SOTD: The Different Company Oriental Lounge

I put on an ample supply of Oriental Lounge Monday before lunch and Christmas tree acquisition. I put on more before our evening plans. Then I put on more today.

I like this stuff. It's not going to beat out No. 19 or Sushi Imperiale or White Rose, but it's rising rapidly through the ranks to take a place among the top favorites.

Review Roundup: Is here.

(The picture? Nothing to do with perfume, but aren't the colors perfect for Oriental Lounge?)

Image: Produced by European Southern Observatory. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: The Different Company Oriental Lounge. And the courage of my stinky convictions.

I wore this one again. And I wore (I lower my voice for this) enough for someone else to smell. I consciously put on a bit more than usual, and a friend complimented me on the scent at lunch.

I can never make up my mind how I feel about my perfume being noticeable. When someone wafts past me wearing a good perfume, I always enjoy that moment, so apparently I approve of it in others. Even if they waft past me wearing bad perfume, I mildly approve, as long as it's not a choking fog. I approve of perfume in general. I was pleased to get the compliment.

But I still usually wear one halfhearted spritz on the back of my neck under my hair, and another on my stomach under my shirt, so that even I only rarely get a faint whiff of the stuff. I'm a spritz wimp.

Is it time to change that?

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Ilmari Karonen. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: The Different Company Oriental Lounge

Yum.

A while ago, I wrote a post about a mythical reduced fragrance wardrobe. I covered greens (two of them, actually), three major flowers, incense, wood, leather, and Sushi Imperiale. (Sushi Imperiale does not require a category.) There was no oriental, because I don't wear orientals. Really. Sort of.

Today I wore Oriental Lounge again, and realized that not only do I like it, but it fills the tenth spot in the wardrobe. This is, for me, an unprecedentedly rapid ascension - from "dislike" to "core fragrance" in a matter of weeks.

Also, yum.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: The Different Company Oriental Lounge

I wore it again. This time I did catch the weird fruity thing that The Left Cost Nose mentioned. The first time I got distracted and missed it, and the second time I interpreted it as the alcohol in the top notes, and then got distracted and missed it again. I'm not sure if I like or dislike the fruit, but it passes quickly, and then the fragrance is all warm velvety sweet smoke.

It also makes me think of dragons. Though that could be because I want an excuse for dragons in the blog.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Aaron Logan. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: The Different Company Oriental Lounge

I acquired The Different Company Oriental Lounge recently, even though I officially don't like oriental scents. There are some exceptions to that rule, like Theorema and Chergui and Serge Noire and Bvlgari Black and Iris Taizo and Feminite du Bois and Cedre Sandaraque and... um. Well.

Fragrantica declares that all of the above are orientals (or the subcategories like "Oriental Spicy"), and I love them all. There goes my thesis.

Except, I'm picking my thesis up and dusting it off again, because with the possible exception of Chergui, I consider all of these to be orientals only by a "where else do we put them?" technicality. To me, an oriental scent is one that's full of amber and musk and lots of heavy smoky spicy sweetness, and most of those perfumes don't qualify. Also, orientals are a perfume category that I don't understand or have a vocabulary for, and I didn't have trouble talking about any of those fragrances. So I guess I'm saying, if it doesn't confuse me, it's not an oriental. And Oriental Lounge confuses me. But in a good way.

So what's in there? I get spicy powder riding on billows of vanilla, and amber that I don't hate (a rarity), and in general a lot of soft, squashy sweetness of a kind that I usually dislike, except that here I don't. From my reading, I suspect that the explanation is the curry leaf.

Various sources refer to the scent of curry leaf as green, woody, pungent, camphorous, fetid, spicy, metallic, warm - while there seems to be limited agreement on exactly what the curry leaf smells like, all of these descriptions sound like something that could cut through sweet gooey smoke like a knife. And that's how I'm experiencing Oriental Lounge - something is adding just enough transparency and sharpness to allow me to bask in the wintery warmth, rather than drown in it.

Yum.

Review Roundup: Perfume Posse and Now Smell This and Fragrantica and 1000 Fragrances and I Smell Therefore I Am and Nathan Branch and Basenotes.

Link Roundup: Grain de Musc.

Image: By Amcaja. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Hermes Voyage d'Hermes

Did I mention that the rumor that the Hermes boutiques are allowing mix-and-match of the Discovery set is true? They are. I went. I bought. And the nice lady threw in a sample of Voyage d'Hermes, and today I'm finally trying it.

And I was indecisive. And then I wasn't.

The beginning has a lot of lime, which I approve of. Well, approved of. For the first minute or two. It was a very nice lime backed by something green, peppery, bitter and salty-without-being-aquatic that I also approved of. Sort of like Terre d'Hermes viewed through green glasses.

But that went away, within minutes. The lime took on an aggressive character, or perhaps teamed up with an accompanying note, that I can't place. It's rather as if someone tried to duplicate the scent of the bitter white pith of citrus peel, but failed to do so in a convincingly realistic manner - it feels very synthetic. I detect just a trace of the same thing in Rose Ikebana, and it's the only thing that I don't like in that scent. It's much, much stronger here, and seems determined to grow to monstrous proportions.

Come to think of it, it also reminds me of the lime note late in the development of Jo Malone Sweet Lime & Cedar, the one that I theorized might be Kaffir lime leaves. The one that grows and grows and is the only thing that I don't like in that scent.

It occurs to me that it might just be a combination of vetiver and lime peel, and as I'm sniffing again to test that theory, it starts to change. The woody musk, or musky wood, that I couldn't imagine being in there, finally comes out. It reminds me all the more of Sweet Lime & Cedar - in fact, it feels very much like a Jo Malone, but an unsuccessful one. I wouldn't call it typically-Ellena transparent at this point - I visualize it as a rather solid chewy base, with a bit of fog rising from it, a sharp fog that's trying to make my eyes water.

I find that I just don't like it. I feel rather as if I'm drowning in limes. It does tie some perceptions together for me - it contains what I don't like in Eau d'Orange Verte, and the little bit I don't like in Rose Ikebana, and in Terre d'Hermes, and it highlights those notes and brings them forward. It is clearly an expression of Ellena, but an expression of the rare part of his palette that I don't like.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Perfume Posse and 1000 Fragrances and Fragrantica and The Scented Salamander and J'Aime le parfum and Persolaise and Grain de Musc and Perfume Shrine and Perfume Patter and Bois de Jasmin and ScentSate.

(I could've sworn that I saw at least one more review of this one recently. Is anyone able to give me a pointer?)

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: The Different Company Sublime Balkiss (But no review)

The Different Company interests me. I like the idea of a perfume company that is run by perfumers (Jean-Claude Ellena and his daughter, in this case), rather than just employing them. So I requested samples from Luckyscent, and I've been excited to try them.

Today, I applied several dabs of Sublime Balkiss. But I'm afraid that no suspense will be resolved today, because all I learned is: dabs are not enough. Like many Ellena fragrances, this one is light and subtle and needs a generous application.

I got a brief whiff of what I read as a very good grapefruit (a note that isn't even listed for this fragrance, though other fruits are), got briefly distracted, and then all I could smell was something vaguely spicy-wood-like. I liked that initial fruity sniff very much, and I may go so far as to get a decant on the strength of it, so that I can really try this one out. But no review today.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Legerdenez and Fragrantica and Basenotes and I Smell Therefore I Am and Nathan Branch and Feminine Things.

Edited to add to the Review Roundup.

Photo: By Aleph. Modified by Leafnode. Wikimedia Commons. Click for more detailed credits and license