SOTD: Parfum d'Empire Tabac Tabou

Tabac Tabou. Good name.

I dug through the subset of samples that live in the Tightly Sealed Metal Canister, and this one had by far the most interesting name. I tried to find something else, because it was in one of those pop-top 1ml vials, but nothing else intrigued.

So, after struggling with thumb and fingertips and fingernails and a butterknife over the sink, I finally got it open.  By then the excitement had faded, because the wet traces on the edge of the cap and on my fingernails didn't really smell all that interesting. But I smeared just a little on my wrist, and...

Ooh.

The opening was a civet-forward "what have I done?" moment, a shout of "I'm going to be really dirty!" A blast of animalic and dark-spicy notes that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then the civet apparently shrugged and wandered off, and for the next few minutes I smelled moderately aggressive leather, progressing from well-worn and slightly sweaty to new and clean, a new belt emerging from tissue paper. It was accompanied by a little tobacco, quiet and retiring.

Then...

What is that? There's still an echo of leather and pipe smoke, but the main body of the scent has a powdery and faintly creamy vibe. It makes me think tea, not tobacco, but tea with a texture like buttercream cupcake frosting, with a faint crunch of sugar crystals now and then. 

And now I finally look at the notes--I try to force myself to experience at least a few minutes of a scent without looking. Luckyscent says "immortelle, tobacco, narcissus, honey, grass, musk". I'm guessing that the tobacco-tea-cupcake is coming from the honey and immortelle. The honey grows as time passes, with no hint of that urinous thing. I love beeswax, and this is close enough to be pleasing.

By the way, I'm not getting narcissus. At all. Not a hint. 

At this point, the scent also feels vintage. Some scents do a sort of deja vu thing on me, where a new scent announces itself as familiar. My brain is trying to say, "Oh, that smells just like Aunt Amelia always used to smell..." even though there never was an Aunt Amelia. 

I like it. So far I like it a lot. I actually tried it yesterday (SOTY?) but I can still smell it on my wrist if I put my nose up to the skin. I want to buy some, but a bottle would be madness--based on the projection and longevity I got just from that tiny smear, I suspect that the 1ml vial alone would last me a dozen or more wearings. So, a decant. I think. Though we might be at Scent Bar later this year...

(Temptation!)

That is all.

Review Roundup: Fragrantica and Now Smell This (from whom I realize that, yes! that scent I can't put my finger on does have a vibe of horse) and Kafkaesque and colognoisseur and Scent For Thought and memoryofscent and FragranceGeek and A Bottled Rose.

Image: By Dino Giordano.  Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: First Sniff: Tom Ford Jardin Noir Ombre de Hyacinth

Eh.

When I want hyacinth, I’ll wear Serge Lutens Bas de Soie instead.

When I want expensive soap, I’ll wear Balmain Ivoire instead.

When I want New Barbie Doll/Liddle Kiddle, I’ll wear Jo Malone French Lime Blossom instead.

Tom Ford Jardin Noir Ombre de Hyacinth is Perfectly Nice. At about a third of the price, I would call it surprisingly good. As it is,  I just call it surprisingly expensive.

That is all.

Oh, except for the cat picture:

(Fragrance source: purchased decant.)

(I really must start reviewing an occasional scent that’s less than three years old.)

Image 1: Wikimedia Commons.

Image 2: By carterse. Wikimedia Comons.

Image 3: By Dinagoldstein. Wikimedia Commons

Cat picture: By Atlantiscats. Wikimedia Commons.

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: MCMC Kept (Mini-review) and beeswax

You may recall that I've been looking, forever, for a perfume with a beeswax/honey note that doesn't do the, um, cat thing. I considered spending big money on Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia simply because it gave me about four minutes of beeswax, about ten minutes in, roughly every third time I wore it. There was also a combination of two perfumes that gave me thirty seconds or so of beeswax, if I applied them in just the right order and sniffed about four inches away from my skin.

So you'll understand my delight that MCMC Kept gives me a good twenty minutes of beeswax right out of the bottle, with no fancy rituals required. Actually, right out of the oil applicator; I tried the oil form, at Prize (in Ashland; no affiliation except that I really like 'em). Beeswax and slightly bitter, tangy roses. Bitter and tangy in a good way; I don't like candy roses.

I can't decide if I'm still getting beeswax now that it's drying down, but I still like it. The roses are softer but still not cloying, there's a very smooth powder that doesn't tickle my nose, and the main "body" of the fragrance is a vaguely creamy rich-sweet-resinous note that I might call beeswax and might not, but it soothes the beeswax craving; it's not like that "Dang. It's over." moment with Velvet Gardenia.

The MCMC site lists the notes as red roses, black tea, cloves, leather, and amber. Well, if they say so, but our only point of agreement is the roses. I suppose what I call powder and beeswax may be what they call amber. Reviewers agree on the clove, while I don't smell it at all--which is good, because I dislike clove. As I think about it, the bitterness that I attribute to the roses and the resinous note that I see as part of the beeswax may be what others are smelling as clove...

Anyway. Enough note inventory. Beeswax, I've got beeswax. Let's celebrate. And, when I get back to the store, spend money.

Meanwhile, on the other hand (literally) MCMC Hunter, the oil form, was quite nice when I rolled it on, and is still quite nice about forty minutes in, and I can't tell you what it was like in between because I was busy sniffing Kept and squealing (mostly but not entirely in my head) "Beeswax!" And "Honeycomb!"

Hunter's notes are listed as bourbon vanilla, tobacco absolute, and balsam fir. It was a bit challenging, in a good way, when I rolled it on, and now it's comforting and plush and not the least bit feminine, but not the least bit inappropriate for a woman either. They both have very gentle drydowns, powerful but in that way that makes hugging a scented person a pleasure rather than a sneezy assault.

MCMC Love was also available for sampling, but my current policy is only one scent per hand.  When I buy Kept, and either resist or fail to resist the temptation to also buy Hunter, I'll give it a try.

SOTD: Sonoma Scent Studio Yin and Ylang

This one isn't weird, either. But I like it. It's a comfort scent, both woody and floral, and with a sense of creamy chewy edibleness without any actual food scent. I keep wanting a little more of one note or another--a little more oak moss, or a little more sandalwood, or a little more of that edible vibe. I tend to assume that that stretching for a little more is a sign of a well-balanced scent, because surely if I had all I wanted of a note, I would soon be tired of it.

Want. I want De Bachmakov, too. My interest in perfume may be increasing again. That could be expensive.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Fragrantica and Cafleurebon. And surely someone else has reviewed this?

Image: Wikimedia Commons

SOTD/Review: Byredo Pulp

Fruity.

I almost left the review at that one word, but then I started having thoughts. For example, Pulp is indeed fruity. It's a little abstract; it doesn't conjure up completely realistic three-dimensional fruit. But it makes me imagine warm, overripe, crushed pulp with bees just starting to investigate, rather than candy or sorbet or Torani syrup, as so many other fruity fragrances do.

It also announces "perfume" in the topnotes (Aldehydes? Something else?), as if to assure me, with a wink, that it has read its job description, and that it knows I'm a grownup. But that fades; within perhaps ten minutes it's just squashed fruit. And that's fine.

What fruit? The notes list has a lot of fruit and a few flowers. (Bergamot, cardamom, black currant, fig, red apple, tiare flower, cedar, praline, peach blossom.) But it all blends, so that it smells to me like a single unknown fruit, rather than an orchard or a salad. A stone fruit, I think, related to but very different from peaches or plums. Bigger and wetter and more brightly colored; the kind of fruit that you carry outside to eat over the grass, because it's going to drip that much.

But there's a gesture toward melon--it has a fair bit of that note that can make cataloupe smell just a little bit sickly. I'm guessing that's what makes some people smell decay in this, but it stops before it goes over the edge, and in fact I might like just a little more of it. It's this note that makes Pulp work for me on a winter day; it provides just enough sun and warmth without any risk of seasonal jetlag.

FTC Disclosure: I got the sample for free (bwahaha!) but in my role as a sniffsniffsniffing customer roaming the wilds of the Holt Renfrew perfume floor, not in my role as a blogger.

Review Roundup: MakeupAlley and Basenotes and Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Katie Puckrick Smells and Fragrance Bouquet and Perfume Posse and No Dissasemble Charlie No. 5 and WAFT.

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.

Sniff vs. Sniff: Shalimar EDP and Shalimar Parfum Initial

Another classic. My impression is that Guerlain's Shalimar is treated with fractionally less contempt by its keepers than poor Miss Dior, though that may only be due to the large population of women who know, by God, what Shalimar is supposed to smell like. To my mind, it's second only to Chanel No. 5 in population nose recognition. Of course, that reflects the age and prejudices of my nose. The most recognized and best-loved fragrance is probably really Angel or Lovely or Coco Mademoiselle or something I've never heard of.

Anyway, I want to learn to like Shalimar. Correction: If I'm ever going to like Shalimar, I want to start soon, while the current parfum is somewhat well-regarded and eBay is still packed with vintage and semi-vintage bottles. So far, I've failed to bond with it. In fact I'm nursing a minor Shalimar trauma, the result of encountering a spray parfum tester at Saks. My brain, rather than sitting me down to explain, "Parfum. Parfum. Do you remember what that means?" instead said, "Oooh!" and I snatched the bottle and applied a full spray.

Urgh. I think I've mentioned that even an hour or three later, Himself threatened to boot me out of the car and make me take the bus home. If I do learn to love Shalimar, I will be dabbing the parfum, not spraying.

Today, I'm working with fresh samples from the Vancouver, BC downtown Holt Renfrew. (We travelled. We ate. I bought perfume. Did I mention this?) The current Eau de Parfum (Shalimar, in the discussion below) is on my left arm, and the Parfum Initial (Initial) on my right. The Shalimar sprayer is broken, so the left arm is the equivalent of a dabber, rather than a spray, test.

The notes for Shalimar, according to Basenotes, are bergamot, iris, jasmine, rose, vanilla, opoponax, and tonka bean. Initial's notes are bergamot, orange, jasmine, rose, patchouli, musk, tonka bean, and vanilla.

When I first tried the Shalimar sample a few days ago, I perceived the top notes that came after the initial citrus sparkle as aggressively synthetic. This time I'm not so sure--what I'm categorizing as "synthetic" is a pencil-eraser, new-Barbie-doll note, and I know from experience that when I envision pencil erasers I'm smelling iris. I'm not sure what morphs that into the Barbie doll (aka New Rubbery/Plastic Toy) note; the opoponax? I'm assuming that this is what others perceive as burnt rubber.

Anyway, Shalimar's (this Shalimar's) opening is interesting, with strong acquired-taste elements, and not overly eager to please. In fact, it manages to make vanilla, one of the eagerest-to-please notes I know, back off and snarl, "Ya wanna make something of it?" I like that in a fragrance. Yes, I'm a cat person.

The top notes of Initial, on the other hand, are desperate to please. They smell pink. Sweet-sour. Flowery. I see a girl who's been costumed in scratchy pink ruffles and ordered to "Smile!" She's smiling, even giggling, but through clenched teeth. Now, I could give this scent credit for not being syrup-soaked fruit punch, but... I can't. I just can't.

In the first half hour, both of them calm down. Shalimar's vanilla starts to relax, with an occasional rattling purr, though it's still far from sweet-tempered. Initial's shriller notes start to fade--a little--under a veil of vanilla. The girl in pink has released her smile, found a chair, and slipped her feet out of tight shoes. But she still doesn't want to be here. And there's a tangy and faintly bitter thread that I perceive as an appropriate seasoning for a sweet or animalic note, but there's nothing here for it to season. It's the wedge of lemon without the clams, the salt without the steak, the olive without the martini, the lime and salt without the tequila...OK, you get the idea.

In fact--to digress to a completely different perfume line--it gives me a clue as to the purpose of that chewy, slightly meaty base that puzzles but pleases me in some of the Jo Malone fragrances. The fruity, tangy, flowery notes that define the Jo Malones are seasoning notes; they need that chewy base to give them a reason for being, as if the clams exist for the benefit of the lemon rather than the other way around.

Initial improves as time goes on. Remember Firefly? Remember Kaylee at the ball, miserable and snubbed by the mean girls, then suddenly finding her confidence at the center of a cluster of men who want to listen to her talk engines? Two hours in, Initial's morale improves. Soft, tangy powdery flowers are still soft, tangy powdery flowers, but now they smell good. I think that the difference is balance; the bitter-sour is now balanced just right against the vanilla and powder. It's no longer a condiment in search of an entree.

At the same point, Shalimar is still an ill-tempered, shaggy cat--relaxed, comfortably snoring, occasionally allowing me to stroke her warm vanilla-scented coat. But she still doesn't like me. I like her, but so far, I'm not getting a bit of glamor or even femininity. This is not the Shalimar I've read about.

Several hours after that, Shalimar is warm vanilla and rubber; still not friendly, but I like it. Initial's grown thinner, again sour without anything for balance, feminine but sad and very young. She wants to go home and put on her bunny slippers.

Review Roundup for Shalimar Parfum Initial: Basenotes and MakeupAlley and Perfume Shrine and Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This and Olfactoria's Travels and Katie Puckrick Smells and Muse In Wooden Shoes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and The Non-Blonde and 1000 Fragrances and The Perfume Critic  and Post Modern Perfume and cafleurebon and Adventures of Barbarella and Perfume Posse and The Scent Critic  and Perfume Decadent and The Candy Perfume Boy and peredepierre and This Blog Really Stinks and Persolaise.

Review Roundup for Shalimar: Basenotes and MakeupAlley and Perfume Shrine and Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This and Olfactoria's Travels and Katie Puckrick Smells and Muse in Wooden Shoes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and The Non-Blonde and it's weird that it's harder to find reviews of Shalimar than of her flankers, though I suppose there's some logic in it; most everybody already has an opinion of the original, right?

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume Review: Miss Dior (Originale, but not original.)

Perfume classics.

Hmph.

I always think of a "classic" as being something stable and well-known. Something that barely needs any comment, because it's so well understood. Of course, this idea inspires (bitter) laughter when applied to perfume, because the classics won't sit still.

Today's classic is a perfume whose name, even, won't stand still: Miss Dior. There's Miss Dior, and Miss Dior Cherie. Miss Dior Cherie dropped her Cherie and poses as Miss Dior, and Miss Dior picked up an "Originale" and may or may not be recognizable as a variant of her original self. That's ignoring Miss Dior Le Parfum, and the two different major versions of Miss Dior Cherie, and the EDT versus EDP versions and the flankers.

No more of that - I'm going to point to this invaluable chronology post on Perfume Shrine before my head explodes.

What I have is a quite new bottle of "Miss Dior EAU DE TOILETTE ORIGINALE" from the Vancouver airport duty free. (I'm sorry, I just couldn't stop myself. All that perfume, and barely a bottle to want!) Textured bottle, yellow juice, white label, gold printing. Long ingredients list on the box. There's nothing vintage about this one. The ingredients list mentions oakmoss and treemoss; I'm choosing to be pleased about that.

Yesterday, I sprayed some on a tissue and dabbed it on my arm for a minimal barely-damp evening first taste. If I were coming to it with an open mind rather than a suspicious "What have you done to her?" attitude I would have said that it was very nice, just short of "lovely", the first word I typed before correcting. Floral and fairly sweet, but grounded with a good pseudo-vintage vibe that I'd guess is the oakmoss. No real vintage attitude, no tappity-tap-high-heels feminine power, but Really Very Nice. Of course, if I'd ever smelled the vintage, my attitude would probably be different.

Today I put on one full back-of-the-neck spray, and a wet dab on my hand. The first few moments had a dismaying, um, urinal vibe. I quite like animalic odors, but I don't think that this one was intended in quite the way that it manifested on my skin. But it passed almost imemdiately--I take points off the top-notes score, but I'm not going to reject a perfume for fifteen seconds of oddity.

Then there was a fairly modern synthetic chorus that I'm less quick to forgive, because it's less quick to go away. I was seeing the flowers through a veil not of oakmoss, or galbanum, which would be just dandy, but something more modern. I'm guessing that it's the part of the top notes that are supposed to be "green-aldehydic", but for me it's more "shampoo-aldehydic." (Ah; I see a mention in Perfume Shrine of "a peachiness that I have encountered in hair products". Maybe that's it.)

Then, just a few minutes later--less than half an hour after application--ahhh. The modern shampoo is gone and I'm getting a nice, very slightly leathery, gentle pseudo-vintage vibe. Flowers in the background. Not aggressively sweet. Not cloyingly pretty. No fruit. Admittedly, there's still no attitude, still not enough oakmoss or bitterness or animalic growl from any source. Miss Dior...

OK, analogy: We recently saw a performance of The Drowsy Chaperone at our local high school. No, we don't have kids, but we're seeing school plays; I was a little amused by that, but I was rewarded because it was an extraordinarily good school play--in fact, it was a quite good play, period. Clever sets, impressive and convincing costumes and, most importantly, very good performances. But it was on a high school stage, so you knew that it wasn't going to get too mean, too dirty, too sexy--it was going to maintain a certain level of decency.

Miss Dior wears the costume of a vintage perfume, and plays her little heart out, but she's going to stay decent. And in fact, Miss Dior is a good deal less edgy than the play; if she took as many risks as it did, I would like her better.

But if she keeps wearing this costume for a few more hours, the new Miss Dior Originale will have earned the price of her bottle. She hasn't bought me out of the sin of funneling that price to the corporation(s) responsible for vandalizing the Dior classics. But that's my shame, not hers.

The modern Miss Dior is feminine, elegant, well-behaved. She's not necessarily young, but to my nose she's not thinking about anything that would be unsuitable for the very young. My understanding is that the vintage has a distinctly different focus--elegant femininity, yes, but that Miss Dior had less high-flown thoughts.

The perfume is, of course, directly linked with Dior's New Look of 1947. I wandered back to Linda Grant's The Thoughtful Dresser (Read it. Really.) to recall the impression that she'd given me of that moment. Dior's audience was made up of women who had spent the war years struggling to scrabble fashion from the flimsy and the scarce, to look beautiful in a patriotically morale-building way in spite of clothing rations and streamlined and skimpy styles. Dior presented these women with a vision of "frivolity, pleasure, wastefulness." Ballerina-length skirts, yards and yards of expensive fabric--so shocking that, given that postwar rationing was still in place, the collection faced substantial disapproval from some. Grant tells us that British Vogue's editor was forbidden to so much as mention Dior.

To quote Grant again: "What was new about the New Look was not new in the sense of modern; it was new in the sense that it was reviving a sensation that had long been suppressed in wartime: Pleasure for the sake of it."

Pleasure. Not just femininity and elegance and beauty of line and form, but pleasure and freedom. That, presumably, is what the vintage Miss Dior is thinking about. I need to smell some.

Review (and Discussion and Gnashing of Teeth) Roundup: Fragrantica and MakeupAlley and Now Smell This and Bois de Jasmin and Bois de Jasmin again and Perfume Fountain and Perfume-Smellin' Things and I Smell Therefore I Am and Perfume Shrine and Perfume Shrine again and Perfume Shrine again.

Also, I rambled about The Thoughtful Dresser here and here.

First, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth images from 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.

SOTD: Royal Apothic Extracts Green Tea

So, at lunchtime I was in Prize, a lovely local store mentioned in my sadly outdated Ashland Fume Scout post. Next to the candy were some roll-on perfumes from a company named Royal Apothic. I rolled a streak of the one called Green Tea on my hand, bought my usual almond-sea-salt chocolate tile, and ran away. I didn't even check the price, but a Google search tells me that it's probably under twenty dollars and that this brand is sold at Anthropologie, among other places.

Green Tea started out sweet and, yes, tealike--tea with a fair bit of sugar and an unidentifiable richer sweet note that I can't quite place. Stone fruit? No, or at least not very ripe stone fruit. Bergamot? No, but it could be bergamot's second cousin. I guess, really, it's just green tea, but I perceive it as separate from the note that I read as "tea". At this phase, I persuaded Himself to sniff and he gave it his second-best rating, which is that it didn't offend him. He noted with approval that it didn't smell of aldehydes or alcohol.

Green Tea is reliably pleasing, without any weirdness. Those are characteristics that usually bore me, but it does have some personality, quirks that appeal to my weird-loving heart.  As it dries down, it maintains a little tension between (mostly) sweet and (a little) bitter, rather than frantically spraying syrup at me. Once in a while I get a confusing whiff of tangy floral that makes me look around to see what perfume bottle is near, then sniff my hand and say, "Oh!"  It's similar to the way that Luctor et Emergo shifts between Play-Doh and cherries--when one personality is dominant, you find yourself doubting that the other one was ever there. I was initially going to call it linear, but if I don't say that about Luctor et Emergo, I can't say it about Green Tea.

It has very modest projection, while still offering an occasional surprise whiff--just from that one streak on my hand. That makes it a candidate for the "inoffensive but interesting" crowd for wearing to plays, airplanes, and other occasions when other people are trapped near me.  In my collection, that category is currently dominated by Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange and k. hall Designs Cypress & Cassis, both solids and both flat-out linear, so Green Tea beats them on that point. I rather wish that Green Tea were also a solid, so that I could add it to my no-Ziploc-needed airplane wardrobe.

Hmmm. I Google Royal Apothic and learn that they mainly do home fragrances--as do Pacifica and k. hall Designs.  Does that explain the lack of aggressive projection and the lack of classic note development?

Anyway, I like it. I don't think that I even need to add "for under twenty dollars" though I will say, "as a comfort scent." It's not going to be on my desert island list, but there's a good chance that I'll buy one, and if you're less addicted to weird than me, you may like it even better.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Geranium and Lavender and Lemon Verbena

No, I didn't wear them. Today was Scentless Saturday, so I didn't wear anything scented.

But we did spend a fair bit of the day getting the house tidied and scrubbed. Himself is not a fan of Mrs. Meyer's products, a position consistent with his lack of fondness for perfume in general. But I prefer their scent to the scent of the more conventional stuff, and the bottles were lying around and, well, I figure that if I'm cleaning the surface, I can choose the cleaner. (Himself cleaned his share of surfaces, and cleaned them with perfume-free products.)

So the floor was mopped with Mrs. Meyer's Geranium instead of Pine-Sol, and the scent is still lurking pleasantly. I can recommend the Geranium scent.

And the toilets were cleaned with the Lemon Verbena-scented product. And the sharp, acrid scent of the Lemon Verbena is a little too much like the sharp, acrid scent of... well, you see where I'm going here? I don't want to clean the bathroom and leave the impression that the bathroom is less clean than when I started. So I re-cleaned them with the Lavender.  The Lemon Verbena scent is perfectly nice, but I think I'd confine it to products intended for the kitchen, where the context emphasizes the lemon.

Oh, dear. Now I feel that I need to end this post on a more appealing note. How about a nice kitty in a sink?

Bubble Image: By Andrius Januta. Wikimedia Commons.
Cat Image: By WolfgangE Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: People of the Labyrinths Luctor et Emergo

This was one of the first cult fragrances that I tried, when the perfume insanity started. I remember perceiving it as delightfully weird, but other than the Play Doh, I'd forgotten what I smelled in it. So I ordered a new vial a few weeks ago, and just dug it out on Thursday.

Play Doh, yep. And cherries--I remember the cherries, now that I smell them again. This time around, I could also detect the incense, while last time I probably only perceived that aspect of the fragrance as powder. I don't get any wood at all.

But did it always have that toy shop vibe? That's the feeling that I get from it, a big rambling shop with shiny-new toys and balloons and candy, as well as treasures in old dusty boxes. I'm sure that's not what the house was going for, not with that name, but that's what I get, and I like it.

Review Roundup: MakeupAlley and Now Smell This and My Perfume Life and Basenotes and PereDePierre and Fragrantica and Nathan Branch and Aromascope and Perfume-Smellin' Things.

Image: By Jurgen Ludwig. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Montale Patchouli Leaves

I love patchouli. Himself hates patchouli. This is occasionally a problem. It's a problem right now, because I really like Montale Patchouli Leaves. It's dark and spicy, rich and strong, but it doesn't get too specific about the patchouli--if I were dishonest, I might be able to persuade Himself that it's a tobacco fragrance. I almost respond to it as a gourmand, but it has enough non-edible notes to keep it from making me feel full, and enough elegance and attitude to keep it from just being a plate of sticky pastries.

But while I like it very much, I think that it has redundancies with too many things. It reminds me of Chergui, and of Fumerie Turque, and Serge Noire. (The last one shouldn't be surprising, but I keep forgetting that Serge Noire has patchouli.) And I already own two of those. So I suspect that I'll finish off the sample and leave it at that.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and The Scented Salamander and Basenotes and Fragrantica and Badger & Blade and Eiderdown Press and Basenotes and Nathan Branch and WAFT.

Image: By Takkk. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Hermes Hiris. And negotiating with iris.

I got Hermes Hiris for Christmas! (As stated before, woohoo!)

Iris and I have had a rocky journey. Early on, I found it cold and gritty and unfriendly, and only appreciated it when it smelled like pencil erasers, and that only because it made me laugh.

Later, I learned to appreciate it, but I rarely found it friendly. Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist? Cool and regal and otherworldly and quite possibly a little poisonous. (You know, in a good way.) Parfumerie Generale Cuir d'Iris? Iris and dragon leather--fascinating, but still not a personality that you'd invite over for tea. Parfumerie Generale Iris Taizo? Starts out stern and dusty-dry and a little grumpy, and only after a few hours does it turn gentle and sweet, like that strict English teacher when she unbends at the holiday party.

Now, iris can be a supporting player in warmer, more passionate scents. It's in Chanel No. 19 and Cuir de Russie, for example. They're both fully prepared to extend claws and teeth in a catfight and then, after decisively subduing the competition, settle in an instant back into smooth-furred gracefully posing elegance. But iris is responsible for the elegance, not the passion. Most of the time, iris is a good citizen, stern and with excellent posture. And that's all very well, but what's iris like when it's lounging, comfortably, at home?

Like Hermes Hiris, that's what. This is sunlit, relaxed iris, friendly and off guard. It reflects the best of Olivia Giacobetti's genius, managing to hand me a bouquet of notes that I normally don't like one bit, and make me love them. According to one notes list, it has orange blossom--I hate orange blossom, and I love it here. I'm usually dubious about rose; no problem here. And there's some powder, always a little iffy for me, but in Hiris it's barely there, quietly making the fragrance a little more feminine than it might be otherwise.

As Robin from Now Smell This observes, Hiris is "fresh" without resorting to ozonic air freshener notes. To my nose, I think it's the soap that does this, terribly expensive bar soap with a musky edge perhaps achieved with the ambrette seeds instead of that horrible white musk found in so many fragrances. The hay, too, no doubt adds to that persuasive fresh-air mood.

I can't tease out the the coriander, honey, vanilla, and woods, but I assume that they're draping all of these floral and fresh notes, grounding the fragrance and keeping it from exhausting my nose with too much high-pitched good cheer.

It's lovely. I'm wearing too much today, and I'm not sorry.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and MakeupAlley and Savvy Thinker and Basenotes and Fragrantica and Eiderdown Press and Bois de Jasmin.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

We Three Kings - Myrrh - Parfumerie Generale Querelle

So. Myrrh. Gold is happy and glittery. Frankincense is spiritual and serene. Myrrh?

Death. At least, that's my take on the major symbolism. Death and suffering. And what kind of third post is that, the day before Christmas? I'm not clear on whether myrrh was intended to comfort the sufferers, or just symbolized the suffering, like a smell that served the same purpose as a shroud or black funeral clothes.

I've been talking about my childhood self in these posts, though I can't claim that that was a plan. (I can't claim that I had a plan.) I remember the first death that I grieved, that of the retired policeman, infinitely tall and reassuringly wide, that supervised the crosswalk that I used to get to kindergarten--no doubt with Mom watching all the while, but I remember it as a daily journey on my own, my first foray out into the world.

He would talk to me and, amazingly, he got me to talk back, four-year-old me who was all but mute even with my kindergarten teacher. He died that year, and Mom quotes something that I said when I was told, probably something about Heaven, and definitely a protest against the idea that he wasn't coming back.

I don't remember the quote.  I do clearly remember the first day crossing the street with his replacement, a much younger man, perhaps a new recruit instead of an old retiree. He was bright and cheerful and efficient, putting the best face on a job that he no doubt hoped would be extremely temporary. He wasn't the least bit interested in pausing to wait for a tiny person to choke out something to say; I remember trying to get a verbal feeler out, trying to transform him into a substitute for "my" policemen, and him bustling brightly away before I'd even gotten started. I realized that no one was like my policeman, and that my policeman was indeed not coming back.

So that was death. To steal from that poem, I did not approve. I still miss him. I sometimes wish that I could send a decades-late reminiscing sympathy note to his family. He continued to populate my mind for a long time; I thought that Santa Claus must surely be like him, and perhaps one of the Three Kings, too, was a good man near the end of a life of responsibility, not just worshiping a King but reaching out to a child.

Now I've gone and made myself cry and, y'know, Querelle is good for that. Maybe myrrh was for comfort after all. The descriptive material on LuckyScent refers to this as "sensual", to use one of the milder adjectives, and apparently the namesake film is... well, I'm just not going there at all, because I get none of that from this scent. Querelle is a medicinal perfume to me, clean and sharp, with that protective feel that I get from Fou d'Absinthe, even though there's very little similarity otherwise. It is a bit inhuman, but in a sorrowful way, not a dangerous one. Comforting, and very peaceful.

And there ends my Three Kings week, on a sad note, but it's good to remember an old friend. For more of Three Kings week, please have a look at these lovely blogs:

• All I Am - A Redhead
• Bonkers About Perfume
• EauMG
• My Perfume Life
• Notes from Josephine
• Parfumieren
• The Perfume Chronicles.
• Redolent Of Spices
• Scent Of The Day

And thank you, Krista and JoanElaine, for inviting me! I've enjoyed this very much.

Review Roundup: Basenotes and Fragrantica and Perfume Posse and Perfume Posse again and Smellbound and Perfume Patter and Snobby & Grouchy.

Three Kings Image: Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch
Crosswalk Image: By Susan Lesch. Wikimedia Commons.

We Three Kings - Frankincense - Regina Harris Frankincense Myrrh Rose Maroc Perfume Oil

I didn't grow up associating incense with churches or religion. Neither the Unitarians on my mother's side of the family nor the Baptists on my father's favored that particular ritual. Both parents veered away from their family spiritual choices--Mom to the Methodist church, my father to the philosophy of Henry James--but that didn't get me any closer to smelling sweet religious smoke.

Incense, to me, was represented by those sticks that "hippies" bought in odd little stores. As a small child, I thought that they were actually illegal--which of course made them fascinating and romantic, but certainly nothing I'd ever buy, or even rummage through to read the names of the various scents. I was a painfully law-abiding child.

I remember having that same shocked respect for displays of beef jerky sticks. While they were no doubt legal--nothing sold in gas stations, the most unromantic places possible, could be otherwise--I always assumed that they would require dental equipment beyond that of a normal human, dental equipment that one acquired along with one's hunting license. Sometimes I wish that I could interview my childhood self to find out where she got this stuff.

My ignorance has been a handicap in learning to appreciate or understand incense-based perfumes. I'm sure that they have all sorts of cues for perfume lovers who can understand them--this one is classic church incense, that one is from India, this other one from Japan, and so on. Maybe combining cathedral incense with (for example) Japanese herbal notes would be a delightful surreal experiment in jarring contexts. Maybe olfactory incense jokes could even make a person laugh. I wouldn't know.

Now, if I'd thought of incense as being associated with fire, perhaps I would have crossed those boundaries, at least to the point of sniffing the sticks at the store. I love fire. I love smoke. I love the smell of a just-struck match. I always wished that I lived somewhere where it was legal to burn leaves in the fall. I'm delighted that Himself insisted on a fireplace when we remodeled the house.

We never had a fireplace when I was a child, so Mom sometimes allowed me to make tiny fires in baking pans or structures of aluminum foil, sitting at the kitchen table burning matches and toothpicks and melting Green Army Men. This sort of risk was utterly incompatible with Mom's normally safety-first philosophy. I suspect that she observed my love of fire and feared that if she didn't give it some condoned and supervised outlet, my awed respect for the rules would break down and I'd go playing with matches on my own.

I suddenly realize that there's a trend here. If you add Fourth of July sparklers, glorious things with a fuzzy legal status in the states where we lived, then to my childhood self fire and smoke was all about crime, romance and danger. No wonder I don't "get" the soaring serenity of Avignon.

And what about Regina Harris Frankincense Myrrh Rose Maroc Perfume Oil? Well, it's not what I expected. I thought that it would be a shadowy confusing tangle of scents; I imagined getting lost in it, chasing down the notes. But as it turns out, it's so thoroughly blended that I can't find individual notes. There's certainly some dark richness and smokiness in there, but the overall effect is almost comforting, rather than adventurous.

It's medicinal, but it's a "good for you" kind of medicine, not the kind that you take when you're actually sick. I can't tease out the rose, but I can sense it there, sweetening the bitter notes. And there's not that much bitter, really--maybe it's the oil form of this fragrance that's blunting all the sharp edges. I usually fervantly dislike myrrh and mildly dislike frankincense, but in this fragrance I like them both just fine.

And that's all I have for you in the way of a review; my incense vocabulary is simply not equipped to speak to this fragrance. All I can say is that I like it, even though I don't understand it.

And don't forget! Amble over to these blogs for more of Three Kings week:

• All I Am - A Redhead
• Bonkers About Perfume
• EauMG
• My Perfume Life
• Notes from Josephine
• Parfumieren
• The Perfume Chronicles.
• Redolent Of Spices
• Scent Of The Day

Review Roundup: Fragrantica and Basenotes and Nathan Branch and Perfume-Smellin' Things.

Three Kings Image: Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch
Incense Image: Wikimedia Commons.

We Three Kings: Gold: Comme des Garcons 8 88

I grew up hearing the Nativity story at Christmas. I heard it in Midwestern Methodist churches, in books, and in Linus's voice in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Linus's rendition had the greatest impact on me, by far--should this worry me? It still affects me, even in my agnostic adulthood. I can conjure up his voice right now.

Linus never got around to discussing the wise men or the gifts, as far as I can recall. If he had, maybe those gifts would have made sense to me, but as it was, my response was "frankinwhat?" I remember thinking that frankincense and myrrh were something stinky and oily, and I was surprised to discover, later, that I wasn't too far from the truth. But while a little oily scenting is all very nice for a baby already living in a warm dry house, it seemed rather beside the point for the whole hay-and-stable situation.

Gold, on the other hand, gold made some sense. Not all that much sense; I wanted to hear, instead, that the kings had thought to spend some of that gold to provide some immediate practical gifts, maybe hot food and silk-and-feather comforters like those that Ram Dass left for Sara Crewe in A Little Princess. And, yes, the fact that I combined the Bible and children's chapter books as two elements of one big tapestry suggests that I didn't absorb that whole religion thing in quite the way that the church hoped.


But I conceded that a king facing a being that was heralded by a whole new star would feel the need to make an appropriate gesture, and pressing gold and sacred oily things on that being might seem just right. Even if a fire, tea, and hot buttered toast for Mary would be more useful.

(I suspect that a Sunday school teacher from my past is feeling a sudden pang of failure right about now, but doesn't know exactly why.)

Toast aside, gold is something to catch the imagination. It's wealth. It's royalty and pirates. It glitters. It doesn't decay, it doesn't dissolve. But it's also soft, a near-indestructible material that's nevertheless amenable to changing form based on a craftsman's imagination, so it seems more ours than hard, brittle jewels. You admire jewels; you fondle gold.

This was supposed to be a perfume review, wasn't it? All right, then: What should gold smell like? Do I agree with Comme des Garcons that 8 88 is a successful olfactory portrait of the stuff?

Only for a moment. Somehow, I expected Comme des Garcons to take a high-tech view of gold, cold and minimalist. I was wrong. 8 88 starts out girly, all mellow buttery flowers and a hint of fruit, with just a bit of an edge that, yes, seems a bit metallic. I think it's the saffron. The butter and fruit faded in less than a minute, leaving a nonspecific impression of brightness and warmth blended with the metallic saffron. That phase, lasting two or three minutes, was a pretty good impression of gold, though it lacked the sparkle that would make the mood complete.

After that, the last of the friendly warmth was gone and 8 88 developed into a cool, dry saffron perfume, no longer the least bit girly, with a woody note that grew as the hours passed. I like it; it might beat Washington Tremlett Black Tie, my previous favorite for the note, in a saffron faceoff. But saffron is not gold; gold must glitter, and 8 88 does not.

For more of We Three Kings week, please head for these fine blogs!

• All I Am - A Redhead
• Bonkers About Perfume
• EauMG
• My Perfume Life
• Notes from Josephine
• Parfumieren
• The Perfume Chronicles.
• Redolent Of Spices
• Scent Of The Day

Review Roundup: Perfume Posse and  Perfume Posse again and Perfume Posse yet again and Fragrantica and Basenotes and Now Smell This and MakeupAlley.

Three Kings Image: Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch
Gold Laurel Wreath Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: biehl parfumkunstwerke al01

So who is this company? What have they got against capital letters? What does that long word mean? I've wondered this for a while, but never got around to reading the Luckyscent profile page, much less researching any further. The notes list for biehl parfumkunstwerke's al01 finally dragged me out of my apathy--while I'm dubious about the fruity notes, the presence of galbanum, bergamot, ylang ylang, sandalwood, and oakmoss, plus Luckyscent's assurance that it qualifies as a chypre, made it a scent that I wanted to try.

So I read the profile, and it failed to answer my questions about the capital letters. And Babelfish failed me on the long word. So, on to the perfume.

Which was fine. Just fine. Not cloying, not dull, not eager to please, not over-weird, not conventional, not a single bad thing. But, sadly, while there was nothing wrong with it, there was also not a lot of excitement. I think that I'd agree with the chypre designation, yes, but it's one without much bite. Many of the reviews on Luckyscent complained that it smells like an old lady scent, which I, of course, considered to be a plus. But it's not old lady enough. I was underwhelmed.

However, the problem may be seasonal. What I find vaguely sweet and with no bite now may be crisp, cool magic in the summer. I will try it again.

Review Roundup: Basenotes and Fragrantica and the gloss.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.