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When I crossed the border into Ontario for the first time since my enemy radical status was rescinded, I couldn´t wait for that first glimpse of the CN Tower that reveals itself from across Lake Ontario as you drive along on the Queen Elizabeth Way, somewhere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.

If you visit the Dianne Brill fragrance blurb on Beautyhabit, in search of information about the scent, it says “Instead of giving you a list of the many precious ingredients in this fragrance, I would like to offer you a moment to FEEL THE SCENT.”  And it goes downhill from there, with cringe-worthy prose about being fulfilled and feeling the vibration.  I probably would have stopped there, in disgust, with any other celebrity – particularly one whose heyday was the 80s club scene.

Except I love Dianne Brill.  When I first heard about her fragrance I deeply, perversely wanted it to be brilliant.  I had no idea she was already something of a success, with a website featuring her own makeup line and confirming the main thing I liked about her in the first place – she clearly has a sense of humor, even (especially?) about herself.  I remembered the outsize 80′s personality that matched her big hair and generous …  poitrine and was happy to hear that, unlike so many other figures from that time, she hadn´t gone down the tubes, a sad-sack victim of drugs and debauchery.

Eventually Chandler Burr did a review of her fragrance for the NY Times and in his interview managed to come away with a sense of the process (Brill worked with Valerie Garnuch) and some of the suggested inspirations/notes, cribbing from Burr´s review, include: a piece of leather Brill bought in a flea market and kept in a box because she loved the smell; an unnamed, discontinued Kiehls body oil that had “a sort of naughty/beachy/salty scent;” wood from “construction sites, I didn´t want sandalwood, nothing Indian or exotic;” figs, both ripe and green; the smell of a Cuban cigar box Brill owned; and spices, “although the spices were a real tough call for me. My husband and family had just bought a wonderful sailboat, and we were off the coast of Mustique, and we found the producer of an excellent West Indies nutmeg, which has a very weird, disco-nasty smell, people just starting to sweat on the dance floor. So Valerie put that in.”

The result is what Burr beautifully describes as “edginess polished with a gourmand brush.”  It´s strange from the top to the bottom – a sweet, rich, floral opening that is slightly off kilter, letting the wearer know immediately that the trip will be interesting.  As Patty noted in her review, “it has the resemblance of something more traditional on the open, but quickly veers off into some completely new territory, then back to traditional fruity-ish floral, then completely heads down the path of something far more interesting.”

The figs interwoven with the smell of the interior of a tobacconist shop is one of the most singularly strange and delightful combinations in recent memory – sweet fruity ripeness and bitter astringency pushing against a backdrop of hay and tobacco.  Underneath that, a salty smell that reads less as “marine” and more as salty, sweaty skin – “disco-nasty” indeed.  Also, there´s a whiff of something peculiar and ozonic and a teeny bit nasty that runs through the whole thing, a chemical smell reminiscent of the synthetic/hairspray note in Gucci Rush (apparently a reference to a popular brand of poppers).

Once you get past the misleading sweetness of the first 20 seconds (additional notes Garnuch gives are ylang, Peruvian benzoin, and chocolate) it smells pretty unisex to me, although I can´t imagine many men (or even some women) wanting that froufrou bottle on their dresser.

In the end, the thing I love most about Dianne Brill´s fragrance is it´s the rarest of birds – a perfume with a sense of humor that also manages to be very good (Burr gives it three stars).  In this respect I´d compare it to Cumming – it doesn´t smell a thing like Cumming, of course, but it shares Cumming´s wearability and quirky charm.  Based on what I´m smelling, the perfume Brill described is very much what she got — Garnuch did a brilliant job of combining a fairly disparate set of Brill´s loves into something easy to love in itself.

I feel like starting a new filing category on the right – one labeled “Perfume Contrarian” – for fragrances like this that I can´t help but sense I´m swimming against the popular tide on.  Who besides me wants to wear something made by Brill?  I have no idea.  I also feel duty-bound to report I tried this on at least two people on whom it started out – and remained – unbearably sweet, as if it had turned into straight vanilla-fruit hitting their skin.  All the other notes simply disappeared.  Also, it´s tenacious, so if you hate this, you might be hating it for hours.

I wonder if you, reading this, have a fragrance you´d file under “perfume contrarian” – something you continue to love and wear while feeling it doesn´t get the respect it deserves, and whether that bothers you.  As for me – I want a bottle of this stuff.  I think it´s kind of cute, actually.

Dianne Brill is available from Beautyhabit for $95 for a 50ml bottle; and if you´re still trying to figure out who the heck Dianne Brill even is, here´s a link to her website – and wow, she looks amazing, doesn’t she?

images: beautyhabit.com

March

Lee already did a great review on Serge Lutens El Attarine, but I got some different mojo from it, so I just have to comment on my, um, experience.  Am I the only person getting a healthy dose of MKK on the open under the ethereal boisees series?  Yes?  It’s a heady mix, like hot, sweaty sex in the forest.  Is this how moose feel?  I mean, damn, this starts out fierce on me, and it is the open that I completely have fallen in love with  – the perfect blend of naughty and rutting nature.  It’s just charmed the pants off me because it has enough  of all the boisees in there to distract me from that funkiness going on under it, but all of that going on underneath never strays from my mind.  The longer it’s on, the less overtly saucy it gets, but that almost makes it more sensual, not less.  Less is the new more.

Chandler Burr has already reviewed the new Dianne Brill perfume, and he notes from Brill that the smells she was going for were leather, wood, figs, the smell of Cuba, old books, and nutmeg.  Brill herself writes some horrible copy about not wanting to give notes, that you must experience it melting, blah, blah,blah.  If I never have to read another one of these horrible perfume pitches screaming for attention like Lindsey Lohan withing 50 yards of a camera, it won’t be too soon. 

Burr likens it to Ambre Narguile on Nitrous Oxide.  Oh-kay….  On me it has the resemblance of something more traditional on the open, but quickly veers off into some completely new territory, then back to traditional fruity-ish floral, then completely heads down the path of something far more interesting.  I get a little of the ozonic quality that has been mentioned in passing in comments on other blogs at first, but that lasts not at all in any noticeable way.  Once it starts to settle, then that leather shows up, but it’s slightly rubbery, and I mean that in a good way.  Librarian meets rubber pants?  But no Ambre Narguile in sight.  There is a gourmandish aspect to it, even though I can’t quite figure out what note is causing that or if it’s just the combination of notes that twirls it away from fruity floral into rubbery gourmand.  There in the background is something closer to a mainline fruity floral scent, just jacked up –  emulating it, but not, and then giggling when you notice.

Patty