French house Annick Goutal makes charming scents in charming bottles, the sorts of bottles you want to wrap up and give as gifts. Among the hardcore perfume fans, Hadrian, Duel and Sables are among the most popular, and even the hardest of hearts might be melted by a spray of Gardenia Passion or Petite Cherie.

So when it was announced that the house had released Les Orientalistes – and they were developed by Camille Goutal and Isabelle Doyen – we were pretty darn excited. Here’s Patty and March’s take on this new line from the boutique in Paris.

When testing Ambre Fetiche, Myrrhe Ardente, and Encens Flamboyant we did some reading and saw comparisons of an incense or amber or myrrh to something similar in another line, but we’re both fangirls of Annick Goutal, so we also looked at these in terms of how they fit in with the other AG scents. You will find other myrrh, incense and amber scents better in some cases, or less, or just different, but you will be hard pressed to find three scents perfectly matched to fit like a tailored Hermes glove into the Goutal line.

Ambre Fetiche has notes of amber, frankincense, labdanum, styrax, benzoin, iris.

Patty: It’s fairly fierce on going on, not a subtle amber in the least, but not beastly (looking at Ambre Russe). Not being an amber groupie, this is a wearable amber on me, tempered by the incense in its base and feeling just a little on the sweetish side of amber, but not so much that it teeters off the sugar cliffs. Want to have some real fun with it? Spray it on over Sables. The dance between pancake syrup and incense has had my nose twitching in glee for hours this morning. Eau de Fier with this one or any of the incensi (?) is pure bliss.

March: Lord, what is it with me and amber? I’m sorry, but amber is one of those solo notes I’m completely unable to assess fairly. Smelling a dominant amber is like drinking a bottle of cough syrup — my stomach starts doing flip flops. The only ambers I really like are dirty things like Ambre Russe. Having said that, this isn’t as cloying as the Hermessence Nazgul. The frankincense and labdanum give a nice sharp edge to the otherwise too-sweet amber-benzoin combination; the “iris” registers more as a spicy adjunct to the frankincense than its own rooty-orris note (which on this occasion is too bad.) Would I wear this on its own? No, but amber lovers would, and it layers beautifully with the other two.

Myrrhe Ardente has notes of myrrh, benzoin, vanilla, tonka, gaiac wood, and honeyed beeswax.

Patty: Alone, this is probably not as easy/fun to wear — or at least not for me. I just don’t get a love or hate on it, it’s just, well, myrrh but combined with either the Amber or Encens makes this one come alive on my skin, takes some of the vanilla and sweet out of it. I can think of a ton of combinations I’d love to try it with.

March: This is my second favorite of the Orientalistes. There’s the medicinal note of myrrh in the opening, but it’s not overwhelming, much warmer and easier to wear than, say, Lutens’ La Myrhhe. If you like vanilla and benzoin – you’ll love this. If you don’t: look out. Between those notes, the tonka and the honey, this thing is sweet. Layered with the Encens, though, it’s nicely balanced.

Encens Flamboyant has notes of frankincense, black pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, fir and “pure extract of lentisque. Drawn from arid vegetation, it is also used in Kiphi, the prized Pharaonic perfume.” (All notes via The Perfumed Court.)

Patty: Encens Flamboyant isn’t really flamboyant. That name makes me think of incense trussed up in a coochie girl outfit and pink hair. It’s pretty much a straight-up frankincense scent, along the lines of Avignon, with the warm Goutal’ish feel to it, but definitely my favorite of the three. Would happily wear this 8 days of the week, it goes with everything. So if you put on Sables one morning and go… huh… too much syrup, not enough pancake, throw some Encens over the top of it and have your breakfast in a monastery courtyard.

March: Having failed to be entranced by Jubilation XXV (what are you people smelling?), I was worried about whether I’d lost my lust for incense. Hah. I have no doubt that any number of you could provide me with explanations of why Amouage is a superior scent, but the Annick is my sort of incense. Incense scents are like black sweaters: I can’t have too many, and they’re all slightly different in their details. Flamboyant distinguishes itself by being neither churchy nor ethnic. It’s not cold and aloof. It’s … well, it’s very Annick. Peppery and spicy, with that fir note, I think it’s incense as a walk in the cold, clean outdoor air. It’s got excellent sillage – strong but transparent.

An aside: I don’t know whether the company ever said expressly that they were meant to be layered, but they seem designed that way. The Encens isn’t even a bit sweet, making it the perfect layering companion with the other two. The smell of the samples together when I ripped my package open was wonderful.

Patty: While none of these three will win prizes for breakthrough perfuming or some bold new take on incense, Goutal did what all perfume lines should do when they can’t make The Next Big Thing - tailor scents to fit their image, with their unique base, and that will complement many of the other perfumes in their line. So for me, this is the perfect addition to this line, and very well done.

Would that they would bring out a less expensive coffret of all three of these scents (we couldn’t find a great photo, but the existing coffret, a LE of the trio in 50 ml parfum strength in a white leather coffret) is 500 euros. Individual square 100ml EdP bottles are also available for 120 euros. Available only in Europe for right now, their availability in the United States has been pegged so far for mid to late 2008.

We’ll be taking tomorrow off, so we want to wish each of you the very best in the New year!!!

image: Edwin Long, Love’s Labor Lost, 1885, Dahesh Museum of Art, New York

It is once again that time of year when we look back over 2007 and put on our magical perfume sorting hats and declare which scents are the best of the 2007 entries.

• Amouage XXV Men - Lee says: you get those perfumes that you sniff and instantly you know - it’s a bang! whee! Ka-pow! moment. There aren’t many. But this one did it. Fruity incense drying down to a smoulder of exquisite velvetty richness, like the warm afterburn of a casked single malt. Duchaufour has done a marvellous job here with the best naturals, probably shaped, polished and refined by an exceptional palette of synthetic tones.
• Amouage 25 Women - Patty says: “What the world needs now is skank, cedary skank.”  Lovely and dirty.
• Bellissima Perfect Night - Lee says: On Louise, it smells hot. Nuff said.
• Bond No. 9 Silver Factory - March says: easily the best of the Bonds to my nose; who knew incense could smell so fun and lighthearted and trippy? I wonder what Andy would think.
• CB I Hate Perfume Wild Hunt Water Perfume  — Patty says: forest on the best day of your life
• Chanel 31 Rue Cambon  Patty says: reinvented chypre, as if needed it.  Well, maybe it did.
• Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia  — Patty says:  Just pretty, and there’s plenty of room on this list for pretty
• Guerlain Spirituese Double Vanille - March says: and Guerlain does it again with a scent that sounds sooo not me but has enough smoke and heart to win me over.
• Guerlain Iris Ganache - March says: another surprise success for me; I seem to have killed off the sweet notes. It’s true, iris and ganache can smell good together.
• Juliette Has a Gun Lady Vengeance - Patty says:  Who cares about the juice?  Good enough, not groundbreaking but kudos on the name, which puts it on the list.
• Hermes Kelly Caleche - Patty says:  Again, just a pretty perfume, and JCE did it.  JCE will always be on any list of mine. 
• Lostmarc’h Lann-ael - March says: okay, maybe not Perfume Genius, but it’s warm and cuddly vanilla and cereals. The sort of thing I’d hate if you described it to me. Smelling it brought me around.
• MDCI Enlevement au Serail (formerly FK3) — Patty says:  All of the MDCIs could have made this list, but limiting it to one, this has to be it
• Micallef Note Vanillee — Patty says:  A  beautiful vanilla, very different from the Guerlain one. But no less deserving.
• Serge Lutens Rousse - Lee says: still a cinnamon dream, an autumnal reverie, a Keats poem bottled.
• Miller Harris L’air de Rien - Lee says: a wonderful oakmoss drydown, though for some reason that bran accord at the opening keeps making me think of Coke…? (March says: smells like something died in the barn. Don’t go in there, man, it’s fierce.)
• Narciso Rodriguez Musc for Him - Lee says: Patty pointed out that the oil is a superior beast, and so it is. The middle structure of the scent is pretty much the same as the edt, but the first ten minutes dazzle, and the drydown is delightful.
• Parfum D’Empire Fougere Bengale - Lee says: take Sables or Eau Noire; strip out the sweetness; add a playful tarragon / anise ‘wtf is going on?’ mobility that drifts off, unanchored, in all directions, and weld all this onto an animalic beast that lasts for days. Glorious. There’s been a lot of fuss about the marketing schtick that goes with this scent, and I admit that I find all the tiger hunt imagery distasteful. But no more so, perhaps, than the same line’s idealisation of Napoleon, the Ottoman empire and so on. Perfume names are rife with the blood, sweat and tears of culture - I always find it odd that people get more worked up over animal cruelty than war and the massacring of innocents, but there you go.
• Vero Profumo Onda - Patty says:  Djedi is dead, long live the new Djedi. 
• Les Parfumes de Rosine Rose Kashmirie - Patty says:  saffron, rose, gorgeous, probably one of the best things Rosine has done in years
• Roja Dove Unspoken - March says: wow, where did the love go for this one? Or this line? Are we just buried in releases?
• Serge Lutens Sarrasins - Patty says:  Okay, maybe just on my list, but this is a great jasmine and I think will get more love as the years go by
• Tom Ford Private Blend Moss Breches - Patty says: A couple of the Tom Fords could have made this list, and others may be more popular, but this one is the most inventive of the line. 
• Worth Courtesan - March says: I have almost killed a bottle of this, which for me is, let’s face it, unheard of. Its very very slight cumin-y note is sensual rather than in-your-face. In fairness, I’ve now been teased by folks who smell a pleasant fruit salad scent and cannot figure out what I love about this.

Join other perfume blogs as they weigh in with their thoughts on perfume in 2007.  Aromascope :: Bois de Jasmin :: Now Smell This :: Perfume Posse :: PerfumeSmellin’ Things ::

Helg at Perfume Shrine also has some thoughts on 2007 in Perfume

Here’s an abbreviated post from me today (bet you thought you’d never see the day, huh?) We’re still in the thick of holiday family festivities and the kids are underfoot, which is messing with my powers of concentration.

First, welcome to our new look! Which you all saw on Monday before I did because I couldn’t figure out how to clear my cache! It’s kind of finished, but we’re still tweaking, and as I said in the comments on Monday, please please please let us know if you’re having any issues navigating the site, any suggestions for improvement, anything broken, etc. I am not sure whether Contact Us is working properly, and we’ve had some other glitches. So. Be patient, but please don’t assume we’re aware of a problem – go ahead and complain! Also, I’m learning to navigate a system with new bells and whistles, so bear with me while I learn the format.

Today’s review is of Comme des Garcons 888, which I have been enjoying for the past several days. Cribbing almost verbatim from The Perfumed Court: “Comme des Garcons 888 was released for one week in London and won’t be available again until March of 2008. Perfumer Antoine Lie created 888, which was intended to capture the smell of gold. They settled on Safraline, a molecular derivative of saffron, created by Givaudan. Other notes are pepperwood, curcuma, coriander, geranium and amber.”

I am fond of the CdG line in general, and I admire the audacity of some of their scents even if/when I find them bordering on unwearable. I look to CdG for interesting ideas, and I can think of favorites from most of their series, including Incense, Red, Leaves and Synthetic. There’s been lively debate on the blogs recently regarding How We Feel About CdG Getting into The Luxe Game. Separate from the price, though, Luxe Champaca and (even more so) Patchouli certainly have their fans. Play, another recent offering, I am pretending does not exist. It’s like a spoof of a boring mainstream scent – and congrats, guys, you hit that ho-hum note right on the nose.

So I was a little worried about 888, with its LE rigmarole and eau-de-gold blather. Here’s what I got: 888 opens with a huge blast of pepper and coriander, but there’s also a strong, old-fashioned classic cologne note. The effect together is effervescent and really, really appealing. Right away the tone is set: okay, we’re going to have fun here. If anything, I’d have named this one Play. I don’t get much metal, for those of you avoiding 888 because of the m-word. “Curcuma” suggests either ginger or turmeric, and I’m going with the latter – along with the amber and saffron that begins to dominate as the cologne fades, there’s a mustard-like note.

888 is a wearable scent, while at the same time retaining its quirky, arid strangeness. The drydown is dry and bitter, like bancha tea leaves, with only a touch of amber. My favorite part (which doesn’t work very well in public) is sniffing it up very close on my skin, when I get the geranium too.

Verdict? It is not hitting me over the head with its astonishing virtuosity, and I didn’t Have A Moment (like I did, for example, with Palisander) where I sniffed it once and then reached into my wallet in a fugue state for my credit card. Having said that, I’m enjoying it, I don’t have five other things that it reminds me of, and 888 deserves its place in the CdG lineup.

glitter image: galaxyplastic.net

(Sung to the tune of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’)

Once at Patty’s Perfume Posse
arrived a silly chap named Lee,
where two women, wise and gifted
wrote on perfume, all for free:
Patty was the first of these,
March joined in, composed with ease.

He admired their words and writings,
grew to love their tastes and all.
‘Til one day, as if by magic,
he received their call, in thrall:
“Dearest boyo, will you write?
We do like you and hope you might.”

And, through all the following year,
he would honour and obey,
write, then read the welcome comments,
living scent the Posse way:
Everybody who loves perfume
Must enjoy the PP institution.

And the commenters all were special,
in their individual ways;
whether first-time, old hands, newbies,
regulars or chief mainstays.
Those responding, I do know,
we love you all, don’t ever go.

Whether Mitsouko, Shalimar or L’Heure Bleue
or a handful of Carons,
New releases, vintage extraits,
At the Posse, you can’t go wrong.
Cos those girls in all their choices,
Thrill me, fill me, with their voices.

Therefore Patty, and dear March:
I really have to be sincere,
Thanks to both for letting me join you
for nearly all of the past year.
For I’ve never felt less lonely,
Than with you all, my perfume homies.

Sincere apologies to Cecil Frances Alexander for my sacrilegious rendition. Here’s how it should be. I hope you all had (and are, if possible, continuing to have) a wonderful and perfectly scented holiday. Much love to you all.

Whether you celebrate the religious side of Christmas or just the holiday or do not celebrate it at all, it is my most deepest wish for each of you to always have the hope Christmas represents and all of your fragrant wishes for gifts come true. 

“Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.”  G.K. Chesterton

Next week I’ll be talking about New Year’s and running and discipline and asking y’all to join me in a little running program. Well…  think about it, it will be fun!  Listen, if my sorry, well-padded, 48-year-old peri-menopausal butt that hasn’t run since high school can start logging running time, and I started this last week, anyone can.  Be there, Aloha, and…

♥♥ Merry Christmas ♥♥

P.S. — winner of the Annick Goutal and Dior samples is — Elizabeth S.

The presents are wrapped and under the tree, except for what Santa will bring later tonight. I’ll be spending much of today at church putting the final touches on the decorations for Christmas Eve, then home to bake iced sugar cookies (Santa’s favorite). This is a funny, wistful time of year for so many people. I have no idea how many of you will even stop by the blog today, but I thought I’d post something a little sacred and a little profane, about my love for Guerlain Mitsouko.

In perfume circles, Mitsouko is one of those givens – like Mount Everest, or death. It exists in its timeless majesty, whether or not you appreciate it. It has an air of inevitability. I suppose my first tentative sniff of Mitsouko was like a budding oenophile’s first sip of wine that didn’t come in a gallon jug from the supermarket. Mitsouko was my gateway drug. It was my introduction to the kind of ecstasy a scent could provoke. I had no understanding of it; I had no concrete idea of what I was smelling. Mount Everest doesn’t care whether you understand it.

Mitsouko dates to 1919 and is classified as a fruity chypre; its list of notes (Osmoz lists bergamot, lemon, mandarin, neroli, peach, rose, clove, ylang-ylang, oakmoss, benzoin, vetiver, cinnamon) don’t really hint at the bizarre beauty of the scent. Its baroque Orientalism makes me think of kohl-eyed beauties in silk brocade harem pants; at the same time, it could appear in the bottle of a high-end niche perfumer today and we’d be raving about its edge (although I’m having trouble deciding which perfume house might be worthy of the release.) Unlike many current releases, Mitsouko is “fruity” only to the degree that its peach provides a modicum of relief from the sharp, astringent spice and citrus notes. If you have only smelled the EdT, I am sorry, but you have not smelled Mitsouko. The parfum is the smoothest, an elixir of smoke, fruit conserve and spices that wears like velvet, but I am also fond of the (admittedly harsher) EdP, the concentration I met and fell in love with first.

I wonder whether the best way to come to Mitsouko is cold, without any preconceptions. A close friend was visiting recently; we were both dressing for a formal party, the kickoff of our holiday season. She’s not really into fragrance. She poked through my collection, looking for something suitable, and her fingers touched my tiny, beautiful bottle of Mitsouko parfum. “You should wear that one,” I said, wondering what she’d think. She dabbed some on and then stood there, transfixed, for the better part of five minutes, nose to wrist, murmuring oh my god oh my god oh my god. She called me the next day to tell me the fragrance was still clinging to the sleeves of her coat, and where could she buy some?

Last week I discussed my semi-regular, wrongheaded attempts to layer Mitsouko with anything (Mitsouko will eat many fragrances without breaking a sweat). Anne suggested Fendi Theorema (Patty seconded the idea), which sounded so peculiarly perfect I got up bright and early the next day and tried it. Which brings us to the profane part of the post (for those of you who find Mitsouko sacred and not to be trifled with), because I’m here to report that the combination was not only tolerable but incredible. Layering Mitsouko with Theorema solves two common problems. If you like Theorema in theory, but all that candied orange goodness is too sweet for you, Mitsouko provides a dark, rich base. If you like Mitsouko in theory (or, what the heck, dislike it) and find wearing it the equivalent of scaling the aforementioned Everest, Theorema provides a sweet, warm spiced fruit note that calms down the sharper parts of Mitsouko but still leaves you with a fragrance of immense dignity. As I gazed at the article in the New York Times yesterday on the winter waltz season in Vienna, with the young women dressed in their ravishing white ballgowns spinning across the floor, I thought, there is an occasion worthy of Mitsouko. What a fragrant memory that would be.

For those of you interested in the details: I tried Mitsouko parfum dabbed with my small sample of Theorema extrait, which is almost impossible to find. Of course, it was magnificent. But really, if you like the idea, the EdPs of both sprayed on are a perfectly lovely alternative. You need a lot less of the Mitsouko; I think I decided one light spray of Mitsouko to three sprays of Theorema was about right. I ended up decorating one wrist with that and then dabbing onto the other (horrors! Crushing the notes!) because I thought applying the necessary sprays of that combo my neck and both wrists would create enough sillage to kill everyone around me.

To all of you, Mitsouko lovers or not, I wish you the best of whatever you hope for in the last days of this year, and good things in the next.

Image of Clara Bow: clarabow.proboards105.com

Image of Mitsouko: guerlain.co.jp

Image of Vienna Philharmonic ball: vienneseball.org

Stegner has a book called The Angle of Repose. I used to misread it all the time as Angel of repose, which really makes no sense.  A friend of mine insisted I read it…  and I did, muttering and cursing her all the way through.  Before I continue on, you must know, if you haven’t figured it out already, that I’m quite shallow. I don’t say that out of some misguided sense of humility or hoping someone will argue with me, I’ve just accepted it after many years of wishing I weren’t.  A couple of decades ago, it did cross my mind that I should read more great literature and poetry, and I did try for a couple of years to cover some more highbrow literary and theatrical territory.  This phase of my life coincided with the days of being a young mother, when I was also a pretentious, in sufferable twit. 

As the years passed, I simply stopped fighting my shallowness and embraced it as a perfectly okay state of being.  So let me save you hundreds of pages of descriptions of the West and mines from Stegner’s book and tell you what it’s about.  In engineering, there is a term called the angle of repose. It refers to rock on a hillside. That as you heap it up, it keeps rolling down. You can push it back up, and it will keep rolling down, until you finally get to the angle where it will rest and stop moving downward.  The book applies, beautifully, I might add, this engineering term to life, but it doesn’t happen until you are about 400 pages in and about 30 pages away from the end. When the explanation for why you have wasted a week or two of your life on this book comes, it’s done perfectly. While I’m sure it was necessary to read all those other pages, I’m still a little bitter that I did.  Each of us fights our way or gets pushed uphill for much of our life, and we keep rolling back, and upwards we go, sometimes higher, sometimes not so high.  All of us eventually find our angle of repose, the place where we are at rest and are not required to be more than what we are.  It’s a book everyone should read by the time they turn 40.  Accepting your own limitations and finding a resting place to live is essential to happiness and contentment. It’s okay to be a shallow flibbertygibbet like me as long as you try to be the best one you can be.

Having said all that, from time to time I still get pushed up the hill at more serious movies and reading. I can certainly handle it intellectually, but I’m much more interested in being entertained than challenged. Thinking deep thoughts occupied me for the first 30 years of my life, and I’m quite weary of my own thoughts.  This also happened during the year I spent in therapy many, many years ago.  About six months in, I was just tired of hearing myself talk about myself, so we spent the next 3-4 months talking about religion and politics, etc., until it occurred to me I could get good conversation from my friends for the price of a beer instead of $100 an hour.

So when I see a serious movie or book that does it for me, you’ll know that it is serious while also being compelling.  Into Great Silence is one of those.  It follows Carthusian monks at work, play, sleep, prayer.  Whether you are religious won’t matter.  It is the silence and spareness of this movie that haunts you.  It is gorgeously filmed, no background music save for the wonderful chanting, no voiceovers, no entertainment, no laugh tracks, no jokes.  It is elegant in its simplicity and surprisingly compelling to watch, even with no plot to follow except… these are lives of simplicity and prayer, and there have been hundreds or thousands of lives that have done this same thing in this same place for 900 years.

Vero Profumo Onda and Guerlain Djedi are almost a dead-on match, as Carmencanada told me more than once. So for anyone who was looking for Djedi and not wanting to fork over the $800 and up per bottle that it’s been going for on eBay, just head on over to Vero Profumo and pick up a bottle of the parfum for $230 for 1/2 ounce.  Vetiver, ginger, coriander and mace are the notes in Onda.   There are some differences.  Djedi goes off with a little greenish leather, and Onda settles into a spicy, more earthy leather, warmer.  Both great scents. Now if we could just get Vero or Andy to work on making us something like Iris Gris?  There are two other perfumes in the line, which I hope to do a review on next week.

A note that all of these were sampled by spraying. I have noted frequently that whether you spray or dab does sometimes make a big difference in how you perceive the scent. Not sure why, but I know it is true. Things I have hated dabbed, I loved sprayed, and vice versa.  sometimes it’s worth getting those little PUR sprayers and throwing a sample you’re not sure of in there.  I put all my dabbing samples in the sprayers now.

Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°8 is described as a “velvet violet, a sophisticated iris, a revery, a burst of laughing.”  That’s actually not a bad description.  It is as smooth as silk, with a little rooty, dough-like iris frollicking through it. It’s not too sweet, and it’s not too dry.  The longer this dries down, it starts to remind me a bit of Iris Gris. IG  is sweeter, but in the drydown there is a feel that is similiar, with IG being warmer and 8 being chillier.  8 has a pastry feel to it more like Iris Ganache.  Like a cross between Iris Gris and Iris Ganache.  Can we just call it IG squared? Okay, I’m very smitten with this one.

Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°4 is described as “sovereign rose, a hot allspice, a journey, a garden.”  This is definitely a spicy rose, along the same line as the Rosine’s Rosa Flamenca or Rose de Feu, and it starts out a little sweet, reminding me of MDCI’s Rose di Siwa, but quickly finds a more earthy quality to it.  The drydown winds up very much in Lancome’s Mille et Une Rose territory.

Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°9 is described as “dazzling tuberose, creamy woods, slow nights, fireworks.”  This is a buttery, slightly woody tuberose, with a hint of gardenia?  Tuberose isn’t my favorite note, but this is very well done, beautiful without being overpowering, capturing tuberose without kiling me as many tuberose scents tend to.  The drydown is warm and sensuous.  My second favorite of the three.

So are these worth $490 per 2.5 ounce bottle?  Well, I have to tell you, the presentation is pretty gorgeous - big white, heavy Dior box with the bottle inside and the beautiful, heavy sprayer over on the side, tucked under a little door tied with a ribbon -  and I’d probably plunk down the cash for 8, the IG squared, which is my personal favorite of the three.  The rose is really beautiful, but Rosine, Lancome and MDCI have done a beautiful rose similar to this, unless it makes some other gymnastics on other people’s skin that it does not on mine. If you just love rose, you’ll love this, but I don’t know that you’d want to pay $500 smackers for it.  The tuberose is actually pretty awesome, but I’m not that much of a tuberose fan that I’d plunk down that kind of cash for it.  They are all beautifully made.

But is any bottle worh $490?  Unless it is vintage/rare/discontinued… no, it’s really not, unless you simply want the bottle and the experience of having all of that. Are they worth trying? Yes, definitely, you may find a love among the three, they are all easy to love.  And if people could somehow easily settle who keeps the bottle in a bottle split, these would be worth having some of in your fragrance closet.

So what do Carthusian monks, The Angle of Repose, shallowness and uber-expensive perfumes have in common?  Well, nothing, y’all. Told you I was shallow, and not nearly clever enough to tie all these together.  But what I do have [!] is a special Christmas drawing.  A sample of the Onda, each of the three Diors and each of the three new Annick Goutal Les Orientials thingies, which some of just now showed up in my mail today, whee!!!  I am very much enjoying all three of them!  I don’t even like amber, and Ambre Fetiche has me swooning  Just let me know if you’d like to be in the drawing in comments, and I’ll post the winner on Christmas Day.  It’s our way of saying thanks for being with us for another year.

Winner of the DSH and CdG Gold samples - Maria!

Winner of the Best of 2007 25 samples (which are yet to be named) - Catherine.

Congrats, and just click on the Contact Us over on the left and drop me your address so I can send you your samples!

Hey, that candy post was fun. It’s been awhile since I felt the gluttonous urge, and I’m enjoying it. Let’s do it again.

Jacques Fath Iris Gris - I know, I just did this Monday, but Teri wrote in the comments that Iris Gris “is the fragrance of a fully mature, elegant and accomplished woman, impeccably dressed and groomed. Her thoughts have turned in upon themselves as she looks back at the joys and accomplishments of her life, juxtaposed against the waning days of her future. It isn’t melancholy, exactly, more like triste. There is wistfulness in her thoughts, but not sadness. She is in the autumn of a life well-lived and well-remembered.” I wish I’d written that.  Thanks, Teri, that was beautiful.

Amouage Jubilation XXV for Women – I was reading the blurb on the atomizer card, which said, “A sophisticated bouquet of white flowers crowns the fragrance with richness and depth while embracing musks and woods wrapped with warm amber notes blah blah blah.” In the meantime I was smelling: cumincumincumin cuMincuMINCumin CuminCUMINCUMINCUMIN. And my addled brain was going “huh?” And then I realized I was reading the blurb for Amouage Reflection (they advertise their other scents on the Jubilation card.) Anyhoo, Luca Turin and Robin have both said it smells like Diorella, and it does – about nine hours later, on my skin. But for the first nine hours it’s like burying my nose in the world’s finest, most beautiful armpit. Don’t get me wrong; it’s gorgeous. I like armpit. And if I didn’t have other cumin-rich scents to fall back on, I’d be more interested. If you get something much more complex and less cumin-heavy, as Marina clearly does (she says Jubilation is the love child of Femme and Arabie), swoon away. Femme and Kingdom pretty much fill my Giant Cumin Bomb needs.

Black Widow – I really want what Donna’s getting — sort of a comfort-scent Opium, if that’s not too oxmoronic for you. (Opium is my comfort-scent Opium.) Instead I get that weird, sweet, brain-damaging chemical note you get from polish remover, or going into a nail salon. This is not a smell I enjoy. Scrubber, and too bad. The bottle’s hilarious, though. I’m keeping it just to look at it.

Chanel No. 5 parfum – I tried the EdP for the millionth time a couple months ago when I was comparing it to Eau Premiere, and I was shocked to see I’d finally come around to it. I’m older, and my tolerance for aldehydes is obviously increasing, but even so – for the first time in my life it struck me as something I could feel comfortable in. I’d not tried the parfum, and Kim sent me a sample in my weird swap. No. 5 parfum, as you would expect, is exponentially finer and richer – the effervescence of the aldehydes and the dusting of powder are much more subdued, and the fragrance is floral without smelling sweet or old-fashioned. I get something like tobacco, or hay, along with my rose, jasmine and ylang. Do I like it better? I am not sure. Kim very helpfully sent a samp of the EdP so I could do an arm-to-arm comparison. The parfum is unquestionably a “better” fragrance – deeper, and certainly more long lasting – but lovely as it is, this may be one of those cases when I like the rough sparkle of the EdP better.

Arabian Oud Black Musk essence - When Patty sends me a sample pack of skank, and one small vial in there is bagged separately, I know I am in for a treat. Black Musk essence goes on so dark (literally) that a single drop of the oil stained my skin orange. It set up camp in the mildewed cave of my nose and proceeded to spread out some fresh animal skins, burn some incense, and start a smoky fire with dried dung.

Black Musk Essence reminds me of going into a small ethnic grocery and being assailed by the intoxicating foreign smells. How many of you go into those places to sniff around, or is it some weird fetish of mine? The mystery spices, the oils, the dusty boxes, the cellophane bags of dried squid; I could drink that in for hours. I go into those stores periodically and assemble a meal using whatever I can find written in English on the back of the shrimp paste can, the chili sauce bottle, the rice noodle bag or whatever. In contrast, I am fascinated by how big-box American stores, our mainstays (Giant, Safeway, etc.) smell mostly like … nothing. They are clean and sterile and, unless you’re gagging your way through the miasma of the detergent/cleaning aisle, scent-free. We want our food to be packaged by lint-free angels and smell like clean air. Even places like Whole Foods smell like organic lavender soap and $30 shade-grown coffee and not much else. What is up with that? Does our American paranoia about smells affect our grocery stores? I remember in Vienna, walking from the (sweets/cans/jars) first floor to the (savory) second floor of Julius Meinl, a food emporium I could spend the rest of my life in, and being hit with the overpowering smell of aged cheese and meat. It took my breath away; it was simultaneously shocking and mouthwatering. No wonder Americans are such smell wussies; our lives are shrink-wrapped to protect us from vivid reality. Anyway. For any of you adventurers out there, Black Musk Essence is sort of truffly. Two thumbs up. Don’t spill it in your car. I wonder what will happen if I layer it with ….

Arabian Oud Jasmine Essence - Ahahaha!!! The Cheese just walked by me and made a face!!! Hey, you know what he does? He complains that I wear his sweaters around the house, because of the way they smell when I give them back. Go figure. This jasmine is nice, smooth like vanilla custard. It’s not that rank. It’s not as rank on me as the Montale, or even the Armani Prive. There’s a green note in there I really like.

I’m feeling the skank love today, so I’m trying another round of my favorite layering mistake: Mitsouko Plus Something. Good luck layering Mitsouko. Mitsouko figures she is all you need (sometimes more than you need) and she doesn’t take kindly to being layered. Mostly she just eats her competitor. But I got to thinking I might get her to play with Black Musk. And … yeah, that’s fine. I mean, it’s sick and it’s wrong, and if this combo had a name it would be Hello, Sailor! (how do we say that in French? Bonjour, … something). You know that high-pitched part of Mitsouko? A pinprick-sized dot of Black Musk covers it like a velvet cape. Wear it to your family holiday get-together and see if your brother-in-law hits on you.

Correction to Monday’s post — The Roja Dove scents are EdP and parfum, not EdT and EdP.

Dubai souk: townandcountrytravelmag.com

First off, I forgot to tell you who the Menardo winner was from two weeks back. It was you, Joan. Expect an email asking for your address sometime soon. I’ll also throw a sample of Jubilation XXV in there too.

I want to write about Jubilation XXV, but I’m holding off until incense month, aka January. My bottle should be with me today - I’ve got through 4mls in a week, so this seems like love. It’s also cured me of my incense issues - seems it was monastically dry incense that I could no longer do. I’ve talked before about how my skin needs a little sweetness in a scent or I end up desiccated. But the purchase does relate to the post, which’ll be shorter than normal - it’s Christmas frenzy over here in Suffolk, England, UK, Europe, the World, The Universe…

Put your hand up if you ever struggle to choose a scent in the morning. I know I do - some people are ritualists about this, choosing one before they go to sleep. A lovely bloke on PoL seems to rotate through his scents, giving each one its moment in the limelight. Both of these are way too systematic for me - I have to select on the mood of the moment. (Aside: did restaurants Stateside ever opt for a period where a soup starter was called ‘Soup of the Moment’? I think this was to avoid the dreary sigh of boredom that meets ’soup of the day’, also known as ‘all our leftovers thrown into a pot with stock’. But isn’t soup of the moment truly awful? I must be getting old - I find myself constantly tut-tutting over appalling uses of language - all the time. And apologies to you if you use any of these - I even do myself because of their ubiquity - but top of my shudder list right now are ‘A big ask’ and ‘populate the document’. I know, I know, they’re effective, but the first is a dreadful grammatical shift to imply sophistication and insight through linguistic simplicity; the second a mathematical term that has broadened to mean ‘fill in’ or ‘complete’ everywhere and for everything, as though all such tasks bear the weight of genius. I’m all for linguistic play, diversity, change, and I don’t give two hoots about the dying art of the apostrophe, but the steady accretion of Businessspeak in the everyday makes my flesh creep. Though I do like those sss together like that. I might have to do a whole post on this sometime. The language thing. Not the sss.)

Where was I? Oh yes. Decisions. See my problem? So easily distracted by whatever floats through my head. I blame mono - my brain still doesn’t work like it used to, a year on. A butterfly has replaced it. Nice wings, but crap at action… So, some days I do a mental checklist of all I have and what I can wear. I have about 70 bottles. I’m trying to reduce it to 50, but finding that way too hard. There’s always new nosh in the goody bag. Then there are the hundreds of decants and samples that sometimes seem to march towards me in my dreams, a la The Sorceror’s Apprentice, demanding to be worn. They’re lucky to be used as air fresheners or linen scenters, the poor fools. All in all this means that I easily feel overwhelmed by variety, the superfluity of scent chez moi. Like when I first got digital, I constantly flicked through channels, never settling on one for longer than a few minutes. I watched the shopping channels as happily as a costume drama or the news - all merged into one. Sometimes, I fear my plethora of choice is destroying my sense of taste and refinement in what I love, though I know that isn’t true, at least in the long run. I’m back to the hour or two of TV a day, and only quality (or what I claim is quality, and don’t you dare challenge me on it). And it’s not as if I wear Vera Wang for Men (sorry to the two fans of this beast).

Right now, as I type these words, I’m scentless. Yes that’s right. Pass the smelling salts would you. A couple of our more neurasthenic readers are a little too overcome by my statement. Pass them back to me afterwards please. I never know when I might need them myself. In fact, whole days can pass unscented, due to a failure to decide. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I doin’t want to wear scent, it’s just that I need to CHOOSE THE RIGHT ONE. I tell you, it can get downright debilitating. As yet, I seem to have found no cure.

So, do you also suffer from this psychopathology? If so, how do you get round it or over it? Or alternatively, have you just learned to live with it? Answer me please…

The first image is Vincent Price as Roderick Usher. It seemed appropriate. The second is a scentaholic who’s just been told that her latest purchase will be held up for a week. You know you’ve been there.

Perfumed Antoine Lie created 888, and they intended it to capture the smell of gold. They used Safraline, a molecular derivative of saffron, created by Givaudan.  Other notes are pepperwood, curcuma, coriander, geranium and amber.  It lasts beautifully and long on me, and it is a wonderful fresh, slightly peppery smell, with just a tidge of the metallic in it, which does make it smell like gold  — well, er, I think it does. I’m not sure I’ve ever smelled gold.  but this is why I think it should smell like in an ideal world — slightly fresh, a little metallic, with the geranium giving it that weird, funky, almost rubbery {!?!} vibe. I’ll be anxious for you Daddy Warbucks readers who have smelled gold to sniff it and tell me how close it is. As a scent, it works for me beautifully — it is fresh and appealing on the surface, but has some strange things going on underneath that surface. I think of it like one of those beautiful lakes from Lord of the Rings.  All pretty and mirror-like on the top, and some funky fanged fish swimming around underneath that beauty. It’s not as weird as some CdGs, but it has enough oddity to make it definitely one of their perfumes.

I’ve been playing in the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz scents lately, and I sampled their holiday fragrance that they sent as an extrat, Tamarind/Paprika. It would have never been a scent I would have picked out to buy or wear, and I’m not sure I would have even tested my sample if it weren’t for Anne commenting on it.  Notes of black pomegranate, paprika, tamarind, Bulgarian rose otto, Osmanthus, oppopanax, red wine notes, tobacco absolute and vanilla absolute.  Okay, so I’m not sure I know what tamarind smells like exactly, but I get the paprika and the pomegranate, and something that smells a little like orange that I presume is the tamarind? This is a great holiday, cozy scent.  it’s got some gourmandish qualities, without every tipping over into gourmand’s Evil Step-Mother.  The fruit in it is not too sweet or too tart. it smells like a spice box full of fruit, or yummy baked fruit pies.  If you like that sort of thing, and I do, I recommend you snap this up from her store since it appears to be a Limited Edition just for the holidays. 

But the DSH that surprised me was Piment et Chocolat. I know I hear mixed reviews on the DSH scents, but so far the ones I’ve tried, I’ve really liked. This one has notes of black pepper, paprika, pimento berry, red chili, cinnamon bark, clove bud, nutmeg, cocoa beans and dark chocolate.   Have I ever told you all that I despise chocolate scents in perfume? Seriously, seriously loathe them.  Not just a little, but a lot.  Love to eat it, think almost all perfumers get it totally wrong when they put it in a perfume. I’d sooner be spritzed in the most foul CSP vanilla overdose than wear most chocolate scents – Borneo being the exception because they threw cobwebs all over my chocolate and made it perfect. Chocolate perfumes generally have some note in there that just makes my nose hairs crawl.  Piment et Chocolate is another exception.  All of those spicy chili notes in there, along with the cinnaman, clove and nutmeg bring this to chocolaty perfection.  Maybe it’s because chocolate isn’t the dominant note or the one at the front. I wish I was one of those people that ate those chocolate things that have chilis and other spicy stuff inside of them. They always sound great, but not something for me to eat, but smelling this puts me as close as I’ll ever get to those and how I imagine all those tastes/smells collide in there.

Since I’m late to the game, are there other DSHs I should sample?   And speaking of samples, I have a bunch of DSH samples I can pass on. The two I’ve reviewed here, and some others like Lumiere, Sienna, Prana, Poivre. So if you’d like to be in a drawing to get them, plus a sample of CdG 888, just let me know in comments!

It’s been awhile since I dug around in the candy, hasn’t it?

Amouage Jublilation XXV for Men – can I pause and say I think Jubilation is the greatest name for a fragrance? I believe this was released in honor of Amouage’s 25^th anniversary, and it smells suitably opulent. (BTW anyone who hasn’t seen their luxury bottles – they are gorgeous.) Notes are: coriander, frankincense, honey, cinnamon, rose, orchid, immortelle, musk, ambergris, patchouli, cedar, myrrh and oud. People are wild for this thing, and looking at that list it sounds absolutely perfect. I’m going to revisit it for next month’s Posse Scent Club but … I dunno. It just doesn’t blow my skirt up. It smells like really nice, really expensive men’s cologne, but I didn’t sniff it and then do that borderline insane thing where I start thinking about what I could pawn on eBay to get a bottle (I think the little one is $350). There’s something (the patch?) mildly camphorous in the opening I don’t like, and then the sweet and bitter notes fight with each other in a way that gets my back up, then when it eventually dries down it seems sort of … expensively ordinary? Go ahead, tell me why I’m wrong. Tune in for my crow-eating reversal in January!

i Profumi di Firenze Vanigilia del Madagascar - this was recommended as another vanilla to try in my Smoke and Vanilla jag. It opens on a pretty intense vanilla extract-like note, prompting some thoughts of sprinting for the shower, but that blew off fairly quickly and left me with a kinda-floral, sorta-musky vanilla. It’s not bad. It’s nice with Burning Leaves on top of it. I think I’m spending too much time walking around smelling like I’m on fire.

Roja Dove Unspoken – I don’t hang out on MUA or Basenotes; does anyone talk about these? I feel like they went straight to video, so to speak. Also, I saw some photos online, and if I saw the correct photos those bottles are criminally ugly – the “cheap” $200 EDT bottles, that is, not the nice $700 EDP ones… where was I? I’m now on my second atomizer, and I do believe it’s love. Notes are bergamot, neroli, rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, ginger, oakmoss, sandalwood, vetiver, patchouli, vanilla, balsams and labdanum. This is a great fragrance. My only issue with it is that it’s complicated enough – like Coco or Mitsouko – that I wouldn’t reach for it as often as my regular daywear, but so what? That almost candied sweetness of rose, jasmine and ginger, supported by a fierce, almost gamey chypre base (the labdanum here is the perfect foil for those honeyed top notes) enthralls me. I don’t really understand the “oakmoss” bit (wasn’t it banned?) but however he did it — good job! My only complaint is that I can smell how stunning this would be in a stronger concentration – for all its ornateness it’s a bit thin – and I think this problem can be solved by throwing in a few hundred more euros for the EDP.

Andy Tauer’s Mandarines ambrees soap – Guess what? We need to get Tauer Perfumery to make an ancillary line of bath products. Seriously. Can you imagine Desert Marocain as a lotion? How about Reverie in a bath gel? Yeah, you see what I’m saying. So, I’m smelling his mandarins ambrees glycerin soap and I am having trouble putting it down long enough to type this. I want to eat it, but first I need to go try it out in a hot bath. I’m going to guess at the smells of the ingredients, and maybe he’ll stop by and tell me how close I am – lemon, lime, geranium, clove, coumarin, lemongrass, citron. It also says Clementine and mandarin oil. If I go to heaven, my soap will smell like this.

Commes des Garcons Champaca Luxe – a perfect example of why I have decided spraying is the way to go. Dab this on and you get … not much, really. Sprayed on it’s a full-bodied scent that bears only some resemblance to my favorite champaca, Ormonde Jayne, which is much more incense-like and has my beloved OJ base. Notes for Luxe are white pepper, angelica, cardamom, champaca, tuberose, white musk, iris wood. Luxe hasn’t displaced OJ in my affections. In fact, like a lot of interesting fragrances, I can’t decide whether I like it. I can see Luxe being a total scrubber on the wrong day. The cardamom, angelica and champaca together are almost feral on me, resembling the deliciously filthy indoles of jasmine. It is not quite a “nice” smell, but it is a compelling one, and I am beginning to find it dangerously appealing.

Jacques Fath Iris Gris – wow. I’m having trouble finding suitable words for this legendary scent. It’s sweeter than I expected (in a good way.) It’s also gentler. It’s that violet sort of iris, rather than the metallic one. It is absolutely smooth; next to it, Iris Silver Mist is as loud and hyper as a high-school cheerleader. Iris. Iris, maybe a touch of rose? The Perfumed Court, which is selling samps (yesssss!), says peach and pastry dough, although I’d quibble with their characterization of Iris Gris as “cold.” After this 1ml samp is gone, I will be so sad. I think I need a bigger decant…

burning frankincense: byzantines.net

My big rubber workboots left gigantic footprints in the newfallen snow as I trudged slowly to the barn for the evening milking.  Giant snowflakes caught in my eyelashes, blurring my sight as I turned my face up to the gray skies. God, milking cows sucked!  Milking them in the snow beyond sucked - snow melting off the backs of the cows and plopping on your head just as you squatted down in between them to take the milker off, the freezing fingers, the smell of wet cow…  Just then, the milking equipment turned on with a giant roar that broke the complete silence of Christmas Eve.  I banged my feet against the wall of the barn to get the snow off before going down the stairs, bundled up in a wool coat three sizes too big and handed down by at least two of my older brothers. Inside the milking room was a huge space heater, which is where I planned to spend as much of the milking as possible. Shuffling over to the heater quickly, I sat on top of it to warm up. 

I didn’t know it then, but years later, when I smelled CB I Hate perfume’s Winter 1972 for the first time, I was yanked backward in time to that very night and the smell of snow, wet clothes, warmth and the winter air. And as much as I hated milking cows and snow and being cold, that smell was nothing but comfort and joy.

Midway through the milking that night, wet and tired and miserable, mom sent me Patty to the house to take the baking pumpkin pies out of the oven to cool.  Retracing the path back through the deep snow, through the gate, past the washhouse, onto what underneath all that snow was the sidewalk that led to the back door of the old house, I kicked the snow away from the bottom of the wooden screen door to pull it open.  Stepping carefuly out of the big rubber boots with buckles on them, I opened the inside door and stepped into the house in my stocking feet.  The spices cooking deep into the pies in the oven hit my nose…

Nope, can’t get to CB’s Gingerbread with that one, but the spices in it are close, and the longer it’s on, the better it gets.  I had to be really, really patient, though, because the open on it for the first 30 minutes didn’t do much for me. This version is much, much better than the old one, more vanilla, richer.  So it’s not quite my Christmas baking smells, it’s close enough to make me happy.

The car pulled up to the house late that night, and five children tumbled out of it, their mother following, their hands full of paper bags, pushing each other down in the snow and laughing and shouting. They raced into the house, jumping through the snow drifts, banging into the house and broke the perfect silence their father, Dick, had been enjoying while they were at the Christmas Eve program at church.  And old grudge kept him from going to church with them, but every Christmas Eve, his children would bring church to him, as they ran in with their paper bags full of peanut brittle, candy ribbons, peanuts and milk chocolate stars. They’d gather round where he was on the couch and sort out their Christmas candy, giving Dick all the chocolate-covered cherries, which he loved and they all hated, and the peanuts, which they had no time for because candy is so much better than plain old peanuts.  There was the smell of chocolate and cherries and peanuts, perfume from Nadine, the winter night, baked goods in the house, cigarette smoke from Dick.  Weaved through all of it was joy and love, however imperfect it was on any other day.

Does Caron’s Nuit de Noel smell like that?  Not really, but it captures the smell of contentment. A melange of smells that somehow blend together into what just feels like joy.  Notes of rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, oakmoss, sandalwood and vetiver seem to become more than what they are, equal parts of earth and floral beauty, contrasted against a dark base that pins it solidly to the ground in reality.

Now, I am at a huge disadvantage here because that darn Lee so cleverly did Winter Delices and Theorema, so I had to fall back on memory instead of literary prowess.  So including or in addition to the five scents we did for Holidays/winter, what scent best encapsulates winter or your holiday smells?

We’ve picked the Posse Scent Club scents for January, and we are doing… Incense!  We couldn’t seem to limit ourselves, so it’s a big set of scents this time: Armani/Prive Bois d’Encens, Bond No. 9 Silver Factory, Etro Messe di Minuit, Comme des Garcons Avignon, Amouage Jubilation XXV Men, Serge Lutens Encens et Lavande, and Biehl Parfumkunstwerke Mark Buxton 03. The entire set of scents are available at 25% off through 12/27 with code possejan.

As you recall, I gave away some fragrances last month and invited the recipients to send me whatever they felt like in return. I got some wonderful gifts (as reported in Part 1). Here’s Part 2.

I gave Cathy/bluechile the bottle of reissued Straw Hat cologne, and I smiled when I got her return package, because even before I opened it I caught a whiff of Estee Lauder Youth Dew. Good ol’ Youth Dew; who thought it was called Youth Dude, or is that one of those urban fragrance myths? They don’t make them like that any more, I am sorry to say. Why on earth something that muscular and tenacious is called Youth Dew has always mystified me, but if I never got to smell it I would be sad. There was also an absolutely gorgeous small square flacon of vintage Lanvin Arpege. While I admire the reformulation very much, the original Arpege is a reminder of the days when women smelled like .. well, like Women. Grown up, curvaceous, devastatingly sexy. I didn’t have any vintage Arpege, and now I do, and I’m happy. She also included some Ava Luxe samps, including Wild Black Fig, that I am anxious to try.

I sent Rita the L’Artisan Fleur de Carotte. In return I got tins of yummy stuff like Burt’s Bees Hand Salve, beautiful minis of Hermes Caleche and 24, Faubourg, a ton of samples (Rita, looks like you’ve developed a serious habit over at Our Favorite Decant Store, do we need to stage an intervention?), and … this is so cool … her husband makes things out of glass! So I have a beautiful swirly glass pendant and a small glass vase for holding samples. Rita, tell your husband they are perfect and that was incredibly sweet of him, and (you asked what colors our tree decorations are) – you would laugh, I wish you were here to see our tree. My mom collected Christmas ornaments. In addition to the Santas, angels and snowflakes, we have harlequins, telephones, a deep sea diver, a saguaro cactus, parrots, teapots, cars, an octopus, three mermaids, a kangaroo, a hot air balloon … it’s endless. I have ornaments back to my great-grandparents’ trees. My mom has been gone for more than 20 years, and I still spot the occasional ornament and think, wow, she would really love that. My magpie love for flashy ornamentation has rubbed off on the kids, and I hope they each have as much fun in the future with their share as I’ve had with them. Anyway, to answer your question – I must have every color of the rainbow, and I like it that way.

I sent Kim the Floris Malmaison. In return … I got a teapot shaped like a Serge Lutens bell jar! It is cute as a bug’s ear, in this gorgeous box, and I really wish I could put a photo of it in here. It is the perfect size for tea for one, and I am very much enjoying it. Also included was a tin of Assam Breakfast tea, scrubs and soaps (Provence Sante Linden – yay!), a ton of samples, a little satin Chinese hat … oh, waitaminnit, that’s a tea cosy. There’s a bottle of Ambre Parfum Maison, which is just scrumptious. And (this is hilarious, I love perfume people) – her note says “maybe you can tell what the icky note is in the Dove” – the olfactory equivalent of, hey, does this milk taste sour to you? Well, Kim, I smelled it and you’re right – it smells like crap, but I’m not sure what that note is, precisely. Whoever came up with that needs a new job doing something else.

Finally, there was a book of poetry in Kim’s package. I love poetry. You guys know that, right? Every now and again I stick a poem up here. Anyway, this is Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser. They were composed on predawn winter walks and mailed on postcards to his friend Jim Harrison; the book contains 100 of them. Kim says they’re her favorite on a winter morning, and I can see why; they are both spare and beautiful.

The poems are dated, and here’s the one for December 13:

Just as a dancer, turning and turning,
may fill the dusty light with the soft swirl
of her flying skirts, our weeping willow—
now old and broken, creaking in the breeze—
turns slowly, slowly in the winter sun,
sweeping the rusty roof of the barn
with the pale blue lacework of her shadow.

image: Scott Tracy, blogs.sun.com

She watched the snow fall, large gobbets of flakes clinging together in clumps, settling on the window ledge, only inches from her face. Her sighing breath formed a neat round oh on the glass, slowly shrunk and disappeared, only to be replaced by its successor. She sighed more heavily and the circle increased in size, and she wished she could be obliterated by the flakes, like the shrubs outside, just as she had temporarily obliterated her reflection in the cold pane.

Behind her, the tree lay on the floor where the children had pulled it down. They had become irritable after lunch, their sugar-addled minds bored by their toys, frustrated with being indoors. The snow was still rain at this point, and there was no hope of a turn around the gardens.The chaos she was studiously avoiding, by watching the snow, had started as a racing game. But it wasn’t long before her eldest son’s eyes were lit up with destructive fire. It never was. He pulled off the first decoration to hand, and flung it at his sister. She joined in, and soon the tree was rocking unsteadily in its container. Of course her sweetest and youngest child had little choice but to play his part, his adoration for his older brother making him an instant mimic. She’d attempted to intervene, but what her husband had told her before lunch made any action seem futile. There were bigger worries now. The destruction of the tree seemed almost comic: this day was well and truly awry already. Once the wrecking was wrought, they fled the room, fearful of their father who continued to consume too much port in the far reaches of the house, mumbling and shouting to himself. She heard occasional squeals and yelps from the children above her head, and was waiting for Timmy to come vaulting down the stairs, floods of tears, or a bump and bruise, or some small cut inflicted by his adored sadist of a brother the reason for his reappearance. He only sought out his mother, now he was five, when he needed nursing. The spontaneity of his love had dwindled, like the smile that used to play constantly on his features.

Shards of baubles surrounded the corpse of Christmas, their round forms now in sharper decorative patterns. The fairy lights had blinked twice during the topple, before going out for good. It was all such a mess. Much like the perfume she had unwittingly selected. She thought that ginger cake and pine and vanilla would be fitting and harmonious. But her wrist was a cacophony of clashing elements, the over-riding impression cold zinc or… No, not possible. Was that really blood? She drew her face away, lips curled.

If only she’d chosen her favourite, Theorema. Perhaps then the day would have fitted itself around that harmonious blend, rather than becoming the crash and clash of Winter Delice. She continued to gaze at the snowfall, and imagined the golden glow of the cinnamon and orange creaminess, rich and voluptuous and full. She’d have been in control in that, or else able to hide behind the cloud of seamless notes diffusing themselves around her. Enveloped by these, anything could have been possible. She certainly wouldn’t be here, moping and wishing her wrists were someone else’s. She’d be straightening that tree, straightening her dissolute sot of a husband, and making sure her children had all the right reasons to remember this Christmas. She was resolved to change her scent, and change the day. This is it, she thought, I know what to do. A quick scrub and a few sprays will restore me. Ready to move, she decided to spend a last few moments alone with the snow.

But she never got the chance. A shadow lurched into the room. She turned to see her husband, swaggering, glass in hand, untucked, splashes of port staining his cuffs and shirtfront. He swayed in front of her, smiled vacuously, eyes unfocused, and lifted one leg to the side. A brief pause of stillness, and then the fart was long, loud, percussive and followed by a hearty chuckle from him, a tired sneer from her. She knew he’d had too many sprouts and chestnuts at lunch. Post-Theorema, that would be another thing for her to take charge of. She immediately - and wisely - vacated the room. Down to business.

2007 started off with a bang — six new scents from Chanel.  One great, some good, some okay, some that needed to be made into parfum.

Tom Ford heated up the fragrance wars with an obscene excess of TWELVE new scents at the same time.  Some good, a couple great, a couple that made my lip curl in disgust and revulsion.  A weird, yet still stylish, bag to be sure.

By Kilian waded in with his gorgeous visage late in the year with six new scents… in stunning, cunning little boxes.  Now, while I like very much a couple of them, the initial price point is a killer, though the beautiful box … I mean, really, what’s not to love?

Comme des Garcons had a miss with Play, but totally hit with LUXE Patchouli, other than the price, and I’m still anxiously awaiting the 888 to see how the year will end for them.

Prada made vats of Iris, and it’s nice enough, but clearly they were going for Purple Iris Haze in a Trash Can rather than a great perfume.

Serge’s Louve and Sarrasins were both good, though did they hit greatness?  No. 

Guerlain nailed greatness to the wall with three entries this year - Iris Ganache, Spiritueuse Double Vanille and Quand Vient la Pluie. Love or hate those three scents, they were not weak imitations or unoriginal — iris and sweets, who knew?  Yeah, they really had a spectacular year!  Well, except for that Vol de Nuit Evasion thing, which was asbolutely the most vile thing I’ve smelled in a couple of years.

Other standouts from new lines were Lann-ael from Lost’m'a’r'c’h and the Juliette has a Gun line  Much of the year, though, was a whole lot of “yeah, they’re okay, I’d wear them, but where the hell is the greatness that should come with so many perfumes?!?!”

2007 is most notable for the sheer volume of entries. 

But! Just in time for Christmas, there’s a whole lotta greatness goin’ on:  Two new fantastic Amouage releases - dark incense for one and not just a little skank for the other; a release from Bond that is the most memorable perfume they’ve made, Silver Factory; the Roja Doves, which are a return to classic perfumery; and the three new incenses from Annick Goutal that are just amazing.  They aren’t new, but those Private Reserve scents from the Perfume House also cheered me up.. a LOT.

Is it possible that this flurry of masterpieces at the end of 2007 will save this year in perfumery?  It’s just what I wanted for Christmas. 

Know what else I want? World peace, a football team that doesn’t suck, a fair college football team ranking system and for my youngest son to get into his first choice college.  Well, yeah.  Barring all that, I need to hone my best of 2007 list, and I’m close — no, I’m not telling you what’s on it, and I do have it mostly finished, but I want to make sure I don’t miss anything. 

So because I have the flu - had it on my birthday last weekend - and my headache is the size of Texas South America, in comments nominate your top five scents of 2007 because I’m depending on you guys to make sure I don’t miss anything.  Bonus is… if you nominate five in comments, you get an entry into a drawing, and the winner will get all 25 samples of what makes my Best of 2007 list.

Winner of the samples of the Private Reserve six scents — Pattie!  Hey, it’s not Pismo glass, but you’ll love them anyway. Just click on the Contact us button on the left, and I’ll send you off the samples once I have your address!

In general, I admire Bond No. 9 more for their bottles than their juice. I don’t really have a “favorite” Bond, and if the entire line ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn’t go into mourning. Do I like some of them? Well, sure. I went through an Eau de Noho phase, because I like linden, and I wear Chinatown occasionally (okay, if I had a favorite, I guess that’s it.) Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to love the Bond Andy Warhol Silver Factory, even though it has incense, one of my favorite notes. Warhol the man/myth/artist doesn’t do much for me to start with, and Silver Factory’s price point ($250ish for 100ml) does even less.

I was so wrong.

Silver Factory is not a trip to the church. There’s nothing austere or meditative about it. Incense is a great note to pick if you want to get in someone’s face, and I recall reading that Andy Warhol thought fragrance should take up plenty of space, call attention to itself and its wearer. So let’s randomly pick on Armani Prive Bois d’Encens for a second. You want to take up space? Put some of that on. The problem is, on the wrong day, BdE will work your last fricking nerve. Incense can be like that. It can be great, or like a lot of other sillage monsters (rose and tuberose spring to mind) it can kill you.

So, I am fascinated by the way incense is wielded in Silver Factory. You don’t smell it and go, incense. You don’t think, church or cathedral or kodo or whatever instant cultural or religious associations you might make with incense. You think ….. ooooooooh, coool. Silver Factory smells cool. It smells glittery and jittery and alive. It smells like something that could have been in the Malle Outrageous bottle, but (sadly) wasn’t. I have zero idea how Andy would have felt about it, but I’m totally in love.

It’s a weird scent. Notes are: bergamot, grapefruit, lavender, violet, incense, jasmine, iris, amber, woods. There’s something totally, deliberately synthetic-smelling about it — in a good way. It’s strong enough but not deadly, and it’s got excellent lasting power. The opening is this peculiar, wonderful mélange of lavender, citrus, violet and … rusted metal? Burnt car? Ziggy stardust? For the record, I am not a huge fan of lavender, and this is completely missing that high-pitched, aromatherapy-like note. The incense and iris show up next, and while the incense is a permanent fixture, that iris has a really interesting way of fading out and coming forward again, for hours, on its little metallic wheels. The jasmine and violet add a taste of sweetness without ever moving this into a “floral” realm – a man could wear this easily. The amber and woods round out the scent nicely, tempering the metallic freakiness without really making a masculine statement.

Silver Factory has an echo of the mesmerizing hum of Lutens’ Encens et Lavande and Armani Prive’s oddball Cuir Amethyste. But it isn’t really like either. It manages a certain degree of glitter-ball fabulosity, but you could still wear it to work, or school, or the grocery store, and not feel like you were running around in platform go-go boots. It’s a scent that manages to be both unusual and really wearable. My guess is it’ll sell like hotcakes, and deservedly so, although I do wonder how lovers of the Bond line will feel about it.

Is this one of the Greatest Scents Evah? No. After all, how many times can you make Mitsouko or Narcisse Noir? But it is a great scent, and it definitely deserves a place in any incense-lover’s wardrobe. Even people who don’t love incense might be interested in giving it a taste.  Addendum:  early comments below say: spray it on for full effect, rather than dabbing.  I have mine in a teeny atomizer, and I concur.  In fact, unless I find a scent really, really strong, spraying is the way to go.

PS — Be sure to stop back by on Wednesday and Friday for this month’s Holiday Scent Club, hosted by Lee and Patty!

image: still of Edie Sedgwick from Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory, 2007 (documentary), melbournefilmfestival.com.au

Okay, you have to go here.  That’s my mom on the far right, then me (going to the left), then my sister, Shirley, and then my niece Samatha.  And then you have to watch this one, which is me, my husband and my two sons. If you Elf yourself, make sure to drop the link in comments!

I’ve had a lot of things sitting on my desk forever that I can never seem to get to.  Gucci EDP is one of my all-time favorite scents. It was the one scent that got spritzed on me by a department store perfume commando that I never regretted.  It has notes of heliotrope, orange blossom, orris, vanilla, citrus, cumin, and thyme.  It is just completely different from anything else I’ve ever smelled, and while it goes on sharpish and odd, the drydown is just spectacular. It, along with Fendi Theorema, will always be in my cupboard of classic department store/designer scents that I adore.

When Gucci came out with their new Gucci by Gucci, which seemed to be sorta the same name as My Beloved and too easily confused for the unsuspecting perfumista – notes of guava, raspberry, pear, Tahitian Tiare flower, orange blossom, spider lily, patchouli, honey and musk — I was horrified.  Was this to be Gucci EDP’s replacement?  Well, my feathers were smoothed a little by that bottle, which I think is just cute as a bug’s ear, no? So I dutifully ordered my bottle, fearing the worst, but knowing I’d get a darling bottle out of the thing, and I spritzed it on, turned purple in rage with all that fruit, scrubbed it off and quit thinking about it, determined to stock up on My Beloved because I know it’s got to be on the chopping block when they throw out a fruity floral with close to the same name.

I’ve calmed myself since then (yeah, it’s been a month or so!) and decided to try it again. Yes, it goes on with a fripperific fruity froth that about makes me gag, but luckily for all of us, that really does dry off fairly quickly and pretty completely.  Had I just given it time before, I wouldn’t have been so darn mad.  While it will never be the quirky masterpiece that is Gucci EDP, it is a very nice, completely lovely and wearable scent, balanced beautifully between the floral notes and the musk in the base, making it richer than most designer florals normally are.  Far into the drydown, it is just smooth and elegant and completely beautiful.  I don’t think it has that odd factor that will make it a classic, but I can see it becoming a big favorite for the average person who wants a good perfume that’s not the run-of-the mill fruity floral that’s in wide circulation these days.

The original Badgley Mischka I thougt was well done in the same way, so I had high expectations for the Badgley Mischka Fleurs de Nuit. It has notes of White Florals, Green Notes, Night Blooming Jasmine, Lily, White Peach, Silky Woods, Glowing Amber — what in the world is glowing amber?  oh, whatever — and they sound pretty good, but let’s see how they did.  It actually matches up as a slightly darker version of the original, it seems more sensuous, less innocent, but not skanky, which I presume was the intent, but it doesn’t go as dark as I would have liked it to. There’s a note in there, maybe one of the green notes, that isn’t a favorite of mine and was absent in Badgley Mischka. So I’ll stick with the original for my own personal wear, but I do like the new one and think fans of the first B-M should find much to recommend Fleurs de Nuit. If you didn’t like the first one, you will likely not change your mind on this one.

Out of the raft of designer scents this fall, those are the two that I think came off the best.  Which ones did you think made the cut, and which should we Auf?  Yes, yes, it’s Project Runway time again!

Can we talk about Angel briefly? I despise Angel. Always have, always will. I dropped a bottle of it in my room one time, and I seriouesly considered selling the house.  But… but… but that Le Part Des Anges extrait they did is a little, um, naughty?  Maybe I’m the only one that’s getting that deep B.O./skank note in there, but it has me almost hynotized. Part repulsed and part in love, I feel like I’m having a mad affair with that guy that was always on the dirty side that nice girls didn’t date, but you wanted to sneak out with him when your friends didn’t know.   I just put a little drop on me and sniff it off and on during the day.  Lord.

Long intro, you can skip ahead to the fragrance review, I swear it’s down there.

I got bitten by the humbug a couple months ago. Humbugs are tricky – they’re so small you barely notice them at first. I live in a city where people scrape against each other like nails on a blackboard, and humbugs are easy to catch in this environment. People jump lines, shove on the subway, don’t yield in traffic. If you’re not careful you’ll get a serious infestation of humbugs, and before you know it you’ll be getting out of your car to yell at some asshat who just whipped his shiny BMW into the space you were backing into.

I had ten minutes before the twins’ dentist appointment (yes, they were with me in the car), and Mr. BMW couldn’t really park properly until I moved my car out of his way, so I made the most of my time. Having tried (and failed) to appeal to his common decency, I insulted him in every way I could think of. I impugned his morals and his driving skills. I moved on to insulting his immediate family, his lineage, his very existence, and even his car, an entry-level model. “It’s not even a good midlife-crisis car,” I yelled at him. “You couldn’t pick up a fifteen-year-old boy in that car!” (Yeah, this from a