Anyone keeping an eye out for alarming signs indicating the coming of the End Times need look no further than my recent infatuation with some Jo Malone scents. I gave up on Jo Malone quite awhile ago, not too far into my fragrance addiction – somewhere after French Nectarine, Verbena & Lime. Or maybe it was Orange Blossom, Basil & Lavender. I forget. An “edgy” JM scent like Pomegranate Noir was notable to me solely for its stubborn refusal to leave my skin no matter how much I scrubbed.

Then I smelled the new Jo Malone Kohdo Wood Collection at the Sniffa. The Collection contains two fragrances: Dark Amber & Ginger Lily, and Lotus Blossom & Water Lily, and I was stunned to find myself falling for Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. It’s a heavy amber, a Jo Malone, an allegedly limited edition – three strikes against it. I meant to buy some, forgot, and last week I found myself wandering over to Bloomie’s for a new pair of yoga pants and another sniff, because I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

Dark Amber & Ginger Lily is the night-time “sensual” scent of the pair, and features cardamom, pink pepper (which is in everything now, did they pass some law requiring it? not that I’m complaining), ginger, night blooming jasmine, orchid, water lily, rose, black amber, white pepperwood, leather, patchouli, sandalwood and Kyara incense accord. The JM boutique Sales Associate was at lunch when I stopped by, and I was amused at the very nice Chanel SA’s insistence on the “nighttime-only” appropriateness of the Dark Amber – it was pretty clear she thought the circumstances under which you’d want to wear something like that were severely limited. I know some of you have already fallen in love with it. The time of year for its launch seems wrong (it strikes me as a fall scent) but it is a wonderfully smooth, seamless mélange of amber, intense dark florals and woods, creamy, and in my opinion quite a departure from what I have smelled from the line. The incense and spices are strongest at the opening — the incense is lovely in both scents, but I feel obligated to point out that if you’re interested solely because of the incense, this would probably disappoint. I’d describe it as amber/woody with an incense twist. I get more woody incense right at the tail end of the day, after the florals depart. There is a faint odd note like tanning oil or milky coconut that drifts in and out for the first hour before disappearing. I can’t pick out any of the notes listed, and it doesn’t go through a ton of development – it’s warm and rich, and I can’t think of anything else quite like it. If it were a color, it would be a deep red. Contrary to the Chanel SA’s opinion I can see wearing this a lot — it’s sultry by JM standards, I guess, but Poison or Fracas it is not. Having said that, it’s got some decent sillage and might not be the best choice for close quarters at work, particularly if your cube-mate’s idea of heaven is a light citrus cologne.

The Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is the “energizing daytime” scent and includes aquatic notes (horrors!), grapefruit, bergamot, mandarin, lotus blossom, freesia, honeysuckle, water lily, jasmine, incense, amber, sandalwood, musk, aloeswood and guaiac wood. I knew I was buying the Dark Amber but tried on the Lotus Blossom to confirm my lack of interest, and I realized … well, there might be more to the Lotus Blossom than I thought. I put it on the way I hear a normal person wears perfume (squirt on my cleavage, one on the wrists) and went off for my yoga pants and further consideration. Fifteen minutes later I decided I needed a bottle of the Lotus Blossom as well. The citrus comes on fairly strong in the first few minutes, more grapefruit than mandarin, but then it settles into a mildly sweet, watery floral, with a enough of the woods and incense to move it in a more unisex direction and keep it interesting to me. (The aquatic bit isn’t “fresh,” that ironically-named deal-killer that smells sour, like a basket of dirty laundry.) For a relatively light scent it is tenacious – I can smell it on my clothing the following day – and it has the interesting ability to disappear and then suddenly halo around me. I think this would make an excellent, inoffensive work scent. Having discovered its tenacity on fabric, I sprayed my sheets one evening and enjoyed that as well. At $95 for 100ml, it doesn’t fill me with guilt, but you can get 30ml for $50, and anything for $50 is, essentially, free and thus doesn’t count against my perfume budget.

I have many, many scents for cooler weather, but comparatively few I want to smell in a Washington summer. In general, most florals, by the time they reach an appropriate level of lightness for the D.C. heat and humidity, are no longer interesting to me. This leaves a plethora of citrus and tea scents, many of which by definition don’t have huge lasting power. Lotus Blossom is a nice change of pace. This is one of those scents I would love some additional feedback on – I find myself quite hopelessly in its thrall, while at the same time suspecting that it is the perfume equivalent of 7-Up. By the way, they smell delicious layered.

Since I’d clearly lost my mind, and the exceedingly well-trained Jo Malone SA showed back up, I decided to sample some others. Having politely turned down most of the citrus-y JM standards, I accepted a paper strip with White Jasmine & Mint on it – and was, again, smitten. The sharp, sparkling wetness of the mint against the intense, creamy sweetness of a clean jasmine was such a perfect combination I wondered how nobody had tried it before. In The Guide, Tania Sanchez gives it three stars and calls it “an optimistic but crude cologne” (an assessment I agree with, by the way; I have a lot of three-star scents I love) and says is has been done before – and better – in L’Artisan’s The Pour Une Ete. I don’t have a sample here to smell, but my recollection was that the L’Artisan was more about the tea, and less minty. Also, Tania says JM “tries to make everything last longer by throwing in a tenacious musk” which is “vigorous but unnecessary.” To which I respond, and that’s part of what I love about it – L’Artisan lasts about 20 minutes on me. White Jasmine & Mint eventually collapses in on itself and loses its mint after an hour, and then it’s kind of flat. You can’t keep reapplying or you’ll kill yourself eventually with the jasmine. Nonetheless, I see at least a decant in my future.

The Jo Malones are all about layering. I like to layer, but am (perversely) annoyed by a house that deliberately encourages me to do that – shouldn’t their fragrances be good enough to stand alone? They’re just trying to sell more product! This thinking makes no sense, I realize. Anyway, the SA talked about layering the lighter/sweeter scents with some of the scents on the darker end of the spectrum, and if you haven’t tried it already, let me heartily recommend their Wild Fig & Cassis layered with the Black Vetyver Café, which – what kind of idiot am I?!? How have I missed that one? I’ll need some of that this fall, although I’ll test drive it first — tons of complaints about lasting power on Black Vetyver. How’s it work for you? On the other hand, Robin says the Kohdo Wood ones don’t last that long on her either. I must have some sort of freaky, molecular-vacuum-lock skin; I may complain all the time, but it’s seldom about lasting power. All of these lasted a full day (on in the morning; still there at bedtime) on me, and I could still smell them if I sniffed for them in the a.m.

For another take on the scents, please see Robin’s review from yesterday on Now Smell This.

image: jomalone.com

It’s me, March, posting on Lee’s day. I know — it feels weird to me, too. But since Lee’s abandoned us taking a break from blogging, we’re rearranging the schedule slightly – I’m back to Mon/Weds., Patty’s Tues/Thurs, and Friday will be a mixed assortment of pleasures while we try various things out. This coming Friday is a group blogging effort on spring scents. Next Friday you all are evaluating Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Clinique Happy and Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl, as Patty discussed yesterday. Email your brief reviews of any/all of these scents to perfume dot posse at gmail dot com (using the appropriate symbols in place of “dot” and “at”). Maria also suggested another discussion of Perfumes: The Guide after more of you have had a chance to read it, and I think that’s a dandy idea. We’ll have some guest posters. If nothing else we’ll have the occasional Trashy Friday and off-topic posts. Stay tuned.

Okay, my report from the NYC Sniffa last weekend. I think it was Judith who said to me that she once met a woman who had done the Sniffa on a Saturday and run in a marathon Sunday. The woman said the Sniffa was more exhausting. Which helped explain how poleaxed I felt by 8 pm on Saturday. There were a lot of people (150ish) and – news flash – you stick 150 people in a room for sniffing, lunch, whatever, and it’s hot and noisy. I lost my voice by the time we got to the last event, just from strain from trying to talk over the din, and I still haven’t gotten it back.

My favorite part is pretty obvious – I loved meeting all the folks from the blog, including lurkers who’ve never posted but who came up and introduced themselves. I wore my rhinestone tiara in the morning, starting at breakfast, as promised for easy identification purposes. Of course, the great thing about NYC is you can run around in a tiara and nobody bats an eye. I met and hung out with so many wonderful people, including Divalano (who I will never call Divalino again!), Judith, Alyssa, Francesca, Carol, Kirsten, Chaya, old friends like Sarah, Mary, Louise and others, the Karens, some of the other fragrance bloggers … too many folks to name. I’m going to irritate all of you now by saying I think I’m not going to put the photos up. In all the chaos I am not confident I made it clear to everyone why I was taking pics, and I’m sensitive about people seeing themselves identified on here without their permission, particularly if they also feel the photo sucks. Not to put too fine a point on it. Picture a lot of sweaty, grinning, mildly crazed looking women (and a few men) crowded together sniffing their wrists. I close my eyes and remember and I can smell them from here.

I bought … nothing. I know, I know, defeating the whole economic point of the Sniffa, but oh, well. Wait, not quite true – Patty and I ended up splitting an Epices coffret from L’Artisan (I took Safran Troublant). I did my bit for the economy in other ways, though, and not naming any names, but some serious monies were spent by various gals on both scent and makeup, which is a big overlapping interest of many of the attendees. And a shout out to Kristen, email me where you got those shoes again?!? Maybe shoes aren’t boring after all…

There’s no way I can talk about everything I sniffed, so here’s what caught my attention, in no particular order –

Serge Lutens Bois de Violette has joined the exports at Bergdorf, and they handed it around, and maybe I hadn’t paid the right kind of attention before. It’s lovely – a warm, woody violet rather than the cool combo you often get. It’s simple and strange and wonderful. Chanel’s new Sycomore was just okay to me, not being a vetiver freak, but I think it was a huge hit for other folks. There was some serious spending over at Guerlain. Mona di Orio was there (Bergdorf has picked up her line) and can I just say how chic and charming and lovely she is? Another big surprise for me was the new Jo Malone Kohdo Wood Collection. JM mostly doesn’t do it for me, I don’t know why. It’s often too bitter, or dank, or something. And you can read their blurbage on the Kohdo Wood Collection but sniff-wise, don’t be looking for anything that makes you think of Japan. Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is the “day” scent and it’s a nice, pretty, inoffensive floral-aquatic, which (kill me now) maybe I’ll find myself liking in the summer, but maybe not. It’s fine. But the other one, the Dark Amber and Ginger Lily, was delicious – so delicious I threw caution to the wind and drenched myself in it. Notes are cardamom, pink pepper (of course!), ginger, jasmine, orchid, water lily, rose, black amber, white pepperwood, leather, patchouli, sandalwood, incense. It’s a creamy jasmine-amber with some spice, sensual and dark. Maybe it’s the spices and jasmine working for me, mitigating the boozy tendencies of amber that nauseate me. I couldn’t believe how much I liked this thing. Also I think it’s less than $100, which these days is, essentially, free. Finally, I tried Piguet Visa, which is a hoot. If you’re willing to get in touch with your inner Carmen Miranda, it’s got a big fat fruit note up front that somehow never manages to get overly sweet. Look, ma – you can make a fruity floral worth loving. It’s simple in a way that makes me suspicious that it’s much more complicated in structure than I’m appreciating. I feel like it’s having me on a little, if that makes sense, but it’s so clever I’m happy to play along. I wish the drydown lasted a bit longer, but maybe my nose just gave out.

I got a chance to sniff the five Thierry Mugler Miroir thingies at Saks, and to me the most compelling thing about them is the mirrored box each one comes in ($150 for 1.7oz) I have seen zero attention paid to them, have you tried any? I thought I’d like Envies with its nutty note, but no – too fresh. Secrets is a sour aldehyde-patch combo. Vanites is licorice-citrus and not me at all. Travers is allegedly tuberose but all I got was the woody masculine accord. Dis-Moi is waaay more popular than the others according to the hot-looking but extremely poorly trained SA there, who could not name a single note of any of them. All five got 3 or 4 stars from LT/TS, so they’re getting more out of them than I am. I also got a quick sniff of the new Lancome in La Collection, Peut-Etre (they had a small tester but not the bottles yet) which is French for “I have no idea but it smells like a light, somewhat powdery summer floral.” I’ll take Sikkim (or Magie), thanks… oh, wait, here’s a link to Lancome’s goofy blurb on this scent, which means “perhaps.” Here, let me quote: “She hears footsteps, opens her eyes and looks into his. She sees a new and special intensity in his gaze. And is something hidden in his hand? The moment is electric.” Snerk. Roses, lilac, iris, jasmine. Hey, has anyone noticed most of La Collection is disappearing from the website? They kept Climat and Roses, and all the rest are … gone.

The new D&G The One for men? A standard-issue inoffensive, warm, woody number I couldn’t pick out of a lineup. (I rather like the women’s.) And after its glowing review in The Guide, I retried Narciso Rodriguez again, and … nope. I still can’t smell it. Cannot smell a thing. A little alcohol, maybe. So remember that the next time you disagree with one of my reviews. Think to yourself, but this is from the gal who can’t even smell Narciso.

Mugler Miroir fragrances: lexpress.fr