Whew!  2011 is nearly over and I still don’t have my Escape limo and I have NO idea where Woody Harrelson is right now.   Better hustle!!!  But – we still have a few days so let’s take a look back at the  best/worst/most intriguing of 2011.  Most of this will be perfume, as it is The Perfume Posse, not Anita’s Playpen…but save room for a couple of weird inclusions, just because I Am In That Kinda Mood.  We are also not limiting this list (or your comments) to stuff brought forth in 2011 – rather, we’re interested in what piqued your interest this past year – some may have transported you with delight, some might’ve brought up your lunch!  Ya nebber know.

So, without further ado, here’s what grabbed us in 2011.

Anita’s picks:

Cartier les Heurres Fougueuse.  I fell in love with this the moment I sniffed it.  Then, inexplicably, I fell OUT of love with it – I think I got scared.  Then I just…gave in.  And swooned as over the course of the year it wrapped its honeyed, monied silken tendrils of sun-kissed hay around my soul….sigh.  Oh, Mathilde…..every time I wear this my step lightens just a little.. Liz Zorn Centennial.  This is an offshoot of her Historical Chypre, which I fell in love with (and bought nearly every drop she had) during the Chicocoa Scentsation.  The perfect peachy chypre, it is the essence of everything I love about Liz’s work;  I’m praying she brings it back soon. Chanel Coco (the original).  Blame March.  I wondered what y’all were yarking on about.  Now I know.  Amouage Epic Bath Gel and Body Creme. (not too far behind on this one, right?   I know it’s a 2009 but I wasn’t able to make it to the Dubai launch -previous plans, don’tcha know…)…anyhoo, 2011 made it New To Musette.   I just might make it through the winter (and the coming Apocalypse) with this.  I’m going to have to send my water bills to Christopher Chong, though.  Or His Majesty.  Whichever one is most likely to pay.

Alahine.  Epic FAIL.  Can you believe it?  Neither can I.  I waited 2 years to sniff that and when I did……..nothing.  I mean, it’s nice.  But what in the hell are you people smelling that transports you so?  March can’t even SPELL it, she is so in love.  She’s all ‘Alahiiiiiiiine’.  Wish I could have what she’s having.  sigh.

BestChowDiscoveries: Trader Joe’s Chicken Shu Mai.  For all I know these are made with chicken feet and beaks.  But isn’t that the best part? Sonoma Farm (from Chicago, go figure) Hot Pickled Garlic (that’s not what it’s called but that’s what it is ).   The website is seemingly gone and their stuff is hard to find (and when you do, at Food Fairs, etc, well, let’s just say they are not Good With the Publick.  But!  these (and the Brussels Sprouts) are worth the slog. Perfect in everything and yummy alone.  But I suggest you actually BE alone when you eat this stuff.  You will be comin’ in HOT for awhile…

Movies:  I hate going to the movies so I’m usually months behind everybody else.  And I admit to being Cranky Old Bat about the sheer volume of crap that gets released every month – there must be a whole lotta money needs launderin’, is allz I got to say (don’t believe me?  take a look at this 2011 list  (and I’m not even that fussy – I love blow’emups and Tony Scott!).  I did brave the plex for Contagion.   3 of us in the theatre.  Hey, I could get used to that!  El O hated the movie.  I thought it was quietly horrifying.  I also finally got around to The King’s Speech - hey I said I was behind! Why didn’t the gen pop like this film?  I think Geoffrey Rush could read the phone book and I would be entranced.   The funny, touching scene with him and Colin Firth when Lionel parks himself in St. Edward’s Chair…  Pitch-perfect.

March says: I went back and looked at the release dates of new-ish perfumes I enjoyed, and … they all came out in 2010.  So this year has been kind of a dud for me, in terms of new releases.  The one exception is Bottega Veneta, a less-powdery alternative to the new iteration of Cuir de Lancome, if you like the smell of expensive handbags.  Mostly I’ve been enjoying old favorites gathering dust in my collection, including Alahine, Jubilation 25, Coco, Tauer Orris, and Lutens’ Fleurs de Oranger.  I can think of worse things.  Anita sez:  that’s Alahiiiine! to you, li’l Missy.

Patty chimes in: This has been a weirdly great year for me in finding new loves.  From Prada Candy to the new JAR Bed of Roses, to Flowerbomb Extrait to a never-smelled bottle of the now-discontinued Lorenzo Villoresi Ylang-Ylang I found in my closet (yes, everyone should have closets like mine where you find a box full of perfume you forgot you had) that has sent me to the moon (um, see yesterday’s post for histrionics over this), it’s been a mixed bag of great smells.

I still love Bertrand Duchafour because he’s prolific and great, and I know for a fact there is more great stuff coming in 2012, so he gets my vote for Perfumer of the Year? Decade?  Oh, wait, we are two years in a new decade, it’s too early.

Ann’s Picks:

MDCI’s La Belle Helene: Up until this baby, no way,  no how was I ever going into pear territory again. Annick Goutal’s Petite Cherie went sour on me in record time and too many cheap pear body products left me shuddering. Until a sweet Posse swapper sent me a sample of La Belle, and one day, feeling brave, I said, “Oh, what the heck!” and put it on. Wowza! Now this is a pear I can wear. On me, it starts out a little bright, but true to the fruit,  and later, deepens, getting burnished down to a slightly gourmand (is that chocolate I smell?) soft oriental. It has a touchable, almost suedelike vibe to it, not unlike SL’s Daim Blond. It’s almost as if her gloves got left behind in the pear orchard, instead of atop a bushel basket of apricots.

Maison Martin Margiela Untitled: The fashion minimalist in me (I’ve always loved designers such as Zoran and Ronaldus Shamask) coveted this cool, paint-dipped bottle long before I had a chance to sniff the juice. And what lovely green juice it is: A hit of bitter green galbanum a la Cristalle segues beautifully into some musky, almost smoky incense, and thankfully, not an ashtray in sight.

Parfumerie Generale’s Indochine: This has turned out to be one of my favorite comfort “blankies” this winter. It reminds me a bit of Kenzo’s Amour (perhaps the thanaka wood that both share) but to my nose, the PG is richer, more creamy, dreamy and woody. This in a body cream would be nothing short of heaven in a jar. Its stablemate, Cadjmere, is another fave, although it gets a little cheeky with me if I do more than dab it.

Bottega Veneta: This lovely is helping to make a leather lover  out of me, despite my earlier misgivings about the note. BV’s easy elegance just coos quiet sophistication and makes me feel like a million bucks. And it doesn’t hurt that the bottle’s a thing of beauty. Now, if we can just get our hands on some MPG’s Cuir Fetiche to try …

And here’s a wonderful scentiment   from Tom, which we all share!!!

I’m doing my “best of” scent-wise on PST, so I’ll content myself with with celebrating a different best here: YOU GUYS!  That’s right!  I want to toast all of you out there, fellow bloggers, commenters and readers.  In the last several years of blogging, reading, learning and meeting people I can honestly state that I have never met a more warm, funny, intelligent and giving group of people.  YOU are the best of 2011 or any other year and I wish you all the best in the future.

For more looks back at 2011 please visit  Perfume-Smellin’ Things, Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This and Grain de Musc.

To anyone who´s spent more than five minutes reading my blog posts, it must be screamingly obvious that I am, how you say, no trained professional. I do not possess the impartiality or the discernment of the chemist or master perfumer who is capable of dissecting some fragrance with enormous artistic merits that s/he may, personally, hate. You don´t read tons of posts on rose fragrances from me, because I don´t like rose scents, so what can I do? If I stumble across a rose fragrance I actually like, and I do occasionally, you hear about it (off the top of my head: I like a couple of Rosines, SL Rose de Nuit, that nasty Rose Poivree). If resident Hermes genius Jean-Claude Ellena worked anise and lavender into, miracle of miracles, something I love, you´d have heard about it. Sadly, he did not, and thus no post from me on Brin de Reglisse.

When I picked up the Teo Cabanel bottles at Henri Bendel, the name was familiar, but I had never tried any of the three scents. Picking through the scant information on their website leads me to understand that the original firm was founded in 1893, existed at least until the 1930s in Paris, and was reborn in 2003. There´s a section in there about using “only rich natural ingredients” that I will grit my teeth and resolutely ignore in the interests of focusing on the scents, one of which is “me” and the other two decidedly not.

Oha, the first scent I tried, is a dark, spicy rose. Notes of: roses from Bulgaria and Morocco, jasmine, cardamom, vanilla, iris, tonka bean, woods, white musk. To the extent that any of these get any coverage on the fragrance forums, I think this is the most popular, but sadly I am unable to wax poetically about its charms.

I picked up Julia next, because Julia happens to be the name of one of my daughters. The notes are mandarin, rhubarb, blackcurrant, jasmine, hyacinth and violet, sandalwood, incense, citrus, musk. Their website blurb says: “Julia is the perfume for every woman, for all occasions. It brings to mind a bouquet of impressionist flowers. Both voluptuous and subtle, Julia is made for vibrant women with a strong love and passion for life.”

With all due respect, this is wrong. Julia is the fragrance I want to give to a special girl, with all my love, on her 16^th birthday. It is delicately sweet; the impressionist flowers´ bit is spot-on, a seamless blend of jasmine and hyacinth, the rhubarb and blackcurrant freshly picked rather than jammy. The base notes are a tidy basket to carry the flowers in. Julia glows like dewy skin on high-school girls who are, of course, too young to appreciate their own beauty the way an older woman would. It evokes innocence on the verge of something more. There is nothing winking or jaded about it, but it is not childish. It is gentle, reflective. It would smell absurd on me; I am not that young girl anymore. It is a verging-on-womanhood fragrance, fresh as a new rose at dawn. It is lovely. It knocked me sideways.

Alahine, the last of the three, I can´t stop thinking about. Notes of ylang, bergamot, jasmine, Bulgarian rose, neroli, pepper, iris, cistus, patch, benzoin, vanilla, sandalwood, musk. I went by the store and sprayed this on three times, waffling between the parfum and the EdP. I´ve finally decided I like the EdP better. I am not generally a parfum girl, partly because I almost never struggle with strength and/or longevity in scents. Part of it is clearly my scent personality – in a general sense, I am drawn to the rougher edges of an EdP concentration the way some other people are clearly drawn to the seamlessness of an extrait. Anyway, Alahine can´t be described as rough in any way. It´s a mannered oriental. I´m afraid I don´t have a sample to retest, but I was charmed by Alahine´s transformation. It starts out with a ladylike floral note, a generalized citrus/jasmine/ylang, very classic and expensive smelling. It is Julia´s immaculate mother, thirty years older. From there Alahine only gets better as the pepper, iris and the naughty bits start to bloom, but it’s sexy in a subtle way, the woman in the corner of the room who catches your eye, and suddenly compared to her quiet chic everyone else looks a bit overdone.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get a little tired.  Tired of the hoopla, the 2007-harvest narcissus LE, the petals plucked by blind nuns at dawn, the newest sex-shop leather bump and grind.  I don’t believe any of the three Teo Cabanel scents is an old formula; I can’t speak to the quality of their ingredients.  But they have the feel of something I long for — a scent that began with a brief that started with the words, make me something beautiful.

image of Alahine parfum: shop.teo-cabanel.com

image of Olivia Hussey, who will always be Juliet to me, dvdtoile.com

March