I don’t quite know what to make of this line.  Personally I think the idea of tying your perfume to your blood type sort of varies between inspired and lunatic. but there you are.  Frankly, I wasn’t wowed by some of these; AB was brassy and metallic while A was smelled of bubble gum.  I didn’t like O at all, it smelled like a mixture of all three (my blood type is O negative, so it joke away).

I did like B, which plays up the woody spice and the pepper while toning the fruits down to an accent and the metallics to an interesting accent to the patchouli.  There’s something about this that reminds me a bit of Secretions Magnafique, just not in that gag-inducing way the ELdO has for me.  I like it; I just don’t know that I NEED it.

$155 for 60ML EDP at LuckyScent, from whom I got the sample.

 Patty’s review last week of the new Chanel Jersey gave me some food for thought.

 I’ve never been much of a lavender person. If truth be told, too much of it — especially in a concentrated form — tends to give me a headache. Ironic that something supposed to be calming and relaxing would have the opposite effect. So up until recently, I avoided it like the plague, but lately I’ve tried several that have me coming around a little. Caron’s Pour un Homme, and Vero Kern’s Kiki (very lightly dabbed) with its creme brulee effect,  have me in tentative “like” with the note.  They’ve paved the way to allow me to try more lavenders, most recently, the Jersey, which I really like.  Its lavender doesn’t run me over and the sidecar vanilla and musks suit me just fine. In fact,  I find it to be rather soothing, and — dare I say it? — even a “comfort” scent of sorts. I’m not so in love with it that I need a bottle, but I will happily use up my sample and perhaps get a bit more.

 Leather is another note that I previously shunned, but lovely scents such as Cuir de Lancome and Serge Lutens’ Daim Blond have made a partial convert out of me. And the new Bottega Veneta has nearly boosted me all the way up onto the bandwagon. Now I may never be hard-core, but for a former leather-phobe, I think I’m doing pretty well.

 So I’d love to know: What previously disliked notes have now made their way into your scent repertoire?

P.S. Major flooring installation set for today so my computer access will be spotty as stuff gets moved from room to room, but I’ll check in when I can. Thanks!

The number above – that’s the tax deduction 30 Serges (Exports and Exclusives), plus about 100 more miscellaneous fragrances and other items will get you if you donate them to charity.

How do I know this? I found out about 2 weeks ago, finally, what my wonderful aunt did with my perfume collection and some other items I was forbidden to retrieve from her house. Now, I guess you can say I have “closure” of the situation since she threw me out over a year ago.

I’m usually not one to air dirty laundry, but since I’ve been through so much over the past few years, I thought, what the hell. I’ve lost everything so I literally have nothing left to lose.

The problem is, finding out that my treasured collection is gone forever has put me off fragrance. This is worse than going off meds or having a run of bad luck. Right now, I just don’t care what I smell like or what anything smells like. I even pitched what  few bottles that did manage to make it out of her house; I just couldn’t stand looking at them anymore.

So, for now, I bid you all adieu. I have no desire to smell anything and I don’t know when I will again. I know my attitude sounds defeatist and it’s allowing evil to triumph over good, but I am too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to keep fighting. The only thing I can hope for is that my aunt will receive some sort of karmic retribution for all the crap she’s pulled on me over the past couple of years. You know the saying: what goes around, comes around. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

I hope to see you all again before too long.

**Thanks to everyone who commented. I’ve always appreciated the love and support I’ve found here – now more than ever. I will be back. Oh, yes – I will be back!**

First apologies, it’s been one of those days.  Cooking this afternoon, then rushing to glass fusing class, and that left not a lot of time for writing.  Glass fusing, I’m making tiles for my remodeled bathroom.  Well, I just didn’t really love anything out there, so decided to make my own tiles. I got the idea from Paloma in “le Herisson.”  She draws squares on her wall, and every day she draws something new in one square, and her wall is filled with them.  I don’t have that kind of time for my sink backsplash and need to do something a little more patterned but incredibly funky (the set pattern I thought I’d do is about to be tossed out the window because I just can’t do symmetrical, I hate it, it hates me, so this is gonna be jumbled up mess of tile, but no one will make the mistake of thinking I don’t love it when they see it), but I think maybe I can do something with another wall where people make their own tile designs over time, and eventually that wall tells a story about life and people, even if you don’t know what the story is.

I’ve been sniffing on Serge Lutens de Profundis for the last week or so, waffling on what I think of it.  Inspired by death?  This may be a strange way to feel about it anywhere but amongst you guys, who I know understand, but I like that.  I’ve always loved spending time in cemeteries, it is peaceful, the sign of time rolling on, churning you and your life and hopes and dreams under.  Chrysanthemum, violet, earth, green.

I really can’t tell you what it smells like as far as notes. The mums are beautifully fierce, smelling a little of decay.  Hey, you know, in our world, it’s a good thing.

What I think of when I hear de Profundis is, of course, Latin -> Catholic -> Seven Penitential Psalms. I don’t know a lot of Latin, but what I do know is churchy Latin.  All the references I’ve read are to Baudelaire for this scent, but I’m just ignoring that and skipping right to the original de Profundis since it speaks to me and Baudelaire put me to sleep.  Oh, hush, I’m a literary cretin, I know it, and I’m perfectly okay with it.  “De profundis clamavi ad te, domine.  Domine, exaudi vocem meam.”   Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice.

Is this scent de Profundis in the broader meaning, crying out of the depths?  It is full of pain and longing for hope, supplication to be heard, seen, acknowledged.  Every person wants their life to have meant something, even a small something – wishing all they have done that’s been ugly and small did little damage, hoping that the good they have done had some value.

It is a long, dark hallway we walk through life, sometimes briefly shot through with brilliant light and joy, but too often a trudge to the end.  And everything ends.  At my end, this scent can meet me.   Just a tiny bit bitter, still carrying some of the light it has gone through, pungent, slightly decaying into earth.

I just don’t know if I like it.  Maybe it’s just the same ambivalence I have with death.

So I do have a little of this, yeah!!!  But not a lot. Boo!! Just 2 samples available for a giveaway to two commenters.  So drop a comment in, talk to me about whatever you want, this scent, do we need a death scent? A favorite book? Up to you!

Patty

By March

Old bidness: These are the folks who won the Miriam giveaway, selected via random.org – send a message to “contact us” and congrats, Patty will send them to you:  Pam, Meg, Ms Christian, Samberg, Maureen, Gisela, Joanna, Nozknoz.

Okay, onward.  For some reason I – the original incense freak – am not really feeling the incense right now.  My bottles and decants of incense frags sit on my shelves, neglected.  Sadface.  But then… as usual… someone (let’s blame Louise) comes along with a taste of something new and different to love – Kilian Incense Oud.

It took me awhile to come around to the Kilian line, partly because their fancy-cask branding annoys me irrationally, and partly because I hate many of the fragrance names, all of which sound something like Stairway to Heaven, so I can’t ever remember which scent is which.  The tuberose one is pretty freaking great (Straight to Heaven?  Taste of Heaven?), and if I were being gifted a bottle I’d want the delicious honey-tobacco of Back in Black, unless it’s Back to Black.  But as usual I digress.

What do I like about the Kilians?  They smell expensive.   Fancy bottles and marketing spew aside, their scents (even the ones I loathe, like that marshmallow one) don’t smell like a million other things, they don’t smell like laundry musk, and they don’t smell like the perfumer’s brief said: your budget is sixty cents a bottle for the juice.

Oud is the new pink pepper, apparently – how many ouds have we seen in the last year?  When Jo Malone’s doing an oud, we’ve reached saturation point.  Who’s next, Beyonce?  Anyhoodle, Kilian did a rose oud which I hear is great and I’ll take your word for it, because I’d rather stick a firecracker up my nose.  According to LuckyScent, notes for Incense Oud are Guatemala cardamom, pink pepper, Turkish rose, Egyptian geranium, grapefruit, Virginia cedarwood, Indonesian patchouli, Indian papyrus, Somalia incense (oil and absolute), sandalwood, Macedonian oakmoss, Spanish cistus labdanum, musks.

I’m guessing oud fans aren’t feeling the love, because that weird, raspy oud note in Incense Oud is undetectable.  The LuckyScent blurb points out that “the fragrance boasts no actual oud in its list of materials. If Incense Oud lives up to the second half of its name” it’s through the interplay of half the list of notes, blah blah blah, and … well, it kind of doesn’t.  So if you’re looking for oud, look somewhere else – like Montale – or you’re destined for disappointment.

If you love incense, though, this is definitely worth a sniff.  The first impression was oooh, Chaos! …. No, wait, something more like that Uncle Serge that smells like pine forest … no, wait …. one of those CDGs….

I love its kaleidoscopic nature.  Incense frags can be pretty static, but Incense Oud shifts constantly among the adjectives.  Sweet.  Smoky.  Spicy (hellooo, cardamom!)  Earthy.  Resiny.  Did you notice rose listed in the notes?  On my skin it registers as honeyed sweetness in the background, and since I’m almost as much a honey freak as I am an incense freak, I couldn’t be happier.  There’s something cozy about it – like the Bottega Veneta, it seems like it belongs in a room, along with the smell of furniture polish and old papers, indoors rather than outdoors, and not a bit churchy.  My only gripe is I found its lasting power kind of average, and given that I’m the scent-sponge, I wonder if longevity is an issue for normal people.  Incense is one of those smells that tends to cling in perfumery.  But it was very much worth the ride.

We could play the what’s-you-favorite-incense game, but that’s almost like picking your favorite kid.  I love ‘em all.  Feel free to name some of your favorites, though.

March