By Ann

First off, congrats to the winners of the Dahlia Noir samples: dinazad, Madea, Austenfan and Elizabeth C. Drop Musette an e-mail at her gmail addy evilauntieanita  AT

Now that we’re well into the dangerous time of year for ice and snow in the South (much of our worst weather has come January-March), it prompted me to think about mishaps on slick or icy patches.

Even at my best, I have a natural inclination toward clumsiness. Perhaps it’s because I have too much on my mind and I’m not as aware as I should be of my surroundings. That tendency, paired with skin that bruises if you look at it too hard, makes me a prime candidate for a full-length padded body suit, as soon as someone creates one that’s practical.

One of my worst incidents, a few years back, was especially embarrassing. Coming back from the mailbox, I slipped on some icy slush at the edge of the garage, fell down, hit my browbone on my son’s scooter handle and passed out. I wound up with a whopper of a black eye and what I can only call a kaleidoscopic knee:  Each day showed off yet another intense hue on the bruise color wheel. That I covered up with pants, but the eye — well, all I can say is thank goodness for heavy-duty concealer and dark purple eyeshadow (to help make my good eye match my bruised one). It wasn’t foolproof, but it passed muster upon casual observation and helped keep the stares to a minimum. I must have looked like a goofy middle-aged woman in dire need of a makeup lesson. Poor hubby, understandably, was a bit reluctant to go anywhere with me for fear of the dirty looks he was likely to get.

Then last summer, I fell at the beach, slipping down on a rain-slick ramp in the condo parking garage. Didn’t pass out that time, but both my behind and my pride got a good bruising.

Now, you might be thinking, “Good grief! What on earth does her rambling have to do with fragrance?” Well, fear not, I’m getting to it.

A few years ago on one of my annual late spring trips (pre-unemployment, naturally) to my beloved San Francisco, I headed over to the lovely Chanel boutique on Maiden Lane. I walked in the store, so quiet and serene, almost reverential, exuding luxury from every square inch. I headed across the plush ivory carpet, past the to-die-for handbags and down the stairs to the fragrance and cosmetics area, where I could see the glorious glass bottles of the Les Exclusifs on display.

Almost there and  then — whoops! I completely miss the last step and go crashing down on my derriere. This, of course, not only knocks the wind out of me, but also mortifies me beyond belief. I’m praying the earth will open up and swallow me, because almost instantly I’m surrounded by security guards, multiple sales associates and the store manager. Turns out I wasn’t hurt, just shaken up, and I got back on my feet as quickly as I could. I assured them that I was all right and got the crowd to disperse as I limped over to the fragrance counter. There I was most attentively helped and given a good selection of samples. So in the end, my humiliation ended fairly well, save for a few days of bruising and soreness. But I might consider donning a disguise were I to visit again.

Anyhoo, what’s been your most embarrassing moment, perfume-wise?

by “Don’t Panic!  March Will Be Back” Musette

March is finishing up some stuff that is taking up 10,080 minutes this week so I’m stepping into her Size Sixes (I’m 5’9″ tall and …well, let’s just say those boots iz squallin’!!!)

I lived in an urban environment for most of my adult life and never gave much thought to the good ol’ days – most cosmopolitan areas are constantly shifting so you don’t have much time to mourn What Was – besides, I have a really fragile visual memory that is only now allowing me to recall the visual past – I’m one of those people ror whom, if you knock down a building and replace it with another, in the time it takes for that new building to go up I’ve forgotten what was previously there (for awhile I’d forgotten that the Palmolive Building in Chicago still existed (I only saw it from Lake Shore Drive as a child, with its famous Lindbergh Beacon).  Sad, but true….but these past 5 years, writing for the blog and living in a rather static environment, has allowed my skittering mind to settle and reflect on a lot of my early sensory experiences.  Here are a few of them:

Thinking about the Palmolive Building got me thinking about toothpaste (don’t ask) – when I was a kid we used Ipana, which I loved (great taste!!) – then my mom switched us to Crest (ew).  I miss Ipana.  It always smelled – and tasted – like that intriguing Beeman’s Gum which I could swear came in tablet form, like Chiclets.  Am I making that up?  Anyway, I love the smell of both of those.   Does Ipana still exist? 

Nervine.  My mother suffered from depression and spent most of her waking moments in a otc-induced fog, to keep from killing everyone in sight.  This was in the 60s, so there was no Cymbalta – in fact, we’d not yet accepted depression as a chemical imbalance.  You had ‘nerves’, if you were a woman, and took ‘powders’.  My mother took Nervine.  We all knew to get the hell out of the way when she pulled that glass tube out of the medicine cabinet – but I always was fascinated by that glass tube, with those tablets…because they FIZZED!  I would peek around the bathroom door (I was 6) and listen for the plop! and fzzzzz!  and once, even sneaked my nose in the glass when she turned her back (it tickled).   To this day I have a fondness for effervescent tablets because in my house those tablets were a mysterious signal that everything would level out in an hour or so and I would get my mother back.  And dinner.

A-1 Salve (Wizard Products Co, Chicago).  Apparently this company got binked on several occasions in the late 40s by the JAMA Bureau of Investigations and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misrepresentation (false claims!  can you IMAGINE?  what a concept!)  – but what did that matter?  My folks LOVED this salve, reputed to cure everything from eczema to ringworm and the corresponding sulphur soap, which purportedly killed everything in its path.  The petroleum base and rotten-egg sulphur smell equaled HEALTHY TIMES in our household.  I came upon half a boxtop, when I was clearing out my pop’s old meds cabinet and those smells came roaring back, just from the visual!  I’ve forgotten the scent of 90% of the ‘fumes I reviewed in the past 4  months – but A-1 salve?  Nevah!

Poly-vi-Sol. Brown bottle with bulb dropper.  3 drops on the tongue in the morning.  Is there any Boomer alive who doesn’t remember the smell and that weird B-vitamin taste?  But I don’t remember it smelling or tasting bad – just very vitamin-y.  And all my peers seem to remember it similarly.  Funnily, this current generation of moms (at least those on the blogs) seem to find it VILE!  Did they change something?  Again, for me, this is one of those ‘everything is totally okay in my world’ smells, unlike Cod Liver Oil, which smells like terror.  To this day.  Fish Oil tabs are my Cross To Bear now.

So….what are your Good Ol’ Days smells?  Mine seem to be all about dosing and slathering but ymmv – Perfume?  Food?  Patent Medicines?  Housecleaning supplies?? (my household madeleine  is Sprayway Glass Cleaner)  – would love to hear about them!  I have a buncho samples to give away, including Givenchy’s Dahlia Noir – I was going to review it but Robin @ NST did it way better here  - no reason to reinvent that wheel.  It’s worth a sniff and I’ll throw in a couple of other samps to a few winners via random.org

        by The Mystified Musette

So…I’m still a little stuffy…okay, I’m still JAMMED in the sinii, though I’m wearing Cartier Declaration today and can parse out the bulk of the notes.  Not sure if that’s because I already know what it’s supposed to smell like, so even the sketchiest of outlines could be filled in by scent-memory …or can I actually smell it?  How can one tell?  Like…hey, do you ever wonder if what you see is what another person sees?  Like the color ‘blue’…is that all just a giant psychic agreement amongst us or  do we actually all ‘see’ the same basic shade(s) of color that we agree, in words, that we see.  Can I ever know what ‘blue’ means to you?  And why on earth am I yarking ON about that, you might ask?

Well, you might ask…but I sure can’t answer.  That’s not what today’s post is about anyway, though it is an intriguing question.    Okay – here’s today’s musings.  I was thinking about ‘light’ and ‘fresh’ scents and what they tend to represent in writing and, to a certain extent, to society still today.  This came about recently when I read A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (thanks, S, for introducing me to Inspector Gamache!!!)…anyway, in the story one of the policemen is remembering his time spent in hospital, where he lay near death.  He compares the scent of the woman who sat at his bedside with that of his wife (they are separated)…sounds like the bedsitter is wearing Fresh Lemon Sugar and the wife is wearing Opium.  Wife loses.  He actually reminisces that he would not have come back to that cold hand and that perfume (I am paraphrasing, because I don’t have the book to reference – but it’s a close’un).  The whole paragraph is a paean to light, citrus fragrance being equated with fresh, youthful Life.

Remember the old (as in REALLY old) Harlequin Romance books?  The ones from the 60s and 70s, where the heroine always looked like a Breck Girl and the declaration of love was always just a kiss (I remember reading a Harlequin Presents and actually blushed! when they actually had…uh….you know  (hey, I was 11 when the first ‘Presents’ came out – and I was a slow, sheltered child)..anyway! back to the thought at hand…those girls also wore lemony perfumes.  Or they smelled like lilacs.  The Mean Girl always wore a heavy oriental – I call it the Miss Bingley Syndrome (think of the fabulous Anna Chancellor in her heavy Oriental silks and turbans, contrasted with Jennifer Ehle’s fresh, white gowns and simple coiffures) – and the Bingley always loses.

Okay…the stage is set.  in all types of fiction, lemon and very light florals seem to be equated with good, virtue, youth… But that’s not the part I wanted to talk about.  I wanted to talk about the fact that probably 90% of these books, if not more…are written by women!  So now I’m wondering, are we perpetrating the notion of ‘good’  = ‘fresh’ and “heavy/complex” = “bad’ ?   Not that that’s a judgement call on my part – more curiosity than anything.  I love citrus as much as I love incense – but I wonder how this came to be?  Is it a throwback from when heavy perfumes were used to mask illness, decay and body odor – since a light lemon fragrance wouldn’t do the trick, would the wearing of that type of fragrance signal health?  This is obviously not a scientific query – heck, I don’t even know if I’m right about this but it sure reads like it to me.   My ‘findings’ are also not substantiated by anything other than my ramshackle reading habits; it’s certainly not from any serious commentary on what I’m wearing – guys usually limit their perfume remarks to ‘you smell nice’.    El O couldn’t care less what I wear, as long as it’s not Yatagan and as long as I’m not wearing too much of Whatever Isn’t Yatagan.   Hub #1 preferred greeny/limey things but he’s a Gin Gimlet man so that one is easy.  Most guys I know (GUYS.  Not perfumistos) are in El O’s camp – unless they have a particular dislike of a note/scent they don’t care as long as it’s not overdone.

So….did we start  this, laydeez?   Do we secretly believe that lemons equal virginal freshness and that, when all is over, including the shouting, virginal freshness wins out?   Obviously, if we’re mating, the younger and fresher the ovum the better the reproductive chances, yeah…but does that potential for fecundity translate somehow to Fresh Lemon Sugar? Could that be the explanation for the variation on that theme, the ubiquitous fruity-floral, so beloved by young women?  What do  you think?  Do you care?  See, this is what happens when my sinuses go out and I can’t review perfume.  The mind wanders.  Faaaar afield.

And what would be the equivalent for men?  What would the Harlequin Hero wear?  (I always wanted to write a sequel to the Harlequin Romance, where all the heroines and heroes were invited to some shindig in a giant ballroom – but most of the spouses got mixed up and ended up going home with somebody else’s husband/wife..because if you’ve read more than one of those books you know that all the men are tall, muscular and dashing….like a roomful of Errol Flynn pirates or something.  Just imagine trying to pick our your Hero in a ballroom full of Heroes!   All wearing_______________?

heeheee!

I’d love to know what you all think (women and men).  Don’t hesitate to tell me if you think I’m crazy.  You won’t be the first, I promise!!!

photo:  my local library has HUNDREDS of these.

by Musette, who is craving some chocolate layer cake.

I remember the first time.  I was in Saks, back in the Joy/Paris/Poison days….  Diane was helping me, as I considered a purchase of Joy (remember when it was The Costliest Perfume in the World?)…anyway, she said “you need to layer” and proceeded to slather on some cream, then the spritz of perfume.  “It fixes the perfume and it lasts all day”.  Oh.  okay!  So…Amex groaning under the weight, I  bought the soap, the cream, the powder..and the edt.  And proceeded to lather, mousse and spritz myself into a Joy-ous olfactory coma.  Christmas = Gift Sets!.  It was the 80s and Layering was Quing.  I don’t think I wore anything in those days that wasn’t augmented by bath and body products.  Calyx!   My bathroom smelled like Sybil’s Whorehouse on payday.  I revisited that loft a year after I sold it and I could swear that bathroom still smelled of Calyx.   I think it penetrated the tile!

Then, sometime in the late 90s it stopped.   I went to a Perfume Only state, blissfully spritzing on a bare canvas.  Until recently.  It started about 2 years ago – Lovely Nancy, who introduced me to my Summer fave, Agraria Bitter Orange, sent along a little sample of the shower gel.  Bliss.  There’s something about surrounding yourself with hot, scented, foamy water that is just delightful – especially as the days grow shorter…and colder.  For lot of women (I can’t speak for the guys here), especially moms, shower-time is the only time you are even remotely able to have a couple of minutes to yourself.  Even if your kids sit outside the bathroom door, as my bf’s kids do, they are unlikely to come in the actual shower with you.   Perfect YOU Time.  My stress levels are sky-high and the shower is my one refuge – it’s difficult to think about business/personal drama when you are completely surrounded by the foamy scent of Jubilation 25.    I use one of those Japanese scrubbing cloths (mine is Salux) -  a dime-sized dab with a lot of water and scrunching and you have enough suds for 3 people and a Rottweiler, if you are so inclined.  Alas, the Bitter Orange shower gel was lovely in the shower but it deposited little scent on the skin.  No matter – it made showering a wholly different sensory experience from scrubbing up with  Dial.  Agraria’s hard-milled soaps are a better scent depositer and with the Salux it doesn’t matter – you still get a whole lotta foam.  So I foamed away!

Inspired by my found-again love, I went rummaging through the closet to find what other gels, soaps and lotions I might indulge in.  Uh….hmmm.  Apparently I bought a LOT of gift sets in the day.  So I had lots to play with for this post.

Fracas.  Had the soap, the shower gel, the lotion, the powder.  El O was gone (post-Fracas bathrooms can be a bit overwhelming).   I find that sometimes, when Milady gets to be a bit much perfumewise, a hit with the accoutrements  gives the same scent  experience without gassing everybody out of the county.   Carnal Flower Body Butter.   M. Frederic…?  S’il vous plait?  At least a hard-milled soap.  My water bills would be sky-high!  Aiiiiyyy!  but I would be soooo happy!

I played on, blowin’  the bathroom UP! with Lucien Lelong (gift set score!  gel, cream, edp.  whoa, Nellie! The bathroom smelled like the South of France for 2 days!!!)…..a lovely friend gifted me with vintage Diorissimo body lotion.  I should’ve grabbed the shower gel when I had the chance cuz it’s gawwwn now.  But the vintage lotion packs a hefty punch for such a demure fragrance and stays linear with the vintage perfume.

I got a lovely group of samples from Amouage, which included the Epic and Jubilation 25 shower gels and body creams.  Let me just say this:  it is scary, because I am currently in Bizarro World, can barely buy dog food some days and still I am ogling both Epic and Jube25 bath and body – and it’s a damn shame because I never ‘got’ Epic before I took a whirl in the shower.  The incense in the perfume hit my nose too hard and I just shut down.  But the shower gel spreads it out quite a bit, then add the body cream and wham-o!  You are ready for the gorgeous perfume.  I’m wearing it again today.  I’ve done this 4 times in the past 2 weeks and I am still finding fascination in how this scent unfolds.  Needless to say  I am now hooked.   I thank Christopher Chong every. stinkin. day. that he did not do bath and body for Ubar or Tribute.   I’d have to kill myself.   Jube 25 foamy is so beautiful it takes my breath away and both Epic and Jube gels leave a solid scent on the skin. It was surprising because the shower gels smell thin and weak in the bottle (at least the little samplse do – I sniffed them, thought “oh, what a rrrrrrrrrip!” …until you get a drop on the Salux, then they explode into a foaming cloud of scent that sticks with you, your towels, your robe….it is olfactory heaven that is tenacious (I actually have Designated Amouage pjs.  Really. Tide is no match for the Royal House).  If you use these, leave your bathroom door open, apres-bain.  Your house will smell luxe all day.

I do think there are some differences in the effect body products have on fragrance, though, depending upon the fragrance.   Malle’s Carnal Flower, for instance.  The Body Butter is insanely gorgeous and just the act of scooping out a bit and warming it in your hands is enough to transport.  If I want a ‘compliment’ to the scent, that’s when I use the cream because it actually smells a bit different than the perfume (skin reaction? composition?  who knows?)  – in the cream the eucalyptus/camphor thread is more pronounced.  If I want to smell CF straight I do Dial and then spritz.  It’s nice to have all those choices in how to experience the scent.  Personally I think that is the best thing since Miette dark chocolate cake but ymmv.  But know this:  you will have to pry both the Body Butter and the perfume out of my cold, dead hands.  I couldn’t live without either and if The Walking Dead show up and I have to flee, I will be fleeing with both of these in my totebag.  Oh!  While I’m on the Malle line:  Parfum de Therese.  For those of you who find it a bit fleeting or thin – the body cream locks it right down and gives it an almost perfect linear boost.  I think it’s that Old School, Dior-type formula.  But it really is the perfect match.

I know a lot of purists are probably shuddering in their shoes right now at the idea of adding body products to perfume use and I totally understand though there are some, like Fracas, that are totally linear to the perfume (maybe the old-school composition, like Therese there).  And some are downright terrifying (Mitsouko body lotion which, if combined with the edp, transforms Mme Mits into a scary, tentacled thing – I’ve never seen a soap or gel.  March and I saw some ‘lotion vegetal’ on the eeeB which I think is hair oil).  If you are focusing solely on the scent,it might work against you.  But if, like me, you are looking for a sensory experience, I think bath-to-perfume is an excellent way to go.  And  btw,  you can forget about  layering resulting in less perfume use.  LOL (or, as I was recently taught, LOLdemort!) – not happening.  You end up spraying/dabbing just as much scent as before because it’s all just so damn luxe!  Louche.  Lovely!  And why not? Go Big or Get Off The Bus.

So this isn’t a Frugal/Alternative Bathumista post.  Obviously I can’t say it’s  less expensive -  it’s mo’ stuff and even Fresh Sugar Lemon bath gel  will run you $20.  Jubilation 25 shower gel : E55, which as of this morning converts to a whopping $76!  But, used judiciously, that gel will last you 6 months, unless you take 4 showers a day, in which case it will last you 3.   I would happily take 4 showers a day but I have to work to pay for the shower gel, dangit.

What say you?  How do you all feel about ancillary bath and body products?  Do they support or do they change your perception of the scent?    What are your favorites….or do you hate the very idea!?

Next up:  we will discuss Happy Layering Accidents.  And some Not So Happy.  I have some whoppers!  So hang on to those for next week’s installment!

xoxo your foamy, creamy,spritzy Musette

photo courtesy of Country Living 2011 Chocolate Pumpkin cake

First, winners of the de Profundis samples – MaureenC and Homura-chan.  Just click on the Contact Us over on the left, send me your address, remind me of what you’ve won. Make sure I give you a quick response so you know you didn’t drop into my spam filter thingie.

I loved the discussion on the perfume. Well, not the perfume, but the “de Profundis: part – Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Dante, the Psalms?  I think the answer is mostly Wilde and Baudelaire as far as Serge’s inspiration. But the theme crossed all of them, and I agree that it is one of hope.  If you spend too long thinking about your daily drudgery, endlessly toiling, worrying, sacrificing, over and over, it’s overwhelming, yet most of us hang onto that refracted joy that we glimpse sometimes in a child’s laughter, a thoughtful gesture, seeing love where you least expected it.  Yes, I do mean refracted. Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one substance to another.  Most of the joy we get is bent from one person to another, one moment to the next, from a happy memory recalled in the present or a hopeful expectation from the present to the future.

And it is that refracted joy that gives us hope that what we do matters, that we are all  worthy of redemption – either in a religious or humanitarian sense – and capable of more than who we often are.  I think the crying from the depths is ourselves wanting more, hoping for more – for ourselves, other people, the world, or maybe it is crying for love or companionship, understanding, to not be completely and utterly as alone as we all are.

Which led me to my favorite question – what would you do if you weren’t afraid?   I keep facing that question in my life over and over in the last 3-4 years. My answer is simply there’s nothing I won’t do, fear isn’t a factor I consider.  What’s your answer?  My answer used to be “sniff that Humanity thing again Mugler did” and then I decided it wasn’t fear that stopped me but revulsion. I think fear and revulsion aren’t the same?

So I think I need to buy that big-ass kiln to fuse glass in at home, especially since that stupidly expensive cardigan I thought was shipping this month got canceled.  Right?  I know I need a 40 watt breaker, but if I just plug it in in the basement where the dryer goes in, never run them at the same time (obviously!), it should work, and I won’t blow up my house.  And if I do, I’ll probably have some really cool blown-up fused glass all over the block for my  neighbors to appreciate.

Patty