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.

SOTD: Shiseido White Rose

Remember that vial of Shiseido White Rose that Himself gave me, in spite of his Perfume Disapproval? He went a good deal further this time. See photo. Oh, my goodness.

After opening, and boggling, and photographing, and ever so carefully cutting the little silver cord and extracting the stopper (actually, Himself did those last three things, at my request; I was afraid I'd destroy the bottle somehow), I applied White Rose lavishly, and wandered around in the resulting fog for several hours. And then I applied it all over again.

Oh, my. Traveling rose bliss.

I can't help analyzing. I want a notes list. Are there notes other than the multilayered, fresh, peppery rose? Pink Manhattan smells jasmine; I can't decide. In the base I get a bitterness that makes me think of galbanum; Pink Manhattan mentions a green tea nuance there. Is it the same note?

Whatever it is, the combination of very fine rose and that wonderful green bitterness makes me think of this as a cousin of Chanel No. 19. Don't misunderstand me - they're quite different from one another, but they're both classic, both uncompromising, both uninterested in sweetening the experience with sugar or vanilla. If they were women, both would be dangerous. No. 19's claws are apparent from the top notes on through; White Rose's appear near the end.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo of Greta Garbo: Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of bottle: Himself.

SOTD: Shiseido Feminite du Bois

I love cedar. Cedar chests, or pencil shavings, or even those fake-cedar-scented dry cleaner bags.

I haven't yet found the perfect emphatic cedar scent. Dzongkha and Fire and Cream read, to me, as celery seed instead of cedar. Navegar has a perfect dry cedar, but it's very faint; sometimes I can't smell it at all. Angeliques Sous La Pluie is nice, and I can smell it, but it doesn't come to life on my skin.

Feminite du Bois is lovely, with lots of cedar. It changes at every wearing, and I'm inclined to consider that a good thing. Sometimes it's a nice new freshly sharpened pencil - a childhood smell, just right for September. Sometimes the fruit drowns the cedar; then it seems oddly jumbled and unsatisfactory.

Today, I suspect that it's behaving as intended, the cedar and plum blending together and finding common notes that I never would have suspected were there. Cedar and plum are somehow producing silk - heavy, thick silk. It's making me think of the "curious wadded silk robe" in A Little Princess - always an image that I loved. The theme, for me, seems to be childhood luxury. I approve.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Shiseido White Rose

Himself doesn't like perfume. Doesn't approve of perfume. Nevertheless, Himself presented me with a vial of Shiseido White Rose from The Perfumed Court, because I'd been rambling on about it. Have I mentioned that I'm very fond of Himself?

From what little I've read about Japanese perfumes, I expected this to be a quiet, retiring perfume, the kind that you have to sniff right at the skin.

I was wrong. I'm wearing one drop on one wrist, and it's wafting a an intense cloud of scent to my nose as I type. Digging for more information, I discover that this is less surprising than I would have thought - the scent was created in 1954, and Chandler Burr refers to it as an "absolutely classic scent".

But if you've been reading all the fuss about this perfume - the one that Chandler Burr also called "astonishingly beautiful", the one that you can only get from Japan, the one with the alarming price - you don't care about all that. You want to know what it smells like, right?

It smells like a rose. That sounds pretty basic, but it's rare that a rose perfume simulates the experience of smelling a living rose, warm in the sun. Real roses are peppery and spicy and green and tart and, most importantly, complicated. They have more notes than I, at least, can get my mind around.

And so does Shiseido White Rose. It's lovely, but I can't get my mind around it, or describe it properly for you. I can tell you that it's one of those scents that's so fine that the sensation of drowning is acceptable - like A La Nuit or like the queen, No. 19 parfum. As it develops, it grows less intense, but not less interesting - all of the complexity of the rose is still there, it's just quieter, as if the sun's gone behind a cloud.

And it is all rose - this is a soliflore, with nothing else in the mix. It might, finally, be my rose. There's plenty left in the vial, so I'll let you know after a few more tries.

Review Roundup: Pink Manhattan and MaterialeClare and surely there must be more discussion? I'll update if I find more.
Edited to add Bois de Jasmin.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Shiseido Feminite du Bois

On the "get back on the horse" theory, I'm wearing Feminite du Bois today. No headache! But on this relatively warm day, it's not at its best. This may be a winter scent.

It appears that I prefer winter scents - they're vastly over-represented in my collection. It's perhaps unfortunate that I don't live somewhere colder.

And that seems to be all that I have to say, today, about my favorite cedar scent.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Corrie Barklimore. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Shiseido Feminite du Bois

Did I mention that I broke down and bought a bottle of the Shiseido version of Feminite du Bois? I did.

The nice UPS man was down the block yesterday when I was walking out for lunch, and online tracking had assured me that the bottle should be on the truck. So I stopped him to beg for my package, for fear that it would be signature required, I wouldn't be home when he got to our block, and I'd have to wait for it. (Nooooo!) Luckily, he knows who I am and where I live, and he kindly handed it over. One advantage of getting far, far too many packages. (Though sadly, most of them aren't perfume.)

So fifty milliliters of Feminite du Bois is mine, mine, all mine. Bwahaha!

Ahem. I'm somewhat unintentionally testing it as a pajama scent, because today was a busy workday and I got around to the shower and perfume ritual around, well, now. (Yes, I do work at home, don't worry.) I'm wearing my favorite too-worn-to-wear-outside white linen shirt, my butterfly pajamas, and a whole lot of Feminite du Bois. Somehow, I don't think that this fits the marketers' visions, but I'm happy.

My bottle smells as lovely as the sample that I fell in love with - always something that I worry about. Today it smells like a cedar pencil again. A lovely pencil. I'm very pleased.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTE: Shiseido Feminite du Bois

I showered before going out for New Year's Eve, and switched my scent to Feminite du Bois. And reconfirmed that I like this stuff.

It smells good, and it has occasional notes that don't smell so easily, straightforwardly good, and that's, well, good. I'm gradually growing bored with fragrances that are entirely sweet yummy prettiness, and developing a craving for just a touch of those "acquired taste" notes.

In food, that can be olives and orange peel and caviar and truffles and bitter herbs and - well, there are plenty of them. In fragrance, I'm still acquiring the challenging tastes. I liked gasoline-like notes from the very beginning (I loved Comme des Garcons Garage at first sniff, and Tar as well) and was reconciled to civet almost immediately.

But it's taken me a while to come to terms with iris, and there's a stale-nut note that I can't get past in several perfumes that I want to love, and ambergris is still a substantial challenge, and there are those pesky dark roses.

Last time I wore Feminite du Bois it was like a spiced meal with elves in the deep, dark woods. Wood and resin and spices and fruit and a little mystery and glamour.

This time, it's like an olfactory hologram of a new pencil. I can smell the cellophane unwrapped from the package of pencils, the cardboard holding the package together, the rubber of the eraser, the faintly metallic scent of the metal holding the eraser on and, of course, the freshly-cut cedar as I sharpen the new pencil. And, yes, the graphite, and the faintly stale sawdust of pencils gone by, in the sharpener.

I love it. I think I love it even more than the feast in the woods.

Photo copyright BrokenSphere. Wikimedia Commons. Click for details/license.

SOTD: Shiseido Feminite du Bois

A quick Christmas Eve ramble; I'll no doubt have a great deal more to say about this perfume another day.

The good news is that I like Shiseido Feminite du Bois. I didn't expect to like it - I don't like most of the Serge Lutens "bois" perfumes - but I find that it's a lovely mix of wood and spices and fruit that blends so well that it doesn't even announce itself as fruit. It's what I once imagined plum pudding could be like.

The bad news is that I like Shiseido Feminite du Bois. Because it's been reformulated and changed brands. The easily obtained version is now Serge Lutens Feminite du Bois, which is not the version I just fell for.

I approve of the fact that this fragrance has "gone home" to the Serge Lutens line - Serge Lutens was responsible for its creation in the first place. But it changed, at least a little, in the process. And I haven't seen anyone yet who prefers the new version.

So we're back to the Tragedy of Reformulation: Do I buy it now, or do I let it go and trust that the perfume world will produce something else just as lovely?

Review Roundup: Bois de Jasmin and Bois de Jasmin again (about the reformulation) and Perfume-Smellin' Things and The Non-Blonde and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and Perfume Posse and Now Smell This and Fragrantica and Basenotes and MakeupAlley and Polish, Platforms, Perfume and Yesterday's Perfume and Confessions of a Perfume Nerd and +Q Perfume Blog.

Link Roundup: The Scented Salamander has an interview and Now Smell This announces the reformulation and Fragrantica has a page on the reformulated version and Perfume Shrine talks about the reformulation.

Edited to add to the Review Roundup.

Photo: By Malene Thyssen. Wikimedia Commons.