I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo.  In some discreet spot, probably a place that nobody would see unless they shared a locker room (or a bedroom) with me.  Why have I been thinking this?   I have no idea.

There are problems.  First off, I have no existing tattoos, and the reason is: even when I was twenty and had a buzz cut and a pierced nose, I couldn’t imagine affixing any permanent image to my body.  I mean, in twenty years, would I really want that tattoo of a skull, or Jiminy Cricket, on my shoulder?   Probably not.

Second is the cliché aspect – how about a heart?  Scattering of stars?  Yin-yang?  A unicorn?  Puh-leaze.   I could argue that, at my age, even considering a tattoo is a cliché.  I might as well cut to the chase and have the word “cliché” tattooed on my wrist instead, in some small, illegible font.

Then there’s the double standard – my own very mixed messages.  I tell my teenaged daughters (the 15-year-old has friends with tats): if you get a tattoo your legs will fall off.  The other variation of this message is: DON’T GET A TATTOO.  NOBODY WILL EVER HIRE YOU.  Or, sometimes I say:  YOU GET A TATTOO AND I WILL (MESS) YOU UP, DO YOU HEAR ME?!  Subtle stuff like that.

And yet, I’ve caught occasional glimpses of a few young women around here who are, it appears, slowly working on full sleeves – which I think are gorgeous.  Now there’s a double standard.  What is wrong with me?   Part of the problem, of course, is a double standard.  I used to work at an ultra-male, financial-services place that was extremely conservative.  And I worked with some bodybuilder-guys who were getting seriously large tattoos, and the only reason I knew that was: we went to the same gym.  They wore jackets and ties at work.  With women it’s not so easy to hide.  And hard as it is for my daughters to believe, there are people (men?) of a certain age who will look at a visible tattoo on a woman and think something like, trollop.  There’s a reason those lower-back tattoos are called tramp stamps, as much as I dislike the term.

A tattoo should mean something, maybe, but what?  A milestone, a celebration, a reminder?  Typing the words meaningful tattoo makes me smirk.  Maybe that’s my problem right there.  A perfume bottle would look boring.   I LUV SERGE 4EVAH done with swirls and that big gothik-gangsta lettering seems … like overkill?  Yeah, I thought so too.

The problem with hindsight is it’s so backward-looking.  We’re (always?) at that age, that dangerous age, where the grass is definitely greener somewhere else, maybe five years ago and to the left.  I was apparently already too old for a tattoo when I was in college, and I haven’t gotten any younger.  And still.  And yet.

All you young whippersnappers out there, you sweet young things in your twenties, I want to say to you:  Go Ahead.  Do It Now. Go on and shave your head/move to Bali/change your name if that’s what you feel like.  But that’s easy for me to say and it’s hardly fair or applicable, is it?  Our lives are different.  I was so busy trying to grab onto what I thought was adulthood in my early twenties, I wonder if I missed some of that foolishness.  Or maybe I didn’t.  Maybe there’s still time to be foolish, who can say?  Although I’m drawing the line at the unicorn.

Note to anyone expecting a perfume post for today. This will touch on smell, but it’s mostly a Travelogue.

Our trip to Costa Rica was wondrous.  You never really believe a place can be that lush and almost untouched, until you drive down the backroads and see this simpler life unfolding around you.  Then all you feel is a wave of gratitude that it doesn’t look like Cancun and hope fervently that it never will.

The first part of our trip was up to Arenal to see the volcano.  Well, mission so not accomplished there.  The hotel, The Springs Resort and Lodge or Lodge and Resort, something like that, was gorgeous and wicked expensive.  Yeah, it had 18 hot springs to swim in, the hotel was immaculate and built in a way so every room had an amazing view, even when it was cloudy and misty for the four days we were there.  I’d recommend it if you have money to burn.

The driving!  I just can’t think about this too much without hyperventilating.  There are no road signs in Costa Rica, no highway signs.  It’s like the one-person transportation department made up a big game of travel checkers with the $1200 yearly budget and left no directions except the 12 road signs in the entire country – all of which poorly painted and come up about 100 feet before you might need to turn.

An argument broke out in the car over the No Hay Paso sign.  What do you think that means? I thought it meant I couldn’t pass, but it’s a wrong way sign of sorts, as I found out when the other cars coming right at me in my lane pointed out to me with their horns and some other visual cues with their hands and fingers.

Another good recommendation if you plan to drive in Costa Rica – just rent the GPS they offer at the car rental place.  With all the extra insurance you’re paying for – with great reason! – it’s a small amount, and apparently they have a monopoly on accurate GPS mapping, as we found out after we downloaded one that people raved about, only to find it had no idea where we were exactly most of the time and figured out how to take us on a longer route back to San Jose than the already convoluted way we had gone going in the other direction.

We returned the car, paid off the debt with my arm and leg and get a taxi to the teeny domestic airport, Bolanos, to catch our flight to the more remote Puerto Jimenez in the Osa Peninsula.  They weigh you before they let you on the plane. then they put you on a van to drive you to the teeny prop plane. It sets down in Puerto Jimenez, which is this sleepy little fishing village by the ocean, they clip the trees with the landing gear on the landing, wheel around and stop – right  next to a cemetery.  I was laughing too hard to remember to get a picture of it, and I was distracted, too, trying to figure out which person waiting at the gate (and I use that term exactly – it was a gate that swung back and forth exiting the landing field) was there to take us to our home for the next week. Ah, the guy that nods yes to “La Pina?”

No road we had taken up to this point prepared me for the road from Puerto Jimenez to Pan Dulce.  It was the worst road ever.  I have some authority in this because I grew up on a farm in Kansas, where we had to deal with narrow, washed-out bridges, sand roads, dirt roads that became mud pits when it rained. This road had a bridge that was made of rebar and just fit a vehicle on it.  Driving through water with lots of rock on the bottom made me a lot happier.

We finally got to La Pina, which is so darn cute.  It’s a bamboo house, all solar, with a huge porch to watch the monkeys, macaws, coatis, pizotes and butterflies from.  Which is what we pretty much did that whole first day. The monkeys were swinging by as we arrived, and 40 or 50 of their friends went back and forth through the trees like three times that afternoon. We were mesmerized.  The first howler monkey howling – more like a woofing roar – made me look in the trees for the dinosaurs.  Amazing beyond belief. Rugged, beautiful, untouched, pristine, where you feel like you are definitely not the one in charge of anything.

The beach we had all to ourselves most of the time, though we did share it with Ticos and pelicans fishing.  The pelicans would dive bomb right beside you in the water.  As remote as you can get, staring out at the waves and an old inactive volcano across the water.   I could happily spend my life just watching the waves come in.  It reminds me that I always need to live my life from my center – the part that knows who I am and needs no one or no thing to define me – and that we should all live like water, never resisting, just flowing.

We walked everywhere.  Down to Martina’s, the little dive by the side of the road 15 minutes’ walk away, for beer. We walked up the super-steep hill to Lapa Rios.  It’s perched in the hills up from the beach, surrounded completely by rainforest and has a view that almost makes you weep because it breaks your heart that you can’t hold that sight forever in your memory.

The smell?  Clean, lush, ripe, green, alive.  In our yard was a ylang tree that the caretaker, William, showed me.  I’d never smelled fresh ylang before, and it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.  Yeah, it smells like Chanel No. 5, but lusher, overripe.  I went out and picked some every day and wore it in my swimsuit strap.  It was enchantingly perfect for where we were.
Then there were the bug wars.  The sun went down at 6 p.m. every night, so we’d turn on the lights so we could see a little to read on the deck.  The bugs didn’t bother you at all until the lights went on.  We quickly beat a retreat to our beds by 8, so we could crawl under the mosquito netting.  But then it would just get weird because we’d have the light on reading, and you’d look up and around the mosquito netting and see some scary things crawling ont he netting surrounding you. Some mornings there were strange bugs just hanging around, really BIG ones.  Normally spiders, bugs, snakes makes me scream and cry like a little girl, but for some reason they didn’t bother me there, they just don’t move fast, it’s like Jurassic park bugs, you don’t really believe the big ones are real.

Our alarm clock was the howlers.  4:30a on the dot, and it would go on for a couple of hours as they moved through the trees, on all sides.  Since we went to sleep at 8 most nights, the early wake-up call was pretty great.

All of that are just the things that we saw/experienced, but you can never really get a feel the Osa Peninsula by the details.  It is much more than that. It is a pacing, the attitude of manyana manyana – there’s time for that tomorrow.  It was perfect because it felt real – not a vacation spot, but a place where people live – really live.

Then it was time to go home, and I cried a little, and I miss it still.

So this is one of Those Posts.  You know, the March Is Oversharing ones.  But not too much, I hope.

As many of you know, because I’ve blogged about it before, I had kind of a mixed-bag relationship with my mom, who died a long time ago.  When I was a kid, though – one great time of year was Christmas.  My mom poured her heart and soul into it.  She loved Christmas, and Christmas loved her right back.  For years, I shopped for a special ornament for her to hang on our tree.  After she was gone, this time of year often made me sad.

But the great thing about time is it gives you perspective.  Once I was able to consider my mother from the point of view of adulthood in my 30s and 40s, rather than the anxious-to-please 10-year-old that I’d once been, I could see that my mother did the best she knew how, gave the very best she had to offer, for us at all times.  I could appreciate her frustrations with her adult life, in which she was unhappy in large part because she’d found her own options so limited.  I understood how she must have felt, and how her anger and sadness were really directed at herself, and her life, rather than at us.

This holiday season has a lot of ups and downs for everyone.  But as we decorate the tree and listen to Christmas music and bake cookies and cope with the snow and make (and unmake) various plans for the holidays, I find myself blessed with a great deal of happiness and peace, as much as I’m likely to find in this world, anyway.

The perfumes of this season are for me the most festive ones, that go with the smells of the holiday.  It’s not quite time yet for the massive comfort fixes – the vanillas and soft musks of January and February, like a downy pillow.  Instead this is the time to bust out the new Annick Goutal Noel roomspray, with its smell of a holiday florist shop – camphor, greenery, and chilled florals (I somehow missed Kevin’s great review on NST, here’s a link.)  It’s the time for that wee bottle of the wonderful, discontinued Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Winter Delice (notes: Ginger, Norway Pine, labdanum Rock Rose, Vanilla, Gingerbread, Incense), and its tupenic cousin Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles.  Yves Saint Laurent Nu, which I mentioned in comments recently, seems like the perfect holiday incense, not too churchy and with a faint hint of sweetness.

For parties and cocktails — and, what the hey, sledding and trips to the grocery store in the snow – there’s the big guns: Mitsouko, vintage Femme, Cinnabar parfum, and a teeny, thumbnail sized bottle of vintage Youth Dew Bath Oil that has lasted me forever because you only need a toothpick-sized drop.  The Youth Dew was not love at first sniff – if I recall correctly, I went something like, ew, what the hell is that?   But that funny oil has emerged as a holiday front runner.  It speaks in a deep voice and it says EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE JUST FINE, and it says it like that, in all caps, because there’s nothing shy or indecisive about Youth Dew Bath Oil.  And finally, there’s the rich, honeyed embrace of Teo Cabanel Alahine, and Serge Lutens (no-cedar) Cedre.  All of these with a touch of red lipstick, of course, even if it’s only for a trip to the mailbox.  At night, wearing Barbara Bui to bed is always a good choice (like putting on a pair of flannel pajamas), and then there are the last bits of my sample of CB I Hate Perfumes’ Winter 1972, with its magical touch of metallic coldness, and the damp of wet mittens, and frozen earth.

What are your scents of the season?  Are you getting any special perfume gifts?   I know I’ve got Lancome’s La Collection under the tree… what do I wish Santa would bring me?  A bottle of Ormonde Jayne Champaca, or a bottle of Serge Lutens Miel de Bois.

On Saturday I had a fragrance emergency.  We were on our way out the door to a holiday cocktail party, and we were already late, when I realized in all the chaos that I’d neglected to apply any scent.  Which in my world is akin to leaving the house and noticing I’d forgotten my pants.  It just wouldn’t do.  So everyone had to hang tight for one more moment while I chose a fragrance.

Notice I did not say “selected the fragrance” or “selected the perfect fragrance.”  My track record on those occasions has been mixed.  There are times when I know absolutely without fail that either Mitsouko parfum or vintage Femme will be perfect.  (Sometimes my vintage Cinnabar parfum slips onto this list.)  Other times I am not so sure.  The vanillic confection is too cloying.  The floriental that caught my eye at home fails to enchant.

The event we were attending was a teensy bit fraught.  It was given by a friend of my late mother-in-law’s, in the lovely building she used to live in, downtown.  So I knew the dress was relatively formal, and I knew I could get away with a little more drama perfume-wise, because those ladies are used to perfume, although I didn’t want to overspray and kill anyone in a crowded party, which it turned out to be.

More worrisome was the fear of attaching a mixed bag of memories to a favorite scent.  I haven’t been to that building since we closed up the apartment prior to sale, and what if the whole thing made me sad?  It’s possible.  I loved visiting my in-laws down there.  I felt like a fairy-tale princess every time we pulled into the circular driveway out front and the doorman swung the door open.  The building has gargoyles.  My children still call it “Grammy’s castle.”  I spent countless hours there, under the eye of a woman who treated me (for better and worse) as her daughter, who did a lot of living and was no wallflower.  The men would pour themselves drinks and wander off to the library to do something boring, like watch golf on TV.  She and I would curl up in her yellow club chairs, under my favorite painting, a cheerful abstract thing done by an acquaintance of hers, and gossip, she with a martini and I with a glass of champagne, served in one of the small, hand-painted flutes I still treasure.

So what scent to wear?  I had no idea.  In the 90 seconds I had to devote to the task I realized I didn’t want to wear anything that had intimate associations for me.  I wanted it to be as pretty and as free of emotion as a nice dress I’d borrow from a friend.  I was utterly out of time when I ended up grabbing the small bottle of Annick Goutal Passion that someone (Louise, honey, was that you?  Or perhaps Nancy?) left for me as a gift at my perfume party.  It was still in the kitchen, literally in front of me, so I wouldn’t have to run upstairs.  I knew I liked it, that it was sweet and frothy and acceptable, although I couldn’t quite remember what it smelled like.  I wear it occasionally in similar circumstances, when I want my fragrance to be something nice and undistracting.

And so we had a fine time, and I met and talked with many interesting people, including an erotic portraitist old enough to be my daddy, who was a riot.  And the evening was a bit bittersweet, if for no other reason than being there at that party, with those people, was a reminder that everyone has moved on, and I will never go to the old apartment again, butterflies in my stomach, before some fancy dinner.  That part of my life is over.  I peeked down their hall, but the corridor smelled different, and the wreath on the door wasn’t the one I remembered.

In its own way, Passion was perfect.  It is as sweet and cheerful as a macaron at the top; it seems just right for the movie Marie Antoinette, all vivid pastels and dubious substance.  But like passion itself, the fragrance is a little more complicated than it lets on initially.  There is something very slightly unsettling about it, a coolness that translates as a sort of yearning to me, and in the drydown it is more animalic than I remembered.  I wonder whether it was just the heat of the evening causing the fragrance to bloom on my skin.  At any rate, it got me through the evening smelling nice, and I didn’t find myself having to pause and mentally give it some attention, which I do sometimes with the fragrances I find most beautiful.

I was surprised to see that my review of Passion was in August, for some reason I thought it was longer ago than that, although I didn’t intend this as a review, more of a scent moment.  But I’d be curious to hear of a similar fragrance emergency — when you had to throw something on at the last second — and how it worked out for you, did you end up being pleased with or regretting your choice?

Thanksgiving is Thursday, I’m hosting the dinner this year (hellooo, 20lb. turkey!), and on Wednesday morning I’ll be picking the Big Cheese up from the airport (I hope) for his return from Bangkok and Burma, he’s been gone since October.   So I won’t be hanging out on here too much on Wednesday, I’ve got to get the pies baked and the prep work done, but I wanted to wish everyone who partakes a happy Thanksgiving.

I haven’t been feeling particularly thankful recently, although oddly enough all it takes is a funny mini-crisis of the kid-fall-down-go-boom variety to remind me how incredibly lucky I really am.  (Don’t worry, everyone’s fine.)    So I’m not stressing too much, I’m going to crack open the bubbly and have a good time.  That’s my table up there.

So this post could go all gooey right about now, but it isn’t.  Instead I am going to name the first five things I’m thankful for, and I invite you to do the same.  SUPERFICIAL IS FINE.  I’m always OVERTHINKING everything.

1. I still have my daddy, even though he’s really old.

2. I live in a city with lots of interesting cultural things to do.

3. Mitsouko.  The first perfume of my perfume insanity.  The one that made me stop in the middle of a store because my world had just been turned upside down.  The one that redefined for me what a perfume could be.  The first one that I said: I don’t know what that smell is, or what this is about, but somehow … everything has changed.

4. I discovered how much fun nail polish is.  Okay, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’d delete in a Working-for-World-Peace mood, just because I’m ashamed it’s so shallow.  But today?  I’m leaving it.

5. Okay, this one is weird, but … I was always really fussy about food as a kid.  I love food now.  I’m thankful I managed somehow grow up to become a more adventurous eater.  Trying a new kind of food is one of my favorite things to do.

It goes without saying – or mebbe not – that I am incredibly thankful for all the pleasure, and friends, that perfume has brought me.  Safe travels if you’re on the way home to visit family.   And happy birthday Anita/Musette!

Hey, everyone — it’s Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., and I am devoting myself to the traditional festivities of drinking too much self reflection and eating food prepared by drunk people with outdoor grills catching up on my reading.  I hope you are doing the same.

I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Well, I did it; I moved to Toronto. My furniture and the rest of my belongings won’t arrive until Monday, but I’m here and it’s still a bit surreal to think that this is now my home. I realize I was only granted Canadian citizenship in June, but there really is no time like the present.

I think it only fitting to dedicate this post to my mom, without whom I never would have realized my lifelong dream to live amongst the wonderful family I’ve always been closest to. Some people will travel hundreds, even thousands of miles to avoid their families. Not me; I actually want to be with these people. So thanks, Mommy – this one’s for you. I just know you’re smelling wonderful while regaling all your friends with tales of your meshugana daughter.

This essay first appeared on another fragrance blog about 2 years ago, and it was originally titled, The Evolution of Scent.

If Luca Turin can boast he knows The Secret of Scent, I figure what the hell; I may as well take a crack at its evolution. And, I don’t care if the term “evolution” is a dirty word in some parts of the United States. This is global. This is about fragrance: why we gravitate towards certain scents and how the many things we smell over the course of our lives can have a profound effect on us.

Ultimately, our introduction to scent begins with our mothers, fathers and siblings. My dad used an electric razor and never indulged in any sort of after-shave or cologne. My older brother went through the typical men’s fragrance phases of every male who dated during the Studio 54 era: Aramis, Halston Z-14, and finally Lagerfeld, which I found to be the most noxious, offensive concoction.  My sister-in-law gifted him with a bottle of this horrid potion; we’ve never gotten along since the day I met her. Now that he’s a married 50-something, my bro mercifully wafts through life scent-free. I’ll explore my sister-n-law when I can actually write about her without the need for copious numbers of expletives.

That leaves one person: my mother. Mom was a Canadian who lived for twirling through the duty-free shops at New York’s JFK and Toronto’s Pearson International airports; the high point of our many trips to visit her family. She would inevitably emerge clutching a receipt for the purchase of one bottle of scent and one bottle of liquor. In those days you were not allowed to carry your purchases out of the store yourself. You gave the cashier your flight information and your purchases were presented to you after you boarded the plane. The countless bottles of Canadian Club and Seagram’s V.O. never got drunk, but those bottles of scent were as much a part of my mom as her wash-and-wear hairdo and her Act III polyester pantsuits: the Chanels, Nos. 5, 19, and 22, Emeraude, Tabu, Norell and Ombre Rose were her favorites. My mom never bought scent at a drug or department store. If it didn’t come from the duty-free shop, she wanted no part of it. To this day, I’m not sure if she thought she was getting a bargain, or if she took pride in the fact that she was the only one of the women in her circle of friends who got on an airplane with any regularity. For her, buying at the airport was more exotic and sophisticated than strolling up to the fragrance counter in Macy’s.

Six months before her death in 1999, my mom moved from our house in Brooklyn to a condo overlooking the Hudson River in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She was not in great shape physically, and it was always my job to buy her the requisite toiletries she used. One day, while purchasing a jar of Kiehl’s moisturizer at Neiman Marcus, I befriended a saleslady who just happened to live in the same building as my mom. Of course, I told her which apartment my mom lived in, and she showed up one night with a bag full of samples. Some days, I’d walk into my mom’s apartment and there’d be a cloud of No. 5 greeting me. On others, there would be open vials of various Creed scents sitting on the dining room table, and my mom would be in a quandary about which one she wanted. “How come I never saw these in the airport?” she wondered. “So-and-so told me that Grace Kelly wore that one!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the open vial of Fleurissimo. “Go get me a bottle!” And it was the scent of Fleurissimo that was on her skin when she died.

Given my mom’s relationship with these classic scents, you would think that I would wear them to honor her memory. Honestly, none of them have ever appealed to me, and I can’t stomach any heady florals at all. Chanel No. 5? Repellant. Instant headache; I would refuse to wear it even if threatened at gunpoint. Maybe I do need to consider therapy…

My own fragrance choices were influenced by the three sisters who grew up in the house next door to mine, rather than by my own mother. I was closest to the youngest one, L, who used to steal her older sisters’ bottles of Charlie and Shalimar and we’d huddle together under a blanket tent between J’s and M’s twin beds spritzing each other. Talk about a cloud. The first scent I remember seriously wearing was Love’s Baby Soft. I think I was subliminally brainwashed by all the ads for it in Co-ed magazine. Then, it was on to Chantilly. From there, Halston. By the time I hit high school, I was wearing Pavlova. This was quite a contradiction: a soft, romantic, powdery floral scent to go with my rock ‘n roll-patched and buttoned denim jacket, concert t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. In that attire, the only two things I should have smelled of were Parliament cigarettes and Freshen-Up spearmint gum. And it confused the hell out of all the boys in my group. More than once I overheard them wondering, “Where the @$&* is that flower smell coming from?” I guess I was as offensive back then as today’s teens are when they fumigate themselves with Axe body spray. No wonder I didn’t snag my first real boyfriend until I was a freshman in college. Oddly enough, that was a time in my life when I wore no scent at all.

My scent-free phase lasted for quite a long time. Looking back on it, I cannot explain why I went through life sans fragrance for a good three years. Maybe hormonal fluctuations were to blame, or maybe I just got myself so sick of Pavlova, I needed to give my nose a much needed breather. My boyfriend B (whom I now call my husband), used to beg me to put on perfume; not that I smelled bad: he told me he liked the smell of scent on a woman’s skin, since his mom never wore anything other than eau de Schenley mixed with a splash of ginger ale. I found it ironic that there were so many scents on my mother’s vanity table and so many bottles of liquor gathering dust in the closet, while B’s mom always seemed to have a cocktail in her hand and never smelled of anything I could easily discern. I once snuck into his parents’ bedroom to see if she did own any perfume, but all I found on top of her dresser was a dish of hair clips and bobby pins, a jar of cold cream, and one tube of red Cover Girl lipstick. My house was a satellite duty-free shop compared to my future in-laws’. The best part was I could wear anything I felt like, since there was not one particular scent he would associate with his mother. That was tremendously liberating for me. I have such deeply ingrained scent associations courtesy of my own mother that it is a relief to be with someone whose nose is not triggered by some invisible waft in the air like mine often is. B still manages to negotiate life without the fear of a particular scent assaulting his nose. How I envy him; I live in fear of Chanel No. 5 as if it were a tactical nuclear weapon.

I think there is always one real “a-ha” epiphany every fragrance lover has, and for me, it was when I first read about L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Vanilia fragrance in (I believe) the February 1993 issue of Allure magazine. I was 26 years-old, temporarily unemployed, and mesmerized by the description of it. I remember reading something to the effect of “The vanilla L’Artisan brews is so bewitching…”, and about Cher wearing it during an appearance on David Letterman and him swooning. Not that my intention was to make David Letterman swoon (or to smell like Cher), something made me haul my jobless self to Manhattan on a brutally frigid day, trudge to the original L’Artisan Parfumeur shop on Madison Avenue in the 80s, and snap up a bottle of Vanilia. 100 ml was $80 and I didn’t care if I had to starve for weeks to come. It was so beautiful, just inhaling myself was all the sustenance I needed. I had never smelled anything like it, and was totally smitten.

Vanilia is the closest I’ve ever come to having a signature scent, but unfortunately, our relationship turned sour about six months in. One day, quite unexpectedly, Vanilia revolted, and I broke out in the most horrible rash I have ever experienced. I was devastated, not to mention itchy beyond belief. I tried to find ways to continue on with Vanilia – spraying it on different areas of my body that I thought would not react negatively – I spent two weeks using the doorjamb of my office at my new job to scratch my shoulders, much to the amusement of my puzzled co-workers; I desperately started spraying it on my clothing, only to find stains on just about every shirt I owned. It was hopeless. After using up three tubes of prescription cortisone cream, and replacing most of my work wardrobe, I gave up. Vanilia and I were just not meant to be. I’ve tried valiantly over the years to re-establish our relationship, but for whatever cruel reason, every time I spray this beloved scent on my skin, it turns red and itchy within minutes. Are the perfume gods punishing me because I have no respect for the classics? Am I doomed to go through life in a haze of Fleurissimo and No. 5? Are these my fragrances of destiny? Sorry, but I’d rather smell like Exit 13 of the New Jersey Turnpike.

After my disastrous liaison with Vanilia, I developed a most voracious appetite for all things scented. In the early 90s, there was what I like to call, a “fragrance revolution” going on. The late 80s was the Giorgio era with all these monstrous, cloying Godzilla-like fragrances, which gave way to the grunge-fueled CK One “heroin chic” period. I tried so hard to look like a burn-out in high school (while reeking of Pavlova), that I felt completely abandoned by these new trends in fashion and fragrance. I did not want to wear flannel shirts and smell like Kurt Cobain. There was no way my rib cage was ever going to poke out through my skin like Kate Moss’. I was drifting and in need of comfort – which I easily found at the local shopping mall in the Bath and Body Works store. The place was nirvana for me: the gingham checked awning, all the pretty bottles of shower gels, lotions and colognes hooked me instantly. I fell in love with Juniper and Flowering Herbs and just about everything else they sold. I was hurtling towards my thirties in a fog of suburban mall-scent, but I was still longing for something more meaningful and profound that would touch my soul the way Vanilia did. Here I am, at 40, and I still haven’t found it.

Here’s the realization, or maybe rationalization, that I have reached as I am now officially a middle-aged person: When it comes to fragrance, you can have it all if you’d like. There should not be one signature or “holy grail” type scent that you are “supposed” to wear because your mother, sister, best friend, spouse or “X” celebrity in the magazine ad is telling you to. I had a second epiphany sometime in the last decade and that epiphany is that I can have a hundred bottles of scent if I want to, and I can buy them wherever I please, which is exactly what I’ve been doing and have no plans on stopping. Maybe I am a fragrance glutton or a schizophrenic on some level, but I love the variety. My fragrant enigmatic phase is going into its ninth year of existence, so quite possibly, I have achieved a kind of peace in the fact that I like having lots of options. Mind you, I don’t advocate this in every area of life, but when it comes to scent, I am content to always be evolving.

My children walk away from me down our narrow road into the green-gold haze, toward the ice cream promised from the market around the corner.  The sky overhead is white, silver and dark gray along the margins, a thunderstorm looming.  The air is absolutely still, like the afternoon is holding its breath.   A neighbor mows his lawn; I smell cut grass and ozone.  Suddenly the sun peeks through and for a moment everything dazzles.  My twelve-year-old daughter takes her six-year-old sister’s hand and they begin to skip.  I stare after them.  They are far enough away I can no longer hear their laughing, their sandals skittering along the twigs on the pavement.  I realize I am standing alone in the middle of the street, hand resting on my chest.  All of it – the afternoon, the storm, the children – is so beautiful my heart aches.  I have forgotten to breathe.

I read an essay in the New York Times this morning, Modern Love, written by a woman who was coping with her husband’s midlife crisis in an atypical way.  Having resolved that she was responsible for her own happiness, and the happiness of her children, and nothing else, she waited her husband out.  She waited for him to come around, and surprisingly enough, over the course of the summer, he did.  I admired her resolve.  I thought her approach was both brilliant and possibly unmasterable.  I admired the way she staked off her territory – what she owned, and the vast tracts that were somebody else’s responsibility.  I pray for that kind of clarity on a daily basis.

How much of our burden belongs to us?  What if we refuse to pick up anything other than the bits that are immutably ours?  I peel a mango and slice it thin on a white bone china plate.  Mango and warm sticky rice, sitting on the porch, watching the storm clouds dance high above my head.  The cicadas are finally here.

Not too long ago, one of our perfumista buddies on here bid on a bottle of something on eBay, only to realize after she won that the price was listed in British pounds rather than dollars.  Oops.   So she wrote me in a welter, and I promptly reassured her.  First off, the price she paid was still worth it, IMO.  Second, hey – at least it wasn’t the old 2/1 exchange rate!  Finally, I don’t feel you can be a true member of our cult unless you’ve messed up an eBay purchase or three.

What does it mean to be a perfume addict?  Last week on the blog, there was a great comment from Pyramus I’m going to quote here:  “On a visit to Toronto in the year Yohji Homme was launched, on the day I was leaving, I sprayed some on my wrist at Holt Renfrew, went to a movie and got there about half an hour before the movie was ready to start because that’s what I do, sniffed my wrist compulsively, realized I would not have time to go back to HR after the movie, left the theatre, ran back to HR, bought the stuff, and then ran back to the theatre. That’s how desperately I realized I needed it.”

Now that is textbook perfume fetishist behavior.  Hmmm…. Sit in this movie theater, or go back to HR right now and get me some? I think we can all agree that Pyramus made the obvious choice.

So today I’m inviting anyone who’d like to air an anecdote from your own Perfume Journey (or walk of shame) to do so.  Whether it’s some amazing deal you got, or hoops you jumped through, or a purchase gone hilariously wrong – I’d love to hear about it.  You can achieve two righteous goals simultaneously: serve as a cautionary take for the  lurkers out there and allow us to laugh at you (or sigh in envy.  Inviting those of you who bought the $20 Gobin Daudes on clearance at Tak a couple years ago to come out and gloat).

Off the top of my head – I think the most ridiculous effort I made to score a bottle was the Tan Giudicelli Annam I found on this wack French swap site (I couldn’t simply pay cash for it).  I managed to drag in a whole slew of innocent victims to help me with that one, including Patty, Louise and Carmencanada, since I don’t, you know, actually speak French (and the swapper didn’t speak English, and nobody wanted to ship it through the bs French postal system.)  I traded it for a bottle of YSL Cinema that I had shipped to Carmen from a British seller blah blah blah nutjob blah blah obsessive freak blah.  If you’re curious about the gory details, click here for my post.

My funniest eBay purchase, which some of you already know, was the screaming deal I got on a bottle of the difficult-to-find Floris Summer Limes on a German website.   Unfortunately what I’d actually bid on was a postcard of Summer Limes, presumably left over from some ad campaign.  As we say in German, dummass.  And I’ve gotten more than one empty bottle bidding on foreign auctions, although sometimes US sellers dump out the bottle contents before shipping or fail to adequately seal it, so you receive a great-smelling package with no juice remaining.  Some eBay sellers are used to dealing with us, but it’s always good to let random sellers know you want to wear the fragrances.  Funny as it may seem, many of them have difficulty grasping that you’re interested in the perfume itself.  Also, a special shoutout to Louise – if you read this post on your travels, please tell your Coke bottle story!  (Louise is still swanning around Yurrup – go ahead, make me jealous!)

Alrighty then.  Cozy up to your keyboard and tell me your perfume stories.  I won’t laugh nervously and back away.  Unlike your other friends.

Sometimes, a big city can be welcoming, and sometimes it can wallop you with an urban blight that impacts you so profoundly, it makes you scratch your head and wonder why you love that particular place so much to begin with.

When I crossed the border into Ontario for the first time since my enemy radical status was rescinded, I couldn’t wait for that first glimpse of the CN Tower that reveals itself from across Lake Ontario as you drive along on the Queen Elizabeth Way, somewhere between St. Catharines and Hamilton. It almost reminds me of seeing Manhattan from mid-span on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn, only the distance from St. Catharines to Toronto is much greater. As you view either metropolis from those vantage points, you can’t help but be filled with hope and anticipation of experiencing all each city has to offer, until you see them up close and discover appearances aren’t always what they seem.

Two days into my visit, municipal employees declared war on the city of Toronto and many relied upon services were casualties of their declaration. Their work stoppage has affected city-run daycare centers, community swimming pools, public parks and other essential city services. The most obvious and frankly disgusting casualty has been the cessation of garbage, recycling and compost collections, which have caused unsightly mountains of refuse to pile up all over the landscape. It looks awful and smells even worse. To add insult to psychological, visual and olfactory injuries, striking workers have blockaded garbage transfer stations and temporary drop-off sites and will periodically not allow tax-paying citizens to dispose of their refuse. When they do allow individuals to unburden themselves of their trash, they restrict entry into these stations or drop sites by allowing access to only one vehicle at a time in 15 minute intervals. I don’t know which part of this surprises me more: the fact that they are able to do that, or that people are willing to wait in line for hours at a time to drop off their garbage. As of this posting, there is no end in sight to this strike and negotiations are progressing at a snail’s pace.

So what does the cynical perfumista do in order to stave off the offensive stench of rotting garbage? Head indoors to the fragrance counters in order to get some relief.

I’ve been very reticent to go downtown since the garbage situation has been affecting the tourist areas the most. Instead, I went over to the Yorkdale mall and perused the fragrance counters at The Bay and Holt Renfrew. At Holt Renfrew I discovered two new Italian fragrances that for the life of me I cannot remember which house made them, or what their names were. All I know is that they both smelled amazing and cost $180.00 a bottle. I lamented to Henni, one of the Beauty Advisors, that right now, they were way too rich for my pocketbook.

I noticed the complete range of Bond No. 9 scents with Brooklyn and Astor Place front and center. Kilian Hennessy’s By Kilian scents were nearby, but my interest was piqued by the newest Creed scent, Acqua Fiorentina. It is packaged in the same bottle as Love in White and Love in Black, the major difference being the color of the juice. Nabi, the Creed counter manager told me this was the first pink-toned Creed scent, and that the company will be making donations to breast cancer charities during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. I haven’t been that crazy about a lot of the more recent Creed scents (with the exception of Virgin Island Water), but Acqua Fiorentina has a lovely, tart plum note that blends well with Calabrian lemon, carnation, rose, sandalwood and cedar. This is a tad fruity, but not in the ubiquitous celebrity scent way; the fruitiness of the plum and the dry cedar are reminiscent of a Serge Lutens creation, but it is a cinch to wear. If you like Spring Flower, you’ll like this one; it is really well done.

Speaking of Serge, the last time I ventured into The Bay at Yorkdale, there was a fairly comprehensive selection of the export fragrances. This time, they were nowhere to be found. I was rather surprised, but I have enough Serge to keep me occupied for a while. Honestly, The Bay at Yorkdale was a bit disappointing; however, they did have the reissued Givenchys, including a stockpile of Organza Indecence. Paging March: your favorite “sexy cupcake” scent is alive and well here in T.O. It smelled a bit boozier than the bottle I’ve got, but you’d be splitting hairs trying to tell them apart. Escada Incredible Me was interesting, and very reminiscent of Collection. I was tempted by it, but I’m glad I passed because it now smells a tad too perfumey on the blotter paper.

No sniffing expedition would be complete without a visit to my favorite haunt, Shoppers Drug Mart. There I discovered Kate Moss Velvet Hour, which I fell for completely. It’s an eau de toilette concentration and the notes of blue pepper, freesia, cashmere incense, patchouli, nutmeg sandalwood and amber are light enough to wear in warmer weather. It has a nice bit of “skank” appeal and I really had to force myself to walk away from it. I rationalized that the bottle was something of a deal-breaker with its dark blue flying saucer-ish shape that really doesn’t do the scent justice. This potion would be much more at home in a Dianne Brill/Fifi Chachnil/Agent Provocateur-type vessel. That way, you know what you’re getting.

The other scent I zeroed in on was Lise Watier’s Désirable. Now that I’m officially in the club, I really want to like a perfume from a Canadian cosmetics and fragrance house, but sadly, none of Ms. Watier’s scents are remotely appealing to me. Désirable is as potent as a genetically modified fruit salad and way too over-the-top for my liking. Her Neiges scent is another that, much as I’d like to, I just can’t wrap my nose around. Brutal Canadian winters notwithstanding, what could be better than to smell clean and pure as the driven… well, you know the rest. Sorry, no can do. Fans of Lorenzo Villoresi’s Teint de Neige would like this; the two are practically interchangeable.

I’d like to give a shout-out to Angela over at “Now Smell This”. I read her entry from this past Monday, “Lament of a Penniless Perfumista”, and it really struck a chord with me. As I gazed wistfully at all the shiny bottles, I was thinking exactly what Angela so eloquently wrote: “It’s challenging times like these that remind me to slow down and appreciate what I already have.” I couldn’t have said it any better. Being reunited with my family and friends and knowing they are there to support me through anything warms my heart much more than a bottle of fragrance ever could. And, like Angela, I have more than enough of those to tide me over. Now, if only my aunt could get rid of all her smelly garbage and compost…

I’m heading back to my US abode today, so I will read and respond to comments tomorrow.

I’m guessing a lot of people are still away, so today’s a random holiday thread.  I invite you to post in your comments some of your favorite summer things that arouse your senses OTHER than smell for a change {oh, fine, go ahead and put your smells in, I’m not going to stop you}!  Touch, sight, taste, feel…

Here are mine:

Fireflies rising from the lawn as dark falls, and up high in the trees at midnight.  I missed fireflies desperately when we did not live here.   I understand they live in various parts of the world, in populations so dense in some places that entire trees shimmer with their light.  There’s something I would love to see.

The fireworks that look like giant golden chrysanthemums.  (okay, and that sulphur-y smell which I assume is gunpowder afterwards.)

The taste of the nectar when you bite the bottom of a honeysuckle blossom.  Brandywine tomatoes.  Silver queen corn.  White peaches.  Frozen custard from a roadside stand.

The sound of the breeze rushing through the leaves of the ancient black walnut trees behind our house on a windy night.  The sound of people setting off firecrackers and the wooooeeeeeeeeeeeet! of bottle rockets in the dark.

The warmth of my children’s foreheads as they sleep.  The softness of their skin.   Morning dew on my feet when I go out early to get the paper.

Summer.

image: Hecate and Buckethead getting their Fourth of July on in our neighborhood parade.

My six-year-old daughter is a sensualist, which is my explanation for why she’s always covered in a layer of whatever it is she’s experiencing, whether it’s dirt or dinner.  Her obsession with insects continues, and right now her focus is bees.  I grow a bee-friendly garden so she’s got a lot to work with.  She wants to hold them.  Bees are furry and delicate and delightful; she can see that with her own eyes.  I’ve been trying to discourage her because they sting, and I think some (most?) bees die if they sting, although maybe that’s a myth.  But she doesn’t care.  She keeps on trying, even though she sometimes gets stung.  She’s learned now to be patient.  She’s the bee whisperer.   She holds her grubby little paw out, under the edge of the petals, and sometimes a bee wanders right off that flower and onto her palm so she can look at it up close. So she can feel it, buzzing and whirring and walking.  Maybe she gets stung, but she’s willing to take the risk.  She’s decided it’s worth it. I watch her and I think about faith, and grace, and prayer, and how fragile the things are that we touch, that we cradle in our two hands.

image: bees in my garden

Finally; words typed on a keyboard into a PC on soil north of the 49th parallel. They look the same, they sound the same, but they are different. I am different. I am Canadian.

 I know I’m making much more out of this than I probably should, but I cannot seem to help myself. I keep thinking of Aaron Arkaway, the ancillary character in “The Sopranos” who was Janice Soprano’s short-lived evangelical boyfriend. He kept asking anyone and everyone, “Have you heard the good news?” His response was “He has risen”; my response is, “I am Canadian”. And, just like Aaron, I find myself telling anyone and everyone. Sooner or later, someone will answer me, “Yeah, I know, you told me.”

 I arrived here last Friday with only two fragrances. My aunt and a close friend of mine have pretty significant sensitivities to fragrances, so I didn’t want to bring any scents that would cause problems for them. I packed my hot weather standby, Philosophy Pure Grace, and their newest scent, Unconditional Love. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized these scents are significant not only for their subtlety and understatement, but for their names as well. Times have been difficult for me in addition to the Canadian border fiasco, and I won’t pretend that I haven’t had a few meltdowns over the course of the past couple of years. I did, but I had them in the privacy of my home and not with cameras rolling and people gawking, the way so many meltdowns seem to happen these days. And even if someone offered me major dollars to have an on-camera Oscar calibre breakdown, I’d refuse. It’s nobody’s business but my own. Wasn’t that the title of a song back in the 80s?

 I’ve never been particularly graceful physically; I can be a bit of a bull in a china shop, and I’m not sure if I believe that human beings are capable of unconditional love. However, there is a graciousness inherent in all of us, and it will reveal itself when we least expect it. My aunt and uncle have been gracious to a fault during this rather difficult period in my life and I don’t know if I will ever be able to repay them for their support and generosity.  Perhaps it is time for me to reveal my inner graciousness and embrace the upheaval and change that have become the permanent landscape of my life. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to start believing in unconditional love. And, as always, smelling good doesn’t hurt, as long as no one starts sneezing. So far, so good.

Lily has chosen: After much coaxing with yummy treats, I managed to get Lily out from under the bed in my aunt’s spare bedroom, so she could choose the three winners of the Carol’s Daughter Pearls samples. They are: Janet in CA, Bev and Linda. Ladies, please e-mail your info via “Contact Us” at the top of the page. And thanks to everyone for your interest in this wonderful scent.

Assuming I haven’t been hit by a bus, I’m off to an undisclosed location with the Big Cheese for the rest of the week celebrating our 20^th anniversary — which is, in fact, today.   It’s hard to believe we’ve been married 20 years; it feels like three years and 70 simultaneously.   His brother is watching our kids (sucker!), so they won’t be with us, and we won’t have internet access.  I guess we’ll have to think of something else to do to fill the time.  I have some ideas.

The blog still appears to be named Perfume Posse, so in theory this should be a perfume post or, if not, one of my sappy treatises on fambly dynamics.  I guess I’ll aim for the middle.

My obsession with perfume arose out of pretty much nowhere a few years ago, connected to nothing.  As with any passion acquired later in life, my perfume addiction has required my domestic partner to develop some patience and a modicum of understanding.  Well, mostly patience.  As I type this I notice the scent of the retro-fab Dana “Gardenias in the Snow” is still wafting up from tissue paper it leaked onto in the mail, tissue paper now in the trash can under my desk in the office the Cheese and I share.  The smell is like a big white floral presence wearing maybe a little too much face powder.   Given that this is where I open the mail, our office is littered with small envelopes and boxes and the air is always reeking of something.  I try to keep my endless bottles and decants and vials out of the way, but I don’t think you’d have to take more than a few steps anywhere in my house to find some fragrance to sample.  (We won’t discuss the nail polish.   The Cheese is gritting his teeth and pretending not to notice that burgeoning collection.)

I have often replied to the perfume question with the answer: because it makes me feel happy.  But that isn’t entirely accurate.  A better answer would be: because it makes me feel.  Because perfume became, perhaps by default and in place of, say, opera or baked goods, the quickest way to trigger my emotions.  I’m not sure how good a perfume critic I am, but I’ll never be a dispassionate or objective one.  I just walked around the second floor.  It’s raining, hard, and has been since last night – the road through the woods down by the creek is closed.  I can hear the water gurgling in the gutters and dripping from the eaves and hissing down the brick and across the driveway, dripping from the leaves of the roses nodding their heads outside.  The air is humid but cool, just the way I like it. My guest bedroom has taken on a tangible air of nostalgia – it’s where most of my vintage fragrances reside.   I suppose I should be worried, the perfume smell in there means something isn’t properly sealed.  Instead, each time I walk through that room on the way to the library to read, I am transformed for a few seconds into a willowy girl from an earlier era, wearing a shirtwaist dress, red lipstick and sassy shoes.

Perfume trails me everywhere.  It reaches out to me from the hall table, the armoire in the bedroom, from beside the toaster in the kitchen, from the counter in the laundry room.   I have created a house of ghosts – laughing, pleading, mournful, playful.   I wonder whether anyone else living here sees them, feels them the way I do.   I sniff my wrist, lost in time, standing in front of the kitchen sink making dinner, or at the bathroom mirror.  Or while reading contracts at my desk.   Driving my children everywhere, running errands, always running.

The road we’ve been on for the last year is pretty weird.   I don’t know how I got here, and I sure as hell don’t know where I’m going.  But I got what I wished for – an interesting life – so I’m not complaining.  Just turn the radio up and hand me that little bottle, it’s vintage Mitsouko PDT.  It’s the bees’ knees, it really is.

I’ll see y’all next week.  Perfume, I promise.

Photo:  I know I’ve stuck this up here once before, but that’s me and the Cheese (center) on our wedding day, this pic still makes me smile.

After many years of struggling with arthritis, a brain tumor, several brain surgeries, and strokes, Lee Weissman passed away last Sunday, May 16.  Lee was the husband of one of my partners in The Perfumed Court, Diane Weissman.

He was a lovely man, full of fun, warmth, good cheer and love.  He was so helpful to us when we started our website, doing anything we asked him to.  Before his illness incapacitated him, he spent many years as a television producer for networks, working for Dan Rather and Ted Koppel, winning many awards for his brilliant work on Inside Edition.

Diane and I spent hours on the phone early on in the formation of TPC, and Lee was an integral part of all of those conversations, offering his wisdom, wit and advice. I knew how much pain he was in constantly, but I never once heard him complain.

He loved Diane completely, as well as his son, Kai.  He was a truly good and ovewhelmingly decent human being, and we will all miss him.

If you would like to do something, you can donate at the Arthritis Foundation.  If you would like to offer your condolences to Diane, you can leave them in comments. She’s sitting shiva now and won’t be responding to people, but I know the outpouring of love she’s already received means a lot to her and Kai.

Hey, friends — I’m dealing with some unexpected family stuff today, an overflow from yesterday, sorry.   So, hard as it is to believe, there are things that take precedence over fragrance, and today you bear the burden.

The weather’s warm and weird and right now all I want are the perfumes that are my (seasonally appropriate) friends, the ones you call up when you’re stressed and feeling out of sorts.  For me, for really no good reason at all, that scent is Annick Goutal Mandragore.  I find it briskly reassuring and not demanding too much attention.  Parfums de Nicolai Fig-Tea is like that as well.  I wonder what yours are?

For anyone who’s interested, Carmencanada at Grain de Musc has thrown her hat into the IFRA regulation ring, here’s her letter at Perfumer & Flavorist.

Hope to be back soon.

My friends!  Our lovely blogmistress Patty forgot to hit “publish” in our fancy new system when she’s done.  Here is today’s, a little late.

So.  Did my wilderness adventure first class this week.  This is the mountain trekking class where they teach you how to use the compass and pack for anything so you don’t croak on a hike somewhere.  And – the are teaching us to go off trail.

Despite my start as a farm girl for the first 17 years of my life, I am all city girl except my brief forays onto horses and gardening.  I like cleanliness, running water, flushing toilets.  I don’t like dirt in my food or bugs in my water or having to dig a hole to poop in. What am I doing in a class like this?  Well.  I like to take pictures, and the best pictures in Colorado are out there, off the beaten path.  And for some strange reason, I just have this drive in the last year to get out of all the ruts I’ve made in my life and go off-path, literally and spiritually.

But the class was great, and I am totally jacked for doing the field days and planning some long hiking trips. For some reason, the fear of being out there, exposed in the world has just disappeared.

You know what really smells good?  Balmoral, which is one of those Cire Trudon candles, and it is all outdoorsy green, but not overly green, just that rich meadow smell.  Great throw on this, subtle scent, you don’t feel like someone stuffed an evergreen in your nose.

And you know what else smells good?  I’ve been thinking about what scent I’ll probablly be wearing this summer, and my usual staples come to mine, Santa Maria Novella Eva, Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan, Chanel Eau de Cologne, but I’ve added a little sleeper beauty to that pile.  Parfums de Nicolai Le Temps D’une Fete. Notes of galbanum, mastic, opoponax, narcissus, hyacinth, daffodil, styrax, oakmoss, and sandalwood make up this wondrous green floral stunner.  It bursts into life with green, unfolding into the prettiest, and never sweet, spring bouquet, stirred up with some naughty narcissus, and all knitted together with incense and woods notes.  That it takes a very deep bow to the classic scents from Dior makes it smart as well, but it’s not nearly as difficult to wear as some of those classic perfumes – easy on the nose, but complicated enough to keep me sniffing happily for hours..  Seriously, how did I have this laying around so long and never smell it?  I”m truly ashamed of myself for missing out all this time.  It’s not just perfect for spring, but for any time.

So either in life or perfumery, what is something you’ve been missing out on that surprised you most when you discovered it?  We haven’t done a drawing in a while, so let’s do one. I’ll give out a samples of the D’une Fete to three commenters.

I’ve streamlined. I now have under 70 bottles of ‘fume. I tell ya: minor miracle, dudes. And you know what’s crazy about even this low number for a (former?) addict? Most of those bottles are at least half-full.

There are three that run the risk of running out. Let me tell you about them pretty damn promptly.

Number 3 at risk is Terre d’Hermes. I haven’t worn Mr Grapefruit Mineral since last September as he only seems to flourish in hot weather, but along with number 2 at risk, he’s a mainstream men’s scent that I could happily mainline, and one of those few new releases of the past five years where the hype delivered. I tend to test scents as much as use them up or wear them out (you disco bunnies reading will now understand the title of this post); this one has got worn, and worn again.

As has Number 2 at risk: Dior Homme. I’m not one, generally, for overpowering sillage. But I’m guessing that everybody linked me with this smell in my last job, the amount of Mr Wears a Grey Suit in the Week and Lippie at Weekends I’d spray on in the morning. I was hooked into the baby for months. Now, we’re on a break, but Matt’s taken up the iris and handbag mantle quite happily. And I have a back up bottle of this one – the only frag for which I do – kindly supplied by the flower loving Bryan.

Finally, Number 1 at risk can’t be treated in the same flippant way. I’m its devotee. It’s Serge Lutens’ Encens et Lavande. Pure, simple, and an exceptionally introverted and contemplative scent, it smells of both the best of the outdoors and the internal world. I tend to be drawn, typically, to warm scents, but this is cool and green and grey and purple. It’s shadows and silences, candles spluttering out, the flicker of a final light, a stark interior space where shadows of the real dance momentarily on the wall. If I had just one scent, it would be this. And I’m almost out. I need more.

Tell me your three at risk of running out scents, and why you tend to use it up and wear it out.

And now, for a hellacious earworm moment:

(I always preferred ‘Native New Yorker’, myself, even if it was used in The Stud. Go youtube that for a moment of unadulterated cringing.)

This is Buckethead, who I figure deserves equal time on the blog.  Buckethead is a nester.  When he’s sad, or sick, or otherwise feeling low, he collects all the soft blankety things (coats etc.) in the vicinity and piles them up on a chair or sofa.  Then he goes to sleep on them.  In this photo, he is asleep on top of: a) Diva’s blue fleece bathrobe; b) Enigma’s velour Washington Redskins throw; and some pillows.  On top of him is his beloved, disintegrating security blanket.

Meanwhile I was watching Beverly Hills Cop (what a great movie) which reminded me: who’s coming to ScentBar to play with us on the 14^th of March?  10 a.m.?  Franco needs a count so he knows how much stuff to buy.  Attendance is free!  You have three ways to rsvp:  contact Violetnoir on MUA; contact the Perfume Posse group on Facebook (some of you have already done this, I’ll email you to confirm); or Contact Us on the blog is my last choice as it then has to be sorted and forwarded.  I am so excited about this trip.  By the way, according to Beverly Hills Cop, if I want to be chic in LA I need either a three-piece suit (male attire) or a blond spiral perm and a denim jumpsuit.  Which is just that much funnier given that one of this month’s fashion rags (Vogue?) is full of similar jumpsuits, a look I never thought we’d see again.  I’m not buying the hammer pants either.

So.  That’s it. I am completely punting this post today perfume-review-wise.  Instead I am asking a question:  have your perfume-buying habits changed at all in the current economic meltdown?   If that question is too depressing to ponder, answer this one: is there a particular fragrance or makeup item you are coveting for now or this spring?   I am lusting heartily for this entire Barielle nail polish collection (okay, maybe not the yellow) and I also want something from Shiseido’s new Dick Page lipstick collection, as well as the drop-dead gorgeous Dolce & Gabbana lipstick in Dahlia, although these are deliberately, heavily scented and I am not sure how I feel about that.  Also, I’m on a spring crème nail polish jag – I just got China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle and Agent Lavender (squeee! so perfectly pale!) as well as Color Club Blue Light, another gorgeous pale blue.  Misa Jasmine is a lovely medium violet, but CG Shower Together was darker than I expected.  I’m thinking I need For Audrey, even if it is a little warmer blue than the Tiffany box (and it is.)  Any other pale blue, gray or green crème recs for us cool-toned gals?  Also, I’m as afraid of pink polish as I am of rose perfume, and do I need to get over myself?  I feel like most pink polishes just magnify the pink tones in my skin, which is why I don’t wear pink clothes either.  Is there a really flattering pink crème that doesn’t look … I dunno … too Barbie or too dull?  

I dedicate this post to my sister-in-law Kate who lurks on the blog, and who just yesterday was telling me the next time she’s at my house she’s going to watch while I make my beef stew, because she wants to figure out what my secret is.   My beef stew is excellent.  It’s not fancy; it’s not fussy.  It’s so easy to make I’ve never bothered to write the recipe down. When the Big Cheese is out of town I’ve been known to eat it three times a day.  I make it all winter long.

So as a public service I decided to write down my recipe, although I’ll give credit where it’s due and note that it’s based on a recipe for boeuf bourguignon in my mother’s 1951 Joy of Cooking.  All amounts are approximate and it’s not an exact science.  I’ll stick to the bare bones and put my nitpicky details at the bottom for people who care.  Bon appetit.

One package (1 – 2 lbs) decent well-marbled beef, I use beef tips*

Two spoonfuls bacon grease** and some crumbled bacon, if you’ve got some

One handful flour

Three medium or two large onions, yellow or white

3 or 4 medium thin-skin potatoes (I use red or white and leave the skin on)***

One bottle red wine****

1. Cut the beef into bite size pieces and dust them with the flour, coating them.

2. On the stove, heat 1 spoonful of bacon grease in your big Dutch oven or stew pot.  Toss the floured meat in there and brown it.  Take the meat out and put it on a plate.

3. Chop up the onions.  Using the same pot, put the other spoon of bacon grease in there and add the onions.  Cook them, stirring occasionally, 10 – 15 minutes until they cook down and caramelize a little.

4. Put the meat back in.  Add your bottle of wine and any seasoning you want (I use salt, pepper and rosemary).  Add crumbled bacon if you have some, 3 – 4 pieces is good.

5. Put the lid on and bake in the oven at 300 degrees for two hours.  Chop up your potatoes into smaller pieces like the meat and add those.  You can throw in some chopped carrots too if you want.*****  Cook another hour.  Et voila.  Serves 6 – 8. 

 Further Notes:

*I get that the point of a long slow-cooking beef stew is to use cheap stew meat, but at least where I live, beef tips from Trader Joe’s don’t cost much more than stew meat from the grocery store, and the meat is more tender and flavorful.

**I keep bacon drippings in my fridge, but you can cook some bacon and throw it in there too.  I’d write the words “leftover bacon” but there’s no such thing as leftover bacon.  Obviously you can skip the bacon grease entirely and use olive oil, but it doesn’t taste the same.

***Or you can use little new potatoes, halved.  Volume-wise, the meat, potatoes and pre-cooked onion are about equal.

****Most wine-based stew recipes call for x amount of wine plus water (the Joy of Cooking recipe is ¾ wine to ¼ water.)  At some point I decided, why not use a whole bottle?  I generally use a decent bottle of cabernet – not top shelf, but not utter crap, either.  If you wouldn’t drink a glass, it doesn’t belong in your food.

*****If you want basic 1950s American-style boeuf bourguignon, leave out the potatoes and carrots, add some sliced mushrooms, and serve it over buttered egg noodles for a fun retro meal that dinner guests plow into.  If you want to add more vegetables and diversify your stew, that’s dandy too.  I don’t add them until the last hour because I find they get a bit soft for my tastes.

PS Here’s a link to Ina Garten’s somewhat similar recipe which gets rave reviews, although I have my doubts about the frozen onions (one commenter found them squishy).  Maybe I’ll try the tomato paste and cognac next time.

Illustration: my father’s drawing on the inside cover of my 1951 Joy of Cooking, rebound several times.  My father gave it to my mother, who literally couldn’t boil an egg.  It makes me smile every time I see it.