SOTD: Chanel No. 19

I realized today that Chanel No. 19 extrait has two roles.

First, it's a special-occasion scent, a celebratory scent. A scent for dressing up. In that role, it's also one of the scents that I most strongly defend from negative associations - normally, I only wear Chanel No. 19 on days that I expect to be very good days.

But it has a second role. It's also a "don't mess with me" scent.

In this role, I see it as a beautiful, not altogether human creature. She's lounging as she observes the source of the problem. Her green claws are sheathed but ready, and one eyebrow is raised just enough to inquire, without words, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

Like my image for Tubereuse Couture, I'm not that creature, but sometimes it's very useful to smell as if I am.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Cropped image of William Glacken's Young Woman In Green: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Un Lys

Sometimes I long for girly perfume. Perfume that calls itself perfume, not the somehow more modern term "fragrance". Perfume that wants silk and furs, that would be comfortable at a night club, but only if the year is before 1960. Perfume.

This is, to me, one of those. And I rarely like those; it's usually more of an abstract longing than one that can be fulfilled by any real perfume. So my interest is definitely caught by Un Lys.

It's beautiful.

It starts out clear and high-pitched, all lily, ringing out and impossible to ignore. But that emphatic phase doesn't last quite as long as it takes to get tired of it - it fades while you're still enjoying it, into something more textured, a little grainier, with musk and vanilla joining the lily.

The good news and the bad news is that just a few drops last all day. So I have no need for a full bottle. So that's the bad news.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Basenotes and 1000 Fragrances and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfme-Smellin' Things again and For The Love Of Perfume and MakeupAlley and ScentSignals and Eiderdown Press and Pink Manhattan and Beauty Banter and sakecat and Fragrantica and PerfumeShrineBlog and Bois de Jasmin.

Edited to add to the review roundup.

Photo: By Iman Mirabzadeh. Wikimedia Commons. Click for information/licensing.

SOTD: Comme des Garcons:Leaves:Tea Versus Fendi Theorema

I've had Comme des Garcons Series 1: Leaves, Tea for a while; I read good reviews of it and wanted to give it a try. So I put it on this morning.

It's more bitter than I expected. Acrid? It makes me think of strong tea that's been stewed for a while. I like my tea overstewed, so that's just fine with me.

But it also has an odd aggressive note that I'm not sure about. Some reviews have mentioned Lysol or ammonia or "antiseptic" or vinyl or Saran Wrap or rubbing alcohol and, yeah, I can see that in there.

On the other hand, just trying to analyze what that note smells like is making me warm to it. This is Comme des Garcons, after all. There's no reason to assume that something that smells like plastic or cleaning fluid is a mistake rather than a design decision.

This is one of those fragrances that teeters on that precarious edge between "dreadful" and "got to own it". I suspect I'll want to own it, but I'm not sure yet.

And I can't evaluate it any more today, because after a few hours: The Theorema package arrived! Woohoo!

So I promptly sprayed Theorema over Tea, and it became a Theorema day. In the process, I discovered that Theorema and Tea layer very nicely. The orange mixes with that medicinal/Lysol/vinyl/whatever note and turns it into a positive. The tea note sweetened with the orange becomes a good deal friendlier - Tea is not a friendly fragrance.

And, oddly, Tea makes Theorema friendlier, too - it shifts it from not quite gourmand, into gourmand. I'm not going to be layering these two all the time, but today I like it.

Review Roundup for Tea: Fragrantica and Basenotes and the catalog page at LuckyScent. And now Now Smell This!

(I usually don't include perfume sellers, but LuckyScent clearly allows negative as well as positive reviews, and there isn't enough review coverage of this one otherwise.)

(And, ohforheavenssake - this is discontinued too?! Really? I read a remark to this effect in my searching. I hope it's a mistake.)

Review Roundup for Theorema: Is here.

Edited to add to the Review Roundup.

Tea Photo: By David J. Fred. Wikimedia Commons.
Orange Photo: By Alexander Talos. Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: The Bi-Annual Insanity

I'm noticing that my perfume acquisition comes in cycles. I suspect that they're six-month cycles related to season changes. (And, no, I'm not a psych student, but I did recently see Beer Bad. Hence the phase names.)

Id: First, there's excited, happy exploration. Sometime after the halfway point of the Warm Season or the Cold Season I start to develop cravings for scents of the season that's coming.

I send off for samples and samples and more samples. I buy bottles, preferably bottles that I sampled thoroughly last year, but sometimes just because something was pretty and my purse was dangerously close to the computer.

(Note to self: Always keep the purse in another room, preferably somewhere where you have to pass a witness who knows darn well why you've gone to fetch it.)

This phase is fun, but expensive.

Ego: Then comes driven exploration.

I keep reading descriptions and reviews and forum posts and ad copy. And adding things to my shopping cart and taking them out again. And debating whether the greater utility of an eight dollar 1.5ml sprayer from The Perfumed Court outweighs the lower price of a four dollar 1ml vial from LuckyScent and, hey, does Aedes have samples for that one, and what's the perfume house's policy on sending out samples?

My mind is a hamster wheel. I want it. I shouldn't get it. I might not wear it. I'm not made of money. It might go away. I want it. Just buy it. How much is it?! Is it any better from The Perfume Shoppe? What's the Canadian exchange rate? Remind me, do I have to pay customs?

This phase is not nearly as expensive, but also not nearly as much fun. It's also characterized by denial, because didn't I just say in my sampling post a few days ago that I was free of the "must try everything!!!" drive? Ha. Just look at my Perfumed Court cart.

Superego: Then comes the (temporary) release from the drive. This is the moment - and it happened twenty minutes ago - when I realize, "I don't have to buy another drop of perfume as long as I live."

Now I'm not saying, mind you, that I won't buy another drop. I certainly will. I'll buy quarts, if not gallons. But I don't have to. I could stop right now, for ten years, and still have a more diverse perfume collection than just about anyone I know in real life.

I can just wear what I have. Velvet Gardenia is going away? I have Tubereuse Couture. Feminite du Bois in the original formula is leaving? I nabbed Theorema.  I don't have Bandit? I do have Daim Blond. So there.

(Clip Show Warning: Excessive use of internal links. I'll try to get a grip.)

This phase is the most relaxing, and the least expensive. But it's not the most fun.

Now, this is the first year that I've been blogging, so it's the first year that I've documented this process. But I do remember experiencing it at least twice before.

I predict that I'm going to keep halfheartedly looking at my Perfumed Court cart, and that I'll send off one last order this winter, possibly in the next couple of days to give myself toys for the holiday. But then I suspect that I'm done with the obsessive acquisitions until, oh, late March. At which point I should probably bury the credit cards until June.

I'll still be posting. And reading. And urging people to sniff things. It's not like I've been taken over by aliens. I'm just relaxing a little - I hope.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Compilation: Reformulation, Discontinuation, Perfume Hoarding, and Panic

So I just saw One More Good Article on the topic that I think of as perfume separation anxiety, and decided that I want to assemble a compilation.

This isn't remotely every good article on the subject, it's just the ones I found first, plus ones that I come across as I'm reading. Plus, I'm focusing more on loss than on the IFRA, because, well, as depressing as loss is, the IFRA is more depressing.

So:

• The Buyer of Backup Bottles, Strategist or Squirrel? from Bonkers About Perfume.
• On reformulations, or why your favorite perfume doesn't smell the way it used to from Now Smell This.
• Gloomy Sunday, from Perfume-Smellin' Things.
• Endangered Fragrances from 1000 Fragrances.
• The Lost Perfumes, a continuing theme on The Non Blonde. (I'm linking to just one of the posts.)
• Smells Like Joy, from OlfactaRama.
• Samples: The Addiction, from Feminine Things.
• The Allure of the Discontinued Scent, from Now Smell This.
• Perfumista tip: how to find out if a fragrance is discontinued from Now Smell This.
• Should An Old Fragrance Be Forgot, from The Wall Street Journal.
• My Favorite Fragrance is Discontinued...Now What? from Perfume Shrine.
• It's the end of the world as we know it from Perfume Shrine.

And for grieving for specific perfumes:

• Guerlain Attrape Coeur is Shot Through the Heart! from Perfume Shrine.
• Another Perfume Ruined: Harem by LR from Fragrance Bouquet.
• Serge Lutens multiple discontinuations: Oh My! from Perfume Shrine.
• Serge Lutens - Where Does He Go From Here? from The Non Blonde.

(Edited to add Harem. And the Wall Street Journal piece. And now the two about Lutens discontinuations.)


Photo: By Joadl. Wikimedia Commons. Click for details or license.

SOTD: Jean Desprez Bal A Versailles (Parfum) (Modern)

You may recall my Monsters and Civet and Patchouli post, where I debated buying a quite reasonably-priced quarter ounce of Jean Desprez Bal A Versailles parfum. I did.

It arrived while we were out of town, and I feared its reputation enough to ask a kind neighbor to bring it in and put the box in the bathtub for the interim, just in case something might be leaking in there. I'd hate to have to rip out the floors.

I returned, eagerly opened the box, sniffed the opened bottle (yow!), and nervously put it away while I tested less scarey things. Today, I finally got up the courage to dab some on.

Yowza.

The very first notes, the first few seconds, are a rather unpleasantly-sweet floral, reminding me of inexpensive oversweet candy or plastic flowers. Perfume Posse said Necco Wafers and I'm grateful - it fits exactly, and I like that image much better.

In less than a minute, the candy fades, though it's not quite altogether gone. The civet announces itself, along with un-plastic, un-candy floral that must be the jasmine. (For some reason, I have trouble placing jasmine. I suspect that it's because it's used so often in perfumes that I just translate it as "perfume floral".)

It ambles along for a while on floral powder, with the animalic notes peeking out, but only because I know they're there - it's perfectly respectable and ladylike. It's very sweet, but not a white-sugar flavorless sweet - it's more like good honey, where the intense sweetness is accompanied by equally intense flavor. It's what I think of as a "fur coat" scent, like Daim Blond, though while Daim Blond is a pale fur, this one is dark. And both furs are definitely worn by women.

Then it shifts to more wood, still sweet, but it's no longer easy to tie the sweetness to specific flowers, or even to flowers at all. It's become candied wood, wood soaked in... not honey, but the sap of some syrup-producing tree that hasn't been discovered yet.  Maybe it's a fraction less Proper, but it's still perfectly ladylike.

And it seems to be sitting there, several hours later - there are gentle shifts between the notes, but I'm not getting the animalic frenzy that I rather expected. If it does turn up, I'll be updating.

Meanwhile, this is a very fine addition to the When Perfume Was Perfume collection. I'm pleased.

Review Roundup: Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume Posse and Fragrance Bouquet and Fragrantica and Basenotes and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and Scentzilla! and Perfume-Smellin' Things yet again and Now Smell This and Scentzilla! again and Yesterday's Perfume and Olfactarama and Bloody Frida.

(Edited to add to the Review Roundup.)

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: Blog Number Two - Declutter Of The Day

So I've been dithering about how much decluttering talk to have in this blog.

On the one hand, I'd like to "journal" about hoarding and decluttering. On the other hand, I think that that might be a strain on the patience of readers who really aren't interested in that topic.

Solution? Second blog! Woohoo! I'm calling it Declutter Of The Day. Feel free to visit me there, too.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Cadjmere

Mmm. Fuzzy coconut fur.

And...

Um...

What?

I seem to be empty of brain. Extra, unusually, almost unprecedentedly, empty of brain. Normally, I can at least babble about something inconsequential. Today... what?

I blame it on the holidays and an overfilled mental priority list. There's the year to tie up at work. And the house to tidy up at, well, home. And gifts to choose. And wrap. And ship.

And will we have that larger party we've been talking about? And when did I last do laundry?

And are the ornaments in the garage attic? And are there black widows in the garage attic? Do black widows look good on the Christmas tree? What if you dip them in glitter?

You can see, here, that my mind is on hold. But coconut fur is a fine wrapping for a mind on hold. Even if that's probably not an image that the copywriters at LuckyScent ever thought of.

Photo: Kris de Curtis. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Bois 1920 Sushi Imperiale

Someone on Basenotes recently asked what scent Santa would wear. Sushi Imperiale, of course!

So I wore it today for Christmas shopping. After I put it on, I thought for a moment that it might be a little too bracing for my sleepy self. But it turned out to be the perfect thing to wake me up for the outing, and right now for collapsing again at home after walking home with the bags.

Edited! because I forgot to point to the post with the Sushi Imperiale Review Roundup. Gotta have that.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: Kreativ Blogger Award (Ooh!)

Ooh! Ooh!

Ines, the author of the very fine blog All I Am - A Redhead, has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award. Ines's blog is a wonderful combination of perfume, books, and other thoughts. I greatly admire her creativity and expression, and I'm excited that she's even reading my blog, much less awarding it. Thank you so much, Ines.

My understanding is that now I:

- Post the award and a link to the blog that nominated me. (Here!)
- Post seven things about myself. (Here! Below!)
- Pass the award to seven more bloggers that I admire. (Not Here! There will be Decision Making, so this may take me a little while.)

Seven things, seven things, seven things...  I'm going with purely random things that you don't know about me:

1) I love bacon almost as much as fried chicken.

2) My first "perfume" memory is a Sweet Pea Liddle Kiddle Kologne Doll. Her scent is what I was thinking of when I wrote, in one post, about the magnificence of scents that you loved when you were four.

3) I had (have?) a crush on Jack Klugman. You know, Quincy? (Himself does not look at all like Jack Klugman.)

4) In winter, I prefer wearing a zillion layers (tee, bigger tee, longsleeved polo, light sweater, medium sweater, big sweater) to wearing a coat.

5) My teenhood cat took against me when I went to college and never spoke to me again. Don't worry; she attached to my mother and was content. She just held a grudge.

6) I hate sweet pickles.

7) I'm planning to buy a tricycle for exercise and grocery-hauling. Because when I ride a bike I fall over and I don't enjoy that. (Neither do the groceries.)

Thank you again, Ines!