by Musette the Anxious

 Since the ‘publish’ thingydoodle boogered up the schedule, we are going to continue this chat through Monday!

I have been in a state of high anxiety for a LONG time – and most of it is my fault (well, being in a business-challenged state isn’t – well, it is but only partly my fault...oh shut up and get ON with it already!)  Anyhoo, a big reason my anxiety is super-ramped is that I have not been painting.  In fact, I haven’t been doing much of anything except scrambling to build our business (relatively successful) and trying to walk at lunchtime/early evenings (before the zombies come out) to keep my stress levels down (only mildly successful on the stress thingy).

I woke up at 5am this morning with an epiphany:  I have to paint if I am to survive.  Yes,  I love Bear Boring and am very proud of what I have accomplished, wrestling this business into being from the ground up.  But when all is said and done, in order for me to breathe normally I have to continue painting.  March told me to stop sobbing in my soup and PAINT.  Besides – you wanna talk smellgasmic?  You get me around some Archival oils and linseed.  oh, yum!

So I just came down from my ramshackle studio, where I was throwing away packing boxes and putting away suitcases, etc – yes, it had turned into a storage room – Call A&E!  I’m not quite done but I set an alarm for 2 1-hour stints.  It’s 10×10 – maybe- and the goal here is to make it so I can get to the easel and get back to work.  Will let you know how that second hour goes.  My goal is to have a canvas on the easel by 5pm and at least a dab of paint lurking somewhere near. wish me luck!

(this is my studio, pre-clean.  Shameful.  Just shaaaaameful)

During the declutter I rewound some odd body product/scent pairings.  Some of them were on purpose and a couple were accidental.  I will share them with you now, you lucky Posse.  Warning:  some of these might bring up your breakfast.  Proceed with caution.

The Good:

This one was totally accidental.  I took a shower in the vaunted Amouage Epic.  Layered a bit of the body lotion (every bit as smellolicious as the cream, btw)…and then absently grabbed the wrong sample and spritzed Opus V from the Library Collection!  Quel horror!??  Uh, not really.  I’d worn Opus V once or twice and was a bit mystified – It’s almost-luxe and because I equate Amouage with luxe before anything else I was having trouble with this one.   LOTS of orris.  a little bit of rose.  I totally missed the civet.  And the dry wood?  On its own perfume merits, I barely noticed it.

However, when paired with the Epic lotion, it really sings – in fact, I like the combo better than an all-Epic menu.  The orris and frankincense (and maybe just a touch of the sandalwood) boost the base notes of Opus V and give it the heft I have come to expect from Amouage.  Possibly not what it was designed for but hey!  It’s Amouage!  Go Big!

The Bad:

I decided to do some experimenting with complementary scents, forgetting that I don’t have a clue in class what I’m doing.  Witness:  Fracas bath and body products.  Paired with Henri Bendel Jasmine and Tuberose Body Cream (you wanna talk room-clearing?   I could clear Wrigley Field with this!)….then, hey!  Tuberose has ‘rose’ in it, right?  RIGHT?  So why not try  Rose d’Homme (Rosine).  Why not set my hair on fire while I’m at it!  The lavender-vetiver base, so lovely in that scent, went headlong into war with the buttery-oily tuberose…and got stomped into a gooey mess.   It smelled like Godzilla had eaten an entire field in Grasse (rose harvesters and all) and then threw up in yet another field, burying the lavender harvesters in his vomitous sludge.  Other than that, it was okay.

The Uuuuuugly:

There are so many in this group – but the funniest of the Uglies are accidental (the on-purpose pairings are just scary).  Accidental one:  This was awhile back but is seared into my memory.  Some cheap Taylor of London Muguet  body wash and body lotion (in itself not the worst thing in the world – I was intending to augment the decidedly-thin Coty Muguet)…then the phone rang and my sister was having DRAMA!  I grabbed…..(I swear to Floyd I am not making this up) my go-to:  Mitsouko.  Contemporary Mitsouko.  Do y’all remember Meryl Streep in ‘Death Becomes Her’?

yeah.  Just. Like. That

On purpose (but Just As Ugly):  I am having trouble with Amouage Honour (more on that later) – but there was this note I thought I should maybe/could maybe amp – so I paired it with Calyx ancillaries.  In another review I will explain why this actually works in theory – sort of (okay NOT.  but the ‘idea’ isn’t as offbeat as you might imagine).  In reality, though, it could’ve given ol Maddy up there a lurch for her money!

There are many more but I’m sick of embarrassing myself.  Time for y’all to fess up.  Your Goods.  Your Bads.  Your Uglies/Funnies.

post-Hoarder – at least I can reach the easel!

Clint/Lee Marvin photo: Paint Your Wagon

Streep photo:  filmweb.pl

by Musette

11pm… pushing hard through a rush job, El O has been on his old, busted feet for 14 hours.  Exhausted, he staggers into bed and is lights out! within seconds.   I take a shower, spritz on some perfume like I do every night (which he rarely notices or remarks upon) and climb into bed.  This comatose, beat-down old man snorts, turns over, and says ‘wow.  you smell great!’….before falling back into a serious Snore.

8am…I’m at the Post Office, dropping off a package.  The very staid, quiet, proper man who runs the counter ( and who wouldn’t flirt with his own wife in public) sniffs! and says “um.  your perfume is very nice!”  huh?

11:30am…I’m at the antique store/egg & produce shop/drycleaners.  The guy next to me at the counter, picking up his shirts, sniffs and says “your perfume is nice!  what is it?”  What is it?  Wth?  This is a  very conservative farm town. Men barely talk to women they are not related to.    They. Absolutely.  Do. Not Ask. That. Kind. of. Thing.     Ever.

Huh.

So…what is this Siren Song of Fabulousness:

vintage Mitsouko?  Nah.  Gorgeous as it is, when I put that one on, men tend to recoil, if not RUN! in outright terror.

some new, hawt sexbombalicious oudh?  Naw.  Sultry incense? Sexy niche?  I don’t think so.

How ’bout….Coty Sand and Sable. Yup.    March turned me on to this scent (I quit thinking about Coty in 1975 or so, right after Elan)…  At first spritz I just knew this would be a ‘guy’ perfume (how much of a ‘guy’ perfume was a bit startling, though.  I didn’t expect all these ‘old’ dudes to be so affected by it! .   It smells exactly like 1961 at the beach.  Breck Girls.  Early Beach Boys, before the Wilsons lost their minds…..a time of sexy innocence.  I don’t know how a younger guy would respond to this scent because a) I’m old enough to be their mother so it’s a moot point and b) the thought of asking just skeeves me out.  But all 3 of the guys who went bonkers were of A Certain Age – and I have a feeling what they were smelling was that time of our lives, when nothing Truly Awful had happened yet and the world was ours to enjoy.

Billed as a tropical floral, it has that Suntan Lotion accord that one either loves or hates.  The floral notes include gardenia,tuberose,jasmine and rose…but what really attracts is the undercurrent of banana and coconut, with that sexy suntan vibe.  It was released in the early 80s but I don’t get an 80s feel from it, even though it’s a Big Ol’ Thang.  Instead,  whenever I spritz this, I am reading seventeen again and idolizing Colleen Corby, in a killah 2-piece swimsuit with matching headband.

Be warned, though:  this stuff is tenacious.  I have spritzed 3 variations – the two I got for 50cents at a flea market and one at Walgreens.  They all smell the same (hey, doesn’t Coppertone still smell like Coppertone?) and you want to be careful how much you spritz.  Just a hit will subtly seduce anybody over the age of 50 within a good-sized restaurant or office space.  Any more than that and you might trigger a Hazmat Alert.  And don’t spray it on anything you can’t wash with bleach.  It’s like Tiger Balm – get it on a wool sweater and you’ll be smelling it for years to come.

Who else has tried this one?  What about the younger crowd?  I’m too old to be asking some 25 yr old what he thinks – but I’d love to know if younger men find it as intriguing as my generation does.  Is there a contemporary version of Sand and Sable?  I’ve not tried Bronze Goddess but S&S does remind me, vaguely, of Azuree (and, to a tiny extent, Youth Dew.  Yes.  I’m serious. Maybe it’s all that brown.)

photo:  seventeen magazine 1967 Colleen Corby

perfume sources: mine and a spritz at Walgreens

Before I forget – the Diaghilev winner (courtesy of Pickle and random.org) is LindaB. Drop me your deets and I’ll send off your sample as soon as I get my little scrab – should be any day!

okay – on to the story -

55 gallon barrel: 1

Musette:     0

Ow.  Last fall I wrestled a full rain barrel and lost.  Occasionally the old spasm rebounds to remind me that Barrel is Quing!  I wonder why it always happens at 5am, when you desperately have to pee.  And that 10 second walk to the bathroom is 10 minutes while you crab, backwards, on your turned-in toes, fingers desperately seeking any purchase to help relieve the shocking pain…holding it… screeching like a third-grade girl…holding it…panting..holding it…and you make it!

And the lid is down.

Bedridden for 3 days, hopped-up on Vitamin V, I spritzed old Coty perfumes and watched a lot of funky TV because that’s what you do when you’re zonked on painkillers, right?   TV can be very heartening, especially for those of us who are struggling to reinvent ourselves in our careers, personal lives or whatever… I have taken porky William Shatner as my personal motivation – from  the ancellation of Star Trek to the  downalator of ‘Big Bad Mama’ (hey!  I was illin’) only to rebound to cult-love status via ‘Boston Legal’ (and, dare I say it, the Priceline Negotiator?  Bill is laughing ALL the way to the bank!)  – and the zoomerang of John Travolta: remember Perfect?  Of course you don’t.   –from teen star to nobody and back again -  platinum ever since!

So…Bill and John did it.  How come Coty can’t do it?  Roja Dove’s Diaghilev, with its respectful nod to Coty Chypre broke my heart.… Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy as a clam that Roja did it.  But it begs the question:  what happened to this once-illustrious house  (Chypre! La Rose J!  Paris!) that caused it to settle for pursue so many resolutely awful scents?  From its chilly-corporate website to a fragrance ‘brand’ list that makes me itch, the whole thing whimpers ‘mediocre’.  Every time I go into a drugstore I’m amazed that M. Francois hasn’t oozed out of his grave and scythed the entire Coty board into terrified puddles of bloody bits.   IIFRA and whales and cat-butts aside,  even with legal and ethical considerations other venerable houses have managed to keep their connection to what made them great.  Diorella doesn’t suck, I swear!  So.  Is there a gas leak at Two Park Ave that caused L’Origan to end up at Walgreens, a battered, miserable shell, while L’Heure Bleue wields the Mace of Majesty?  I would mention Emeraude…except I will start crying.

I think I’ve shrieked about this before.  But I’m shrieking again – and it’s Dior’s fault.  Yeah.  See, I have now tried all the scents in La Collection.  I’m not ecstacized (yeah, new word:  Ecstacized!)…but I am in alt that they took a determined look to what made the House of Dior as their inspiration for this collection.   Chanel thrilled us with Les Exclusifs, with the historical references to Chanel’s life and her perfumer’s inspirations.  Guerlain, Caron have held on to their jewels, even as they’ve had to tweak them for changing laws and customer tastes..…why does the list not include Coty?  Surely no ‘customer’ would deliberately buy the Emeraude you see, come Christmastime, in their tacky little cello boxes…(sniff.  I promised I wouldn’t cry)

I can’t be the only one beating this drum in the wilderness.  Coty spawned some of the greatest perfumes in history.  Wouldn’t it be great to see some of them back – and not at the drugstore, dangit!  PROPER reintroductions, with decent packaging and some history to back it up.

What say you?  If you could have one (or more) Cotys resurrected (as much as anything could be), which ones?  Or am I dreaming and should I wake up and shut up.    And if you don’t care about Coty and you still wanna play, what star/celebrity has done the best reinvention, in your opinion?

photo:  xnet.kp.org

by the drooling Musette

I always wonder why the term ‘diva’ has gotten such a bad rap  – maybe it always has come with that faint tinge of Puritan disapproval and I just didn’t notice it (and it wouldn’t be the first time).  But I like the word diva.  Its Latin origin means ‘goddess’ and if you think about true divas (Jessye Norman, Joan Sutherland come to mind), what it conjures is a massive, almost mystical Presence to match their incredible vocal gifts…..

…which is why I am stunned! that Roja Dove chose to name his new fragrance Diaghilev and create it to mark the Victoria & Albert Ballets Russes exhibit.   This perfume which I fell into, courtesy of WAFT by Carol, is so incredibly, lushly velvet-chypre-y,creamy, swoony-swoopy,  (pant!pant!).….my darlings, I just don’t know how to describe it.  If divas = difficult this perfume might qualify.  But the difficulty will be yours.  I defy you to wear this without incurring a Repetitive Motion Injury.  My shoulder still hurts from the 243 times I lifted my wrist to my nose in one hour alone!

Sergei D. might’ve worn it – by all accounts the impressario was an Imperious Presence – but I doubt any of his ballerinas would’ve.  Not even his prima ballerina.  It’s just a bit too hefty for a ballerina….

Oh!  Wait.    I’m an idiot.  Roja Dove is a genius.  And he’s right.  He created this in honor of an early 20^th Century ballet company. Think everything Diaghilev represented, iron will, outsized ego, Mitsouko-scented curtains.  Think Olga Spessivtseva, considered one of the greatest classical dancers of all time.  A prima ballerina.   Presence.   I see her, emerging from her bath, wrapped in a silk kimono…powdering her shoulders whilst her maid lays out her gown for dinner with a fabulously wealthy admirer….her dressing room filled to the brim with luscious deep pink roses and her chaise longue covered in a cashmere throw, vintage Bollinger on her dressing table, spraying this with abandon….. Sergei and Olga, mirror satellites of fabulousness, each needing the other to achieve the zeniths of their talents..

Shut up about the ballerinas already and get to the perfume! Sorry.  I got carried away with the Bolly and the chaise longue.  You all …..wow.  Okay. (deep breath here)…  You all know how much I adore vintage Mitsouko, right?  And you know I heart current Femme with its sexy sweat…..and Coty Chypre is one of my all-time vintage loves.  Well…imagine that those three are romping in a bed dressed in woven silk sheets and there is a LOT of 1990 Krug (with its  yeasty magnificence)…and a big silver bucket of chilled shrimp with Thousand Island dressing (I’m serious) and a flourless chocolate cake with a warm vanilla crème anglaise….and you have Diaghilev.   Carol and I agree that it is not a ‘modern’ scent at all – this is evocative of the great  50s-60s versions of Coty Chypre.  Like M. Dove I smell Mitsouko (Carol disagrees – for her more coherent review see here ) but the smoothness of vintage EDP, not the current (pre-reformulation) with its gasoline punch.  Roja Dove studied at Guerlain and you can smell the Guerlain influence in Diaghilev – the vanilla that defines Shalimar is evident in the springy roundness  of this scent, which stops just one sugar sprinkle short of crème brulee ( my favorite crèmes brulees incorporate 3 distinct things that flow together:  the bite of carmelized (nearly carbonized) sugar, the sweet followthrough of that sugar and the salty tang of the crème).  Everything about this perfume translates, for me, into ‘mouthfeel’.  Carol uses the term ‘mouthwatering’….and she’s absolutely right.  If I didn’t already adore her, I would hate her guts.   Her evocative review caused a lemming so intense it made my gums ache!  So I schemed and scrabbed and am now anxiously awaiting my leetle bit of it.  And I am willing to share a small sample with one incredibly lucky commenter. Drop a line here letting me know which perfume most conjures up ‘mouthfeel’ for you and I’ll get Pickle to pull a winner.  I doubt this rambling, screechifyin’ post has spawned any lemmings but just in case, you can purchase Diaghilev here . Two caveats:  it has one of those scary bulb atomizers and currently it only ships to the UK.  But everybody knows somebody (or knows somebody who knows somebody) who lives/works/visits London – if you are a chypre-lover this one is an absolute ‘must-try’ for you.

Notes (which I stole from Carol’s post – please do read it (way better than mine)  there’s also a link to a Roja Dove interview…he’s delightfully over the top and I think I am in love!  I carry my own blanket, too!)

top -bergamot, lemon and orange

heart – rose de mai , jasmine

base – oak moss, orris, patchouli, vanilla and vetiver

photo:  frenchchicandshabby.com some rights reserved

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