By Ann

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve been trying to revisit some of the things I already have and have re-fallen in love with this one.  Back in Sept. of 09 I wrote it was “a super-suave combo of the galbanum and the mandarin with tobacco, with the flowers peeping up later before settling into the animal notes and the hay-like coumarin. On me it’s not so dirty, but decidedly sexy in a your-skin-but-better kind of way: as elegant as a Savile Row Suit with a bit of retro-smokiness”

The notes for “Wilde” are listed as “Galbanum, Red Mandarin, Violet, Rose, Night Jasmine, Blond Tobacco, Oakmoss, Coumarin, Musk, Civet and Ambergris”.  It also has incredible lasting power; easily 24 hours and works in both heat and chill (we’re getting both right now, 80 in the day and 50 in the evening).

Best of all, it’s still only $50 for an ounce of Eau de Parfum, at their website.  I love finding something new, but in this economy it’s nice to rediscover something that’s already in the house, and if I didn’t have this one, at this price it would be a guilt-free indulgence.

So what if anything in your cupboard have you rediscovered lately?  Let us know in the comments.

My review is from the bottle I purchased.  Image from Opus Oils

I think I have a couple of giveaways to catch up on.

First, the six winners of the Harvey Prince fragrances, and I’ll send these out randomly just by grabbing one from the box:  Lisa S, Suzy Q, bookhouseshell, tika, Antje and rosarita.  Just click on the Contact Us over there on the left, send me your address, remind me that you won one of the Harvey Prince minis, and I’ll get it shipped out to you!

Then I had 4 Cartier Convoitee samples I was giving out from the week before.  So same instructions as above for these four commenters:  Fearsmice, Cheryl, Barbara and EileenS.

I know y’all are getting ready to do that SwampMania thing.  No, I didn’t spell that incorrectly.  It’s just not for me. I used to swap on MUA and BN years ago, but the bad experiences and volume of people wanting to swap run of the mill department/discount perfumes for hard to get, expensive, never discounted scents was just daunting. Worse yet, I had specific things on my wishlist that I wanted to swap for but continued to get the “hey, look at my  list and tell me what you’d swap for your ridiculouslypriceddiscontinuedraredoblisdawemesqueirisgris thing.”  I’m too nice for swapping, I hated to say no, but to get even close to the correct value, I would have needs a couple of body parts in addition to their ENTIRE swaplist just to make it come out somehow.

So I gave it up and shut down all swapping forever.  Then there was the splits. Most of the time, they went great, and I’d probably do one again if anyone could ever get us a cheap bottle of one of those Guerlain rarities that comes in large vats that begs to be split.  My favorite split story was a Caron split, and I got a message back that one of the splitters really didn’t like the fragrance and wanted to return it for a refund.  Huh.  Well, no.

No SwampMania for me, but I admire y’all that do that.  Now, I am going to add a note that March probably covers, but someone e-mailed me about.  If you swap for a fragrance and for some reason the fragrance you were sending in the swap becomes unavailable because of breakage or something wrong with it, don’t guilt your swappee into taking something they don’t really want so you can keep The Precious. If you want it that bad, and they don’t want something else you have, just offer to pay them the going rate for it or send it back and cry yourself to sleep over the loss.  If you’ve been using it with wild abandon and have to send it back, do offer to compensate them for what you have used if it’s beyond just a couple of sprays.  The best rule I have, make sure the entire swap is complete and both parties say they are happy before you open and start using.

But I started thinking, if I were to swap, what would I want and what would I swap some of my most precious lovelies for, like the Parfum Sacre extrait and Chaos parfum and Doblis? Some of that latest uber-dollar Guerlain thing that was in that gorgeous big bee bottle (shaped like a bee, not their normal bottle they call a bee bottle) that I sniffed in Paris in November.  More Quand Vient La Pluie in the parfum. I have some EDP, which is great, but I looooooved that parfum.   I’m sure there are some other rarities out there that I’d swap for, but not that many.

I remember when I first swapped, I was delighted to trade off my unloved bottle of Fracas for a teeny sample or decant of Serge. Those were heady days, the thrill of the hunt. Tubereuse Criminelle was the most elusive. I think it was Marina or Victoria (Perfume Smellin Things and  Bois de Jasmin) that were the saints I got that from. I would stalk the MUA lists daily, looking at what they had, what they wanted, working deals to get something they wanted, just to get a sniff of it.

Don’t judge, you know you’ve been in that jonesin’ perfume gutter with me.  So your most valued treasure, what would it take to pry a small amount of it out of your hands?

Patty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Musette

So……I’m still having sinii issues but the saline flushes are helping a lot.  Forget the neti pot.  Since my biggest problem is the post-nasal ickola, I just snort the stuff like a walrus, to clear out all that schtuff!   TMI, I’m soooo sure but, hey!  y’all are family and family gets to share the good, the bad and the goober.

Perfumes are still a bit weird, with the exception of some heavy hitters like Carnal Flower and Tribute Attar, both of which could blast through the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.  The heavier Amouages and Malles have withstood this long sinus siege – my biggest fear is that, in my altered state, I might’ve terrified some Uninitiated with an over-application.  Nobody’s keeled over, so far….

But we’re not here to talk about nasal ick.  Or over-application of the big guns.  We’re here to talk about Candles! which is something I normally don’t go on about, as they usually aggravate my sinuses.  But you all know my love for the Malles.  And he has three new ones.  Let’s start with Marius and Jeannette:  sunny days at a sidewalk cafe in St Tropez.  Or Choo-Choo Charlie.  Much depends upon your frame of reference.  I barely get to Chicago these days, let alone the South of France, so Good ‘n Plenty must be my immediate memory trigger.  Doesn’t matter, both are fun though the idea of sitting in the South of France AND eating Good ‘n Plenty would set me up just fine… ….anyhoo…Marius and Jeannette is one of the new Malle candles. I don’t know if he is referencing the film or the restaurant (or both) and I don’t care.   It’s a blast!  Really.  There’s no other way to describe it.  First sniff conjures up a hot, sunny day (anywhere – doesn’t matter) and a cool, refreshing Pastis, the ubiquitous anise drink of the Riviera.  Bruno Jovanovic created this (and the two below) for Malle’s Editions de Parfums and I must say I’m a bit surprised, given that I’m not a fan of the perfumes I associate with him (Lady Million? Blue Rush?) – but perhaps his previous clients have not allowed his talent to transcend their marketing briefs.   He’s fortunate that Malle has no one to please but himself and has such discerning taste and appreciation for the perfumers’ art and talent.  Under M. Malle’s aegis Bruno Jovanovic has created, in these candles, some truly remarkable scents.  I actually got the giggles! with Marius & Jeannette!  Fizzy, floral licorice, with a hint of salt-tinged citrus for that sunny sunny, summer day!  Man, I sure could use one of those right now.

Chez Monsieur.  M. Malle has long averred that home fragrances aren’t and shouldn’t be sexy (taking this right from the charming new brochure, though I have also heard him say it directly).  I’m not exactly sure what he means by that, as I would happily scent my home with Carnal Flower, which I consider to be tres sexy!  But he goes on to say that ” the scent of a men’s den is a slight exception to this rule, as one feels, when smelling it, the presence of its proprietor amongst the precious woods, tobacco and books.”

Obviously he has never been to my house.  El O and the dogs own-occupy the den.  The scents of those proprietors, relaxing in all their Guy Glory, is…well, it’s worlds away from the dens of M. Malle’s milieu.  I like his version better – and I know what he means.  Anybody who has ever had an elegant man wrap his coat or jacket around you (think Thomas Crown at the Met, with whatshername, when he plays her with the keys – remember that? )….that frisson when the aura of ‘male’ meets its complement – I suspect that is what M. Malle is referencing.  And he got it totally right in Chez Monsieur.   I think of this as a decidedly urbane scent – I can’t imagine having this candle in my house – it’s not fabulous enough (the house, I mean).  Really!  This is has a very elegant, metropolitan feel to it – or, perhaps the country house library of a sophisticated man who knows himself.  Hearty country squires and arrivistes need not apply.  This is probably the first of M. Malle’s candles that is aspirational in tone (I find all the others ‘friendlier’ in tone).   If I ever get back to civilization I will put this candle in my library.

Notre Dame left me cold.  Not its fault.  Mine.  I was convent raised.  BVM nuns, the meanest in the land.   I am lapsed to within an inch of my life.  Cathedrals give me hives.  Somebody with fewer issues with the Catholic Church will have to revisit this one.  I got a whiff of gorgeous frankincense before I veered away from the candle’s austere chilliness.   But here’s a fun fact:  Frederic Malle was an altarboy!  See?  The things you learn on the Posse!

I forgot to get the persack prices for these three but Malle candles run from $80 – $140 so fall in love accordingly.  When I have this sort of Discretionary Simoleanism again I will probably indulge in this line – they are on par with other niche candle lines, they are incredibly well-crafted and – most important – they don’t make my sinuses ache.  Hat Trick for Musette!

photo of Pastis Marius tray: courtesy my-french-neighbor.com

drawings, courtesy  Frederic Malle brochure – aren’t they adorable?