by No-Nose-Musette

First, I want to thank all of you who offered remedies, doctors, possible reasons, etc for my anosmic, tasteless self.  I am still somewhat taste-free (okay! you in the back row!  stop snickering!)….and smells are limited to what my soft palate can translate.  I’ve mostly given up on chocolate for the time being – it’s just too ridiculous.  I can smell  parts of most perfumes these days, just not in the nuanced fashion I would prefer (for example, L’Heure Fougueuse smells like straight green hay all the way through which, for that price point, is a Total Fail.  So back in the drawer for you, li’l filly! )  Rose is coming through loud and clear – but it’s making me nauseous unless it’s cut with something smoky.  If I weren’t so damn old (and El O so damn snipped) I would suspect pregnancy.  Luckily that is not possible, unless Gabriel came down and left a note that fell off the desk or something….if you see 3 guys on camels heading towards my house, could you ask them to make sure the frankincense and myrrh are perfume-grade?  Thanks!

But enough about my ailin’ self.  Let’s talk about collection.  Since I cannot smell or taste much these days I have been amusing myself with reorganizing my perfume armoire …and reading more of Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife.  In one chapter, she writes of the zookeepers saving the collection of the noted entomologist/collector Szymon Tenenbaum – read this intriguing paragraph:

An insect collection is a silent oasis in the noisy clamor of the world, isolating phenomena so that they can be seen undistractedly.  In that sense, what is being collected are not the bugs themselves but the deep attention of the collector……”collection” is a good word for what happens, because one becomes collected for a spell, gathering up one’s curiosity the way rainwater collects.

I thought that was  just so…lyrical.  And it holds true for any type of beloved collection, I think. though perhaps edible/wearable collections are a bit different.  I see my collection of perfumes as a living thing, mostly to be used.  But it isn’t always thus.  Sometimes I get caught up in the collection itself, rather than the parts.  I ogle the Cartier jewel-tone boxes that house Mme Laurent’s exquisite creations, the matte black boxes from Malle…the variations of elegance that is Dior and Chanel…and it’s time like that that I wonder if I’m in love with perfume or the collecting of perfume.  This isn’t a judgement call, btw – I think there is room for any number of reasons why folks collect.  But reading that paragraph made me wonder about why people collect – and what they do with their collections.  My own perfume collection is modest by some measures, extravagant by others – and the reasons range from love of a certain fragrance or House, spanning eras, to the educational, which I reference-spritz so I can yark about it here but would never wear as mine own.  And sometimes, like an insect collector, well…..sometimes I get an endorphin rush just cataloguing and organizing all the bottles and decants and samples.  Reorganizing haphazardly placed decants and figuring out the best way to catalogue and store little 1ml samples so I can find them easily (each system is carefully thought out  but like any interactive system, is reliant upon the vagaries of human nature.  I am a medfly.  Today’s system has no defense against tomorrow’s ADD)…it’s very calming to lay out a bunch of decants on a towel and, once again, try to figure out the most efficient way to organize them – should they go with their FullBottle brethren or should they repose in the ammo box section……at that point the fragrances themselves are meaningless; it’s all about the collection.

So how do you look at your collection?  It doesn’t have to be a huge one, btw.  If you have 2 bottles and a handful of samples, you have a collection.  But what gives you the endorphin rush or the zen place?  Do you get jazzed about the organization?  Or could you not care less – it’s all about the juice and you don’t care if 31RC is laying up against that bottle of Angel.  Or do you, like me, dance back and forth between those two?  Or someplace entirely different?

visual: en.wikipedia.org

excerpt from:  The Zookeeper’s Wife – A War Story, by Diane Ackerman

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 Musette, who is craving some chocolate layer cake.

I remember the first time.  I was in Saks, back in the Joy/Paris/Poison days….  Diane was helping me, as I considered a purchase of Joy (remember when it was The Costliest Perfume in the World?)…anyway, she said “you need to layer” and proceeded to slather on some cream, then the spritz of perfume.  “It fixes the perfume and it lasts all day”.  Oh.  okay!  So…Amex groaning under the weight, I  bought the soap, the cream, the powder..and the edt.  And proceeded to lather, mousse and spritz myself into a Joy-ous olfactory coma.  Christmas = Gift Sets!.  It was the 80s and Layering was Quing.  I don’t think I wore anything in those days that wasn’t augmented by bath and body products.  Calyx!   My bathroom smelled like Sybil’s Whorehouse on payday.  I revisited that loft a year after I sold it and I could swear that bathroom still smelled of Calyx.   I think it penetrated the tile!

Then, sometime in the late 90s it stopped.   I went to a Perfume Only state, blissfully spritzing on a bare canvas.  Until recently.  It started about 2 years ago – Lovely Nancy, who introduced me to my Summer fave, Agraria Bitter Orange, sent along a little sample of the shower gel.  Bliss.  There’s something about surrounding yourself with hot, scented, foamy water that is just delightful – especially as the days grow shorter…and colder.  For lot of women (I can’t speak for the guys here), especially moms, shower-time is the only time you are even remotely able to have a couple of minutes to yourself.  Even if your kids sit outside the bathroom door, as my bf’s kids do, they are unlikely to come in the actual shower with you.   Perfect YOU Time.  My stress levels are sky-high and the shower is my one refuge – it’s difficult to think about business/personal drama when you are completely surrounded by the foamy scent of Jubilation 25.    I use one of those Japanese scrubbing cloths (mine is Salux) -  a dime-sized dab with a lot of water and scrunching and you have enough suds for 3 people and a Rottweiler, if you are so inclined.  Alas, the Bitter Orange shower gel was lovely in the shower but it deposited little scent on the skin.  No matter – it made showering a wholly different sensory experience from scrubbing up with  Dial.  Agraria’s hard-milled soaps are a better scent depositer and with the Salux it doesn’t matter – you still get a whole lotta foam.  So I foamed away!

Inspired by my found-again love, I went rummaging through the closet to find what other gels, soaps and lotions I might indulge in.  Uh….hmmm.  Apparently I bought a LOT of gift sets in the day.  So I had lots to play with for this post.

Fracas.  Had the soap, the shower gel, the lotion, the powder.  El O was gone (post-Fracas bathrooms can be a bit overwhelming).   I find that sometimes, when Milady gets to be a bit much perfumewise, a hit with the accoutrements  gives the same scent  experience without gassing everybody out of the county.   Carnal Flower Body Butter.   M. Frederic…?  S’il vous plait?  At least a hard-milled soap.  My water bills would be sky-high!  Aiiiiyyy!  but I would be soooo happy!

I played on, blowin’  the bathroom UP! with Lucien Lelong (gift set score!  gel, cream, edp.  whoa, Nellie! The bathroom smelled like the South of France for 2 days!!!)…..a lovely friend gifted me with vintage Diorissimo body lotion.  I should’ve grabbed the shower gel when I had the chance cuz it’s gawwwn now.  But the vintage lotion packs a hefty punch for such a demure fragrance and stays linear with the vintage perfume.

I got a lovely group of samples from Amouage, which included the Epic and Jubilation 25 shower gels and body creams.  Let me just say this:  it is scary, because I am currently in Bizarro World, can barely buy dog food some days and still I am ogling both Epic and Jube25 bath and body – and it’s a damn shame because I never ‘got’ Epic before I took a whirl in the shower.  The incense in the perfume hit my nose too hard and I just shut down.  But the shower gel spreads it out quite a bit, then add the body cream and wham-o!  You are ready for the gorgeous perfume.  I’m wearing it again today.  I’ve done this 4 times in the past 2 weeks and I am still finding fascination in how this scent unfolds.  Needless to say  I am now hooked.   I thank Christopher Chong every. stinkin. day. that he did not do bath and body for Ubar or Tribute.   I’d have to kill myself.   Jube 25 foamy is so beautiful it takes my breath away and both Epic and Jube gels leave a solid scent on the skin. It was surprising because the shower gels smell thin and weak in the bottle (at least the little samplse do – I sniffed them, thought “oh, what a rrrrrrrrrip!” …until you get a drop on the Salux, then they explode into a foaming cloud of scent that sticks with you, your towels, your robe….it is olfactory heaven that is tenacious (I actually have Designated Amouage pjs.  Really. Tide is no match for the Royal House).  If you use these, leave your bathroom door open, apres-bain.  Your house will smell luxe all day.

I do think there are some differences in the effect body products have on fragrance, though, depending upon the fragrance.   Malle’s Carnal Flower, for instance.  The Body Butter is insanely gorgeous and just the act of scooping out a bit and warming it in your hands is enough to transport.  If I want a ‘compliment’ to the scent, that’s when I use the cream because it actually smells a bit different than the perfume (skin reaction? composition?  who knows?)  – in the cream the eucalyptus/camphor thread is more pronounced.  If I want to smell CF straight I do Dial and then spritz.  It’s nice to have all those choices in how to experience the scent.  Personally I think that is the best thing since Miette dark chocolate cake but ymmv.  But know this:  you will have to pry both the Body Butter and the perfume out of my cold, dead hands.  I couldn’t live without either and if The Walking Dead show up and I have to flee, I will be fleeing with both of these in my totebag.  Oh!  While I’m on the Malle line:  Parfum de Therese.  For those of you who find it a bit fleeting or thin – the body cream locks it right down and gives it an almost perfect linear boost.  I think it’s that Old School, Dior-type formula.  But it really is the perfect match.

I know a lot of purists are probably shuddering in their shoes right now at the idea of adding body products to perfume use and I totally understand though there are some, like Fracas, that are totally linear to the perfume (maybe the old-school composition, like Therese there).  And some are downright terrifying (Mitsouko body lotion which, if combined with the edp, transforms Mme Mits into a scary, tentacled thing – I’ve never seen a soap or gel.  March and I saw some ‘lotion vegetal’ on the eeeB which I think is hair oil).  If you are focusing solely on the scent,it might work against you.  But if, like me, you are looking for a sensory experience, I think bath-to-perfume is an excellent way to go.  And  btw,  you can forget about  layering resulting in less perfume use.  LOL (or, as I was recently taught, LOLdemort!) – not happening.  You end up spraying/dabbing just as much scent as before because it’s all just so damn luxe!  Louche.  Lovely!  And why not? Go Big or Get Off The Bus.

So this isn’t a Frugal/Alternative Bathumista post.  Obviously I can’t say it’s  less expensive -  it’s mo’ stuff and even Fresh Sugar Lemon bath gel  will run you $20.  Jubilation 25 shower gel : E55, which as of this morning converts to a whopping $76!  But, used judiciously, that gel will last you 6 months, unless you take 4 showers a day, in which case it will last you 3.   I would happily take 4 showers a day but I have to work to pay for the shower gel, dangit.

What say you?  How do you all feel about ancillary bath and body products?  Do they support or do they change your perception of the scent?    What are your favorites….or do you hate the very idea!?

Next up:  we will discuss Happy Layering Accidents.  And some Not So Happy.  I have some whoppers!  So hang on to those for next week’s installment!

xoxo your foamy, creamy,spritzy Musette

photo courtesy of Country Living 2011 Chocolate Pumpkin cake

Just when I thought it was safe to go sticking my snout in fragrances again… I have a cold. DAMN! So, that means I got nuthin’ this week. Here’s hoping I’ll be back on track for next Friday.

In the meantime, I’m guzzling tea and snuggling with the cat.

Have a great weekend!

by March

Greetings, everyone — through the magical powers o’ the internets I am posting today, even though I am not … here.   However I’ll be along this afternoon to read your comments.  So you can either just say random things to me in comments, or you can answer the question I read elsewhere once and thought it was fun — get out your purse, satchel, man-bag, backpack, whatevs, and:

1) tell me what perfumes, if any, are in there?  (bottles or samples)

2) name one or two other items of interest that are typically found in your (purse, backpack, etc.)

Here’s mine:

1) sample vials of Maison Martin Margiela, Prada Infusion d’Iris, Tauer Desert Marocain, Chanel Beige

2) a clean cotton vintage-floral handkerchief (thanks, Anita!) and a tube of Lipstick Queen Medieval, a translucent cherry-red which I use like the World’s Greatest Chap-Stick.

See you this afternoon!

image: no reason, it just makes me laugh, I used it for my Death by Cherry post.

March