Tabac Blond-History Comes Full Circle

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.

Parfum Sacre

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.

Baume du Doge

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!

Piment Brulant

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.