Perfume: My Favorites

I love Hostess Ding Dongs. (I'd better run out and find some before they're gone forever. If they aren't already.) I'm not under any illusion that they're a high-quaity example of the pastry-maker's art, but I love the things anyway.

I mention this because I've been thinking about the difference between the perfumes that I hold in the highest regard, and the perfumes that I love the most. If I were required to come up with a list of the ten finest perfumes, I'd spend a long time fussing and researching and come up with a list of mostly well-regarded creations. If I were required to come up with the ten perfumes that I'd limit myself to for the rest of my life, I'd come up with a different list, after just as much fussing and researching.

When I want to come up with the perfumes that I love best, there's really not much fussing and researching; they just come forward and announce themselves. I'm slightly relieved to see that there are no real guilty pleasures in the lot, but that's just how it turned out, not evidence of any good taste on my part. 

So here they are, with links to the relevant Review Roundup. They're not presented in any particular order, except for their leader.

Chanel No. 19 Parfum: When the call comes for the favorites to come on stage, most of them gather together, chatting and giggling. They hang back and wait for No. 19 to calmly, coolly, push her way through the curtain and stand--arms folded; why am I wasting her time on this?--before the audience. No. 19 isn't easy, or friendly, or affable; she won her position on grounds of sheer beauty. Clear, knife-sharp green softened with just enough floral sweetness to barely--barely--keep her from drawing blood. I'm a little afraid of her, and so I should be.

Shiseido White Rose: I've been struggling to explain White Rose, and I finally realized what I was recognizing but failing to put into words: Her personality. See, White Rose is utterly beautiful; I can imagine falling down and drowning in the rose and being perfectly happy to die that way. But beauty, however glorious, can be dull without context, some dominant aspect beyond the beauty--without personality. For Chanel No. 19, that personality is the abstractness, the other-worldliness, the razor edge of the green, the fact that I can see her standing on that stage, impassively watching me and daring me to declare White Rose to be her equal.

White Rose has enough beauty to spare for caricature; when I smell her I get a vibe that's exaggeratedly classic. I see debutante balls--not the debutantes, but the still-beautiful mothers in their ball gowns. I see The Shop Around The Corner, the well-dressed lady settled comfortably by the counter, tended by deferential shop assistants scurrying with perfume bottles. I see black and white photos of ladies lunching, and lengths of pink taffeta, and those little hats called fascinators. White Rose is classic, gorgeously so, but she's laughing about it.

Aftelier Cepes and Tuberose: I sniffed this one quite early in my perfume obsession, after reading about it in 100 Fragrances every Perfumista Should Try. It was beautiful then, before I developed my craving for the weird, and it's still beautiful as that craving grows. Tuberose is a wonderful inseparable mix of clean and dirty, bright, clear sweet floral beauty and warm, close, unwashed animalic notes. Cepes & Tuberose adds earthiness and forest floor and fungus as another contrast with the clean and bright, and in time it also introduces an oddly edible browned butter note. The result is deeply strange, faintly repellent, and therefore glorious. 

Bois 1920 Sushi Imperiale: Fire; brilliant cold flying sparks. Ginger tapdancing on a shining marble floor. That gulp of ice-cold root beer quenching a thirst that was created just for root beer to quench. An ice-coated winter tree with the sun blazing through it. This is winter joy, but a comfortable joy, not the almost-too-deep kind that nudges up to sorrow and sometimes makes you cry.

Balmain Ivoire: I mean the fairly recent version in the ugly square-column bottle, not the earlier versions, or the newer version in the nicer bottle, neither of which I've ever smelled. It's odd to love this one, knowing, as I do, that it's probably a sad travesty of the original. Odder, given that trumpeting aldehyde blast at the top, when I'm still not sure that I like aldehydes. But I don't care. I love that aldehyde blast, and the dry now floral/now green top that's tippety-tap-heels ladylike, a lady with old-fashioned manners but feminine power. My favorite part is the drydown scent of expensive soap, one of the most luxurious smells of any perfume. 

Serge Lutens Daim Blond: And here's more luxury, a warm silk-and-fur pool of it. Daim Blond smells of suede and fur, but the apricot and heliotrope merge with those smells, making them almost edible. Sushi Imperiale is a dancing scent, one of movement and freedom; Daim Blond is a long nap, wrapped in scented fur.

That's only six perfumes. What happened to Cristalle? Serge Noire? Tea for Two? Cuir de Russie?  don't know; I still love them, but at least today they didn't step forward with the crowd of favorites.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Daim Blond, and Assumed Names

I seem to have a fondness for scents that aren't what they think they are.

I adore Le Labo Patchouli 24, for example. The common wisdom is that it doesn't smell like patchouli, it smells like birch tar. And to add another level of complication, to me it smells like tea.

Art of Shaving Sandalwood is said to smell mostly of eucalyptus. I can't judge, because Art of Shaving Sandalwood is what defined sandalwood for me, but the word comes from authorities that I trust.

I love Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia for the beeswax, and have limited use for it when it does smell like gardenia.

Comme des Garcons Leaves: Tea? Dry cleaning fluid. Yum.

And while Daim Blond does have a little suede, today it's dominated by the apricot pit and fruity heliotrope, and that's just fine.

I like contrariness.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Daim Blond, and lightweight musings on leather

OK, so I decided that I was going to wear a perfume today. Absolutely. Positively. Going to.

I wanted Cuir de Russie. I craved Cuir de Russie. I couldn't find my Cuir de Russie sample. So my first choice was out. But I still wanted leather.

Cuir de Lancome didn't seem quite right when I sniffed the cap, though I can't quite say why. Too spicy for spring?

Cuir d'Iris seemed, in memory, too aggressive and dry.

Cuir Venenum, also in memory, had too much curing chemical and too little animal.

Bandit would have been great. My craving translated effortlessly into a craving for Bandit. Which, as it turns out, I'm out of. The sprayer's right there. Empty.

First lesson of the day: I like an awful lot of leather perfumes.

So I ended up with Daim Blond. Soft pale suede and fruit.

Second lesson of the day: A Cuir de Russie craving cannot be satisfied with Daim Blond. They are not colleagues. When my nose wants Cuir de Russie, Daim Blond - usually a fragrance that makes me close my eyes and do that blissful drinking it in thing - is no better than Perfectly Nice. It was all fruit today, hardly any leather.

Third lesson of the day: It's time to buy a large decant of Cuir de Russie.

And now I'm headed for more rose-scented bubbles. Hey, does anybody make leather-scented bubble bath?

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Geierunited. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Daim Blond

Yum.

I tried another overapplication experiment with this, to see if it changed at all. It didn't. And that's fine - I love Daim Blond just the way it is.

But I see that I've never talked about it in detail. That's probably because it's hard to describe. It's not hard to smell or to love - at least for me, it's a love at first sniff, sink in, comfort scent. But it's a scent that doesn't make sense. Leather and fruit. Pale suede and apricot. It's not an apricot danish thrown at a lady's suede hat, or an apricot hand pie in a suede crust (eew), or anything like that. The two are merged. It's... it's... OK, you see the problem? I can't come up with a single fantastical object that ought to smell like this.

Now, the notes don't say apricots. The notes are hawthorn and cardamom on top, iris and apricot stone and pallida in the middle, and musk, heliotrope, and leather at the base. I'm guessing that the fruit that I'm getting is really the heliotrope - don't they call it "cherry pie"?

The top notes are my favorite. There's an odd scent that's both fresh, or maybe I just mean volatile, and rich - maybe it's the hawthorn. And plenty of fruit, and plenty of suede. But even though it announces "suede" loud and clear, there's nothing animalic here. No, I can't explain that. I don't get the cardamom at all, but I'm guessing that it, plus the bitterness of the apricot stone, explains why the whole mix doesn't collapse into an oversweet mess.

As time goes on, there's a good deal less fruit, and the leather is quieter. The musk shows itself, and there's a very fine, silky powder that I'd guess is the pallida. Even when I officially hated powder and musk, and disliked iris, I loved Daim Blond.  Now all three are growing on me, and someday I may prefer this phase to the fruity top notes.

At the end, the last traces are a faintly sweet powder. That's nice, too; I may overapply even more next time to get a stronger, clearer view of the base.

Yum.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Daim Blond

Suede and apricots.

Fact one about Daim Blond: I remember reading that leather scents don't really smell like leather, but instead smell like the chemicals used to treat leather. That certainly seems to be true of Daim Blond. It smells like a brand-new, well-pampered suede... something. A cloak, maybe. A fur-lined cloak, but since we're in a perfume fantasy it's leather and fur that didn't require actually killing anything. Pale blonde suede and deep silky white fur.

Fact two about Daim Blond: If I'm wearing this, the cold season has begun. The desire for bright, refreshing, breezy perfumes is gone. Now I want to be wrapped in olfactory warmth.

Fact three about Daim Blond: I like the top notes of this one the most. All day, I'll be resisting the temptation to spray on just a little more, to get the top notes again. Don't get me wrong - it's delicious from beginning to end, but the beginning is the best.

Fact four about Daim Blond: I love this stuff. It's one of "my scents". There are the scents that guest star, that I dig out of the sample box or the Drawer Of Forgotten Bottles and go "ooh!" and try them out for the day. And then there are the scents with well-established associations, that I put on and sink into. The ones that make me "smell like me", even if "me" smells twenty different ways because I have far too many favorites.

New discovery about Daim Blond, as I do the review roundup: Hey, it has a hawthorne note? Is that the special part that I can't put my finger on? I'm adding hawthorne to my list of Notes To Investigate.

I usually wear Daim Blond when I'm at least a little dressed up and going out on a cold day. Today, I'm wearing pajamas and socks. As I suspected, it works well that way.

Review Roundup: Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and peredepierre and Fragrantica and Basenotes and MakeupAlley and Boomtown Boudoir and Sweet Diva and The Non Blonde and Pink Manhattan and wouldsmellassweet and Perfume Posse and Katie Puckrick Smells and Bonkers About Perfume.

Edited to add to the Review Roundup.

Photo by Fir0002, Wikimedia Commons. Click for details.