SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture

I finally wore my new Tubereuse Couture! And I enjoyed it immensely.

I've been noticing that wearing a perfume that I own as a bottle is always different from wearing a perfume from a decant or sample.

Of course, this is partly because I can use the perfume lavishly. Given the number of bottles that I own, for me a bottle of perfume is not a temporary supply of something consumable, so much as a little machine that will dispense a given scent on demand, forever. Even a one ounce bottle is likely to be around  much longer than "permanent" possessions like the television or the refrigerator. So once I own a bottle, I can spray at will.

But there's also something about acquiring a bottle. About completing the transition from wondering, "Am I the kind of person who would own (whatever perfume)?" and becoming, indeed, a person who does own that perfume. A person who smells like that perfume, regularly.

So what kind of woman is scented with Tubereuse Couture? Well, tuberose is a classic ingredient of aggressive, knock-'em-dead femme fatale perfumes, a beautiful but thick, enveloping, smothering floral note. But Tubereuse Couture chooses not to smother - it adds a cold, sharp green note that chills and lightens the tuberose, so that the perfume withdraws a bit, keeps its distance, chooses not to exercise its power.

So it's feminine beauty and elegance, held at a distance, with hidden strength. Is that me? Not really, but apparently I'd like it to be. And the right scent can't hurt.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Forest & Kim Starr. Wikimedia Commons.