By March

I had fun doing random candy samples the other day.  Here are some more, in order of personal dislike (worst to best), which I selected mostly by rummaging in my handbag, just for fun, to see what would turn up …

Jimmy Choo – my most common perfume change-of-heart is when something I dislike begins to grow on me over time.  Jimmy Choo has the interesting distinction of trending the opposite direction – each time I spray that bottle at Saks, I hate the fragrance a little more.  I put all my paper blotters in my purse, but this one I handed back to the SA and asked her politely to discard.  Is it the saccharine?  The patchouli?  The raspy woods?   The faint note of rotting fruit?  I am not sure.

Bond Madison Square Park – when niche perfume felt like a brave new world, and Bond only had eight or ten fragrances instead of the 90+ they have now (okay, okay, it just seems that way on the counter) they did some interesting scents, like Chinatown and New Haarlem.  The Warhol Silver Factory’s pretty great too, and I have a soft spot for the linden one (Noho?)  Madison Square Park is musky, fruital and extremely sweet.  It’s supposed to have a darker, vetiver/woods drydown, but not on my skin.

Hermes Un Jardin sur le Toit – of the series, Jardin sur le Nil is the bottle I own.  Méditerranée is too woody/herbal on me, but I have stopped more than one woman on the street to compliment her fragrance and been told that’s what it was.  Mousson?  The less said, the better.  Sur le Toit is a limpid, vitamin-water-strength fruit-tree scent that makes one think of Hermessences like Vanille Galante, sans  aquamelon.  It is apparently selling quite well in D.C.  As Robin said in her review on Now Smell This, “It’s young and spring-like and fresh, and very Jean-Claude Ellena, which will either please you or it won’t.”

Love, Chloe – insert screed here about how the original Chloe was so much better in its jasmine-tuberose-drenched 1970s heydey than the current 2008 version.  Add general sneering about the new-ish flanker(s?).  Thus, my expectations for Love, Chloe were, uh, minimal.  What a pleasant surprise this scent is. I’d add this to my list for a graduation present to a high school or college girl who’s maybe brand-conscious, an alternate to Coach and Chanel; they have a sweet gift set.  I wish it retained its initial iris/power structure, it’s very pretty then, but even after half an hour (and then all day long) it’s a soft powder/musk string-of-pearls-scent that manages to be polished and even work-friendly while retaining a little character, young without being insipid.

Maison Martin Margiela Untitled – Nobody’s showing this thing much love but me, right?  It’s deceptive at first, sharp and green and nutty, like Cristalle sprayed on a wet hemp basket, one of those worn-by-smokers galbanum fragrances (see: original Lauder Azuree, Jasmine White Moss).  Get past that, though, and the reward is the charming, quirky mix of cinnamon and wintergreen – it blows hot and cold at the same time, and would be a great alternative to a cologne in the summer heat.  Quite unisexy.  Smells much, much better on skin than on paper.  Also, the minimalist, Le Labo-ish bottle made my eyes roll when I first saw a photo, but it’s nice in the hand and, next to the various foofy, bloblular, and/or beribboned bottles on the counter at Saks, clean and appealing.

March

I´m staying true to my promise of introspection (and also filling in for Patty whilst she suns herself in warmer climes) by writing about one of my favourite Bond No. 9 concoctions, Andy Warhol Silver Factory.

I am not what you would call an art aficionado by any stretch; I consider my greatest piece of framed art (besides my diplomas) to be the poster of Elton John´s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy album. I´ve carried that LP with me everywhere since I moved out of my parents house, and finally took the plunge and had the poster framed last year during my short stay in the DC area. It’s not quite a Warhol or a Picasso, but it is the original poster from the record album I bought when I was all of 8 years old. Yes, I´ve been an Elton John fan since the tender age of 5, when my brother used to make me sing “Crocodile Rock” into his tape recorder.

I do love to wind my way through museums, gazing at paintings of just about anything, and checking out knick-knacks and treasures from centuries past. My biggest artistic epiphany came in the Sistine Chapel, risking permanent nerve damage to my neck from staring up at Michelangelo´s breathtaking ceiling.  I still want to kick myself for the utter cluelessness that doomed my trip to Paris from London on a Tuesday, sans the pertinent factoid that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.  That was over 5 years ago and I still cringe when I think about it. I will get back there one day even if I have to fly naked and handcuffed in order to satisfy whatever security regulations will be in place when I finally get around to boarding an airplane again.

I´ve never been very knowledgeable about Andy Warhol save for looking at pictures of him, Halston and Bianca Jagger  on Page 6 of the New York Post, as they sailed past the fabled velvet rope into Studio 54. I didn´t understand why he always had such a vacant expression, and his shock of white hair was startling to my 11 year-old eyes. I had no idea that he painted pictures of soup cans and flowers in a studio called The Factory. The name Edie Sedgwick meant nothing to me, and the only time I ever picked up a paint brush was every other week in grade school, usually to paint something that I thought resembled the shade of the Tiffany lamp that resided in my parents´ living room. I was not a prodigy by any means.

Years later, I watched the film Factory Girl in rapt fascination. If the depictions of Warhol and Sedgwick, his poor-little-rich-girl muse played by Sienna Miller, were anything close to reality, then Mr. Warhol belied his vacant facial expression with the narcissism and vapidity of the quintessentially tortured artist. Again, I´m no art critic, and I think I´m experiencing a bit of adult-onset rebelliousness, so please pardon my judgement.  Maybe one day I´ll have a different take on the soup cans, the flowers, and the psychedelic portraiture, but right now I´ve got nothing.  I even pored over the Andy Warhol Foundation website, and the site for his museum in Pittsburgh, and I´m still a bit, shall we say, unimpressed. I´m guessing that anyone from the art world who might read this won´t be flooding my e-mail with job offers.

As for Silver Factory the fragrance, I´ve got lots to say. First of all, it is one of the best scents Bond has ever done; it cemented my love of incense and woods, and even gave me a newfound appreciation for the austere beauty of iris and violet. Silver Factory was an artistic revelation of a different sort for me, even if the actual scent has little to do with its namesake other than its moniker. It has been written that Andy Warhol was buried with a bottle of Estee Lauder Beautiful, so he was obviously a fan of feminine floral scents.  Silver Factory is not especially feminine, and the iris and violet woven through the composition give the scent a metallic quality; though not in a cold way. The incense and woods are tempered with a slight sweetness, but not so much that it overwhelms the rest of the notes.  It is haunting and beautiful, the way the most beautiful incense scents are, but I also like to think of it as interesting. It doesn´t smell like anything you would find in a department store, even though Bond is sold in some high-end department stores.  Silver Factory is a scent that needs to be in the collection of every fragrance lover who counts incense among his or her favourite notes.

I feel as if I´ve stumbled inarticulately through this essay, because when you talk about an artist and something that was inspired by his life and work, the opinions about the artist and the object in question become even more subjective. What would Andy Warhol have thought about this scent? What was it about Warhol and/or his work that the perfumer used as inspiration? How would Warhol feel about the critiquing of a fragrance just as one would critique the kind of art he created?

I´ve reached for Silver Factory so many times over the course of the past couple of years to try and write something about it, but I could never get it quite right. I still don´t think I´ve done it justice, but having made the attempt, I appreciate it even more than I used to. I can now add the following to my list of “what ifs”: What if Andy Warhol was still alive to bear witness to the current trends in art, fashion and fragrance? What would he think of all the celebrity scents that are being churned out in such copious numbers?  Finally, what would he think of Bond No. 9´s interpretations of what he is best known for: his flowers, shoes, soup cans and workspaces have all been used as inspirations for fragrances. I used to think that “Success is a job in New York”; I never knew Andy Warhol was the man behind those words.

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

When I crossed the border into Ontario for the first time since my enemy radical status was rescinded, I couldn´t wait for that first glimpse of the CN Tower that reveals itself from across Lake Ontario as you drive along on the Queen Elizabeth Way, somewhere between St. Catharines and Hamilton. It almost reminds me of seeing Manhattan from mid-span on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn, only the distance from St. Catharines to Toronto is much greater. As you view either metropolis from those vantage points, you can´t help but be filled with hope and anticipation of experiencing all each city has to offer, until you see them up close and discover appearances aren´t always what they seem.

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

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

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

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

Speaking of Serge, the last time I ventured into The Bay at Yorkdale, there was a fairly comprehensive selection of the export fragrances. This time, they were nowhere to be found. I was rather surprised, but I have enough Serge to keep me occupied for a while. Honestly, The Bay at Yorkdale was a bit disappointing; however, they did have the reissued Givenchys, including a stockpile of Organza Indecence. Paging March: your favorite “sexy cupcake” scent is alive and well here in T.O. It smelled a bit boozier than the bottle I´ve got, but you´d be splitting hairs trying to tell them apart. Escada Incredible Me was interesting, and very reminiscent of Collection. I was tempted by it, but I´m glad I passed because it now smells a tad too perfumey on the blotter paper.

No sniffing expedition would be complete without a visit to my favorite haunt, Shoppers Drug Mart. There I discovered Kate Moss Velvet Hour, which I fell for completely. It´s an eau de toilette concentration and the notes of blue pepper, freesia, cashmere incense, patchouli, nutmeg sandalwood and amber are light enough to wear in warmer weather. It has a nice bit of “skank” appeal and I really had to force myself to walk away from it. I rationalized that the bottle was something of a deal-breaker with its dark blue flying saucer-ish shape that really doesn´t do the scent justice. This potion would be much more at home in a Dianne Brill/Fifi Chachnil/Agent Provocateur-type vessel. That way, you know what you´re getting.

The other scent I zeroed in on was Lise Watier´s Désirable. Now that I´m officially in the club, I really want to like a perfume from a Canadian cosmetics and fragrance house, but sadly, none of Ms. Watier´s scents are remotely appealing to me. Désirable is as potent as a genetically modified fruit salad and way too over-the-top for my liking. Her Neiges scent is another that, much as I´d like to, I just can´t wrap my nose around. Brutal Canadian winters notwithstanding, what could be better than to smell clean and pure as the driven… well, you know the rest. Sorry, no can do. Fans of Lorenzo Villoresi´s Teint de Neige would like this; the two are practically interchangeable.

I´d like to give a shout-out to Angela over at “Now Smell This”. I read her entry from this past Monday, “Lament of a Penniless Perfumista”, and it really struck a chord with me. As I gazed wistfully at all the shiny bottles, I was thinking exactly what Angela so eloquently wrote: “It´s challenging times like these that remind me to slow down and appreciate what I already have.” I couldn´t have said it any better. Being reunited with my family and friends and knowing they are there to support me through anything warms my heart much more than a bottle of fragrance ever could. And, like Angela, I have more than enough of those to tide me over. Now, if only my aunt could get rid of all her smelly garbage and compost…

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

As we´ve complained ad nauseam, we’ve barely had a spring here in the east, only to suddenly wake up to ninety degree temperatures. It´s been a bit disorienting to say the least, but it definitely puts into perspective the approaching misery of summer. I say misery because my bikini beach days are decades behind me, and my mid-forties are fast approaching. That means loading up on sunscreen and setting the air conditioning at a temperature somewhere in the vicinity of meat locker. This will be my first Mid-Atlantic summer, so please feel free to inform me what I am in for. As of now, there is no escaping to north of the 49th for me, so unless I can get a cheap ticket to Antarctica (passage on the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin, perhaps?), I´ll most likely go crazy in the heat. And, I´ll be bringing along some of my favorite kitschy summer scents:

Creed Virgin Island Water: I never thought I would refer to any Creed scent as “kitschy”, considering they´ve been around since 1760, but this scent is a total departure for them. From the quintessentially feminine Fleurissimo to the bracing maleness of Green Irish Tweed, Virgin Island Water does not smell like a typical Creed scent. Even their more recent compositions like Spring Flower and Silver Mountain Water have that Creed signature something that Virgin Island Water does not. It is a tropical cocktail in a bottle, with notes of coconut, lime, white rum, bergamot, Mandarin orange, hibiscus, ginger, ylang ylang and jasmine. Is there such a thing as a “refined” pià±a colada? Virgin Island Water is a fun and easy scent to wear, regardless of your frozen cocktail of choice.

Bond No. 9 Coney Island: When I was a kid in Brooklyn, Coney Island had a somewhat dubious reputation. You didn´t go there for any reason but for a few rides on the Cyclone, the landmark roller coaster that the Astroland amusement park was famous for. After that, you hauled what was left of your cookies to Jahn´s Ice Cream Parlor on the corner of Avenue U and Gerritsen Avenue, and ordered their Kitchen Sink Sundae, which was 16 scoops of ice cream along with various toppings. A couple of plates of French fries would inevitably arrive at the table, to use  in lieu of spoons. Hey – don´t knock it; think of it as dipping pretzels in chocolate.

None of Coney Island´s notes have anything to do with the Coney Island experience, but it still manages to strike an emotional chord in me. The combination of margarita mix, guava melon, cinnamon, chocolate, caramel, musk, vanilla, cedar wood and sandalwood might strike some as noxious. But, if you´ve ever gotten a whiff of the real Coney Island – Nathan´s hot dogs, ripe garbage and the polluted Atlantic Ocean, you´d beg for the bottle. I think it´s what I always wanted Coney Island to smell like, but it never did. Coney Island the scent makes me smile, and gives me a serious craving for ice cream and French fries. A ride on the Cyclone, however, would now be followed by a recuperative forty minute rest before I could even think about food.

Bond No. 9 Fire Island: If this one was named Bain de Soleil Orange Suntan Gelée, it would be instantly recognizable. Having only been to Fire Island once in my life, I have no memory of what it smells like, only that I was totally paranoid about going in the water and getting bitten by a shark. All these years later, I still can´t watch the movie “Jaws” without shuddering. The notes of cardamom, neroli, white musk, tuberose and patchouli don´t exactly scream suntan lotion, but I can´t think of a better interpretation of the iconic orange gelée than this one. It only has an SPF of 4, so anyone as pasty as me wouldn´t be caught dead wearing it. Thank goodness for Fire Island.

Marc Jacobs Daisy: The kitschy-est thing about this scent is the bottle; those white vinyl daisies on the cap instantly bring a smile to my face. And the green ones on the new limited edition bottle totally remind me of my family´s green vinyl kitchen chairs and white Formica table. Yeah, that kitchen set was the epitome of  late 60s-early 70s stylish home decor. With the exception of the plastic slipcovers on my grandmother´s chesterfield, nothing hurt worse than having to peel myself off those chairs in the summertime. I think enduring simultaneous laser hair removal and a bikini wax probably doesn´t hurt as much. As for Daisy the fragrance, it just works in the hot weather. Not too fruity, not too sweet, just enough sparkly grapefruit to keep me happy.

Here are a few that are no longer with us, but deserve honorable mention:

Ava Luxe Coconut perfume oil: This was quite possibly the most perfect coconut scent I have ever smelled. It wasn´t overly sweet, and not at all plasticky. It had a boozy rummy-ness to it that gave it depth and personality. If you´re reading this Serena, please bring it back!

Majenty Hidden Cove: I can´t remember what the notes were, but this oil was a tropical masterpiece without the dizzying intensity of pikaki or gardenia. It doesn´t seem to be available anywhere anymore, and the bottle I had is M.I.A. Figures. Update: I’m trying to find out if the company is still producing the scents, or if they’re out of business. Their website is still up, but I’m not sure if it is active.

VIP Room: I have a bit left in the bottle I bought at Aedes de Venustas, and I could swear I had a backup somewhere in my stash, but no such luck. This was a limited edition scent named after the famous Parisian nightclub, and now it is nowhere to be found. The combination of leather and pineapple shouts insanity from the highest peak, but it is genius; even on the doggiest of summer days.

The title of this entry is from the song “Escape (The Pià±a Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes. My apologies for any earworms.

Image by artist Bella Pilar: magnetreps.com.

 Notes are cardamom, geranium leaves, cedarwood. graperfruit, juniper leaves. South American guaiacwood and leather.  It’s got a nice, slightly discordant open with the cardamom and geranium, definintely veering more masculine in the spicy woods drydown, but not butch.  The leather is a is nice touch, keeping it interesting in the contrast between it and the wood notes.  It’s definitely different from a lot of the Bond scents – not amped up with patch, and there’s zero floral in this.  It’s not hefty, but the wood and leather gives it weight and substance, just not overpowering.  It wears nicely on me, but I think this would be great on a guy.  A little disclaimer, I think my mystery alcohol note is in this – there’s one little area of this scent that smells of alcohol, it could be the guaiac, though – there’s just a gray area that I can’t sniff into.  I applaud the departure, as I did with the Andy Warhol Silver Factory scent, but I’m still not sure this is worth that amount of money, though the bottle is pretty darn cute.

Winners of the PdN #1 and Riche Orient samples are:  Natalie and Jan V.  Just click on the contact us button over on the left, remind me what it is you’ve won, and I’ll get the samples out to you.

Bond sent me some of the Brooklyn to sample, so I’d like to give away samples of that as well.  I probably have about 7 samples in this little bottle. So drop a comment, and I’ll draw for seven people to win a sample of the new Bond Brooklyn to try.

Patty