Perfumes that pinch

So.. I went shoe shopping yesterday.  I don’t know about y’all but I am past – WAY past – the point where I will buy a pair of shoes that hurt just because they look good.  But I will allow for that break-in period for a decent pair of boots or shoes that just need a couple of wearings before they are that perfect fit.  You know the ones…they basically feel fine – and look wonderful  – but they might rub the heel a touch (a bit of moleskin will fix that right up) or that tiny little rub right up against the ganglia below your big toe (if it hits the nerve right between there, though, fuggedaboutit.  It will send a shiver of pain through to the top of your head and you’ll never break them in.}  I bought a pair of Reikers in Berkeley, eons ago.  Cute little orthopedic flats (yes! Cute!) with little stars cut out of the leather.  They pinched a bit and I despaired – but they were sooo cute, they were German orthopedics and it was Berkeley.  So I caved.  And I bit my lip and broke them in and about 12 years later I finally wore them to the point that even my genius shoe-guy said ‘hon.  Really?  Give. Them. Up.’  It took forever for those little sun-tats to fade away.

But you know….in between the time you slip them on your cranky, tender feet and the time they become your BFFFE…there is that skritchy, pinchy time.  The time where you’ll decide to blow off stopping at the grocery store.  You say it’s because you really don’t need that orange juice.  But in your stones you know it’s because the shoes are pinching just a tad and you’d rather just go home so you can take the damn things off.

Same with some perfumes.  Have you ever put on a perfume and realized that it’s going to pinch you all day long?   For me, it’s contemporary Femme.  I love it.  It’s gorgeous.  But worn in the daytime it has a certain…I dunno…there’s just something ‘off’ about it.  Ages ago I wrote about wearing it, with a cardigan, to a meeting held by a consortium of academics.  I felt like a B-movie starlet, caught in the Walk of Shame.  Don’t faint but another one that can swing into Pinchville is my beloved Mitsouko.  On the wrong day, in the wrong outfit Miss Mitsy turns into Miss Thang and suddenly you are back in church, in the second-to-front row – and your underwear has just lost its elastic.  You’re wearing pants but your drawers iz hanging down in the crotch and it just feels ..skritchy.  No 22?  The right day it feels like an elegant cloud.  The wrong day?  Tossed in a vat of talcum powder then thrown in an ice-cold lake.  In January.  In Buffalo.

All of these happen to be perfumes I adore.  But, unlike a lot of others (No5, Gold, Carnal Flower) these perfumes require some thought – right time, right place.  No Splash ‘n Dash with those beauties.  Else Ice Cold Lake.  or Shame.

What perfumes do you love – but have to watch out for?  Please.  Just ONE of you list Drama Nuui.  Please!

Writing this pre-Portia because I don’t see her until too late to post and once we get together it’ll be Portia!  Portia! Portia!!!  Can’t wait to tell you ALL about i!