Monday, September 1, 2014

SOTD: Tauer Carillon Pour un Ange, and relinquishing the meh

(And this was really the SOTD on Wednesday. Me pre-writing posts? What's with that?)

I bought it too fast.

I loved the sample. Falling-down, won't risk it going away, love. Bought it. Didn't like the first wearing. Went into denial and put it away. A year later, I'm trying it again.

Nope.

Wearing it gives me the same feeling as a glass of iced tea with too much lemon and not enough sugar. I'm not saying that there's any actual lemon--just that there's a sharpness that could be lovely and refreshing if there were enough sugar.

Maybe it's my skin chemistry.

I think that for the next attempt, I'll decant a little into a splash bottle. I tested it unsprayed, after all, so maybe...

I doubt it. The next solution is to give or swap it away, maybe with a few more just-accept-reality bottles. Swapping or selling is, of course thwarted by my Postal Regulation Phobia, so unless I coordinate with a perfume freak to meet in Portland on one of our lately-not-infrequent trips there, it's not all that workable.

I eye the collection for more of those accept-reality bottles. I'm always worried that someday I'll fall in love with something that I've given away. But there's no logic in that; it's a hoarderesque mindset. For one thing I use perfume so lightly that a 5ml decant would last me years, even in the regular rotation.

And, really, it's unlikely that I'll ever fall in love with a perfume for which my reaction is "meh." The ones worth keeping an eye on are the "Oh, my God, does it smell that way on purpose?" bottles.  Those are usually blind buys, which a light sprinkling of classics threatened by reformulation or discontinuation. (My Mitsouko, for example, and No. 5 before I started to appreciate it a little.) The blind buys were either rock-bottom-price discounter products, or things from indie houses that I respect. If I panic and buy something on the verge of discontinuation from an indie house, I figure that even if I don't like it, my money went to someone worthwhile.

Today's additions to the Out box:

Creed's Original Vetiver: Perfectly Nice. A gateway vetiver. Friendly. Nonthreatening. Cuddly. I'm past it. I might have an occasional craving, but I have four (four) (FOUR) ounces in one of those big Creed bottles from a discounter. I'll take a 5ml decant and give the rest away.

Alfred Sung's Sung: This is in the difficult "aldehydic meh" category. Someday I may learn to love aldehydes, and until that day, it's hard to predict which ones I might love. But there are a lot of likelier candidates--No. 5, Climat...OK, my mind blocks memory of aldehydes, but I know there are others. I'm going to let this one go.

Serge Lutens Bas de Soie: Pretty. Also, pretty. Perfectly Nice. And pretty. If Lutens has to produce the occasional Perfectly Pretty Pretty Nice fragrance in order to make enough money needed to bottle the weird, fine. But I'm going to let someone else appreciate it.

Lancome Mille et Une Roses: I have this because I bought that little set of classics, including the aforementioned Climat. I don't like this one, and I have never yet learned to love a rose fragrance that I didn't like at first sniff. It's odd, because I love roses, but maybe that's what makes it not-odd. It's like fried chicken; I'm so attached to the "right" fried chicken that I have no tolerance for the "wrong", the kind with too much pepper or other transgressions.

There will be more.

That is all.

(I didn't bother to link the above perfume names to the posts with the Review Roundup for the perfume. This strikes me as evidence that I am less and less a perfume blog. Is this wrong?)

7 comments:

  1. Hi there! Is it wrong that you're "less and less a perfume blog"? I don't think so. In my opinion, there are just a few blogs that are important as perfume blogs, most other blogs people visit and read not for our perfume-related revelations but out of friendship, loyalty and other not really connected to the specific hobby reasons.

    The main reason for my comment though was that I wanted to bring it to your attention that it's perfectly legal to send perfumes via Parcel Select (ground transportation) within the U.S.

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  2. I'm with Undina. There is no wrong in blogging (perfume related or otherwise).
    Interesting what you said about Bas de Soie - I agree, very pretty and not as "difficult" as many of other Lutens perfumes (that's how I think of them - you need to be careful when choosing one of them to wear). :)

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  3. Bas de Soie doesn't move me either, it must be said. Though I do find it pretty. And I am usually fine with pretty. Carillon pour un Ange I found a tad metallic, but it was a crossover Tauer ie one that I liked more than I disliked, and as time has gone on and he has got softer and lighter of touch in his style, I have enjoyed his subsequent compositions more and more. To the point where I am dead set on my first Tauer FB purchase of PHI Rose de Kandahar (when it is back in).

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  4. And yes, seconding the others about there being no wrong in blogging. Bit of luck really, as I am myself as digressive as the best (or worst) of them.

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  5. Yo, Undina! This is true. I generally prefer blogs in general as being about their creators' life/thoughts/whatever, rather than being a source of expertise.

    Ah, that's interesting about the shipping. No Postal Service employee has yet been able to give me a definitive answer.

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  6. Howdy, Ines! Yes, and I like the difficult. :) It's rather unreasonable of me to object to a perfume being too sweet-tempered and well-behaved, but there it is.

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  7. Vanessa! I thought that Carillon was going to be the Tauer that I really liked, but then it turned on me.

    I love your digressions. :)

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