One of these; one of those

I had three-quarters of a post written and ditched it. One of those weeks.

A couple of things for today.

First, Christian Dior Eau Noire (from Hedi Slimane’s La Collection Privée released in 2004 — a Francis Kurkdjian creation) which I dug out of the box and wore on a whim Friday. I’m not sure why I did that at the time because I consciously thought ‘this is going to be too much today’ (grey, close and very humid). Well, I was wrong – and I really enjoyed wearing it, reminded of how unique and beautiful it is.

I can’t recall if I tried the other entries in LCP, but for a while Eau Noire was in heavy rotation. I got my decant (no way I was going to spring for a bottle with that much juice and at that price point) from a lovely woman who lived in California. So, I likely said something about loving it on Makeup Alley, where Fragrance Board people were doing nice things for each other all the time.

Notes include white thyme, lavender, liquorice, coffee, immortelle, vanilla bourbon, leather, Virginia cedar. Now, that’s a notes list! On me, it starts out a weird astringent lavender coffee, with a shot of the good black liquorice I can get at the local farm shop. Maybe there’s thyme in there too… The juice in my little decant bottle is now yellow-green – almost pond-with-too-much-algae colour.

Eau Noire (like SL Rose de Nuit) lives up to its name. It settles into being a heavy (treacle) hay-leather floral (the immortelle) on me. I find the beginning really interesting, but the middle into the dry-down is lush and heady, just pongy enough to keep me returning to my wrist. Plus it’s unctuous in the best possible way. And it lasts … could still smell it Saturday morning before I showered.

It’s too bad it’s now gone, but when I did some googling it appears to exist as a candle. Now, what must that be like??? I’m not going to stick that on my ‘want’ list, but it’s interesting … and leads to my second focus today.

Thanks to the ever-lemming-creating Makeup Alley Fragrance Board (at least it was a number of years ago), probably 10 (or more, actually) years ago I bought a dans l’Atelier de Cezanne candle (about which there was a lot of noise) from Lucky Scent and had it delivered to arrive at my father’s house in Brooklyn during a visit. I’m not sure why I wouldn’t have bought it in Europe – except maybe sterling was quite strong at the time and it was worth buy it in dollars.

I think I’ve said in a comment somewhere or a post that I now wish I’d bought a half dozen of them.

I have a fair number of candles. I had a period during which I bought many more candles than perfumes.

dLAdC is my absolute favourite (as can be seen, I’m hoarding it — I light for short periods / it’s got incredible throw and I don’t need to have it going too long to get good fragrance payoff). It’s meant to smell of a painter’s studio and it does that brilliantly: pigments, wood, linseed oil, turps, sweat, dust. It definitely isn’t pretty – but it is indescribably beautiful. I love Cezanne. I have a small framed print of a still life from the Courtauld Gallery in London on my wall. I actually brought that print along to the rental house, along with family pics, as I couldn’t imagine not seeing it on a daily basis.

Anyway, apparently there is a painter’s studio candle out there by Astier de Villate called Atelier de Balthus which I’ll have to try one day.

So, is there something you hadn’t worn in a while that surprised you and made you think it needed to re-enter regular rotation? And do you have a favourite candle?