SOTD: Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Mirabella

I bought this blind. And I'm glad I did. On principle, this was the wrong thing to do; I bought it because I read rhapsodic reviews, and it was gone and then was back, but only temporarily. In other words, it was an uninformed panic buy.

In practice, after wearing it, I'm not even a little bit sorry. I need to wear it again to find the right language to describe it. It's dark, but in the sense of dim lights and deep textures, rather than moody or threatening. Dark. Layered. There's sweetness but it's not a sweet perfume. That's all I've got right now.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

First Sniff: Slumberhouse Vikt

Vikt started out somewhere between medicinal and Cola-scented, leaning more toward the medicinal. And deep and dark. Not a lonely-wild-forest deep and dark, but citified and complex. My view at that point was that it was interesting, but that I was just going to enjoy it once as a novelty. Especially since I was getting a note that was just a little bit like cinnamon, and I don't like cinnamon.

Then it got sweeter and tangier (I keep using the word "tangy" lately; what's with that?), while remaining dark and resinous. People mention licorice and anise; I don't actually get those notes, but I get their mood. Now it's a comfort scent, while remaining deep and dark. I like it.

Review Roundup: Basenotes and Smellythoughts and Fragrantica and Memory of Scent and Confessions of a Perfume Nerd and Feminine Things.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

First Sniff: Slumberhouse Pear + Olive

OK, I'm very confused by this one. It starts out fruity, a nice fruit, the brightness dimmed a little by... Well, not by olive. Not to my nose. It's a nice smell; I like it. But it doesn't make me think of bowls of pears or dishes of olives, it makes me think of one of my favorite places: The office supply aisle.

Paper? Envelopes? Expensive envelopes with expensive envelope glue? Yeah, I think that's it, plus a little bit of gum eraser. I like it, I really do, but my nose definitely doesn't read the note-that-isn't-pear as olive. Or as food, for that matter. Over time the fruit gets a little juicier, and the paper and glue get, well, a little fruitier. When I was a child, I used to have dreams where I'd fly around my grade school and eat the construction-paper decorative displays, and this smells roughly the way that I imagined that edible paper would smell like.

A while after that, it transforms into a very nice comfort scent, something with a vibe that makes me think of vanilla, despite a complete lack of any specific resemblance to vanilla. It's soft and warm and very nice.

And now, about nine hours later, it's a powdery white smell that reminds me of Douce Amere or baby powder.

I like it. But I very much doubt that Slumberhouse really put out a scent dedicated to fruit and office supplies. Therefore, I'm guessing that I'm anosmic to something in this scent, something that would make the olives fall into place.

Interestingly, I've often found that some scents with an "ambergris" note do smell very distinctly and specifically of green olives to me, and to no one else. I feel as if I should be able to form a theory from these two facts, but I'm not sure what it is.

So, I like it very much. But go smell it yourself, because I doubt that what I smell is what you will.

Image: By Peter Milosovec. Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: The Sample Herd

I've been acquiring a lot of samples. A whole lot. Well, at least by my standards. And a couple of bottles. I can't decide what to write about first. So, anything below that you want an opinion about, from my admittedly-not-so-expert nose? Any that you've sniffed and you think I'd love or hate? Let's talk!

The candidates are:

• Aftelier Tango, Fig, Candide, Honey Blossom, and Wild Roses
• Ayala Moriel samples, some of which have been waiting for just about a year: Treazon, Fetish, Cabaret, Espionage, l'Herbe Rouge, Song of Songs, White Potion, Rebellius, Vetiver Racinettes, Viola, Autumn, and Megumi
• Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Gelsomino
• Dior vintage parfum vials: Diorama, Diorella, Dioressence, Diorissimo, Diorling, Dolce Vita, Miss Dior
• Montale Dark Purple
• Parfumerie Generale Gardenia Grand Soir
• Providence Perfume Co. Moonflower, Osmanthus Oolong, Lei Flower, Divine, Divine Noir, Moss Gown, and possibly Cocoa Tuberose and Hindu Honeysuckle (The package is in the mail.)
• Puredistance Opardu, I, M, and Antonia
• Serge Lutens Santal Majascule
• Slumberhouse norne, rume, jeke, grev, vikt, sova, and Pear & Olive.
• Sonoma Scent Studio Nostalgie, Forest Wak, Winter Woods, Incense Pure, Tabac Aurea, Fireside Intense, and Jour Ensoleille
• TokyoMilk Garden State Mix N' Match Eau de Parfum
• Guerlain Vol de Nuit, vintage parfum vial.

And some non-perfume oddments:

• Crabtree & Evelyn Citron honey & coriander lotion
• Crabtree & Evelyn Gardeners Hand Therapy. Not about the scent, but, well, my hands are going into winter dryness, so I'll be curious about how this is.
• Thymes Agave Nectar body lotion
• Thymes Eucalyptus body lotion

That's ignoring the preexisting sample backlog, and a few things that salesfolk tucked into bags along with bottles, that are now sloshing around in Ziplocs

FTC Disclosure: The Puredistance samples were kindly provided by the company, to me in my role as a blogger. The last three lotion samples were acquired for free in my role as an Ordinary Customer. I paid actual money for everything else, except for a couple of perfume samples that were kindly added to the ones that I ordered.

Image: By Joy Schoenbeger. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: FEED ME!

I skipped dinner, and now at eleven at night, I'm watching Julie & Julia. You know, the movie with all the food. So I'm making Pea Goop.  With cream. Ha!

Friday is Treat Day, when I decree that I'm allowed to have a serving of sugar. I skipped it, so I'll probably go get a cupcake tomorrow. Yellow cake, chocolate frosting. The correct cupcake for all thinking people.

We had a tree dropped off on our driveway. Well, OK, we had a cord of firewood dropped off on our driveway. We stacked about three-quarters of it, and the rest is still sharing the driveway with the car. We'll stack it somewhere tomorrow. Probably. I figure the maximum time that you can leave a heap of wood on the driveway without the neighbors looking at you funny is three days.

Actually, I've declared that stacking all the firewood entitles me to another serving of sugar, specifically an ice cream bar. Vanilla. With dark chocolate. Julie's. (Hey! Julie again!) Not that I've had it yet; I plan to go get it tomorrow. In addition to the cupcake. I really have to go strictly back on the low sugar thing. The beverage next to me is unsweetened tea, anyway. And I've resumed the discipline of always always having the availability of turkey sandwiches on crispbread, to reduce the chance of going on a cookie rampage.

I ate the Pea Goop. Now I want fried chicken. Promptly.

I'm ordering a lot of perfume samples. I finally started testing my Ayala Moriel samples, and then I ordered some from Sonoma Scent Studio, and then I declared a need to sniff more Aftelier scents, and then I read about Slumberhouse, and then there was Providence Perfume Co.

At least those are all artisan or small perfumers, which is supposed to be my new spending focus. I was going so far as to think that when I spend money on a perfume from some Evil Empire, I should put the same amount of money into a Good Cause, like NaNoWriMo or Wikipedia or some fine high-quality charity or something really crazy on Kickstarter. If Evil Empire perfumes cost me twice as much, maybe I'll cut it out. (And, no, the good cause can't be artisan perfume, because that just means I get twice as much perfume. No demotivator there.)

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Quick Sniffs: Aftelier Honey Blossom, Fig, and Wild Roses

I was going to wait until I'd tried these thoroughly, done a Review Roundup, written and edited and edited my impressions, chosen just the right cat picture--you know, review stuff. But when I do that, I tend to forget, and I don't want to forget these. So:

Honey Blossom: The top is very tangy wrestling with very very sweet, honey-syrupy flower, which was a little too much for me on the first try, but I suspect that I'm going to learn to love it, because I adore the softer, grainer drydown and I'll need to smell it many more times.

Fig: This one struck me as startlingly similar to Tea for Two--it has a similar comforting foody but not too foody vibe. A similar odd combination of spicy and quenching. That doesn't match any of the reviews, but the reviews don't match each other, so I suspect that this is one of those chameleon scents.

Wild Roses: I rarely like rose perfumes. I love real roses. I love this perfume. I agree with the "candied rose", but it requires a redefinition. "Candied" usually means that any bite has been eliminated from the thing in question, and then the resulting blandness is brought back up to acceptability with sugar. That's not what's going on here. The rose still has its bite; it's tangy-orange-peel-bitter tangled with rose-soaked candied sweetness. And there I run out of words. But in case you had any doubts, I love it.

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.

Perfume: Artisan Chocolates for Thanksgiving

Haaaaaaappy Thanksgiving! Are you eating turkey? What are you wearing? Chergui? Eau de Gravy? We are not cooking this year; we're on vacation, watching home improvement shows in the hotel, and seriously considering just going with room service. That sounds so perfect that it must surely be wrong.

Yesterday, in anticipation of the celebration of Eating Everything, I tried some artisan chocolates. No, not candy--perfume. I dabbed on samples of Ayala Moriel Film Noir, Ayala Moriel Guilt, and Aftelier Cacao. None of them are going to quite fulfill the role that I had them fitted for, but I want them anyway.

For some reason, I thought that Film Noir had vanilla, but it turns out that I was misreading the combination of soft patchouli and cocoa. It does have a similar mood--edible, sweet, soft, and friendly. The patchouli is earthier than the vanilla would have been, and with the chocolate, it gives me a feeling of falling into soft dust. Like a leaf pile of cocoa. I still don't get "noir"--there's nothing dark or threatening here. But I think I want a bottle. (Notes: Benzoin Siamese, Cocoa Absolute, Myrrh Patchouli)

Guilt starts out orange--gorgeous, bright but dense, sweet but with just the right amount of peel. It's not like eating the orange or the peel or candied peel--it's like the fog that rises after ripping open a really good orange, but more concentrated. I discussed it just a few days ago, but I'm not going to go read that post to see if my perception is consistent, because who wants consistency? There's chocolate, too, less powdery than the chocolate in Film Noir: I can imagine dark shiny melted chocolate. But it's also farther away; in the fantasy created by the perfume I can smell it, but I'm not eating it. Over time, the orange fades away and the chocolate settles into cocoa powder again, and then it's all gone, faster than Film Noir--about twelve hours after application, the Noir arm still had a gentle puff of patchouli, while the Guilt arm was almost scent-free. (Notes: Amber, Benzoin Siamese, Blood Orange Cocoa Absolute, Honey Absolute, Jasmine Grandiflorum Orange Blossom Absolute, Rose Otto) So Guilt won't be my all-day orange perfume, but I want it too.

And the Cacao arm? At that same twelve hour point, it was back to a very faint breath of orange. It had started out as a gorgeous and gorgeously weird combination of chocolate and bright orange--a little brighter and more aggressive than Guilt--and. And. Um. And what? Something animalic, something absolutely not edible, something that I would have predicted would be just wrong with those food scents, but it worked perfectly with them. Looking at the notes (Blood Orange, Pink Grapefruit, Jasmin Sambac & Grandiflorum, Chocolate, Vanilla), I have no clue what it is, except maybe a delightfully dirty aspect of the jasmine. The orange fades, the stinky animal fades, and for a few hours it's hard to tell Cacao and Guilt apart. But at that twelve hour mark, oddly, the orange seemed to be back--a faint breath of it--and I do like that as a final note.

I want a full bottle of them all. So there.

Go eat more gravy. Hurry. Image: By Alchemist-hp. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambleblah

So, one thing that I've learned is that even a liiiitle bit of editing slows down the word flow. In past NaNoWriMos I could go to... um... that thing... you know, that software where you type frantically? Write or Die! That's it! And get hundreds of words written in minutes. When I'm gonna post the things? Noooo, not so much.

Though...hey, let's give it a try!

So, yes, here we are, in Write Or Die with a goal of three hundred words in thirty minutes, setting "strict". Write, Chicken, write!

Um.

Yeah, the motivation isn't motivating all that well. I can, of course, find random things to say. For example, six feet away is our first wood fire of the season, which is always a nice thing. Himself and I were noticing that no matter how much you turn up the house heat, there's something about a fire that makes you and the room heat-soaked in a way that you just can't get otherwise. For me, bubble baths do the same thing.

Speaking of bubble baths, I was realizing the other night that I rather envy the Captain of the B Ark his job. You know the B Ark? Hitchhiker's Guide? He's carrying one-third of his planet's population to a new home on a giant spaceship, and he spends all of his time commanding the ship from his bathtub. That sounds nice. The 24-hour bubble bath part, not the responsibility part.

Though I shouldn't envy, because I do have a very, very fine bathtub. It's the best bathtub I've ever lived with, and it's mine, mine, all mine! Not that Himself can't use it, but he has a very fine shower and I have a very fine (vintage, footed) bathtub, and we definitely own our respective bathing territory. Mine is, of course, decked with scented products--three kinds of bath oil, five or six kinds of bath soap, four or five kinds of bath salts, two foaming bath bomb things.

Speaking of all that soap, I encountered a sort of overcoming-hoarder-genes epiphany a few weeks ago when I realized that, y'know, the world will always be filled with more glorious bars of soap than I have room for. And I can therefore use the world as a place to store my soap, and only get more when I'm running low. Yes, yes, that's obvious but...you see what I mean? Maybe you have to have hoarder genes for it to make sense.

Unfortunately, I don't feel that I can trust the world as a place to store my perfume, because the world is doing a lousy job of it, with all those bleeping regulations. While releasing the Need To Archive Soap is a nice happy relaxing moment, trying to release the Need To Archive Perfume is a constant battle.

Hey, look. Three hundred and eighty-eight words. In less than ten minutes. Maybe Write or Die does work.

OK, let's restart and try to duplicate that: Four hundred words in ten minutes. Go!

By the way, Write or Die has "consequences" levels that ramp up to Kamikaze Mode and then Electric Shock mode. I've always been vaguely curious as to what that means, but I've never tried it. Or risked it.

So. Bathtubs and soap and hoarding. Oh, my. Speaking of hoarding, I just ordered several spray samples from Sonoma Scent Studio, plus an unsniffed half-ounce bottle. And I'm still debating that "where to spend my perfume money" philosophy. I suspect that I want to focus on artisan perfumers, and I think that Sonoma Scent Studio qualifies? Hey, all you guys, who do you list under artisan, as opposed to indie, as opposed to just niche, perfumers? Moriel? Sonoma? Aftelier? Brosius? Hurwitz? Who else? Why do I think of Brosius as somehow being bigger--is that sheer illusion, or is he indeed a larger operation?

Yeah, I know, I'm writing a blog, I should be doing my research and telling you, right? But I'm asking you for information all the same--who are the artisan perfumers that I should be looking at?

Um. I just hit the end of that topic. Um. Um. You know I'm just typing "um" to keep Write or Die from applying an electric shock, right? OK, not really an electric shock, I hope, but I do get nervous when it just makes the background pink and then red.

Also, um.

It's reeeeed! Fear!

Ahem. Speaking of bath salts, what is the function of bath salts? I've traditionally thought of them as something that makes the bath water all nice and scented and doesn't (unlike oil) make the bathtub slippery underfoot. That's probably not the idea--though, really, who knows?

OK, I have to write two hundred and seventy-five words in the next two minutes and twenty-four seconds. That doesn't seem all that likely. I could, of cousre, just type la la la for a few dozen lines and then plan on editing later, but that's cheating. Not that people don't do plenty of cheating on NaNoWriMo, but I think that you should at least be writing coherent words and sentences. And ideally paragraphs. Expecting an entire coherent page may be too much of a demand.

You notice, I haven't written even a little bit of fiction yet in NaNoWriMo. And I thought I would--I was remembering those stories that I wrote in Story A Day and thought I'd probably do several more of them, and I was looking forward to it. But it seems that writing fiction, and writing fast, are not compatible for me. And why is that? I realize that writing fast and writing good fiction are logically incompatible, but why can't I put my head into the mind of a fictional character and type at madcap speed as them and their thoughts?

OK, well, I made four hundred and sixty-one words in ten minutes.

Ha!

Speaking of writing, you may notice that I haven't been writing anything about That Woman lately. The one in the one about the lunch and the one about the Christmas presents and the one about the junk and to some extent the one about the marriage, and the one about trying to please her, and the other one about the junk and, well, I suppose the other one about trying to please her. The one who is, whether I recognized it at the time of writing or not, aspects of Mom.

And sometimes when I'm feeling at my most sympathetic, I suspect that Mom may also be the cat.

I suppose that to some extent, Mom is my muse. And I don't want that. I don't want to do all my fiction writing about aspects of Mom. I don't want it to all be angry writing about Mom, and--and maybe this is wrong--I even more don't want it to be sympathetic writing about Mom. I just don't want it to be about Mom.

Is that my choice? Or do I need to write myself out, about Mom, before I can move on?

I guess I'll find out.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Interrupted Review: Ayala Moriel Guilt

I feel as if I've been called out in the middle of a fascinating play, and no one can tell me how it ended.

See, I finally got around to trying my sample of Ayala Moriel Guilt this week. And, Oh. My.  I've mentioned my question for just the right orange perfume, right? This may be it.

Most orange perfumes are too sweet or too floral or, in the case of the admittedly lovely Theorema, too mulled-cider to truly be the essence of orange. I always want more bitter, a good sticky dose of orange peel. But the few that give me any peel are usually dry, mouth-pinched pith traveling with bitter humorless companions. It's a misunderstanding--I don't want a bitter perfume, I just want a perfume that acknowledges that bitterness is an important part of the charm of an orange. This appears to be that perfume.

It started out with the citrus peel, the glorious drippy-oily-sweet-bitter citrus blast that I've been craving, but it's doused with honey and sweet-buttery flowers and not too much chocolate. And not just for a few fleeting top-note seconds, but for long enough to really settle in and drown in the orange.

While I was still reveling in orange but juuuust starting to entertain the thought that maybe, someday, after snuffling it for a while longer, I might find it overwhelming, it started to subside, ever so slowly, into something gentler, the peel stepping back and gesturing the flowers forward just a little.

And then I got distracted! Did the flowers take center stage? Did the chocolate bully its way forward? Did the orange get juicier and sweeter? What happened?!

Tell meeeeeee!

OK, OK I'll try it again and I'll let you know.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: Rambling, organizing, and a couple of Ayala Moriel mini-reviews.

It's the weekend.

Ha!

I note that I'm several thousand words behind on my NaNoWriMo Blogging Thingie, and I see no hope of catching up. But I'm going to ramble incessantly all the same. So there.

I've been waiting for a chest cold to go away, and it's been raining outside, so gardening has been out. And the weekends have been a little too busy to allow for large blocks of sewing time. So what to do after work? Inventory my perfume, of course! (Oh. I should have been writing? Yeah. Well. Um. Moving on....)

I've entered every sample into OmniOutliner, complete with house, perfume name, whether it's a sample or a decant or a mini, and where it is. (For example, "Paperclip sorter" or "A->D Baggie.")

Don't mock me.

I have slightly under two hundred samples, including a couple of dozen decants. I'm surprised that the number is that small, and I'm embarassed that I'm surprised.

Putting samples in different places has made me realize (duh) that I could also put bottles in different places. This is an obvious but dangerous realization, because when I was keeping all of the bottles in one place, then that place limited the collection. If I start moving them, well...

I could move the For Reference bottles into boxes. I have, for example, modern LouLou, waiting for me to get my hands on a sample of vintage LouLou. The plan is to get the sample, wear them both, learn what there is to learn from the comparison, and then give away the modern, because I don't actually like the modern. Now, that was also the plan for Vent Vert, and now that I have a vintagesque bottle of Vent Vert (right bottle shape but script logo, no string, screwcap instead of stopper, plastic outer box, so it's not the oldest) that I love, I find that I'm able to love the modern Vent Vert because I'm less resentful of it for being a travesty of the original.

And then there are the bottles that I own because they're classics and I want to learn to love them. This is really not a good category to have; it's pretty hoarderish. Right now, it's very small, consisting of Coco and Mitsouko. It used to be Coco, Mitsouko, and No. 5, and then I actually learned to love No. 5, so, yay! sometimes it works. But I'm threatening to add Shalimar and Jicky and Coco parfum and for that matter Shalimar has more than one modern and infinite vintage options. And that's without looking at any lists.

Anyway, so, I moved the bottles for the ill-fated Under Twenty project, and some other "Hey, a full bottle is less than twice the price of a decant!" modern things into a box, awaiting my attention. I should really make an "attention or freecycle" deadline; Lady Stetson has been waiting for at least a year.

I moved all the dabber bottles into a drawer. Originally, it was a bedroom sock drawer, but then I opened the drawer and realized that there's no way Himself is going to put up with a slow-building bedroom perfume fog, so I moved them into the one and only drawer in my den. Which means that the power cords and foot pedals for my sewing machines had to go from that drawer to the sock drawer, but, well, so be it.

Oh, and the tall skinny minis and decants all went into a Ziploc in the drawer, because I'm tired of tiny Hermes Discovery Set bottles falling all over the place when I take anything out. It's like horizontal Jenga.

This left mostly niche and a few designer... well, mostly niche and Chanel in the breadboxes. OK, and a Fendi and a Lancome (the other Lancomes are in the dabber drawer) and a Lauder and a Miyake and a Piguet and a Balmain, but, wow, my collection is really niche-heavy.

I used to organize the bottles by categories--fresh greens! Boozy Orientals! Bombshell florals! And then I'd approach the collection asking myself something like, "OK, did I categorize Un Crime Exotique as an Oriental or a gourmand?" and never, ever thought anything like, "Hey, I'm feeling prim and ladylike today." So I abandoned that whole idea and re-sorted it mostly by house. Parfumerie Generale and Lutens each make up a looming mob of bottles, Chanel is a mismatched gang, there's a modest Jo Malone contingent and another of l'Artisan, and then there's a random jumble in the middle.

Speaking of bottles falling like dominoes, I'd like to communicate my preference for short, squat bottle designs. The Different Company's fat little cube. Aftelier's short columnar parfum bottles. Serge Lutens' bell jars. You could shake a drawer like you're popping popcorn and they wouldn't fall over. On the other hand, the Lutens export bottles seem to chatter nervously if I just walk by.

Just to add to the crazy and to the failure to NaNoWrite, I added all the samples to my Basenotes wardrobe, and I'm updating the bottle list. And putting decants and minis in the "used to own" list. And generally geekishly tracking it all far more than it needs.

But it's all getting me more interested in playing with my samples, and that's worthwhile, right? Right? Right!

In accordance with the recent theory that I should put my perfume money where the good stuff is being made right now, I've been testing a Moriel a day ("that's all we ask") and I'm in ever so much financial danger, because I like them all.

Espionage? Gorgeous; leather without that synthetic vibe--which seems illogical, because isn't the scent of leather said to be the scent of the chemicals used to treat it?--that dries down to gorgeous squishy vanilla.

Film Noir? It starts out friendly - I can imagine a dark film in front of me, but I know what's going to happen, and I have chocolate, so I'm not scared. It dries even friendlier, and (pause for dramatic effect) Himself likes it. Himself hasn't liked a perfume since Habanita. He gets cookie-vanilla-vibe from it. I'm not sure why I haven't put in the order for this one already.

Immortelle l'Amour? Yum. Sweet. Yeasty. Bready. This is not good for my low carb diet. I got distracted that day and didn't follow it to the end; I'll try it again.

Guilt? Ooooooh. That's the next post.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Quick Sniff: Ayala Moriel Sabotage

I don't like red wine. But every time Himself has a glass I try a sip, just in case that's the glass that changes my mind. And every time I eat at a buffet that offers grits, I try some, in the same hope. (No, that doesn't happen often on the West Coast, but I used to visit relatives in Tennessee.)

Chicory. White chocolate. Coffee. Mashed potatoes. Zucchini. There are a lot of things I'd like to like, so I keep trying them. Once in a long while it works, too--I once tried hummus in a Japanese(?!) restaurant in Nashville, and was sold on the stuff.

I want to like vetiver. But the few vetiver perfumes that I like never really seem to be vetiver. They're related to vetiver in the sense that those attitude-free canned olives that you find on buffet salad bars are related to the sharp, bitey olives that make me squeeze my eyes shut when I eat them. Vetiver Tonka, for example. Or Creed Original Vetiver. They're nice. Friendly. Non-threatening. I like Vetiver Tonka quite a bit, but I think that's more about the Tonka than the Vetiver. And I've been meaning to give away Original Vetiver.

Ayala Moriel Sabotage may be the vetiver fragrance that turns me around. It doesn't blow my head off, but the vetiver isn't nervously peering past a layer of cream sauce, either. It's grassy, with a little attitude and bitterness as a companion to the citrusy notes. I don't get the tobacco and tonka mentioned in other reviews, but there is something keeping it grounded. I like it. A lot.

I'll try it again, soon. Maybe it'll convert me.

(The picture? I went looking for photos of grits. I think that dish might do the job.)
Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Aftelier Cacao (First wearing)

Yum.

I bought a mini of this on kinda-sorta impulse last week, where "impulse" means that I only thought about it for two days. I finally wore it properly today.

At the beginning, the orange struck me more than the chocolate--a good bitter orange that makes me resolve to look for orange notes in other Aftelier perfumes.  And there was chocolate, of course, but Cacao didn't read as a "foody" perfume to me. There was an animalic note that made it darker and more grown-up, and contrarily seemed both dangerous and comforting--fuzzy purring, but with claws in reserve.

As it developed, there was less orange and less growl; it turned sweeter and more floral. Then the vanilla at the base grew, though the whole package started to fade away before a really satisfying vanilla fog could develop. There's barely a trace on my arm now, about twelve hours after application. But that's fine. I've never quite seem the appeal of extreme longevity, so the limited life of all-natural perfumes is just fine with me.

I like it. I can't tell yet if I love it. That may come on the second wearing.

Review Roundup: The Non-Blonde and MakeupAlley and Fragrantica and Basenotes and This Blog Really Stinks and Eyeliner On A Cat and WAFT.

Image: By Ankara. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Several

Today started with modern Balmain Vent Vert. This is a scent that I tend to unfairly ignore, because it doesn't approach the glory of vintage Vent Vert. But it's lovely all the same, so why don't I wear it more?

Then I went to Alchemy Botanicals, again, to play with the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz perfumes, again. I re-sprayed Bancha, and while I still love the drydown, I found out that I'm not as big a fan of the first couple of hours. What to do? 

I re-sprayed Tubereuse, and it was, again, gorgeous. It starts out with a fog of tuberose candy mixed with gasoline, and, yes, that is a lovely thing, no matter how it might sound. The gasoline fades over time, leaving the tuberose candy, which is much nicer than other perfume candy.

I already have Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture. I intend to buy Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. I think that there's at least one other tuberose perfume that I own or intended to own. Just how wrong would it be to buy this?

I also tried Prana. It's interesting. It's puzzling. I got a strongly animalic feel from it, even though it doesn't contain even one animalic note. I suspect that I'm smelling a combination of the cardamom and oud.  Sadly, over time the oud started to dominate, and I really don't like oud. But this perfume comes closer to making me like it than any so far, so I may give it another try.

So, Vent Vert sort of lost the spotlight today. Maybe I'll try it again Sunday.

Image: By Father.Jack. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Scentless Saturday. Sort of. Then I went shopping.

It was going to be a scentless Saturday.

But then I remembered that there were Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (Parfums des Beaux Arts) perfumes in town. (Alchemy Botanicals in Ashland is carrying them! Woohoo!)

So I went to sample. I tried on Pamplemousse, Tubereuse, Bancha, and d'Anjou, all at once. And walked around town in a perfumed fog. And promised Himself a Scentless Sunday instead.

As for the perfumes, I'm uncertain:

• Pamplemousse started out nice and sharp-fruity, but ended with a little too much sharp and too little fruity, and the fruit that was left wasn't specifically grapefruit to my nose. I've read that this has neroli in it, too, and neroli is a note that I love for about forty seconds, and then grow actively tired of. So this one isn't for me.
• Bancha started out with a lovely combination of bergamot, tea, and other green things. It seemed to turn unpleasantly sharp later, but I now suspect that that was Pamplemousse aggressively announcing itself from the other arm, because several hours later Bancha is gorgeous, soft bergamot with just a hint of tea and an even more subtle hint of something richer. It's soaked into my skin as if it belongs there, and I'll be very sad when it finally fades away.
• d'Anjou was a lovely pear for an hour or two, and then it was gone. I may have missed subtleties; I'll try it again.
• Tubereuse was tuberose. A whole lot of tuberose. If I want a straightforward tuberose soliflore, this is in the running, but before that happens I want Tubereuse Criminelle. Though, there is an engaging graininess about it, rather like that of Un Lys...

So the favorite is Bancha. Am I going to do anything about that? I'm not sure yet.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.