Labor Day Blues (ish)

Hi, my beloved Posse.  You know… I really should name this post Blame Portia… because I wouldn’t be talking about this were it not for New Idea 2023.   Well.. Portia and A Person Incredibly Close to Me (she’s not Posse so don’t worry – I’m not outing anybody here),  whose hoarding tendencies (the Person, NOT Portia) are terrifying.  This bathroom reno has yielded some …disquieting evidence about my own ‘tendencies’.  I, Musette, tend to hoard ‘scrabs’ of stuff.  I cannot imagine why – 2T of body creme is of no use to anybody (pun mos’ def intended ) yet … omg!  the jars and bottles of little scrabs of lotions/gels/creams is astonishing.  And gross.  Not the stuff – just the idea that I would keep jars with 2T of something.  Ick.  Yet. …. just dumping them (especially the more vintage/obscure/heavily perfumed stuff) seemed … wrong.

So. Enter New Idea 2024, Musette-style, in which she takes a jar a day (or however long) empties it (on her body – unless it’s some cheap shower gel in which case I use it to wash the bathroom walls and floors).  It’s a daunting task – but an interesting one – I’d forgotten I had a lot of these, so I’m having fun revisiting – on the way to recycling the jar.

First up:  Henri Bendel Orange Blossom Body Cream.  This is from the Jurassic Era when Lex Wexner’s L Brands bought Henri Bendel and folded it into the newly-named Bath and Body Works and I cannot go on writing about that, lest it make me cry all over again.  For nearly all my adult life I shopped at Bendel, both in Chicago and New York and half my closet has that label in it…. it broke my heart to see it go, just as I’m sure San Francisco’s heart broke to lose Gump’s and I Magnin (we had an I Magnin in Chicago as well but while I enjoyed shopping there I still blame them for the time I got stuck in a Donna Karan bodysuit and 2 SAs had to wrestle me out of it, as my then-BF was too busy laughing to even lift a hand.  To be fair, though, it was an hysterical disaster – and she was laughing HORD!  Still….)

But I digress.

I don’t remember the original 2 body creams being at the original Henri Bendel.  Something tells me this was a Lex Wexner innovation – but the Orange FLOWER (not Blossom – sigh.  I can never remember to name it correctly. )  and the Jasmine and Tuberose were the ones I seized upon.  I really liked the Jasmine/Tuberose cream (though ‘cream’ is a loose interpretation – it’s more a ‘lotion in a jar’) – I remember it being a lower-rent Carnal Flower (which hadn’t yet been created) and, since I didn’t yet know the Heaven that is Carnal Flower body butter, I adored it.  The OFlower took a bit more time to beguile me – but this ‘thunk’  has me rethinking the notion of a well-made Orange Blossom/Flower body cream – unlike a heavy hitter like tuberose, orange blossom is a note that plays well with a whole lot of Others.  It took me 4 days to ‘thunk’ the scrab in that jar and during that time I paired it with everything from coconut (a Sol de Janiero sample) to the luxe fruity-floral Morillas ‘Ines de la Fressange’, which I wear to bed when I am mourning the loss of my own luxe life.  Were it not now ‘vintage’ this would be a great addition to my body cream wardrobe.  Oh… and it would help were it actually a cream.  I am not a fan of body lotions.  And…dagNABBIT!  would somebody please change it to Orange Blossom?  I am tired of getting it wrong all the damb time.

Result:  I ‘thunked’ it.  I liked it – but I doubt I will miss it.    And if you’re jonesin’ for a tuberose-heavy cream, spring for Carnal Flower – you won’t regret it.  The Bendel is just ‘lotion in a jar’ , it’s nice but not Carnal Flower – and it’s selling for hefty simoleans ($70+)

The next one I ‘thunked’ was one I decanted from its original heavy-as-a rhino, poorly designed glass jar – wide at the base and tapered at the top, it’s almost as if the designer wanted you to grasp it with maybe slightly damp? slippery? hands and drop it on your bathroom floor, shattering both the jar and the floor tiles…and definitely your foot, should that heavy-assed thing land on it.  … yes, my friends, I bring you my bete-noire:  Creme Riche by Diptyque.  I say ‘bete-noire’ because of that damb jar.  The creme itself is diiiivine! with a distinctive perfume that still manages to become a skin scent, a few minutes after application.  I used to wear that stuff under nearly everything!  And it was heavenly to wear apres-shower, just before bedtime.  But that damb JAR!  Worst Design EVAH!

Result: Dregs (in a tiny Clinique jar) thunked!

Posse: I would buy it again (it’s that gorgeous) – but only if it came in a better designed, plastic jar.  Musette is old – and cranky – and I don’t want a broken foot.

oh, jar… how I hate you so…

So that’s 2 ‘thunks’ down – and many more to go.  I don’t want to go into my pristine new bathroom with a buncho scrabs of ‘stuff’ so… onward and… onward, I guess.   I was going to ‘thunk’ my 1/4 jar of Lyric – but that gorgeous stuff has the half-life of yellowcake and I can’t wear it to bed – it’s too distracting.  So I’ll polish up the jar and it’ll go back into the bathroom, when it’s finally done (the bathroom, not the Lyric – that’ll last forever).  I’ll put it front and center.

Last thing:  the title of this post.  It’s blue(ish) because Labor Day spells the end of Summer.  Kids are back in school, leaves are thinking about starting to turn.. and if we have a heat wave it’s a desperate sort of heat, rather than the desultory, ‘we have alll the time in the world’ heat of a sultry July day.  I kinda want to cry a little every day, as it stays darker just a bit later in the morning and gets dark just a tad earlier in the evening – but T-Rex doesn’t cry.  So I just take a deep breath and go clean something.

And I’ll continue to ‘thunk’.  Do any of you keep little scrabs of body stuff?