By March

If you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, you know what time it is?  Time to put on some perfume.  So there I was at Nordstrom, in a massive hurry as usual, and I walked by the Chanel counter on the way out and saw No. 19 Poudré sitting there.

The original No. 19 is, in my opinion, a love-it-or-hate-it.  Those fangs of galbanum and thorny rose … I’m more in the hate-it camp.  So of course I picked that bottle of Poudré right up and sprayed it on generously; hey, why not?  Putting on perfume can be living dangerously in a very small, safe way.

Jacques Polge did this version, and to the extent that the job of any great modern perfumer is to dumb down a classic to make it more palatable to the huddled masses, he succeeded.  The fangs have been pulled, and it’s still green at the opening, but much softer and grassier, and the scent is focused on iris more than anything.  Despite the name, it wasn’t powdery on me at all, which is a good thing.

This scent would, I think, be a bitter disappointment to anyone who loves No. 19; the relationship is tenuous, and the reviews online are pretty mixed, trending toward negative.

And yet.

You know what you get when Jacques Polge remakes a galbanum-green scent into something more mass market?  You don’t get a pair of Uggs.  You don’t get a f’ing Snuggie.  You get nine miles of uncompromising orris butter underpinned by a hint of smoky leather and what their brochure describes as “the latest generation of the most sophisticated, beautifully soft and light musks” and which I will English-to-English translate for you as: not laundry musks.

I think it’s lovely.   I’d be delighted with a bottle, thank you very much, and unlike a lot of people who’ve complained about longevity I could smell it a day later on my wrists and forearms.  In fact, I’ve decided it’s the perfect scent for the new life I am emerging into right now – the suit’s a soft knit, but the tailoring’s impeccable, and it’s got that hint of aloofness I love in the classic Chanels.

Notes: Grasse neroli, mandarin orange, jasmine absolute, iris pallida, white musk notes, Haitian vetiver, tonka.

PS Don’t forget – Swapmania starts on Friday!

March

By Ann

First off, congrats to the winners of the Dahlia Noir samples: dinazad, Madea, Austenfan and Elizabeth C. Drop Musette an e-mail at her gmail addy evilauntieanita  AT

Now that we’re well into the dangerous time of year for ice and snow in the South (much of our worst weather has come January-March), it prompted me to think about mishaps on slick or icy patches.

Even at my best, I have a natural inclination toward clumsiness. Perhaps it’s because I have too much on my mind and I’m not as aware as I should be of my surroundings. That tendency, paired with skin that bruises if you look at it too hard, makes me a prime candidate for a full-length padded body suit, as soon as someone creates one that’s practical.

One of my worst incidents, a few years back, was especially embarrassing. Coming back from the mailbox, I slipped on some icy slush at the edge of the garage, fell down, hit my browbone on my son’s scooter handle and passed out. I wound up with a whopper of a black eye and what I can only call a kaleidoscopic knee:  Each day showed off yet another intense hue on the bruise color wheel. That I covered up with pants, but the eye — well, all I can say is thank goodness for heavy-duty concealer and dark purple eyeshadow (to help make my good eye match my bruised one). It wasn’t foolproof, but it passed muster upon casual observation and helped keep the stares to a minimum. I must have looked like a goofy middle-aged woman in dire need of a makeup lesson. Poor hubby, understandably, was a bit reluctant to go anywhere with me for fear of the dirty looks he was likely to get.

Then last summer, I fell at the beach, slipping down on a rain-slick ramp in the condo parking garage. Didn’t pass out that time, but both my behind and my pride got a good bruising.

Now, you might be thinking, “Good grief! What on earth does her rambling have to do with fragrance?” Well, fear not, I’m getting to it.

A few years ago on one of my annual late spring trips (pre-unemployment, naturally) to my beloved San Francisco, I headed over to the lovely Chanel boutique on Maiden Lane. I walked in the store, so quiet and serene, almost reverential, exuding luxury from every square inch. I headed across the plush ivory carpet, past the to-die-for handbags and down the stairs to the fragrance and cosmetics area, where I could see the glorious glass bottles of the Les Exclusifs on display.

Almost there and  then — whoops! I completely miss the last step and go crashing down on my derriere. This, of course, not only knocks the wind out of me, but also mortifies me beyond belief. I’m praying the earth will open up and swallow me, because almost instantly I’m surrounded by security guards, multiple sales associates and the store manager. Turns out I wasn’t hurt, just shaken up, and I got back on my feet as quickly as I could. I assured them that I was all right and got the crowd to disperse as I limped over to the fragrance counter. There I was most attentively helped and given a good selection of samples. So in the end, my humiliation ended fairly well, save for a few days of bruising and soreness. But I might consider donning a disguise were I to visit again.

Anyhoo, what’s been your most embarrassing moment, perfume-wise?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Musette

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        by The Mystified Musette

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

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

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

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

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

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

heeheee!

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

photo:  my local library has HUNDREDS of these.