Pairs Hitch, Britt IA

By Anita

Summer. Summersummersummer.

You know what’s weird about summer?  It’s a horse of a totally different color, depending upon where you are and who you are (or used to be).  I spent the last 50o years of my life in an Urban environment and my summer fragrances reflected that.  When I think about Agraria Bitter Orange I think of this restaurant on Irving Place in NYC – I only went there in the summer and always sat outside for brunch …..and my beloved Cartier Brillante is definitely meant for hot pavement, a linen sheath and a cold vodka tonic.  I had no idea it would not translate to rolling cornfields and draft horses (who HATE that scent, btw – it makes them sneeze, the prima donnas)….so I  had to rethink summer to please my Percherons  (besides, March wouldn’t let me yark on about my regular faves anymore.  She is SO bossy!).  The more I thought about it, though, the more it makes sense – summer in the  Urbs is way different from summer in the country  – out here Summer isn’t something to be wrestled with – it just is.  And out here you’re not trying to squeeze your swollen feet into those Manolo sandals and I certainly cannot wear that crisp white linen sheath with steel-toe boots, corn dust and horse snot and…well, it’s just different.  Take  my displaced word for it.   Not better, not worse – just different.  So the two I’ve chosen reflect my new life amongst the cows and the corn.

Here are our two scents. What are yours?? (unlike us, you are not limited to 2 each – whale away!)

Based on the epic Country FAIL of Brillante and my regular standbys I caved to March’s demand that  I TRY SOMETHING NEW .

Here’s new.  And Weird.   Tribute Attar for the Hog Roast at the nursing home – beautiful app but I noticed it was seriously ‘ashy’ on the drydown – very offputting to the average smeller out here in the sticks, though I  was smitten – like dried rose petals thrown on a coal fire.   Anyway, I knew that wouldn’t work at the Hog Roast so I took a chance and layered it with

Rosine’s Poussiere de Rosine - since it’s got that dusty-musty smell itself, it worked beautifully.  Very oily/dusty/rosy, heady as a bottle of jammy Cabernet.

March, this would peel the skin off your nose.  Imagine ‘rose slurry’.    Bwahahahahaha!

Oddly, this was a hit with young and old alike.  The Rosine diluted Tribute’s scary elegance (and c’mon – do I really want ‘elegant’ at a Hog Roast?) And the ashy  dryness in both the Tribute and the PdR is a nice complement to the humidity.  My huge, fussy Percherons like it, too!  This might be a little ‘close’ in the City but it works really well in a slurry blender feed screw – the dusty rose and dusty corn, ya know?

But it was nothing compared to this next one:

There are perfumes that are born great….and then there are perfumes that have greatness thrust upon them.  Still adhering to March’s edict, I decided to try something I  originally dissed because I found it at a flea market for a dime:  Coty Sand and Sable (two bottles:  20 cents.  Booo-yah!)  It’s not my idea of fabulous – there isn’t an elegant note in the whole thing – but again, not everything has to be elegant – and this is  Summer in a bottle, glistening sun-baked skin, hot sand, station wagons, transistor radios – the whole shebang.  Summer 1961.  We all have a crush on the 8th grader down the street, we ride our bikes to the local pool and mom is in pedal-pushers,  puffin’ on a Chesterfield.   Spritz it and everyone within 2 blocks will be on you  like a duck on a junebug.   19 year old Breck Girl and the world is your oyster.      The musky base sort of ooked up my lunch but that’s okay.  I had Brian Wilson warbling  in my poitrine -  I could hardly be petty about that little musky bit, could I?   I’ll let you know what my big boys think.

March: Hee on the Sand & Sable, Anita!  Nope, nothing elegant in there at all, and you wouldn’t want to spill the bottle in your car, but to me it smells like my misspent youth of the late 1970s — summer at the beach, with notes of tropical oil, cotton candy, and climbing into the backseat of some boy’s Camaro, so we could … discuss Proust.

It’s been a gazillion degrees here for much of the summer — we’re in the middle of another 98-degree heatwave and I’m making gazpacho.   I’m still very much enjoying fiddling with all the Tigerflag attars, although the Majmua’s the one I’ve been wearing, with its moist notes of earth and flowers.  I realized, though, that I’ve been missing the beeswax-y smell of the beeswax base that Marla built it into before she sent it to me, and I haven’t gotten around to trying to make my own beeswax base, so I looked around on my shelves for something beeswaxy and came up with … Serge Lutens’ death-eater honey, Miel de Bois, which is something I also love wearing in this heat.   You can see where this is headed, right?  I mean, what could possibly go wrong?  So I mixed up a small vial containing mostly jojoba oil, a few drops of majmua, and a few drops of MdB, at which point the foundations of the house rumbled — oh, wait, that was only the earthquake.  Anyway, I dabbed it on (I’m talking a dab), went downstairs, and I was still fifteen feet down the hall from my daughter when she asked what perfume I was wearing.  Too much sillage?   She demanded a closer sniff and said, it smells like six things at the same time!  It keeps changing!  That’s so cool! She’s the kid who likes that uber-musky honey thing that MAC did, though, so YMMV.  I admit that just putting MdB on often feels like I’ve committed a crime, albeit a misdemeanor.  Layering it is probably a more serious offense.  Today I might throw in some Nuit de Tubereuse on top.  Do you think my nose will fall off?

Lee: Glad to see both March and Anita know how to wave their freak flags just the right amount to stay cool. My stay cool on the ladyboy side scent is – well, it’s either Nicolai’s Eau Exotique which is fruity and a little floral and elegantly simple, or Hermes Osmanthe Yunnan which gets more refreshing oolong and petals every time I wear it. Other times, the temps have dropped here a little so I no longer cling to salty for electrolytic rebalancing. Instead, it’s Timbuktu all the way. That sour flowerpower patchouli incense mashup is perfect right now. And anyways, no perfume can compete with the goddamn amazing regal lilies and heliotrope and jasmine in the garden as I type. I’m heading back out there.

Nava: Ok, since Anita’s busy “yarking” about horses and wearing attars in the height of summer and March insists on dragging out Miel de Bois in July (oy, a thousand times!), I’m sitting next to Lee and his Osmanthe Yunnan. Personally, I prefer Parfum d’ Empire’s Osmanthus Interdite, but Osmanthe Yunnan is always first runner-up in my book. I won’t repeat the three I mentioned on Friday, but the other I’d like to add is Givenchy’s new Eaudemoiselle. I tried like hell not to buy a bottle of it, but I succumbed. It’s a bit heavy right now, but inside with the a/c crankin’, it’s goooood.

Patty: I’m a little horrified at the Sand & Sables, except it is pretty great for something that people will hand to you in vats on the street.  A little like J. Lo’s Glow, perfect for summertime.  My summer faves are a couple of things I ran into while I was gone, like the Nasomatto Nuda - the perfect big-ass white floral skanky jasmine scent.  It opens as poopy jasmine (Nancy taught us this term while in Grasse), then slowly settles down into the more honeysuckle jasmine that you can wear for a much  longer period of time.  I could happily wear this the rest of summer.  I’d just intersperse it with the Micallef Shanaan – the perfect breathy incense – and Byredo Tulipe (yes, yes, I’m still ridiculously in love with it) and L’Artisan Nuit de Tuberose.  Wait, I’m over two, but those last three count as one!

For more Top Ten Summer posts, check out Now Smell This, Grain de Musc, Perfume-Smellin’ Things and Bois de Jasmin

(Okay, peeps — for the next couple of weeks we may be messing with the usual posting order.   Today is Musette.)

I got a visit from the Life Police a little while ago.  They gave me a ticket!!! and told me to shut down my Pity Party, it was going on too long, it was too loud and the neighbors were starting to complain.  I was indignant!  I loved hosting that party!  But a warning ticket from the Life Police ain’t no joke so I decided to comply.  But where to start?

Well, insides are harder than outsides so I started with the outside.   OMG! 2 sizes bigger? when did THAT happen?!?   My haiiiiiir! !!!!  what’s with the nails – are you reroofing the Vatican with your bare hands?  2 SIZES BIGGER?  WTH?   WHY ARE YOU IN SWEATS?  YOU ARE NOT AT THE GYM! HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN SWEATS???

Okay You (well, ‘me’) -  First Thing:  get your lard-butt up and get to the gym, every day.  I live in the smallest town in the Universe.  We are blessed with a little gym 2 blocks from my house (everything is two blocks from my house).  Nobody’s there and they have HGTV and What Not to Wear.  No excuses!  Then my existential walk through our hilly cemetery every day (get healthy!/ why bother?)…  2 blocks from my house.  No excuses.

Man.  This is hard.  I’m so used to sitting on my lard-butt, eating a brownie and bemoaning my fate.  But I’m slogging through it.

…and slowwwwly…the poundages are slippering off.  And hey!  Nails?  They’re actually ‘done’.  And the hair – well, I’ve still got to go to a Big City for that (some things just …well, you know - it’s my hair!).

And while I’m in this improvement mode I’m noticing that my perfume choices have changed – are being assigned certain values.  Perhaps I’m every bit as insane as y’all think I am but I swear there are perfumes that make me smell fat! And some that sort of help on the thinnin’ side of things.  This came to me whilst reading Shelley’s blog post on comfort scents, where she broke things down by variations on comfort (snuggly/armored/etc) – so while I was working the elliptical I compiled my Thick/Thin lists.  This is in relation to myself alone – these scents do not conjure up any size imagery when worn by others so don’t get all bitey with me, okay? As they say, YMMV.

The List (for now)

I feel thinner already (at the gym):

Bel Respiro

No 19 edt, screaming at me to WORK IT!

Cemetery daytime

Mitsouko

Cemetery nighttime

I don’t think so.   that’s when the zombies come out!

I feel a cupcake coming on!

Fracas

Lys Mediteranee

Whoa!  my bra size is WHAT?

Femme

C-cup, bay-bee!  C-cup!

vintage Femme

3am. I’m fat! Panic attack.

Going for a walk, just me and the coyotes.  Take a stick and:

Jacomo Silences

L’eau Imperiale (Guerlain)

Y’know, I’m looking pretty good!:

Doblis

vintage Diorling

I give up – I’m a mess

Ines de la Fressange (leaf bottle)

L’eau d’Hiver

Oh, shut up.  I’m doing fine!

TdC Charmes et Feuilles

Size 10 = a trip to Paris

Cartier Brillante

it will be interesting to see where these fall, once I reach my size goal, but for now they are defining my highs and lows as I struggle through this.  Do you all have particular scents that represent certain aspects of your life struggles? (weight is not the criterion here)  Would love to hear about them.  I’ll holla back when I get home from the cemetery – gotta beat the zombies!

It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that I realized it was the first of March.  March always sneaks up on me.  This year January and February lasted approximately nine years.  But that FAIL post on Monday was fun, eh?    I think everyone emerged in good spirits.

Today I’m blogging about Cartier Les Heures (I)- L’Heure Promise, which is the iris one, which has been criticized (not inaccurately) as wearing lightly, somewhat like Prada Infusion d’Iris, and if that bores you – just please stick around just for this tangential pre-review part of the discussion and then I’ll unlock the door.

The Prada Infusion d’Iris and Narciso Rodriquez EDT were two scents I could not smell, and by could not smell I mean: as far as I was concerned, that NR bottle had water in it.  The IdI I could smell, sort of – just enough to snicker and wonder who would pay good money for it.  It was so … nothing-y.

But I ran into a couple of recurring problems.  First off, “Narciso Rodriguez!” was frequently the answer I received when I asked somebody what nice fragrance they were wearing.  Granted, at that point there were already at least three variations, the oil, the EDP and the EDT, but they were all the same to me – water.  So apparently I could smell it on other people.  Maybe twice a month for a year (or two) I’d try NR on in the store and shrug – nothing.  I joked with a few of the SAs about its lack of aroma, and you could tell they thought I was nuts.  And then … I could smell it.  And I loved it.  I added it to my wallpaper list.  I bought a full bottle (and paid retail! Can you imagine!?)  And now, almost a year after that, as unlikely as it sounds, there are times when NR EDT can be … a bit much, with that orange blossom/synthetic haze, like somebody stepping on the guitar amp pedal too aggressively.

Infusion d’Iris I also kept smelling around me, and I recognized it – it’s distinctive, and a popular scent in my city, being discreet and rather staid.  I also became, over a year or two, increasingly sensitized to its smell.  It’s never overpowering, and it has a charming way of fading and reappearing.  The only reason I don’t own a bottle yet is that somehow I keep winding up with free samples.

So my thoughtful, learned question is: what the hell? If you expose your nose often enough to something you’re anosmic to, can you “learn” to smell it?   If you can learn to smell something, can you unlearn it?   Why should my brain start to perceive these scents after many, many attempts?  Has this ever happened to you?   I recall seeing somewhere (I think it was in comments on a Grain de Musc post) that some folks layer Les Nez L’Antimatià¨re on top of other fragrances, even though they can’t smell it at all, because they enjoy its reflected glow.  (Didn’t Isabelle Doyen do it?  So it can’t just be some cheap trick like Iso E Super, can it?)  They can perceive it only in juxtaposition to something else.  I really need to dig out my sample, at the time it seemed very Emperor’s-new-clothes to me.

So. Cartier L’Heure Promise has notes of petitgrain, fresh herbs, iris, sandalwood and musk.  It’s pretty quiet, as I said, a la Infusion d’Iris, and if you can’t smell that, well, likely you can’t smell this one either.  However, if you can smell it, and you have a bit of patience, it’s a treat.   The petitgrain, with that citrus/baby aspirin smell, magnifies the spicy/rooty qualities of the iris.  Unlike some iris scents, it is entirely free of both powder and that sharp/metallic aspect that I find offputting.  And then!  The sandalwood!   Okay, fine, I got interested in sandalwood at a laughably bad time, right after all the cheap n’ glorious Mysore stuff disappeared and I guess from here on out it’s either Australian or  chemical fakery with a big TM symbol after it, like SANDALIDE or what have you (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)   In Promise, it takes a few minutes for the sandalwood to start to emerge, and no, it’s not going to bring you to your knees weeping in astonishment.  However.  The scent’s constructed in a way I love, with the two parts – the iris and the sandalwood – appearing alternately, like two actors popping on and off the stage, one chasing after the other.  It does another Prada Infusion thing – it’s often easier to detect in the air around me than sniffing the spot I sprayed it on, and the entire scent will seem to disappear completely for ten or twenty minutes, and then – whoosh! – it’s back.    It doesn’t have quite the tenacity of IdI – and no, that’s not a joke, if you can smell it, really, it’s quite tenacious, and on fabric it lasts for days.  If I put Promise on in the early evening, which I’ve been enjoying doing (it’s rather meditative and soothing), I can still smell it the next morning.

So here’s a final happy aspect of L’Heure Promise – iris and sandalwood as a combination.  Or, looked at another way, a sandalwood that has not been contaminated infested tainted by paired up with rose.   The soft sweetness of the sandalwood with the dry, woody iris?  A match made in heaven.  This made me almost as happy as … sandalfig.   I think I’m going to dig up some samples of iris and try them out over some sandalwood.  28 La Pausa over Tam Dao?  Sounds plausible to me.

PS.  Crap, I keep forgetting my sources:  decant of this one, private sample.  Yeah, I know — big help!

March

What’s it like to be a perfume blogger?  Sometimes it’s like this.

Van Cleef & Arpels Cologne Noire.  I wonder sometimes whether a house, having released a line with two or three outstanding scents (Gardenia Petale, Bois d’Iris, and Muguet Blanc, depending) if the rest are guaranteed to be duds, if only by comparison.  Notes of ginger, cardamom, pepper, bergamot, bitter orange, mandarin, woody notes.  I’m having trouble putting my finger on what’s wrong with Noire, but something is.  The whole seems much less than its parts – disjointed and odd, with an aggressive raspiness and a pickled note that reminds me of the difficult Chanel Les Exclusifs – No. 18?  I tried to imagine whether I’d like this any better if it was at Macy’s and the newest offering from Britney.  And the answer, sadly, is no.  Why can’t I find those magnificent Dior colognes anywhere?  Why is life so unfair?  Why, why?

VC&A Orchidee Vanille – notes of mandarin orange, litchi, bitter almond, dark chocolate, Bulgarian rose, violet, vanilla pod, cedar, balsamic tonka bean and white musk.  Luca Turin in The Guide frequently describes scents as having a “candyfloss” note, and he often mentions a particular aromachemical component, which I’m too lazy to look up.  Orchidee Vanille is almost unbearably powdery at the top, after which it smells exactly like those weird, small bags of pre-made cotton candy that my kids buy at the corner market.  Not cotton candy + vanilla — just cotton candy.  It’s an interesting, sweet chemical smell, but not one I want to wear.  If I want to spray on an interesting, sweet chemical smell, I’ll take Gucci Rush, thanks.

Cartier L’Heure Brilliante – notes of lemon, flaxseed, gin notes and aldehydes.  Musette – I’m trying, I’m trying!!!  Honest to God! It’s very pretty, an herbaceous cologne smell on me.  I have no objections.  I just didn’t fall wildly in love as you did.  Don’t shoot me.

Cartier L’Heure Folle – this one was recommended by Carmencanada when I was doing my berry scent review last week.  Notes: redcurrant, pink peppercorn, grenadine, blueberry, blackcurrant, blackberry, violet, leafy notes, ivy, boxwood, shiso, aldehydes.  This is not berry nice on me.  There is an unfortunate canned-grapefruit note (sour/metallic) on my skin I can’t quite get past.  If you’ve ever eaten tinned citrus you know what I’m talking about.

Cartier L’Heure Promise – notes of petitgrain, fresh herbs, iris, sandalwood and musk.  I … oh.  Oh.  Oh my goodness.  Maybe I’ll talk about this on Wednesday.

Okay, your turn – what have you tried recently, maybe something raved about on the boards/blogs, that’s been a FAIL?  Go ahead, pick a fight with a fellow friend on the Posse!

Sources for all: private samples/decants.

March

If you are a girl, and you are not on top of your game just now – if you have, in fact, misplaced some of the game pieces, and the rules, and maybe even the damn box everything came in – if your game is off, then maybe what you need are some naughty boots.  (If you are a boy — no offense is intended with this post, please forgive me.  Of course, maybe you need some naughty boots too?)

If your game is off and you need some naughty boots, what you need is a friend – not just any standard-issue friend, but a friend like Louise.  (Perhaps we need a tag on the Posse called It’s Louise’s Fault.)  Your friend will suggest meeting you for coffee at the local mall, and, oh, btw, doll – Nordstrom is having their sale! Let’s go look at shoes and purses just for fun.  And you will see those naughty boots there on the sale rack, you will hear their siren call, you will resist being elbowed aside by these sale-crazed women who come up to your shoulder, even though you are not especially tall yourself – and you will ask the salesperson standing there to fetch you the other boot.

Which you are just doing for fun.  Are you going to buy these boots?  Oh, no!  No, you are not.  These boots, they do not fit into your protective suburban camouflage.  These boots are made for walking, but not walking the dog in the woods, or the kids to soccer.  These boots, which are in black patent leather, are fierce.  They have a round toe and a curved heel and come up above the ankle and they are not conventionally sexy (no point, no stiletto heel) and yet, the hotness, it is totally there.  But no.  They are too much money, even on sale.  They are … impractical.  Also, they will undoubtedly be uncomfortable, that is higher than your usual heel.  Let’s just vamp in front of the mirror.

Oh!  Hey, there!   Hello!  Bonjour, you sexy thing!   Those naughty boots, they are surprisingly comfortable!  This man here, he is explaining that this designer makes a comfortable shoe, and that the reason you are able to stand upright and not hobble is that there is an internal platform.  And it’s true – you are not hobbling.  You are maybe even strutting your stuff a little with your jeans rolled up.  And not only do these naughty boots look fine with the rolled-up jeans, but they are crying out for dark tights and a black pencil skirt and some sort of severe, starched white shirt – a sexy-librarian thing.  Also maybe a riding crop.  You realize that the man over there (whom you assume is with that woman, his wife?) is watching you intently as you work those boots while she tries on those dull tweed mid-heels.  He is not half bad looking; that is a very nice suit.  You wonder how he’d feel about the sexy-librarian look.  And possibly the riding crop.  He’d definitely be into it.  You smile to yourself.  Maybe you need to get out more.

And so you buy those boots.  You plunk down that MasterCard and you buy them.  Those boots are too hot.  You have a party coming up, a staid social affair full of conservative women wearing enough holiday sequin-ry to supply Dancing With The Stars for the next decade.  They all look like oversized Christopher Radko Christmas ornaments.  You are thinking, mmmm, sexy librarian, with the naughty boots and the pencil skirt and your late mother-in-law’s pearls, and (maybe) some red lipstick.  Yes?  You will be there with your own husband, and yet one or two of those other men, older and slightly intoxicated, will follow you like dogs.  Well-dressed, polite alpha dogs.  Your own husband is sensible (or maybe kinky) enough to find this enjoyable.

And what fragrance will you wear to the party, my love, what will you wear?  Perhaps it will be the Thirteenth Hour all night long.

I have tried Cartier’s new scent, XIII – La Treizià¨me Heure, and while words like masterpiece sound stupid coming out of my mouth, because I am an amateur perfume-lovin’ nobody, I am sorely tempted.  La Treizià¨me Heure (notes of leather, maté, birch, narcissus, bergamot, patchouli and vanilla) has given me something I don’t have and always want – a new way to look at leather.  This is not the birch-tar smoky, heavy, dark leather.  This is not the soft, sweet glove-leather either.  This is not the inside of a purse, with a dash of face-powder.  The list of notes doesn’t even seem like it would work for me – too cold, too bitter, too austere.  But there is nothing austere about it.  If it had a color, it would be a dark, caressing brown, not black.  It doesn’t play the Jolie-Madame game of a floral in flagrante delicto with the leather.  The flower here is narcissus, leathery and hay-like green and gold.   I keep reapplying, over and over, trying to decide which part is better – the odd, smoky-lapsang top that is not too smoky or butch or strange, not campfire or church (although I love those as well.)  Or is that drydown the part I love, that oily/buttery narcissus that reminds me a bit of the L’Artisan Fleur d’Narcisse that I was too cheap to buy?  The vanilla is a mere whisper; I couldn’t even have identified it as such without the cheat sheet.  Maybe that barnyard drydown is the part I love most.  Even without the naughty boots it would give me a hell of a lift.

Here’s a link to Grain de Musc’s informative post on this scent, with commentary by Mathilde Laurent.

photo: top and left, my new Chie Mihara boots, although the photo doesn’t do them justice.  Here’s an online photo so you can see the height and the shape of the heel, although mine are all black.

March