Haven’t done one of these in a while, just a general stuff I love, and it’s not always perfume!

Cle de Peau Correcteur Visage - I have never found a concealor that does what it is supposed to do, it gets too cakey in my creases under my eyes, winds up making me look more tired, but the CdeP is great. I had the makeup chick put it on me in the store when I’d had about three hours of sleep (this seems to be the new norm for sleep), and, voila, I was still dog-tired, but I didn’t look like it, and it took all the ruddy out of my cheeks too. Great stuff! Greatly priced as well, pretty much obscene, but, you know, beauty knows no price if it wipes out your minor imperfections — major wrinklage. Available at any snooty department store in your neighborhood or that same guy from Japan that sells the Shiseido perfumes has some.

Amazing Race - It’s a new race, yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the reality show I adore. All the rest are posers.

Chi Silk Infusion - you put this stuff on your hair after you wash it, and it turns your hair to silk, and I mean that literally, just smooth and shiny and amazing. I love this. I have thick, somewhat coarse hair. Not rough, but just thick. I put this on, and I get the silky hair of my dreams. Between this and Kerastase shampoo, my hair pretty much looks like it is 17 again, though the rest of me isn’t matching so much. My son has even started borrowing this and is about ready to steal it. He has the same thick, coarse hair that loses its shine easily, and this just smooths out his hair and makes it super-shiny.

That Spring is Coming - I know it’s not quite time yet, and Colorado has its two snowiest months to go through yet, but spring is coming, it’s almost here, I can feel it. I love the winter, but it is always wonderful as it gives way to new life.

And today Lent begins. My heartfelt prayer for a reflective, fruitful Lenten season. Ash Wednesday always feels like the Dead Day, the time when winter gathers and asks us to be quiet and turn inward, stripping our lives to the bare minimum so we can see ourselves more clearly.

That, and I once again discover how much I detest fish.

I ordered a fragrance sample package from Luscious Cargo. I love my Luscious booty — the folks are friendly and helpful, the shipping is speedy and they always throw in something I haven’t tried that I usually love as much if not more than the thing I ordered.

So today my latest Luscious treat arrived.

And it was filled with somebody else’s order.

There was a cheerful note in there to “Ludmilla” (not her real name) saying they hoped she’d picked a winner. Which does make me wonder whether Ludmilla is out there right now somewhere, glaring at my Delraes and that other stuff she didn’t order.

I emailed Luscious and they said, hey, keep whatever it is we sent, your correct sample order will go out tomorrow, sorry, sorry, etc. Really, what is not to love about this company? (No, they are not paying me to shill.)

Anyway, here is an impromptu review of what they sent, because I figured why not, it’s fate, right?

Les Parfums de Rosine – Ecume de Rose – ecume translates as foam (I looked it up, correct me if I’m wrong) – this is, I guess, a marine rose fragrance? I’m just learning to wrap my nose around the rose, but this is a keeper. A beachy rose, unlikely as that sounds… well, maybe not that unlikely. Those scrubby rugosa beach roses I adore. It smells like rose, a marine note, and a little bit of suntan oil. I’m typing this while taking a head-trip to Nantucket. After one hour it reaches a state of Rose Nirvana. Ranking: #1

L’Artisan La Haie Fleurie – “(The Flower Hedge of the Hamlet): This beauteous brew of honeysuckle, jasmine, wisteria, tuberose, hyacinth, narcissus and white lily is a long-standing favorite here at Luscious.” – lusciouscargo. Oh, my. This is a SERIOUS floral: va-va-voom sillage, not for amateurs or the faint of heart. If you are a Fracas freak, or a Serge Nuit (or Datura Noir) Nut, this one will suit you right down to the ground. Ranking: #2

Idole de Lubin – everyone else already reviewed this, so all I’ll say is: I was disappointed. There. I’ve said it. It’s a lovely, spicy, amber-y fragrance. But I wanted Exotic Skank. This juice just wasn’t dirty enough for me. Ranking: #4 (I’m still sulking)

Robert Piguet Bandit – I described Parfum d’Empire Ambre Russe in an email to Patty as “Rasputin’s armpit.” Would suffice for this frag as well. You know what? I’m going to try this one again on a different day. Instinct tells me I might like this if I hit it right. But following the Rose and the Jasmine – ack! Scrubber! Ranking: #5

Ligne St. Barth Tiare – This one should have worked. I love the gardenia/tuberose aspect of tiare, and I don’t think there’s a lot else going on there, except vanilla. (Hey, are you noticing a pattern among these scents? Wonder if Ludmilla was going on/returning from a tropical vacation?) But it’s strangely medicinal on me. Ranking: #6

I need to clear my palate, so let’s sniff the: I Profumi de Firenze Acqua di Firenze – I spent two afternoons in the farmacia near the Uffizi in Florence trying the entire line on, between breaks to walk across the street and drink more coffee and eat another pastry. Those two days are a still a blur in my memory of powdered sugar, caffeine, and scent. This particular fragrance is white flowers and green leaves with rain notes. My 11-year-old loved this. It’s very green, very girly. Ranking: #3

Okay, I can only smell one more of these, and it’s going to be…

Josephine EDP by Rance – I gave up so I looked it up: “hawthorn and jasmine, surrounded by ylang ylang and hyacinth, followed by a heart of iris, blackcurrant, white peach, cloves, galbanum and violet leaves. The base notes - ebony, sandalwood, white musk, Bourbon vanilla and ambergris - complete the fragrance, amplifying its refined sensuousness. – lusciouscargo.” Well… it’s all there, particularly the hawthorne. Ranking: #7

There were others but, honestly, I can’t smell a thing. I’m going to eat my Pixie-Stix (yep, one included!) and call it a night.

Don’t forget – YOU can get your own Luscious Cargo sample, 8 for $13, at lusciouscargo.com!

Sconset cottage – westford.com
Uffizi – relaishotel.com

When I think of Diptyque I tend to think: candles; Essence of John Galliano; and Tam Dao, in roughly that order.

However, contrarian perfume blogger that I am, I feel it’s my obligation to spread the word about my personal favorite among the fragrance portion of the line. I may, in fact, be the only person in the United States with this particular favorite.

L’Eau Trois was created in 1975, and its notes are listed as Myrrh, Myrtle, Oregano, Cistus, Pine, Laurel, Thyme, Rosemary.

Here is a comment via Basenotes from someone who shares my appreciation of this scent: “It starts as a fresh and aromatic herb mixture, which rapidly evolves to a pungent scent of resin, and finally takes on a scent of incense - but not the one you burn in sticks, the arabic one you buy in form of resinous grains - I think this is the myrrh comings out. Warm, oriental but sober, spiritual, well suited for autumn and winter.”

Here is a comment from someone who is less enamored: “Zoo cat cage pee, haybarn, and 3 week old sweaty gym socks.”

And the commentary generally runs along those lines: either you love it and it smells like a fabulous incense, or you can’t even believe someone bottled this dreck. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground.

So let me try to help you make an informed decision whether to sample this one. I am, first of all, a major fan of incense frags, and that is what L’Eau Trois is, with no apologies. Second, while the notes listed make it sound like the herb section at the grocery store, what I smell from start to finish (and this is a very linear scent) is pure, unburnt incense, with the cistus adding even a bit more lemon-balsam-resin goodness. This is not the smoke of the cathedral (or the meditative Japanese incense stick), or Olivia Giacobetti’s breathtaking, soaring Passage; it is, to my nose, the rarer-than-hens’-teeth smell of the gift of the Magi, a wooden box of frankincense and myrrh.

I find it powerfully beautiful, warm and resinous. If you are a fan of incense in your fragrances, consider giving this one a sniff for a wildly different approach than the cool elegance and smoky aloofness of, say, Armani Prive or CDG Avignon.

L’Eau Trois is available from beautyhabit.com and lusciouscargo.com, 50 ml, for $60. Or you can work it into a luscious sample order (8 for $13, or free with purchase over $30).

Harvesting frankincense resin — www.aromatherapy-essential-oils.org
Frankincense and myrrh – threekingsgifts.com
Bottle image – beautyhabit.com

Yum, this is some delicious juice.

I’ve got the EDT, and I was a little worried about the vanilla note, but it’s no problem. Beautifully balanced, not too heavy as some Goutals that I can’t wear, like Grand Passion, etc.

I forgot Marina tagged me for Five Weird Things. I wrote the first draft a few days ago but it was too weird so I never posted it. This is less weird, plus I figure this late in the week nobody will read it.

1) I have a large scar under my chin but have no idea why. I asked my dad. No clue either. Really, it looks like the sort of thing I’d remember.

2) I have a nice turntable on which I listen to my extensive album collection. Remember when you put all your albums out by the trash? Yep, that was me loading them in the back of my car. In perhaps my greatest haul I was driving home hugely pregnant with the twins and I spotted almost six linear feet of albums, tied up next to somebody’s garbage cans. The trash truck was coming down the block. I could barely walk, but I waddled over to them, trying to figure out if I could drive my van over the curb. The trash guys pulled up, took one look at me, and did the heavy lifting for me, which was sweet.

No, I am not going to list any albums. Too embarrassing. Oh, FYI — the fact that I pull the car over in broad daylight in front of the neighbors’ trash to retrieve treasures (a doll’s high chair! a wading pool! a perfectly good chair!) causes my beloved Big Cheese a great deal of emotional pain.

3) Okay, some random picks: The B-52s. Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. Kate Bush. Nat Cole. Alfred Deller. Bob Dylan. The Fabulous T-Birds. Herbie Hancock. Etta James. Wanda Landowska. Pretty much the entire Lynyrd Skynyrd oeuvre. Shriekback (one of the all-time under-rated bands.) Jai Uttal. Yes, they are alphabetized like that.

4) I was born with no wisdom teeth, a trait which I am happy to report I have passed on to at least two of my kids. I like to think of myself as being more highly evolved than average. Of course, the music listed here would tend to contradict that.

5) I didn’t walk until I was 2 ½, because I wouldn’t put my feet down on the ground. My parents have a series of hilarious photos of me as an infant and toddler with my feet stuck up in the air as far away from the grass, dirt, carpet, etc. as I could get them. The only time I am barefoot is in the bath. I have an entire collection of beautiful, different-weight socks just for sleeping. I feel about socks the way some people feel about fancy lingerie. Does the Big Cheese find this sexy? No, he does not. Which reminds me of the only other time I take my socks off.

All I seem to be able to think about these days is spring and cherries and flower gardening. It’s way too early to actually go shopping or excavating in my backyard (needs a total flower garden overhaul), so I’m going excavating through some perfumes that have crossed my desk lately. I have the attention span and memory of a gnat, so quick little reviews like March does have won me over.

Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan – yes, this one is as ephemeral and light as a little tart fairy with dusty wings, but does that make me like it any less? Nay, I say. Tea, orange, freesia, osmanthus and apricot are the notes. I’m not sure it’s FBW, though I did get the Full Bottle anyway, but I believe these are now available in the Discovery Set from Hermes boutiques, or will be in the next month. This is the summer fragrance that is not too sweet, not too tart, not overbearing. It doesn’t exactly disappear quickly, it’s just very subtle. Definitely one you could spritz with abandon go to the office or a wedding or just go relax in the hammock with some PBR in a Coozie. Review at NST and review at PST

Chocolovers by Aquolina spray and lotion – A little dark violet tossed this bon-bon at me, and though I love chocolate, I normally don’t like it on me. Serendipitous I like for about five minutes, and then I want a full hose-down. Chocolovers did NOT start out well, there was all sorts of coconut-like smells that are probably hazelnut or something else, and I was whining like an orphaned pup trying to get it off, but I just closed my eyes and waited, and then sniffed again in about 15 minutes, and it wasn’t staying that strong and it was turning into a rather nice vetiverish, smooth mocha kinda thing. This is so not horrible, it’s pretty likable, even for a nonfoody scent s*ut like me. With summer coming, I probably wouldn’t wear it, but by next fall and winter, it should fill a space on those days when I just want to feel like I fell into a lovely cup of hot cocoa.

Serge Lutens Chergui — Since March just did this one and then sent me some, I’ve just got to say this one is like The Nazgul without Sauron’s interference. In short, I like it. Rich, spicy, smoky — a jacked-up, sweet Fumerie Turque.

BTW, when ordering from the Hermes boutique, don’t call Ambre Narguile by its True Name, their SAs really don’t have a sense of humor.

KISS to release perfume line

Now the veteran rockers are stepping away from fridge magnets and belt buckles to offer a far sexier product with their new line of seductive scents.
According to frontman PAUL STANLEY, the range will live up to Kiss’ wild reputation - he claims the line is “Unrepentantly sexy, and a little naughty”.

If they can make a perfume that smells like “Beth,” I would be all in favor of their fragrance endeavor. I loved that song, still do, it was the perfect love ballad. I hope Taylor or Ace sings it in “American Idol” this year. So is Ace totally hot or what? ::::::swoon::::: If I was 20 years or so younger, I’d be throwing my panties on the stage with me in them.

In honor of K.I.S.S’ embarcation on the Great Ship Perfume, and the impending spring, I offer up this, and I dare you not to hum along and not see yourself driving down a California highway in a convertible or at a kegger on a hot summer night. And a picture of Ace too, can’t forget that.

Beth I hear you calling
But I can’t come home right now
Me and the boys are playing
And we just can’t find the sound

Just a few more hours
And I’ll be right home to you
I think I hear them calling
Oh Beth what can I do
Beth what can I do

You say you feel so empty
That our house just ain’t our home
I’m always somewhere else
And you’re always there alone

Just a few more hours
And I’ll be right home to you
I think I hear them calling
Oh Beth what can I do
Beth what can I do

Beth I know you’re lonely
And I hope you’ll be alright
‘Cos me and the boys will be playing all night

Is there some sort of Murphy’s law in effect at my Regular Joe Department Store? I go there and try to buy some undies, or a set of towels, and the sales clerks scatter like gazelles into the far reaches of each floor.

I have to stalk them until I corner the one who’s too busy yammering on a cel phone to notice my ambush, and then I have to mad-dog him/her until he/she rings up the sale, usually while continuing to take that personal call.

The perfume counter, in contrast, is the one place I’d like to stop and smell the roses (and musks, and marine accords) in peace. And that’s the one place the sales clerks are trolling like starving hyenas.

It’s no small wonder I bug the hell out of them. I’m all over the map, for one thing. I want to smell the Baby Phat Goddess and then the Curious – is this the original one? And then the Arpege, please. No, I do not want to smell Pure Turquoise. Yes, the Vera Wang is very nice and no, I don’t want to smell it. No, I have already smelled that new Estee Lauder, and I am not interested. (Here’s a hint: telling me “We sell a ton of this!” is probably not going to be a deal closer with me. Neither is the fact that for my $70 I get the matching lotion, the powder, the room spray and for all I know a heart-shaped diffuser to hang from my rear view mirror).

I made a sincere effort at the Department Store because I wanted to include at least one easily obtainable frag in today’s Candy Post, and here it is:

My Queen by Alexander McQueen – Here’s one you don’t need eBay or a French Connection to get ahold of. “Meant To Make Every Woman Feel Like A Queen.” Puh-lease. But the notes sound great on paper: Almond, Violet (top), White Musk, Florals, Heliotrope (middle), Cedar, Vetiver, Vanilla And Iris Notes (base). And it is those things, quite pleasantly almond-y, violet and heliotrope for about 10 minutes. And then … (Cue the music from Jaws.) I believe this is the rest of the equation: almond + musk = Play-Doh. I mean, it’s not BAD. It’s just not… good, either. And in 20 minutes, consider it gone. I wasn’t expecting Serge staying power for $55, but come on.

Speaking of Play-Doh… People of the Labyrinths Luctor et Emergo – this is the Play-Doh one, right? I went and looked at NST, and whatever glory you guys are getting from this, it sure escapes me. I get an opener of incense, Play-Doh, followed by a big spoonful of vanilla, and … Play-Doh. I agree the smell of Play-Doh is theoretically a comfort scent, but not for me. Maybe I’ve spent too much time trying to dig it out of the carpet and cracks in the floor with a toothpick. Actually, Play-Doh is officially a banned substance in our house, pretty much for that reason.

Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur – Cait wrote the funniest thing about how her dad’s shorthaired pointers were REALLY digging this scent when she was trying it out. Definitely the sort of smell that, if I’d taken a walk through the neighborhood, all the male dogs would have jumped their fences and pursued me with One Thing on their minds. It’s that dirty, and I love dirty, so I loved the first 30 minutes of this. But then it’s just vanilla and amber. Okay, okay, still some musk there, but where goes the trash-talking, junk-in-the-trunk part? I got so bored I dumped some Jicky parfum on top of it. Hah. NOW we’re talkin’! If I keep doing that I’ll probably burn a hole through my hand but, God, it was so good it must be illegal.

Serge Lutens Tuberose Criminelle (Part 3) – I refused to actually put this on, I gave my sample away, and Robin and Patty told me I had to get it back and try it, so I did. The Big Cheese and I work together. He looked over at me the other day with a thoughtful expression and said, you’ve really got your bitch on today, don’t you? It was true. I did. That sort of day is useful for taking care of outstanding administrative snafus, so I applied half my large vial of TC and headed off to the bank to offend some people regarding an account there. TC answered two questions for me: first, can you hate something on yourself while other people love it? (Yes. I got not one but TWO compliments on this, one of which was still during the Vap-o-Rub phase). Second, can the beauty of the drydown overcome the horror of the opening? For me, sadly, no.

Wild Woods by Coty – well, this reminds me of something (SMN Citta di Kyoto?) It does NOT remind me of the rest of the current Coty ouevre of watered-down classics and wretched musks (Vanilla Fields, anyone?) This is labeled for men, and would smell great on a guy, but it’s a perfect unisex frag that makes me think of those thin Japanese incense sticks. Thanks to Marina for turning me on to this one. If you like a dry, woody incense, buy this online for $10. (No, that is not a typo.) It’s so good, Coty will probably discontinue it. If someone asks you what they’re wearing, I think what Marina and I finally came up with was “Bois Sauvage.”

Gazelles, John Fields
Nymphs and Satyr, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Soap Art Creations Bath and Body: Soaps, Bath Bombs, Candles

I just had to order a bar or two of this soap, but this soap on a roll is just so darn cute! They have soap art with pictures on them and aromatic wicking things way cheaper than the ones I got from Needless Markup. Will review these when they come in, but always want to share the shopping love! This one is Bahama Cherry. Lord, I’m having me some cherry love these days, don’t know why. I crave them, but haven’t indulged — cherry pie, cherry ice cream — so this soap and Rahat are going to have to tide me over.

Do you suppose this is a Menopause thing?

Before I put in this post of March’s, I don’t have that good of an excuse, except real job demands are interfering, but should be abating tomorrow, and I hope to get something written then.

From March:

We are in the midst of the Big Cheese Family Reunion, months in the planning. There are 17 people staying here right now, half of them children. If you dropped by you’d think I was running a wildly creative but extremely disorganized preschool, staffed by loud men with drinking problems.

I am cooking food in what I think of as diner quantities. Breakfast: 4 lbs of bacon, 2 dozen eggs. And that was just for the GUYS. (What perfume goes with the smell of bacon-saturated clothing? Chergui. No, seriously.)

So. No perfume blogging. In fact, no computer time, period. I have some notes, but just can’t get a decent perfume post together. I hear these people are leaving Wednesday.

In times like these, I hit the Apres l’Ondee pretty hard. It doesn’t seem to offend no matter how much I dump on, and it comforts me, although right now I’d take a Valium if I could find one.

In lieu of a regular post, here’s a link to a story in the Washington Post called Appealing to the Senses, about the new high-tech marketing approaches of creating scented packages – new scented inks, for example, or scented drink-through bottle caps that improve the customer’s perception of the taste. Interesting stuff.

Marina has tagged March and me both to list five weird or odd things about ourselves.

This shouldn’t take long, I could be past five easy.

1. I happily drive my son to school in my pajamas and robe if I don’t have to go to the office that day.

2. Desserts do not survive the night in my fridge. If there is something gooey and sweet in the fridge, I will wake up in the middle of the night in response to its Siren Song.

3. Bread, sugar and cinnamon are my Kryptonite. Just put that combination together in any way, shape or form, and I will will beat your butt to get it. We used to make cinnamon bread when I was a kid, toast the bread, slather on some butter, then sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar… yum. Blackjack Pizza has the best cinnamon bread that gets delivered to my house. I hate Cinnabons, but I will stop and buy a box, eat two, then either drop off or shove the rest of the box at my sons and tell him to please take them away.

4. I never use my turn signal, and I am oblivious to this, except my DH and DS keep pointing it out to me every time they are in the truck with me. They don’t get to ride with me anymore.

5. I’m a mouse swirly. When I’m using my mouse, I swirl it around and around before I land it on the thing I want to click on. It’s a good thing I don’t share an office with anyone, this habit alone makes most sane people take drugs.

Since Patty’s working this week, I feel it’s my job to keep you up to date on celebrity developments. So:

Karl Lagerfeld, the Chanel designer, said of Kimora Lee Simmons, “This girl represents the nineties.” – newyorkmetro.com

I couldn’t agree more, Karl.

Here is her Perfume, Baby Phat Goddess:

Just as The Manolo has his thing with the Lagerfeld, so I seem to have this Kimora Fixation. She’s six-four in heels, and she could definitely beat my @ss.

In addition to her perfume, she’s a “clothing designer.” That would be one way to describe her.

Here is some “clothing” she “designed.”

Here’s one where she’s blinging those sad-eyed babies of hers:

I try to laugh, but this photo is so creepy it haunts me. What message does it convey? That she’s powerful? That her little girls exist only as small, empty mirrors to reflect her own louche idea of beauty? She’s giving them to the Triad? Honestly, I have four kids and kind of a weird sense of humor, but this.

Kimora has been described as “visionary” and “ultraconfident.” Other alternatives might be “delusional” and “narcissistic.” Or “psychotic” and “megalomaniacal.”

And, finally, the reason for this post: as terrifying as I find this woman in her previous incarnations, here is Kimora’s New Look: blonde! (Sorry the image isn’t better; it’s scanned from a glossy magazine photo after I gave up finding it online). I think it looks every bit as natural on her as it does on Donatella Versace.

As the Manolo would say : Ayyyyyy!

This is the time of year for orange scents. While they seem like they’d be more appropriate for the summer months, the truth is that they’re often too heady in our summer heat and humidity, and they tend to attract bees. This isn’t a problem in February, when I’m looking for a little ray of sunshine in a bottle (perfume, not liquor, although sometimes that works almost as well). I adore orange fragrances. You could release a scent called Orange Crap and I’d be first in line to try it.

The term “orange” implies something of the fruit, fragrance-wise – a little of the tartness, while “neroli” and “orange blossom” suggest the sweeter flower, but I think the perfumers play pretty fast and loose with that distinction, so I tend to ignore it. Fruit or flower – I’m in. My regular rotation includes Annick Goutal’s Neroli and a tiny, precious bottle of I Profumi de Firenze’s Arancia Dolce in a perfume concentrate, which I’m pretty sure is only sold (along with 30 others) at one of their pharmacies in Florence for the purpose of scenting their creams and lotions. I warmed up to Laura Tonatto’s far-from-universally-loved Fior d’Arancio, which is like orange soap on the skin but behaves itself beautifully sprayed on clothing. I catch cheerful remnants of it days (weeks?) later on my sweaters. There is even room on my shelf (dare I write this?) for a bottle of Spun Orange Blossom cologne from the clearance table at the Gap, which is not going to win any perfume awards but is a light, girly nuthin’-but-orange – no soap, no dope, a rainy-day giggle of a smell. My newest orange love is S-ex Perfume Sloth, a delicious orange/industrial complex that smells enthralling.

Today, however, I’m exploring two orange scents that in some ways are polar opposites: l’Artisan’s Fleur d’Oranger 2005 and Serge Lutens’ Fleurs d’Oranger.

L’Artisan begs the philosophical question: can a perfume be too real? It is, simply, the magnificent smell of the orange blossom. This limited edition scent ($250 per bottle for 100 ml, more than twice the usual cost for the line) features the 2004 harvest of orange blossom from Nabeul in Tunisia and has generated a lot of discussion regarding the wisdom and purpose of “harvest” editions in perfume. Hype? Sure. The notes are listed as: orange bigarade, petitgrain, neroli, honey, orange blossom, beeswax.

This is a perfume-flower of such perfection you’d think God made it. It is stunning, a marvel of a smell. The lasting power is surprising for an orange soliflore, generally a fairly short-lived performer in fragrance. Fleur d’Oranger is an absolutely photo-realistic journey inside an orange blossom. It’s so real that the first time I wore it, it generated an entirely new mental/olfactory sensation in me: the perfume creeps. I started to feel like a bee – my skin felt furry, I heard buzzing, I kept checking to make sure my hands weren’t turning into legs and feelers. The second time I wore it I moved past that sensation and reveled in its unadorned, almost freakish beauty. If you are a big fan of orange in fragrances, you owe it to yourself to try it, period. Ignore the hype; there is simply nothing else like it.

For a completely different take on orange, which rather than a soliflore includes some of the other plants riding out the cold months in an orangery, I turn to Serge Lutens’ Fleurs d’Oranger– Orange blossom, white jasmine and tuberose from India, white rose, a zesty green note, hibiscus seed, cumin, nutmeg.

Of course, being Serge, it starts off with one of those confusing, French-farce practical jokes – a gagging blast of cumin, and separate from a blast of skunk (or camphor) I can’t think of anything offhand I’d like to smell less in a perfume top note. But take deep, cleansing breaths. Try to ignore the foolishness for half an hour, which is what I did the first time I wore it, and only because I was leaving the house and literally had no time to wash it off. You will be rewarded for your patience with a langorous ode to l’orange, a sensual stroke of jasmine, resting on a delicious mouthful of the quintessential Lutens base – this version less amber-y, more crème caramel, on a late spring afternoon in Paris, with you lying wrapped in a towel on the divan, gazing out the window at the rain, and the smell of from the orangery of your childhood in Tuscany is suddenly, unaccountably, there in your room. This scent is not the photorealism of l’Artisan; it is the complex fiction of the orange blossom of memory, like Proust and his madeleines. The first time this happened, I burst out in giddy laughter, in public. Let them stare, the joy you will feel at that moment is worth it.

L’Artisan can be purchased at Neiman Marcus online, and from www.artisanparfumeur.com

Serge Lutens is available from Aedes (www.aedes.com), $92 for 1.69 ozs. EDP

Images:
Orange blossom, www.gardenclubofcyprus.com
bee, Cascade Splendor, users.wi.net
Orangery, www.fernandez-gamio.de

Bad Girl Perfumes… everyone has one or more, the ones they go to when they want to feel sexy, desirable, vampish, or just to go with their Dominatrix outfit. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we bring you the Spank Me Collection, personally endorsed by Patty and March. If you want to Get Lucky tonight, we recommend one of the following:

Patty’s List

Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle - I don’t care what March says, this rocks, from that blast of camphor to the little tuberose that peeps its head up when you least expect it. If you have your whip tucked in the belt of your leather jumpsuit and are ready to teeter over to the local Spank Me Hard Bar and Grill on your Jimmy Choos with the 4-inch heels, you’ll need this to ward off overzealous beaus, The Undead or Parliament.

Most likely to wear this: Maggie Thatcher, Joan Crawford and Martha Stewart.

Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose – Bored ’50s housewives having cocktails at the club, with their big white sunglasses and too-red lipstick and a prescription for that new wonder drug, Valium, in their pocketbook, this is the smell they leave on the lipstick print on the highball glass and stubbed-out Chesterfields. Go ahead, drop your car keys into the glass bowl for a little swap action later.

Most likely to wear this: Mrs. Robinson, Virginia Wolf and Stiffler’s Mom

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb – The Iron Maiden — goes on soft and floraly, but with the engine of a freight train. She’ll befriend you, seduce your husband and then kick your dog when you aren’t looking.

Most likely to wear this: Marquise de Merteuil

Serge Lutens Rose de Nuit – This is some decadent juice. It is disconcerting to have this many roses on my bad girl’s perfume list, but the rose is often full and lush and almost overripe. If ever my old dream of owning and running a nightclub were to come true, this is the perfume I would wear as I booted out drunks, listened to tales of love gone bad and collected unsuitable beaux.

Most likely to wear this: Mae West and Miss Kitty

March’s List

Fifi Chachnil – First of all, this is what I hoped Velvet Rope would be – kind of edgy, and weird, and alluring. (Velvet Rope, for the record, was Velveteen Rabbit on me – or maybe Velveeta. It smelled like Fresca and jellybeans.) Coriander, mandarin, rose, lily of the valley, amber, tobacco. To my nose the coriander translates into a strong hit of pepper and cinnamon (maybe even nutmeg?) but this is not even remotely a foody scent. There’s a little skank in there…. a little club hopping. A guy with an interesting tattoo, a pack of American Spirits and a smack habit. How does something so dirty come out of that cute little I-Dream-of-Jeannie bottle?

Most likely to wear this: Lara Croft, Betty Boop and Miss Piggy

Bal a Versailles – No finer minds than Scentzilla, Columbina, and, uh, moi have declared this a winner. Columbina said: “Bal à Versailles would be a great accomplice if you wanted to seduce, stun and enslave somebody…” Ignore the Baroque Powdered Wig action on the bottle and inhale…. Ah. There. The smell of the naughty things, the sheets kicked off the bed, the blindfold, the gentle stroke of the hand just before the crack of the whip.

Most likely to wear this: Bettie Page, Karl Lagerfeld

Guerlain Jicky – More than just Spank Me Baby, it is also a little Rat Money per Patty’s post. On Scentzilla’s scale, this is petite mort. Basically they grabbed the civet and squeezed its fanny right over the mouth of the bottle. No, seriously, I mean that as an ENDORSEMENT. I think this is what Bandit is to other, even more twisted folk. Sure, it’s wearing a pretty silk dress, but look – no panties.

Most Likely to Wear This: Cruella de Vil, Sean Connery (he DOES wear this!), The Vicomte de Valmont

Paris Hilton Wanted For Mother Teresa Role

March, sorry to sit on top of your lovely post, but this horrific bit of news could not be ignored.

Director scouting for suitable actress to play the title role on his film about Mother Teresa casts his eyes on the slut saintly Paris Hilton.

Yes, THAT Paris Hilton. How do you suppose something like this crosses a person’s mind. “We need someone to play Mother Teresa. Who would we get? Pam Anderson? No, too buxom. Madonna? Nah, not enough wrinkles and too old. Tara Reid? Well, yeah, maybeeee — naw, not enough budget for the booze she’ll want. Wait, wait, I’ve got it… Paris Hilton.

That’s Hot… yeah, like hell would be if it weren’t frozen over.

[crosses self, says 5 Hail Marys and 3 Our Fathers, hearing four horsemen hoofbeats in distance]

I have a perfume so rare you cannot buy it at Les Salons du Palais Royal. In fact, I don’t believe you can find it in all of Paris. It is so rare that you cannot even buy it on eBay.

It is mine, and I am enjoying it privately, because it is so fleeting. Time is short.

Come with me. I can show it to you. You have to know where to look, though, because its white, waxy flowers are so unassuming, barely the size of my fingernail. Go on, lean in. Bury your nose in those tiny flowers, their piercing green sweetness, breathe their nectar richness, somewhere between jasmine and magnolia. Stand here in the snow and confront beauty at its most absurd and transitory.

It blooms in late January or early February, too early for adoration from the bees. Sometimes its blossoms are covered in a sheet of ice. It is always blooming when my father and I are fighting what we half-jokingly call our winter doldrums. For sustenance there are always those rare flowers, cuttings from leafless branches of the bush by the back door of the house I grew up in, brought inside to contemplate.

That bush is more than 60 years old; it is beginning to fail, maybe reaching the end of its natural life span. No one is exactly sure what it is. I have spent a fair amount of time looking, and I believe it is winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), although none of these photos captures precisely the delicate white beauty of the flowers on this particular bush by that particular door.

I spent a year trying to root some cuttings, to start one from seed, with no luck. Then my sister said, over there, dig that part up, I think it’s a baby. And it was. Just one. It lives in the corner of my back yard, in the sun, where the children won’t trample it and the dog won’t pee on it and it has room and time to grow.

If we ever move, I can leave behind my beautiful mop-head, oakleaf and lacecap hydrangeas, I can tear myself away from even my carefully tended and much-loved heirloom roses. I can turn my back on five kinds of lavender without regret. I can leave them all for the next family to enjoy, but that small, plain bush is coming with me.

It is blooming, right now, in eleven inches of blowing snow.

Lonicera images – wikipedia.org, luzhok.ru
Snuff bottle – chinacart.com

Every now and again during my online fragrance forays, I stumble across something so weird, so wrongheaded, that I’m tempted to whip out my Visa and buy it.

This is one such perfume – Watt by Cofinluxe, the first of what I envision as an occasional post on Perfume Oddities. Just look at that photo. What the hell were they thinking?

From Fragrancex.com: “Watt PINK Perfume by Cofinluxe Is A Blend Of Jasmine, Apricot, Chamomile And Peach.”

The blurb goes on to note: All products are original, authentic name brands. We do not sell knockoffs or imitations.

Well, thank God. I wouldn’t want a knockoff of this one. Only the authentic Watt is good enough for me.

The best part? There are several OTHER Watts to choose from:

YELLOW : “A blend of freesia, peach, nutmeg and rose, feminine and sweet.”

BLUE: (the men’s version): “A Blend Of Rich Woodsy Aromas Sandalwood And Moss, With Low Notes Of Amber And Spice.”

RED: “Musk, lemon, rose and amber, a woodsy and sultry aroma.”

Hey — watt are you waiting for? You need some of this. It’s all over the internet, for $10 - $16 a bulb. Uh, bottle.

What’s the rule for the fruitcake samples? You know – the vials of marginal fragrance that get thrown into your swaps and orders as freebies.

Not the good stuff Luscious Cargo threw in because they’re hoping you’ll buy it. (You will). Or the surprise decant of a Caron Urn scent in a swap. I’m talking about frags like that carded sample of Liz Claiborne. I mean, I’m sure somebody out there wears it – she sells the sh!t out of that stuff. (Or maybe not … is she dead?) But I’m not going to be the one to pass it on.

Don’t get me wrong – some of my absolute favorites I’ve gotten as afterthoughts from other folks that (possibly) it didn’t work out for. But some of those things look a little suspicious to me.

Okay, ’nuff said. Let’s move on to today’s Candy Grab Bag reviews:

Sloth by S-ex Perfumes – Last time I did a screed on 100% Love, another S-ex perfume. I laughed and sneered and snickered at the whole sperm-driven marketing approach for this company. I laughed at everything but the actual juice, which is a knockout. Well, shortly thereafter, I received a gift package from Sacre Nobi, the Andy Warhol (Wizard of Oz?) behind the S-ex Venture. I test-drove Sloth, in part because Scentzilla said it was orange (I love orange) but mostly because it would give me the opportunity to confirm my suspicion that the Emperor Has No Clothes. I mean, come on. Sloth? Like the zoo animal? Oh, wait, no, like the Deadly Sin which lends itself so well to the art installation (and internet beefcake photos). And, well, goddamn these people. It’s orange, sure – but orange and WHAT, exactly? Luca Turin, did you smell this one before you went AWOL? Because I need your handsome schnoz to smell this and tell me what the hell that other note is. Pine-Sol? Barbicide? Linoleum and rosemary? Some kind of green, mildly industrial smell. The juice is so sniff-worthy and lip-smacking that if I run through my sample at my present rate I may have to, um, buy some more. And that will just kill me. I am refusing on principle to smell the others in the package until next week, because this is clearly some sort of nefarious plot against my personal scent integrity, and I am pissed.

10 Corso Como – I like this, really I do. But since I’ve gotten four of these in a month, unsolicited, I am beginning to wonder: is there enough of this in existence to cover two-thirds of the face of the earth? “The fragrance is a rich scent that has a warm sandalwood base with more subtle hints of frankincense and rare oud wood so expensive, it is sold by the gram in India. [Oh, as opposed to the usual perfume ingredients, which are so cheap they’re sold by the 50-gallon drum at Sam’s Club?] The result is a wildly romantic mix of rose, geranium, vetiver, musk, sandalwood and Malay oud-wood oil.” – Beauty HabitOn me it’s a fairly butch vetiver/sandalwood, with just enough oud to make me dream. I’ve got to get some of those Montales…

Versace Dreamer – I spilled this all over myself making a decant. What a great fragrance this is, why do I forget about it? I don’t smell the Tootsie Roll note, or the auto parts accord, or some of the other weird things people get in this (see NST for a hilarious archived review). A smooth leather jacket and a hint of tea, with a little caramel, and something else that absolutely does not exist in nature, but if it did it would be a comfort scent. This is a men’s fragrance – using that term in its loosest possible sense. Like David Bowie.

Etro Eliotropo – Eliotropo must be Italian for “invisible.” Gone. Zip. Nothing. (Nadie?) Same thing with the SMN Heliotrope. Or maybe P’s filling the empty vials with water?

16310 Yuzu Rouge – I smelled the cheap yuzu oil at the Gap, which grabbed my interest just enough I asked Marlen about yuzu, since he’s in Japan, and he got busy and made a whole list of yuzu frags. I randomly selected this one because there were decants on eBay. If you like your iced tea unsweetened, if you wish the lemonade you’re served had half the sugar, if you like to suck on the occasional slice of lime just for the buzz, get yourself some of this. It smells grapefruit-ish, only more so, and much more sour. I love it. It’s also sitting on a base of something (vetiver?) that makes it a summer cologne rather than just a one-off fruit note.

L’Artisan Tea for Two – My favorite winter tea scent – a smoky lapsang opening that drifts into cherry pipe tobacco, a soft leather armchair and a good book. A regular comfort scent.

Serge Lutens Chergui – boisdejasmin reviewed this, reminding me that I’d bought and forgotten about my sample. This may turn into my first actual Serge purchase. (Full disclosure: they’re so generous with sample atomizers at my local boutique that I’ve been able to wear Un Lys, Fleurs d’Oranger, A La Nuit and Clair de Musc regularly without having to purchase them. Yet.) Leather, tobacco, sweet tea, incense, and the base that comes along eventually in a number of other SLs, including Douce Amere and Arabie. On me: a winter comfort scent, along the lines of l’Artisan’s Tea for Two, only Serge-ish – denser and sweeter.

Serge Lutens Tuberose Criminelle – Jesus H. Christ. Maybe it smells like heaven, but I’ll never know, because I’ll never get past the camphor opening. I gave it to my sister-in-law. She just laughed. She wouldn’t even try it on.

Serge Lutens Rahat Loukoum – Patty recommended spraying this on liberally to really garner the full effect. She must have been mad at me about something. I appreciate the IDEA of this scent – inspired by the sweet almond-cherry Turkish Delight. It’s the reality I can’t live with. Unbearably cloying almond and cherry cough syrup, drying down into a musk I’m not loving. Buy yourself the Jergens Original hand lotion and spend the $100 you saved on something else, but not…

Baby Phat Goddess – I was actually reserving this one for a full review, but I couldn’t face it. A perfume that makes Britney Spears’ Curious look like one of those baffling, rigorous intellectual journey-type fragrances you’d see in some hipster perfumery in Amsterdam. Gardenia, White Rosebuds, Cedrat Flower, Blue Lily, Hyacinth, Black Pepper, Seringa, Musk, Exotic Woods, eye of newt, strychnine. WARNING: DIGRESSION – do you really *mean* seringa? As in, the fairly rare deciduous caterpillar tree of the African veldt? Or do you mean “syringa,” or lilac (or even mock orange), which is what I smell? Do you think nobody notices these things, or looks them up? Or can spell? This is shaping up to be a general perfume gripe of mine… anyway, Baby Phat Goddess is the perfect reflection of its creator, Kimora Lee Simmons – loud gardenia and hyacinth top notes, vulgar, artificial-smelling lilac, its cloying sweetness giving way to the bitter truth of a nasty drydown. There is Skank, and there is Crap. This is the latter.

Le Parfume de Therese by Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle – If I’m remembering correctly, this is the fragrance Edmond Roudnitska created for his wife’s exclusive use, released to the public later on. You don’t need to buy it – you can make it yourself. Here’s how: 1) Go spray yourself with some Bandit. 2) Now put some Diorella on top of it. 3) Go buy some cilantro, chop it finely, and smear it all over your body. Et voila.

Floris Cefiro – I know, I know, I ragged on this one already as a scrubber. But this is an update. I sent it to Patty. (Don’t worry, I warned her). Here’s her feedback: “Cefiro is a nasty little thing, it had to go in the trash. ”

Oh. So that’s what you do with the fruitcake samples!

Images:

Doze (yeah, right) – topwallpaper.de
The Begam of Oudh, oud.tripod.com
Limeade, keysconch.com
The Pipe Lighter – Humboldt.edu
Turkish delight – buttermilkfudge.co.uk
Kimora nurturing the bling, uh, girls – newyorkmetro.com

Just got a package, my Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose.

Mother of God, this is some beautiful juice. How did I miss this one for so long? Roses and violets, I think I need to drop to one knee and propose to this bottle.

Bad news — they sent me a great sample of Iris Poudre, which I promptly dropped and crashed on the floor. My office smells great. Good news, my bottle of Iris Poudre comes in hopefully next week.

I want this candle in the worst way, but $75 for a 6-oz candle is just ridiculous. I wonder if my husband loves me enough? I’ll IM him and find out.

Some smells in life you remember vividly and others are the stuff of legend and exist only with a story and a very sharp memory, but no smell at all except what you want it to be.

Growing up, we were all in 4-H. Every summer, the fair would come. That was the time when we loaded up the pigs and steers and chickens and vegetables and baked goods and tea towels sewn by 8-year-old hands and took them to town, slapped an entry tag on them for judging and waited for that sweet, sweet prize money check to come in the mail. Pigs and steers, though, were our bank for the year. After judging, they went to auction, and we got the money they sold for. Even white-ribbon hogs would net over $100, sometimes 200 or 300; steers would go for closer to $1,000 and above. Our job was to look adorable when we paraded them through the auction ring, smiling into the crowd with every bid. It was never entirely clear what was being sold here. Usually it was a popularity contest to see which dad was spending the most money at the elevator or borrowed the most from the bank. This rarely was us, but we did okay based on our charm *twinkling grin*.

This story isn’t about that, though. Every fair had a carnival. Our hometown fair was really small, and we got a very small carnival. With the carnival came the rides put together with electrical tape, the games of chance you couldn’t win and the Carnies. These were people that just scared a youngster a little, except that one swarthy teenage boy that just looked dangerous and hot as hell in his tight jeans, greased back hair and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

My dad loved the Carnies – he loved the Gypsies too, but that’s a different story. This was his one time of the year where he could fleece people unabashedly. He always had to check himself when he played poker locally because he didn’t want his friends and neighbors exiling him from the Reindeer Games. He never felt that kind of restraint when he taught us poker. He took more of my pig money than I care to talk about, until I finally realized I couldn’t win, he was too good and playing angles I didn’t even know existed. He counted cards, knew the odds, was a math genius, and poker was his game.

But the Carnies didn’t know that, at least not at first. So as we took our pigs and steers out for judging and dutifully modeled that A-line shift with the bad seams in the style show, he was over playing poker and taking money from the carnies with gleeful abandon. My mother, of course, hated it.

This story isn’t about that either exactly. Besides our hometown fair, there was the Wakeeney fair, which was the “big one” for us. More rides (and ones that weren’t put together with duct tape), car races, a thriving midway metropolis. We always traveled for one night to the Big Wakeeney Fair. This carnival had

RAT

If you’ve ever seen a Roulette wheel, then you’ve seen The Rat. Just think bigger holes. The wheel was spun round, and then they released the rat. The rat ran around the wheel as it slowed down and would finally pick a black or red or white hole to dive into.
The person who had their money on that hole won the pot. I’m still not sure how this game managed to avoid Police involvement in Bible Belt Kansas - it was just gambling, pure and simple. But run this rat gambling game for several years, they surely did.

Daddy had one night at the Wakeeney Carnival too, and that night was spent with The Rat as his BFF. He only had one night because they would never let him play again that year, and he had to wait until the next year with new Carnies who didn’t know him so he could play again. More than once, they made him leave midway through the night because he was cleaning them out of money. Nobody ever really knew, and my Dad never told exactly how he knew where the Rat would go, but he knew. He told my Mom it was one color of hole they always went in, but given how many holes, that really doesn’t account for it, but it did eliminate 2/3 of the potential holes. He also said he knew which direction the rat would run once it came out. Being an expert on Rat turning behavior doesn’t explain it either, though I’m thinking that a seriously mad skill every woman should have. I saw the Rat run, and it would sometimes dive for a hole quick and sometimes meander around for quite a while. My best guess is, as with humans, rats have predictive behavior, and watching even a couple of times, he found the pattern in Rat Roulette. 

So every year my dad would come home with Rat Money, hundreds of dollars of it, and give it to my Mom. Of course, my Mom hated it. She hated the smell, said she hated spending it because it just reeked of rat. But spend it she did, complaining without one bit of embarrassment.

Rat Money Smell is what sin and whiskey and forbidden sex smells like. It’s the shady side of life, the smoky biker bar full of bad men that look irresistible, the part that nobody really wants to talk about too much because it is fun, and we all go there from time to time and hope we don’t get caught up in the Rat Money current and forget to find our way home. Velvet Rope was supposed to smell like that, but instead came up smelling like Fresca on me. Defintely not Rat Money Smell.

I don’t remember what the Rat Money really smelled like, but it’s my phrase for every smell that I identify with that something that makes you wriggle up up your nose and look the other way while casting furtive backward glances trying to figure out what it is and if it’s as much fun as it looks like and whether anyone will catch you sniffing ’round it. Amber is that smell for me. Whether it’s in Laura Tonatto Amir, Hermes Ambre Narguile (aka The Nazgul) or Parfum D’Empire Ambre Russe, it’s not the perfume itself, it’s that note. All three of these perfumes are lovely renditions with amber as a strong note in them.

Every life needs a little Rat Money smell. It is mixed in with the sweetness, the passion, the sorrow, the loss and regret. It meanders through all of our lives like cigarette smoke, clinging sometimes to what we wear, but never to who we are. My daddy understood that. He would play in the Rat Money World, but he never became part of it. He brought his Rat Money home to his wife and children so we could have a microwave or a new tv, a luxury we couldn’t otherwise afford. (Dante’s Inferno by Rodin)

I think that’s why I always keep amber perfumes around. Sometimes I open up a drawer and I smell it, and I think, ah, Rat Money, and I remember my dad and all the lessons he taught us about life and love and loss and loyalty and honor.