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.

Contradictory/Contrarian Thoughts

1. I've discovered that I really like fragrances I'm discouraged from even sniffing by reputable sources. Michael by Michael Kors smells like roasted gardenia and tuberose to me, spiced a little, and that's a good thing. It dries down in a wonderful way, lasting just about all day and then some. Boucheron Trouble doesn't smell too sweet or pedestrian to me. It smells rich and slightly woody. Kelly Caleche isn't a bore or even a letdown. It makes a pretty definite statement to me, with its vegetal iris and peppered disposition. Jean Paul Gaultier is supposed to be headache in a bottle, whereas for me, it has restorative properties.

2. What is a dandy fragrance? I used to think it was a rose a guy could get away with wearing. Now I realize that the fragrances which get called dandy-worthy are typically anything the guy in question likes but which is popularly regarded as feminine and therefore requires some justification or mental adjustment to wear. In this respect, every perfume I own which is meant for women (and I have a lot) is a dandy fragrance. I don't think wearing a so-called feminine requires justification. It's an act of social sabotage, which is justification enough. You make it your own, and if you stop worrying over it, and wear it with confidence, people stop judging it separately from you as being either appropriate or inappropriate. You own it. What could be more appropriate? The other day a homeboy came in to smell the Bond No. 9 fragrances while I was standing there. He had on Louis Vuitton sneakers, chunky gold jewelry, and was more put together than most of the women I know, and he was worried that the No. 9's he favored were considered feminine. He looked to the women behind the counter, who all liked different No. 9's, to tell him whether or not he should be caught dead in his favorites. Enough said?

3. I'm not sure what I think about the alleged masterpiece Beyond Paradise. There, I said it. Sometimes I think I love it. Is that a figgy sort of green in there, or just a gardenia and jasmine sucker punch? Wearing it today, I'm drunk on it. Smelling it a month ago I thought the naff lollipop bottle suited it perfectly.

4. I love Givenchy Insense. It seems harder and harder to find the older bottles. Online they're always "out of stock". I found some at a local discount store and purchased, even though I had a small bottle at home already. Before I ever smelled it I was told that Insense is a male floral. I disregarded the fact that it smelled anything but floral to me. Maybe if I focus I can smell the magnolia and the muguet, but I would never call this girly or even anything less than robustly masculine. More bewildering still, Michael Edwards classifies this as woody - floral musk. What am I missing? Top to bottom, I get that mentholated green note, part galbanum, part eucalyptus. It's almost as butch as Estee Lauder Alliage. I'm told this is the lentisk (aka mastic tree), a small evergreen shrub of the mediterranean region. And yes, the part waxy, part oily qualities of muguet and magnolia suit it well. But, really--musk?

5. What's going on at Sephora? Granted, their stock was always pathetic, but at one time, just under a year ago, they carried Cartier, Hermes, and any number of items I haven't seen on their shelves for months now. We're getting new stuff in, they told me, when I asked why they were rearranging their shelves and things started to go missing. They were just making room, they said. Now the masculines and feminines, once on opposite sides of the room, are on the same wall, and both have been laughably condensed. No more Jardins de This or That. No more Baiser du Dragon or So Pretty. But if you're in the market for Fresh Sake or Burberry Bland, this is the place to go. I used to dislike Sephora. Now I know I hate them.

6. When I first smelled Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia I thought, yes, it does smell a little like Bulgari Black. Then I got home with the bottle and actually conducted a side by side comparison. Nostalgia is nothing like Black. And it blows it out of the water, as far as I'm concerned. I've also since come to realize that Nostalgia lasts with impressive tenacity. In less than two weeks I went from liking and admiring this fragrance to loving it all out of reason. On sale: One slightly used bottle of Bulgari Black. Make an offer.

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.