Stegner has a book called The Angle of Repose. I used to misread it all the time as Angel of repose, which really makes no sense. A friend of mine insisted I read it… and I did, muttering and cursing her all the way through. Before I continue on, you must know, if you haven’t figured it out already, that I’m quite shallow. I don’t say that out of some misguided sense of humility or hoping someone will argue with me, I’ve just accepted it after many years of wishing I weren’t. A couple of decades ago, it did cross my mind that I should read more great literature and poetry, and I did try for a couple of years to cover some more highbrow literary and theatrical territory. This phase of my life coincided with the days of being a young mother, when I was also a pretentious, in sufferable twit.
As the years passed, I simply stopped fighting my shallowness and embraced it as a perfectly okay state of being. So let me save you hundreds of pages of descriptions of the West and mines from Stegner’s book and tell you what it’s about. In engineering, there is a term called the angle of repose. It refers to rock on a hillside. That as you heap it up, it keeps rolling down. You can push it back up, and it will keep rolling down, until you finally get to the angle where it will rest and stop moving downward. The book applies, beautifully, I might add, this engineering term to life, but it doesn’t happen until you are about 400 pages in and about 30 pages away from the end. When the explanation for why you have wasted a week or two of your life on this book comes, it’s done perfectly. While I’m sure it was necessary to read all those other pages, I’m still a little bitter that I did. Each of us fights our way or gets pushed uphill for much of our life, and we keep rolling back, and upwards we go, sometimes higher, sometimes not so high. All of us eventually find our angle of repose, the place where we are at rest and are not required to be more than what we are. It’s a book everyone should read by the time they turn 40. Accepting your own limitations and finding a resting place to live is essential to happiness and contentment. It’s okay to be a shallow flibbertygibbet like me as long as you try to be the best one you can be.
Having said all that, from time to time I still get pushed up the hill at more serious movies and reading. I can certainly handle it intellectually, but I’m much more interested in being entertained than challenged. Thinking deep thoughts occupied me for the first 30 years of my life, and I’m quite weary of my own thoughts. This also happened during the year I spent in therapy many, many years ago. About six months in, I was just tired of hearing myself talk about myself, so we spent the next 3-4 months talking about religion and politics, etc., until it occurred to me I could get good conversation from my friends for the price of a beer instead of $100 an hour.
So when I see a serious movie or book that does it for me, you’ll know that it is serious while also being compelling. Into Great Silence is one of those. It follows Carthusian monks at work, play, sleep, prayer. Whether you are religious won’t matter. It is the silence and spareness of this movie that haunts you. It is gorgeously filmed, no background music save for the wonderful chanting, no voiceovers, no entertainment, no laugh tracks, no jokes. It is elegant in its simplicity and surprisingly compelling to watch, even with no plot to follow except… these are lives of simplicity and prayer, and there have been hundreds or thousands of lives that have done this same thing in this same place for 900 years.
Vero Profumo Onda and Guerlain Djedi are almost a dead-on match, as Carmencanada told me more than once. So for anyone who was looking for Djedi and not wanting to fork over the $800 and up per bottle that it’s been going for on eBay, just head on over to Vero Profumo and pick up a bottle of the parfum for $230 for 1/2 ounce. Vetiver, ginger, coriander and mace are the notes in Onda. There are some differences. Djedi goes off with a little greenish leather, and Onda settles into a spicy, more earthy leather, warmer. Both great scents. Now if we could just get Vero or Andy to work on making us something like Iris Gris? There are two other perfumes in the line, which I hope to do a review on next week.
A note that all of these were sampled by spraying. I have noted frequently that whether you spray or dab does sometimes make a big difference in how you perceive the scent. Not sure why, but I know it is true. Things I have hated dabbed, I loved sprayed, and vice versa. sometimes it’s worth getting those little PUR sprayers and throwing a sample you’re not sure of in there. I put all my dabbing samples in the sprayers now.
Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°8 is described as a “velvet violet, a sophisticated iris, a revery, a burst of laughing.” That’s actually not a bad description. It is as smooth as silk, with a little rooty, dough-like iris frollicking through it. It’s not too sweet, and it’s not too dry. The longer this dries down, it starts to remind me a bit of Iris Gris. IG is sweeter, but in the drydown there is a feel that is similiar, with IG being warmer and 8 being chillier. 8 has a pastry feel to it more like Iris Ganache. Like a cross between Iris Gris and Iris Ganache. Can we just call it IG squared? Okay, I’m very smitten with this one.
Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°4 is described as “sovereign rose, a hot allspice, a journey, a garden.” This is definitely a spicy rose, along the same line as the Rosine’s Rosa Flamenca or Rose de Feu, and it starts out a little sweet, reminding me of MDCI’s Rose di Siwa, but quickly finds a more earthy quality to it. The drydown winds up very much in Lancome’s Mille et Une Rose territory.
Christian Dior’s La Collection Particuliere N°9 is described as “dazzling tuberose, creamy woods, slow nights, fireworks.” This is a buttery, slightly woody tuberose, with a hint of gardenia? Tuberose isn’t my favorite note, but this is very well done, beautiful without being overpowering, capturing tuberose without kiling me as many tuberose scents tend to. The drydown is warm and sensuous. My second favorite of the three.
So are these worth $490 per 2.5 ounce bottle? Well, I have to tell you, the presentation is pretty gorgeous – big white, heavy Dior box with the bottle inside and the beautiful, heavy sprayer over on the side, tucked under a little door tied with a ribbon – and I’d probably plunk down the cash for 8, the IG squared, which is my personal favorite of the three. The rose is really beautiful, but Rosine, Lancome and MDCI have done a beautiful rose similar to this, unless it makes some other gymnastics on other people’s skin that it does not on mine. If you just love rose, you’ll love this, but I don’t know that you’d want to pay $500 smackers for it. The tuberose is actually pretty awesome, but I’m not that much of a tuberose fan that I’d plunk down that kind of cash for it. They are all beautifully made.
But is any bottle worh $490? Unless it is vintage/rare/discontinued… no, it’s really not, unless you simply want the bottle and the experience of having all of that. Are they worth trying? Yes, definitely, you may find a love among the three, they are all easy to love. And if people could somehow easily settle who keeps the bottle in a bottle split, these would be worth having some of in your fragrance closet.
So what do Carthusian monks, The Angle of Repose, shallowness and uber-expensive perfumes have in common? Well, nothing, y’all. Told you I was shallow, and not nearly clever enough to tie all these together. But what I do have [!] is a special Christmas drawing. A sample of the Onda, each of the three Diors and each of the three new Annick Goutal Les Orientials thingies, which some of just now showed up in my mail today, whee!!! I am very much enjoying all three of them! I don’t even like amber, and Ambre Fetiche has me swooning Just let me know if you’d like to be in the drawing in comments, and I’ll post the winner on Christmas Day. It’s our way of saying thanks for being with us for another year.
Winner of the DSH and CdG Gold samples – Maria!
Winner of the Best of 2007 25 samples (which are yet to be named) – Catherine.
Congrats, and just click on the Contact Us over on the left and drop me your address so I can send you your samples!
love the new format. moved “into great silence” to the top of my netflix queue. please enter me in the drawing.
Shallow is as shallow does. I have really enjoyed this post but can’t really articulate why – anyways, thanks! Please enter me in the drawing.
LOVE the new format! Now I can read the site at work without sizing the window down. 🙂
Happy holidays!
Thanks for the review of the book. I will have to give it a try. I have noticed that I find it more and more difficult to read ‘great’ writing. I am used to skimming through my popular novels, and books that require thoughtful reading ask too much of my tired brain.
I would love to be entered in the drawing.
thanks….
would love to see the monks, and sample the ones you’re ofering up… so please include me in this drawing. thanks, and have a wonderful holiday!
Er, they`re Carthusian, not Carpathian monks. Although they might have a monastery somewhere in the Carpathian mountain range, this movie was made at Grande Chartreuse in French Alps. (I`ve been a fan for a long time – a friend of mine wanted to join the Carthusian nuns.)
Sheesh, i’m an idiot. 🙂 Off to fix it. Can I plead that I was reading another book at the same time that was referencing a monastery in the Carpathian mountains.
Big hugs to you, Patty. If you are shallow, I’d say the world needs more of it, damnit!
Like you, I periodically attempt to improve my mind, but I always end up wallowing around in pulp-fiction mysteries with either chocolate or red wine stains on my PJs, and a Law and Order derivative on the tube.
I have a thank-you note and package to you (for the drawing I won) sitting on my dining-room table – have I mentioned that I’m also terribly disorganized? – but I suspect I won’t get it mailed until after Christmas. If my lack of manners doesn’t disqualify me, please enter me in your latest generous drawing.
Hugs back. Everyone has a negative connotation with the word shallow, I think, but I really don’t.
You know, I never did mysteries, though I do like thrillers. Have you read the Pillars of the Earth? I hadn’t read any other Follets, but I adore this kind of historical fiction — slightly trashy, but decent on capturing what I think should be the feel of the time.
oh, gosh, you so do NOT need to send me anything back!
I’d love to be included in the drawing, if possible. 🙂
Also, I netflixed Into Great Silence. 🙂
I’m all a tingle to see the Best Of list.
Let me know what you think of the movie. Now I’m wondering if it has broad appeal or just for us closeted monastic wanna-bes. 🙂
You go, Patty! This was a great post. If I’m not to late, please put me in the drawing.
Absolutely, Sybil!
Hope it’s not too late to be included – I was too tired to read last night P.S. Love “So what do Carpathian monks, The Angle of Repose, shallowness and uber-expensive perfumes have in common? Well, nothing, y’all. Told you I was shallow, and not nearly clever enough to tie all these together. “:)
Hey, that’s why posts stay up for a day. You know, I did at one point, before I started writing, have a way to tie it all together, and somewhere along the way, I forgot how I was going to do it.
That happens more often that I like to think about.
If it’s not too late, please include me in the drawing. Thanks so much — robin
Not too late at all, and you are in!
To all here at Perfume Posse, who, over the last year, each day shifted my angle of repose higher and higher up to greater and greater olfactory heights, thank you for a great year, and endless delight. I confess the thought of $400 for a few precious drops, pulls me out of the shallow end, to moments of deep navel grazing regarding certain, personal macroeconomic fundamentals. Nonetheless I am always delighted to smell whatever comes my way– economic imperatives be damned. Thanks so much for hosting such a festive and generous drawing. Please sign me up.
Well, we do aim to make sure y’all are as broke as we are. I love the name you took, it’s soooo appropriate!
Patty — I have been such a lurker!! Your post is now the one that is calling me to join in. Between the theory of The Angle of Repose and the film description, I can no longer simply lurk. I have enjoyed many new scents thanks to Perfume Posse and The Perfumed Court. Moreover, I am finding that perfume people have many of the same interests (obsessions) that I enjoy. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday and please enter me in the drawing.
So glad you de-lurked! Come and play with us more often. Perfume People do seem to like a lot of the same things. We both seem to be somewhat introspective to some degree, we like to read. I know some posts that have gone up about reading and getting suggestions for books have been just commented into a frenzy.
I’d love to know all these scents, esp. Goutals, so please, enter me in the drawing 🙂
And in case I won’t see you again: Happy Holidays!
Absolutely.
Happiest of holiday wishes to you!
this is a drawing to die for, (for me) please enter me!
I will, Elizabeth!! Good luck!
Please count me in on the drawing, babe, because No. 8 is calling my name, too!
Love ya!
I will, R. I think you would *love* 8, mos definitely.
Love you back!
I think that No. 8 and Onda sound like the Bomb. And what is wrong with me that I still haven’t tried the AGs? Duh.
I have met you, so I feel I have an edge here in expressing doubts as to your shallowness. Okay, if you aren’t trying to choke down Gide, or discuss the Hegelian Dialectic, or analyse Basquiat’s oeuvre, and that makes you shallow … fine. Let me join you in the shallow end. But when it comes to actually knowing a thing or two about life and love, you have set me straight.@};-
I will fix you up with some AGs, promise! I know I don’t have to, but… 🙂
Yeah, that first kind of shallow, which I don’t think of as a bad thing, just a certain lack of needing to know things enough to spend any energy or time on them and coming to a place of peace about it after spending a good many years caring whether I knew them or not. I’m deeply grateful that others do pursue them, though. We’d still be driving round on square wheels, if it had been up to me to figure out what might work better.
Now, on the emotional end, I think it’s getting to a place of shallowness about looking at yourself and caring what’s going on inside and trying to be where you care more about what is going on with someeon else. Don’t think I’ve gotten there yet, but it’s the spot I aspire to.
You have taught me a thing or two about a think or two, as well, my friend.:x Why do we not have just a plain little heart icon? We need one. Must put that on our wish list.
The Dior #4 sounds mighty nice: You had me at “Rose de Feu.” But ouch! So spendy. $400 is far outside of my limit of what I would pay for a single bottle of perfume.
Please enter me in the drawing. 🙂
Hi, Elizabeth! You know. Rose de Feu is cheaper. 🙂 so is Mille et une rose.
Will put you in the drawing!
Great, great post Patty! I haven’t read the “Angle of Repose”, but I like what it means. I used to fight the fact of my being crazy, but these days I’ve embraced it, 40 is around the corner and life’s too short, I guess. It can get a little nuts around PMS time, but acceptance has made it manageable. As as the 500. perfumes go, that No. 8 sounds lovely. Do enter me in the drawing:d! Thank you!
I think as we age, we get the choice whether to embrace our faults, shortcomings and other oddities or to consider them as all negatives. Well, you see which way I went a long time ago. 🙂 Not that I can’t improve myself, I always know there’s a litany of human kindness shortcomings I have that are always in need of help, but the quirks all of us have that make us different are really kind of cool.
I sort of figure that even though I’ve got plenty of shortcomings, I can say that I don’t go out of my way to hurt people (or animals), and for that, I must not be all that bad. I tend to see all of those shortcomings in people as part of the reason why I love them – they makes us human and infinitely lovable. I hope you have a great holiday, Patty!
Patty,
thanks for inspiring yet more desire. (I think) Always a sucker for iris, I’d love to be in the draw. Thanks so much for all your offerings here and at PC, they have DEEPENED my experience in ways the intellectual life doesn’t touch.
Oh, sorry! I really intend to just describe them.
I usually think that smell is hard-wired right to memory and emotion in ways that sight, hearing or touch is not. The others require a brain intervention to interpret it, where smell seems to be able to bypass all that you think and get to what you feel and remember.
it’s a great sense. I used to think I would miss sight the most, if I had a sense taken away from me, but now I’m pretty sure it would be smell.
Patty,
I adore the tuberose infused no. 9. What a shock. I get the creamy woods right away, but the tuberose is there, teasing me with her vouptuousness. It won’t take the place of carnal flower, but it is a completely different take on tuberose and do love it.
The other two, I think a decant will do. But they are gorgeous and if violet and iris or rose did it for me the way tuberose does, I’d have to have them too.
xo
Ah, I knew you had that tuberose. It’s growing on me. I think I need to spend some skin time along with it. I do get the woods, but much later, but my nose tends to be pretty sensitive to tuberose. Did you get some gardenia in there too, or is it just something about tuberose that tends to remind me of it?
I wasn’t able to respond yesterday because I was traveling ALL DAY so i hope it’s not too late, but…
Oh my God, I love this site. Not only do I love the reviews, but the anecdotes as well! I swear the whole Angle of Repose thing just summed up my last 6 months (just turned 30) and put a nice little Christmas bow on it. And since I’m going to open my laptop and read what you all have written for Christmas Day anyway, I might as well ask to be entered into the drawing 🙂
p.s. I’ve saved up my money and I’m going it alone on a NYC perfume sniffage. I live outside the country during the year but I visit my family in Florida during the holidays, so I’ve been reading about all these luscious intriguing fragrances on your pages without access to sampling them, and now, I get to go out and TRY THEM!!! I’m SO EXCITEDDD!!! You people are responsible for the imminent emptying of a bank account… how does this make you FEEL?? 😀 😀 😀 Just kidding of course…
Hey, Anthony, definitely NOT too late! I put up my posts, as I think March and lee do, the night before, so they always appear a day earlier than we inted them to. 🙂
Wow, are you going to NYC this year, or next year? YOu will have a blast. You’ll be poorer in the wallet for it, but you’ll love the variety and just the feel of so much! Have you mapped it all out? If not, let me/us know. There’s tons of great resources here that have been there many times, live there, and can make sure you get all the must-see places.
Have a blast! xoxo
Patty, I haven’t mapped it out per se, but I am sure I want to visit Aedes for the sheer fact that it is all at the same place at the same time. I’m also going to visit the Malle boutique (they are sending me samples and I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying Bigarade Concentree based on my own likes but they are also sending me L’Eau d’Hiver and a friend from basenotes is sending me Noir Epices!!!), so I’ll be going to Barney’s and Bergdorf, as well as MOST LIKELY the Le Labo store, though I’m thinking if I don’t have time I will most likely order their ‘try 3’ thing from their website (I think it’s kinda a good deal because for me it’s all about changing things up daily). I’d love to visit CB in Jersey but I don’t think I have time. I was thinking of ordering some of HIS stuff from the Court. I can not WAIT to get my mitts on Black March and Wild Hunt. Wow, that was a long post… So I guess in a way I HAVE mapped it out… OH! And I want to try some of the Tom Fords… if you have any other suggestions PLEASE let me know!
Nevermind… I wrote you an e mail 🙂
You’ve got a great plan. BTW, didn’t get your e-mail. I am thinking maybe our e-mail isn’t working because my comment notifications aren’t working either nor did I get Maria or Catherine’s e-mail with addresses. Huh.. you can e-mail pgeissler at gmail dot com
So make sure you do Bergdorf, and Tak, which has some interesting scents, or did, that nobody else had. Too bad no time for Brooklyn and CB, but it is a hike out there! Barney’s for Malles, etc. I think you’ve got the whirlwind trip all set!
Yes, please, I would like to sniff. Although I’ve been more & more leaving alone the ‘fumes that are so outrageously priced, because why fall in love with something I’m never going to buy? I mean, 2+ years later I’m still pining & sulking over Larmes Sacreés, and the last thing I need is more of THAT in my life. But that tubey does sound wonderful… and oooh, always up to sniff a new amber. The AGs aren’t insanely spendy, are they?
I think the AGs are much more reasonable For some reason, I am thinking around 130 euros for 100 mls? Don’t take that as gospel, that’s just what I’m remembering. Not sure what they will price them at when they get here, but I’m guessing in that under 200 for 100 mls range, hopefully closer to the $100 mark. (keeping fingers crossed)
BTW, I blame you for that Cave Felem scarf. I swear, that’s my last Hermes scarf for six months.
I’m with you. I can swim on the deep end if I have to, but I prefer a nice float in the warm shallows, with a nice glass of iced tea! :d
Now, if I were unkind, I’d say we were intellectually lazy, but it’s Christmas. 🙂 I’ll join you in the shallows with a beer.
Angel of Repose makes perfect sense. It’s a sort of sleeping, relaxed angel. It’s the Angel of Chilling Out. See? It works.
I’m also capable of great intellectual shallowness. I’m often aware of it when people list their favorite/last read books on profiles & online surveys. Mostly, mine are Not Deep. I *can* read great works. I’ve done it & gotten a lot out of it – I just choose not to most of the time. My life gets so busy & stressed sometimes that what I want from reading & films is entertainment. It needs to be smart & well executed enough to engage me, but not so dense as to make me work harder than I was working all day.
Anyway. The new Diors. Tuberose is one of my favorite flowers. I’d love to find a tuberose scent that suits me. I’m terribly afraid that my inner snob gene will dictate that this one for gadzooks $$$ per bottle is The One. I can’t afford it. At all. Which doesn’t mean I don’t want to smell it … sooooo please enter me in the draw? 🙂
Well, yeah, sorta! At least I know at the time I was reading the book, I had worked out that Angel bit of it so it made some sense.
I hope no one misunderstands that I think swimnming in the deep end is a bad thing, I don’t! I’ve often wished that I did more of it.
The tuberose one is pretty great. It may be the one that tips me over into being a tuberose fan. I don’t think there’s anything ground-breaking in it, but it’s very beautifully done.
We don’t mind where you swim, P, we just like the way you swim it!
You are a shameless flatterer, you Brit cutie.
I absolutely know that you’re not too much of an anti-intellectual anti-snob to have anything against depth. Of course not. Anyone who appreciates scent as you do has sensitivity, intelligence & depth 😉
So. Tuberose. I was uptown today & stopped into Dior to sniff. Since I’d already stopped into Bergdorf’s I had no exposed skin left for spraying without removing my coat & turtleneck so I sprayed it on a card. It’s lovely but I didn’t swoon, thank heavens. However I will be back to try it on a wrist. I will also stop back to Bergdorf’s the same day to try the Caron Tuberose on my other wrist. I can’t wait 😀
Thanks, I put In This House of Brede on my library queue 🙂
If I could suggest one unforgettably magical and beautifully
written book, it would be The Magician’s Assistant by Ann
Patchett.
Onda sounds magical in a leathery animalic sort of way. Would
love to be included in the drawing. Happy Holidays to everyone.
I think you’ll really like it. It’s very quiet, and it still cracks me up to see Diana Rigg in that role since I associate her with the Avengers, so seeing her all trussed up as a nun is just disorienting.
I’m trying to remember if I’ve read a Patchett book. Something tells me yes, but I’ll go check that one out, thanks!
I’m SO sorry I missed this post.
I’ve been very incapacitated- 9 day whoremoanal migraine w/ dyslexia, dystonia, chills, unrelieveable pain, and ataxia, word-finding difficulties.
SO bad, I just was sent home from work by my neurologist…
However, my humor is still dry and intact.
That’s how I cope.
I adore Onda and Djedi.
I want the violet Dior, but not for that money.
Since I’m a closeted Carmelite, I completely comprehend your frothing- at- the- mouth, with great love and appreciation.
No-one can self-flagellate as effectively as I can.
It’s quite exemplary, for a Jewgirl…
I foresee a lucrative future awaiting me as a Catholic wannabe…
Draw me, baby.
I’d salivate right now- if I weren’t so dehydrated from cryin’ my friggin’ eyes out.
[Whatever happened to the hardass that had 3 major abdominal surgeries without anesthesia?
The girl who had multiple miscarriages on public transportation- pretty far along- and mopped up the dead babies with a borrowed newspaper, with amazing sangfroid ?
I’ve turned into quite the wuss.]
Oh, no, sweetie, that sounds terrible, Is there anything we can do to help?
Ah, I’m a Judaic wannabe, so we can just reverse roles on that. 🙂
I must give Onda a ponder (the rhyme works in British English and amongst New Englanders I guess).
We have tv programmes here about people who go on retreats. There was a great series (non-exploitative, open-minded, thought-provoking) about mainly non-religious folk who went on a 4 week Sufi Muslim retreat somewhere in Andalucia – some of them had profound spiritual turnarounds. The one who was most challenged, strangely, was a woman who was Wahabi in outlook and just couldn’t get into the individualised style of worship in Sufism – the kind of open-minded stuff that we in the West rarely see portrayed as Islam.
Perhaps more profoundly, there was another series about some men who went on a retreat to a monastery for a month. 3 weeks in, there was a sequence of the most profoundly moving moment – the most secular of the men was sitting with one of the brothers, talking about faith, and suddenly he seemed beatifically lit up from within. He changed, completely, at that one moment. And changed forever. It was one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen – some spirit appeared to move within him; touched by god, whatever. I’m soundly faithless, but it left me wondering, and not much does nowadays… There’s information about it here:
http://www.worthabbey.net/bbc/index.html
And I’m hunting for the clip…
I would love to see that clip. I have my own “coming to faith” story from a few years back. Agnostic/atheist at different points in my life. I think when it happens, it is magic, but I don’t know that everyone gets an “aha” moment. The problem with those is, after you get one, you really have to live it. That’s a lot harder thing to do.
let me know when you find it, but I’m going to check out that series now, it sounds great.
Hi there, Patty,
Great post! I really have to see Into Great Silence now. It sounds fascinating. I can wear my beloved Avignon while I watch and feel all monastic….
I’m also interested in Ambre Fetiche. Please sign me up for the drawing, and Happy Holidays!
I think you’d like it! Burn some nice Shiseido incense too with it.
Yeah, those Dior’s are really way up there price-wise. Don’t know if they’re actually worth it, or if Dior is just jumping the bandwagon of extravagantly priced fragrances, which is really not that original anymore 😕
Good to hear you’re liking the new AG’s! I got myself the Ambre Fetiche, and it’s so perfect with this cold Christmas weather. Even more so now it’s snowing! I’d like to be in the drawing too please.
No, of course they’re not worth it. Now, if they really intend it to be a limited edition, when once those bottles are gone, they are gone, then… maybe… as a collector’s item. When I snagged one of those Thierry Mugler la part des anges (?) thingies a few weeks ago, I had no idea that today they’d be out of stock and people are selling 1 ml of it on ebay for over $100. It’s insane.
What I’ve given for some vintage perfume is insane.
but they smell really nice, and at least two of them are great scents, but I’m not sure they can get into the “worth it” territory. JAR at least is freaking weird and beautiful. Dior just stuck with beautiful. Hmmm…
Patty, would you please enter me in the sample drawing? Have a great weekend!
ABsolutely, Kelley, and you have a great weekend too!!!
Feeling exceptionally shallow and flibbertygibbetty today…please just enter me into the drawing! (online Christmas shopping is great, except I keep getting distracted by perfume blogs…!)
Excellent! I love those days when I just can’t keep a serious thought in my head. Frivolity in life is just so necessary, and ’tis the season for lots of it.
The Diors sound very, very lovely, but not $500-smackers lovely. My perfume budget has its own angle of repose: it won’t ever go above the $300 I shelled out one time for Jicky pure parfum. And while that was a worthwhile purchase, my perfume angle of repose mostly resides at a more “shallow” spot on the price slope! 🙂
And since it does, would you kindly throw my name into the draw so I can smell these lovelies?
Of course, Ma’am! Hey, even when you know where you are in the incline, it’s interesting to look up. 🙂
Lovely reviews of the Diors–I’ve been waiting for them to show up at the Court for a while now; I hope they do soon. I’m very much excited about your love for the iris (and by comparing it to Iris Gris, you almost had me want to spend the 5 hundred). I know I’m in the minority on this, but I also do like the association with Kate Moss. Say what you will, but she really is the supermodel of our time.
Please enter me in the drawing! I’m dying for some of that Iris!
Just realized they ARE there now–wee! Now I just have to be able to afford to spend 15 bucks on 1 ml of perfume…Ah Christmas shopping!
I know, it’s ridiculous. I tried to put them in the smallest amounts possible so people could try them, but there are some days when I roll my eyes at my own self.
However, comma, the violet/iris one is really lovely, and I need to shower and try the tuberose alone. I have a feeling it will move up a lot higher in my estimation.
But clearly no bottle of perfume is worth that much, but I do recommend splits if you fall in love with one!
I loved this posting. I regret to inform you, however, that you’re clearly not as shallow as you claim to be.
Please enter me in the drawing for those wonderful samples.
Marsi
Well, I have to work hard to be this shallow!!! I attribute it more to laziness and really just not caring about the meaning of life anymore, just being content to live it as well as I can. There’s just some residual guilt that I should keep searching for some deeper meaning about pain and suffering. Well, you know. 😉
Oh please, please enter me in the drawing. I’ve been drooling over the prospect of Dior No.8 since I first read about them. This may be the only way I get to try it! Although…..I might be willing to host a bottle split of it if I knew where to obtain it…hint, hint…..?
I’m afraid I’ve missed the cut-off to read the book and am forever doomed to shallowness. Currently sitting here in my recliner wallowing in my shallows with two chihuahuas on my lap, a diet Coke, my laptop and wondering which murder mystery to start reading next. :d
Oh, sure, i’ll tell you where to get it. e-mail me, and I can give you the boutique number and who to ask for. I’d totally go in for a split. I know I got them for the store, but for my own personal use, I need some!!! 🙂
The movie sonds like a great gift for hard to buy on your list…
I am anxious to smell the new AGs so please include me in the draw. Happy Holidays!
Absolutely, Carol!
One of my favourite friends blithely admits to being shallow. She is also one of ther most fun, honest, loyal friends I have so who cares! And I have a well developed frivolous side. But onto perfume. I do think Onda is special.(I described it in an email to VK as The Rite of Spring in scent form and VK wrote back something very kind.) I’m not as keen on the other two although I believe I see the high quality of them. Even though iris has been done almost to death this year I would very much welcome an iris from VK. The Diors sound lovely though none screams my name. However the AGs are another matter and thank goodness are a much more reasonable price point. Please can I be in the drawing! As this is likely to be my last comment before the 25th – Happy Christmas everyone!
Well, we do have to make up for our lack of depth by being generally good people. 🙂
Love Onda–as you would imagine. The Diors sound nice, but not THAT nice. Must see that movie (I’m with L. on monastaries–kinda a problem for a nice Jewish girl):)
Now who would ever describe you as “nice?” I KID!!!
Kinda frightening that someone here knows the “real” me!:d
Well, the good thing about the movie is it is more about spirituality, and it just happens to be Christian. They don’t overly use anything religious, though you always know what the setting is. If you see it, let me know what you think. I know everything we see comes through a filter, so while I think it’s perfectly fine for everyone… I could be wrong! 🙂 Gee, that’s never happeend before.
onda is amazing.
I wasn’t clear. What I was saying is that I always romanticized monastaries as a kid(and even now). Thomas Merton was always a hero of mine. I’m sure I will love the move.:)
Ah, gotcha! Love Thomas Merton. He walked on the wild side, I always say, and I keep thinking I should read some of this stuff. 🙂 Instead, I like St. Francis of Assisi and his love of birds and animals. My favorite quote of his is, “Preach the gospel always — use words when necessary.” He’s quite right. All the yakking about religion in the world is far less effective than meeting someone who lives and breathes their spirituality, and they don’t even have to talk about it, but when they do, it is so authentic and a great witness to the power of love and faith.
Sounds like the book might be a lot of work. I had the ability to focus through books like that many, many years ago. Not so much as I enter my 50’s. I’ve learned what makes me happy and also that my energy is not limitless. The best childrearing advice I was ever given – choose your battles wisely. The battling days are long over. The youngest of my two turns 21 next month. That advice has morphed over the years. Now I consciously put my energy into things that bring joy and peace to me those around me. Often, very very often, I say no to challenges. I like it here, in my shallow years!
So, things that bring joy to me? Perfume! Amber. Can’t wait to try the AG’s! I am still searching for a rose that I can wear. I enjoy smelling the spicy ones but I haven’t found one that I can really live with. I never thought I would pay those huge $$$’s for perfume but…. I will surely purchase a FB of my Ambergris love. That’s close to $300 but my brain somehow justifies that. Oh well!
Didn’t you think when you were young that when you got older, you’d have time for all those challenging pursuits? Yeah, me too. Now I just want to be comfy and sedated.
you should love the Amber Fetiche. Very ambery, but with great incense layered into it. I’m not a fan of amber generally, and this thing is just wonderful.
Right this moment, life in a monastery sounds extremely appealing.
I have a lot of those moments. 🙂
After all the holiday rushing, a retreat to a monastery sounds wonderful and I’ll look out for this film! Please include me in the drawing.
It does seem to be the time to do it. Isn’t it mandatory that everyone gets a 3-day retreat after Christmas?
Must read that book. And I did see Into Great Silence. Adore monasteries. When I first saw Sound of Music as a child I was dumbfounded that Maria chose to leave the monastery. Frankly, still am. I’m not traditionally religious, but I’ve seriously romanticized monastic life since early childhood. An awkward fondness for men, clothes, perfume and foul language and that lack of adherence to any organized religion are all that keep me from being a nun. Hello, shallowness! 🙂 Oh, that photo is brilliant! The only calendars I’ve used for years are ones w/ photographs of monastery gardens and architecture. I can’t resist the silence and beauty of those images.
Very pleased to hear about Onda! Not so happy about he Dior 8. I thought that the rose scent would be the only dangerous one for me and, thankfully, from your description I don’t think it will be. Still, am very much looking forward to sampling them.
I know, I have the same fondness for monastic life, except the actual giving up all the stuff you have to give up, especially things like fluffy pillows and luxury blankets. I keep saying one day I’m going to do one of those silent retreats, and my family laughs at me and says I could now shut up for that long.
Have you read In This House of Brede? It’s one of my all-time favorite monastic life books/movies. Makes me want to run out and throw the husband and kids over and go all cloistery.
Onda is great.
I loved In the House of Brede. Gorgeous writing.
I’m actually somewhat addicted to silence and have gone on several silent retreats in Guatemala at a place on Lake Atitlan and at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. I once spent three months during a vacation in almost complete silence – I look back at that as one of the best times of my life. I mean it when I say I am powerfully attracted to monastic life. 🙂
I was thinking you probably had read it. I always look at the monastery down in New Mexico, I think it’s Christ in the Desert, but I keep wanting to go to one that is in an old, old building. I want the whole thick stone walls feel too.
must do research, it sounds like the perfect and complete way to get away.
Love Stegner, and must see that film. Thanks.
It almost seems a rhetorical question now…is any perfume worth (blank) bucks? I guess…only if you love it enough. And can live on what’s left. The Diors are actually cheaper per ounce than some
other recent releases, for which I seem to be able to justify spending through splits and sampling. Oy, the credit cards!
It really is not the worst price point I’ve seen per ml, that’s for sure. JAR does like 400-800 for 30 ml, which is far, far worse.
Patty, dear, isn’t Onda striking? Vero Kern did a side-by-side for me and while Onda is sweeter, the resemblance is still strikong. Vero did tell me that she was thinking about an iris. I’ll say no more (but it might be an answer to our prayers).
I’ve tested, briefly, the three new Diors and while they’re very lovely, they’re not 320 euros lovely. I hate it when they make stuff for snobs and bottle collectors rather than perfume lovers.
The three Annick Goutal are great: I’m not an amber lover either, but Ambre Fétiche seems to avoid that overwhelming heaviness of amber. The incense makes it kind of cold-ish.
Finally, I’m with you about spraying rather than dabbing: I’ve just ordered 200 small 2 ml atomizers to transfer samples into or make my own in stores.
Loved Onda. I re-read my post this morning and didn’t really make it clear how much. It vaulted into my Best of 2007 section. I actually prefer it to DJedi. Djedi in the drydown can get a little funky weird, while Onda stays smooth and lovely all the way through.
if Vero does something to answer my iris prayers, I would be her biggest fan/friend/slave for life. 🙂
I do get why Dior is doing this, and I think for the person with money, it really is a nice thing to have something not everyone else can have, and the presentation as a gift or something very special really is lovely.
For the same reason, I don’t get mad at the Kilian thing. My sister was so damn happy with her beautiful Kilian box with Love in it. It was a great gift for her to get and me to give, so it made us both incredibly happy. |-)
Patty, your post on being shallow made me think some deep thoughts! So I question your flibbertygibbetness… I have been thinking a lot about the value of my enthrallment to theory and art and the like. I’ve made writing about those things my work, but contemplating a move from relatively relaxed Bangkok to NYC, with its hyperkineticism and ferocious stimulation on intellectual and other fronts, is making me evaluate my life a bit. I still crave that sort of mental engagement, but have a finer appreciation for the Thai ability to find the angle of repose…
Would love to be entered in the drawing! Thank you!
Are you moving to NY or just thinking about it? I would think that could be a very odd contrast.
I’ve always admired very much the Buddhist and Christian monastery gift of humility. OR at least their pursuit of it. Much as I try to pursue it, it’s a very hard path, though no less worthy of continuing to take it.
There’s the old joke… “The thing I’m most proud of is my humility.”
Well, I’m reading your words before my morning coffee, which means it’s veeery early on the last day of work before that most beloved perk of working for the public school system: Christmas Vacation. In other words, my brain is too fried to contemplate the angle thingie :-s let alone $500 for a bottle of perfume @-) Whoa. I’m alert enough to want to be entered in the drawing, though! 🙂
Hey, Christmas Vacation time!!! I decided to do one this year, too, so I’m off all next week, just relaxing and playing, wheee!!!
Patty, that film sounds wonderful. Is it in theaters or on DVD? Many years ago I saw a film very much like it, but about Tibetan Buddhist monks instead. It had all-natural sounds. It was a bit too relaxing, and I nodded off for a bit, but what I did see of it was memorable.
I know I just won something (wheee!), but I’ll shamelessly ask to be put in the Christmas drawing. :”> Okay, maybe not so shamelessly.
It’s on DVD now. If you’re a member of Netflix, they have it on their watch it Now section.
I usually fall asleep during this kind of thing, but the filmmaker has a way of cutting scenes that keep you in it. There are sections where he just has each monk looking straight into the camera that, for some reason, I found really touching. It helps that it’s also set in some seriously beautiful part of the world.
Gaaaah! I really wished the Dior Collection would be horrible stuff, not worth swooning over:-w
I couldn’t care less about pretty bottles and boxes and wish all perfume would be sold in equally boring clear glass bottles IF that meant the juice itself could be more affordable.
Please enter me in the drawing:)
I’m telling you… bottle splits! You could get the cost of 1/2 ounce to financial territory that makes more sense.
I think the problem the Diors will have is that there are other scents out there that do what they do, for less money. So you really have to want the experience to pay for the bottle and the whole shebang just for yourself, but if you just really love one of the scents, perfumistas are great at democratizing perfume through bottle splits. 🙂
please enter me in the drawing – I would so love to try the new Goutals – yet another thing I’ll never be able to buy…thanks!
Will do!
And why-oh-why did perfume start to get so insanely expensive!!!!
I am wearing Songes in the EdP in one arm and Cuir de Russie extrait in the other and Costes EdT in one of my pinkies and all together they seem to be not only all that I can ever wish for but also half of the price of any high-end release this year…
I can’t wait to try the Ambre Fetiche by the way 🙂 please put my name in the drawing!
You know, I think some perfumes have always been so, but now they’re more public about the expensiveness? Joy parfum was always billed as “the most expensive perfume in the world” until CC came along. And I remember that campaign decades ago.
But with the luxury brands, the gray market has eroded a lot of their “hard to get and pay for” cache when you can find the Dior or Hermes that was released 4 months ago at a discounter for half the price. So I think they have to find another way to penetrate the very exclusive club, so they do it with these and with the Hermessences, etc.
if I were their marketing person, that’s what I’d be doing too. 🙂
Please include me in the drawing.
Absolutely, Kathleen!
I’m with you Patty. I take shallowness to new depths, or as Warhol said, “I am a deeply superficial person.” For a while I felt as if I were just becoming dumb and dumber with each passing day, but I realized as I got older, I just felt less of a need for Deep Thoughts. Years of over-analysis, self and otherwise, will ultimately make one appreciate a good sniff, a decent drink, some bad tv, and some trash reading. Could perfume be considered a form of escapist entertainment?
Anyway, that Dior #8 sounds mighty appealing, considering that violet kick I’ve been on, but, man oh man, $500? My student loans may never get paid off; I’m not sure I need to smell this. Oh wait. I need to smell this. Will you consider me in the drawing?
Haha! Yeah, the nice thing about shallowosity is that you really quite like it. I mean, I’m not a reverse snob about intellectual things, I do think they are worth pursuing, if I had the inclination. I just don’t find myself with much of an inclination more than about 2x per year.
And nothing will make you sicker of hearing yourself than therapy.
I loved that book but still thought Angle was Angel until about 40 pages from the end. For a
flibbertigibbet, you have a velvet pen. I would love to be included in the drawing
You know, I’m pretty sure I didn’t figure out the Angle part of it until about the same point. It was all that talk about Angle of REpose, I guess, that did it. 🙂
Boy, did I feel dumb. :-s
Even after being startled by the admission of the post’s second line, I couldn’t read that title right for several more tries.:”> I accuse the image. How can one *not* think of Angels upon seeing that light?
Shallow…For closing in on a year now, my theme song has been “I Want Candy” from the Marie Antoinette soundtrack. I put it on loud, wake up the cats, pull out the photography, and start singing. It’s the pronoun, it’s the *me*–it say, right now, I come first. I am active.
And I want all the candy, all the entertainment, that I can eat and use up.
Now, I don’t know that I would spend that much money for a new Dior…just like I don’t think I’d buy that $700 bottle of Roja Dove Unspoken parfum that March was talking about earlier this week, particularly when the EDP’s already got me singing (more like crooning). In fact, since I’d keep that Dior bottle in a box somewhere, I’d get no instant eye-candy benefit from its beauty either. Still, I can see it. I can see the sudden magic for someone–maybe even me, while meandering into Dior, Paris, next year. I’ll live in the moment and see.
Thank you, Patty, for the samples. I’m eager to find out what you, March, Lee, and Bryan unveil.
Angela did a post on this this week, I think, on Now Smell This — that much of what we do perfume for is the experience of the bottle and the presentation. I admit to being a packaging slut, but at least i know when I’m being taken advantage of by slick marketing guys. 🙂
Oh, Paris! ARe you going this next year? We’re going again at the end of May, first of June, taking the boys, but just going to Paris for maybe three days, then down to southern France, my uncle has a house north and east of Bordeaux, then over to Avignon and down into Italy, probably to Rome, Harry really wants to go see the Vatican.
I read Angle of Repose when I was 11. I very much disliked it, I suppose I found the idea that there would be heights that I would never attain to be depressing. Eh, I got further than I ever imagined I would anyway, and the higher ranges seem like too much work. I’ll be over in the recliner with my tea and horror stories, drenched in Tabu. Or something. Those perfume prices are on the other side of the Himalayas as far as I’m concerned. Nice reviews, though. You may be a flibbertygibbet but you’re a literate flibbertygibbet. :p
11?!?! Gah! You were a prodigy, no wonder you were dismayed to think some of the mountaintops might be shut to you. I was still reading Gone with the Wind for the 11th time at that age.
Do you remember that time when you thought you could do anything? That old bromide old people trot out to suck you into the system of aiming for crap you really just can’t do? Yeah, exactly! I hate that. We do have our limitations, either of intellect or desire, and mine is a little of both. I’m smart enough, but I’m not that smart, and I really don’t want to be that great at anything anymore or have people know my name. I paddled down that river for a while and found it boring and a total waste of time. 8-}
Yeeesh – those prices make the Chanel Exclusives and the Serge Lutens look like bargains!
Please put me in the draw – and sorry, but great reviews and a great blog remove you from the shallow end!
Haha! I swim happily in my shallow waters because I’m happy here and the other fish enjoy the same tawdry amusements I do. 🙂
I loved the Angle of Repose and for years thought it was Angel.
The Dior bottles are lovely and the scents sound beautiful, especially #’s 8 & 9. I am a tuberose fan but am starting to appreciate Iris more and more.
Please enter me in the drawing and have a wonderful Holiday!
Will do, Janet! Tuberose and iris/violet ones are mos def my faves.
Okay, the pic makes me want to fall over…I know it’s just the incidence of light on the stone wall and floor, but I’d be constantly trying to set it aright. I don’t think I’d reach my “Angle of Repose” with that on my wall!
Another thing…I know you’ve mentioned valid reasons why perfume is so darned expensive, but I think it’s a pretty obvious tactic of designer and perfume houses to pronounce themselves the highest and holiest of the ‘elite’ by exclusion. If you keep up with skincare, you find the same transparent methods…$500 bottles of ‘Creme’ that don’t do crap for you except make you feel privileged. If building elite status means excluding the masses via $500 price tags…they can have it. I don’t need it. I’m a have not. I’m excluded. Do you feel this is the modus-operandi of the high-priced Diors? And why would I ever want to test something out of my monetary reach? Just for the experience? Well, maybe, but my money stays at home, and I feel smarter for the decision. Oy, can you tell I’m irked…and suffering some pretty serious sticker shock…
Patty, please include me in your drawing…Thanks!
You know. I don’t know. I think part of it is a luxury brand wants to do something special, and part of being special is to plant a big price tag on it as a way of keeping out the unwashed financially as well as mentally, and keeping the rich thinking it’s their game. It’s the Game Of Exclusivity, and all luxury brands play it. They have to, that’s their market.
So while I find it annoying, I totally get it from a business perspective.
Now, having said that, if someone really wanted the bottle, a bottle split on these would totally work. The bottle person would pay like $100-150 extra of the cost of the bottle, and that would bring the per ml split price to those not getting the bottle to like $5 a ml, plus postage, decanting bottles, etc.
Would I spend $75 for 1/2 ounce of N8 and N9? Um, yeah!!!! So now y’all need to get that organized.
Hey I’m right there with you, dog-paddling in the shallow end of the pool. I vocariously read books. Mysteries, Horror, Adventure…just not romance unless it’s mixed with suspense. I literally have a mini-library. I’ve been asked several times why I don’t read more helpful books and increase my working knowledge instead of reading junk. Now I’ll answer because I’m shallow. :}
Well, since there is no way I’m gonna pay almost $500 for any frag, the only way I will ever try these is if I win a drawing! So please count me in. Now….the one that grabs me is the No. 9, then the No. 4. Those sound right up my alley, which is where I would be living if I bought those!
N8 actually got the cleavage spritz this morning, whoa! Very high praise indeed.
You know, I even bought a book on how to read disciplined. I know, ridiculous, but there ARE some books I want to read, I just don’t have a long enough attention span to manage more than a page before I fall asleep. So far, I keep falling asleep while reading my book about how to read more serious fare. How’s that for irony?:-b