It was going to be a scentless Saturday.
But then I remembered that there were Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (Parfums des Beaux Arts) perfumes in town. (Alchemy Botanicals in Ashland is carrying them! Woohoo!)
So I went to sample. I tried on Pamplemousse, Tubereuse, Bancha, and d'Anjou, all at once. And walked around town in a perfumed fog. And promised Himself a Scentless Sunday instead.
As for the perfumes, I'm uncertain:
- Pamplemousse started out nice and sharp-fruity, but ended with a little too much sharp and too little fruity, and the fruit that was left wasn't specifically grapefruit to my nose. I've read that this has neroli in it, too, and neroli is a note that I love for about forty seconds, and then grow actively tired of. So this one isn't for me.
- Bancha started out with a lovely combination of bergamot, tea, and other green things. It seemed to turn unpleasantly sharp later, but I now suspect that that was Pamplemousse aggressively announcing itself from the other arm, because several hours later Bancha is gorgeous, soft bergamot with just a hint of tea and an even more subtle hint of something richer. It's soaked into my skin as if it belongs there, and I'll be very sad when it finally fades away.
- d'Anjou was a lovely pear for an hour or two, and then it was gone. I may have missed subtleties; I'll try it again.
- Tubereuse was tuberose. A whole lot of tuberose. If I want a straightforward tuberose soliflore, this is in the running, but before that happens I want Tubereuse Criminelle. Though, there is an engaging graininess about it, rather like that of Un Lys...
So the favorite is Bancha. Am I going to do anything about that? I'm not sure yet.
The way you describe bancha makes me want it too!
ReplyDeleteSounds like scent free wasn't really quite so scent free today. Pear is an odd one isn't it. I've been wearing the new Jo Malone English Pear and Freesia quite a lot. It's so subtle that I can't think of anything to say about it! Is that crazy or what!
ReplyDeleteYou ARE the master of describing scents. The Bancha sounds fabulous. I enjoyed this mental imagery of you walking around, both arms half raised, with your nose on this exercise of, "right, left, right again, left again ..."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post! Unfortunately, there are no DSH perfumes in my city. I'll be making a trip to Denver in September and plan to make it over to Boulder to try as many as I can! Your reviews gave me a jump start on the process.
ReplyDeleteI adore Bancha. It's a fabulous men's scent as well. I find it uplifting and contemplative at the same time. How lucky for you that there's a place in Ashland that carries DSH!
ReplyDelete~Trish
Hey, LBV! It is _nice_. Subtle in the bottle, subtle for a while on my skin, and then it suddenly turned gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteHowdy!, MPL! (Why am I referring to everyone with acronyms? Is that wrong?) It definitely turned into a "cloud of scent" day. :) The nice sales assistant that I apologized to didn't pretend that she couldn't smell it, but she kindly claimed that they all blended really well with each other. I do love pear, but for some reason I never break down and buy it. I also love freesias, so the Jo Malone sounds like something I should sniff.
Yo, Melody! Thank you! Yep, that was pretty much what I was doing. It drives Himself just a little crazy, so I try to refrain from sniffing when he's right there. :)
Greetings, Josephine! Yep, they're definitely worth a try. I think that she has a good sampling program, too, though it's been a while since I looked.
Yo howdy, Trish! Yup, I'm finding that Bancha is haunting me, which is sometimes the test of whether to buy a perfume. And, yep, I was very excited to see DSH - there's not a whole lot of perfume in Ashland, though actually there is quite a lot for a relatively small city. I'll be drifting back to sniff some more pretty soon.