Yesssss!  It’s SUMMAH!

I know a lot of folks hate summer, hiding out in their AC until the first nip of autumn arrives.  Not Musette.  I love the whole ‘so hot you can’t move’, louche, laissez-faire feeling of a Midwestern summer, as the tomatoes ripen and the sunflowers hit shoulder-height and the blood runs just under the skin,instead of having to drop deep into your core, like it does in deep winter,  just to keep you alive.

On the hottest days I get mah Freak on.  Where others might long for cool citruses and vetivers, my soul cries out for Amouage Tribute Attar.  Hey, go big or go home!  Of course, the Amouage line is an Omani house (Royal, don’tchaknow) – and those folks know a thing or two about perfume in extreme heat.  Tribute Attar comes into full bloom right about the 90F mark.  That raspy smoke accord that can be somewhat distracting in cooler weather morphs into this ashes of roses tone and the rose oil melds into your skin and the whole thing becomes a silken,languid lounge on the pavillion, watching sunlight play on the splashing water in the fountain.  If they made a body cream of this attar I would have to kill myself.  Christopher, don’t do it, I beg of you! (okay…do it!  Just. Do. It.)

Carnal Flower.    This is another beauty that just blooms on hot summer days  but you know what?  In extreme heat the Body Butter (Beurre Exquise) is even mo’ bettah!  Something about the perfume goes a little scratchy in the summertime but that butter… yum!  It’s been reformulated so it doesn’t separate anymore – it’s a smooth slickery-slide of hot-flower goodness, with that beautiful stab of eucalyptus winding through it.  I am unrepentant about wearing it in high heat and you know what?  Folks seem to love it.  Either that or they’re too terrified to complain.  I wore it yesterday.  It was 96F.  Gorgeous!

Tom says:

We in Los Angeles are having out usual wild swings between chilly onshore flow and arid Santa Anas, with a week or so of humidity to make it interesting.  So my two summer faves have been from the vault:

Acqua di Parma (the original, whatever they’re calling it these days) is a go-to for summer weather.  A lovely citrus floral with a clean drydown that makes me feel crisp and fresh in the worst of summer.

The other that I’ve found myself reaching for is Montale Musk to Musk.  It’s light touch of spicy woods and warm oud that whispers.  I’m starting to run low on this one, it’s been in such heavy rotation.

From the lovely Ann:
For the never-ending heat wave that this summer is turning out to be, I’m dusting off something old and pulling out something new (well, not THAT new, but newish, at least to me).
With all the talk this spring of the royal wedding scent,
Illuminum’s White Gardenia Petals, several comments bubbled up about its resemblance to Prescriptives’ Calyx. I loved the heck out of Calyx in the late ’80s but over the years sort of forgot about it. So when I sniffed the Illuminum, I definitely thought it could be Calyx’s quieter, more reserved younger sister. And although I liked the WGP a lot (but not enough to fall full bottle for), it did serve to re-ignite my love for Calyx and I made haste to get some in my hot little hands.
My second summer love is Le Labo’s Tubereuse 40. As others have said before, it really is sunshine in a bottle. There’s just something about it that tickles my nose, my mood and my fancy. It makes me happy, and, silly as it might sound, near-giddy. And all with nary a prescription drug in sight. Now if it weren’t for that hefty price tag and that pesky NYC exclusivity business, this baby would be mine in a heartbeat.

From Patty:

I am the most boring favorite summer scent person in the world.  I pick the same things over and over.  Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan, Rose Ikebana, along with Rosine’s Zeste d’Rose and Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin. The last one used to not be on my list, even though I’ve had it in my drawer for years. I finally noted it was in a Top Ten List from Perfumes: The Guide, so I tried it, and it’s really pretty freaking great.

From Nava:

Patty thinks she’s boring; she’s got company. Another Rose Ikebana fan here, albeit there ain’t much left in the bottle; Philosophy’s Enternal Grace has replaced Pure Grace this summer, because…I know, I know, you’re sick and tired of hearing about it. And bringing up the rear is Fresh Brown Sugar. That’s all I can tolerate; it’s been a freakin’ scorcher here in the Great White North!

photo: DBsDesigns “pooling around”

for more Top Ten Summer picks check out  Now Smell This, Perfume Smellin’ Things, Bois de Jasmin & Grain de Musc.

by Musette

I’m writing this in the waning Sunday morning for Wednesday’s post.

I’ve been an Urban Baby for most of my life.  Water out of the tap (Chicago -  flat-rate, pretty cheap).  AC everywhere, even when I don’t want it.  Public trans, working in all but the most ridiculous temperatures.  Weather was more about making sure I always had  a sweater, since there is always a 50F temperature difference between inside and out.

Then I moved to the suburbs and things got a little weirder.  No real public trans and larger spaces between amenities.   Water was way more expensive – I learned about rainbarrels -  and in the winter, if you’re smart, you keep a pair of boots in your car (and a hat) ‘just in case’ – but hey, it’s the ‘burbs.  How bad could it be?  Your car breaks down, Triple A will be there in a few minutes.  Pretty simple. 
Now I’m in the country.  Real country.  Well, I’m’ in town’ , such as it is, – but a block away, town ends.  For reals.  Water costs more than gas, the source is not abundant and only the Truly Stupid waste it.  Out here, weather is not to be disrespected.  We’ve been in drought for a month, with 90F temps.  Ground completely parched.  That dusty, hot radiator smell that says nature is doing its best to hold on – but it ain’t lookin’ that good.  Rain barrels totally dry (800 gals goes faster than I could’ve imagined).  Capturing every bit of greywater I could, to keep the kitchen garden alive.  Hard work.   Is it 2011?  Or 1811?  Hard to tell, when you’re hauling pails of dishwwater.  No a/c, lots of fans.  You really get a sense of how scary Nature can be, when it’s 100F – inside your house.  And your own insides are cooking.   Whatchagonnado when the well runs dry?  Yeah, ‘that’ kind of scary.

5am.  I wake up to 89F and fog.  Crap.  Drag the shower pail outside to the corn.  Yes, it really is That Bad.  Clouds in the near distance – but we’ve been fooled before.  A bit of thunder.  So what.  Last thunder rumbled through on 60mph winds and dropped  all the rain on Chicago, 200miles away.  So…..  Carefully water the corn…

…lightning.  LIGHTNING?  It’s really close….and the wind isn’t picking up too quickly.  A bit of ozone.  That beautiful greenery-yallery-grey sky that portends real rain. THUNDER.  BIG thunder.  Close.  Oh please, please, pleeeeeeze.  Wind, don’t take this rain away from us.  Please?

7am. Wind!  Thank you!!!  A massive storm rolls in…and stays.  And stays.  Temps drop to 80F.  Blessed coolness. 72 degrees.  Real wetness, not that awful ‘ sizzling concrete’ smell.   Corn stalks and tomato cages are knocked over but nothing’s broken.    A bean bush seedling is up!  I’m in the kitchen garden, up to my ankles in mud, righting corn stalks, pounding in stakes and tying pepper and tomato plants, the smell of crushed tomato leaf mingling with the wet, ozone-y, beautiful smell of wet earth.  Wet. earth.  Another front is moving in fast.  I need to hurry up.  Wait.  Why do I need to hurry up so damn fast?  I’ve waited a month for this rain.  It’s not radioactive.   Slowing down….pounding the stakes in with precision (there’s not a lot of room for error – this garden is crammed), tying the delicate branches, laden with green tomatoes, with careful deliberation. Rain soaking me through to my undies.  I can feel my liver cooling down.  It’s now raining so hard it’s pooling in my garden clogs.   And my ears.  Weird feeling – the opposite of dust.  The peppers are overgrown – might as well harvest while I’m in here.  Bell peppers the size of softballs – that greywater really paid off.  But now it’s time to let Nature take back over for awhile.  My spine is grateful.

I’m soaking wet, covered in mud  and tomato leaf and stinging pepper juice….and it’s so wonderful.  Rain barrels are full, not that I’ll need them for awhile.  It’s still raining, a now-soft, soaking rain.   The world smells living again.

1pm, as I write this.  It’s actually a bit (dare I say it?) chilly!   Outside, soaking-wet cardinals and finches fluff their feathers as they crowd their feeders.  The hummingbirds zoom past the sugar water on their way to the real deal.   It’s going to rain, on and off, all day.  Such a wonderful thing.  I know some places are getting a bit too much (and too much of the world is not getting enough) but for us, today, this rain is a gift.

I wore Parfum de Therese this morning but the rain washed it all off.  I’m just fine with that.  As beautiful as perfume is, sometimes it’s good to just smell like rain.  And tomato stems.  The slickery-sweat smell of hard work in rain.  Pepper juice. Wet dirt.

And Life.

A Tale of Beginner’s Mind

by Musette

Every now and then I’ll meet someone who admits to lurking on the Posse but won’t comment, afraid that they don’t know enough, thinking I , The Great Musette, am so knowledgeable about perfume.  (wait.  the Earth just shifted off its axis from the Posse’s collective stop/drop/roll of hilarity). I know next to nothing – but I delight in having a Beginner’s Mind, always open to new information and experience.

And so it is thus with Parfum de Therese.  When I first was introduced to the Malle line, I began with weird scent beauty Fleur de Cassie.  I  then got seduced by Angeliques and Carnal Flower and somehow Parfum de Therese just floated on past my consciousness.  Recently, though, March and I had a conversation about Dior and in the way those conversations go, she mentioned PdTherese – “I would think you would really like that one, as you are such a fan of the vintage Diors”.  Huh?  Oh, yeah.  That Roudnitska feller.  Dior?  Oh, yeah.  That’s right:  only the creator of  two or three of my Holy Grails.  Yeah, that guy.

Sampled it once.  “Hmmmm….I see what she means…wonder why this smells  so ‘different’ from the other Malles (stop snickering – yeah, I knew the story, I know Edmond Roudnitska…I know, I know….I just didn’t ‘know’).   I sampled again – and the little dominoes that comprise my rattly mind slowly clicked into place.  Sampled a third time, this time at Barneys…and this shimmering veil of “Holy Cow! How did I miss this one??” descended over me, along with the  gobsmacking beauty of the perfume, of course.  The ever-patient Lydia.  le sigh.  How she keeps from just slapping me is a mystery.

This Is Perfume.   Old School Perfume.  Nicknamed ‘The Plum” by Roudnistka’s circle of perfume pros, it is comprised of many notes, including Mandarin orange, melon, jasmine, plum, cedar, vetiver, leather, rose, nutmeg  – and like all Roudnitska perfumes it smells to me like all of its notes and none of its notes.  It’s almost impossible to pick any one of the notes out, so seamlessly is this constructed – don’t let the plum fool you – this couldn’t be further from a fuity-floral if you put it on the moon.  There’s an obvious connection between this and vintage Diorella and Diorama, both Roudnitska masterpieces, but even more striking is, to my nose, the parallel between this and  the vaunted, vintage Femme ( an early Roudnitska), with its plush, plummy, sexual self.  Both are the Old School intimate perfume versions of ‘skin scents’ (plums smell like sex to me.  Not ‘having sex’ – just ..sex)  but with serious heft and structure.  One really needs to rise to the occasion with these  (I can’t imagine throwing on a pair of shorts and wearing either of these scents – then again, I can’t imagine throwing on a pair of shorts! The mind boggles)  Angela has a gorgeous review of vintage Femme here.  M. Roudnitska took the sexbombaliciouness of Femme and dialed it back a little, creating a bespoke scent for his lady wife that hints at womanly sensuality – but in a very private manner.

Parfum de Therese is a ladylike scent.  But not some rarified spun-sugar doll.  A real woman, who probably washed the dinner dishes every evening and then sat down to work through complex chemical formulas – or to help her son with his math homework or just enjoy a cognac with her husband – an effortlessly chic woman, comfortable in her own lovely skin (I see her making an incredible French Potato Salad, then sitting down to enjoy it, on the terrace, with a glass of Chablis).  Looking at pictures of Mme Roudnitska I suspect her husband, in creating Parfum de Therese, did not create an homage to her.  It is an homage of her.  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to wear this and will try to be worthy.  Thanks, March, for giving me a reason to stand up straight and do my hair!  I need no reason to drink the Chablis. Or the cognac.

image:  detail from Delisa Summer, all rights reserved

A young ladypal of El O’s cub , visiting  our bathroom, came out exclaiming “OMG!  YOU WEAR FRACAS!  My AUNT WEARS FRACAS!!!”  (caps all hers, I swear).  She shrieked on to tell me how much she liked it, etc….so my Inner  Nerd went on Red Alert….and I opened up the Perfume Armoire.

Stunned.  We’d just met so I’m sure she thought I was totally off the chain.  I forgot how it must look to a normal person.  I’m largely inured to it, of course, having seen pictures of collections way larger and more interesting than mine.  But guess what:  Normal people do not have entire armoires and closets dedicated to perfume.  Imagine that!  But! jazzed by her screeching I delved into the armoire, determined to introduce her to the genre of the Big White Flower. Hey, cub was in the shower – we had time.

It went thus:

Fracas.  Vintage v. contemporary.   You know, I have both (several flights, in fact) and I really can’t discern a huge  difference.  The vintage is a bit more nuanced because it probably has some  ingredient that will make your elbows fall off – but Fracas is such an ICBM of BWF that it’s kind of hard to differentiate.  After all, if an ICBM lands in your bathroom, does it really matter if it has 2kg or 3kg of plutonium?  Of course not.  Vaporized is vaporized.  I absolutely LOVE slathering myself in Fracas, from the shower gel/body creme/powder through to the vintage perfume.  Of course that only happens at bedtime when El O is out of town – even the dogs won’t come near me then, not even for a hamsammich.  For as Tom says: My Big White Flower Fight is one of my favorite, and sometime favorite to hate: Fracas.  In normal doses and at the right time it’s the most glorious, sexy thing imaginable.  In larger doses and at the wrong time it’s like being beaten to death by hot-buttered tuberose.  Note to the woman who sat somewhere behind me at “Sex and the City 2″ in Century City: marinating yourself in this  and plunking yourself in a crowded theater at 10am on a Sunday doesn’t make you Samantha.  It makes you sickening.  Sorry.

The cub-pal’s take:  “uh…wow.  I …”. and then sheer, panicked silence. .something tells me she’d only smelled it in passing on her aunt or maybe just knew that her aunt wore it.  I don’t think she’d ever actually smelled it.  Certainly not on herself.   Wearing Fracas is not for the faint of heart.  She seemed so poleaxed that I took pity on her and hit her with the #4 Toner.  Fracas is not a Big White Flower.  It is The GREAT White Flower, the Jaws of the genre.  And like Jaws, love or hate, you must approach with maximum respect.  20 years from now she may want to try it again.

Next up: Carnal Flower. I don’t know if you guys recall the conversation I had with M. Malle about CF v. Fracas, where he respectfully deemed Fracas a ‘perfume’  while considering Carnal Flower to be something not perfume (at least not compared to Fracas)  – and he’s right.  Carnal Flower, like Fracas, is an obvious composition of its time, having a more integrated feel to it.  I think Fracas sits ON the skin (as befits the era) where Carnal Flower gets a bit UNDER the skin, melding to it in a more contemporary way .   Contemporary or not, overapplied it can clear an elevator in 12 seconds flat (and no, F, NOT YOU!  The lady in the Barneys elevator. The one who prolly spritzed until she was floating in her shoes.)

Cub-pal take:  this was hysterical.  I watched this girl sniff.  Close her eyes.  Open her eyes.  Eyes rolled back in head.  .  She just looked at me, spellbound.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her she would have to work at Old Navy for an entire month to pay for a bottle.  Plus it’s a tad too old for her – but I suspect that she will ask to try it again.  And I will let her.  Youth should always have something to aspire to.

Diptyque Olene – well, as you might imagine, we did a whole-arm scrub, with Lava Soap, before trying the Olene.  Oh, c’mon.  Like Olene can compete with Carnal Flower.  Not.  It’s a lovely little scent and is a great bedtime jasmine (I wore it last night in solidarity for the Chinese people who now cannot buy, wear or speak of jasmine.  You can read about this insanity here).   It’s BWF Lite, which is not always a bad thing and actually is a great scent for a young woman just dipping a nose into Big White Flowerss.  The wisteria and narcissus greens up the jasmine enough to make it suitable for office work or a casual date, where Carnal Flower or Fracas would get you looked at funny.  I wish I were more egalitarian about scents but some really do require some age-heft to pull them off with aplomb. This one is not one of those.
C-pal take:  it’s interesting to watch someone try to be polite.  She thought it was ‘okay’ – just okay.  I think this young lady might have the making of a perfumista – NOT dissing Olene, btw.  I like it quite a bit.  And I think if I’d hit her with the Olene first she might’ve loved it.  But after Fracas, which terrorized her and Carnal Flower, which had its slithery-slickery way with her…..le sigh.  Poor Olene.

Tuberosa d’Autunno - this was a lavish gift from a fabulosa friend and my Italian stinks so it took me a minute to realize it was iProfumi di Firenze.   Is there a reason that is not on the label?  Or is it Italian for “if you want to know, you should learn to read Italian”.  Not a bad idea…

after some research I determined it’s the same one Robin reviewed – here’s what she had to say

i Profumi di Firenze Tuberosa d’ Autunno: By no means a duplicate of Tubereuse Criminelle, but it is in the same vein, albeit without the startling top notes. Lush but cold. If you wanted to like Tubéreuse Criminelle but couldn’t, do try this one.
Cub-pal take:  Okay.  I LOVE this girl. I watched her parse out the notes and when I mentioned the ‘sour’ note therein that makes this tuberosa so interesting she shouted ‘YES!” as her face lit up.  And here I thought I was gonna have a discourse on Soul Curve.  Instead, we  yarked on what that ‘sour’ note could be – if anybody knows, give ovah.  T d’A has a medicinal quality  that gives it an old-fashioned air, like it’s the 4711 of tuberoses.  Lots of comparisons online to Tubey Criminelle and no, I STILL haven’t smelled it.  Sorry.   FWIW, I do not get ‘cold’ from this but I could be misunderstanding what ‘cold’ might mean.  It smells a bit cinnamon-y to me..  If you get ‘cold’ from it, please enlighten me!
That’s as far as we got before she started turning green (danged shame).   I sent her to the scrubbery and when she got back I spritzed her with Guerlain Eau de Cologne Imperiale.   Apprehensive, she took a cautious sniff, breathed deep and said…”ohhh.  that’s NICE”, as all the bones in her face relaxed, like her fever just broke and her mom pulled fresh, clean sheets over her.

Hey, sniffing BWFs is Hard Work!

So  you BWF Lovers and Haters:  do you have contenders for the Great White Fight?  There are so many BWFs to consider – do you have any less daunting recommendations for her?  She’s still pretty young (20) and this was a toss into the deep end of the pool.   Should I back up to mainstream?  Your thoughts?

by Musette

I hope everyone has recovered from the sweat and skank and sex of last week’s posts!  I had to take to mah faintin’ couch, I was so overcome.  When I came to, it was Spring in the Illinois Valley, serious weather moodswings and all the weird hail, snow, wind, rain…and then, suddenly, the trees are beginning to bud and bloom and I got the Easter gift of tulipa tarda blossoming under my dining room windows.

I will now commence with the blathering.

The thing I love most about Spring is the element of surprise.  If you are a careless gardener (me), it’s always a crapshoot, these early days – watch what you hoe, Cochise – what looks like a dead piece of stick one day will suddenly push forth chartreuse shoots the next –what is it?  Who knows?  I always mean to do a chart of what I planted in the fall .  Of course, I always mean to learn Mandarin, too.  Uh huh… Nothing scented is up – it’s a chilly spring so the buds and beds are taking their sweet time – it’s actually nice to watch Spring sloooowly unfurl itself, rather than racing up through the dry ground and dying in 36 hrs, as it does when it warms up too fast.  The one scent I am getting a LOT of is…frog.  Yes.  Lots of frog.   I should bottle that and send it to March.

The weather is still too mercurial for complicated scents; I’m loving those quiet, relaxed irises and lilies of the valley – heck, I almost forgot!  It’s time to break out En Passant.  Perfect for a blustery day, with a glass of white wine and a baguette toasting in the oven and a bowl of lilacs on the kitchen counter…yum!  Whenever I try to wear this in winter it brings up my lunch a little – maybe the forced-air heat?  On a rainy, 50F day, it’s just perfect.

Speaking of food Victoria started a lemming for one of my favorite Spring dishes – lemon scented risotto with asparagus – absolutely divine.   And garlic scapes!  I wait all year for Lyn’s crop – like asparagus, they are a harbinger of Spring – and they make a great soup, with toasted croutons and a little shaved Gruyere.  Oh, I’m droooooling.   Could we make a perfume from that?  I would wear it, I swear!

So what says Spring to you?  Perfumewise, foodwise, flower, whatever.   I know we’ve done this before but it’s always fun to see what it means to others. Where I live right now, it’s frogs and the Annual PuppySpitOutTheToad Day (he’s still young – the toads just laugh as they hop away)