the first roost!
tiny broccoli
It’s actually Spring in Central IL. ‘Real’ Spring – rainy-cool, with some freakishly warm days in between for feverish planting and weeding and digging. I’ve been doing a LOT of garden work lately – the unsexy kind, alas – repairing fencing, weeding gravel paths, turning compost, etc. Planting peas and beans and onions. Throwing down rubber snakes to keep the birds out. We’re raising chickens this year, too! Check out my little girls! Two weeks in and they’re already roosting (sigh. they grow up SO fast!) and are starting to get their real feathers. I’m not so afraid of dealing with them now – the first few days are scary, they look so fragile! I’m obsessing about planting – want the garden to be awash in SUMMER! NOW! But…no. To Every Season, turn, turn, turn. I slow down to celebrate early Spring, with it’s cool, grey-green beauty, the sudden, inexplicable shifts in weather – from oddly warming mists to sharp-edged cold sunshine that can shiver you to your core. All those things have color connections to me, and they have companion scents. Most of you know how I see a lot of the classics (Mitsouko) but what about lesser-known scents that smell and look like the colors of Spring? Here are a few of my Scent Colors for Spring picks:
CREED Spring Flowers.….a beautiful pale blue, like the first scilla. A real beauty, it smells exactly like a cool Spring day. 
Liz Zorn Violets and Rainwater. ha! Gotcha! I’ll bet you were expecting VIOLET. Ha! Nope. it’s this color. Which is weird because it smells so much of violets and green and dirt…but it conjures this misty pavement color. I always think of a little florist that used to be on Lexington Ave ..an overturned pot of violets on the sidewalk. It’s the color of that sidewalk. Go figure.
Don’t faint…but there’s a gorgeous, licorice-y wet dirt note in Jubilation 25 that only emerges in this cool, wet weather. In the winter it’s a whole other color entirely! In any season, it reeks of Awesome!
This is a huge iris time of year for me – and for a lot of you. There’ll be a post dedicated to iris perfumes in the near future, so I won’t delve too deep. But Hermes Hiris is such a beautifully colorful shapeshifter…..goes on Pinky-purple…then, as it warms on the skin, shifts to a cool green that warms to this green…and then ..it doesn’t dry down..it coooools down to this.
In the coolness of an early April morning, Amouage Memoir starts out true to its packaging, a cool silvery–black…but give it a minute. If the sun comes out…it turns a beautiful…pink!
What are your color picks for Spring? Do you have scent colors?
And … speaking of May (which I did in the title)….it’s almost time for the LA Scentsation! We have a few seats on The Bus left (like…five, I think). GET ON THE BUS! If you’re looking for a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day…this is it! We’ve got an incredible day planned with sniffing, giveaways, fun, giveaways, goodies galore, more sniffing….and speaking of VIOLETS..the late afternoon’s violet wine (and other beverages)!
Hmmm… I tend to associate shapes and textures with perfumes more than colors. I will say that SL Vitriol whatever (I’ve taken to calling it “Angry Carnation” rather than butchering the French, and that poor English translation makes me giggle) strikes me as being a somewhat light silvery gray with the occasional streak of yellow or pink (I’m pretty sure that pink is because I associate pink with carnations). Oddly enough, I have no shape or texture association with it. Sometimes I think I’m certifiably nuts 😉
NP
I agree with Tara! ^ Seville a l’Aube is papaya-colored to me too. And Bois d’Iris (TDC) starts out silvery-purple and dries down to a silvery dusty emerald. AdP Iris Nobile is a bright sky blue and dries to a pale green blue. Fun idea; I enjoyed this post! Happy Spring!
Today I am wearing Seville a l’Aube and a papaya colored top…it just seemed right, although I know orange blossoms are white. Onda is deep olive green and Rubj is a deep pinky rose. FM Une Rose is so dark red it is nearly black. 🙂
I love this post! I’m wearing Drole de Rose today, and I get a kind of light beigey pink, a bit swirly. Maybe with some lilac shadows on the edges.
I love the idea of ‘swirly’!!! xo
I don’t usually get much color from scents, but I have some vintage Trigere that is the brightest of greens, like wet cut grass. I usually wear it on the first few really warm days of the year. The Scentsation sounds like so much fun, but unfortunately I can only sniff about three perfumes in succession without getting a nasty headache. (Sephora on the weekend is almost unbearable. )
oh, that’s a shame! but you should come anyway, if only for the FUN! (and the giveaways! and the FUN!)
xoxoA
Reglisse Noire from 1000Flowers is a niche fragrance that fits very well with Spring. If it had a color, I’d say it was a light green, like celadon.
Pretty!!! xo
Wish I could go hang out witchyall in LA. Alas.
I so so so SO love spring scents! And you know me, mine are nearly all greeny florals. But I have not put away my Memoir Woman, either, and I can indeed see that silvery-black with pink tucked inside… I’d have said perhaps a peachy-pink, sort of a nude pink. No. 19 is silvery-green, like lambs’ ears. And Chamade starts out spring green, shades into gold, and from there into a yellowy-creamy white, but I see all three colors. And Vacances, ahhhhh Vacances… a beautiful pinky-purple with green and white, just perfectly Appalachian-mountains-in-spring. Penhaligon’s Violetta is purple and green as well, but the purple is more of a periwinkle color, almost blue. That sample of Chanel 1932 is a lovely warm beigey-gold color.
I don’t always see perfumes in color. Sometimes I hear them, and sometimes I can touch them instead.
oooh, cool! I love the idea of hearing perfume! xoxoA
ps. for me, 1932 is the color of fresh-cut spring grass in the sunlight. And Vacances is that blinding white of extremely hot sun on a sail.
I don’t get the colours, sorry but I can’t wait for the FREAKING BUS!!
Portia xx
WOOOT! Speaking of colors…you will be awash in color! I will be your handmaiden, all in black (probably)
xo
HA HA HA!! Black is cool. I think I will be wearing acide green, hot pink and silver.
Portia xx
I loved your post. I get the hue thing, in fact, today I’m wearing a dark olive green sweater and had to wear Ormonde Jayne Woman with it. It is definitely a dark olive green, with crystaline dew beading on it.
Beautiful!!!! xo
Such a fun post, sweetie! I can’t think of any colors/perfumes right now, but will ponder it today. You go, girl, with the growing things, from chickens to broccoli and other good stuff!
well, I can’t beat ’em – so I might as well join ’em! LOL!
xo
Since our spring has not sprung here in Denver, (there is another 4 inches of snow on my car this morning) my green color is still the deep forest green of Slumberhouse Grev, which has a tiny promise of spring in it. For a more sprightly green, It’s Comme de Garcons Series Play Green, which is pretty blatantly minty.
yum! on the Minty Green! I confess to falling for the packaging of Epic – when it snows I reach for that velvet-green. It smells like emerals (really BIG Graff emeralds) look. Perfect winter wear.
xo
Purple: Xerjoff Iriss
White: Songes, AG Des Lys, Teint de Neige, Soavissima
Olive Green: Onda
Pink: AG Quel Amour, Nanadebary Pink (duh)
I totally get Memoir coming out black and elegant, but turning to a pink, femme color later in the day, and I am totally dragging out the J-25 the next time it rains to see if I can’t get the “wet” note.
The chickens sound fun! I am always so tempted to get some little chicks from Tractor Supply, but don’t know a thing about raising them! I’m so impressed you have little broccoli growing already!! Yay Musette!!
Broccoli loves this weather (mid 50s-60s). I’m going to let the front broccoli bolt later in the season – the bees love it! Apparently there is not much to do re the chicks, once they get past this trying age. My neighbor’s chickens fend for themselves until evening, when they’re cooped back up. If you have a good coop system you should be fine. This is my first chicken run, too! Seems to be going along fine. http://www.almanac.com/home-pets-family/raising-chickens-blog
xo
The whole scent/color thing is fascinating and makes me envious because I’ve got nuthin’, just obvious stuff like seeing Chanel 19 as green. So cool that you’re raising chickens!
A, they’re giving me the flux! They’re not old enough, yet, for me to stop worrying every stinkin’ minute. The light went off this morning and I was in a panic – ran to wake up El O. I don’t need to deal with no dead chickens (we lost our Barred Rock the first full day she was here (4 days old). I know it happens and I’m adult about it – but it is stressful. Once they get a bit bigger and get their actual feathers all in I can stop worrying about them dying of cold. We have a 6′ fence with wire all along the base and we”re netting the coop yard (we have hawks and screech owls..and eagles)…so I don’t worry overmuch about predators – but right now they’re still so danged tiny. Freaks me out.
I love Elixir des Merveilles, which I think of as a glowing orange sunset (I have to wonder if I’m influenced by the color of the bottle here, but I think the assessment would stand even if the bottle weren’t orange). I wore Bottega Veneta to an event one night where I was wearing a lavender and black top because I felt like it matched. For a nice springy scent I’ve been wearing a sample of Tauer’s Zeta, which I see as kind of a light chartreuse.
I wish I could afford to get myself to LA for Scentsation. It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
it’s going to be a blast! c’mon down!
I like your color connections, there. I think of Elixir more like light brown sugar color. I think bottle/packaging colors can influence scent synaethesia – but it’s weird as hell when it runs counter to the packaging! Imagine if you saw Elixir as, say….kelly green? That would be disconcerting, wouldn’t it? 😀
xoxoA
Every time I wear Diorling, I get three colors. Green, red and yellow because I get a distinct bell pepper smell in the beginning. I can barely stand the fresh cut but I always stick it out for the drydown. It’s Mitsouko without the peach note. Mitsouko and Chanel no 19 can be either yellow or green depending on the day.
I wish I knew Diorling, but then again maybe not; that greener pepper notes pounds like something that I can live without. Number 19 reads to me as the palest possible yellow, like a pale canary diamond. So what are your thoughts about a really rich red ‘fume?
Red, probably Tauer’s L’Air du Desert Marocain. I find that to be perfect this time of year because people are having some bond fires outside.
I get green/yellow/black for Diorling (the vintage). I get a headache from the reformulation.
Oooh! What about Chanel CdR parfum? I get topaz yellow (like a big-assed canary diamond) from that one.
In winter Chanel CdR is smokey gray or chocolate brown. In spring/summer it reminds me of purple and or white irises.
You have really got me thinking. Dk’s Black Cashmere “feels” deep inky blue. De Profundis reads twilight-violet. I have a hard time coming up with a scent that really “feels” red to me. What would you pick as red-smelling perfumes?
At risk of being obvious, I think of Rossy de Palma as a red scent, like deep blood red. Most other roses come off kind of pink or magenta to me. Une Rose Chypree could kind of qualify, but I think of that one as a cooler tone, like more of a burgundy. I’m trying to think of any others I’ve tried that I would consider red, but that’s what I can think of right off hand.
It might seem odd, but the perfume I immediately think of as red is il Baccio. I get deeply disturbed flower melee in a brothel out of it. Doesn’t get more red than that. 🙂
I don’t know Baccio, but now I will have to sample it. A perfume described as a “deeply disturbed flower melded in a brothel” needs looking into.
Exactly what I was thinking! Flower melees would get me anyway, but deeply disturbed ones… slutty brothel ones… yep, must smell.
Wow! Can’t top that one! I was thinking about ‘red’ scents and none come to mind. Not even Lyric, in its gorgeous red bottle. That beauty reads more pale pink and black to me.
xo
Over the last couple of days, to my surprise, I find myself craving amd wearing I Profumi de Firenze Tulipano Nero. To me it has a definite color, not black tulip at all but Orange Parrot tulip. It seems like the perfect orange for late spring, when the days get hotter. Anyone who has grown the Orange Parrot remembers the sweet musky smell with a touch of smoke when the late spring sun hits them and they unfold. Ysatis, on the other hand, seems like a clear bright jonquil-yellow. Houbigant Orangers en Fleurs is white, lovely with filmy white nightgowns.
Violet wine? Makes me doubly sorry to miss the Scentsation.
ooh! those are great color connections! I will have to revisit Ysatis! On the face of it I would’ve thought orange! But that’s because I always forget it’s Givenchy and I would never equate a Givenchy with orange. So….jonquil-yellow makes much more sense.
xo
I was almost unhealthily obsessed with and wore the original Ysatis for years. I always thought of it as a deep and and sensual warm amber color, and (like the fossilized sap), it had showy flecks of fiery gold and spots of the happy jonquil-yellow you mentioned. The new iteration? I find the iris to be a bit more prominent, and so it has become for me, now, a rich-royal-purple-with-stripes-of-bright-yellow dwarf iris…color moods are as subjective as perfume tastes.
Smiles to all. 🙂