Bois Rouge — this one was a surprise to me. I really didn’t expect to like it, though I’m not sure why.  Notes of citrus, spice, cedarwood, patchouli, jasmine muguet, sandalwood, vetiver, amber, leather, vanilla and tonka bean. Those are actually not bad notes for me most of the time, but I think I kept thinking it would be Serge Lutens Chypre Rouge, which was just an unmitigated horror show on my skin.  Bois Rouge is everything I wanted Chypre Rouge to be.  While there are some similarities in the open – they both have that “red” feel to them – the drydowns couldn’t be more different. Where Chypre Rouge just turned into a mess, Bois Rouge blooms.  It feels very woody on the open, but a soft, beautiful wood.  I think the base notes bring a warmth to it that makes it just lovely. There’s a phase in it that I don’t care for so much, when the patchouli and sandalwood are jockeying for position and kind of drown out the notes upon which I bestow my great love and affection, but eventually, they all work it out.  The leather in this is minimal for me. Not sure why, and does anyone else get more leather?  There’s a brief period, after the part I’m not crazy about where there’s almost a bit ‘o skank, must be the cedar, but then it settles down into a beautiful polished wood scent, that’s the closest I can come to describe it, but if definitely feels red, there’s just a hint of some spice in it to keep it from being boring.  While I think this would smell spectacular on a guy, it’s one I really love to wear.  In the sillage department, darling husband stopped me as we were doing yardwork to see what I had on, he loved it.

Tuscan Leather — notes of saffron, raspberry, thyme, olibanum, jasmine, leather, black suede, amberwood. I really expected to love this one, and I don’t hate it, and sometimes I think I almost love it, but there’s a note in there, probably the saffron and thyme, that just makes this a little off in the leather love.  I suspect this is a leather that will either fit your taste or it won’t. It’s certainly a nice, rich leather, a little rough around the edges, which gives it a charm. What is the best thing about this scent, even if you don’t have passion for it, it would be a great scent to leather up any other perfume you have that is in need of leathering.  Not my favorite leather, and it stays firmly in the bottom five of the Tom Fords.

I’m a Dog Moment of the Week

I’m pretty sure quite some time ago someone blindly waved Christian Dior Diorling under my nose and I promptly trashed it as old yucky perfume.  Early in Perfume Journeys, some of the stout, amazing stuff is so strange that you immediately don’t like it or you just dismiss it in your head because you can’t properly categorize it. Your nose has to learn to smell things that aren’t just pretty flowers or fruits and defy classic descriptions.  It has to be educated to smell complexities and weirdness and sometimes things that start ugly or just appear ugly.

I hereby recant any bad thing I ever said about any of the Diors. I am going back and sniffing them all again and finding out what a complete ass I have been.  They may not all be me, but there’s a new appreciation for the masterpieces they are.

So my question is, is there an entire line that you’ve had to rethink that you dismissed early on?  I also had to recant on the Malles and the Divines.  At first I thought they were nice enough, but not really special, and then I grew to love a couple of them, then a couple more. 

Last Thursday was Take Your Child to Work Day. I let Diva and Enigma skip school and experience the joy that is my typical work day. We started the morning off with garden cleanup, filling four of those huge leaf bags. The weather was perfect, cool and overcast, and I will treasure forever the memories of their facial expressions as they discovered that gardening involves dirt, thorns and the occasional giant orange-colored slug. During the middle of all that I was seized with an insane longing for Serge Lutens Chypre Rouge. No, I have no idea why. I literally dropped my shovel, kicked off my muck boots and ran inside to spray some on. Has that ever happened to you? You are out doing something and you know, suddenly and definitively, that you must go and put on a particular fragrance? It’s a much more desirable feeling than its dreaded (and common) counterpart of staring at endless samples and bottles in your collection and finding nothing that appeals. Then we did several loads of laundry, cleaned up the basement, and went to Trader Joe’s. For dinner I served veggie burgers, after which they stopped speaking to me entirely. They couldn’t get out the door fast enough on Friday.

This Thursday I will be leaving the Big Cheese and the children behind for a trip to the U.K. Twenty bucks says they don’t eat a single meal together while I’m gone. (Twenty bucks is also what I’ll be paying for a sandwich at the current exchange rate.) I fly first to Edinburgh, where I plan on visiting the Roja Dove boutique at Jenners. I’ll wander from Scotland back and forth across England (the Lake District, York, the Cotswolds, Bath) and into Wales a little, before winding up in London, where I will have the pleasure of Lee’s company. He’s been teaching me English (”Oi, wanker!”) We’re planning on going to the other Roja Dove boutique in Harrods, along with Les Senteurs and Patricia de Nicolai. I’ll be back on the blog (assuming they let me) on Thursday the 24^th. If anyone has any particular suggestions about perfume destinations that should not be missed, I’d love to hear about them!

Finally, an alarming report on the state of mass-market perfumery, based on my visit to Sephora: they now have an entire Wall of Vanilla. In addition to the Comptoir Sud Pacifique, which is mostly (but not all) vanilla, they have the Laurence Dumont line (11 scents), La Maison de La Vanille (5 scents), and La Vanilia Labs (4, with antioxidants!) If there is a trend I might develop more of a hatred for than the whole fruity-floral thing, vanilla-driven scents would be it. They also had a section of gourmand things (Eau de Vie) like Whipped Cream and Chocolate Mint that were so horrifying I’ve deleted any further information from my mind. Armani has two frags called City Glam (men and woman), both forgettable. The new Bvlgari Omnia Amethyste smells powdery, which is not the direction I’d have liked them to take it. Sean Jean’s new Unforgivable Multi-Platinum was all citrus on me (grapefruit and mandarin?) and I liked it, although I was expecting Diddy to last a little longer. The Baldessarini Ambre was the one pleasant surprise; it’s supposedly got a little whisky and leather in the base, but I’d actually label it a seemingly oxymoronic “summer amber” – light, creamy, comforting and not sweet (it’s in the men’s aisle). Also, if you or someone you love is a fan of DKNY Be Delicious, Flower by Kenzo, or the Ferragamo Incantos (hey, who am I to judge you?) they have mini bottle sets (a 4-pack of tiny apples, a 4-pack of flowers, and 3 wee Incantos) that are, frankly, adorable and would make a sweet gift.

Giveaway for this week – Drop a comment that you want in the drawing, and the winner will get their choice of two of the Tom Ford Private Blend samples. 

Velvet Gardenia — notes of black gardenia, orange, jasmine, rose muguet, tuberose, dark plum, honey, beeswax, incense, labdanum.  Gardenia and I are not friends, we don’t even nod at each other when we pass. But read that list of notes. Anyone who has been reading here for a while knows my least favorite notes ever put in a bottle are gardenia, lily of the valley, and honey. This thing goes on like my worst nightmare — floral roquefort is all I can think of.  If you’ve smelled JAR Jardenia, you’ll have a little bit of an idea of what this smells like, there are some similarities mostly in that this is bleu cheese covered gardenia.  Do I hate it?  Looooooathe this little beastie, but it’s just a little hypnotic in its over-the-top slightly rotten lushness.  If Tom were trying to make a perfume that would appeal to me not at all and that I would find borderline to completely revolting, he could not have done a better job.

Purple Patchouli — notes of orchid, citrus, leather, purple patchouli accord, spices, amber, patchouli, Peru balsam, vetiver.   The most awful abuse has been heaped on this one. I get a very pretty citrus open sitting on top of buttcrack and leather.  A smelly dom wearing Etro Lemon Sorbet?  Well, that citrus buttcrack didn’t last long, a shame really… it was sorta interesting!  This is such a strange perfume.  Hate it?  No. Sorta like that ugly kitty nobody wants, there’s something endearing in here.  The longer it is on, the more interesting it gets.  Mostly get leather, little patch and balsam — sorta like engine-oil soaked gloves. It strikes me that men may find this much more wearable after the open.  It is not feminine on me at all, but it’s not horrible either. Are you you hatahs out there sure in your hate?  I’m digging this one!  It’s a total freak in that way SMN Nostalgia is a lovable freak. 

Tired of Tom Ford yet?  No?  Yes?  Doesn’t matter, I shall continue on because I’m still obsessed with them. They have been a lot of fun to go through, and I’ve still got some of the scary ones yet to do.  Tomorrow is “scary perfume” day, with a shower to start and a shower to end, and Velvet Gardenia and Purple Patchouli in between.

Amber Absolute - Notes of amber, African incense, labdanum, rich woods, vanilla bean.  Let me start by saying amber is normally not my friend, we snarl at each other a lot. It usually has some kind of musty smell on me that hurts my nose. Not all amber-dominant perfumes, but most.  Amber Absolute is not only an amber I can wear easily, but one I love.  Yes, there is amber, but it is so surrounded with the other notes, it is like a woody, incensey, ambery bouquet, softened with the vanilla and full of comfort. Where I normally find amber-heavy perfumes too harsh, this one remains rich and full, just a little bitter, but that adds character to it instead of making it annoying.  I remains at the top of my list of favorite Tom Ford’s because it made me love an amber perfume.

Oud Wood — Notes of rosewood, cardamon, Chinese pepper, oud wood, sandalwood, vetiver, tonka bean, vanilla, amber. I have been on the fence on this one for a while.  Not that I disliked it at all, but I just couldn’t quite get a handle on its character or hook, if there was enough there to keep me interested.  So while the best description I could come up with is a smooth, beautiful woody scent that is very pleasing, I found myself constantly putting this one back on. Why?  Because it just smells great, the sillage is terrific on it.  It’s not a breakthrough in any way, it’s not “interesting” or “difficult” or “challenging,” it just smells good, and I love smelling it on me.  Isn’t that a great reason to love a perfume? 

For those of you that did NOT vote for Heather Mills on Dancing with the Stars so she finally got the boot, you have my thanks, though I’m a little miffed it took that long for that hussy to get the boot.

Tip for the delicious somewhat healthy snack food of the week, go to Just Tomatoes and get a vat of the Just Veggies. It’s dried veggies like corn, peas, peppers, tomatoes, and somehow they have dried them so they are crunchy, but they have stayed delicious — better than normal veggies taste.  Way better than that bag of Reisens I got to tuck in packages that wound up tucked in me during all the Ebay and Polkadotpeckie hoopla. 

 Also, the Perfume Shoppe has resumed their sample program!  Most of you know I’m a huge fan of Naz and her customer service, and she has a great lineup of perfumes. 

This week Bryan is going to join us so we can have a foursome involved in fourplay in perfume… PG of course. Not that PG, the Parfumerie Generale PG. We’re going to laud or laugh at Psychotrope (cyclamen, violet, jasmine, lilac wood, black leather, musk) and Ether de Lilas Blanc muchlongername (passion-flower, orange blossom, bark, mandarin, lilac, leaves, iris and musk).

Psychotrope is for psychos?

March: I’ve tried to wear this three times, and it horrifies me. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of fragrances that have that effect on me. I feel about this the way some people feel about Black March; it’s cold and nightmare-inducing. I had this preconception (I have no idea why) this was some sort of pretty white floral, which probably added to my freak-out. This is like … a zombie wearing a bondage suit? I give up, I’m baffled. It doesn’t even smell bad; it’s not nasty like one of those Etat things. It smells mostly of violet, leather and musk, which is a combo I love in, say, Cuir Amethyste. But this. This smells like bottled fear to me. (What’s that horrible, violent movie where they bring out the gimp? This is like watching that scene.) Okay, I am a big fat baby, and I am going to wash it off right now and take a soothing hot bath, followed by something reassuring and girlish and tender.

Patty: Very little cyclamen, very little violet. Mostly black leather and musk. I feel like I got mugged by Cruella DeVille’s boots… and I like it. This is cold and dark and like a slightly more snuggly Bvlgari Black. Did it kill the cyclamen and violets? Is that what that “other” smell is in there, trapped, starving violets? So sad, a cruel perfume.

Bryan: Though I haven’t smelled it in a while, I’m quickly reminded of the icy concoction that is Les Nez’s Unicorn’s breath, only here, we have the unicorn’s burp…after she has feasted on withering violets and Harry Potter’s forgotten shoe. Ok, I’m being a bit flippant, I get a somewhat inoffensive fresh floral with a touch of old leather, and not the good kind. I will have to agree with Lee and say that it isn’t for me. Thankfully, it remains close to the skin.

Lee: This is an ice maiden scent. For some reason, I imagined it was a tuberose number - on sniffing, it isn’t. It seems a little similar, at least in descriptive terms, to Ether de Lilas (I wrote my comments on that one first, hence the lack of narrative clarity. You’ll have to live with it): starts out green and watery. Then the white florals come through with something faintly rubbery / plasticky. Maybe the ice maiden is dressed in latex - who knows? It’s not a scent I warm to, because it’s entirely without warmth. I love some chilly perfumes (Iris Silver Mist, I’m looking at you, beautiful), but this one doesn’t speak to me in any language I understand. I don’t actively dislike it, but if I sniff it for too long in one go, there’s a shrill quality that tickles my throat and makes my head start to tighten. I’ll leave it for others to love.

Ether Lilath ith tho pretty

Patty: If anyone below me says one bad word about this one, I’m gonna stomp ‘em! Ether Lilas truly pulls off the miraculous — takes a sweet flower, the lilac, makes it sweeter, but somehow the concoction becomes better than it should be when the perfumer tries to do such a horrendous thing. I don’t get the references to En Passant. This one and En Passant, while both having lilac in them, are very different in feel and approach. I love them both for very different reasons. One is a Lilac encased in crystal sugar and laughter, and the other is a lilac wreathed in bread and tears.

Lee: What a purty perfume for wafty ladies lingering in languid ways over a glass of iced peach tea. It’s so pretty, it should come with a parasol. It’s sharp, almost astringent in a green and clean way, in its initial blast, but then immediately softens to a haze of watery floral loveliness. You know those classic 70s shampoo ads where they seemed to smear the camera lens with vaseline (steady!) to make it soft focus, and turn down the colour so that blues and reds were muted (did you have Timotei Stateside? That’s what I’m referring to I think)? It’s the atmosphere of that, bottled. Gives En Passant a definite run for its money, without the cucumber and breadsticks.

March: Well… huh. Ether de Lilas opens with a showy florality that makes me think of that Gwyneth Paltrow LE (Pleasures?), if you can wrap your mind around that. Then it becomes all about the lilac. Lilac is hard to do well, in my opinion. Too much and it gets that plastic-Glade vibe; too little and it’s some granny toilet water. Ether is neither of those. It’s got a sweet, semi-gourmand note which I’m assuming is some trick of the orange blossom and musk — it’s like candied lilac (caramelized lilac?) I’m alternately charmed and a little revolted. It’s very pretty; I’d give it to someone, but I think I’ll stick with my beloved En Passant.

Bryan: At first sniff I thought, dude, where’s my lilac? (I know, horrific reference). I wait a few minutes and there she is. I am at a loss as to the comparisons to En Passant. Where Giacobetti’s lilac is brilliant, PG’s, for me, is somewhat watery. That is not to say pale or unbalanced (so retract the claws Patty, please). I smell what March brilliantly calls semi-gourmand and without it, I’d pass. This is a lovely spring scent, but I’m rather unimpressed with what I’d hoped would be magnificent. I want a bold lilac; pretty has been done.

Awhile back someone emailed us here at the blog looking for a fragrance. This happens at various times in various ways (sometimes they’re looking for a particularly shaped bottle, or they have a few memories or visual cues.) Invariably the result is pretty much the same: I have no clue. I poke around online and write back a polite, cheery email wishing them luck. This particular reader was looking for a fragrance called “Zoo” by Dolce & Gabbana. And there isn’t one, of course. But not too long after, s/he emailed me back to report that, after some research, it appeared that the D&G “By” for men (or women, it never was quite clear to me) was the long-lost love, the clue being (drumroll, please) both scents are done up in animal prints: zebra (men) and cheetah (women.)

I was a little embarrassed. I hadn’t looked at the online images closely, and I should have been able to Sherlock my way into that deduction. Then I stumbled across the “By” Woman at the weird local perfume shop (note to anyone in D.C. area: check out the boringly-named joint — Perfumania? Perfume Shoppe? — right outside the top-floor Macy’s entrance in Wheaton Plaza, which has a fun selection of offbeat stuff with testers and a very patient staff). I was sufficiently intrigued to buy a mini of the “By” Man, which is possibly discontinued (it’s much harder to find online, anyway).

I like most of the Dolce & Gabbana fragrance line. I find their eponymous D&G men’s scent very sexy. I love their women’s original D&G in the red cap as well, although its incandescent sultriness reminds me of curvy Italian goddesses (my parents were Fellini nuts, and regularly dragged us to movies like Juliet of the Spirits.) I have a bottle and I wear it maybe twice a year, and I have to dab it on very lightly or I’ll kill everyone around me with the sillage. Sicily (which has been d/c’d?) was a little too much sandalwood, but I probably should retry it now. The One (which I believe is widely available in the UK and elsewhere in Europe but not in the U.S.) is pretty enough but feels a bit like they were trying to recapture the success of Light Blue. And who can blame them?

Light Blue, which I am assuming you have smelled unless you are anosmic, or live in a yurt in Bhutan … well, you may want to sit down. I like the way Light Blue smells. I tried to hate it. Its dullsville ad campaign and mall ubiquity annoy me. It is everywhere (or at least anywhere Angel isn’t.) But it smells great, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Diva’s getting a bottle for her birthday at her request, and I can think of a lot of things I’d be less thrilled to smell on her. I have drenched myself liberally in Light Blue on several occasions, trying to trigger one of my hissy fits or petulant screeds, but instead found myself walking along eating a hot pretzel from one of those mall kiosks, humming cheerfully to myself. I’ll stop yakking about it now and move on (finally!) to By Man and By Woman.

A fragrance called “By” is a perfect illustration of the phenomenon Robin at NST, tmp00 and others have joked about: perfume designers who aren’t thinking of the google hardships when they name their fragrances. Try googling “by Dolce” to look for the fragrance and you’ll see what I mean. The notes for Woman are: clementine, bergamot, cyclamen, ginger lily, tiger lily, pittosporum, bourbon, coffee, sandalwood, cedarwood, and musk.

By Woman starts off on a spicy-citrus note (clementine and the lilies, most likely) and then rapidly moves on to the notes at the end of the above list – it is a more “masculine” smell than I expected, and even at the opening it’s a feline rather than feminine floral. The impression is something playful and sexy at the same time, like a woman dressed up in a panther costume rather than the panther itself. This is the sort of interestingly offbeat, attractively priced scent I wish were available near you, instead of the Ferragamo flankers and the entire fruity-floral army. It’s not unconventional along the lines of, say, Malle, or Serge Lutens, but it is certainly unusual; the coffee/woods drydown is extremely attractive, and I think someone smelling it at the latter stages might even place it by mistake in the men’s department. Women who like their scents less sweet might try it. If you google “Dolce By fragrance” and dig around it’s available online at various fragrance discounters.

By Man has notes of: hediones, pepper, nutmeg leaves, lavender, artemisia, sandalwood, leather, guiacwood, ambrox, amber. At first sniff it reminds me quite a bit of the gorgeous MDCI SB/1 (grapefruit, bergamot, violet leaves, white thyme, cardamom, lavender, ginger, cedarwood, vanilla and musk) now known as Invasion Barbare and carried by LuckyScent. The name Invasion Barbare doesn’t quite match up with the fragrance – instead, Invasion Barbare-SB/1 is the sort of elegant, woody fragrance that would be worn with a bespoke suit. D&G By Man, on the other hand, really cries out for one of those cornicelli nestled into some chest hair. (Those things are apparently to ward off the evil eye, and here I was thinking it was some sort of Italian horndog symbol.) By Man has SB1’s creamy, almost sweet gentle spiciness, with a more masculine leather-woods underlay. The hediones and ambrox give a particular luminous feel – as if you were smelling it on warm skin, and make it more sensual than swaggering (the men on Basenotes give it almost unanimous thumbs-up reviews but find it a lot more horndog). I like it very much, but I’m not really familiar enough yet with all the men’s fragrances out there to know what else it might remind folks of.

By Woman and By Man layer beautifully; I’d consider them both unisex. I’d love to hear opinions of anyone who’s worn these, and also – how do you feel about Light Blue or any of the rest of the Dolce line?

Giulietta degli Spiriti (1965) with sexbomb Sandra Milo and Giulietta Masina, imdb.com; Dolce images, polimaia.com.br

I’m deferring my regular Monday in light of the important information contained in the two posts Patty put up this weekend, both of which relate to eBay (aka The Whorehouse) and one of which deals specifically with fraud. And nope — I’m not talking about the decanters. They’re the ones who’ve been booted for, you know, actually selling what they advertise.

Anyway, please read her two posts (Saturday and Sunday) if you haven’t already.  Buyers of vintage frags on eBay would be well advised to take a look.

Well, I decided to start a little forum where people can sell full/partial bottles of things and for decanters to post links, etc.   I always swore I wouldn’t have one of these, but…  and it’s green!  I can’t figure out how to make it another color. Wait, now it’s blue. I think I like the green better.  I’ll put a link to that too over on the left.

Well, it was bound to happen, and we knew it was coming, but when it finally does, it’s just sorta sad. I had had my eBay store for close to two years, and I have loved all the people I met, it was truly a joyous experience for the most part, so closing it is sad, even though my other store is still open, will remain open, and will expand when three other decanters all put a bigger, better one together.

 An assurance to all of you that ordered in the last week or so from any decanter on eBay, you’ll get a notice saying all sorts of scary things from eBay, but the decanter has your order and will be shipping it, that’s not a problem.

eBay starting ending random listings of decants this weekend, and then that activity picked up on Sunday.  Their usual pattern is they will end things twice, then you may get suspended for seven days, and then they NARU you.  Most of us elected to either close our ebay stores or end all listings. EBay, being the evil idiots they are started ending listings that had already been ended and suspended at least one or more sellers.

So…. the era of decant and sample sales on eBay is officially over.  I’ve ended all of my listings except the empty sample vial sales I do, though I won’t have those up for a lot longer on eBay and will end those and close my store so I won’t have to ever pay eBay another dime.  If you need decants/samples from me, I’ve had a webstore since last August (click the Fragrant Fripperies ad over there on the left, the one that has the pretty ballerina, who is my darling niece). 

As announced before, four of us decanters are in a joint website venture, and it should be open around the end of May, e-mail theperfumedcourt@gmail.com to get on that mailing list.  In the meantime, I have a listing for decanters resources link over there on the left, just click that to get to e-mails, websites, Basenotes wardrobes so you can see the scents they have available and you can contact them to buy.  Also, if any blogs or webpages would be so kind as to put up a link to the page on the right for perfume decant sellers with that verbiage as the link, I’d appreciate it. Nothing is better than a Google bomb to get people directed to the right place.

 This has made things a little more complicated, but I think in the end, it will be much better.  I hated eBay anyway, it was clunky and slow and inflexible, and it was time for a decanting service to move into the real world.

Love you guys. xoxoxoxoxox!

This is an Ebay Public Service Announcement. (image courtesy of Fragrant Funster)

Example 1

This bottle was bought empty on eBay on 4/7/07. 

This bottle is being sold full currently on eBay.  Very rare bottle, very hard to come by, very tough to find full of parfum, almost topped off, and, surprisingly, unsealed.

Example 2!

Let’s take another look at an empty bottle bought by the same person that bought the Le De empty bottle.  It’s a Rival Poivre with the box.  Very beautiful… very empty.  Bought on 3/30/07.

Here’s a Rival Poivre bottle, being currently sold on eBay – very beautiful, very full, by the same seller as the full Le De parfum.

Example 3

Let’s see what else we have here… This Coty Complice bottle was bought by the same person who bought the empty bottles in example 1 and 2 on 4/17.  Very rare, very beautiful bottle, and…. completely, utterly empty.

The same seller of the FULL bottles in example 1 and 2 currently has this lovely Coty Complice up for auction – of course, it is full — to the brim!  Not even a little evaporation. Miraculous, no?

What is very, very sad is there is another ID  two other IDs that also buy empty bottles, and full bottles of the same perfume show up in listings of the same full bottle seller. I could fill up pages with these examples.   Anything that seems to be too good to be true probably is. I did buy from this seller twice.  One was a small 1/4 oz vintage Cuir de Russie for my own personal use. The other was a large Vol de Nuit parfum.  I did check against my square Guerlain factory sealed bottle, and it smelled the same, and I believe it was authentic, but out of an abundance of caution, I have pulled that bottle from my inventory and will not sell from it because with the sort of things from above, I just don’t want to use anything that came from a tainted source, no matter how firmly I believe it to be the real thing.

You can do your own research too. Any time there is a full bottle of something up, just do a search in completed listings for that name, and if you find a person that bought an empty bottle of the same thing and seems to buy lots of empties that another person has as fulls later…. well, duh.

This has been a Public Service Announcement with special thanks to the sleuths at MUA who did the research.

In the continuing series through the virtual perfume patch of the new Tom Ford Private Blends, we go meandering over to see…

Black Violet — Notes of citrus, pulpy fruit accord, black violet, woody notes, oakmoss.  Okay, I’ve been trying to think what this reminds me of, if anything, and I keep thinking it’s like Serge Lutens Bois de Violette and Tom Ford’s Black Orchid met on the downlow, had a brief, but passionate love affair, which ended horribly, and they no longer speak to or about each other, but but Ms. BdV was left impregnated with BO’s love child… Black Violet.  I put this on and at first think love…maybe, then not so much, then hate… then lust, followed by its best friend self-loathing for keeping my nose buried in it. I’ve put it on four separate times with the same result.  There is a BO’ish feel to it somewhere lolling around early on, but it never pops up enough to make my hate last.  And all the way through it is this slightly candied violet… that someone took to town and turned out in low-slung, but incredibly stylish daisy dukes and a halter midriff top, just a little too much makeup, and a lollipop jutting from her mouth to lure in the pervs.  Yeah, she’s a whore, but she’s a classy whore.  As much as you hate watching her denouement at the hands of Mr. Ford, her virtue shines through and makes you fall in love a little and then a lot.  Make sense? No, probably not, but this is the quintessential love/hate perfume for me, and while I fret over it, it just mesmerizes me and makes me laugh and curse — how dare Tom do this to my beloved violet!?  — though she is a lot more fun like this.  But wait, the drydown is exquisite — the saint/whore dance doesn’t last forever or sometimes not long enough, and then it is just beautiful violet standing in the woods with her eyes closed, and she has been disgraced, but her neck is unbowed.  I wish I could tell you what those who hated Black Orchid will think here, but I am bereft of an opinion on that since I never found anything to hate in Black Orchid, nor did I find anything to love.  Which makes Black Violet even weirder, I feel both, but land firmly on love. 

Noir de Noir — notes of saffron, black rose, black truffle, vanilla, patchouli, oud wood, tree moss. When I first saw the notes for this one, I was pretty sure it would not be one I would like.  That list of ingredients is my worst nightmare, except the oud wood.  This goes on soft with the notes of saffron and vanilla taking center stage on the open. It reminds me a little of Vetiver Tonka at this stage.  After the open, you can start to smell the rose and truffle, and it is held up with the base notes of patch, oud wood and tree moss.  I find this to be the most classically beautiful of the 12 scents.  It is soft and pretty, but the base notes keep it interesting on the drydown, though there is one phase that I’m not that fond of, it seems to carry too much patina? I don’t know how else to describe it.  Once that phase passes, I like it quite a lot. I could wear this one every single day.  It is smooth and elegant, but charming and interesting as you keep sniffing just a bit of skank beneath that polished surface. It is not my favorite  of the line or even in the top 6, but there is much to recommend it.

Winners of the Jules samples (thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?) — Gina, Solander and Kelly! Please Contact Us with your mailing addresses.

On MakeupAlley someone was complaining about how the fragrance bloggers were always raving about something and making it sound to-die-for, and next thing you know your MasterCard is levitating itself out of your wallet for an unsniffed buy.

She has a point. I can’t speak for the other bloggers, but as I said recently, I sniff a lot of stuff that I don’t blog on. If I don’t get some sort of reaction (positive or negative) I generally don’t blog on it, because I figure that if I’m bored writing about something, you’re probably going to be bored reading about it.

In spite of every meh vial, or the lemming that disappoints, there is occasionally the fragrance nut’s favorite scenario – you pop open a gift vial, something unexpected, something you’ve never even heard of, maybe. You have zero expectations. And you take a sniff and … the entire world recedes into the background while you stand there Having A Moment. This happened to me recently, and the culprit was Shiseido Inoui EDP.  Notes: Galbanum, Green Note, Juniper berry, Lemon, Peach, Freesia, Jasmin, Pine Needle, Thyme, Cedarwood oil, Civet, Musk, Myrrh, Oakmoss. (I am pretty sure this has been discontinued.) Anyway, Patty sent me a sample. (Which I wouldn’t be surprised to see on her Fripperies decant site. Yeah, that’s me, whoring for the Frip.)

Inoui is yet another galbanum-heavy green scent that does not horrify me, so maybe I’m coming around to that note. (Another theory is that maybe what I really hate is galbanum and LOTV together.) Inoui, once I got my mind functioning again, opens on that strong, sap-green galbanum note, followed by freesia, broadcasting “chilly” in a showy, big-sillage way. And I had just settled into that when the strong banana-jam of jasmine showed up, and boom – “warm!” While I was pondering that back-and-forth, falling deeper and deeper in love, along came that edge-of-the-forest green-herby notes (pine and thyme) and then whammo! – that killer base (oakmoss, civet, musk.) I would classify this as a floral chypre, with all the full-blown elegance that implies.

I had on 9 drops of this, and the smell of it rising up from my right wrist mesmerized me – no kidding – for an entire day. What a gift! A day to think about that kind of beauty, because Inoui manages to be that rare bird for me – a fully “adult” perfume, a drop-dead-gorgeous “perfume-y” perfume — not weird, not niche — unfurling its full glory (I’m picturing 20 yards of citron-colored silk) while at the same time not feeling ridiculously wrong on me, like I woke up in somebody else’s body. It’s a haze of lemon-green with a dark, swirling center, like one of those vaguely sexual O’Keeffe flower paintings.

The second day out I (coincidentally) took Inoui for a ride again on my right arm, and CB Cradle of Light on my left arm. Being able to alternate between the crushed-stem glory of Inoui and the musky, sexy base of Cradle was almost – but not quite – more beauty than any one person should be able to bear, and perfect for this changeable, not-quite-spring weather.

Georgia O’Keeffe, An Orchid, 1941, www.moma.org

Down my way, spring has sprung. We’ve had non-stop sunshine for four weeks now, without a drop of rain. Temperatures in the high 60s or even 70s. The local heifers chase each passer-by with the hope of a quickie but usually end up in headbutting contests or kinky play-mounting in apparent disappointment; swifts, generally expected mid-May at the earliest, are already filling the sky with their joyous swoops and ungainly wails; the hyacinths have finished blooming, replaced by the silk petals of dark-hued tulips, emerging from the lime crowns of euphorbias. It’s a wonderful time of year.

I suppose my sap is rising. I’m always tactile - at this time of year, I can’t get enough of cuddles, kisses and general loving. If that’s too much information, be not concerned, as I don’t think I’m going to turn this post into an exposé of the sex life of a rural homosexual; instead, it’s to praise long-term commitment and the beauty of love that lasts. Matt, who’s been in my life for over 15 years, is, in every clichéd sense of the word, my rock. I’ve had a crappy few years, but he’s been unfailingly supportive, generous, warm, compassionate and loving. He doesn’t always have the right words and he doesn’t always understand the inner workings of my messy mind (I don’t either): it’s not as though we’re typical soulmates. But he’s unstinting in his love. And still as frisky as a goat in April. Life’s pretty good.

Perhaps to humour my obsessive traits, Matt has now been experimenting with wearing a different one of my perfumes on a daily basis. In spite of the hyperbole of the title, there are three particular scents I own that bloom on Matt’s skin in ways that I can’t define. They’re beautiful scents, undoubtedly, but on him they take on a truly exceptional quality that is absent when I wear them. Afterwards, on me, they seem flat by comparison. Rather than being a shield or mask around him, they seem to merge with who he is as a person and make him somehow a more expansive version of himself.

The first is Poivre Samarcande. This is his superhero genius scent and emphasises his intellect, magnaminity and the damned sexiness of a superbrain at work. It’s pretty much a thinker’s ‘fume, but has enough of a peppered steak aroma and a hint of muskiness to let you know of the horned lovegod under the brainiac suit…

The second is M7 Fresh. This is his default setting. If you don’t know it, M7 Fresh tones down some of the medicinal qualities of the original, and gets rid of much of the powdery drydown. Like its forebear, it’s reasonably sweet, but with its emphasis on citric astringency and clean skin with a besmirching of dirt running through it, it won’t give you toothache. Though it might give you something else… Forgive me if I imagine Matt emerging from the sea a la Daniel Craig…

Finally, the latest discovery. He wore this to work a couple of weeks ago, with a pink shirt (icy pink, if you want to know). In this combo, I didn’t want to let him go; I had other plans. However, when he returned, he commented on how women wouldn’t leave him alone all day. He became a lovegod. I said it was probably something to do with his shirt (in the UK at least, women seem to love men in the right colour pink - I guess it’s skin tone flattering, as well as symbolically significant - or something), but he said they all unfailingly commented on his smell. It’s a scent I love, but not because it stands out. In fact, when he smells it on me, Matt’s usual response is ‘It’s ok, but I prefer other stuff. It’s not very interesting.’ Still, on Matt it’s the quintessence of beautiful. Iris, myrrh, incense, honey - it was Bois d’Argent by Christian Dior.

So tell me, which scent(s) do you love on your OH? And, if you don’t have an OH (and you so deserve one, beautiful!), how about on the imaginary (wo)man of your dreams?

Minette - you’ve won a sample of Sel de Vetiver from last time round - check your mail.

Thanks to kelimages.com for the hare photo (I love hares, don’t you?)

(images from W Magazine)

Now, I need to say right off the bat that reviewing these Tom Fords is tricky. First, there are 12 of them, which is a lot for the nose to sort through; and second, everyone has an in-built prejudice about Tom Ford… over Black Orchid or just that they think he is a media slut/darling or some other thing.  I don’t really have a strong feeling about Black Orchid or Tom Ford, I just like to see what he will do next… and I sorta wanna be that mannequin *blush*.  Come on, admit it, Tom is totally hot. Not sure what team he plays for, but I don’t really need that info for my fantasies.

My fear for these scents is that people will sniff all 12 quickly and move on, flip off the gorgeous, urbane Tom on the way out and not spend the time you need to with each one. These are well done, each very different from the other, though I did not think that as I started just sniffing the bottles, and worth close inspection, but I recommend a slow review of them for yourselves — try one or two a week or a month or a year.  I’ve been living with them for a few days now, and they grow on me as I try each one and give it the proper time to evaluate.  Now, my best guess is that most people will not find more than one or two they would want to plunk down the cash for a full bottle at the price point they are.  My belief is because I see many of the people who have been trying them gravitating to one or two scents and loving them, and they are completely different from what someone else is choosing.   If they were cheaper, $100 or less for 50 ml, my guess is a lot of people would find several worth having. Do I think they are overpriced? Sure!   Isn’t most perfume? I find the L’artisans, much as I love many of them, to be ridiculously overpriced at now $120 for 100 mls. To Tom’s credit (yeah, first-name basis *rolls eyes*), the ingredients seem to be of excellent quality — they don’t smell cheap in the least.

The 50 ml bottle is $175, which is in the same price range as the Armani Prives. They do have the much larger 250 ml bottle for $450, which is a bargain, get two! – well, relative bargain – and especially so if several people elected to split one (I probably will do a one-time bottle split later on, one at a time, after people have had a chance to try them, but I would do big splits of it only, at least a 1-2 ounces for each split, so about 65 for 1 oz and $130 for 2 oz — so don’t despair!  – hit the contact us button over on the right if you might be interested), though you will all be fighting over possessing the bottle, which is truly gorgeous — hefty, simple, classic — Tom does great bottle.  Lasting power on most of these has been quite good. Now, remember, I think four hours is perfect hang time for a scent, but I try and forget that when I comment on longevity.  The Tobacco Vanille lasted overnight on me, leaving a beautiful skin scent the next day that was enchanting — I can still smell it after 24 hours, just softer and closer to my skin – but I don’t know if that is true for all of them since I pretty much doused myself in all of them the first two days and have recently started showing some restraint and doing two at a time *squirms*.

Moss Breches — there is nothing not to love here unless you hate green notes!  Notes of fresh wood, spice, beeswax absolute, Moroccan clary sage, Hungarian tarragon, Corsican rosemary, labdanum, patchouli, benzoin. This is my favorite in the line so far because it is everyday wearable, but more particularly because I am a Green Note Ho. This feels like a green chypre from decades ago - a grown-up girl smell.  The sage and tarragon lend some zip to it so it doesn’t meander off into boring on the open. As it dries down, more of the labdanum, patch and benzoin show up to give it teeth and depth, and that’s where it captivates me completely. It is green on the open, and then turns into a wonderfully wearable and elegant woody green chypre. ’tis love.

Tobacco Vanille — I pretty much did not expect to like this one at all.  Notes of tobacco leaf, spice notes, tonka bean, tobacco flower, vanilla, cocoa, dry fruit, sweetwood sap  I hate The Nazgul (Hermessence Ambre Narguile) with a passion, and some of the notes in this sounded suspiciously like relatives. Are they?  Kinda and kinda not. There are some similarities, especially on the open, but, for me, Tobacco Vanille is a warm, fuzzy lovable Nazgul.  The tobacco, spice and tonka are pronounced and blended beautifully together to hold off the sweet vanilla, fruit and sap notes in the open, keeping them in a great tension between earthy tobacco and sweet fruity vanilla.  I was sniffing through it on tenterhooks, afraid it might go the wrong way, but no! It finds a lovely balance between the gorgeous tobacco and the other notes quickly in the drydown and truly smells like a slightly sweet pipe tobacco.  The most charming thing was how it smelled the next day, softer, warmer, richer. If you have a favorite memory in your life of a beloved that smelled like rich pipe tobacco (my dad did), you will adore this smell. You may adore it even without this memory, but this is a scent I’ll happily curl up with any time, it gives me a wonderful hug.  Men or women should feel perfectly at home in this.

Currently, all of these are available from Bergdorf Goodman in NYC. I recommend the lovely Helga at 212-872-2581. 

UPDATE MONDAY A.M.: we had the mother of all windstorms last night, 60 mph winds, power down all around D.C., my area (north) is gridlock due to downed trees.  I, your faithful Scent Slut, drove, parked, and hoofed it the rest of the way to my local WiFi hotspot, where I fought for a seat and am blogging until the power goes out again or the signal goes down (which seems to be happening.)  I’ll get on here today as I can, hoping in the next 24 - 48 hrs they can get the power back on in our neighborhood… okay, here’s the post:

I need to get this off my chest. If you come back on Thursday, I’ll have a really friendly post on a lovely fragrance I’ve been wearing.

Q. How is eBay like a whorehouse?

A. There are so very many, many ways to get screwed.

I’ve been reading threads and following theories and pondering for days, ever since eBay started booting some of its fragrance decanters and Basenotes followed suit because they figured maybe they were next. There’s talk of the pressure, the intense pressure, manufacturers must be exerting on eBay – the teams of rabid lawyers crawling up their nether parts, threatening them with expensive lawsuits pressure pressure pressure

Yo – you cowboys running eBay – show me. Show me the letter threatening legal action. Because I would LOVE to know who’s leaning on you.

Let’s PRETEND … for one second … that it’s Chanel’s lawyers who’ve been nosing around in the Whorehouse. Riddle me this, Batman: why isn’t Chanel demanding that they end the sale of all the truckloads of counterfeit Chanel goods on eBay? The poorly quilted logo purses, the faux scarves, the bogus jewelry, the fake bottles of perfume (there are 148 bottles of Chanel Allure on there right now, and how much of it is counterfeit?), manufactured in Taiwan or Pyongyang or wherever – how did Chanel’s crack legal team fail to notice all that stuff?

My guess is the general response from the eBay cowboys is – hey — they have no control over the vast, unending sea of counterfeit Chanel goods on their website. I mean, they can’t be checking every label on every (obviously fake) $90 quilted handbag to see if it’s obviously fake, right? They’d have to get up from the poker game to do that, and somebody might steal some of their chips! Hey, you’re in the Whorehouse! You decided to come in, sucker! Anyway, they’ve graciously allowed people to set up loooong photo-filled articles giving hot tips on how to avoid fakes, but beyond that they can’t have done much, so far as I can tell, to try to stem that particular tide.

Because think of the money they’d lose!!! Balenciaga Le Dix handbags by the dozen – fake! Enough David Yurman necklaces for every ladies’ bridge club in the entire state of Connecticut – bogus! Knockoff Kate Spade! Chanel and Armani and Gucci and Louis Vuitton this and that and the other, below a certain price point and being sold by a volume seller, and you have two options: it’s stolen, or it’s fake. And the owners of the Whorehouse know that. And Chanel and Gucci and Balenciaga and Armani and everyone else knows it too.

Somebody complains, and the owners of the Whorehouse put down their cards and whiskey for a minute, reach down, grab a big ol’ handful of their cojones, and … ban decanting? Thank God. Protecting the Iowa housewives from themselves! Their poor purchasing decisions! Saving them the pain of smelling Black Orchid!

Who threatened eBay? I did get a lame email back from the Whorehouse, in response to my question as to why they’re booting the decanters. It was totally vague, didn’t mention VeRO, and directed me (via a link) to their list of banned items – a list that covers explosives, kidneys and rattlesnakes, but does not reference fragrance samples. My guess is it’s a freestanding fragrance manufacturer (why the big guns at places like Chanel aren’t raising hell with eBay baffles me, but that’s another topic.) Let’s be hypothetical – let’s say it’s… oh … to pluck two names completely from the air – let’s say it’s Bond and Philosophy, both outfits that have reputations for protecting their perceived rights fairly aggressively. Well, if they threatened eBay, I think eBay should have done what it did with the people selling Bare Escentuals – it should have sent out an email to the decanters and named the threatening outfit, saying they were demanding sales discontinue for that particular brand. Then everybody wins. The folks at eBay cover their asses; the complaining company is happy; the decanters are still in business; and … we know exactly which lines are complaining. Heh heh. And that is a piece of information I would really, really love to have. Because I would be more than happy to never, ever buy from whoever is complaining, if I could manage it, because I wouldn’t want to bump my sweet-smelling rumpus up against their property rights.

This post was supposed to be funnier – I wanted it to be funny – but instead it’s mostly angry and sad, just like me. Some of the most beautiful things I have ever smelled, and I will never own a bottle of, came from eBay decants. Unless you’re a hardcore collector willing to shell out some serious money, how else do you get a taste of the vintages, like Guerlain Djedi or Coty Chypre? Rare Shiseidos? Patou Ma Collection? There’s only so many vintage Baccarat flacons to go around, and eBay hooked you up. And how about the current stuff you can’t get here except maybe in New York or L.A.? The Caron urns? The non-export Serge scents? Taking access to that kind of beauty away from people isn’t just wrong. It’s criminal.

When I was a newbie, before I had Patty, my fragrance angel and total enabler, I got almost everything from eBay decanters. I’d been lurking the blogs for awhile, and one of my most joy-filled fragrant moments was when I realized – hey! I can buy samples of all this crazy stuff on eBay! I bought samples by the fistful from Diane (Dragonfly) because I liked the way her store was organized. Buying a sample of Etro Messe de Minuit on eBay was how I met Patty. Even now I buy (sorry, bought) the occasional decant from eBay because, impossible as it seems, there are still one or two bottles of fragrance that Patty doesn’t personally own.

Have I mentioned how much it chafes me that decanters — the people who are, with a couple of exceptions, actually selling genuine samples of the fragrances instead of counterfeit bottles — are the ones being booted under some sort of bullshit “counterfeit” claim? And, of course, booting them won’t cut down on eBay’s cashflow in any noticeable way. Don’t worry, shareholders – it’s not like they decided to do anything about the massive bogus-product business in the Whorehouse! I don’t know who pointed a pistol in their direction, although I’d love to. What is it that made their ninny legal department nervous? I guess I should be grateful I still can’t buy dynamite and kiddie porn on there.

I love the Whorehouse, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some fun times there, even when I’ve gotten screwed. I’ve always respected, in some weird way, the combination of ad hoc democracy and lawlessness that exists there. Decanters on eBay have been part of that ride; today, in their honor, I’m going to wear something a little sad – maybe Serge Lutens Encens et Lavande, from their non-export line. It’s a really beautiful scent. And unless you live in Paris, good luck finding that from anyone other than a decanter.

Clint Eastwood: cyber-cinema.com

By now most of you have heard that eBay is or has shut down decant and perhaps sample sales. For those of you wondering where to spend your sample/decant dollars, you can go hit my Fragrant Fripperies store or e-mail eBay sellers for now.  In the future…

Dragonfly, Fishbone, Fleur-de-Lisa and Fragrant Fripperies are pleased to announce they are creating a joint perfume decant and sample sales website store opening late May 2007. If you would like to be on the mailing list for news and announcements, please e-mail theperfumedcourt@gmail.com

This venture started several months ago, it just wasn’t quite complete yet — it is a very complex bit of programming to set up a website for multiple sellers.  We do not know at this time if we will be expanding it to include more sellers – that will depend on the complexity and cost, of course.  

Also, you can contact these decant and sample sellers to get lists and prices of what they have available. If anyone is currently an established but displaced eBay decant/sample seller and you would like your name and e-mail address or website address on that list, let me know. I have set up a permanent link to it on the left hand side along with the other contact info.  I do highly recommend Yahoo small business stores. I don’t use them, not for any compelling reason that I can recall, but they have a starter plan for $26 a month for two months, then it goes to $39. For any ebay seller that was doing much business at all, that’s way less than ebay fees, they are way more configurable, you can set the store up to take just paypal if you don’t want to bother with a merchant account, and if you let me know your link, I’ll link you here and at my store as well.  Perfumidarity! 

No one is entirely certain why eBay decided to do this, but it is likely due to some perfume companies that asserted their VeRO rights (Verified Rights Owner), ignoring the fact that people are allowed to resell anything they buy. If they weren’t, you might as well shut down all the used car lots and pawn shops and all of eBay today.  However, as the third party in this, they get the threats without having any control of what their sellers are actually doing. I can’t say I blame them, but eBay is not a stable business model for anyone to build their entire business on. They have shut down a lot of other sellers in the past.  If there are any intellectual property lawyers out there that would be willing to give some little advice, let me know.

Tom Ford is a genius. First,the bottles for the new Private Blends are seriously gorgeous. This guy knows bottles. They have the same covered box that the Chanels had, but they are dark gray with the gold labels. You pull off the top of the box, and inside sits the black bottle, looks a little like an apothecary bottle — a somewhat phallic bottle — and truly gorgeous.  

The eBay stuff distracted me from my mission of exploring these, but since I won’t have smelled them all until later today, I wanted to wait regardless and do two or three at a time. There are some winners and some meh, but I have a feeling some of my mehs will be someone else’s winner — Noir de Noir’s boozy note doesn’t work for me, but the boozy note lovers will likely rejoice.  There are some that are remarkbly close to other scents that are well loved like Vetiver Tonka, Ambre Sultan.  But each of them are enough different that these don’t feel like a mess where you can’t tell one from another.  Regardless, it will be fun to go through them!

For whatever reason, we are all over the map today. Dig in.

Armani Attitude, new for men. The SA at Bloomingdales seemed genuinely alarmed that I was actually trying this on, which happens to me occasionally. (Do most women stick to sniffing the caps in the men’s department?) Notes are: Calabria lemon, coffee, cardamom, lavender, cedar, patchouli. I’ve stuck in a photo to the left because the bottle’s so great – like a giant Bic lighter. The scent is … vaguely familiar? (Ralph Lauren, call your lawyers! Comparison notes for Double Black: mango, pepper, coffee, nutmeg, cardamom, woods, juniper). Okay, kidding, don’t call your lawyers. But there’s the resemblance you’d expect from two men’s scents with strong spiced coffee notes. I like Double Black better (that mango is brilliant), and my guess is nobody’s going to be yammering about how fabulous Attitude is – it’s not interesting or weird enough (for that, see my next review of the new Gaultier.) But if you nuzzled the neck of that fine-looking dude standing next to you in the bar, and he was wearing this confection, I think you’d be pleased. On the other hand, what would you think if he were wearing …

Gaultier Fleur du Male? Would you ask him to show his man card? Seriously, this is begging the question. Fleur’s notes are orange blossom, petitgrain, coumarin and “fern accord,” and it makes Gaultier Le Male, which I love, look butch by comparison. Le Male and Fleur share a whiff of that compelling vanilla-amber-sex base that is the entirety of Gaultier2, actually. (Note to fragrance twin Elle: I saw your comment on Kevin’s Le Male post on NST, and you might try Le Male, and Gaultier2 if you haven’t. Gaultier2 also needs a very light hand, but the oil is fabulous.) Fleur is, to me, pretty much 98% about the Orange Blossom – the sweet, powdery orange bit, and the indolic bit as well. The bottle is white and shiny and gorgeous and Ken-doll-like and – fine, I’ll say it – I cannot imagine anyone other than a gay man (or a woman), not even the most metro of metrosexuals, picking that thing up.

An aside: the Big Cheese took Buckethead, our four-year-old boy, to preschool last week, and Buckethead was wearing a dress, not because the Cheese was making a statement about gender roles, or because he’s getting his son in touch with his feminine side, but because – hey, the kid and his twin sister Hecate wanted to wear matching dresses. (He took Buckethead, who was wearing a tutu, to ballet class last year without batting an eye. Buckethead was the only boy, and he wanted to prance around in a tutu and slippers like everyone else. This is what happens when you’re born into a girl-centric household, and I have some excellent photos to prove it.) But when I asked the Cheese about the original Le Male bottle, he raised an eyebrow and grinned at me. He’s pretty sure that whatever’s in that man-torso isn’t for him, and given the gay-sailor ads (am I misreading that?) I can’t say he’s wrong. A shout-out to our male readers playing for all teams: How do you feel about those bottles? Ladies – would you buy it for your man, if you have one? Kevin says the straight guys are definitely wearing it…

Balmain Jolie Madame (new EDT) – gardenia, artemisia, bergamot, coriander, neroli, jasmine, tuberose, rose, jonquil, orris, patchouli, oakmoss, vetiver, musk, castoreum, leather, civet. This starts off as a pretty, almost face-powdery scent that is worlds away from the leathery carnality of the vintage Jolie Madame parfum. I have no idea what folks who really know about the scent would feel about the current iteration (probably nothing good), but it still is far more appealing to me than most of what’s on the shelf at Sephora. The violet-powdery notes at the opening disappear in the first 10 – 15 minutes on me, and then we’re onto something closer to what I think of as the right smell – still plenty of bottom, if you catch my drift, along with just enough rose/orris to evoke a floral note. Leather ladies – weigh in here. Because I’ve been pondering, and it seems to me that the leather in Jolie and, say, Bandit work so beautifully precisely because of that floral counterpoint. Leather alone is elegant, yes, like SMN Peau d’Espagne, and I can adore it without quite reaching the same level of sensual arousal. There is something inherently shocking about leathery and floral notes in the same fragrance that make them particularly appealing to me. Men can (and should) wear Jolie Madame.

Hampton Sun Privet Bloom – notes are: privet flowers, muguet, jasmine, linden, gardenia, orangeflower, dune rose, driftwood and sun-warmed musk, designed to capture “the purity and elegance of summers in the Hamptons.” It’s time for a company to issue a fragrance that conjures up “the beautiful beaches of Eastern Long Island.” Alas, Privet Bloom is not that scent. Instead, it evokes for me the interior of the Crabtree & Evelyn store at the mall, perhaps the shelf space between Nantucket Briar and Summer Hill, assuming they could tone Privet Bloom down a bit. A powerful mélange of LOTV, jasmine and musk that sent me sprinting for the shower. I’m still waiting for someone to do Nantucket Idyll (notes of sea salt, sand, sunscreen, scrub rose, cranberry bog and vodka tonics on the beach at dusk, with a drydown of the scent of the sunwarmed skin of a small child cradling a handful of shells.)

Addendum: The folks at Hampton Sun graciously sent me this sample, and I’m guessing they weren’t looking for me to piss all over it. It’s not like I’m awash in company freebies either, and now nobody’ll ever send me anything again. I suppose the gracious thing to do would be to say nothing. Instead I’ll point out here that Colombina gave it a very nice review, and if you read my posts so you can avoid what I like, because you think I’m an idiot, and/or you like what Colombina likes, and those notes sound nice to you, well … then you should try it.

Comme de Garcons original parfum - cardamom, coriander, geranium, nutmeg, cinnamon bark, clovebud, labdanum, styrax, cedarwood, cut hay, olibanum, black pepper, sandalwood, rose, honey. Weird. A nose-bomb of sweat-smell that suddenly morphs into Christmas (if you celebrated it on another planet), and then back toward the pepper and sandalwood, then spicy geranium, and then … you get the picture. This thing will not sit still. It’s a ride, not a fragrance, and I’m in no hurry to get off. I think it would annoy the hell out of me on a day I wanted a wallpaper scent, but if you don’t have anything else to do besides sniff yourself every 15 minutes and grin at the ever-changing scenery, you should definitely give it a whirl.

le male poster: parfumini.net; armani attitude image swiped from eBay because, interestingly, I can’t find it on any of their official websites, and where’s the big advertising rollout a la Armani Code, anyway?  Did Armani forget they released a new fragrance?

Welcome, fellow perfume aisle cruisers. This time round, we’re doing the do on two CB I Hate Perfume scents, Violet Empire and Patchouli Empire. Lee’s particularly excited, as these are no longer available anywhere, as far as he’s aware, in the UK (tell him if he’s wrong).

Let’s start with the patch:

March: Well… um …. er. Huh. You know how predisposed I was to like this, given how much I like the CB oeuvre. And this one… is the first CB I don’t like. I suppose it had to happen eventually, didn’t it? It doesn’t smell terrible. Or even bad. It just smells weird to me, musty and medicinal, and I’m racking my brain because it reminds me of some sort of treatment from my childhood, but I can’t remember what. One of those herbal wart removers with thujone in it? Dr. Scholls Moleskin? Absorbine Jr. (hey, anyone remember that?) If I smelled it in the co-op, between the Rain and the Kush, I wouldn’t buy it. It dries down into an almost minty patch. It’s not rough and sultry enough to be my hippie love juice — it’s faux hippie oil, younger and cleaner. It reminds me of those adorable kids up there. They could wear this. You fans please comment and ’splain what I’m missing.

Patty: I’m not going to say “don’t like.” Given my deep Love for Christopher, I’ll just use the strongest language I can… um, it’s not me, unless I grew my armpit hair and picked up a ukelele and started singing folks songs. For patchouli lovers? Yes, maybe, and it does layer great with a lot of other scents. It is pretty, um, strong. Er. Can I just say here how much I love the Le Labo Patchouli?

Lee: This smells like something made by a loose-limbed, hale and hearty, macrobiotic natural perfumer, and if that sounds insulting to anyone, I don’t mean it to. Honest. Mr / Ms Hale and Hearty also has a bong stashed somewhere that s/he likes giving a good go when no-one’s around. Man, this is a tenacious fella (must be the absolute Patty’s given me a sample of) and to me at least, purely for patch lovers. It smells high quality and rough at the same time. I don’t think I like it - I don’t mind rough, and I enjoy high quality, but generally as separates rather than holding hands: I don’t know whether to make polite chit-chat or get raunchy. And now I need to sniff Wild Pansy.

And now onto the Violet:

Patty: It starts off different from any other violet scent I’ve smelled. But it has everything around the violets thrown in, leaves, sticks, dirt, wood. Just when you are thinking it’s the furthest thing from a violet, they peep their little heads up and wave and blow kisses. Never sweet, just gentle and beautiful. I tried layering this over the Patchouli, and the Patchouli reared back and ate all the little violets and their friends. It was ugly, I’m still weeping.

Lee: This is spring sap encapsulated. I was sowing seeds today, and if i’d have thunk properly, I’d have worn this, as it probably would have encouraged rapid germination. The violets are there, but not in any pronounced way (I have to sniff quite closely to get them); mainly it’s the earth coming to life once more. It’s quite a fragile, ethereal thing, like the violet itself I guess (though they’re actually like weeds round here…). Very clean, very pure, very beautiful.

March: Okay, this pretty much exemplifies what I worship about CB. I am there in my garden — my gloves are damp from the warm, moist dirt, there are crushed stems under my knees, and I have picked a nosegay of violets to sniff because I am sitting in the sun, and life cannot get much better. Violet Empire is more leaf and less dirt; in particular, it is missing the earthy chill of Black March (for those of you who find that one a bit crypt-keeper.) VE is such an unusual rendering of violets — it’s not as sharp or bitter-green as, say, Annick Goutal Violette, but it’s not some candied-violet deal like Berdoues Violettes de Toulouse either. I put this on this morning and ran stupid, boring errands all day long in a state of bliss. Like his other absolutes, this one has excellent lasting power on me.

image: protesters, 2005: carcosa.net

Quite simply, this is the most fun I have had by myself since the days of Lancer. It comes in a gorgeous silver case, looks like a flatter metal train case, and inside are 40 essences in bottles, from iris to civet to labdanum, etc.  You have the little booklet that tells you about each, where it comes from, etc., and the bottles are numbered so you can look up which one is which. (picture is from Le Labo)

The fun is in figuring it out.  Now, I have always been up front that my ability to pick out notes is pretty iffy.  Most times, I can get some of the big ones like iris or patchouli or ones I hate, but most of the time I know it’s familiar, but I can’t quite place it somewhere.  Also, when you put them on the tester strips, like the civet, which smells rank enough in the bottle, let that baby dry out a bit, and we cleared the room with it.  Excellent!

With the Olfactionary, I am slowly learning to have my nose match up the note with the smell, and I can spend hours playing this Smell Match Game… dipping some in, letting them dry and then sniffing again. Identification of notes is one of those things you can learn, though I think some people possess the ability naturally and are leaps and bounds ahead of where I shall ever be, but for those of us that struggle greatly and want to learn more, this is an excellent learning tool. Now, it is also a very, very expensive learning tool.  If there is one thing I would beg Le Labo to do is to find a way to condense this kit to smaller bottles, less cool container, so it would be easier and a little less expensive to procure for most everyone. It is $490 for the kit.  For me, it is worth every penny, but it would be nice if it were much more accessible. 

BTW, I’ve gotten the notepads done, and they are up for sale here for $6.99 each, there are 50 sheets per notepad.  I wish I had a better price point, but unless I order in HUGE quantities and because we use our own artwork, they aren’t cheap to get done.  If a bunch get sold, enough that I feel okay about ordering in larger quantities, I may be able to bring the price down. Now I’m working on the coffee mugs!!! 

P.S.S. — Bergdorf is shipping the Tom Ford Private Blends today. For those of you wanting a bottle, call Helga at 212-872-2581, she’ll hook you right up.  They are $175 for 50 ml and $450 for 250 ml (not sure about that amount or price on the larger bottle, but it’s close).  For those of you that did the pre-order of the samples with Diane and me, we are hoping we can still get them in the mail yet this week and back out to you. For those of you that were waiting until they were here… well, they’re here!!  I can’t wait to get my nose on them.  Love, hate, indifferent, don’t care, I have to smell what Tom has been up to in his laboratory.  Also, we did start offering the sample set in the 1/2 ml size so it’s not quite as pricey, though the 1 ml is a better deal.  Individual samples and decants will be available probably yet this week.

To those of you who believe in the Bunny: Happy Post-Easter! Are you still coming down off that sugar high? One too many marshmallow peeps? I thought we’d ease into something gentle and light-hearted today while we get ourselves settled down: the Crazy Libellule and the Poppies Shanghaijava collection, available at b-glowing.com and lacremebeauty.com.

I know, I know. Everybody’s moved on to their Divine Alcoves scents and those new vanilla ones, neither collection containing much that interests me. But I can’t help but notice that, as I ponder the merits of some vintage parfum or other rare find, nibbling my nose candy, working on two or three separate ideas for Posse posts at the same time, stalking the mailman, opening packages and popping vials, the Shanghaijavas sitting on my bedside table continue to get regular use by the many females in my house, including me. They’re all cute, small, solid stick perfumes and great for travel, leaving in the purse, etc. Here they are, briefly, for any of you who haven’t stumbled across these yet and are aching for something in the $16 price range, in order of my personal preference (favorite first):

Musc & Patchouli (bergamot, musk, patchouli) Haha, tricked you! Okay, the Encens is a veeeery close second. But this thing…. It’s a comfort scent, the patch is very mild. It manages to be very, very pleasing to me as a background scent, on days when I want something gentle, without being the least bit boring, and that is an exceedingly hard target to hit so far as I am concerned.

Encens Mystic (clove, cedar, incense, myrrh, benzoin, musk, patchouli, vanilla) This one has been blogged about extensively by others, and I’m not sure I can add anything original. It’s somewhere between, say, Comme de Garcons Zagorsk and Kyoto to me, only a bit sweeter. Yeah, the fact that I’m using two CdGs as a reference point for a $16 twist-up solid amuses me, too. It has less sillage, but it’s still surprisingly wafty once it warms up on my skin.

Blue Orchidee (bergamot, mandarin, orange, jasmine, rose, ylang, sandalwood, vanilla, musk) Is this breaking some amazing new ground? No, except in the sense that I can’t believe they can make a $16 fragrance smell this good. No, there’s no blue orchid in it. I’m a little embarrassed about how much I like this one. I’m telling myself it’s the jasmine.

Lilas Spiritual (clove, lilac, lily of the valley, vanilla) Doesn’t that sound scary? I have no idea why it works, but it does. I get a fairly natural-smelling lilac rather than a Glade vibe, with a pinch of spice.

Litchi Blossom (litchi, geranium, rose, mint) A straightforward, sweet-tart fruit fragrance I’d probably like more if lychee weren’t in half the mass-market fragrances available right now. Like the Demeter Lychee, there’s something in there that doesn’t thrill me, and I’m not sure what it is (like cherry cough syrup?). Sorry I can’t be more specific.

Ananas Imperial (orange, lemon, citron and grapefruit, pineapple, blackcurrant, peach; and base notes of jasmine, cedar, musk) This one is fine. It smells mostly of pineapple to me, and is a little sweeter than I’d like, but it’s still nice. The girls love it.

Ginger & Coconut (citronella, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon, cumin, curry, coconut milk, cedar, amber, sandalwood, vanilla) This is the only one of these I didn’t like. It doesn’t smell bad; it smells like a bowl of Trader Joe’s Indian Curry, something I like to eat but not to wear.

Jules update: with some fear in my heart I ordered a bottle of the phenomenal, hard-to-find Jules off the 1stperfume website, which has (for reasons that are a mystery to me) a great deal on a specific bottle of the fragrance – 3.4 oz. marked down from $250 to $78. I was thrilled when it showed up a week later. I was less thrilled when I first smelled it – it’s gorgeous, but it’s much more leathery than Lee’s sample. Ordina