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.

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: 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.