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.

SOTD: Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille

Hmm. Looks like this is another expensive perfume that I don't need to own.

I remember it as pipe-smokier, smoother, more liquid and silky. When I wore it today it was fuzzy powdery tobacco-spice cookie. Meh.

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia

From the beginning, my sampling of Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia has been about the beeswax. I want a beeswax perfume. Not a honey perfume - that's different, and honey always goes urinous on me. Velvet Gardenia rarely, maddeningly rarely, produces an absolutely perfect beeswax note, so for months and months I debated buying a bottle.

Now it's been discontinued and the bottle option is gone (if you know of someone who still has bottles, don't tell me!), and I'm down to the large decant option. I'm wearing what's probably the third-to-last wearing from my small decant. And for the first time I'm asking myself, beeswax or no beeswax, do I like the gardenia part?

Yes. I do.

I see why others dislike it. It's cloyingly sweet, with a medicinal edge. And there's a bit of a ripe-dairy vibe - that's probably the note that people smell as blue cheese. This is not a fresh, dewy flower with a lovely drop of morning dew, it's an overheated flower that's starting to decay.

Yum.

Yes, I'm strange. I'm the one that considers "smells like mothballs" to be a reason to seek out a perfume, remember? In fact, I can see the mothball/rotting-meat perfume (Tubereuse Criminelle) and Velvet Gardenia as being cousins, capering in surreal but oddly beautiful costumes, surrounded by a crowd that's keeping their distance from the medicinal vapors, but still can't help but watch in fascination.

Decant time. Yep.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTW: Mostly Scentless Weekend

Saturday was, as usual, Scentless Saturday.

Sunday, I went to the mall entitled to buy a bottle of perfume. (I have a set of rewards for doing things that I don't wanna do. And I did one.) And... nothing. The mall has failed me. I did try on some Tom Ford Italian Cypress, and I decided that I will not be buying Tom Ford Italian Cypress. Like Velvet Gardenia, it's glorious, but only on roughly one out of three wearings.

So, a kitty. That is all.

Image: By Guarav Pandit. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: None, and Last Saturday, and The Mall

Himself and I have a custom known as Last Saturday.

The idea is that discretionary purchases - DVDs and movie posters and murder mysteries and soap dishes and big-screen televisions and scrunchies and, yes, perfume - must occur on the last Saturday of the month. If a proposed purchase isn't basic groceries or an otherwise immediate need (like, say, the rainy season just started and we've discovered that all appropriate shoes have become worn and leaky), it waits for Last Saturday.

There are two reasons. First, the requirement to put off these purchases for a few days or weeks increases the likelihood that we'll decide that we don't actually need whatever it is. Second, when a month's worth of discretionary purchases are all piled up in one day, purchasing them all looks like financial suicide, so we're likely to do some cutting.

Today is Last Saturday.

Bwahaha.

Actually, no, so far it's been a very small Last Saturday. I say "so far" because there's one hour left, and the whole wide Internet is out there. But I was surprised that even though we stopped by the mall, on Last Saturday, very little self-control was required. I think that this is a sad, sad commentary on the state of department store fragrances. Actually, on the whole mall - they don't even have a bookstore any longer! - but I'm talking fragrances right now.

I ended up coming home with only two small perfume-related purchases:

A mini roll-on of the new L'Occitane Paeonia Eau de Toilette. The Nice Salesperson offered me a test strip of this, and I liked the grapefruit in the top notes, so I bought the mini with unseemly haste rather than wait until the next Last Saturday.

Fragrantica says that the notes for this one are bergamot, grapefruit zest, peony, rose petals, sandalwood, and musk. I mostly get the bergamot and grapefruit, which is just fine with me, though I'd be happy if the sandalwood came forward. It's a friendly little perfume, low projection, not too sweet, not too aggressively "fresh". I'm pleased that I bought it, though I think a mini is just about the right portion for me.

Speaking of minis, I very much like L'Occitane's choice to offer mini sprays or roll-ons or tins of many of their scents - that decision is responsible for almost every L'Occitane purchase that I've made.

The second purchase was a mini roll-on of Kiehl's Pear scented essence oil. Yum. When I first sniffed this I thought that it was a little cartoonish, but as time goes on it smells increasingly like a real, slightly overripe, pear. It's a note more than a perfume, but it's a very nice note.

And that's all. I did do my usual check on Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia, and it was gone. My thrashing around about this has been endless; I've wondered if I'd be relieved or dismayed if this disappeared before I bought a bottle. Turns out that I'm relieved. Whew.

And I tried a spray of Guerlain Jicky parfum. I can never resist an unexpected pure parfum tester, and I wanted to try the civet classic. Sadly, I don't like this any better than the Shalimar parfum that I tried a while ago - though this time Himself didn't threaten to evict me from the car. There's a common element in both - Guerlinade? - that I don't like at all.

So that's Last Saturday. So far.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Mall Sniffs, including Atelier Orange Sanguine

We went to the mall again. Well, Himself went to have the car lovingly washed and waxed, and I went to the mall again. As usual, sniffing ensued:

Chanel Cristalle Eau de Parfum: For just a moment, sniffing the bottle, I thought that I might have to take back my insistence that the Eau de Toilette is the Cristalle and that the Eau de Parfum is an over-buttered imposter. When I sniffed the sprayers, the "real stuff" smelled thin and a little urinous, and the imposter smelled deeper and more grounded.

But sprayers, of course, mean nothing; they probably mean even less than paper strip tests. I sprayed the imposter on my hand and within minutes the nice grounding turned into, yes, too much butter. I can't speak to how it compares to the most recent formulation of the Eau de Toilette, but it doesn't begin to compare with my bottles, which are only a year or two old.

(Yep, bottles; Cristalle is the only perfume for which I have a backup bottle. I have two 15ml minis, one 1.7 ounce in use, and one 1.7 ounce in the fridge. This is a violation of my anti-hoarding principles that I have yet to successfully rationalize. However, I suspect that someday I'll be punished by cracking the fridge bottle and finding that it smells of mildew, onions, or cabbage - it's in the fridge.)

Atelier Orange Sanguine: I ran into a display of Atelier fragrances, a brand that I don't recall seeing before. Oolang Infini and Bois Blonds on paper were unexciting, and I still don't have a summer orange, so I chose Orange Sanguine to spray on.

I was hoping for a slightly bitter and sophisticated orange, but still with some juice. I got Orange Crush - childhood nostalgia synthetic orange. I actually liked it, quite a bit, but I just don't think that I can consider paying high-end niche prices for it.

Tom Ford Italian Cypress: I stared blankly at the Tom Ford display for a while, debating whether to try Italian Cypress or Velvet Gardenia, and whether to break down and just buy Velvet Gardenia. While I was at it, I was enough of a troublemaker to assure two women who were judging the fragrances wet that they're likely to utterly transform in the wearing process. (The saleswoman had told them the same, but they were still judging them wet, so...)

I went with Italian Cypress. After a couple of hours with it, I think that I've eliminated it from the list of purchase candidates. It seemed aggressively sharp and sour, and the nice soft woody base that I remember from before never really came. It may be that it mixed badly with the others - its sappy sharpness mixed with the buttery sharpness from Cristalle EDP and the synthetic sharpness of the Orange Sanguine making a clashing mismash. But, frankly, anything that talks me out of craving a nearly-two-hundred-dollar fragrance is a good thing- as long as I haven't yet bought the fragrance.

Conclusion: Surprisingly, the winner from today is Orange Crush - er, Orange Sanguine. It's on my hand, and every time I prop my chin on my hand while watching leftover recorded figure skating, I get one of those "ooh, that's nice" moments. Perhaps I'm being unfair to it, and quite certainly I'll try it again.

Photo: By Claudius Tesch. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia. Again.

Another wearing of Velvet Gardenia, another data point. The goal is a minimum of floral and a maximum of butter and - highest priority - beeswax. Today, I got a fair bit of high-pitched floral at the beginning, and now a little butter but no beeswax.

This discontinued scent is, as you may recall, one of the perfumes that's throwing me into endless buy-or-not-buy thrashing-around. Today I feel all very nice and decided about it: Get an 8 milliliter decant and move on with life.

Tomorrow? Heh. We'll see.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Carey Tilden. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia (Quick sniff, and indecision)

This is not a gardenia fragrance.

Yes, I realize that for everyone else, this is of course a gardenia fragrance. For me, it's a beeswax fragrance.

And the quest for my beeswax fragrance has been a long one. At first, I thought it was a quest for honey, and I bravely braved the urinous notes that honey fragrances produce on my skin, waiting through the drydown before concluding for each candidate that, no, that's not honey, that's - well, you know.

I finally figured out that the goal was beeswax. And I found some adequate beeswax notes - one from L'Occitane, and some of the Possets honey fragrances. But most had that "cartoon" feel - you know what I mean? Fresh Lemon Sugar is cartoon lemon, for example. Actually, it's lemon verbena, and lemon verbena, the plant, is cartoon lemon. And CB I Hate Perfume Gathering Apples is cartoon apples. Sometimes I love this - I love the apples - but it's not what I wanted for my beeswax.

Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia has the right beeswax note. It may not be the best beeswax perfume that I'll ever encounter - it's certainly not the best one that's possible. I'd like my beeswax with more wood and less floral. I'd like the top notes lower-pitched. I'd like my beeswax perfume to reliably give me beeswax on every wearing instead of every other wearing. I'd like any number of things to be different.

But it's the best one I've found so far. And it's discontinued.  And it's horribly expensive. And right now, it's making me smell like melted butter flowers and beeswax.  Do I buy it?

Gardenia photo: By KENPEI. Wikimedia Commons.
Bee cartoon: By MielDeAbejas. Wikimedia Commons.
Honeycomb photo: By Merdal. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia

My previous experience of Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia was a quick sniff at the fragrance counter. As the fragrance developed, I smelled butter and beeswax, and I fell madly in love. But I managed to control myself, to the heroic (I think) extent of declining when Himself volunteered to take me to Neiman Marcus when I had something to celebrate.

I waited for the spray sample to come. I didn't even search for an online source. Much.

Sadly, it turns out that I was wise to wait, because this second wearing was different. The top notes were nice - much fresher than I remembered, without the thick sweetness that I expect from white flowers. Fresher, but not citrus and not green. Maybe this is what I see referred to as "balsamic" - that's a category of notes that I haven't nailed down yet.

But as the scent developed, I didn't get any of that butter and beeswax, and without it, this is just an adequate, not-too-cloying gardenia scent. It just got quieter, creamier, and less aggressive. A dozen hours after application, it's a shrug.

I'm not giving up, but at least two more wearings are called for. And they need to happen soon, because this one's going away.

Review Roundup: Bois de Jasmin and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume Posse and PeredePierre and Perfume Posse again and The Non-Blonde and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and Basenotes. 

Link Roundup: A Tom Ford review in poem form on Perfume Posse and a post on Gardenias and Leather from What We Do Is Secret (almost nothing to do with Velvet Gardenia, but I liked it and I have no gardenia compilation).

Photo: By Waugsberg. Wikimedia Commons.

Grumble: Change Bad

So, I recently fell in love with Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia at Neiman Marcus. The normal sequence from here to purchase is:

• Go to Neiman Marcus and smell it again. A couple of times.
• Get a sample. Wear it until it's gone, probably two wearings.
• Get a decant. Wear it until it's gone, probably five to ten wearings.
• Look at the price of Velvet Gardenia. Stare at my credit card. Repeat every couple of months.
• Shuffle my list of I Really Want! fragrances.
• A year or two later, when Velvet Gardenia rises to the top of the list, or I'm hungry for lunch and staring at it on a pretty glass counter, finally buy it. Or I might have forgotten the whole thing by then.

This is my perfume buying process, for anything above the deeply discounted cheap thrills category. It's the way that I have managed to keep most of my shelves full of books instead of perfume. And avoided that whole perfume-induced bankruptcy thing.

I just read - and registered; I probably read it before - that Velvet Gardenia is being discontinued. If I want it, I have to accelerate the whole dance.

Not only is Velvet Gardenia being discontinued, but Robert Piguet Bandit is rumored to be in danger of reformulation. As is Chanel No. 5. Shiseido Feminite du Bois has already been reformulated but is still temporarily available in the old format.

Fendi Theorema, a legendary fragrance, has been discontinued but is still temporarily available from discounters. Cristalle, another legend, is rumored to be in reformulation, as is practically every oakmoss or jasmine perfume in existence, due to IFRA regulations.

Oh, and there are new regulations on percentage of citrus oils, so add every classic citrus perfume to that "probably about to be reformulated" list. And oakmoss - add the chypres.

Can't buy them all. Perfume-induced bankruptcy bad.

Grumble.

Photo: By Erin Silversmith. Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: Several

We were near Neiman Marcus. I sniffed. Of course.

Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc: When I first smelled this, I thought it was beautiful but was unmoved. A few days later, I couldn't forget about it.

Then today I tried it again and no longer even thought it was beautiful. (Fickle!) About forty minutes in, I did get several minutes of woody-powdery gorgeousness. But before and after that, it was just rather unexciting white floral - too sharp before the gorgeousness, and too bland after it.

I'll give it another try, but I'm no longer in any danger of losing control and buying a full bottle.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and 1000 Fragrances and Perfume Posse and Perfume-Smellin' Things.

Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia: Buttery. That's usually a metaphor used to describe a thick, soft scent but this time I mean it fairly literally - there's something quite foody in this. Rather like the smell of a big pool of melted butter that's cooked out all its water but hasn't quite started to brown yet. I also see beeswax in the notes, and I've been looking for something that satisfies that particular craving. I'm sending off for a decant.

Review Roundup: Bois de Jasmin and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume Posse and PeredePierre and Perfume Posse again.

Tom Ford Italian Cypress: I intended to try Tuscan Leather, and grabbed the wrong bottle. The top notes were a little too much for me - sharp cypress and resin, without anything to calm it down. I got distracted and missed the middle notes entirely. The bottom notes, several hours later, are very nice - gently woody/resinous. I could develop a craving for that final scent.

Review Roundup: Perfume Posse and... well, that's all I can find so far.

Holiday Stuff: The rumored Van Cleef & Arpels coffret appears to be, well, a rumor. The Christmas Chanel coffret is back - I assume that it's pure parfum, again. A good price per milliliter, if you like all five scents, which I don't.

Photo: By Kozuch. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Everything

So after perfuming Unpleasant Duties (like pretending I'm a grownup and actually keeping a doctor's appointment), I like to reward myself. The reward tends to be a rapid lunch-hour-sized sniff-fest at the mall.

So today I tried, briefly:

Thierry Mugler Angel: Never tried this before, which is rather like not having read The Da Vinci Code. It's nicer than I, in my perfume-snob persona, expected. I asked for a sample and will actually wear it soon. I might (gulp) buy it someday.

Digression: I got the sample at Sephora; I love everything about Sephora except their perfume selection.  Convenient, always-available testers, available but unpushy salespeople, and they'll always give you a sample. But they rarely have a perfume that I want, and even more rarely have one that I couldn't get cheaper at a discounter. So I make one guilt-based purchase a year (Angel next time, maybe?) to pay them back for the samples that I beg from them. And I restrain myself from urging them to stock Serge Lutens and Parfumerie Generale. But they should.

Robert Piguet Fracas: Another gap in my knowledge of long-popular perfumes. Tuberose and more tuberose, but toned down with enough other things to keep it from being smothering. If I liked tuberose the way that I like greens, I'd get a bottle. But I really only need one tuberose, and it's going to be Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture.

Hermes Caleche Soie de Parfum: I wanted to try the original classic; I see after getting back and Googling that this is a reformulation. It still smells like a classic; I could see it having ladies' lunch with Arpege and Chanel No. 5. Unfortunately, that's a group of classics that I haven't yet learned to like.

L'Occitane Bergamot Tea: L'Occitane seems to have a lot more minis. As a consequence, I may end up owning a lot more of their fragrances. Bergamot Tea is bright, liquid, cheerful bergamot. It made me happy as soon as I sniffed it, and I bought the mini - my only purchase of the day. They had a solid, too, that smells just like the spray - something for me to keep in mind for flying.

L'Occitane Verbena: I find lemon verbena leaves to be a startling, almost candy lemon. This is very true to the leaves. It didn't force me to buy it, but it's nice.

Creed Silver Mountain Water: Nice. Refreshing. Bright. While it doesn't smell at all the same, for me this pretty much fulfills the same craving as L'Occitane Bergamot Tea, at a much higher price.

Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia, Moss Breches, Tobacco Vanille, White Suede, and Who Knows What Else: I staggered away from the Tom Ford display in a fog of honey, white flowers, leather, and tobacco, and I couldn't begin to describe any individual scent. I'll exert more self control next time.

Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc: Yet Another Gorgeous White Floral. Beautiful. High quality. Sadly, gorgeous white florals leave me almost entirely unmoved. Next!

Van Cleef & Arpels Orchidee Vanillee: Vanilla. For about ten seconds it was beautiful and I was wondering, is this a replacement for Indult Tihota? But, no, it turned plasticky on me. Next!

Van Cleef & Arpels Gardenia Petale: See Muguet Blanc, above. Next!

Van Cleef & Arpels Lys Carmin: OK, there is something going on here that interests me. I may try to get a sample.

Van Cleef & Arpels Bois d'Iris: Really very nice; I may be warming up to iris. So subtle that I'm sure that I didn't get the nuances (the Tom Ford fog was still following me around), but I liked what I could smell. It ends up in a gentle woody powder that reminds me enough of Serge Lutens Douce Amere that I'm not seriously considering buying this, but I will hunt down a sample to give it a chance to change my mind.

Estee Lauder White Linen: While I was trying the classics, I thought I'd try this again, to see if I like it. I still don't like it, but there's progress! The head-blowing aldehydes didn't bother me a bit. Now I just need to get past the amber.

Estee Lauder Estee: It's the kind of "old lady" floral that transcends old lady and becomes "vintage".  It's not your mother's perfume, it's your cool great-aunt's perfume. Flowers, wood, no modern fruity-floral notes. (Mind you, I like my share of fruity floral. But I have more than my share of anti-trend snobbery, too.) This is worth trying again.

La Prairie Life Threads Silver: Tuberose. Next!

La Prairie Life Threads Gold: OK, I can't even remember it. I remember perking up when orange was mentioned, and being unable to find the orange note. But, remember, I've sniffed about thirty perfumes by now. One common per-day recommendation is.... two.

La Prairie Life Threads Platinum: Interesting in an indescribable way while wet. When it dried down ... say what? The perfume in this lucite and metal bottle smells like it belongs with those lunching ladies, Chanel No. 5 and Arpege and Caleche, earlier in the post. Is it the iris? The oakmoss? The galbanum? All of them? I'm boggled. It's like seeing Mrs. Landingham from The West Wing in full goth garb. With a crumpet. The Nice Man behind the counter gave me a sample, so I have the opportunity to be boggled again. Please note that none of this is a criticism. This stuff may be fabulous; it's certainly not bad. I'm just too busy recovering from being startled to make up my mind.

Marc Jacobs Daisy: Adorable bottle. I can't remember the fragrance, which can't be good.

Marc Jacobs Lola: Adorable bottle gone psychedelic. I can't remember this one either.

Kiehl's Original Musk: I can see why this is a staple. Unadorned musk, respectable but not too respectable. It seems more like something to layer with other perfumes than something I'd use on its own.

Jo Malone Dark Amber and Ginger Lily: I was so stunned to find an amber fragrance that I don't dislike that I couldn't gather my thoughts sufficiently to see if I like this one. But... it's nice. Sweet and warm and wintery, at least to my nose.

I came home after all that to a box containing Rochas Tocade on the front porch. I think I'll just leave that unsprayed until tomorrow.

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons.