If you are ever up in Vancouver, and I am, you have to stop in at The Perfume Shoppe and visit Nasrin.  Any of you that have spoken to her on the phone, you know what a doll she is, but in person she is even better — warm and funny and a total perfume nut.  She has a beautiful shop, and she replenished me on my PG Bois Blond and Ether Lilas, which I am afraid they won’t see the light on and add to the permanent collection.  Anyway, we’re going to go out for lunch with her tomorrow or Saturday, and I can’t wait!

What else have I been doing in Canada? Catching up on Friday Night Lights via my video iPod. What?  These trips for conventions are a snooze, and you can only check your e-mail so many times before you are out of your mind, and my laptop has been misbehaving and will only run about an hour or so before it overheats, and my new one didn’t get in in time before I left… and…and  –well, anyway, anyone else watching that series?  Since it’s on the verge of cancellation, I’m thinking no? Well,  why not?? You should.  It’s great, and it would be awful if something that is actually good and worth watching were taken off the air.  I’ve been working my way through the series over the past two days, and it’s really done beautifully. Don’t avoid it or cringe because it’s about football, which is why I hadn’t watched it until now. It’s not really about football. It’s about all the life that goes on while people are busy thinking about football.  Well, watch it, you’ll see.

Oh, Ether Lilas, I haven’t talked about that, have I?  You know how the smell of lilacs can just knock you off your feet and be overwhelming?  Well, it’s not like that. It’s the whiff of lilacs you get when you walk by on a spring/early summer night, light and heartbreakingly beautiful, but with all the other beautiful smells of a summer evening. This is the perfect spring/summer scent.  I keep thinking I need to go find a beautiful sundress and a hat to wear it with.  Okay, gotta dash before my computer croaks again!!!

This is a perfume blog, right? So today’s post is about how I worked my fanny off smelling I don’t know how many things over the last week and I cannot find any fricking thing to blog on. (I actually went through and deleted five frustration-related obscenities in this part of the post; feel free to plug them in mentally.) I’m working on a post on the Yoshes, but it’s not ready yet. I’m working on some candy. I smell vial after vial and – nothing much happens. I can’t make something happen, even if it’s a great scent – I can’t rip the rose into bloom, you know? I think part of it is this weird 40-degree daily weather swing that makes everything seem wrong. Finally yesterday afternoon in a fit of desperation I grabbed something that’s been sitting there and said the hell with it, I’ll just blog on that. Only I can’t – because I hated it. I mean, it nauseated me, even the smell in the room made me sick. I had to go change my clothes because I’d gotten a little scent on it. But someone else blogged on it recently, and others really like it, and I feel uncomfortable blogging like that about something sent to me – a gift, in fact – that I hate, because I don’t want to hurt feelings, and who’ll ever send me anything again? What do you think about that? Should I just let it pass? If you sent me a sample of Parfumerie Generale Le Derriere du Pigeon, because you know I like skank, and I totally rag it, would you ever speak to me again?

Here, let’s test my theory. Elle generously sent me a sample of CdG Jaisalmer, along with some other goodies. I tried it on right away, looking forward to the riot of cinnamon and incense, and it went like this: YEEEESSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssscrruuubbbbber!! YECH. How can I do that to a fragrance? It’s criminal. It’s exactly that 0.00245 amount of Precisely The Wrong Cedar that turns Jaisalmer into the men’s locker room, smellwise, without the pleasant view. So, Elle … do I have to send the Yoshes back now? Are you going to send me a vial of Human Existence in an atomizer and thoughtfully label it “Spring Air EDC – apply generously”? Or can you make peace with the basic fact that I’m a cheerful idiot and we can still be fragrant friends?

I haven’t been totally worthless. I pinned on my badge, strapped on my sidearms, and found hausvonstone’s particular bottle of Bal a Versailles on eBay (she described it longingly and detail in her comment on a post awhile back) and sent her a sample. It turns out to be exactly the smell she remembered. In the meantime she’d bought a newer bottle, which, as she says, “smells like ASSSSSSS. I mean it is the skankiest thing I have ever allowed in my house. I had to wash it off my hand within 20 minutes today as I was trying to quickly compare them. Maybe it turned? Maybe they reformatted it??? I was thinking of sending it to you at some point since it’s the kind of thing I can’t allow in my house. And, remember, Musc Ravageur smells like creamsicle on me. And CB Musk is also quite pleasant. Weirdness abounds.” Guess what? We’re going to swap bottles.

I’ve been wallowing for three days in Christian Dior Jules. When my atomizer’s empty I’m going to cry, because I want some more of exactly the same juice Lee sent me. That’s the heartbreak of trying to recapture a smell you’ve fallen in love with, as hausvonstone’s experience demonstrates. I don’t want a different bottle; what if the scent is different, too? Has that ever happened to you when you’re hunting something down? Anyway, I did buy a bottle online from Retailer X (with a not-so-good rep on MUA). If I ever get the bottle, I’ll let you know.

Finally, I’d like to say thanks for the many, many book recommendations you all made last week. I was stunned. Seriously, who knew we had all these smart readers? I should have guessed; I think there’s a lot of overlap between perfume addiction and reading (no, don’t ask me why. I don’t know why.) Anyway, my plan is to type up that list in some sort of alphabetical order and post it, preferably as a permanent link on the left. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m very much enjoying Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation. She talks from the point of view of a high-functioning autistic person about all sorts of animal behaviors (particularly dogs and farm animals), and it’s a fascinating read. My perfume quests merged with the booklist and I have two gems to add in the Kicking and Screaming category: two books I was forced to read, at gunpoint, for a book club, knowing I’d hate them. I objected strenuously and lost. Turns out I was wrong. Here they are:

Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild, a true-life tale of one callow, dreamy, unhappy youth who left behind his life of privilege and went to find himself in the Alaskan woods, discarding his map along the way so he could get back to the real gritty solitude he was searching for (SPOILER ALERT!) and ended up starving to death in his camp in the wilderness. My one-word summation going in: dummass. Reading the book, however, I found myself completely drawn into the story, and wound up being deeply moved and empathetic in spite of myself.

Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Come on – doesn’t that title make you a little queasy? But no. A beautifully written story of Eggers’ decision (with his brother and sister) to raise their much-younger brother after their parents’ untimely death. The writing style that seemed much too clever and self-aware going in, with all sorts of gimmicky devices, just tore me up. His newest book, What Is the What, the semi-biographical as-told-to story of one of Sudan’s lost boys, is even more powerful. This guy can write.

So: any stories you’d like to share of The Fragrance You Loved And Lost (and maybe re-found?) Or books you started against your better judgment that turned out to be excellent?

PS An early report in on car scenting suggests that the Soap Solution (leaving a bar of scented soap in your car) works great, according to commenter tmp00 who just tried it with a soap freebie he had lying around. I’m planning on swinging by our local soap store today or tomorrow for some of my favorite Pacifica soaps to give it a whirl.

PPS Straight from the horse’s mouth: that hot bod on the Tauer Reverie bottle? Is Andy. Heh heh. Andy … hon, thanks for the reverie.

Today we’re taking a stab at two fragrances with a niche fan base: Parfumerie Generale’s new(ish) Querelle, and Christian Dior’s hard-to-find men’s fragrance, Jules, from 1980. Are they the sexy/raunchy things they’re purported to be?

Querelle, part of the PG Private Collection, is named after the novel (Querelle de Brest) by author Jean Genet, and a 1982 film adaptation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with a plotline so confusing that six readings of the brief summary on Wikipedia left one of your blogmistresses puzzled (although she’s pretty sure she saw the flick at college, along with such classics as In The Realm of the Senses and Last Tango in Paris.) According to LuckyScent, “inspired by Jean Genet’s brutal and erotic tale of hidden desires and violence, Querelle is a scent of supreme elegance and forceful sensuality.” Notes are: citrus, Iranian black caraway, myrrh, cinnamon, Haitian vetiver, incense, oakmoss, ambergris.

• Lee: It’s a chypre for sure, and even if I like chypres, they often give me the mother of all headaches. So, I sniff this beauty, marvel at the playfully soapy / barber shoppy opening (that smells like some version of the past), and am about to admire the transitions when wham! bam! the throb begins and queasiness comes along holding its hand. So it’s difficult for me to be properly subjective about this scent. I love how it works vetiver, I love the dark menace underneath the clean, but my body is in rebellion when I sniff it. It’s the chypre effect. I’m not sure how I relate it to Jean Genet’s Querelle, but that film bored me I think (I only have a hazy recollection, but Fassbinder’s quasi-mystical masochism has never appealed). I haven’t read the book. Much more impressive was Genet’s own prison film (off to wiki it) Un Chant d’Amour. Anyone seen it? Very EROTIC. Overall though, I’d prefer a Genet scent based on the late 60s onwards, when he got all politicised. I can only do so much existential angst.
• Patty: I know I smelled this months ago and didn’t like it (hated it!) and gave it away (to you, March?). Now it’s back. I do get raunch - more buttcrack than siren - and that open just makes me slightly queasy, but this time it seems to blow off pretty quickly and leaves me with…. a scent I really like. How in the heck did that happen?
• March: This is the fierce, brutally erotic raunch-factory I’ve been reading about? Okay, I must be damaged, because I think it smells gorgeous — bold proportions that instantly conjured another classic, Guerlain Mitsouko, minus the peach at the top. The drydown gets rich and spicy, ultimately winding up on a fairly intense, more-or-less masculine note of vetiver. Lovely. I am completely missing the raunch.  You hardcore chypre/oriental types should check this out.
  

Jules is a much-sought-after men’s fragrance from 1980, hard to find, possibly discontinued? (Note from L: you can get it easily in Paris, ma cherie, so my grapevine tells me.) It contains galbanum, black pepper, cedarwood, sandalwood, and Russian leather. March wonders, based on pretty much nothing, whether this fragrance was inspired by Jules et Jim, the French New Wave classic (hey, another menage a trois!) from 1961.

• Patty: Okay, this stuff is hot. I feel like I just got transported to Pamplona and the running of the Bulls, and I’m not sure I mean the four-legged kind. Spicy and a little rank in a horsey sort of way, I’m thinking this is how Pullo would have smelled (Rome is over - sob!). It just screams for some brute with a swagger and the soul of a poet - or not - to wear it.
• March: I thought between the galbanum and cedar this would be a scrubber. Instead it reminds me, variously, of: the incense-y bits of Chanel 22; the leathery sparkle of vintage Kolnisch Juchten without the smoked meat; and a drydown I’ll Call Two Tons of Incense and You’ve Got Wood. Particularly interesting because on me it has sort of reverse development: I get the big guns of peppery leather up front, drying down into the lighter incense. Really, what is it about this juice that makes it so sensual? Lee, no offense, but are you sure you labeled this right? Why am I getting all this incense? Also, do you want to sell me your bottle? Seriously — I’m blowing through this particular nose-candy at a terrifying pace.
• Lee: I had convinced myself that the sample I sent the posse women was on the turn - it has the same quality as the drops of Guerlain’s Derby I have (which, by the way, is a men’s chypre I love, in case anyone feels like splurging on a 140€ bottle for me). However, then I wondered actually whether this is a turn, or just how both of these early 80s numbers start out - pretty sour and peculiar. And I’m sure it is, if my olfactory memory is right - Jules has an oddness to its opening that you don’t find in many men’s scents nowadays. It makes no excuses about manliness - it smells a bit sweaty (and not in the fresh-out-of-the-shower-into-a-hot-sunny-day-kind-of-way), earthy, leathery, bullish. As it dries down, it becomes softer and more of a gentle caress. Damn it though, it’s still virile, and that gentle stroke could go all thrusty any moment. Right, I’m off to curl my somewhat limited chest hair.

image: Jules et Jim, www.arnadal.no

What do you think????? Isn’t it adorable?  If you don’t think it is adorable, just lie to me. I positioned the Let Us Spray over on the right  the artist moved it for me and gave a smaller image that will load faster.  Better?  Okay, so now I just need to get my taxes done, then I can concentrate on calling around and getting quotes for mugs and sticky notes and notepads. BTW, the artist who did the artwork is Shano Studio, and she has some great artwork fitting many occasions.  I love her work and love what she did with this image.

UPDATE:  Andy is offering a limited number of samples on his website, go, get one!!!

Just got the a sample of Andy Tauer’s’s newest scent, due to be released April 21 in the usual places, Reverie au Jardin. Notes of galbanum, fir, lavender, bulgarian rose, frankincense, abelmoschus seeds, vetiver and tonka beans.  It starts very green, the fir kind of blasts out with some lavender trilling through it, which scared me… a lot… and then it just hangs there like your breath on a crisp winter morning, and I got more scared, but I shouldn’t have.  Then it starts to thaw  and warm.  I’m always nervous about lavender in a perfume, we don’t get along that well, it just makes me a little oogie, but this one is gorgeous, in the way that Encens et Lavande is gorgeous — there is enough depth with the other notes that the lavender note plays, but it blends into the whole beautifully.  Abelmoschus seeds are ambrette seed, and in the drydown, this has a slightly musky feel, almost licoricey? but not? that’s pretty enchanting.  I kept thinking it reminded me of something, and then I finally sniffed it alongside the old Guerlain Fol Arome, and they’re not the same, but something about each reminds me of the other.  Beautifully done, Andy.

^^^^^^^  That Andy, he always gets the hottest pictures for his bottles. 

It’s that time of year – the birds, the bees, the flowers, and the sneeze – my seasonal allergies are back with a vengeance. It’s also winter-spring (Wing? Sprinter?) where the weather can go from 70 degrees to snow flurries, and nothing seems right, fragrance-wise. I cut way back on the candy sampling, because I’m acutely aware that the only thing standing between me and a migraine is one or two bad fragrance choices.

But my life was brightened last week by a joyful plant discovery and two fragrances which are similar (wildly expensive white florals) that turn out to be quite different in some interesting ways.

I love browsing the Forest Farm nursery catalog; three years ago on a whim I bought something called “white forsythia” because it looked pretty, was labeled FRA (fragrant), and cost $8.95. They sent me a pathetic-looking 8-inch twig which the dog promptly stepped on. I planted it in a sunny spot out front and, other than noticing last summer that it was still alive (or a weed had sprung up in its place) that was it. This Saturday in the rain I stopped sneezing on the path to our door long enough to notice the forsythia was covered in small white blossoms, just like the photo below – in terms of timing it is slightly ahead of the yellow forsythia (which is in heavy bud.) I stepped over for a sniff and — oh, happy, happy day! It’s got a strong, sweet, slightly earthy smell, somewhat like witch hazel, or honeysuckle with a note of hay. I have it growing in a sunny spot near our walkway with minimal supplementary water, and it’s survived our zone-6 summer heat and humidity. There is nothing else in bloom here yet except some random crocus, jonquils and the early magnolias. If/when that bush gains some height it’s going to be a showstopper.

On to perfume: first is Ellie, rocking the blogs right now, created by Michel Roudnitska (son of the legendary Edmond) and released by Jessica Dunne in honor of her grandmother Eleanor, after whom the fragrance is named. It contains white florals, vanilla, vetiver, and musk and is available only at Bendel in New York for a whopping $180 for half an ounce (approx. 15 ml). Something like jasmine and lily would be my best guess, although others have said lily of the valley – there’s the greenness of a Casablanca (and maybe a drop of galbanum?) at the opening, along with a small burst of something citrus-like, and eventually a mild indolic note. The vetiver is extremely light at the opening (it might be adding to the general perception of greenness); in the middle I get a bit more vanilla than I personally love, but it fades again. The vetiver becomes much more pronounced in the drydown, while the musk remains unobtrusive. It is a vivacious scent, strong but not heady, that I think would thrill you white flower mavens.

Cradle of Light is available at Bergdorf and online from CB I Hate Perfume, priced at $250 for 15ml. I don’t think I’d be violating any confidences to say that when Patty and I were there last summer, Christopher Brosius told us he was working on this fragrance, using the CB Musk I’d fallen in love with as part of the base (which is how we got on the topic), and topping it off with various expensive jasmine absolutes and some other goodies. I was, I admit, stunned enough by the sample price when it became available ($50 for 2ml) that I basically ignored it, figuring that my layering trick of CB Musk and various jasmines (like Montale Jasmin Full and Donna Karan’s) was close enough.

That illusion was effectively destroyed by my first taste of the fragrance. Cribbing directly from the CB website: “a blend of pure white flower absolutes: Moroccan, Indian, Egyptian and Tunisian Jasmine Grandiflorum, Indian Night Blooming Jasmine, Jonquil, Narcissus, Tuberose and White Lotus. The bouquet is set against a green background of Sumac, Tomato and Violet Leaves with a hint of Galbanum and grounded in a base of Sandalwoods and CBMUSK. The scent begins with a fresh green presence; gradually the flowers emerge becoming warmer and richer.”

I swear to God, Christopher Brosius is not paying me to shill for CB I Hate Perfume, and the sample didn’t come from him. The initial two minutes of this fragrance is a wonder – at first dab it smells of almost nothing (huh?) presumably while the oils are warming on my skin; then there is a broken-stem fusillade of galbanum and other shrubbery so intense I was worried I’d met my first CB scrubber where I’d least expected it, along with a damp-earth note that conjures my beloved Black March; the greenness suddenly subsides; there is a brief pause for maximum effect, then comes a storm of white flowers that manages to come right up to my pleasure redline but not stifle me. I do this again and again, and it never fails to enchant me.

I think a significant part of the success of Cradle of Light is due to the constant presence of the various earthy or leafy notes, which make the fragrance more complex while reigning in any tendencies toward something overly heady. This scent transfixed me so much that, at one point, I had to pull the car off the road just so I could sit there for three minutes with my nose glued to one arm. Like Ellie it is exceptionally long lasting – one small, oily sluice across my wrist scented me and the air around me the entire day.

The CB Musk (proper name: CBMUSK Reinvention) shows up slowly among the florals and is clearly there in the drydown. You can pick up that odd, sweet smell in an instant, and I wonder how various CB Musk-haters (or people on the fence) would feel about it, adorned by so much gorgeousness. I am on record as finding his Musk sensual and comforting, rather than offensive or even particularly assertive (a viewpoint not universally shared; Colombina the Terrible, who likes skank, finds it unwearable.) As Brosius says of the Musk on his website: “This is a very rich scent that wants to be worn only in specific places,” and whether he means only in singles bars, or on specific private parts of your body, I can’t say (maybe both.) As a dirty base for what I am told are some extremely expensive absolutes, it’s perfection.

Of the two, Cradle of Light is, unsurprisingly, more to my taste. Ellie is ethereally pretty; it’s the work of an artist, with a certain young, yet mannered feel (think Audrey Hepburn); its greenness and tenderness offer up a fresh, dewy charm that I appreciate while not being enormously moved by, if that makes any sense. Cradle of Light (interestingly, I keep accidentally typing “Cradle of Night”), is a darker, richer fragrance, with much less overt white-flower sweetness and more leafy, musky depth. If Ellie is a person (or place), Cradle of Light is a journey.

Speaking of which, you know where this is going, right? I had about three drops of Ellie left, so I layered them with Cradle of Light, garnering me the bright and the dark simultaneously in one glorious burst.

Unfinished Business: Winner of the Vicky Tiel Sirene, selected by Hecate’s nimble, grimy hand, is: Teri! Please Contact Us with your mailing address. Also, for anyone who missed it, here’s an article on scenting your car in this week’s Sniffapalooza.

White forsythia images: mtholyoke.edu; forestfarm.com

(Dr. Dotson was kind of enough to indulge me with an article — he’s just twisted enough to fit in here nicely) 

You’re a fragrance freak but you are not really a freak, right? I mean you’re not sick, are you? As your visiting psychiatric consultant I am here to tell you that your little scent hobby is nothing. It can get much worse. You have a long long way to slide until you hit the dank and rotting lower intestine of Skankytown.

In 1887, Richard von Krafft-Ebing published his monstrously big study of perversion, Psychopathia Sexualis, a book that documents the lives of olfactophiles - those haunted beings driven into a sexual frenzy by dirty body odors. Some became “hankie thieves” or were compelled to inhale the delicious “spicebox” of a stranger’s armpit, or were discovered in embarassing situations with a neighbor’s chamberpot. Elegant women could also be afflicted, and in Dr. Havelock Ellis’ case study of “one lady” it was found that the ” heavy and penetrating” effluvia of gardenia and tuberose caused a marked “moistening of the pudenda.”

Nowadays anyone can go online and find a porn queen who will thoughtfully pack her old cotton undies into a ziplock bag and mail them to you for a nominal fee. (SIDEBAR: With just a Paypal account, craigslist and a few baggies you can start your own in-home personal fragrance business! See me for details.) How sadly banal it all is.

But since you are all such smell fanatics, I will reveal to you a most esoteric fetish: the Perfume Dominatrix. Certain needy men live for the day that a stunning Glamazon will overwhelm them with her perfume, transforming them into her dizzy love slave. This link, lovingly curated by one of these adoring perfume perverts, shows Joan Collins atomizing her lair, and Catwoman subduing Batman and Robin with her supersecret feline fragrance. Enjoy.  - Dr. Dotson

Today, dear readers, I’m hoping you can help me out on one or more of four issues.

First: has anyone used fragrance to scent their car?

Patty and I got this question via email recently, and we kicked it around for awhile. I was all ready to put an unlit, scented candle in one of my car’s cupholders (L’Artisan’s Bottega Veneta #1 or #2 spring immediately to mind), but Patty said she thought the wax would melt in the summer heat, assuming summer ever comes. I’m just stubborn enough to try it anyway (at which point I’ll be writing to ask your tips on removing candle wax from a car interior), but I’m guessing that now, while it’s not that warm, I wouldn’t get much scent from an unlit candle … but what do I know?

Yeah, sure, I could take my Chaos out there and throw it around the Toyota, but ideally I’d like to rotate scents, and anyhow soaking my car’s plastic interior with alcohol-based fragrance seems like a bad idea. The best I’ve come up with is, say, dropping a scent-soaked cotton ball in a small glass and putting that in there, but aesthetically that doesn’t hold so much appeal. Any other ideas? Some sort of diffuser? Opinions on using room spray vs. perfume? Anything else you’d like to add or suggest?

Second: Have you read any good books lately? Seriously. I’ve gone from being a constant reader to an almost-non-reader. If I spend many more nights browsing my dog-eared back issues of Allure and Veranda, my last 30 brain cells are going to shrivel up and die. The Big Cheese’s reading of choice (real estate and the current hot, racy tome he’s plowing through on hedge funds) only work when I need something to put me to sleep. I’m looking for interesting nonfiction or fiction that doesn’t feature anything desperately terrible happening to children (especially at the hands of perverts), that isn’t a super-long, deep read, either. I just finished Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses (about the five senses, with an interesting section on smell and perfume). Now I’m contemplating Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation (her thoughts as an autistic savant on all sorts of animal behaviors and animal/human interactions), and also Lynn Darling’s Necessary Sins, which is supposedly an unflinching memoir of her home-wrecking affair with celebrated Washington Post correspondent Lee Lescaze. My taste in fiction is fairly wide-ranging. Have you read something recently that you thought was the sort of book you’d recommend to, say, your book club of bright, interesting friends, assuming you belonged to such a club? What was it?

I’ll play too: off the top of my head, if I met you at a party and we clicked, I’d recommend:

1) Mating by Norman Rush – Wickedly amusing novel for lovers of language and witty repartee; in terms of craft, some of the finest writing I have read (warning: the sequel Mortals is a bitter letdown)

2) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver – I’ve always felt she wrote this as some sort of magnum opus up-yours in the face of critics who said, yeah, her novels are clever, but where’s the substance? And to a large degree she succeeds. Some of it’s a slog, but much of it is beautiful, and there are the sorts of truths in there that (alternately) made me smile in recognition and weep.

3) Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg – okay, the entire thing implodes in the last 15 pages or so, the ending baffles me, but in terms of satisfying twists the previous 450 pages are like riding a rollercoaster in an icestorm, only with the volume turned way down. Set in Greenland, darkly humorous, quietly devastating, this thriller is one of the few books I stayed up all night (wrapped in a blanket) to read — unable, as they say, to put it down.

4) Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita — yes, you can sign up for a semester Great Books class at a university so you can study the Many Thematically Significant Aspects of this masterpiece next to some dude with a soul patch. Or you can just go order it off Amazon or wherever and read the damn thing, cheerfully uninformed, and have a great time. (Here’s the middle ground, preparation-wise.)

Note: okay, I notice two of the above books violate my No Bad Things to Children rule … huh.

Third: does anyone recognize the following description, or the bottle next to this? “I am looking for some help identifying a perfume. My brother bought it for me in Paris about 4-5 years ago. When he bought it the sales clerk told him it was the perfume that all of the young French girls wear. The bottle is very simple. It is unlabeled and clear, and the perfume is yellow in color. The bottle is tapered so the base is wider than the top, so it makes a tall and slender cone-like shape. The top is capped with a clear plastic piece that kind of looks like a cluster of bubbles. It came in a pinkish-red box, and I think the perfume is called “88,” although there was no other information on the box except that it is made in France. There was also a code on it, 88100, if that is helpful. Any help you could give me at all would be greatly appreciated, since I love the perfume but am worried I won’t be able to find more.” Any of you in our Vast Pool of European Readers recognize this?

Fourth: Today’s giveaway - Vicky Tiel Sirene. Geranium, Peach, Violet, Jasmine, Orange, Woods, Vanilla. One of my unsniffed purchases. It’s very pretty, but it’s Just Not Me. If you like ‘em strong and sweet, and a touch of skank (must be the jasmine/orange?) you’d probably like this. Bottle’s cool, too. If you want to be included in the draw, say so below. Anyone who asks to be in — you ARE IN! Not gonna write that multiple times… I’ll have either Hecate or Buckethead (of The Filthy Twins) fight for the right to select your name and I’ll announce next week.

Master and Margarita illustration by Matt Dawson, guardian.co.uk

(Forgive me if this post ends up brief - my computer seems to be dying and has crashed three times, losing everything I’d written. Nyaaargh!)

My mother seems to have assumed that the death of my gran meant that she had to fulfil the role of family mystic. My gran was a little bit witchy - I mean that in the nicest possible way - and her favourite saying was ‘Whatever happens is what was meant to be’. Now my mother has said this phrase at least in every other conversation we’ve had in the past three months. I don’t engage her in the philospohical complexities of predestination theory, no. I normally just agree. If I’m in a slightly more contrary mood, I might ask her what she actually means, only to receive the gnostic reply: “It’s what your gran said, and she was never wrong”. So there you are. My mum: wise woman, or daft old bat. You decide. I don’t care; I just love her to bits.
Therefore, in the spirit of family spiritualism (er?), I decide to dangle my hand into the box of samples and see what I draw out. And strangely enough, a pattern emerges.Let’s go on a whirlwind artisanal journey across the continent of North America sniffing out what’s what. I’ll try to do a sentence summary of each sniffter as we go, just for good measure.

Let’s start in New Orleans. Here in the UK, winter returned this week, after a couple of weeks of balmy spring heat. I could do with the humid languor of the South. Hové and Bourbon French have a small but avid following over at Perfume of Life, and M kindly sent me a couple of samples so I could sniff them out. Hové’s Spanish Moss is said to be warm, exotic, mossy and green - I was expecting a real chypre. And it is that, perhaps, in the final drydown, but it starts out as a floral feminine number, which is more a night in the idealised tropics than anything else. Expecting to see ancient gnarled trees collecting and dripping humidity, he instead was given a tour of her flower garden by dear Miss Caroline.

Waving to Patty below us as she busily decants, we land in Boulder, CO. I’m not really familiar with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, and her prolific approach to perfume creation brings out the cynic in me - surely nothing can be that good if it’s made that quickly. My lovely friend Lou mailed me three samples along with a whole host of other goodies a while back, and it gave me a chance to judge for myself. The Silk Road has a wonderful name - it takes me back to my atlas studying days (see an earlier post), perhaps imagining myself as a Mongol tribesman traversing inhospitable moonscapes as he heads, on horseback, for the wonders of Samarkand. All I know is that it’s supposed to be a tea scent, and it does have a tannic hit in the opening. But it makes me think of other things entirely. Muddlehead Michael believed he could buy his Asia ticket in the headshop. All he got instead was a highly decorative bong.

Further north now, travelling up the Rockies, and across the border to Vancouver. I’ve been meaning to explore natural perfumes for some time, simply because my knowledge of this area is almost as woeful as it is of classic Chanel, and Ayala Moriel is my gateway perfumer into this unknown land. My favourite so far is Espionage, a gloriously smoky number with notes of leather, orris and tobacco. It is delightful - subtle, sensual, skin-clingy. A perfume for lovers, but with an edge. The corners of Slim’s open mouth twitched into a smile, her exhalation enveloping Steve with the smoky warmth of her lungs .

Let’s leave the mists and greenery of the north Pacific coast for the democratic sunshine of southern California. San Diego. Chayaruchama has hinted at the wonders of Ava Luxe, and favoured me with two from her broad but select range. Royal Parvati has wowed me. It’s one of those instant loves, with almost the complexity of a Mona di Orio - and certainly some of the naughtiness. It’s a sandalwood scent with a full array of spices and perhaps a hint of coconut - not enough to send you into the horrors of Comptoir Sud Pacifique overload - but the right amount to make the scent fall magically between oriental and gourmand. As my skin devours sweet notes and makes dry scents chokeworthy (it NEVER used to be this way), I find this truly delightful. It’s a must try. L became increasingly distant: his eyes glazed, drool pooled on his chin, and the olfactory nose glue meant he was unable to detach his face from his wrist for several hours.

If you’d like to be the recipient of these samples, let me know in the usual way.

Winners of the Hermès draw are: Steve H and Gail S. Steve - you have mail. Gail - please get in touch through the contact us link!

[Doris Day image courtesy of http://muhlemann.ch; Spanish Moss courtesy of http://philipbutler.com; the stunning Bacall courtesy of http://businesslife.com; Silk road image from http://runes.typepad.com; Parvati from http:// gilihaskin.com]

Now we have to start another campaign, and that is to make Bois Blond, Psychotrope and L’ombre Fauve (haven’t gotten my Lilas yet) part of their permanent line. 

Many of you are already aware that if there is a hay note in a perfume, I start writhing around on the floor in ecstasy. Well, not quite that bad, but it’s darn close.  Everyone has the places they used to go as a child… to dream, to escape, to imagine. For some, it is the smell of leather bindings in the library, for others it is the sweet smell of horses.   For me, the smell of hay is intertwined with the solitude of my childhood  – it is the one scent that has wormed so far and deep in my head, it is a part of my core smell-entity. When I think of who I am, I think of hay. In all forms. Alfalfa growing in the fields and then compacted into bales so its sweet, rough aroma was all contained with baling wire.  Timothy hay growing by the side of the road in the summer.  Scratchy straw in the hayloft of our barn where I spent so many days snuggled up in its scratchy warmth with sometimes my sister and sometimes a good book and baby kittens and a wet dog with the sound of rain beating down on the roof.

When I read the notes in Parfumerie Generale’s Bois Blond, I squee’ed and collapsed. Listen, I’m no quivering daisy here, so anything that even approaches swooning in a heap is big news in PattyPerfumeVille ®.  Notes of cereals, grass, galbanum, cedar, hay, blond tabac, amber and musk. Okay, read that list of notes again.  That’s a sure-fire ticket to my enthusiastic approval and love just based on the notes, but would it be True Love? 

When my bottle finally arrived, I was just atwitter. Could it possibly live up to my expectations? I spritzed…. thud!…. yes, that good.  There are many other notes in this that make it even better, but my nose will not get past the main course hay and grass and cereal, which kind of all go together to make up some of the best memories of my life.  This is rich and deep and dry and not sweet in the least. There’s an elegance to it that rounds out the rough edges that you would expect with some of those notes. I put it under my long-suffering husband’s nose, without telling him anything, and he says… Wow, hay!!!  Yes, he loves it too. For me, it is elegant, earthy comfort, the scent of daydreaming with a scented backdrop that did not interfere with my thoughts, but lifted them higher while keeping them grounded to who I was.  Definitely for men or women.   (Painting by Phil Douglis)

Winner of the Posse Slogan vote — Let Us Spray (Fragrant Funster).  Winner of the Thing to Put it on: Coffee Mugs (Marina was the first to suggest that), followed pretty closely by Sticky Notes and Notepads. We reserve the right to put it on more than one thing, and I can guarantee you that I can’t resist the sitcky notes and notepads thing. I also reserve the right to use my Darling Husband’s very clever “I Smell Myself” that March and Lee shot down early on — on something!  A thong maybe.  EW!  So I’m waiting for the art to be done (saw the draft, and it is super-cute!) first and getting quotes on merchandise, look for this space for more info when we are ready!  We may eventually do t-shirts, etc., if these go over pretty well, and we may incorporate other slogans, like Slaves to Scent.

Minor winners: Cheezwiz, Elle, Skye, Maria, Tom, Dana, Robin.  Random winner for entering of the Two Serge Scents of her/his choice: Rosalva.  Okay, y’all need to shoot me your address. FF and Marina will get the first Thing we Put it on as their gift. The rest of you, except Rosalva, get  some samples I want to send out of my choice.   If I missed anyone, let me know!  The Thing to put it on was hard to pick out in the comments, so I hope I got everyone.

In hindsight this turned out to be not a bad thing. It certainly tightened up my focus. I got my act together, got a student loan, enrolled for freshman year in a cheap, local college, and transferred the next year (with a partial scholarship and more loans) to a better college further away. I realized I could survive without my parents’ financial support – and, with the exception of the occasional $20 my dad slipped into a letter to me, I did. I worked a variety of jobs, carried a full course load and studied hard, determined to graduate as quickly as possible. Even the money part wasn’t so bad, in that most of my friends were broke.

Somewhere in my senior year, when I was fully into my cropped-hair, pierced-nose, thrift store existence, I wandered into a boutique on the town’s main street. I never went in there because it was clear to everyone, including me, that I didn’t have dime to spend on luxuries. But on the counter sat a bottle of Niki de Saint Phalle. I’ve spent some time recently, in my perfume reminiscences, trying to sort out what was so alluring about it. First off, the smell was unlike anything I’d smelled at the student-friendly blend-your-own-essential-oils joint down the street. Second …. I wanted to be that perfume. It looked dangerous and seductive and alluring, with those bright, entwined snakes, but it also looked sophisticated and foreign and classy. In other words, it was a perfect summation of everything I wasn’t – and several things that, on some level, I wanted to be.

Because the truth was, I still felt cheated. I’d sucked it up and done my thing, but a part of me wanted to know why I wasn’t wearing plaid skirts at William and Mary, going to keggers, driving my own car and throwing away money on college-girl crap like cute spring shoes and eyeshadow. What happened to that girl, anyway? Could I ever have filled those Pappagallo flats? I looked at that bottle, and I felt a little sad, because a fug of loserdom had settled on me like a dark cloud. Being poor sucks, even when you’re 20 and can pretend it’s just adding to your street credibility.

I bought that bottle. I probably spent the money I’d budgeted for an entire month of laundry and food, and I wasn’t the sort of person who did impulsive things like that. I wore it a little, but really, it wasn’t me. I have no idea what happened to the bottle. I bet I haven’t smelled it in 20 years.

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930 – 2002) was an artist, born in France and raised in the U.S., who was on the cover of Life Magazine as a model at 16 and eloped at 18. As an artist she was known first for her “shooting paintings,” which were made by shooting bullets into the canvas, followed by a period when she became interested in archetypal female figures (“nanas”), which were often made of papier-mache. Ultimately she became known for her oversized, rather whimsical sculptures; the snakes adorning her perfume flacon give you an idea of the bright, primitive style of her work. Her piece de resistance was apparently the fabulously wack Tarot Garden, a sculpture garden in Tuscany, which I am now dying to see. (Has anyone been there?) The perfume was released in 1982 and the proceeds were to help finance the garden, which was almost 20 years in construction, beginning in 1979 and opening (finally) in 1998. According to one source, the artist lived in one of the sculptures, The Empress, for part of that time.

I tracked some of this fragrance down recently. Notes: Peach, Mugwort, Bergamot, Mint, Jasmine, Rose, Clove, Iris, Ylang-Ylang, Cedar, Patchouli, Oakmoss, Vetiver, Sandalwood, Amber, Musk. Those notes (to which I paid zero attention when ordering) may give you a hint of my initial impression: could I possibly have worn this? The fragrance opens on a note I can only describe as Difficult; it is pungent and a little bitter, and following close behind are the most masculine elements of the fragrance – between the moss, vetiver and sandalwood, you might almost be wearing a men’s fragrance. There is just enough of a hint of florals to give you the general idea it’s a woman’s fragrance, but not so much that you’d call it floral. Oh, well. Being me, I just soaked a ton more on my arm, figuring I might as well get The Full Effect, then shrugged and got busy with something else.

After half an hour or so, that rare thing happened: I began to be dimly aware, while paying bills, that something smelled wonderful, and it was me. The florals start to unfold, and the entire experience becomes a lot more seductive. This second phase is quite long lasting, and it is lovely – a warm, inviting blend of jasmine, ylang, clove and sweetish musk that smell tender and enveloping after the assertive opening. The difference between the opening and the drydown in this fragrance is one of the widest I have ever smelled, and part of what makes it so interesting.

But is it “me?” I’m not so sure. Objectively, it smells beautiful. Subjectively, for the first half of the trip it’s got a certain I-Please-Myself aloofness that doesn’t quite fit me. It’s a bit like Dior – I adore several of their fragrances, but oddly, the ones I like most seem the least … plausible on me. Like I borrowed someone else’s dress, and it fits perfectly, but still I feel faintly ridiculous. That’s one of the interesting quirks of perfume love, I suppose.

I am now going to institute one of our silly perfume reindeer games, which I’m calling This Smells Like You. I have sent a decant of this to Colombina of Perfume-Smellin’ Things, because I think she’ll really like it – actually, this game was born because I thought of her right away, and each subsequent time I smelled it. I hate invoking the sacred name of Dior where she’s involved, and it doesn’t smell like Dior, but to me it has the same type of grown-up, exotic, somewhat imperious feeling. Plus I think the opening, which I find kind of fierce, might work better with her skin chemistry. I’ve checked her archives and can’t find a reference to it. I have invited her to blog about it (until today she didn’t know what it was), give her impressions, and then tell me how right or wrong I was about her liking it. Then Colombina will pick a fragrance to send to another perfume blogger (not me) that she thinks that person would like. Etc. Let’s see what happens.

Final Note: the concentration I blogged about is the EDT. There is no EDP, to the best of my knowledge. I’d love to try the parfum (pictured above, which is not the bottle I owned), because I wonder if it would be a smoother ride, but the flacons are expensive ($175 - $250 and up on eBay and elsewhere, and coveted by bottle collectors). Has anyone tried the parfum? If so, please comment.

images: Niki de Saint Phalle, ladifference.fr; bottle image swiped from hapless eBayer, with apologies, because I could not find a single decent image elsewhere; sculpture garden, oneroom.org

It’s time for another issue of Sniffapalooza Magazine, and this one includes a review I wrote of the Ellie Parfum.  There are several other great reviews in there, including one written by Victoria of Victoria’s Own on Anne Pliska — and she got that one right.  Go and visit, it is a great resource and long overdue for us to have a great magazine devoted to perfume lovers.

Perfume Pr0n for a Friday!!!  Just two shelves of my collection.

Here’s two more.  I actually filled them in more after I took the pictures… and there are many, many more shelves and drawers that are fuller.  Obscene and excessive, no?  I agree, but I didn’t have another picture to put up today.

Jalaine perfume oils are one of the great unbought tragedies that ramble around in my head, along with YOSH parfum. I adore almost everything in both lines, but every time I go to hit the Buy button for 7-8 ml of parfum oil for over $100, my normally extravagant shopping mind just arches its back, digs in its heels, peels my finger away from the mouse button and revolts.

One day I was dreaming at the Jalaine site, taking things in and out of my shopping cart — (I know y’all do that too!) – and looking again at their excellent sample deal, which I have ordered before — a half ml sample of all of their nine perfume oils for $18 – it struck me that if I just bought four or five of these, I would be sitting pretty on about 18 mls of perfume oil for $80. Do I have a pang of conscience over that?  Um… yes and no.  Yes because I know this is not what they intended from their sample program and no because I love their perfumes and may eventually buy one or two of the refill bottles for $90 at some point… maybe.

Jalaine has some incredible scents in their line, and even the ones that I’m not that fond of (Vanilla, I’m looking at YOU!), are really well done and compelling to smell.  They all are very linear — what goes on initially is what it will be the next day, maybe a little softer, but when they are this pretty, I don’t really want them developing into something I like not so much.  They do last a lot longer on me than the Yoshes.  Vetiver is earthy, rooty goodness.  This one always gives me the underpinnings of the meth-like addiction I have for Hermessence Vetiver Tonka, but with a slightly lower jones factor.  Amber is rich and resinous, a great pungency that is not too much.  Putting on both of these together is amazing.  Gardenia is is pure, heady gardenia, but without the “ick” factor that usually sets in once Gardenia stays too long at the party.  Citrus Dream is a beautiful citrus scent, but it just doesn’t last long enough for me to give it a good thumbs up, but it is great while it lasts.  Ocean is a very clean, slighly aquatic scent, but I wish they had thrown some salt in there and it was less sweet.  My two favoriters are Green Tea and Silk — these are the two that I keep thinking about buying.  Green Tea is gorgeous and slightly sweet, but it works with the tea, even though I hate sugar in tea, it’s a nasty combination that people should NOT be doing. *looks sternly at tea sugarers*  Silk is the best known in the line, and it is really the best in many respects as far as popular appeal, smooth, a little sweet and pretty gorgeous. I prefer the Green Tea over the Silk, if I had to choose.  The Silk is just a little too sweetish vanilla for me, where the Green Tea is perfection.

Now that we’ve toured a few of the Jalaine oils, let’s head over here my to reality scents.  March turned me into a huge fan of Christopher Brosius, who started Demeter and now owns CB I Hate Perfume.  Some of my favorites I think I love every scent he does, but I very much love his earthy scents, like Black March and To See a Flower (flowers, stems, dirt, just criminal gorgeousness if you are a flower gardener).  When I put on the Winter 1972 scent, My husband sniffed it and proclaimed — snow, mittens, radiators!  It is that, just the snuggliest scent I can think of.   BTW, March, Violet Empire? is just perfection, more leaf than violet, but the violet peeps its shy little head around and smiles from time to time. 

I was pretty bowled over by some of the Demeters as well.  Firefly, which is absolutely the out of doors, after a rain, in the summer… on the farm. It is the smell of my childhood summers spent outdoors, straining to see in the dark during a game of Old Mother Witch What Time is it or Mother May I or or Red Light/Green Light.  Now, I will mention here that Demeter has sent us several of these to try - that’s my disclaimer - and I’m glad they skipped all the syrupy sweet ones or I would have just ignored them, like I do most stuff, but there are too many way too good to ignore, especially in this last batch.  Holy Water, Holy Smoke, Greenhouse.  It completely floors me over when a reality fragrance just nails something spot on, and I know it’s just molecules.  It’s the same feeling I have when I think too deeply about how we can snatch something waving through the air in our ears and figure out they are words.  Reading and Writing make far more sense than hearing.

So two questions today:  What unbought perfume tragedy do you still obsess about? or  What perfume or type of perfume floors you in that way?

Today on the blog we’re offering a selection of earworms – “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, or if you prefer something a little less refined, “Smoke on the Water” by Foghat. Do you have one of those firmly cemented in your brain? Good. Keep that playing, I have a little story for you.

Patty sent me a sample of the beautiful Ellie – the $$$$$$$ per ml. thang with white florals, vanilla, vetiver and musk, carried (I think) at Bendel. But what I really noticed was the gamey stench emerging from the package as soon as I unsealed it – because she’d thoughtfully included a samp of the Human Existence from the Mugler Coffret – which she’d thoughtfully labeled “XXXXX”. No, it hadn’t leaked. It’s just that powerful. I think Patty captured the essence pretty well on her post. I’d add this: if you combined the bottom-of-the-dirty-shower smell and added a note of unplugged refrigerator full of food (let’s give it, oh, a month to ripen) you’d be close.

I gloved up (literally – I used my hair-dye gloves) and popped open the Ellie vial. Okay, it’s very pretty. But I wasn’t really getting its full flower somehow. I decided I’d dabbed on too little in my subconscious effort to stay awaaaaay from the HE, so I went back in there, popped the little vial back open, and dumped a healthy serving on the back of my hand.

At which point I realized I’d grabbed the wrong vial. Turns out that, without my reading glasses, “Ellie” and “XXXXX” look a lot alike.

I freely admit I had it coming to me. The gods punish hubris, and after Monday’s screed on mall frags this was just what I deserved. I tried rinsing it off right away, but come on – that’s like cleaning up Three Mile Island with a sponge and a bucket o’ suds.

Today’s candy is full of assorted oddities with a funky theme:

Comme des Garcons Incense Series – Ouarzazate. Notes via Luckyscent are: incense, pepper, nutmeg, clary sage, wenge, musk, vanilla, labdanum absolute, Kashmir wood. Given my total love for most of this series, I keep trying (and failing) to work up much appreciation for this one. Those notes look good. But on my skin it’s a bitter, spice-driven mess that smells more like sandalwood than anything else, and is almost instantly headache-inducing. Has anyone smelled Jaisalmer, the only other one I haven’t tried? The notes sound soooo good (cardamom! pimento! gaiac!), but I’m wondering whether it’s another headache.

Eau d’Italie Sienne l’Hiver – I tried to paste in Aedes’ gorgeous folderol about this scent, but they’ve defeated me. Anyway, nobody’s readier for a romp in the Sienna countryside than I am, and the notes sound scrumptious (roasted chestnuts, incense, soil, violet leaf, geranium, iris, black olive, white truffle, smoke woods.) On my skin, however, it’s reminiscent of the wet, sharp, sour smell you get when you change the water in a vase of flowers after a few days. For the record, I don’t dislike that smell, particularly, but I don’t want to wear it, either.

Eau d’Italie Bois d’Ombrie – notes (via Aedes): cognac, whiskey, iris, leather, myrrh, tobacco, vetiver, woods. This is working a little better for me. First off, it’s warmer. Also, you could probably pair whiskey, leather and tobacco with cat pee and I’d still … wait … there is a little cat pee note in here. That high-pitched note is chafing me; my guess is it’s the myrrh. Meh. The drydown is nicer, earthy leather, but I’m not sure the wait is worth it.

Demeter Fiery Curry – I promised myself I wouldn’t blog on another Demeter, but I can’t help it. Notes via Demeter: “Our version is a spiced combination of prik kee noo, a fresh and spicy Thai chili, lemongrass, lime, cilantro and galangal, a gingerlike root, but more delicate.” This is fabulous. If you liked L’Artisan Epices coffret, this one’s for you. It is not the creamy smell of coconut-based curry. It’s an airy, delightful blend of the notes listed, peppery and tart but not foody. As Now Smell This pointed out, this would be an excellent starting point for a CDG Curry (or Spice) Series – it’s that interesting, and that good. A make-you-smile scent, with surprising lasting power. If you don’t want to spring for a $19 bottle unsniffed, as of May 1 their website’s offering big, fat 11ml samples of everything for $3 a pop!

Norell. A fragrance worth revisiting. This is one of those iconic scents that, as a newbie, I couldn’t get away from fast enough. It’s tenacious and pugnacious — a blend of galbanum, oakmoss, amber, musk, jasmine and rose (I’m having trouble finding a reliable list of notes anywhere), and it just seemed too much. Now I find it strange and beautiful. It doesn’t remind me of anything else, really – although at the opening it’s got a touch of the same green assertiveness of, say, Carven Ma Griffe, or even Lancome Sikkim, which I believe is roughly the same vintage (late 1960s?). I tried three concentrations (cologne, EDT and parfum) and can’t dismiss any of them. The cologne is the sharpest, but it’s also the most shrubbery-like (in a good way). The EDT is rounder and a bit powdery, the amber is almost velvety, but it’s not warm and cuddly. The parfum trades the green aspect for a raw, rich animalic base that’s reminiscent of CB Musk, which (depending on your perspective) is either thrilling or revolting. The florals in all concentrations seem to highlight the severity of the rest of the composition rather than softening it.

There is something edgy about Norell that gives it a peculiarly modern niche feel, rather than the tone of a “classic.” There is also something Not Quite Nice about it. It’s the sort of scent I’d wear with killer Manolos and an Armani suit to a business meeting, when I was planning to tell my opponent I was going to crush him like a cockroach. I find it subversive and compelling, without ever having the right occasion to wear it (maybe a meeting with The Donald, if he calls.)

image: Icarus, Victor Nizotsev, artfiles.art.com; Norell, shopping.com

This time round, we’re trying out our threesome in a butch style, reviewing two iconic men’s scents (P: Is this mantalk for phallic?): Chanel’s Égoïste and Creed’s Green Irish Tweed, both frequently the subject of discussion over on Basenotes. How do they measure up (P: aha, it is!) with the Posse?First then, Green Irish Tweed. Apparently created in 1985 and, according to Creed, enjoyed by a range of people from Prince Charles to Naomi Campbell, GIT contains notes of lemon, sandalwood and ambergris.

March: I don’t spend a ton of time smelling men’s product, and I’m married to Mr. Dial Soap. So the good/bad thing is, I can’t smell this and think of all the ways it does/doesn’t remind me of a gazillion other men’s scents. I browsed Basenotes and am amazed at the number of reviews it garners: not all positive, but jeez. For some folks this is the ultimate long, hot, throbbing (okay I’ll stop there.) Are you ready? It smelled fine to me. I’m not feeling the whole “wear it to the boardroom” thing, really. The VPs are wearing this because they want to smell rich, like the country club lawn. (The CEO is wearing Yatagan, or some weird chick scent, and whip marks on his back under his bespoke shirt, because Mistress says he’s been a bad, bad boy.) I wore GIT to the gym, the grocery store and Target, and nobody said much. It does not have the Creed base, that sour, bitter note I don’t care for. I get plenty of sweet citrus up front — hello, bergamolemonverbena — and then it settles down into generic Eau de Dude, on the green side, a little grassy, somethin’ leafy, no monster sillage. It’s not really unisex, but it’s not like wearing a jockstrap, either. The guy next door in the cube farm could do worse. I didn’t become damp with desire.

Patty: I’m probably not going to hate this as much as March and Lee since this is the first time I smelled it, but I can certainly see how being in a pub full of fellows wearing it would send me out in the street looking for some fresh air and celibacy. It’s crisp and bracing and really does suck up all the other smells around you. I don’t think it’s entirely horrible at all, but I don’t really like it either. So now what happens to me? Does Basenotes send their Perfume Thugs over to pay a visit? All Things Creed have such mindless adoration an enthusiastic following there, I’m afeared for my nose. :::shakes in out-of-style Ugg boots::::

Lee: GIT is the perfume thug and a more appropriate acronym would be hard to find. It’s the epitome of all I hate in a scent - sharp, overly-assertive, overpowering. There’s something wrong with me, cos I just don’t get how anyone could actually enjoy this. I like some of those in-yer-face 80s scents, but not this one. And it has that awful modern Creed accord - like hot metal or a chemical factory in meltdown. Okay, to be fair to the noxious juice, there are one or two notes in there that are potentially attractive, but this blooms like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors when it hits skin and doesn’t stop growing in intensity. Any man who needs to overcompensate this much might want to hunt down a good implant surgeon or just get a sports car.

Now onto Égoïste. Released by Chanel in 1990, it contains notes of coriander, sandalwood and ambrette seed.

Patty: When this first went on, I thought…. ew!!!! It’s everything I hate in a scent! It was like a blast of Satan’s breath, but as it warms up on the skin, it morphs into a damn fine scent, the coriander and ambrette seed are pretty brilliant. After No. 18, I’m fast becoming a fan of the ambrette seed. I get its iconic status now. Is this discontinued? I think Mister Patty would smell pretty great in it. And now I’m going to have to shower and reapply it because I spritzed on GIT on the other arm, and it jumped across to the other arm and strangled Egoiste to death. WTF?! Vicious little scent.

Lee: If you’re a chic metropolitan European like me I wish I was, you’d have smelled this everywhere in the 1990s. Just as trendy fin de siecle folk were starting to wear all natural fabrics (jute sack, anyone?) in non-shades like ecru, Chanel launched this counterstrike against bland. And it’s a palpable hit: starts off like medicine with a bit of a dirty accord (the reason it failed in cotton-clean USA?), then dries down to a variation on Bois des Iles. I had to teach myself to like this again - those first few notes remind me of reckless living a little too strongly, and it is without a doubt a decadent scent. It’s supposed to have mandarin and rosewood in the topnotes as well, but I can’t pick up on them - in fact, it’s one of those seamless blends where the whole is a long way from its components, though I guess the sandalwood is pretty clearly marked. I’ve learned to love it again. It ain’t butch, it ain’t manly, but it is right.

March: Wow. What else is in there? I’ve never smelled this before; all the stores around here carry a flanker (Egoiste Platinum?) which I’m assuming has some silly “fresh” accord to make it more, you know, sportif (note from L: not actually a flanker - an entirely different scent). I wouldn’t have identified this as a masculine scent; it seems very unisexy to me. The same elegant, slightly chilly elan of the Rue Cambon collection, with more weight and sillage. I’m not crazy about ambrette, which can have an almost acrid feel to me, like rancid wine, but this is different. It definitely opens with something citrus/juicy, and there’s a spicy, dusty floral aspect to it that reminds me of Paestum Rose, only less pugnacious and less sweet (L: you’re good March - rose and carnation are supposed to be in there, alongside the ole mandarino in the top…). I’m giving it two thumbs up. I do wonder whether most men find it too feminine? (An aside: Didn’t Egoiste do those goofy TV ads years ago, where the guy’s leaving the apartment and the hot, semi-naked babe is yelling after him, “Egoiste!!” which I assumed was French for a–hole… and what kind of message is that? Fragrance For The Chump Who Leaves?) [Third pompous note from L: it was a whole load of ladyfolk opening the shutters on some shabbychic mansion yelling out the perfume name to some unseen philanderer…] {P jealous of editorial sidenotes L leaves for M and huffs some Vetiver Tonka to calm down}

Final whine from L: can we do more men’s stuff, posse?

March: Not unless you send me pictures of you wearing a dress.

Patty: No, and an even bigger Nyet if you DO send pictures of you wearing a dress. Send Colin Firth instead, I have an open position for him to fill.

March: Hahahahahahahaha!!! Okay, going to wash my mind out with soap.

Lee: You smutmuffin Patty! Dial soap, March? But that’ll just get you thinking of hubbahubba hubby… Sheesh, these men’s scents have got both of your saps arising…

[image from http://autrynationalcenter.org]

Okay, we had a hard task deciding, but we democratically picked favorites and chose the ones we overlapped on. I want to thank everyone who sent in a slogan or an idea for a Thing to Put it On. Such great ideas, I wish we could do them all!  We had to Narrow down the Thing to Put it On to things that were within our nonexistent very small budget. Also, I have commissioned a great graphics artist to create some cool artwork to put with this. So please vote in both polls. We’ll keep the voting open until Next Monday and we’ll announce the winner next Tuesday!

Heh, I have an easy day of writing.  BTW, I’m getting that Le Labo Olfactionary thingie, so expect a review on that once it is in my hot little hands! But I can’t resist a quick review. Valentino Rock ‘n Rose. What the heck were they thinking with that name, first off? Notes of bergamot, black currant, crunch green, orange blossom, gardenia, muguet, rose, sandalwood, orris, musky notes, vanilla, and heliotrope. Fruity floral No. 3, 758. Yuk. if it weren’t that number in a long line of fruity florals, it might be okay, but it is just lost in the Fruity Floral Sea, having been cast from the Bay of Boring. I can’t bear it.

For those of you wondering on the purse front, I’ve decided against the big Shar-Pei bag and in favor of a quilted little Chanel lambskin bag. But I have to sell old house for over 320k. We listed it yesterday, got an offer today for 319K, so I need to get them up 1k more to get my bag. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Congratulations to the winners of last week’s Demeter giveway: Baby Powder - Cara; Clean Windows - Dinazad; Lavender Martini - Maria B; Lychee - Steve. Please Contact Us with your mailing addresses. And I guess nobody wanted the Vanilla Ice Cream. No takers? Anyone? Helloooo?

March came in like a lion this year, didn’t it? Gritting my teeth. You know what? I’m going to take the high road. I’m not going to add to the negativity of the world around me. I am going to get in touch with my kinder, gentler self (she’s in there, really! Hugs!) and not do a review of the four fragrances sitting on the premium, most desirable display space when I staggered into Nordstrom on a recent snowy night, looking for love:

Michael Kors Hawaii
Valentino Rock n’ Rose
Ferragamo Incanto Shine (yes, there’s a new one)
Asprey Purple Water

I could say something mean about all of these – or something kind – but I won’t. Instead I’ll say that they are all, on some level, interchangeable. Yes, they trend in different directions if you sniff hard (rose vs. pineapple, for instance). If I had room in my fragrance wardrobe for a new, inoffensive spring scent, any of those would do nicely. I wouldn’t need all of them, so I’d probably choose based on appearance. I find Hawaii’s bright orange color disturbing. I’d probably go for the Incanto Shine. If you look at that bottle in isolation, and not as part of a flanker trend that drives perfume hags who need to get a life right up the wall, it’s quite pretty, and Diva would borrow it cheerfully.

Next up at Nordstrom, sharing the premium fragrance area, was: Marc Jacobs splash bottles, the two new ones (Orange and Cucumber) and they’ve reissued Rain to join them. The Orange smells mostly like orange (bergamot, mandarin, neroli and tamarind; water mint, freesia and white rose; moss, tonka bean amber, musk and blonde woods), and the Cucumber (wait for it!) smells like cucumber, although with this one you can discern something more complex in there if you concentrate (watery cucumber accord, lotus leaf and cactus flower; linden blossom, blue tiger lilies and Dutch freesia; frosted musk and blonde woods). Rain and Cucumber together smell pretty nice. Sticking to the high road … uh … they are a huge 10 oz. for $65 and would look appealing on your dresser if you bought all three. Cucumber is the most interesting. If I didn’t buy uncomplicated fragrances like cucumber at Caswell & Massey for one-fourth the price, I’d be interested.

On to the new Coach fragrance, which I think is just called Coach. I went into the boutique to smell this; you won’t have to, because very soon every female around you in the mall will be wearing it. The SAs in there have received their training and were working hard to sell it. The bottle’s very pretty and monogrammed and fits in nicely with their bags. There’s also a purse spray and a cute solid-perfume keychain that you can hook on your purse. I asked the notes (from Coach.com: mandarin, guava, lily, violet leaves, Genet flower, jasmine, mimosa, honey, amber, sandalwood, vanilla and “a very precious wood called iris.”) They were stressing the Genet Flower. Really working the Genet Flower. I said to the SA, in a friendly manner, that I was smelling something a little green, like lily of the valley, and she informed me loudly that it was THE GENET FLOWER. Huh, I said, baffled. I’ve never even heard of that – like Jean Genet? What does it smell like? But she had, sensibly, skittered sideways and gracefully out of range to assist someone else, so I had to do a fairly extensive amount of online research to get someone’s educated guess: “In Geoffrey Hartman’s essay ‘Homage to Glas’ (Critical Inquiry, volume 33 (2007), pages 344–361) he mentions “Genet’s flower name (ginestra, the broom flower)” in reference to the written content of Jean Genet.” I still can’t find anything mentioning what broom smells like, but since it’s a noxious invasive on both coasts of the U.S., maybe you can tell me.

Then I toddled over to Sephora, where I smelled Aquolina Blue Sugar. Wow. Wow! I have smelled a lot of things, but this! Well, the bottle’s kind of pretty! I mean, it’s really blue! And I have … I… this …eaaahrrrrhrggghhhhh. %&#%)%%*$#

%%$*

eeeeeaaaaayeeeechhhhhhhhh

*……..

okay, that’s it. That. Is. IT. They are looking for a fight with this one.

A sentence popped into my head that sounds very Now Smell This (who, by the way, is quoted in the current issue of Glamour, how awesome is that?)  – maybe she’ll come over and grade me? Here it is: “If you were trying to select a fragrance least likely to appeal to me, you would be hard-pressed to come up with a better choice than Aquolina Blue Sugar.” Notes are: Bergamot, Tangerine Leaves, Star Anise, Ginger, Licorice, Patchouli Leaves, Lavender, Heliotrope, Coriander, Caramel, Vanilla, Cedarwood, Tonka Bean. Blue Sugar is the men’s companion scent to Pink Sugar, a fragrance of almost thermonuclear sweetness and a scorched-sugar undertone, like a pot of toffee left far too long on the surface of the sun. Blue Sugar is less sweet than Pink Sugar, sure. The addition of anise and licorice make it more candy-like and further lessen its appeal, if such a thing is possible; the heliotrope, caramel and vanilla replace whatever sugar was removed with a vaguely foody, powdery sweetness, and I can’t really smell the patch in all that hot mess. Blue Sugar begs the question: who would buy this? (According to a brief chat with the SA at Sephora: nobody.)

The most interesting thing about Blue Sugar is: it’s not a practical joke. It’s not the product of some group of jaded French perfumers sitting around creating Secretions and/or Human Existence in between sips of Bordeaux and drags on their Gauloises. I weep for the people who had to smell it 300 times during its construction. I only had to smell it once, and as I walked through the mall back toward the exit, I meditated on the amount of money I would have to be paid to wear this. The soft number I came up with was $1000, but that may be low. It is the nastiest thing I have smelled in recent memory, and that would include Angel and Secretions (although, on second thought, it might not include Encens et Bubblegum).

I swear, I am not a price-point snob about fragrance. I spent the better part of last week wearing Hilary Duff Love Ya, which is hardly grand perfume art. I am not claiming the fragrance high ground; I just want something that smells good, and there’s nothing wrong with a cheap, cheerful comfort scent that makes you happy. But there are limits to human decency. Okay. Off to sniff my $16 Crazylibellule & The Poppies Shanghaijava Collection perfume stick solids. Thus far the Encens Mystic and the Musc and Patchouli are working for me, thank you very much.

These just keep getting better and better, make sure you get on their mailing list and read these, they are full of information and funny and a great resource.  Now, go read while I contemplate how we can steal a writer that writes stuff like this about Anosmia:  

HEAD TRAUMA:  When your head flies through the windshield you can actually shear off your olfactory nerves where they enter your brain (insert gruesome mental image here).  Other blunt traumas can cause localized swelling or bleeds that  might knock out your smell.  The solution?  Wear a seat belt.  And if you are a boxer or roller derby queen please wear proper headgear or get a new job.  Avoid bar brawls.  (Dr. Dotson)

go here now and read