Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!!!

There is an SA or manager at the Tom Ford counter at Bergdorf Goodman that has some serious skills.  Every time there is a new launch of a Tom Ford product, out of the blue, a sample of it hits my desk.  I know she does it to others too, and it never fails to just thrill me – whether I like the fragrance or not doesn’t matter, this is a person in sales who truly gets how you sell something.  I got all the new ones except the Suede thing. Isn’t there a Grey Vetiver one too that’s around?  Anyway, I was predisposed to finding lots to like in them just because I’m so darn happy when something I didn’t ask for and really wanted to try lands in my mailbox.

Tom’s fragrances and I don’t always get along. White Patchouli was a mess for me, and I did like Black Orchid when lots of people hated it.  I like a lot of his Private Blend scents, but about the same number of them leave me cold.  I didn’t really like his city exclusive thing because I don’t think his scents are so great or oroginal that he could have the level of exclusivity that  Le Labo does.  Plus, Le Labo is a pretty small line with much smaller sales targets to hit for a launch – and a much smaller advertising budget they have to live up to – plus I think their scents are just scads better, and I’m much more motivated to hunt them down and call in all sorts of favors to get ahold of them. Tom’s – eh, I can wait.

The new musk series he has intrigued me because I’m thinking with his smutty, shirtless, smoldering eyes persona, how could he not do musk in a sensual, bite my lip sort of way.  Well, yeah.

Urban musk has notes of ambrette seed absolute extra, white pepper CO2, cumin, white honey, jasmine sambac, black plum, Tonkin musk headspace and benzoin Laos orpur.  I don’t even know what a lot of that is. The ambrette is pretty prominent from the moment it leaves the spray chute, and me no likey the open that much.  There’s a weird almost tanginess to it.  And plastic?  Kinda, yeah.  I’m not a fan on the open, but as it dries down, I do like it more as the honey and spice comes out to play and the musk makes an appearance.  It becomes much more smooth and well rounded and quite nice, but I wouldn’t really call it earthy or sensual musk, not what I was expecting.  It’s much more soft and cuddly, which I think is what he was going for, and the Urban succeeds in capturing that.  It’s nice, really!  I’m still just a little befuddled, but only by my own expectations.  Of the three, Urban is my favorite. It’s very easy to wear, not an overpowering musk, but also not one that stands out as unique or different.

Pure musk I was prepared to love. I mean, right?  Notes of bergamot, pepper, ylang-ylang orpur, jasmine, lily of the valley, orris butter, orris absolute, jasmine sambac, tonka, benzoin tears and beeswax.  Again, the tangy thing on the open, which I could have lived with, until it morphed into Clean? I swear.  I haven’t smelled any of the Clean fragrances in years, but that’s what I get, or at least some aspect of it just has that window wiper smell that the Clean fragrances have that used to make my stomach churn.  I can’t get beyond that. Even in the longer drydown, it’s there.  If someone else has smelled this, tell me if it’s me or the perfume.  Hate it.  Seriously.

Jasmine Musk is probably my favorite of the three on the open.  Notes of ylang ylang, jasmine, patchouli, orris, vanilla, sandalwood, vetiver, cistus, amber and musk.  This is closer to the straight-up musk I was thinking I’d get. The jasmine is far from indolic to my nose, so it doesn’t go to the more feral, smutty scent I was thinking/hoping/praying it would be.  It’s a fairly standard musk with some floral  and vanilla notes. Well done, soft, but nothing I’m doing backflips over.

I’d wear the Jasmine and Urban Musk happily and like them, but I don’t get the angle they’re going for here to differentiate this in a market that has some pretty great musks already.

Did we cover the cost?  $180 for 50 mls.  That’s the deal-breaker for me.  There’s nothing that special about them that could persuade me to shell out that kind of dough for some pretty average musks.  Narciso Rodriguez does a great musk for less than half that price.  I think they’ll probably wind up doing great, though, because love him or hate him, Tom Ford sells stuff with his name on it.

Hey, my little samples were free, so you know what that means!  You can see if you agree with me or if this is your next new Holy Grail.  Just drop a comment and be entered to win a samples set of these. I think I have enough in my little vials to do like two sample sets.

Tom Ford scents, hate ‘em or love ‘em?  I fully expect all the Tom Ford hatahs to show up.  I’m pretty indifferent to him, except I do like to look at him.

Patty

We are finally having some legitimate August weather – in the 90s and humid.  I am not even complaining.   Now is the time for all the summer greats – fresh fruit and vegetables, straight from the garden (even if it´s not your garden.)

To honor high summer’s arrival after a very long wait, I thought I´d put up a post on great veggie/garden scents.  This is a random sample and by no means exhaustive.  Please add your suggestions.  The fun thing about a post like this is, some of these are obscure enough that newbies and lurkers get a peek at a whole different area of perfumage!

L´Artisan Fleur de Carotte.  I don´t know if actual carrot flowers have a smell; this smells delicately of sweet, juicy carrot.  Available in giant vats from the flagship stores with a little Beatrix-potter-looking paper hat on the bottle (shown at right).

L´Artisan Piment Brulant – green bell pepper.  Not a personal favorite of mine (why don´t I want to smell like green bell pepper?  I don´t know) but I know a ton of people who love this.

CB I Hate Perfume Memory of Kindness – tomato leaf, dirt, sunshine.  While we are on the topic of CB, I know I pimp his stuff all the time, because it´s wonderful – he´s not giving me freebies.  Here´s a link to his accords list – I notice he´s got four tomatoes (tomato basil, tomato leaf, green tomato, market tomato.)  Visiting his website gives me the perfume version of the horn.  I wonder how the rhubarb leaf smells?  Also, as soon as it cools off I´m getting me some boiled rice.  BTW unfortunately, unless the ORDER button appears next to what you´re eyeballing, it´s only available by visiting his Brooklyn store, which is well worth the trip.  Any other CB faves?  How´s his Grass?  Also, has anyone smelled Baby Butt?

For the budget version of CB, of course there´s Demeter – in addition to the iconic Dirt, there´s Grass, Pruning Shears, Privet…  Also – friends – Turpentine!  Should I order it?

Donna Karan DKNY Women – okay, this is a little different, but it´s so interesting and under the radar I´m including it.  I´ve only ever seen it at airport duty frees – it´s in the long frosted glass bottle with the silver holo box.  Notes are tomato leaf, blood orange, water lily, coral orchid, narcissus, tulip, birch.   To me it smells like an urban balcony container garden – the tomato leaf is dominant, but in the background there´s a hint of orange juice, wet pavement, trees, and the florist down the street with the buckets set up on the sidewalk.

Okay, your turn.   What would you like to add to our garden today that isn´t a conventional flower?  (Maybe I should have included CB Dandelion?)

image: tomatoes in my kitchen, courtesy of a friend’s garden.  He did all the work and then left for vacation, inviting me to harvest for the three weeks he’s gone.  It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to eat them, eh?

March

If you’re an American consumer interested in makeup, you’ve probably run across San Francisco-based Benefit Cosmetics at some point.  I assume their backstory of twin sisters who launched the company in 1976 and first concocted their now iconic Benetint as nipple tint for strippers is true (hey, why not?)  Even before I read their company philosophy I’d have said almost the same thing they do: they treat makeup as fun, something to be approached with a sense of humor and play.  That might not seem so novel now in the age of Kat Von D and Urban Decay, but for me and probably lots of other women, Benefit is a welcome alternative to the science-lab approach (Clinique, Prescriptives) or the Veiled Mystery angle (Chanel, Dior and most of the rest.)

As someone with a background in advertising I also appreciate the unified thought and craftsmanship that goes into the company’s branding.  Not all the products work for me, but the line’s top sellers have a cult-like following.  I know many devotees of BADgal mascara and Benetint, and Dandelion is often discovered by pale women to be the blush that actually works on them, and not as clown makeup.   They have a ton of concealers and skin prep items as well.  If you’ve joined the Benefit cult, I invite you to pimp your favorite product in the comments.  I own Dandelion, and Dallas looks great on my daughter; I swipe it for summer parties, it’s literally the only thing I’ve tried, in my case as a bronzer, for a hint of summer color that goes neither too pink nor too orange.

But I’ve never particularly loved Benefit’s fragrances, although let me state the obvious that I’m not their targeted consumer.  Maybe Baby is a sweet, fruity-floral-powdery thing that gets mostly raves from the 18 to 29 year-old cohort on Makeup Alley, along the lines of it just smells really nice, or my boyfriend loves it.  B Spot does much worse with only a 35% rebuy rating (to Maybe Baby’s 67%.)  It’s arguably the slightly tarter sour candy to Maybe Baby’s sweetness.  To my nose they both have a hint of something plastique, that generic focus-grouped synthetic softness that simply isn’t my bag unless you freak it up (Exhibit A: the deliciously twisted Gucci Rush.)

They’re now launching a new trio, set to arrive in stores in July.  I got a preview sample vial set from Benefit.   (Yes, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I get some advance freebies.  No, I don’t feel morally compromised.  If you looked at my swag haul over the life of this blog, you’d laugh, and not in envy at my good fortune.)

So, what does a powerhouse like Benefit come up with?  A set called Crescent Row, inspired by a visit to the Royal Crescent in Bath, England by Maggie and Annie Ford Danielson, the daughters of one of Benefit’s founders.  Quoting their PR piece, “the Row was so exciting, so enticing, the girls felt it was the perfect concept for Benefit.”

Now, I’ve walked the Royal Crescent, and my impression was: imposing, vigorously preserved, highly uniform and wildly expensive real estate that makes our local historic landmark districts of Georgetown and Alexandria look like warrens of tumbledown shacks.  Nothing like a trip to Europe to revise your definition of old or stately.  Personally I find their cold Georgian formality an odd inspiration for a company like Benefit.

What do these scents smell like?  Well, I happened to have an extra eight girls over here for Diva’s 15th birthday party, so I shopped them around.

Laugh With Me Lee Lee – cassis, melon, citrus, black violet, lily, jasmine, blonde wood, amber, santal, “woody floral.”   The runaway hit of the bunch with the teenage girls, Lee Lee is one of those high-wattage fruit-bombs that’s about as appropriate on me as a baby doll dress and turquoise eye shadow, and yet it brings a huge smile to my face.    It’s not sexy; it’s joyful and playful, the sort of girly scent that should be worn to the boardwalk in summer or to the mall to hit Forever 21 with your BFFs.  I am easily two decades too old for this.  I’d describe it as mostly fruit with discernable jasmine and violet plus That Sweet Woody Base That’s In Everything Now And I’m Still Not Complaining Because You Could Do So Much Worse.  Whatever amount of melon’s in there wasn’t enough to trigger my alarms.  People tempted to complain about its insipid airheadedness should feel the pain of a mother tired of teenaged girls being induced to smell like sexpots.

Something about Sofia – mango, freesia, sheer lily, jasmine sambac, peony petal, musk, white caramel, vanilla bean, “oriental floral.”   This is their gourmand entry and one great description I got from the girls was “gingerbread, flowers and old people in a good way.”  It’s less sweet than you’d think.  I smell mostly jasmine and lily at the top, and it’s got a decent amount of spice and woods for such a mainstream scent.  The mango and musk add richness rather than sugar.  I get something gingerbread-ish as well, although it’s not listed in the notes.  My personal favorite.

My Place or Yours Gina – pink pepper, bergamot, tangerine, peony, wild raspberry, white lily, patchouli, tonka, vanilla, “woody oriental.”   Epic Fail – both for me and the girls.  It starts off with a sour-citrus peppery burst, then fades rapidly into Estee Lauder Sensuous with an extra honking dose of Patty’s patented Tampax Fresh Accord.  Also, it becomes weirdly unsmellable on several girls after about fifteen minutes – some sort of temporary anosmia?   It did go through a wet-cardboard phase that I of course perversely enjoyed, and I didn’t rush to scrub it off, but I’m not sure they hit their mark with this one.

These are all 30ml for $36 and they are absolutely adorable in the pictures – what you’d expect from Benefit’s design team.  They look  like miniature cocktail shakers in the photos, with whimsical graphics. Given the price point and the packaging, and Benefit’s clever marketing, I’d say these will sell like the proverbial hotcakes, with Lee Lee first and Sophia second.

Today’s giveaway – my adorable set of three from Benefit, mostly full, say if you want it in the comments and I’ll pick someone.

March

Strange Invisible Perfumes and their offerings tend to fall off my radar.  They´re not sold in many brick-and-mortar stores (in NYC I think they’re at Barneys and nowhere else); their website´s a little groovy and not especially detail-oriented regarding the notes in their fragrances.  I didn´t realize the name was taken from Shakespeare but it is nonetheless apt because I find many of their fragrances … well, a little strange.  Like the scents from Aftelier they can take some getting used to.  They don´t lend themselves to a quick sniff at the counter at Barneys because they can spend up to half an hour unfolding themselves on the skin like a tea flower dropped in water.  Finally, I might as well mention to the uninitiated that they are expensive in the parfum version — $185 – $210 for 7.5 ml, which doesn´t lend itself to bottle splits.

They have three new releases in time for spring, and let´s start with my favorite:

Epic Gardenia.  The bad news: no, it´s not a reissue of the late, lamented, discontinued Lady Day, so shed a couple of quiet tears and get that out of the way so you can smell Epic on its own terms.  Like lily and tuberose, gardenia is not a friend to all.  Apparently gardenia can´t be easily distilled from the plant, so it´s simulated in other ways, and you tend to get plastic, or too much kitchen spice, or something really green (like a side-dish of muguet).  Epic is substantially less cheesy-smelling than JARdenia or the Tom Ford; it doesn´t have a big LOTV hit, although it´s both a wee bit green and slightly indolic.  It´s probably the closest thing to the smell of an actual gardenia flower besides Yves Rocher´s ridiculously cheap and effective gardenia, but I like it better – it´s richer, a little grassy, and the drydown is quite long lasting.  Lovely.

Urban Lily wins the SIP Award for epic strangeness.  A startlingly peculiar combination of peppery florals and wet pavement at the open, Urban Lily is the sort of not-for-beginners scent I´d have loathed as a nascent perfumista.  The really cool part is, an hour or two later it morphs into an utterly different scent, a honey-hay-beeswax smell with a hint of something peat/leather like narcissus.  It’s such a holy-crap-what-is-that?!? about-face that twice I went back over every inch of my body and the other scents I had on, trying to identify the correct source.  Tom at Perfume-Smellin´ Things says this features a big dose of their house musk.  Which has me thinking Patty and I really need to stop by SIP next week when we´re in LA, because I need me some of that base.  I found the lasting power on this one extraordinary.

Aquarian Roses‘ notes are rose, sandalwood and marjoram.  (FYI – this is the only list of notes the company provided me, the others being “impressionistic renderings.”)  I left it till last and was pleasantly surprised.  It´s quite sharp at the top, medicinal/herbal like a poultice, and rather soapy, with a dry tang that makes me think of creosote way off in the distance.  It goes through a phase of smelling rather like the Weleda calendula balm I used to use on my kids’ chapped skin.  Tom uses the word stemmy, which is perfect. The rose is subdued on my skin.  Has anyone else tried this yet?

Since we may go by the shop, and since a lot of our readers may not have sampled much (if any) of the line, I´d love to know what your favorite SIP is and why.

PS, for anyone who cares: here are links to Posse reviews of other SIPs including Lady Day and to my original gardenia bender post for other recommendations, and a link to Tom’s rather different take on these three.  Also, if you’re pining for Lady Day — they’ll make it for you custom, but it’ll set you back $250. 

PPS I just clicked through Tom’s review to his original review of Musc Botanique, and hey — look — I started off my review with almost exactly the same sentence.  I think that’s so funny I’m leaving it.  Tom, be sure to rag me for shamelessly plagiarizing you next week.

March