So, listen…. The Dark Knight, just go see it.  No, no, don’t argue with me, really, I won’t listen to it.  Do it not only because it has my favorite eye candy in it, but because it’s a really terrific film.  It’s not just a comic book film. It’s about honor and betrayal and friendship, and what is a hero. Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker is so different and yet the same from the character Nicholson did in the first Batman. The strokes on the character are the same, but where Nicholson’s was a caricature, Ledger made The Joker human and breathtakingly scary in ways that has me humbled at how talented he was. Go see it, you’ll see what I mean.

What’s a good scent for this whole movie? Well, lucky me (thanks to March getting me signed up for Andy’s 100 sample giveaway!) got a sample of Andy Tauer’s new Vetiver Dance (not released yet, it looks like fall?), with notes of grapefruit, black pepper, clary sage, lily of the valley, cedar wood, ambergris, tonka and dark vetiver from java. It goes on green and peppery, with all the earthiness of the vetiver, tonka, ambergris and wood spiking through. I don’t get much of the lily of the valley or grapefruit, maybe just a wisp. This is a scent for flawed people - at times too real and at other times almost a shadow. I deliberately did not do a comparison to Onda or Djedi, but Vetiver Dance has that same earthy clarity of those two, and that’s as far as I’ll go from memory. It’s a great scent and one that I think The Joker and Batman would wear because it suits that darkness we all have in us, standing alongside the capacity for great good and a little crazy thrown on top like an irresistible cherry. Vetiver is always my favorite “human” note because it is never covered in artifice.  Now y’all can just pine until Andy gets this released this fall.  For you vetiver fans, even those of you who are not, it will be worth the wait.

First, the ten winners of the Creed Love in Black samples are:

1. CC
2. annie
3. Matts
4. Jennifer O
5. Maura
6. RHM
7. Kim
8. Janet in California
9. susi
10. Anne

Just click on the Contact Us button over there and send me your address. Congrats!

So… vanilla. yeah. Love it or hate it, there are a couple of new’ish ones out there that people seem to be loving, so let’s see why!

Montale Vanille Extasy has notes of ylang-ylang from Comoro Islands, Egyptian jasmine, apricot, sandalwood, mahogany, bensoin, vanilla. This is very much a sweet floral vanilla, like a cross between Montale’s Soleil di Capri and Indult Tihota, landing closer to Soleil, without that much of a gourmand feel to it. I think that’s what makes me a little road-weary about Montales, the new one always seems to be another variation on a prior one. As a scent, it’s nicely done, fitting in with the others in the line. I like it, but it’s not me so much, a little too sweet and not enough vanilla, which is what I expected with the name it has.

Micallef Vanille Aoud has notes of bergamot, ylang-ylang, prune, oud, caramel, musk, vanilla, benzoin.  A similar set of notes, with some variation, to the Montale Vanille Extasy. This works much better from the start, with a healthy benzoin blast in the open, some nice gourmandy notes blending well with the oud and vanilla. The oud is not too bitter, but has enough bite to keep this from a frothy sugar mess. This is a much more interesting rendition, paying a great salute to the vanilla and other gourmand notes, but holding a great tension with the oud, musk and benzoin. Micallef is one of those lines that I’m always just subtly impressed by. They do nice, incredibly wearable scents with some interesting slants.

So if you had to pick one vanilla fragrance to wear all the time, which one would it be?

I wasn’t a huge fan of Creed’s Love in White. The Magnolia in it is just not a note that I love, and, well, I sorta despise the scent personally. So when I heard about Love in Black being released, I wasn’t exactly hopeful that it might even be remotely something I’d like.

So let’s go to the marketing blurb, which isn’t heinous at all. Created to celebrate Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, it uses elements that were symbolic of her life. Night-blooming wildflowers from the Greek Isles; Virginia cedar from the countryside where she rode her horses; iris from Florence, a city she loved; clove and tonkin musk; blackcurrant from Bourgogne; and Bulgarian rose.

Now, I have no idea whether this would remind me of Jackie O or if she would have worn it, but it is elegant and not frilly in the least - it feels a little darkish, but more like a shadow over a bed of flowers on a summer day, not something that only comes out at night. It has a lovely iris/violet floral open, velvety soft and just glides right out of the open into the heart. Now, y’all know I am a complete iris/violet slut, and this perfume is not going to be an exception to my unabashed love of those notes. It’s beautifully rendered, with just a touch of sweetness that adds so much softness to it, but it never veers off into syrupy purple goo, just stays elegantly cool and soft. If you loved the Dior La Particuliere special edition iris one, I think it was No. 9? You will adore this. It’s got the same cool, smooth, elegant treatment that would fit any occasion, day or night. I think guys who like to wear violet/iris combos would welcome this in their wardrobe too.

I’m not going to say there’s anything groundbreaking in this scent. It’s well done and lovely and a good addition to the Creed line, which I admit I just haven’t found a lot of things in the line that I’m smitten with (Hey, BNers, don’t hurt meeeee!!! - I kid, you know I love y’all! ). This is going to be one of the few exceptions - I will wear this - and have been - a lot and very happily. The price tag is eek! territory - $230 for a 75 ml bottle and $130 for 1 ounce. The gigantor flacon is the way to go, $350 for 250 mls, splitting it with your friends. Right now available only in the Paris boutique, it is due to arrive in U.S. stores in September. My early prediction: This is going to be a bestseller for Creed. They’ve got the marketing right, the image tied to Jackie O, the black bottle, playing off the success of Love in White, and a nicely done fragrance in the bottle.

Disclaimer and happy news for y’all! I was sent this fragrance to review Creed, which never has an impact on if I like something or not, but I do like to disclose it, and I need to bundle up some of it to send to March as well, but I’m going to give away TEN 2.5 ml samples to some lucky commenters. Just leave a comment, and I’ll draw ten names out and post the winners on Thursday.

BTW, just a note about comments. I (and I know March does) love your comments, and I love the way so many of you have these great discussions amongst yourselves. Sometimes be a really daunting task to find the 2-4 hours a day necessary to respond to all comments. So, for me, I want comments to be something I keep loving, so I’m not always going to be able to respond to all. I may just respond to a couple that have questions in them or that I have something to offer back. Some days, I may respond to all of them. I just don’t want anyone to feel like I may be ignoring them if I don’t respond to all comments. And I sure don’t want less comments! That would really suck.

A couple months ago in a fit of … something … I ordered a bunch of samples. Not that I needed any more.  Believe me. I think there was a sale? Free shipping?  I’d read or heard something about every sample in the package that prompted me to want to try (or retry) it. Anyhow, they got here and I promptly forgot about them.

Now it’s been so long I can’t remember why I wanted them. A review on another blog? Mentioned by a friend? Something I saw nosing through The Perfumed Court? I decided it would be fun to sample each fragrance without researching it and try to guess what placed it on my to-try list. Which on one level creates a bass-ackwards review, but there you have it.I’m working my way through them slowly, and today we’re reviewing Nina Ricci Love in Paris.

The first five seconds after I sprayed on Love in Paris, I thought: ummmmmmmmmmm, NOPE. Whatever I thought might appeal with this one, I wuz wrong. Then I let it sit a few minutes and as usual my feelings for it changed a bit. I am pretty sure I must have read about a spicy gourmand phase in its middle, sweet but not too, with a mildly peppery funky note that reminds me of Sonia Rykiel’s Belle en Rykiel.

Created in 2004 by Aurelien Guichard, Love in Paris has notes of bergamot, star anise, apricot, jasmine, peony, rose, musk, woodsy notes and vanilla. The bergamot is a little alarming at the opening – it’s not clear at all what direction this fragrance is taking, and I was worried it was going to be this fresh citrus deal – before it settles into a musky, floral woods fragrance that is considerably less sweet than you might gather from that list. There is something quirky about it – Love in Paris being a really great name because while it is warm and ebullient and youthful, it’s not childish. There is something smoky and wistful about it, like the fading scent of illicit Gauloises in the scarf you brought home from your first semester abroad. Any of you looking for an anise powerhouse – you won’t find it here. I guess I can suss it out having seen it in the notes, but it added more of an aura of spiciness than the dreaded (by me, at least) Good ‘n Plenty vibe to the scent. I also get a long stretch of what smells like tea along with the florals in the middle, which of course pleases me.

I had to dig around to find what must have triggered my interest: Tania Sanchez in The Guide says this of Love in Paris: “conventional at a distance but odd in the details, what could have been an entirely boring floral isn’t at all,” and goes on to add: “An entirely unexpected, pleasantly salty, animalic-metallic note grows more evident as it dries down. Excellent work.” I agree with the comment about the attractiveness of the odd details; on me, though, the whole thing collapses like a souffle after 45 minutes or so, leaving me with a perfectly nice musky floral, whereas I would have preferred the salty animalic bits. I won’t be buying it, and I probably won’t even work through my sample. No matter how quirky the details, it’s just not my style. But it’s nicely done nonetheless and well worth trying for someone looking for a daywear woody/floral that’s not run of the mill, lightly spicy rather than sweet, that won’t annoy the people around you.

Unfinished business: I did five minutes of research on Tasha Tudor after yesterday’s post and came up with the family website, which is worth a look if the topic has piqued your interest at all. It’s got photos and text and illustrations and depending on your perspective is either charming or creepy — or (for me, anyway) a little of both. Here’s an excerpt from the family biography section: “Marjorie Tudor is Tasha Tudor’s daughter-in-law, having married Tasha’s elder son, Seth. She has four children who grew up at her feet as she carved wooden pieces for the marionettes and sewed frocks for the lady dolls.”  Also the family business seems to be Seth, Marjorie, and their various children/grandchildren — no mention in the company section of the other three children, I think another son and two daughters.

Okay, today’s post. After complaining for years about how awful the store-bought tomatoes are, I got busy this spring and planted some of my own, having been told by a gardening friend that all I need is sun, heat and a lot of water. I planted them in barrels in my driveway, far away from my magnificent but plant-killing black walnut trees. So far they’re looking pretty awesome — huge with lots of green fruit. I have a cherry tomato, an early ripener, and Brandywine, that purple heirloom one that’s so tasty. I thought brandywines were the ugliest thing I’d ever seen until I ate one. Also, now I understand the obsession you all have with the smell of tomato leaves, which is featured prominently in Christopher Brosius’ Memory of Kindness, and if you’re so inclined, go read his lovely story of the scent and his beloved aunt.

All of this crossed my mind when I ran across Donna Karan’s DKNY Women (in the long, prism-shaped bottle rather than the black and gold robo-duck). I smelled it a year or two ago in some duty-free, which is the only place I’ve ever seen it, and was immediately impressed by its … well, what the heck is that weird smell?

According to Basenotes, the 1999 fragrance “uses headspace technology to capture the scent of freshly laundered t-shirts and wet cobblestones. The bottle is designed to echo skyscrapers.” I’m sure there’s a great story out there from the DKNY marketing machine explaining Donna’s inspiration, etc., but I’m too lazy to look. Instead let’s gaze in wonder at the notes:

blood orange, chilled vodka, tomato leaf, waterlilies, green coral orchids, daffodils, freshly laundered t-shirt, wet cobblestones, white birch, tulip tree bark.

Okay, I know some of you are a little jaded about the lists of notes, what with all the molten rivers of wood and living black orchid and all the rest of that bs. But I can’t help it; I love that list. La Donna rocking the wet cobblestones back in ’99! Also, look at what it doesn’t contain: pink pepper, white/pink musk, and/or frozen litchi (and thank you, Jesus).

I cracked up reading the comments on Basenotes, because a number of folks were complaining (?), this fragrance is not sexy! Well, they’re right. If you want to bring a man to his knees, pick something else. However, I remain entranced by DKNY Women’s almost CdG-esque peculiarity. It’s also a great fragrance for summer – it’s weird, but it’s wearably, enjoyably weird, like CdG’s inky number 2.

I never know what I’m going to get first with DKNY Women – sometimes it’s all citrusy, and sometimes it opens with the laundry, but always with the tomato leaf, and the combined smell is so peculiarly compelling I can’t stop sniffing it. DK’s tee shirt is nothing like, say, Clean Laundry – this isn’t a soft, musky, girly Tide smell. It’s a tee shirt in the rain, left hanging on the branch of a tree with something sharp and herbal growing nearby. In any case, the detergent morphs pretty quickly into a bitter, bark-y floral. The whole thing is pungent and peculiar, and delightful in the heat. This scent contains so many familiar things (once you know what you’re looking for) but juxtaposes them so brilliantly I’m charmed. It’s like a scent tape you’d give to a Martian – here are some random all-American smells, my little green friend!

How much this would appeal to you would probably depend on your tolerance for quirky scents, and whether or not your nose is overwhelmed with a tidal wave of Tide (mine is not, and I hate laundry scents). I like its resolutely non-perfume-y smell, like I’d picked tomatoes and some herbs from my garden and was wearing all the evidence on my rainy-day walk in the woods, smiling to myself.

Brandywine tomatoes: ugly, but good eatin’ — tradewindsfruit.com

By Nava

If there was ever any doubt as to whether the behemoth cosmetics and fragrance companies are paying attention to what’s going on in the world of niche fragrances, Estée Lauder’s latest offering, Sensuous, is absolute proof. They have succeeded in bringing a woody feminine scent to the department store masses.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a bunch of niche scents that I love, that are reminiscent of Sensuous. I’ll get to them a little later on. First, I must say that I am not especially adept at comparing a scent to a feeling, or a scenario, the way Luca Turin and Chandler Burr are so spectacularly capable of doing. What I’m aiming for here is to tie this in with my post from last week, bringing my thoughts together with this fragrance and the massive advertising campaign Lauder will most assuredly inundate us with. So far, Sensuous is exclusive to Bloomingdales, and the ads haven’t reached that in-your-face stage yet.

Speaking of the ads, there is a website, www.sensuousis.com, dedicated to the launch of the fragrance. Earlier this week, I received an e-mail from esteelauder.com alerting me that the scent is now available online at their site. Much of what is on the launch site is now on their company website as well. They’ve certainly done their homework vis-a-vis the advertising: there is a Q&A section with Aerin Lauder, as well as short videos of the spokesmodels, Hilary Rhoda, Carolyn Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley, explaining what “sensuous” means to them. I’m pleased with how this particular bit of the pitch has been constructed; they picked four women to represent different age groups: Rhoda, the twentysomethings, Murphy and Paltrow, the more introspective thirtysomethings, and finally, Hurley as the elder stateswoman in her early forties. Each woman looks absolutely gorgeous in those androgynous white button-down shirts. And, they look womanly – even Rhoda, the youngest, is photographed to portray a maturity that belies her youth. In keeping with their respective age ranges, each woman defines “sensuous” differently as it relates to their particular stage in life. It all sounds very cerebral and intellectual, but I can’t help but be reminded of the scene in the movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House”, when Eric “Otter” Stratton meets up with Dean Wormer’s wife in the supermarket scene where they debate the sensuality of a cucumber. Mrs. Wormer, being older and more experienced, tells Otter, “Vegetables are sensual, people are sensuous.” Later on, we see a drunken Mrs. Wormer show up at the Delta House toga party and have a Mrs. Robinsonesque encounter with Otter. Although, I don’t think Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson would have ever been as sloppy as Mrs.Wormer.

For her part, Aerin Lauder espouses some very heartfelt sounding thoughts about their newest fragrance offering. She feels that “Women can be sensual at any age,” and how “Each of our models represents a different side of sensuality. Hilary conveys youth while Carolyn’s classic look communicates elegance. As an actress, Gwyneth brings an emotional range to sensuality and Elizabeth portrays confidence and wisdom.” I was intrigued by her inspiration for the ad campaign, “A great photo of Lauren Hutton in a white shirt from the 1970s. It was so timeless and beautiful.” What would have reeled me in completely would be the inclusion of Ms. Hutton, who is now in her 60s and still gorgeous. “Confidence and wisdom” and beauty, certainly don’t diminish after 50.

While I am reasonably impressed with the images and inspiration behind the scent, I feel the selling of Sensuous is done with the same banal marketing claptrap as a thousand other department store scent launches: “Estée Lauder Sensuous was created to evoke the warmest, most feminine side of a woman.” “Her softness. Her confidence and grace. Her strength.” And, my favorite: “You are luminous. You are real. You are Sensuous.” The groupings of the notes go to great lengths to make the scent sound unique and unlike anything anyone has ever smelled before: The “Atmospheric Florals – feminine and airy. A veil of petal-soft textures: sheer jasmine, Ghost Lily, lush Magnolia, and an exclusive Ylang Essence.” The “Glowing Amber – rich, glowing amber pulses with a warm, luminous, feminine passion.” The “Mandarin Orange Pulp – a surprising accent of Mandarin Orange Pulp creates a touch of juiciness to tantalize the senses.” The “Black Pepper – captivating traces of Black Pepper add mystery to the delicious woodiness and sensuality.” The “Molten Woods – a rich mysterious core of smooth, fluid woods exudes a sleek, modern sensuality.” The “Addictive Honey – addictive nectar-like honey blended into the body of the fragrance enhances the warmth lingering deep within.” At this point, I’d like to invoke another strong, sensuous cinematic female character: Susan Sarandon’s Annie Savoy from that classic baseball film, “Bull Durham”, and say in her breathy, Southern-belle voice, “Oh my…”

So what does Sensuous really smell like? Personally, I get none of the “Atmospheric Florals”. On me it is woody and somewhat peppery, which I love, and turns pleasantly sweet as it dries down, leaving me with the lingering honey note, which I find very nice, but not “Addictive”. There is very little amber, and the “Mandarin Orange Pulp” is barely discernable. What truly surprises me is how lightly this scent wears, since if you rely solely on its description, it sounds like one of those really intense woody-amber scents that for me would be akin to wearing a fur coat to the beach. I am a devoutly seasonal scent-wearer; I retire all my heavy incense-y, woody, peppery, spicy scents when the warm weather arrives and never so much as crave them until the first autumnal chill. My initial sniff of Sensuous came courtesy of a scented strip of ribbon given to me by a salesperson in Bloomingdales. It was a warm day and the ribbon was so thoroughly saturated, I thought there was no way I would be caught dead wearing this in the summertime. When I read Robin’s review on Now Smell This, I had to re-evaluate it, and alas, I concur with her completely when she says that Sensuous “[wears] beautifully in the heat,” and is “appealing to both the niche snob perfumista, as well as the general public.” I couldn’t say it any better myself.

Now, back to what Sensuous reminds me of. I got into woodsy, incense-y, spicy, less gourmand niche scents a few years ago. I sampled many of them and came away with a number of favorites: Satellite Padparadscha – when you want something dry, woody and spicy, there’s nothing better than this one. Donna Karan Black Cashmere – this is my “fur coat on the beach” scent which, on a frigidly cold day, could keep you warm even if you were to stand buck naked at a bus stop during a blizzard. Idole de Lubin – sweet, boozy, almost syrupy woods. I think the noses employed by Estée Lauder might have had a snort or two of this one when Sensuous was in its developmental stages. Profumum Olibanum sits at the summit of the niche woods/incense mountain for me: Sandalwood, incense and the merest hint of orange blossom; this scent is perfection. Finally, the grandmamas of the category, Shiseido’s Feminite du Bois and Serge Lutens’ Bois et Fruits. These last two are quite difficult to get one’s hands on (not that that would deter the lovely March), but if you want a scent somewhere along the lines of these niche beauties, you need look no further than the Estee Lauder counter, and will not have to dig deep into your pocketbook (1 oz. sells for US $39.50) for a surprisingly pleasant, eminently wearable fragrance. Sensuous may not be an original by any stretch, at least not to a niche perfumista like me, but I like it. I really, really like it.

First off: there was confusion and word incorrectly got out that the Chi-cocoa Scentsation event in September is “by invitation only” and people are asking how you get invited. ANYONE CAN COME to the event. Just please RSVP to chicocoascentsation (at) gmail (dot) com so we can set up for an accurate number of people. We’re charging a fee (I think it’s $20?) which covers the refreshments and doodads for the presentation space for Neil Morris and Liz Zorn to do their thing. If Musette will chime in here with the details, I think the PayPal account is set up.

Okay, having yanked everyone’s chain recently with the Dior Addict post, I felt the irresistible urge to touch the third rail again after reading during my research that a number of people like Addict Eau Fraiche better, consider it a superior fragrance (I know for some of you that’s a pretty low bar) and think that, in the words of one Basenotes reviewer, “Dior Addict Eau Fraiche is the UPGRADE!”

Dior Addict Eau Fraiche – and is it just me, or does the weirdness of that name make anyone else giggle? – was also composed by Theirry Wasser in 2004, two years after the original, with notes of mandarin leaf, vanilla, bergamot, gardenia, Bulgarian rose, tuberose, jasmine, rosewood, and sandalwood. For comparison purposes, the original Addict is a floral oriental with notes including mandarin leaf, silk tree flower; night-blooming cereus, rose, jasmine, orange blossom, bourbon vanilla absolute, Mysore sandalwood and tonka bean.

I love Addict. I took an informal survey among a few male friends (having allowed time for the drydown) and the unanimous vote was: sexy. If there’s anything addictive about Addict, it’s the fact that it lies somewhere between a dozen cupcakes and something more illicit. Diva smelled Addict on me and gave me an extremely rare omigodyousmellsooooogood! She’s hammering me for my little bottle, but I told her I’m not giving it to her until next fall, because it’s definitely not something I want to encounter for the next five months. I know a few of you came out of the woodwork on my Addict post to join me in my one-woman fan club, and the rest of you think it’s dreck.

Anyone reading those notes can spot some overlap between the two, but honestly, scent-wise the relationship is pretty tenuous. Addict Eau Fraiche pretty much misses the entire point of Addict, which is to experience the Poison-ish sensation of drowning in a giant vat of floral-tinged, spicy, vanilla-honey sweetness. In fact, I’m not the first person to note that the original Addict bears more than a passing resemblance to Hypnotic Poison. If Eau Fraiche blows in your ear, then Addict gives you a sloppy, drunken French kiss before staggering down the street and passing out on the hood of a car, hopefully without vomiting on your shoes first.

The top notes of Eau Fraiche are weird – tart and leafy and a little sour, and you can tell right away it’s much, much more civilized than the original. The rose, tuberose and jasmine are sweet but not overbearingly so. I was at the point of dismissing it as not interesting enough to review when I caught a smell reminiscent of tanning oil on salty skin. The sandalwood is more prominent than in the original, giving Eau Fraiche a pleasingly raspy counterbalance to the florals.

Looking for an illustration to accompany this post, I stumbled across this New York Times rendering of “a revived Coney Island” that clarified my attraction to Addict Eau Fraiche. There’s something surreal and exuberant about it — it’s a little Coney Island, but a cleaned-up version, and it doesn’t work my last nerve after three hours with its mania like Gucci Rush does.

I’m impressed by Eau Fraiche. I have no idea what the brief was – I assume it read something like: make us a lot of money. But it manages to be both commercially approachable and interesting. I have a fondness for a kind of subtle scent that conjures up the sense of skin – warm, salty, and subtly sexy. Eau Fraiche peters out a little after three hours, at which point I can reapply and (unlike with many of my other fragrances) not worry overmuch about where I’ll be heading next and whether it will offend anyone. I think you could get away with this in your office. At the same time I enjoy its oblique, playful sensuality. You could do a lot worse, and I wish this were available at Sephora along with (or maybe instead of) Addict’s other flankers. I have never seen it in stores (and I think it’s an LE) but it is found easily enough online.

Coney Island rendering: nytimes.com

PS. Progress in the shoe dept.! In addition to finding a couple pairs of wedges I can fit my orthotics in, I have purchased the following: an open-toed wedge so my tootsies can breathe; a thong sandal (yay!) with an allegedly deep-enough heel cup and high arch (we will see when they get here, aren’t they fab? they come in hot pink croc leather too); and those cute red sporty wedges that go great with the red patent leather purse.

So, we announced the Chi-Cocoa Scentsation coming in September, and put it out there with some details, and then … a bunch of you surprised us by announcing you’re planning on coming! Musette is working her butt off on this, on a totally volunteer basis, trying to get this puppy organized, since it looks like the group will be a decent size. She’s stressing a little. Here’s a newsflash – Chicago in the spring and fall is a big convention destination. So, among other things, the hotel rooms in that area aren’t as cheap as we were hoping. Musette’s got her travel agent working on some options; we’re figuring out how we’re going to work Neil Morris and Liz Zorn into the event; we’re enthusiastic amateurs trying to keep it casual while at the same time accepting that there has to be a certain amount of structure if this is going to work. We’ll make future announcements here and on the Message Board to the left, hopefully with some hotel info. Right now, remember to hold onto those unwanted bottles of Jungle Elephant, Aromatics Elixir and other things you bought unsniffed, because we’re going to have a Mystery Bottle Swap! For those of you flying with no checked bags (that will be me, I hope): we’ll provide a mailing address so you can send them ahead if you want.

Okay, on to today’s post.

My love affair with fragrances of the Japanese skincare company Annayake continues pretty much unabated. The most popular one in the blogosphere is probably Miyako, with notes of cardamom, cinnamon, frankincense, hinoki, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, patchouli, cedar, sandalwood, musk, rockrose, benzoin, myrrh, and amber. I find the first half hour a rough ride – it’s spicy and dry and raspy and the rockrose (aka cistus) and myrrh are all up in your face with their camphor-y herbaceous dance of the seven resins or whatever. Then it dies and we all go to benzoin-woods heaven and live happily ever after.

My personal favorite thus far, in the same woody-comfort-scent vein, is Tsukimi, their “fall” scent – they have one for each season – with notes of pepper, grapefruit, lemon, jasmine, violet, cinnamon, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla. I find that list misleading – focus on the second half of those notes, because it is all warm cinnamon, woods and vanilla. It is smooth and creamy, neither too sweet nor too dry. It is a woody comfort scent somewhere between Organza Indecence and Feminite du Bois.

Pour Elle is an oddball thing, kind of an herbal tea (notes of bergamot, fig, elemi, water lily, tea, cypress, and white musk) and I need to retry it in the summer, when I think I will like it very much. I held off on this post, figuring by now it’d have been warm enough to report back more fully, but it’s been cool and wet all May and at this point I feel like I will never be warm (or dry) again.

Finally, dusting off and reorganizing my fragrances recently, I ran across a sample of Yukimi, the “winter” scent, which to be honest I didn’t even realize I had. Notes are mint, mandarin, freesia, rose, jasmine, woods, and amber.

It is an unusual scent but it is not difficult. (I would describe all of them I’ve tried so far as unisex, including Pour Elle.) The first bit of Yukimi is as refreshing as sucking on a mint candy. The mandarin adds a nice albeit brief zing at the opening, the jasmine is very clean and the rose is undiscernable to my nose. It is a floral woody scent, with a note that makes me think of anise, but not in a way that bothers me. My favorite part is when the mint is more or less equal with the woods – it’s like sniffing two different but oddly complementary scents at the same time. As I get further into the drydown the amber and woods become more dominant, and the anise note remains politely in the background. If Yukimi had a color, it would be a deep, wintery purple.

Although Yukimi is their “winter” scent its cool minty aspect strikes me as something that would be absolutely appealing in warmer weather, and the couple of days we made it to the 70’s seemed perfect, although I am not sure I would love it in the teeth of a Washington, D.C. summer. But really, folks reading this who are fans of soft, woody scents with floral and/or incense accents, and who have not sampled the line, might find something to love among the Annayakes. All the Annayake fragrances I have sniffed have a refreshing lack of sugar, and an interesting meet-up of quirky elegance and wearability.

Many of these are available at Cosmolane and eSkincarestore for I think $75 - $95, and the men’s are at Beauty Encounter. At less than $100 they are a (relative) bargain for a niche fragrance these days, although not quite the bargain they were when the Canadian dollar was worth 30% less than the USD. Sigh. The bottles are tall and slender and I think they are lovely. By the way, if the notes to Tsukimi appeal to you – Cosmolane threw in a small Tsukimi hand lotion which is great, so maybe they sell it although I did not see it on their site.

Has anyone tried the spring and summer scents, which sound more conventional, or the masculines — Undo, Tomo or Lui? Those each sound good in some ways, but each has a note that scares me – I wonder if Lui is too fresh, and is Undo interesting or is it too masculine for me? And Tomo has coriander and tonka – hmmmm. But the rest of each of those scents sounds delish – lots of tea, spices, tobacco, and similar good stuff.

One of the stranger realities of certain perfume obsessives is: we are intimately familiar with the scent of long-lost treasures like Iris Gris, or Djedi, or Chaos – but ask us what Tommy Girl smells like and we have no idea. So periodically we venture forth into the surreal world of popular fragrances that we somehow never quite got around to smelling. Euphoria got the sniff not too long ago. We did the J Lo’s. Today – Dior Addict. It seems to be everywhere, the name is totally familiar, but … what does it smell like? We had no idea.

From Women’s Wear Daily: “Addict is a floral oriental sensual from 2002, created by Firmenich’s Thierry Wasser. Its notes include mandarin leaf, silk tree flower; Queen of the Night flower (night-blooming cereus), rose, jasmine, orange blossom, bourbon vanilla absolute, Mysore sandalwood and tonka bean.”

Luca Turin gave Addict two crummy stars in The Guide and is described it as “cheap chocolate and dissonant heavy floral” that “smells nasty from all angles.” If you picked it up on a trip to Sephora and sniffed it to satisfy your curiosity, you might reasonably expect it to be a fruity floral, like so much of the popular scents today, enlivened solely by a (misleading) racy name. But it’s interesting enough to review, and here are our thoughts.

Patty says: I have to jump over to Luca’s side of the fence on this one. While I adore Hypnotic Poison’s perfect balance, even though you do have to go with a delicate hand on it, Addict is just… chewed up s’mores and leftover Prom corsage. And I don’t mean that in a good way. The interesting gourmandy notes just smell cheap and plasticky and are quickly covered up by florals that do nothing to relieve the pain. Now, time does make it better, but only because it goes away. Do I hate it? No, not really. I just don’t want it on my skin. And now for a completely different take on it…

March says: LT and I will have to disagree on this one. First off, how the man can rave for an entire page in The Guide over the choco-fruital Missoni, to which he gave five (!) stars, and which someone on the blog recently described as “barfalicious,” which I totally agree with, and then call Addict cheap chocolate … well, you tell me. Maybe Missoni uses the most costly barfalicious ingredients, but the only thing I liked about Missoni was the bottle.

Anyway, Dior Addict is an in-your-face old-school sweet oriental, along the lines of Dior Hypnotic Poison (on the classy end) or Versace Dark Crystal (on the Donatella end.) As such, Addict is best as a fall and winter scent in the warmer climes, and I think my comparison to Hypnotic isn’t that far off, with one major distinction. Hypnotic is a scent I love in theory but — like Fracas — I don’t wear much because I simply cannot put it on lightly enough. Even spraying it in the air and walking through it is too much; I need a dabber. In contrast, I find Addict totally wearable, from the start, although one spray is enough and two is probably too much. Addict is like a stripped-down, amped-down Hypnotic on me, without the marzipan; instead it is all about the creamy jasmine, vanilla and woods. It’s less sophisticated than Hypnotic (which, love it or hate it, is a fascinating scent) but none the worse for it — it sits somewhere between the richness of a Turkish coffee and the chewy nougat inside a Three Musketeers bar, and I mean that in the best possible way. I didn’t rush out to buy a bottle, but I’d wear it if you gave it to me, and I’ll probably snag one from a discounter in the fall.

There have been several flankers, and one or two of those have some fans on the perfume forums. Please feel free to share any raves or gripes you have about any of the Addicts.

First, it’s official: the ChiCocoa Scentsation will be Saturday, SEPTEMBER 13 — that’s the date most people can come. Mark your calendars! Okay, on to today’s post –

For someone who does a lot of yapping about my alleged restraint in buying bottles (as opposed to hoarding samples) I’ve had to start rotating my fragrances seasonally in order to find anything. Of course there are things I wear year round, but a certain amount of my scent is pretty much summer/winter only, so it moves in and out of my closet with the bathing suits and wool sweaters.

Fragrance rotation also forces me to dust everything, which is necessary, even if it isn’t fun. Every time I do this, though, I run across fragrances I never wear. I bought them. I liked them enough that I didn’t immediately move them to the swap pile. So why don’t they wind up on my skin? Part of the reason might be I can’t remember what they smell like.

I grabbed three forgotten scents randomly to try and unravel the mystery, with some history …

Fendi Asja. I bought this unsniffed because the price was right and I like Fendi Theorema so much. Notes (which give you a sense of its kitchen-sink Oriental complexity): bergamot, peach, apricot, raspberry, Bulgarian rose, ylang-ylang, Egyptian jasmine, nutmeg, cinnamon, mimosa, lily of the valley, honey, carnation, orchid, vanilla, sandalwood, cedar, musk, benzoin, balsamic styrax and amber. It’s a sweet, spicy fragrance with a vanilla-woods drydown. Somewhere out there is a review by someone (who? I know you know) that compares a particular fragrance to the smell of warm radiators – that scentless scent of dusty, baked house air. I grew up with radiators and I love that smell. Anyway, they weren’t talking about Asja but they could be – to me it smells something like Cinnabar parfum with a heavy dose of hot radiator accord. It is gorgeous – sensual, but more the warm embrace of Tocade than the leg-humping lasciviousness of Opium. While I love Asja in theory, and find it strangely comforting, it just never seems to be something I reach for. Analyzing this, I want it to be a comfort scent – a blue jeans thing I wear to the grocery store – but the rest of the fragrance is as grown up as a ball gown. The bluejeans/ball gown tension means I never quite feel like it’s the right occasion for Asja. Great bottle. ADDENDUM: wore it over two miserably wet, cold days recently, trying to figure out why I never wear it. It is the PERFECT wear-around-the-house crappy weather comfort scent.

Alexander McQueen Kingdom EDT: Notes of bergamot, neroli, jasmine, ginger, cumin, patchouli, copahu wood, vanilla, myrrh, sandalwood. I smelled the EDP and the EDT on my UK trip and, fab as the famed EDP is, there are limits to how many startling cumin scents I need. The EDT is an entirely different proposition. While the notes I find listed online are the same, the scent is essentially a musky floral summer-weight scent, not a cumin bomb. So why haven’t I been wearing it? Well… that heart-shaped bottle (instead of the wedge-of-alien-fruit EDP flacon) lays flat, it’s big, and it wobbles around on its side. At some point I got nervous/irritated by its sneaky moves and stuck it in a drawer, at which point it ceased to exist. Smelling it again, my first thought was I made a mistake – I went for the safe choice and lost. Having said that, it does not fall into any of the summer stereotypes – it is not a citrusy thing, or fresh, or a fruity-floral. The cumin emerges in the drydown, but even then it is very subdued. It’s a strange scent, a dry floral with some of the salty muskiness of Eau de Merveilles. I have put it on my shelf in plain sight, and look forward to trying it in the summer heat – assuming the summer heat ever gets here – to see if it grows on me.

Paul & Joe Bleu. I swapped away the P&J White eons ago, unable to deal with the hawthorn, but I kept this – it’s an oriental, notes are bergamot, coriander, caraway, cardamom, cumin, ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, magnolia, heliotrope, sandalwood, oud, patchouli, myrrh, vanilla, and musk, created by Pierre Bourdon in 2003. I googled it and can’t find anything, it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth – it’s not even on eBay, and I think they had them by the dozens back in the day at Anthropologie, where I bought it – and cheap, too. And too bad it’s gone, because really, it’s a nice fragrance. Somewhere between the vanillic haze of Shalimar Lite and a honking dose of patchouli to unsweeten things, Bleu does an interesting fifteen-minute lateral shift from feminine powdery florals to masculine woody tobacco, and I would love to smell this on a man. The spices are much more muted than you’d suspect from the list, contributing to the overall richness of the scent rather than calling attention to themselves on an individual basis.

Why don’t I wear this? On me, this registers as Serious Perfume. For those occasions I reach for either Mitsouko or Jicky. But it doesn’t smell like either of those, and it’s not so pervasive. On the other hand, it’s not so long lasting, either, and it gets a bit thin. I’ll try to work it into the rotation.

Anything on your shelf that you like in theory but it’s been languishing for so long you can’t quite remember what it smells like? And how come you aren’t wearing it?

Few things in life are more disappointing than expecting one perfect thing and getting the exact wrong thing.   Consider the gorgeous shoes above.  That’s what I was expecting, perfectly sized up to accommodate for a narrow Christian Louboutin toe box.  What I got was a pair of Dolce & Gabanna leopard print shoes with some freaky little bow on top.  I guess they were okay shoes, if leopard print shoes suited me at all, but they don’t. I’m the furthest thing from a leopard print shoe girl you can find.  So when I opened my box and saw those instead of my classy little black and red CLs, my brain almost melted down… did not compute.  How did my cute little shoes turn into hooker shoes?  A phone call later, I found out the size I thought would work best in the CLs was then gone, and I had to go down a half a size, and now I’m crossing my fingers that that size will fit. If not… bleah.  Back they’ll go while I wait and hope the cute little Rolando style eventually comes back in stock or I find a pair while I’m in Italy.

Speaking of disappointments, I have to just bitch a little about the Givenchy Incense that got a great review in Perfumes: The Guide.  I was expecting something great, and it started off great, with a floral fougerey incense mojo that felt perfect for men or women, and then it veered off into a perfectly nice men’s scent, but not terribly entertaining.  Where in the world was the “melancholy and mystery” the review promised?

My brother, the requestor of the Sam Elliott sampler pack was also supposed to report in on a few of the scents… and another disappointment -I got zip from him.  I know he’s liked everything so far that he’s sniffed, with his favorites being the Tom of Finland, Montale Black Oud, and Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Man.  Just goes to show you, good taste does run in the family.

Anyway, I have decided that I need to start wearing high heels again after a couple of decades of flats and flip-flops.  So now I wear my Jimmy Choos around the house for 15-30 minutes at a time and my Gucci FM mules for maybe 5 minutes at a time (these things kill in more ways than one).  Is this the best way to get back into high heels, or do our feet age to the point that it just doesn’t work anymore?  My feet, so far, are turning into another disappointment, which I’m hoping I can change for the better.

That teeny girl with my sister Shirley in the picture to the right, I love taking pictures of her because she could care less if you’re snapping pictures because she is so in the moment every second of her waking life.  She was born months premature and was this tiny, tiny little thing you could hold in one hand five years ago.  Two-thre years ago, she went through a bad time with her mom, and when she came back home, she was withdrawn and silent.  She has a great father and family who surrounded her with love, and the broken places healed, and the curtain of silence lifted.  Listening to her peels of laughter and her jumping into my arms with an ear-shattering ”I’ve MISSED you!!!” reminds you that life, no matter the disappointment, always finds joy.

Okay, your assignment for next Monday – hey, why should I do all the work?!? No, seriously, I like to read your responses. So – the assignment, suggested by Maria last week (and with a nod to Now Smell This, who just did something similar on Friday): it has come to our attention in the blogosphere that many of you have made sniffing expeditions and/or unsniffed purchases based on The Guide. Also, Patty says anecdotal evidence from The Perfumed Court suggests that people are sampling highly-rated fragrances. I’d like a report next Monday on how your sniffage/blind buys worked out for you. Alternately, tell me about your latest foray or unsniffed purchase prompted by a review that I or another blogger did. Next Monday, don’t forget!

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Figue Iris – I love that bottle. I love Guerlain. I love fig. I’m fond of iris. This would seem tailor-made for me, and yet it’s a disappointment. Notes are bergamot, grapefruit, iris, fig, violet, milky notes, woods, vetiver and vanilla. The light milky fig (along the lines of BBW Brown Sugar and Fig) meets the Guerlain powdery heliotrope and then the fig mostly disappears after ten minutes. I drenched it on the second and third times – I’m talking my whole arm, wet – and still it didn’t stick around long. What’s left is like “An Impression of” the Guerlain powdery-heliotrope base. An Impression of Guerlain Meteorites, I guess? The drydown, once the powder fades, is kind of woody and interesting, like Kenzo Tokyo in the first 90 seconds before it implodes into a crappy fresh scent. If we’d skipped some of the powder, I’d be happy, but this is just too much powder and not enough interest for me.

Aqua Allegoria Laurier Reglisse - and this one surprised me in the opposite way – by pleasing me quite a bit. I’m not wild for anise, but this one is refreshing – notes of bergamot, orange blossom, licorice, bay laurel, woods, violet, galbanum and amber. The licorice is bright rather than candied and is pretty much gone after the first three minutes on me, leaving a not-particularly-sweet, leafy green woody smell that I think would be just the ticket in the summer heat. Nice – I might buy this on discount. Lasting power is so-so, and if I’m saying that, me of the scent-grabbing skin, I wonder what normal people get – five minutes?

Let me say again: I love Sephora. In addition to an increasing number of small bottles for less than $50, this last visit yielded a $50 four-bottle gift set containing Prada regular, Intense, Tendre and Homme. How great is that?

Moschino Cheap & Chic I Love Love (in the orange and blue Olive Oyl bottle) is sort of like D&G Light Blue, only more floral and even more appealing to me, and I like Light Blue. It’s Light Blue’s more gracious older sister. If you like Light Blue in theory, but after two hours its pervasive Light-Blue-ness starts to work your last nerve, you might want to consider trying this. Notes are grapefruit, orange, lemon, redcurrant, tea rose, muguet, cinnamon leaves, musk, cedar, tonka wood, created by Olivier Cresp in 2004. Every time I sniff it I wonder, why don’t I own this thing? And then I remember why an hour later, because my only complaint is it gets a little sweeter than I like in the drydown, although it’s not so sweet by mainstream standards. I am crazy for that bottle, though, and if I run across some cheap I’ll probably buy it. In the meantime, I sniffed the new one, Hippy Fizz, and come on – look at that bottle — based solely on appearances, I don’t even care what it smells like, I want it. Notes are: raspberry, rose, violet leaves, magnolia, lotus, cedar and oakmoss. I’ll take their word for the cedar and oakmoss – on me it is the sweet, fruity floral you’d expect from the first five notes. In terms of artistic merit, Hippy Fizz is the fragrance equivalent of Pez, or Sour Patch Kids candy – and be honest, don’t you ever want a mouthful of Pez instead of a mouthful of, I don’t know, organic, fair-trade shade-grown artisanal dark chocolate? I know I do. I couldn’t pick it out of a lineup, it could just as easily be one of the Escada summer LEs, it’s a little fresh on me.

Finally, there was Oscar Fresh Vanilla for Women, which I tried at Bloomie’s and which she assured me was a special Limited Addition and Very Rare and I better buy it now or I’ll never see it again! Notes are: bergamot, blackcurrant, rose, marshmallow, orange blossom, vanilla, Peru balsam, musk. When I looked online I realized there have been a whole series of these Oscar things I’ve never seen – bamboo, pink lily, citrus, mocha chip, etc. Okay, not mocha chip.

Marshmallow. Marshmallow, for Pete’s sake. Honestly, though? It was kind of fun – it smells like a marshmallow you’ve toasted on a stick until it’s nicely browned, so it loses some sweetness and has a bit of that burnt smell – with a musky finish. It’s like Demeter did a scent called Toasted Marshmallow (you could layer it with Bonfire!), or CdG added it to their Sweet series. I know, I know. I must be losing my marbles. Off to apply Kolnisch Juchten to regain my senses.

PS For Mother’s Day my darling children gave me various items they made lovingly by hand in their art classes. I gave myself that Stuart Weitzman purse in the photo up there. I’ve coveted their shoes in that particular, iconic color – Red Quasar, a pearlized lipstick red – for years, but the shoes are usually either flats or 4-inch heels, and I want something in between. Then I saw the purse and knew: It Was Destiny.

I dropped the Big Cheese off at the airport yesterday for his trip to Thailand, China — and Burma. The devastation from Sunday’s cyclone (15,000 dead was the last count I read) changes his plans, but he’s not sure how yet. He has friends in Yangon, and the already limited communications are down. He’s going to get to BKK and see if he can bring something in (medicines, medical supplies) that might help, and try to discern whether his presence there for the cleanup would be a help or a hindrance. He’d like to help. Whenever I stick him on one of those planes and drive off I always get this weird feeling, like I’ve looked down and discovered one of my arms has gone missing. He loves Asia, and I could no more ask him to stay home than I could ask him to stop breathing. But still.

Since I was out there in that neck of the woods I figured I might as well stop at the Hermes Boutique and smell Un Jardin Apres La Mousson, the newest in the Jardin series. I like the other two a lot, but was not sure what to expect with this one. I have been fascinated by how much the responses and reviews have varied – folks are all over the place with their comments about Mousson. I can’t think of the last time something had such a wide range of descriptions – maybe SL Chypre Rouge?

Mousson’s notes are cardamom, coriander, pepper, ginger and vetiver accord. I had the SA at Hermes spritz my arm (they were “out of samples,” natch) and waited. The top is all about the spices – the cardamom, coriander and pepper, combined with the sharp heat of ginger, are astonishing. I’ve read several complaints about its being sort of wan and watery, and standing there sniffing those bits I was baffled – it is strong on me, bone dry and in its own peculiar way, quite lovely.

I still had my nose stuck to my wrist in thought when WHOMP!!! – the arrival of the (unlisted) aquatic melon accord dropped in. “Dropped in” as in, someone broke a freaking melon over my head. I kid you not, I startled the SA with my muffled scream – it was not clear to me before that moment how utterly nasty I find that smell. My stomach lurched and I jerked my head back and beat a hasty retreat from the store.

I actually contemplated scrubbing it, that’s just how horrifying it is, but stuck it out. And let me tell you, you people owe me for this one. If there is a hell, it definitely has a melon accord. On Now Smell This recently, a commenter coined the term “fruital” for brutally fruity. Mousson is one of the most fruital fragrances I have smelled in recent memory.

Eventually (two hours?) the aquamelon starts to meld into what is a very soft, clean vetiver. Six hours later I can still smell it — aquamelonvetiver. Once it is gone from my arm, I never, ever want to smell it again. Your Mileage May Vary.

While I was out there I ran across Givenchy Vetyver, so I put that on my left hand, with Guerlain Vetiver on my right hand for comparison. They’re totally different – Guerlain is more like a cologne with a vetiver note, whereas Givenchy is pretty much a straight vetiver (vetiflore?). In The Guide LT gives it four stars and calls it “wonderfully straightforward” and a “quality vetiver.” I get almost zero development – a little zingy at the top, maybe some citrus, and then a pleasantly earthy, arid (dirt-like, not “dirty”) vetiver. I am not the queen of vetiver, but it’s really nice – there’s something about it that makes my mouth water — and you vetiver freaks might want to dig some up. I’ll take the Guerlain, thanks.

On my way out of the mall I experienced my second fragrance haunting in 24 hours – the air in the corridor all around me was infused with the smell of a perfume I recognized instantaneously but – maddeningly – could not place, like having a word on the tip of my tongue. I went back into Bloomingdales and sniffed around, looking for it. The second I smelled it, I knew – Dolce & Gabbana’s The One, with its distinctive warm, musky base. I like The One a lot, I’ll probably keep an eye peeled for a cheapie bottle next fall when it’ll feel right. I wonder if someone dropped one in the hallway?

And last night, in the middle of anxious dreams, I woke up to my first fragrance haunting – the reassuring smell from …. well, from when? It was a happy smell. What was that smell? Definitely a fragrance. I lay there in the dark, in the small hours, and contemplated it. Something a friend wore that I loved. Eventually I realized the smell of some random lotion I’d put on at bedtime had conjured my ghost, but what was the original scent? And then I remembered and it bloomed in front of me in the dark – Tatiana. Diane Von Furstenberg, I think Tatiana’s her daughter? Seriously, anyone on the planet remember that? Weird asymmetrical bottle? I should go google it and see if it exists. I feel a burst of joy just thinking about it. I remember it was really sweet and a little raspy and a little green. Jasmine? I have no idea. It’s probably total crap. Looks like they’ve got it on Beautyencounter for ten bucks. I don’t know, maybe I should leave my happy memory intact? Tonight, I’m hoping for the Ghost of Guerlains Past.

image of monks with umbrellas: traveltolao.com

(hi, folks — here’s a guest post by Nava, a regular reader and contributor at Perfume Critic and Makeupalley, and a commenter at the Posse as well as other scented and unscented blogs. She lives in New York with her husband and cat, and loves to be a contrarian in her spare time.)

I am convinced the act of hoarding is hereditary. The female members of my immediate family have proven to be fine examples of this art of “collecting”. My maternal grandmother hoarded food; she survived the Great Depression after emigrating from Poland to Canada after World War I. In better times she also hoarded bed linens, table cloths and tea towels. We’re not talking cheap stuff, either. The finest Irish linen you could bargain for on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, purchased during a time when you could bargain for such things. Unfortunately, I never got to witness my grandmother in all her bargaining-mode glory, but I did see all her purchases come tumbling out of the hall closet after her death when I was 9 years-old. As my mother cleaned out her apartment, she could not bear to part with all the pristine linens that never graced a bed or table. Since my mom’s passing, they now reside carefully stored in my attic, along with other family treasures. But the hoarding did not end there.

I have a Serge Drawer. Yes, a drawer that contains nothing but Serge Lutens fragrances. My drawer is not part of a girly, organza-skirted vanity table or antique armoire; it is one nondescript drawer of a 17 year-old Ikea pressboard dresser that I bought when I moved into my first apartment. I used to keep underwear in this particular drawer. It is a top drawer after all. But now it houses 15 export bottles and 23 bell jars, all of them still shrink-wrapped and just as pristine as my grandmother’s 50 year-old linens. I cannot bring myself to unwrap them, much less consider wearing them. I wish my Bubbie Sarah was still around so I could ask her why she bought all those linens if she never intended to use them. Then, maybe I’d have some insight into my own peccadillo, and an answer to why I never touch any of these bottles of fragrance.

I think a goodly amount of my reticence stems from the exclusivity of the Serge Lutens line, the fact that most of them are only available in one specific place in one particular city. My husband and I took a vacation to Dublin and London 3-1/2 years ago, and journeyed via Eurostar through the Chunnel from London to Paris. Since we were spending only one day in the City of Light, I had only three must-see destinations: the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa (we were, after all, tourists), and the Salons du Shiseido. My husband was quite the good sport whilst I pillaged the Salons; he waited outside. When I finally emerged, we made our way out of the Palais Royale and over to the Louvre so we could do a mad dash through as much of it as possible (reference Mark Twain’s images of American tourists in Innocents Abroad running through the Vatican Museum to get to the Sistine Chapel; been there, done that, too). As we approached the glass pyramid, I wondered why there were not more people milling about, despite the fact that we descended on Paris on a very grey, chilly November day. It was a Tuesday, and you would think we would have known that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. No such luck. No mention of it either from the lovely French girl at the concierge desk in our London hotel who very happily almost booked us 2 first class Eurostar tickets which would have set us back about £800. Of course, I prevented that from happening.

Turned away at the Louvre, myself, my husband and my 4 bell jars (Rahat Loukhoum, Muscs Koublai Khan, Bois et Fruits and Cuir Mauresque) went stomping all the way down the Champs-Élysées, to the Avenue Montaigne, past every designer shop and the Plaza Athinée, without even pausing to look at anything. I was following the Eiffel Tower, just like I used to follow the CN Tower all over the city of Toronto when I was a kid. I was a woman on a mission. I kept thinking, OK, I can still make two out of three, with the Meat Loaf song “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” earworming its way through my head the entire time.

When we finally reached the tower, and while waiting in line to buy tickets, I noticed what I presumed to be an American couple standing in the snaking line. What gave them away was that the woman was carrying the Frommer’s Guide to Paris, something I flat out refused to buy since I didn’t think we’d need it; we were only going to be there for one lousy day. Armed with just my très, très mal university French and a fistful of Euros, I thought we’d be fine. Of course I inquired of this woman, “Could you please tell me if your guide says which day of the week the Louvre is closed?” She, a very nice lady from Des Moines Iowa traveling with her husband, graciously informed me, “Uh, it says here the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.” Upon hearing that news, I believe I turned a shade of red non-existent in nature. At least that’s what my husband claims.

On the train back to London, I clutched my bottles of fragrance with the vehemence of a lioness guarding her newborn cubs. I couldn’t help it; they were the most significant souvenirs of my trip, along with my disappointment and frustration. I vowed I was going to hunt down that French concierge girl and beat her senseless for not informing us that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. I did make mention that it was one of our planned destinations, but alas, for reasons not known, she never communicated that little tidbit of information. I remain disappointed to this day, since I have not been back to Paris. A travel journalist friend of mine loves to tell people that you should never go anywhere thinking that you will never revisit the place you are going to. Of course, he traverses the globe on the good graces of the airlines and stays at the best hotels in the world for a mere fraction of what Joe Schmo tourist would pay. In all fairness, I must mention that our trip was made possible by his contacts, and if not for them, would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a loaded Toyota Corolla.

As I previously mentioned, my Serge Lutens collection has grown significantly from the original 4 bottles. The “export” fragrances can be had fairly easily, but there is just something about those bell jars that elicits a powerful I’ll-walk-barefoot-over-broken- glass-then-wade-waist-deep-through-raw-sewage urge to get my hands on them. I have gone through backchannels and shopping services and of course, the ubiquitous auction site to obtain my bottles. I don’t consider myself overly materialistic, but I will admit that my Serge Drawer houses some of my most prized possessions. I still harbor the dream of going back to Paris one day and re-visiting the Salons, and going back to the Louvre, of course; just not on a Tuesday.

A bottle of Annick Goutal’s Musc Nomade just landed in my hands… and!

Perfect. 

Created by Isabelle Doyen with Camille Goutal, it has notes of white musks (muscone, angelica, ambrette), tonka bean, almond accents, labdanum, and Bombay wood (a papyrus derivative) *taken from Now Smell This.

Some musks, like Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur, are too sweet or oily.  I like MR, but after a couple of hours, it wears on my nerves.  Some musks like CB Musk Reinvention may be too harsh for most people or too not sweet, relying more on the musk without a lot of varnish. 

Musc Nomade is the perfect musk for me. It has just a little foody input from the ambrette, tonka and almond, laying on a wood, incense and musk base.  It doesn’t shout, but it whispers of sexuality, it shows a little bit of white lace instead of the top of the thong sticking out of the jeans.  There is a softness to it, but with enough musk to not make it dainty or feminine.  It stays close to the skin and smells just like the sun  on your skin — wait, not your skin, someone you love’s skin.

It’s very much a Goutal scent, understated and finished.

Sorry for the short post today, but work, going out for some fun and some insomnia has taken its toll here at the end of the week. So let’s do a giveaway of three samples of the Musc Nomade. Just drop a note in the comments to be entered!

Anyone keeping an eye out for alarming signs indicating the coming of the End Times need look no further than my recent infatuation with some Jo Malone scents. I gave up on Jo Malone quite awhile ago, not too far into my fragrance addiction – somewhere after French Nectarine, Verbena & Lime. Or maybe it was Orange Blossom, Basil & Lavender. I forget. An “edgy” JM scent like Pomegranate Noir was notable to me solely for its stubborn refusal to leave my skin no matter how much I scrubbed.

Then I smelled the new Jo Malone Kohdo Wood Collection at the Sniffa. The Collection contains two fragrances: Dark Amber & Ginger Lily, and Lotus Blossom & Water Lily, and I was stunned to find myself falling for Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. It’s a heavy amber, a Jo Malone, an allegedly limited edition – three strikes against it. I meant to buy some, forgot, and last week I found myself wandering over to Bloomie’s for a new pair of yoga pants and another sniff, because I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

Dark Amber & Ginger Lily is the night-time “sensual” scent of the pair, and features cardamom, pink pepper (which is in everything now, did they pass some law requiring it? not that I’m complaining), ginger, night blooming jasmine, orchid, water lily, rose, black amber, white pepperwood, leather, patchouli, sandalwood and Kyara incense accord. The JM boutique Sales Associate was at lunch when I stopped by, and I was amused at the very nice Chanel SA’s insistence on the “nighttime-only” appropriateness of the Dark Amber – it was pretty clear she thought the circumstances under which you’d want to wear something like that were severely limited. I know some of you have already fallen in love with it. The time of year for its launch seems wrong (it strikes me as a fall scent) but it is a wonderfully smooth, seamless mélange of amber, intense dark florals and woods, creamy, and in my opinion quite a departure from what I have smelled from the line. The incense and spices are strongest at the opening — the incense is lovely in both scents, but I feel obligated to point out that if you’re interested solely because of the incense, this would probably disappoint. I’d describe it as amber/woody with an incense twist. I get more woody incense right at the tail end of the day, after the florals depart. There is a faint odd note like tanning oil or milky coconut that drifts in and out for the first hour before disappearing. I can’t pick out any of the notes listed, and it doesn’t go through a ton of development – it’s warm and rich, and I can’t think of anything else quite like it. If it were a color, it would be a deep red. Contrary to the Chanel SA’s opinion I can see wearing this a lot — it’s sultry by JM standards, I guess, but Poison or Fracas it is not. Having said that, it’s got some decent sillage and might not be the best choice for close quarters at work, particularly if your cube-mate’s idea of heaven is a light citrus cologne.

The Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is the “energizing daytime” scent and includes aquatic notes (horrors!), grapefruit, bergamot, mandarin, lotus blossom, freesia, honeysuckle, water lily, jasmine, incense, amber, sandalwood, musk, aloeswood and guaiac wood. I knew I was buying the Dark Amber but tried on the Lotus Blossom to confirm my lack of interest, and I realized … well, there might be more to the Lotus Blossom than I thought. I put it on the way I hear a normal person wears perfume (squirt on my cleavage, one on the wrists) and went off for my yoga pants and further consideration. Fifteen minutes later I decided I needed a bottle of the Lotus Blossom as well. The citrus comes on fairly strong in the first few minutes, more grapefruit than mandarin, but then it settles into a mildly sweet, watery floral, with a enough of the woods and incense to move it in a more unisex direction and keep it interesting to me. (The aquatic bit isn’t “fresh,” that ironically-named deal-killer that smells sour, like a basket of dirty laundry.) For a relatively light scent it is tenacious – I can smell it on my clothing the following day – and it has the interesting ability to disappear and then suddenly halo around me. I think this would make an excellent, inoffensive work scent. Having discovered its tenacity on fabric, I sprayed my sheets one evening and enjoyed that as well. At $95 for 100ml, it doesn’t fill me with guilt, but you can get 30ml for $50, and anything for $50 is, essentially, free and thus doesn’t count against my perfume budget.

I have many, many scents for cooler weather, but comparatively few I want to smell in a Washington summer. In general, most florals, by the time they reach an appropriate level of lightness for the D.C. heat and humidity, are no longer interesting to me. This leaves a plethora of citrus and tea scents, many of which by definition don’t have huge lasting power. Lotus Blossom is a nice change of pace. This is one of those scents I would love some additional feedback on – I find myself quite hopelessly in its thrall, while at the same time suspecting that it is the perfume equivalent of 7-Up. By the way, they smell delicious layered.

Since I’d clearly lost my mind, and the exceedingly well-trained Jo Malone SA showed back up, I decided to sample some others. Having politely turned down most of the citrus-y JM standards, I accepted a paper strip with White Jasmine & Mint on it – and was, again, smitten. The sharp, sparkling wetness of the mint against the intense, creamy sweetness of a clean jasmine was such a perfect combination I wondered how nobody had tried it before. In The Guide, Tania Sanchez gives it three stars and calls it “an optimistic but crude cologne” (an assessment I agree with, by the way; I have a lot of three-star scents I love) and says is has been done before – and better – in L’Artisan’s The Pour Une Ete. I don’t have a sample here to smell, but my recollection was that the L’Artisan was more about the tea, and less minty. Also, Tania says JM “tries to make everything last longer by throwing in a tenacious musk” which is “vigorous but unnecessary.” To which I respond, and that’s part of what I love about it – L’Artisan lasts about 20 minutes on me. White Jasmine & Mint eventually collapses in on itself and loses its mint after an hour, and then it’s kind of flat. You can’t keep reapplying or you’ll kill yourself eventually with the jasmine. Nonetheless, I see at least a decant in my future.

The Jo Malones are all about layering. I like to layer, but am (perversely) annoyed by a house that deliberately encourages me to do that – shouldn’t their fragrances be good enough to stand alone? They’re just trying to sell more product! This thinking makes no sense, I realize. Anyway, the SA talked about layering the lighter/sweeter scents with some of the scents on the darker end of the spectrum, and if you haven’t tried it already, let me heartily recommend their Wild Fig & Cassis layered with the Black Vetyver Café, which – what kind of idiot am I?!? How have I missed that one? I’ll need some of that this fall, although I’ll test drive it first — tons of complaints about lasting power on Black Vetyver. How’s it work for you? On the other hand, Robin says the Kohdo Wood ones don’t last that long on her either. I must have some sort of freaky, molecular-vacuum-lock skin; I may complain all the time, but it’s seldom about lasting power. All of these lasted a full day (on in the morning; still there at bedtime) on me, and I could still smell them if I sniffed for them in the a.m.

For another take on the scents, please see Robin’s review from yesterday on Now Smell This.

image: jomalone.com

We gave y’all three scents to sniff, and we are posting your reviews on those scents. Y’all had a lot to say, so this was really fun for us to do!

Clinique Happy