Before we begin:  HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!   May it be a fragrant,floral,foody,flirty,FUN day for everyone!!                            

I, Musette the Ingrate, was going to start this post with my regular diatribe against Winter, then I realized  it would be churlish and possibly irritate the Nature Gods who would then send down 423 feet of snow and ice and minus-F temps in the double digits with a 54mph wind.  You know…regular Midwest winter!  Instead we’re experiencing Venice’s  winter and they,our normal Illinois nightmare (the poor things).  Perhaps the poles shifted and nobody told us?   Whatever.  I’m not complaining – yeah, it’s not Santa Barbara but it could be a whole lot worse.  That could be my vaporetto, getting busted up in the frozen canal!  Because the weather has been in the 30F-50F (yes!) range, my ‘winter’ perfume choices have been all over the place.

So…this is the 2012 Best of Winter -and because I have a rackety mind we’re opening it up to all sorts of ‘best of’.  From a perfume standpoint, the bulk of my New Best Loves are all body products.  Maybe it’s this lingering sinus infection but I find I’m able appreciate the nuances of a lot of scents via the body cremes.  To wit:

1. Iris Poudre.  I thought this was an absurd scent when I first smelled it out of the bottle.  No amount of spin worked for me (“it smells like a French perfume” huh?  What have I been wearing all these years?  Nebraska perfume?)…anyhoo, I thought it was silly.  Then Marie and Lydia made me try the body cream.  Ho, yus.  The whole ‘point’ of the perfume became obvious to me.  Now I can’t wait for the occasion to slather myself with the cream and add just a tiny spritz of the perfume.  Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise.

2. Rose du Rosine body creme.  I doubt I would ever wear this particular Rosine in the perfume form because…well, I dunno..it’s not interesting or dirty enough (there will be a review of one of their dirtier roses next week)…but lemme tell you – this CREME!!  I roll around in this one like a dog in dognip!  It’s the perfect complement to vintage Ubar, amping up the rose just a bit and balancing out the lovely sandalwood.  What it does to Tribute is nothing short of erotic.  I’mo go fan myself now.

3. Fleur de Cassie body creme.  Yah.  I know.  Discontinued.  But I have a little scrab left and ….well!  The leather is so unbelievably sexy.  Glide this on right after a hot shower.  What you do after that is up to you.

The Big Bang Theory.  Nerdy Science made Sexy.   I don’t watch muchTV so it was just blind luck that I stumbled upon this little gem which, apparently, has been on for 3 or 4 years??    I’m having a blast, watching the reruns (1 a night no matter how many they run back to back.  Mustn’t gorge).  Chuck Lorre is genius! I would …well, you know…except..what if he’s not really that fabulous in person.  Better to just dream (and he’s kinda cute, too, in that ‘interesting’ way)…  and in the meantime let my brain slide out of my ear for 30 minutes!  Great writing, great ensemble.  All-around fun.  Sheldon and Leonard are the Lucy and Ethel for the Apocalyptic Age.

Tom sez:

Since this is so close to the dreaded V-Day, I’m going to talk about gifts.  I’m specifically talking to the (2?) heterosexual male readers out there who might be wondering what to give, especially since if you’re reading this and wondering you’re almost too late already.  Yes, you can call this “Ask Gay Best Friend”.  The best thing you can do?  Make her breakfast.  If you can’t make breakfast without requiring a visit from the Fire Dept (or health dept..) then steal out and buy it.  An omelette from the local diner (kept warm in the oven set at its lowest setting), coffee and a croissant from starbucks, OJ and a flower or two from the market when presented on a tray for her morning breakfast will make her happy.  Run a tub while she’s enjoying her meal in bed with the morning paper, and leave her alone to soak while you make the bed and tidy the kitchen.  If you plan on doing this on the weekend since Tuesday might be a workday then add in a split of champagne or prosecco.  Then make (or order) a romantic dinner.  Send the kids to their rooms after they’ve helped to set the table.  Candles would be good- votives in glasses are fine. A present is a nice touch, but you don’t have to go crazy.  Diamonds might be a girls best friend, but if it means the car gets repossessed it’s not so nice.  Her favorite perfume, perfumed sachets, or a gift certificate for a massage at a local spa will make her happy.   Heck it would me.  You may just get a little present in return that evening..

(ps.  from Musette:  If only I could get El O to read Tom’s post!!)

from the lovely Ann:
Byredo’s Seven Veils is a recent release that Musette quite liked, so that prompted me to get a sniff. It’s a warm, creamy, golden veil of a scent, as its name implies, and one that has charmed me completely this winter.

 A favorite from 2011, Parfumerie Generale’s Indochine is still going strong as one of my comfort “blankies” this winter. 

 My third pick is not a new scent, but an older one that was well-loved by many, but then discontinued, and unfortunately, fell completely off my radar. But when a very sweet and generous Posse-ite recently surprised me with a bottle of YSL’s Nu edp, in all its lovely, spicy-dark incense glory, my love for it was rekindled. And that sleek, round, flip-open bottle delights me no end.

from the Black-Hearted Patty:

I’m waiting… waiting for something special to arrive that I can talk about hopefully soon.  That’s my winter/Valentine’s love,the thin I don’t have yet, but I know what it is, I’ve smelled it, and it will be mine soon – at least a small sample of it.  In the meantime, I’m blinging out a jean jacket, making caftans and feeling pretty crafty on the whole, which is, um, odd. I’m not a crafty person at all, but I seem to be turning into one.  Can a leopard change its spots this far into life?

And Valentine’s Day – I used to be very anti-Cupid. No gifts, no flowers, no chocolates, no dinners.  Damaged girl from an asshole first husband who would do the most awful things and then bring me home a big bouquet of daisies to make it all better. I love daisies, they are my favorite flower, but gifts as an apology or that were “expected” on a certain day were met with lots of expletives and foot stomping.

Not anymore!  Bring on the romance. Life is too short to no appreciate the days we are given to stop for a second, remember who we love, tell them we love them. Send a Valentine to your mom, to your dad, brother, sister, to your children. Tell them how much they have enriched your life just by being in it and letting you love them and share  their life.  So here’s my Valentine to all of you – Love you !!!!!
What’s charming you this winter?  ..and for more Best of Winter check out Perfume Smellin’ Things, Bois de Jasmin, Grain de musc and Now Smell This

Rott photo: flickrhivemind.net – the smoochiest face EVAH!

other image:  I have no idea.  but isn’t it pretty?

by “Don’t Panic!  March Will Be Back” Musette

March is finishing up some stuff that is taking up 10,080 minutes this week so I’m stepping into her Size Sixes (I’m 5’9″ tall and …well, let’s just say those boots iz squallin’!!!)

I lived in an urban environment for most of my adult life and never gave much thought to the good ol’ days – most cosmopolitan areas are constantly shifting so you don’t have much time to mourn What Was – besides, I have a really fragile visual memory that is only now allowing me to recall the visual past – I’m one of those people ror whom, if you knock down a building and replace it with another, in the time it takes for that new building to go up I’ve forgotten what was previously there (for awhile I’d forgotten that the Palmolive Building in Chicago still existed (I only saw it from Lake Shore Drive as a child, with its famous Lindbergh Beacon).  Sad, but true….but these past 5 years, writing for the blog and living in a rather static environment, has allowed my skittering mind to settle and reflect on a lot of my early sensory experiences.  Here are a few of them:

Thinking about the Palmolive Building got me thinking about toothpaste (don’t ask) – when I was a kid we used Ipana, which I loved (great taste!!) – then my mom switched us to Crest (ew).  I miss Ipana.  It always smelled – and tasted – like that intriguing Beeman’s Gum which I could swear came in tablet form, like Chiclets.  Am I making that up?  Anyway, I love the smell of both of those.   Does Ipana still exist? 

Nervine.  My mother suffered from depression and spent most of her waking moments in a otc-induced fog, to keep from killing everyone in sight.  This was in the 60s, so there was no Cymbalta – in fact, we’d not yet accepted depression as a chemical imbalance.  You had ‘nerves’, if you were a woman, and took ‘powders’.  My mother took Nervine.  We all knew to get the hell out of the way when she pulled that glass tube out of the medicine cabinet – but I always was fascinated by that glass tube, with those tablets…because they FIZZED!  I would peek around the bathroom door (I was 6) and listen for the plop! and fzzzzz!  and once, even sneaked my nose in the glass when she turned her back (it tickled).   To this day I have a fondness for effervescent tablets because in my house those tablets were a mysterious signal that everything would level out in an hour or so and I would get my mother back.  And dinner.

A-1 Salve (Wizard Products Co, Chicago).  Apparently this company got binked on several occasions in the late 40s by the JAMA Bureau of Investigations and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misrepresentation (false claims!  can you IMAGINE?  what a concept!)  – but what did that matter?  My folks LOVED this salve, reputed to cure everything from eczema to ringworm and the corresponding sulphur soap, which purportedly killed everything in its path.  The petroleum base and rotten-egg sulphur smell equaled HEALTHY TIMES in our household.  I came upon half a boxtop, when I was clearing out my pop’s old meds cabinet and those smells came roaring back, just from the visual!  I’ve forgotten the scent of 90% of the ‘fumes I reviewed in the past 4  months – but A-1 salve?  Nevah!

Poly-vi-Sol. Brown bottle with bulb dropper.  3 drops on the tongue in the morning.  Is there any Boomer alive who doesn’t remember the smell and that weird B-vitamin taste?  But I don’t remember it smelling or tasting bad – just very vitamin-y.  And all my peers seem to remember it similarly.  Funnily, this current generation of moms (at least those on the blogs) seem to find it VILE!  Did they change something?  Again, for me, this is one of those ‘everything is totally okay in my world’ smells, unlike Cod Liver Oil, which smells like terror.  To this day.  Fish Oil tabs are my Cross To Bear now.

So….what are your Good Ol’ Days smells?  Mine seem to be all about dosing and slathering but ymmv – Perfume?  Food?  Patent Medicines?  Housecleaning supplies?? (my household madeleine  is Sprayway Glass Cleaner)  – would love to hear about them!  I have a buncho samples to give away, including Givenchy’s Dahlia Noir – I was going to review it but Robin @ NST did it way better here  - no reason to reinvent that wheel.  It’s worth a sniff and I’ll throw in a couple of other samps to a few winners via random.org

by Musette

So……I’m still having sinii issues but the saline flushes are helping a lot.  Forget the neti pot.  Since my biggest problem is the post-nasal ickola, I just snort the stuff like a walrus, to clear out all that schtuff!   TMI, I’m soooo sure but, hey!  y’all are family and family gets to share the good, the bad and the goober.

Perfumes are still a bit weird, with the exception of some heavy hitters like Carnal Flower and Tribute Attar, both of which could blast through the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.  The heavier Amouages and Malles have withstood this long sinus siege – my biggest fear is that, in my altered state, I might’ve terrified some Uninitiated with an over-application.  Nobody’s keeled over, so far….

But we’re not here to talk about nasal ick.  Or over-application of the big guns.  We’re here to talk about Candles! which is something I normally don’t go on about, as they usually aggravate my sinuses.  But you all know my love for the Malles.  And he has three new ones.  Let’s start with Marius and Jeannette:  sunny days at a sidewalk cafe in St Tropez.  Or Choo-Choo Charlie.  Much depends upon your frame of reference.  I barely get to Chicago these days, let alone the South of France, so Good ‘n Plenty must be my immediate memory trigger.  Doesn’t matter, both are fun though the idea of sitting in the South of France AND eating Good ‘n Plenty would set me up just fine… ….anyhoo…Marius and Jeannette is one of the new Malle candles. I don’t know if he is referencing the film or the restaurant (or both) and I don’t care.   It’s a blast!  Really.  There’s no other way to describe it.  First sniff conjures up a hot, sunny day (anywhere – doesn’t matter) and a cool, refreshing Pastis, the ubiquitous anise drink of the Riviera.  Bruno Jovanovic created this (and the two below) for Malle’s Editions de Parfums and I must say I’m a bit surprised, given that I’m not a fan of the perfumes I associate with him (Lady Million? Blue Rush?) – but perhaps his previous clients have not allowed his talent to transcend their marketing briefs.   He’s fortunate that Malle has no one to please but himself and has such discerning taste and appreciation for the perfumers’ art and talent.  Under M. Malle’s aegis Bruno Jovanovic has created, in these candles, some truly remarkable scents.  I actually got the giggles! with Marius & Jeannette!  Fizzy, floral licorice, with a hint of salt-tinged citrus for that sunny sunny, summer day!  Man, I sure could use one of those right now.

Chez Monsieur.  M. Malle has long averred that home fragrances aren’t and shouldn’t be sexy (taking this right from the charming new brochure, though I have also heard him say it directly).  I’m not exactly sure what he means by that, as I would happily scent my home with Carnal Flower, which I consider to be tres sexy!  But he goes on to say that ” the scent of a men’s den is a slight exception to this rule, as one feels, when smelling it, the presence of its proprietor amongst the precious woods, tobacco and books.”

Obviously he has never been to my house.  El O and the dogs own-occupy the den.  The scents of those proprietors, relaxing in all their Guy Glory, is…well, it’s worlds away from the dens of M. Malle’s milieu.  I like his version better – and I know what he means.  Anybody who has ever had an elegant man wrap his coat or jacket around you (think Thomas Crown at the Met, with whatshername, when he plays her with the keys – remember that? )….that frisson when the aura of ‘male’ meets its complement – I suspect that is what M. Malle is referencing.  And he got it totally right in Chez Monsieur.   I think of this as a decidedly urbane scent – I can’t imagine having this candle in my house – it’s not fabulous enough (the house, I mean).  Really!  This is has a very elegant, metropolitan feel to it – or, perhaps the country house library of a sophisticated man who knows himself.  Hearty country squires and arrivistes need not apply.  This is probably the first of M. Malle’s candles that is aspirational in tone (I find all the others ‘friendlier’ in tone).   If I ever get back to civilization I will put this candle in my library.

Notre Dame left me cold.  Not its fault.  Mine.  I was convent raised.  BVM nuns, the meanest in the land.   I am lapsed to within an inch of my life.  Cathedrals give me hives.  Somebody with fewer issues with the Catholic Church will have to revisit this one.  I got a whiff of gorgeous frankincense before I veered away from the candle’s austere chilliness.   But here’s a fun fact:  Frederic Malle was an altarboy!  See?  The things you learn on the Posse!

I forgot to get the persack prices for these three but Malle candles run from $80 – $140 so fall in love accordingly.  When I have this sort of Discretionary Simoleanism again I will probably indulge in this line – they are on par with other niche candle lines, they are incredibly well-crafted and – most important – they don’t make my sinuses ache.  Hat Trick for Musette!

photo of Pastis Marius tray: courtesy my-french-neighbor.com

drawings, courtesy  Frederic Malle brochure – aren’t they adorable?

By Tom

Yes, I’m venting.  Here are things I’ve witnessed in the past 48 hours that make me want to slap people.

This is the intersection of Beverly Blvd. and Santa Monica Blvd. near my apartment.  Note the red light, and the sign reading “No Turn On Red”.  You can’t see it well but on the further pole it a second sign as well as a red arrow.  Note the grey Audi ignoring all three.  Drives me totally bats.  Every once in a while BHPD sets up a sting operation; I wish they’d do it every day, especially since I actually cross the street there.

To the man who parked his Mercedes (Not that the make matters) in front of a fire hydrant to get into Starbucks (one that has parking in the back): I wasn’t in the there, but I can imagine you were just fuming at the delay.  I hope West Hollywood Sheriff got there before you got your latte.

To the guy in the suit and tie at the local Koo Koo Roo who got a water glass (small, clear disposable plastic) rather than one for soda (larger opaque re-washable ones): you drank four glasses of Powerade before sitting down with your water to eat, then hurriedly drank three more before leaving.  Really?  It’s less that two dollars.  You clearly aren’t starving; isn’t stealing soda a little pathetic?

There are five outdoor tables on the patio of the BH Market.  To the two of you bypassed the tables on the sidewalk in front of Whole Foods, where you have actually purchased your lunch, and took two of them at the BH Market, where neither one of you could have been bothered to even go in and buy a soda.  Without even offering your extra seat to the elderly lady who had actually been shopping there and just wanted to eat her cottage cheese in the shade.  You’re coming back as a dung beetle.

To the young woman who got pinched in a sting operation using your dead mother’s handicapped parking pass while going to the gym, and upon being caught had a giant self-righteous hissy-fit that the officer confiscated it and wrote you a ticket.  We should hold you down and have Stephen Hawkings back over your knees in his motorized wheelchair.

Can you tell it’s week three of the New Years resolution to lose 20 lbs?  For the safety of the greater LA Basin I may have to have some cheesecake..

Feel free to chime in with your pet peeves in the comments..

Photo: my iPhone

        by The Mystified Musette

So…I’m still a little stuffy…okay, I’m still JAMMED in the sinii, though I’m wearing Cartier Declaration today and can parse out the bulk of the notes.  Not sure if that’s because I already know what it’s supposed to smell like, so even the sketchiest of outlines could be filled in by scent-memory …or can I actually smell it?  How can one tell?  Like…hey, do you ever wonder if what you see is what another person sees?  Like the color ‘blue’…is that all just a giant psychic agreement amongst us or  do we actually all ‘see’ the same basic shade(s) of color that we agree, in words, that we see.  Can I ever know what ‘blue’ means to you?  And why on earth am I yarking ON about that, you might ask?

Well, you might ask…but I sure can’t answer.  That’s not what today’s post is about anyway, though it is an intriguing question.    Okay – here’s today’s musings.  I was thinking about ‘light’ and ‘fresh’ scents and what they tend to represent in writing and, to a certain extent, to society still today.  This came about recently when I read A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (thanks, S, for introducing me to Inspector Gamache!!!)…anyway, in the story one of the policemen is remembering his time spent in hospital, where he lay near death.  He compares the scent of the woman who sat at his bedside with that of his wife (they are separated)…sounds like the bedsitter is wearing Fresh Lemon Sugar and the wife is wearing Opium.  Wife loses.  He actually reminisces that he would not have come back to that cold hand and that perfume (I am paraphrasing, because I don’t have the book to reference – but it’s a close’un).  The whole paragraph is a paean to light, citrus fragrance being equated with fresh, youthful Life.

Remember the old (as in REALLY old) Harlequin Romance books?  The ones from the 60s and 70s, where the heroine always looked like a Breck Girl and the declaration of love was always just a kiss (I remember reading a Harlequin Presents and actually blushed! when they actually had…uh….you know  (hey, I was 11 when the first ‘Presents’ came out – and I was a slow, sheltered child)..anyway! back to the thought at hand…those girls also wore lemony perfumes.  Or they smelled like lilacs.  The Mean Girl always wore a heavy oriental – I call it the Miss Bingley Syndrome (think of the fabulous Anna Chancellor in her heavy Oriental silks and turbans, contrasted with Jennifer Ehle’s fresh, white gowns and simple coiffures) – and the Bingley always loses.

Okay…the stage is set.  in all types of fiction, lemon and very light florals seem to be equated with good, virtue, youth… But that’s not the part I wanted to talk about.  I wanted to talk about the fact that probably 90% of these books, if not more…are written by women!  So now I’m wondering, are we perpetrating the notion of ‘good’  = ‘fresh’ and “heavy/complex” = “bad’ ?   Not that that’s a judgement call on my part – more curiosity than anything.  I love citrus as much as I love incense – but I wonder how this came to be?  Is it a throwback from when heavy perfumes were used to mask illness, decay and body odor – since a light lemon fragrance wouldn’t do the trick, would the wearing of that type of fragrance signal health?  This is obviously not a scientific query – heck, I don’t even know if I’m right about this but it sure reads like it to me.   My ‘findings’ are also not substantiated by anything other than my ramshackle reading habits; it’s certainly not from any serious commentary on what I’m wearing – guys usually limit their perfume remarks to ‘you smell nice’.    El O couldn’t care less what I wear, as long as it’s not Yatagan and as long as I’m not wearing too much of Whatever Isn’t Yatagan.   Hub #1 preferred greeny/limey things but he’s a Gin Gimlet man so that one is easy.  Most guys I know (GUYS.  Not perfumistos) are in El O’s camp – unless they have a particular dislike of a note/scent they don’t care as long as it’s not overdone.

So….did we start  this, laydeez?   Do we secretly believe that lemons equal virginal freshness and that, when all is over, including the shouting, virginal freshness wins out?   Obviously, if we’re mating, the younger and fresher the ovum the better the reproductive chances, yeah…but does that potential for fecundity translate somehow to Fresh Lemon Sugar? Could that be the explanation for the variation on that theme, the ubiquitous fruity-floral, so beloved by young women?  What do  you think?  Do you care?  See, this is what happens when my sinuses go out and I can’t review perfume.  The mind wanders.  Faaaar afield.

And what would be the equivalent for men?  What would the Harlequin Hero wear?  (I always wanted to write a sequel to the Harlequin Romance, where all the heroines and heroes were invited to some shindig in a giant ballroom – but most of the spouses got mixed up and ended up going home with somebody else’s husband/wife..because if you’ve read more than one of those books you know that all the men are tall, muscular and dashing….like a roomful of Errol Flynn pirates or something.  Just imagine trying to pick our your Hero in a ballroom full of Heroes!   All wearing_______________?

heeheee!

I’d love to know what you all think (women and men).  Don’t hesitate to tell me if you think I’m crazy.  You won’t be the first, I promise!!!

photo:  my local library has HUNDREDS of these.