People Really Love Patrick Petitjean and to Prove It I'm Going to Use His Name in This Post

Latest perfume sighting in a movie: the not at all terribly bad Pick-Up Artist with Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr. In it, Downey lives with his grandmother in a NYC apartment. At one point, his grandmother has met a suitor in the park (remember those? Suitors, parks) and is getting ready for a date with him. Her vanity is full of perfume bottles, the brands of which I couldn't make out. There must have been at least a dozen of them scattered about. Every time I hit pause a little bar appeared on the TV screen to show where I was in the film. I couldn't see a thing but the bar.

The last time someone commented on my perfume: recently, at the last second, I decided to accompany friends to a wine bar down the street. When I got in the car, the woman beside me on the back seat said, "You smell so damn good." I was wearing Neil Morris Afire. I go so long without anyone commenting on my perfume that it can sometimes feel like I've been cooped up for weeks without talking to anyone. I forget what my voice sounds like, or what it feels like to engage in conversation.

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of the following at the discount stores: Givenchy Xeryus Rouge, Arpege, Herrera for Men. Does this mean reformulation? Now that's a redundant question. What else could it indicate? Xeryus Rouge was selling for 39.99 several weeks back. It's now going for 24.99. Xeryus Rouge was one of the earlier fragrances I bought, back when I had about ten bottles and worried to a friend that maybe I had "a problem." It was raved about often online alongside YSL M7. The consensus seemed to be that M7 was better. Having spent several years with both, I prefer Rouge. It never disappoints me. To the contrary, I'm always surprised, when I revisit it, how truly good it is. Spicy but fresh, simultaneously hot and cool, Xeryus lasts and lasts--and then some. Perfumer Annick Menardo created it. Luca Turin concluded: "frustratingly close to greatness." If Beyond Paradise is greatness, I'll stay frustrated. I think this would be to a woman what Diorella is on a man. It takes that kind of woman.

I finally caved and bought myself a bottle of Wazamba. For over a year I was undecided. I had a decant, and somehow, sometimes, with decants, I really can't tell. Some perfumes only speak their mind from a full bottle. You either risk finding out they have nothing insightful to say or you stick with keeping them down to a murmur. I'm glad I took the risk, because the things that annoyed me or worried me about Wazamba became irrelevant when I could spray it a little more freely. Wazamba isn't exactly a skin scent, and it's not by any stretch sheer--but it lays there doing the same thing all day. That's fine by me. I like a layabout, if he keeps me entertained. From a decant, Wazamba didn't stick around long. From a bottle, it settles in for the long haul. It was just waiting for me to commit.

Ladies--or is it gentleman?--Patrick Petitjean is popular. A few years ago, I posted a few pictures of him. I wrote something about what I imagined he might wear--besides sweat and yesterday's aromatic assortment of stains. I know: he doesn't really smell. Or does he? I'm not sure I care. He's a refreshing face to see in the...world?...of male modeling, if only because the thought of such a world depresses the hell out of me. Of the 600-something posts we've written here on ismell, a handful have been the most popular by a landslide. The top two? That post on Petitjean and some little throwaway thing we wrote about Tom's of Maine. For some reason, yesterday, the Petitjean post got over a thousand hits. Someone will tell me something horrible happened to him and I will feel bad for making him the source of my joke, no doubt. *

Equally fascinating yet totally unrelated: how weird are the friending patterns of people on facebook? Some people see it as a "social media" and will add you as a friend without knowing you. Me, I like this. I'm on there to meet new people, and if there's something I wish to remain private, I'm generally not broadcasting it online. If there's something I want seventy people to know but wish to keep a secret from four, I simply adjust my privacy settings. Some people, on the other hand, get oh so very touchy. Do I KNOW you, they say, responding to a friend request. No, and clearly you don't wish to know anyone you don't already. Are these people on facebook simply to share family photos with family members? Isn't that email?

The other thing I like? The whole un-friending thing. What did we do when there was no facebook and we couldn't make passive aggressive banishments amongst friends with such a perfect ratio of drama to ease? What's great is when you have a lot of friends, and someone un-friends you, but you don't notice for months, and when you do notice you think, wow, I must have really killed it for them by taking so long to notice. Then you realize that the reason they must defriend you in the first place is because it's virtually the only little mark or dent they CAN make on something as chaotic and cacophonous as facebook, and its sense of effectiveness as a gesture relies on their ability to imagine that you must be crushed. Part of the reason you're un-friended, nine out of ten, is that you forgot they exist and this is the one way they can convince themselves they're reminding you. I've been de- or un-friended by about five or six people that I know of. I'm sure I must have said something. Nice to know it registered.

*Spot the real Petitjean. Under all that hair, one of these Grizzlies ain't like the others.