SOTD: Tauer Carillon Pour un Ange, and relinquishing the meh

(And this was really the SOTD on Wednesday. Me pre-writing posts? What's with that?)

I bought it too fast.

I loved the sample. Falling-down, won't risk it going away, love. Bought it. Didn't like the first wearing. Went into denial and put it away. A year later, I'm trying it again.

Nope.

Wearing it gives me the same feeling as a glass of iced tea with too much lemon and not enough sugar. I'm not saying that there's any actual lemon--just that there's a sharpness that could be lovely and refreshing if there were enough sugar.

Maybe it's my skin chemistry.

I think that for the next attempt, I'll decant a little into a splash bottle. I tested it unsprayed, after all, so maybe...

I doubt it. The next solution is to give or swap it away, maybe with a few more just-accept-reality bottles. Swapping or selling is, of course thwarted by my Postal Regulation Phobia, so unless I coordinate with a perfume freak to meet in Portland on one of our lately-not-infrequent trips there, it's not all that workable.

I eye the collection for more of those accept-reality bottles. I'm always worried that someday I'll fall in love with something that I've given away. But there's no logic in that; it's a hoarderesque mindset. For one thing I use perfume so lightly that a 5ml decant would last me years, even in the regular rotation.

And, really, it's unlikely that I'll ever fall in love with a perfume for which my reaction is "meh." The ones worth keeping an eye on are the "Oh, my God, does it smell that way on purpose?" bottles.  Those are usually blind buys, which a light sprinkling of classics threatened by reformulation or discontinuation. (My Mitsouko, for example, and No. 5 before I started to appreciate it a little.) The blind buys were either rock-bottom-price discounter products, or things from indie houses that I respect. If I panic and buy something on the verge of discontinuation from an indie house, I figure that even if I don't like it, my money went to someone worthwhile.

Today's additions to the Out box:

Creed's Original Vetiver: Perfectly Nice. A gateway vetiver. Friendly. Nonthreatening. Cuddly. I'm past it. I might have an occasional craving, but I have four (four) (FOUR) ounces in one of those big Creed bottles from a discounter. I'll take a 5ml decant and give the rest away.

Alfred Sung's Sung: This is in the difficult "aldehydic meh" category. Someday I may learn to love aldehydes, and until that day, it's hard to predict which ones I might love. But there are a lot of likelier candidates--No. 5, Climat...OK, my mind blocks memory of aldehydes, but I know there are others. I'm going to let this one go.

Serge Lutens Bas de Soie: Pretty. Also, pretty. Perfectly Nice. And pretty. If Lutens has to produce the occasional Perfectly Pretty Pretty Nice fragrance in order to make enough money needed to bottle the weird, fine. But I'm going to let someone else appreciate it.

Lancome Mille et Une Roses: I have this because I bought that little set of classics, including the aforementioned Climat. I don't like this one, and I have never yet learned to love a rose fragrance that I didn't like at first sniff. It's odd, because I love roses, but maybe that's what makes it not-odd. It's like fried chicken; I'm so attached to the "right" fried chicken that I have no tolerance for the "wrong", the kind with too much pepper or other transgressions.

There will be more.

That is all.

(I didn't bother to link the above perfume names to the posts with the Review Roundup for the perfume. This strikes me as evidence that I am less and less a perfume blog. Is this wrong?)

SOTD: Andy Tauer Carillon Pour Un Ange

I want to love an Andy Tauer scent. My fondness for Orange Star has reduced the urgency, but the quest continues. My issue with his big-gun scents--L'Air du Desert Marocain, for example--tends to be the dark incense notes, so a green floral seemed like just the candidate. And who could possibly have too many, or even enough, greens? Now, I do have issues with lily of the valley, but I sent off for Carillon Pour Un Ange all the same.

The top notes were intensely "perfumey", to the point that they made my eyes water and my sinuses rebel. This is not a wrist scent--for future wearings, I'll remember that I need the distance of a back of the neck application.

But there were some positive signs even as the top notes went on the attack. There's a grainy texture--I'd call it powdery, except that I don't much like powder, and I do like this. And rather than being cloyingly sweet, it was an intense mix of sweet and sour; I approve, though I do wish it were a little lower-pitched and a little less clean.

It took a couple of hours for the top notes to calm down and leave some room for the green. I don't get any of the calmer notes mentioned in reviews - no wood, no ambergris, not even leather. I just get very clean flowers, and a quite nice green. I can imagine getting addicted to this particular green, but I'll have to wear it a few more times before I feel that I've really got a handle on it.

Review Roundup: Perfume Posse and Now Smell This and CaFleureBon and Basenotes and Muse In Wooden Shoes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and MakeupAlley and Fragrantica and Hortus Conclusus and DivineCaroline and The Non-Blonde.

Image: By Olivier. Wikimedia Commons.