SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit

Death by jasmine.

Yum.

Something about that Godiva shampoo bar that's been fogging up the place has made me eager for an even stronger dose of jasmine. So I wore A La Nuit on Thursday (the Godiva post went up somewhere around Wednesday, and then Blogger fell down, so the dates got weird) and then again today.

Oddly, A La Nuit smells cleaner than the shampoo bar. And I always thought of A La Nuit as a slightly dirty jasmine. Have my jasmine standards changed?

Hmmm.

That is all.

Review Roundup: Is here.

SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit, and the waxing/waning model

Remember those voles?

My fragrance cravings have been changing for several days. Bottles that were hidden behind the green- or tea-focused summer scents have been coming out, and some of those summer scents have lost their appeal. This makes me think about the day length thing again. Days are getting shorter now, and I wonder if that's why my taste preferences are very different from my preferences in late June, when it was just as hot as it is now.

In mid-July, A La Nuit was perfect - I wanted more more more. Today, it was still pleasant, but just barely pleasant - it was on the edge between "Mmmm, jasmine immersion..." and "Help! I'm drowning!"

And in June, I couldn't imagine wearing Cadjmere as a comfort scent, and I wore Tubereuse Couture instead. But yesterday, Cadjmere was perfect, and I couldn't imagine wearing Tubereuse Couture at all, much less perceiving it as a comfort scent. I loved Cuir de Lancome in February, and loved it again on Sunday. I suspect that the thought of wearing it in June or early July would have been horrifying.

And was Osmanthe Yunnan unexciting recently because I missed the window of time when it was hot and days were growing longer? Would it have been magnificent in early June?

So the theory is that my scent preferences are determined by hot or cold weather in combination with the current day length trend - and that the day length may be the greater factor.  So "hot" or "cold" give way to more complicated designations like "hot waning", for hot weather when the day length is shortening, like now, or "cold waxing", for cold weather when the days are getting longer, like February or March.

Did I mention that I'm a geek? Can you tell that I'm thinking of making charts?

I also wonder about the definition of day length.  Is it strictly the number of hours of daylight, as if I were an onion or a flower bulb, or is it about the earliest sunrise or the latest sunset? If I got blackout curtains in the bedroom so that sunrise became irrelevant for another couple of months, would my fragrance taste suddenly shift?

Questions, questions.

Review Roundup for A La Nuit: Is here.

Image: By Bruce McAdam. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit (MORE POWER!)

Yesterday, I (incorrectly) predicted that Caron Alpona would "drown me in essence of sticky orange liqueur." I said it as if it would be a bad thing. Drowning, smothering, or knocking down the wearer is usually undesirable behavior in a perfume.

Serge Lutens A La Nuit is an exception. I applied three sprays, and three sprays is enough to surround me with a fog of jasmine thick enough to require, if not a knife, at least a potato masher. I'm breathing in jasmine with every breath. And I want more.

This is the first perfume that has allowed me to understand the "more power" philosophy of scent. For years, I've been reading posts from people who demand to know how you can call yourself a perfume wearer if you just apply a wimpy spritz or two. Five spritzes! Seven! Fourteen! I recall people on Basenotes swearing that they've worn fifty. Normally, I just humor the crazy people and back away to a place with more oxygen. Today? Mmmm, fifty.

Don't worry - I won't put on even a little bit more.  People are coming over tonight, and they probably need to breathe.  And tomorrow I'll be back in the "less is more" camp. But today, for just a moment, I think I get it.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Alan Light. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit

I used to be iffy about jasmine fragrances. The clean ones were too shrill and the dirty ones were too dirty and too shrill. I was OK with jasmine as a note - my beloved No. 19 has some, and naturally so does Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint - but not as a focus. The first few times I tried A La Nuit (pre-blog), I was horrified. I was drowning. I suspect that I scrubbed.

The first time I tried it post-blog, I was surprised to find that I liked it, and that it didn't knock me flat. Today, I tried it again, and I like it even more. I don't perceive it as dirty. Or shrill. Or even all that extreme. Perfume deities help me, I find it pretty.

Is it pretty, or is my jasmine tolerance rising to an alarming level? Either way, I love this stuff today.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit

Another no-fooling-around floral today. This one is in competition with Un Lys, another Christopher Sheldrake creation, for the List. (The "bottles I intend to own someday" List.)

And a deeply Wrong thought occurs to me. The category under competition is "another killer white floral". However, one could break that category up into the different white florals, and make an argument for someday owning the perfect tuberose (Tubereuse Couture), jasmine (A La Nuit), lily (Un Lys), and gardenia (Velvet Gardenia). Ooh...

OK, I'm back now. That would be Wrong.

So, back to A La Nuit. The opening is jasmine. A fog of it. A pool of it. But I no longer perceive it as a honey-thick suffocating ocean of it, as I did the last time I tried this, about a year ago. My jasmine appreciation has apparently increased manyfold. I'm pleased, if perhaps just a little alarmed - at what point in this increased tolerance am I in danger of drowning other people?

I think that the "green shoots" note also helps to control the jasmine's suffocation potential - I'm learning, from this and Tubereuse Couture, that I have a much higher tolerance for white flowers when they're accompanied by a good streak of green. The green adds a tart counter to the flower's sweetness, and some freshness to battle the indolic notes. Without it, I'm likely to find the flower lovely for about forty seconds, after which I want to wash it off.

And upon more thought, I conclude that perhaps the "white honey" note is helping, too. Jasmine can be intolerably shrill for me, and green notes add their own high-pitched note, so they're not going to help with that. Beeswax and honey, on the other hand, are very low-pitched to my nose.

(A momentary diversion: What do I mean by high- and low- pitched smells? I don't know, but I know it when I smell it. In general, sour is high-pitched, and creamy/buttery/woody/musky fragrances are low-pitched. But it's not that simple, because jasmine is both high-pitched and sweet, and anyway, sour is a taste, not a smell, so we're still on the wrong sense. I'm not the only perfume freak to use the word "shrill" for a scent, so I know I'm not alone in this particular brand of insanity. But I do rather wish that I had a better explanation.)

So. Back, again, to A La Nuit. Jasmine blowing trumpets at the opening, quieter jasmine in the middle, shy jasmine at the base. Not too indolic. Not too sparkly. Not too sweet. I like it a lot. I suspect that Un Lys is still winning the White Flower Faceoff, but not by much.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Bois de Jasmin and Fragrance Bouquet and PereDePierre and  Sweet Diva and Fragrantica.

Jasmine, by Albert Joseph Moore: Wikimedia Commons