SOTD: Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle

Today will be a busy and perhaps grumpy day. Tubereuse Criminelle seemed perfect.

Why is that? Is it because I used the phrase "gasoline-powered" about this fragrance recently, and I could use some extra power? Is it because on a grumpy day a purely beautiful fragrance seems wrong, seems as if it might be startled and hurt, all doe-eyed and wobbly-lipped, if I do get grumpy?

I don't know. And I'll running too fast to figure it out. But that's the fragrance for today, and I'm enjoying it very much.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Photo: By Oxyman. Wikimedia Commons.

Meta: YACFB (Yet Another ChickenFreak Blog)

So, see, this blog started out to be about all of my obsessions. Chicken, and gardening, and murder mysteries, and, oh, yes, perfume.

I seem to have gotten rather excited about the perfume. And that is far from a problem; I'm having a great time writing the perfume posts. But the other posts are getting drowned by perfume, and the more perfume-focused the blog becomes, the more likely it is that the occasional fried chicken or gardening ramble may bore the purely-perfume reader.

The solution? Another blog!  Woohoo!

So the non-perfume posts will commence over at Rambling Chicken, and the perfume posts will stay right here. I'll be doing a fair bit of linking back and forth, and I hope that you visit me in both places.

Photo: By Lilly M. 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.

Perfume: 2009 Reminiscing

The Enchanter asked me about my top ten scents for 2009. Sounds like fun! So this will be a list of the top ten fragrances that I tried for the first time in 2009 - even if they'd been around for decades before I found out about them.

And, while I'm at it, some disappointments, and then the whole monster list of everything that I smelled for the first time in 2009.

Top Ten fragrances first experienced in 2009:

• Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture. This one broke through my dislike for tuberose and my distaste for florals. (To clarify my definitions, I don't consider Chanel No. 19, for example, to be a floral - it's galbanum that happens to consort with flowers.) I don't know where it got its magic from, but it was strong enough to make me buy a bottle.
• Serge Lutens Un Lys. This needed Tubereuse Couture to pave the way for it. It's a sweet, gentle, nearly conventional floral, a category that I officially don't like, but I'm in love.
• Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. And this freakish mothball- and gasoline-powered tuberose followed right along. At least it didn't have to fight the "conventional" label.
• Hermessence Osmanthe Yunnan. I can't do this one justice right now - I'm indifferent to it in cold weather. But I know that in the summer its soft osmanthus with an edge of tea will knock me over.
• Parfumerie Generale Harmatan Noir. A wonderful tea. Harsh desert and scrabbled comforts and... Oh, I can't describe this one. Get a decant. I keep telling myself that I can't buy another tea, but it haunts me.
• Le Labo Patchouli 24. The closest thing to the real scent of tea leaves that I've ever found in a fragrance. Yes, I know it's really birch tar, but to me it's tea.
• Chanel Cuir de Russie. Utterly satisfying leather. 
• Fendi Theorema. The culmination of my orange quest; I finally have my winter orange.
• Shiseido Feminite du Bois. I didn't know that I was on a cedar quest, but it turns out that I was, and this is the destination.
• Balmain Vent Vert vintage parfum. A wonderfully dangerous green, like blinking carnivore eyes at the edge of a twilit forest. Tragically reformulated into a merely nice scent without the least hint of danger. I must get a supply of the vintage.

SOTD: Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist (The iris exploration continues.)

I've been reading about Iris Silver Mist since the beginning of my perfume obsession. I never tried it before now, because I only recently developed a tolerance for iris. But it's all but impossible to follow perfume and remain unaware of this fragrance - people love it, talk about it, compare other iris fragrances to it, scheme how to get their hands on it. My (unsupported by research) impression is that it's the grandmother of modern iris fragrances, unbeaten by any of its progeny.

None of this made me confident that I would like it. I tend to be a philistine when it comes to appreciating the grand and respected. I have yet to develop any fondness for Mitsouko, or Shalimar, or most of the older nobility of the perfume world. So why assume that I'd have any more appreciation for this more modern royal?

The notes list - iris pallida root, galbanum, cedar, sandalwood, clove, vetiver, musk, benzoin, incense, and white amber - didn't make me much more optimistic. While I love galbanum, sandalwood, and cedar, I didn't think that they'd be enough to make me love the more challenging iris, amber, musk, and clove.  And I wasn't a big fan of Rochas Tocade, another Maurice Roucel fragrance that's near-universally admired.

But I finally tried it anyway. And was well and thoroughly impressed.

At the start, it doesn't fit my usual impression of iris. Iris tends to be a dignified, civilized, excellent-posture sort of scent. And this starts out as a sort of rough scramble. I can smell the dirt that people mention, and the roots. Dirty, hairy, just-harvested, piled on the ground roots. Not carrots to my nose - not anything remotely edible. Something cold and alien and probably poisonous. It's powdery from the very beginning, but at this stage not a silky ladylike powder, it's more like spiced dirt, or something kicked up during the harvest that perhaps one should not be breathing.

None of this should be taken to say that I dislike the beginning. I like it very much, at least for as long as it lasts. It is, however, challenging enough that I might lose patience with it if it hung on for too much longer.

But it doesn't. It shifts, the dirty rootiness giving way to a smooth, powdery, dignified iris with, yes, excellent posture. And with the pencil eraser smell that I get from iris, adding a bit of an enjoyable joke for me - elegant, ethereal, glowing pencil erasers. It's much sweeter, though I can't quite place where the sweetness comes from - the wood? The amber?

Most people read this fragrance as cold, and the name certainly suggests that the chilliness was intended. To me, only the first stage is cold - those tumbled dirty roots were wrestled out of frozen ground. But as it grows sweeter, it also grows warmer, and now, a few hours in, it's no cooler than a shaded spot in late spring.

It's beautiful, I can say objectively. I would wear it often. It's certainly full bottle worthy. But I don't find myself desperately working through the problem of how to get my hands on it. (It's another Lutens non-export.) I can wait. Which means, I think, that I'm not in love.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and Bois de Jasmin and Perfume-Smellin' Things and PereDePierre and Feminine Things and Fragrantica and MakeupAlley and Basenotes and PerfumeQueen and MossyLoomings and Pink Manhattan and ScentSate and fragrancefanatic.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Cuir d'Iris

This is lovely. I'm sightly deflated by the knowledge that I can't justify buying this and Iris Oriental and Cuir de Russie. I love all three, and love them differently, but there are just too many common elements. Aren't there?

The beginning is dominated by leather, a particularly standoffish version of the note. I imagine thick, stiff, heavily treated leather - a saddle, perhaps, not a comfortable chair or a fluid pair of gloves. There's an "off" note in it, one that I like at the same time that I find it challenging. Others have referred to the leather as "harsh", and while I wouldn't argue with them, that's not quite how I read it. To my nose, it's just a little odd, as if the leather in my nose's imagination was treated with a slightly non-standard set of tanning potions, or came from an unusual animal.

Checking the notes to see if I can solve the mystery, I see cardamom, iris old black, leather, woods, vetiver, Rhizophora tannin, amber, and incense. Maybe the Rhizophora tannin is the odd note that I can't nail down? (And what is iris old black? The root of a specific variety of iris or, as someone suggests, aged iris root? Or, as someone else listed the notes, did they really mean "old black leather"? Puzzles.)

As the scent develops, the leather steps back and the iris and amber come forward. It becomes quieter, a little powdery, and just a little bit sweeter, though I'd call it pretty dry at all stages. It's dignified, but not over-formal. I like this stage best - the wafts as I move are very satisfying.

The end reminds me of an observation made by Judith Martin (Miss Manners) about ice cream sodas: "The great paradox here - and fine art is full of ironic contradictions - is that the soda begins to disappear just as it reaches its perfect state." Just as Cuir d'Iris became a perfect wafty mix of powdery iris, sweet amber, and the faintest echo of rich leather, it was gone.  There's no trace, even sniffing right on the skin of my arm. Longevity isn't usually an issue for me - and it did last a good several hours - but I want more time with that perfect state.

Even so, if I were looking for an all day every day scent, this is one of the scents with the right characteristics. It's not too dry, not too sweet, and it shows gentle changes over time. Most importantly, it's one of the scents that give me the feeling that I smell nice - that my skin has somehow started to exude a lovely combination of iris and leather and incense. The scents that feel like they're part of me are a better candidate for that single scent than the scents that I'm very conscious of "wearing" as a decorative top coat over my skin.

Of course, that's all just moot musing, because there is no chance that I'll settle for one scent. But I like to maintain a mental list all the same.

Review Roundup: PereDePierre and The Non-Blonde and Basenotes and Nathan Branch and Perfume Patter.

Illustration: Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: New Year's Resolution One - Be a Better Curator

My first (and possibly only - we'll see) perfume resolution of the year is to be a better curator of my perfume collection.

That is, admittedly, a rather high-flown word for the management of a huddle of bottles and vials stored in bread boxes. But I am trying to be a fraction more high-flown in my perfume acquisition and retention decisions, so a high-flown word feels right.

My goal is for the perfume collection to be more of a collection, and less of an impulse-driven accumulation. I'd like to know why I own each bottle, instead of puzzling over what I was thinking when I brandished the credit card.

An example of a good answer for a theoretical bottle is, "It's a classic leather. It's a good contrast to my other five leathers. It's by a perfumer whose work I collect. It's well-regarded, and often mentioned as a reference in evaluating other perfumes. And by the way, I love it."

A bad answer is, "It's kind of pretty, and I like leather, and it was cheap!"

So how to sculpt the collection to be more of a collection? Some of my half-formed thoughts follow. I find that they're presented backwards, starting with specifics and ending with goals. But since that's how I thought them through, I'll leave them that way.

BOTD: Blood Lies by Marianne Macdonald

Summary: Antiquarian book dealer Dido Hoare tries and fails to achieve a murder-free vacation with an old friend's new family.

Rapid Fire: Somerset. Nervous mother. Peter Rabbit. Dementia. Good cop. Aubusson carpet. Eccles cake. Tea-strainer. Bad cop. Morning sickness. Bubble bath. Peeping Tom.

First Paragraph Score: 2/5

Overall Score: 3/5

Recommendation: Pretty good. I like Dido, I like her father, I like her son. Worth reading. As predicted, I'll be reading the whole series. However, I won't feel the need to own them permanently.

Photo of landscape in Somerset by Rodw. Wikimedia Commons.

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Iris Oriental (Formerly Taizo)

I just wore perfume again! I just enjoyed it, minus analysis.

My perfume work ethic has fallen apart. I can't tell you a single new thing about Iris Oriental, except that I like it even more than I did before.

(Updated!) Review Roundup: Is here.

Slacker Kitty picture by Clavecin. 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.