I’m just going to be flat-out annoying today and beg for help.
Once upon a time, I was a little bit – well, a lot, but it was Dos Geekery - geeky, but then I didn’t use it and lost all my geek talents. So we get this message Sunday from our service provider about our blog account being suspended. Why, March asked me? I have no idea! Patty responded. March put in a very cute and totally clueless trouble ticket. Blog hosting company tells us we have too much stuff on our front page and it puts a load on their servers and so we got suspended. Okay, annoying old blog hosting company sorta fell apart at the end, but they never bothered us with this level of detail.
So what does that mean, March’nPatty the Clueless Ones asked. And how-o-how do we fix it? Tech Support tells us to change our front page so we don’t load so much stuff. March and I look at each other (through e-mail) and blink eyes that have no idea what we should do next.
Other than just bare bones our front page so it has no graphics, no ads, no sidebars, just a simple Perfume Posse at the top, does anyone have some WordPress skilz or know someone who does and won’t charge us a fortune to tell us how to keep the GreenGeeks blog hosting guys from cutting us off again? I’ve been to lots of blogs that take a lot longer to load, so I keep thinking we’re not that excessive in our use, but what in the world do we know? Perfume, yeah. Blogginess? Not that much.
Shameless begging for cheap or free help.
I’m awash in perfume. The two angels that do all my decanting decided to take a vacation (!?!?!?!?) this week, so it’s just me and my youngest son, who, as it turns out, is much better at decanting than he was two years ago when I tried to get him to help before. I spent some time in there this morning early, trying to get some of this done – slowly, I might add, since I can’t find anything anymore – then had to head to the office for my day job meeting. I forgot what I had been doing until I got in my truck and smelled JAR Golconda on my wrist where I had splashed some and a little Jardenia around my ear, I think, and wasn’t that Chanel Egoiste on my elbow? Chloe too? Yeah, pretty sure. I happen to love walking into my house when decanting has been going on all day, and that crayon box of crazy perfume smells hits me as some whirled fragrant pea soup that’s pretty amazing. I think it may be a far different thing when I walk into a fairly staid office whirling my pea soup fragrance mosh pit around. Yes? I didn’t ask, I just tried to finish up quickly and get out.
For those of you as clueless as we are on the blog geekery, you need something to talk about, so what is the most embarrassing public perfume thing you’ve done? Spill Bal a Versailles on your shoe and forgot to change shoes before you went to the doctor’s office? You can tell us here.
The Best of 2008
The first thing that hit us when we went to pull this list together is the monumental number of fragrances released in 2008, many of which we have yet to smell, even though we’re doing our best to keep up. We’ve revised this list several times and could just as easily have added or deleted various fragrances, so feel free to mock us or offer your own list in the comments.
- Chanel Beige and Sycomore — Both part of Les Exclusifs, they demonstrate indisputably that Chanel still has something interesting to add to the conversation. Sycomore is a woody vetiver that’s a must-try for any serious vetiver freak (and is also more of a powerhouse than much of Les Exclusifs.) Beige is a classic-manner Chanel along the lines of 31 Rue Cambon that surprised both of us; for something that’s not particularly our “style” we found ourselves turning to it again and again.
- Le Labo City Exclusives — Poivre 23, Gaiac 10 and Musc 25. As Patty notes, we are on a roll now. March didn’t even care about these until she smelled Poivre and promptly muscled her way into a split. Bonus points for actually smelling like their names. Points deducted for being ridiculously expensive and difficult to get.
- Amouage Homage Attar – Smoky, woody oud and ridiculously expensive, but should we hold that against it? It really is lovely, and one little drop lasts all day.
- Amouage Lyric Women – Spicy, smoldering rose, it has a soft, enveloping, addictive quality that had Patty squirming in joy.
- Dianne Brill — March adds this as her dark horse. Celebrity fragrances seem almost destined to fail the interest test — even people like Gwen Stefani end up releasing dull juice (albeit really cute bottles for the Harajukus.) Dienne Brill’s not an A-list celebrity, and the fragrance is not everyone’s cup of tea/cigar/sawdust/poppers, but hats off to her for setting out with an oddball vision and producing a fragrance that achieved it.
- Stephen Jones Comme des Garcons – we are seriously overdue for another interesting violet, one of the early notes in perfumery that we swooned over together. What is not to love about a CdG fragrance in a milliner’s hatbox that is supposed to smell like a violet colliding with a meteorite? Smoky, inky, toasted, spicy, leathery, violet and strange, and highly wearable.
- Serge Lutens Serge Noire and Five O’Clock Au Gingembre - Noire is a love-it-or-hate-it, depending on how much armpit you get, among other things. Five O’Clock seems either to enchant or irritate. But both of these provoke enough rabid reaction and devotion the list seems incomplete without them.
- Cartier Roadster - Unisex, earthy, vetiver goodness, slightly mineralic, a scent you can happily wear every day or all night. Elegantly Cartier, but keeping it unique.
- Frederic Malle Dans tes Bras - Strange and wonderful earthy, mushroomy violet, it’s a walk in a beautiful forest with a little sprig of violet posies in your hand on a sublimely happy day. Beautifullly executed and never slick
- Rosine Rose Praline - A Gourmand rose that somehow splits the difference perfectly. One of Rosine’s best efforts in years and a line that is far too underappreciated.
- The Woods Grow in Macy’s — okay, maybe a “molten river of woods” is the new litchi, but we’re still happy to see woody/ambery mainstream scents that don’t smell like someone barfed up a daiquiri. Honorable Mention Shout-Out to Estee Lauder Sensuous and Amber Ylang, and Calvin Klein’s Secret Obsession.
Note: image is Bottles & Reflections (Revised) by dvaires at flickr; some rights reserved, image of “Modernity, Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely” by Josiah McElheny (2003), MOMA
For other Best of 2008 lists see Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, and Perfume-Smellin’ Things.
Patty
