First off, a shout-out to Patty, who will be on NPR at 11:40 EST this morning, as part of a Perfumes: The Guide interview with LT and TS, I guess they’re going for the blogger perspective. Go, Patty! Second, a reminder, this coming Friday we are featuring your anonymous reviews of Clinique Aromatics Elixir and Happy, and Tommy Girl, so get those reviews emailed in to perfume dot posse at gmail dot com (with the correct punctuation marks substituted for “dot” and “at”) and we’ll print them. Third, next Monday, a week from today, is another free-for-all discussion on The Guide. Because, seriously, We Need To Talk. I Have Issues. Thus far I’ve flagged reviews that make me feel smug, a couple that make me want to try (or retry) something, and a couple that kill me. Okay, on to today’s topic.

The problem with reading about scents is you may learn something. Luca Turin has spoiled two scents for me in just this way recently. In The Guide he describes 21 Costume National as an “anisic oriental” and bam! Although anise is not listed among the 21 notes, when I smell it, anise is now the dominant note of this milky woody wonder (he gives it three stars). Anise being about as welcome in my fragrance collection as a bear at a picnic, my ardor for 21 has cooled. Also, I have had an on-again off-again relationship with L’Artisan Safran Troublant for quite some time, but it appears to be on again, my having acquired one of the small coffret bottles. Then I read LT’s review (four stars) in which he talks about the wonderful interplay among the saffron, vanilla and rose. Rose! Of course! The rose note was obvious as soon as I read it. Now, the rose having moved squarely to the forefront, it hogs the stage every time I smell it. I can barely see the saffron behind it.

Vexed by these developments, I dug around in all my samples looking for something different. Kelly had sent me some other Dawn Spencer Hurwitz scents, so I checked those out. Then I turned my attention to Gail’s package full of fragrances by Liz Zorn. (Thanks Kelly and Gail!)

The great thing about perfumery is, you can have sniffed so very, very much and there are still entire lines you know nothing about. I selected two Liz Zorns to put on – Grand Canyon, because Marina had blogged on it and I’d wanted to try it, and Pink Praline, because I was feeling perverse and it seemed, based on the label, to be the one thing I’d be least likely to enjoy.

LZ Pink Praline gave me an immediate masochistic satisfaction – I smiled, awaiting burial under a giant mass of what smelled like sugar and cocoa, with an odd discordant note I couldn’t place. I usually loathe chocolate in my fragrance, and this was no exception. After three minutes it quiets down quite a bit, the odd top note fades, and I began to … well, to like it. Go figure. I decided to look at the notes: pink grapefruit, cocoa, maple, dark roasted coffee, spices, cinnamon, honey, fenugreek, vanilla. The odd note at the top is the grapefruit – yes, a sweet citrus on top of cocoa. I can’t pick the coffee out until the drydown, when it becomes quite prominent. In the drydown it’s a seamless, not overly sweet gourmand confection – the smell of being in a bakery, but a nice one, and the maple/fenugreek gives an immortelle-esque twist. You choco/gourmand freaks should check this out.

LZ Grand Canyon (sweet orange, clementine, blood orange, neroli, laurel leaf, palma rosa, black pepper, labdanum, benzoin, honey, myrrh, sandalwood, spices, rose, jasmine, vetiver) starts out with a jumble of citrus, rose and laurel, and my immediate reaction was – nah. It had that kind of macerated green soup vibe that wasn’t working for me. Then the citrus fades into the spices, jasmine and woods, it becomes an warmly elegant comfort scent – the kind that’s pretty enough to wear out, more sophisticated than your favorite sweatshirt, but just as cozy. My favorite of the bunch listed in this post.

I sat out in the sun on the back porch, the first day it was warm enough to do so. I should have gotten out my sun hat. But I didn’t. Sitting there, wondering about sniffing the other Liz Zorn samples, my bad mood gone, cataloging my constant stream of perfumed thoughts (I never ordered those last DSH samples!, and do I already have a vial of Givenchy Vetyver and don’t realize it?), I suddenly understood. It wouldn’t matter if I smelled them all and never smelled them again, much less owned them. It explains my phenomenal sample collection versus my relatively sparse bottle collection. I watched those bees buzz all around me, looking for their next hit, and I realized: I am a perfume vagabond. I want to taste the honey from every single flower on this earth, and if I never own that flower… that’s okay. I’m just a bee, and it was worth it.

* * *

DSH Tamarind Paprika – this one fascinates me. Half the time – a bitter, sour, nasty, cheapo potpourri-from-hell smell. The other half of the time – an interesting tobacco-and-mulling-spices.

DSH Prana smells exactly like the inside of an Aveda store.

DSH Vanille – a rich, straight, gourmand vanilla I enjoyed sniffing on the edge of my thumb, and would probably kill me in larger doses.

DSH Arome d’Egypt – DSH does spice and gourmand scents really well. This is sort of a spice market/incense scent.

DSH Jitterbug – this is in fact a wonderful old-fashioned spicy oriental fragrance that one could imagine wafting up from various vintage bottles.

Liz Zorn Sunset Rider – huh. To the extent we’re developing a trend, what I’m discovering sampling her stuff is I find the top notes jarring, and then the whole fragrance opens up and shifts in a direction I like better. Having done this several times now, I’m kind of enjoying the construct; it gets my attention. Sunset Rider starts off with what I think is a citrus/sandalwood blast, then dries down into a fairly indolic jasmine, and you know I like my jasmine dirty.

LZ Vanillaville. From her website: “A rustic, smoky vanilla, with the essence of pipe tobacco and leather. Notes include Almond, Tonka, Tarragon, Birch Tar and Coffee.” To me it smelled like a perfect sweet pipe tobacco rather than leather.

LZ Solstice – (formerly Peace on Earth?). Balsam, white pine, rose, jasmine, violet, cassie, clove, sandalwood, agarwood, rosewood, frankincense, myrrh, amber, woods, balsam of Peru, orris, patchouli, tuberose, moss, ambrette, vanilla. A floral incense. I got the extrait. It’s very soft and comforting, lightly spicy. I want to spray this on and see how I felt about it, I think I would love it. For some reason it’s not coming up at all on her website.

LZ Chado - Green Tea, Blue Cypress, fresh herbs. The website describes it as GRASSY-DRY-HERBAL, which is not my sort of thing. However, that’s a perfect description.

LZ Oolong – a peach tea and tooooo sweeet on me. The only one of the bunch I really didn’t care for.

LZ Blood Orange and Vetiver – hey, remember Wickle Chestnut & Vetiver? No? Sigh. That was such a great scent. Its simplity in concept was part of its charm. This is along the same lines – a sweet/tart juicy orange mixed with a fairly rooty vetiver.

LZ Cordovan Rose – the big rose opening up and walloped my nose, but before I could scream in horror the birch tar and glove leather painted a smile on my face. I still wouldn’t wear it, because it’s rose, but fans of leathery roses might love this. The rose fades over time, leaving me with a soft, sweet leather.

Liz Zorn is, I think, moving her goods to her new website, selling them under a different name, Soivohle, and I’m going to gripe that I hate the setup, in which all the fragrances are sold using abbreviations – Sunset Rider becomes SR-05-N. Hon, why? They already have (slightly groovy) names, which I kinda like. I view this as a step backward. Alphanumeric reference-style naming is dull and hard to remember. It didn’t work well for Parfums MDCI, it didn’t work well for biehl.parfumkunstwerke, and it ain’t gonna work well for you either.

bee image: pdphoto.org

Today’s post evolved from my most recent fragrance acquisition, a swap on MUA that (small world) turned out to be with a Gail, a blog regular. Gail shares my fondness for comfort scents and included several interesting things in her package, which got me headed in a new direction.

Yves Rocher Neonatura Cocoon – okay, I see what appeals. I really do. But this is two or three tiny baby steps too far in the direction of Angel to delight me – I really bring the patch out. It is, to be sure, a much quieter, more streamlined composition of chocolate, vanilla and patch, and any of you who love that cocoa-patch dynamic should check it out.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH) – the focus of the rest of today’s post. The DSH line is enormous. How enormous? The reviews of her scents on MUA go on for 21 pages at 15 fragrances per page. You do the math; it’s crazy, right? Going on her website is so overwhelming I never end up ordering anything. The company’s based in Boulder, and a lot (all?) of the scents come with ancillary bath/body products. Thus, many of the scents are of the attractive-but-not-earth-shatteringly-complex type you might like in a body lotion. I can’t speak to the breadth of DSH styles – she does dupes and vintage type scents, and various “inspired by” fragrances. I have also read that she knows her way around roses.

To my nose, something she does really well is a particular style of comfort scent. Pick some combo of: woods, incense, vanilla or clean musk, spices, rice steam, subtle florals … you get the picture. Her gourmand, woods and spice scents have a wearable seamlessness to them. They are not particularly sweet, and they are not “foody” – even her highly popular Café Noir, while smelling very much of coffee, isn’t something you’d want to drink. The equally wonderful Cimabue, a riff on L’Artisan’s Safran Troublant, is chock full of spices, but you wouldn’t mistake it for something to eat. Anyhoo, here are some comfort scents from her line, which I am enjoying right now as chilly, blustery weather will not loosen its freaking grip in my neck of the (still leafless) woods…

Blond Suede. Bergamot, spice notes, violet, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, hay absolute, orris, amber, castoreum, honey, leather, sandalwood. There is exactly one review of this on MUA, and I ask you – where the heck are the other 85?!? This stuff is great. From the website: “While most leather scents are deep and overtly’ animalic’, Blond Suede is wonderfully light and subtly textured.” Blond Suede is a reasonable facsimile of suede; there’s that light buttery leather-goods note, and the faint tinge of pepper to give you the texture. But the beauty of the scent from my perspective is the other note that sneaks in a few minutes later — a dead ringer for the divine maple-hay-curry goodness of immortelle. I have no idea whether DSH was aiming for immortelle, or maybe it’s a trick of some combination of the honey, hay and spice notes, but why quibble about perfection? Blond Suede is, essentially, gentle spices, suede and immortelle – soft, velvety and comforting.

St. Valentine. Bergamot, nutmeg, Parma violet, Bulgarian rose, centifolia rose, raspberry, tea rose, amber, Bourbon vanilla, dark chocolate, French vanilla. This smells like a softer, incense-free, easier-to-wear version of S-Perfume’s 100% Love. Mostly chocolate, vanilla, roses and a pinch of violet. Having overdosed awhile ago on 100% Love, this wasn’t pure love for me, but the husband, two friends, and the girls adored it.

Mahjoun. Bitter almond, cardamom, cherry blossom, lavender, lemon, sweet orange, Bulgarian rose, fig, hazelnut, honey, nutmeg, orange blossom, sugar date, amber, Atlas cedarwood, cinnamon bark, clove bud, frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh. Comfort scent par excellence. I’d compare it to Chergui (okay, okay, minus Serge’s special je ne sais quoi sauce), only the drydown’s deeper and missing the honeyed amber sweetness of Chergui that sometimes makes me feel a bit ill. Much less sweet and smoother than you might gather from that list of notes; darkly spicy but restrained about it. Layers beautifully with …

Sienna. Cinnamon leaf, curry leaf, pink peppercorn, basmati, cinnamon bark, honey, white oak, civet, labdanum, leather, peru balsam, tolu balsam. This gets dissed as “not enough” on the boards, and I’d say that’s part of its charm. It’s a subtle scent, I grant you. It’s the level of subtlety you reach for when you want your scent to be discreet; the cinnamon is not blasting up your nose, and the rest is a faintly spicy resinous scent. Sometimes that is precisely what I want. Layers beautifully with Blond Suede, giving it a subtly sweet cinnamon/spice kick.

Having tried these, here is the list of ones I really want to try next: Chai Tea, Gingembre, Prana, Au Lait, Ceylon, Tamarind/Paprika, Lumiere, Poivre, Indochine, and Piment/Chocolate. Note the mellow, gourmand theme there. If you’ve tried any of those or any of the other DSH line and would like to comment, or add to my list, please do so.

On another subject: We (and you) do a fair amount of grumbling on this blog about how we wish fragrance came in smaller sizes. I was in Sephora recently when I noticed the limited edition set of Kenzo Amour bottles (below), which – come on! – are the cutest things – I think 3” - 4″ tall? (Guessing.)  When looking for a photo on their website, I see they now have a two sections (airplane-friendly and petite) devoted to smaller sized bottles or bottle sets.

Granted, this is generally mass-market stuff — what is Sephora if not mass market? But I’d love a little bottle of the Omnia Crystalline, those Kenzos, and some others. I think this is a great marketing strategy by Sephora; on average their consumers are younger and less well-heeled than those at, say, Nordstrom, and they’re probably more likely to buy a $35 fragrance than a $70 one. Or they’ll do what I’d do – spend the $70 and get two fragrances. I also like the small bottles because they’re easy to throw in a purse or a travel bag. My (perhaps completely meritless) hope is other retailers notice the small bottles sell and try to work something similar out with their own inventory.

chai tea image: everythingcoffee-tea.com; Kenzo Amour, Sephora.com