A Drawer Full of Decants

Coco Mademoiselle

2010-06-21T19:05:00.001-07:00

At Sephora, yesterday, I once again let myself be seduced by the pretty bottle and serene pink juice, and I spritzed my wrist again with Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle. I think that part of the problem is that I have trouble remembering in between times what Coco Mademoiselle smells like, and I keep reconstructing in my mind what I imagine it to smell like--a sparer, younger version of the great Coco. And I spritz.

OK, so I don't forget this again, Coco Mademoiselle smells a lot like a Shirley Temple. As a number of people have pointed out, it is really a fruity floral, not an Oriental, as it has been wrongly promoted, and the predominant note, to me, seems to be grenadine. Not pomegranate, Rose's grenadine. Maybe that's the litchi the official notes refer to. I detect the same note in Gaultier's Ma Dame. Ma Dame disappointed the hell out of me. I spritzed it in Sephora also, and for about five minutes, it smelled like what I've been hunting for for ages, a richer, deeper version of Clinique's Happy. Then the top notes faded, and the plasticized Shirley Temple came on full blast.

This note, whatever it may be, seems prominent in a lot of the popular fragrances of the past several years, and I can't stand it. It's not a bad smell, it's just the last thing I would ever want to smell like. Artificial and sweet.

Coco Mademoiselle dries down into something less fruity, and rather more pleasant, but I smell plastic all the way to the bottom. Note to self: do not spray this on me again. It is not working.

Vierges et Toreros

2010-05-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

You have to love a perfume, for one thing, called 'Virgins and Toreros', although I am baffled by Etat Libre d'Orange's decision to title it in French, which makes no sense at all.

V&T starts off with a mad flamenco stomp of serious white flowers, followed by a mad flamenco stomp of rawhide. We are not kidding around with the leather on this one. We are not talking about nice glove leather, or subtle suede, or gentleman's tack, or that soft musky smell that sometimes gets called 'leather' in perfume. We're talking that stiff, unfinished orangey stuff that smells to high heaven of LEATHER. The overall impact is sexy, up-in-your-face, and is basically the scent equivalent of the sound of mariachi brass.

Then the Play-Doh gets involved. Within ten minutes, surfacing slowly from the rough leather, this salty, doughy, incredibly familiar smell. Stomping and twirling like a matador in the suit of lights made entirely from Play-Doh. Ole.

Chanel No. 5

2010-03-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

When my parents and I flew to San Diego for my grandmother's funeral, we stayed in the little apartment she had lived in for the last several years of her life. On the counter in the bathroom was a half-empty bottle of Chanel No. 5.

I idly sprayed a dab of it on my wrist, thinking, I think, that it would smell like her. It didn't, it smelled to me of generic grandmotherly perfume, but didn't spark any particular smell memory. Too powdery and archaic for me at the time--I was not even a newbie perfumista at the time--and I put it aside.

Now, I should explain, before I come to my most recent experiment with Chanel's great masterpiece, that my grandma was horribly allergic to most fragrant flowers. We never sent flowers for birthdays, and they were never in her home. I remember walking with her in Golden Gate Park, hearing her reminisce about the time my aunt and a friend of hers, with the best of intentions, filled her room with jasmine blooms in little vases. She woke up to breakfast in bed, but was unable to open her eyes, which had swelled up from all the jasmine.

A few weeks ago, I was walking through the Macy's in downtown San Francisco, and hovered briefly by the Chanel counter. On a whim, I picked up the Chanel No. 5 EDP and sprayed my inner arm heavily.

The first hit was of dusty, chypric notes, less powdery than I recalled, and then, five minutes later, as I walked out of the store, I was hit with a high, screeching note that emerged out of nowhere, and which I could only identify dazedly as smelling like peaches in syrup and mint. It howled. I had no idea what it was, since as best I could remember the official notes of No. 5, Screaming Minty Fruit Salad was not among them.

Today, walking by the baseball field on a sunny spring day, I got hit with the smell again, this time in context, and now I know--that's the jasmine, that high heady screech smell. Funny, and a little bit ironic, that the note I smell strongest in No. 5 is the one that, on the vine, would make my grandmother flee the garden.

Cuir De Russie

2009-12-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

First things first--I first tried Cuir de Russie some months ago, in warmer weather, and did not take to it at all. The scent was ordinary, ambery baby powder, I got no leather, and I simply didn't get why everyone raved about it so much. Worse, I got a slight indolic dampness, which reminded me unpleasantly of babies--not that babies smell bad, but you wouldn't necessarily want to rub one all over yourself for a night on the town, no? I put the Cuir de Russie aside.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago, now that the weather has chilled substantially, I dabbed another dab on, and oh, dear, it it gorgeous. The damp baby is gone, and the leather is softly sophisticated, and the whole composition is filled with wondrous light, and, oh, cool, now there's another Chanel Exclusif I wouldn't mind having a bottle of, at another two hundred bucks I don't have. Oh well. I will try it again this evening. Perhaps the damp baby will come back.

I've dabbed. Damn. No damp baby. Now it has a sort of incense note as well. This is no good. Maybe it has a slight wheaty note I don't like? I will meditate on the wheaty note.Oh well.

Anyway, while I was thinking about Cuir de Russie, I popped over to the Chanel website, and discovered that not only is this stuff only available in 200 ml. containers, for $200 a pop, but that according to the website, "CUIR DE RUSSIE captures the essence of the wild and lavish world of 1920s Russia".

This brought me to something of a pause there. My own great-grandparents left Russia not too long before the 1920s, and 'wild and lavish' is not exactly the image that has been passed down from generation to generation. More like 'miserable and short on food'. I understand that there were in fact Bolshevik flappers--much disapproved of by their elders--but frankly, the '20s in Russia began with civil war, and ended with Stalin in charge, and I kind of figured that the lady to the right over there more summed up the spirit of the day than her contemporary flapper girl up top there.

Then I read some more reviews of the fragrance, and people raved about troikas, and furs, and leather boots, and some guy named Ivan bringing them more caviar, and it suddenly struck me that THIS is what they're talking about:

This, of course, is Liv Tyler, playing the beautiful and virtuous Tatiana Larina, in the 1999 remake of Pushkin's 1831 novel in verse, Eugene Onegin. The film is titled Onegin, Ralph Fiennes plays the title role, and, well, it's too British for my taste, although very beautiful.

This is what they're referencing with Cuir de Russie--Imperial Russia. Leather boots, troikas, lavish fabrics, wild hearts, French flirtations, princesses, grand balls, St. Petersberg, Anna Karenina, Onegin, vodka, caviar, snow on the birch trees...(pogroms, oppression of the peasants, ignorance, superstition...nevermind).

OK. Guys--think maybe 1820s, or 1850s. Not 1920s. Okay?

Perfume Persona

2009-11-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

What does it mean when you find that what you actually want to wear does not accord with your ideas, when you became a perfume newbie, about what you would want to wear?

I mean, I love Bois des Iles. And I love Feminite du Bois. And I've developed a bit of a yen for Tann Rokka Signature. (And Samsara.) But despite a fondness for some of the woods, most of the stuff I assumed I would like, I don't like so much. Incense, except for a tad in Chanel 22, has let me down. Spice, rich roses, amber and musk, lavish Orientals, all of the things I assumed I would naturally gravitate toward, I mostly haven't gravitated toward. I like a few things in each of these categories, but not all THAT much.

What do I like? Apparently I like GREEN. It started with Chanel 19. And then Bandit--OK, after Bandit I was done for. I like galbanum, and bitter lovely viridian green perfume. Everything in my wardrobe may be in warm colors, but it's the hot greens I want on my skin.

I wonder if this indicates some lack of self-knowledge, or just a lack of knowledge about perfumes when I got started.

Tabac Blond-History Comes Full Circle

2009-09-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Tabac Blond, by Caron, is kind of a legend. Created in 1919, it was developed at a time when French women were beginning to take up smoking, and was meant to be a complement to that. It has a reputation for being edgy, chic, and sophisticated.

The first impression is of a sort of standard Caron, sweet and vanilla-floral. With the sweetness, though, comes the tobacco--cigarette tobacco, so fresh and photorealistic that there's almost an impression of a cigarette forming out of the ether.

It's a fascinating thing to smell, but the problem is that history has moved on. Where fashionable young ladies in Paris after the war took up smoking, American women of my generation largely do not smoke, and smoking has a declasse reputation that has overridden it's previous glamorous one. Cigarettes are the last thing I want to smell like.

Tann Rokka Signature

2009-08-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

OK, it used to be called Kisu. Whatever.

Signature is based on 'ancient Japanese bathing rituals', according to its literature. I have no insight on ancient Japanese bathing rituals, although it summons up an image of very elderly Japanese ladies, blissfully up to their necks in hot tubs. And the juice really does smell rather like that. If I had to identify this smell it would be cedar planks that have been washed down repeatedly in soapy scalding hot water. It's the smell of a hot-tub with nice incense burning in the changing room.

People refer to this having 'aquatic notes', but I don't smell the water, just the effect of the water on the wood. This is a beautiful cedar, and I love my cedar. It's simple, domestic, and wears soft but persistent on the skin.

The opening is a bit wacky. Lots of people on Basenotes ID it as Lysol. It's a bit cleanserish, but I think it's more like Simple Green or something--and at any rate it goes quickly, at least on my opening-note-eating skin.

This stuff is really nice--a lovely scent without being overly perfumey. It seems homey, suited to all seasons, and pleasant and easy to wear.

Parfum Sacre

2009-05-12T12:13:00.001-07:00

I'm wearing Parfum Sacre by Caron today, and grooving on it. This is another of my developing taste developments--when I first dabbed P.S. on, attracted by its reputed incense note, all I got was a sort of sweet ambery vanilla. I didn't think much of it then.

I can smell the incense now, and the pepper. I love this stuff, it's lingering and clear without being intense. Sweet, but strong. It wafts nicely off my skin.

Yum.

In Which I Sail on a Sea of Molten Woods, and Don't Like It Much

2009-05-07T15:11:00.001-07:00

Hmmmph. I loved Bois des Iles, and I loved Feminite du Bois, and I really liked Secret Obsession, and so I was developing an idea that I liked woods, in general. Subsequent to this, I decided to try more woods, and I developed a deep interest in trying 10 Corso Como. To round out the sandalwood experience, I also ordered up a sample of Bois de Santal, by Keiko Mecheri, whose Ume I appreciate.

I think it's cedar that I like, or maybe I just need different sandalwoods. Perhaps I should have remembered my unfortunate experience with Esteee Lauder's molten-wood experience, Sensuous, which left me with the unnerving experience of having my arm smell like furniture varnish.

10 Corso Como is a decided disappointment. I really liked the idea of liking it--it comes with lots of accessories, like lotion and bath oil and solid perfume, and it's all in neat little retro deco packaging--like, how cute is that bottle? But it doesn't smell smoky or incensey as advertised, it smells like raw wood, and develops an unpleasantly screechy sulphurous note when the geranium topnotes wear off. I just don't yike it. Now, I did have a problem with Feminite du Bois until I got used to it--this could just be a matter of educating my nose--but I don't think so. I think I just don't like this stuff very much.

Today I am wearing the Mecheri Bois de Santal slathered on, and I can hardly smell it. There's a faint sandalwood whiff--bland and sulphurous--and that's about it. The flowers and musk advertised hardly appeared.

Hmmm. Starting to think the sandalwood is a dead end.

Fracas

2009-05-05T12:43:00.001-07:00

The deeper I delve into perfume blogs, the more names I start to see over and over again. Fracas is one of them, mostly connected to phrases like 'skankahol' and 'femme fatale'.

I didn't try Fracas for a bit, because I didn't initially expect to be interested in white florals, and the whole overtly sexy genre wasn't all that interesting at first. But then I saw the bottle at Sephora, and it was so lovely--all black, with that beautiful label--and a character in a Jennifer Weiner novel was wearing it--and I spritzed a little on a sample paper.

My first reaction was 'for God's sake don't let it get on my skin!' I'm not sure why. It didn't smell bad. It just smelled INTENSE. I sniffed at it briefly, and then went away for a while.

Then I did some more reading, and I decided I should find out what it smelled like on me. With this in mind, I went back to Sephora, spritzed both wrists, full strength, and then took BART home. I apologize profusely to the other commuters.

Fracas is a celebration of white florals run amok. It is not polite, although it is sweet. It is swooningly intense. And there is a peculiar sour-butter note, which I don't mind, especially since it seems to punch up the sexiness past the simple sugariness that some white florals seem to have. It's flower sex combined with people sex, if that makes any sense.

It's crazy stuff. I don't know if it's ME, but it's pretty cool.

Chanel No. 22

2009-04-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have some new samples. And one of them is a mililiter of Chanel No. 22.

But first, an interlude.

Some years ago, I was living in London, attending rabbinic school for a year (long story), and I made friends with a woman who'd made a lot of money as an antiques dealer and was living now in a beautiful apartment in Mayfair--very chichi.

She invited me over to her 'flat' for a New Year's Eve get together. Beautiful place, occupied by two happy cats who were collaborating to destroy a bazillion-dollar couch together, nice food. At some point in the evening I went to the bathroom.

Her whole countertop was taken up by GIANT bottles of Chanel perfumes. The big, big classic splash bottles. And they all had numbers.

I was fascinated. I knew about Chanel No. 5, because it's incredibly famous. I hadn't realized that there were other numbers. I also hadn't realized that you could get perfume in bottles that big. I examined them (without touching), for several minutes, and then forgot all about them.

Twelve years later...

I dab the left wrist with Chanel No. 22, and go sort of swoony. It starts off somewhat powdery, and a little floral--I can smell the lilac in the first moments--and is full of incense--and is awfully familiar from somewhere. I've been sniffing and sniffing, and cannot track the smell-memory down. I suspect it dates back to childhood, and I sniffed this, or something similar, somewhere, probably on an older female relative.

The powderiness subsides as the drydown proceeds, and the incensiness progresses. About five hours into the process, I now have a smooth, lovely, white incense with just a touch of powder and a touch of floral.

This is really really good smelling, one of those things where you dab and then you keep smelling and smelling and smelling. I think I want a bottleful.

Zeste de Rose

2009-04-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's spring now--alternately warm and rainy--so I stepped out in Rosine's Zeste de Rose yesterday. It's perfect for a cool and sunny spring day. There's something old-fashioned about it, and yet not at all cloying. Cool. Sweet. Rosy.

In Chinatown

2009-01-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

I am wearing Bond #9 Chinatown.

I am not sure that this is what a smell called "Chinatown" should smell like. Then again, I don't know exactly what a scent called "Chinatown" should smell like, although I'm thinking vaguely of tea and rice and, dried mushrooms and fresh greens. Not very perfume-like, I suppose. A Mental Note says it smells like a fortune cookie, and I think AMN may be on to something.

Anyway, Chinatown is gorgeous. Peach-blossomy, flowery, incensey, cardamom-spiked gorgeous. Over at www.perfumeposse.com, they say it smells like nothing else, and they're right. I would know this scent anywhere in the world, it's so distinct and red-orange-smelling. (The bottle, BTW, is beautiful, but it should not be vivid pink. This is a red-orange lacquer smell. THANK you.

This stuff is beautiful on my skin, it never develops an off note anywhere. But you know, I think it must take nerve to wear. It's weird. I wonder if...

Playing With Samples

2008-12-28T16:45:00.000-08:00

Money has been extremely tight around here for months now, and I kind of put perfume aside for a time, since I really can't afford to buy any new samples, let alone buy a full bottle of anything. But I've been reading the perfume blogs again, and I realize that Ihaven't been getting full value out of my collection of samples, or writing about perfume, which I enjoy, so I am planning to get started again.

Right now I smell like Attrape Coeur, and I am thinking about whether I actually like violets or not.

Baume du Doge

2008-10-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, Lord, why are they doing this to me? Eau d'Italie, creators of Sienne l'Hiver, my obsession scent, are coming out with another perfume, Baume du Doge, with a Venetian theme.

Top notes are orange and bergamot, cinnamon, coriander and cardamom, fennel and black pepper

Heart notes are myrrh, frankincense, clove and cedar.

Base is vetiver and vanilla, plus benzoin.

I am BROKE. They cannot do this to me.

Apparently it's not out in the States yet. There's some place in Germany that has samples for three euros, but the cost of having a three euro sample sent from Germany to California is prohibitive.

Apparently people are having some trouble with the name, which is being understood as 'baum' as in tree, and/or 'dog' as in 'dog'. I think they should have called it either "Bucintoro" or "Serenissima", but they didn't ask me.

Ayyyayyyayyyayyyayyyy!

Developing an open nose

2008-10-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

Similar to an open mind, but you know, a nose.

This evening I have a dab of Eau d'Italie's Bois d'Umbrie on one wrist, and I'm considering it. My first impression of Bois d'Umbrie, a couple of months ago, was that it was harsh and hideous, like whiskey with raw wood in it, plus that disconcerting black olive note that Eau d'Italie likes so much.

It's still a puzzling smell to me, but I'm much happier with it now. It still smells like whiskey and wood--the smell I'm identifying seems to be rotting wood under moss, with a sort of boozy kick to it. A very browny green smell.

I think I'm developing a broader scent palate now, and smells that I initially rejected as being not 'perfumey' enough now seem interesting or attractive.

I like it, (B d'U), but I don't know what to do with it. I couldn't wear it, I don't think, not like a perfume. It would be sexy on a man, but I don't think my husband can be persuaded. I suppose I will keep a little vial of it, and sniff it occasionally on fall evenings.

Bois des Iles

2008-09-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

This is absolutely beautiful.

Made by a Russian emigre, of course, how else could I love it so much, and full of woods and flowers. On me, with the EDT, I'm also getting an odd touch of soap, which I don't mind at all. It seems to wear close to the skin, and fade a touch fast. I'm going to get a sample of the parfum and see how that works for me.

It starts woodsy and clear--I've heard that some people find it harsh, which I don't at all, and then slowly develops flowers and soft gingerbread spice. It smells warm, mature, confident, a perfume that could go from jeans and denim for a fall walk, to a pretty dress and a formal dinner, to a nightie and gingerbread cookies with a child before bed. It smells goooood. OMG.

Bad Shiseido! BAD Shiseido!!

2008-08-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

I went back to Feminite du Bois, because after the last post, once I had identified the smell that was making me not like Black Cashmere, I wanted to see if I would mind the clove note as much now that I had identified it.

I have a terribly symbol-driven mind, and once I can put words on something, it often feels very different to me.

The problem is that I now really, really like Feminite du Bois.

Which, of course, Shiseido does not sell in the United States. Making it awfully expensive, and very hard to find.

This perfume thing is rough. I also like Attrape Coeur very much, and Guerlain has apparently discontinued it after reissuing it as Attrape Coeur, when it used to be Guet-Apens.

Well shoot. I guess this is what they sell decants for.

Eureka!

2008-08-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

I have identified the mystery scent that I hate! I think.

I ordered a sample of Black Cashmere, and just found it way too loaded down with a sweetish spice note I could not identify--I began to describe it as a combination between cinnamon and anise, and then just as a 'red-brown' smell I did not like.

Then I ordered a sample of Feminite du Bois, which I had heard raves about, and dabbed it on. It was really nice initially--and then the red-brown smell surfaced. Not horrible, but prominent enough that I really couldn't ignore it.

Clove. I think it's clove. I DO NOT LIKE IT.

Her Fetish Perfume

2008-07-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

Les Parfums de Rosine has hacked out their own section of the niche perfumers' market by doing nothing but rose fragrances. I approve. I also approve of their English-language website, which is hilarious. They may just have a translator who is not all that native-fluent in English, but I suspect that at least some of the time they're using computer translation. Add to this the very French method of describing each fragrance in terms of the woman who uses it, and you have some delightfully fun reading. The fragments below don't do it justice. Go and read.

They begin by telling you a little about the perfumer:

Marie-hélène Rogeon was born into a family of perfume makers and her grand grand father Louis Panafieu was creating Eau de Cologne for the Emperor Napoleon III and a famous Pommade des Mousquetaires for his lacquer like finish moustaches.

They also tell you about their production method:

Every product is scrupulously packed by experimented workers.

And they tell you about the perfumes. This is from my favorite description:

A new fragrance for spring, DIABOLO ROSE, a joyful combination of rose and mint.

She always moves. On a fine and fresh face draged out an impertinent smile.
She drinks sparkled waters, mint lemonades (lemon soda flavoured with mint syrup), green ice tea.

She walks in the street with her favorite purse, crouched under her arm like a charm.
She arrests and looks for DIABOLO ROSE, her fetish perfume.

When she was a child, she played diabolo, now she plays another game. To charm amuse her. She attracts attention. And hearts fly.

I've been experimenting with the Rosines to see if they make my rose-loving heart fly. Here's the results from the first five products from the hands of the experimented workers:

1. Zeste de Rose ("On a fresh and delicate note, Un Zest de Rose gives the feeling of being neat.") This is a citrus rose, very fresh and in-your-face to begin with, and developing a sort of tea-rose (or Tea Rose) quality. Almost apple-y, although I don't think there's an intentional apple note. Very summery, clean and not too sweet. I like it.

2. Rose d'Ete ("Rose d’Eté is wearing by a blooming and happy woman whose beauty is natural and sensual.")At first sniff I did not care for this as much as the Zeste. It has lotus, or something, one of those watery-smelling things I usually do not go for at first sniff. It smelled a bit--unfocused. Not so much rose. I kind of shrugged, and went out wearing it--and it bloomed. I was getting lovely wafts of it, and it was mixing in with the wafts from people's gardens as I walked, and it was just cool, and pleasant, and the absolute soul of summer. I REALLY like it. Possible purchase.

3. Rose Kashmirie ("She is so baroque and loves to be exuberant.") This is supposed to be an oriental, with rose attar, and saffron, and God knows what else. A "wintery" rose. I was hoping for a slightly more affordable and functional something-something like the great YOSH Winter Rose disaster. I get baby powder. Nice, slightly rose-scented baby powder, but baby powder all the same. I have put the sample aside, wondering if it may develop better on me during cold weather.

4. Rose de Feu ("Her universe is intimate and is only revealed by the firelight.")
Spicy rose, and I may return to this, because I haven't really worn this all day yet. It is indeed spicy, and seems nice. I suspect it's another cold-weather fragrance. Look for later commentary.

5. Poussiere de Rose ("She may be nostalgic, also she is very active. Her world is the soft elegance of her apartment.") I had to look this one up, "poussiere" means "dust". It's a woodsy, incensey, floral, rather subtle, and it does dry down to a sort of dry quality, which is indeed more like incense dust than powder. It's got some of the qualities I was looking for with the Shaal Nur, and I really do like it.

More to follow--I have ten or eleven of these things to go.

Playing at Sephora

2008-07-17T10:47:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I happened to be in downtown San Francisco with a little time to spare, so I popped into Sephora and played. A few notes follow.

1. Eau des Merveilles and Elixir des Merveilles

I remembered that I had sampled Hermes' Elixir des Merveilles at some point, and hadn't liked it, but I didn't remember why, so yesterday at Sephora I succumbed again to the name, the pretty bottle, and the rave reviews at various online sources, and spritzed the Eau and the Elixir at point up my hand and arm.

Eau des Merveilles starts with a happy frivolous blast of chemical orange, but then--and now I recall why I rejected the Elixir last time--it turns to bug spray. The stuff that your mom spritzes on you to keep the mosquitos off? That stuff. I can't even analyze the smell. It's bug spray.

Elixir des Merveilles does not even bother with the happy citrusy top notes. It goes straight to bug spray. I kept waiting to see if something else would develop, but it stayed bug spray, even after I scrubbed the back of my hand with the antibacterial foam Macy's provides in little dispensing machines by the elevators. This stuff has some good staying power.

I kept sniffing periodically all the way home, trying to see if I could get past the DEET and find anything else. Maybe kind of a woodsy smell? Whatever it was, the bug spray prevailed, above and below, and I have written this family of pretty bottles off, unless I need an elegant perfume to spray mosquitos with at some point.

2. Un Jardin en Mediterranee

However, happiness was mine not six inches away from the site of the mosquito-repellent disaster. I had ordered a sample of Hermes' Jardin Apres la Mousson, and while I like the watermelon opener a lot, the whole thing gets sort of musty and dry, and wasn't that great for me. Expermentally, I checked out the other two Jardins--Sur le Nil and Mediterranee.

Sur Le Nil smelled nice, and I will have to go back to it some day. Mediteranee got the whole back of the hand that wasn't covered in des Merveilles horror. I MUST HAVE MORE.

It starts with that bergamot blast thing that's apparently required by law for any fragrance that references the Mediterranean region--but already I was liking it--and then it just MELTS into softly sweet tree-flowerness, and woody herbs. There's a fig note, and I realized that I really like fig when it is just a note, as opposed to, say, a political statement. (Premier Figuier is a political statement. They grind up an entire fig tree, soak it in some alcohol, and present it to you. "Here. FIG. It smells more like sex than anything in the vegetable kingdom. You will WEAR it. You will LIKE it.")

Anyway, the Mediterranee just goes on being spectacular, and then it becomes more woodsy and herby, but still spectacular, and then it slowly, slowly fades away--and I want some. This is an official full-bottle purchase as soon as I get employed again.

Shaal Nur Frustrates My Schemes

2008-07-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

I will admit, I had high hopes for Etro's Shaal Nur. For one thing, I liked the name. This is a general annoying perfume trait o'mine--I like things that have nice names, or are packaged in a way that's appealing to me--and it should be all about the juice, no? No way. I am too verbal for that. I'm Irish. Deal.

Anyway, it's named after a Mughal princess, and it's a citrusy floral incense, and it sounded good and I got a vial and dabbed it on.

And the top notes hit me, and my heart soared. And I KNEW, KNEW that I was going to get a bottle of this stuff and wear it for the rest of my life. Lemony, flowery incensey goodness. Wow.

Five minutes later the top notes wore off. And I ended up with something that smelled like dried-out preserved lemons--sour citrus and must. UGH.

I have tried twice more, with the same results. The first rush KNOCKS ME OUT, but when it's gone, minutes later, I'm left with something that smells sour, old and unused, and totally wrong.

Crud!

Safran Troublant

2008-07-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Splashed Safran Troublant by L'Artisan all over me, and went about my business.

First things first--Safran Troublant makes me smell like a Persian dessert, with all that saffron and the rose backup. I have no problem smelling like a Persian dessert. It was pleasant. I like saffron in food, and I found it kind of nice to have floating around me.

I do not understand the name. 'Troublant', if I understand correctly means 'troubling', 'disturbing', something like that. L'Artisan translates the name as "Saffron Spell". All of this led me to imagine something deeper, more acrid, more intense. Naah. Iranian dessert treat. I think Mashti Malone makes an ice cream that tastes exactly like this smells, with pistachios in it. It's sweeeeet saffron, that's the strongest impression I get from it. Innocent. Kind of charming.

I like it, I do. The saffron smell is awfully nice. I guess I was expecting something dryer and darker. I can see wearing this again--it's a nice sort of weekend smell. It's also inspired me to make risotto milanese some time soon, so this is an all-around win, no?

YOSH? OMG!

2008-06-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

So, OK, somehow I become fixated on descriptions of the YOSH Winter Rose perfume oil. Everyone keeps commenting on how expensive it is, and indeed $200 bucks seems quite expensive for a full bottle, but I figure it sounds really good, and I should smell it, so I order up a sample from Luckyscent.

Now, eight bucks is more money than I have ever spent on a perfume sample, but what the heck, so I order me my sample, and they deliver it, and I notice, you know, that it's a very small sample.

Oh hell, smell it, says I, so I smell it. And I hope, by now, that it will not smell nice, so that I can stop being obsessed with this stuff.

But it smells nice. Dear God it smells nice. Apparently cardamom and rose is, like, the world's most inspired combo, like chocolate and peanut butter, or Lucy and Ricky.

It makes my heart yearn and calm at the same time. It smells super. And I smear on a bit more, and go about my business.

And the smell vanishes.

I mean, vanishes.

Now I normally do not like perfumes to stick and stick, but this stuff simply vanishes off the face of the earth, like five minutes after application. So I apply some more, and it is really nice. But after about two minutes I can smell the oil base more strongly than the rose and cardamom and this continues until the scent completely vanishes at about minute seven and a half.

OK, so it's a lovely smell, but not really suited for wearing, and expensive--strike this one off the list, reluctantly. But then, somehow, I go back to Luckyscent to read the reviews--discovering in the process that I am not the only one this fades on--and I suddenly realize something.

That $200 bucks? That's for EIGHT MILILITERS.

OK. This is simply a scam.

But the rose/cardamom is amazing, really amazing, and I may try to recreate it with cheaper oils at some point--it's kind of wonderful.

White-Out

2008-06-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

I ordered a sample of L'Artisan's Passage d'Enfer, because I am starting to think I might like incenses--or I was, now I'm starting to wonder--and because everyone raved over it. Try it out, says I. Teeny tiny decant on the way.

Basically, to this untrained nose, it smells exactly like the incense they use at my father's parish church. Which is nice, definitely. Attractive, and with pleasant memories of Christmases and Easters past. But I cannot see wearing it as a fragrance. When I close my eyes--I've taken to trying to define fragrances by color--I get pure white light, which is cool and everything, but I'm not an archangel, and I don't think I can pull this smell off.

Piment Brulant

2008-06-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

How could I resist? L'Artisan's Piment Brulant is supposed to be inspired by xocolatl, the Aztec forerunner to hot chocolate. Think unsweetened cocoa mixed with hot peppers, vanilla and other spices, and thickened with cornmeal. Sometimes, apparently, they added honey, and annatto, and Lord knows what. Good, whatever it was, and associated with the fertility goddess Xochiquetzal, which is probably why legend has it that the Aztec emperors drank fifty cups of the stuff a day. They must have been jittery as hell, with all that caffeine, but I guess it was worth it.

The word xocolatl apparently means 'bitter water', but the cocoa bean's Latin name is Theobroma cacao, theobroma meaning 'food of the gods'. This is one of the very few times you will catch me suggesting that the Latin for something is preferable to the Nahuatl for something.

If it's Mexican it gets my attention--even if it's Mexican as interpreted by a snooty French niche perfumer--so I had to order a teeny tiny vial and check this one out.

Piment Brulant smells like hot peppers and green tomatoes and chili powder, vanilla and sweet spices and a warm trace of bittersweet chocolate. It smells like the best dessert enchilada in the world, or something, and if you sniff your skin too closely right after applying it, you get a sharp little capsaicin blast to the sinuses. It's rich, and lovely, and WOW. Hot, but not at all overheated or stuffy. I can imagine wearing it year round.

It's like--women in black lace mantillas, and women in blue jeans sitting around a table together. The Cathedral Metropolitana in Mexico City. Aztec hot chocolate in Spanish china. Tangled green gardens. Papel picado and TV antennas. Ancient, old-fashioned and modern things all happily coexisting in a wash of sweet spice and chili powder.

I think what appeals to me most about this is that there is something sophisticated and feminine about it, but without the powder and heavy florals. It does have a black lace quality to it, but not blatantly sexy black lace. Black lace and flan and chocolate mole. And tomato plants. And beautiful women.

Two Plum Fragrances

2008-06-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

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.

More Decants On Their Way

2008-05-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I got paid, and I needed a treat (life being, right now, stressful), so I ordered up another batch of teeny-tiny decants. On their way:

Stella, by Stella McCartney--because rose and amber sounded good

Tresor--because apricot jam sounded good!

Magnolia Romana by Eau d'Italie--loved Eau d'Italie, and Sienne l'Hiver, so giving this a try.

Ume by Keiko Mecheri--I grew up in San Francisco, and salted plum treats are a fond childhood memory. I want to see if this is anything like that in perfumey form.

Three L'Artisans: Piment Brulant, Passage d'Enfer and Voleur de Roses--I'm trying Passage and Voleur because they sound intriguing, and I've heard lots of good things about them on the web. The Piment Brulant I want to try simply because it's got some of my favorite things--chocolate and peppers (yay!), and how can I pass up something that's described as being based on an Aztec love potion?

Comme des Garcons Zagorsk--I almost went for the Avignon, but I liked the sound of the notes for this one better, and well, Russian, Russian...

and Serge Lutens Fleurs d'Oranger, because it sounds wonderful. And because I gotta try something by this Lutens guy, and see if the perfume is as fabulous as everyone tells me.

Apparently I pick things to sample because they sound like they taste good, or because of cultural associations. Well, I could have told you that!

Eau d'Italie

2008-05-25T12:18:00.001-07:00

I am still in the newbie stage of perfume addiction, where I want to smell everything, and I keep reading all the blogs, and getting excited about each new brand and scent I hear about. I want to smell everything. It was while I was trawling around for rose perfumes--I love rose scents, and haven't actually found The One I want yet, that I learned about Eau d'Italie, from someone who was reviewing their Paestum Rose perfume.

Apparently, Eau d'Italie is the brainchild of a woman who is part of the family that runs the world-famous (although I'd never heard of it before) Le Sirenuse Hotel in Positano, Italy. Eau d'Italie (and why does it have a French name, pray tell?) is a series of perfumes meant to evoke various parts of Italy. I was sold. For one thing, the whole set-up seemed like the setting for a Judith Krantz novel, and for another, I could hardly think of anything cooler than smelling like Italy. (There IS nothing cooler than smelling like Italy. Really.)

So I ordered me some decants.

The concept behind the first fragrance, Eau d'Italie seems to have been to capture the scent of the Amalfi coast in summertime. I have never been to Amalfi (alas, alas), but the Mediterranean summertime smell of this fragrance was incredibly familiar and resonant for this Northern California girl. "Angel Island!" I said after wearing it for a while. "Marin!"

It's the smell of clay and soil baking out in the summer heat, just a note of citrus from someone's backyard, a million herbs and flowers, dust kicking up under your hiking boots, and a chorus of insects screaming in the hills as the Pacific rolls silver-bright downhill from you. Well, it is for me, anyway.

I guess this makes sense. I live in a region with a Mediterreanean climate, and I suppose it is natural that some of the natural scents and aesthetics should overlap. The note that seems to make this perfume stand out for me is the red-clay smell that I get most strongly from it. Per fragrantica.com, "The accord of soil or the mineral accord of clay (argile in French) is the central note of the composition." It reminds me most of the summer smell of the hills around here, and I got another strong whiff just yesterday when I accompanied students from the school I teach at to a park with a baseball diamond. The red clay smell hit me in the face, and I said "Eau d'Italie!" And grinned.

I also got a little decant of Sienne l'Hiver. This did not require any time to get to know it and think about it. I had a visceral reaction to Sienne l'Hiver. Synapses went off. Pleasure centers in the brain lit up like fireworks. And I had to crack down on my first instinct, which was to drink it. Swear to Bob, as my students say, I almost poured out the decant straight onto my tongue.

Having avoided this, (what happens if you drink perfume, anyway? I grew up on stories of drunks in the U.S.S.R. drinking cologne for the alcohol content--but I made myself fairly queasy accidentally swallowing a slug of mouthwash a while ago) I am still experimentally taking the top off the Sienne l'Hiver every couple of days and sniffing it, just to get that "Uh huuuuh!" reaction from my brain again. It's so totally a fall/winter smell that I haven't been wearing it, although I sometimes dab my wrist so I can sniff while I watch TV or grade papers.

I get a lot of roasted chestnut from it, and smoke and incense. Apparently there is a black olive note--perhaps that's the slightly salty-rich smell that seems to underly the whole thing. I think the concept is to evoke a winter day in Siena--the chestnut vendors and the historical churches and such. For sure it's less familiar a smell to me than the Eau d'Italie is, but it evokes a wonderful sense of comfort and wonder combined--and I have a dreadful feeling that I will buy a whole bottle. I can hardly wait for November, just so I can wear this in cold, bleak weather. Mmmm. Good.

Now, the scent that actually brought me to this line, you may recall, was the Paestum Rose. To which my reaction was, in the words of Bart and Lisa Simpson, 'meh'. It's nice, but I basically smell heavy sweet roses and incense. I have no problem with either smell, but I am willing to bet I could find a body oil that smells exactly like this in a store on Telegraph Avenue or the Haight for seven bucks. It seems pretty strong for anything except a rave, (which I so rarely attend ;). There's something old-fashioned about it to me--it either evokes hippies (one of my students, who love Led Zeppelin could wear this), or very old-fashioned indeed--it seems Roman, possibly. Something ancient, and interesting, but not something I could wear any more than I could wear Liz Taylor's eye makeup from Cleopatra. (I bet Cleopatra would have gone for this fragrance, though. It is pretty sexy.)

I totally want to try the Magnolia Romana and Bois d'Ombrie scents.

The packaging, as you can see, is pretty awful. WHY have a line evoking all the regions of Italy and then package them in generic hairspray bottles? Oh well. When I have my own hotel in Italy I can put the signature perfume in anything I want, I guess.

Gunmetal Rose

2008-05-18T01:13:00.001-07:00

In my first round of decants ordered from Perfumed Court, I decided to try out Creed's Fleur de The Rose Bulgare. I have a fondness for all things rose, you see, and I'd heard such lovely things about this fragrance that I just figured I had to check it out.

The problem I've found is that, rather than the pure fresh rose I was expecting, the effect is rather like a pure fresh rose mixed with metal, and not nice metal. (What would nice metal smell like?) That smell your hands get after you've rolled all your loose nickels into rolls for the bank? It's that smell, compounded with flowers. Roses pounded with dirty nickels. Floral base metal.

Ghahhah. The mind rebels. I actually pull away from the smell of this, with my face screwed up, trying to avoid it. Apparently I am not the only person afflicted with this problem. One commenter at Now Smell This writes: "For some reason, that one came off metallic, like tin, on me. It smelled like a rose wrapped in aluminum foil."

Now Smell This sensibly replies: "It is a wonderful thing when something expensive smells horrible on the skin, no?"

Oh yes. I still have the better part of a milliliter of this stuff left. Send me an SASE, and it's yours. Now I have to go and scrub my wrists. I put on one last dab of the gunk before posting, to see if the earlier impression was hasty. It was not. My wrist smells like gunmetal and dying flowers. Soap! SOAP!

Happy to Be

2008-05-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here in Northern California, we are having a heat wave, and my bottle of Clinique's Happy to Be has finally come into its own.

I picked this up after a long love affair with Clinique's Happy, and for about a year, found that I could not wear it. (This is the sort of thing that used to make me feel like an idiot until I heard scentbloggers saying the same kind of thing. What scentbloggers may say about my love affair with Happy is another matter. Hands off my Happy. It makes me happy.)

Anyway, I have discovered that the defining element for making Happy to Be's honeysuckle-and-cucumbery notes get along with my body chemistry is heat above eighty-five degrees. The sweetness no longer radiates obnoxiously the way it does when I wear this in slightly cooler weather, the weird watery chemical notes smell clean and cool, rather than, well, weird. Best of all, the scent is somehow tricking my brain into believing I am surrounded by cool gardens full of ponds, rather than in my sweltering apartment with a pool outside that will not be opened until Memorial Day, no matter HOW hot it gets.

The only problem I am facing now is how rapidly the scent is burning off in this weather--while in cooler times, my concern was how determinedly it clung to me--but I just keep spritzing, and praying for fog.

Teeny-Tiny Molotov Cocktails

2008-05-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

I have discovered the world of the perfume decant, and I see trouble ahead. Specifically, I see a world in which I have far too many 1-mililiter vials in my life, cluttering my bedside table and my drawers. And what do you do with the teeny- tiny vials full of stuff you turn out to hate? Is there a teeny-tiny decant exchange somewhere? Or are they only good to be turned into teeny-tiny Molotov cocktails?