vintage perfume ad of the day: Giorgio Beverly Hills

What can you say about this perfume, application of which was practically mandated by law at one time? You see the packaging and a boat of memories comes floating back. In one of these memories, it's high school, between classes, and you're approaching the cool girls in the hallway, wishing you could evaporate, because you really don't feel like dealing with their shit, they're such a clique, really they just want to spread shit about people, which you could never really understand, because if you're so fantastic, if you're so great, why do you need to waste so much time talking trash? What are you trying to prove? That you're not the one who's ugly? That you're not as average, as generally unexceptional, as you worry you might be? As you get closer to their crowd, they contract in toward some unseen nucleus of exclusion, their backs to you, and your stomach sinks, then tightens, then you're like, Oh get over it, grow up, this is only High School, and you remember what your mother always says, "They're just jealous, that's all, green with envy." Then you remember how ridiculously out of touch your mother sounds when she says that, so ridiculously out of touch that you can't possibly be reassured by it. So they're jealous. So what. You still have to deal with them everyday. And of course as you pass there are tremors of laughter, that heartless cackle indigenous to the shallow. They're probably commenting on your hair, or your shirt, the way you're holding your books: they take pains to make sure you can't tell exactly what they're ostracizing you for, so you can't actually change something to win their acceptance, and instead will feel an overall nagging sense of inferiority. You look ahead to get through it, beyond them to a time when these girls will be bitter and disappointed, waiting at home for The Guy, who is out making money but will come home smelling like stale office coffee and upholstery that sees a high quotient of fat asses per day. You can see how their bitterness will have shaped them; their figures, their faces, their outlooks. How boring they'll be. And where will they go, what will they do, with no one, with nothing to contract into? Like you, they wear Giorgio, but the similarities end there. For them it's badge, for you it's armor. It keeps their laughter at bay, drowning it out with the white noise of near-stink. You can't put it on or smell it without seeing those yellow and white stripes, a sunny prison consigning you to life among your "peers". Even the bottle is brutal, shaped like a club, like something you'd hit someone over the head with. It hides who you really are, protecting that, so you can preserve it for a time safe enough to bring it out, if a time like that ever comes. It doesn't matter what Giorgio smells like, or whether you actually like it. It's part of your school uniform. What matters is, they can't get through it to you.

Dandy of the Day: Isabella Blow (1958-2007)

Isabella Blow was an English magazine editor and international style icon. The muse of hat designer Phillip Treacy, she is credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl as well as the fashion designer Alexander McQueen (she bought his entire graduate thesis collection). Blow often said her fondest memory was trying on her mother's pink hat, a recollection that she explained led to her career in fashion. She worked with Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley at various points. As with Talley, half her work seemed to be expressing and asserting her personal aesthetic. In a 2002 interview with Tamsin Blanchard, Blow declared that she wore extravagant hats for a practical reason:

"...to keep everyone away from me. They say, Oh, can I kiss you? I say, No, thank you very much. That's why I've worn the hat. Goodbye. I don't want to be kissed by all and sundry. I want to be kissed by the people I love."

Toward the end of her life, Blow had become seriously depressed and was reportedly anguished over her inability to "find a home in a world she influenced". Other pressures included money problems (Blow was disinherited by her father in 1994). On May 6, 2007, during a weekend house party at Hilles, where the guests included Treacy and his life partner, Stefan Bartlett, Blow announced that she was going shopping. Instead, she was later discovered collapsed on a bathroom floor by her sister Lavinia and was taken to the hopsital, where Blow told the doctor she had drunk the weedkiller Paraquat. She died at the hospital the following day.

Images of Blow, in which her inimitable spirit is abundantly apparent, remain iconic illustrations of committed individualism. We at I Smell Therefore I Am believe that Blow might have worn any of the following:


Robert Piguet's Fracas - tuberose softened in butter.

Frederic Malle's Carnal Flower - the exact moment of
orgasm, bottled.

Ava Luxe Midnight Violet - a bed of violet glowing under the moon, the smell wafting upwards with each step taken through the woods.

Annick Goutal's Sables - a bonfire in the field, its smoke surrounding you, leaving with you on your clothes.

Thoughts?

This Week at the Perfume Counter: In which your roving I Smell Therefore I Am reporter makes the marketplace rounds, nostrils flared

Earlier this week, I dropped in at Sephora, which has become something of a pit stop for me, though it’s well out of my way and nothing in the store or about the sales staff bothers to encourage these return visits. I enter eagerly, as ever, defiantly naïve. Logic tells me there won’t be anything new on the shelves. Reason tells me the staff will again ask me to repeat the word Guerlain. Even so: I persist in the hope that something I haven’t heard of yet or have forgotten to await impatiently will be featured among the brightly lit banks of veritable has-beens.

I’d never thought about it before, but with their black outfits and their headsets and the miniature microphones the personnel at Sephora do resemble the shadowy CIA figures in conspiracy movies. You approach the perfume wall alone, with that furtive anticipation unique to the perfume-obsessed, and when you turn around, there they are, forced smiles on their faces, taking glib pleasure in having startled you. If like me you’re at Sephora frequently, the CIA agents regard you knowingly, creating the impression, along with their deportment and dress, that all the available dirt on you is filed away in a secret manila folder behind the scenes. Bought two bottles of Black Orchid three weeks ago, someone pipes into her headset from the central control room. One at this location. One across town. Returned one. Returns often. Looks suspicious. Watch him carefully.

Welcome to Sephora, they sing; can they help you? Before you can answer, they’re whispering into their microphones. Whatever they hear by way of response causes them to snicker, or causes you to suspect they’re trying not to.

Invariably, they cannot help you, and here’s why:

The odds are, they have no abiding passion for perfume. They work for minimum wage: do you expect them to chat about the difference between the various vetivers indefinitely? For most, this is a temporary job. Perhaps they’re putting themselves through school. The average employee at Kinko’s has no passion for Xerox paper, to be sure, but he is trained to operate the machinery, if not to care. Sephora probably trains to some degree. You don’t just throw a headset at someone and expect them to figure it out. You must at least show them how to untangle the chord, the existence of which, on a so-called wireless, might surprise and confuse them. Some facility with communication by headset is an asset in such an environment for several reasons:

When a customer asks whether the new Guerlain Aqua Allegoria has come in, and he seems to be speaking French, and you assume he’s a foreigner, you can simply address another CIA agent by microphone, asking her if she’s ever heard of—what was it again? When someone points out that you have no more Black Orchid left, only the Voile de Fleur, which is packaged similarly but is totally different, and yet you only have a tester for Black Orchid displayed, so that people buying Voile de Fleur will think they’re buying Black Orchid, you can call discreetly for security to have this Frenchman removed from the store. When the same man stands at the counter, spraying Fresh Index Cannabis Rose on his arm, though you’ve informed him this scent is for women, and he continues to enjoy the scent, and even sprays more, and you can’t make him stop, and it frightens you, you can whisper into your microphone, and someone from central headquarters will appear to give the guy a mean, creepy, shaming look.

This week, I was pleasantly surprised, if only slightly. The location I visited had the new Kenzo Peace, and the CIA agent I spoke to knew at least enough about the product to recognize it wasn't there the last time she looked. Surely this is progress.

I continue to be fascinated by the approach saleswomen take when selling perfume to men. Invariably, they assume I’m buying for a girlfriend or a wife, or a mistress, or my mother, or my aunt, or my grandmother, or my best friend’s dying first grade teacher, still a spinster. Anyone but myself. They converge on me like hawks because, being a guy, I must be an easy target. Like other guys, I will have zero idea what a woman wants to smell like, and will be ambivalent myself about what she should or might smell like, and will want to get this over with as soon as possible, and will buy a bottle of liquid soap if they tell me “she” would want nothing more. When I reject the scent cards they shove my way, and tell them, just to make them stop talking, that I know what I’m looking for, I’m looking for Guerlain, and they stare at me with a bewildered look on their faces, as if I’ve just addressed them in Greek, and I explain, as if I’ve worked there myself, that Guerlain is a cosmetics line which sells fragrances as well and will typically be located somewhere not too far away, and their faces light up with recognition as if to say, Why didn’t you say that in the first place, they will insist on “escorting” me to the counter in question, and once there will not allow me to simply peruse on my own. Once there, my escort will advise, Shalimar is very nice, as if she’s woken from a dream and suddenly knows precisely what language I’m speaking, and the woman behind the counter, resentful of the escort’s intrusion upon her sales territory, will interject, Shalimar is nice—for middle-aged women, at which point the escort, a middle-aged woman, will make her mouth very tight, and from this thin, straight line another word will not be issued.

When I visit the Estee Lauder counter, hoping to see Sensuous there but expecting not to, because I’ve called three days before and was told it won’t be in stores until the middle of July, and (behold!) there it is, I ask the henna-haired saleslady when it arrived, and she immediately launches into her sales pitch. If I make a purchase today, she says (and her tone indicates that I should, if I know what’s good for me) I will get a gift worth sixty-five dollars, and she points to a bag at the end of the counter, some tote thing, and tells me I get everything in it, reminding me again that I get everything for free, essentially, this sixty-five dollar value. What exactly do I have to buy, I ask, suspicious. You have to buy 30 dollars worth from me, she coos. And I get a bag full of crap? I reiterate, just to make sure I’m hearing right. And just to make sure she’s hearing right, she says, “Did I just hear C-R-A-P?” I could have said shit, I point out, and she makes a tight little line out of her mouth, because, I assume, it’s hard to sell fragrance when someone brings fecal into the equation, though as my friend Bard often points out, many fragrances have the slightest whiff of tinkle. Why so surprised? If you're going to treat a man as if he just emerged from the cave, without bothering to wash his loincloth, shouldn't you expect him to talk like one?

The safest place for me is the Korean-owned shop (two locations) and the kiosk run by Russians at the mall. The Russians are blunt, and laugh when I approach, and, while we're speaking of tinkle, will pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, but I appreciate the fact that they at least pretend to know what they’re talking about. Like the Korean owner of the fragrance stores, who inherited the shop from his parents and has run it for years, the Russians have rent to pay. They want to make a sale and know the difference between a sale and a commission, the difference between finesse and a foghorn. When the Korean doesn't understand a word I'm saying, at least it's because he truly doesn't speak my language.

Dry Spell: Dreaming Dune

Last night, I dreamed I had a flight to catch—back to America, I think, from England or France or Peoria, Illinois. I was late to the airport, and it looked like I’d gone to the wrong gate, then, when I got to the right gate, the plane was pulling out, and though I managed to get on, I realized, once I’d reached my seat, that I didn’t have my ticket. The sky outside the windows was fearsome. Lightning kept perforating the black, rolling clouds, zigzagging in front of, then behind them. You could see a blinking siren whirring in circles way off in the distance. The pavement was slick with rain and various airport personnel were racing every which way across it: by foot, in little motorized carts, dragging luggage, plastic traffic cones, and last-minute warnings. Take-off was misery. The plane shook. Babies were crying. The drink cart emerged, then seemed to think better of it and retreated. The stewardesses scurried up and down the aisle trying not to make eye contact. A blonde with dark circles under her eyes glowered at me from over her romance novel, which was clearly just a barricade to hide behind. When finally the pilot came over the intercom, his voice was garbled, like the teachers and parents in Peanuts.

Nobody really knows where dreams come from. Most agree: to some extent, they represent the brain’s attempts to process information. But where does the information come from—and what does it mean, if anything? In ­­­­The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream, a book I’ve been reading, Andrea Rock explores various theories. The most compelling revolves around the notion that the various parts of your brain which get a real work-out during conscious hours go on standby when you sleep, regenerating, while others go into overdrive: you lose, for instance, your ability to establish logic-driven, causal relationships (B follows A, C follows B) and yet your imagination is more active than ever, churning out fantastic images.

Say you saw a striped cat sunning on the neighbor’s porch earlier in the day. Your dream removes the porch, makes your neighbor an astronaut, and puts the cat on roller-skates. In addition to all the data it draws from your daily life, your brain digs into its archives, rooting around for memories. This means, maybe, that your mother has baked you a cake for your seventh birthday, and walking down the street with it she trips over the cat, who is either totally inconsiderate or still adjusting to the sport. When you sleep, you experience a heightened emotional reaction to things. How sad: a cat on roller-skates has injured your mother. The cake is ruined. You cry. The cat cries. You and the cat notice each other crying, etc.

A lot of people don’t like this theory, preferring the idea that dreams work out crucial psychological phenomena from our waking lives and hold deep, transformative lessons, if only we can decode them. To these people, the cake represents childhood, the cat on roller-skates represents the passing of time, and the presence of the astronaut indicates a chronic inability to feel pain and happiness. I probably subscribe to the theory that dreams mean something, if only in a fairly random, obtuse way. But the events of the day have entered my dreams frequently enough that I believe what happens to you while you’re awake has the potential to happen to you while you’re asleep. So the fact I haven’t had a dream about perfume—not one, not ever—baffles me. My entire day is spent thinking about perfume to some extent and yet sleeping is a dry period.

Some perfumes try to replicate the sublimely associative phenomenon of dreaming (see Dreaming, Tommy Hilfiger, et al.). Images of shut-eyed women are rampant in fragrance advertising, depicting something between ecstasy and slumber. Yet the only perfume I've smelled which nails the unlikely imaginative space of dreaming is Dune, by Christian Dior. The contrast of aldehydes and benzoin is a startling one, odd and intriguing. The fragrance is dry but it feels as if the wind is blowing. Dust and sand swirl around, creating friction. Dune is considered an oriental floral and yet it's like no oriental floral you've ever smelled. "The unusual fragrance carries a brisk briny scent, coupled with sea wind and the sandy warmth of beaches," the ad copy says. You're encouraged to picture yourself on the shore, hugging your knees as you look out over the water. But Dune is more like a desert, and the only water visible is a mirage. It's a slightly spooky fragrance somehow, something familiar and uncanny, like the visitation of someone from waking life in a dream. They appear in your bedroom and sit across from you on the edge of the bed, staring. They have something to tell you but you can't make out what it is. When you wake up, you carry the memory around with you all day, wandering around in a fog, as if it might have actually happened. It colors your entire afternoon. The heart of Dune (jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang) is the only traditional thing about it. Above and below it, things are indefinitely shifting and settling. It has the persuasive power of dream and if the airport had a smell last night it would have smelled of Dune, the fragrance of missed flights and forgotten tickets from the unknown to nowhere.

80s Perfume Ad of the Day

I vividly remember this Chantilly ad from when I was a kid in the 80's. This ad makes me recall coming home from school to find my new Seventeen magazine in the mailbox, which I'd devour cover-to-cover that afternoon. I tore out this ad and put Kim Alexis up on my wall. I wanted her hair. Back then, she was so beautiful and sexy. Heck, I still want her hair and that pout! Chantilly, on the other hand, I don't remember. I know I bought it, but it didn't leave an impression.

Teo Cabanel Alahine, A Review

A quick background on Teo Cabanel:

Teo Cabanel is a small perfumery originally established in Algiers around 1893. The perfume house moved to Paris in 1908, where it became the preferred perfumery of the Dutchess of Windsor. Today you'll find that Teo Cabanel has reasserted itself as a creator of luxurious perfumes using the finest natural elements. The master perfumer is Jean-Fracois Latty, who is the "nose" behind all three fragrances. In 2005, Teo Cabanel launched two perfumes; Oha and Julia. In 2007, they launched Alahine. I’m told there’s a new perfume launch that’s either just happened or about to this summer.

The listed notes are as follows:
Top notes: bergamot, ylang ylang
Middle notes: bulgarian rose, moroccan orange tree, jasmine, pepper plant
Base notes: iris concrete, cistus, patchouli, benzoin, vanilla, musk

The listed notes don’t smell anything like the fragrance to me. Overall, I find Alahine to be a smooth, perfectly done, ambery oriental. This is one of the rare times when I read other reviews of Alahine and wonder if there’s something wrong with my nose. For me, Alahine opens with a burst of ever-so-slight citrus & floral notes, that are truly unrecognizable, I really can’t pick out the bergamot or ylang ylang or rose or jasmine, it’s all very well blended into a scent that, for me, is unique to Alahine. Very quickly it turns into a velvety amber, that is the most sophisticated and deluxe amber I have ever smelled. Alahine is oriental amber extreme with the most wondrous complexity that seems to include hints of pepper, musk, benzoin, sandalwood and patchouli. Alahine dries down fast; I would estimate it takes only 10 minutes for it to settle into the final fragrance that will last on your skin for hours.

Alahine is particularly well-mannered. It never screams, appears overdone or is even too soft or subtle. It has perfect lasting power and sillage; on my skin I’d say it lasts easily 4-6 hours and the sillage is just enough for those close to you to smell it. I imagine Alahine wafting around me all day in circles - swirling and swirling like an accomplished and practiced ballerina. I’m choosing these words very specifically; Alahine, if she were a person, would be accomplished and practiced. Alahine, if she were a person would be sophisticated, polite and charming. Ms. Alahine would be wearing the most beautifully crafted, high-quality dress, perhaps custom made for her, however, it wouldn’t shout out to you in a crowd, it would be tastefully classic. Ms. Alahine is the sort of woman at a party that effortlessly works the room, most everyone comes by to speak with her anyway, she doesn’t request the attention, others just magnetically flock to her. She’s a born charmer, with naturally pretty features, she’s the epitome of class and distinction, yet humble and kind.

I’ve never sought out ambery oriental perfumes before. I still don’t typically rush to purchase fragrances described as such even now. Alahine is perhaps my first ambery oriental love. Maybe I don’t know of the others that smell like this so I don’t have anything to compare it with; nevertheless, I think it is exceptionally beautiful. Alahine is one of the few “uncommon” perfumes that I wear which always receives compliments. And, not that I’m supposed to care very much about the packaging, but the bottle is so lovely and elegant. Everything about Teo Cabanel, and especially Alahine, is just beautiful.

Juliette Has a Gun: A Review

Juliette Has a Gun: Lady Vengeance

I love the name.

The marketing is brilliant.

The box and bottle are tres chic.

But the juice is “meh.”

Juliette Has a Gun: Miss Charming

Same as above review for Lady Vengeance.

Their new fragrance launches this fall, I hope it’s good, otherwise I think Juliette Has a Gun is one of those niche lines that might not make it.

Angela nailed it: We're Sensualist Geeks

Yesterday I read the post by Angela at Now Smell This, shaking my head in agreement and laughing out loud. Almost all the comments that followed her post vibrated like bees in a hive working for the same purpose, having similar motivations and all pursuing their ultimate pleasure…pleasure itself.

If you’re reading this, you definitely have an above average adoration of perfume, but it might also signify that you have a keen interest in literature, music, theater, tea, chocolate, five star restaurants, wine, gardening (think David Austen roses) and yoga. My favorite chocolate, mmm, that’s easy ~ Vosges. My favorite coffee, Peaberry from Trader Joe’s. Can I just eat any old sandwich for lunch? Nope. Can I buy any old set of sheets from Target. Nope. Can I just buy candles at Walmart? (are you kidding, that store smells gross?!). What I’m getting at here is not that I’m some sort of snob, but that I take enormous pleasure in pleasure itself. I live to enjoy every moment; I live to experience life at its most beautiful and sensual. Beauty and pleasure (and not narrow-minded, popular culture’s version of beauty of course), and the attainment of it is a spiritual pursuit for me. The sandwich I choose to eat for lunch might be an egg and ‘cress on very thin white bread from Pepperidge Farm and the egg salad needs to be made with 2/3 egg whites. I need to sleep on sheets of the highest thread count, considering how many hours of my life I spend sleeping, the sheets ought to be sumptuous, don’t you think? Vosges chocolate, I’m betting you’ve heard of it. If not, you ought to find out; it’s a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Candles from Walmart, that’s not possible, I need candles made from soy wax that are naturally scented and last forever.

It might sound as if I actually am a snob, and I prefer only the best brands and exclusive lines, to prove something to the outside world, but think about this: if you're a Sensualist Geek, you live for the pursuit of choosing items that cause an orgasmic sensory experience. For the most part, all these sensory items, disappear after you enjoy them. I'm making this point because it's not as if anyone else knows what perfume you're wearing and it's cost, perfume is, invisible to everyone except you. Also, for the other senses, taste, touch, sound; most of these items are also invisible, such as food, wine, chocolate and music which all disappear after you've eaten/listened to them. The sheets you sleep on, not many will ever know the brand or cost of these. I'm pointing this out because these items we consume/experience for ourselves. Nobody else will ever know what brand of perfume, type of tea, coffee or hand soap you prefer. This is completely different from the person who purchases products solely for the purpose of flashing their labels around (think of that Prada/Kate Spade bag, that BMW, a Zegna tie, those Gucci loafers, etc.)

Many of our sensory delights are expensive but if you are a Sensualist Geek you figure out how to purchase all of your special items at a discount. Everything can be had for less if you know where to look. And that’s where the first aspect of “Geek” comes in. You love researching the odd, unusual, special, beautiful and vintage in every category. You take pleasure in finding these things online, or at some oddball shop or wherever it might be. You don’t think of it as a chore to find that out-of-print book by your favorite author, you live for the pursuit of these things.

The second aspect of Sensualist Geekery is the need to research and understand all of our favorite sensual pleasures to the Nth degree. How many of you reading this know far more than the average person about perfume, the notes/accords, the various esteemed noses, the history of the perfume houses? How many of you can recite the most obscure varieties of tea, can recite David Lynch films in scary detail, understand the difference between egygptian cotton and the "rest" and know all about thread count, know the exact differences between dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate (and know that white chocolate isn't really chocolate at all, and milk chocolate verges on being candy rather than chocolate due to it's low ratio of pure cacao)...? You see what I mean, yes?

Getting back to perfume, as one of the sensory pleasures of a Sensualist Geek….I’ve noticed that I have a more acute sense of smell than most people. I can smell something burning in the oven way before anyone else in my house. I can smell when the weather is about to change many hours in advance. Of course I can smell when it’s going to snow. I could tell that my neighbor put caraway seeds in his apple pie crust before even biting into it. So, aside from a personality trait, perhaps Sensualist Geeks are also wired to notice, experience, sensory cues more intensely and quickly than others. It might make sense for survival. Darwin’s theory, might have been: Survival of the Sensualist?

Just in case, Vosges website:

Peace, Love and Chocolate….

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/

An Open Letter to Annick Menardo

Dear Ms. Menardo,

If you only knew how much time I spend walking around in your head-space—and I don’t even know how to pronounce your last name! What’s the etymology? I haven’t been able to find much out about you online. In the only photos I’ve seen, your face is covered by a handkerchief. I’m guessing the handkerchief is soaked in perfume, and you couldn’t stop working long enough to take a picture. You’re a busy woman. It isn’t just that you’ve worked on many perfumes—though I know you have—but the level of quality you strive to maintain. Body Kouros, Hypnotic Poison, Xeryus Rouge, Roma Uomo, Bulgari Black, Lolita Lempicka (man and woman), Boss Hugo Boss, Hypnose. Stop me anytime here. Aside from Roma, I can’t think of a Menardo scent which lacks in persistence and diffusion. I picture you in your lab with hands so busily mixing and shaking and sniffing and decanting that you appear, like Kali, to have many arms, all moving simultaneously, with superhuman agility and precision.

You were born in Cannes and wanted to be a psychiatrist. I don’t know what Cannes says about you but your interest in psychology makes perfect sense to me. Emotional propositions, your fragrances elicit potent feelings. Impossible to stand in front of a Van Gogh without being moved back or forth in time along some visceral emotional spectrum—and so it is with a Menardo. When I first smelled Bulgari Black, I didn’t know what to think. I’d smelled everything I thought I could possibly be interested in. I was such an authority, couldn’t be bothered with the idea of surprise. I knew what I liked, I had my list, I’d tried everything. I was on my way out of the store, but I’m greedy: one more fragrance, one last whiff before I go. Imagine my surprise. Black stopped me dead in my tracks—because, quite frankly, rubber? I mean, really; you must be joking. “Black is New York, Berlin, Hong Kong or Tokyo and its smoking sidewalks, its concrete buildings and its steel bridges.” Well, okay. If they say so. To me it came out of nowhere—not black tea, not leather but a great big miasmal accord of the uncanny, something out of Ambrose Bierce, the word for which might have been in The Devil’s Dictionary had it not taken up too many pages to get across. What is Black, if not a head trip?

After this I tracked down the others. Lempicka au Masculine is comfort food, recalling the sweet, doughy dishes a mother who loved you might have served. Xeryus Rouge: a spicy something or other from the proverbial Orient, hot to the touch. In the osmoz of my mind, Body Kouros is classified as Camphoraceous-Gourmand. The day I bought Hypnotic Poison, I wore it to a friend’s house. Here is my report: not two steps through the door I was asked what that wonderful smell was. Another convert; another comrade. Were your ears buzzing? If so, they must frequently. And yet very few of your juices, with the exception of Lolita Women, seems to have struck a popular chord. No small surprise, perhaps, given the kind of copy written to sell them. “The mauve color is symbolic of faeries,” someone wrote of the Lolita Lempicka au Masculine bottle. Is it any wonder men didn’t flock to the shelves in great prancing droves, their toes all a-twinkle? Only Black seems to have been packaged and marketed with the right tone of top-down design—and that, I suspect, by happy accident.

For this and other reasons you’re a cult figure, the David Lynch of perfumery. Black is your Blue Velvet, Hypnotic Poison your Mullholland Drive. Like Lynch you are an enigma. Now that I think of it, perhaps your face is covered with the handkerchief by decree. Ludicrously, we’re meant to believe Lolita herself waved her magic wand and—poof! Those little glass apple bottles sprouted from trees. The public, somewhat unconsciously, imagines Yves Saint Laurent in your place, mixing Body Kouros up by trial and error in his velvet-upholstered lab. Dior had a bright idea one day; in a trance, he saw red, then Hypnotic Poison. And so on. Perfumers are kept in the shadows, remaining spectral figures to most, so that very few would ever make the connection between Xeryus Rouge and Roma Uomo, unless it turned out that Laura Biagotti and Givenchy had engaged in a torrid, uber-secret affair. It’s as if The Met had scattered its Van Goghs all throughout the gallery, removing anything indicating who’d painted them. Would someone who'd never been exposed to his art before realize that the sunflower in the vase had been cut from those in the field? Cult figures are great—for those who love them—but it’s nice to be recognized at large. It’s nice to know where the sunflower came from, so you can keep going back for more.

I’m writing to tell you about my plans to start the Annick Menardo fan club, membership of which will include monthly newsletters and bi-weekly sniff-a-thons. Every January, we’ll coalesce en masse at a Holiday Inn somewhere in Iowa or Georgia or Maine, attending panel discussions with names like “Whence came that dreamy, signature vanillic dry down?” “Is Black to Goth as Robert Smith of the Cure is to liquid eyeliner?” “What to do with yourself, should Body Kouros go the way of Havana.” I’ll be the moderator, switchboard operator, and benevolent head of the membership drive. I’ll be your tireless advocate. Barack Obama will thank you for your contribution to world peace in his inaugural address. I'm on it. Like you I’ll keep my arms moving. I’m thoroughly committed to the idea, Ms. Menardo—but we’ll need a clearer picture.

As ever,

Your devoted fan.

vintage perfume ad of the day: YSL Cologne

Before Tom Ford--before Mark Jacobs--there was Yves Saint Laurent. Ford might have raised eyebrows posing nude in Out magazine, and Jacobs, post recovery, seems to have taken every available opportunity to show off his newly sculpted figure (Look, Ma, no love handles!), but Yves trumps them both. One imagines him looking for the quintessential embodiment of the Saint Laurent man. The head shots are spread before him on the drafting table. Whom to pick, whom to pick, decisions, decisions. Eenie, Meenie, Meyenee...Moi! Who better than Yves himself to represent the company in this early, perhaps crucial bid at masculine fragrance? One imagines Yves taking care of business. Perhaps he'd chosen someone else, after all, and the model balked at appearing in the buff. Mr. Laurent was in the house, to show him how the big boys roll. Mr. Laurent WAS the house, and he would have kindly shown that timid model the door.

Rooms With a View: Jasmine et Cigarette and Rien

Set two Etat Libre D’Orange boxes back to back, with their red and blue, semi-circle logos, and you get a bulls-eye in the middle, an interesting sight gag for a niche line whose compositions tend toward the oblique. The names, too, sidle up to you coquettishly: Delicious Closet Queen; Encens & Bubblegum; Don’t Get Me Wrong Baby, I Don’t Swallow; Secretions Magnifiques. Quirky, however well done, is often taken to indicate overcompensation, distracting from a chronic lack of substance. But, pace Luca Turin: “Never underestimate the French gift for refinement.” Turning a phrase, you might say that Etat, who have the intelligence and imagination to back up most of their various thematic conceits, are tongue in chic.

It’s slightly misleading to say they specialize in conceptual perfumery, as all perfume is conceptual, yet Etat do spin the concept of conceptual on its head. Your average perfume begins with a brief—a proposal, let’s say. This document presupposes an aura, at the center of which is a mysterious, as yet ill-defined woman. What does this woman feel? What does she look like? The clothes she wears, the places she’s been and the experiences she’s had, the way she cocks her head when you catch her attention, the glint in her eye when she thinks back to the last time she felt the searing gaze of an admirer: all contribute to the refinement of this hypothetical what if. A perfume represents the distillation of such a woman. And when another woman, likely dissimilar in every imaginable way—chiefly, by virtue of being flesh and blood—sees an advertisement for this elixir, it appears to her, its manufacturers hope, like a specialized emotional mirror. Looking into it, she sees a fantasy image of herself.

Etat too sets out with a proposal, and the perfumes just as arguably aspire to a state of mind. The difference is that woman. It isn’t that she’s not there. Someone, man or woman, most certainly could be. It isn’t even that great pains have been taken to keep whoever this person is unspecified. It’s just that the people at Etat, like those at Comme des Garcon, are more interested in place and thing than person, per se. Where is this place? What does it feel like? What does the air smell like? What are the objects in the room, or building, or landscape? What just happened here—or might if you stick around? The mood is not that of a woman in her element, whatever that might be, but of the elements themselves.

Let’s say one of the above boxes contains Jasmine et Cigarette. The other, let’s say, contains Rien. The two are very representative Etat fragrances. The packaging is strictly minimal. What you have to go on is the fragrance and the enclosed copy. It’s worth quoting the latter. The folded note contained in Jasmine et Cigarette mentions “smoky black and white ambiance” and “hazy atmosphere”. The fragrance is the “reminder of a fantasy” in the form of a smell which has been left on one’s clothes or in the mind of another. The movie star fragrance recalls the refined ennui of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, seen through wisps of smoke. To be sure, the prose is overblown—isn’t most ad copy?—and specific mention is made of a woman, but her features are left to your imagination, and the emphasis remains decidedly on setting. Jasmine et Cigarette puts you inside an old movie, making you both director and star.

What this means is that the experience of Jasmine et Cigarette isn’t mediated in quite the same way as, say, Dior Addict, whose model persists in your mind as you wear it the way the figure on a book jacket stands in for your image of the character as you read, and perhaps forever after. Even the pyramids of Etat fragrances are kept vague. A ‘smoky’ jasmine with tobacco, hay, turmeric, apricot, cedar, amber and musk is about all you’ll get on Jasmine et Cigarette, and shouldn’t it be? What does a pyramid really tell you? Ultimately, when rose means gerianol and various other aromachemicals, the notes proffered for most perfumes are yet another kind of fantasy, a filter through which to enforce someone else’s intended image.

As for Rien: the word translates into nothing, so don't expect much help there, either. If Jasmine et Cigarette presents you with the black and white room of a 1940s Hollywood movie, Rien shuts you in the leather suitcase near the bedside table, inviting you to find your way out. Be sure: there’s a wad of stolen cash in there, and a story to be told. While Rien is no Bandit, and its nose, Antoine Lie, is no Germaine Cellier, the perfumes share a certain sensibility, and Rien could be viewed as rebuilding a room from memory. It has some of Bandit’s lonely aloofness, that smoky, animalic veil which smells deliciously of bittersweet melancholy. Antoine Maisondieu’s Jasmine et Cigarette brings a bit of cheer with its flowers, but they’re feint enough to remind you of someone’s absence, creating a mood of longing and expectation. That is to say, if someone gave this bouquet to you, it was intended as a good-bye.

In a world where almost anything is accessible, the Etat line remains, as of now, difficult to obtain. Apparently, Henri Bendel stocks them. Harvey Nichols carries them but don’t expect a return call when you can’t figure out the US equivalent of postal code. Little information exists on the perfumes. Are they of good quality? Yes, and worth the time it takes to track them down and the money they’ll cost. They’re EDP, and true to Turin’s word, exquisitely refined. Part of what makes the two in question so evocative is their lucidity. They are exceptionally smooth. There’s a gravity to these fragrances which the sense of humor belies. Go to the company’s website and see for yourself. Etat wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Connection between Serge Lutens & Jason Mraz

The original song, Summer Breeze, was written and performed in 1972 by Seals & Croft.

Jason Mraz did a cover of Summer Breeze that rocks my world.

I was driving home from the office this evening when Summer Breeze came on the radio. It made me think of… I mean… it actually made me smell Serge Lutens A La Nuit.

To me, this is a musical rendition of Lutens A La Nuit. Is it possible that listening to music can cause an olfactory hallucination? Well, I would have to say, yes, it’s possible, because it happens to me.

Please have a listen…and enjoy some Jason Mraz….

Why Luca Turin Matters

Because perfume is art, though people will tell you otherwise. These are the people who once said--perhaps still say--that photography isn’t art, either. Perfume is sculpture; composition on an often imaginary canvas. It depicts and portrays, interprets, can be figurative, representational, abstract, surreal. Perfume paints a picture which is seen differently according to who's looking and where it’s put on display.

Because perfume is science, and memory, emotional and inarticulate, and someone who can speak eloquently, with intelligence, technical precision, and imagination about it is practically a godsend in a world which can barely remember what it was doing thirty years ago, let alone yesterday. Someone who does remember, and can elucidate how perfume and memory interplay, applying science without killing the delicate sense of mystery intrinsic to this exchange, is more than a Godsend. In a world without God, he's an expression of faith.

Because he treats perfume as if it is worthy of excitement, and passion, and the money we spend on it, and the fantasies we build around it. Because he doesn’t regard time or money spent on perfume to be time or money wasted. He treats the great perfumes as if they were wonders of creation, which they are, and describes them in ways which value and encourage our engagement with them. Because he treats our disappointment in those which pander to our dollar at the cost of our intellect with respect and empathy, recognizing that art is serious and trust sacred.

Because he has a sense of humor—about himself, about obsession, about ego, failures and successes, the absurd and the sublime. Question: How many people at Caron does it take to fuck up the classics? Answer: the more the messier. Because he has a bullshit detector. He works at his writing. It's informative and entertaining. Angry and blissed out, with exquisite cadences and finely-measured, poetic description. Because he isn't afraid to hold an opinion, or get it off his hands by putting it out in the open. Because many people are afraid of having an opinion at this point and literally have nothing to say which hasn't been fed to them, subliminally or otherwise. Because he's an incredible stylist with a sharp pen, and his talent qualifies him as the Dorothy Parker of perfume criticism.

Because he wouldn’t wince at this comparison. Because his bullshit detector specializes in the realm of gender codes and prehistoric sex role stereotypes. Why shouldn’t a man wear Magie Noire? Shouldn’t he, simply because you say he shouldn’t? Because by expressing unqualified enthusiasm for feminines and masculines alike he collapses those categories as we understand them, and liberates the mind to think about art freely, without the imposed restrictions of shame and conditioned perception.

Because he takes manufacturers to task for butchering perfume “formulas”, recognizing that the word formula belies a weird alchemical ecosystem where, with one change, an entire world of associations changes, perhaps forever, destroying memories, robbing people of their pasts, defacing art and devaluing history. Because he knows that continuing to treat perfume as photography rather than art allows such criminal behavior to pass off as business, when really it isn’t even good business, as anyone desperate to throw down cash for the real Emeraude would attest.

Because for people who care about perfume Luca Turin is a dream come true.

Dandy of the Day

At the ribald age of three he was, already, inordinately preoccupied with twill and velvet and satin and brocade. By Six, he was reciting poetry--first Dr. Seuss, then Yeats. He wrote to Dear Abby at sixteen: "Why does the world at large seem not to care about the color red?"

"Specifically, Brick Red," he added.

Dear Abby did not respond.

He believes great, even obsessive care should be taken in one's dress and the dressing of one's friends. Enemies can fend for themselves, but he gives them enough rope. His appearance outside people's bedrooms at the break of dawn is not altogether unheard of. From the window, he makes discreet, attentive suggestions. Do not please inflict yourself upon the nylon green blouse, his eyes sigh. Even nylon deserves a better hue.

He wears Guerlain--specifically, L'Heure Bleue. It reminds him of a dense, textured sky. Over which: a field. Wind eddies through the grass, creating elaborate patterns. Birds fly overhead with the common sense to recognize that they are purely decorative. The rodents stay clear of the picture, out of common decency. There is a torte in the field which has not yet been discovered by the ants. He decides to eat the torte, the freshly-baked scent of which wafts in filigreed vapors up to his nostrils and straight back to his childhood, where a bed bedecked in twill and velvet and satin and brocade awaits his arrival.

Generation Sap: Fath de Fath

Fath de Fath is the kind of perfume you give to your mother on Mother’s Day, then worry a little, wondering whether she likes it as much as you do. When she assures you she does, you can’t quite believe her. As you remind her not to store the bottle in her bathroom, out on the counter where the steam and the sunlight will hasten its destruction, urging her instead to store it in the bottom drawer of her bureau, in its box, wrapped in a sock which should then be wrapped in a towel, you listen for cues in her tone of voice. Smelling it now on your arm, you can’t imagine what possessed you. Fath de Fath seems at first perfectly lovely—fruit at the top, orange blossom and tuberose in the middle. Originally released in 1954, it was reformulated forty years later, but still recalls old school floral chypres like Jolie Madame and Patou 1000, prolonging a formality in perfumery which for the most part no longer exists. Pretty and prim, you thought. So why does it suddenly seem more unusual than all that? Perhaps its initial nostalgic aroma muddled your thinking.

What gives you pause is that first dry down, during which you detect something ever so slightly off-putting. That smell is Benzoin. An ingredient in many fragrances, typically oriental variants, Benzoin is a resin derived from a tree or shrub of the same name (more formally, Styrax Tonkiniensis) which is native to Indochina. Incisions are made in the bark, through which the tree excretes a honey-colored sap. During the process of cultivation, this viscous material hardens. The food industry uses Benzoin as a flavor additive in gum, pudding, soft drinks, and candy, a cheaper substitute for vanilla. Its aroma is sweetly balsamic, vaguely woody—a glass of soda left out overnight, tart and flat. Benzoin works excellently as a fixative and shows up in the basenotes of many fragrance pyramids. In some scents its presence is more easily discernable. The well-orchestrated symphony of Opium renders it all but invisible, and yet it affords that overall composition a certain resinous heft. Body Kouros aerates it with the addition of eucalyptus. Dune qualifies as one of the strangest, most imaginative uses of benzoin, pairing it with Aldehydes; the bright, shimmering form you first ascertain turns out to be a mirage, and you're left with a vast expanse of hollow, spectral diffusion. In contrast, L’Instant, Obsession for Men, and Shalimar employ benzoin with considerable subtlety. Fendi Theorema uses it more transparently, augmenting its waxen character with dewy fruit. Par Amour features it perhaps even more pronouncedly than Fath de Fath, resulting in a rose by way of Madame Tussaud’s. Tuscany per Donna livens things up with carnation.

The top notes of Fath de Fath reportedly include cassis, mandarin, lemon, and pear. Lily of the valley, Heliotrope, and Orange blossom manage somehow to tame the beast of tuberose in the heart of the fragrance. If no one told you, you might not even sense it there. The patchouli in the basenotes likely contributes to keeping the low profile. Tonka, which smells of hay, is often included alongside benzoin, as it is here. Fath de Fath resembles Bal a Versailles in some respects, substituting the uncanny, destabilizing influence of benzoin for civet. The fragrance bridges trends from vastly different eras, lightening up a classic sensibility, transcending time and place in the process. Ultimately, there’s something slightly askew in its elegant diffusion, modernizing and dating it simultaneously. It would be as out of place in the fifties as it was in the nineties, and maybe everywhere in between. That dissonance can be quite attractive in a perfume, and in Fath de Fath it creates a subtle dichotomous frisson, like the heavy bass of Beck rattling the windows on a restored Bentley. In the final analysis, Fath de Fath might just drag your mother into the 21st Century, if she’s agreeable to the idea—or perhaps it will encourage you to meet her halfway.

Frederic Malle, Le Parfum de Thérèse: A Review

I imagine most perfume connoisseurs already know that Edmond Roudnitska created Le Parfum de Thérèse in the early 1950s for his wife Thérèse, and it was hers exclusively.

I’ve read that Le Parfum de Thérèse is Edmond Roudnitska’s concept of olfactory beauty, incandescent, ever-changing composition that is both soulful and awe-inspiring.

It took me awhile to try Le Parfum de Thérèse (henceforth LPdT) because I rushed off to try Carnal Flower and Lipstick Rose first. When I finally did try LPdT I felt I’d wasted valuable time, valuable sniffing and swooning time, because it’s just so heartbreakingly beautiful. I wish I’d come to know it sooner.

Others smell all sorts of melon, plum, oranges and leather. I think they smell this because it’s in the list of notes; it’s the power of suggestion working on them. I suppose if I smell it closely, too closely in my book, I could pick out these fruits, definitely the orange and some rose and jasmine, but I try not to dissect. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I prefer to evaluate the perfume, the work as a whole, the way it smells as it wafts up to my nose from the keyboard as I type this, or as a lover might smell it on me in an embrace.

Thérèse, Mr. Roudnitska’s wife, was one lucky lady. Le Parfum de Thérèse is a stunning masterpiece. There’s a definite wildness to it, a very natural, fresh, joyous wildness, the way one might smell if you were to go for a picnic, stretch out on a blanket in a meadow on the loveliest day in June. LPdT smells to me as if you fell asleep during your afternoon picnic, took a little nap on your blanket, and awoke to find yourself smelling of everything around you; clovers, grass, herbs, all the ripe fruits and wine you brought in your basket and the leather of the horses saddle. (Yes, you rode a horse to this perfect little picnic, this IS a fantasy, mind you.) The top notes do burst with a very fruity sweetness, but this is temporary. I find LPdT to be a kaleidescope of aroma - not layered one on top of the other - but rather, each note tumbles around and around and lingers in the middle/heart notes for eternity.

Le Parfum de Thérèse is a complex scent in that is simultaneously fresh, warm, sweet, tangy, tame, wild and salty. LPdT is traditionally feminine with a little edge, a slight subversive quality due to the hint of leather and vetiver in the base. LPdT dances playfully in a joyous and spirited way, completely oblivious to everything around it, dreamily doing its own thing, in its own time. LPdT doesn’t pay heed to market research, it doesn’t care about which types of perfumes are selling well or whether it’s on the cutting edge or it’s a classic. In this regard, we at I Smell Therefore I Am, would call this a Dandy of a Perfume.

UPDATE (2 hours later): One important thing I forgot to mention in this glowing review is that LPdT doesn't have enough lasting power. You'd never think so after the initial burst - it's so strong in the beginning - but it only lasts on my skin for about 90 minutes - 2 hours maximum. For a perfume this expensive this is a problem. If it were less expensive I'd happily re-apply. So, due to it's fleeting nature, I tend to treat LPdT as a special occasion perfume. The bottle feels like liquid gold in my hand (gold is the color of the juice itself and gold as a reminder of the wasted coins spritzing out into the air and disappearing...sadly...too soon).

Dandy of the Day, Defined

The poet Charles Baudelaire described a dandy as one whose interest in aesthetics approaches religious devotion, if not fanaticism. However, dandy means all sorts of things. The connotation is that of someone whose passion for art and beauty (and fragrance) is unrealistically devout. The dandy's adherence to beauty beyond the strictures of date, place, and time is out of step with modern standards, which are considered mere nuisances. Here at I Smell Therefore I Am, we view as a dandy anyone whose style and/or taste/and or overall outlook and presentation is decidedly bold and individually extravagant. We applaud, by singling out, people whose outlook is visionary. Fancy dressers, arch intellectuals, perfume connoisseurs. The woman at the corner deli who wears her hair high and her perfume loud. They like what they like, and whether or not you like it too is of no significance to them. They wear it or say it or pursue it regardless. In an era of conformity and marketed identity, we seek out those who persist as individuals, against the grain, until the grain finally, if ever, catches up with them.

Don't think only men can be dandy. Women are dandy too. They even had their own term for it. Several terms, in fact. Quaintrelle, dandyess, dandizette. Famous courtesan Cora Pearl was an early quaintrelle. We use the word dandy to mean both genders. We use it to mean beyond gender; rather, a state of mind and a state of being. We use it on this blog to celebrate the unusual and to speculate what kind of perfumes would best befit these particular forms of maverick individualism.

Fun game: What do these TV personalities wear?

The ground rules are this: we assume all of these characters definitely wear perfume/cologne and cost is not an option.

The Office

Angela: White Linen by Estee Lauder. Rather than run the risk of Angela’s scorn, I’ll guess the only perfume she could possibly wear. Or maybe Vera Wang, The Fragrance, yes that’s it, she’s more current than White Linen. I felt her scorn and Vera Wang popped hastily into mind.

Pam: Beasley, she’s a tough one. She’s traditional and feminine yet she has an artistic side and an irreverent sense of humor. I’m going with Dolce & Gabbana The One, because she thinks she’s found the one with Jim Halpert (lucky dog!).

Kevin: Polo, the green bottle, from the 80s. Kevin thinks he’s a ladies man. Kevin wants to show off his masculine and sexy side, and to him, this = Polo.

Jan Levinson-Gould: Jan’s a Coco Mademoiselle woman. She’s sultry, sexy, uber-feminine with a spicy take-charge personality. She knows men go crazy when she splashes Coco Mademoiselle between her inflated cleavage. She occasionally likes a nice leathery fragrance, like Caron Tabac Blond or Chanel's Cuir de Russie when she's experimenting with bondage.

Phyllis: Anais Anais by Cacherel. Phyllis is traditionally feminine; she knits, she wears girlie clothing, I imagine her to smell floral and powdery. She found Anais Anais when it first came out and it’s been her signature scent ever since.

Creed: Creed wears Creed’s Green Irish Tweed. He has to, it’s his namesake. He knows a guy who steals it off the truck as they transport it to Neiman Marcus. He doesn’t see the problem, HE doesn’t steal it, the other guy does.

The New Adventures of Old Christine

Christine: She wears whatever she can get her hands on that morning. She has about 6-8 bottles of perfume. All sexy, spicy, loud, florals and orientals. Today she realized she ran out of deodorant so she grabbed some Victor & Rolf Flowerbomb and spritzed way too much and gave a few shots towards her underarms.

30 Rock

Liz Lemon: Liz is too busy to buy perfume, she barely has time to buy new bras or undies, and they all have holes in them. So, Liz’ friend, Jenna routinely gives her perfume as gifts for her birthday or Christmas, so she just wears whatever she gets. This past birthday Jenna gave her Guerlain Insolence. Liz sorta hates it, it’s very fruity and floral but she wears it anyway, she figures it’s better than nothing and these headaches will go away eventually.
Jenna: Jenna purchases fragrances that are certified man magnets. She has a list of the exact types of men each fragrance attracts so she knows precisely what to wear given which man she'll meet up with on a given day. Today, she has a doctor’s appointment, so she’s wearing Dior Midnight Poison because doctors are known to become weak in the knees when they come under the spell of Midnight Poison.

Now it’s your turn ~ what do you think?

Your Mother!

Can we all stop talking about perfumes as if they become extinct after a shelf date and should be retired to some olfactory graveyard, where they might be admired but never worn? Fine, you mother wore Lanvin Arpege. My mother drank milk, rode a bicycle, used Crest toothpaste, and shaved. It doesn’t keep me from doing all of those things. Okay, so that was my father. Okay it was my neighbor’s father. The point is, everything reminds you of something. Seeing that running faucet reminds me I have to go to the bathroom. Perhaps I shouldn’t, as someone else once did.

All over the perfume blogs you hear two frequent cautionary prefaces, like warning labels on hazardous chemicals: “This is technically for women but I think it might be good on a man,” and “It smells like my grandmother.” The first one we’ll save for some other time. As for your grandmother, Arpege is a useful reference point.

Arpege was created in 1927 under Jeanne Lanvin for her daughter’s 30^th birthday, or so the story goes. Her daughter was a musician; thus the name. Andre Fraysse, then 27, was commissioned to create the fragrance, and was assisted by Paul Vacher. Fraysse went on to do Rumeur, My Sin, and Scandal, also classics. His son, Richard, is an in-house perfumer at Caron, under whose supervision the classics there have not been treated so kindly. Like most perfumes of a certain age, Arpege’s formula has periodically been nipped and tucked, most recently by another Fraysse, Hubert. The fragrance is, as always, strong on aldehydes, one thing which is said to date it (though Chanel No. 5 has more aldehydes, and continues to sell very well, thank you) and it dries down into leather and tobacco accords, also said to be dated, go figure. The fact is, perfumes don’t really go out of style; people are just desperate to seem current, and will follow whatever trend is sold to them in order not to seem “old-fashioned”, a marketing term which conditions them to continue consuming. Ultimately the only relevant barometer should be whatever you think smells good. A flower smells nice. Is that outdated? Think of Arpege as a bundle of flowers left out in the sun, on a leather car seat.

A magical property unique to perfume is its ability to change mercurially according to various environmental factors. Most of us smell rose in compositions which are said to contain it, just as when we say table we all generally know what we’re referring to. If you start describing the table in detail, you enter a more associative realm, and open the issue up to personal interpretation. It was a low wood table with inlaid tile and wrought iron legs. Was it a coffee table? Oh I suppose. But it was taller than that. Taller than what? A coffee table. How tall is a coffee table? I should say a coffee table comes up to your knees when you sit down. Doesn’t that depend on how tall you are? Well, yes , it does, but—oh shut up.

Smell is the same way. Maybe you’ve never liked Lolita Lempicka, then you smell it on someone you’ve just met, only you don’t know it, you only know this person smells fantastic. You don’t believe him when he tells you what he has on. Chanel No. 5 might be awfully formal, slightly powdery, on the woman in a suit dress. Someone in jeans might make it seem cozy and sulfurous. A man might make it seem like some alien life form in the shape of a guy you thought you knew. Arpege is no exception to this phenomenon. No perfume is. While it’s true that various aromachemicals and approaches fall out of use, this matters very little to people who have always worn what they choose, rather than whatever is sold to them. Scent is both specific and malleable: the smell of your house at someone else’s place might remind you of home, but the similarity forces you to see things differently. The smell of apple pie might bring tears to your eyes, while someone else will heave. The same smell is a world apart from person to person.

As a famous sitcom actress was once said to have spit at singer-songwriter Rufus Wainright after he gushed that she’d always reminded him of his mee-maw: “I ain’t your f—king grandmother, kid.” And then there's Arpege: modern and feisty, it’s been around for a while. Nuff said? Fraysse’s intention was to create a truly eternal floral, and as much as one can, he has. The opening of bergamot, neroli, and peach is vivid, thanks to the aldehydes. The floral heart is traditionally composed: Jasmine, Rose, Lily of the Valley, Ylang-Ylang. These extend into the dry down, a smooth medley of vanilla, vetiver, tuberose, and vetiver. Arpege is considered to be the first feminine to use such a large quantity of sandalwood. The aldehydes too persist well into the dry down, itself a thing of wonder. The fragrance lasts several hours with impressive intensity, then softens, lingering with woody phosphorescence. The insignia on the bottle depicts Lanvin and daughter Marie-Blanche. Both of them have passed. Arpege is still around. A perfume like this doesn't date. It's too timeless.

The Joke's on You: Moschino Funny!

There was a time when the humor and irreverence of Moschino (not just its line of perfumes but its fashion and its founder) were not entirely lost on its intended audience. There was a time when Moschino in fact had more of an audience on which to lose something. Who could forget the chocolate drizzled handbag—or the Teddy Bear dress? Plenty of people, it would seem. The Olive Oyl bottle of Moschino’s Cheap and Chic perfume was a statement at the time. Now, people tend to dismiss it as unintentionally tacky. Moschino injected the humorless, self-absorbed fashion scene of the eighties with wit and intelligence. While it’s true you wouldn’t actually often have occasion to wear a stuffed animal-infested dress out in public, couture has never been about reality or practical application. Moschino laid bare the central dichotomy of fashion industry practice; of course it was absurd that a collection never intended to be worn should conduct itself as soberly as a tax audit. It was as if Jerry Lewis, as the Nutty Professor, had started a line of couture dresses and sportswear, issued from a headquarters stationed in his lab. Unfortunately, the Italian fashion establishment felt Moschino was laughing at them, not with them, and denounced the designer as a talentless hack. This only made him more popular, his point more legitimate.

Moschino's aesthetic was exuberantly youthful and decidedly adult simultaneously. He was raised in a small town on the outskirts of Milan, perhaps shaping him from the beginning as an outsider with a close proximity to the heart of things but enough distance to view them objectively. His background was in illustration and (for Versace) publicity, so it was perhaps entirely logical that his approach would merge the surrealist audacity of Dali with the slapstick, crowd-pleasing sight-gags of Tex Avery. Moschino founded his line in 1983. Five years later, his Cheap and Chic range was introduced. In 1994, he launced what he called an Ecouture line, featuring clothes made from environmentally friendly fabrics and dyes. It might just be that the laughing stopped when Moschino died the same year, at the age of 44, the victim of that quintessential buzz-kill, a heart attack. His line has persevered, albeit with less fanfare and less imaginative marketing. His perfume line releases new product frequently. The fragrances are more interesting than they’re given credit for. Cheap and Chic itself is a brisk fruity floral, truly cheap and chic, making it, of course, exceptional and a play on words, a happy contradiction. Eponymously titled Moschino (1988) is a floral oriental which smells like Grasse by way of a headshop, another, more refined play on words. Cheap and Chic has had several flankers, as has Moschino.

The bottle for Funny! mimics the one used for Moschino Couture, extending a joke across two releases separated by three years and seemingly contradictory high/low designations. Moschino Couture is a warm, fruity floral with haughty gold cap, high-class scotch-colored juice, and velvet red ribbon sash. Funny! is literally its polar opposite, cool, fresh, and exhilarating, with silver cap, ice blue juice, and frayed satin ribbon, the cheerful country cousin to its big city counterpart. Funny! was created by Antoine Maisondieu, whose work with Etat Libre D’Orange (Jasmin et Cigarette, Encens & Bubblegum, et al), demonstrate his own refined sense of humorous elegance. He was the nose behind Burberry Brit London, Gucci eau de Parfum II, and Comme des Garcon’s Luxe Patchouli, all interesting, all arguably wonderful. Funny! combines Seville orange, red currant, and green tea, possessing an aptly curious spiciness (something of a punchline, a la pink pepper) and a resinous base which contrasts ingeniously with its effervescent attributes. It shares with Gucci II a rare quality in feminine construction, where buoyancy doesn’t mean vapidity. It is bold and declarative rather than timid and insipid. It has humor and a positive outlook on things. It’s cheerful without being air-headed, dense without being a dumb blonde. Most impressively for a citrus-focused scent, it persists, giggling in the face of summer heat. Funny it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

Dandy of the Day

This young man, in our humble but, you should know, widely esteemed opinion, is wearing a cologne which hasn't been invented yet.

Overrated, Underrated

More than a few people have noted a passing resemblance between Chanel Allure Sensuelle and Tom Ford Black Orchid. Both follow a recent trend in feminine perfumery, mixing a floral up top with a grunge accord at the bottom, albeit to varying degrees of success. Both have a candied decadence to them. Both dropped the same year. However, Black Orchid gets all the love, while Sensuelle, which must carry the weight of Coco Chanel on its shoulders, is treated as the ugly step-child.

Let’s be clear: Allure Sensuelle is no Chanel No. 5—but neither is Black Orchid. And while Allure Sensuelle has mastermind Jacques Polge behind it, Black Orchid…doesn’t. Like the new and old versions of Rive Gauche, the two intersect, smelling more like each other at certain points during their respective developments, then less. Both arguably unisex, Black Orchid has the advantage of Tom Ford’s blurred lines behind it, whereas Chanel sells to the gender segregationist set, and therefore plays to half its potential audience.

Despite the bluster of its campaign, signaled by the phallic, rectangular bottle (a bit like Mildred Pierce in her square-shouldered furs) Black Orchid never quite pulls it off. From the moment you spray it on, you can see it has big plans. It screams get out of the way in a coarse baritone vibrato. For the first five or ten minutes it's running off at the mouth, boasting so assertively that you trust it has something to say. It does and it doesn’t. The construction of Black Orchid is comparable to one of those old Rube Goldberg contraptions. In order for the little silver ball to end up in the bucket, everything must be perfectly conceived and constructed. The metal rails must be pitched the right way, lest the ball lose momentum before it hits its mark. The wooden lever that ball is meant to drop on, which will then hit the stick which holds the rubber fist, which will then slam against the button which releases the trap door, and the ball, so it can roll along its merry way, must be flexible enough. You look at a Rube Goldberg construction and it seems fine, everything looks great, until you try it out, at which point it either operates beautifully or things fall apart. Black Orchid is pitched a little too sharply. Certain chutes and ladders have been angled ever so slightly the wrong way, but you don’t know it until you’re rolling along all those rails. The proportions are wrong. You can see the image you’re meant to watch, under sheets of zigzagging static, or you think you can—but whoever tried to fix the picture slammed the side of the TV, rather than taking the time to adjust the knobs.

The heart of the fragrance lingers in gorgeous, twilit territory, where the flowers are nicely complicated, as if turning the lights down low made it as hard to smell as see, and a vivid, earthen woodiness reminds you the ground is underfoot. There’s even a tangy zest somewhere in there—turning the aromatic pungency of a fougere on its head. Wild Orchid lingers, pretending to relax, but only briefly, and the bluster of the opening notes resumes. This is a busy fragrance—places to go, people to see—off it rushes again. That would be fine, were it rushing somewhere half as interesting as the place it’s evacuating. The next thing you know, it’s stuffing its face with food, so furiously that you’d be hard pressed to say what’s on the menu.

Black Orchid’s intentions are fairly clear, and that’s probably a large part of its problem. From the ads and the hype you know what it’s meant to be: a bold, starkly etched fragrance reminiscent of those the great houses once released with the fanfare of the first walk on the moon. And it is reminiscent—like Jessica Rabbit is reminiscent of Rita Hayworth. In order to understand Black Orchid you must hold it up to the classics, and of course it comes off like a caricature. A shame, really, as it isn’t bad—or even mediocre.

The heart of Allure Sensuelle never quite achieves the magic of Black Orchid’s brief, hallucinatory moment of beauty. Arguably more linear, it is a consistent performer. It has some of Black Orchid’s tang but holds on to it until it figures out how to use it. It has the incense on bottom, along with patchouli and vanilla in place of truffle. It’s remarkably similar, but feels confident it has nothing to prove. Someone please tell this fragrance it’s a Chanel. Clearly it didn’t get that memo, which is where its own troubles began. Like Guerlain, the house of Chanel is on thin ice: will it mess with the perfection of its old reliables? Will it continue to produce the kind of quality women the world over have come to expect? Well, yes and no, in no certain order.

Had Allure Sensuelle been release by one of the niche lines this would be a moot issue. It’s a perfectly respectable, even lovely perfume. It draws from various currents of modern perfumery to show the others how it’s done. People expect innovation from Chanel—perhaps unfairly. So a mother lode of aldehydes were dumped into No. 5. So Cuir de Russie is the most exquisite embodiment of luxury between Planet Earth and Pluto. Why must every Chanel fragrance which doesn’t have the good fortune to be a miracle have to be considered a miserable step in the wrong direction?

Allure Sensuelle has its strengths. Its use of vetiver is accomplished and unusual for a feminine perfume, handled with considerable sensitivity to overall development. It has just the right amount of peppery dissonance, is burnished just so with the solar heat of frankincense. It lasts. It is aptly named, managing to achieve an interesting balance between salty and sweet, floral and oriental. It is arguably more androgynous than Black Orchid, and when a man smells it on a woman, he might just be taken aback by unexpected, unfamiliar urges and impulses.

If anything, Chanel must be faulted for its laziness in building a palpable sense of identity around Allure Sensuelle. A simple comparison between the genius of Ford’s creative direction (Black Orchid: vintage glamor, decadent impulses) and Chanel’s proposed fantasy (Allure Sensuelle: exactly…what…exactly when…exactly where and how?) makes clear Allure Sensuelle's true failure.

All the same, you could do much, much worse—in or outside of Chanel.

Will Estee Lauder turn the tide with Sensuous?

I bought a bottle of Sensuous last week. I had no choice. All the perfume blogs were giving Sensuous high marks and describing the fragrance as (paraphrasing here) a “warm, fluid river of wood”….it sounded right up my alley.

So, as I mentioned, I bought it, unsniffed. Sensuous is nice. It’s by no means a “warm, fluid river of wood,” though. I’d describe it as a smooth vanillic fragrance with an ever-so-subtle hint of wood that wears close to the skin. Sensuous smells good, rather more sweet than I expected but it’s a decent fragrance.

What does excite me about Sensuous and also makes me proud of Estee Lauder is that Sensuous is a departure from the now reigning fruity florals (think Del Monte mixed fruit cocktail with syrup in a can) that have dominated the perfume industry for the past decade.

I think Sensuous will be a hit, and I also think it will turn the tide and create loads of copycats churning out their versions of “fluid rivers of wood.” Sensuous could be similar to Thierry Mugler’s Angel, which created a whole new scent category and many copycats. Whether you love or hate Angel, you must admit that it was a phenomenally bold and fascinating fragrance with tremendous success. Everyone knows someone who wears Angel.

So, I applaud Estee Lauder for creating Sensuous. It’s a mainstream, inexpensive fragrance that even perfume snobs might admit to liking. Now for me, I’ll be waiting for Estee Lauder to launch “Sensuous Extreme” or “Sensuous Night,” something less sweet and drier with a lot more wood.

What are you thoughts? Agree, disagree? Do tell....

Update: 10 minutes after posting this it dawned on me what I was expecting Sensuous to smell like. Jo Malone's Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. For Jo Malone, I think Dark Amber is a rather brave departure, too. I've found that I really like it. Given that it's 3:10 AM I think I'll give Jo Malone's Dark Amber a spritz and head to bed. ;-)

Four Your Consideration: Making Faces

Lately, the perfume blogs have been atwitter with feverish speculation about the possibility of Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger of Harry Potter fame, being selected as the new face of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle.

Was it true? Would she be the right choice? Was she a deserving receptacle of the brand's illustrious name?

Too young? Too old? Too slutty? Not slutty enough? Cheeky little thing, some complained. The very nerve. Look how her shoulders slouched under the weight of those Chanel dresses she's lately been making appearances wearing, or were they wearing her, as some would suggest?

It turns out not to have been true, and we at the offices of I Smell Therefore I Am breathe a heavy sigh of relief--not because we feel young Emma would be an inappropriate choice for what is surely one of the most important decisions in the world of fragrance, let alone the world at large, but because we simply no longer have to pretend to care.

We understand how essential it is to find a face one can relate to (and by one we mean every one, and by every one we mean every last one). Even the super popular, internationally famous Alan Cumming couldn't sell perfume--not even his own perfume. Selecting the right face is of utmost importance and requires much thought. We understand. Really, though: must we always have the usual suspects? Must we draw the box ourselves three blocks over from the people in the perfume industry in order for them to think outside it?

Here are our humble suggestions, after hours--days, even--of thought and polling and board meetings. We've reached a consensus on a quartet of faces we think might sell perfume in an innovative, arresting way.

Number one:

Why NOT Tina Fey? Because, think about it: who else can you trust? Tina Fey isn't going to put on airs. Tina Fey won't sell you some skanky scrubber she wouldn't be caught dead in. Tina Fey is going to bring a sense of humor to sex appeal. Let's re-envision the Charlize Theron J'Adore commercial. This is how it rolls. Tina Fey is going to come coasting out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe, with everyone looking at her, loving it. Go ahead. Laugh at her. She'll laugh with you. Actually, she's laughing AT you, because the stooge behind you is making rabbit ears over your head, so who's the ding dong now? We at I Smell Therefore I Am have done our market research, and we can assure you: no one in the world is more everywoman than America's own Ms. Tina Fey. She's every woman and every woman is in her, or something like that. We tested Tina in various markets (in our break room, at the water tank, with the Xerox guy and the girl who delivers our Ruben sandwiches) and have discovered that she would work wonderfully as the face of Dzing! (This smells like cardboard!" she'd whisper hoarsely, albeit seductively, then cough). Or how about Lolita Lempicka (only, please: no faerie tutus and glitter dust. Does she look like Tinkerbell to you?). Or even Stetson Man(the tagline: "You know what? This shite ain't bad! I'D do him. I'd get all turned around and do ME if I had this stuff on. What is this stuff, again?")


Number Two:


Seriously, though. Laura Dern. Dern's face is a real face and tells real stories. She tested through the roof with the guy who caters our card games. Here's the thing. Fine, yes, okay, Nicole Kidman looks great in a gown, but the gown provides most of the drama. Laura Dern is strange and sexy and can act the pants off almost anybody you can think of. That little bottle of perfume is going to leap right off the page into the buyer's hand, and when it does it will be one hot potato. Laura Dern understands intrigue and some twisted, kinky s--t (See Rambling Rose, Blue Velvet, Inland Empire, skip the killer dinosaur movie). She doesn't make herself a canvas for the audience's desire and her director's lust. She paints a picture for you. If Tom Ford is half the innovator he considers himself, he will consider Ms. Dern. Who else would bring the right blinding bright darkness to Black Orchid? Who else can make you wonder whether she'll stab you with the sharp end of that Lalique bottle or, um, pleasure herself with it? Or make you feel naughty for even considering such a thing? This is a complicated woman.

Numbers Three and Four:

If there is something the following men cannot sell, by all means, please let us know. We will eat our words. We will eat your words and the words of your friends and enemies. And don't tell us these two won't sell cologne (or perfume for that matter) simply because you don't know who they are. Nobody knows the guy in the Dolce And Gabbana Light Blue ads, and that juice sells like people are on fire and it's the only thing that can put them out. These guys look like they could get you pregnant just by sitting across from you on the subway.


These are merely suggestions, naturally. But can we please stop talking about Emma Watson now?

Dandy of the Day: Patrick Petitjean

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the Ted Kaczynski of contemporary fashion: Patrick Petitjean, aged 25, of France. Patrick is versatile. He is Grizzly Adams, the man on the street who just asked you for a dime (you refused), Godspell revival, and Abe Lincoln. He is man, woman, and wolf, all rolled into one. He crosses and confuses gender boundaries and preconceptions. He's the perfect fashion model, we believe, because you can't look at him without imagining he must smell. He brings fashion down to earth, literally, rubbing it in the dirt. Here are the scents we suggest for Patrick Petitjean:


Kenzo Air: all peppery vetiver and arid grit

Comme des Garcon 2 Man: citrus smoke and a singeing incense vaporousness

Baron, The Gentleman: pungent, ever so slightly dysfunctional lavender

Kolnisch Juchten: charred leather and delicious, pickled wine barrel cork

Body Kouros: a slightly sexualized wrestling match with eucalyptus, and the plant is winning

M7: Look what happened to that glass of Coke you left on the table--for twenty years.

Hermes Equipage: Let's take a ride on my horse's saddle. Please sit on your face.

Knize Ten: Welcome to my studio. Sorry about the smell. I've been cleaning my paintbrushes.

Bond No. 9, Broadway Nite: What did you expect me to smell like--armpit?

Going Green, Part Two: Galbanum

With its penetrating, pine-like top note and slightly bitter, woody base, galbanum makes green pop, as if one of the green chypres had slapped you hard in the face with a chunk of bundled stems. Galbanum is a gum resin derived from certain Persian plant species grown abundantly in Iran. Its large flowering heads resemble those of fennel. The essential oil has long been well-regarded by occultists. Alistair Crowley associated the aroma's properties with air, though it just as readily evokes earth. Depending on who you consult, galbanum is said to be a respiratory aide and an augment to psychic abilities. Pagan witchcraft regards it as a protectant. Perfumers, themselves alchemists of sorts, use it to add a certain kind of magic to their compositions. Part frankincense, part vetiver, its leafy terpenoid astringency ventilates the pastures of Carven’s Ma Griffe, Cellier’s Vent Vert, Ivoire de Balmain, Pheromone, Devin, Chanel No. 19 and, most spectacularly, Estee Lauder’s Alliage, which is more gale force than languid breeze.

Ivoire would fall on one end of the galbanum spectrum, Alliage on the other, with Pheromone following closely behind. Ivoire uses galbanum subtly, like its aldehydes, as a bolster to its floral accord. The effect is a rose bush surrounded by crisp, dry hay. Where Ivoire is ultimately arid, still, and slightly toasted, Vent Vert glistens, shimmering indefinitely with activity. Think of a lime rind rubbed into geranium leaves and you begin to apprehend Vent Vert’s effervescent character. Considered by some the first green fragrance, Vent Vert has a slightly raw dissonance, in large part due to galbanum. Chanel No. 19 is the adult counterpart to Vent Vert, smooth and transparent, a green floral quietly electrified by the glow of camphor.

Vent Vert and Ivoire arrange themselves parenthetically on either side of Gucci Envy for Women, which is something of a happy compromise between the two. All three share floral notes: hyacinth, rose, lily of the valley. Famously obsessed over by Tom Ford and Maurice Roucel, Envy's tall, slender bottle reflects the fragrance’s intrinsic angularity. Even the silver cap references something icily metallic within the construction. Envy is hard to articulate, and that metal sheen might strike you as a powdery hybrid of synthetic iris and musk, until you recognize the presence of galbanum, which like eucalyptus whiffs of menthol. Envy is a gorgeously understated use of the note, tart and dry simultaneously.

Don't be too quick to dismiss Pheromone. It's something of a galbanum retrospective, with florals and frankincense and pungent, sharp greens. This is chartreuse green, a bright landscape painted on black velvet in bold, broad strokes. The results are just this side of over the top, but , hands down, the apogee of galbanum’s use in perfumery, still unmatched and, amazingly, still around, is Alliage. Like Envy its notes include peach, rose and jasmine , but Alliage bursts into coniferous territory Envy cautiously skirts, possessing a sucker punch of pine, thyme, vetiver, and oakmoss. Simulating a virtual reality of flowers shellacked in Vick’s Vapo-Rub, it’s like nothing you’ve ever smelled, and strangely familiar. Alliage is shockingly inexpensive.

Galbanum is mercurial, effecting compositions in subtly different ways. It smells modern, though, along with aldehyde, it was the previous generation’s equivalent to the fruity accords which buoy contemporary florals to varying degrees and towards often vastly different ends. The smell is intensely, viscerally green, smelling of grass and aromatic weeds and herbs. It penetrates your consciousness and roots there, a vivid inhalation of the great Out There.

Because People Like Lists: The Best Summer Perfumes

I know you like lists.

I live where it’s hot and very humid, so unlike the rest of the year, I lean towards light, airy florals, green fragrances, dry spices and energizing citrus scents during summer.

Without further adieu, here are my 28 favorite fragrances for summer in alphabetical order:

Ava Luxe Midnight Violet
Bellodgia by Caron
Beth Terry Creative Universe Mare
Beth Terry Creative Universe Vita
Bond No 9 New Haarlem (note: love this in summer but I wear it all year long)
Bvlgari Green Tea
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Celadon
Diptyque Oyedo
Frederic Malle Carnal Flower (note: love this in summer but I wear it all year long)
Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese (note: love this in summer but I wear it all year long)
Givenchy III
Givenchy Organza Indecence
Hermes 24 Faubourg Eau Delicate
Hermes Eau des Merveilles
Hermes Un Jardin Sur La Nil
Jo Malone French Lime Blossom
Keiko Mecheri Osmanthus
L’Artisan Premier Figuer Extreme (must be Extreme concentration)
Les Parfums de Rosine Un Zeste de Rose
Miller Harris Bourbon Geranium
Provence Sante Tilleul
Sage Machado Onyx
Serge Lutens Fleurs d’Oranger
Serge Lutens Datura Noir
Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist
Soivohle’ by Liz Zorn, Blood Orange & Vetiver
Soivohle’ by Liz Zorn, Jo Jo
Teo Cabanel Alahine

Do you have any suggestions for me?

Fine and Dandy

Trevor Dandy, 1970s gospel singer extraordinaire (here pictured on the cover of his album "Don't Cry, Little Tree") inaugurates I Smell Therefore I Am's "Dandy of the Day" Poster Boy. We imagine someone of Trevor's refined sensitivity might wear L'Artisan's masterpiece Dzing! He would like Dzing! because it smells of wood and sawdust and smoke and animal, and Trevor, consummate tree hugger, could wrap his mind around that. Trevor might also tend towards Byzance, which is sufficiently baroque, its tuberose incense-laden. The women love Trevor, but not as much as the trees.

vintage perfume ad of the day: Calvin Klein Obsession

He put an Olympian in Times Square, a chiseled statue of muscle in bronze, towering over traffic and pedestrians in his tightie-whities, like a closet queen's dream-perversion of the fifty-foot woman. More recently, he pulled the same trick in Hong Kong, going even larger this time. Calvin Klein's ad campaigns have referenced homemade porn, street junkies, and the convoluted mating rituals of the genetically superior. Of all the eighties lifestyle brands (Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, et al), his used Bruce Weber most extensively, making the portly photographer of perfection a household name. Together they made anorexics out of fledgling sissies the world over. The ads for Obsession have been much maligned--the parodies on SNL became more famous than the spots themselves--but they were iconic and influential, permeating culture insidiously. They were exquisitely shot, impeccably coreographed, and totally, deeply silly. This one has something to do with a little boy who might be a girl (Klein's or Weber's remembrance of things past?), pining for the woman he or she might become, an athletic, all-American tomboy played by South-African-born supermodel Josie Borain. In an interview published this month, Borain, one-time CK favorite, offers a window onto the 80's scene for which this Obsession ad serves as something of a time capsule: ‘I remember it was at the peak when Reagan was in power and New York was cooking. Property was riding very high, the financial market was making millions and millions – people didn’t know what to do with their money. There was just so much money all over the place, and some of it trickled over into my pocket...’ The Obsession campaign, right down to the name, captured that moment of narcissism and entitlement perfectly. The ad in question plays out like Greek Tragedy, complete with supermodel chorus and spare, Aristotle-on-the-Parthenon-steps settings. Though its references to underground gay iconography were destined to fly right over the heads of the general viewing public, as with most CK ads the uncomfortable suggestion of something illicitly creepy came through very clearly. Now that Klein's creative control has left the building, we're left with six-packs and prespiration, and just how brilliantly conceived and executed some of this sublimely ridiculous top down design was becomes a little more readily apparent.

A Serge Lutens Which I Despise: A Review

I adore Serge Lutens perfumes. I think Mr. Lutens’ work is in a class by itself. I do believe that Lutens has breathed new life into the world of fragrance. There are many perfumers that try to copy his masterpieces, which seems fine to me, at least he’s given them some new material. I enjoy every single one of Lutens fragrances, except one. The one that I don’t like literally turns my stomach. It’s a scrubber to the point of getting a loofah, sprinkling it with and comet, and tearing my skin off. The one which I despise is Miel de Bois. From the description of Miel de Bois (henceforth MdB) I thought it would be enchanting. MdB is described as a warm, woody composition with a very natural treatment of honey. I found the listed notes and they are as follows: top notes of ebony, gaiac and oak wood, middle notes of honey and base notes of beeswax, iris and hawthorn. Still, it sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? I spritzed myself with MdB while writing this so I would be close to its natural aroma and not writing from memory. At this moment I am nearly gagging and am rather rushing through this so I can scrub it off. MdB smells like a dank, moldy, cobweb filled, mouse infested, 18^th century basement. The stone foundation is falling in and there’s a great deal of moisture building up in all sorts of dangerous spots. A house with a basement like this isn’t safe. I’m surprised it isn’t condemned yet. This house is at the end of the cul-de-sac and an elderly lady has lived here alone 15 years. Family or friends never visit. She’s rarely seen outside of the house. The exterior paint is peeling off in clumps, like a snake shedding it’s skin, and the local painters have long since stopped leaving their cards in her mailbox. Nobody in the neighborhood recalls having been inside the house, but if you’d ask the neighbors they’d say she has at least 20 cats, many feral, and they imagine the house smells thickly of cat urine. You might ask the neighbors why they don’t step in, offer to help this old woman who is elderly and obviously can’t take care of her property, and the neighbors just shrug and mumble something about the curse.

MdB is a curse. Try it if you’re curious. Perhaps you’ll like it. I imagine that someone who adores CB I Hate Perfume Black March might like MdB. To give Mr. Lutens some props for his ghastly creation, I will say that MdB smells like real honey. Not an imaginary clover-sweet fantasy version of honey, but what honey truly smells like if you came upon a bees nest in the woods. So, I’m sure Lutens nailed it, the true essence of honey, and laid this dank, nasty smell upon a bed of a fallen down rotting trees, next to a squirrel with rigor mortis set in, adjacent to some soggy decomposing leaves in late November.

I haven’t eaten honey since smelling MdB.

I’m off to scrub my arm.

The Banal Always Receives the Compliments

I wear perfume for me. I wear what I like, however unusual or common or high-brow or low-brow it may be. I’m not a perfume snob. If it smells good, it doesn’t matter the brand, I wear it. It just so happens that my taste (my smell?) in perfume leans toward the unusual. It’s my opinion that once a person becomes a perfumista (is it perfumisto for boys?) they tire of the popular scents that everyone wears and long for something unique. I’m always looking for a scent that impresses me with its new treatment of that special something. There are fragrances that I’m in love with and I’ve noticed that no one ever compliments me on these. Just about never. It’s only when I wear the most common everyday perfumes that someone feels compelled to ask me what I’m wearing or tell me I smell good. I wonder why that is? I’ll keep wearing my favorites, because I wear perfume for myself, because it pleases me. But I just wonder why the general public doesn’t notice the truly beautiful or unusual stuff.

Letter To A Young Man in Flip-flops

Dear you,

In your American Eagle T and your madras shorts. You in your meticulously frayed baseball cap, which bears the insignia of a camp you’ve never lost your virginity at, let alone been to, or heard of. You with the boxers peeking out at your waistline, a look you stole from the black boys at school, along with their music, though, alas, not their rhythm. I’ve seen you at the mall, bushy-haired and slouchy, that smirk on your face. I guess you know you barely lift your feet as you saunter along the pavement. Is that the style now, that shuffling, almost narcoleptic gait? Is walking already passé—or have I been asleep at the wheel?

Oh my flip-flopped not so fleet-footed friend, just this morning on my way into Sephora I saw you and your peeps, sleepwalking ahead of me like a little row of baby ducks whose mama had already scurried off around the corner, frightening them with the sudden prospect of independence. The wind was moving in the wrong direction, but I’m going to guess what you had on under the madras and the T and the boxers and the cap. Your cologne. I’m going to say Izod. Or is it Lacoste? I’m going to say Nautica, or even, just possibly, Varvatos. I know you were wearing cologne because I know what cologne means to you. I know how it conveys an image you want to project, or you imagine it does. I know: the guy on the boat or in the field in that ad is your imaginary mirror image—your twin, the secret you—and yet, in your mind, you’d like to cut your own path. That’s why I’m writing.

I won’t tell anyone I sent this to you, but I do want to discuss your purchasing patterns. As I walked behind you, I smelled my wrist, imagining I was you imagining you were that other guy. Would my friends really scramble at the scent of Creation, by Ted Lapidus? Now that every girl in high school isn’t spritzing it in her pink calico canopy bed, dreaming about a boy like you in a mist of fruity chypre, who would recognize it and mark it as sissy? It once smelled the way guys imagined Christie Brinkley must—as if its wearer had been slathered in some dangerously soapy elixir which added to rather than subtracted from her natural musk. It made a girl smell like she’d spilled something on her parents’ leather sofa, downstairs, in the rec room, only she didn’t want her mother to find out, so she’d scrubbed the seat to within an inch of its life, and still she seemed so...fidgety. Her face was still flushed from the exertion. She might have wanted sex but you couldn’t be sure, because you didn’t know what she’d spilled either, and though you had a few wild guesses, it could have simply been your active imagination. It could have just been, like, Jean Nate. Wind Song or whatever.

Creation smelled like a very specific complex of associations back in the day, but that day has passed. Now it smells weirdly virile. It always did, but with all the cosmetic subterfuge, no one ever noticed before. I tell you this because I know a very easy way to distinguish yourself, and all it would require is imagination on your part. You know how to imagine, don’t you? All we have to do is put our heads together, and think outside the box. Step out of your flip flops, and feel the ground under your feet. Lift your feet, and feel the pull of gravity. I’m not asking you to walk. I’m just asking you to think.

I’m willing to let you borrow my Creation. But there are many fragrances you might try. Now that no one sees Christie Brinkley in them, they’re practically dirt cheap. I know you’re on a budget, disposable income or no. I’d be happy to make some suggestions. I might even loan you something, if you promise to turn down that music when you stop by to pick it up. What I'm saying is that, often, scents once intended for the opposite sex make the most electric statement on a guy's skin, totally transforming him and the way people experience his presence. I'm saying that if you have the balls to smell like people used to think a girl should, there's no telling how deeply you might penetrate into other people's perceptions and desires. Krazy by Krizia, for instance, which smells of vanilla rubbed on wood, is a good start. That's putting your toe in without straying too far off the path. Black Cashmere, Balmain de Balmain, Caleche. The limits are mental. The possibilities, endless. And yes, it’s true, such a bold stroke might make your friends scramble--but I bet you’d find, if you turned around, that they were just rearranging themselves, and would eventually all end up in a line behind you, following your lead.

I'm just looking out for you, kid.

Your friend,

Telly Savalas

P.S. Please bring lollipops.

P.P.S. I like grape.

vintage perfume ad of the day: Chanel No. 5

Aside from Coco herself, was there ever a better face for Chanel? Catherine Deneuve, circa 1972, embodied precisely the chemistry of No. 5. The way her eyes radiate heat through an icy exterior compares well to the effect of aldehydes on the perfume's overall tenor, making one thing pop in stark contrast to another. At the time, the quintessential popular image of Deneuve was similarly contradictory, flickering somewhere between the stark raving psychopath of Polanski's "Repulsion" and the refined, erect, and perfectly coiffed call girl of Bunuel's "Belle Du Jour". Beautiful, adult, full of sophisticated opposites in tense relation to each other, Deneuve was like a fever dream Coco might have had before signing off with an emphatic yes to the formula.

Tommy Girl Goes to Rehab

So overused and misunderstood during its heyday that people still believe it to stink, Tommy Girl is the king and queen of all fresh scents. Creator Calice Becker must surely be on more than a few hit lists for inflicting friends and families across the country with this and other big bang theory fragrances like Beyond Paradise, J’Adore, and DKNY Energy, which, as the writer Bard Cole noted, smells like sweaty rose addicted to pipe tobacco. Becker's art is representational, elucidating the shape, texture, and sensation of the natural world with the kind of painterly sense of light and color you see in the work of Fairfield Porter (above). It’s as if an entire wildlife landscape were shoved rather than distilled into a bottle of Tommy Girl, and that might be a little much for many people, yet it’s a startlingly comprehensive vision of feel-good sunniness, where every detail, exposed to that golden light, registers with precision clarity and breathtaking, mesmeric depth, right down to the dirt underfoot.

It might be impossible for anyone to wear Tommy Girl anymore. Maybe it shuts the nose down, the way paint thinner, gasoline, and formaldehyde, all instantly recognizable, do. Then again, mass-market scents like this are so over-hyped that the very way we wear them—when, how, with what, with whom—is conditioned. Casual in caps is the buzzword for all Hilfiger fragrance campaigns. The wind is blowing through your salted blond hair. Your shirt isn’t ironed because you’re out in the country or at the beach and everyone knows you have money anyway, so why make the effort? You’re tan because God wants you that way. There are no ants in the grass because you’re barefoot and they know better than to mess with God’s chosen people.

What others might just be smelling when they whiff Tommy Girl ten years on is a particularly virulent form of materialistic narcissism held over from the nineties. In Hilfiger ads, there’s always a Hummer right outside the picture frame. After the photo, everyone will pile into it and trod right over the grass, killing wildlife and ear drums alike. Nature is there to be plundered—the perfect wastebasket for your empty soda can. Somehow, Tommy Girl has become synonymous with ambivalence about the feelings of others, a proud, reckless disregard for anything beyond the reach of one’s manicured fingertips. What it needs is the kind of balls out makeover Paris Hilton underwent after her stint in prison, which shouldn’t be hard; at least with Tommy Girl, the substance is there. Your mind simply needs to meet it half way. Wearing it with black tie instead of jeans and flip flops just might do it, if you’re a guy. It's a brilliant subversion, in that context, of the masculine power frags it was probably designed to broadcast over. If you’re a woman, just wear less more judiciously. You might be amazed at the difference. A little sunshine goes a long way.

vintage perfume ad of the day: La Nuit

There's nothing like Paco Rabanne's LaNuit, but you'd never know it, judging from this ad. The fragrance was a success at the time of its release in 1985, which meant, if Luca Turin is to be believed, that a lot of women were walking around Nice smelling of barnyard.

The EDP is like liquid velvet (the EDT more like liquid satin), and decanting it from the bottle, a solid hunk of faceted glass, feels illicit. The model's posture telgraphs none of this frisson, looking instead as if she wandered out of a Carolina Herrera ad.

More bafflingly, what appears to be a promotional spot for the launch of the perfume, starring Isabella Adjani, manages to be both ridiculous and mind-numbingly dull, with a peppy synth soundtrack and much aimless roaming around Paris. See it on BonVoyage, Isabella Adjani, to participate in the sheer insipidity of it all.

Why waste the celluloid? Surely Robert Altman would have loaned them footage of Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl from Popeye. Had he refused and they asked me, I might have suggested the following replacement teams for such an ad campaign:

Laura Dern/David Lynch
Nastasia Kinski/Roman Polanski
David Bowie/Nicolas Roeg.

Just for fun: perfume trivia

1. What perfume is considered to be the first oriental?
a. Poison
b. Opium
c. Arpege
d. Shalimar

2. Who was the first female to produce a designer perfume?
a. Coco Chanel
b. Estee Lauder
c. Jeanne Lanvin
d. Elizabeth Arden

3. What is the so-called capital of world perfumery?
a. New York
b. Paris
c. Grasse
d. Milan

4. Which of these is not a French perfume house?
a. Caron
b. Laura Biagotti
c. Loris Azzaro
d. Nina Ricci

5. Which famous actress was the face of Chanel No 5?
a. Audrey Hepburn
b. Sharon Stone
c. Raquel Welch
d. Catherine Deneuve

6. What popular perfume has a star shaped flacon?
a. Obsession
b. Clinique Happy
c. Hanae Mori Magical Moon
d. Angel

7. What was the first Dior fragrance?
a. Dioressence
b. Diorella
c. Dior
d. Miss Dior

8. Which of these perfumes smell almost entirely of lily of the valley?
a. Estee Lauder Beautiful
b. Elizabeth Arden Red Door
c. Chanel Allure
d. Diorissimo

9. Essences of which two flowers are the most commonly used in perfumery?
a. jasmin and freesia
b. rose and carnation
c. jasmin and gardenia
d. rose and jasmine

10. These days perfumers use synthetic musk, but they used to get it from which animal?
a. deer
b. mink
c. whale
d. skunk

11. What was the first jewelry company to create a perfume line?
a. Boucheron
b. Cartier
c. Bvlgari
d. Van Cleef and Arpels

ANSWERS ~ Don't Peek!
1. d Shalimar; 2. a Coco Chanel; 3. c Grasse; 4. b Laura Biagiotti; 5. d Catherine Deneuve, as pictured above topless; 6. d Thierry Mugler Angel; 7. d Miss Dior; 8. d Diorissimo; 9. d rose and jasmine; 10. a deer, a musk deer; 11. d Van Cleef and Arpels

vintage perfume ad of the day: Jovan Sex Appeal

This might have been the Black Orchid ad of its day, excepting the fact that Tom Ford is high and Jovan is decidedly low on the culture barometer. To those of you who believe advertising has only recently crossed the line, or that Ford must be high, please see the copy on this ad. Hard to cross a line that keeps moving. Long before Ford decorated (or defaced) the female anatomy with a perfume bottle, there was Brooke Shields, all of tween, whose lips said no as her photo-directed posture and open-to-there shirt said yes, please.

"Jovan, Inc., a small fragrance marketer, spiced up consumer advertising and the fragrance industry in the mid-1970s. Executives at the company used blatant sex appeals to boldly introduce a line of musk-oil-based colognes and perfumes. Headlines proclaimed, "Sex Appeal. Now you don't have to be born with it," and "Drop for drop, Jovan Musk Oil has brought more men and women together than any other fragrance in history." The approach earned the company and its three executives accolades, and sales soared from $1.5 million in 1971 to $77 million by 1978. Eleven years after it was founded, a British conglomerate bought Jovan for $85 million. With no previous experience in the fragrance industry, Jovan's founding executives implemented a sexual marketing strategy that proved to be a very smart venture."

For more of the above, see The Erotic History of Advertising: "Aromatic Aphrodisiacs (Fragrance)"

Givenchy Amarige Harvest Edition 2007: A Review

Today I went to the Short Hills mall in New Jersey. The fictional family from the Sopranos lived right around the corner in Caldwell. Carmella and Meadow must have loved shopping here. This mall is a dream for perfume fanatics. Stores of note: Saks, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Sephora, L’Occitane, Molton Brown, Bloomingdales and Macy’s.

I went in search of two new fragrances: Lolita Lempicka Forbidden Flower and Hermes Un Jardins Apres la Mousson.
I purchased the following: Amarige 2007 Limited Harvest Edition, Prada Infusion d'Iris, Missoni Aqua, Annick Goutal Petit Cherie, Comptur Sud Amour Cacao, Lolita Lempicka Forbidden Flower, Kenzo Amour Indian Holi. Unfortunately, Hermes Un Jardins Apres la Mousson was out of stock everywhere.

I’ll discuss all the others later, tonight I’m swooning all over myself because of the Amarige 2007 Limited Harvest Edition. I adore the regular Amarige. But this stuff is stunning. It’s like regular Amarige minus anything noticeably synthetic and with greater mimosa clarity. Givenchy says the main note of Amarige is mimosa. The Limited Harvest Edition contains Mimosa exclusively from Tamil, Nadu, India. Apparently 2007 was an exceptional year for mimosa from Tamil, Nadu, India. I guess perfume is similar to wine in this regard. Like grapes, floral harvests vary from year to year. I might have though this was a marketing gimmick until I smelt the juice and my knees buckled.

Amarige 2007 Limited Harvest Edition doesn’t conjure up any childhood associations or memories for me like most other perfumes do. If I had to (upon the threat of death or something) choose a perfume that I consider to be my signature scent it would be Amarige. Givenchy launched Amarige in 1992 and I began wearing it in 1994 or so. I was in college. I wore Amarige exclusively for the next 4 years. Being just out of college and broke had something to do with wearing it for 4 years straight, but I do love it just the same. As much as it’s considered a very popular fragrance I never come across anyone wearing it. Not being from India or wherever else mimosa grows naturally I’m not familiar with the scent of mimosa. I’ve smelt Mimosa Pour Moi by L’Artisan but this is so light and subtle and smells nothing like Amarige. The image that comes to mind when I wear and smell Amarige is orange molten lava. In fact, the color association is most definitely orange, an orangey-yellowish-brown crusted lava. It’s lava because the fragrance is thick, warm and enveloping. It’s thick and heavy but also airy all at the same time. One does need to be careful with light application because too much and it could easily walk in the room a few feet before you and stay 10 minutes after you leave.

Technically it’s a floral oriental with a woody base. Among the listed top notes for Amarige are neroli, mandarin leaf and coumarin. This makes sense, because I love neroli and I also love Lou Lou by Cacharel which is said to be based upon coumarin. Coumarin is an old fashioned perfume note, and when it’s done well I think it lends a sophistication and timelessness to modern perfumes.

I looked up Coumarin and found this from Wikipedia: Coumarin is a chemical compound (benzopyrone): a toxin found in many plants, notably in high concentration in the tonka bean, woodruff, mullein and bison grass. It has a sweet scent, readily recognized as the scent of newly-mown hay, and has been used in perfumes since 1882. The name comes from a French word, coumarou, for the tonka bean.

The newly mown hay note must be what gives Amarige it’s greenish airy quality.

Oh, Amarige, you are such a complex and gorgeous fragrance, you’re citrusy & green (neroli, coumarin & mandarin leaf), yet you’re heavy and airy, while also earthy and woody, and after a few hours you become orange molten lava all set upon an airy woody base. Amarige is complex, unusual, feisty and unabashedly sexy. If Amarige were a person, she’d be one very complicated dame. She’d be sometimes unbearable, but mostly a magnetically charming knockout. But she doesn’t stop there, I told you she was complicated, she’s much more than just a sexy vixen, because she also has a heart and softness and a worldly sophistication that is certainly classy and timeless. She is so utterly enigmatic and impossible to describe that when you wear her she simply becomes you.

vintage perfume ad of the day: Le Jade

Now discontinued, Le Jade was released by Roger & Gallet in 1923, four years after Mitsouko, two years before Shalimar. Given the ubiquity of Guerlain on the world market and its mastery of the form, the copy for this ad seems dubious, boasting of "dominating" Parisian success. Clearly a bid in the Oriental sweepstakes, Le Jade might very well have been popular in its time, though it has long since been discontinued and a simple search on google fails to turn up much mention of it. The ad dates from 1924.

Going Green, part one....by Brian

As I get older, I see how profoundly childhood impressions of certain places have influenced me, no matter how superficially unremarkable they might have seemed at the time. More than anywhere else, I think back to the fields of grass surrounding my grandmother’s house in Arkansas, especially this time of year. The small town she lived in was fairly green in general, a sort of parched, dusty hue made pallid by drought. At some time, before I was born, it was maintained primarily by older residents in a way which extended the pride they took in the lives they’d created over the years. Their homes and cars and the way they dressed resisted the slack-jawed sweats and flip flop infringement of the contemporary world, reflecting the commitments they’d honored and the leisurely existence they’d earned for themselves through hard work. The native soil is rocky so there wasn’t much planting and things were left to grow naturally. Understanding how things grow and working within those perimeters has always been the key to horticultural success there. My grandmother’s field had at one time penned a horse who worked as a sort of cost-efficient lawn care specialist and signaled a level of countrified affluence. Pictures of my mother as a small girl show her posed on the animal’s back. Somewhere in the center of the field had been a pond, the perimeter of which was lined with fir trees.

My grandparents had been ambitious. They helped settle the town, defining its look. My grandfather, a photographer, took pictures of the area and his wife, making both look glamorous and otherworldly. My grandfather lived in a fantasy of impulse and libido, and his photos reflected that, depicting the town as implausibly lush, one of those unlikely paradises popularized by the travel industry of the 1940s and -50s. I don’t know how far from the truth these pictures were back then, but by the time I started visiting, things were going to seed. The pond was dried up, a crater surrounded by dying trees. The field was waist high with weeds. Once there’d been a white gravel garden filled with rose bushes out front. That was all long gone. Even the heat seemed some proof of the area’s overall decrepitude. My grandparents divorced before I was born, an ugly process which rendered my grandmother permanently distrustful. Her experiences hardened her. Eventually, along with her property, her health went into decline. And yet, because of the old photos, I saw and experienced a very different place and person during my time there. I saw the burnt, brittle fields, felt the suffocation of the heat and the stagnant air of disappointment hanging over the place, but I superimposed a verdant green filter over everything. In my grandmother, I saw Hollywood glamour, something like a visiting dignitary.

I’m guessing that various sharp green fragrances appeal to me because they conjure those fabricated memories, sustaining a fantasy image of my grandmother in what I prefer to see as her indigenous environment. The moment I sniffed Givenchy III I knew it was the way the place depicted in this picture should smell. Chypres like Niki de Saint Phalle, YSL’s Y, and Jean-Louis Scherrer nail the floral pungency underlying the smell of a freshly mown field, that almost buttery piquancy, slightly off, that you smell from Privet hedge in bloom. In truth, no field smells like Scherrer or Saint Phalle. Scherrer lacks the grungy underside of the natural world it simulates: it smells the way a bag of cut grass might after being left in the sun all day, but with a boozy sweetness substituted for the rank pungency of decomposition. Niki has a gauziness to it which smells the way the silken structures of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar look in the trees along the West Arkansas highway. Sherrer is classified as a floral aldehyde, with notes of cassis, violet and hyacinth up top. These, along with the aldehydes, lend it a crystalline sense of dewiness. Without them it might be paper-dry, entirely too one-dimensional. The sum total is density, a convincing impression of moisture. The indolic note in the middle is probably from the gardenia accord; the peppery quality from carnation. Vetiver, moss, and civet provide a classic outdoors profile and make Scherrer, to my mind, more of a chypre than others consider it. Niki is a whisper of a scent which stays close to the skin. It has none of the dehydrated severity nor the indolic persistence of Scherrer. Y is drier still, the scent of grass steeped in champagne. Sisley’s Eau du Soir is probably the freshest of these chypres. An early spring twilight to their late summer afternoon, its lawn is still wet from a recent rain, its garden decidedly herbal. Smelling these, I hear crickets and grasshoppers, the sound of truck wheels on gravel, a dog barking disconsolately up the road. They’re lonely, bittersweet smells, extending an almost too-sunny nothingness as far as you can see.

violets are blue...by Brian

Last night, I started thinking about the mini bottle of perfume my grandmother once kept in her medicine cabinet, squirreled away between expired aspirin and a dented tube of Neosporin ointment. A slightly resinous, dewy violet soliflor, it projected much farther than the size of its container would lead you to expect. I have no idea what it was called. It wasn’t labeled. Something very cheap, probably. Who knows why my grandmother hung onto it all those years. She certainly didn’t wear it—in public. Summers and winters I visited, and each trip I snuck repeatedly into her bathroom, and each year I could recall the scent more specifically in my mind, and I anticipated meeting it again and that shock of recognition and the sense it gave me that all was well. I probably don’t need to tell you that I could have spent all day in there with the door locked, that I got lost, sitting on my grandmother’s antique, velvet covered parlor chair, my elbows anchored onto her marble counter top, my mind elsewhere. I doubt I need to explain the intoxicant that perfume was for me. I’m guessing that if you’ve bothered to read this far you’re on the same kind of inexplicably obsessive quest and, like me, can beam to another dimension of pleasure and bittersweet emotional territory simply by placing a bottle of perfume under your nose.

When my grandmother was sick and it was clear she wouldn’t be around much longer I stole the bottle and brought it home with me. I was too ashamed to ask for it, and knew it would be lost forever once she died. I never regretted this filial larceny, as it seemed more like a rescue mission to me. Who else could be counted on to preserve and understand its peculiar mystery? Deceptively banal, it looked like something you would toss out with the rest of someone’s belongings, meaningless detritus from the past. I placed the bottle in my own medicine cabinet, which seemed to me its natural environment, and the curious thing I noticed from the moment it became mine was that I hadn’t actually been smelling violet all along. It isn’t until someone points it out to you that you detect, say, the leather in Piguet’s Bandit. Before that, it hasn’t existed. Afterwards, you smell Cellier’s masterpiece again and miraculously, to your astonishment, it appears, and stays there—prominently, even—forever after, like the exhaust from a sofa stuffed with cut grass. What I’d been smelling in my grandmother’s mini bottle was my childhood, memories of her and summers there and freedom from worrying intensely about things the way adults do. An incredible sense of love and well-being permeated my consciousness when I inhaled it.

A complex, emotional mother lode of associations had accumulated within the scent over time, for which violet was simply the carrier, a double agent harboring top secret, volatile information. I only recently became aware of top notes and base notes, of linear as opposed to complex compositions. There weren’t perfumers behind Joy and Chanel. They simply existed, like the sky and the sunset, oxygen and birds, situational magic from the universe. I wasn’t a collector or a connoisseur. Perfume wasn’t science. I didn’t pick scents apart, way back when, or even known it was possible. I didn’t know there were sites to break things down for you. Rose, iris, sandalwood, patchouli, aromachemicals, soliflors and abstracts. Smells were no less mercurial before these terms entered my frame of reference, but they operated in a much more emotional, less strictly analytical way. My experience of fragrance had previously been more primal, and though various perfumes still have the capacity to hijack my consciousness, expanding viscerally in my mind, the intensity doesn’t last as long as it once did, and I suspect that’s because of my arguably psychotic efforts to figure out the name or manufacturer of the juice in my grandmother’s mini bottle.

At one point, several years ago, when my partner was cleaning the bathroom, I heard something shatter, and rushed in to see what was going on. I saw the bottle in shards scattered about the sink, and my response was so violent, so impulsive, so irrational and beyond my control that it sort of terrified me. It meant that my grandmother was now truly gone, and someone close to me had been responsible for her death—or I was. Inconsolable then, I still feel sick when I think about it now. My grandmother kept that scent alive until she couldn’t anymore. I’d taken responsibility for that delicate network of memories and through unconscionable carelessness failed her miserably. My partner collected the larger remains of the bottle, wrapping them in plastic. Some of the liquid remained but has since vanished. I can’t look at it. I get too upset. Since then, I’ve become like Poe’s unnamed narrator, searching for his beloved Ligeia in other people’s faces. When I approach a perfume counter, I want nothing more than to find my grandmother’s memory. I want that scent back. It’s a time machine. I search for it in all things remotely similar. Trumper’s Ajaccio Violet comes close, foregoing the syrup sweetness which distinguishes most of these soliflors from the vibratory warmth I remember. Close but not quite. It’s impossible for me to think of perfume now without feeling it has nearly religious, sacred properties, and violet has been the holy grail.

Last week, I made an important discovery online. A fragrance I’ve seen at least thirty times in a local discount perfume shop and overlooked as irrelevant smells distinctively, even exclusively, of violet. It was released in 1947, right before my grandmother's home was built, at a time when my grandfather was still trying to make up for his philandering with gifts. The first perfume from the house of Balenciaga, Le Dix is officially described as a floral chypre. Its bottle is a solid , faceted affair, its liquid the color of champagne. It was created by Francis Fabron, the nose behind the original L'Interdit and l'Air du Temps. The pyramid lists neither violet nor aldehydes, and yet these are the perfume's combined impression. Like other aldehyde constructions, the sum total makes the florals pop, simmering against a cool background of white. In this case, a hot and cold accord materializes, unmistakably violet. Learning this, I rushed over to the store in question, pointing impatiently at the box on the shelf so the Chinese owner, who barely speaks English, would understand. Is old, she said, smiling. You like the old perfume.

I ripped off the cellophane and opened the corrugated glass bottle out in the car, spraying my arm. The air vent carried the fumes up my nostrils, and I jettisoned away, soaring back through time to the high grass outside my grandmother’s window, the feel of her chair’s velvet on my bare thighs and the fabric’s vibrant green hue, the melancholy effect of the striped yellow wallpaper in there and her luxurious gold tub. I heard adult voices outside the door, and saw my little kid face in the mirror, suntanned and frightened, staring back at me. Then I was in the field by my grandmother’s house riding the lawnmower for the first time, and there they all were in the distance, waving me back, I’d gone too far, but I wanted to show off, so I made another turn, too widely, and before I could stop the thing I’d grazed the enormous vacation trailer my grandmother had taken to Arizona and Florida and Nevada, and I was so ashamed by my bravado, so humiliated that I slammed into park and bolted off into the weeds, and kept running and running, crying so violently I couldn’t see where I was going, until for whatever reason I stopped, panting, just in time to hear my grandmother’s voice calling out to me with the sound of total forgiveness.

Celadon: A Velvet Green, Perfume Review

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz created a limited edition perfume called Celadon: A Velvet Green. Celadon is among her Parfums des Beaux Arts, LLC collection. Let me begin by saying I'm not usually a "green" perfume fan, but since I'm carrying several of the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH) fragrances at The Posh Peasant, I figured I'd take this one out for a test drive.

Upon first application, I smell a burst of what I can only describe as "green," a combination of crushed grasses, plant stems, leaves, fern, perhaps aloe plant, moss and a smidgen of dirt. I almost always describe the smell of perfume by what it makes me visualize - so here's the image: I'm sitting under an enormous balsam tree, at the edge of a forest, carpeted in moss, on the coast of Maine. My Aunt has an old farmhouse in Maine, on Penobscot Bay, in a small town that time forgot called Brooklin. If you walk in the backyard at my Aunt's house you'll come to the edge of a very dense forest. I always marvel at the bright green color of the moss here, it's like a carpet, covering the entire underbrush, literally wall-to-wall. Celadon makes me think of walking into this forest. There's a crystal clear quality to the air and the smell of trees, plants, moss and earth make you want to take deeper and deeper breaths until you nearly hyperventilate.

Celandon is a gentle green, like new buds or new growth that's just pushing forth from the earth, still in it's infancy, still fragile. I wouldn't call it a refreshing green, there's nothing brisk, sharp or jarring about Celadon, it's all verrry gentle, soft and calming. Once Celadon dries down it becomes an even softer scent. I smell sheer musk, a whiff of hay, an ever-so-slightly detectable violet scent. There is something mildly sweet, perhaps it's the grassy/hay note, perhaps there's a floral note hidden in the base, but the slight sweetness never overtakes the overall soft budding greenness of the fragrance.

I must admit that this is a green scent that I will wear. I chose this particular fragrance today because it's 95 degrees in the shade and I couldn't fathom wearing anything floral or sweet or heavy. Celadon is very light, gentle and soothing. It wears fairly close to the skin but I keep getting whiffs of it from time to time so it has good lasting power (it's been 3.5 hours). I now have something other than citrus scents to wear in hot weather. This is the first time I have ever smelt a fragrance quite like this and I'm enjoying it to the extreme. I'm thoroughly impressed, way to go Dawn Spencer Hurwitz!

According to DSH website, the following are the notes for Celadon: A Velvet Green:

Composition
Top notes: Clover Leaf, Cucumber, Lime Peel
Middle notes: Green Grass, Liatrix, Orris, Orris Root
Base notes: Balsam Fir, Hay absolute, Narcissus Absolute, Tonka Bean, Violet Leaf Absolute

Ode to Linden Blossom (Lime Blossom / Tilleul)

This morning I read Now Smell This, as I normally do, and found an article by Pia about Roger & Gallet's Linden Blossom shower gel. This got me thinking about Linden Blossom, how it's one of my most favorite scents, and how I rarely think about it or find it very often in fragrances.

Linden is especially amazing as a natural scent wafting in the air on a gorgeous late spring, early summer day. Linden blossoms grow on trees which I believe are also called Lime trees depending on where you live. Jo Malone's perfume called French Lime Blossom is actually the scent of Linden Blossoms, since I believe the British word is Lime Blossom and not Linden. Not surprisingly, Jo Malone's French Lime Blossom is among my favorite summer perfumes.

Linden, in it's natural state, is such a gorgeous, sweet and ever so slightly green smell. I remember going on a walk many years ago and experiencing this scent for the first time. I was having a picnic under a Linden tree and could not stop commenting on this lovely scent. Luckily I was in a preserved park and the trees were labeled. From that moment on I could recognize a Linden tree and will always always remember it's scent. The tree itself is rather tall and nondescript but with heart shaped green leaves. It's the perfect tree to flank a long driveway or garden trail as it's branches don't normally grow very far out horizontally. The trees tend toward upward growth and stay rather neat like soldiers. I believe there are a large sections of Linden trees in Central Park, NYC as well as London.

The tree associated with Freya, the goddess of love, is the Linden tree. The Linden tree is usually considered a romantic symbol. There are many poems and songs incorporating the Linden tree as a symbol of love, beauty and romance.

This leads me to a idea that I've had for the past several years. Someday I want to have a fragrant garden. A yard that is solely planted for the purpose of beautiful fragrances, timed so each blooming does to compete with one another. In that yard I will have many Linden trees, along with lilacs, magnolia, apple trees, peony, David Austen roses, petunia, violets, pansy, iris, Stargazer lily, butterfly bush, bleeding hearts (though not fragrant, too beautiful to skip), and the list goes on....

So far I only know of two fragrances that focus on Linden as the main act. As mentioned above, Jo Malone's French Lime Blossom, and Provence Sante Tilleul. I like both of these fragrances but would love to know of more. If anyone knows of other Linden fragrances please let me know.