SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie

Yum.

Maybe I should buy the bottle after all?

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Playboyrob. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie

Important wardrobe tip: When wearing a silk scarf and spraying a scent on the back of your neck, make sure that you do these things in the correct order. Luckily, the scarf is a solid color, so it should survive the laundering.

Meanwhile, Cuir de Russie remains lovely. Still not quite as lovely as it is in cold weather, but I'm still thinking longingly of that giant monster bottle.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: Mine. The newly leather-infused scarf is not present in the photo.

SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie

I put Cuir de Russie on to confirm, one more time, that I love it. And I do, though I'm realizing that I may not love it in the summer.

The weather is warmer and days are longer than the last time I wore it, and that produces a substantial change. The top  notes are sharper and higher-pitched, and the animalic notes are less delightful. (Bringing me back to the Vole Theory.) And it's strong - one spray is producing a substantial leather and iris cloud around me, making Chanel's monster bottle size even more problematic.

But I still want it. It's really only a matter of time.

(Who's that in the photo, you ask? Ernest Beaux, the original perfumer.)

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie (Les Exclusifs, EDT)

After only two wearings, Chanel Cuir de Russie is well on its way to being one of Those Scents - the scents at the core of my wardrobe, the ones that make me smell like me. I want some. The only question is whether I'm eventually getting a decant or a bottle, and how soon I can budget it.

I'm surprised that I feel comfortable in this scent. The elegance, the presence, the self-assured mood - none of that seems as if it should fit my nervous and rumpled self. But if I stop thinking about it, it just slips on, a perfect fit.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Cszmurlo. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Chanel Cuir de Russie (Les Exclusifs, EDT)

I had high expectations of Cuir de Russie. It's fulfilled them. I want some and I want it now.

This one has been discussed and described so well in so many reviews - see the roundup down there? - that I have nothing new to offer. But that won't stop me.

To my nose, it's all about leather - elegant, fine leather. Soft gloves and well-used bags and well-aged leather upholstery. Upholstery in a luxurious and well-aged car, the kind that ambles along at a deceptively decorous pace until its owner suddenly decides to show off the engine, and then the car is quietly gone with barely a puff of smoke to mark where it was. That kind of leather.

Iris takes second billing. I didn't take to iris immediately, back when I started on this perfume freakery path. I disliked it, and then I tolerated it, and I'm finally learning to like it. I definitely like it here, even the nuts-and-pencil-erasers beginning.

And am I actually liking amber? There's a powdery sweetness late in the development that's lovely, mixed with vanilla. So, maybe I am.

There are other things in here. According to The Perfumed Court, the top notes are orange blossom, bergamot, mandarin, and clary sage, the middle notes are iris, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, cedarwood, and vetiver, and the base notes are styrax, leather, amber, and vanilla. I'm not getting even one of the floral and fresh notes. But that's all the more reason to try this one again and again, until I do get them.

But all that is just about how it smells, not how it feels. It feels luxurious. Elegant. Self-assured; it's not the least bit eager to please. This isn't a woman that works and frets to be beautiful; it's a woman who's blessed with beauty and elegance without even trying, and accepts those blessings as her due. Not an altogether likable character, perhaps, but you still can't look away.

Review Roundup: Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This and PereDePierre and 1000 Fragrances and One Thousand Scents and Grain de Musc and Perfume Shrine and Fragrantica and Basenotes and Suite101 and MakeupAlley and WAFT and Polish, Platforms, Perfume and hortus conclusus and ScentsOfSelf and Perfume Patter and Scent Of The Day.

Link Roundup: Les Tuileries and The Vintage Perfume Vault and hortus conclusus and parfumieren and The Perfume Chronicles.

(Edited to add to the Review Roundup.)


Photo: Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: Chanel Coco (Parfum)

So in the list of Reasons To Wear A Perfume, "I haven't blogged about it yet" should rank pretty low. Actually, it shouldn't appear at all. Nevertheless, that's why I'm wearing Coco parfum today.

Well, also, Now Smell This just published a review of Coco that made it sound both interesting and lovely. And somebody on Basenotes, I believe it was, called Coco the best Oriental. I started wondering why I don't much like the stuff, and if perhaps I've changed my mind.

Have I? I can't decide.

The parfum is everything that I expect a Chanel parfum to be. It's well-blended, so that you can't pick out the individual notes. It's smooth, suave, elegant and graceful. And I can't decide if that's good or bad.

It's a texture thing. I remember the Eau de Parfum, last time I sampled it, as being much less smooth. It was pricklier, grainier, the spices more prominent and easier to pick out from the other notes. Rather like gingerbread, very gourmand-like.

The parfum is not at all gourmand; it's all scent and no food. The EDP is comforting and friendly and rather Hansel-and-Gretel. The parfum is a glamour girl. The EDP is tweed; the parfum is sable.

I suspect that I'm more Gretel-eating-gingerbread, than glamour-girl-in-sable. I'll give the EDP another try.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Scentzilla and ScentsOfSelf and The Perfume Chronicles and Basenotes and MakeupAlley and My Perfume Life and Fragrantica.

Edited to add to the Review Roundup.

Photo: By pschemp. Wikimedia Commons.