Perfume: First Sniff: DSH Mirabella

I blind-bought a bottle of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Mirabella a while ago, I think in a spasm of support for independent perfumers, and I think there was a hint that it won't be around forever. But I only got around to wearing it today.

Wow.

I’d been sniffing the cap, as I do, and it smelled perfectly pleasant, a nice old-fashioned black and white photograph. Then I sprayed it, and it expanded, a warm, amber blooming globe, a giant shaggy chrysanthemum created from light and scent by Glinda the Good Witch.

OK, not literally. If you’d been photographing me, there wouldn’t have been shaggy petals in the shot, but…wow. I’ve never experienced synesthesia, but this gives me a hint of what it must be like.

I sat and enjoyed it for a moment, then bent to sniff inside my collar (because I test my scents through one spray on my stomach, usually) and it was like diving down below the sweet, gorgeous, but mostly proper surface of the globe to find a delightfully animalic core, as if someone had added a scent created by straining human perspiration and keeping the warm smells-like-someone-I-love parts while tossing out the rest. I lifted my head and then ducked again, lifted and ducked, lifted and ducked, like one of those dashboard bird things, and I could find the two layers every time.

Wow.

It’s still old-fashioned, but it’s as if I've stepped into that photo and entered its real world of color and sight and sound and movement.  An American city street in the ‘forties, with well-tailored women in tapping high heels and the scent of autumn and burning leaves and lush almost-overripe fruit creeping in from somewhere. Yes, that’s two simultaneous almost-hallucinations; don't quibble with me; Cary Grant is coming down the street arguing with Rosalind Russell or possibly Priscilla Lane and I want to watch.

I ought to go on to notes, but this is one of those perfumes where the notes are so blended that the perfume just is what it is. There are fruit and flowers but not in the modern "fresh!" vibe; it's syrupy overripe fruit and deep-sweet flowers.  There's spice and honey but not enough to give me a food vibe; it's the kind of spice that just flows into the leather, and then the leather is the kind that flows, in its turn, into the more animalic notes, perhaps the civet that Fragrantica mentions. It's comforting, but comforting with brightness and power; it's your pet tiger, not your security blanket.

I like it. You could probably tell.

Wow.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

(Correction: Apparently I did try it, two and a half years ago, when I first bought it. That post, too, has a slightly dazed feel; I suspect that it knocked me just as flat then, but with fewer words to express the experience.)

Perfume: Pretty Little Things

I read Victoria-at-EauMG's review of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's The Beat Look, one of the perfumes in the YSL Retrospective Collection for the Denver. Within an hour I had ordered the coffret, containing 5ml mini bottles for each of the scents in the collection. It just arrived today. Yay!

This is not a review; I haven't properly worn any of the scents, though I did sniff each bottle, and responded with a different delighted "ooh" for each one. Nor is it a call for an analysis of Victoria's hypnotic powers.

I'm just musing about minis. I've been buying fewer full-size bottles and fewer samples; it appears that a tiny jewel-like manufacturer's (or artisan's) mini bottle is exactly what I want. Luckily, the independent and artisan perfumers seem to be particularly reliable about offering minis. I say luckily because the independent and artisan perfumers are where I want my money to go. That's part of the reason for fewer samples--if I regret a blind buy, I'm far less annoyed if my money is supporting a perfumer who is making glorious things.

And there's something delightful about storing an entire perfume collection, actual bottles, however small, in a jewelry-box-sized drawer. See down there? That's twenty-one bottles in that little drawer, along with bracelets and a bottle cap for scale. Imagine the collection that I could store in a larger container such as, say, a shoebox.

Of course, none of this would work if I were a lavish perfume wearer. But I'm not--I like to dab a little on, enjoy it for three or four hours, and I'm perfectly content if it fades away after that and if no one else can smell it. Perfume is more like food, for me, than like clothes--it's for my senses and no one else's. That seems to be increasingly true as I grow more interested in actual clothes.

Er.

I feel that this post deserves an actual conclusion, but none is coming to mind. Yay minis. That's about it.

Images: Mine.

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.

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.