My Meandering Journey

The picture above is from our too short time in the Sahara.  I’d like to say I’m a good photographer, but there’s no way the sun rising over golden sand dunes can produce anything but a beautiful picture.

Okay, wow, deep breath.  First, let’s get the winner for last week’s post announced.  That person is – Tina Renee Barker.  You’ll get samples of the new Caron 119, the Carners, new Annick Goutal,  the Tammy Frazer Chapter 2 and some other stuff I’m not remembering right now!  Just click on the contact us over on the left, e-mail me your address, remind me which drawing you won. Once I hear from you, you’ll get a quick reply so you know the message didn’t get lost, and then I’ll get them shipped out.

After my three-week traveling, then another week of being sick, topped off by traveling for Thanksgiving to my mom’s,  finally three days of just recovering, I feel I’m sorta human again and not totally stressed out.

All my treasures from Morocco and Spain finally got home – the things we shipped in Barcelona because we were grossly over on baggage kilos on the plane.  We had weighed the bags the night before, carefully calculated, adjusted, moved things to our carry-on, paid the advance fee for the extra 8 kilos, then showed up at the airport only to be told we couldn’t have our purse and carry-on luggage, just one or the other. Huh????? My head hit the desk with a thunk, I almost cried, I think Lisa did cry. She weighed our carry-on bags, informed us it would be another 350 euros to check those. I told her I’d check my purse instead, I had a kilo left, it would cost less and she finally caved and threw the bags on the plane.

I’ve decided it would be cheaper for me to take my two sons with me in the future. They carry on like 2 shirts, a pair of pants, deodorant, toothbrush and underwear in a duffel, no checked bags.  Then I can have their 21 kilos apiece for the stuff I buy. That’s 63 kilos total, I would be golden!

Perfumes on the trip. That Caron L’Accord 119 has me completely smitten, as does the new Annick Goutal Mon Parfum Cherie.  They were a surprise and revelation and not what I expected at all.  The Caron is still only available in Paris.  NYC has told me it will be released in the U.S. in 2012, but they may get some for pre-sell, but don’t know when or how much or if at all.

It is everything a fruity floral should be. Fruit, check – tart, little sweet, full, lush.  Floral, check – it’s in there hiding under the fruit, softening it up on the open.  Then there’s billowing smoke coming out from under the fruity floral hood that just cracks me up. It’s like the fruity floral car broke down on the scented highway after blowing a tire, landed in a  farmer’s haystack in a field after a tumultuous few minutes of skidding all over the highway, and there is rubber and smoke and hay and ass everywhere.  That is what I call a perfume!!!  Okay, no rubber (seriously, I smell just a little, and it makes me delirously happy), but it is dark, dry velvet,  contrasted with that amazing blackberry/peach/pineapplely open.

Perfection.

The Annick Goutal I’ll cover later.  Also the Mandy Aftel The Secret Garden, which I’m also swooning over. Do you note a steady stream of swoonage on perfumes? It has been a great fall for scent!!

Tammy Frazer, a natural perfumer out of Cape Town, South Africa, had her Chapter scents at Colette in Paris. I smelled some of them and fell in love with the feral Chapter 1 at Roja Dove’s in London a couple of years ago.  I believe Chapter 2 is new, or at least new to me.  Ylang and narcisse.  Opens skanky – reeeeeally skanky – and just rolls indoles around into the air. Just when you think something is decaying on your wrist, the ylang softens, veers off from that amazing indolic open and turns into this beautiful, soft, mildly skanky (in the background – don’t worry, you can still smell it, you kinks, but you won’t have people checking for decomposing corpses when you wear it) mixed with pepper, lime, orange, woods and vetiver rounding the edges on the composition so it doesn’t run off the edge of your nose into something unpleasant, and it completely enchants me.  I get 15 minutes into this and just stick my nose there and keep it, sniffing all the smell out of it.

Yes, this line is expensive. She does sell from her website, if you contact her.  I think it’s 260 or 290 euros for 22 mls, but it comes in a bottle that is a work of art. The good news, once you buy a bottle, you can get refills for that gorgeous bottle for less.  She is a lovely person to chat with, her perfumes are all natural, organic, no animal testing, and I like what she does – it is an original take on scent.

I feel lucky I have this one. My cold was horrible in Paris, and I couldn’t smell at all for a couple of days and couldn’t smell anything at Colette, including any of the Frazers. The last day I was there, I had to run down to Michel Cluziel for ginger/lemon macaroons – oh, hey, BTW, that is the most amazing flavor for a macaroon in existence. Light as a feather, tangy, spicy. Who knew? I wish I had picked up a truck full and shipped them home.  If you’re in Paris, jump on down there, see if they are stocking it regularly and grab an even dozen just for yourself. You’ll see.

Oh, back to the Tammy Frazer. I couldn’t smell it the first day we were at Colette, but made it back my last day in Paris, and I swooned, even with my nose malfunctioning a little.

That same day, I met up with the lovely Ms. Grain de Musc at our usual spot, chatted, caught up. She’s got so much going on – book out in the UK in March, and then – well, stuff I can’t talk about, but I smelled — well, I just can’t talk about it, damnit, but I wish I could.

So what shall we do today?  Let’s talk about which interest you most – the new Caron 119 or the new Annick Goutal? I think I can eek out a sample or two more from the Caron 119, and I have a sample or two of that new rose thing they have to do a giveaway on. So I’ll pick two winners from comments.