Do you put off buying things for no good reason other than you can? Or do you just buy on impulse? I used to be the total buy on impulse type, but slowly I’ve been a-changing and now, well, now, I procrastinate.

Let me tell you what I’m procrastinating over at the moment. I have a series of electronic post-its on my laptop, some of which have been there a couple of years. On one, there’s an everchanging list of ‘scents to buy/try’. They merge into each other, normally because the ones that get on there are ‘sound like me’ numbers that I read about at Now Smell This or elsewhere, before they’re launched, or ones that I’ve had decants of and know I love. I hold off nowadays because I’ve made mistakes from love in the past – perfumes that first smile and caress, but over the slow accretion of time, their lips curl, a few short-tempered words get spoken and soon we avoid each other cuz we no longer match. Oh, huge bottle of Bois d’Ombrie, I’m talking about you. I loved you, but now I can’t wear you. Our time together’s become stifling, and you’ve told me I’m too frivolous one too many times.

There are 11 on the buy/try list. A handful need crossing out because I’ve tried them and they’re not me. I’m not good at removing, only adding. Dans tes Bras was a crushing disappointment to me – an unbearable blending of some CB I hate Perfume earth accord with powdered violets and the smell stale skin – but I’ve yet to remove that. Likewise Baume de Doge which reminded me of Noir Epices with all the airy spaces filled in. Ormonde Man I keep changing on – sometimes seduced, other times afraid the drydown will be another stifler on me. It’s a serious scent – no? - and I like a bit of silly or lusty in mine as a rule. Though the news I read somewhere that Linda Pilkington is making another men’s scent has me pretty fired up.

But there are two that are definite buys. One is l’Artisan’s Dzongkha. My decant ran out months ago, and every once in a while I have to sniff this to remember the malt whisky fairy tale of how Laphroaig can transform itself into a pensive incense laden cadence in which iris chills and thrills. It has neither silly or lusty qualities, and so runs counter to the false rule I set for myself in the last paragraph, but no matter. To me, it’s Duchaufour’s best scent, balancing the austere, transparent and smoky qualities of so much of his work, without any of the sour pickles quality of the others. I used to lust for Timbuktu, but that shouts too much in comparison. I need a bottle. And now.

The other is el Attarine. Yes, it’s a rehash of the oriental formula. Yes, some people claim it’s all cumin and curry. And others stock up on Colgate to ward off the sweetness. Elsewhere, individuals state it smells ‘like a humid night of wild sex with a person who possibly hasn’t bathed in weeks’ (the fun sounding Therese108 on MUA) or ‘all about potent sweet roses, spices, and dried fruit’ (the reliable and prolific Vibert of Basenotes – though I have to say the sweet roses escape me completely – and I don’t do roses comfortably in perfume). But it could be all those things, and more or less, as it shifts and finds new facets for different wearers. I never noticed its sweatiness until Patty pointed it out and now it feels thick with human and fleshy aspects, which battle against the waxy, wooded qualities borrowed from the Bois series. And it’s fruity, but sepia hued, tinted with the past, nostalgic for the heat of summers long gone. I’m in Paris – all too briefly – in December. I’ll nab it then.

Tell me how you deal with purchases. Defer? Delay? Dither? Or just acquire and hope not to misfire?

Pictures come from the crowning of the new King of Bhutan yesterday. I need that Dzongkha, even if its colours are muted greys and greens rather than the unreal vibrancy of Bhutanese ceremony. Look at those  boots!

The Benevolent Fairy of Undeserved Blessings, aka Tigs, delivered a bottle of L’Artisan L’Eau du Navigateur to my doorstep the other day.  Navigateur is one of those allegedly discontinued fragrances that nonetheless remains on permanent display in L’Artisan Boutiques.  Indeed, it was on my recent visit to the Chicago store that I decided to try it, only because I was so delighted to see something I thought had vanished – or, more precisely, been replaced by the dry, peppery Navegar. 

I’m pretty sure I tried Navigateur before, shortly after Marina’s review, and my reaction was not favorable.  Navigateur was too spicy and masculine and strident for me.  The notes I’ve seen listed vary, but this one is probably as good as any: coffee, spices, woodsy notes, floral notes, rum, resin, incense, tobacco and leather.  The fragrance has been around for 20 years, and for the record, Luca Turin rags on it as “very dated” in The Guide.

We’re heading into this pirate’s tale bass-ackward, so why not continue?  I wanted Dzongkha to be my exotic-travel L’Artisan, because … who wouldn’t?  I’m all arty and creative and mystical and whatnot, and I was dying to smile softly and cast my eyes downward in response to the question of what wonderful fragrance I was wearing before telling all my admirers about Dzongkha and Bhutan and blah blah blah.   The minor glitch in my plan is that Dzongkha continues to smell like hell on me, all that grassy vetiver, bitter and unfriendly like spices mulling a decade too long in the damp hold of a ship.  So much for that grand idea. 

 Here’s what the lovely SAs Lydia, Darcie and Rebecca from L’Artisan Chicago had to say about Navigateur via email:

“Yes, indeed the L’Eau du Navigateur was created by Jean Claude Ellena in 1978 for L’Artisan Parfumeur as it says in our training guide.  It translates to “The Sailor’s Water” and smells of the spices and resins down the hold of a wood ship… the accord is coffee liquor, cedarwood, myrrh and leather… I also get strong notes of the open sea and the smell of wet wood.  If you breathe even deeper you can pick up notes of cinnamon and at first burst fresh bergamot.  At one time it was rumored to be discontinued, but it is now coming in the new bottles and New York confirmed that it is NOT discontinued.  Currently, it is a boutique exclusive and comes in the 100ml size only. ”

Anyway, I was so thrilled to see it hadn’t been d/c’d that I grabbed it and sprayed it on in celebration of its continued existence, because I am a Perfume Maniac.  And thus I have to ask:  what on earth was wrong with me?  How could I not have loved this and cleaved it to my heaving bosom at first sniff?  It was probably the slightly b.o.-ish opening that scared me off the first time – coriander, cumin or both, there’s a cheerful burst of something sweaty with your coffee.  Pyramus asks if it smells like sweaty men, so I must not be imagining that part.

The rum is pretty minimal, and the tobacco and leather start off strong and only get stronger over the course of the next hour.  On me, Navigateur is an interesting cross between Dzing!s barnyard leather and Idole de Lubin’s sweetly spicy woods. 

The sweaty bits fade after 20 or 30 minutes, and it is the drydown I have really come to enjoy.  Navigateur shifts from Johnny Depp to Keira Knightley – from a jaunty, swashbuckling (but still guyliner-wearing) “masculine” to a sweet, resinous, incense laden unisexy scent.  It is almost (but not quite) as sweet as Idole on me in the drydown.  If it were any sweeter I wouldn’t like it, but the rough-sawn woods in the background provide the necessary planking to keep the whole thing from collapsing on deck like a hot mess in its pantaloons.  I vote for some definite florals, but I don’t know what.

I’ve read this compared to Hermes Bel Ami, and — I don’t see it, guys.   Most of the reviews of Navigateur are by men on Basenotes, and I assume this fragrance is generally pitched toward men, although obviously anyone can wear it.  So do I have crazy skin, or is Navigateur sweet?  Bel Ami smells to me like a straightforward, classy gents’ cologne, whereas Navigateur has the cheerfully lowbrow camp appeal of a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon on cable TV.  Which I have watched.  Next time I know what scent I’ll be wearing.

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