Two Plum Fragrances

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

I have now sniffed something from L'Artisan. (It's a momentous moment in a wannabe-perfumista's life.) The something that I sniffed is Voleur de Roses, which is apparently a rose/patchouli fragrance with a plum 'note' or hint. At least that's what I get from various online readings. You couldn't tell by my nose, which informs me that this perfume basically smells like a plum. A superlative plum, with some rose and patchouli making it even better.

The straight juice in the teeny-tiny vial smelled awful to me, chaotic and very alcoholic, but as soon as it was on my skin it relaxed and began to smell wonderful, plummy but, at this point, with a fair amount of rose, and something I identified as violet-like. It smelled goooood at any rate, mysterious, but simple and serene.

I spent a few minutes sniffing my wrists while I did my morning before-work stuff, and determined that all the bloggers who said L'Artisan scents fade quickly seemed to be right. (This is OK with me. Perfumes that cling and cling tend to make me crazy.) I put on some more, several dabs more, and headed off to work, smelling serene and mysterious.

By the time I started work, the smell had turned into a clear, vibrant, plum scent, sweet but with a sharpness that reminded me of that sour taste that stays around a plum pit no matter how sweet the fruit. Just a little floral, and a little patchouli. It smells amazing, fruity but not too sweet, like the smell of an orchard with rose bushes and cold dew-soaked grass under the trees, with just a little wet dark earth.

Somehow it felt like a very deep and emotional smell, but serene, super serene.

Later that evening, after the last of the vibrant, emotional, plum serenity had wafted away, I tried Keiko Mecheri's Ume. This is a totally different plum, spicy and salty and reminding me a great deal (as I had hoped), of the little sweet-and-salty plum candies I remember from when I was a kid, that they still give you after your meal at the King of Thai noodle places. Definately a plum candy rather than the straight plum off the tree. It's rich, and has a kind of deliberately exotic smell to it--sort of 1920s Orientalesque adapted with a little modern Asian-American irony. It's cheerful and sexy, maybe even sassy, and it made me smile.

Oddly enough, thinking about where I would wear these, I came up with New Years', but in a very different context. Voleur de Roses, I thought, would be great for Rosh Hashanah, with that harvest-fruit scent, and the deep calm that goes with it. Ume I could see wearing either to a secular New Years' party, or for the Lunar New Year in February. It would be a great winter smell, as spicy and warm as it is, and I can see wearing it while eating Chinese food and toasting the new year with plum wine that smells a little like my perfume.

Funny, I never thought fruit perfumes would be something I would go for.