By March

If you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, you know what time it is?  Time to put on some perfume.  So there I was at Nordstrom, in a massive hurry as usual, and I walked by the Chanel counter on the way out and saw No. 19 Poudré sitting there.

The original No. 19 is, in my opinion, a love-it-or-hate-it.  Those fangs of galbanum and thorny rose … I’m more in the hate-it camp.  So of course I picked that bottle of Poudré right up and sprayed it on generously; hey, why not?  Putting on perfume can be living dangerously in a very small, safe way.

Jacques Polge did this version, and to the extent that the job of any great modern perfumer is to dumb down a classic to make it more palatable to the huddled masses, he succeeded.  The fangs have been pulled, and it’s still green at the opening, but much softer and grassier, and the scent is focused on iris more than anything.  Despite the name, it wasn’t powdery on me at all, which is a good thing.

This scent would, I think, be a bitter disappointment to anyone who loves No. 19; the relationship is tenuous, and the reviews online are pretty mixed, trending toward negative.

And yet.

You know what you get when Jacques Polge remakes a galbanum-green scent into something more mass market?  You don’t get a pair of Uggs.  You don’t get a f’ing Snuggie.  You get nine miles of uncompromising orris butter underpinned by a hint of smoky leather and what their brochure describes as “the latest generation of the most sophisticated, beautifully soft and light musks” and which I will English-to-English translate for you as: not laundry musks.

I think it’s lovely.   I’d be delighted with a bottle, thank you very much, and unlike a lot of people who’ve complained about longevity I could smell it a day later on my wrists and forearms.  In fact, I’ve decided it’s the perfect scent for the new life I am emerging into right now – the suit’s a soft knit, but the tailoring’s impeccable, and it’s got that hint of aloofness I love in the classic Chanels.

Notes: Grasse neroli, mandarin orange, jasmine absolute, iris pallida, white musk notes, Haitian vetiver, tonka.

PS Don’t forget – Swapmania starts on Friday!

March

By March

Hey, everyone.  This next few weeks I have some affairs to attend to, so my posting is going to be pretty minimal.

I read everyone’s comments on the timing/interest in Swapmania.  And …. I can’t please everyone (isn’t that always the case?)  Some of you asked for late Feb/early March, which I can’t do for various reasons, and I’m sorry.  Also I avoided Valentine’s day and President’s day weekend.

Others of you asked that Swapmania start on a Friday (instead of my usual Wednesday posting date) because a lot of action happens in the first couple of days and you were feeling left out of the loop, since apparently your school/work schedules prohibit you from hanging out on the Posse all day, setting up swaps. (Insert smiling emoticon here.)

So instead of doing Wed – Sun like last time: we’re going to start Swapmania on Friday, February 3 and let it run through the weekend and into the following week, depending on how much swappage is still going on.  So dig through your boxes, dust off your decants, order your atomizers, figure out where you stuck that bottle of White Shoulders your Aunt Eunice gave you… and we’ll start the party on Friday, Feb. 3!

March

By March

Nope, no perfume review today.  But I’m not completely worthless.  A number of you have asked about another round of Swapmania – our free-for-all perfume swapfest that we did a year ago at Thanksgiving, a total experiment on my part, and it was so successful we did it again last summer.  We got more than 1,200 comments the first time, and more than 900 the second time.  That’s a LOT of swaps.

Y’all have evolved some pretty complicated swaps – international, splits, and cool swaps for non-perfume items.  (I think at this point there’s an underground swapfest going on internationally for chocolates and other stuff we can’t get in the U.S.)  You have also swapped for hand-knit scarves, tea, cosmetics, etc.

Or you can just stick to plain old perfume, nothing wrong with that.

Anyhow, I thought we’d do another either later this month or in February, how do you feel about that?  I want to avoid a holiday weekend like Thanksgiving, a bunch of people were disappointed that time because they were out of town and couldn’t play.   Is there some date I shouldn’t do?  Does anyone have a strong preference?

Also, you can drop in comments here any past issues or questions you’d like addressed.  As far as I know, things have gone pretty fabulously, if you can deal with the insanity of the pace of postings.

The only thing off the top of my head I’ll put in here: I know some swappers are/were upset by U.S. residents who wouldn’t swap internationally.  From my own perspective:  I dread shipping internationally because of US customs issues and requirements.  Maybe because I live near D.C., the level of scrutiny and hassle is pretty intense.  So please don’t take it personally – it is not a trust issue.  If you live in a town or country where you just drop your package off with your local delivery wombat, no questions asked, it’s hard to imagine what a pain customs shipping can be.  I do want to note here that I have bought, sold, and swapped with people from all over the world, and never been ripped off or had a package lost.

Finally, your responses to last week’s going-gray post were amazing!  I really enjoyed reading them, although at some point I gave up trying to respond to all of them.  There were some great gray-hair tips and cross-conversations going on in comments.  I am stunned by how many of you are rocking the silver fox yourselves.  By the way, I just had the last stray bits of hair color trimmed from my hair today.  My stylist is working on maximizing the curls, and gave me another “blue shampoo” to try.  Sitting directly across from me was a woman, 60-ish, with long, white and silver hair, ponytail length. She was stunning.

image: Bill the Cat and friends… don’t you love that image?  Bill the Cat is the unofficial mascot of Swapmania until I get an email from Berkeley Breathed’s lawyers telling me to knock it off.

March

By March

Hi, everyone.  Happy new year.  Let’s hope 2012 will be a better year for all of us.  I’m writing this post on New Year’s Day because this is going to be a crazy busy week for me and I don’t have the heart to dump another post on Anita.  I’m Quing of the Posse, I can blog about anything I want to, right?  So this post isn’t about perfume, it’s about gray hair.  I probably won’t be on here to comment until later tonight.

I started going gray in college; I’ve been hiding it for almost thirty years.  My natural color is espresso brown, trending toward off-black – a nod to my Celtic/American Indian heritage.  The gray is hereditary too. My 89-year-old father still has a full head of hair, but he was silvery gray by his early forties, and my mother probably would have been if she hadn’t dyed it religiously (she had gorgeous, stick-straight, coal-black hair as a young woman).  In my twenties I dyed my hair jet black, which looked perfectly plausible with my pale skin.  Then I moved on to deep reds and rich, dark browns.

About a year ago I asked my colorist how gray I was, and was startled by her response of “Oh, about seventy percent, probably.”  I had a really pretty streak of silver coming up from my widow’s peak in front, and I played around with leaving that part free of the dye job.  Then I decided: what the heck, I’m going to let it all grow out and see how it looks.  I can always re-dye it if it’s awful.

It took awhile.  I suffered through the ugly-root grow-out phase, then cut it shorter, then trimmed it again.  It’s now about six inches long and all natural color.

I noticed a couple of things right away.  My hair is definitely thicker; in hindsight I don’t think marinating my scalp in industrial-strength haircolor every five weeks was doing it any favors.  It’s also really soft, which surprises me.   Can I tell you how much I don’t miss spending time and money coloring it?

My hair’s both dry and wavy, I almost never shampoo unless I’ve been doing something really dirty, like cleaning up the yard.  Twice a week in the shower I wet it and put on a squirt of Aveda Blue Malva Conditioner* and let it sit while I do my thing.  There’s something reddish in our water (iron?), it stains the tiles, and the Aveda, which is purple-y, keeps the color bright.  This was a recommendation from the guy who cuts my hair, which was nice of him, considering they don’t sell Aveda.  (BTW he does not recommend the matching Blue Malva shampoo, which he says is very drying.)  Then I either run through a dab of jojoba oil or some anti-frizz product, and let it air dry.  Enigma, who has very long corkscrew curls, got a bunch of curly-girl hair product for Christmas which we’re playing with.  I think my favorite is the Ouidad Climate Control Heat and Humidity Gel*, which cuts the frizz but doesn’t leave my hair crunchy.

And my new, natural hair color?  It’s … kind of fabulous, in my opinion.  Much better than I’d hoped for.  Here’s a photo from the back (surprise!) so you can see the huge contrast from the front, where I still have mostly dark hair around my face.  The gray streaks range from steel to silver.  I’ve received some compliments, including from a woman who wanted to know where I got it colored like that.  As you can see, the top of my head is almost pure gray/silver, and then halfway down the back it reverts to a solid dark brown, so I’m still experimenting with the cut.  I think it’s better a little longer, like it is now, because that softens the radical color shift underneath.

I do think it makes me look older, in that I have sort of a baby face of an indefinite age.  Not dyeing it places me solidly at my real age  – late forties — and I’m okay with that.  Online research into “going silver” etc. reveals that many women have made this same journey, for lots of the same reasons, and at the same age.  None of them view it as giving up so much as fed up with the maintenance, chemicals, and expense, along with a subtle rebellion against the idea that gray hair is some kind of chronic condition that needs to be treated – on women, but not necessarily on men, who look “distinguished” with gray hair.

Makeup-wise I’ve made a few adjustments.  I look better with a bit more color – a touch of eyeshadow, a dab of blush, a stronger lip.  The whole nude-lip thing is too washed out now.

Finally, and without going into hilarious details, there are clearly men out there, including younger men, who are into the silver fox look.  Take that, Lady Clairol.

Okay, your turn, if anyone’s read this far.  Are you rocking the silver fox yourself?  Contemplating it?  If you used to color your gray hair and then stopped, why, and how did it work out?  Any silver fox suggestions, product recommendations, or insights?

photos: taken by Diva so you can see the contrast between the dark hair framing my face and how silver it is from behind.  FYI I’m barefaced in that photo and squinting into the sun, not getting ready to tear somebody apart.

*Footnotes: Blue Malva conditioner gets a 3.9/5 on MUA.  Most reviewers are using it to tone down the brassiness in their bleached blonde/highlighted hair, rather than on gray hair.   They point out that it’s not very moisturizing (which is true) and they alternate with heavier conditioners on other days.  Also worth noting: it smells very “Aveda.”  I like the smell in small doses, but it’s distinctive, and you might not.

The Ouidad Climate Control gel gets a 3.7/5.  Reading reviews, the most favorable are from people with hair like mine – soft curls and not too long, thick or coarse.  Reviewers with fabulously thick, coarse, curly hair complain that it doesn’t have enough curl “hold” and doesn’t control the frizz well enough.

March

By March

First off – the winner of the draw of my Christmas music, Jicky etc., chosen by the fickle finger of fate random.org is…. mother courreges!  I’ll shoot you an email.

I got into a discussion recently with some other perfumistas about what perfumes might be considered “dated.”  This was prompted by Luca Turin’s description in The Guide of Chanel Coco as “terribly dated,” although he says lots of nice things about it and gives it four stars in the end.

I love Coco, and I agree with the entire review – except for the “dated” part.  I understand that Coco isn’t the smell du jour, but I’d call it classic, in a grown-up way, along with other spicy Oriental scents like Cinnabar and Opium.  Like those latter two, Coco smells smoothest (and some would say the most beautiful) in extrait, although I’m rather fond of my vintage Coco EDP from eBay.  I like to layer that and the parfum for maximum effect.

You know what smells dated to me?  Mugler’s Angel, which has been haunting us since the early nineties.  I’m still waiting for folks to figure out that choco-vanilla + patch = vomit, but I’m not holding my breath, unless I’m standing next to you in the elevator and you’re wearing this monstrosity.  Another smell that’s dated – anything reeking of laundry musks.  I admit I was charmed when Clean first came out with Fresh Laundry or whatever it’s called.  It was a novel idea, as if Demeter had made a scent called Clean Clothes.  But as the musky border between mass-market perfumes and detergent grows blurrier, it’s a smell that annoys me.  With the wide world of perfumes from which to choose, who the hell wants to go around smelling like a box of Tide, unless it’s emanating from your clothing?  (For the record: I use unscented detergent and vinegar on my clothes.)

Finally, I nominate CK One and anything it inspired in the soapy/fresh/citrus “anti-perfume” category.  Again, if I want perfume, I want perfume.

Okay, your turn!  What smells dated, in terms of scents or scent trends?  Remember, you can’t just hate it because it’s overly popular right now; it has to have been around long enough to be a boring cliché.  (Lots of nominees in the men’s department!)  On the other hand, what do you think is “classic,” particularly if it’s a newer scent?  I’d say Chanel 31 RC and some of those MDCIs, off the top of my head.

image: Coco ad from the mid-1980s, featuring (I think) Ines de la Fressange

March