Box Full of Lemmings!

It’s no secret that our Posse reviews have generated obsessions, lemmings, and blind buys among our readers.  But you know this happens to us too, right?  I’m on here cheerfully minding my own business, and one of my fellow Posse bloggers mentions something and ziiiing!  All of a sudden my lizard brain takes over and my fingers drift to my keyboard (wait… do lizards have fingers?) and I’m ordering something unsniffed because it sounds so good.

Today we’re teaming up on a group post — a quick review from each of us on a scent-lemming created right here on our home turf by another Posse writer.  How’d it work out?  Read on!

Anita: Ouai-aiyiyiyi!  So.  Y’all remember that hair thingy spray thingy March went on about here….. well, I wasn’t paying attention because AQUA showed up in the visual and my mind went blank.  Anyway, it was Ouai’s Wave Spray – and even though I have no more need of wave spray than I do a second mouth, I decided I just HAD to try it.  Now, here’s the thing:  when I went into Ulta to try it I was still in AQUA mode – which meant I was expecting BEACH – more specifically, the smells associated with going to the beach (suntan-y stuff).  Imagine my surprise when I was hit with a resinous bergamot!  I was completely baffled, bemused and bewildered.  And I didn’t like it.

Or I thought I didn’t.  Once I got my head out of the AQUA visual and the suntan lotion expectation, I found myself really, really REALLY liking the scent of the wave spray.    That resinous bergamot is quietly compelling and has such a non-perfume air about it, that it’s pretty easy to seamlessly match it to whatever perfume you wish to wear.  As soon as we can move about the cabin again, I think I’ll indulge – even though I don’t need wave spray!

Portia: Thanks to Patty! Let’s go back to 2014. Serge Lutens had just released a new fragrance, L’orpheline. At this point the perfumista world had just started to be too cool for Serge Lutens and were complaining about every new release, instead of enjoying the rapture of a new and interesting creation. There was no notes list released but Patty gave the Perfume Shrine version – aldehydes, woods, fougere, coumarin, clouds of ambergris, patchouli, incense and Cashmeran. WOW! What a terrific note list, right? Already I was interested, it reads cool, dark and deep. There was also this picture, that witchy woman is spooky AF but the picture itself is curiously warm and the little girl looks like she is boxing at shadows. Curiouser and curiouser.

Towards the end of the piece Patty writes, “With or without all the poetry of the name, it is full of mystery and imagination and depth.  Wearing Serge Lutens L’Orpheline keeps me entranced and thrilled.
In my perfume ennui, I have found something to keep me really happy.”

Like, WOW! Patty has had her perfume mojo reanimated by this fragrance? It’s full of notes I love and has a back story ANY adopted person (me) would go a little crazy for? Talk about lemming like crazy! It was straight to Surrender To Chance to get a decant. Two decants later I succumbed and bought myself a bottle. It doesn’t get an enormous amount of wear but sometimes it’s the ONLY thing that fits.

Imagine if silver had a scent, if the moment that the sun breaches the horizon had a scent, if responsibility, solitude and devotion had scents. Greenery, cold unburnt incense, sparkling salt water, watching a wind whipped shoreline from inside a cozy dining room. L’orpheline by Serge Lutens is all of this and so much more.

Cinnamon: I was trawling back through Posse posts and came upon Portia’s review of Malle’s newish (2019) Rose et Cuir and was really intrigued (per Portia: “I find the whole ride cool, classy, unisex and utterly unlike anything else in my collection”.) – to the extent that I immediately bought a sample online.

So, the notes include Timur pepper, black current, peach ‘accord’, bourbon geranium, vetiver, cedar, cumin and leather. Interestingly, given the name, there’s not actually any rose in the mix. On me, the start of this is perplexing. It smells of something familiar, but I can’t put my finger on what. I certainly get pepper and fruit, but it’s more clementine than black current. As it goes along, the geranium makes an appearance (sort of bitter, which is good – it cuts the fruit), but in the end, it goes bitter/sour on me, with none of the classiness Portia refers to. The strange thing is, though there’s no rose, this smells of an idea of rose. Maybe it’s the cumin/fruit/pepper thing? Perfume as chemical wizardry.

As with all FM’s it’s beautifully composed. Would I buy it? No, not even in the 10ml travel size, which I think is one of Malle’s most intelligent offerings (for those of us who want something but can’t stretch to his full bottle prices). The one thing this doesn’t do at any time as it unfolds is make my heart go pitter-pat.

Patty:  Musette is to blame.  Room scents are my weakness. I constantly have wax melts and diffusers going with different scents in each room. I just like being surrounded by it.  She went on and on and on about the Trapp Bob’s Flower shoppe wax melts and the Agraria Monique Lhuillier Citrus Lily diffuser thing, and I could not get my credit card out fast enough.  The Lhuillier thing I did wait a while on since I try and spend 5-6 days of the week spending zero money.  I managed to hold out for like two weeks.  I pinched off a bit of wax melt from Trapp Bob’s Flower Shoppe and faster than you could say “Bob’s your uncle” my room was filled with the most amazing smell. It is like liquid sunshine I have to leave it on for short periods because it is so, so, so pungent.  The Lhuillier diffuser thing is different, more subtle, but it has this airy lightness that I am so in love with. that I throw in my diffuser mister thing four hours at a time by my desk and I’m a happy girl.It is spring, and these have taken over from Fornasetti incense smells and Frasier Fir and Malle Nuit de Gardenia.  So a lemming well spent.

March: When I read Cinnamon’s comment on my Ouai post about how much she loved the Tisserand Sleep Better Pillow Mist (notes of jasmine, sandalwood and lavender) I thought, I have to try that.  She said she likes so much she wants to spray her hair with it (and why not?) So I ordered it up, it’s quite reasonably priced, I think I paid $15ish, but since it had to ship from the UK it took awhile.  It’s one of those scents I’d categorize as “nice smell” rather than a more elaborate perfume, it reminds me a bit of a scented hair product, actually, in terms of immediate presence.  Lavender isn’t a note I gravitate toward, but something about the idea of mixing it with jasmine and sandalwood was so intriguing.  Anyway, it is a delightful combination, with just enough woodsy florals to tone down the medicinal-herbal lavender.  I’ve been spraying it on my bed linens, my drapes, and the bedroom chair I’m sitting in.

Have you tried any of these?  Have we created any lemmings in the past that you had to hunt down?  How’d it work out?