Neighborhood Sample Pass: The Sequel: Round One: Two Faces of Serge Lutens: Chergui and Bas de Soie

A lot of colons in that title there.

So if you're a regular reader of my blog, you may be saying, "What sequel? I've never heard of this Neighorhood Sample Pass thing." If you're a participant in the previous Neighborhood Sample Pass, you may be saying, "Blog? What's this blog thing? Are you going to try to make me click on ads and buy a vegetable chopper?"

If you're both, hopefully you'll be un-confused instead of doubly confused.

No ads. No vegetable chopper. I just figured, I write for the sample pass,  I write for the blog, why not combine them?

Clash of worlds! Aiieee!

Ahem. OK.

Background:

In 2012/2013, I organized the original Neighborhood Sample Pass. I made up ten(?) little baggies of fragrance samples and decants, each with a theme, and gave each one to a friend in my neighborhood. (My often-discussed Postal Regulation Phobia ruled out including friends not in my neighborhood.) Said friends sniffed for a couple of weeks, then passed their baggie on to the next person in the rotation, until the baggies had made it all the way around, and the first pass was ended and I announced my plans to start a new pass.

Time passed. And passed. And passed some more. And suddenly I want to do it again.

This time I'm doing it as a sort of "perfumes of the month club". (But I'm sticking to the original name anyway.) This time I'll choose two or three or four perfumes and make up sample-sized decants for all participants, so that we can all talk about the same perfumes at the same time. This involves far less bookkeeping, and is nicely flexible.

First round! Bwahaha! Only two scents, because I'm temporarily short on decant bottles.

The Perfumes: 

Serge Lutens is both a man and a Paris perfume house. In my mind, the house balances on the line between niche and mainstream. Many of the fragrances have the delightful strangeness of niche creations, and when one of them is not strange, that fact often results in criticism from the online perfume wearing community. But the line is fairly frequently sold at department stores, which makes it feel not so much niche to me.

Now Smell This classifies Serge Lutens as niche, and I don't argue with Now Smell This on matters of definition. Or much of anything else. You can read their background for the house here. They also have a page (here) on Christopher Sheldrake, the nose behind many (most? all?) of the Serge Lutens fragrances.

Marla, in Perfume-Smellin' Things, asked "So do you like the warm, North-African amberfest Serge Lutens, or do you prefer his cold, austere, Northern European perfumes?" Inspired by the question, I've offered one of each.

My first choice, Chergui, is classic Serge Lutens. To me, it's pipe smoke, honey, leather chairs, and musty house. It's complex, spicy, syrupy, very popular, and moderately strange. And Lutens is supposed to be strange.

I discussed it here, and then went into the old-house vibe that it gives me, here. It's also discussed at (links! links!) Bois de Jasmin and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and The Non-Blonde and Parfume da Rosa Negra (scroll down for the English version) and Perfume Patter and Now Smell This and Kafkaesque Blog and Olfactoria's Travels and Australian Perfume Junkies and The Fragrant Foodie and EauMG (video!).

The second fragrance, Bas de Soie (translation from the French: "silk stockings") is far less strange. It's a floral, primarily iris root and hyacinth, and it's pretty. Normally, pretty does little for me, but this one... When I first sniffed it, I classified it as one of the house's "well, they have to produce something conventional if they want to pay the bills" scents. Meh. And then, the very same day, it dragged me back; I couldn't say why, but I had to have it. And it keeps doing that to me; sometimes I shrug, and sometimes I want to dive into my own scented skin and I wear it for days on end.

My main, enthusiastic but short, post on this fragrance is here. For more detail, try (more links!) The Scented Salamander and Grain de Musc and Bois de Jasmin and Perfume Posse and Cafleurebon and Perfume Shrine and Perfume-Smellin' Things and MakeupAlley and Now Smell This and The Fragrant Foodie (scroll down) and I Smell Therefore I Am and The Non-Blonde and Megan in Sante Maxime and Olfactoria's Travels and EauMG.

First image: Wikimedia Commons.
Second image: Wikimedia Commons.
Third image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. And many off-topic remarks.

(Actually, this was the scent of this past Monday, but I didn't get to the posting part of the post until today.)

Mmm, gasoline fumes.

OK, that doesn't sound good. Does "Mmm, mothballs" sound any better? At least mothballs aren't used as a mood-altering drug. I think.

This was my first Lutens bell jar. But I didn't go to Paris and buy a full bottle in a box. I ordered it from a decanter, with the last half ounce in it. The same for my second bell jar, half an ounce of Iris Silver Mist. That's the end of my bell jars.

What's my point? I don't have one. I'm just trying a SOTD post for old times' sake.

Of course, Tubereuse Criminelle is floral as well as petroleum. I seem to recall reading about oil-bearing grasses being raised for fuel. I imagine Tubereuse Criminelle being the scent of that grass's flowers.

Mmm.

Luckily, I'm not among those that get a rotting meat note from this. I love the weird, the chemical, the sweaty, the skunky, even a carefully tuned bit of the fecal. Rotting meat, not so much.

I've been thinking about starting a diary. See, on the one hand there are lots of things that are either too embarrassing or too boring to post here on the blog. And I often find myself wishing that I remembered certain things about my own past life. And sometimes I think that those memories might be useful for that theoretical book or books someday.

On the other hand, I struggle with the idea of all that writing never being read by any audience. Writing, to me, is communication, and how can you communicate when no one is ever going to listen? And, equal and opposite, I worry about the diary accidentally being accessed by someone and being read. It's a thicket.

Then again, it would be good for me to get over my addiction to being read. If I'm ever going to write a book, I'm going to need to write a whole lot of words that won't be read for a very long time. I should get used to that.

No, this isn't relevant to Tubereuse Criminelle. Probably. Except that the idea of resuming SOTD posts made me think of a diary.

Of course, a diary still would't be The Whole Truth. It would occupy some middle ground between what I'm willing to publish and what happens in my head. Does anyone really tell a diary everything that can be put into words?

I just deleted a paragraph in this post, because it felt off topic--the post seems to be about Tubereuse Criminelle and SOTDs and a dairy. So I deleted a spare paragraph about jewelry. Would I do that in a diary? Would I feel the need for coherent narrative flow?

Not that this is all that coherent.

Actually, I'm going back to jewelry. You've seen me thrashing around about clothes as my current phase of Being a Girl. But the problem with clothes is that a large part of the overall package is me. My shape. My posture. My movement and position. (Does it look OK when I sit down?) My shape. My maintenance. (Did I press it well enough? Are these shoes too scuffed?) My shape.

Yeah, that shape thing is an issue.

Perfume is less of a "me" performance. Especially for me, it's largely a consumption activity--usually, I apply so little that only I can smell it. And even when that's not true, I don't need to perform--I just make a choice in private, and the perfume performs independently.

Jewelry is a sort of middle ground. It's visible, so it's not all about personal consumption. But there's not much performance involved. Unless you have a pendant flirting with your cleavage or some such thing, the jewelry is mostly performing independently, like the perfume. My contribution, again, happens in private, when I make a choice.

Maybe that's why I'm moving on to jewelry--to challenge myself with choices. I'm no longer nervous about going out in public smelling like gasoline or mushrooms or a garage floor. But I am nervous about wearing those rhinestones with that Oxford shirt. Does it work? What do you think? It's a decision. It's a mild expression of taste. But still one that keeps me at a comfortable distance.

It occurs to me that I was more comfortable with "performance" decisions--clothes--in winter. Hmm. I guess wool tends to make one's shape feel less exposed.

Anyway. With perfume, I love the whacky. Now I'm trying to edge toward the whacky with jewelry. And someday I hope to get there with clothes.

Now, "the whacky" doesn't mean "Oh, my God, what is that thing crossing the street? Is it human?" It just means a step or two away from the completely safe standard. Ideally, the kind of thing that makes you turn your head and say, "Hmm. That's an idea."

That is all.

First Image: By Christine Matthews. Wikimedia Commons.
Second Image: Mine

SOTD: Serge Lutens Santal de Mysore

I really should have known. Santal Majuscule is described as the non-threatening, friendly, generally likable sandalwood. Santal de Mysore is supposed to be the weirder one. How could I fail to predict that I'd like the weird one much, much better? It's complex and buttery and velvety and rich-spicy and just a little sweaty. I expect to regain my fondness for Santal Majuscule, but it's definitely going to be second to this one.

Um. That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: Serge Lutens Santal Majuscule

OK, technically it was the SOTOD. (Scent of The Other Day.)

I'm not as familiar with sandalwood as I should be. I sniff perfumes, I read the notes lists, reviewers mention the sandalwood, I shrug and say OK, but I don't  have the note "down". So I'm going to sniff a selection of my sandalwood pefumes and samples, starting with Santal Majuscule. One spray, several hours.

At the beginning of Santal Majuscule, I get roses and nuts--my brain says "food" more than wood, and I suspect that I'm smelling the immortelle, and perhaps unconsciously reacting to the cocoa note that others perceive but I don't.

This initial nutty woody theme is a nice "low" smell, which leads to my own weird terminology: In my mind, "low" smells are subtle rather than piercing, rich rather than sparkling, mellow rather than sharp. "High" smells are on the other end of all of those scales. Low smells purr and take naps; high smells sing arias or at least do a little tapdancing. Cedar is low; aldehydes are very, very high.  L'Artisan Tea for Two is delighftully low; Shiseido White Rose is gloriously high. This is, I emphasize again, all my whacky. You won't find this terminology in perfume glossaries. I think.

The "low" nutty note at the top of Santal Majuscule is accompanied by a piercing, powdery, perfumey billow of "high" rose. In theory, this could work beautifully, like meringue on a thick, rich pie. In practice it doesn't work well for me here. I'd prefer a lower rose, jammier as in Aftelier's Wild Roses or silkier and quieter as in CB I Hate Perfume's Tea/Rose.

In about half an hour, the roses, nuts, and powder settle down enough to stop blocking the view, and "generic wood" finally reveals itself as, "Ah! Sandalwood!" Turns out that I do know what sandalwood smells like. In this perfume, it's a gentle friendly version, without too much spice or glamour. I like it a lot, and I wish that rose would stop tickling it.

The sandalwood, powder, rose, and something incense-prickly kept fighting it out all day, and it wasn't an altogether friendly contest. I suspect that my current distaste for the powdery and prickly is influencing me here, and that at another time I would adore this--as I once did, when I (ahem) bought the bottle. I'm confident that I will love it again, but just this minute I'm a little halfhearted about it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

(2/7/2013: Edited for spelling correction.)

Perfume: My Favorites

I love Hostess Ding Dongs. (I'd better run out and find some before they're gone forever. If they aren't already.) I'm not under any illusion that they're a high-quaity example of the pastry-maker's art, but I love the things anyway.

I mention this because I've been thinking about the difference between the perfumes that I hold in the highest regard, and the perfumes that I love the most. If I were required to come up with a list of the ten finest perfumes, I'd spend a long time fussing and researching and come up with a list of mostly well-regarded creations. If I were required to come up with the ten perfumes that I'd limit myself to for the rest of my life, I'd come up with a different list, after just as much fussing and researching.

When I want to come up with the perfumes that I love best, there's really not much fussing and researching; they just come forward and announce themselves. I'm slightly relieved to see that there are no real guilty pleasures in the lot, but that's just how it turned out, not evidence of any good taste on my part. 

So here they are, with links to the relevant Review Roundup. They're not presented in any particular order, except for their leader.

Chanel No. 19 Parfum: When the call comes for the favorites to come on stage, most of them gather together, chatting and giggling. They hang back and wait for No. 19 to calmly, coolly, push her way through the curtain and stand--arms folded; why am I wasting her time on this?--before the audience. No. 19 isn't easy, or friendly, or affable; she won her position on grounds of sheer beauty. Clear, knife-sharp green softened with just enough floral sweetness to barely--barely--keep her from drawing blood. I'm a little afraid of her, and so I should be.

Shiseido White Rose: I've been struggling to explain White Rose, and I finally realized what I was recognizing but failing to put into words: Her personality. See, White Rose is utterly beautiful; I can imagine falling down and drowning in the rose and being perfectly happy to die that way. But beauty, however glorious, can be dull without context, some dominant aspect beyond the beauty--without personality. For Chanel No. 19, that personality is the abstractness, the other-worldliness, the razor edge of the green, the fact that I can see her standing on that stage, impassively watching me and daring me to declare White Rose to be her equal.

White Rose has enough beauty to spare for caricature; when I smell her I get a vibe that's exaggeratedly classic. I see debutante balls--not the debutantes, but the still-beautiful mothers in their ball gowns. I see The Shop Around The Corner, the well-dressed lady settled comfortably by the counter, tended by deferential shop assistants scurrying with perfume bottles. I see black and white photos of ladies lunching, and lengths of pink taffeta, and those little hats called fascinators. White Rose is classic, gorgeously so, but she's laughing about it.

Aftelier Cepes and Tuberose: I sniffed this one quite early in my perfume obsession, after reading about it in 100 Fragrances every Perfumista Should Try. It was beautiful then, before I developed my craving for the weird, and it's still beautiful as that craving grows. Tuberose is a wonderful inseparable mix of clean and dirty, bright, clear sweet floral beauty and warm, close, unwashed animalic notes. Cepes & Tuberose adds earthiness and forest floor and fungus as another contrast with the clean and bright, and in time it also introduces an oddly edible browned butter note. The result is deeply strange, faintly repellent, and therefore glorious. 

Bois 1920 Sushi Imperiale: Fire; brilliant cold flying sparks. Ginger tapdancing on a shining marble floor. That gulp of ice-cold root beer quenching a thirst that was created just for root beer to quench. An ice-coated winter tree with the sun blazing through it. This is winter joy, but a comfortable joy, not the almost-too-deep kind that nudges up to sorrow and sometimes makes you cry.

Balmain Ivoire: I mean the fairly recent version in the ugly square-column bottle, not the earlier versions, or the newer version in the nicer bottle, neither of which I've ever smelled. It's odd to love this one, knowing, as I do, that it's probably a sad travesty of the original. Odder, given that trumpeting aldehyde blast at the top, when I'm still not sure that I like aldehydes. But I don't care. I love that aldehyde blast, and the dry now floral/now green top that's tippety-tap-heels ladylike, a lady with old-fashioned manners but feminine power. My favorite part is the drydown scent of expensive soap, one of the most luxurious smells of any perfume. 

Serge Lutens Daim Blond: And here's more luxury, a warm silk-and-fur pool of it. Daim Blond smells of suede and fur, but the apricot and heliotrope merge with those smells, making them almost edible. Sushi Imperiale is a dancing scent, one of movement and freedom; Daim Blond is a long nap, wrapped in scented fur.

That's only six perfumes. What happened to Cristalle? Serge Noire? Tea for Two? Cuir de Russie?  don't know; I still love them, but at least today they didn't step forward with the crowd of favorites.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: Powder and Office Supplies

So I was in the hardware store. Actually, I was in the office supply store that lives inside the hardware store, because Himself wanted some manila envelopes. And I saw this whirligig thing with "Rolodex" on it that was presumably intended for paperclips or something, and I thought, "Sample holder!" You do that, too, right? All cunning little small containers are obviously intended for samples; all that talk about paper clips or whiskey (in shot glasses, that is) is just a diversion.

So I brought the whirligig home and dug into my sample box (after clearing off the bacon-scented candle and polka-dotted necktie and and vase and candy dish and Chinese fans that were stacked on the sample box--see why I rarely use a sample?) and picked out a selection of tiny jars and sprayers and vials and tucked them into the three cups and took a photo. That one, up there. This weekend I plan to buy some inexpensive gaudy beads that are just barely too big to fall through the grid of the little cups and pour some into the middle cup, so that small vials can stand up.

This suggests a possible resumption of perfume blogging. Why would I bother to photograph perfume-filled desktop gadgetry if I weren't going to, next, talk about perfume? (Unless I'm going to talk about office supplies.)

So which perfume to start with? On the bottom, those itty bitty bottles are all samples from Ayala Moriel that have been waiting for me to opinionate about them since... er.... well, I'm pretty sure it was before Christmas. In the middle, those itty bottles are "travel size" perfumes from CB I Hate Perfume that have been lurking for well over a year, possibly two or three. The top is jam packed with a bunch of stuff too tall for the other two cups.

I was just about to bleeble on about what I could wear, whether to test the new or the old, bleeb bleeb bleeb, but then I snatched up my decant of Douce Amere and sprayed it under my shirt and on the back of my neck, so I guess that answers that. I like Douce Amere; it has a big, sustained dose of a gentle powdery note that's almost too subtle to catch in some other perfumes. (I can't remember which other perfumes because there's no need; when I want that scent these days I just grab Douce Amere.) But apparently I'm not too much in love with it, because when the rumor was going around that it was going away forever, I didn't spring for a bottle. It didn't go away, right? It just went non-import, or something?

If you're new to my blog you may be saying, "You're the perfume blogger--why are you asking me?" I'm asking because I've been away from perfume land for a little while. For several months I've been stressed or depressed or obsessing about vegetable gardening or sewing or something, always something, that distracts me from perfume. That's why I'm excited to see if I'm going to start perfume blogging again.

You might also ask, "OK, ChickenFreak, you live inside your own head; don't you know if you're going to start perfume blogging again?" Well, no, I really don't. I can intend to start, but I've learned over the course of this blog that I write what I wanna write, based on the whim of the day. I can urge myself to work harder at the blog, or I can slack off and fail to work at it at all. I have some control over that. But the actual topic is apparently not under my supervision. Neither is the fact that I want to say "whirligig" again.

Whirligig.

Hmm.

It appears that that is all. Except, you folks who aren't new to my blog, am I going to start perfume blogging again? You've met me (well, at least virtually)--what's your guess?

Image: Mine.

Perfume: More Chanel Sniffs, and some Lutens

I ran by Nordstrom's one last time, to sniff more of those Les Exclusifs testers.

28 La Pausa: For the first few minutes, this was sunlit-bright, feminine without being girly, tangy without being citrusy; very nice, though not really exciting. Half an hour later, it was... celery. I've forgotten which note it is that I read so often as celery--ah, yes! It's cedar; I realized it when I read "pencil shavings" in the one-sentence review in BitterGrace notes. Half an hour after that, it shifted from celery to a friendly well-behaved iris, one of those moderately complex, slightly mysterious scents that I don't fall immediately in love with, but that I can imagine becoming addicted to. I think this is worth a modest decant, to help me make up my mind.

31 Rue de Cambon: I didn't like this one bit at first. I got a very rough, furniture-polish or cough-syrup-without-the-fruit opening. Later it grew much sweeter, leathery, providing much of the pleasure of a gourmand without actually including any edible-seeming notes that I could point to. It's dark and dense from beginning to end, while 28 La Pausa is bright and transparent all the way through. If I were the sort to buy perfume on impulse, I suspect I'd be ordering a (small) bottle of this right now.

One thing that I'm realizing from all this Chanel sniffing is that I'm developing a dangerously modern nose--I keep judging these fragrances from the top notes, and being surprised when they utterly transform within half an hour. Oh! And that reminds me:

Serge Lutens Jeaux de Peau: I tried this one at The Perfume House.  I keep being surprised that Serge Lutens' top notes sometimes seem to last for hours before the heart of the scent, much less the base, is revealed. The beginning of this scent was entertainingly yummy, but it was a little too gooey to make me happy--it mostly just made me laugh. I'd largely dismissed it, until I smelled it two or three hours later and found that it had settled down to something more grainy and dry, not in the sense of less sweet, but in the sense that the smooth-frosting "gooey" vibe was gone. I love sweet and grainy, so I'm rethinking this one.

Serge Lutens Vitriol d'oeillet: Cranky and medicinal. I like medicinal. I need to try this again, but that's all I have to say; all that sweet buttered toast on my other hand distracted me from paying this proper attention.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens A La Nuit

Death by jasmine.

Yum.

Something about that Godiva shampoo bar that's been fogging up the place has made me eager for an even stronger dose of jasmine. So I wore A La Nuit on Thursday (the Godiva post went up somewhere around Wednesday, and then Blogger fell down, so the dates got weird) and then again today.

Oddly, A La Nuit smells cleaner than the shampoo bar. And I always thought of A La Nuit as a slightly dirty jasmine. Have my jasmine standards changed?

Hmmm.

That is all.

Review Roundup: Is here.

SOTDays: Miscellaneous Tuberoses

Slacker! Me, that is.

OK, updating the perfume log:

Sunday was Tubereuse Couture. I enjoyed it very much; my taste for florals seems to be increasing, probably due to the spring weather.

Monday and Tuesday were sadly unscented.

Today I was hunting for something on a shelf and found a spray sample of Tubereuse Criminelle with the smallest drizzle left on the bottom. It took ten sprays to pump any of it out, but I can still very clearly smell it now, over ten hours later. I think that it's my favorite tuberose--definitely not the most wearable, but my favorite.

Thursday Update: This morning I noticed that the pre-shower 24-hour remnants of Tubereuse Criminelle have a distinct Little Kiddle note - a combination of plastic/rubber and flowers.  One more reason to love it.

Image: By Juni. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Chergui

When I went to stare at the perfume shelf, I was surprised that this one came forward--we're in spring, and this is such a deep-winter scent. But it's a fuzzy-blanket deep-winter scent, and that seems to be the longing it's filling today.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Yiddophile. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Borneo 1834

There are fragrances that I love and am determined to own. There are fragrances that I sniff and have no desire to own, even if I like them. And there are fragrances that I would buy if I had more space. Borneo 1834 is in the third category--I only like it (a lot), but circumstances deny it a space in the (nearly full) breadboxes that house my collection.

The opening is a pleasant combination of foody and medicinal notes, with just a few cobwebs to add texture. Over time the medicine goes away, the food blooms a bit more, and there's something herbal, probably well-behaved patchouli, along with it. But the medicinal edge isn't sufficiently different from Fou d'Absinthe, the foody part isn't different enough from several other gourmands, and the patchouli's just a little too well-behaved. 

None of that would matter if I were in love, but I'm not. And now that I know that it would be better to remain out of love--now that I know that this is functionally redundant with other things--I will make sure that I'm never sufficiently re-exposed to change my mind.

I hope.

Review Roundup: Basenotes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and MakeupAlley and Bois de Jasmin and Fragrance Bouquet and Fragrantica and PeredePierre and Savvy Thinker and Badger & Blade and Nathan Branch.

Image: By tom burke. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Serge Noire

So, for lack of smoky meat perfume, I went with meatless smoke. And it was nice, even if it wasn't quite what I'm craving right now. To chase that craving, I'll be sending off for some samples based on folks' kind recommendations in the comments to yesterday's post.

I was reassured to learn that Heeley Cardinal and Serge Noire have quite different roles--a bottle of each in my collection wouldn't be redundant. Serge Noire is much spicier and more challenging, even several hours after application. Cardinal is clean and smooth, with, as I've said, no "side dishes" other than a temporary waft of fruit at the beginning. They'll serve for very different occasions.

If I buy Cardinal, that is. But of course, that would be Wrong.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Rise0011. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Cedre

Sweet. Sweet. Sweet. Oh, my God, sweet.

A while ago, I tried the two "one syllable C word" Serge Lutens fragrances, Cedre and Chene. I kept forgetting which was which, but since I didn't like either one of them, it didn't really matter.

But I recently fell madly in love with Chene, so it seemed like time to try Cedre again, in case I'd changed my mind about that one, too. But no. Flowers drowned in cinnamon and syrup. This is not going to work.

Review Roundup: Basenotes and Now Smell This and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume Posse and Bois de Jasmin and The Non-Blonde and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and Fragrantica and PereDePierre.

Image: By Eylem Basak Ekinci. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Un Lys

Today, I planned to wear Sushi Imperiale. Then I opened the perfume breadboxes and saw Oriental Lounge, and that seemed right. Then a sudden longing for Un Lys overrode everything else and I sprayed on a lavish excess. I've declared this to be a winter scent, at least today. In winter, it's not flowers so much as fragrant sugar.

Image: By Juppsche. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Serge Noire

I didn't actually apply Serge Noire, but I wore yesterday's sweater again. And Serge Noire is that way.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Dave Wheeler. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Serge Noire, and Angry Scents

I was grumpy today. Burned-up, smoldering, grumpy. So I decided to choose my perfume accordingly.

But it didn't quite work. As I commented once before, but forgot, Serge Noire is not at its best in halfhearted weather. It needs cold or heat, and on mild days like today it's just sticky.

Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle would have had a better explosive vibe. Or Chanel No. 19 would have served well as the scent of "don't mess with me" - and I see that I logged L'Arte di Gucci in that category as well.  Or Cuir de Russie might have given me that above-it-all feeling.

This is all reminding me of Miss Manners' assurance that while etiquette is normally about making others feel at ease, it can instead be used to make one's enemies feel very much the opposite, while avoiding bloodshed. The same for perfume. At least in my own head.

What about you folks? What are your angry scents?

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Jon Sullivan. Wikimedia Commons. and PDPPhoto

SOTW: Barney's.

Last Saturday was, well, Last Saturday. (You know, our private holiday, described here?) But there wasn't time to do any shopping, so I declared this Saturday to be Last Saturday

This Saturday, we went to Barney's.

Heh.

I assured Himself that I just needed, oh, half an hour. Close to one scent-fogged hour later, my phone went off, with the blaring Warning! Warning! ring that I set after Himself complained that I never seemed to hear the phone when he calls. He was very courteous on the phone, and assured me that he was just calling to let me know that he was moving from the cafe where he usually waits out my perfume worship in reasonable comfort, to elsewhere on Union Square. It seemed appropriate for me to make decisions and get moving.

The decisions at that point involved:

• A tuberose perfume from... um... oh, dear. It's on the shelves against the column right by the stairs - no, that's not going to help you any. A tuberose that contained, to my nose, a substantial melon note. That was right out. And, of course, I never buy a perfume on the day I smell it for the first time, so that would have eliminated it anyway.
• Serge Lutens Chene. What ever made me think that I didn't like this? What ever made me think that I didn't love this? Gooey sweet stuff plus something sharp plus rum. Want. And I've smelled it at least once before, so technically buying it wouldn't violate the rules.
• Nasomatto Hindu Grass. I couldn't decide if I liked this a good deal more than most fragrant-grass fragrances or just liked it. Anyway, it was the first day I smelled this one, too, and you know the rule. I never break the rule. Breaking the rule at The Perfume Shoppe doesn't count, because Nazrin is magic. Or psychic. Or something. The nice man gave me a sample, though.
• Nasomatto Absinth. I liked this very much. Sweet and sharp and vaguely edible. I'd never smelled it before either.
• Bois 1920 Sutra Ylang. I didn't even sniff this, but whenever I see it, it goes into the decisionmaking apparatus in my brain, which makes happy longing noises, gets a fresh look at the price, and spits out a rejection slip.

There is now a bottle of Nasomatto Absinth in the New Perfume Admiration Spot in the living room. I'm taking the Fifth. At least until I can manufacture an exception to the rule. Luckily, it's likely to be about six months before I get to Barney's again.


Edited to add: Aha! the "um..." tuberose was Heely - I went on a bottle-recognition hunt through Barney's website, plus now I remember also sniffing Cardinal. And therefore by process of elimination, it was probably Heeley Ophelia - the notes look just about like the notes list that the nice man showed me.

If it was Ophelia, then I'm guessing that the melon note might have really been an aquatic note (I tend to read aquatic as melon), though there's a little bit of a dark joke feel about that, isn't there?

In any case, it's not for me. The top notes felt like a very classic-fragrance take on tuberose, which was great. But the melon spoiled that within five minutes, and then the good black-and-white-movie classic fragrance vibe turned into an overperfumed-lady-at-church sneezy classic fragrance vibe, plus  melon, and that was that. I'm perfectly prepared to blame my skin and my nose rather than Heeley - I've mentioned more than once that my nose can't catch certain notes, and there might be a missing note that would have pulled it all together to perfection. But I'm still not buying it.

Image: By Eric Litton. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Chergui. And musty houses.

A recent discussion on Muse in Wooden Shoes motivated me to try Chergui again. In the comments, I didn't agree that it was musty, but I've changed my mind. It's honey, tobacco, sticky pastries, and old-house mustiness.

I used to be a bit doubtful about this fragrance, but it's growing on me. Wondering why, I find that the old-house note reminds me of a great-aunt's house that my family visited many times during my childhood. The surprise is the realization that I have positive memories of the place.

We were the sort of frugal family that spent all holidays and vacations staying in relatives' homes, with the kids permanently planted on the sofa listening to the adults reminisce about the decades before they were born, telling the same stories year after year.

I have a photo-clear memory of an evening in the home of someone's cousin or school friend, when a son of the family offered me a book of Doonesbury cartoons to read. Compared to the usual experience, it might as well have been a ride on Star Tours. I had a mild crush on the son (who I believe I never saw again), and a tremendous fondness for Doonesbury, for years afterward.

I remember how orderly all of those houses were, my great-aunt's most of all. The furniture and ornaments were generally older than me, and often older than my parents - this wasn't a family that went in for decorating trends. But every single thing was impeccably maintained, dusted, cleaned, un-shabby, and when someone chose it, however long ago, they chose it carefully.

This being the American South, most houses had the traditional "for company" living room and dining room. Furniture was arranged in one position for a lifetime, and ornaments, down to the doilies, were almost as permanently fixed. The only thing likely to change in these spaces was the multicolored hard candy in the cut-glass covered dish -- another spark of excitement for visiting children bored out of their tiny minds. In one way, this sounds simply dreadful. But in another way, it reflected a commitment and attention to detail in the home environment that I craved.

My parents weren't all that interested in our home -- it was adequately furnished, adequately maintained, generally adequate. The roof didn't leak and the appliances all worked, but nobody loved it. Drawer pulls fell out and weren't replaced. Drawers got stuck, and no one squared up the furniture or ran soap along the runners. The furniture was whatever was sufficent and cheap enough when something wore out. Shabby spots happened - nobody cared enough to get those extra pieces of fabric for the arms or the heads of the chairs, at least not until the fabric was already worn through.

I particularly remember the rice pot. It lost its handle and the knob on the lid, and for my entire childhood, we lifted the lid with a bent fork poked into the hole the knob left behind, and lifted the pot with a hot pad wrapped around the metal stub that once held the bakelite handle. And nobody ever considered buying a new pot. It wasn't that we couldn't afford one, it was just that nobody ever looked at that pot and said, "This is silly. This is depressing. Let's get a new one."

So when I sniff Chergui and see my aunt's impeccable living room, full of overstuffed furniture twenty, thirty, fifty years old and infused with mustiness that even the most determined housecleaner couldn't remove, everything clean and carefully placed, wooden floors shiny enough to go sock-skating, that awful sentimental figurine on top of the piano , and all that uncluttered  space between the furniture -- that memory smells good to me.

Image: By Takk. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle

I love this one.

The weather isn't quite right for it - it's better when it's blazing through crisp cold air, or trying to drown you when it's hot and humid. But I still love it.

It's flowers in a bad mood. Powerful flowers in a bad mood. Flowers flaunting their ability to smell like decay and fire and death. Flowers that are in no mood to suffer fools gladly.

I wonder what percentage of lovers of Tubereuse Criminelle are cat people?

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: By Hannibal Poenaru. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Bas de Soie

I wore it again. I loved it again. But I'm ready for something sweet and resinous and smoky again tomorrow.

Which makes me wonder if this one will take its appropriate place with all the greens, or if it will be illogically filed in memory with incensy smokey things? I met it in the company of the smokey things, see. I'll find out. Probably next summer.

Review Roundup: Is here.