SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe

A busy, potentially grumpy day. Fou d'Absinthe is good for those days.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe

I've mentioned the armor-like feel of Fou d'Absinthe. That feel has led me to wear it on a few too many grumpy irritable days. The result is that today, on a not-so-good day, it made me the day a bit more nervous and strange.

Time for corrective action - I need to hold it for a few better days.

But it still smells good.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe

Armor. Bug killer. Spring cleaning.

These associations don't sound altogether good, do they?

But they are. With every wearing, this perfume is slowly making its way into the ranks of my very favorites.

Review Roundup: Is here.

User: By Matthais Kabel. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe

Spring cleaning. Well, decluttering, in preparation for spring cleaning. So I wear my spring cleaning scent again.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Mzelle Laure. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe

I posted in my earlier review that L'Artisan Parfumeur's Fou d'Absinthe had an armored feel.

I'm not sure if that's inherent in the scent, or if the fleeting thought permanently associated itself with the scent in my mind. But it is associated, and now I think of Fou d'Absinthe as another "don't mess with me" scent. I'm angry today, for reasons too long and messy for the blog, so it smells just right.

Grrr.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Golden Hound. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: L'Artisan Parfumeur Fou d'Absinthe, and Spring Cleaning

Perfect.

That is, this is the perfect scent for the current season. It's not lemony-sparkling-soapbubbles-pink-flowery fresh, like many of the summer fragrances that I'm not ready for. And it's not smoky-musky-furry-cat-napping-on-buttered-toast, like many of the winter fragrances that I'm tired of.

It's bitter. And a little sweet. A volatile, vaporous, new-green kind of bittersweet. Medicinal, in a good way. It's Spring Cleaning perfume, at least right now while I'm doing the spring cleaning.

Though in the vision that it generates, I'm not doing the spring cleaning. I'm sitting around in clothes that were extracted from the pine-scented wardrobe that's been keeping them safe all winter and aired on the line all morning, drinking liqueur from a very fine glass and occasionally catching sight of the housekeeper doing the spring cleaning. The housekeeper of my very British and very well-run city house, who uses old-fashioned things like herbs and resinous polishes for refreshing the place, not nasty modern things like white-musky detergent. It's an Edwardian house, the sort where murdered guests are found on the hearthrug and written about by Agatha Christie...

Yes, OK, I'll get a grip. But this is the sort of perfume that offers plenty of food to the imagination. The notes - just to give you some concrete information - are absinthe, angelica, blackcurrant buds, star anise, four-spices, patchouli, pine needles, labdanum, and fir balsam. Reviews call it a fougere, but one where anise takes the place of the lavender. As someone who loves anise and tends to see lavender as something for dusty old-lady sachets, I approve of the substitution.

It is, by the way, officially a man's perfume. This rarely worries me, and it doesn't worry me here.

I'm having trouble describing the development, I suspect because I'm not too familiar with these notes. The beginning is stronger in anise, absinthe and alcohol. The end is much softer and more herbal. The middle is, well, in between those two.

None of it is the least bit cuddly, but somehow all of it is still very comforting. It feels clean and safe, but not in a soapy, grocery, TV commercial way. It's a more armored sort of way, as if nothing bad would dare intrude through those vapors. A sort of olfactory protective talisman, perhaps.

Yes, my imagination's running away with me again. But it is, again, perfect.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Bois de Jasmin and Basenotes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and MakeupAlley and Fragrantica and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and Perfume Shrine.

(You know my Postal Regulation Phobia? Now I'm developing an FTC Regulation Phobia. It's driving me to mention that I got my bottle at a discount, at a perfume shop that knew that I had a blog. I'm confident that there is no Discount/Blog connection - in addition to the fact that no one would waste money buying my opinion, the shop owner was offering discounts right and left to other people. But here I go, Disclosing, just in case. Take note, FTC.)

Photo: By Eric Litton. Wikimedia Commons. (And I have used it before, but it's so beautiful, I couldn't use anything else for this perfume.)