SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai

It was Sunday. I was hungry. So I sprayed on a sticky pastry.

And that's all.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Peter Stadler, Vienna. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTW: Fried Chicken, Roses, and Aomassai

It's been a mostly-lazy long weekend.

Friday was a long drive, a lightning-speed chicken fry, and a picnic on the lawn at Britt, watching Pink Martini.  I had never heard even one Pink Martini song before. ("Not even Hey, Eugene?" Nope.) I intend to hear lots more, now. No perfume Friday.

Saturday. Saturday. Saturday? Oh, yes! The park. Sandwiches and books and staring blankly at the leaves overhead, discussing whether they're oak or maple. Cello Man. Going home and prowling through what's bloomed lately, including a quartered old-fashioned spicy-fragrant pink rose that I have no memory of ever planting. No perfume Saturday.

Sunday? Breakfast. More books. Possibly puttering with the roses. And Parfumerie Generale Aomassai, which again is surprisingly un-sticky and perfect for hot weather. And movies later.

I like summer.

That is all.

Image: By Luc Viatour. Wikimedia Commons. Luc Viatour's website is here.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai

I've been neglecting the main body of the collection, so today I tried the blind-stab-at-the-perfume-bottles method. My finger touched Aomassai, and I put it on, despite assuming that it would be far too sticky-foody for relatively warm weather.

It turns out that I was wrong. In the winter this makes me think of sticky pastries, but now it's more like a crisp little wafer of a cookie, not sticky, syrupy, or otherwise smothering. I'll be interested to see how it works in flat-out hot weather.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai

Burnt sugar. Yum.

Um.

Um.

Um....

What else to say? Yum. Eau de sticky pastry.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By avlxyz. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai

Someone reminded me that Aomassai has a wenge wood note, and I sprayed some on today in the hope that I could figure out what wenge smells like. I have two more data points  - Donna Karan Black Cashmere and L'Eau d'Italie Paestum Rose are in the sample hoard, and both are said to have wenge notes.

I've held that with three data points I should be able to pick out a note - a sort of olfactory triangulation. I'm wrong. Black Cashmere is salty and dark, Paestum Rose is incense and bitter-citron-rose, and Aomassai is burnt sugar and pastry. There's a powdery incensey mood in all three, but not enough similarity to help me nail down the elusive wenge.

I formed the triangulation theory when it took three different fragrances to allow me to pick out vetiver - aggressive Guerlain Vetiver, green and friendly Creed Original Vetiver, and elegant but chilly Hermessence Vetiver Tonka. The theory should have been disproved when sniffing twice that number of iris fragrances wasn't enough to make me confident of recognizing iris root, but I suspect that I may never master iris root. On the other hand, I "got" galbanum on my first sniff of Chanel No. 19. Love at first sniff, and all that.

Scent is a puzzlement. Not much of a conclusion, but there it is. I'm sending off for a decant of Donna Karan Wenge. More data points.

However, Aomassai remains wonderful. My original rambling, and Review Roundup, can be found here.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai

I generally try to write about my SOTD before refreshing my memory as to what others have written. I'm not sure if this is a logical strategy - would it make more sense to be fully informed before I start typing? But would it be as much fun? After all, at this point this is more of a diary than a publication, so fun should be the point.

Anyway. I don't know what to say about Aomassai. My thoughts come down to: "Toasted sugar. Yum." And, well, that's all very well, but there's not much to it. So I'm going to read the reviews now.

Except, first... one other thought did come to mind: I realized today that I do wear fragrances, to a limited extent, for other people. Not mostly for other people, but I guess that I do think of them as projecting an image. Because while I think of Cristalle as a sophisticated woman in pressed white linen, and Daim Blond as a Hitchcock blond in furs, and Mandragore as a thirties-movie city girl in a flawless suit and tappity-tap heels, Aomassai is... a pastry.

I'm not quite positive that I want to be a pastry. I'm visualizing myself walking around in a wonderful-smelling, flaky, burnt-sugar-encrusted, artisan-croissant version of one of those giant hot dog costumes. Is that really what I want?

Apparently it's not a deterrent, because I'm sniffing happily and asking myself, "Why haven't I been wearing this all week?" But is the Wearing A Giant Food Suit vibe a positive thing? I suspect that if this were just as foody, but not so very, very delicious, I might have skipped it for something else. Cadjmere, for example, which at least turns me into a grey cat, rather than a Baked Good Item.

But it is that delicious, so I think I'm just going to get used to my pastry identity.

And I'm done talking, so I'll go re-read the reviews now. After rambling, as usual.

Review Roundup: The Non-Blonde and Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Fragrantica and Nathan Branch and PerfumeCritic and Bois de Jasmin.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons