parfümieren

The scent cabinet.

2012-02-28T21:51:00.004-05:00

What with all the amazing pictorial ‘bottle erotica’ that’s been meme-ing its way around Perfumeland (as shown here, here, here, and sweetMarymotherofGOD, HERE), I seem to have picked up a case of acute inventoryitis. Inspired (or is that infected?) by 'fume friends whose temperatures are still running high, I picked up my newly-upgraded camera phone this weekend and started self-medicating. (Don’t they always tell you to “feed a fever”?)

But though the bottles (oy, the bottles!) are the true stars of this runway, I wanted to do more than just take pictures of my collection. I felt a strong urge to show where it lives... because home, for perfume as well as people, is a place of power.

I remember way back when my perfume collection could fit in a pencil case. Over time, it expanded to the point at which improved housing became a must. Enter my altar cabinet, which I previously wrote about here. When I moved my perfumes into the altar cabinet, it took some judicious reorganizing of its contents to fit everything. But strangely, no adjustment in my regard of the cabinet as my life's metaphysical center was required. Rather than diminish its power, scent heightened and completed it, lending it a new and fuller dimension. My daily pilgrimage to the cabinet to "plug in" spiritually now included choosing a scent to sanctify my day-- and it felt so right.

The cabinet comprises four sections: a glass-enclosed upper portion followed by two open alcoves of differing heights, with an enclosed cupboard at the base. The topmost portion had always housed my altar tools and other energy-imbued objects, particularly the Viking-style drinking horns I learned to make some years ago. (These are real, polished longhorns engraved with a steel etching tool, lined with several coats of pure hard beeswax to make them beverage-safe, and rimmed with hand-embossed metal. I currently have three of them in graduated sizes from eight to twenty inches long.)

On top of the cabinet sits my offering bowl, flanked by votive statues of Shiva the Destroyer and Buddha Akshobhya ("The Imperturbable"). These guardians came to me via secondhand serendipity-- attracted, perhaps, by my lifelong interest in Eastern religions (and my need to conquer inner turmoil). The Indian brass bell was gifted to me by my mother-in-law. We ring it periodically to cleanse the energy in our house.

Do you see those absolutely gorgeous brocade banners adorning the crown of my cabinet? You might think they came straight from Tibet, but in fact they were handmade by the super talented Bloody Frida! The love and care that went into their crafting is radiant-- and somehow, they fit in a way that feels as if they've been there since the dawn of time. Muchas gracias, Frida!

Here are my favorite “cherry” and “milagros” (Mexican votive charm) necklaces, along with an antique Chinese opium box given to me by a friend in Hawaii. I’ve been told that its yellow five-clawed dragon motif indicates that it may have belonged to a servant in the Imperial palace, as this symbolism was forbidden to all except the Emperor, his family, and his retinue. I feel incredibly lucky to possess this piece of history.

This is my “goddess shelf”— the residence of Freyja, symbolized by a terracotta figure I made when I was seventeen. I surround her with precious and colorful stones, shells, crystals, flowers, and love. Behind her is an antique cast-iron Chinese censer inherited from a relative. It is topped with a small brass shishi lion-dog ornament -- ever-vigilant, ever-protective -- and can accommodate a lit tablet of Freyja's favorite evergreen incense.

The large alcove below Freyja is taken up by a birchwood chest (Ikea fans, it's a Fira!*) which I acquired about fifteen years ago and painted red, blue, and green. It houses some of my tools and sundries (including decanting supplies!). There is just enough room left over on the shelf for this small Uzbek porcelain bowl filled with purifying sea salt. The geisha fan and leaf brooch (cast from life in copper) belonged to my sainted Grandmother Ida. Behind them is a beautiful "moon in the trees" tile given to me by a very dear friend with whom I shared the distinction of being the only Jersey girls in our Maui town.

I bet you thought we'd never get to the perfume...but the bottom cupboard is chock-full of it. It's a particular point of pride that most of what you see above was scored on the cheap in local thrift or antique stores.... but a goodly number of perfumes were gifted to me by some very cherished friends, which makes wearing them even sweeter.

DC gave me this unfinished Fira (I'm still pondering what colors to paint it). Its drawers are filled with all of my samples, boxed and loose minis, purse-sized decants, attars and essences in dram bottles (distinguished by their black lids). One entire drawer contains every perfume I've purchased or received from friends but have yet to review; I keep these in one place so that I can easily choose a new subject when craving a literary adventure. Off to the side, you can glimpse my old cherry-veneer perfume box, which now contains incenses, scented soaps, and beeswax. The tall bottles sitting on top of that are NOT my liquor supply, thank you very much-- they include tinctures-in-progress, colonias, and (way in back) a perfectly humungous bottle of 4711 that I hope to empty as Maya Angelou puts it-- 'fore I diiie.

I try to keep all my 1ml samples (and they are ridiculously many) sorted into organza (AKA "organiza") bags labeled by perfume house. However, my cataloging skills -- which get quite a workout at my library workplace each day -- are usually exhausted by the time I get home. Chaos ensues. If things don't improve soon, my goal for 2014 is to use the damn things up-- namely, pick one vial a day and wear its entire contents before nightfall. That'll show 'em.

A while back I invested in a set of Bed Bath & Beyond generic glass spice jars. As the photo above reveals, they have never, ever been used to store spices. Instead, I enlisted them one by one to hold the contents of perfume bottles that I had to hack into using a combination of wiles and muscle. The jars work pretty well for their adopted purpose, being fairly airtight.

Looking at the above photograph, I am made keenly aware that I have more perfume than I could wear in three lifetimes. Not that I foresee actually having to make the attempt! I love to share, and I'm constantly making up samples for perfume pals near and far. (Compiling a cohesive bottle list like Frida's will make it even easier to decant on demand.) I've also toyed with the idea of creating a quarterly art-and-perfume mini-zine that would automatically be sent out to my mailing list-- and which would come complete with relevant decanted fragrance samples. Hmm!

My biggest opportunity to put a dent in my collection will come this fall, if I get to reprise my Perfume For You seminar as hoped. When I first presented it last spring, I decanted and distributed scads of samples to happy attendees, but my dream for this year is to go even bigger. I would love to provide every seminar participant with a complimentary set of samples representing each of the "fragrance families" on Michael Edwards' famous Wheel... and I'd package them all in a self-designed "keepsake coffret" that in itself would be a little work of art.

If this dream becomes a reality, you, Dear Readers, will be in the know!

*Check out these Fira Mini Chest projects at IkeaHackers. Ikea recently reissued the Fira under the new product name Moppe, but only in Europe and the UK so far. Alas!

Weekend 3: JC and Me!

2012-02-26T23:54:00.007-05:00

"Look, my sister!...a bargain! I'll get it!"

It almost doesn't happen. Flat tires, work-week exhaustion, and cold-weather aches pick off the members of the shopping sorority one by one. By Friday night, I've been battling the same crushing headache for 72 hours straight. It's veered in and out of migraine status so many times, I feel like I'm watching a hot tennis match between the two hemispheres of my own brain. Seriously, we are playing it by ear.

But Saturday morning dawns blustery, bright, and pain-free, and JC whoops with delight when I call her to say I'm in the clear. So it is that we two -- with fond thoughts for those absent and excitement for the adventures ahead -- drive north through gusty winds, light snow, and intermittent bursts of sunshine to our Mecca on the banks of the beautiful Navesink... Jay & Silent Bob's hometown... Red Bank, New Jersey.

Our first order of business: a visit to P.S. Poppyseeds on English Plaza. I first discovered this sweet little fashion boutique last autumn at the end of a frustrating quest for local Tokyo Milk Dark sources. After numerous false leads, a kind stranger (or was it an angel?) pointed me in the direction of a tiny outdoor mall. Therein lay P.S. Poppyseeds-- and since then, my husband and I have returned numerous times to score deeply-discounted "Femme Fatales" for ourselves and our friends.

Having listened to me blither endlessly about Poppyseeds, JC wants to find out for herself what makes it so goshdarned special. The answer: owner Evie Cassese, whose youth, friendliness, and bohemian sense of style is vibrantly reflected in her array of ready-to-wear fashions, accessories, and perfume.

About the perfume-- what's going on with Tokyo Milk? The display seems to have shrunken dramatically from what it had been last December, when my spouse bought my Christmas bottle of Arsenic and I scored JoanElaine some sweet sacerdotal Excess. Upon returning in mid-January to obtain the same for Bloody Frida-- well, "excess" was no longer the operative word. Evie confirms that she stopped ordering replacements, intending to sell last year's stock down to make way for new selections. "It's time for a change," she cheerfully explains. "Every so often I like to switch 'em up-- it keeps things interesting, and I'm looking for new lines to try." (Oooh! Oooh! Histoires de Parfums! Ineke! I could suggest so many!)

The dwindling supply of Tokyo Milk (coupled with some truly glorious sale pricing) renders JC and me ready to shop our little hearts out. Just as Frida had succumbed to the Green Fairy sorcery of Arsenic (her fateful second choice), so does JC-- and as luck would have it, one bottle remains. Similarly, the last flacon of that marvelous sweet-tea-and-orange-candy concoction Everything & Nothing has my pal Suzanne's name on it. (A thousand thanks to Evie for setting it aside!)

What about a scent for me? My choice lies between Crushed and Bittersweet.* I love the hopeful spring-floral quality of the former, but I've never been quite able to forget the latter's sultry Dutched-cocoa charm. Winter seems the ideal time to revisit its delights. Plus, fewer bottles remain of Bittersweet than of Crushed-- a compelling argument against procrastination.

What can I do? I'm a chocoholic.

Evie now calls our attention to her newest acquisitions, attractively displayed in a cozy side alcove: the Tocca line, resplendent in gorgeous fluted-crystal globes. (Normally I'm not seduced by mere glass, but me oh my, those bottles are eye candy at its most delectable!) JC and I sniff Cleopatra (cassis-peach-tuberose), Stella (blood orange and freesia) and finally land on Colette. A romantic cyclamen livened up by pink peppercorn, it strikes me as more evocative of its fin-de-siècle literary namesake than Histoires de Parfums' too-sweet ruby grapefruit version. Evie confides in us that Colette is her favorite, and I readily agree... although I'd prefer an orchid-purple tint over girly-girl pink. (Once a tomboy, always a tomboy!)

In the tiny "last-chance" annex, JC and I sample a few more Tokyo Milks -- Kabuki (grapefruit/lychee/jasmine; very similar to Aroma M's Geisha Pink), Eden (blackcurrant, greens, and musk; sweet fruits on the vine) and I Want Candy (fine if you do, but I don't). Meanwhile, Evie has packaged up our Dark purchases in her customary pastel paper totes with pretty colored ribbons to differentiate JC's from mine. Lovely touch!


Food Network's puny rendition of tom kha gai. Magnify x10,000 and serve in a vessel the size of a bowling ball if you want it Siam Garden-style. Seriously, you need to be able to fit an ENTIRE CHICKEN in there.

After a quick foray into the Monmouth Street Emporium to help ourselves from the bowl of complimentary Hershey's Kisses (okay, I lied when I said I didn't want candy), it's onward to lunch at Siam Garden, an extraordinary Thai restaurant to which JC introduced me several years ago. My first taste of their tom kha gai (coconut soup with chicken, cilantro, fresh ginger, and pan-fried chilis) forever fixed Siam Garden as a sort of polestar in my culinary sky-- believe me, whatever else you order, the tom kha gai is non-negotiable. It comes to your table in an impressively deep lidded tureen that takes at least two serene hours full of relaxed, meandering conversation to finish and is best chased by green tea ice cream garnished with red bean jam. What felicity exceeds sitting across from a dear friend and groaning in unison when you find you are equally too full (and happy) to move?

But move we must, so to walk off this gargantuan feast, we stagger across the intersection to the Red Bank Antique District. Consisting of four or five cavernous buildings chock-full of treasures from every era, this nexus of New Jersey vintage draws pickers like helpless moths towards an old-timey gas flame. JC and I only have time for two buildings before five o'clock closing time, so we choose the obvious: the Antique Center of Red Bank and the Monmouth Antique Shoppes, two formidable emporiums which face each other like aging adversaries across the span of Front Street.

JC strikes it big in the ACRB, scoring an exquisite amethyst hobnail glass vase (circa 1850) for a mere sixty percent of its stated price. The vendor (a veritable senior Santa, white-bearded and round-bellied, wearing a red plaid flannel hunting shirt) delivers an impassioned oratory on the piece's rarity and worth, but JC holds firm and goes home with the prize. My own smaller (but no less celebrated) victory takes place across the street, where I find a half-full mini of vintage Ivoire de Balmain extrait sitting innocuously on a display case shelf. On my skin, it smells like warm, sweet heavy cream spiced with cardamom -- in other words, positively perfect -- and it sets me back less than a Garden State Parkway homebound toll.

From migraines to magic, from stormclouds to sun, a good time was had by everyone!

*Oddly enough, there were lots of unclaimed bottles of La Vie La Mort-- a sight which confirmed that others had perhaps felt as I did about it. You'd never think a fragrance enlisting such heavy hitters as tuberose and jasmine would end up on the bench-- but sadly, this one just struck out.

Archery Dresses, British fashion plate circa 1831 (Myrtle Tyrrell Kirby Fashion Plate Collection, Claremont Colleges Digital Library)

"Divers, et ondoyant..."

2012-02-23T10:47:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time, I published the tale of my introduction to Flora Bella de Lalique on this blog. It's only a few days shy of two years since I first told my story, yet it seems to me as though its main character has been a part of my mythical landscape for decades. The love I bear for Flora Bella -- paired with my dependence upon its ability to neutralize all manner of the blues -- has led to a dangerous sort of complacency: Run out of Flora Bella? Impossible! There's PLENTY!

I admit I've been extravagant -- encouraged, to be sure, by my naive belief that 100 ml. is a practically inexhaustible amount of perfume. I've lost count of the number of decants I've shared with friends, not to mention the many "extra" spritzes I've applied to my own self with the blithe justification that "there's tons of it left!"

But there isn't. The level of perfume in the bottle declares an unavoidable truth. And what cost me an almost unthinkable $28 on Amazon two years ago now (due to discontinuation and dwindling supplies) commands a good deal more.

How does perfume become personified in our minds? From the very first, I have envisioned Flora Bella as a naiad: fluid, fickle, evasive. I have privately referred to her as "the mermaid perfume" and worn her on vulnerable days when I wished to absorb some measure of her alien, Aquarian untouchability. The sea-change seems to occur as readily as that which I undergo with Jolie Madame (tough-talking career gal in ten seconds flat!) or Arabie (silent temple-keeper treading the labyrinth) or Puredistance Antonia (sacred kore joyfully gathering flowers for Persephone). This cannot just be my imagination. Whether by chance or by design, these spirits must reside in the perfume.

And like the vættur of old, their motives often lie beyond mortal understanding.

In the best tradition of the selkie, Flora Bella will consent to remain in my company only up to a point. Eventually she must return to the sea; we both know it. One day soon, to the tune of my tear-stricken, utterly futile pleading, she will up and vanish... the path of her departure erased by the remorseless surf.

Farewell, sea-creature rich and strange.

Die Rheintöchter, illustration by Arthur Rackham for Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold (Margaret Amour, transl.), Doubleday New York, 1910.

La Sirène, Megan Ruisch, 2009 (Private Collection)

Weekend 2: Eclectic Boogaloo!

2012-02-20T23:34:00.007-05:00

What to do on a long holiday weekend? Why, roam around tasting the glories of good old Asbury Park with my dear pal DC, of course!

We start with lunch at Toast on Cookman Avenue. DC and I trade tastes of each others' lunches; she has ordered an unbelievably delicious Cuban pressed sandwich, while I enjoy the best huevos rancheros I've ever eaten, hands down. Duly energized by fine food, we head off for our first stop: the Antique Emporium.

I've always believed that one can tell a town's true personality by the contents of its antique stores. That being said, Asbury Park must be one seething, roiling hotbed of pansexual joy-- because I have never seen so much secondhand erotica in all my life. Postcards. Pinups. Sculpture. Novelty beer steins. I'm no prude, but Jesus-- erotic paint-by-number kits? Really? DC and I start to wonder if we've stumbled into a warehouse housing all the donations rejected by Manhattan's Museum of Sex. What somehow makes it worse are the completely ordinary objects interspersed with the smut-- salt and pepper shakers next to the X-rated rug-hooked wall hangings; vintage jewelry next to the Tijuana Bibles. So dazed am I by all the anatomical detail that I almost miss the following beauty's siren-call.

Introduced in 1925, Crêpe de Chine by Millot is a sheer, deliciously dry aldehydic chypre that arrives on the doorstep holding a riotous bouquet of flowers. This pristine bottle of Cologne Glacée slightly predates 1968, when Crêpe de Chine was discontinued. Though the contents have suffered a small amount of evaporation, so much remains after 40 years that I can only imagine that this bottle completely escaped personal use altogether. Even its sprayer tube is as clean as a whistle, implying that it's never once been spritzed. A pity, for some... but not for me!

Price? $20. Sold!

Next up: the Asbury Park Trading Post. Open the door at street level, walk down several concrete steps, and suddenly you're in the East Village, browsing through the racks in some hip vintage basement boutique on St. Mark's Place. Here, DC found that discounted bottle of Abercrombie & Fitch Clutch Cologne (which she has generously offered up to me for adoption-- thank you, my dear!). Today, several bottles of Bond No. 9 perfume wait on the checkout counter to be indulgently tested rather than purchased. We sniff Chinatown (deep-scarlet heart of peach) and H.O.T. Always (virile patchouli) while listening to the saleslady -- an elegant model-thin African-American woman -- tell a friend over the phone, "I don't want anything for my birthday except for you to learn some damn common sense."

Tipped off that a new antique store has opened two towns over, we head north on Route 35 to Allenhurst and discover that the shop in question is actually the Shore Antique Center, lately relocated from Point Pleasant. Therein we find a rare specimen: a miniature of Yves Saint Laurent's Champagne (1993), manufactured prior to the grape-growers' lawsuit that forced its name change to Yvresse (ivresse = "intoxication").

Climate, if not French law, has worked in Champagne's favor. The fact that this antique center (formerly a railway warehouse) is as cold as an industrial refrigerator means that the mini-EdP has been kept chilled to perfection, literally icy to the touch as I remove it from the display shelf. A quick sniff confirms the worth of its vintage-- fruity-rosy in the usual Sophia Grojsman style, but sparkling in a manner that no doubt would make a Veuve Clicquot executive nervous.

Price? $15. A little steep, but hey-- sometimes history doesn't repeat itself.

And what, pray tell, is this? Well, it's a promotional book of matches with an attached perfume sample, made to be offered as a gracieusement in the Paris atelier of Rigaud, the historic-perfumer-turned-luxury-home-fragrancer. The perfume is Eve Rêve ('Eve Dream'; 1955), Rigaud's penultimate release before Violettes de Toulouse. DC and I find an ENTIRE BOX of these in a display case. Some of the vials are bone-dry and empty, time having evaporated their contents. But a few of them are nearly full-- and priced at $5 apiece, it's an affordable adventure for two perfume pals. (We do, however, question the wisdom of pairing alcohol-based perfume with matches. Seriously-- is that not a recipe for trouble?)

DC and I end our sojourn at Cravings Gourmet Desserts, recipient of the Asbury Park Press' "Best in Ocean/Monmouth Counties" Readers' Award for ten consecutive years. DC orders a cupcake that looks like a tuffet for a fairy princess, while I opt for the somewhat-homelier-but-no-less tasty Peanut Clusters (a no-bake treat made from peanut butter, cocoa, and oats, reasonably priced at three for a dollar). Scrumptious... and Jersey-made!

After a detour through beautiful Ocean Gate, we head southward towards home, sated and smiling, our loot piled on the back seat to be decanted and divvied up at a later date. I suppose we should thank Washington and Lincoln for making this take possible, though I don't reckon that either of them foresaw their day of honor being put to such frivolous use. In answer, I'd quote them some Robert Palmer: Ain't that just like a woman!

En la botánica otra vez.

2012-02-19T20:35:00.000-05:00

Cities have their bodegas and botánicas; the suburbs have Super World Class ShopRites. The term "world class" may be debatable -- it isn't exactly Les Halles, and not even nearly a Wegman's -- and the grand opening of a deluxe neighborhood grocery store usually doesn't fill one's noggin with dreams of perfume. But as I described in a previous post, fragrance is where you find it. Thanks to our vibrant multiethnic community, local retail stockists make sure to order products which truly reflect diverse cultures and tastes. A sweeter-smelling world is the result!

Colonia Canela (Crusellas)

If it is your life's dream to possess the irresistible magnetism of the Cinnabon kiosk at the mall, look no further. For approximately three dollars, you get 7.5 fluid ounces (221 ml.) of mouthwatering cinnamon-vanilla-orange deliciousness that plays out the whole spectrum from spicy to buttery to sweet. Despite the sunny warmth of its aroma, it is pleasantly cooling when applied to skin, with a mild drydown that delivers satisfaction in every season of the year. The tall and tacky plastic splash bottle in which it is sold does not do it justice. Transfer it into something decorative (preferably a good refillable purse sprayer, so you can carry it everywhere) and spritz, spritz, spritz away! I guarantee that people will line up and take a number merely for a breath of you.

Colonia Flor de Naranja (Murray & Lanman)

I can't pinpoint the moment in my history when the scent of orange blossom became inextricable from the feeling of limitless innocence. When I smell it, I am skyrocketed back to age four, when everything was simple and life's minor virtues (playtime, a good bowl of oatmeal, my favorite book) meant the world to me. Whereas Sanborn's Orange Blossom smuggles in a sexy skin musk among the blossoms (and whereas my forty-odd year-old self fully embraces the little frisson which that brings), Murray & Lanman's Colonia Flor de Naranja offers only the pure blue sky of youth. I cast my eyes heavenward, feel the exquisite heat of the sun on the tree's topmost blooms, and -- for as long as it lasts, which (like childhood) isn't very long -- I am deeply, truly, unreservedly happy.

Colonia de Rosas (Murray & Lanman)

Tinted an extravagant pink, Colonia de Rosas looks like bubble-blowing solution and smells like floral plastic, which is not the worst thing I (who am not fond of roses as a rule) could say. At least it smells better than the rosewater-pomegranate granita which I once made for a New Year's party, and which no one -- not one person -- touched. Each confessed that while its gorgeous flamingo color made them long to try it, its fragrance seemed to forbid it to be eaten. I wonder if they would have consented to dab it on their wrists instead?

Colonia de Pacholi (Murray & Lanman)

The only real dud in the bunch, Colonia de Pacholi smells very little of the patchouli I know, love, and fear, unless its inclusion is at some homeopathic proportion. This is a pale and weak tincture of another herb such as oregano or marjoram-- some denizen of the spice rack which I imagine some high-school student attempting to roll and smoke. Even a considerable quantity poured over my hands failed to make them smell anything like the supposed main ingredient. Avoid if you like patchouli... but not if you like pizza.

All fragrances purchased for under $5 per bottle from the "international" selection at my local supermarket.

Botanica La Esperanza, Calle Ocho, Miami, 2009. Posted by Kristin on SeeSignage.com

Ultraviolet.

2012-02-17T00:45:00.005-05:00

For the longest time, I didn't know who was to blame-- violets or me. We tried and tried, but ours was a relationship destined to stall straight out of the gate.

Sure, I liked the idea of violets -- a mysterious carpet of deep purple and green velvet silvered with morning dew. But the reality of violets as a perfumery note left me feeling frustrated and (truth be told) ever so slightly swindled. Après l'Ondée, Cuir Pleine Fleur, Bois de Violettes, Iris de Nuit, The Unicorn Spell... each offered up a scant few seconds of pleasure, then vanished like the aforementioned dew.

Time and again, I'd swear to myself that I'd walk away and never look back. I'm being played for a fool by a perfume? I'd mutter under my breath. Oh HELL no! Then a femme fatale like Jolie Madame -- truly deep and truly mysterious -- would sashay through my door like trouble on court heels, and damn if I didn't find myself right back at square one with all my hard-won resolve blown to smithereens.

If there was a support group, a methadone program, a sobriety chip for violet junkies, I'd be twelve-stepping like mad. But cold hard science just keeps enabling me. I'll let this guy explain it:

A key component of the flower’s scent is a compound called ionone (C13H20O), and in fact it, and the closely related methyl ionones, have been used extensively in perfumes for about a century. But the weird thing is that supposedly ionone temporarily desensitizes the receptors in your olfactory epithelium... so that the smell of a violet weakens after the first sniff. So you can sniff and sniff, but you never smell it any better…

In essence, the violet is Nature's drug dealer. It offers you that all-important first taste, then cruelly withholds the goods. Forced to sniff deeper and more desperately to get your ever-diminishing dose of sweet thrills, in no time at all you're gone, wasted, strung out... on an teenytiny ittybitty flower.*

Here are three violets so dangerous, the DEA should interfere!

Violette Précieuse (Caron)

The closest to a soliflore of all that I've sampled, Violette Précieuse is violet at its most arresting-- for about two seconds. I curse my epithelium for copping out, because ooooohh! The maddeningly short-lived bit of scent that precedes the system overload is pure amethyst tumbled smooth, offering up a single soul-stopping glisten before it sinks below the surface of Caron's patented woody pudding. Don't go! I cry. Does it ever listen?

Scent Elements: Violet flowers and leaves, iris, orange blossom, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, raspberry, vetiver, nutmeg, sandalwood

Purple Love Smoke Absolute (Soivohle)

Sadly listed as 'no longer available' on Liz Zorn's website, Purple Love Smoke takes bushels of tender blossoms and throws them atop a mountain of lit charcoal briquettes. If you've ever stood over an old-fashioned cast-iron hibachi at the height of August, you know the heat of which I speak. But unless you've seen a flower evaporate in the flame's embrace, what I have to say here simply may not translate. We're talking about a scent that undergoes purgatory for you-- veering between intense sugar and acrid resin for hours on end. When its trials are complete, the perfume that emerges is sweet and pure, all its earthly tethers converted to ash so that it may soar free. As will you.

Scent Elements: Violet leaf and flower, "earth" accord.

Violets & Rainwater (Soivohle)

At first, it really is just what it says it is: a cool, moist scent, almost vegetal, like a pale-green root steeped in nectars from a spring flower's innermost heart. Simple, yes? But after this phase passes, Violets & Rainwater becomes mindblowing. Balsamic smoke from unseen censers fills the air; you might even imagine that you've strayed into a no-man's land between Lutens and Tauer territories, so exotic and austere is the fragrance that envelops you. Against its towering sand dunes, that original "wet" accord is thrown into even higher relief-- and to a desert, rainwater is more precious than gold. They certainly believed so over at ÇaFleureBon, where Violets and Rainwater was voted the Favorite Spring/Summer Scent of 2011. I vote that it remains so for 2012!

Scent Elements: Parma violet, violet leaf absolute, "fresh-turned soil" accord, "rainwater" accord, iris, rose centifolia, patchouli, white musk, labdanum absolute

*If something more official is needed, here's a study conducted by the USDA which showed that the inability to detect β-ionone is fairly common. An estimated one-third of the population can't get past that first sniff; our physiology is no match for a flower's molecules. Well played, you wee purple bastard!

All samples purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Bouquet de Pansies, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, from Choix des plus belles fleurs (Selection of the Most Beautiful Flowers), 1827. Originating as a European wildflower, Viola tricolor (or heartsease) became an obsession for young Lady Mary Elizabeth Bennet at the turn of the 19th century. With the expert assistance of her gardener, she learned to cross-breed these small, colorful violets to produce larger, showier blossoms with a distinct bearded "face". After Lady Mary publicly introduced her hybrids in 1812, the pansy (from the French pensée, 'thought') rapidly became a favorite among gardeners. Though not scented as prominently as the Viola odorata used in fragrance and confectionary, live pansies have their own shy perfume that smells as good as any fragrance in a bottle... at least for a second or two.

Drôle de Rose (L'Artisan) and Aimez-Moi (Caron)

2012-02-16T16:53:00.006-05:00

These two darling debutantes came out in the same year (1996). They share an olfactory palette (rose-violet-anise), and if they could, they'd choose the same shade of blush pink for their ballgowns. Their accents and mannerisms make them seem like twins; I'm guessing that they both attended the same finishing school.

How do you tell which is which?

Well, Aimez-Moi seems to be the "innocent" one of the pair, a little girl in no hurry to grow up. She comes off as more confectionary, with a powdery-chalky feel like pastel candy confetti; the overall effect is charmingly vintage and lacking in guile. Drôle de Rose, on the other hand, harbors some sticky-sweet romantic aspirations that demand a veneer of sophistication if she's to achieve her aim. Questioned about her powder and lipstick, she swears Mother let her out of the house that way-- but surely Grandmother would have spied that hint of cleavage and kept her home!

As the song goes, Drôle de Rose and Aimez-Moi are 'sixteen going on seventeen'-- more assured of their own allure than anyone else might be. Neither of them is going to be mistaken for a full-grown femme fatale anytime soon; despite all their boy-crazy squirming and sighing, they're really just kids-- young enough to get away with wearing the kind of short, ruffled babydoll dresses which no adult woman would be caught dead in, yet which makes them look just adorable.

But give them time. Torn fishnets, smeared mascara, and ankle-breaker heels are right around the corner.

Scent Elements: Rose, aniseed, orange blossom, white iris, violet, almond, honey, leather (Drôle de Rose) / Violet leaf, anise, freesia, bergamot, mint, caraway, magnolia, cardamom, jasmine, peach, iris, heliotrope, tonka bean, cloves, amber, musk (Aimez-Moi)

Samples purchased from The Perfumed Court. One of my favorite reviews of Aimez-Moi can be found here.

Deux dames sous un parapluie, Charles Karel Boom, 1901 (Philadelphia Art Conservatory)

Essence of Vali: Redux and New.

2012-02-11T16:01:00.012-05:00

Have you ever read Colleen McCullough’s The Ladies of Missalonghi? Its protagonist -- a turn-of-the-century Australian spinster -- longs for nothing more in life than a scarlet dress. Languishing in a dusty backwater town with nothing to wear but workaday khaki, she figures a gown dyed “lairy” red might be her ticket to bigger and better destinies.

Is it ever!

Most of us keep just such a life-changing fantasy outfit hanging in the closet of our imagination, amidst neatly-folded potentials and freshly-ironed dreams. I first spied mine draping the shoulders of a grimy plaster mannequin in a SoHo shop window. Crimson taffeta changeant into midnight blue, with a sweetheart bodice fitted tightly to the waist and a tulip-petaled skirt concealing a riot of blue crinolines, it didn't exactly go with my Doc Martens 1460's-- but ah, love. Every day, on my trek to procure a sooty slice of neighborhood pizza, I passed that window and renewed my vows. Granted, most days I barely had enough cash to take the subway, let alone shop for frivolous formalwear.

But in my imagination, that dress and I were mated for life.

Since first encountering it last winter, I have often turned to Essence of Vali Eau de Parfum when my psyche required a more tangible "red dress" than the one hanging in my mind's wardrobe. Indeed, whenever I wear this flagrantly gorgeous geranium perfume, scarlet -- the color of female strength, power, passion, and protection -- leaps up in my imagination like an imperishable flame. At times of sadness or uncertainty, EOV behaves like the Norse god Þór's mythical belt Megingjörð, girding me for battle. It warms me like a bonfire, energizes me like a triple macchiato, and lends me the courage of ten warriors.

Women warriors.

But every warrior dreams of laying down her arms, if not in capitulation to a stronger foe, then in sweet surrender to peace itself. I never thought of EOV as a peaceful perfume -- it seemed too vibrant, too full of "action". But with her new Essence of Vali Bath and Body Oil, perfumer and aromatherapist Valerie Bennis brings a languorous dimension to the perfume I already love. Its heart -- that fiery geranium, stoked with litsea cubeba, clove, and palmarosa -- has simply been transferred full-strength into the smoothest and purest of jojoba oil bases, resulting in a product that is both sumptuous and sympathetic on weather-stressed skin. Hello!

Here is my familiar, beloved "red dress"... only now floor-length and made of deliciously heavy glacé satin that brushes the floor with every step. Wearing it, I still feel encouraged spirit-deep-- but my god, what a delight for my external layer, which always finds wintertime awfully trying. My skin is smoooooth. I smell gooooood. At last, I can lay down my sword and shield.

EOV Bath and Body Oil is now available on the Essence of Vali website, alongside the EdP (which has elevated itself to five stars in my estimation and affection). It can be added to the bath, applied neat to the skin, or massaged into your willing and recumbent self by the Valentine of your choice. (Wink-wink, say no more! )

Scent Elements: Lavender, cedarwood, rosewood, patchouli, palmarosa, geranium, clove, litsea cubeba. For the Eau de Parfum, the extrait is blended with corn alcohol and water; for the Bath and Body Oil, it is combined with 100% pure jojoba oil.

Generous pre-launch sample of Bath and Body Oil provided free of obligation or compensation by the perfumer, who generously tucked a prototype bottle of "the new creation" into a big shipment of holiday gifts I ordered from her before Christmas. She was curious what I'd think, but it took me a while to respond-- because the product in question reduced me to a blissful, blithering jelly. I do believe that I will order it every September from now on so that I can face the stress of the holiday gift-shopping season with equanimity. And I hope that the line will continue to expand, as other signature aromatherapy blends in Valerie Bennis' catalog have done. Thank you, Valerie, for looking after our well-being all year round!

1883 Worth Reception Gown, KatOfDarkness, 2011 (Private Collection). I would hand over a state lottery's worth o' dough if only it meant I could wear this fearsomely talented designer's skillful recreation of this Charles Frederick Worth gown, which currently belongs to the Kyoto Costume Institute. Kat's copy took seven months to complete and required her to execute the devore work on the velvet herself, which in my book amounts to haute couture D.I.Y. badassery. Bravo!

Asylum.

2012-02-10T20:04:00.003-05:00

Today was the final day of a week so goddamn awful I can't believe I scraped together the wherewithal to leave my house and face the human race. Earlier in the week, I'd spent time in the protective company of PdN's Sacrebleu and Essence of Vali; this morning, if I hadn't doused myself from top to toe with Safran Troublant, I could never, NEVER have held my shit together.

Do you have a perfume that acts as your sentinel, a barrier between you and certain doom? A scent of shelter, succor, retreat and psychic defense? A last-ditch Great Wall of Fragrance to hold back the onslaught of real-life foes? Anything you wish to tell about it here would be appreciated.

Daring (Isabella Rossellini)

2012-02-09T08:57:00.002-05:00

Rummaging around in a cluttered bureau drawer, you uncover a perfume-imbued letter, creased and forgotten. It's not so terribly old that the paper has utterly crumbled into powder; neither the ink nor the perfume has entirely faded. The words it contains (written in an energetic, deeply slanted scrawl) and the thoughts they convey are still legible, still charming-- and promise the recipient far more prose than poetry.

Delightful to see you Sunday, it reads. I'm sure you know you left your jacket. Enjoyed the pockets' contents enormously. Of course I do. Next weekend as always, if you can.

There's no drama to be found in these short sentences, which suggest neither hopeful beginnings nor tragic ends. Reading them, you can allow yourself to be amused and objective, because you already know how the story ends. The surprise in the jacket pocket was your grandmother's engagement ring, which she (shouting with laughter) slipped onto her finger the moment she found it. As suggested, the addressee came back that weekend with a wide grin on his face-- and stayed a lifetime.

No surprises, no passion, no sentiment; only good humor and continuity, the promise of companionship until death did them part.

Scent Elements: Coriander, daphne, apple, jasmine, peony, honey, musk, sandalwood, styrax

Decant of this 2004 perfume gifted to me by the lovely Frida. It really does smell like a love letter-- papery, sweet, subtle, muted by time. And even though I'd be more instinctively inclined to match Isabella R. with État Libre d'Orange, the fact that Coty (AKA the House of Corn Syrup) used to put out celebrity fragrances like this once upon a time really gives me something to think about.

The Letter, Vittorio Reggianini, 1890 (Private Collection)

Solstice Demi-Absolute (Soivohle)

2012-02-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

In my memory is a basement room full of orchard apples -- Cortlands, Jonathans, winesaps -- spilling over the tops of brown paper sacks. Come a bright Saturday, we'd ferry it upstairs to the kitchen, where Mom had set out the tools of transformation: stainless steel apple corers, the ancient and dented Foley food mill that had belonged to our grandmother, and the giant pot (black enamel with white speckles) where all this cellared bounty was headed. As the hours slipped past and the sun fought (and failed) to crest the winter treetops, the spiced apple pulp turned darker and more honeyed over the low, slow heat of the stove burner. Standing on a stepstool with a wooden spoon in hand, one imagined oneself to be An Dagda presiding over the cauldron of neverending plenty.

One might wonder which Solstice of the two this perfume is designed to honor-- until one wears it, and then there is no doubt. Marked by long shadows, early dusk, and hearthside magic, this is no summertime feast of the senses. Yet though Yule is long past, the spirit of the wassail -- that traditional nog of hot strong ale, beaten egg yolks, roasted apples, honey, and spices -- finds itself stirred back to life. Carried from house to house in a maple bowl, the wassail is offered along with a song:

Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou may bud,
Whence thou may blow,
Whence thou may bear
Sweet apples enow!
Hatsful, capsful, bushel sacksful,
And my pockets full-- wassail!

Something about its plaintive sweetness suggests that Solstice also comes with a song. Perhaps, like me, you have to close your eyes to hear it-- but leave it to the heart to carry the tune.

Scent Elements: Omani and Somali frankincense, myrrh, iris, patchouli, balsam of Peru, white pine, rose, jasmine, violet, cassie, clove, sandalwood, agarwood, rosewood, amber, tuberose, moss, ambrette, vanilla

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Winesap Apples, excerpt of photo by Molly Watson, About.com

Secrets of Egypt Collection (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz)

2012-02-05T10:22:00.007-05:00

In one of her many incarnations, my friend JC served as a special exhibition curator for a major art museum. She recalls the singular experience of receiving a traveling exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts:

The most fragile and precious object was the mummified remains of a child, a young girl who was in no condition to make the journey. While two of us could have lifted it up and into its display case, there were six of us just to be certain no harm came to her. We felt very strongly that it should be pulled from the show. The exhibit coordinators appreciated our input…but said that some of the major funding they received hinged on the fact that at least one mummy be included.

Over the years I had been alone in the Gallery at closing, with the lights out, on numerous occasions. However, when I found myself alone with the ancient objects of the Nile, it was somehow different. I sensed a presence. I wasn't necessarily frightened, but I didn't feel the desire to linger, either. The first time that I encountered this feeling, it really took me by surprise because it was palpable... never had I been so struck by the power of seemingly inanimate objects. There was weight and energy and power… almost a smoky essence in the air. It was as if the collective history of all of the objects formed a powerful force that commanded reverence. In that respect, I wasn't alone.

I've held great works of art in my hands over the years. Rembrandt, Warhol, Dali. I've held Walt Whitman's famous hat and a first edition of Leaves of Grass. So many beautiful and awe-inspiring things-- but nothing compares in my mind to the objects from Egypt. They were the real deal.

Waiting at the root of every journey into fragrant history is ancient Egypt, where perfume pervaded all aspects of life, death, and afterlife. For its 2010-11 exhibit entitled Tutankhamun: The Golden King & the Great Pharaohs, the Denver Art Museum commissioned perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz to interpret four notable formulae of the time period: Susinon, Metopion, Megaleion, and The Mendesian. To these, Hurwitz added reworkings of two fragrances from her extant catalog: Arome d’Egypt and Cardamom & Khyphi.

From my armchair travels as a history reader, I was somewhat familiar with kyphi, arguably the best-documented fragrance in pharaonic Egypt. At once perfume, incense, and medicine, kyphi began as a thick paste of raisins, honey, and pulverized aromatic resins macerated in red wine. Mastic, myrrh, frankincense, pine resin, and bdellium (Commiphora wightii, a relative of myrrh also known as gum guggul) were all used in various ratios to build this mighty base. After several days of aging, a variety of aromatic substances were ritually added in a prescribed order. These included sweet flag (Acorus calamus), papyrus (Cyperus papyrus ssp. hadidii), camel grass (Cymbopogon schoenanthus or African lemongrass), aspalathos (a shrub tentatively identified by experts as either caper bush or broom), saffron, spikenard, cinnamon, juniper berries, mint, cassia, cardamom, pine nuts, balm of Gilead buds, cedar, seseli (a flowering member of the carrot family), and bitumen (a naturally occurring black tar used to bind incense mixtures). One can imagine a finished product that smelled formidable, perhaps even overpowering—as befitted the divine rulers who made use of it.

We know about the composition and production of kyphi and its companion fragrances because of historians such as Galen, Rufus, Dioscorides, and Plutarch. Due to their careful recordkeeping, a modern perfumer seeking to recreate these signature scents is not left at a disadvantage. It's entirely possible to compound a "reasonable facsimile" of kyphi and even give it a contemporary, personalized twist. But missing from the written recipe is power -- a spiritual significance that takes centuries to accumulate, remains tangible for centuries more, and is impossible to synthesize.

In confronting the challenge of recreating Ancient Egypt through scent, I imagine that Dawn Spencer Hurwitz might have felt a bit like JC cradling the precious, delicate remains of that tiny child-mummy. A perfumer cast in the role of curator, she brought to project the all the knowledge, zeal, and faith of a duly-deputized priestess of old. But when the end result needs to be marketable in a museum gift shop... the millenia must weigh awful heavy.

In the Secrets of Egypt museum set kindly gifted to me by JoanElaine, only Susinon (here called 1000 Lilies) is absent. It's just as well; I admit I may not be ready for the essence with which Cleopatra perfumed the sails of her royal vessel, rendering the winds "lovesick" with scent. Instead, I reach first for Keni (The Mendesian), an interpretation of the cinnamon-myrrh accord for which the Delta city of Mendes earned its fame.

Experienced on one axis, Keni certainly does smell like an ancient unguent: hale evergreen and mint notes steeped in a precious chrism. On a second, intersecting axis, I find a burst of modern candy scents -- basil ribbons and cinnamon red-hots, spicy and bright. This is fitting. Drug stores and candy counters share a common ancestor in the apothecary, where medicine and comestible might be one and the same. Owing to my dual love of weird liniments and old-fashioned sweets, Keni (like Heeley's L'Esprit du Tigre) seems right up my alley. But in less than an hour it vanishes, leaving behind only a trace of faint waxy perfume, like that which clings to a candy wrapper once the treat inside has been devoured.

While we travel together, I truly like where Keni is headed. I just wish the trip lasted longer.

Next up: Megaleion. Taking its name variously from a Syracusan perfumer named Megalus and the Greek word megalos (“great”), Megaleion is described as an infusion of cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, and charred frankincense in balanos, an oil derived from seeds of the Balanites aegyptiaca tree. Its preparation is an interesting exercise in alchemical give-and-take. The oil must be kept at a constant boil for days before it is judged ready to receive the aromatic ingredients, whose properties it greedily devours. It remains at a boil for several days more, its scent seeming to diminish as it is stirred. Only when left alone to cool thoroughly does it relinquish all of the fragrance it has absorbed.

Yet it's not cinnamon and cassia I detect most from DSH's version of this age-old accord. Lemongrass and pine conspire to summon up the ghost of juniper berry, one of kyphi's most oft-cited ingredients. The evergreen cypress trees which produce these tiny, blue drupe-like cones originate from Greece, but their presence in Egyptian tombs implies that they were prized across borders and on both sides of life's threshold. In this floral-resinous fragrance hides their appetizing sourness, their astringent bite, and all the implied powers of purification that a Western mind may connect to them.

But the conundrum is this: they are not there. The nose tells lies, and the mind grasps at a ghost.

Antiu (Metopion) confronts the wearer with no such phantoms-- unless you count the galbanum which the name "metopion" is said to signify, and which here goes nearly undetected. Then again, Dioscorides opines that the best Metopion showcases almond over galbanum-- in which case Antiu wins this round. With its notes of fresh carrot-root and pine needle atop a sweet almond foundation, it's a simply pleasant and pleasantly simple fragrance-- sort of a palate cleanser for the challenging course to follow.

When Greek and Arab invaders chiseled their way into ancient Egyptian tombs, they discovered that all of the scented resins, natron salts, and beeswax used to embalm the occupants had mixed with... well, the occupants themselves, biologically speaking. The resulting petrified goo, erroneously labelled pissasphaltus (pitch asphalt), was used to manufacture a range of ancient pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, including a rather esoteric perfume called mūmiyā’. It's said to have smelled like heaven itself-- presumably once you got over the gag factor.

So it is with Arome d'Egypt. A sweet opening marred by a sudden fetid note of wet wood and mushrooms reminds me of spikenard's close relation to that monster of stomach-turning stonk, valerian. Believing myself the possible victim of a primordial scourge, I thrust my arm under my husband’s nose. He takes one sniff, and together we simultaneously intone the solemn incantation against ancient evils: "Eeewwwww!"

Our rough magic works. Shortly thereafter, Arome d’Egypte transforms into a warm, penetrating cinnamon incense with a drydown graced by the cozy, animalic presence of ambrette. I feel at once favored and spared, brushed by a curse and visited by a blessing. Thank the gods!

I'm tempted to preface my final review by saying something conciliatory like “While Cardamom & Khyphi smells very nice indeed…” I mean, it does. A powerful citrus-spice potpourri cozily couched in nougat, it's a fragrance damn near anyone would love to wear. It incorporates enough classic kyphi ingredients (juniper berry, mastic, myrrh) to justify both its name and its place amongst the other Secrets of Egypt. But here's the catch: leaving it until last makes me think less of it. It smells too much like a "DSH fragrance" for me to suspend disbelief and imagine that it's an authentic reproduction of a great and ancient sacred perfume. I mean, I like it-- just as I liked Mata Hari for smelling like the ultimate holiday candle. But when I expect to be Nile-bound, I don’t want to end up back in the Christmas village. You know?

So how to sum up this trip back in time? I keep returning to JC's phrase about a "force that commands reverence". Which of the Secrets of Egypt possesses it? None, to be honest. For a moment, Arome d'Egypt -- with its fear-and-trembling initial salvo -- comes very close. But it's ultimately too sweet-mannered to command or enslave me. These are all fine creations, and I sincerely got a kick out of wearing them. But in a strange (and possibly silly) way, I wanted (no, needed) to feel the uncanny breath of some antediluvian entity on the back of my neck... brushing me with a chill right where I applied the perfume.

Still, who knows? I have yet to encounter Susinon/1000 Lilies. Perhaps when I do, the hand of Isis herself will extend one of those thousand blossoms my way.

Scent Elements:

Keni (The Mendesian): Bitter almond, cardamom, cassia, cinnamon, sandalwood, benzoin, fragrant wine accord, Atlas cedar, myrrh, pine

Megaleion: Cardamom, cassia, cinnamon, fragrant wine accord, lemongrass, sandalwood, balm of Gilead accord, spikenard, Turkish rose, balsam copaiba, balsam Peru, costus, myrrh, frankincense, pine, sweet flag

Antiu (Metopion): Bitter almond, cardamom, fragrant wine accord, galbanum, lemongrass, sandalwood, rose otto, balm of Gilead accord, honey/beeswax, balsam copaiba, balsam Peru, mastic, myrrh, pine, sweet flag

Arome d’Egypte: Spikenard, cassis, rose, jasmine, labdanum, sandalwood, Virginia cedar, cinnamon bark, amber, benzoin, balsam Peru, frankincense, myrrh, ambrette

Cardamom & Khyphi: Cardamom CO2, cardamom seed absolute, clove bud, plum accord, sugar date accord, sweet orange, honey, juniper berry, labdanum, mastic, myrrh, frankincense, patchouli

Samples kindly gifted to me by JoanElaine, the Queen of the Vial. Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt by Lise Manniche (Cornell University Press) consulted for accuracy. This terrific website shows side-by-side comparisons of historical kyphi formulae. Last but not least, heartfelt thanks to JC for sharing her museum story with us.

Tutankhamun, detail from back panel of royal golden throne, Late 18th Dynasty/1323 BCE (Cairo Museum)

Blog-o-versary & Breath of God.

2012-02-03T12:36:00.010-05:00

Well, today is Parfümieren's second anniversary, and I'm home battling one mother of a head cold. My sense of smell managed to stick it out until late last night, when it abruptly sighed and threw in the ~~towel~~ tissue. Now what little I can smell comes across as oddly smoky and acrid, like a lit cigarette or a next-door barbecue. Deprived of actual olfaction by a set of swollen sinuses, my brain appears to be producing its own version of Breath of God-- fitting, since I'd planned to devote today's post to a redux of that crazy masterpiece anyway. Having done something similar last year as well, I figured I might as well make a tradition of it, the way that grizzled old war vets gather at their favorite cannon in the town square year after year.

As helpful as my imagination thinks it's being as it supplies me with this scent mirage, I must say that I like LUSH's version of Breath of God better-- mostly because it comes without a sore throat, raw nose, sneezing fits, and muscle aches. (Or does it?) And though I adore Breath of God, today I would prefer ANY breath that didn't involve wheezing, hacking, or turning blue. So I guess I'll go take a hot shower, put on some Vicks Vap-O-Rub, and admit that I may have to wait another year to offer up my tribute to today's tutelary perfume.

Thanks for visiting and reading Parfümieren, today and every day!

Dreamy, Richard Austin, 2009 (Daily Mail UK). Dreamy the dormouse was taken in by the Secret World Wildlife Rescue Centre in Highbridge, Somerset UK after being excavated mid-hibernation by a curious dog. He slept throughout his rescue, his rehabilitation, this photo shoot, and his subsequent fifteen minutes of fame-- never once ceasing to be adorable. Though nowhere near this cute, when I feel drowsy or sick I tell my husband I'm going to go curl up "like a little mouse". A side note: upon recently watching the "Eddie Vedder House Tour" included in the Pearl Jam 20 DVD extras, we noted that Vedder's domicile features many small, cozily-cushioned Ed-sized alcoves. "I bet he curls up in them like a little mouse," my husband remarked. I love my husband.

Fun facts.

2012-02-02T22:52:00.005-05:00

Olenska

...lives in New Jersey.

I was born in Chicago, but moved to the Garden State when I was four. I promptly and deeply fell in love with honeysuckle flowers, blueberry shrubs, crows, scrub pines, salt air, and the smartassed, hardheaded, tart-tongued species of human being that populates this region. I've moved to various other locales but always found them strangely deficient (Manhattan has smartasses, but no scrub pines or blueberries; Maui has salt air, but no smartasses or crows. You see I have standards.)

...is an art school dropout.

After one year of study at Pratt Manhattan, I figured I could pursue art just as effectively without a) a college degree, b) years of crushing debt, and c) a gastric ulcer. I was right, partially. It took years to purge myself of the strange belief that the only way that I could claim my own work was to damage, discard, or destroy it. I finally overcame this tenet in 2009 when I devised the the 52B&W challenge as a means of teaching myself to create under new terms. In 2010, I was named a New Jersey Emerging Artist and exhibited 52B&W in a solo exhibition at the Monmouth Museum. So far, I have not torched or trashed the evidence.

...works in a public library.

I might as well; I practically live in one anyway. (See photo for full evidence of bibliogeekery. At one time, my spouse and I had all those books arranged in Dewey decimal order.) I started as a shelver, left to become a bookseller, came back to become a library assistant, and am currently the art exhibit coordinator for the county's Main Branch. In addition to managing two art galleries, I develop and curate conceptual group exhibits, maintain an employee forum for art-related news and links, and have taught seminars on art gallery development for public libraries at the state level.

...has no eyebrows.

None whatsoever. I plucked them all out several years ago in a fit of neurotic pique, and now I paint them on by hand every morning using a CoverGirl LineExact Liquid Eyeliner (Brown) with the superfine, high-precision tip. Depending on my mood, my brows can range from Marlene Dietrich to Dovima to Ernie from Sesame Street.

...is married to a mailman who is secretly a superhero.

He didn't always push postage; the mail became his bread and butter six years ago when the video retail market (his former career) went all wobbly. My father (a retired mail carrier of 30+ years experience) encouraged him to take the Postal Exam, and there you have it. Being a postal wife or daughter is like coming from firefighter or law enforcement stock; we are proud of our warriors, who do their job for very little glory, but with plenty of guts. And for what it's worth, I learned to say Herodotus' famous messenger's creed ("Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...") before I learned to say the Pledge of Allegiance. To this day, I personally find it more meaningful.

...likes all sorts of mismatched stuff.

Edith Wharton novels. Pearl Jam. Maurice Sendak picture books. Rasputina. The films of Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Sofia Coppola, John Waters, Duncan Jones, Michel Gondry, and Jane Campion. Street art. Vikings. Geisha. Rocks. Radiohead. Little tiny handmade comic books. Cardinals. Coffee in big tall cups and snacks in little bitty cups. Nubbly socks.

...is full of shit.

Of course I am. Look at me. What the hell am I doing with my life? I spend my time spraying stuff on my skin and writing about it. I am a hair's breadth away from being like that guy in that gym commercial: "I lift things up and put them down!" Don't believe a thing I say. Jesus.

Caldey Island Lavender (Caldey Abbey Perfumes)

2012-01-31T21:24:00.002-05:00

In His Dark Materials -- the astounding trio of philosophical novels by Philip Pullman -- each person's soul exists independently as a totem animal or dæmon. Having declared the separation of people from their dæmons necessary to defeat sin, religious authorities develop a procedure known as "intercision" to effect the final cut. Neither the victim nor his dæmon die of the resulting schism -- at least not physically. But they are rendered dull and spiritless, vivisected of their joy.

Caldey Island Lavender is what would happen if Jicky underwent intercision. Its dæmon has been banished, and nothing -- not even a heavy slug of musk -- can lure that animal back.

Luca Turin deemed Caldey Island Lavender 'the best lavender soliflore on earth', but after wearing it all day, I'm not only unconvinced but truly unsettled. It's cheerful enough, with a Jean Naté-like citrus opener; it's hearty enough, with the kind of hail-fellow lavender that stands there flexing its muscles. But something just seems vaguely off-putting about it. I can't put my finger on a bad note; the whole song is wrong.

Imagine that the best lavender on earth is a entire field of the real thing basking in the midday sun. Caldey Island Lavender keeps the sun-- but omits all the dirt. There's no ground to stand on. The scent is not technically rootless, inspired as it certainly is by some very accomplished forebears. But it manages -- how? -- to neuter them all. It's Jicky minus the saucy wink; it's Caron Pour un Homme minus the wit and raunch. It's Mouchoir de Monsieur if Monsieur donned sackcloth and ashes and took a vow of celibacy.

It's got -- forgive me -- nothing between its legs. And if I ever scoffed before at the importance of sex to fragrance, I'm not laughing now.

Scent Elements: Lavender, citrus, musk

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Lavandula vera botanical print attributed to Walther Müller, from Medizinal Pflanzen (F.E. Köhler, 1887)

Cat mockery... no blog is immune.

2012-01-31T11:59:00.000-05:00

Newman's sleeping and has no clue that I posted this. Don't narc on me.

Bal à Versailles (Jean Desprez)

2012-01-27T23:23:00.034-05:00

In 1965, Versailles is a fifth-floor open-plan loft in midtown Manhattan, rented for one C-note a year. Decorated extravagantly in wall-to-wall silver paint and sumptuous tinfoil, it boasts as its throne a notorious red cabriole sofa discovered on the curb in front of the 47th Street Vanderbilt YMCA. Dragged back to the palace by loyalists, the red sofa has become the de facto seat of power for the king and his consort, both sporting (in lieu of royal crowns) coiffures as pale as the platinum walls.

The queen loves to dance. This is her greatest charm, her most obvious flaw, and her most trusted antidote for the weight of the past. From time to time (vaguely, and always with a slightly hysterical laugh) she alludes to a girlhood spent walled up alive, imprisoned in various ivory towers and electroshock dungeons. Now liberated, nothing short of total exhaustion can slow her down. No party can last too long; no sunrise can convince her that it’s quitting time. Racing incessantly towards the lights and music, she pledges to outrun memory itself. And for the length of a glittering year, it seems she might even succeed.

The mirrored walls of the palace reflect a thousand distorted souls: boys with bullwhips, nymphs in false eyelashes, society matrons in fur coats, all here to witness the nightly lever du roi. Phantom-pale, the king blinks in exaggerated fright at the spectacle of so many people clamoring to touch his robe. At his side, Her Highness giggles and signals frantically to the house band. Silence is anathema, intolerable, unthinkable! Well I'm beginning to see the light, sings her troubador, and she begins to move-- tentatively, at first, then with escalating violence: a divine dervish impossible for any mortal to partner.

And here you are smack dab in the middle of it all, decked out in your most daring Courrèges floor-length patent-leather sheath in pristine snow-white, looking as though methedrine wouldn't melt in your mouth. You appear quite the highborn lady-in-waiting-- but truth be told, your perfume speaks a gutter tongue. What's that, alley cat? Bal à Versailles? Not a bad disguise-- still new enough after three years to startle the unwary; chic enough to secure you a place on the 'up' elevator; raunchy enough to imply you're no stranger to downward spirals. Enfolded in civet and floral leather, you're a modern Jeanne de Valois, pitch-perfect and passing like funny money. If you seem a little off, darling, who's to notice? As long as you're ON...!

A lackey approaches, black-turtleneck-clad and inscrutable behind waspish dark sunglasses. He bears a summons from the king, gesturing through the flicker of random film projectors and flashbulbs. Oh you're fab-ulous, isn't she FAB-ulous, Gerard, isn't she BEAU-tiful? comes the royal decree. Maybe we should put HER in the next movie...

Never noticing, never stopping, the queen dances and dances. Someday soon she'll dance herself to dust. Angry landlords will storm the palace; eviction notices will be tacked to its front door. The red couch will be carried downstairs and onto the back of a truck, there to be absconded by neighborhood thieves, vanishing as casually as it first appeared. The king will eventually learn to play a perverse Robespierre, guillotining friendship after friendship to save his own neck. As for you -- denied a callback after your obligatory screen test -- you'll head into the safety of exile downtown. Really, it's for the best.

The train of that beautiful snow-white Courrèges gown will take on a nasty gash when a careless taxi driver slams the cab door shut on it in front of Max's Kansas City. There seems no point in having it repaired, so into the back of the closet it goes-- its acetate lining still imbued with its last dousing of Bal à Versailles, the sole souvenir of your glory days at court.

Scent Elements: Rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, Bulgarian rose, lemon, sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, iris, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley, balsam Tolu, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar, resins

Partial bottle obtained from original owner via Freecycle. Those who made off with the Factory's red couch would no doubt approve.

TOP: The Velvet Underground and Edie Sedgwick performing at Delmonico's, 1966. MIDDLE and BOTTOM: Edie dancing at the Factory, 1965-66, photographs by Bob Adelman.

Catch of the day.

2012-01-25T00:16:00.007-05:00

Fig. 1. Our loot.

WHAT: Treasure hunting

WHEN: Today

WHERE: Various antique and thrift stores in central New Jersey

WITH WHOM: My spouse

WHY: My birthday

Fig. 2. A brand-new 100 ml. bottle of Jack Black "Black Mark" saffron-and-cedar EDP, obtained from a soap emporium that was going out of business; here accompanied by my husband's big score of the occasion, a ceramic bust advertising "Phrenology by L.M. Fowler", obtained from the antiques center.
Price: $5 for fragrance, $24 for ceramic bust

Fig. 3. A full flacon of an unnamed (but absolutely delish) leather chypre parfum in presentation box, date unknown, by Givaudan; possibly some kind of corporate gift or high-end manufacturer's sample; obtained at the antiques center.
Price: $16

Fig. 4. An original and unopened 1/8 fl. oz. mini-flacon of vintage Coty Émeraude Parfum in small presentation case; also obtained at the antiques center. I had first seen this item last summer and coveted it desperately-- but passed up on purchasing it due to a high price tag. Eventually it disappeared from the display, and I imagined (with a tear in my eye) that it had been sold. But the consigner had merely moved it to another vitrine-- this time marked down 40%. I snapped it up immediately. You won't catch me making the same mistake twice. I was the first person to open it... and it was the very scent of heaven.
Price: paradise for $20

Clutch Cologne (Abercrombie & Fitch)

2012-01-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

Erroneously believing that all Abercrombie & Fitch stores enforced a "21-and-under" policy that possibly involved club bouncers carding long-in-the-tooth lifestylers at the door, I must report that I have never set foot inside an A&F outlet. My friend DC (who knows better) recently scored some Clutch Cologne and decanted some for me. Color me pleasantly surprised-- it may come straight from a generic mall chain, but this stuff rocks!

Instead of the expected cookie-cutter clothing-label fragrance, Clutch is a frisky little palate cleanser-- more saline than sweet, as tart as a Marino's Italian lemon ice, and blessedly restrained when it comes to those metallic notes that mar so many other calone-rich "active" aquatics. It's not trying to pass for Monsieur Balmain, but it's obvious that it paid attention in class and knows which role models to emulate. It's currently marketed to young men at A&F Kids, but girls could easily steal this (by which I do NOT mean the old five-finger discount, campers).

Seriously, I've worn L'Eau Serge Lutens, and I've worn Clutch, and I can honestly say that aside from provenance and price, they're not all that different. Well, actually, there remains this distinction: the Lutens flaunts an overload of PoMo irony, while Clutch offers only pure and fresh happiness without pretense.

Sincerity wins every time.

Scent Elements: Pomelo, apple, herbs, sandalwood, amber

Decanted sample generously gifted to me by my amiga DC.

JD on Deck, Megan Ruisch, 2011 (Private Collection). Panel from a graphic novel I am developing entitled Life of JD, in which the Jersey Devil is recast as a modern suburban teenaged skate-rat.

Love (LUSH)

2012-01-21T10:11:00.018-05:00

I opened the mailbox, and out flew summer-- an unexpected tenant for a postal receptacle during any season of the year, but especially in January, when the metal mailbox latch is so cold it stings one's fingers.

I soon discovered the reason for summer's unauthorized presence in my letter-and-bill zone. My LUSH Exclusives Miniatures Set had arrived-- not entirely intact. The glass vials had been packed into their little tray so tightly that the center vial had cracked clean down its length, releasing every drop of its fragrant contents into the surrounding cardboard.

The very same tragedy once befell the authors of Perfumes: The A-Z Guide. The "escaped" perfume in question was the now-discontinued orange-sherbet Mack truck known as Keep It Fluffy. In L&T's opinion, the smell pervading the box was so stomach-churning that it nearly wrecked their desire to sniff the rest of the contents. Luckily for them (and us), they soldiered on. And luckily for me, it was Love that busted out all over. I could hardly name a more appetizing scent to insulate me from disappointment of a shipping mishap.

LUSH describes Love as a "tempting apple and spice" fragrance, but the fruit that speaks loudest here is citrus-- variform and juicy, painting a virtual sunrise in every zany hue along the red-orange-yellow spectrum. To a chilled Nor'Easterner, it projects the bright, uplifting appeal of a piping hot toddy made with Seville orange marmalade and more bourbon than is strictly necessary. At the same time, it also smells like a bowl of Froot Loops. Whether you think the combination of liquor and kids' cereal is all that great an idea depends (I suppose) on your tolerance for both juvenilia and the cold. Personally, I'm fine with the former. But having been born in Chicago during a lake-effect deep freeze, I possess a hard-wired horror of temperatures below 70°F. I must have warmth and light; Love gladly serves 'em up in megadoses. With every inhale, I could imagine winter becoming less of an evil and more of an chance to scope out prime snow fort real estate.

Still, I wanted to wear Love, not merely huff it off of a piece of cardboard. So I got straight on the horn to Lush Customer Service. (Could they have been nicer or more helpful? I think not. Oh Canada!) Within days a new vial of Love landed in my mailbox, accompanied by several adorable soaps (including the coveted marzipan Snowcake). Ever since, the level of perfume in the vial has been dropping sharply-- but not due to breakage. Call it wintertime therapy, the equivalent of time logged under a sunlamp: I need this. It's medicinal.

Some might cavil (not without reason) that no fragrance so blatantly candied could be taken seriously. And normally, with my repugnance for fruity florals, I would agree. But when (as now) the leaden sky is spitting snow and the world outside the door seems less than hospitable, Love -- sweet, sweet Love -- proves unconditional.

Scent Elements: Lemon, lemongrass, bergamot, apple, cinnamon, cassia, jasmine absolute, rose absolute, ylang-ylang absolute

Sample purchased from LUSH.

Stock image of Finnish snowball lantern, photographer unknown. My friend TJ is from Finland and knows how to make these. With enough snow, we might just get to practice.

Weekend.

2012-01-18T20:02:00.009-05:00

Friday: I wake up at the blessed hour of nine A.M., having just survived a marathon work week that included not one but two artist receptions and a full moon. Exhausted, I'd like nothing better than to revert to "lazy bitch" mode today, but we're hosting my mother-in-law this weekend and the house is in shameful post-holiday disarray. I drag myself out of the cozy bedcovers, caffeinate myself up to the gills, and tackle the clutter with all the grim-eyed purpose of a Crimean War nurse bent on achieving total sanitary reform.

At two o'clock I head outside for the mail. The final increment of an end-of-last-year order has finally arrived from Perfumed Court: a small, deeply-discounted sprayer of Caldey Island Lavender. I place it on my "scent cabinet" along with a couple of carded samples slipped to me by coworkers during the week: Forbidden Euphoria by Calvin Klein and the fetchingly-yclept Exceptional...Because You Are by Exceptional Parfums. (Hey, I wish I had that much self-confidence!)

By the time my spouse arrives home from work, we’re both too bushed to contemplate food shopping—or cooking. We opt instead to hit Bubbakoo’s, our favorite local burrito joint. It's organized along the Subway food-construction model, so after you choose your main filling (beef, grilled chicken, pulled pork, shrimp, etc.), you move along the line picking out salsas, picos, guacs, cheeses and other tasty condiments, which your assigned "techie" heaps atop a vast tortilla. At the end of the line, this massive pile of food is magically wrassled into a neat, tight, furoshiki-style bundle right in front of you. Literally within five minutes of walking in the door, you exit with hot, delicious vittles made precisely to your specifications. What greater felicity, I ask you?

Home to watch IFC’s brilliant Portlandia. This sketch makes tonic water come out of my nose.

Saturday: Up at seven, dressed by eight, ready and raring to go grocery shopping. The mail arrives: another package from the Perfumed Court!? This one's a total mystery, as yesterday's package completed my order. Inside I find an ample decant of Ego Facto's tuberose-and-vetiver Me Myself and I... and no invoice to suggest how it came to be sent. The hell?

Three inner voices immediately start singing a round. The first (an angel-sweet soprano) assumes this is a gift from a wonderfully tricksy friend, and is charmed. The second (a schoolmarmish contralto) frets that it's all a mistake-- the result of some computer glitch or processing error over at the Court -- and cautions me not to disturb the sealing tape lest we are asked to ship it back. The third (that wary loner I've mentioned before, and so of course a fearsome growling Henry Rollinsesque baritone) declares it all to be some kind of rotten prank, rife with hidden barbs. (The Ego Facto website, which gleefully touts MM&I as a perfume for egomaniacs, only ratchets up my anxiety. However, it contains one error: l'enfer n'est pas d'autres. L'enfer est soi-même.)

The soprano wins the argument. I send out a few inquisitive emails to my closest perfumista pals, asking for clues. Then it's off to the supermarket!

My morning errands include a pit stop at the antique store in town. They've been undergoing a happy expansion over the last few months, opening up an additional wing which will soon be followed by a fully renovated second floor. Among the new features: an entire display case of perfume, not necessarily vintage but certainly collectible. I have my eye on a positively enormous Guerlain Vetiver gift set boxed in glossy green. Having long regretted my less-than-optimal encounter with Vetiver, I am tempted to try again. (But do I want to gamble a whole $80 on the experiment? Maybe.)

I return home, unload groceries, clean house, and check my email. Suzanne and Bloody Frida both wonder if the mystery sender could have been that generous Faerie Queene of Fragrance, JoanElaine... and so it is! (She lets slip that I should expect another bundle of joy soon... and true to her word, some more precious Audace makes its way into my hot little hands by the beginning of the following week.) Once again, I feel intensely grateful for my perfumista-sistas. Of course, my inner Rollins (who secretly hates to be wrong even when it ought to be a relief to be proven so) grumbles and scuffs his shoes in the background. I quell him with a spritz of MM&I. Strangely, he likes it!

By four o’clock the house is cleaned, presents are wrapped, a pan of vine tomatoes is roasting away in a slow oven, and my mother-in-law Mickey is pulling into the driveway. We get her bags upstairs, and she immediately starts rummaging through them. “I have something to show you!” she tells me with great excitement. Her search produces a small paper shopping bag, which she hands to me. Inside: partial (but well-preserved) bottles of Bal à Versailles by Jean Desprez and Sortilège, Long Lost Perfume's dupe of the Le Galion classic.

“You’ll never guess where I scored these,” Mickey says. “FreeCycle!” It seems that someone in her neighborhood listed these perfumes on the community recycled-items-for-free website, and Mickey was able to snap them up. They both smell sehr fabelhaft. I ask her if I can decant samples one of these days, and she waves her hand at me. “Silly... they’re for you!”

I pull Tokyo Milk Arsenic off of the top shelf of my scent cabinet and give it to her to sniff. Mickey looks askance at the bottle design (“What’s with the insect?”) but loves that fresh absinthe note. I offer to make and mail her a sample when I restock my decanting supplies, and she accepts.

My spouse arrives home from work, and I get cookin’ while mother 'n' son converse cozily in the living room. Dinner: French onion baked chicken, sautéed vegetables, oven-roasted tomatoes, and homemade baked macaroni (Indian-style, with curry, rai, and cilantro instead of the usual ground yellow mustard, nutmeg, and black pepper). Our landlord recently replaced our ailing stove with a new model, so everything comes out hot, perfect, and right on schedule. We stuff ourselves so full, there’s no room for dessert.

After dinner, we watch Rio and open presents by the Christmas tree, left up expressly for this visit. Mickey’s delighted with the trifle bowl she requested, which we’ve supplemented with a set of matching serving dishes. For Scott, there’s a digital home weather station which he’s raring to try, and a pair of vintage pink flamingo lawn ornaments for fun. For me, a gorgeous ruffled eternity scarf in aubergine wool and a pair of yoga pants in soft grey.

Newman the cat watches jealously as we set up the futon couch/bed in the guest room for Mickey. In the morning, we will find him uncharacteristically ensconced on our bed, curled up behind my husband’s knees and purring like a motorboat.

Sunday: An early start for all, as Mickey needs to get back on the road and arrive home before kickoff. Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, apple crumb cake, fruit salad, and two pots of coffee. After Mickey leaves, Scott and I change out of our pajamas only to put on fresh new pajamas. After we've dismantled and put away the tree ("See Yule later!"), there's nothing to do but laze about in various attitudes of happy idleness until Downton Abbey comes on.

Best Sunday Ever.

Downton Abbey Shooting Party, 2012 (Carnival Films/BBC)

Dunestore Cowboy

2012-01-15T19:00:00.005-05:00

Another Short Film Script Treatment
(this time with apologies to Gus Van Sant)

A suburban living room, late morning. JC and OLENSKA sit collapsed against the cushions of the sofa. Both appear completely intoxicated. A brand spanking new 3.4 oz bottle of Dior Dune sits on the coffee table in front of them, catching the sunlight. A scratchy recording of Anita O'Day singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival plays in the background.

OLENSKA: (after considerable effort) ....ohhhhhhmaaaannnn.

JC: (dragging her eyelids open) ...what?

OLENSKA: (head lolling) I said.... um.... ummmmmm.... what?!

After a beat, both women burst into uncontrollable giggles. This continues for at least five minutes and is broken only by a loud knock at the door.

OLENSKA: (instantly alert) Shit. Oh shit.

JC: Just stay cool.

She grabs the bottle of Dune and wrestles it back into its box. OLENSKA starts cleaning up all traces of the perfume fix they have indulged in-- waving at the air with a magazine, scrabbling for a can of Linen & Sky Febreze and spraying it madly around. The knocking at the door continues.

JC: (loudly) Uh, coming!... be right there!...

She rushes over to the bookcase and jams the box of Dune out of sight behind some books, then approaches the door. OLENSKA follows close behind, pointing the can of Febreze at the door as if it were a loaded pistol.

JC: (looking through the peephole, then heaving a relieved sigh) It's just BB.

OLENSKA: (whispering) What's she doing here?

JC: Guess. (Loudly, without opening the door) What's shakin', BB?

BB: (muffled voice) Hey, hi, JC, hi there, how's it going, whatcha doing, what's going on, can I come in?

JC: (wearily) Jeez.

(She begins to undo the multiple deadbolts and chains on the door and motions to OLENSKA to keep the can of Febreze up. As JC opens the door, BB -- young, stylish, but visibly jittery -- steps inside. When she sees the Febreze pointed at her, she instinctively puts her hands up.)

BB: Whoa, hey, JC, c'mon, we're all friends here!

JC: (all business) You know the drill. (She spins BB around and subjects her to a quick pat-down, discovering something of interest in her jacket pocket. It is a bottle of Chanel Coco.) Well, what have we got here? You still jacked up on this Neiman Marcus crank?

BB: (insinuatingly, itching her arms) Well, I wouldn't be if I had something to take the edge off, bring me down easy... word on the street is you got a shipment in.

JC: Ooooh, a shipment! (Sarcastically, to OLENSKA) You hear that? I got a shipment in. Yeah, that ol' LuckyScent wagon pulled out of the driveway not two minutes ago! It was like Christmas, Hanukkah, and my birthday all rolled into one! (gestures around the empty room) I mean, YOU see all the perfume bottles, don't you?

OLENSKA: Heheheheh, yeah, you tell her, JC!

BB: Aw, cut it out, wouldja? I KNOW you're holding, I can smell it for miles!

JC shoots a stern glance at OLENSKA, who gives the Febreze trigger a nervous squeeze.

JC: (to BB) Okay, look. It may actually have been my birthday recently... (BB starts hopping up and down in ecstasy, itching arms double-time in anticipation) You get ONE hit, and then you're outta here.

BB: (ecstatic) Sure thing, no prob! I'm a ghost, like you never saw me!

JC wearily holds out her wrist. BB grabs it, jams her nose up to it, and inhales enormously.

JC: (long-suffering) Weekend tweakers.

END TITLES

DISCLAIMER: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious; any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This parody of a pivotal scene in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy was written mainly to amuse my dear friends and fellow perfumistas JC (who, after long patience and yearning, finally received a fresh supply of Dune for her birthday) and BB (who is every bit as well-dressed as herein implied, and not even remotely hyperactive, which is how you know this is fiction). No Linen & Sky Febreze was used in the making of this teleplay. In real life I wouldn't touch the stuff, though I am totally curious about the "Moroccan Bazaar" line. Ginger and nutmeg-scented room spray? Sure! Say... you holdin'?

Brûlure de Rose (Parfumerie Générale)

2012-01-15T14:15:00.006-05:00

It's the winter of a new year... time for a raspberry rose to make a total sucker out of me. Patricia de Nicolaï's narcotic Balkis hypnotized me in 2010; Christian Lacroix's cheap-and-cheerful Tumulte sealed the deal in 2011. Both were at heart affable, yielding and sweet. In contrast, this year's model -- Brûlure de Rose by Parfumerie Générale -- is a moody, heat-packing firebrand. Darker and more fervent in tone than its companions, it instantly evokes to my mind the rebellious Gertrudis de la Garza of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.

After a meal of quail in rose petal sauce exquisitely prepared by her lovelorn sister Tita, Gertrudis is infused with a vicarious passion-- something voluptuosa, aromática, calurosa, completamente sensual (voluptuous, perfumed, hot, totally sensual) that she cannot identify. She decides that a nice shower might give her relief from this strange, invading emotion. But the rose-scented steam that rises from her skin under the caress of the hot water attracts the notice of Pancho Villa's army. In no time at all, this respectable, well-born girl becomes a rebel captive... then a soldadera or girl soldier... and then, through her own inimitable will, a full-fledged general in the División del Norte.

All due to a dinner of flowers!

A dedicated Villista Gertrudis may be, but this wildflower never sacrifices her femininity to the job. She maintains an air of irresistible coquetry even when barking orders at subordinates; the success of her method is proven when they fall all over themselves to obey her. Who wouldn't-- when her revolución promises time enough for dancing?

Brûlure de Rose ("Burning Rose") certainly raises the heart's tempo with its rich clarion-call of roses-- all pink and scarlet and deep magenta, if my mind's eye speaks the truth. Its chocolate is the same profoundly bitter liqueur that anchors PG's Iris Taïzo (now Iris Oriental), sans the ameliorating presence of honey. Even its raspberry (a fruit which can project floods of molten jammy sweetness) stays firm and strays to the tart end of the spectrum.

So while Balkis weaves Oriental dreams and Tumulte tempts with top-shop glitz, something about Brûlure de Rose strikes me as pragmatic, workaday, no-nonsense. It steadily resists playing dress-up or pretending to be more than it is. But it draws quick and shoots straight-- and its aim?

Dead on target.

Scent Elements: Rose, raspberry, Brazilian rosewood, cacao, amber, musk, vanilla

La Soldadera, Agustín Victor Casasola, 1915 (Casasola Archive, Sistema Nacional de Fototecas, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico)

Amberene Demi-Absolute (Soivohle)

2012-01-13T01:28:00.008-05:00

This weekend we are celebrating a belated Yule with my mother-in-law (she of 24 Faubourg and sundry other scent adventures). Consequently, the tree's still lit and decorated; presents wait to be wrapped; a house waits to be cleaned; a grocery list waits to be bought and cooked by me-- and I'm currently wearing Soivohle's Amberene, instant post-Christmas cool.

The easiest way to express it is that Amberene is VanillaVille after a sizable chill pill has taken full effect. Certain spices retain a cool aspect, and cardamom is one of them; here -- paired with one of the only grapefruit notes I've liked outside of Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune -- it achieves Prozac levels of heavenly detachment. Not that this is a deep freeze by any means; cinnamon and clove take care of that. But oh, the blessed disconnect between desire and achievement! Whether I clean the entire house in one go or collapse in a heap on the couch for a day is peripheral to the good feelings I'm entertaining at this moment-- all due to this perfume on my wrists.

There's so much I must accomplish to prepare for this visit; yet I don't feel in the least bit hurried or stressed. I haven't yet fired up the oven, and already the intense, spicy smell of Christmas baking permeates my immediate airspace. When my mother-in-law arrives on Saturday morning, I'll be delighted beyond words to see her. I may even greet her at the door with some Amberene-- this way, my heartfelt welcome will be made abundantly plain.

Scent Elements: Grapefruit, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, violet, heliotrope, tonka, benzoin, patchouli

Manufacturer's sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Image of Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) courtesy of WallpapersVIP. Years ago, my husband and I became entranced with a particularly spirited (and fat) male cardinal that used to holler like a maniac outside our apartment window. We named him Señor Sassy. When he obtained a mate, she became known as Mrs. Sassy, and the torrid soap opera of their love affair consumed us. Henceforth, by us, all cardinals are called "Sassies". We have amassed a small but cherished collection of figurines, refrigerator magnets, stained glass ornaments, and other items featuring Sassies in various states of chubby adorableness. We cannot say why, but the fatter they are, the more enslaved we are to them. Needless to say, our cat (who prides himself on his fattyness!) finds them merely insolent. Stupid overweight birds stealing his thunder! Grah!

Superworld Unknown (LUSH)

2012-01-11T00:00:00.006-05:00

There are places only locals know-- down beach, away from the noise and flash, away from the Boardwalk lights, away from the unruly tourists and curbside fistfights. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the invaders own this patch of oceanfront.

Let them have it. We know another shore.

Out here, the water is as clear and green as glass. It spreads over the sand like a sheet of crystal laminate, edging the strandline with foam, dispersing polished pink pebbles and quartz diamonds amongst glossy black devil's purses and violet-edged fragments of shell. Out here, peace lies so deep even the gulls cease their crying, lulled into silence by the waves' white noise. The sound and fury left behind are not exactly forgotten-- just made moot, signifying nothing.

Even in the winter, the sound of a perfect summer song coming over a handheld transistor puts all the past season's wrongs to right:

To dance beneath the diamond sky
with one hand waving free
silhouetted by the sea
circled by the circus sands
with all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today
until tomorrow

The scent of warm cotton candy, fresh-pulled saltwater taffy, and Kohr's orangeade reaches you from far away, borne down the beach and dispersed by a kind breeze. All traces of rank and rude humanity have been mercifully filtered out; what's left in this accord -- composed of equal parts spun sugar, sea breeze and sunlight -- is all summers, past, present, future, real, imagined, hoped-for, lost and found again.

As you stand at the edge of all this beauty, your love finally requited, a new song comes across the radio and brings a curious pang to your heart:

There's no need for living in the past
Now I've found good loving gonna make it last
I tell the others don't bother me
Cause when they look at you they don't see what I see
No I don't listen to their wasted lines
Got my eyes wide open and I see the signs
They don't know about us
They've never heard of love

Each summer the tide comes in, strewing trash; each winter, the tide recedes again, and we are washed clean. We reclaim what is ours: a beach that belongs only to us, an innocence no interloper can touch.

Scent Elements: Lemon, lime, neroli, juniper, petitgrain, ylang-ylang, cacao absolute, rose absolute, cassia, Australian sandalwood, tonka, vanilla, benzoin

Sample purchased from LUSH.

"Mr. Tambourine Man" / BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME (1966), lyrics/music: Bob Dylan; "They Don't Know" / YOU BROKE MY HEART IN 17 PLACES (1983), performed by Tracy Ullman, lyrics/music: Kirsty MacColl

Sunrise Surf, Island Beach State Park NJ, Carol Senske, 2011 (FineArtAmerica).

<<<Jersey represent.>>>

Cabochard Vintage Eau de Parfum (Parfums Grès)

2012-01-10T18:49:00.002-05:00

As fans of both Auction Hunters and Indiana Jones know, antiquing and archaelogy have a lot in common. The scale's smaller, the stakes are lower, and the loot's a bit easier to reach at the antique store... but nothing beats the thrill of unearthing a treasure that seems to have waited aeons for you to claim it. The discovery of lost Ilium itself beneath one's feet could not bestow more naches.

On one of our summer antique store shakedowns, DC and I happened upon a miniature vitrine full of Cabochard. At least four vintage versions of the Grès classic shared space with full bottles of Jean Patou 1000 and Joy, not to mention an empty (alas!) Lalique "apple" bottle for Nina Ricci Fille d'Eve.

From this trove, we chose the above treasure. Even more striking than its presentation box (designed in the "Bernard Buffet style" according to this seller who listed an identical presentation set on eBay Australia) was the fact that the flacon had never once been opened. (We remedied this soon enough.)

The vendor who consigned these riches had obviously been collecting them for decades-- and the results of her diligent curatorial efforts could not be confined to one vitrine. I've found other vintage fragrances scattered on displays throughout this vast antique center-- all beautifully preserved, and all belonging to her. Rumor has it that she consigns non-aromatic antiques (turn-of-the-century silver mesh purses, embroidered ladies' gloves, breathtaking costume jewelry) at a shop not two blocks from where I work. I harbor hopes of someday crossing paths with her.

How did you put it all together? I'll ask her face to face. And how can you stand to tell it all goodbye?

The latter question might be easiest for her answer, as perfume lovers have been saying goodbye to Cabochard for years. Luca Turin describes it as "chewed down to a frazzle by accountant moths"-- a terrible arrêt de mort.

The first hint at future misfortune came in the form of a frosted glass bow. Commemorating Cabochard's 25th anniversary in 1984, it took the place of the hand-tied grey velvet ribbon that had been this perfume's signature adornment since 1959. The rigidity of this new ornament warned of an ominous process taking place within the bottle: a loss of spirit, an approaching rigor mortis. Cabochard was not yet dead... but profit margins, popular taste, and IFRA had all conspired to number its remaining years.

The purpose of Cabochard's original grey velvet bow was simple: to identify it as Cabochard. If it had sported a green bow, it would be Chouda, another Grès perfume. Both came in identical, prefabricated bottles bought in bulk from a small-time glasswork's overstock; the ribbons provided visual differentiation between the bottles' contents. When Grès discontinued Chouda, Cabochard was left alone-- but its bow remained, a tactile reminder of Alix Grès' dressmaker roots. Mere practicality had been converted into something iconic.

Much of the grey velvet bow's appeal lay in its impermanence. Fabric is fragile; knots can come loose. So it was in 1983, when Parfums Grès first untied the bind. In 2000 it subjected its child to a total reformulation that left it impoverished, unrecognizable. (Wouldn't a black ribbon have been appropriate then?) Yet the thinner and more cadaverous Cabochard became, the more notes seemed to append themselves to its formula, varying by degrees of improbability. (Basil, clove bud, tarragon, sage? Maybe. Coconut and asafoetida? Good lord, I hope not.) One is reminded of the mummies of Egypt, shriveled and sad and invisible beneath their layers of golden magnificence.

The core list of Cabochard's scent elements confirms the dynastic marriage of chypre and leather that also produced those two Machiavellian masterpieces, Bandit (1944) and Jolie Madame (1953). Yet in Cabochard, this classic "hard" accord benefits from a slight blurring around the edges. Citrus notes (in particular mandarin) sweeten it from the very start, while a thread of green attributable variously to galbanum, tobacco, and armoise (Artemisia vulgaris, AKA mugwort) winds around its narcotic top notes. A controlled dose of aldehydes lends sparkle and modernity without negating that which is wild and natural about this fragrance's heart. The result is a kinder, gentler, eminently wearable leather chypre-- the spitting image of its forebears, but viewed in forgiving soft focus.

Bandit and Jolie Madame play rough perfectly. For their unique brands of steely-eyed dominance, there is a time and place. But in the moments when you wish they'd drop the leash, there waits a model of restraint... and she is wearing grey velvet.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, mandarin, aldehydes, ylang-ylang, jasmine, iris, rose, geranium, hyacinth, galbanum, tobacco, oakmoss, armoise, clove buds, sandalwood, vetiver, leather, castoreum, patchouli, labdanum, ambrettolide musk

Full flacon in presentation case purchased with DC at a local antique shop.

Life Threads Silver (La Prairie)

2012-01-08T18:30:00.004-05:00

My great-aunt -- a sour old miser who at best kept a middling table -- drew all her culinary inspiration from two sources: bridge club and the Great Depression. According to bridge club, bread must always be snow white, thinly sliced, crustless, and well-buttered-- a measure designed to keep watercress, sliced radishes, pimento cheese, and chicken salad from turning the bread to mush. The Great Depression, however, rendered scarce all such fancy sandwich fillings-- hence the wieners and pickles.

I beg your pardon: I meant frankfurters and gherkins. Economy-minded though she may have been, my great-aunt preferred to keep the tone of her table high. Even lowly comestibles could benefit from the Ladies' Auxiliary treatment, as the following recipe demonstrates: Butter your bread, then take two boiled frankfurters and split them in half lengthwise. Lay them face down (still steaming from their stovetop bath) on one buttered slice, then pave the other with "fancy" dill pickle chips. Clap the two slices together, cut crosswise on the diagonal, and serve on your finest silver-rimmed china.

Sure, it sounds plucky-- a preservation of high life for the down-at-heel. But make no mistake: Auntie Mame this wasn't. Equal parts stingy and superior, my great-aunt confused tinfoil thrift with gold-plated virtue-- a move that proved fatal to her hospitality. "It's perfectly good," she would say of some purplish, unidentifiable, evil-smelling meat, the victim of untold years' worth of freezer burn soon to be served up to distressed dinner guests. "During the Depression, we'd have been grateful for this. Listen, you'll eat it, and you'll like it."

She passed away twenty-five years ago. But if my great-aunt were alive today, I have a feeling she'd appreciate Life Threads Silver, a tuberose so pickled it fills me with disbelief. Buttery-rich, vinegary-sour, meaty and salty by turns-- all that's missing is the mothball-scented linen napkin in my lap, the warning looks from my parents, and the hopelessness of confronting a plate I cannot possibly bring myself to lick clean.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, tuberose, jasmine, ylang ylang, green leaves, pimento, orange blossom, sandalwood, vetiver, solar musk, and moss.

Manufacturer's sample included in Carol's Bag of Wonderful, upon which no dishonor whatsoever is reflected. Everything else we found therein pleased and amazed us. This was truly the only bad penny in that pot of gold.

Illustration from All Star TV recipes: Treasury of Good Food Ideas from the Kraft Kitchens, Kraft Foods Company, 1963; image courtesy of Cathy of California

Audace Vintage Eau de Parfum (Rochas)

2012-01-07T08:20:00.019-05:00

Faced with a monumental wonder, it's a pleasure to be stricken mute. The marvel needn't be visual to have this effect: wearing quintuple-distilled sequoia forest on your wrists also pretty much decimates your parts of speech. Close your eyes, and redwood pillars of scent tower around you, appealing to the impulse to climb and climb. An entire ecosystem swallows you whole with every breath.

If I were Julia Butterfly Hill on a fourteen-city speaking tour, far from my lofty, leafy home, this is what I'd spray for an instant two-hundred-foot lift. But like the ancient trees that inspired it, supplies of this precious substance are endangered. If you have some, practice responsible stewardship: conserve, conserve, conserve.

Scent Elements: Iris, jasmine, bergamot, violet, carnation, rose, patchouli, oak moss, galbanum, amber, juniper, pine.

Decant gifted by a classic in her own right, JoanElaine.

Here's a great review of Audace by a blogger whose archive is small but potent and well-written. Though it hasn't been updated in a while, I keep Perfume Fountain on my blog list and watch anxiously for updates, which I hope will be forthcoming.

Giant Sequoia, John C. Pitcher, 2007 (Good Nature Publishing)

Émeraude Vintage Eau de Cologne (Coty)

2012-01-06T00:12:00.006-05:00

The devaluation of something precious is devastating enough when confirmed by an expert, but the proof somehow hurts more when delivered by someone who admits they know little about it-- and really could care even less.

Last summer, when DC and I found a pristine boxed trio of Coty colognes (Émeraude, L'Aimant, Imprévu) in a local antique store, we received a dose of this sentiment from the shop owner. Why would anyone want to wear THAT old stuff? she wondered aloud. Stung, we did what few secondhand shoppers do-- attempted to argue a curio's value to the person with the pricing gun. We might have saved our breath. Our proprietress didn't need to hear our reasons for wanting the Cotys; she only wished for us to take them off her hands. The proposed ransom (ten dollars for the lot!) palpably reflected her relief to be rid of dead weight, and more: it served as a succinct declaration that these erstwhile works of art could no longer be counted among things of worth.

By anyone. Period.

This opinion, tragically, is not isolated. One month previous, I'd seen a nearly identical Coty cologne trio (substitute L'Origan for Imprévu) literally boiling away to nothing in the full sun of another shop's unshaded display window. These were not factices -- I know they contained real perfume, because I asked -- but to the proprietor, they might as well have been bottles filled with mere colored water for show. If I'd attempted to explain how extraordinary these perfumes once were, I'm sure he'd have squinted and rebuffed me with one word: "Once."

Imprévu, Émeraude, L'Aimant.

I wouldn't have been able to blame him. One by one, the genuine gemstones of the Coty parure have been cut down, broken up, traded away for flashy cut-rate paste jewels not worth their settings. Walk into Walgreens and take a test spray from what passes for Émeraude today: you will see.

Just don't let it blind you. It wasn't always this way.

The original Émeraude (1921) is a sweet amber with a pronounced herbal aspect-- the Orient seen through green-tinted spectacles. Just as Coty's L'Aimant travels neck-and-neck with Chanel No. 5, so does vintage Émeraude keep pace with Guerlain's Shalimar, particularly in its drydown-- all hazy vanilla and opopanax, as muted in tint and texture as a frieze cast in matte Lalique glass. Since Shalimar and Émeraude were contemporaries, their similarity fits; it feels less like a duplication than an single idea expressed simultaneously, or dual perspectives of a shared point in time. Forty years later, Myurgia's Nueva Maja would restate the theme, only with dried herbs instead of a bouquet garni freshly picked-- proving that certain philosophies, give or take an occasional tuck or pleat, sing eternal.

The crown-capped cologne trio DC and I rescued from indifference dates approximately to the mid- to late-seventies and appears to have been barely touched. Its L'Aimant and Imprévu deserve (and shall get) their own dedicated posts; as for its Émeraude, I find it to be a refutation of all doubts. Its citrus elements are greener, fresher, boosted slightly above that of the old-school perfume version, but that Shalimaresque vanilla shimmers exactly as it ought-- a beam of moonlight softened to the palest chalcedony hue. While seeming boneless and boundaryless, the scent in fact remains as definite as an electromagnetic field: when you're inside it, pure pleasure causes every hair on your head to stand up a fraction of an inch.

In another antique emporium, I remember seeing the tiniest bottle -- a cabochon gem not much bigger than my thumbnail -- of Émeraude parfum presented atop a little green-velvet-and-gold dais. They wanted a mere forty dollars for it-- a slap in the face, as it surely was worth twice or three times more. I procrastinated then (what fool am I!) but in the future, I will not hesitate a single minute in the righteous act of rescue.

Let them speak ill of my lady all they like... from a distance. She's coming home with me.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, orange, lemon, tarragon, jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, rosewood, sandalwood, patchouli, opopanax, amber, benzoin, vanilla

Dragonfly Woman Corsage Ornament, René Lalique, 1897-1898 (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation/Lisbon); Image ©2000 ARS/New York

Cèdre Bleu (Yves Rocher)

2012-01-03T20:18:00.004-05:00

What makes a good "everyday" fragrance?

First, a pleasant scent-- something reliable to which one could easily grow accustomed, and to which one would be all too glad to turn several times a week.

Second, a presentable scent-- something subtle that one can wear comfortably in all the places and situations that "everyday" implies, without ever feeling distracted or self-conscious.

Third, an accessible scent-- something in ready supply, to be used up and bought again and used some more with zero qualms about where more will come from or how much it will cost.

Cèdre Bleu meets all these criteria with distinction. It's a light, lovely, milky-woody saffron that manages the feat of seeming at once brisk (it's bleu!) and soothing. With her deliciously visual review (and the generous decant that followed), Joan Elaine hipped me to it and left me glowing with happiness. To think that all this time I've been hoarding my Safran Troublant for special occasions, when her fresh-scrubbed sister has been ready and waiting since the morning bell! The hours from dawn to dusk now covered, I don't feel nearly as guilty about putting off the more seductive Safran Troublant until after-hours.

Cèdre Bleu is only one of several eaux de cologne in Rocher's Fraîcheur Végétale ("Botanical Freshness") series, which all go for the same forehead-smackingly low price of $13.95 per 125 ml. What?! you scream. So did I-- but it's absolutely true. Usually fragrances this cheap smell that way, too-- but not Cèdre Bleu. If all the eaux Fraîcheur Végétale are as pleasant, presentable, and accessible as she is, sign me up for the lot!

Scent Elements: The Yves Rocher site lists only cedar, amber, and musk, but I get a strong hit of saffron and vanilla from this, and JoanElaine picked up on a steamed-rice note which I second absolutely-- this smells like a dessert risotto of the first order.

Sample gifted to me by JoanElaine, a lady who never leaves me feeling bleu.

Delft Blue Flower Fiesta Border, image courtesy of Embroidery Library

Happy New Year, poll results, & resolutions.

2012-01-01T16:52:00.001-05:00

A good New Year to all of you! How did you spend the first morning of 2012?... My husband and I stayed cozy and pajama-bound until one o'clock, having eaten our traditional "healthy" first breakfast of the New Year (home-cooked oat porridge loaded with dates, cranberries, pecans, brown sugar, and cream, plus mimosas made with fresh-squeezed OJ and the last of the bubbly). It's fifty-six degrees and sunny here in coastal South Jersey, so we took a walk down to the estuary to look out over Barnegat Bay, our link to the Atlantic. Right now there's a Downton Abbey marathon on PBS; later, we'll have our dinner of corned beef hash and cheddar pastry "pinwheels" . We both hope your day has been as pleasant and peaceful as ours!

Thanks to everyone who took my poll, the results of which appear above. Had that voice inside me (the remote, cold, solipsistic one that constantly whispers, "Just do it, who cares, nobody will even notice...") gotten its way, I would have chosen option #1 and ditched entirely a ratings systems which lately has felt to me constraining. But thanks to your votes and several thoughtful comments which showed me another perspective, those little Art Deco diamond ratings will remain. ("For now," grumbles that voice. Jeez! Does someone need another mimosa or what?)

The ratings question settled, what other perfumed objectives do I have for the New Year?

While I'm certain I kept to my $50/month budget in 2011, I slacked off completely in the accounting department for the year. I wish to return to strict receipt-saving and ledger-keeping in 2012, under the same monthly allowance. However, I'd like to split my budget between new experiences (decanted samples) and old loves (full-bottle purchases of fragrances I've already tried and adored). Over time, I would truly like to work toward obtaining full bottles of every five-star (and many a four-star) perfume on my list-- not least because it will allow for more sharing!

I'm toying with the idea of doing a "redux" series starring fragrances I've previously reviewed. How and where have I worn them since? How has my perception of them changed, for better or worse? Have I actively developed my "relationship" with this fragrance, or was it a flash in the pan? With almost two years' worth of blog reviews, I could choose one redux per week and post my impressions on the anniversary of the original review.

I want to challenge myself this year to tread less familiar territory-- to explore perfume houses whose lines I have never sampled, and to try some perfume genres I assumed I'd never like. I want to take some risks-- which may (if I can manage it) involve a "bespoke" perfume adventure.

Will I get the chance? It's up to me. The year 2012 stretches ahead, full of opportunity but shrouded in the unknown. Whatever the adventure, I'm honored to be traveling in your company.

Tunisian Frankincense.... then, now, and always.

2011-12-31T14:23:00.013-05:00

New Year's Eve in Perfumeland has its own thrilling countdown ritual. As all my favorite bloggers post their "Best Of 2011" lists, I feel like one of the happy drunken hoi polloi packed into Times Square-- content to stand here on the ground in Articwear and silly hat, cheering with all my might while the glitterati onstage do what they do brilliantly and best: shine!

Here at Parfümieren, fifty paces shy of the pulse, the zeitgeist is an infrequent visitor. I confess I haven't yet sampled most of the hot new releases of the past year... and I probably won't get around to them next year, either. Largely due to my horror of retail light and noise, I gravitate more towards the dusty secondhand shop than the fragrance counter at Neiman-Marcus. Consequently, I'm more likely to reach for (and review) the old than the new. But for the kindness of several friends supreme, I might seldom come into contact with the truly au courant-- and even then, much like Mrs. Baxter Pennilow in The Age of Innocence I often tuck such gifts away until the blinding newness of them fades to less intimidating levels.

Time, I trust, is on my side.

Though we like to break it down into manageable segments with clocks and calendars and New Years, I like to think of time as a river-- an uninterrupted current from which things emerge, into which they disappear, and from which they may surface again. The world of perfume is also like a river, stocked with thousands of scents of all hues and habits and lifespans. We can't catch them all, but it's fun to try. We hope -- particularly if we have encountered and grown to love them -- that they stay reasonably unaltered as they (and we) travel downstream together.

Attar Bazaar's Tunisian Frankincense was one of the first perfumes I reviewed in Parfümieren, but I have been wearing it for a very, very long time. My loyalty to this essence has spelled the demise of dram after dram after dram, purchased in various head shops, New Age boutiques, and heath-food grocery stores. As I deplete one, I buy another-- and over ten years' time, Tunisian Frankincense has remained blessedly unchanged in the most important particulars.

Each time I've gotten a fresh dram of Tunisian Frankincense, its vitreous beryl color eloquently proclaims a new beginning. As time passes and the oil develops and ages within the bottle, its color and consistency change-- as does its scent, acquiring richness and increasing in character. My older vial still contains about a half-inch of extremely viscous oil whose color, once spring-leaf green, has gradually turned to gold. (An eighth-inch layer of creamy-white silt -- resolidified frankincense resin -- rests at the bottom.) Scentwise, it has matured like a fine Sauternes, having grown mellower and less sharp over several years of storage and use.

My newest dram, gifted to me by husband for Christmas, is more of a sea-glass green-- cooler, more blue. I'm not sure if this is natural -- many of Attar Bazaar's perfume oils are vividly tinted -- but I do wonder how time will bend that spectral hue. And what of its scent? Distinct overtones of tart lime peel and raw tobacco leaf have always enhanced this full-bodied, honeylike resin. It remains thus-- maybe slightly altered up top though the addition of a touch of orangeflower, which I find to be an improvement. In the drydown, it sings as mellifluously as ever. Sweet, smoky, fruity: perfect.

A vintage Cadbury's Cocoa ad proclaims, "East, West, Old Friends Are Best". Though you may never have experienced Tunisian Frankincense for yourselves, it's for you -- my fragrant friends -- that I write this ode today. It comes with a wish: as we move into a new year, may time and change always bring you more pleasure than pain, and may that which you love best forever prove worthy of your faith.

HAPPY 2012!

Fragrance purchased in dram size from Attar Bazaar and gifted to me by my spouse, who likes it as much as I do, and who never lets the good things run out. Here's another review by Dee over at Beauty On The Outside that I think you'll like-- she got into layering TF with other scents, and sweet music resulted!

A wee poll until midnight.

2011-12-31T08:17:00.001-05:00

If you visit today, I've got a poll going on whether or not to keep Parfümieren's ratings system in the New Year. This was triggered by a very thought-provoking comment discussion over at Another Perfume Blog initiated by the lovely Natalie, who is pondering the same dilemma. Feel free to throw your vote into the bowl. The poll is open until 11:59 pm.

Sudanese Coconut and Medina Musk (Attar Bazaar)

2011-12-30T20:10:00.002-05:00

Sudanese Coconut

Medina Musk

Every hippie perfume oil collection worth its sacred sea salt must include a black coconut and a white musk. Thus are the sarong-clad ocean deities that preside over all littoral bonfire sing-alongs appeased.

Sudanese Coconut, a straightforward, salty-sweet member of the beach-fragrance species, fulfills its duties quite respectably for an admitted replica of nature. It evokes summer without smelling too much like suntan lotion and promises to make a pleasant companion during the winter months, when July is but a faraway dream. Or is it? I apply it to my wrists, and suddenly I'm baking on a white-sand beach, the sky overhead a cloudless azurite dome, my breathing synchronized with the rhythmic rush of the surf...

The pale greenish-blue liquid called Medina Musk looks like a cross between ocean water and laundry detergent, but get ready for a curveball. Lemony-tart at first, it catches me off guard by throwing in some of those strange, fizzy aldehydic effects noted in Egyptian Shalimar. Wait-- when did I order champagne? “Compliments of Monsieur,” says the waiter, gesturing toward a darkened corner. There slouches a sloe-eyed gent wearing a white linen three-piece suit and crimson fez. As he approaches my table (thank GOD this lamé evening dress fit into my saddle bag after all!) he slips a slim gold case out his breast pocket and offers me a hand-rolled cigarette. As we lean toward one another over this tiny Café Américain table, French-inhaling some marvelously dry tobacco-chypre fumes in unison, it occurs to me that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Samples of my choice offered free with purchase from Attar Bazaar.

Le Maroc par Air Atlas, Hainaut, late 1930s

Hina (Attar Bazaar)

2011-12-29T10:00:00.002-05:00

The production of the Indian attar known as hina involves practically an entire apothecary cabinet. According to this wonderful White Lotus article, the average hina recipe can include turmeric, spikenard, yew, cardamom, juniper berry, nutmeg, mace, clove bud, ambrette seed, laurel berry, valerian, galangal root, cyperus root, cinnamon, and patchouli, all hydrodistilled drop by drop directly into a powerhouse base of oakmoss-infused red sandalwood oil. To this mélange, lashings of finished choyas and single-note attars (including mehndi or gul hina attar made from henna flowers) are added. What sounds destined to be a hellish brew emerges from the cauldron as heaven in liquid form.

With all this botanical life-force packed into every drop, it's easy to imagine hina as a cosmic heal-all-- transcendental medication. I previously described it as “the original Ben-Gay worn by Gautama Buddha”. Attar Bazaar’s Hina is all that, plus -- forgive me! -- Buddha’s loincloth just prior to laundry day.

I'm used to experiencing hina as a purely spiritual scent. But add a raunchy dose of oud to the sacred recipe, and holy crap! Something new strolls into the temple-- a distinct note of dirty drawers, half-sexual, half-scatological, ripe enough to make a courtesan blush. Squirms of embarrassment follow, along with many other hard-to-describe emotions, most of them mortifying.

I imagine this opening salvo could be a deal-breaker for some-- at the very least, it might lay bare some secret bodily-function fears that we'd prefer to keep well-buried. Thankfully, the discomfort doesn't last too long-- five minutes? Ten? Then Hina modulates briefly into a mild wet-cardboard note, and thence into Nirvana.

Claustrophobic warmth is usually the name of hina's game, as typified by patchouli and sundry other suffocating aromas. Here, a refreshing mint note sends an unexpected February breeze swirling through to clear a bit of breathing space around the wearer. (I'm reminded of an elderly relative's customary dictum: "You kids go outside and let the wind blow the stink off ya!") Once you've cooled off, a dense sandalwood knits itself up snugly around you, hugging you close like a lambswool sweater and soothing away the last of the icky feelings. This latter phase is paradise itself-- long-lasting, entirely satisfying, something to be craved once it ends.

Wrapped in such nurturing comfort, you may forget Hina's weird bits enough to want to wear it again from the top. (Is there oxytocin mixed in with this oud? It's got everything else!)

Scent Elements: The kitchen sink, some filthy bits, and a world of warm fuzzies.

Full dram purchased from Attar Bazaar and gifted to me by my man, who can take a bit of weirdness en route to the wonderful.

Full Body Sweater, photographer unknown. Another Tumblr-ed gemstone, the origin of which I'd love to discover. Do they really make garments like this? Does the straw come included? Up periscope!

Arabian Sandalwood (Attar Bazaar)

2011-12-28T22:19:00.002-05:00

5:00 am: I roll out of an uneasy sleep straight into an ongoing migraine. Opening one bleary eye, I greet the pain with weary familiarity: Oh. It's YOU again.

7:00 am: I yelp like an injured dog when my husband turns on the living room light. (That's three rooms away from where I am, just so you know.) Duly warned, he closes all the curtains to protect his hissing vampire bride from the dawn.

7:20 am: In response to a deafening commotion in the kitchen, I moan, "What is that UNBELIEVABLE RACKET?" "Rice Crispies and milk," replies my husband. (Gonna be like that, now, is it?)

8:00 am: I'll say one thing for winter: it's good curtain season. These double-thick drapes are tops for migraine light-level management! Later, I'll be able to measure the progress of my condition by whether or not I scream like Nosferatu upon opening them. But right now -- nauseous, dizzy, blind as a bat -- I call out from work in a whisper and crawl back into the cave-dark cocoon of the bedroom.

11:00 am: Finally, vertigo releases its death grip! Walking down the hall no longer requires me to lean against the wall the whole way. I eat some plain yogurt, take a shower, start feeling cocky. Maybe I will make it in to work today. Maybe I've got that old jackhammer-in-my-cranium beat!

2:00 pm: Yeah. Right.

9:45 pm: Seventeen hours after my migraine commenced, I feel better-- at least insofar as I was able to eat dinner (sort of), sit in the living room with the TV on (at lowest volume), and wear the meekest, mildest fragrance in my Christmas stocking for all of an hour. Go, me!

Since genus Santalum appears nowhere on the Arabian peninsula's tree list, I suppose Arabian Sandalwood is the equivalent of W.P. Kinsella's "left-handed glass stretcher"*-- a rare object of questionable origins and spurious purpose, which nevertheless harbors enough magic to coax leaps of faith from the gullible. Such am I in my weakened state, and I must report that Attar Bazaar's left-handed glass stretcher does the trick. At a moment when anything stronger-smelling would probably send me over the edge, this pale, sweet Danish butter cookie of a fragrance sits quietly on my wrists, politely declines the invitation to produce sillage, and deploys its own mute button without being asked. I want to smooth it onto the places where it hurts the most and listen to the hornet-buzz of pain miraculously die away to swansdown silence.

10:00 pm: "Apply directly to the forehead"? With pleasure.**

*Mentioned in his incomparable 1982 novel Shoeless Joe (popularly known to moviegoers as Field of Dreams).
** Remember those awful "HeadOn"commercials? No? Then the HeadOn obviously worked!

Scent Elements: The milk of human kindness, interspersed with a tender mercy or two.

Sample of my choice offered free with purchase from Attar Bazaar.

Headache, Robert Magginetti, 2004. Magginetti is a collagist whose brilliant and subtly devastating collected works can be found on his website, Tranquility Base. "Headache" was part of a series entitled The Ancient Mariner, inspired by Coleridge and Gustave Dore. Through Magginetti's dystopian lens, an unsettling (yet weirdly graceful) world is revealed, wherein figures from 1950's advertising art frolic against Dore's apocalyptic backdrops. If the the SubGenius Foundation's graphic arts archbishopric hasn't got a ShrineFile with Magginetti's name on it, I'll eat my hat.

Egyptian Shalimar (Attar Bazaar)

2011-12-27T19:41:00.008-05:00

It's the custom over at Attar Bazaar to offer free samples with each purchase of perfume oils from their catalog. They let you choose your own samples, which is a nice touch, as it allows you to satisfy your curiosity without feeling stuck afterward with a fragrance you don't especially favor.

When my husband ordered my Christmas attars, I included Egyptian Shalimar among my samples because the name struck me as so irresistibly loopy. Thousands of miles separate Cairo from the Shalimar Gardens-- and Attar Bazaar (much as I love it) could not possibly mean to emulate Guerlain. What gives?

Well, as predicted, this doesn't smell one bit like Shalimar. The shocking news: it smells exactly (and I do mean EXACTLY) like vintage Arpège extrait.

What? Was this a hallucination, the result of imbibing too much of a Sam Adams Holiday Sampler? For comparison, I scrambled through my scent cabinet to locate my precious few milliliters of the real article. And then like Mia Wallace in PULP FICTION, I said GODDAMN. Goddamn. Goddamn.

Have you ever squealed and hugged yourself the first time you wore a perfume, wondering, Could this be real? I mean, this was Arpège right down to the golden, liqui-glo aldehydes. (Aldehydes? In a hippie perfume oil?) Perhaps its bergamot-and-neroli was a touch more honeyed; perhaps its leather lay buried just a centimeter deeper in the mix. But as the darn thing progressed from a gorgeous, powdery-sweet sunrise to a slinky, skanky dusk (civet? In a hippie perfume oil?), my grin just grew wider. What a fabulous, fabulous fake-out-- and at eight dollars a dram, how could I not upgrade to full size?

Trust me: this may be the first time false advertising ever paid off so well for the consumer.

Sample obtained from Attar Bazaar free with purchase; gifted to me by my loving spouse.

Scent Elements: Unknown. Attar Bazaar never lists notes for its proprietary blends, but stare really hard at your nearest bottle of Arpège until it talks.

Mr. and Mrs. open their gifts....

2011-12-26T16:45:00.004-05:00

It was a highly fragrant Christmas in the Potatohead household this year. First of all, Mr. tracked down a bottle of Tokyo Milk Arsenic for Mrs., whose three dozen eyes overflowed with tears of loving gratitude. But it didn't stop there! He also filled her stocking with aromatic gifts from Attar Bazaar (including Hina, Egyptian Shalimar, Sudanese Coconut, Medina Musk, and Arabian Sandalwood, plus her beloved standbys Tunisian Frankincense and Sumatra Vetivert) and a lovely LUSH gift cert to spend on Gorillas (perfumes, that is... not primates). But lest you think Mrs. neglected her spouse, please know that he found himself on the receiving end of a coveted bottle of Wash With Joe Coffeemint Body Wash, a high-test morning eye-opener for hard-working spuds. The pièce de résistance for Mr. P? Puredistance M, for which Mrs. Potatohead thanks Ms. Dreve and Mr. Dove with every ounce of starch in her heart. When Mr. put it on, it French-fried her circuits and turned her heart into heavenly hashbrowns!

Happy Holidays (and a Good Breakfast) To All!

2011-12-25T08:00:00.021-05:00

Holiday Breakfast Apple Butter Quickbread

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two loaf pans and set aside. For the steps of this recipe, you will need three mixing bowls of graduated sizes.

In the largest bowl, combine the following:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. each ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg & allspice

In the medium-sized bowl, cream together until fluffy:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated white sugar

To this, add and blend until smooth:

1 beaten egg
1 cup dark apple butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In the smallest bowl, combine and stir until thickened:

2/3 cup half-and-half or light cream
2 tbsp. lemon juice

Pour the contents of the smallest bowl into the medium-sized bowl and stir until well-blended. Then pour the contents of the medium-sized bowl into the largest bowl and beat until smooth. Split the batter between the two loaf pans and sprinkle with chopped pecans or walnuts. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a straw poked into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Produces a dark-brown, moist, and very fragrant loaf with a delicately crisp crust. Enjoy while still warm!

Aomassaï (Parfumerie Générale)

2011-12-24T15:22:00.006-05:00

It's impossible to resent Aomassaï, the adorable little sister of Arabie and Un Bois Vanille. Precious, high-spirited, and harmless, she makes a charming addition to their group-- a wide-eyed miniature version of themselves to pet and spoil and show off. True, she is a scamp; in moments when one is supposed to be grave and dignified, she can't help but break the silence with peals of irrepressible laughter. But sometimes her brio is the perfect diversion from the weighty matters that so often press upon mature nerves. All forms of pardon can be granted one so sweet, don't you think?

Aomassaï has a lot to learn. She may never seem quite in the same league as her elegant older siblings. But as far as they're concerned, the little one can tag along anytime.

Scent Elements: Bitter orange, caramel, hazelnut, spices, vetiver, incense, liquorice, wengué, balsam

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Two Happy Afar Sisters, Ethiopia, Eric Laffargue, 2007. I have no idea what's busting lil' Aomassaï up, but I notice that big sister Arabie is doing her best to keep a lid on it.

Cuir Mauresque (Serge Lutens)

2011-12-23T09:49:00.003-05:00

Billed as a sweetly spiced Arabian leather, Serge Lutens' Cuir Mauresque surprises me by turning up in red Doc Martens Mary Janes with vintage Bakelite cherries pinned to its hat. Well, would you look at that: it's a girl!

Her leather is patent, smart and modern, like Knize Ten; her fruit is red, bold and glistening, like Égoïste. But you'll find neither Knize Ten's rigid martial spirit nor Égoïste's childish candy-aisle temper tantrums here. Cuir Mauresque is loose-limbed, fancy-free, independent and generous of heart. Christopher Sheldrake must have been humming "Georgy Girl" on the day she was born... and drinking Shirley Temples to boot.

Back to the cherries. Do you smell them? I do! I know they're a mirage -- a playful conspiracy between mandarin and spice that makes my nose believe it perceives a whopping big bowl of Bings -- but since it's Christmastime, I don't mind being haunted by the ghost of these red-and-green beauties. (While we're on the subject of Yule, I should mention here that Cuir Mauresque is a gift that keeps on giving. More than once, just when I've thought that it has faded, it revives on my skin to send up one more whiff of jubilee delight. I wonder if it would last Twelve Days?)

So call her Cerises Mauresque for a joke if you like, or even Cuir Maraschino. The bottom line: she's a pip.

Scent Elements: Orange blossom, mandarin, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, cumin, cedar, amber, musk, oud, styrax, civet

Sample gifted to me by JoanElaine, who knows what goes best on top of the whipped cream.

Gardenia Royal Eau de Parfum (Mistral)

2011-12-22T12:30:00.001-05:00

My pal Anna -- a fan of airy, minimalist scents in the Issey Miyake mold -- offered me this carded sample after deeming it too overwhelming for her tastes. After wearing it once, I understand why: it's powerful stuff, like one of those super-concentrated fragrance oils marketed as an additive for home-made soap. Hey, there's an idea! Soap!

Too late. Luxury soapmaker Mistral -- a nice outfit with an aesthetic halfway between California and Caswell-Massey -- already manufactures a Gardenia Soap, Body Lotion, Hand Cream, Bubble Bath, and Glass Candle. But with Bath & Body Works issuing a new product every 2.8 seconds, I suppose smaller savonneries must super-size to compete -- hence the obligatory Eau de Parfum (2009), which simply puts in a bottle that which previously came in a bar.

Highly coveted botanicals, exotic woods and spices, rare flowers, and essences of ripe fruits contribute to the many notes of these fine fragrances, reads the ad copy, sagely adding, Flammable until dry. Do not swallow. A litany of chemical names follow, many marked with asterixes to indicate "Natural Origin Ingredients". Mistral's small-print website copy assures us that these are formulated for us in Grasse. An additional footnote asserts the finished product is not tested on animals-- well and good.

But even after all this, the perfume itself doesn't seem appropriate for neat application on skin. It's far too powerful, far too sweet, and -- despite Mistral's 'all-natural' marketing line -- smells plainly synthetic. There's more jasmine in here than anything else, and while they don't list it, there also seems to be an insistent white musk base that won't allow my mind to drop the image of a cake of soap.

And actually, that's exactly the form in which I might prefer this hypersweet dynamo: a nice savon de bain. Trapped and weighted down by almond oil, shea butter, lanolin, glycerine, what-have-you, those overly powerful molecules of scent might be kept under control. Whatever of them I don't need, the hot water of my shower would wash away, leaving just a sweet dream of inoffensive white blossoms behind.

Scent Elements: Gardenia, jasmine, orange blossom, greens, cedarwood, vanilla

Carded sample kindly gifted to me by my pal Anna.

White Gardenia image courtesy of Grand Forks Flower Market

O Tannenbaum!: A Holiday Group Blog Project

2011-12-21T08:44:00.003-05:00

Don't worry.
We're almost there.
You will be reborn,
And you will bloom.
And I will live.

This is a nativity story. Like another, it begins with a star and ends with a tree.

A girl on a snowy rooftop observes the night sky with a telescope. She invites her husband to look at a particular point of light-- the remnant of a long-ago, faraway supernova. But her spouse is distracted by the sight of her bare feet, nestled white and nerveless in the snow. She does not feel the cold. He knows what this means: the tumor occupying her brain is on the rise.

What will save her? The Tree of Life.

Her husband, a neuroscientist, has devoted long hours in his laboratory to synthesizing a cure. He has his eye on an arcane Central American tree bark, which contains a compound possessed of miraculous regenerative powers. But the clinical trial process stretches ahead. It could take months, years, before it is approved.

Will the tree give up its secrets before another star burns out?

When JoanElaine and Krista invited me to join them under the Tannenbaum's boughs, I thought how fitting it was that last year we followed the Magi to the stars-- and now we come back home to the Tree of Life.

For the tree is life, in every conceivable sense. It is the place from which our prehistoric forebears came and to which even modern-day mankind longs to return. No other symbol for family connection is as potent; no metaphoric source of knowledge is as convincing-- and With a lifespan lasting centuries, it prolongs the vitality of all who gather beneath it.

If Nature is a Mother, she's a tree. From her own body, she provides everything: medicine from bark and roots, shelter from leaves and branches, energy from fruit and beauty from flowers. No wonder humans regard her with such emotion-- safety, strength, and sustenance can be found in her far-reaching arms.

But what happens when the tree itself fails or falls? This question has been on my mind a lot this year... literally. But I seek my spiritual healing from predictable sources. I wear a lot of perfume... and I watch a lot of movies.

In Darren Aronofsky's stunning 2006 film The Fountain, Isabel 'Izzi' Creo is having a hard time telling her side of the story. Most marriages depend on a shared narrative, but Izzi's brain tumor has created a schism between herself and Thomas, a scientist determined to discover her cure. Doubt torments him; he rails against death yet cannot believe (as Izzi does) in an existence beyond it. How can they fight it together when they can barely agree on what they're fighting for?

People often weave their own tales for self-comfort in a cold world. Izzi's is epic: an imperiled Queen, a brave conquistador, a New World waiting to be explored. By contrast, Tommy's story (concerning a voyage to deliver a dying tree to a faraway star) speaks to his isolation and fear. In an attempt to bridge his terror, Izzi tells him the following parable:

Remember Moses Morales? The Mayan guide I told you about?... The last night I was with him, he told me about his father, who had died. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said death was his father's road to awe. That's what he called it. The road to awe...

Though he scoffs at her naïveté, Tommy internalizes Izzi's message, working it into his own story, even tattooing it into his skin. Together, they build their separate narratives by chapters, marking the miles along a shared road to awe.

Wood notes abound throughout perfumery, both as basenotes and as main themes. But sometimes I think there is more to their inclusion than a mere pretty smell. Indeed, some of the fragrances trees produce are downright startling, prompting strong love/hate reactions, oud being a prime example. The closest I can come is to speculate that while other aromatic essences may address themselves to various chakras -- the intellect, the libido -- wood notes never fail to aim for the heart.

I recently received my first Healing Touch, a technique similar to reiki or craniosacral therapy, intended to compliment or support existing chronic condition treatments. The practitioner informed me that she would be applying sandalwood oil to her hands before the Touch-- did I mind? (Did I!) Also, she would use a guided imagery meditation during our session-- would I prefer to seek healing on a wave-swept beach, or perhaps on a hill during a tranquil snowfall?

Neither, I told her. Where I go to be healed, there must be trees.

BARK: CINCHONA
L'Eau Guerrière (Parfumerie Générale)

With a caution partly due to this fragrance's somewhat ominous name, you advance into the jungle. At any moment, you expect a surprise ambush sans merci. Instead you find yourself confronting an improbable figure: a khaki-clad, pith-helmeted explorer offering a canteen full of quinine water.

Cinchona bark -- the source of quinine, not to mention that delightful bitter flavor that's jazzed up gin-and-tonics since Noel Coward flung out his first bon mot -- is a pharmacologist's dream. Muscle relaxant, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic, it has played the role of malaria specific for over three centuries. Its uses extend beyond the hospital: "red Peruvian bark" (Cinchona succirubra) appears on ingredient lists as a flavorant and bittering agent (not to mention an anti-dandruff constituent in hair-and-skin care products). Its fragrance is described as "woody, botanical, rooty" with a maple edge-- yet it rarely (if ever) appears in perfume.

L'Eau Guerrière is the only fragrance I know which awards cinchona a central role. There may not be enough of it in L'Eau Guerrière to make it fluoresce under black light, as will a glass of Schweppes; nevertheless, something about this fragrance glows with preternatural life.

L'Eau Guerrière opens with an strongly herbal accord recognizable to all you midnight tokers out there. It combines the sharp green of tomato vines with an amusingly goatish manger-straw scent, and it only lasts long enough to count as a sort of perfumer's in-joke. If you want it to stick around, I recommend Dupetit's Cannabis-- but I guarantee you'll be too taken by the next act to pursue it. A recognizable tonic-water accord -- bitter and silver-blue, barely disguised by a spoonful of sugar -- reaches the nostrils next, lifted there by the shimmering carbonated fizz of dry aldehydes and sealed with a mild oud as buttery as santal. It may disconcert the wearer to go from the suggestion of a "warrior scent" to a verandah table at Raffles Hotel Singapore-- but the company scintillates, and G&Ts keep arriving by the score.

Why not stay for the season?

Scent Elements: Cinchona bark, aldehydes, frankincense, oud, musk

HEART: AGARWOOD
Oudh Laos / Oud Lacquer Parfum Absolutes (Soivohle)

When we consider the heart of a tree, we instinctively summon the image of a mighty trunk's cross-section-- hundreds of concentric rings, each proving another year of health and growth. The subject of rot, on the other hand, repels us. So strong is the personification impulse that the notion of a tree decaying from the inside out gives rise to profound discomfort-- as if we, and not the tree, had been assigned this fate.

And yet death brings a last flare of beauty. We see this in autumn, when declining sunlight prompts a self-preserving chlorophyll shutdown and results in bursts of brilliant leaf color. We also see (or rather smell) the same process in Aquilaria wood invaded by the Phaeoacremonium parasitica fungus. To surround and subdue the infection, the tree's immune system kicks into overdrive, producing large amounts of sublimely-scented volatile resin: oud.

From illness comes transcendence. Taken as a natural pairing, Liz Zorn's Oud Laos and Oudh Lacquer offer a potent dual meditation on this phenomenon. Oud Laos -- a pure agarwood essence unadorned by supporting notes -- provides the memento mori aspect of the theme, hitting you early on with a breath straight from the crypt. In reaction to a searing blast of what smells like black mold, the throat constricts, the eyes water, and an urge to scrub (nay, disinfect!) descends. Hold firm; this fear-factor moment soon passes, leaving in its wake a warmly medicinal scent like that found in the depths of an antique apothecary cabinet.

For a soliresin, Oud Laos packs plenty of complexity-- but it pales in comparison to Oudh Lacquer, which adds a choir of seraphim to the equation.

According to Zorn's website, time is of the essence in the production of Oudh Lacquer. It enjoys a "year-long infusion process" founded on the use of a specially aged tincture of oud in which each additional element is set like a gem in filigree, a sort of olfactory plique-à-jour. Its darkness -- a rich, indolic ganache with an unsettling element of fruit fermented in animalic honey and the subtle funk of mushrooms -- is balanced by the merest touch of effervescent tilleul and Thai lime leaves, inferring a joyful green-gold dazzle on the surface of muddy waters.

If Oud Laos is the "Lacrimosa" movement of Mozart's Requiem, Oudh Lacquer marks a poignant shift into something lighter, brighter, more modern and optimistic:

Let go, jump in, oh well
What are you waiting for?
It's all right because
there's beauty in the breakdown
So let go, just get in, oh
It's so amazing here
It's all right because
there's beauty in the breakdown

--Frou Frou / "Let Go", from Details (2002)

Scent Elements: Wild-harvested agarwood absolute (Oud Laos); agarwood oil blend, aged agarwood tincture, kaffir lime, linden blossom absolute, cacao absolute, cepes, anise, orange, orange blossom, aglaia, champaca, iris, cinnamon, clove, honey, woods, balsam Tolu, styrax, patchouli, benzoin, tonka, vanilla, angelica root (Oudh Lacquer)

FOLIAGE: EVERGREEN
Riverwalk (Soivohle)

Biodiversity is defined as "the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem". Under unique conditions, hundreds of species may achieve symbiotic harmony within a single square mile. Following this example, a good natural perfume is a tiny ecosystem in a bottle, thrumming with life force. Every essence used to construct the perfume is composed of many more molecules than its synthetic counterpart. With the realization that each molecule conveys an encyclopedia's worth of data to the nose, the art and science of natural perfumery is revealed in all its grandeur and complexity. Not every perfumer possesses the technical skill to splice together all that information. But when one drop causes entire forests to spring open before the senses, the work of a virtuoso must be recognized.

I know that Riverwalk is woven from a dizzying array of botanical elements. I am also aware that I have yet to meet them all. From time to time something new, feral, and graceful strays across the footpath, and I stop-- wide-eyed, heart pounding, trying to remain still so as not to frighten it away. Feelings of exhilaration and danger pervade this enterprise; I wonder if I am properly equipped for it. Wearing this perfume is the equivalent of walking into the wild: the fewer encumbrances you carry, the more direct your communion with the divine.

What have I encountered so far?

Silver-blue balsam fir boughs.
Plum yews heavy with violet-brown drupes.
A mighty cedar trunk split by lightning strike to reveal its fiery heart.
Sun-saturated fern beds.
Songbirds heard from a distance.
Tides lapping a shoreline out of sight.
Pokeberries glowing like garnets against yellowing late-fall leaves.
The ashen remains of old campfires, replete with echoes of lost songs.
A breath of sea air carried over the grasses of the salt marsh.

It goes on and on. I could spend all day and all night out here. There is so much to explore, so many off-path adventures to pursue. To be absorbed, even for a time, into this environment spells out endless joy and restoration to me.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, lavendar absolute, French lavender EO, star anise, galangal root, petitgrain, fir balsam absolute, rectified birch, choya loban, geranium leaf, geranium concrete, aged patchouli blend, patchouli absolute, cassis absolute, hay absolute, cedar blend, cocoa absolute, tonka bean tincture, Indonesian vetiver, benzoin Siam absolute, brown oakmoss, vanilla absolute, rosewood, linaloe, ho wood, ambergris

Please visit these participating bloggers to discover more perspectives on the Tree of Life:

All I Am: A Redhead
Another Perfume Blog
Beauty, Bacon, Bunnies
Beauty on the Outside
EauMG
Eyeliner on a Cat
Fragrant Reviews
Muse in Wooden Shoes
Olfactoria's Travels
Redolent of Spices
Scent of the Day
Suzanne's Perfume Journal
The Candy Perfume Boy
Undina's Looking Glass

Samples of Oudh Lacquer, Oud Laos, and L'Eau Guerrière purchased from The Perfumed Court; decant of Riverwalk generously gifted to me by JoanElaine.

Still photos from Darren Aronofsky's film The Fountain, Warner Brothers/20th Century Fox, 2006; illustration from the graphic novel of The Fountain by Kent Williams, Vertigo Books, 2005.

Tabu Vintage Extrait (Dana)

2011-12-19T19:04:00.011-05:00

It may just be me. But in the recent act of decanting this beauty, I felt the earth wobble ever so slightly on its axis.

I'm not saying the last days of our dear planet are nigh (even if the fateful year 2012 is just around the corner). I'm merely stating that this fifty-year-old extrait (purchased for two dollars, I said TWO DOLLARS, would somebody PLEASE give me an amen) is the stuff which governs the path of planets around the sun.

After extracting from the flacon a few milliliters of parfum and transferring them into a sample vial, I happened to set my pipette down on a piece of paper, which immediately absorbed a droplet of that precious jus. That droplet proceeded to send up a Hosannah! clearly discernable from three counties away-- yet delectably smooth, judging from the parade of strange cars that began to pull up unannounced at my curb from that moment on. (If you spill it, they will come.)

And while the prospect of becoming a hoarder normally instills the fear of hell into my everlasting soul, I have yet to throw that piece of paper out.

Again, it may just be me. But something tells me that if I set this down on the shelf next to Absolue Pour le Soir, we may witness a sexy space-time singularity of End Times proportions.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, carnation, coriander, basil, neroli, orange, clove bud oil, clover, jasmine, narcissus, rose, ylang-ylang, amber, benzoin, cedar, civet, oakmoss, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver, resins, musk

Full flacon (circa 1950s) purchased complete with presentation box at a yard sale, for the love of god.

Belén Maya, Gilles Larrain, 2005 (Wikimedia). The great bailaora captured by the great photographer.

Absolue Pour le Soir (Maison Francis Kurkdjian)

2011-12-16T07:55:00.003-05:00

Oh my goodness gracious yessssss.

Scent Elements: Siam benzoin, cumin, rose honey, ylang-ylang, atlas cedar, sandalwood, incense absolu

Decant sent to me by Sweet Suzanne. It came via starship, and that starship was flying a funky freak flag. Maybe I'm craaaaay-zy... but I strapped on my superstacked platform shoes and saluted. My country 'tis of Cee.

Cee-Lo Green, photograph courtesy of Fresh(MFK)er. The "MFK" stands for Music Fashion Kicks, but for Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the house of the Fresh Prince of Fragrance, it also coincidentally does just fine.

Tiare (Ormonde Jayne)

2011-12-15T01:28:00.010-05:00

It strikes soon after you land. Some conspiracy of sunshine, geothermal energy and mana seizes you, and you start to grow, change, evolve. Locals call it 'the quickening'-- a term which lends it an air of established legitimacy, even desirability. This is something you want to happen. Don't you?

Others do. Look around you. From all coordinates on the globe, they've made their way to the Hawai'ian islands, these naive flowerbuds eager to be forced open by the skillful hand of Spirit. What miracles no one else could work, Maui can-- or so they trust. No guarantee of enlightenment awaits them, just a vague hope. Even before their bags have cleared the airport luggage carousel, they're sending up a silent cry, Choose me, choose me.

And this island -- the summit of a sacred mountain concealed by a fickle sea -- obliges.

The quickening hurts. No one warns you beforehand. The Spirit pries you open, roots around to find that one thing buried deepest in the nacre -- a secret, a misdeed, a razor-sharp memory -- and cruelly exposes it anew. Then it leaves you amidst a mockery of rainbows and waterfalls to stanch the flow of blood alone. Pain is never sharper than in paradise; on this rock, the cognitive dissonance makes or breaks you.

During your time on Maui, you will meet three dozen self-styled gurus, two 'interdimensional star-beings', an Ascended Master disguised as a batik importer, and at least one old-fashioned robe-wearing wizard. These are the walking wounded, casualties of the fabled quickening. Like you, each of them carries deep historic hurts; unlike you, they allowed Maui to unmoor them. Adrift in the Pacific on a volcanic raft with no escape except by charter plane and all their life's agony staring them in the face, they spin the most outrageous backstories just to make captivity tolerable.

Strangely, you envy them. Being alive, pretending at normality is hard. It would be so easy to give up, let go.

Cue the burning of the cane fields.

You wake up one morning to a smell halfway between toffee and tire fire. Danger-- mind and body instinctively assume a full-alert stance. Volcano! is your first thought. But no, Haleakalā hasn't issued so much as a wisp of steam in three hundred years. All is quiet. How?

Even before you walk two blocks, you see it: a tower of apocalyptic black smoke that filters out the sun. The air, tinted a crazy sepia-tone, smells at once appetizing and poisonous. Breathing it feels ill-advised, a promised lungful of some vile sticky-candy version of tar. Never mind: whatever this is, it's big and real, a shock to the senses after months of bland tropical fantasy. You have to get closer to it.

A local farm wife gives you a lift in her pickup to the highway, where quite a crowd of spectators has already gathered. Here, you survey the coastal plain for the end of the world.

What exactly is going on down there? What are they doing? you ask a nearby old-timer.

Torching the sugar, he says. Burns off all the leaves, makes the cane easier to harvest. You go out by Kīhei today, it'll be snowing ash.

For some reason, the thought makes you shiver.

Back in town, all the gurus and star-beings seem unusually quiet, restored to sober reality by the conflagration below and the ceiling of sugar-soot above. You, too, feel subdued. Your throat nags for water; your eyes smart. The very exhalation of hell manifested itself in the center of heaven today. The sight of your own front yard makes you want to cry.

Standing by the fence, you bury your nose in an island gardenia, still dewy from the last hour's rainfall. What an odd contrast the acrid smoke of the cane field makes with the lush scents of upcountry rainforest! It battles the heavy perfume of the gardenia for primacy, and very nearly wins. The truce between them -- tender white petals and caustic phenols -- leaves you unsettled. By rights, no natural accord between flower and fire ought to exist, in your opinion.

And yet the flower -- vulnerable as it is -- pays the flame no mind, you think.

In that moment -- quickening completed -- Maui smiles upon its newest kama'aina.

Scent Elements: Mandarin, neroli, Sicilian lime, tiare, freesia, water lily, jasmine, iris, ylang-ylang, cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, patchouli, moss, musk

Sample included in Carol's Bag of Wonderful, whose contents continue to fill us with wonder.

Photograph of a burning Maui cane field courtesy of Buck Quayle & The Maui Lahaina Sun

Odalisque (Parfums De Nicolaï)

2011-12-08T15:09:00.012-05:00

There's a scene in The Extra Man in which an inexperienced client asks his world-weary dominatrix if -- rather than proceed with their scheduled spanking -- he could please just kiss her instead. It's obvious no one's asked her that for years. She acquiesces with a show of scornful eye-rolling, but clearly, the proposition melts her with delight-- deep inside, where vulnerability and first kisses still count.

At first, Odalisque feigns the same hard surface, the same jaded outlook. Bitter greens dominate its opening; it will not give itself up to you for nothing. A fair amount of leather and skank follow. Odalisque knows what you're thinking -- muguet ought to be sweet! -- and looks away, angry, steeling itself for judgment. When at last it offers up its flowers, the gesture itself savors of impatience: Fine, take everything, what do I care.

It might sooner slug you than let you kiss it on the mouth.

But if you first said please...

Scent Elements: Bergamot, mandarin, lily-of-the-valley, jasmine, iris, oakmoss, musk

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Odalisque, Jules Lefebvre, 1874 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Wishes.

2011-11-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

For harmony, for safety, for the basic needs of all to be met, for an end to impasses and conflicts, for reunion, for true companionship, for pain to pass away and be replaced by understanding, for justice, for relief to those who cry out, for joy to all who live.

Autumn Leaves, John Everett Millais, 1856 (Manchester City Art Gallery UK)

Intrigant Patchouli (Parfumerie Générale)

2011-11-22T20:46:00.010-05:00

Joining L'Air de Rien, Muscs Koublaï Khan, and Ambre 114 in the hippie-pong party aisle, Intrigant Patchouli stands out as the brightest beacon shining through the purple haze. It bears a resemblance to any number of other hookah-den fragrances, but its raunch is arguably the most cheerful of the lot. All the gravity inherent in its animalic notes is offset by some amazingly buoyant naughty bits which boost those mood-altering effects through the stratosphere. So while MKK smoulders silently in a bean-bag chair and L'Air de Rien dreamily twirls her hair around a henna-daubed pinky, Intrigant keeps the records spinning, the dance floor grooving, and fingers snapping all over the joint.

With a wink and a wiggle, this hostess knows how to heat up a happening!

Scent Elements: Ginger, lemon, citron, mandarin, patchouli, Mysore sandalwood, civet, castoreum, benzoin, amber, musk, honey, vanilla

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

'Mr. Freedom' Bare-Bottom Trousers, Stephen Markeson, 1971. A Fellow of the Royal Photography Society (UK), Markeson has captured everything from global war zones to pop fashion during his amazing 50+ year career. I love his versatility, his eye for candid moments, and his fearless plunges into the whitewater current of zeitgeist. And yes, I love those trousers, too!

03 Century (Odin New York)

2011-11-21T18:21:00.004-05:00

If Luca Turin's proposal is true -- that a multi-perfume collection released by a single house can only contain one standout* -- perhaps there's an equal and opposite corollary for really good collections that contain one dud. Of Odin New York's original trio of fragrances, Sunda and Owari were extremely pleasant. Extending the luck, Petrana (Odin's fourth) is a marvel. I haven't tried number five (or is that 06?) Amanu yet, but maybe the law of averages has already been satisfied by Century. I sincerely hope so.

As far as wobbles go, Century's not an utter disaster. I mean, it doesn't cause screaming fits, facial tics, or uncontrollable impulses to scrub. It's too vague for any of that-- a weak smell like scented hand soap, leaving no definite impression behind. In a word, it's forgettable-- which (all things considered) is not so bad a status. To be so terrible that no one can scour you from their memory is, I imagine, a fate worse than forgettability.

*P:TG, pg. 137 & pg. 157.

Scent Elements: Birch, cypress, mint, vetiver, myrrh, patchouli, musk, oakmoss, amber

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt, 1854 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool UK)

Vanilla with a vengeance.

2011-11-20T23:50:00.007-05:00

Vanilia (L'Artisan) and VanillaVille Demi-Absolute (Soivohle)

Here we have two smooth motherfuckers, one mellow and one manic. When they arrive on your doorstep, you might think you're in for a round of Good Cop/Bad Cop... but appearances mislead, and the law is nowhere in sight.

Don't let his bad black suit decieve you: the gentleman on your left has the beachy-clean soul of a California surfer, all Sex Wax, cocoa butter, and soap-on-a-rope. Sure, he carries a MAC-10 with a silencer, but in terms of Five Dollar Milkshakes, he's one hundred percent Rowan & Martin. You wonder how on earth he could ever have been mistaken for a heavy. This sweet guy? Surely it's all a misunderstanding.

But then you meet his partner. Ten seconds with him and you're sure of one thing only: unless you stay calm and cooperate, there is no way you're getting out of this alive.

He starts off bold and hearty, with back-slapping pleasantries all around. Little by little, you notice that his friendliness is just a touch aggressive. Seconds after you ask yourself, Why doesn't he ever blink? you shiver to recognize the glint of apocalypse in his eye. By the time he starts shouting, "And you will KNOW my name is the LORD when I LAY MY VANILLA UPON YOU--" you may wish you had Mr. Mellow on your side again.

But there ain't no Mr. Mellow here, Jack. Both of your visitors are equally armed and dangerous, and they are here to do serious business. You want to get off easy, civilian? Get thee to the drugstore and buy some Vanilla Fields. That's one gun guaranteed not to be loaded.

Scent Elements: Vanilla and ylang-ylang absolutes (Vanilia)/ Leather, tobacco, sweet fennel, pink pepper, spices, birch tar, sandalwood, amyris, tarragon, orange flower, rose, jasmine, benzoin Siam, toasted almonds, vanilla absolute, vanilla tincture (VanillaVille)

Samples of both fragrances (decanted Vanilia; manufacturer's VanillaVille) purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Still photo of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson as gun-toting BFFs Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Miramax Films, 1994

Amber Pour Homme and Amber Pour Homme Intense (Prada)

2011-11-19T02:34:00.002-05:00

Amber Pour Homme (Prada)

Amber Pour Homme Intense (Prada)

Fougère, amber, cologne, leather. Four accords, all rock-solid institutions within the world of fragrance. Prada's Amber Pour Homme (2006) welded them into one. On paper it seems a most improbable algebraic equation, inspiring little confidence that it could reckon true. But relax. Amber Pour Homme isn't exactly Fermat's Theorem. It's more of a little play on words-- but its punchline rewrites the whole language.

How so? Well, Amber Pour Homme includes notes symbolically representing each of its four flagship accords -- fougère, amber, cologne, leather. By substituting a less prominent note for the one most associated with each genre, perfumer Daniela Roche-Andrier has knowingly altered its parlance-- played with its "language", so to speak. For her fougère accord, she uses patchouli rather than lavender: fair enough, and hardly controversial. For leather, a soft, chamois-like saffron note appears instead of birch tar: again, well within bounds. But the happiest surprise is found in the cologne accord, where Roche-Andrier employs South American cardamom in place of the more conventional hesperides as shorthand for 'fresh' and 'cool'. (Two hundred years of spice-laden Caribbean cologne waters can't be wrong.) Together, these three notes achieve a hushed elegance, neither masculine nor feminine, simply handsome.

As for the eponymous amber, it's just that-- labdanum served up the no-frills way, unsweetened and unpretentious, drying down to a nice muted woody accord which sticks well to the background. And really, the background is where it's at, for Amber Pour Homme is no extrovert. None of its component notes scream for attention. Imagine a choral group devoid of soloists, an assemblage of modest team players who subordinate themselves to the project and combine their quiet voices in glorious mass harmony. So cooperatively do they mesh that the sum of their efforts almost appears separate from its own parts-- a phantom tone, perfectly legible until you concentrate too hard on its origin. The challenge is to resist doing so-- and then you hear it in all its loveliness, unbroken.

This is why the notion of kicking it up a notch -- ostensibly the purpose of APH Intense (2011) -- seems redundant. It's the same fragrance, only sweeter and more custardy, as if someone convinced one or two of the choir members that they really could go solo if they wanted it bad enough. All they had to do was to burst out with some hot Beyoncé-like vocal folderol right smack in the middle of "Simple Gifts" just to show everyone how it's done. Is it a disaster? No. Is it really necessary? Again, no.

Just give me the original any day. Its quiet speaks volumes to me.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, mandarin, neroli, pelargonium, patchouli, cardamom, myrrh, amber, vanilla, labdanum, tonka bean, saffron, sandalwood, leather

Full bottle of Amber Pour Homme purchased at local thrift shop; Amber Pour Homme Intense sampled at Ulta.

Image of brown cardamom pods via BlackBookCooking

Winter Star Eau de Parfum (Michael Storer)

2011-11-10T12:32:00.002-05:00

Seasonal depression, to paraphrase Allen Ginsberg, is "the total animal soup of time". When you are really in it, how desperately you wish for the justification of a hibernatory period, a recognized biological phenomenon on which to pin your surliness and sleepiness and therefore be released from the penalty box with no demerits.

Today the world is foggy and dark and feels to me like the bottom of a cellar. I need the smells of warmth, home, butter, wool, hot candle wax, bed, blankets, skin, breath, secrecy, safety. A retreat back into prehistory, a time before language, a time before time.

I wish I didn't have to take it to go. But I must, and I can, so I do.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, lavender, carnation, oakmoss, balsam Peru, balsam tolu, labdanum, benzoin, musk, civetone, helvetolide

Full and seemingly unused bottle purchased at local thrift store, where I sense it may have been consigned in atavistic terror because it out-musks Muscs Koublaï Khan. MKK at least pitches a ger for you and lays down some hospitable felted rugs; Winter Star hands you some ochre-in-bear-grease for self-decoration and shoves you closer to the communal fire.

Detail of Paleolithic Era shamanic cave painting from the Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux, France

02 Owari (Odin New York)

2011-11-09T08:21:00.003-05:00

Today, simplicity and silence are my only objects; therefore, Odin New York's 02 Owari is my flavor du jour. Its low-key citrus and cubeb harmony surrounds me like a protective presence, an impermeable zone of influence. Yet despite its strong arm, it's also wholly unobtrusive; it will never distract me or tax my patience with unnecessary noise while it escorts me around town. The professional silence it maintains while on the clock is profound and admirable. Give that man a raise!

When so much intrudes upon our daily quiet, clamoring for our attention, to say of a thing that you "think nothing of it" is the greatest praise. By that definition, Owari is the best bodyguard money can buy. I can count on it to get my back when things heat up... and to keep its mouth shut afterwards.

Scent Elements: Mandarin, bergamot, grapefruit leaf, cubeb pepper, amyris, neroli, cedarwood, amber, musk

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Detail from promotional poster for Luc Besson's 1994 film Léon (AKA The Professional)

Icons of a certain age.

2011-11-07T21:15:00.009-05:00

After writing about Someday and contemplating the Belieber squealfest surrounding its debut, I realize just how old and cranky I've grown. True, the fact that my senior year in high school can be purchased as a children's Hallowe'en costume is proof enough that I've passed a certain mile marker... but damn. I confess my aging brain may no longer be limber enough to wrap itself around the concept of pop-idol merchandise.

Or maybe I'm just jealous. None of my heroes ever endorsed a fragrance for me to buy. Hell, at times some of them seemed a little sketchy on the concept of plain old soap and water. But even when hygienic conditions prevailed, most of them were too artistically pure for product endorsements-- least of all for something as frivolous as fragrance. (Well, Henry Rollins did that ONE GAP AD back in 1991, but it was for black T-shirts -- the height of workaday practicality -- and he used the money to self-publish about two dozen kickass poetry books, so shut up.)

Now that all of my heroes are either pushing fifty or have gone straight through it to the other side, the likelihood that they will suddenly up and make with a celebrity fragrance is next to nil. Still, it's fun to idly imagine a batch of make-believe prestige scents fronted by my favorite iconoclasts-- so fueled by Carrie Meredith's "Expose Your Briefs" post (and just in time, as it happens, for Angela's hilarious take over on NowSmellThis) I offer these transcribed scribblings from my notebook....

Who: Viggo Mortensen (b. 1958)
Who's he?: Actor, painter, photographer, poet, publisher, activist
Name of fragrance: Tirador (named after the traditional leather-and-silver belt of the Argentine gaucho)
Notes: Tobacco, maté, hay absolute, sweetgrass, sage, leather

Notorious for practicing "method actor"-style hygiene when saddled up for such roles as Aragorn (The Lord of the Rings), Frank Hopkins (Hidalgo), and Everett Hitch (Appaloosa), Mortensen -- who grew up riding horses on an Argentine estancia-- needs a rugged, manly scent that won't interfere with his pursuit of pong, ponies, or pampas. Maté provides a nod to his obsessive love for the South American brew-drinking ritual (he is said to bring his own cup and bombillo to movie shoots), while leather and cigar tobacco notes befit the 19th century cowboy spirit residing in this 21st century Dane.

Who: Adam Clayton (b. 1960)
Who's he?: Musician
Name of fragrance: Aurum (Latin for "golden")
Notes: Bergamot, mandarin, ginger, immortelle, Kenyan sage, frankincense, opopanax, suede

Being that U2's Adam Clayton gave up smoking, drinking, and hard-partying last decade, one might despair of finding a suitable rock-star hook on which to hang a fragrance brief. But when one learns that the Anglo-Irish rhythm king spent his formative early years under the blazing sun of Nairobi, something of Clayton's leonine ease and equanimity comes into focus. Asked by journalist BP Fallon whether he preferred the sun or the moon, Clayton replied, "The sun. Because it brings life and a new day." His fragrance would be entirely composed of gold notes capturing the blazing heat and light of midday- the hour that all mad dogs and Englishmen adore.

Who: Henry Rollins (b. 1961)
Who's he?: Musician, actor, writer, spoken-word performer, publisher, activist
Name of fragrance: Work.* Look at Rollins' job description above. Enough said.
Notes: Musks, castoreum, costus, lavender, birch tar

Straight-shooting no-nonsense motherfucker that he is, Rollins would most likely hate the silly conventions of fragrance brief-building; only an antifragrance would work for this antihero. It would smell like fresh male sweat on clean skin, steam-ironed cotton, and mink-oiled shoe leather, and you would literally have to work to get it. Man a petition table... launch your own community service project... or join Rollins on his next USO tour. He'll let you know when you're ready to smell awesome.

*I momentarily toyed with the idea of calling this fragrance "sXe", which old-skool hardcore types would know means "Straightedge", but it would be mispronounced "Sexy" often enough to cause a large vein to start throbbing in Rollins' forehead. And you do not want that, no sir.

Who: Keanu Reeves (b. 1964)
Who's he?: Film and stage actor, musician
Name of fragrance: Via Una ("One Way")
Notes: Leather, iris, anise, heliotropin, incense

That handsome pro-am recluse known the world over as Keanu Reeves genuinely seems most comfortable drifting through life like an unclaimed suitcase. Over two decades of constant travel and hotel living, he's achieved a sort of well-tailored Zen detachment as much at ease on gritty city street benches as in five-star luxury settings. Combining the essence of the finest luggage leather with the cool reserve of iris and heliotrope, Reeves' fragrance would come clandestinely packaged in a high-tech platinum Tibaldi "fountain pen" flacon made to ride past airport security in a breast pocket. Bonus: it signs autographs in real ink!

Who: Thom Yorke (b. 1968)
Who's he?: Singer/songwriter, activist, misanthrope*
Name of fragrance: Synthete
Notes: Aluminum, aldehydes, rubber, talcum powder, plastic, narcissus

Imagine a single flower raising its head in the midst of a factory and calling the pipes and wires "Mama". Incorporating a series of disturbing industrial notes pitched at almost unbearable levels, this conceptual fragrance would echo the sense of dystopian future-shock prevalent in much of Yorke's lyrics. A pure green accord derived from narcissus absolute -- the only natural substance in the composition -- would provide a point of respite from the techno-malaise, while some very pretty aldehydes twinkle on every surface like fake snow...cold, unearthly, alien, and beautiful.

* One hears that Thom Yorke is a right bastard, personality-wise-- yet he works tirelessly on behalf of a number of crucial social and environmental causes. Perhaps he is like Aria da Capo's Pierrot, who declares, "I love Humanity;/ but I hate people".

Now, I had an rough idea in mind for my final idol's fragrance, but before I could write about it, I actually WORE it-- and it was so much better than anything my inadequate imagination had dreamt.

Fougère Nakh (Soivohle)

Most people live their lives in a state of unconsciousness until awakened by a certain sound. If they are crooked, the sound sets them straight. If they're confused, the sound sorts them out. If off-course, the sound reorients them. They will know it when they hear it, because they'll feel more whole - more themselves somehow -- afterward.

For some, the sound is made by nature: the rumble of thunder, the sough of wind over prairie. For others, it's produced by hand: a flute, a drum, an electric guitar. But for those like me, the one sacred sound is the human voice. No other compass compares.

For twenty years, the man you see above has been the voice of my due north. Other voices, siren-like, have lured me off-course, led me toward the rocks, or beached me high and dry. Never his; not once. I hear it and remember instantly who I am, where I am, what to do. We will never meet, and that's all right. It is enough that he let the sound out, and that my ears were open to hear it.

Music may be the medium in which he creates, but ocean is the medium in which this lifelong surfer truly lives. It's here that he instinctively retreats between albums and tours, conceivably to catch his breath if only so that he can expend it again at full strength, calling like a muezzin to the faithful. My written notes for his bespoke scent -- ambergris, kombu, sea salt, oakmoss, vetiver, organic tobacco -- read like a poem composed in clumsy tribute to smoke-on-the-water. But where I flail and drown, Liz Zorn once launched a graceful thing upon the waves, and its name was Fougère Nakh.

Fougère Nakh is already extinct: a deep sea creature long retreated to the briny depths of perfumedom. Relegated to Zorn's 'retirement' list this past March, it exists only in legend now, like one of those draconic denizens of old maritime charts, the sort who defiantly spout plumes of water skyward wherever ships are too fearful to travel. I managed to procure a scant milliliter as part of a manufacturer's sample lot from The Perfumed Court. I think I would have been willing to spend a year's budget on the same amount and pass on all the rest.

True to both halves of its name, Fougère Nakh combines the herbal austerity of the classic men's fougère with the novelty of choya nakh-- an accord achieved by roasting clam shells over a wood fire until they blacken and exude a dark oily absolute. This essence encompasses a blood-dark iodine tang, a rich accumulation of smoke (as if gathered from a thousand-year cave) and the hiss and pound of heavy ocean surf. If ever a scent existed for selkies and mermen, it would be choya nakh. Fougère Nakh employs it to intoxicating effect. Anoint yourself with this holy oil, and feel strands of sargasso reach up to wind around your limbs, drawing you down to the darkest and riskiest of depths, where visions exist only for the brave.

Yet not all is danger here. Fougère Nakh is straightforward and stark, but its beauty does not lack mercy. There is so much raw nature in its character that even when it most overwhelms, it still brings a pang to the heart-- a sense of continuity, as when one surveys a magnificent landscape and still is able to imagine being an intrinsic part of it. Maybe it's the curiously biological quality of choya nakh that does it. All I know is that Fougère Nakh -- like Vedder's voice -- slips into my bloodstream with native ease, as if it were already a part of me.

Who am I to deny it?

I'm open. Come on in.

Scent Elements: Lavender, patchouli, tonka bean, spices, choya nakh

Manufacturer's Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Quote from "I'm Open" / NO CODE (1996), lyrics/music: Irons & Vedder

Honey Coconut and Gin Blossom (Love & Toast)

2011-11-06T19:55:00.006-05:00

This past week my husband and I celebrated his birthday with a road trip to Princeton. We'd both been hankering to revisit this favorite destination since our last jaunt in June. His mission: to prowl and pounce on amazing DVD finds at the Princeton Record Exchange, the best damn independent new/used audiovisual store in the state (indeed anywhere, in our opinion). My mission: to return to Mandalay Trading Company, the site of my first fateful encounter with Love & Toast's Honey Coconut and -- just maybe -- a likely source for a full bottle of Tokyo Milk Arsenic.

As I wrote back in June, I'd passed up on Honey Coconut for some extremely stupid and superficial reasons, now deeply and bitterly regretted. My decision haunted me all summer; now it would be set to rights. First order of business: snag a "Little Luxe" mini-bottle of Honey Coconut right away, with no hesitation and no excuses. While I was at it, I tossed a mini of Gin Blossom into my basket. I'd learned my lesson -- if you like something, just get it already and quit dithering.

While the Love & Toast and Lollia collections were well-represented in Mandalay, I saw none of the hoped-for Tokyo Milk perfumes. At checkout, I summoned the courage to inquire about their absence. My questions evoked a glance of panic from the college-aged clerk. I could almost hear her thinking, I'm only part-time, am I expected to know this? I instantly felt a rush of retail sympathy for her and joked my way to a less challenging stance, at which point she relaxed a bit and began to joke back ("Wow, those Dark perfumes sound edgy! We're pretty family-friendly around here, so I don't know..."). She pledged to look into adding Tokyo Milk to the store order list, and I left Mandalay a happy lady.

Laden with a shopping bag full of choice cinema, the Birthday King met up with his delish-smelling Queen and decreed the next stops on the itinerary: early dinner at our favorite restaurant followed by a movie (Paranormal Activity 3: shriektastic!) and a bakery-fresh chocolate cream pie with candles at our own cozy kitchen table.

The perfect conclusion to a perfect day.

Honey Coconut

The morning I first met Honey Coconut, I'd just been released from a grueling three-day medical test during which I'd been forbidden to bathe. The moment I was free, I naturally flung myself into the longest hot soapy shower in recorded history and doused myself with all the fragrance I'd been denied. This left me unable to skin-test Honey Coconut properly. Still, I fell ass-over-teakettle in love with it from a mere bottle sniff-- a testament, I thought, to its worth. On skin, it's just what I remembered... but it is also more, a burnt bitter complexity of sugar and heat so much more profound than the pretty little thing I thought I apprehended as I leaned over the open mouth of the bottle that day so long ago. I've been wearing it for three days straight now and have no desire not to. Nor does my husband wish me to switch. We both notice new things about it (rum, immortelle, pineapple, coffee) with every wearing. It's become our favorite guessing game, the cipher lighting up our married-couple motherboard even as the clock turns back and the day goes dark an hour earlier. No exaggeration: the contents of this tiny bottle make us feel like we're engaged to be wed all over again, future full steam ahead.

Scent Elements: Honey, vanilla, violet, sandalwood

Gin Blossom

Seeing as how Honey Coconut magically jumped from three stars up to five, this may not be the last I'll have to say about Gin Blossom-- or any other Margot Elena creation, for that matter. They are all so CONTENT-RICH -- packed with goodies, puzzles, entertainment, images, learning -- that it seems impossible to opine about them in any truly final way. About Gin Blossom, I'll say this: it metamorphoses from a sweet honeydew-melon-juice scent to a herbal lemonade scent to a clean, soapy white musk scent to an unexpected flower-butter scent, all so nonchalantly that I feel as though I'm watching a really skillful juggler ply his art. Right now he's juggling three stars. I bet you anything he'll be juggling four before too long-- and maybe even a flaming torch or a chainsaw or two.

Scent Elements: Citrus zest, "spring dew", mandarin blossom, verbena leaves

"Little Luxe" mini bottles purchased at Mandalay Trading Company, Princeton, New Jersey.

Women With Well-Formed Opinions Most Frequently Fashion Them in the NEW YORK TIMES, Tomi Ungerer, advertisement created for the Times during the 1960s (courtesy of Hatena Fotolife)

Someday (Justin Bieber)

2011-11-04T15:04:00.003-04:00

What it is: A fragrance designed for a twelve-year-old girl, fronted by a seventeen-year-old boy she will never meet but whom she wants so bad it causes her to emit siren-like wails of heartbreak, prompting her parents to spend any amount ($18-$55) to stem the flood of pubescent caterwauling that issues nightly from behind her glitter-glue-bedecked bedroom door.

Where it is: Macy's, Nordstroms, Ulta, etc. I sniffed it in Sephora, which has an exclusive purse-sized rollerball wand version of the EdP for under $20-- a mercy, considering that Bieber's target audience is dependent upon parents' largesse and the odd babysitting gig for its expendable cash.

What it contains: "Juicy" pear, "wild" berries, "creamy" florals, "warm" vanilla, and "soft" musk. Undoubtedly all of these qualifiers were supplied by the focus group who answered the question, "What five words best describe your dream date and/or Justin Bieber?" It's probably a good thing they didn't ask my age cohort, or they would've ended up with "emotionally stable" pear, "steadily employed" berries, "responsible" florals, "no criminal record" vanilla and "not a total asshole" musk.

What it smells like: Not all that horrible, to be honest. So many prestige fragrances mirror the piercingly shrill vocal stylings of the celebrity divas who promote them, I suppose you could do worse than the dulcet tones of El Bieber, here rendered in a PopTart palette of pearberry and vanilla frosting. But we have so many of these already, my brain weeps. So, not all that great, either.

What it looks like: I know I'm not the first to notice that the perfume bottle proper bears an uncanny resemblance to Marc Jacobs' Lola and Oh Lola. Still, every time I see it, I think to myself, Ohjeezus that bottle designer is gonna be in SO much hot water. Five points to Bieber for not attempting a facsimile of Bang.

What the ad copy says: "(Someday) is a personal gift straight from (Bieber's) heart, a scent that drives him wild and makes the girls who wear it totally irresistible. So go beyond the music and journey deep into a world of possibilities... be close to Justin, everywhere you go." Holy mo. Imagine that being read through a Vocoder. Wouldn't you file for a restraining order?

What my inner critic says: To paraphrase the old Creedence song, someday never comes... because in this case, it's already been and gone. Everything about this fragrance seems borrowed and recycled from prior sources, right down to the bottle. There's nothing especially "new" or "now" to be found in its play of aromas. The nascent hope encapsulated by its name is cancelled out by the depressing déjà-vu-like sense of overuse that haunts everything else about it. That a fragrance could so proudly claim to be "anything but ordinary" while never being anything but ordinary is a masterpiece of marketing cynicism. It makes me sad to think of kids falling for it-- heck, even Bieber himself. In several years, there will be too much testosterone rumbling around in his lower registers for any of this candy-sweetness to seem even remotely comfortable-- what then? At that point, maybe he'll borrow a tip from his remix pal Usher and start issuing stylish colognes for smooth young gentlemen like himself. Or maybe he'll do something even more daring, risky, and artistically liberating. We'll see. Someday.

The thought that lingers: After one's insecure adolescent years pass, it becomes less important what others want you to be and more important what you ARE, or could become. As kids' identities develop, their tastes become more highly individuated. Bieber's fans may not mind being told how to look/act/buy/smell now, but eventually they (and he) may resent it. He and his fans will mature together. But Someday is the sort of fragrance that begs an impossibility of both wearer and spokesperson: stay sweet and harmless forever.

Scent Elements: Pear, mandarin, red berries, jasmine, musk, vanilla

Fragrance sampled at Sephora.

Image courtesy of MTV Style

Blood Cedar Demi-Absolute (Soivohle)

2011-11-01T20:58:00.005-04:00

What's in a name? Billed as a woody oriental, Blood Cedar had me envisioning the gothic backwoods of my childhood, where creeks tinged a hue halfway between rust and rooibos tea flowed in eternal silence under shadowy canopies of evergreen. From my own extrapolations, I expected Blood Cedar to smell powerfully woody and feral; hence my surprise when confronted with the feather-light aroma of vanilla meringue.

The scent of raw cedarwood is warm and intensely balsamic, but imagine it at a more muted level, carried to you via a linen dinner napkin. Kept tissue-wrapped with its mates in a hand-carved hope chest, it now lines the serving basket in which a batch of freshly-baked macaroons awaits its ride to the table. The spun-sugar-and-egg-white aroma of the macaroons mingles with the light, dry scent of the cedar-stored linen, carrying with it a promise of plenty-for-everyone.

Nominally, Blood Cedar may sound like a prime Grand Guignol experience, but you may be surprised by how shyly and softly it speaks once you get past those first introductions. It unfolds itself with minimal fanfare but maximum generosity, revealing sweet hidden treats designed for the pleasure of all.

Scent Elements: Virginia cedar, citrus, tonka, sandalwood, labdanum, vanilla

Manufacturer's sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Image of Creole Meringue Kisses courtesy of TonyChachere.com

No. 5 Vintage Pure Parfum (Chanel)

2011-10-30T09:56:00.002-04:00

Some perfumes pair naturally with fashion, their characters best expressed in the language of fabric and texture. If Bois des Îles is warm velvet, Chanel No. 5 is cold slippery satin-- but the first time I wore it, I was dressed in a cheap polyester men's suit.

I got it (the suit, not the perfume) for eight bucks at the local Goodwill. An experimental art event I was co-hosting required several costumes -- one being 'Secret Service Agent' -- and I needed disposable threads fast. The suit was an off-the-rack JCPennys number designed to tide a budding salesman over until his first paycheck justified an upgrade in business armor. Ill-fitting and laughable though it may have been, I hoped to transform it with Doc Martens and black wraparound shades into something reasonably hip. A look in the mirror told me I was close, so close-- but not quite.

Then I sprayed on the Chanel No. 5.

Cue the opening chords of Tomoyasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity". Suddenly I was a member of the Crazy 88 -- the nonviolent graphic arts chapter, anyway -- self-assured, sharp, and lethally cool.

Throughout the turbocharged hours that followed (during which my fellow artists and I rocketed around an auditorium lassoing onlookers into interactive creative games and handing out free artworks as prizes) No. 5 kept my path paved with pure, shining gold. I eased on down that road like a Wiz, stopping halfway to swap my Secret Service garb for a gorgeous 1960 crinolined robe de style in eye-popping azure-and-green floral satin and vintage heels. No. 5 didn't even flinch. As it had made the suit über-cool, it gave added grace to the gown-- and by god, it did more that afternoon to spread the gospel of creativity than all of our efforts combined.

Since then I've pondered whether it's not the fashion, but the art with which No. 5 is paired that brings to life.

In the ten months since Suzanne sent this decant of vintage pure parfum for my husband to tuck in my Christmas stocking, I've worn it to any number of art events-- formal, informal, contrived, improvisational, absurdist or merely absurd-- conscious in each instance how very much No. 5 seems to belong there. If a perfume could ever be termed sentient, capable of expressing its own wishes as to where and when and with whom it should be worn, No. 5 seems to ask for nothing more than a gift subscription to ARTnews and a MetroCard. It begs to be unleashed in galleries, museums, outdoor art fairs, rooftop receptions, basement happenings, black box theatres, and graffiti slams. I believe that it would make its way into the art, if it only could. (A No. 5-imbued Naples Yellow oil paint would be a Dick Blick bestseller.)

Today I have an exhibit installation to preside over. I'll be lugging ladders, hanging hardware, riding service elevators... and wearing No. 5. Thinking ahead to the future, if New York's Museum of Art and Design gets around to launching its Chandler-Burr-curated Art of Scent exhibit as promised before the Sephora Sensorium closes at the end of November, you know who'll be there.

Hint: I'm her ride.

Scent Elements: Aldehydes, bergamot, neroli, lemon, jasmine, rose, lily-of-the-valley, ylang-ylang, orris, vetiver, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla, amber, musk, civet

Decant gifted to me by Suzanne; both are worth their weight in gold.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Robert Henri, 1916 (Whitney Museum of American Art/Estate of Robert Henri)

28 La Pausa (Chanel)

2011-10-29T07:24:00.001-04:00

Was Bob Dylan boasting when he sang that all he had was "a red guitar, three chords, and the truth"? This perfume has only two notes -- iris and vetiver -- and look what it can do. It brings tears to my eyes and a tremble to my lips, shakes my edifices, rattles my windows, dusts off my karma, restores my faith in the universe, and strips me of at least three of the seven veils. If Dylan ever smelled 28 La Pausa, I think he might find a fragrance that would collect his clip, buy his animal, straighten out his bird, commission his bath, sell him to the cigarette, animal his soul, knit his return, bathe his foot, and collect his dog.

I swear to you I am sober.

If you like the combination of iris and vetiver, now's the time to cry Oh happy day! But why stop there? If you also like the scent of wet earth and tree roots, of spring rain on newly-blown tulips, of tequila and salt in plentiful supply, of ice-cold raw green pepper or arugula on a blistering day-- lord, what a treat is in store for you!

Being an EdT and therefore a naturally time-limited pleasure, 28 La Pausa makes an ideal extravagance for a unhurried summer vacation. Be forewarned that you will need to use ridiculous amounts and reapply like a maniac to keep its refreshing chill in sight-- but if you are faithful and lay in extra supplies, you can have an olfactory aurora borealis in hues of pale violet, green, and tawny gold undulating across your inner sky for as long as you choose your summer to last.

Ride it all the way to paradise.

Scent Elements: Iris, vetiver

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Bessie Smith, Frank Driggs (Michael Ochs/Getty Images). My goodness so happy! The way she lights up that room, I guarantee you the photographer had no need of a flashbulb.

Sycomore (Chanel)

2011-10-28T07:57:00.007-04:00

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she will never be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine....

--excerpt from "Witch-Wife", Renascence, 1917

Sycomore is a perfume with a single, unholy talent: it continually manages to lose itself at the precise moment that I go looking for it.

When I didn't need it, there my sample sat, conspicuously innocent-- but if I developed the sudden notion that I wanted it, it simply vanished as if gremlin-possessed. Perfumes have many tricks to play, but they usually save them to play on skin. Not Sycomore: as it disappeared from one bag and surfaced in another, went AWOL from my scent cabinet only to show up on my bedside table, I began to wonder if it had any other surprises, or just the one.

There was only one way to find out: capture it and wear it all at once before it could escape again.

In so doing, I discovered that Sycomore is an evergreen vetiver not terribly far removed from Comme des Garçons incense territory. I found it to be hale, pleasant, crisp, outdoorsy, and completely unextraordinary, given all the trouble it put me to. If I happened to be feeling sore, I'd say that it was overly linear, short-lived, too standoffish for its own good. And if I really had an axe to grind, I'd declare that I like Sycomore better lost than found. But then I'd have to admit that the runaround it gave me amounted to more excitement, problem-solving, and cardiovascular exercise than I get most days, so I oughtn't to pretend it wasn't worth it.

Somehow, though, an absent prankster is always more attractive than the one who is fickle right to your face. And when Sycomore takes its leave of you, it doesn't mess around. It forbears to fade gradually, giving you the length of a drydown to get used to the idea. It goes out like a light-- leaving you in the dark, wondering which way is the door.

Scent Elements: Vetiver, sandalwood, cypress, juniper, pink pepper

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Doris Ulmann, 1936. Millay disliked this lovely portrait and wrote scathingly about Ulmann's photography to her editor, Eugene Saxton. "We used to say of Vincent that she had a bee chasing her," Norma Millay told biographer Nancy Milford in reference to her sister's legendary temper. When asked if there was one characteristic all of the Millay women shared, Norma's husband Charles Ellis readily answered: "Yes. They were nasty, everlastingly."

31 Rue Cambon (Chanel)

2011-10-27T09:41:00.006-04:00

...by her obstinate energy, by the way she faces you and listens, by her guarded stance, which sometimes kind of blocks her face, (she) is a black bull. Her dark hair is curled, the privilege of the bull calf. The tufts reach her forehead and cavort whenever she moves her head....

I read on her face what is so legible-- two long black eyebrows that she doesn't pluck, despotic, ready to shoot up, to be lowered, quivering when the dancing tufts of hair annoy them. From the eyebrows one's attention concentrates on the mouth, but there I hesitate because at moments of concentration or irritation the center of her face seems to become cupped, drawn in, withdrawn under the eyebrows' overhang, under the black vault of her hair. Only for a moment, a kind of fierce retreat, an ephemeral immobility from which the mouth suddenly escapes-- pliable lips with sad, impatient, obedient corners, punished by cutting teeth.

That's Colette dishing about Coco Chanel in 1932's Prisons et Paradis, but honestly-- couldn't she just as easily be describing Frida Kahlo?

It's not just the eyebrows. Two artists of such rare intensity and determination would surely have struck sparks from one another. One imagines a classic "meet-cute" charged with typical instant loathing. Chanel-- a poor foundling striving to be a fine lady -- is all cold reserve and terse dismissals; Kahlo -- a bourgeois girl eager to appear the brawling revolutionary -- lets loose with an avalanche of Mexico City swear words. At some point, each sees through the other's swagger. One slow smile or a particularly irresistible twinkle of the eye, and in no time those two "black bulls" are stampeding through Paris side by side.

God help the fool who strays into their path!

As I planned out this week's Chanel series, pairing each fragrance with an appropriate feminine icon from the 1920s posed a nifty challenge. I wanted each lady's personality and style to be reflected somehow in the scent chosen for her. It took some creative tailoring, and it didn't always result in a perfect fit... but from the very first, no one but Frida Kahlo could represent 31 Rue Cambon. Perhaps it was the vision of this frank, vivacious, firm spirit housed in so delicate a frame. Or perhaps my reasons can only be deciphered by my own convoluted logic. Let's just say that once the connection was made, it was stubborn-- just like its subject.

It could be due to the fact that 31 Rue Cambon reminds me of Parfumerie Générale's Iris Oriental (née Taïzo), which in turn has always reminded me -- inexplicably and perversely -- of a bitter cup of xocolatl. This in itself is a mental mystery. Why my cerebral cortex insists on converting the Japanese temple referenced in Taïzo's name into an towering, blood-speckled Aztec sun-temple remains something for the neurologists and their fancy equipment to figure out. But I digress.

Whatever Iris Taïzo did, 31 Rue Cambon does too, but better, fiercer-- and with greater openness of heart. Its iris blooms forth more vigorously; its spices flaunt greater virility-- but these are balanced with an emotional generosity and humor that saves all this machismo from being nothing but empty show. It is never sullen, as Iris Taïzo always appeared to be. Perpetually transforming on skin to offer up new little gifts, it demonstrates a joyfulness and eagerness to engage that sets it apart, not only from all other Chanels, but from most other fragrances in general. Seldom have I worn a perfume with so much awareness at every moment that it was really, truly speaking to me-- or that everything it said was so important that I'd actually shush others around me to catch more of what it had to say.

When you find yourself thrusting your wrist under random people's noses and blurting out, "Listen!" only to be rewarded by recognition of the wonder widening their eyes, it's hard not to feel caught up in something-- a fervor, a fever, a movement, a revolution of the senses.

A friendship, new and intoxicating.

Scent Elements: Bergamot, jasmine, narcissus, iris, black pepper, patchouli, ambrette seed, vetiver, sandalwood, labdanum

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Frida at 18, Coyoacán, Guillermo Kahlo, 1925

No. 18 (Chanel)

2011-10-26T07:04:00.001-04:00

Many accuse the rose of smelling musty and old-ladyish, like Grandma. This is because they have never met the Big Bad Wolf. She (you heard me!) would never be caught dead in Granny's nightdress-- not when Little Red's riding hood suits her so much better. Thus disguised, this devastating louve-garou plays herself off like a regulation Rose Red-- but even those who have misplaced their monocles (I'm talking to you, Jakob Grimm) can tell the difference through their noses.

This rose, first off, appears to enjoy a good cigarillo now and again. A rich tobacco leaf scent clings to her satiny red petals-- a suggestion owed to the predominance of ambrette in No. 18's formula. Ambrette seeds are produced by the Abelmoschus moschatus, a fine upstanding plant formerly of the Hibiscus genus but lately incorporated as its own separate botanical hamlet. (Beware the alternate-side parking ordinances!) In the good old days, ambrette took the lead among tobacco flavorings, so it works here as a broad hint even in the absence of an actual fat cheroot.

And the skin scent! No flower on earth could possibly smell so animalic, could it? From time to time, as you lean in close to pull apart those tightly-layered petals, something gorgeously mammalian springs out, blowing Big Bad's cover to pieces along with all the usual delicate-woman cliches she's hiding behind. Again, it's the ambrette at work-- musky, but also salty, like fresh sweat; sweet, but also acid, like sarcasm from a lover's tongue. Roses act only as a lure to the unwary, drawing them in so that this lithe huntress can pick them off at her leisure.

Watching the she-wolf play among the showy blossoms is a hypnotic pleasure, to be sure. She charms with her frisky energy, her sleek warm-blooded femininity. But fascination at times verges on infatuation. This masquerade is fun, but enough's enough, you want to say. Come out, come out, wherever you are. You find yourself following, going further and further to pick up her trail, losing yourself in her wilderness...

Better bring breadcrumbs. You know how these stories tend to end.

Scent Elements: Ambrette seed, iris, rose

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Anaïs Nin, photographer unknown (possibly her husband Hugh Guiler), Paris, late 1920s

Bel Respiro (Chanel)

2011-10-25T08:04:00.003-04:00

In Italian, bel respiro means "deep breath". Of all the Chanels I'm reviewing this week, I chose Bel Respiro on purpose yesterday because I had a rather nerve-wracking doctor's appointment lined up, and I knew that many deep breaths would be required to get through it.

Whilst sitting in the waiting room, I prepared myself not with timelines of my condition or litanies of questions in need of answers, but with mental snapshots of the salt marsh near my childhood home. There, graceful in their attitudes of acceptance, head-high fronds of pliant horsetail grass bent to the prevailing air currents-- then sprang joyfully and proudly upright as each breeze passed on by.

I leaned forward, elbow propped on knee, resting my chin in my hand. To other patients, I may have appeared deep in thought, but I merely wanted to inhale Bel Respiro from my wrist a few more times before my turn with the doctor came. A bouquet of calming herbs met my nose-- it could as well have been carried there by steam from a cup of tisane, homely and unpretentious, made only with my health and tranquility in mind. When at last I heard my name called, I felt calm, centered, ready to confront my fate. Bel Respiro had done its work quietly and well, fading at a rate commensurate with the diminishment of my anxieties.

The news the doctor had to offer was better than anything my fearful brain had whispered to me at midnight, when I had lain awake and troubled by all that could be possible. As I left his office, a different voice altogether whispered: Erleichda. Lighten up.

Good advice.

Scent Elements: Green tea, rosemary, thyme, rose, lilac, hyacinth, aromatic grasses, myrrh, leather

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Fanny Brice, Edward Steichen, 1925 (Corbis Images). Well, hot-CHA!

Coromandel (Chanel)

2011-10-24T07:50:00.000-04:00

It is said that cherished objects absorb strong emotions, often retaining them long past the limit of their owners' lifespans. By the time of Coco Chanel's death in 1971, the empress of haute couture possessed no fewer than thirty-two Chinese coromandel lacquered folding screens... or did they possess her?

Chanel purchased her first coromandel screen in 1913 as a gift for her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel. Capel had put up the money that enabled her to open her millinery shop on the Rue Cambon in Paris; business was now thriving, ditto their relationship. As a favor, she offered to redecorate his Avenue Gabriel pied-à-terre. Coromandel -- with its quaint scenes delineated in gold leaf and mother-of-pearl against ebony or cinnabar-colored lacquer -- formed the central motif of her home design. "God, how beautifully you live!" exclaimed a visiting friend upon seeing the result.*

It was all thanks to a dynastic upheaval halfway around the globe that this rising young entrepreneuse could indulge in Chinese antiques. Thrown into chaos after their Emperor's abdication, the nobility of Beijing had been forced to sell off their priceless furnishings and ancestral objets d'art. These eventually landed in Western showrooms, where fledgling collectors like Chanel benefited greatly from a buyer's market. Each acquisition represented a happy triumph for the high bidder... but like all remnants of fallen Empire, such treasures carried entire histories of sorrow undetectable to the naked eye.

The ghosts trapped in the coromandel screens did not haunt Chanel at first. Initially they represented joy-- particularly that which pervaded her love affair with Capel. Together they took pleasure-- first in choosing the screens, then in living as a couple amidst their splendor. But when Capel died suddenly in 1919, Chanel’s enthusiasm darkened into obsession. She continued to purchase screen after screen as if to build an inviolable carapace for her shattered heart. She hid her grief behind a hardened expression, a dressmaker's mannequin-- and escaped behind a wall of coromandel.

The thousand lacquered layers of Chanel's Chinese screens give mute witness to both her highest love and her most abysmal grief. By all logic, the fragrance named Coromandel should emanate the same extremes of feeling. But no. It simply offers consolation-- the thing most needed at the very moment one finds it most impossible to ask.

Impermeable shelter from all the world's sorrow would be a bit much to ask from a eau de toilette, but Coromandel is naturally woven of stern stuff. Sheer it may be, but in feng shui terms, an overdose of wood has made its personality strong. As has been noted elsewhere, it bears a distinct resemblance to Serge Lutens' Borneo 1834, particularly in the cacao-dark timbre of its patchouli. This is assuredly a natural phenomenon, as Christopher Sheldrake is the co-author of both fragrances. By substituting sweet, light, airy-powdery benzoin for labdanum, he and Jacques Polge reframed the profound Borneo 1834 as a sort of wistful eau légère, with tremendous success.

Would Coco wear it? I think she might-- whenever she felt lonely and nostalgic and in need of a gentle balm to apply to her sorely tested heart. And should her old friend visit her in her lacquered fortress, he would undoubtedly declare, "God, how beautifully you smell!"

*pp. 56-60, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own, Axel Madsen, 1990, Henry Holt & Co., New York

Scent Elements: Frankincense, benzoin, patchouli, amber, woods

Decant gifted by me by JoanElaine and Suzanne in a joint venture of perfume telepathy. Thank you, ladies... I really needed that.

Anna May Wong, Olga Solarics and Adorjan von Wlassics, 1928 (Studio Manasse)

Bois des Îles Eau de Toilette (Chanel)

2011-10-23T08:33:00.002-04:00

Bois des Îles may be eighty-five years old, but there is nothing antique or fusty about it. It smells of sleek expensive fabrics sold by the bolt, their newness implied by a bright "finish" of aldehydes which wears off quickly, revealing something plush and infinitely more comfortable underneath. I have the very outfit in mind: a set of lounging pajamas in deliciously soft and weighty panné velvet, tailored to drape just so and pool softly around a body at rest.

As a textile, velvet possesses numerous inherent contradictions, all of which favor the wearer. Even as it traps precious body heat against the skin, it feels cool to the outward touch, ensuring a fine-tuned microclimate that never seems to edge over the point of discomfort. Even when its basic hue is warm (flame-red or chocolate, please!) its silvery highlights suggest a touch of frost... or perhaps light glinting off very dense fur. And yet it flows like water, shimmering, never static-- "inviting interaction", as a gentleman once remarked about my favorite lime-colored bias-cut velvet skirt.

I'm grateful he only wished to interact with his eyes. If I had been wearing Bois des Îles, his hands almost certainly would have been tempted into the fray.

When the time and place and gentleman are right, all this is just fine-- but Bois des Îles seems more conducive to nights spent at home alone, curled up on the divan with a big bowl of cherries and a good novel, wearing those famous pajamas accessorized with one's eyeglasses on the tip of one's nose.

Who's looking?

Scent Elements: Aldehydes, coriander, bergamot, neroli, peach, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, iris, ylang-ylang, vetiver, sandalwood, benzoin, vanilla, musk

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Louise Brooks, Eugene Robert Richee, 1928

Ladyboy (LUSH)

2011-10-22T18:26:00.004-04:00

There is an unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous.

--Oscar Wilde, letter to Harry Marillier, 1885

Ladyboy is beautiful, but he won't let me say so. He -- this weirdly, wonderfully uncompromising creature -- flat-out forbids it.

But I'm only trying to compliment you, I protest-- to which he coolly replies, You mean pigeonhole me in a nice safe little box? Honey, you're supposed to bury me after I'm dead.

This is a standoff I'll never win. The criterion of beauty to which I, a mere mortal, must fall back on is too terrestrial for Ladyboy's taste. Clearly he would much rather be called ugly than have to wear so mundane and gentrified a label as beautiful.

Violets? Where? Maybe Ladyboy is sitting on them. He'd love that-- holding court on a bed of petals. Doubtless we'll discover them later, crushed under skin-tight velvet, clinging desperately to the backs of those whippet-thin supermodel thighs. (Do you think His Majesty will ask us to brush them off for him? Oh please say yes.)

Chamomile? Could that be the bitter and prickly element in Ladyboy's personality, or is it something buried deep in his shady past? He's not talking, though the way he smokes a cigarette -- with quick, purse-lipped inhales like a series of angry kisses interspersed with narrow-eyed, smoke-obscured glares -- belies a deep impatience with convention. (Don't ask; it will only get him started.)

Banana? Yes, of course. Fresh? Depends on how you define the word. Let's just say it's been around the farmer's market a few times. A few venomous detractors have gone so far as call Ladyboy's banana note "rotten", but everyone knows that the closer it pushes the envelope toward decay, the sweeter a banana gets. When it interacts with the chamomile, you get this strange, bitter, ghost-of-cuminseed accord that slices through the cloying fruity sweetness like a old-fashioned stiletto letter opener in the hands of a disgruntled personal assistant. (Not that I'm complaining, Ladyboy. I live to serve!)

Seaweed absolute? A trace of odor as saline and funky as-- Hush your mouth!

Look, if speaking the word "beautiful" aloud would mean banishment from the Imperial Presence, I'll keep it safely locked in my head. I'll put up with the sullen looks, the catty comments, all the times I have to fetch and carry and bail him out of jail. I'll sign his name on stacks of 8x10 glossies and never breathe a word of where he disappears to after midnight.

Just let me go on worshiping this lovely space oddity... forked tongue and all.

Scent Elements: Violet, violet leaf, chamomile, banana absolute, seaweed absolute, labdanum, oakmoss

Sample tucked inside a lovely package from a certain Canadian dame who plumes under de nom of JoanElaine. She knew this discontinued treasure had been on my wishlist for eternity... and now I am indubitably hooked.

2012 UPDATE: Ladyboy -- along with the rest of Mark and Simon Constantine's original B Never Too Busy fragrance line -- has been resurrected as the "Exclusives" collection under LUSH's new Gorilla Perfumes label, which boasts its own ample wonders. Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Still photo of Jonathan Rhys Meyers as glam deity Brian Slade (AKA Maxwell Demon) from Todd Hayne's Velvet Goldmine, Miramax Films, 1998. If I were stranded on a planet with the choice of only ten films to watch until my oxygen ran out, this would be one of them.

Maharadjah and Maharanih (Parfums De Nicolaï)

2011-10-20T11:58:00.007-04:00

Here's a pair of perfumes so intertwined, it's hard for me to think about, write about, or even wear them separately. Though fraternal rather than identical, these twins seem destined even by their given names to stick together throughout eternity.

Both Maharadjah and Maharanih make use of a common proprietary base (shall we call it Nicolade?) of cinnamon-and-carnation-enhanced sandalwood (I recognize it from Sacrebleu; do you?) customized with lavendar and patchouli. From this baseline, Patricia de Nicolaï simply tweaks the thermostat-- cooling Maharadjah with a hygienic mint-clove accord and warming Maharanih with sweet orange and lingering civet. The wearer must decide for themselves which olfactory garment of the two best suits the climate of the day-- but whichever they choose, they can't really lose, as they're getting the same basic (and very hospitable) perfume either way.

Wearing Maharadjah and Maharanih together proves the biggest treat and elevates the pairing to a new level. The admixture of Maharadjah's minty-herbal notes and Maharanih's mellow citrus-amber produces (to my nose, anyway) a hologram of Richardson's Butter Mints, those adorable little pastel pillows of creamy-chalky delight that make their appearance in a cut-glass bowl at the end of a good restaurant meal. Symbolic of satisfaction, their scent transferred to one's wrists is a very happy thing...plus, no indigestion as you struggle to calculate the tip!

Scent Elements: Lavender, carnation, cinnamon, patchouli, sandalwood, mint, coriander, clove, vanilla (Maharadjah); lavender, carnation, cinnamon, patchouli, sandalwood, sweet and bitter orange peel, rose, amber, civet (Maharanih)

Samples purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Praliné de Santal (Parfumerie Générale)

2011-10-19T07:50:00.000-04:00

With a name like Praliné de Santal, Parfumerie Générale's third-from-latest fragrance ought to be fairly oozing with caramel-drenched hazelnuts. Instead, I find it on the dry side-- and I like it. Synesthetically speaking, all of its elements favor the dusty-sandy-gritty end of the textural spectrum, a phenomenon offset by the weighty richness of their combined scent. I am reminded of polvorones, those tiny, unassuming cakes made mostly of ground nuts and butter, which explode into sweet-salty crumbs when bitten. Who could guess that something so unsubstantial could be so down-deep satisfying?

Polvorones

Beat together ½ cup unsalted butter and ½ cup shortening until creamy. Add 1½ cups confectioner's sugar, 1 tsp freshly grated orange zest, and 1 tbsp. milk. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2/3 cup finely ground nuts, ¼ tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon. Add this mixture to the butter/shortening blend a spoonful at a time, stirring well until it has been fully incorporated and the dough is crumbly. Roll the dough into long cylinders about 1" in diameter on sheets of waxed paper and refrigerate for several hours before using.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Cut half-inch thick medallions of dough and place them one inch apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. (If desired, roll them into balls first, pressing slightly to flatten the underside as you place them on the cookie sheet.) Bake on the center rack of the oven for 10-15 minutes until pale brown around the edges. While the cookies are still hot, transfer them into a bowl of confectioner's sugar and roll them around quickly to coat them. Brush off excess sugar and place on a wire rack to cool.

Scent Elements: Sandalwood, heliotrope, hazelnut, Virginia cedar, cashmeran

Polvorones de Canele, image courtesy of AllRecipes.com

Jeux de Peau (Serge Lutens)

2011-10-18T20:43:00.021-04:00

In a 1938 photograph taken by Roger Schall, the great French novelist Colette sits at a rustic dining table buttering a slice of bread. To be more precise, she's solidly paving it with thick shingles of fresh butter-- and quite a job she has ahead of her, too, since the slice she holds is itself the length of a house brick. An expression of intense concentration dominates her face; she caresses the rough-textured surface of the bread with both her eyes and the rounded point of the knife, seeming to note with rapacious delight each place where she might first choose to sink her teeth.

Yes, Colette surely knew on which side her bread was buttered... because she wouldn't dream of delegating that task to anyone else. But Colette did not just eat her good buttered bread. She also thought about it-- and wrote on the subject at length.

La mère et le fils venaient de prendre ensemble leur petit déjeuner et Chéri avait daigné saluer de quelques blasphèmes flatteurs son “café au lait de concierge”, un café au lait gras, blond et sucré que l’on confiait une seconde fois à un feu doux de braise, après y avoir rompu des tartines grillées et beurrées qui recuisaient à loisir et masquaient le café d’une croûte succulente. (Mother and son had just finished breakfasting together, and Chéri had condescended to praise with an oath his cup of 'housemaid's coffee', made with creamy milk, well-sugared, with buttered toast crumbled into it and browned till it formed a succulent crust.)

--CHÉRI (1920); translated from the French by Roger Senhouse (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1951)

There is in Chéri a reference to a “café au lait de concierge” that has aroused -- and I choose my words advisedly -- a hungry curiosity, which I have until now left unsatisfied. A concierge once gave me this recipe for a breakfast guaranteed to dispel the shivers on winter mornings.

Take a small soup tureen -- the individual soup tureen you would use for a soupe gratinée -- or a sturdy bowl in fire-proof china. Pour in your milky coffee, prepared and sugared according to taste. Cut some hearty slices of bread -- use household bread, refined white will not do -- butter them lavishly and lay them on the coffee, ensuring that they are not submerged. Then all you have to do is place the whole thing in the oven and leave it there until your breakfast is browned and crusty, with fat, buttery bubbles sizzling here and there on the surface.

Before breaking your raft of roasted bread, sprinkle on some salt. Salt counteracting the sugar, sugar with a faint taste of salt, that is one of the great principles of cooking that is neglected in a number of Parisian puddings and pastries, which taste bland simply because they lack a pinch of salt.

--Article authored by Colette for Marie-Claire, January 27, 1939; excerpted in Colette: A Passion For Life by Genevieve Dormann (Abbeville Press, 1985); translated from the French by David Macey

Serge Lutens has also thought about bread a good deal-- not to mention the lait gras that best accompanies it. In Jeux de Peau ("skin games"), he and Christopher Sheldrake have wedded together notes of creamy comfort and roasted warmth to recreate Colette's café au lait de concierge for the wrists rather than for the breakfast table.

Though a yeasty, sweet quickbread loaded with toasted pecans is the main dish here, I can't overemphasize how great an effect this fragrance's milky element has on me. If the first thing you learned as a child in the kitchen was to properly scald milk for béchamel, then you know well the curiously maternal aspects of this process-- tending the flame with an anxious eye, taking the milk's temperature as solicitously as one would a child's (except that in this case, a fever of 180°F is considered no cause for alarm).

Then, of course, there is the skin-- a thin film of protein which collects on the surface of heated milk. Known as kajmak throughout Eurasia, paneer or malai in Southeast Asia, Devonshire or clotted cream in Great Britain, and natas de leche among the Basques of Spain*, it possesses an intriguing texture and sweet, creamy flavor worthy of its round-the-world following. "Skin games", you say? Serge Lutens surely is teasing us with his knowledge of this unique treat.

In fact, amongst the children of the above cultures, it's agreed the best destination for it is -- what else? -- a slice of toasted bread.

If you are looking for spiritual nourishment (or simply a barrier against winter's chills and ills), I suggest you avail yourself of some Jeux de Peau. Spray it on your wrists and wear your sleeves long. When needed, lower your nose into the protected warmth of your cuff and breathe in the golden scent of succor.

*Read this wonderful blog post for cultural reminiscences and recipes.

Scent Elements: Milk notes, coconut, licorice, osmanthus, apricot

Sidonie Gabrielle Collette, Unknown Photographer, 1903 (Private Collection)

Ma Griffe Eau de Toilette (Carven)

2011-10-16T21:19:00.016-04:00

Yesterday at the antique barn, I shelled out one dollar for a glass atomiser containing about five milliliters of Ma Griffe EdT. There are some who might say I grossly overpaid.

Designed in 1946 when Jean Carles' anosmia had already taken hold, Ma Griffe (like Balmain's Vent Vert) was lauded as a groundbreaking galbanum. Vintage Ma Griffe parfum is supposed to be pure emerald heaven-- but lighter versions in latter days have not received the best of press. From what I've heard, the most recent version of Ma Griffe is so tooth-grindingly godawful you'll wish you were anosmic after smelling it. (I wonder if this is the version said to contain asafoetida, which smells like rancid garlic.) Clearly, time, reformulation, and changing tastes have not been kind to this classic.

Being unfamiliar with the evolution of Ma Griffe bottles (which all strike me as identical, with that perennial green-and-white striped packaging), I had absolutely no idea which vintage this one might be. Whatever its date of issue, it had certainly been well-loved and well-used. A quick spritz reassured me that we weren't dealing with a demon here (and also served to keep a few curious late-season wasps at bay-- seriously, it really IS a barn). I figured I'd take it home and transfer the juice into a smaller clean spray bottle, not least because the bottle itself (pictured below) is pure Seventies hideous.

In keeping with my usual luck with secondhand sprayers, getting Ma Griffe out of the bottle proved a wildwater adventure. Atomiseur, stated the label. More like rocket launcher. Rather than spray-decant the perfume with a few reasonable and rhythmic pumps, I found myself power-washing the inside of the vial with fragrance so highly pressurized it actually shot back up and out, drenching both my hands. My foyer (where I happened to be carrying out this operation) now smells totally Ma Grifftastic-- as do I.

So how's that working out for me, you ask? Surprisingly, pretty well. This Ma Griffe, whichever one it is, appears to be limited even in its letdowns. It's no mighty galbanum goddess by any stretch of the imagination; anyone seeking a green epiphany here would be disappointed. But in its pale way, it is verdant-- a half-strength jade floral, tart in a Granny Smith apple sort of way, set against a lactonic backdrop ever so mildly touched with spice (by which I do not mean asafoetida, thank god).

In the interest of conducting proper research, I still feel it would be necessary to track down other Ma Griffes (older, younger, different concentrations) for comparison. But this one is feminine, inoffensive, rather retro-- in short, not a bad way to waste a dollar.

Scent Elements: Gardenia, galbanum, citrus, aldehydes, clary sage, jasmine, rose, sandalwood, vetiver, orris, ylang-ylang, styrax, oakmoss, cinnamon, musk, benzoin, labdanum

Partial bottle purchased at ye olde Antiques Barn.

Top image of Echinacea purpurea "Green Envy"™ cultivar courtesy of GetGreenEnvy. Horticulturist Mark Veeder has developed this stunning variant on the purple coneflower to satisfy the desires of all who crave flowers in unearthly shades. This one takes my breath away-- and as a plus, its root stock purportedly retains the healthful, immune-system-strengthening properties of standard Echinacea.

Bottom image of Ma Griffe bottle photographed by me in my kitchen using a piece of white card stock as a backdrop.

01 Sunda (Odin New York)

2011-10-15T19:44:00.003-04:00

Are you one of the many who misses Mandarin Santal by Victoria's Secret with all your earthly being? Lucky mortal: as near as my nose can claim, the fragrance formerly known as Nomad is as close to a replica of our much-lamented lost Parfum Intime as we could dream.

Everything's in place: that sweet, succulent citrus top note (which here lasts and lasts), that narcotically rich and buttery sandalwood, that enfolding sense of cozy-dozy warmth and satiny comfort, that incredible longevity. But you expect things such as richness and longevity from an EdP like Mandarin Santal. What do you say when you receive them from an EdT? For Sunda to accomplish these feats at its lower concentration moves its achievement into a new class deserving of slightly higher marks. So even if Sunda and Santal smell exactly the same... Sunda gets the extra star.

While still in circulation, Mandarin Santal cost $55 for 50ml. Sunda keeps the exchange rate even at $110 for 100ml. And this time it's for everyone who wants to smell delicious... not just the Victorias amongst us.

Scent Elements: Juniper, cedar, bergamot, palmarosa, black pepper, heliotrope, tonka bean, sandalwood, musk

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Two Sundanese Women, Dutch East Indies, unknown photographer, 1935.

Virgilio (Diptyque)

2011-10-15T00:00:00.003-04:00

'Things snowball', they say. Legends, reputations, expectations... and disappointments.

The first citation of Virgilio I saw mentioned only 'basil and herb notes'. That was on Basenotes. Fragrantica expanded on this somewhat terse list, adding caraway, cedar, 'woodsy notes', and vetiver. The more I read, the more herbs joined the recipe -- mint, basil, savory, parsley, rosemary, tarragon, thyme, oregano. Virgilio started to sound like one of those monastery gardens laid out like a patchwork square, with a tiny corner for every conceivable herb. By the time Tania Sanchez playfully threw in a leg of lamb in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, I was already fretting over my wine pairings and choice of china pattern... and Virgilio had blown up in my mind into a sort of Babette's Feast for the nose.

The reality: a sort of powerfully herbal "fresh scent" cleaning fluid, the sort that usually comes tinted pale blue or green to demonstrate how pure and natural it is. While far from unpleasant, it would be more explicable if I happened to be sponging it on my face with cotton pads in pursuit of tighter pores.

From this aggressively clean beginning, how Virgilio could end up smelling so urinous on skin must be either a cipher, a prank, or an unfortunate miscalculation of what happens when all those aromatic herbs end up stewing in one pot. Of course, this might be the disappointment talking-- but I do believe I've lost my appetite.

It doesn't please me to say this. I've enjoyed the three Diptyques I've tried thus far (Philosykos, L'Ombre Dans L'Eau, and L'Eau de L'Eau). And Virgilio is only the first of a passel of Diptyque samples (L'Eau, Oyedo, Tam Dao, Eau Lente) on the dock waiting to be worn. I pray they're all more satisfying than this.

Surely Virgilio is proof that I shouldn't believe everything I read. Oh, but I wanted to... so, so very much.

Scent Elements: Basil, caraway, cedar, vetiver

Sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

Bouquet garni, image courtesy of ELLE

Fumerie Turque (Serge Lutens)

2011-10-14T08:18:00.001-04:00

When ill winds blow and incense supplies are low, a few grains of demerara sugar on a lit charcoal disk will do in a pinch. As it sizzles and pops, the sugar produces a copious cloud of medieval-smelling smoke powerful enough to dispel the imps of melancholy, but sweet enough to coax an acolyte to add just a grain or two more to the thurible.

Sugar alone, however, is not exactly an incense. One could make a blend of it: add dried flower petals, powdered resins, flakes of golden tobacco, salt-cured juniper berries-- but why go to all that trouble when the smoke's already been bottled? Save your tender fingertips some nasty charcoal burns and spray some Fumerie Turque instead. Simply put, your demons will scatter with hisses of dismay, while good spirits congregate to inquire what smells so gosh-darned good.

To which you might answer: Holy smokes.

Scent Elements: Honey, beeswax, jasmine, Turkish rose, chamomile, tobacco, juniper berry, tonka, patchouli, rum, vanilla, redcurrant, styrax, suede

Another marvelous decant from the marvelous Suzanne, that good apothecary of aroma. As this reached me during an recent illness, I count it now amongst the many medicines in my arsenal. It really did the trick to chase away the last miasma of sickbed gloom.

Botafumeiro, Patrick Archbold, 2008 (Image courtesy of Creative Minority Report. This 160-year-old censer, which hangs from the ceiling of Spain's Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, stands as tall as a man and holds close to ninety pounds of mixed incense and charcoal.

Back to the future!

2011-10-13T10:00:00.001-04:00

Certain perfumes of the golden Fifties and Sixties exemplify the use of "effect" synthetics to convey a sense of top-speed, sound-barrier-breaking futurism. However, to a sensitive nose, the "future" can seem like an awfully scary place-- even when it's already fifty years old.

Observation over the long term has led me to the insight that my husband does not care for fresh aldehydes. Whenever I test-spray a vintage perfume and hear him yelp, I know two things: a) this fragrance is packing some blunt-force chemicals, and b) I will never be able to apply it in his presence. It's a shame, really, because he otherwise loves vintage nostalgia from the Mad Men era. If I swanned around looking like Joan Holloway on a daily basis, he'd be a happy man indeed. I'd just have to be extraordinarily careful about which scent I selected to accessorize my ensemble du jour*.

When that boss chick JoanElaine scored a retrofabulous coffret of vintage Max Factor fragrances earlier this summer, she generously sent me samples of Golden Woods (1951), Primitif (1956), and Hypnotique (1958). All three fragrances pack quite an aldehydic kick, of course-- but once they calm down on skin, they reveal their talents at expressing everything from fresh-scrubbed cleanliness to gauzy soft-focus sensuality. This, Hubby likes-- so all I need to remember is to wait ten minutes after application before requesting permission to enter his airspace.

*Natalie of AnotherPerfumeBlog has done a great series on what fragrances the main Mad Men cast would wear, including this speculative essay on Joan Holloway. Great read, and wonderful images to match.

Golden Woods

As its name suggests, Golden Woods is a softly radiant scent composed of powdery resins and sweet balsams layered in pretty, autumnal drifts. From this, I gather that its crisp, cold aldehydic intro is meant to stand in for a cobalt October sky-- a very nice detail. So seldom do aldehydes get paired with incense in perfume that it's easiest to imagine the combination resulting from a laboratory mishap-- something akin to those old Reese's "hey-you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter" imbroglios. Just as in those commercials, everything ends on a tasty note of satisfaction, all honey and amber. A minor detraction: that hint of soap in the drydown, which spoils the afternoon-stroll fantasy by planting a hygiene reminder in the middle of the footpath. Still, a negligible fault in an otherwise lovely fragrance.

Scent Elements: A bit of a mystery, as few published lists of notes can be found. I detect labdanum, benzoin, vanilla, honey, small measures of sandalwood and cedar, and a hint of clove-- your regulation spice Oriental, but with a splash of superchilled aldehydes riding up top.

Primitif

In its first thirty seconds, Primitif smells retroactively futuristic, like a chrome-plated spaceship with Cadillac fins speeding toward the year 2000, or one-piece play outfit in aqua-tone Lurex, which is what we'll all be wearing next summer... on Mars. Once the whizzing atoms settle, however, Primitif transforms sensibly into a plum-and-woods chypre, simple and wearable. Its "primitive" aspect springs from a nice, slinky animalic base, which balances out the chemistry-set top notes and lends the overall fragrance a bebop-jazz physicality. So put on your black beret and ballet flats and wear this one to the next campus free-verse hootenanny. You dig?

Scent Elements: Again, lost to the mists of time. Surely there's the usual oakmoss-patchouli-vetiver action going on; perhaps some sandalwood and a touch of fruity damasceone for body; civet and musk for oomph, plus a rocket-booster's worth of aldehydes for the wannabe astronaut in every hipster.

Hypnotique

This easily contains the most aldehydes of the lot-- so much so that it's hard to discover what lies beyond them. I keep sniffing deeply in the hopes that I'll detect a hint of something else (flowers? leather? oakmoss?) but every time I think I'm close to a breakthrough, a piercing cold pain between my eyes stops me in my tracks. I've read that snow samples gathered at high altitude points north of the Arctic circle have been found to contain aldehydes. After encountering Hypnotique, I believe I better understand why. I half admire it for being so unyielding in its insistent broadcast of one solitary note-- and when August heat comes back around, it will be no match for this frosty beauty.

Scent Elements: Aldehydes and more aldehydes, and some powdered sugar, and then some aldehydes.

Decanted samples gifted most kindly by JoanElaine, who in my imagination is sitting at her kitchen table poring over fabric swatches and linoleum samples for the interior decoration of her future WordPress site. Here's some zany vintage inspiration!

Illustration by Arthur Radebaugh, late 1950's-early 1960's.

Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum (Bottega Veneta)

2011-10-12T09:55:00.007-04:00

Before you read anything else, read this. Absorb it "slowly and meditatively", to borrow a snippet from the classic American novel to which it pays both reference and tribute. If you aren't lying in a boneless swoon by the time your eye lights on the phrase "suede, ocean air, and sea-foam taffy", someone might want to check your pulse to see if you have one.

The divine Suzanne, who authored this evocative poem-in-prose, mailed me a sample of the fragrant muse in question along with several other olfactive stunners. True to its forthright, slightly childish personality, Prada Candy shoved its way to the front of the line-- and of course its scampish behavior won immediate pardon. Believe me, no matter how flippant I may have sounded in my review, I sincerely adored it. In two days' time, I nearly sprained my spray-pump finger dispensing it in every conceivable direction. If my husband and cat had held still long enough, both would surely have ended up Candy-coated.

But Bottega Veneta would not be deferred for long. Suzanne's wordsmithery made certain of it. Come the dawn of a brand new day, it was time to put away childish things and take up a mature new love.

There's little for me to add to Suzanne's story, either of the perfume or of the Countess, except perhaps a touch of violet water which Nastasia (that loyal lady's maid) has used to freshen the contents of her mistress' steamer trunks. Olenska chose this holiday destination precisely because not a single soul she knows -- either from Old New York or vieille Paris -- would ever dream of setting foot within Atlantic City limits. Here, where the hiss and roar of the tide seems a god-given device to hush up gossip, a lady may tread the Boardwalk in blessed anonymity. Provided veil and parasol remain in skillful play, she may appear in full daylight in the company of a gentleman to whom she is neither related nor married-- an 'old friend', of course, but not 'of the family'; her own.

And she may take her gloves off in public for candy.

Bottega Veneta does indeed recall Serge Lutens' Daim Blond, but with distinctions. Its suede is dyed a very feminine pinkish-mauve*, a detail emphasized in its slightly fruity-powdery candy opening edged with faint citric acid. (Do you like SweeTarts, Pixy Stix, Chowards Violet Mints? I always have-- and was surprised to find how well their scent combines with that of good leather. Spill them in your handbag sometime and see.) Whatever of Daim Blond's weirdness it eschews, it compensates for in the smoothness and quiet of its leather-- no bumps, no rough patches, no hard seams. This fragrance makes a point of being easy on the nerves. (And on the wallet-- 1.7 ounces of beauty for only $95. For real? For real.)

As I reveled in Bottega Veneta's cloud of sweet suede and (to borrow Suzanne's delectable choice of words) "silky candy", others reveled too. Having not seen me for a week, one colleague embraced me and caught a trace of Bottega Veneta in my hair. "Oooh!" she exclaimed. "You smell SO good!" As soon as she stepped back, others moved in, curious and eager to discover what she meant. "Oooh!" came the cry again and again. "It smells like my fantasy closet!" one woman confided. In other words, a room-sized walk-in stuffed with high-end fashions, Italian leather shoes and handbags, upholstered boudoir chairs and sweet-smelling sachets-- dream acquisitions seemingly dear to the imaginations of all women but often out of reach in real life.

Not this time.

*The same shade chosen for the bottle's suede collar, described as "skin-colored" on the Bottega Veneta website. Speaking of which, I found it interesting that BV devotes a greater amount of descriptive copy to their bottle design than to the actual perfume. Normally, this kind of nonchalance would raise a red flag, as bottles only tend to be the focus of PR copy when the juice inside is substandard. But Bottega Veneta's diffidence comes from sheer, justifiable aplomb. Their debut perfume is excellent; they have every reason to be confident in it-- and it's a very nice bottle, by the way. Congratulations!

Scent Elements: Bergamot, pink pepper, sambac jasmine, oakmoss, patchouli

Sample sent to me on the wings of friendship by Miss Suzanne. Someday, you and me, salt water taffy on the Boardwalk, parasols optional... what do you say?

Une femme dans un élégant intérieur, James Tissot, 1870s (Private Collection).