Kristen Michéle Épice Orientale: A Review

Kristen Michéle is a new niche perfumer on the scene creating some lovely fragrances. I had the opportunity to try all three of her fragrances; Épice Orientale, Fleurs Blanches and Notes Fraiches, each of which are lovely and different yet carry within them a similar thread that makes them seem obviously created by the same individual. Kristen Michéle perfumes smell to me like chic timeless classics with a modern twist. My favorite of the three is Épice Orientale.

To me, Floral-Orientals are the sexiest fragrance category. The blending of typically feminine florals with typically masculine spices creates a beautifully balanced yin-yang impression. The base notes of patchouli, amber and sandalwood seem to allow the floral and citrus notes to flutter in and out of your awareness in a light, sweet but understated manner. Épice Orientale is a beautifully classic oriental, which makes me think of film actresses from the 30’s and 40’s. While Épice Orientale definitely shows its classic oriental roots, there’s an airy modern appeal, keeping it from smelling too heavy or serious. Épice Orientale is a sexy little number but I think it can easily be worn for any occasion, from the most casual to formal elegance.

Notes: blood orange, jasmine, clove, amber, patchouli, incense and sandalwood

I’m impressed by the balance between sweet and dry ~ Épice Orientale is perfectly in the middle, it’s not too sweet or too dry. The amber, patchouli and sandalwood seem to be of high quality. The amber, in particular, is not syrupy sweet in the least and reminds me a bit of the ambery quality of Teo Cabanel Alahine. I don’t frequently receive perfume compliments but both days I wore Épice Orientale I received several.

Longevity: Slightly better than average ~ 4-5 hours

Sillage: depends on application, it can go either way. The first time I wore it I applied 2 sprays, one on each wrist and it was soft. The second time I wore it I applied 2 sprays to each wrist/arm and then it was easily detected by me and others very close to me.

Kristen Michéle website

Casran by Chopard: reviewing the basenotes reviews

For a while I laughed at the i-Phone. The way its devotees made it sound, the device would solve world hunger and stop destruction of the ozone, if only the right add-ons were downloaded. An i-Phone doubles as a calculator, I was told defensively (how handy!), would serve as a flashlight in the darkest of alleys, and in the event you were approached by storm troopers in the Wal-mart parking lot with less than good will on their minds, you could ward them off with its simulated light saber, frightening them long enough to make a run for it. Good for a laugh, it seemed to me--if nothing else.

Then my partner got the newest model, and gave me the obsolete version, and now I’ve come around. It only took going to the perfume section at TJ Max, where various perfumes I’d never really considered buying were stocked. Within minutes I was able to look these fragrances up on basenotes, ascertain their pyramids, and find out what naed_nitram, foetidus, and all the other regular reviewers had to say about their relative merits or lack thereof. While it does take some patience as the pages to load, like most perfume fanatics (do we have a sense of humor about using that word yet?) I have an abundance of patience when it comes to researching and tracking down scents. I can wait.

Yesterday, I decided I needed a fragrance to smell on the drive out of town for Labor Day Weekend, so I returned to TJ Max for the second time this week. I told myself I was going there to buy Calvin Klein’s Obsession Night eau de parfum. Though I’ve smelled it many times, considered purchasing it, and opted for something else each time, I’d temporarily run out of options and it suddenly seemed the perfect choice.

I like Obsession Night well enough. It smells nice. It’s only twenty bucks. Nice is about as much as I expect for that kind of money. It has a tenacious woodsy benzoin base, and I can imagine myself wearing it if somehow everything else in my fragrance cabinet suddenly self-implodes, and of course when you shop for your 225^th bottle of perfume you need a good excuse to get more, so you tell yourself such ominous catastrophes might occur.

I did buy Obsession Night, but while I was looking for it I came across a bottle of Casran by Chopard. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember reading anything about it. I assumed it was a feminine, though I don't know why. The bottle was selling for 15 dollars. I couldn’t really think of a reason not to get it, at that price, but I looked it up all the same, just to make sure exactly what kind of bargain I was getting. I like to be informed. I like to keep abreast. Usually, I open the box to smell the perfume at TJ Max. But after the boxes have been opened, as Casran had been, the store tapes them shut securely as if they might leak poisonous gas, and it can be hard to pry one open without drawing attention to yourself, especially with a tall security guard several feet away.

When I look up a fragrance on Basenotes, I immediately scan the reviews to see if foetidus has rung in. It isn’t that I always agree with foetidus. I don’t. But he talks so informatively and with such poetic acuity about perfume that it makes me feel good about being so single-mindedly obsessed with it. Good writing can elevate a subject to mythic importance, which isn’t to say I can be persuaded to believe that Casran or any other perfume will throw the earth off its axis, but I like a dramatic perspective which has the common sense and the facility to disguise itself as more than a highly biased, emotion-driven response.

I was happy to see that he’d written about Casran. “Linear, sweet, clean, sharp, and somehow very satisfying,” he said. “That’s what I get from this scent. I don’t exactly understand why I feel good about Cašran—it doesn’t seem to have any standout qualities, and yet it is certainly a scent that I enjoy.” That’s not exactly high praise, but it seemed favorable enough. The inclusion of coriander and cardamom in the pyramid convinced me I might like it more than he seemed to; so much so that the dry ambered cherries, dates, and prunes didn’t trouble me as much as it seemed like they should. Chocolate seemed promising. Had I paid more attention to the overall tone of disappointment in the reviews I might have adjusted my expectations, but I told myself anything with these combinations couldn’t be less than interesting.

And Casran is interesting, in its way. I waited until I got out of town to open the package. Maybe this was a bad decision, because it wasn’t until today, after jogging and showering and smelling what lingered on my skin, that I could really appreciate this fragrance with any lucidity, and even now, like many of the basenotes reviewers, I remain fairly ambivalent about it.

There’s something about Casran which gives it an aquatic quality. Maybe it just feels a little thin, thus watery. Maybe it’s the cherry. I’ve even heard tell of geranium, which in this mix could resonate as a marine accord, resembling the geranium-coriander accord of Cool Water. Ultimately Casran is a nice, slightly powdery fragrance, or so I thought at first. As Pasha says, “The rum and chocolate I can smell pretty easily and benzoin is also present with the mix of the other two. At the end though, it is a dry vanilla scent that has absolutely no significant identity.” To me, the benzoin is indeed discernable, but I’m hard pressed to smell chocolate or anything remotely gourmand for that matter, nor am I at all getting the “fluffiest cloud in Heaven” vibe mentioned by Chris-p.

It’s hard to believe that of 23 reviews of Casran on basenotes, only 3 are neutral and 3 negative, because the ambivalence about it carries over even into many of the positive remarks, as in Randolph314’s characteristic entry: “After reading the reviews here I had very high expectations going in for Casran. It doesn't quite meet them, but other people (I've been around) really seem to like it, and I guess I do too.” And yet it has that strange, indefinable thing going for it, the kind of thing where you forget you’re wearing it, you’ve dismissed it as largely uninteresting, and suddenly you catch a whiff of something spicy, like the uniquely fresh coriander and cardamom accord I smelled after I’d washed off what I thought was left of Casran.

Many people on basenotes dismiss Casran as conventionally linear, but not foetidus. After experiencing this new, unexpected turn the fragrance had taken, I reread his review, which sums its subject up perfectly:

“There’s no syrupy, sticky sweetness here, just a clean, sharp, incisive, somewhat spicy sweetness that holds true for a very respectable time. The middle gourmand notes are certainly not overdone; they are quite restrained and subtle to my nose, and yet they don’t lack substance. I don’t really get much chocolate but the cherries and prunes come through—especially if I use a little imagination. They, too, are delicate notes that don’t suffer from an excess of syrupiness, and they are so like the top notes that the fragrance gets a deserved reputation for linearity.”

Like him I’m unsure what exactly attracts me to Casran, but find myself watching it a little more closely now than I first did.

CB I Hate Perfume: Investigation & Reviews

At first I entirely dismissed CB I Hate Perfume without even smelling the perfumes or knowing anything about the reason behind the name. I’d read about others loving the smell of Black March, which was described as smelling like dirt, mud, chilly cold puddles in early Spring. I thought to myself, “Why would I want to smell like that?” I figured CB I Hate Perfume was a flash in the pan. I thought CB was a bizarre little niche line that would last a few years and then disappear.

Just for kicks I requested a few CB samples when I placed an order with Luckyscent about eight months ago. I received Black March, Russian Caravan Tea, Patchouli Empire and In the Library. Ok, so Black March wasn’t to my liking, as I’d imagined it wouldn’t be. But it sure is an amazingly dead-on smell of early spring in New England, where I grew up. Patchouli Empire, In the Library and Russian Caravan Tea knocked my socks off. I thought, this “CB” guy, he’s an artist, I need to find out what this line is all about.

I went to the CB I Hate Perfume website. There I read that the perfumer’s name is Christopher Brosius and that the meaning behind the name “I Hate Perfume” is actually quite the contrary to how it sounds, he is quite passionate about perfume.

Here’s an excerpt, in what I believe to be CB’s mission statement taken from his website:

“I hate perfume.
Perfume is too often an ethereal corset trapping everyone in the same unnatural shape.
A lazy and inelegant concession to fashionable ego.
Too often a substitute for true allure and style.
An opaque shell concealing everything – revealing nothing.
A childish masque hiding the timid and unimaginative.
An arrogant slap in the face from across the room.
People who smell like everyone else disgust me
* * * * * * *
Perfume is a veil that reveals the soul.
Perfume is the fanfare of our individuality sounding differently to everyone who listens.
Perfume is a signpost to our true selves – a different journey for the brave to travel.
Perfume is the weather of our inner world bringing life to a personal landscape.
Perfume is an art that shows us who we can be if we dare – an invisible portrait of who we are.
Perfume is discovered fully only by our lovers when we are together – naked
* * * * * * *
I encourage you to be yourself, expand yourself and please yourself.
Allow yourself the luxury of your own vision.
Perfume is an adventure I encourage you to explore.
I love making perfume.
I love being a perfumer.”

I love this mission statement or manifesto or whatever Christopher Brosius calls it. It also makes me think Christopher Brosius has balls – he calls out most of the perfume industry for churning out crap and giving perfume a bad reputation or at least a reputation of being a trivial unnecessary accessory. However, I also think that it’s easy to sit back and be a critic; it’s relatively effortless to point out others failings. In order for CB’s statement to pack a punch, he needs to create beautiful artistic original perfumes that are also wearable.

So, I decided that the proof is in the pudding, or in the perfume in this instance. I went about ordering samples and tried at least 2/3 of his line. My overall impression, in the end, is that CB most definitely lives up to his mission statement. CB makes beautiful, artistic perfumes that are incredibly evocative. Evocative is the word I mean to highlight the most. So many of CB’s fragrances evoke a specific “thing,” such as Burning Leaves (no surprise, it smells like burning leaves), In the Library (no surprise, it smells like an old library, books, paper, a bit musty); these fragrances smell as exactly as they are named. But the reason why I believe Burning Leaves is a work of art, is that when I smell Burning Leaves, I very quickly forget that I’m smelling burning leaves and I’m transported to a beautiful crisp autumn day. The neighbors are out raking the leaves from their yards, and one neighbor a few houses down is piling up his leaves and burning them. I smell the smoke in the distance, I also think about apple picking and mulled cider with cinnamon sticks. I feel the cozy sweatshirt that I’ve had for more than a decade against my skin, I always wear these “bum around the house” sweatshirts for weekend yard work. I think of my dogs, frolicking around the yard, diving into the piles of leaves making a mess and making us crazy. Burning Leaves doesn’t smell like all these things ~ but it transports me to this scene. As an aside, if anyone reading this loves Serge Lutens Fumerie Turque, I highly recommend you try Burning Leaves.

Another fragrance from CB is called Lavender Tea. Again, no surprise, it smells of lavender and tea. The notes are: French lavender, Black Indian tea, woods and a touch of Indonesian patchouli. CB does it again; he takes me on a sensory journey with Lavender Tea. I see lavender fields in Provence; I recall my last trip to France where I stayed at a bed & breakfast overlooking fields and vineyards sipping tea while the late summer sun slowly set. I also think of my Mom when I smell lavender tea. When we lived in the same state we had a ritual of meeting for afternoon tea at least once per month at the Four Season’s hotel. My Mom loves lavender and keeps little lavender sachets in all her drawers and in the closet. She uses Yardley lavender soap exclusively. Wearing CB’s Lavender Tea conjures up our monthly tea visits, when we first met and hugged I’d smell a very faint lavender on her and then we’d sit and drink tea and chat. CB’s Lavender Tea makes me very happy.

Another fragrance from CB is called Fire From Heaven. Fire From Heaven’s notes are incense, frankincense, myrrh, opopanax, cedar, sandalwood, styrax & labdanum. The scent is much more subtle that you might expect. Fire From Heaven is smoky, soft and incredibly soothing. This fragrance, unlike the others I’ve described is abstract, there obviously isn’t an actual “thing” called Fire From Heaven. I love this scent, it reminds me of my Dad and his house in Santa Fe. The smoky quality reminds me of the smell of the fireplace, which is called a kiva in adobe homes. My Dad burns mostly mesquite logs and cedar in his kiva. Fire From Heaven reminds me of my Dad, visiting him over the holiday’s, sitting in front of the kiva, the smell of juniper bushes and the cool dry desert air outside. CB describes Fire From Heaven as the memory of smoke….

CB offers his perfumes in two forms; 1. perfume absolute (which is an oil), 2. water perfume (which is a spray edt to me).

I’ve tried both the perfume absolutes (oil) and the water perfumes (edt). I usually prefer a spray edt/edp over oil but with CB’s line I'd recommend the perfume absolute/oil. The oils are more concentrated and last longer. The water perfumes tend to be too fleeting. All of the perfumes I’ve described above are the perfume absolute/oil concentrations.

If you’re intrigued by CB I Hate Perfume I encourage you to visit his website. There is much more interesting information there than I could possibly provide in a blog entry. Plus, you can also purchase all of CB’s products from his site:
CB I Hate Perfume website

Photo of Christopher Brosius above courtesy of CB I Hate Perfume website.

Coversation with Neil Morris

The conversation with Neil Morris is also posted more completely at Perfumce Critic, www.perfumecritic.com

Abigail: Hello, Neil, thank you so much for allowing me to interview you for PerfumeCritic.com. After our rather, shall we say, unusual introduction, it’s so nice to be able to do this!

If you don’t mind, let’s jump right into the good stuff!

This is my typical first question, what brought you to the art/craft/science of perfumery?

Neil: I have always been a scent person. Even as a child I would find myself paying close attention to the scents around me. So I realized at an early age just how powerfully evocative our sense of smell can be and how closely it's linked to our emotions. So working with fragrance became a passion for me.

Abigail: What is it that you enjoy most about creating perfumes?

Neil: Well, perfumery isn't really about scents, it's about people. It's a form of communication. Whether conjuring memories from our past or creating future memories for ourselves and others, perfume is about connection. It reminds us of where we've come from, for all judgments on scents are based on our experiences. Exploring the endless possibilities of where fragrance can take us is what I most enjoy about creating perfumes.

Abigail: Is there anything you dislike about creating perfumes? Is there a part that is tedious?

Neil: Well, yes. Making samples is quite tedious! That's all I can think of.

Abigail: I won't ask you to choose amongst your own perfumes, but what would you list as your favorite 3-5 perfumes? Or perhaps the perfumers / perfume houses that most influenced you?

Neil: My all time favorite perfume is Chanel No 5. It’s a singular act of brilliance, in my opinion. The scent is so iconic that it's as if the perfume has always existed and it was simply rediscovered. Ernest Beaux was a genius. I'm also a fan of Jean Claude Ellena and his minimalist approach to perfumery.

…ah…let me see… other perfumes I love: Nirmala by Molinard, Jean Claude Ellena's First, Maurice Roucel's Tocade.

Abigail: ....yes, Jean Claude Ellena is one of my favorites as well....

Now, let’s talk about the niche & indie perfumers. Which of this category, aside from yourself ;-) do you think is creating some beautiful perfumes?

Neil: In my opinion there are several niche perfumers that are creating gorgeous works of art.

Sarah Horowitz has created some truly lovely scents. My favorite of hers is Perfect Sunset. I also love Perfect Nectar and Beauty Comes From Within. She's also one of the nicest people I know.

Other niche perfumers whose work I respect are Andy Tauer, Ineke Rühland, Liz Zorn, Yosh, Serena of Ava Luxe...just to name a few.

Abigail: I’m also very impressed by many of the perfumers you just named... Each of them create at least one perfume that I love.

So, this is something I’ve wanted to ask you, what's your take on the distinction between fragrances for men and fragrances for women? Do you like to wear floral or not stereotypically masculine colognes yourself?

Neil: Ahh... one of my favorite subjects! In my humble opinion, there is NO SUCH THING as a fragrance for men or a fragrance for women! This is simply a marketing ploy to get men to wear perfume. Yes, some fragrances smell more like what we’ve learned to associate with a woman. But that doesn't mean that if you're a man who likes that scent you shouldn't wear it! By all means, WEAR IT! I often wear Chanel No 5 and I can't tell you how often people come up to me - both men and women - and ask me what I'm wearing! And do I love to tell them!!! You should see the looks on their faces. Priceless!

We've actually created a line called Flowers For Men just so men will not be afraid to try floral scents...true florals are frequently touted as being strictly for women…

So my advice - man or woman, wear whatever scent appeals to you and don't get caught up in labels.

Abigail: I thoroughly agree and I really hope this line of thinking catches on. It seems so limiting, otherwise. Not just for men, but for women as well…

Let’s see… for you…what have been the most difficult scents/fragrances/notes to create? Have you had one or more perfumes that took ages to perfect but ultimately worked?

Neil: Oh, yes...it took me more than 8 months to get CLEAR the way I wanted it. I wanted a fresh, clean scent but not like other scents in that category. I wanted something unique that would be subtle but would also have persistence. I went through 15 different iterations of CLEAR but finally got it where I wanted it and now it's our best seller after ZEPHYR and AFIRE.

There have been other fragrances over the years that have given me sleepless nights but most worked out in the end. Others I put away for another time.

Abigail: Obviously I need to try ZEPHYR and AFIRE since I haven’t yet. My favorite in your line right now is SPECTRAL VIOLET, it’s a gorgeous gorgeous violet and this is coming from someone who couldn’t stand violet perfumes until very recently!

How long does it normally take you, from the idea all the way through to a finished perfume?

Neil: It depends. If I'm creating a scent for a client and they have a deadline then I try my best to meet that deadline. But if I'm working on a scent for our own line then I give myself as much time as I need to get it right.

How do I know its right? That's a tough question and sometimes I just have to live with the scent to see if it's going in the direction I want.

Abigail: Can you explain to our readers, (in lay person's terms) how you go about creating a perfume? Approximately how many different ingredients are needed? How many "tries/tweaks" does it take? I personally imagine it to be very difficult, and am curious as to how you go about the process of making a fragrance.

Neil: When I begin a new perfume I first consider the theme. Almost all of our fragrances have a story behind them. In fact, I consider what I do "storytelling through scent". I then begin to dwell on which components will create the effect I'm looking for. Let's take STORM as an example. STORM is based on the memory of a summer thunderstorm on Cape Cod when I was 12 years old. I wanted to capture the feeling of the approaching storm so I combined Papaya and Lime with an Ozone Note. The Ozone Note runs through the entire composition. This gives the illusion of the charged sea air before the storm. We drove back to the cottage we were staying in as quickly as possible. Just in time too, as the storm crashed down around us. When the storm ended and the sun came out, I walked outside and smelled a combination of flowers that were growing in the yard, sea air and warm sun. To capture this I blended Hyacinth and Delphinium Notes with Ylang Ylang. I've created a gorgeous, warm Musk that I call Golden Musk and that, in combination with Tonka Bean and a hint of Patchouli, gave me the effect I was looking for to represent the aftermath of the storm.

As far as tweaking goes, each scent has its own personality and some take longer to create than others. I created STORM in a relatively short period of time - around three months - while others can take 6 months to a year to get right. Tweaking can become an ongoing event so at some point I just have to tell myself to stop!

So perfume creation is the same yet different for each perfume.

Abigail: The same, yet different, hmmm, that makes perfect sense! But it does...

Tell us, is there a trend in perfumery that you're excited about?

Neil: Yes! Naturally I'm excited about the continuing attention Niche perfumery is receiving. This shows that the perfume buying public is interested in trying new and different scents created by dedicated artists as opposed to the myriad floral/fruity things being pushed on us by marketing gurus who are out of touch with what many perfume lovers really want. There are future classics being created in the Niche perfumery realm and that excites me!

I am also excited about the attention being focused on the art of perfumery and the focus on perfumers in general. In his wonderful book “The Perfect Scent,” Chandler Burr talks about demystifying the fragrance industry and lifting the veil of secrecy, which I think is very exciting indeed. My business partner and friend, David Garten, compares this trend to what happened in the wine industry in the 1970’s. Back then the prestige brands were primarily French and your average American thought of wine as two extremes, either coming in a big jug or a box, or something you may order at a restaurant for special occasions. People were intimidated to ask questions or purchase wine. Then, serious artisan wine makers came on the scene in Napa and Sonoma California. They invited people into their world and educated people on how wine was made, how to evaluate wine, and gave some simple rules to make it easier to pair wines with foods (even putting some of this information on the label).

Abigail: That’s a fascinating point about the comparison between perfume and wine. I've noticed some perfume houses creating 'harvest editions' or 'limited editions' based on an especially good crop of mimosa in India (or insert any ingredient here) that year. This has always made me think of wine – and a good vs. bad year for the grape harvest. Given your expertise, are the Harvest Editions truly superior/unique or a marketing ploy?

Neil: Yes, there seems to be a similarity between perfumery and wine. Both rely on aroma and our sense of smell. Both are concerned with crop harvesting at the optimal time, such as picking jasmine just before dawn. And there are many similarities between attitudes and behaviors of perfumers/perfumistas and sommeliers.

As far as limited editions go, I'm certain there's some marketing involved. Perfume lovers will want to run out and buy it before supplies are depleted. It's similar to the concept of DVD Special Editions. Movie collectors have to have them.

But to answer your question of whether the harvest editions are superior because of claimed ingredients? You'll have to let your own nose tell you!

Abigail: Huh, that’s interesting. I’ve often noticed that those who love perfume and all things scented also have a similar enthusiasm for food & wine…since all of these things are sensory…it makes a lot of sense!

Onto a different topic…Do you read reviews by Chandler Burr, Luca Turin, Tania Sanchez and the perfume bloggers? What do you think of this relatively new phenomenon of perfume reviewers?

Neil: What is now happening in the fragrance industry is that you have perfume lovers and advocates coming forward, like Karen Dubin and Karen Adams of Sniffapalooza, Grant Osborne and the entire Basenotes community, as well as Perfume Critic, Perfume Posse, MUA and many other great forums where people can share their passion, opinions, and knowledge of fragrances and the fragrance industry.

My feeling is the more approachable we make fragrances and the fragrance industry the better off we all are. I’m a huge fan of Frederic Malle. I’ve met him and he is incredibly welcoming. I also love the fact that for each of his scents he includes the perfumer’s name on the package. With Neil Morris Fragrances, I include the inspiration for creating the scent as well as a description of the scent on the package. I want people to come into my world and understand where the inspiration for the perfume is coming from.

I think perfume reviewers are a good sign. To me it means more and more people are becoming interested in fragrance and learning about perfume through their writing. I could get excited to try a new scent that the reviewers are raving about.

...However, we must remember something very important. Few things are more subjective than what smells good. We all have different memories and emotions attached to scent. If you had a grandmother who was very loving and kind to you and wore lavender, then lavender will be a trigger for happy memories. If you had a grandmother who was mean to you and wore lavender then lavender will be a trigger for unpleasant memories. A perfume reviewer cannot know these things about you. He/she can only reference his/her own associations with scent. They may know many things "about" perfume that you don't know. But when it comes down to it, you have to rely on your own nose to tell you whether a perfume is right for you or not.

Abigail: Is there a trend in perfumery that disappoints you?

Neil: Not really. I think it’s mostly all good. Well...if you pushed me I would say the whole anti-synthetic movement seems a bit out of hand. (I think the term “synthetic” is off-putting and should be changed to “Art Essences.”) I think there is place for both essential oils and aroma chemicals in fragrances. Chandler Burr had a great article on this a while back and as I was reading it I was thinking “yes, yes, a major figure in the fragrance industry defending the use of synthetics!” My concern is by eliminating synthetics you are eliminating a huge portion of the palette from which to work.

Abigail: regarding synthetics / “art essences” I wholeheartedly agree. The anti-synthetic movement really makes me nervous. I understand and prefer your term “Art Essences.” Perfume has always been mostly synthetic, (aka man-made ingredients/aroma-chemicals) if these ingredients weren’t an option, none of the classics would exist! As a comparison, this makes me wonder how painters would react if they were told they could only use so-called “natural” paints derived exclusively from crushed berries and nothing man-made, no preservatives whatsoever...perhaps a slightly feeble example...but you understand what I mean.

So what's new for Neil Morris? Do you have some fragrances in the works that you'd like to tell us about?

Neil: Yes! Lots going on…my friends at Takashimaya New York asked me to create a new fragrance for them. We’re launching “Neil Morris for Takashimaya New York” perfume in September. We hope to launch it in Japan in early 2009. My goal was to create a scent that would encompass the beauty and serenity of the Japanese culture and also incorporate the stylish sophistication of Fifth Avenue. The reactions to the scent have been very positive.

Oh, and David has some other things up his sleeve for us, let’s just say it’s going to be an amazing year and we are enjoying every minute of it.

Abigail: Neil, thank you ever so much. Your enthusiasm is transparent and contagious! I’ve learned a great deal chatting with you and I look forward to trying more of your perfumes and especially your exciting new fragrance for Takashimaya! Takashimaya is a beautiful shop, a destination in and of itself, and I’m sure you’re excited about this unique opportunity :-)

Neil: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much, Abigail.

Neil Morris' WEBSITE

Takashimaya

Aramis 900

It’s difficult to imagine anyone but Bernard Chant behind Aramis 900. After all, he made everything else that smells like it, excepting Bandit.

Released in 1973, Araqmis 900 is a woody, herbal masculine with a bright cirtus opening and a dense, deep rose heart.

The fragrance has a slightly fecal, animalic character, most noticeably up top, and relates to the chypres Chant is famous for. It has the tang of Aramis, Azuree, and Cabochard, not just up top but at the base, likely from vetiver, and their floral embellishments too.

Luca Turin was surprised to learn that today's Aramis is nearly identical to the old Cabochard. It might surprise less seasoned connoisseurs just how similar Aramis 900 is to Aromatics Elixir. What surprises more than anything is how little difference there is between them. If they're brother/sister fragrances, then their relationship is decidedly incestuous.

It goes some way toward indicating how conditioned we are to segregate fragrances down a gender divide. Once the marketers have assured us enough that one can be safely worn by women and the other by men, we separate them in our minds, convincing ourselves the distinctions remain safely in place. A similar phenomenon tends to happen in general with fragrances, complicating things. Until someone points out the marked presence of violet in Halston, you might smell only “floral” and “woods.” Once you’re told, you can hardly smell anything else. That smell is deeply tapped in to memory is old news. Few explore how suggestible the sense is.

The truth is that if you’re inclined to wear 900 you might as well cross the aisle and pick up AE instead. While both are strong, AE is stronger, its rose less apologetic, its sillage more robust and therefore perhaps manlier than its male counterpart. Aramis 900 handles rose beautifully, despite or even due to that fecal note (those who go on about a dirty rose clearly haven’t yet smelled one rubbed in dog mess) but there’s no denying that 900 ultimately smells like the faint whiff left once AE leaves the room.

Aramis 900 runs about 45-50 dollars for 100 ml. You can find it sometimes in the department store with the Aramis fragrances for men.

Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile edp: A Review

Acqua di Parma launched Iris Nobile (edt) in 2004. Acqua di Parma then launched the parfum (edp) concentration of Iris Nobile in 2006.

This review is based upon the edp only. The original Iris Nobile edt is a beautiful, light, sweet, floral fragrance. Iris Nobile edp takes on a very different personality ~ it’s richer, denser and closer to a chypre than the edt.

Iris Nobile is not an iris fragrance for those that prefer the earthy, dirty, cold metallic iris fragrances like Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, The Different Company Bois d’Iris or Hermes Hiris. Iris Nobile is sweet, floral and flirty.

Iris Nobile is described as a chypre but it’s definitely a modern chypre. There is only a slight similarity between this and older chypre classics like Miss Dior. If Iris Nobile contains oakmoss, musks and patchouli they are used conservatively. When I compare the edt to the parfum side-by-side there’s definitely a woodsier quality and a small amount of oakmoss-musk to lend the parfum a more substantial quality. I like this modern-style chypre, it’s abstract and interesting but also “fluffier” and lighter than traditional classic chypres.

Overall, Iris Nobile parfum starts off with a citrusy blast which then dries down to a beautiful floral heart that smells to me of iris and violets. There’s just a hint of woods and musk in the background. Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with sweet iris scents that I think of violets blended with the iris.

Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile parfum is drop-dead gorgeous. It is a breathtaking iris, floral fragrance which seems easily worn in any season and perfect for any occasion.
Notes are listed as: bergamot, tangerine, iris, star anise, ylang ylang, oakmoss, vanilla, amber crystals and patchouli.


Lasting power: Average 3-4 hours
Sillage: soft/medium – I applied four sprays today and those close to me (within 1 foot) can smell it.

Comme des Garcon 2 Men and Gucci Pour Homme

Gucci Pour Homme and Comme des Garcon 2 Men seem similar enough at first whiff that for a while now I’ve been inclined to dismiss one or the other as inevitably redundant. The similarities, as it turns out, are purely superficial.

Gucci Pour Homme was created in 2003 by Michel Almairac, the nose behind several Bond No. 9 fragrances (Bryant Park, Fire Island, Saks Fifth Avenue for Him, Scent of Peace, West Side), L’Artisan’s Voleur de Roses, Dunhill, Rochas Lui, and Casmir, among others.

Gucci can’t seem to make up its mind. How many Gucci Homme’s must there be, or is it the company's intention to confuse their consumer base? Before 2003 there was Gucci Pour Homme 1976. In 2007 Gucci Pour Homme II was released. This year, another Gucci Pour Homme has appeared, Gucci by Gucci.

Comme des Garcon 2 Men was created by Marc Buxton in 2004, close on the heels of Gucci Pour Homme. Buxton is well known for his unusual creations at Comme des Garcon. In addition he has orchestrated fragrances for Versace, Salvador Dali, Cartier, and Paco Rabanne. Early on, he did some of the Alain Delon fragrances. Like Gucci Pour Homme, Commes des Garcon 2 Men is something of a muddle in terms of nomenclature. Its name implies something of a masculine flanker to Comme des Garcon 2, which until then seemed to have been considered by many a unisex scent.

These confusions only add to the seeming interchangeability of the two fragrances themselves. Smell them at a remove from one another and you might swear they’re virtually identical. I did, many times. Yet there are subtle and even distinct differences between the two. Both are anchored by leather, vetiver, and incense accords. This gives them a shared tone of tangy smokiness, but whereas CDG retains a strong orientation towards tangy, Gucci submerges itself under more smoke.

Gucci is often considered a cedar fragrance, but you won’t find cedar in the pyramid. You will find olibanum, however. Like Guerlain Nahema, which conjures rose without actually employing it, Gucci manages to evoke something which isn’t there. Many people mistake olibanum for cedar and thus detect in Gucci Pour Homme the dreaded “pencil shavings”. Interestingly, olibanum typically has an orange aroma to it, which I don’t discern in Gucci Pour Homme, but I don’t discern pencil shavings either. Of the 123 customers sounding in on basenotes, many do. Perhaps that subtle aroma of citrus complicates what seems like a fairly linear scent in largely undetectable ways. There are ginger and white pepper up top and amber at the bottom, the latter probably contributing to the overall coniferous impression. Yet more than anything Gucci Pour Homme is the rich, oily but arid smell of burning incense, and a useful comparison can be made with YSL’s M7, the agarwood of which takes Gucci Pour Homme’s incense inclinations to their logical end points, and smells nothing like cedar but very much like Gucci Pour Homme--on steroids.

The top and middle notes of Comme des Garcon 2 Man are listed as white smoke, nutmeg, cumin, mahogany, saffron, iris, and nutmeg. The frankincense at the bottom can be smelled from the first, but it’s vetiver you apprehend most discernibly into the dry down. The vetiver note is made a little more complicated by cumin, nutmeg, and, according to Luca Turin, a big dose of aldehydes, which seem to wear off fairly quickly.

It might be the aldehydes which give some of the fragrance’s detractors an impression of synthetics. Either way, Comme des Garcon 2 is made more unusual by their inclusion, and though they leave quickly their effect createes a lasting impression, creating a singeing sensation, as though someone had struck a match to light incense and snuffed it, mingling the smells. Saffron adds an interesting touch, a tobacco or hay-like aroma. There's a lot going on in there. Comme des Garcon feels much more conceptual than Gucci Pour Homme, the picture it paints more vividly detailed, and it seems less linear for it.

Both have respectable sillage, though less than you’d expect from incense fragrances. Gucci Pour Homme is available at Perfumania. Comme des Garcon can be found online, or you can call the Perfume House in Portland, which stocks it. I own both now and find, however often they intersect as they develop, they stand alone quite well, too.

CARON Farnesiana: A Review

Mimosa is among my top five favorite notes. Mimosa is in my beloved Amarige by Givenchy (and FYI the mimosa is much more apparent and breathtaking in the 2007 Harvest Edition of Amarige). One of my favorite L’Artisan perfumes is Mimosa Pour Moi. Unbelievably Mimosa Pour Moi lasts for a few hours on my skin (yay, for L’Artisan!) and it’s a wonderfully rendered greenish mimosa soliflore. Jean-Paul Guerlain's Champs-Elysees is also meant to be based on a mimosa accord. Caron’s Farnesiana is nothing like Amarige, Mimosa Pour Moi or Champs-Elysees but I mention them so you can make comparisons amongst mimosa-focused fragrances.

Farnesiana was recreated by Michel Morsetti from Ernest Daltroff’s notes after his death in 1941 and released in 1947. The name is taken from the Latin name for cassie, Acacia Farnesiana, as well as the garden in the Roman palace of Farnese which is the inspiration for Farnesiana.

Farnesiana’s initial burst is mimosa, cassie and heliotrope. Heliotrope usually smells like play-doh to me and it also does in Farnesiana but it’s a lighter, fluffier and gorgeously gourmand heliotrope which causes me to envision marzipan and almond milk. I’m in awe of how groundbreaking Farnesiana must have been in 1947. To me, it’s a floral gourmand, wayyyy ahead of it’s time, and simply heavenly. If you sniff really hard, with the intent of detecting the other notes, you can smell a powdery violet and perhaps other florals. Overall Farnesiana is a sweet (but not overly sweet in the least), floral, powdery gourmand masterpiece. When I use the term gourmand please don’t think of sickly sweet dessert fragrances from Comptoir Sud. In my mind, the gourmand category has sadly been “dumbed down” to the point of only being associated with sweet cupcakes, chocolate, frosting, and bakery confections. The gourmand category has unfortunately received a bad rap lately but if there were more gourmands created like Farnesiana, well, I think this reputation could easily reverse.

Farnesiana is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s so soothing and comforting I wish I could spray my bed linens with it. Almond is not listed in Farnesiana’s notes but it seems like everyone (myself included) find it to be an almondy-floral-mimosa-powdery nirvana.

Lasting power: Average ~ 3-4 hours
Sillage: soft
This review is based on the eau de parfum, not the extrait.

Diptyque Opôné: A Review

Disclaimer: I’m a lover of many Diptyque perfumes; Tam Dao, Oyedo, L’Ombre dans L’eau, and Philosykos are among my favorites. Diptyque launched Opôné in 2001. I never investigated it until recently and think it might be because there are several Diptyque fragrances that begin with the letter “O” and I just sort of missed it. Had I known Opôné was a rose & saffron scent I would have sampled it many years ago!

Opôné is what I wish Juliette Has A Gun, Lady Vengeance had been. Opôné is rose, saffron and soft woody spices. I’ve noticed Opôné is often called a vampy rose fragrance but I don’t think it’s vampy, it’s really quite tame to my nose. It reminds me of a woody rose potpourri and I mean this in a good way. Some say Opôné is dark and earthy, but it’s definitely not earthy like L’Artisan Voleur de Rose, and nowhere near as edgy as Strange Invisible Perfumes Black Rosette. Opôné is an easily wearable rose/spice fragrance. The overall effect of Opôné is an equal blending of rose and saffron/spices ~ the rose doesn’t stick out more than the spices and vice versa (so don’t expect this to smell mostly like a rose fragrance sprinkled with a little saffron). Like most Diptyque fragrances Opôné doesn’t evolve much from the initial application. This is good, I suppose, because you’ll know right away whether you like it. I really like Opôné, it’s dry, rosy and spicy and while not edgy, it’s unusual and interesting enough to keep me smelling my wrists all day. I have my very own bottle of Opôné now and will definitely wear it often.

Lasting power: slightly less than average ~ about 3 hours on me.
Sillage: depends on application, but if you apply about 2-3 sprays, it has soft/average sillage.

Beautiful Vessels

I maintain that only the juice matters, but when a beautiful perfume is paired with a gorgeous vessel, well, that's killer. My taste leans toward the simple, understated and classic bottles, with a few exceptions of course. Here's a tribute to some of the loveliest perfume bottles I've ever seen:

Let's go straight to the museum worthy ~ Serge Lutens Mandarine Mandarin bell jar (photo courtesy of PerfumeShrine blog). Is this not the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?

Guerlain L'Heure Bleue ~ simple with a flourish

Bond No. 9 outfits their perfumes in drool-worthy flacons. There are so many amazing Bond bottles. I prefer transparent glass where I can see the color of the perfume, though. There's no doubt that Chinatown and Lexington Avenue are collectibles whether you like
the perfumes or not!

Frederic Malle's bottles are substantial, effortless luxury

Jo Malone...so simple, sophisticated, makes me want rows of them...

Teo Cabanel quietly saunters into the room. All heads turn. The others guests feel overdressed compared to her effortless sophistication.


CB I Hate Perfume ~ there's something about these tall, straightforward no-nonsense bottles. They're ordinary yet different.

Sage Machado's Onyx Vanity Bottle.
Elegant, artsy little treasure. I can barely bring myself to use the fragrance oil
for fear of emptying the bottle. To use an "oh-so-ten-years-ago" word: it's eye candy


Tocca might be my favorite of all (assuming I'll never have the Serge Lutens Mandarin bell jar). Tocca's bottles are drop-dead gorgeous. They seem exquisite yet whimsical and charming.

This Week At The Perfume Counter: random notes

The Korean perfume store closed its newest location, and the older location does not have Rochas Femme. I purchased it online for next to nothing instead. Roudnitska did the original. The reformulation was done by Olivier Cresp and substitutes cumin for the shock value once provided by now-outlawed animal no-no's. I haven't received the bottle yet but know when I do I'll smell the fragrance wondering what the first Rochas Femme must have smelled like.

I ordered Jacomo Silences. I believe this is the one Luca Turin was crazed over at some point, but I've looked through everything I have on him and can't find a mention of it. Supposedly, green florals with galbanum, so one would think it's a no brainer for me.

The friendly young woman at the Chanel counter in the local department store let me smell the new Chanel No. 5 flanker. It smelled fine. Chanel No. 5 EDP did not, to my nose. Something foul and one dimensional in the heart, after a rich opening full of busy distractions.

One thing I'm fascinated by is the relative ignorance at the perfume retailers regarding concentration. Most of the people I've talked to seem to think the EDP and EDT versions of any given perfume are interchangeable, considerations of strength aside. Both Sephoras here, for instance, place tester bottles on their extravagantly pristine shelves for only one of Chanel No. 5's iterations. This means that someone buying the EDT has no real idea what it smells like until she or he gets it home. Tom Ford's iterations are even more markedly different than Chanel No. 5's, and yet a tester bottle for Voile de Fleur stands in for the Black Orchid EDP, and the two smell nothing alike, not even remotely, but don't try to point this out, because it's futile. When I shop at Perfumania (sigh) I often have to pointedly ask whether the bottle they're spraying on the test strip is EDP or EDT. It never occurs to them to tell me, otherwise.

I smelled the new Lancome. A lot of people must be smelling it, because the testers I've seen are all half empty. Perhaps this is something the perfume companies do? They send the department stores half-empty bottles so that customers will believe something like, say, Magnifique to be a hot commodity. To me the perfume smelled like some sickly sweet something or other I couldn't put my finger on. I liked it--the way a child likes his favorite page in a scratch and sniff book. I'm not sure that's wearable. People like to put cocaine up their noses, too, but they don't want to cover themselves in it. Al Pacino's white-powdered mug in Scarface just popped into my head, so perhaps I'm wrong and haven't spent enough time amongst coke fiends.

I returned Guerlain Heritage because I can always buy it for my friend once Christmas is closer, whereas I'm short on funds now and need money to buy more perfume for myself. The woman who'd sold Heritage to me didn't understand why I was buying it. Strangely, she didn't seem to understand why I was returning it either. I returned Chanel No. 5 too, explaining that I'd purchased these two as bride and groom gifts, and--wonder of all wonders--she already wears Heritage and he already wears Chanel No. 5. I know these salespeople recognize my sickness but I'm helpless to stop myself. It's some reassurance that they must pretend as if they don't recognize my obsessive, unreasonable behavior.

I bought a cheap bottle of Gres Cabaret online because I haven't yet exhausted my need for the perfect dark rose. I smelled many in LA but none knocked me to the floor. Intending to buy Eau d'Italie's Paestum Rose, I got Sienne L'Hiver instead.

I bought Miracle Forever at Perfumania because I needed something right that minute. I was interested in Calvin Klein Euphoria for some reason I don't fully comprehend. Weeks before I'd been interested in Miss Dior Cherie. People online slam such fruity patchouli's viciously, with an open hostility which only piques my interest two-fold. I forgot my wallet so at Perfumania I only had enough cash for the slightly cheaper Miracle Forever. "This smells like Euphoria," the saleswoman exclaimed to her co-worker, amazed. "Can you tell me if that's EDT or EDP?" I asked.

I'm going to venture that people now denigrate these fruity numbers the way others once put down the civet-driven, musked out chypres of yesteryear when maybe refreshing colognes were more sensible or considered more "mature". I'm not yet sure what's so bad about fruity, other than the fact that it's everywhere. Pants are everywhere too. I don't understand the whole mature and immature thing when it comes to fragrances. I don't always understand pants, either.

Getting Miracle Forever home, I realized with a twinge of disappointment that it's very similar to Chanel Allure Sensuelle. I also realized that Beyond Paradise is very close to Gucci Envy, which leads me to suspect that BP has galbanum in it, which no one talks about. Instead they talk about banana and melon, which I don't get in the least.

At TJ Maxx I was obsessed with Anais Anais, Diamonds and Emeralds (recognizably Sophia Grojsman), and Fendi for Men. I managed to get out without purchasing everything I put my nose to, though not empty-handed, mind you. Never empty-handed.

I did not bother smelling Kate Moss, as I'm saving that for a more desperate day.

Feeling protective

Brian sent me a huge number of decants from his collection that arrived today. I have never smelled any of these fragrances. I opened the package, unwrapped all the vials, then I proceeded to take a nap without smelling a thing. I was utterly overwhelmed.

Once I started sniffing, I began sending him emails with my reactions to each. One interesting point Brian mentioned is that he feels protective towards certain colognes/perfumes and notes. That got me thinking. I, too, feel protective towards a number of fragrances. As I ran down the list I realized that most of them are powerhouse 80’s fragrances from high school. There are only two from the 90’s, zero from the 2000’s and zero from the niche category.

Here’s the list of fragrances that I feel protective towards, and, I suppose you might understand why:

1. Dior Poison
2. Givenchy Amarige
3. Lou Lou Cacharel
4. Thierry Mugler Angel
5. Ungaro Diva

Perhaps I’m more embarrassed than protective. All five of these perfumes are seriously powerful and shriekingly loud. There are only two that I wear occasionally now, Amarige and Lou Lou, and when I wear these I’m careful to apply lightly. But back in the mid-late 80’s when I was in high school, I cared not for others. I applied Poison and Lou Lou as if they were fleeting body sprays. I sprayed Diva in my locker, in my car, all over my bedroom with wild abandon. My friend Megan wore Estee Lauder’s White Linen in much the same fashion. Nicole bathed in Lou Lou. Becky was scented with Lauren by Ralph Lauren, Melissa was also a Poison girl like me and Lesley liked to wear Laura Ashley No. 1 (which was by far the tamest scent in our group). I shudder to think of what the car smelled like when we drove off together on a Saturday night headed for a destination entirely different from what our parents were told.

Fast forward to the early-mid nineties when I wore Amarige exclusively during college. I’ve never received as many compliments on any other fragrance by a mile. Amarige is sexaaaay and that’s the way it made me feel.

I wore Angel for about 6 months when it first hit the shelves in 1997. I felt like I was the first to wear it. I loved it. It was during this time that I also loved my job. I was traveling the world (Europe, Asia, South America, you name it) and I was professionally quite happy. Once an Angel-laden-smog developed around all major cities due to the number of people wearing it I had to stop. It was just too trendy. Now it seems like everyone hates it. I don’t hate Angel at all, I rather like it, but I think fifty years of olfactory distance need to pass before anyone can truly appreciate it now.

So it seems that these fragrances make me nostalgic. I’m protective of them because they hold the memories of good times in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever objectively smell the horrific things that others smell in these fragrances because I wore them, I loved them, and they’re tightly intertwined with happy memories.

PS: Happy Birthday, Madonna! Madge is 50. I can’t believe it.

Bad Rap: Anais Anais

I'm generally astounded at the viciousness directed toward Cacharel fragrances, Anais Anais in particular. My ability to appreciate the latter might have something to do with gender. Anais Anais wasn't pimped on boys with the same virulence used to market it to girls. Giorgio, Poison, Paris, et al were made so aggressively ubiquitous to the female adolescent consciousness. Being a boy, I was spared that, but don't envy me too much before considering my teenage crosses to bear: Polo, Chaps, and Oscar Pour Lui were my own adolescent wallpaper, visible everywhere I went.

Anais Anais has no pre-conditioned associations for me. I smell it with fresh nostrils, and find all the vitriol against it curiously over-compensatory. Admittedly, some of my favorite perfumes are made by Cacharel. I can't say a bad word about Lulu, Eden is gorgeously strange, and Noa is at least interesting, if fleetingly so. Anais Anais has galbanum in the top notes, which is often about all I need to hear before robotically pulling my wallet out. Galbanum works wonderfully here against the counterpoint of Muguet and rose, and in some ways the effect reminds me of Ivoire, creating a certain spectral disposition, a hot, near-rubbery glow. If aldehydes make accompanying notes pop with 3-d precision, galbanum makes them burn bright by surrounding them in a white hot aurora borealis outline. Another way to describe galbanum's effect, at least on Anais Anais, is to liken it to condensation on a bathroom mirror and the humidity that comes with it.

I love the Anais Anais ad campaigns, past and present. I love how the image on the bottle is vague, a little hazy, like something you'd see across the room through a blanket of steam. The milk-white bottle, designed by Annegret Beier, has a vintage boudoir feel to it. Best of all, the frosted plastic cap, which reveals the nozzle the way you ascertain a naked body through a foggy glass shower door.

Amber, oakmoss and a particularly nice cedar note in the base burnish the composition further, working in concert with the galbanum to create the sensation of hot, moist skin after a protracted shower. Anais Anais is more than anything a muguet fragrance, but to say that is like saying a Bentley is primarily a machine sitting on four wheels. The galbanum and amber and cedar, judiciously used, tease out the best qualities of lily-of-the-valley, enhancing its intrinsic oiliness in the best possible way. It helps that they and rose all share with galbanum an intrinsic tension between aridity and moisture.

Blogs We Love: Perfume Shrine

Some fragrance blogs are the CNN of the perfume world, relaying information about the newest releases, commenting on industry events, prolifically posting reviews. Perfume Shrine is their literary counterpart, providing in depth insight into the ever-changing context of perfume throughout the past several decades.

Perfume Shrine has been publishing since 2006, which is like the online equivalent of the paleolithic era. If you want to know about the social history behind perfumes and perfume trends, look no further. That makes sense, given the author's background in history at university.


Highlights have included: the pieces on the Patou Ma Collection, which gave detailed descriptions and informative impressions of the individual fragrances; the leather series (quoted below); the YSL series; the incense series; and the Christian Dior series. Check out the latest entries on Vetiver and Lancome's Magnifique.

"...the 1920s and 30s would be the heyday of leathers from the spectacular 1924 double feature of Ernest Beaux's Chanel Cuir de Russie and Vincent Roubert's Knize Ten and Jacques Guerlain's odd Djedi in 1927 to later renditions: Caron En Avion (1929), Lanvin Scandal by Andre Fraysse (1932), Lancome Revolte by Armand Petitjean (1936) and Creed Cuir de Russie (1939), initially Errol Flynn's bespoke fragrance, and LT Piver's Cuir de Russie the same year. At least thirty houses launched their own versions of Cuir de Russie from the late 19th Century to the late 30s (the trend continued into the 50s), which bears witness to the enduring attraction of the note."

from Perfume Shrine, The Leather Series, December 17, 2007

Site url: http://perfumeshrine.blogspot.com

She Said, He Said: behind the scenes memos between your I Smell Therefore I Am editorial staff

Hey Brian,

...disappointing perfume day. I bought a bunch of perfumes from parfum1.com - they have amazingly good deals. I bought everything unsniffed, but for the price, no biggie.

1. Habanita - gagging from the powder - I thought I would love this - but the baby powder is too much - I can't get through it to the tobacco or leather.

2. Casmir by Chopard - Josh said it smelled like a street hooker (i seriously hope he doesn't know this from first hand experience). It is wayyyy too sweet.

3. Balmain Ambre Gris - very sweet - I might end up liking it - smells so differently on Rob. Maybe the chemistry thing is true after all, I always thought it was a farce. I like the bottle.

I also got Madness by Chopard - haven't tried it yet.

I was so excited about Habanita. The reviews were glowing. Sometimes I wonder if perfume-addicts smell the perfume too closely. If I didn't know what Habanita was 'supposed' to smell like - I wouldn't get it at all. It's only because I read the reviews and know the list of notes that I didn't scrub it off after 5 minutes. The bloody stuff doesn't scrub off either - I can still smell it!!! I'll happily wear Bandit and Tabac Blond and skip Habanita if I want to smell leather/tobacco.

I have no tolerance for sweet 'fumes lately. I wonder if I'm changing? I'm obsessed with vetiver, balsam, sandalwood and patchouli.

Purchased Chanel No 19 from ebay today. Anxiously awaiting Chanel Bois de Iles - should arrive tomorrow or next day.

I really like the Balmain Ambre Gris bottle. I'm looking at it right now. The top is making me think of a microphone. I love the cube-shaped bottle and label. I really like simple bottles - like FM, SL, Jo Malone, Teo Cabanel, Miller Harris, Hermes, and Chanel.

x
A


Hey Abigail,

I just decanted Habanita for you yesterday, and doing so I thought, I wonder if I should even do this, I bet she won't like the powder. Still, it was on your list. I'm holding off on the Cuir de Russie since you don't know if you ordered it or not, but I'd love to smell the bois when you get it.

The Balmain sounds right up my alley. I typically love their stuff, bar none.

Casmir I have too. I bought it as a gift and re-acquired it several years on. I don't wear it and rarely sniff it. It smells like suntan oil to me, which can be nice, when you're sunning, and your sunblock is scentless.

Turin wrote an article recently which commented on how many perfumers are heavy smokers. Lots, he concluded.

Cuir de Russie came from Chanel today and arrived in pristine condition. They wrapped the shit out of that thing. No samples, disappointingly. I had visions of them trying to make it up to me. I'm interested now in Coromandel and Respire.

X
Brian


Hi Brian,

You know, I actually thought the whole "it doesn't work with MY chemistry" thing was just a way for people to say they didn't like it, politely. The difference between Balmain Ambre Gris on Rob's arm vs. mine was astounding. The woods and ambergris/salt was apparent on him and not at all on me. If it smells on you like it does on Rob I'm sure you'll like it (and it's $24.95 for 100 ML!!)

So I'm working from home today and as yet unshowered. I still reek of Habanita and Casmir!! Both of these deserve recognition for their lasting power - Mon Dieux!

Parfum1 sent a free bottle of Worth by Je Reviens. I've never heard of it but am scared to try it. The juice is NEON BLUE.

I'm oddly obsessed with the Balmain Ambre Gris bottle. I want to keep it in front of me and use it as a paperweight.

I also ordered Ivoire for next to nothing. It hasn't arrived yet.

x
A


Oh Abigail,

It saddens me that you aren't enthused with Habanita, but I'm holding out hope that it'll grow on you, like Bandit. I took the Habanita decant out of the package I sent you and sprayed it on myself in the early morning. It lasted all day. I'd forgotten how persistent it is.

Here's the thing: Yes, there's something very powdery about it, but I think that's just the edt, and it eventually goes away. Recently I smelled the EDP and it doesn't have that powdery density--at all. When I first sprayed the EDP I thought they'd completely reformulated the fragrance. I'm sure they tweaked something (they always do) but many edp's are slightly different, and Habanita's ends up in roughly the same place as its edt concentration.

When Turin called Habanita "vetiver vanilla" I couldn't understand what he was getting at--until I smelled the EDP, where the vetiver is pronounced from the beginning. The EDP has that lemongrass tang to it, and feels much lighter going on, almost transparent, and yet into the heart and the dry down it has reached the same points as the edt. After discerning the vetiver in the EDP I can now smell it in the edt, and I enjoy it much better. I'm sickened though. I looked on perfume1 and see that it sells at half what I paid for it elsewhere.

I think part of the problem with fragrances like Habanita whose reputations precede them is the fact that by the time you get hold of them you've built up an unconsciously specific idea of what they must smell like, and you're inevitably disappointed. Usually, some sort of adjustment period follows, where you grow to appreciate the scent on its own terms or--not.

I purchased Ambre Gris online yesterday. What does gris mean, anyway? It's like Bois and Tabac and Cuir: all over the place in perfume nomenclature. I suppose I could look it up, but you can only open so many windows on the computer screen, and mine are all occupied with perfume blogs and discount vendors.

On the way to work this morning I thought, I don't even LIKE Amber. Then I started to think how a bad review can make you just as interested in a perfume as one which praises it. Somehow, the things you said about Ambre Gris made it sound super appealing to me. Elsewhere I saw burnt sugar and caramel, some earthiness, etc. I hope I like it. The bottle alone seems have-worthy.

I'll expect to know what you think of Ivoire, naturally.


Brian


Hey Brian,

Balmain Ivoire arrived today. My first reaction was: Dial & Dove soap! Now it's settled in and it's really nice. It IS mostly soapy but when I smell closely there's a lot more going on - sort of a spicy green with a hint of soap. I like it. There's something comforting and parental about it. The smell makes me feel like I'm being taken care of and everything is going to be all right... ;-) what is that sortof dark, medicinal, metallic smell? And I'm not being negative, I like this smell...(oh, but this bottle, so ugly! looks like it came off a drugstore counter from 1976!)

re: Gris ~ I assumed Ambre Gris was just the French word for ambergris. You know what ambergris is...that's why I was expecting Ambre Gris to smell salty - which it DID on Rob's arm and not mine.

I totally agree about fragrances whose reputations precede them. Unfortunately there are so many of these. I could make a really long list of perfumes that are classics and receive rave reviews that I'm smelled and wondered "what's the big deal?" I definitely think I oversprayed Habanita the other night. I tend to spray quite a bit when I'm smelling a scent for the first time. With Habanita, this really wasn't a good thing to do.

Bois = Wood
Tabac = Tobacco
Cuir = Leather

'Bois' seems everywhere. Now that I'm thinking about SL Bois de Violette - the name accurately describes the fragrance. I expected more violet - but the name roughly translates to 'wood violet' - so that's why it smells to me of a pile of cedarwood with one tiny violet plunked in the middle.

On my left arm is Ivoire and on my right arm is Caron Parfum Sacre. The jury is still out on Parfum Sacre, I don't know what to make of it yet. One thing I really like to do is AVOID reading reviews and the list of notes as much as possible. This way, when I smell something, it isn't influenced by whatever has already been said. I like to lessen the power of suggestion as much as possible.

Did you see the comment I received a few days ago about Immortal Flower on the Balmain Ambre Gris review? I thought that was an interesting and helpful note. I didn't know the story of Annick Goutal Sables nor the story of Immortelle. You know, of course, Annick Goutal Sables is on the list now...

I love amber. Teo Cabanel Alahine is very ambery to me and it's one of my favorites. Amber needs to be relatively dry, not sweet, and then I love it. I've been waiting for Serge Lutens to make a nice dry amber for years.... Serge? Are you reading?! Because his last few launches...mostly cinnamon and veering toward gourmand....haven't impressed me....

- A xo


Dear Abigail,

Yeah, I figured out the bois and tabac and the cuir (though it took a while to bring myself to pronounce it correctly out loud), but gris seemed contradictory. How can ambre be gris then Iris too? It seems to mean gray, from what I can find online, which makes perfect sense for the latter, which is totally gray to the point of glittery. But it makes little sense when tagged onto amber. So go figure. I'm sure some kind benevolent soul out there will write to let us know.

There is something medicinal about Ivoire, now that you mention it. I bet it's the galbanum, which probably gives it that weird, menthol glow. I really love Ivoire. It does smell parental, too. I kind of like the bottle. Compared to the new Van Cleef bottle it's downright high class. The bottle seems like a drugstore version of Chanel's packaging but I love it. It's down to earth.

I love immortelle. I didn't realize you'd never smelled Sables. Something else I'll have to send you. I wonder if you'd care for it. The overall effect is burnt sugar sweet. Immortelle is to Sables what aldehydes are to No. 5, like someone had a little left in the bottle and thought, well, I might as well put it in, otherwise it'll go to waste. Immortelle is in Coriolan by Guerlain and in Diesel Fuel for Life, though to me it's more difficult to detect in both of those. Boucheron's Initial uses it too.

I've seen that Ayala Moriel has a perfume based around immortelle, called Immortelle l'Amour. The notes are: Vanilla, Rooibos tea, Wheat absolute, Broom, Sweet orange, and Cinnamon. What the hell is broom? Basenotes lists four or five fragrances using it as a note. Perhaps there is a broom absolute? To my uninformed mind, it's like saying "hair from the seat cushion my dog Alfie sat on yesterday." But who am I?

x
Brian

Dear Chanel, I'm Sorry

When I called and told you the bottle of Cuir de Russie you sent me was busted up, I was sure you wouldn't respond. I'd felt so out of sorts in your shop. I mean, it was Rodeo Drive. People were being shown little belts and things at the glass counter like a belt is a rare delicacy or a highly treacherous surgical procedure.

It was such a weird, alternate reality to me; so much money was going around. Everywhere I looked people were talking but all I saw was cash streaming out of their mouths. I saw dollar signs in their eyes. The boutique was its own eco-system, its own complicated trading floor.

I pictured all these people hopping back into their Bentleys at valet parking, fists of Chanel shopping bags swinging pendulously in their hands, zooming off to Beverly Hills, home again home again, where the biggest, most pressing problem was the apparent stupidity of the Mexicans who were supposed to be cleaning the pool, who seemed never to have seen a pool before, and were going at it with hedge clippers. I hated everyone in the store, Chanel, and I couldn't imagine all shoppers being equal there.

Oh I was mad when I received my broken bottle of Cuir de Russie. It seemed to confirm my worst suspicions about you, proving your contempt for anyone who dared spend less than millions of dollars at your store. I cursed you. I spat bullets in your general direction. I called up my pagan friend to ask about hexes and stuff. What an offense to the name of Jacques Polge, I thought to myself. If he only knew how his perfumes and the people who love them were being treated. Being alive, he might not roll over in his grave, but he certainly would when he got there, if this state of affairs continued.

I didn't expect you to return my call, Chanel, because you'd gotten what you needed from me and moved on. Knowing that I'm a perfume addict you felt confident in the certainty that you needn't do anything to make it up to me. I would keep coming back regardless. When you get some of the bad stuff, you keep going to the shifty-eyed guy on the corner, because the shifty-eyed guy on the corner has what you need. He might sell you baby laxative once or twice, but he laces it with enough of the real stuff that you can't split hairs. I'm not saying you're a drug-dealer, Chanel. I'm just saying you couldn't be counted on not to take advantage of my need, if the way my Cuir de Russie arrived in the mail was anything to judge by.

Imagine my shock when your friend Francisco called from Rodeo Drive. Francisco was sorry and wanted to make it better, and instantly I was embarrassed for the harsh words in my last letter. Perhaps you didn't want me to go fuck myself, or Jacques Polge, or whatever. Perhaps you really truly cared, Chanel. Francisco seemed to think so. His efficiency was impressive. He got right on it. UPS showed up the next day to pick up the Cuir de Russie. The day after that, Francisco called again to say he'd received the damaged goods and would send a replacement bottle right out. And he did.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time grumbling about the fact that when I opened the package there were no samples or testers or, like, a thousand dollar gift certificate to be redeemed at the Chanel counter of my choice. I was so happy to get my pristine bottle of Cuir de Russie that none of that mattered. Don't get me wrong. It annoyed me, but I was remorseful and contrite, and knew I should be kind after my hasty overreaction to your original mistake. I sat the big fat bottle of Cuir de Russie on my shelf, right at eye level, and gazed upon it lovingly for several days. I took the cap off, standing before the shelf, and held the bottle up to my nose, sniffing myself into ecstatic trances of narcotic oblivion.

My faith in you has been restored, Chanel, and I now believe (I now wish to believe, again) that though I drive away in my jalopy and have only one little bag clenched in my fist when I leave your premises, though I drive off sputtering toxins into the environment from a vehicle which barely passes emissions when that time of year rolls around, and end up far from Beverly Hills when I get home, and the closest I come to a swimming pool is the puddle of muddy water left on my back patio by a recent rain shower, I am just as important to you as anybody else you sell your love to.

All They Need is Love: The Gourmands

So often I read comments from perfume-addicts (I haven’t settled on a term yet ~ perfumistas, perfumeos, perfume-geeks, perfume-nerds, etc) about how they dislike gourmands fragrances. The gourmand category is just over a decade old (isn’t Angel considered the first official gourmand? If not, please fill me in), and already perfume-aficionados have been lamenting its existence for years.

I believe the accepted definition of gourmand is anything that contains/captures edible notes. A gourmand could therefore be anything such as chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, bread, pepper, sugar, ginger, nutmeg, coffee, almond, wheat, maple, liquorices and hazelnut. In a way, I’m confused about certain notes *not* being considered gourmand ~ what about edible fruits ~ such as fig, lychee, strawberry or pomegranate? I understand that citrus fruits are separate; they’re categorized as hesperidic, and existed long before the gourmands. But what about fig? This is a little tangential and I ought to get back giving the gourmands a little love.

I often think that when a type of perfume becomes too popular, trendy and mainstream that’s when perfume-aficionados diss it. I get it, this happens with any hobby where someone delves deeply into the thing of interest; wine lovers don’t usually drink Sutter Home and bird watchers don’t faint when they see a Blue Jay. The 'common' is no longer interesting to the aficionado. But come on…Angel by Thierry Mugler is some groundbreaking and amazing stuff! Even if you don’t like the smell of it, it was a bold and interesting perfume back in 1997 and deserves a little respect. After Angel, there have been thousands of spin-offs. I’ve noticed that many perfume-aficionados admit to liking Hermes Ambre Narguile, Serge Lutens Chergui or Caron Farnesiana. Lately I’ve been thinking that not all gourmand fragrances smell like cupcakes with four inches of frosting. I think a lot of folks equate gourmand with sticky sweet vanilla. There are a whole bunch of gourmands that aren’t extremely sweet or mostly vanilla. What about Lolita Lempicka, Bond No 9 New Haarlem, Bond No 9 Nuits de Noho, L’Artisan Bois Farine, Jo Malone Nutmeg Ginger, Serge Lutens Rousse, Keiko Mecheri Gourmandises, L’Artisan Poivre Piquant, Yosh Ginger, Montale Mukhallat, and Parfumerie Generale Aomassai? If you hate all of these, then you dislike gourmands, and that is, of course, fine! Perfume is, above all, subjective. But I just wanted to give the gourmands a little love, because they aren’t all sickly sweet vanilla and many are complex, interesting and smell good...

Staying Power: Fragrances That Last

Ever notice that the perfumes you spend the most money on often seem to be the least likely to persist on your skin, while the cheapos might outlast cockroaches in the event of a nuclear war? For the past several days, we at I Smell Therefore I Am have been spritzing Habanita, the weird, tarry vetiver of which has lingered so tenaciously that it got me reflecting on other equally virulent perfumes. What follows is a highly subjective list based on my own personal preferences and experiences (or lack thereof) in smell:

Estee Lauder Aliage

I lump this into the galbanum camp. Not every fragrance built around this note possesses tenacity (Chanel No. 19, anyone?) but many do. Galbanum can give a perfume quite a lot of kick; witness Sud Est by Romeo Gigli, Chamade, Diesel (the original), Givenchy Insense, Ralph Lauren's Safari, Trussardi Donna, and S.T. Dupont. All of these wear most of the day on my skin. Of the group, Aliage has the most longevity. It's a totally unlikely fragrance in many ways--so wrong it's right. It goes so far over the line that the line isn't an issue anymore.

Paris

Anything by Sophia Grojsman, really. Even Diamonds and Rubies by Elizabeth Taylor, and 360 Degrees for Perry Ellis. Even Coty Exclamation, which puts other, more expensive rose scents to shame. Grojsman's scents have a linear purity to them. They're dense, with a lot going on, but from beginning to end they remain pretty consistent. They're Russian novels, as opposed to beach reads. They have a certain reputation for excess which is fueled by their full bodied construction and near astral projection. But I get tired of all the caveats involved in the appreciation of Spellbound and Paris and Calyx and all the rest of Grojsman's oeuvre. Like Maurice Roucel (see below) she's a brilliant nose, with a baroque sensibility which will inevitably go in and out of fashion. Her perfumes, however, go the distance.

Tocade

And Iris Silver Mist, and Broadway Nite, and Gucci Envy (a member of the galbanum crew), Lolita Lempicka "L", 24 Faubourg, Insolence, Lalique pour Homme, and Missoni. The closest to Roucel in style is Grosjman. Both create fragrances which, whether gourmand or not, have the aromatic headiness of gourmet food, heavy on the butter and cream. This is one of the things which makes Roucel such a brilliant choice for ushering the Guerlain name into the near future. Like their classics, Roucel's compositions are practically edible, with a cake-like texture you can almost sink your teeth into. That said, Roucel isn't to everyone's taste. Personally, I find his perfumes so addictive and decadent that they literally set my teeth on edge.

Yatagan

Many of the old school leathers hang on for dear life. Cuir de Russie, Knize Ten, Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange, Hermes Bel Ami, and Tabac Blond, among them. They mix a petroleum noxiousness with a sweet, sometimes floral counterpoint. Knize Ten and Rien are a little more hard core. Certainly Yatagan. They also last the longest of the above on me.

Body Kouros

And most of Annick Menardo's body of work. Menardo's hallmark is a vanilla dry down, reflecting a penchant for the elaborately edible she shares with Roucel and Grojsman, whether it be the anisic note in Lolita au Masculin or the almond paste of Hypnotic Poison. Vanilla is certainly tasty, but by the time Menardo's constructions have reached their base notes, they've moved in various directions, more an artful tour of the pantry than a sit-down meal. Body Kouros is her strongest to me.

Pineapple Express: Jean Patou's Colony

From the 1600’s into the 1960s, France was a leading player on the world stage, with colonial possessions extending as far as West Africa and Southeast Asia and to numerous points in between. Well into the 20^th Century, the global reach of France was second only to the British Empire, eventually claiming 8.6% of the world’s land area. French was thus the official language of some 47 nations, and the governments of those nations were beholden to France by varying degrees.

Even now, France has significant territories in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the southern Indian Ocean, Antarctica, and the Pacific Ocean, but the scale of its domain has dwindled significantly, and did so especially after World War II. Opposition to and criticism of the French colonial enterprise began much earlier, and the French Colonial Exhibition of 1931 was intended in part as an answer to people on the left and right alike, who either felt France’s paternalism went a little too far, or not far enough.

When people discuss Colony, the perfume released by Jean Patou in 1938 to commemorate the exposition, they tend to characterize it as a snapshot of a certain period in perfumery, as if perfume were made in a vacuum, untouched by current events and popular trends, and might best be evaluated simply by looking at fragrances themselves. These snapshots draw on notions of the past which are more often about now than then. Thus, the imagery used to describe Colony tends to center around blonde women in haute couture khaki, sipping cocktails from decorative coconut shells on the veranda of some unspecified exotic locale; an Agatha Christie novel populated by Grace Kelly lookalikes, set in a Ralph Lauren Safari ad.

Part of that seems about right, in the sense that Colony was conceived as a luxury product and intended to evoke foreign cultures and some sort of transaction with them, but the deeper story of the perfume requires a wider lens. Colony was meant to reinforce, like the Colonial Exposition itself, France’s ideas about herself and her reputation in the world at large. The Expo was planned as early as 1906. In 1912, the Minister of Colonies declared that the centerpiece of the event should be a permanent museum devoted to the art and society of France’s colonies. It was decided that the expo should take place outside Paris, where there was plenty of room: the six month exposition covered roughly 500 acres and each country was given ample space for staging displays of its individual colonies.

The scale of this undertaking belied a national insecurity. Perhaps, France must have worried, the world saw her as plunderer of natural resources, rather than a mother country who, exerting her civilizing influence, brought to all her children prosperity; as Germany put it, "the exploiter of colonial societies [and] the agent of miscegenation and decadence". Over three thousand reports were issued and 100 congresses held during the event by French authorities as intellectual propaganda to counteract such ideas.

The stated mission of the Colonial Exposition was to educate the French population about the importance of its colonies, the contributions to France made by these colonies and France’s contribution to them, representing colonialism as an altruistic endeavor, an equal exchange. Naturally, France’s efforts to impose its language and cultural mores on its territories were minimized.

But in creating interest in the exports and cultures of its colonies, France was in a way perpetuating the kind of exploitation its critics charged her with on a grander scale, marketing natural resources as trinkets and “rare” delicacies.During and after the expo there was an intensified popular interest in ethnic cuisine, namely North African and Vietnamese. Celebrating these diverse cultures was sometimes another way of overlooking their situations as occupied territories.

To some extent, Colony perfume participated in this process, however unwittingly, embodying what soon became a vogue for Parisian women and French women in general: “Going Native” was the fashionable thing to do. Josephine Baker was perhaps the most significant cultural emblem of this phenomenon, bringing jazz and ethnic- inflected iconography into the country as a form of entertainment. But, in grafting the fruity tang of pineapple onto the classic French school of perfume, Colony also reflected the inevitable cross-pollination of the colonial process, where two things which had previously been mutually exclusive fused to form something entirely new.

Pineapple was an interesting choice, highly symbolic. The original bottle for the perfume, designed by Baccarat, was in the shape of the fruit which resembled both a hand grenade and a pine-cone, reflecting among other things the imminence of war. The pineapple was a particularly loaded icon, perfectly apt as a symbol of cultural trade and the impact exports could have on their receiving cultures. Colombus is said to have been the first European to come into contact with the fruit, which he discovered on his second voyage to the Caribbean region.

On the island of Guadaloupe, he and his crew encountered human body parts cooking in large pots—and, not too far away, pineapples. He brought the exotic edible back to Europe with him, civilizing the fruit by removing its associations with savagery. At the time, Europe was practically devoid of sweets. Sugar was a rare commodity, and fresh fruits were extremely limited, making Columbus’ discovery quite a lucrative find. The pineapple became a symbol of prestige and celebrity. To own one was to be worldly, if not royalty. At one point, to be presented with one was emblematic of extreme privilege. It would be two centuries before cultivation of the pineapple was possible in Europe, but long after that it persisted as a symbol of status and cultural exchange through colonization.

Patou’s Colony spoke to a new public consciousness, embodying the conflicted ideas of colonialism in the 20^th century. It illustrated in the form of perfume the erosion of boundaries and distinctions which takes place when two very specific forms or entities merge, sacrificing their individuality for a more elusive ambiguity, a third thing neither of them would achieve or be by themselves. If one must use Grace Kelly to articulate the quality of Colony, a more fitting image for the fragrance is the story of Josephine Baker’s rebellion against the Stork Club, New York’s pre-eminent nightclub and the apogee of 1950s segregated celebrity. Josephine charged the club with racism for refusing her service.

Kelly, who was dining there at the time, joined Baker in her protest, vowing never to patronize the establishment again, a promise she honored. The women, who couldn’t have been further removed from each other in the public imagination, remained friends for life. When Baker went bankrupt, Kelly gave her the use of a villa in Monaco and financial assistance. Their alliance contributed in some way to breaking down preconceived divisions, and like Colony, with its gorgeous leathery chypre and pineapple composition, went some way toward illustrating the complexities surrounding the issues of the Colonial enterprise of the French Empire. If Grace Kelly is on that veranda, Josephine Baker is there with her, and they're drinking from the same delicious cocktail.

Bring on the Earthy Scents

My partner-in-crime, Brian, who co-writes I Smell Therefore I Am with me, is the best because he puts up with my incessant emails about perfume. I’ve noticed, from reading the email threads back and forth between the two of us that my taste in perfume has begun to change. I wonder if this happens to other perfume-addicts? Eight years ago I would never have longed to wear Tabac Blond, Bandit, Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur or Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist. Heck, even three years ago I probably would have considered Caron’s Narcisse Noir slightly unusual, whereas I now think of it as a pretty little number. I emailed Brian recently to tell him that lately all I want are deep, dark, earthy perfumes with loads of vetiver, balsam, sandalwood, tobacco, leather, ambergris and patchouli. Underworld by Soivohle’ is a current holy grail. The Different Company’s Sel de Vetiver has been making me swoon all summer long. Hermes’ Eau des Merveilles, has been a favorite for a few years now and I love the ambergris note. Avignon, Kyoto and actually all five from the Comme des Garcons incense series are the sort of scents I crave now. Perhaps this is a normal reaction from becoming bored with all my citrusy, clean, light florals for the summer. Or maybe it’s a contrariness I've developed because perfume offerings have been dominated by fruity-floral-cocktails for so long. Oh, and how could I forget Mousse de Chine by Ava Luxe (previously known as Moss) and Madame X. It surprises me that I love Montale’s Black Aoud, but I do, and lately all I want to smell is the earthy stuff.

Zombi, by Black Phoeniz Alchemy Lab

Ungaro III and Czech and Speake No. 88 get all the love when it comes to arguably goth rose fragrances, yet Zombi openly references associations those two only politely hint at--the sleepless, the undead, New Orleans plantation homes with floor to ceiling windows and moonlight coming through. That isn’t to say Zombi isn’t a perfectly presentable soliflor. But it can easily be admired on parallel, even mutually exclusive, planes: as a nice, quiet rose in a porcelain dish, and something the undead would bring you, clenched between what’s left of his teeth.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is owned by Elizabeth Moriarty Barrial and Brian Constantine. The company is based in Los Angeles. The perfume sold by BPAL is blended by hand, using natural ingredients such as essential oils and absolutes. Some of the oils contain honey and/or beeswax. Otherwise, the products are vegan friendly. Though you’ll probably see it classified as a dirty rose, Zombi is much more than that. Fresh Cannabis Rose is “dirty” in the sense this term usually means—-dirty as a sort of condition, the opposite of fresh or dewy, maybe. Zombi is more conceptual, aspiring to a very specific if inarticulate realm of associations.

The name is a giveaway. The scent immediately recalls moist, upturned soil, the faint whiff of wet grass and trodden Johnny jump-ups. It's one of the more fascinating, evocative BPAL fragrances I've tried. “Our scents run the aesthetic gamut of magickal, pagan and mythological blends, Renaissance, Medieval and Victorian formulas, and horror/Gothic-themed scents,” say the owners, who, talking like this, might as well call themselves Dr. Frankenstein. BPAL has many oils. Possibly, too many. The site lists upwards of 100. Dragon’s Blood, Dragon’s Tears, Danube, The Hanging Garden. Zombi can be found under the section titled Ars Moriendim, wich translates into “The Art of Dying” and refers to a pair of so-named texts from about 1415 and 1450, products of the Black Death, which describe how to end well.

Other series of oils are Sin and Salvation, Mad Tea Party, Wanderlust, and Rappaccini’s Garden. The Stardust Collection is based on the characters, locations, ideas, and dreams found within the pages of Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. You see where this is going. It’s hard to take Black Phoenix too seriously, which makes their obvious sense of humor about themselves a fortuitous thing.

Zombi is a fragrance oil and comes in a standard apothecary screw top bottle. All BPAL oils are sold in 5 ml decants. Zombi is $15.00. The notes are listed as dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth.

The above photo is from quasara.blogspot.com

Balmain Ambre Gris: A Review

Balmain Ambre Gris recently launched in March 2008. The nose behind the fragrance is Guillaume Flavigny. The notes are described as: myrrh, cinnamon, pink pepper, immortal flower, benzoin, tuberose and ambergris.

I know, I know…Balmain must have been required by law to include pink pepper since it’s the trendy note of 2007-08. I was amused by “immortal flower” since I’ve never heard of it before and it sounds imaginary to me. A quick google search didn’t shed any light on immortal flower so I’m guessing it’s a fantasy note.

The perfume itself is very sweet. It’s described by Balmain as a “woodsy-animalic-oriental” and with the mention of ambergris I was not expecting something so über-sweet. When I read the list of notes I anticipated something along the lines of Hermes Eau des Merveilles. Ambre Gris doesn’t bear any resemblance to Eau des Merveilles to me. I definitely smell a rubbery tuberose in Ambre Gris along with soft spices like cinnamon & myrrh. I would categorize Ambre Gris as closer to a gourmand rather than a woodsy-oriental. There might be some woody notes in there but you really have to go sniffing for them. Overall, what I smell is a “sweet, rubbery, chocolately tuberose with soft spices.” This is not so say Ambre Gris isn’t a nice fragrance. Even though it’s sweet, it has its merits. I think I was merely put off by Balmain’s description of the fragrance, which just isn’t accurate to me. If I had been prepared for what I smelled I might have liked it more.

It strikes me as the sort of fragrance that someone who likes Lolita Lempicka (though not fruity like LL), Trouble by Boucheron or Dior’s Hypnotic Poison might like. I think Balmain Ambre Gris is nice, especially if you are expecting a sweet floral-gourmand and not a “woodsy-animalic-oriental.”

The bottle is charming in person – I’d call it handsome. I worried the top might look like a golf ball or perhaps Epcot center but sitting atop the classy cube-shaped bottle it simply works.

I just bought Balmain Ambre Gris for $24.95 from www.parfum1.com. At this price, I’m perfectly happy with the fragrance and I’ll surely give it a go during the cooler months.

Lasting power: Excellent ~ 5-6 hours.
Sillage: Medium ~ if you’re a heavy spritzer others will smell it.

PS: I sprayed this on my friend and it smells much more woodsy on him. It still smells entirely sweet on me but I can smell the woodsy quality along with salt on him. Huh....

About Names: The Basenotes Reviewers

Yesterday I posted the first in a continuing series surveying arbitrarily selected Basenotes.net reviews of individual fragrances, starting with Insense, by Givenchy.

As I read over the reviews, I started thinking about how people name themselves online. What do the Basenotes member names mean? I wondered. Why do people pick the screen names they do? By what logic?

I always assume the selection of these names to be highly coded and, to the casual reader, nonsensical, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that some of these terms come up on a simple Google search.

Here, for your future reference, is a brief glossary of the Basenotes screen names mentioned thus far.


Foetidus seems to mean bad-smelling, and is used in horticultural nomenclature to indicate slightly stinky. As in, fetid.

Vibert might possibly refer to Jean-Pierre Vibert, 1777-1866. According to an appreciation by Brent C. Dickerson, Vibert was the master rose-hybridizer of the first half of the 19th Century, introducing hundreds of roses from 1816 to 1851, man of strong opinions, courage, and discernment; enlightened, skillful author; soldier under Napolean! No one can study rose history or old roses without being surrounded by the name Vibert; no one can grow roses old or new without feeling his often silent influence. And yet, so modest was he about himself personally that most details of his personal life--even including what his first name was!--were largely unknown until, assisted overseas by a French colleague, I had the good fortune to be able to discover this personal data buried in French civic records and scattered as stray remarks in periodicals contemporary with Vibert.

Castorpollux probably refers to Castor and Pollux, twin heroes in Greek mythology called the Dioscuri; Castor was the son of Leda and Tyndareus, Pollux the son of Leda and Zeus. They were brothers to Helen and Clytemnestra. Castor excelled as a horseman and Pollux as a boxer. They were great warriors and were noted for their devotion to each other. In one version of the legend, after Castor was killed by Lynceus, Pollux, in accordance with the classical tradition that one of every set of twins is the son of a god and thus immortal, begged Zeus to allow his brother to share his immortality with him. Zeus arranged for the twins to divide their time evenly between Hades and Heaven, and in their honor he created the constellation Gemini. The image at right is by Peter Rubens and is called The Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux.


Wicozani is a Lakota Indian term for good total health, used to describe a healthy, well-functioning tribal community.

Naed_Nitrum I'm still working on.

Dolce and Gabbana Ad from Spring-Summer 2007

My goodness, how did I miss this Dolce & Gabbana ad of two FBI agents who have come upon a knocked over mannequin? Who did this unspeakable crime?

Cannabis Rose

Cannabis Rose is the latest in a line of fragrances by the Fresh Company, most of which seem to come and go (see Patchouli Pure, Galbanum Patchouli, Tobacco Flower, Tobacco Caramel, Violet Moss, etc.). As with the Guerlain Acqua Allegoria series, the brand’s philosophy seems to be survival of the fittest. However, if its allegedly masculine counterpart is any indication, Cannabis Rose should be available for a while.

Cannabis Rose shares with its “brother” Cannabis Santal a certain sandiness or grittiness, a quality as difficult to articulate as it is to get your nose around. The clarity of the rose remains throughout, though it roots around in dirtier terrain at various stages, showing itself off in different ways.

Neither sibling has the bright synthetic cheer of Sake and the other Fresh old reliables, that curious sense of arid pungency now synonymous with the packaging, a Barbie doll’s dream of just-washed, lotion-slathered skin. The notes are listed by Fresh as Bulgarian Rose, pomegranate flower, Italian bergamot, jasmine, chocolate, white musk, patchouli, and oolong tea leaves. The chocolate in Cannabis Rose is negligible, something the marketers came up with to get you in the right frame of mind. Probably what they mean is that something here is vaguely gourmand, and chocolate is an easy, evocative reference point, like vanilla but costlier, or naughtier.

The overriding accents are musk and patchouli, which cancel each other out just enough to support the rose rather than upstage it. They probably make the difference between, say, Fresh Cannabis Rose and Fresh Fig-Apricot. Whatever the difference, Cannabis Rose and Cannabis Santal remain consistent with the overall Fresh project, possessing the requisite foundational properties which each Fresh scent is scrupulously edited toward, whatever those might be. Cannabis Rose is nice on its own: a complex but uncluttered soliflor rose. It also layers well, if you’re so inclined. The same qualities which make it behave so well on the skin endow it with the capacity to play nicely with others, lending just the right amount of rose to perk up the same old oriental or chypre.

Fresh Cannabis Rose was developed by perfumer Jerome Epinette and released several months ago. As with Cannabis Santal, for which this is a sort of flanker, the name is meant to suggest the waft of the dreaded ganja leaf. While evoking marijuana is bound to make this rose respectably provocative to the right bunch, lending the whole proposition a frisson of civil disobedience, you don’t have to be a smoker to know this smells nothing like weed, in or out of the pipe. Calling it cannabis is crying wolf in a way, building expectations which ultimately remain frustrated, and such misguided marketing might just distract from the fragrance’s real strengths.

The fragrance comes in EDP and lasts well. You can buy it at Sephora in a 1 oz. gift set along with lotion and shower gel, both nice, or in 100 ml. The gift set is $45.00. The bottle sold separately is 75.

Soivohle' Underworld by Liz Zorn: A Review

Liz Zorn has very quickly become one of my top five favorite perfumers. I just discovered her this year, during the first few months of 2008. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with several of Ms. Zorn’s fragrances, in this order: Domino Voile’ then Blood Orange & Vetiver then Misetu and now Underworld. Underworld is my absolute favorite Soivohle’ fragrance. Underworld rocks the free world. Underworld is so amazingly good I’ve gone gaga and I’m at a loss for words. I will do my best to describe this fragrance, but I’ve got to tell you, it’s like the day I tried to review Serge Lutens Chergui; it’s so beautiful I get tongue-tied and feel that I’m not competent enough, not worthy enough, to review Underworld.

According to Ms. Zorn, the notes in Underworld are as follows:

A dark earthy pairing of vetiver and balsams, with a touch of Jasmine and Rose in the heart, set against a smoky leathery base.
PROFILE: Green/Balsamic/Earthy/Leather
INSPIRATION: Vetiver, Liz's favorite natural material.

Vetiver, as an ingredient in perfumery, has become my “note of 2008.” I’ve always liked the smell of vetiver and usually like most perfume that focuses on this note. This year, however, I’ve really taken a dive right into a big pool of vetiver. I’ve been reading up on it and find it interesting that (taken from Wikipedia) approximately 90% of all western perfumes contain vetiver. This is due to it being an excellent natural fixative. Straight vetiver oil is amber brown and rather thick. The odor of vetiver oil is described as deep, sweet, woody, smoky, earthy, amber, balsam. The best quality oil is obtained from roots that are 18 to 24 months old. The roots are dug up and cleaned then dried. Similar to patchouli and sandalwood essential oils, the odor of vetiver develops and improves with aging. The characteristics of the oil can vary significantly depending on where the grass is grown and the climate and soil conditions.

The vetiver in Underworld is combined with balsams which creates a truly primordial aroma. To me, it smells of the imaginary middle earth, or perhaps the world described in J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Underworld actually smells quite familiar, like a smell I have always known, all my life, even though I don’t know what exactly it is… There are earthy seasonal smells that I enjoy when I’m out for a hike with the dogs. I love filling my lungs with that autumnal aroma in October/November of slowly decomposing leaves and cool crisp air mingled with chimney smoke. Or, in March/April I enjoy the aroma of the damp muddy earth, just beginning to bud and grow, the smell of early spring. Underworld seems like this sort of aroma to me, something that I’m familiar with but can’t quite place. The affect of Underworld is peaceful, calming and soothing. Underworld is such a natural smell, there is nothing artificial, harsh or obtrusive about it. All day long I keep smelling my wrists over and over because I just can’t get enough of this scent.

Along with the vetiver and balsamic notes, there’s a nice spicy component, sort of a cinnamon, nutmeg and amber smell. Even though it’s dark, earthy and primordial, I’d describe Underworld as a clean scent, because there isn’t a dirty or skanky quality to it. I just can’t get enough of this stuff. I’m positive that if more people were to experience Underworld, it would quickly gain a cult-like following. Underworld is that good.

Lasting power: excellent, at least 5-6 hours
Sillage: small, stays close to your skin.

Dandies of the Day: Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits

Seeing this picture when I was in high school made me want to dye my hair gray. It also made me want to smoke. It definitely validated my penchant for Goodwill clothing, and Tom Waits' posture even made me a little less defensive: obviously, you could be a little feminine and still perfectly masculine, too.

Neither would immediately strike you as a dandy, yet with their offbeat, even Maverick sensibilities, their highly individual styles and points of view, Jim and Tom represented an alternative version of the dandy ethos particular to the late eighties and nineties, something you might call Grunge Dandy, turning the rarefied concept of dandyism on its head the way goth culture had.

I like to think both would wear something retro and egalitarian. Before putting his shirt on in the morning (or let's face it, the early afternoon), Tom might take the large white bottle of Tabac and splash it into his hands, patting his arms and chest, paying special attention to his throat. All day, the sickly sweet aroma might waft up from his open collar, flavoring his cigarette smoke, which would float about him in great lazy circles. The leather of his shoes would waft up to meet this half way. Jim would apply Old Spice in much the same manner, emitting a worn-in fragrance of smoky cedar, cinnamon and cloves, electrified by aldehydes and the cologne's signature everything but the kitchen sink approach to construction. Both would smell like a million bucks by way of a parallel universe.

Insensé: A Review of the Basenotes reviews

Yesterday, I pulled out Insensé again, and was struck, again, by what a fantastic smell it is. I'm happy to report that the reviewers on basenotes.net generally agree, ringing in with only four negative reviews out of 25. Of the remaining 21, only 5 are neutral. These are uncommonly favorable ratios for the famously tough basenotes community.

As JaimeB points out, the name is French for "foolish", "senseless" or "insane". All of these in their own ways seem perfectly apt to describe this fragrance. How foolish of Givenchy to think that a floral for men would perform in the marketplace. How senseless the ambivalent reception by the general male nose when his choices at the time otherwise included watery aquatics and pale citrus nonsense. To me, as apparently to JaimeB, Insensé is insanely, even addictively, wearable.

I generally like Vibert's reviews, which is to say I find myself appreciating his tastes, even when I don't agree with them. I appreciate, for instance, his take on Insensé. He sees it essentially as a galbanum-driven aldehyde for men. Instantly, I see his point, and the comparison to Chanel No. 19 makes perfect sense. "A floral fragrance that remains spare, dry, flinty, and uncompromising from beginning to end," he says. As he also points out, those aldehydes persist into the drydown, steering the fragrance unwaveringly. If, hearing this, you're apt to peg Insensé as a sort of pine-heavy aromatic, make a quick comparison with a cologne like Romeo Gigli's Sud Est, which has none of Insensé's interest in floral accents and illustrates with visceral economy the role florals play in the latter's composition. Vibert detects "bone dry rose" and "stark lavender" deep in the heart of the cologne, whereas I'm not really feeling it. I smell bone dry iris and the oily contribution made by lily of the valley, and enlisting this dynamic duo to screw with galbanum's already resinous head seems a master stroke to me.

Who is Foetidus? He gets my vote as perhaps the most informative of all the basenotes reviewers. He is without question one of the most prolific, with well over a thousand reviews. Where does he come from? What's in his fragrance collection? Certainly not too much patchouli, a note he makes no bones about generally disliking. He doesn't generally seem to favor coniferous to camphorous notes either, and though he makes exceptions, as he does for patchouli, the exceptions are usually based on fragrances which use these notes in ways which temper their bullheadedness, making the durable more delicate. Of Aramis' Devin he says: "I know that it is just my personal reaction to some chemical in it, but there is something in Devin that attacks me with an acid sharp, highly unpleasant and annoying green note that is huge."

No one else on basenotes has Foetidus' capacity to make me reconsider my choices and preferences. Just now, reading his Insensé review, I wonder, is this cologne overrated? I have to remind myself that it is in fact under-appreciated and underrated to the point of discontinuation, so persuasive is Foetidus' literate ambivalence. What Vibert cites as strength, Foetidus sees as liability: "My main problem isn’t the florals," he remarks. "It’s the prominent green that is too off-putting for me. This sharp green is annoyingly common and linear, and the rest of the fragrance is not good enough to make up for that annoyance. Insensé is not a very complex fragrance — it lacks depth and texture, and its mediocrity is aggravated by its linearity." Linearity doesn't seem to bother him so much when it comes to the Diptyque line, particularly L'Autre, which he appreciates; nor does green annoy him so much in Annick Goutal's Mandragore or Lacoste Land. I don't happen to find Insensé particularly linear. The galbanum charges out the gate, to be sure, but it eventually settles into a leisurely gallop through florals. Yes, okay, it perhaps stomps through them, but it stirs them regardless. "The consistent, green sharpness is more aggressive than it needs to be," Foetidus continues. "Its potency possibly imposes a masculinity on the florals, but it also removes much of the potential balance and refinement that it should have."

I'm just going to disregard Wicozani altogether (what do these names MEAN?). How else to deal with someone who detects musk in something as clearly devoid of it as Insensé? Ditto Naed_Nitram, who seems to be to perfume reviews what Andy Kaufman was to professional wrestling. How to take him seriously? When Andy Kaufman broke out into a fight with the cast of Fridays, was that...real...or...? As with Naed, it's difficult to say, and what does performance art have to do with perfume? His entries are entertaining, if often useless as barometers for the fragrance in question.

Castorpollux is another good basenotes read, and I recommend a perusal of his reviews. He inadvertently gets at an essential quality of Insensé: "I used to swim in a pool a long time ago where there was this 'white flowers and grass' garden close to it and at the very end of the drydown, it reminded me of myself being in the pool, with those flowers looking in." Perhaps galbanum's heady nature could be compared to the chlorine in a swimming pool in some ways, though you didn't hear it from me. I happen to like the smell. Along those lines, it might just be more appropriate than it at first seems to compare Insensé to Amarige, as Vialman does. Turin recommends Amarige be worn in the privacy of your own home, with the windows taped shut, so insidious and pungent is its aroma. You might want to keep the tape handy for Insensé as well.

If there's anything basenotes reviewers agree on when it comes to Insensé it's the fact that this is a perfume about which reaching some kind of consensus is probably impossible. You say the florals are heady. I say it's the galbanum. You say it stinks, it goes nowhere. I say it goes all over the place and back again. You say it's loud and obnoxious. I say it might not have to speak so loudly if you'd shut up yourself. A good litmus for Insensé, perhaps even a better one than the arguably more delicate Chanel No. 19, is Estee Lauder's Aliage, which seems to operate on very much the same wavelength as Insensé, a wavelength not everyone can tune into and some hear like a dog hears that piercing whistle only dogs can, and how.

Always remember to wear black velvet

I had a really bad week. Everything imaginable went wrong. People say bad luck happens in threes, well, it was more like 30 things that went wrong this week. So many times I held back tears during the past few days, to the point that my throat felt like there was a permanent lump, a constricted sensation like I swallowed a kiwi whole. On the drive home from work this evening I finally let those tears roll down my cheeks. As I was driving along, completely immersed in my own self pity, I looked around at the pretty scenery and noticed for the first time today that it was simply gorgeous outside. The sky was blue with just a few wispy clouds, it was hot but not humid; just the perfect day that I always wish for when it’s either sweltering hot or too cold. The aroma of my fragrance caught my attention; I wore Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille. Le Chevrefeuille is a soliflore honeysuckle fragrance. It’s beautiful and just about the only honeysuckle I’ve ever smelt that’s absolutely perfect. Honeysuckle reminds me of my Grandmother. I got to thinking about my Grandmother. She would have loved a perfect summer day like today. I remember her standing in the back yard at the house where I grew up. She would look out at the meadows behind the house, at the horses and cows and the fields and lake beyond, she’d get a peaceful look on her face and she’d always say “this is God’s country.” My Grandmother wore two different perfumes, surely both were drugstore cheapies, but she always smelled so nice, of either honeysuckle or lily of the valley. My Grandmother’s last moments came to me, as I was driving along, tears running down my cheeks, but slowly beginning to stop crying as I thought about my Grandmother. She was only 61 years old when she died. She died of cancer. She was initially diagnosed with cancer at a mere 54. She went through chemotherapy and then lived until the cancer emerged again. I remember exactly what she told me on her death bed, she said “Ahhh-bi (she thought it was amusing to pronounce my name with an affected British accent) if I had my life to live over again, I’d wear more black velvet. I’d wear black velvet and red lipstick and have perfectly manicured red nails and beautiful perfume.” I was 13 years old when she said this to me and she died that very night. I’m certain you can track the beginning of my perfume addiction to a few days after my Grandmother died. I understand she was telling me to take life less seriously, to have fun, to be happy and enjoy the beautiful and oftentimes frivolous things in life. Maybe she could have said this to me more eloquently but I completely understood what she meant. Whenever I’m feeling down my mind usually wanders back to what my Grandmother said, about black velvet and perfume. Man, she would have loved Le Chevrefeuille.

Van Cleef & Arpels Féerie: A Review

I’m thinking violet is the new iris. Or the new pink pepper, lychee, you know how the perfume industry is, the new trendy note du jour. It just seems like everything is coming up violets lately.

I must be the only person on the planet that hates this bottle. The top of it looks like a weapon; you could injure yourself with that thing. It just reminds me of a cheapie novelty gift one would buy at Walt Disney World…Tinkerbelle from Peter Pan…that’s what it makes me think of. I like Lolita Lempicka’s enchanting little bottles, but this one just doesn’t do it for me. It seems gaudy not classy.

Féerie is described as a woody floral with violet as the predominant note developed by perfumer Antoine Maisondieu.

Van Cleef & Arpels lists the notes as:
Top: violet, red berries (black currant), Italian mandarin;
Heart: Bulgarian rose and Egyptian jasmine;
Base: iris butter and vetiver.

It opens exactly as the top notes are written, in that exact order. I smelled sweet violet, then berries then citrus. It remained a “berry sweet violet” on me for awhile, perhaps a full hour. Someone who loves sweet violets will love this. As you might imagine, it’s very girly and makes me think of springtime. I waited for many hours and never did smell the supposed “woodsy” quality. After the dry down it became a bit less sweet and perhaps I could smell a smidgen of iris if I really really focused but had I not known what the notes were, I would have simply thought it was violets and berries.

In a nutshell, Féerie is a pretty and sweet violet fragrance. It’s basically Creed Love in Black minus the edginess. Féerie is an easily worn and very mainstream fragrance.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Diptyque, L'Autre, Patou's Colony, Chanel No. 5

Every once in a while I get sick of shopping for perfume at the mall, or the disadvantages of dealing with idiosyncratic personnel outweigh the elation of walking away with a bottle in my hands. This week I did a lot of online shopping. One of my favorite places to buy from is The Perfume House in Portland. Tracie, the woman who helps me there, knows what she's talking about, and she's always nice to deal with. I have a memory of being there and can see the layout in my head, as well as a slightly hazier recollection of the perfumes I was shown over the course of the scattered ten hours I spent there. Several weeks ago I asked Tracie to set aside whatever they have left from the Patou Ma Collection. I hadn't been very interested back when I visited the store. At the time, I'd never heard of them, and the boxes looked old, so I figured they had spoiled. Since then I've read a lot about these fragrances and know how stupid I was to leave Portland without smelling them. I own Normandie, which I purchased from Perfume House over the phone, and Ma Liberte, which I found in the local Korean-owned store, Memphis Fragrance (a single 1.7 oz. bottle remained; a tester, priced at 20 bucks).

I want Cocktail most of all, but The Perfume House is out. Now that The Perfume Guide has come out, and people read blogs more frequently or avidly, they're curious about some of the older, harder to find perfumes, and they know that The Perfume House might just carry them. Gone is Vol de Nuit. Going is the Ma Collection. Recently I bought one of the last half ounce bottles of Colony they had, in parfum extrait. I'm told it smells like pineapple and leather, like a Bandit drenched in fruit cocktail, though not so much sweet as sun-kissed. That remains to be seen. The package has yet to arrive, and the anticipation isn't exactly delicious. Each day, I hope to find it in the mail. So far, each day, on some level, has therefore been a disappointment. Tracie included samples of Tabac Blonde and Vol de Nuit, warning me that the latter is from an old bottle and I'll need to wait for the top notes to clear out in order to truly appreciate the scent.

From Bigelow Chemists I ordered Diptyque's L'Autre, which seems to stratify the sniffing audience over on Basenotes.net but seems right up my alley, with its overdose on Cumin and coriander, a distinct garam masala bent. In Philadelphia I went to a spa shop which had a limited selection of fragrance, including the Lutens line, Acqua di Parma, and Diptyque. Of Diptyque, they carried Oyedo, Olene, Tam Dao, Philosokos, L'eau, Do Son, and a few others. I'd read about one in the Turin/Sanchez book which intrigued me but I couldn't recall what it was. Something curried or spiced. Tam Dao, based on the name alone, seemed the most logical conclusion, but it didn't smell the way the one I was looking for had been described. I ended up buying L'eau because it smelled close enough, like a clove pomander. I wore it to the premiere of my movie in Philly and nearly sent the cute festival volunteer who picked me up from the hotel to carry me to the theater into coughing fits, though he was polite about it and denied the one had anything to do with the other. One thing I realized from this experience is that, however attractive a guy finds me, my cologne will always put him off, and I'm just not willing to reverse that trend if, as I suspect, it means some form of abstinence (involving perfume, that is; it will inevitably involve sex, I imagine; or, rather, it will not involve it--but I digress...). Like Colony, L'Autre has yet to come, so my vague theories about layering pineapple and curry will continue to go untested for the time being.

Passing through Jonesboro on the way back from my mother's house this weekend, I stopped at a newly christened shopping mall. I found two DVD boxed sets I'd been looking for: one on Deneuve, the other on Delon. It occurred to me that I spend a lot of money, perhaps more than I have, as I handed my card to the guy behind the counter. Are Deneuve and Delon worth it, I wondered. Let's take them home and see!

I moved on to the department store, heading over to the Chanel counter. The young woman working there was startlingly good at what she did. It caught me off guard and I started chewing my gum so vigorously she must have been plotting her escape route. I was trying to decided whether to get Chanel No. 5 again. I play out this particular drama frequently. What do I want with Chanel No. 5? I ask myself. Chanel No. 5 is nice, to be sure, and the aldehydes are something else, but I have...a lot of perfume and, well, I mean, how much more do I need? And yet. I'd never smelled No. 5 in parfum extrait, and here the delicate boxes were, tiny white squares with the Chanel logo stamped on them. God, you've got a problem, I told myself as it became clear that she was moving toward a sale and I toward a purchase. I applaud you for buying extrait, she said, before I'd said I intended to. She explained the difference between the three concentrations, and described Chanel's private supply of rose and ylang ylang or whatever. She seemed as interested in it all as I was. I know! I imagined saying. Let's take a field trip there! We'll frolic in, like, ylang ylang all day and such.

She's been working for Chanel for two years. She came from San Diego, and I have no idea why she would migrate to Jonesboro, Arkansas, of all places, where the summer heat makes perfume a losing battle. It can't take long to whiz through a bottle of No. 5 in this weather. Yet she looked immaculately put together, and so friendly, as if she'd never had to deal with flop sweat, or leave cologne in her car while she went into the mall to get her fix. She really seemed to have absorbed all her training. She knew just about everything you would want her to know, and what she didn't know she somehow made you forget having asked. She made you want to work at the Chanel counter, just so you could be that happy and informed and, I don't know, stand there smelling the testers all day. We do employ men, she said, though she added: Maybe not in Jonesboro, but we do.

I bought my quarter ounce and went on my way, until I got a ways down the hall and I remembered the whole ordeal with Chanel on Rodeo, how my Cuir de Russie had arrived in the mail looking less than composed, and I turned around, because if anyone knew how to do things at Chanel, if anyone could make it all better, it had to be her. I returned to the Chanel counter and told her all about my horrible, traumatizing experience. The label was all runny! I sobbed. The cap was broken and the perfume had leaked out into the packaging. She told me to call Chanel in Beverly Hills. If they don't take care of it, she said, call me, and I will. You bought a luxury item and it should arrive like one. What Chanel needs, I thought as I walked away, is someone like her wrapping their shipments.

I've been smelling No. 5 for the last few days, and what fascinates me most about it is how infrequently people talk about the vetiver, which totally, if almost subliminally, transforms the rose/ylang ylang accord, providing a classic masculine foundation to a classic feminine perfume.

X-Files: I wanted to enjoy this movie

I’m a big X-Files fan. I watched nearly every episode, I loved the characters of Mulder and Scully, I loved the nonstop banter and sexual tension between them. I enjoyed most episodes of the show, but the series should have ended about 2 seasons before it finally petered to a lame halt.

The first X-Files movie was great fun; there was nonstop action and aliens and all the great characters from the TV series made their appearances and there were even a few questions answered. This summer’s X-Files movie, ten years after the TV series ended, was horrible.

I wore Alien by Thierry Mugler to the cinema. I kid you not. There wasn’t a single alien in the movie. The movie turned out to be about stereotypically ugly bad guys with Russian accents kidnapping people to either sell their organs black market or perform bizarre experiments on them like putting heads on other people’s bodies. It was always snowing in the film and I think they were in West Virginia. A monumental event occurred in this movie – Mulder and Scully were in bed together; they kissed; and Scully told Mulder she loved him! But it couldn’t have been less exciting. Fans of the X-Files have waited for these moments for about 15 years and the scenes couldn’t have been shot or delivered with less feeling, less enthusiasm, it was downright sad.

Skinner showed up for the last 5 minutes. Otherwise none of the usual suspects from the TV series appeared. No Cigarette Smoking Man, nobody. Apparently Mulder has been in hiding, living as a recluse, clipping out newspaper articles and pasting them all over his house. Scully became a regular doctor at a Catholic hospital and still struggles with her faith. There are so many boring drawn out moments during the movie where Mulder and Scully argue about their differences in belief – basically how Mulder wants to believe in the paranormal and how Scully doesn’t believe in anything unless provable by science.

As a fan of the X-Files, I wish this movie had never been made. It single-handedly ruined a lot of good X-Files memories for me. My favorite episode is the one about the Peacock Family. The Peacocks were a bunch of feral in-bred humans living on a secluded farm with their limbless mother tied onto a wheelie cart and stuffed under the bed. Do you remember this episode? This was so morbidly disturbing I watched it twice. All the boys were having sex with the mother and she was giving birth to disfigured babies which they were killing and burying in the back yard. It was awful. So awful it was genius. Chris Carter had something good going for awhile there. But it’s all over now.

I *so* wanted to believe.

Cartier Declaration Essence: Essentially Elusive

My reaction to this cologne is unreasonable and indescribable, and for a long time I’ve avoided writing about it because its effect on me isn’t something a simple recital of its notes or an intellectual dissection of its dry down could convey. Since buying it, I’ve acquired many more fragrances. I won’t bore you or embarrass myself by saying just how many. Declaration Essence has been pushed to the back of the cabinet. The bottle is unwieldy and though I could easily replace it I resist using it for fear of running out. I don’t ever want to be without Declaration Essence, so I never use it. This is the logic of an obsessive, and explains why many old women have closets full of dresses and hats and coats which have never been removed from the manufacturer’s packaging, and china which is saved for a dinner which is never served.

This weekend, I traveled to rural Arkansas to visit some family. I packed efficiently (one and a half pair of underwear for each day, two t-shirts, soap, shampoo, laptop, books) until it came time to perfume. Obviously, I’ve travelled before, but almost never to a place where I can’t shop for perfume. When I don’t bring anything, it’s usually because I know I’ll need the room for purchases I’ve made while away. I rarely have to think about how much sniffing I’ll need or want to do. Would one bottle for each day be enough? Or two? I had no idea. On any given day I sit down after work with at least ten bottles and alternate holding one or the other under my nose like Frank Booth inhaling from his oxygen tank in Blue Velvet. M-M-M-M-Mommy! How could I possibly bring thirty bottles of perfume to Arkansas?

I decided this was a singular opportunity to appreciate the merits of a small handful. Smelling ten at a time, you very seldom get the true aromatic properties of any individual scent. Like cable TV, there’s so much to choose from. Declaration Essence seemed an ideal candidate for this special occasion, so along with Chanel Antaeus, Santa Maria Novella Iris, Washington Tremlett Royals Heroes 1805, and a busted-up bottle of Cuir de Russie, I packed it for the trip.

The country proved an ideal setting for appraising this cologne. I knew I loved it but had forgotten with what kind of passion. When I first smelled Declaration, at Sephora, I was impressed but underwhelmed. From the notes, it seemed like something I would be into. Anything with cardamom seemed a sure fire winner to me. But the choice was between that and Terre D’Hermes, and the latter won out. Months later, when I was in Portland, I wandered into Nordstroms while my friend had her nails done. A saleslady at the mens fragrance counter, after trying to push some feminine on me as a gift for the woman in my life (I AM the woman in my life, I want to scream at these people) she pointed out Declaration Essence to me. I didn’t realize it was a flanker at first and wasn’t interested. It was only because I decided to give the Declaration I remembered from Sephora a second smell that I allowed her to spritz my wrist with Essence. She sprayed amply, drenching my skin, and when I smelled it, I had the kind of intense reaction most of us hope for when we pick up the next bottle. The fact such a response happens so infrequently is one of the things which keeps me looking.

Arkansas was so quiet, and my access to other perfumes so circumscribed this weekend, that I focused intently on Declaration Essence, its smoky nuttiness, an artful blend of woods and spice. The projection is respectable. The longevity is decent enough for an EDT. Many people say that in order for them to tolerate anything less than exemplary persistence, the price must be reasonable and the fragrance exceptional. Essence is both. For what it’s worth, the notes are generally agreed to be bergamot, orange, cedar, birch, oakmoss, cardamom, vetiver, rosewood, and moss. Some insist on the presence of cistus and amber. Chocolate, even. It’s difficult for me to smell any of these things individually, though seeing them delineated on paper I imagine I can, if only fleetingly. Declaration Essence is so well blended, and so wonderfully fragrant, that it hardly matters. Anything that distracts me from the smell itself is banished from my thoughts. Try as I might I can’t break down DE. It isn’t a cerebral scent, even into the extended dry down, a point where your critical faculties start to again intercede with many fragrances. Looking out my mother’s windows, every one of which opens onto a view of Arkansas’ dry green summer landscapes, was a perfect visual counterpart to the smell of DE wafting up from my wrists. There’s something equally inexplicable about those views, equally difficult to describe. Being in my mother’s house always means talking a lot or hearing a lot about my grandmother. It occurred to me that she probably would have liked DE for its Maverick character, having possessed more than a little of that herself.

Bond No 9 Lexington Avenue: A Review

Lexington Avenue is the third fragrance created by Bond No 9 in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation.

Judging by the first two and now the third in this series I’m not so sure Andy Warhol himself would like any of the fragrances that Bond No 9 has created in his namesake. I’m just guessing this because he was buried with a bottle of Estee Lauder Beautiful. If Andy Warhol loved Beautiful so much perhaps his tastes would lean towards Broadway Nite or Chelsea Flowers but I digress. The second fragrance in this series, Silver Factory, is one of my favorite Bond’s, so I was eager to try Lexington Avenue.

Lexington Avenue is so named because Andy Warhol lived in several apartments on Lexington Avenue, specifically in Murray Hill, in the early 1950’s. At this time Mr. Warhol was working as an illustrator at a shoe company called I. Miller. Hence the design on the bottle of seductive heels and boots. For lovers of perfume and shoes, the bottle alone might be something worth owning, it’s rather whimsical and charming.

Bond describes this scent as a floral woody chypre. Claude Dir is the perfumer and the list of notes are as follows: blue cypress, fennel, cardamom, pink peony, iris, crème brûlée, pimento berry, patchouli and sandalwood.

Yes, I too, was a bit perplexed by the list of notes. I couldn’t imagine what it would smell like. Especially with the crème brûlée note, I worried it would be a sickly sweet confection.

Lexington Avenue opens rather softly. I ended up applying quite a lot because I really wanted to be able to smell it ‘clearly.’ Turns out, it starts off quietly but in a matter of 10 minutes it began to warm up on my skin and become much more obvious. After about 30 minutes, I wasn’t completely able to describe the fragrance yet, and knew I needed to wait at least 3-4 hours to form an opinion but I already knew I LOVED it.

Overall it *is* a floral woody chypre with a twist. The cypress, fennel and cardamom are most noticeable in the beginning, with a slight “anise / licorice” scent and while it is a lovely start, this all morphs into the final gorgeously blended perfume which I can only describe as slightly reminiscent of Chinatown but much much better. Once dried down the sandalwood is apparent and it’s just altogether smooooooth. I think the crème brûlée note serves to add a creamy deliciousness, not overly sweet and not in the gourmand category in the least. This is a floral woody chypre just peeking through a keyhole into the gourmand category. I also get an overall impression of the spicy notes, the cypress, fennel, cardamom and pepper being draped over an evergreen forest. It’s a very calm, comforting and peaceful aroma. I imagine it being an absolute joy to wear in the crisp fall weather and most definitely in the winter. There is a ‘sweetness’ to Lexington Avenue, it is not a very dry spicy scent, but I would think that anyone who likes Chinatown and Nuits de Noho, really ought to try Lexington Avenue. I’m going out on a limb here, but in a way, Lexington Avenue reminds me of a very subdued, sophisticated, always decadent Aunt to Angel by Thierry Mugler. I am most definitely ordering myself a bottle and am so looking forward to the fall when I can start wearing this gorgeous fragrance.

Lasting power is average, on me, about 4-5 hours.

Sillage (aka scent trail) is small to medium, which means a person standing right next to you can probably smell it, but it doesn’t project more than it ought to.

A Letter to Chanel Regarding Cuir De Russie

Dear Chanel,

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was out in L.A., and I came to see you, and I smelled every last one of your Exclusifs fragrances because, as I believe I told you at the time, I’d been reading about them forever, and had developed a love affair with them in my head, and didn’t want to be deluded, to be romantically involved with blinders on? I wanted to be sure. Did these Exclusifs warrant such reverent devotion? I wasn’t interested in your quilted purses (though I admit they seemed perfectly lovely and were in fact swarmed around by others in the store to the point of psychosis) or your dresses or frocks or whatever you start to call them when they get to costing that much. I thought the room off to the side (men with little walkie talkies; glass cases which seemed to be protected by laser fields) was just plain quaint; all those diamonds--is that what they were? I didn’t like that room most of all because it placed too many walls between me and your perfumes. It felt like going to see your betrothed at her childhood home for the first time just so you could fondle the spatulas in her mother’s kitchen drawer. What did spatulas have to do with anything?

Remember how I stood there, smelling and re-smelling? Remember how I held the bottles in my hand one after the other? I couldn’t get over how heavy they were, how solid. Glass bricks. And those magnetized caps! I should have been warned, I suppose, by the relative ignorance of your staff when it came to these fragrances. They were so busy running around chasing after quilted bags and glittery doo dads that they hardly had time to stop and answer my questions. Did they in fact have Cuir de Russie in stock? Hmm, they would have to go look. And look they did. I suppose. I waited. And waited. And finally someone popped her head out of some secret Chanel door to inform me that no, they did not have Cuir de Russie and that yes, perhaps it did indicate a certain degree of popularity. They expected more to arrive at the beginning of the following week, they said, clucking regretfully. Remember how disappointed I looked? Recall the shaky apprehension on my face? I didn't beg you to take down my address but I was more than happy and a little relieved to give it to you.

Early the next week, I wanted to know: had Cuir de Russie come in? I was impatient. I know, you said you’d call me, but I’d smelled the tester and been sent away with a sample, and all week I’d been obsessed. Guerlain said something about creating perfumes which smelled like the backside of his mistress. To me, Cuir de Russie was the ass of that mistress after riding horseback all day. The excitement of L.A. was peripheral, circumstantial to the real purpose of my visit: to secure Cuir de Russie and bring it back to Memphis with me, where I might love it and kiss it and hug it all over and call it my very own, oh boy. I didn’t want to bother you, Chanel, so I had your affiliates at Saks call you on Rodeo. I must have this mistress' ass rubbed in leather, I kept telling myself. Imagine my shock when the saleswoman at Saks was kept on hold for ten minutes and counting. I pictured frantic women racing around your multi-level layout. “Beaded useless trinket needed at the front counter!” “Rich woman trying on shiny earrings in the try-on-costly-jewelry-in-secluded-privacy wing!” “Quilted purse hemorrhaging cash on aisle four!” I was embarrassed for your affiliate at Saks, treated as if she were the ugly stepchild. Please, nevermind, I said, I was only kidding. I didn’t mean it. It was merely an experiment. With this, I walked away.

I stopped once more at Rodeo before leaving town. Weren’t you the guy looking for some of that stinky stuff, the faces of the security guards seemed to say. Whereas your sales staff couldn’t for the life of themselves remember me. Not that this troubled them even slightly. Until this visit, I never dreamed that quilted purses generated so much activity. Now I know what a serious business such items are. These people are in control, I told myself. They have handbags to sell and they set about selling them as if they were solid gold. This is good, I told myself, because people who shell out thousands of dollars for simple leather purses should absolutely, no question, be made to feel they are buying some luxurious rarity from the country of Googelholler. You did not have Cuir de Russie but promised to call me when it arrived. You’d call me in Memphis, you declared, and though I was dubious (when, after all, would the trade in quilted purses slow enough to allow such a leisurely call to be placed?) I expressed my gratitude and bid you adieu.

A week later, I received said call. “Mr. Whatsyerface, we’re calling to let you know that Cuir de Russie has arrived. We have reserved a bottle for you.” Hearing this, I must have tinkled ever so slightly down my pant leg. And listen, Chanel, don’t think I didn’t get right on that. I know what happens to a lousy little bottle of perfume when the big boys start crowding it out on the shelves. It’s a hard-knock life for perfume in a cut-throat quilted handbag environment. I gave you my credit card number and immediately began the effort to contain my excitement. You would only deliver the package to my home address. You refused to send it to my office, which was fine because, though it inconvenienced me, requiring that I stay at home to sign for the perfume, it bolstered my sense that you took my fantasy seriously, with the intent of rewarding my expectations.

Several days later, my package arrived. Please listen carefully, Chanel, because this is where our love affair ends. I knew when I took the package into my own hands that there was a problem. It rattled rather than rustled, for one. And I could smell the smoky florals and birch tar through the cardboard, as if you’d shipped it to me by simply pouring the juice into the box. Cuir de Russie: the splash bottle! The luxuriant perfume equivalent of boxed wine. Hesitantly, I opened the package. Here’s what I found. You’d stuffed the perfume box into one of your shopping bags, as you would at the counter, then folded the bag over. You placed the bag in the shipping box, then folded over several sheets of tissue paper to take up the slack. Here’s what the bottle looked like. The box, for one, was scuffed and dented, and soaked in perfume. The cap was off. So was the dispenser and the metal bib used to secure it. The label on the bottle looked like runny mascara. I appreciate the sample your staff threw in—-how very sweet of you, Chanel—-but would have appreciated a full bottle of Cuir de Russie, wrapped thoughtfully, with some amount of intelligence or forethought applied. Everyone appreciates a bit of rough, but runny mascara and torn stockings...not from you, Chanel. If I wanted hot mess I'd go downtown and pick it up out of the gutter.

Has anyone at your house ever mailed a package of perishable or breakable goods? I have to think even the smallest of children have, and you honor child labor laws, I expect. Has anyone in her right mind ever placed a glass bottle in a box without proper padding expecting it to arrive as if by some protective magic intact? Quite frankly, Chanel, my grandmother, who never learned how to open an email, sent me cookies with more thought put into their packaging than you put into the shipping of this 205 dollar bottle of supposedly luxury perfume, which arrived looking like something out of the remnant bin. My grandmother would have been appalled and mortified to learn that a box of crumbs, however tasty, had landed on my doorstep. You, on the other hand, are busy with the next quilted bag.

What do I want, mon cherie? Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure you can make it better. Of course I’ll call you, first thing this week, and try to work things out. The dissolution of a relationship is a sad, uncomfortable thing. Whatever happens, the honeymoon is over. I now know that the quilted handbags are your true focus. Your priorities are there. As far as you’re concerned, Jacques Polge makes pretty things to smell but he can go fuck himself. And the people who spend hard earned money on his fragrances can go fuck themselves too, or they can fuck him. Or they can simply fuck off. It’s neither here nor there to you.


Regretfully,
Brian

Tom Ford White Patchouli: A Review

Today I went to Neiman Marcus to try the newest The Different Company fragrance called Sublime Balkiss by Celine Ellena. To my dismay, Neiman’s had the rest of the TDC line but didn’t have Sublime Balkiss in stock yet. I was so disappointed. I’d been planning this trip to Neiman’s for days and I should have called first.

While I was there I asked the sales associate if she had samples of Tom Ford White Patchouli. She said she only had one tester bottle and there weren’t any samples yet. She allowed me to spritz from the tester; I did so with her watching me, I felt greedy as I spritzed my left arm three, maybe four times. I walked around the store, checked out the new Feerie bottle, and went back to the sales associate with the Tom Ford White Patchouli tester. I always carry some empty vials in my purse just in case so I figured I had nothing to lose and asked her if I could take a sample from the one single tester bottle in the entire store. She looked at me as if I’d asked for her first born child. I gave her a pathetic begging look, told her about Sublime Balkiss and how Neiman’s was an hour from my house, and she finally agreed. She took the vial from me and decanted the sample behind the counter in a guarded fashion as if she were performing a criminal act. I actually felt like I ought to be a look out for her or give her a warning if someone else were walking over. She gave me the vial back (2.5 ml, yay!) and I thanked her profusely and walked around the store a bit more. Since I was there, I decided I was getting low on one of my favorite TDC fragrances, Sel de Vetiver, so I picked up a box and brought it to my partner-in-crime sales associate. That seemed to make her happy; that I was actually buying something now. Then I wandered over to the fresh counter and sniffed Cannabis Rose and Violette. Both are innocuous and pretty, like most fresh scents. I also realized that I’m running low on Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir, so I picked up a bottle of that, too, and brought it over to my now very happy sales associate. This was enough damage for one day so paid and exited the store before I thought of anything more I might need….

First, I’ll confess, I’m not a fan of Tom Ford’s last few fragrances. Black Orchid, while definitely interesting, smelled like crotch to me, so I never purchased it. Then I boycotted him after seeing the Tom Ford for Men ads, which to my mind were like someone just took a Marketing 101 class called “how to gain attention for your product by using nudity and sex to cause a stir.” That said, I’m actually a fan of patchouli, the note itself, I love L’Artisan’s Voleur de Rose and Keiko Mecheri’s Patchoulissimo and I decided that I was really quite curious about TF White Patchouli. I couldn’t imagine what a white citrusy floral with patchouli would smell like and I decided to let the juice speak for itself and give it a go. I admit I was really looking forward to trying it.

Well, I’ve had a disappointing day. First, no TDC Sublime Balkiss and now the smell of TF White Patchouli made me nauseous. I’m not exaggerating. For me, for the first hour it smells like astringent, something like Seabreeze facial toner mixed with bug spray. I can’t identify anything even close to patchouli in the first hour or so nor do I smell anything close to a white floral or citrus. I thought about how I adore Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle and how I’ve come to like the menthol/rubber beginning, so I decided to give TF White Patchouli it’s due and wait a full 5 hours before making any sort of decision.

After forcing myself not to scrub it off as much as I really wanted to, it finally dries down to something much less nauseating. I eventually smell a whiff of patchouli, but a very astringent and light patchouli at that. Yes, I can see why it’s called White Patchouli because this patchouli isn’t dirty or dusky or deep at all. After a few hours a faint woody note emerges and an even fainter incense-y note, too. I can’t detect any of the floral notes that are supposed to be here; no white peony, no jasmine, no rose, for me. To my nose everything blends into an astringent aroma laid over a very soft uninteresting patchouli.

In the end, after the full five hours, it’s not horrible, but it just isn’t good, it isn’t what I hoped it would be and I won’t be among those placing their pre-orders. Again, I think of Tubereuse Criminelle, and while I have come to enjoy those initial menthol/rubber moments, I think I do so because I know what’s coming, I know that it develops into a masterpiece. At least Serge Lutens rewards me for wading through those initial awkward moments, where Tom Ford’s White Patchouli, just doesn’t come anywhere close to a masterpiece.

The bottle itself is rather boring and ugly, too. I can’t help thinking that if someone were to stick a cheap drugstore label on it and ask a group of unknowing people to try it they’d all exclaim how dreadfully horrid and cheap it is.

Tom Ford White Patchouli’s press release describes the perfume in the following manner:

"Opens energetically sparkling notes of bergamot blended with delicate white peony
and spicy coriander accents make an instant play for attention.
The alluring and modern heart unfolds in sequence: rich rose absolute,
carnal night blooming jasmine, and the stimulating ambrette seed.
Precious patchouli orpur infuses the finish with exotic depth. Its stimulating
sensual pull is enriched by a medley of blonde woods and the soft eastern
aroma of incense."