SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Mure et Musc Extreme (The decluttering continues.)

I love blackberry. And black currant. And black cherry. And black raspberry. All of those fruits and fruit flavors with that extra, dark, slightly winy edge that isn't sour, isn't bitter, but still balances syrupy sweetness as if it were. I often dump extra water into over-sweet lemonade and other fruit drinks; I never think that a good blackberry drink is too sweet. I suspect that I could sip the syrup straight.

So I had big hopes for Mure et Musc. So I, once again, didn't finish a decant before buying a bottle. And now I'm considering a declutter.

This is a relatively new bottle - perhaps two years old. It's adequate.  Today I sprayed it on lavishly by my standards - five or six sprays, well away from my nose to avoid temporary anosmia - and once in a while throughout the day I could get a faint hint of it. A little blackberry, a little fizz, a little of something vaguely fresh. It's like a blackberry Italian soda purchased from that alarmingly health-sensitive lunch place that's stingy with the syrup - mostly mineral freshness, barely any fruit. I once tried a sample of the non-Extreme version, and was even less impressed.

I'm told that the vintage Mure et Musc with the fruity musk is the real stuff, though I still have trouble using the word "vintage" for something produced in the seventies and eighties. Luca Turin refers to the original as having "tremendous radiance and transparency", and laments the later reformulation. So I feel vindicated in being unimpressed with the current versions.

I think that I'm going to give it away and give Annick Goutal Eau de Charlotte a try.

Review Roundup (I'm including reviews of all versions, not just the Extreme): Bois de Jasmin and Bois de Jasmin again (a brief mention about the musk) and Now Smell This and Sweet Diva and Grain de Musc and Aromascope (brief mention) and Aromascope again (another brief mention) and Perfume Posse and PeredePierre and Fragrantica and Basenotes and Pink Manhattan.

Image: By De-Okin. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTE: Parfumerie Generale L'Eau Rare Matale

A day of paperwork and no perfume. An evening of Babylon 5 and L'Eau Rare Matale. So, improvement.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Tom Ventura. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture

Yum.

But a little sweet.

Maybe it's a winter thing.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: None

No perfume today. I kept wandering by the perfume shelf, but I never stopped long enough to spray.

Will I get up from blogging to put something on now? No, probably not. I'll nap soon, unscented.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Creed Love In Black

Apparently I'm doing Fall Cleaning, because yet again I wore a scent with the intention of confirming that I don't like it. And, yep, it's confirmed. I once liked Love In Black - I bought a bottle, and I didn't buy it unsniffed. But I did buy it without working my way through even a small decant, and therefore the regret is predictable.

I thought that my occasional halfhearted reaction post-purchase was due to the iris. Since I've learned to love iris in several forms since the last time I wore Love In Black, I was hoping for a turnaround on this fragrance. But the reverse happened - I learned to love iris in concert with incense and leather and galbanum and generally dark or threatening things. Violets? Nooooo. I could tolerate violets with the scent of pencil erasers - that was pleasantly amusing. Now that I know that those pencil erasers are iris, it's all over.

Yes, I realize that it's love in black, and therefore maybe it thinks it's dark, but I don't. It's bright and sweet and the fact that it's a little sad doesn't help. Reference decant, bottle leaving.

Review Roundup: Perfume Posse and Fragrance Bouquet and MakeupAlley and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Basenotes and Sniffapalooza and The Scented Salamander and I Smell Therefore I Am and Fragrantica and PeredePierre and Scent of the Day.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Diptyque Philosykos

Everybody likes Philosykos. Except for me.  It's been described as smelling like the whole fig grove, with green or leafy or woody or forest-floor notes in addition to the smell of the fruit. Nearly everyone makes a point of its lack of excess sweetness. Some say that it's challenging or a little sharp, but they always say it in a positive way.

My experience is  "Sweet. Oh, and there's some coconut. There might be fig in there, too. And did I mention, sweet?" I get absolutely no green, no sharpness, no wood. To me, it smells as if I had scooped out a slightly overripe fig (to avoid the slightly greener taste of the outer flesh), doused  the inner flesh with coconut milk, and sprinkled it with sugar. Nice for one bite, but not something that you'd want to smell all day.

It's unlikely that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. I must assume, then, that I'm anosmic to something essential in this fragrance. I wore it this one last time to confirm that my feelings hadn't changed; they haven't, so I'll be taking a small reference decant, and the bottle will be leaving.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Now Smell This again and The Non-Blonde and Sweet Diva and Perfume Posse and MakeupAlley and My Perfume Life and Basenotes and Fragrantica and A Rose Beyond The Thames and Badger & Blade and sakecat and EauMG and The Left Coast Nose (scroll down) and hesmellsshesmells and Polish, Platforms, Perfume and MossyLoomings (for the solid) and MossyLoomings again and I Smell Therefore I Am and parfumieren and Scent Of The Day  and Undina's Looking Glass.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Fendi Theorema

I continue to pull out the fall scents. Today, sadly, Fendi Theorema didn't quite work. I got almost no orange, and the spices were too dusty-dry. I did get a note rather like fresh bread - an interesting oddity.

In fact, judging from my blog, this may not be a fall scent at all. I see that I loved it in December, January, July, and August, and was dubious in May. So I'm concluding that it needs temperature extremes in either direction.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Figiu. 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: Creed Original Vetiver

I have a four (four) ounce bottle of Creed Original Vetiver.

I only wanted one ounce - or, really half an ounce - but several months ago the trustworthy seller offering both a coupon and a sale only had the big bottle, so I paid less for four ounces with box and cap than I would have paid for a small tester without either. So there it is, looming threateningly over the nice little bottle of Love In Black, sneering at me and holding more perfume than I will ever use.

It bothers me. It's that whole anti-hoarding thing. It feels like a slippery slope. I want the smallest possible bottle.

So today I'm wearing Original Vetiver, frankly in the hope that I'll find that I no longer like it, so I can give it away. That's going fairly well so far - it's pleasant and green, but I'm finding it too one-dimensional and too masculine, and wishing that I were wearing Vetiver Tonka instead. And my Vetiver Tonka is properly anti-hoarding - it's one of the tiny Discovery Set bottles.

So what to do? Give away three one-ounce decants and keep the original bottle? Keep a one-ounce decant and give away the bottle? Give the whole thing away and make Vetiver Tonka my chosen vetiver?

Decisions, decisions.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Julien Bertrand. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Tea for Two

Tea fragrances seldom smell like tea to me - they generally smell like "perfume tea note". But when I sprayed L'Artisan's Tea for Two today to celebrate the continuing cool weather, it really did smell like a handful of nice dry tea leaves. Then it turned into its usual sweet spice-cookieish self, also a good thing.

I'm enjoying this shift to winter fragrances. But I'm told that the temperature will be in the eighties this weekend, so the experiment may be cut short.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Azzuro. Wikimedia Commons.