/decants are fine) that you can’t even remember what they smelled like, but you loved them at some point. Next week you’ll be telling us, how do you feel about them now? Are you glad you rediscovered this neglected gem of yours, or is it just taking up valuable shelf-space?
Okay, perfume review. It’s fun to be five years into this and still have something “new” to run across –a fragrance that has a huge perfumista fan-base. So today I’m nattering about Gucci L’Arte di Gucci. Here’s a plausible list of notes via Fragrantica: aldehydes, coriander, fruity notes, green notes, bergamot, mimosa, tuberose, orris root, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, rose, geranium, narcissus, leather, amber, patchouli, musk, oakmoss and vetiver.
I smiled when I saw Donna’s extensive review on Perfume-Smellin’ Things last week, because I’d been playing with my sample, and I enjoyed reading about it while smelling it. (Here’s a link to Angela’s recent review on Now Smell This, and an informative review on Perfume Shrine as well.)
For a fragrance released in 1991 and allegedly discontinued some time ago, L’Arte di Gucci still turns up on the blogs periodically in rhapsodic reviews, as evidenced above. L’Arte di Gucci is a big ol’ rose chypre, with giant shoulder-pads and long red nails and heavy, Robert Palmer-video-level eyeshadow. It’s about as subtle as vintage Chloe, and it must have hit right before we went all clean with 1994′s CK One, etc., so maybe that’s why it didn’t fare too well. In fact it has more in common with the 1980s — say, Paloma Picasso (1984), another spicy-mossy-aldehydic chypre.
It’s bubbly and bergamot-y at the top, and a ribbon of green green green runs all the way through it – the crushed leaves of geranium, cut grass, muguet, with a rich, dark, leathery base (the leather-hay of narcissus and all those funky, mossy notes.) There’s also a surprising honeyed note (Donna mentions this too) that gives the fragrance a softer, more languorous feel – less shoulder-pads in the boardroom and more silk stockings in the bedroom.
Is it my style? Well, no, not really – there’s a lot of rose in there, and you wouldn’t want to break a bottle of this in your car. It is definitely the sort of fragrance that would get dissed by the words “old lady” in reviews on Sephora; also, it’s got a half-life of plutonium on my skin, and a few sprays of this causes my family to frown at me. But I’m not such a dope that I can’t recognize how incredibly beautiful it is, and, frankly, how much more interesting and full of character it is than much of the new niche stuff I smell.
My review is for the EDP, and good luck finding it; the EDT, which I have not smelled, still seems relatively easy to find online. Update: hey, look what I found. I have no idea if it works, since I didn’t try to buy it, but Overstockperfume.com lists the 30ml EDP splash for$55. Anyone who wants to compare the EDT to EDP, please feel free to do so in comments.
Sample source: private sample, atomizer
Patty
March
