Chantecaille, maker of the seemingly discontinued, but maybe back (at a higher price point and for less fragrance?) Frangipane, has three new scents up for Fall 2010 – Kalimantan, Petales and Vetyver.

They are showing as a pre-order at Neiman-Marcus, but no ship date yet. I know that Sylvie Chantecaille is due at some event at Bergdorf in late September, and I’m going to assume that will be the launch of the three new fragrances.

Chantecaille isn’t know for its ground-breaking fragrances, but the ones they have created have been nice, pretty, even lovely in some cases. So my expectations are set for that  fragrance genre (!pretty!) smelling these three samples, which I got as a free gift by ordering something or another Chantecaille.  I think I picked out a pretty bronze eyeliner.

Vetyver has notes of citron, pepper, nutmeg, bergamot, vetiver, musk and sandalwood.  It does have vetiver in it, and you can tell, which I really was worried about, afraid they would dust so much !pretty! around it that you couldn’t smell the vetiver. It’s a soft vetiver, just lightly spiced with pepper, but the pepper persists through the entire drydown, for a very nice effect. It’s really very nice and no hint of frilly florals or tropicals anywhere around it.  If you like vetiver to have some punch, it’s probably not going to be for you – there’s no roughness in it, it doesn’t growl when you put it on.  Men or women could wear this, it’s not feminine.  If you’ve ever had trouble wearing vetiver, thinking it’s too earthy or swarthy, Chantecaille’s version may work for you.

Petales has notes of gardenia, balsam, jasmine, tuberose, cedar, ambergris and sandalwood. I’m definitely expecting feminine, and they’re not going to disappoint me here either.  It’s much more floral than woodsy, but it’s not as lush as the other fragrances they had before, the tiare, wisteria and frangipane, which were way lush to the point of, well, I needed them to not last as long as they did.  Petales skews to the white floral tropical area, but does not face plant in the gardenia like some of these things do. I’m surprised at Chantecaille’s restraint on this.  It’s well done and pretty much what you would expect from a restrained, feminine cosmetics line, but with more interest and nuance than the first round of pretty feminine fragrances they did.  It’s lighter, more delicate, which is sometimes a very hard thing to do with this list of notes. I’d wear this a lot for when I want a white floral, but I don’t want to put on my full Blanche DuBois.

Kalimantan is the one whose notes had me the most interested, but also the one that I knew had the biggest shot of making me sigh and be sad that it didn’t live up to its billing.  Still, I’ve tried to keep  my expectations low – well, for the reason above, it’s a feminine cosmetics line making a fragrance based on Borneo.  Okay, the notes, and I’ll skip over the marketing materials – Incense , Cistus Labdanum, Indonesian patchouli,  Thyme, Rosemary, Bergamot, Vanilla, Styrax, Agarwood, Cedar, Sandalwood.

Okay, before I uncork the sample, I’m projecting this to be a feminine oriental vaguely incensed laced with too much vanilla.  Actual sampling says:  hey, they put some incense and patchouli in this!  and not too much vanilla.  Nicely spiced with the thyme and rosemary, which brings the heavier labdanum and styrax back from the edge of oily indulgence, reigns in some of the more virulent aspects of patchouli, and it has some nice wood floating around in it.  Can’t find the vanilla – at least not in any way that smells gourmand, which is what I expected, if at all – it’s just all dry, there’s no soppy wetness from an of the notes. There’s a really lovely balance between the incense and patchouli.   It never veers over too far into a patchouli pit, but it keeps a distinctive patchouli feel.  It also doesn’t go careening over the cliff into chanting and om’ing on the incense side either, but has enough incense that it feels very meditative.  I have to hand it to Chantecaille, and maybe it was because my expectations were so low, this one far exceeded what I expected.  It’s beautifully done and not what I thought they’d deliver – and I mean that in a good way.  Take away any preconceived notions you have about the Chantecaille name on it, it’s a great fragrance.

$175 for 2.5 ounces. Hey, didn’t they use to sell their scents for $90 for 100 mls?  Charge more, less fragrance, but all three of these are better fragrances than the first round, so we’ve made some kind of tradeoff here.  I won’t even comment on whether the price uptick is worth it or not.  Anyone else smelled these, and did you smell the first round of Chantecaille fragrances?  Surprised?  Disappointed? I think I have enough in my sample vials to do one or two sample sets of the three to a commenter.

Patty

I know I have turned into a Comments Loser. Not because I don’t wanna, but work/life/commitments just allow so little time on all the things I want to do, and something has to give. But I get e-mails with every comment, and I read them all.

My post last week talked about India, and several of you asked about that trip, so I wanted to do a quick post on it.  A friend of mine who has been there before wanted to take people she liked and knew well with her, people who hadn’t been there before and could rough it and wouldn’t be whiners.

It had really never occurred to me that I wanted to go to India until she asked me.  Once I was asked, I knew that it was one place I had to go.

We’re flying into Delhi, then we go touristy to the Taj Mahal. Then it’s off to Bagdogra by plane with a jeep to Gangtok. This is all in the Sikkim region, north of Bangladesh and east of Nepal, south of Tibet.  So we spend a day in Gantok, then jeep to Pelling, hike to a lake (I’m getting a little worried about what altitude we’re at here), then hike to Yuksom, another hike to the waterfalls and a monastery.

Then we leave this area, fly back to Delhi, take a train to Hardiwar, then we are in Rishikesh for 2-3 days, then back to Delhi for shopping in the markets, and then we go home.  I know, right?  I have my books on India that I’ve just started, and I’m really overwhelmed at just how different this is going to be from my regular life.

I’ve seen Eat, Pray, Love.  I’m not a huge fan of the movie or Julia Roberts, but it has its moments of personal clarity that did incent me to pick up the book so I can get past the Julia Roberts irritation to try and appreciate the story on its own. I think the India section in the movie could have been a lot better.  I mean, did she really just hang around the Ashram for four months? Who does that? I’m not the Ashram sort at all, though a week or two there really does sound lovely.  But I’d never do an ashram or monastery or anything for months without equal amounts of time exploring the country.

The movie version of Eat, Pray, Love makes me think of Etat’s Sex Pistols scent.  A lot of buildup to something great, but it feels more like a washed-out version of something else that was so much better in the original.  I had a lot of hope for Sex Pistols, especially after the brilliance of the  Tilda Swinton fragrance, which I adore, but it feels like ’70s or ’80s men’s cologne, and I don’t mean that in a good way.  Gail told me it would be a disappointment, but I kept hoping for weird to show up – bubblegum, urine, spunk, anything? I’d stare at my arm the three times I’ve tested it, knowing there was more to it.  Alas, ordinary, already done is all there is.

More India tips from those who have been there.  Or tell me the biggest ordinary disappointment from a perfume you’ve had.

Patty

By Anita

(hey there everyone — we’ll be putting our names up here so you know who’s posting)

August in these parts – what a mess – even the kids have lost their zest for playing outside.  It’s  as if they are beginning to adjust their internal thermometers to Classroom temps – out here there are few Summer Maths/Language Camps or internships – no, out here it’s like a timewarp, with kids riding their bikes and fishing and just hanging out all summer long..so they’re ready to get back to a routine, even as they crab about it.

So why am I going on about kids? who knows? – I just got off on a tangent, though it does tie into the transitional tone I’m aiming for (stick with me -  I’m going somewhere with this).  Oh, yes.  Transition.  School?  August.    I dunno about you but when I was a girl, in Catholic school, you only got the first 1 or 2 days (and the last few days) of the school year to wear civilian clothes – and we were all so desperate to show our New Fall Togs – imagine the horror of 20 7th grade girls in wool turtlenecks and those faux kilts (with the giant pins, remember those?) – in a non-AC classroom.  In Illinois.  In August.  Oh, the humanity.

Right now my inner 7th grader is aching to wear some fall scents  but it’s not happening.  It’s still too hot during the day and it’s All Damp 24/7, raining every other day, out of nowhere, with the gale-force winds and downed trees, then blistering sunshine.   Then rain.  Then the amphibians come out.  Then it’s surface-of-the-sun hot again.  Just weird.  But still damp – all the time.  No matter if it’s 58F @ 3am (bliss!) or 90F at noon – it’s soaking wet, the kind  where you have to throw the sheets in the dryer before you go to bed.  And everything I put on  just smells weird, like maybe I’m personally mildewed – except Vetiver.   But not the ‘pretty’ vetiver (think Guerlain and Tom Ford’s lovely Grey Vetiver  ).  No, I’m talkin’ VETIVERS – the ones  that are so viscous they come out of the bottle like Alaga syrup.  I think it was Carter who busted me out of my vetiver complacency via Turtle Vetiver, which started me on the path.  Because I live in a very damp house (that may have an actual cistern(ew) under part of it) I had no problem believing that Isabelle Doyen could create a vetiver that smells like turtles – after all, my house smells like frogs and there are toads in the bushes and snails on the siding after a rainstorm and the thought of the cistern freaks me out but I digress…  Turtle Vetiver  is beautiful on a hot summer day and it does not smell like turtles but it’s wrong for this sodden, froggy, transitional weather -  in Turtle Vetiver the root is vaguely damp and it amps into something ozonic .  I was looking for those really crackly, smoky dry vets that make you wonder if somebody’s sneaking a toke in the backyard.     The best example is an essential oil from Australia that has to be diluted in jojoba,  so it doesn’t peel the skin off your wrist.  Beautiful in a burner, though.    But Carol (WAFT by Carol) sent me a couple of Eden Botanicals that are so strong they transcend perfumery and speak directly to the damp – and beat it BACK!    Heck, I don’t know whether to wear this stuff or roll it up and smoke it!

If  you love Vetiver and it’s damp where you live, I urge you to try these.  If you hate vetiver you might as well try them, too, just to see what Vetiver freaks are all on about – the Organic Vetiver is a bit more wearable, I think, though I prefer the Surinam Vetiver – it came charging out of the little vial with its jaws snapping, like one of those awful SyFy alligators.  Either (or both) are perfect to carry through this weird, wet time of year.  If it’s dry and hot where you are, though,  beware – they might just spontaneously combust!

Vetiver Freaks:  what are your faves? Vetiver Haters:  Why No love?

ps.  Hey, Natalie!  PLEASE forgive me – you sent a note via ‘contact us’.  Patty sent it to me.   I lost it (I’m a loser) -  I can’t torture Patty to go through the 5000 emails to resend, I just can’t.  Would you please click on my name (I’ll be replying to any comments that come up) and send me your info again?  I need to get the 6T and Cordovan Rose out to you!

photo:  alligator snapping turtle/ itsnature.org

Eden Botanicals:  I already told you, Big Brother.  Read the post!

I just added a category named “Blame March”. I decided we needed one; this is all her fault.

I’d been jonesing a sniff of DKNY Pure, and March beat me to it. So, I took it upon myself to locate some, and the verdict is…BAD. Sorry March, I know you were sure I was going to like this one, but uh, no. Funeral arrangement dipped in bad vanilla. I’d almost expect something like that to come out of a bottle of Febreze, not from the woman who puts her name on two of my all-time faves: Chaos and Cashmere Mist. I was blown back on my kiester, gobsmacked, horrified; dare I say it: nauseated.

In the hunt for greener pastures, I stumbled upon, of all things, Thierry Mugler Womanity, newly ensconced at The Bay, and damned if I didn’t have the exact opposite reaction to it. You all know I am one of the staunchest haters of Angel walking the Earth, but this…this has fig in it! And salt, er, caviar! God help me, I like it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Before I sat down to pen this essay, I went back and read what Robin had to say from this past May, and Pattys take from last month. Both ladies were begrudgingly positive in their opinions, but I just flat-out fell in love with the stuff. I didn’t get the sharp, overwhelming citrus that Robin did, nor did I find it overwhelmingly sweet like Patty.  I spritzed a bit on my skin, and was pleasantly surprised at how gloriously figgy it was right off the bat, with a nice bit of salt lurking in the background, courtesy of the caviar, I’m guessing, and a faint tropical vibe; almost like the woodsy/coconutty/limey-ness  of Creed’s Virgin Island Water. The bottle is every bit as creepy in person as it is in all the adverts. I don’t know what to make of those faces. The cap is actually a ring attached to a chain that snaps over the atomizer. Interesting, but nothing all that innovative.

I would classify Womanity as “kitschy” in the same vein as Virgin Island Water.  I don’t see how anyone could classify it as “sexy”, “womanly” or “seductive”. Then again, I don’t see how anyone can stand to be in the same room with a person doused in Angel. Granted, Womanity is patchouli-free, and much easier to wear than Angel. I know many would beg to differ with that, especially if you’re able to withstand the oppressiveness of summer with Angel as your armour. For that you have my enduring respect and admiration. I’m still on an all-Tylenol diet, but things are slowly improving. I’ve actually found some relief in the oddest of places: a jar of Physician’s Formula Organic Wear eye makeup remover pads. They were $19 for three jars of 60 pads at Costco, and I took a shot. They’re not all that thrilling in terms of mascara removal, but they do have the most heavenly lavender scent. So, there you have it: Womanity and lavender scented eye-makeup remover pads. I think I might need to investigate that surgery for a deviated septum.

Random Friday Musing: Has anyone tried Steam Cream yet? If you can get your hands on some, I can’t suggest it strongly enough. It’s been at BeautyHabit for a while now, and for all you MD/DC/VA girls, a store named The British Bazaar in Reston VA purportedly stocks it. It is such a wonderful, fluffy, natural all-purpose cream, and it’s packaged in the cutest metal tins. I’ve been using it on my face and hands at bed time, and the floral/herbal scent is also wonderfully soothing. Now if I can only get Womanity out of my mind… By the way, Steam Cream is only about $18 for a 2.6 oz. tin. Can’t beat that with a stick, can you?

Disclosure: Thierry Mugler Womanity was sampled at The Bay. DKNY Pure was sampled at Murale.

There’s good news – if you read on a bit, this is an actual perfume review!

I signed up for a month of yoga at this studio I’ve been test-driving, after going five times in a ten-day unlimited-class special I purchased on a whim.  I don’t want to jinx it but I think it’s a really good fit for me.  The studio’s clean, close, the schedule will (I think) work when the kids go back to school, and it’s an open/flow structure.  Which means that I’m neither in way over my head nor stuck in a class where we move at a snail’s pace while we are talked through each detail. (I’m over-analytical enough already, thanks.)   The room’s a perfect 90 degrees (32C), which helps me and everyone around me bust a sweaty move without (I hope) the rosacea-aggravation and migraines that dogged me in the 105F+ (41C) of Bikram, as much as I loved it in other ways.  Finally, I alternate between a tall, serene Korean instructor who delivers a meditative, slo-mo yogic asskicking — you know, where down-dog is the rest position — and a short, gruff American gal maybe in her 60s, who manages to constantly help/correct/adjust those of us who suck are beginners in our practice without making it feel like nagging.

So there’s my backdrop for Pure DKNY, rolled out in every fashion magazine I read this month, with Angela Lindvall in a white dress, the essence of purity, against one of those whitewash backgrounds.  The photo’s interesting because it’s actually suggestive of an urban aesthetic – the top of a white-painted old-style radiator to the left, paneling to the right (she’s sitting on a windowsill).  It’s a big  office/apartment windowsill, and in the background is what looks to me like a high-rise, blurred almost into abstraction in the magazine ads.  There’s a glass of water to her immediate left.  All of this is signaling that she’s either kicking back in her white-washed urban living space, or maybe this is the floaty cover-up she wears to the yoga studio.    Do you want to find peace and serenity in your stressful urban environment, like this (expensively groomed, faux-natural blonde-highlighted) avatar?  Well, Pure DKNY is your mantra.

“A drop of vanilla sourced from Africa, a drop of goodwill.   Pure DKNY supports local communities by taking small steps to help make a difference.”  Go to their website and you’ll learn that the vanilla in question comes from Uganda and this is some sort of partnership with CARE to support women in a fight against global poverty, although if you can find any firm financial details you’re a better reader than I am.  The box is environmentally friendly and recyclable and (as you can see from the image) very clean-looking in an understated way.  Notes are Ugandan vanilla, dewdrop, floral petals, lotus, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, freesia, orchid, white amber, sandalwood and vanilla in water.  It is “a soft floral scent with a signature vanilla accord,” according to the ad.

That list might predispose you to think this is a heavier floral – maybe something along the lines of DK Cashmere Mist – but you’d be wrong.  Mostly what it is is fresh.  Not fresh laundry, or fresh linen.  No, it is the kind of fresh that torments yours truly (and Robin at Now Smell This, apparently.)   I never quite understand what’s happening to the smell as it renders itself in my brain, but this … note?  aromachemical molecule? –  is the antithesis of fresh, in that it smells to me mostly like that peculiar, sour note of sweat in synthetic garments.  It’s the smell of a basket of sour laundry, the UnderArmour shirt or the $6 black Target polyester that you throw on after spin class, with a focus on the armpit area.    I can smell the vanilla, soft and not overly sweet, against a background of attenuated, indistinct watercolor florals whose purpose seems to be to prevent this from being a gourmand.   Absent the pick-axe edge of the FRESH pounding into me, I’d describe it as a wallpaper scent.  I might have guessed a light summer scent from JLo, marketed as more “sophisticated” for the “mature” audience over the age of 25.

I’ll take another deep, cleansing breath and point out that, vague assertions of charitable aspirations aside, there are plenty of actual “natural” perfumes out there if that’s the way you want to swing.  I respect the idea of natural perfumery just as much as I respect the concept of people who want to, say, construct or clean their houses with a minimum of potentially toxic compounds.  There are great blogs about natural perfumes and related products – let me provide a link to Scent Hive – with plenty of diverse perfume styles.  Natural perfumery does not provide me with everything I want in a fragrance, and it’s susceptible to fraud – if the perfumers aren’t sourcing everything themselves, for instance, they have to trust their suppliers.  Beyond that, the more the merrier, and if we could not turn this post into the merits of natural vs. synthetic in comments I would be grateful.

Why did I bring this up?  Because to me, and I believe to the casual magazine-reading consumer, one might take away the impression from all this “pure” imagery that Pure DKNY is in some way better for the environment, or more “natural,” or less toxic for the wearer.  You know … pure.  Says so right there on the label — or it would, if the bottle weren’t blank in the top advertisement (you can see the name on the bottle at left).  But there’s nothing here to support the idea that Pure DKNY is any safer or more natural than Mitsouko or Gucci Rush.  Instead we’re offered an aesthetic, a sham purification ritual, that troubles me on some level.  There’s nothing pure about Pure, other than the level of b.s. in the marketing of it.  I bet there are women right now spraying this scent on before their yoga class, and if I wind up next to one of them while I work on my down-dog, I’m going to be pissed.

What did I wear to yoga this morning?  The very faint remnants of the majmua attar, which I could smell only because the room was hot, and only with my face inches from my wrists.  (I’m a big fan of fellow exercisers using deodorants, which are often scented, so I’m not going to issue a no-frag policy for exercise, but nobody should be wafting scent.)

Donna Karan has created some of my favorite scents – and some of the most intense.  Black Cashmere, Chaos, Gold, Fuel and even the original DK robo-duck are all things of startling beauty, no wallflowers among them.  I’m also a fan of the Essences, although I thought they were wildly overpriced (I think the newest reissues are priced lower.)  I’m not a fan of Cashmere Mist but I think it’s a nice enough scent, and in exchange for all that I’m willing to overlook the Be Delicious franchise and its endless spawn, along with their summer-fluff and duty-free releases.  I find myself strangely disheartened by Pure – it feels cynical to me, gimmicky, capitalizing on an Eat/Pray/Love level of self-regard in a way that seems even more dishonest because it implies a kind of purity which Pure doesn’t have.

Now, I’d like to end on a happier note.   WITHOUT DEVOLVING INTO A FLAME WAR, THANKS – I welcome suggestions from readers regarding particular scents they’ve enjoyed from houses that purport to be natural or botanical (can we phrase it that way?).  Off the top of my head, I’ve enjoyed L’Artisan Jatamansi, which I think is “botanical” and smells like a very expensive spa to me, as well as Strange Invisible Perfumes and Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (search for “natural” in the product search box).  And of course I’ll mention the attars again, from Tigerflag and White Lotus.

source: private sample

March