By Hové: Three from New Orleans

I'd been living in Memphis a good two decades, a hop and a skip away from New Orleans, and a couple of years into collecting all things perfume, before I learned about Hové Parfumeur. Located on Chartres St., in the French Quarter, Hové has been around a lot longer than I've been around here, let alone anywhere. The store opened for business in 1931, right after the worst stock market crash in history.

Opening a luxury perfume house during an economic depression seems like the kind of bold, if not foolish, move only the truly deluded would make, but like other forms of entertainment - movies, for instance - perfume offered a reasonable and useful distraction, if not relief, from overall financial duress. While it might have been tempting to view Hové's founder and perfumer, Mrs. Alvin Hovey-King, as a naive woman when her bright idea struck, it's now just as tempting to view her along the lines of a small-scale Coco Chanel, somewhat visionary in her understanding of the things which sustain people during hardship, priceless commodities for which they're willing to pay with what little money they have.

Her husband's investment business went the way of the crash. There must have been few other prospects. Opening a perfumery was a wild hair idea, maybe, but probably less ridiculous than doing nothing. The couple lived above the first shop, located on Royal Street. In 1938, the year that Commander Hovey died, the outfit moved to Toulouse. Again, Mrs. Hovey lived in an apartment above the store.

In 1961, the widowed Hovey, having survived her husband by over twenty years, passed away, leaving the brand to her daughter and granddaughter. Before its move to Chartres, Hové was moved to one other location. Since the death of its founder it has been passed along to several generations of the extended Hovey family. Currently, it's being run by the Wendels, husband and wife, who, like Mrs. Hovey, live above the shop.

Mrs. Hovey is said to have learned the craft of perfumery from her Creole French mother. There's very little about Hové online, other than the company's website, and I've been unable to find out who its "house" perfumer is now. Several of the fragrances - there are quite a few - are said to have been revived, suggesting reformulation. I still haven't made it over to the storefront, but friends have visited and, calling me on the phone from the counter, relayed their impressions based on what they imagined I would like.

Hové sells parfum extrait and eau de cologne versions ranging in sizes from half ounce to four ounce splashes. A half ounce of extrait runs for 55 to 65 dollars, depending on the line. The smallest cologne comes in a 2 ounce atomizer and costs 31 or 37.

After our telephone conversation, a friend brought me back Vetiver, Fascinator, and Spanish Moss, the three I felt might be most up my alley, or at least as good a place as any to start. Of the three, I've smelled only the vetiver in both cologne and extrait formulations.

VETIVERT is the safest bet. It's one of the nicer vetivers I've smelled; strong - and persistent - enough to satisfy in either concentration. Hové's Vetivert is raw and peppery. Of the many vetivers I know, I'd say Encre Noire comes closest. As much as I love Encre Noire, I prefer Hové's version: it's rawer still. For all its earthiness, Encre Noire has an airy quality I wish would dig deeper. Even in cologne form, Hové's vetiver maintains the rooty opacity of the best vetiver oil. Despite this, it isn't a "thick" wear. It's just that it doesn't bat its eyes at you. It has none of the cheery bright reassurance of the present day Guerlain Vetiver.

SPANISH MOSS is my second favorite. The subject of some debate in the few online reviews I've read, it is said to be either the perfect moss or nothing close. It smells plenty mossy to me. Hové's website doesn't list much by way of notes, but on one customer review they're listed as: Lilac, lemon, rose, orange blossom, osmanthus, orris, heliotrope, myrrh, and vanilla. That all sounds about right to me, and sniffing my wrist I get more than anything the heliotrope, vanilla, rose, and orange blossom. Why there isn't any moss in the formula, if in fact there isn't, is something you'd have to take up with the ghost of Mrs. Hovey, but like Nahema, a rose which is said to contain anything but, Spanish Moss conjures the impression of sweet, dry moss with a floral wind running through it. The extrait lasts respectably, with modest projection.

FASCINATOR, according to the Hové website, is a medley of musks and moss. It's an old school scent, to my nose somewhere along the chypre continuum - falling on the light side. Aspects of the fragrance remind me of 31 Rue Cambon, which isn't to say they smell alike; only that both get close to what I imagine people must mean when they talk about modern day chypres. In other words, they smell like the present with a distinct nod to the past. Fascinator smells best right out of the bottle, and I wish it would stay that way. It fades to a murmur too quickly for my taste. I picture the little pieces of drama it's named after, those vintage hats, and I want it to have more of their flair.

All three of these Hové scents, while wearable as modern perfumery, rather than mere curiosity pieces of the past, have a definite vintage vibe to them.

Hové doesn't seem to offer sample vials, so it's a bit of a crap shoot exploring the line. The packaging is fairly utilitarian. The bottles are simply labeled, with no particular frills to their silhouettes.  The company also sells soaps in some of the scents it produces. I've smelled vetiver, which was wonderful. I keep trying to find an excuse to get back to New Orleans so I can spend some serious time in the shop, but it hasn't worked out yet.

2012: Ringing It In

It's been a strange, eventful year.  I haven't always had time to write.  I haven't usually, I should say.  And in many ways my feelings about blogging have shifted; whether or not permanently, I don't know.  I started out with a real joy for blogging here, and a genuine enthusiasm for the things I was learning, not just on the shelf but from other bloggers.  The last two years, especially, brought quite a shift.  What seemed like a big happy family showed signs of strain and competitiveness I'd never noticed before, and after ranting about it for a while (some called it ranting, I called it satire, meaning I felt it was worth writing about, and poking fun seemed hopeful, indicating things could change) I went quiet.

I also got very busy.  Andy Tauer and I started working on the Tableau de Parfums line more than a year ago, but all of our behind the scenes efforts were made public in 2011, and that involved more work.  I enjoyed that work, and continue to, but it's given me less time to write and a very different perspective.  I was less interested in what was going on outside my workspace, because my desk was so full, and felt too that I Smell shouldn't simply be used as a broken record voice box for my pursuits and adventures or even setbacks with Tableau.

At the same time, several months ago, I started to worry that my enthusiasm for perfume in general was gone for good.  I'm happy to say that it's not.  At least I think not.  Yesterday, driving back from rural Mississippi, I spotted an independent, mom/pop drugstore I'd never seen before.  I got excited, knowing they'd probably have perfume, and that among their inventory might possibly be older bottles.  You won't necessarily be thrilled by what I walked out with - old version Cinnabar and Anais Anais, and a bottle of Bill Blass Hot - but here's the thing: I realized that we don't need to be excited by the same things.  Being excited at all, still having that capacity, is good enough for me.

It's an important distinction for me, because as I say, for whatever reason, I haven't been excited about mainstream or even niche perfumery in quite a while.  And I've been bummed out about that.  Walking into that drugstore and discovering those surprises reminds me that the fragrance industry, and even the fragrance community, however that's defined, aren't the reasons I'm into perfume, nor are they my sole outlets in pursuing this interest.

Most of my year was spent with my old favorites.  I found myself seeing them in new ways, enjoying them into different seasons, noticing how they changed in different climates or with a shift of personal perspective.  It's nothing thrilling, probably, to write yet again about Chanel Coco, when I've written about it before, particularly when the Chanel talking points are Beige and Jersey (if ever two words summed up the state of the industry...).  Yet I kept seeing Coco and so many other old favorites in new light.  They kept feeling new to me.

This year more than any other so far made me feel it was pointless to talk about even these old favorites, even were I to find something new about them, because reformulations are so frequently conducted at this point that to talk about one version only is some sort of mistruth.

The barometer is gone, or at least I have trouble figuring out how to find one in my conversation.  This was illuminated pretty baldly for me during a trip to Chicago several months ago.  Oh how they were stirring and shaking and spinning in the Lush department at Macy's.  Such a commotion.  You'd think perfume had been created a year ago.  It was scary but touching, somehow.  Yet beyond Lush, a ghost town.  I wandered the counters of Macy's without ever seeing a sales associate.  And why should they be there?  Smelling the perfumes only confirmed for me that there was nothing really to talk about anyway; certainly nothing to explain.

The Estee Lauder counter was represented, but all the juices in the tester bottles looked different.  Even Private Collection, usually rich gold in color, was pale, like somebody had refilled it with water.  The perfumes I love and recognize instantly smelled only generally like themselves.  Though I knew that Estee Lauder, like everyone else, practices reformulation as a matter of routine, I'd foolishly held them up as some basically unchanging entity in a sea of otherwise constantly shifting marketplace priorities.  The versions I smelled of Cinnabar, Beautiful, Azuree, and Youth Dew there at Macy's made it clear that Lauder has as much contempt for me as any other manufacturer.  Which is why this old bottle of Cinnabar in a forgotten drugstore was such a visceral thrill.

Another key factor in my relationship to perfume in 2011 had to do with watching perfumers work.  seeing Andy Tauer in action, how much care and concern and imagination he puts into what he does, set a high bar for me.  I felt the same about Olfacta, who sent me a wonderful fougere she'd been working on for a while.  These insights and experiences were so personal and meaningful that they inevitably spoiled me when it came to perfume packaged impersonally and without much imagination beyond their heartfelt labs.

What I wish for everyone in 2012 is probably perspective.  My trip yesterday to the drugstore reminded me how important it is, and how hard to come by.  People are still out there doing wonderful things, truly unique, meaningful things.  The ubiquitous reach of mass media and online outlets lead us to believe that we know every corner, deadening our perspectives.  I'm telling you: I believe these little proverbial drugstores of surprise are out there in the world, waiting for us to discover them when we least expect it.

More on the Wacky Things Those Persistent Sales Associates Say

The other day, I walked into Sephora.

What compels me to walk into Sephora at this point, where nothing grabs my attention, is something I probably need to look into, but I'll get to that some other time.  Or not.  One thing I can always count on at the place is the unique pushiness of the sales staff, who rush over the moment I enter and hover there with their headsets, as though I intend to shove a bottle of - what?? - Taylor Swift's latest into my shopping bag?  I resent that.  Naturally, I do have my standards.

This time, a male sales associate I've seen before made a beeline for me.  His face was painted (I guess for Halloween?  I didn't ask) and he looked like a retrospective of every cast member of every production of CATS that had ever passed through town.  I couldn't help feeling, as I looked at his bright white eye contacts, that I was staring into the true soul of the Sephora sales force, so for that and the usual reasons I avoided making contact with him as much as possible.

Which only made him more eager to get my attention.  Maybe he thought I was aloof, and that frustrated him, or maybe I'm simply fat, because not a minute after he'd first tried to engage me he said, rather cheerily, "You look like you're putting on some weight."

I focused on a bottle of Coco, trying to figure out how to respond.  Situations like this stump me every time.  The hurdle for me is trying to wrap my head around the idea that anyone would go out of his way to be so blatantly ugly.  I simply answered, as cheerily, that yes, it's possible I am putting some weight on.

"It happens as we get older," he said, rubbing his tummy.

Maybe I should have talked to management - though that seems like a bad move, given that my contact info is in the Sephora system.  The last time I did something like that, my garden hose went missing and my house was vandalized.

This is probably the worst thing an SA has ever said to me.  But it isn't the first time I've had an uncomfortable experience at Sephora.  The last time I was in, I asked to smell Gaultier Le Male Terrible, and the sales associate, again a man, was so aggressively familiar that it short circuited my social skills.  That seemed to provoke him, because his interaction with me took on a sort of weirdly taunting quality.  He seemed to be making fun of my taste in fragrance, and was hostile to the idea I might need to smell Le Male Terrible (there wasn't a tester on display) to discern the difference between flanker and good old regular Le Male.

Maybe it's boredom?  Sephora bores me as a consumer, so I imagine it must bore its sales force.  I suspect too that the training the Sephora employee receives encourages a sort of aggression that can only frustrate the shopper, which in turn must humiliate and anger the staff.  But I might be giving too much credit to these two guys in particular.  Part of me imagines I was simply seeing their everyday personalities.

Anybody else had a sales associate say anything approaching the gall of the above?

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Good Enough for Kim

I'm always a little cranky when I show up at my favorite perfume kiosk here at the mall and the Russian women who own it aren't there.  Recently, they hired two new employees, neither of which knows next to anything about perfume and augur a much more belabored conversation.  The owners know their inventory well, no matter how far hidden behind boxes of Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, or Polo Double Black.  They know me pretty well, too - what I have and what I tend to look for.  When I visit, they tell me what's come in since they last saw me.  They understand that I'm a nut, that I'm the rare guy shopping for himself, more often than not on the woman's side of the counter.  The young girls they've hired are convinced I must have an addiction to buying buckets of perfume for the ladies in my life, and they spend a lot of time trying to interest me on the 20 dollar cheapos on display front and center for impulse buys.

Yesterday, I brought a friend with me.  He and I were looking at their stock of Guerlain, and I wanted him to try out Moschino Moschino.  I pointed to the box and the girl had no idea what I was talking about.  It was a needle in a haystack to her and I couldn't seem to point precisely enough through the glass.  I felt like I was in an Marx Brothers routine.  The Russian women and I have a fairly easy running dialogue.  The new girls are like that lady at the clothing store, who feels compelled to comment persuasively on each and every thing you set your eyes on, pushing for that sale.  Every perfume, they assure me, is very hard to find.  Aromatics Elixir, for instance, isn't made anymore, they say, as if it manages to be a bestseller only in some parallel universe.  Bond No.9 Wall Street is a lovely woman's perfume.  Mitsouko is an after shave.

As we were standing there, smelling how awful the latest iteration of Egoiste is - a cinnamon bomb, suddenly, missing all the sweet sandalwood I remember - a customer approached asking for Kim Kardashian.  The girl sprayed some on her and the woman seemed to love it, but she was totally torn.  How could she look anyone in the eye, if asked what she's wearing, and tell them with a straight face, without seeming like she was in a rush to get to Claire's for a beaded friendship bracelet and a double finger ring with her name set in rhinestones?

Listen, I told the lady.  "Lie."  If you must.  If you like it, and you want it, get it.  But she couldn't get over the stigma, no matter how many times she returned to the smell on her wrist.  It's nice, I agreed.  But it's a pretty standard smell and if the name is something you can't get past there are several others you might like instead.  I asked the sales associate to spray Carolina Herrera (she pulled out Carolina, convinced it was the same fragrance) and Michael Kors on tester strips, but the lady saw no similarities - not even remotely.  It made me realize Kim Kardashian's specific appeal. Kardashian removes all the rubbery camphor from tuberose, augmenting the sweetness with buttery cream.  The peach in Carolina Hererra doesn't seem to replace that (apparently) much desired effect.  The spicy incense kick of Michael Kors takes things in another direction entirely, the extreme opposite end of a spectrum.  Unfortunately, the kiosk has no Fracas, and though I'd mentioned how standard a smell Kardashian is, I couldn't seem to think of another fragrance which approximates it.

We're all standing there, troubling over this, and the sales associate, all of 19, says, "It's really great, Kardashian, because any woman can wear it.  Old women can wear it."

My friend and I were speechless.  The lady, probably in her late thirties, smiled uncomfortably.  It renewed my barely latent contempt for sales associates in general, that special ineptitude they often have, and when I got over my shock I told her that in probably all of ten years she'll realize that getting her foot in her mouth will be a much more arduous enterprise than she's able to realize now, requiring a nimbleness and a lack of perspective she will only vaguely remember as a thing of the far past.

She lost the sale, of course.  But she made up for it with me.  Like Kim, I'm pretty easy.  I got Moschino for my friend, who's just taken to wearing Poison (prodigiously, thank God) and Caleche for myself.  The new Caleche is much maligned by Luca Turin and others as a wan reflection of what it once was.  I don't mind it, though I have the older version and see the point.  The new version is indeed far more masculine, and a lot less pissy, which could be an asset to some. It isn't an asset to me but I like it.

My Last 5 In-Person, Real Time Perfume Interactions

You might think that people comment on my perfume all the time.  Alas, they don't.  It's exceedingly rare that anyone says anything about it, and I wear, I imagine, quite a lot.  The last week or so has been a bonanza of interaction.  People at the store.  People at the dinner table.  On a park bench.  Passing on the street.

Here's something else:  I rarely smell perfume on other people.  It's a sad fact of life I try hard to accept.  My friend Jack and I talked recently about how much perfume we give away and how infrequently we smell any of it on its recipients.  I don't know why but lately that changed, too--if only just a little.  Here are the top 5 most recent encounters.

1. Standing in the perfume section of TJ Maxx.

Which is a pretty desperate state of affairs lately, by the way, unless you are so in love with Hugo Boss that you can never have enough of it.  I'm standing there, trying to be excited about the one vaguely interesting thing I managed to find, Si Lolita (I did not end up buying it but holding onto it for a time made me feel a little less despondent), and a woman asks me about it, wondering if I've smelled it and if it's any good (I have and it's okay, if your only other option is Hugo Boss), and I pretended to be buying it for a "girlfriend" because this always makes things easier, and suddenly the woman says, "What's that YOU'RE wearing?  That smells GOOOOOD."  I was wearing an oil I'd made.

2. Sitting down to Easter dinner in a double wide.

My friend's family invited me over to celebrate the holiday.  There were two rather large holes punched in the wall and I tried not to focus on how they might have gotten there, and so close together, as if someone lost his temper a lot but was able to really focus it in one little area quite adeptly.  The guy at the end of the table had a mullet.  The oldest son wants to be a cheerleader, and I think not the male kind.  The younger twins seem embarrassed by this.  The guy with the mullet was probably in his seventies and belched loudly and prodigiously.  There was something mocking about his mullet.  It dared you not to be offended in some way by it.  We were in a military town, and before the meal we'd been to the commissary, where I'd put on a little Youth Dew bath oil.  A little spot of relief on my wrist.  The woman across from me at the table--married, better or worse, to mullet-- suddenly perked up and said, "who smells so good?"

I felt my face turning red but figured oh to hell with it.  Me, I said.

That must be Obsession, she said.  I really like Obsession.

3. Sitting on a park bench next to an Indian burial mound.

I was talking to a friend.  A very attractive, newly acquired friend.  Very stylish.  Very well put together.  One of those guys who seems to have stepped out of another time--slightly vintage looking.  They don't make faces like his much.  You see them in old tintypes. He had on a boat neck striped shirt.  Thick blonde-ish brown hair.  There was a little breeze in the air, and I could smell his day on him, and underneath that, just faintly, the gorgeous, silky smell of Chanel Egoiste, totally personalized by a full 24 hours of wear.  He'd put it on that morning, he said.  It mingled with his cigarette smoke.  I had a little trouble focusing on what he was saying.  This is what perfume ads try to capture, I thought.

4. Warehouse office downtown.

A girl I know who has received much perfume from me, and never seems to be wearing it, smelled wonderful one day.  As we talked the smell came in and out, yanking me into different moods and thought patterns.  She told me she'd layered Jo Malone Grapefruit Cologne with Bond No.9's Scent of Peace.  The Malone she doesn't tend to think much of by itself, and frankly Scent of Peace is war on my nerves on its own, but the combination was just enough of a curve ball to call a truce, and super lovely.

5. Standing at the oil counter mixing something.

A guy came in looking for something for erectile issues.  I didn't know the store carried such a thing.  They went right to it.  He was looking at jewelry, too.  I thought, oh, some lady is really in for no end of trouble, and all she gets for the incessant "attentions" will be a little pair of silver earrings she's probably instantly plotting to return.

Another guy came in.  Some kind of itching disorder.  His wife believes things are coming out of her pores.  The ladies at the counter went right to the herbs again.  If you think the fragrance counter is full of intrigue you should step up to the oil section of your local hippie apothecary.

I was very fascinated by all this but kept focused on my oils, until some other guy came in looking for who knows what, and started sniffing the air.  What's that smell? he asked, obsessed.  It made me so happy.  I had all my little bottles open on the counter next to him: rose, patchouli, clove, cinnamon, ylang, Nag Champa, Jasmine, sandalwood.  Turns out he was smelling the rose geranium, which I'm pretty fond of, too.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Omaha

This Christmas, I puchased Guerlain Homme as a present for my father, thinking it would be a good everyday scent for a guy who probably doesn't have many and tends to play it safe. I guess I have no memory, and simply put early indications of his apparently intrinsic sophistication out of my mind temporarily. Entering his bathroom, I saw a 4.2 ounce bottle of Guerlain Heritage on the counter. It was half empty. I smelled what seemed like natural musks in it, so I assume it dates back to the time of the fragrance's release.

Seeing it there brought back childhood memories of my father's previous colognes. He never seemed to have more than one at a time--my father is a deeply pragmatic person when it comes to finances and possessions--but he did have, at some point, Aramis and Aramis 900. I remember his long dressing room, with its full-length mirror and the double sinks, which always smelled of one or the other. My dad used splash bottles. My aunt tells me she remembers him wearing Old Spice as a very young man, so maybe he picked up the habit there. His Heritage is also a splash.

This Week At The Perfume Counter: Guest Blogged by Elisa

Here's the thing. It's rarely much fun shopping by yourself. Just last night, a friend and I were talking about how maddening it is to visit the perfume stores alone: the vendors aren't always so patient, when not exceedingly pushy. They can sometimes take the fun out of it. There's safety in numbers. When you bring a friend, you feel more insulated, more understood, and you don't feel so bad when you ask the sales associate to reach for the precariously placed bottle on the back of the highest shelf.

I do have friends, thankfully. Alas, few here in town would jump at the chance to head for the discount fragrance store. Elisa and I live in different states, so we can't exactly make trips to the mall together. But why should that stop us? Like a lot of my online friends we email constantly about fragrance as if sitting in the same room, carrying on a conversation. When she wrote me this morning to tell me about her most recent visit to the "perfume counter", I decided to meet her there, if only virtually, by commenting on her finds. Here's to speaking from one self-contained bubble to another.

"I had a three-hour layover in Dallas yesterday," she wrote, "and found a duty-free shop with testers of a bunch of fragrances I never see testers out for anywhere. I had a total sniffing spree and it was great because the store was empty and the woman who worked there didn't harass me. I didn't try anything on, just sniffed from blotters, but among the stuff that was totally new to my nose."

We're starting with...

This Week at the Perfume Counter

Here's a tip. While I totally understand wanting to avoid the mall altogether, I encourage you to check out the free floating kiosks some of them host. In the past, I've found very good things at a number of these places. They don't have Lutens, L'Artisan or anything remotely niche, let alone indie. But they often have things you can only get online otherwise, and frequently they have the older formulas in stock. It's true, you can get Tresor at the Lancome counter. And the sales associate there will tell you the formula hasn't been changed. You might even like the newer formula; sometimes, I prefer them. Regardless, the kiosks can increase your options.

Here in town, there are two, at two separate malls. I haven't been so lucky at the one. I did find Lalique eau de parfum and Lalique Encre Noire, which are otherwise hard to come by in these parts. I've come across a few other things, as well. The other kiosk has been a lot more fruitful. There I've seen everything from Paloma Picasso Tentations to the original Lagerfeld, and many things in between. Fendi, Tocade, Givenchy III, Creed Bois du Portugal, and many new releases which don't make it to the local department store shelf.

This week I took a trip for Thanksgiving, two hours outside of town. Another kiosk. Pre-reformulation Organza Indecence, the original Perry Ellis for women, Tendre Poison, Tiffany for Men, and more. The problem I ran into with the proprietor there is one I've experienced with all of them. A few problems, actually. I'll call them challenges.

Typically, the owner only puts out front what most people will recognize, and he or she tends to be very aggressive. One has to be, with the kind of thru-traffic they get. If you don't grab them quick and forcibly, you've lost the sale, maybe. These kiosks are small, with limited shelf space, so everything is stacked precariously. The owner knows what he or she has but not necessarily much about perfume, nor does he or she want to do a lot of digging around for nothing. That would mean a lot of rearranging. And for what?

Their attitude--rushing you, bombarding you with questions (what are you looking for, what do you like, who is this for)--can make browsing a challenge, especially if you're trying to get close enough to view through the glass to see the stacks beyond their featured items. I've learned to make my questions as specific as possible. I ask for specific perfumes, though this is kind of a catch 22. Most of the goodies will come as surprises. What they have isn't necessarily anything you can think off the top of your head to look for. They've stocked it because they know sooner or later an elderly lady will wander by asking for it. It isn't something which will fly off the shelves, so they don't display it. The rarer it is, the more deeply buried in their inventory. How are they to know you're the elderly lady in question?

Communicating with the kiosk owner can be a pain, too, because they're in the business of hard sell. They could easily walk down to the department store, mere yards away, to see that it still stocks Organza Indecence, albeit a new formula, but they don't really need to be informed. They'll simply tell you it's very rare. Likewise, when you make the general comment that you like older, discontinued fragrances, they will start presenting you with items you can find upstairs at Perfumania, or things you know very well can be had from an e-tailer at a fraction of the price they're charging. All of this aside, once you get to know them, if you have that kind of time to invest, they start to understand what you're looking for, and even loo out for it themselves.

Another tip. Look at the local drugstore. I've found the following on these shelves: Fendi EDP and EDT, Samsara EDP, Poison, Fahrenheit. All pre-reformulation. The other day, I found an older bottle of Amarige and a one ounce bottle of Poison Eau de Cologne, at drugstore prices. I've also seen early Oscar bottles, Dune, Poeme, and many others. Don't assume that a newer drugstore won't have older bottles. I suspect that the newer stores are stocked with some other closing location's inventory at times. Additionally, that new Rite Aid you pass might be a renovated local pharmacy. You never know.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Boston

I should say Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is where I spent most of my time on this trip; but Portsmouth had no perfume to speak of, and though I only made it into Boston for a two hour perusal, most of what I saw during my stay was there. Neither my host nor her boyfriend are very much into perfume, so that limited my time considerably. She likes it but would rather have something picked out for her; he can't imagine anyone needing more than half an hour to shop for something so...hygienic. I knew I wasn't going to have long.

I'd intended to head over to Neil Morris, and I'm sad I didn't get to, but Barney's and Saks were close together and covered more ground in a shorter window of time. The selection at Saks was unexpectedly extensive. They had all the Guerlains, it seemed--every last one of them. The bee bottles, the elixirs; Vega and Derby and Liu, even. I'd smelled Vega before, from a decant, and liked it, but smelling it there, in the presence of its fantastic bottle, I appreciated it more. I wasn't crazy, still, about the elixirs. Again, I'd smelled them by decant, but even their bottles failed to sway me. All the sales assistant wanted to talk about was Idylle--and yet she had no idea, when pressed, what the prices, or even the available sizes and concentrations were. I feel almost certain that, had I asked the difference between the EDP and the EDT, I would have been told something along the lines of "none whatsoever", never mind the fact they're marketed as entirely different interpretations. One SA went off to find me a bottle of Vega, after forcing me to repeat the name several times. She'd never heard of it and seemed to believe I was making it up.

I don't know why I didn't grab a bottle of Acqua di Parma's Colonia Intensa. I've been enjoying a tiny decant for months now, and keep telling myself I'll purchase a full bottle the next time I see one, but I'm always looking for things I haven't already seen or been given the chance to smell, and when I arrive at a place like Saks there's a lot of competition for my attention. Or so it seems. It's only later, returning to the relative quiet of my decant, that I realize I like the reliable pleasures of Colonia Intensa more than any of the shiny new bells and whistles the department store has to offer. Colonia Intensa has good sillage and longevity. It smells richer and warmer than anything I ran into at Saks. Note to self: when you see it again, focus.

The new Halston Woman, also at Saks, is a strange thing. I'll give it another chance at some point, but I'm in no hurry. It's a bit of a hot mess, really. I don't know where to start. It rubs me the wrong way and keeps rubbing. I felt downright chafed as the day went on. Musky? Rubbery? Floral, fruity, woody? Halston Man is much better, but it smells so much like z-14 that I see no real reason to bother. Z-14 is as good as it ever was and ubiquitous at the discount outlets. Ten bucks, last time I checked.

I'm thoroughly confused by these releases. Assuming the audience for anything Halston is anything beyond select at this point, why not restore the original fragrance to the shelves? No fancy silver bottle is going to give Halston This or That the kind of boost it would need to waste the time and money coming up with something supposedly new. The original Halston remains one of my favorite Bernard Chant creations. It remains one of my favorite perfumes, period. It's so fantastic that on four separate trips over the course of the last two or three years I've purchased a bottle on vacation, even though I know reformulations have made trying to find a good one something of a grab bag. I bought a half ounce at a CVS pharmacy in Portsmouth and was shocked at how bad it's gotten. Luckily, you can still find older bottles here and there (try older Walgreen's and Rite-Aids) and the manufacturer has made it very easy to tell the difference between newer and newest; the latest, most wretched version of Halston has decided to go against the designer's wishes, printing his name across the bottom of the bottle. Older bottles are without this "signature".

One trend I noticed at Saks, seeing everything laid out for the first time in ages, all the new releases in pretty little rows, is the rage for trios and "exclusive" lines. I wasn't totally unaware of these developments and have even partaken of some, but being faced with them in person was a little depressing, mostly because so many of them suck. The Eau de Fleurs series from Chloe is so half-assed I'm not bothering to report on it.

Everywhere you looked, there was something pretty unremarkable being touted as the best thing since a bottomless cup of coffee. In case you doubted the wondrousness, two more were thrown in--or the price was jacked up so high that you couldn't possibly perceive it as anything short of luxurious. I suppose I felt this way about the Elixirs at Guerlain, though some were nice, and some even great. Part of what gets lost in this strategy, for me, is the charm of something like Vega, a re-release which feels special and unique, clad in its own distinctive fashion, rather than some sleek, almost militaristic line-up like Elixirs, which inadvertently (again, for me) makes fragrance feel like yet another part of a regular drill, something to dab on after making one's bed so fastidiously that a quarter could be bounced on it.

I suspect this is Guerlain's and Chloe's way of absorbing the lessons of niche lines like Lutens, whose uniform bottles and overall corporate sensibility have made a dent in the way fragrance companies approach marketing and manufacturing the fantasy of desire and luxury. I don't love the Lutens silhouette but I do think they got it right. The delicacy of the bottles, the precarious way they sit, like fragile dominoes, the care you must take with them, knowing they might fall over and shatter: all of these things create an interesting contrast to the utilitarian aspects of the packaging, giving those sharp corners and flat lines conceptual curves. I see none of that intelligence at play in the trickle down product at Saks.

Not that Lutens is getting everything right. Smelling the line at Barney's, I noticed nothing different. It was only later, when I took a generous selection of samples home, that I smelled a rat. Many people have commented in the recent past on Fleurs d'Oranger: something's different, not quite the same, not as good, abysmal by comparison. I only smelled it within the last year, so I have no idea what it once was, or whether it has in fact been altered, but I do know what Arabie used to smell like, and the sample I was given is, frankly, what new dimestore Halston is to old designer label Halston. It feels hollowed out. That's about the best way I can describe it. The Arabie I knew was rich, deep, and emanated from the skin in waves of spicy warmth. That warmth is altogether gone. I can still smell the basic outline of Arabie, and what's left is a very attractive fragrance, but it would be generous to call it a ghost of its former self. Ghosts have more presence.

I couldn't help thinking back to a recent feature on Lutens' Moroccan home in W magazine, photos of which give new meaning to the words opulence, embellishment, lavish, and affectation. The home is lovely, if you can call something which seems to span five city blocks a home. The article revealed that, aside from chief houseman Rachid, Casa de Lutens once employed 500 people (I'm guessing most were male). The place is a cornucopia of detail and filagree. Plush textiles, textures, and tapestries seem to adorn every available surface which can't be determined to have a pulse.

The decoration, like the creation of a perfume, took years. The density on display is something I inevitably contrasted to the practically anorexic specter of Arabie 2010, begging some interesting questions. The article would like me to believe that, at heart, Lutens is a simple man. Now that the renovations on Casa Lutens are reaching their conclusion (in an age of ever present coverage, what better end point than a definitive photo spread?) Lutens might just abandon it altogether, opting instead for a "small, spartan maid's room somewhere."

One has to wonder where the maid will be shipped off to, or what makes Lutens so sure that a maid's room can generally be classified, outside of those in his own home, as spartan, as if poor people have fewer belongings because they've reached some purer state of being where, even could they afford them, belongings would feel like a spiritual nuisance. Friend Anjelica Huston says she wouldn't be surprised to see Lutens move into a yurt. Judging by these photos, I wouldn't be surprised, either, as long as we're talking about one of those yurts with air conditioning and an indoor pool. You know the kind. I hope you'll oblige me a sense of humor about Lutens' meticulous extravagance. One would hope to find as eccentric a figure as Serge behind such a visionary line of fragrances. I only wish he hadn't moved Arabie into the spartan maid's room, and I wonder what else he's going to cram in there before he's done rearranging. Not all of his customers look to perfume as an expression of asceticism.

What distresses me most about the Arabie discovery is the seed of doubt it places in my mind about consistency in Lutens fragrances. How do I know that the bottle of Cedre or Rousse I buy will be the one I smelled a the counter? Testers are invariably older. At least the newer species, like the fantastic Fille en Aiguilles, can be counted on to smell the same, if only because no one's had time to tinker with them yet. I find this same frustration store-wide when I shop for perfume these days. The bottle for Shalimar has been redesigned by Jade Jagger, as has the perfume itself, though no SA that I've come across will admit to this. Because they see no difference, and the older bottles are still in stock, who knows what I might be handed, or how surprised I might be upon smelling it at home.

My host was rushing me, which made it very difficult to reach a conclusion about what I wanted to purchase, if anything. Too late to go back to Saks for a bottle of Colonia Intensa. I decided to play it safe. I picked up a small bottle of another Bernard Chant fragrance, Antonia's Flowers. I think it must be pretty old, as the ingredients list only aqua, parfum, and alcohol. I also got Malle's Lys Mediterranee. When I do get anything Malle, I tend to go for the travel size. Three little 10 ml atomizers are more than enough for me, and make Malle a much more affordable purchase. I've had my eye on Lys for over a year but always talk myself out of it at the counter. Too much like Donna Karan Gold, I tell myself. Getting Lys home, I realized there are more differences between the two than I'd realized. Of course, what do I know? When I first bought Gold I swore it was a dead ringer for Black Orchid. Have no doubt, though: Arabie is not itself lately.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Milano

Before I left for Milan, Tuesday before last, I googled perfume shops in the area. I needn't have bothered, as there are perfume shops all over the place--in a week, I probably passed thirty, at least--but google brought me to Profumo on Via Brera, and another shop a few blocks down on the same street, so it wasn't a total waste.

Profumo is run by a man who seems to know what he's talking about, though he speaks only passable English. The place has the usual niche suspects (Malle, Diptyque) as well as the harder to come by: I got to smell some of the Lorenzo Villoresi line, the new Heeley, Parfum d'Empire, Mona di Orio, Keiko Mecheri, and Profumi del Forte, an Italian line, my favorite of which was Roma Imperiale, an addictively light but persistent Shalimar-influenced oriental with Bergamot, mandarin, neroli, rose-wood, coriander seed, cinnamon, tomato leaves, orchid, jasmine absolute, tuberose absolute, ylang-ylang, iris butter, Turkish rose essence, seringa, civet, oak moss, grey amber, vanilla, and sandalwood in the mix.

Of the Villoresi, I liked Piper Nigrum and Spezie, which were similar: peppery and robust. The feminine fragrances I liked less. I almost walked away with a bottle of Piper Nigrum, but, projecting ahead, I couldn't see myself reaching for it all that often.

I'd never smelled Mona di Orio either (the perfumes, not the woman). I might have passed altogether on them at first sniff. Luckily, I sprayed some on--Oiro to one hand, Nuit Noire to the other--and enjoyed the depth of their development on my skin over the next several hours. If, as Luca Turin wrote, Nuit Noire is a loud fart of civet, smother me in farts, please. A spicy oriental, it smells different on me at different times, sometimes powdery, sometimes leathery, first floral, then gingered. I've heard reports that di Orio no longer has a US distributor, which would be a shame. The bottles are as gorgeous as the scents.

I returned to Profumo about four times over the course of the next week, spending time with L'Eau Trois ( a nice, dry frankincense from Diptyque; has this been discontinued?), Fougere Bengale (Holy Immortelle!), Andy Tauer (Incense Rose and Lonestar Memories) and more of the Parfumerie Generale line (Coze, anyone?). Eventually, I purchased a bottle of Nuit Noire. Let's hope I can get it back safely in my suitcase.

Down the street was a shop specializing in Penhaligons fragrance. Abigail sent me a bottle of Violetta before I left the country. It's good stuff. So is Elixir, by Olivia Giacobetti. Company copy says Elixir was inspired by Hammam Bouquet, which I own and like well enough, but I'm not sure I see the connection. Elixir lacks the weird, slightly vexing plastic note of Hammam. It's spicier and has more depth. Osmoz lists the following notes: orange, eucalyptus, mace, cardamom, jasmine, ginger, rose, woods, resin, tonka bean, vanilla, and benzoin. All of this, save the jasmine maybe, is discernable to me. I wish Elixir lasted a bit longer, or persisted with the intensity of its opening, but those first thirty minutes might be worth the price of admission.

Aside from these shops I had the best time at 10 Corso Como. The eponymously titled house blend bored me, but there was a lot besides to enjoy. I'd never really given Byredo much of a chance. Pulp is fantastic, and the staying power is equally remarkable. I got to see the Comme des Garçons/Stephen Jones bottle up close, and bought one to take home. Is there a more unusual violet fragrance? Probably not. 10 Corso Como had all the Tom Ford Private Blends, and the Histoires de Parfums, which Abigail and I have been enjoying lately. It was the only place I found any Serge Lutens in Milano (with any kind of selection to speak of, that is). It had some Caron, though not much. Some By Kilian. Some Malle. Some stuff I forget. Mostly it was great to walk around the store, which sells outrageously priced clothes and jewelry, much of it pretty unusual.

While in Milan I also picked up some old favorites. Hermes Caleche EDP, L'Heure Bleue, and, joy of all joys, Clinique Wappings, which I might have gotten in the states but only after waiting until Christmas. At a remote Profumeria I found bottles of Knize 10, Knize Sec, Knize Two, and Knize Forest. I bought Knize Sec, which is an unusual smell I'll try to describe after spending more time with it.

The abundance of perfume in Milano was thrilling. But I was disappointed by how rarely I smelled any on anyone. Several times I passed women whose perfume left a trail of dreamy goodness behind. Not once did I pass a guy reeking of cologne, and I can't tell you how much I'd been looking forward to this. Mistakenly, I was under the impression that men here bathe in the stuff. I envisioned them standing at the sink, splashing eau de whatever into their open palms, slapping their naked chests. Invariably in these fantasies they were dressed in their underwear and flip flops. Then they made me ricotta pie and pesto pasta. Then we spent some alone time, and I got high, up close, on their cologne of choice. The closest I got to this kind of religious experience was the Duomo.

This Week at the Perfume Counter

I've resisted writing this for over a week now because I know it's going to upset some of you. I told a friend over the phone a few nights ago and, hearing her reaction, I was glad we were separated by several states. Listen, I'm always going to TJ Max and Marshalls. I drop in at least once a month, sometimes (okay, usually) more. Most of the time I find nothing, nothing being your Polo Sport, your Giorgio Red, your Ralph Lauren Hot, Rocks, et al. I leave empty handed more than I'd like, and sometimes the thought of leaving empty handed bums me out so much that I grab one of said nothing specials. Believe me: what I'm about to tell you is a rarity for me too.

Last time I casually ambled into Marshalls, I found Armani Prive Cuir Amethyste. This retails for a pretty penny, as you might know. At Marshalls, it was less than thirty bucks. Luca Turin detests Cuir Amethyste--or is it Tania Sanchez--or does it matter? If one disagreed with the other, the dissenting opinion would have been logged under its contradiction. The Guide calls Cuir Amethyste a mess. I think it's pretty great. It aspires to the violet leather territory occupied by Balmain's Jolie Madame and provides, I think, an interesting contrast to that fragrance's more old fashioned approach. The violet is creamier, the leather more sheer, closer to the Lancome Cuir reformulation than the heavier-handed leathers of yester-year. A steep price tag is almost always mediated by good longevity to me, and Cuir Amethyste sticks around quite a while. I could smell it hours later.

Naturally, once I knew that one Marshalls had an Armani Prive, I was obligated to drive all over town. How would I sleep that night, otherwise? What if there had been other bottles in other stores? How would I ever sleep again, wondering what might have been? I visited four TJ Max and Marshalls locations and realized very quickly that some sort of major drop must have occurred recently. There was so much product I hadn't seen before. I'd love to tell you just what, but I was in a fugue state, and now only Calvin Klein Secret Obsession comes to mind. It won't make you any happier to learn that I did find another Armani Prive, perhaps the best, according to many. Hidden among the other, bigger boxes was a bottle of Bois d'Encens. I'd smelled it at Nordstrom months before, and might have even sprayed some on. I remembered liking it, but at upwards of several hundred dollars for 1.7 ounces, I'm more apt to dismiss alleged greatness than collapse in helpless ecstasy. What's the point?

Bois D'Encens is indeed fantastic. For under thirty bucks I'll spend all the time in the world allowing myself to fall in love with a great fragrance, and Bois d'Encens rewards the adoration. It goes on sharp and, like Amethyste, sheer. Even sheerer, really, a penetrating incense which feels like something burning up at higher altitudes, at some mountain monastery where the air is thin and brisk and makes all the monks a little giddy and ditzy. This sets it apart from every other incense I've smelled, including the ultra popular Comme des Garçons series, which locate in lower altitude houses of worship. I would say Bois d'Encens is more of an outdoor scent overall, smelling somehow of clean air. This impression only intensifies as time goes on, reinforced, if anything, by the emergence of an interesting, equally sharp but bracing vetiver.

Interestingly, both of these Armani Prive fragrances were created by Michel Almairac. They were the only ones I found, and, as far as I know, the only two he created for the line. Almairac is someone I've known about and with whom I've been fairly familiar ever since I started consulting the nowsmellthis nose directory. Until recently, I never took as much of an interest in him as in my initial favorites: Maurice Roucel, Annick Menardo, Calice Becker, Sophia Grojsman. Slowly, I've acquired more and more of his fragrances, and over time have started to pay more mind. Cuir Amethyste and Bois d'Encens certainly caught my attention. Until smelling these powerhouses of persistence, I'd thought of him as someone who created some nice but wan fragrances, among them L'Artisan's Voleur de Roses, Chopard's Casmir, Gres' Cabaret, Gucci Pour Homme, and Rush, most of which I liked, some of which I really loved, all of which, however loud in theory, faded to a maddening whisper on my skin. While the Prive scents don't change my mind about these others, they do give me a more well-rounded appreciation.

One last thing about Armani. I find--do you?--that those sheaths they come in, wood casing with stone tops, somehow reinforce the idea that they aren't worth the asking price. The bottles are light as air, which made me feel, however unconsciously, that there was practically nothing in them, that whatever it was had little substance. Who knows what the design principle was behind this packaging decision from a rigorously, even religiously, uniform company. Armani's aesthetic is all about straight lines, simple contours. No showy flourishes intrude upon this cool surface like a ripple does on the surface of a pond. In that sense, the bottles fit. But from a sales perspective, lightweight risks reading as negligible.

I did make some other purchases, though none which will likely inspire jealous fits of rage. Who knew Bulgari Blu was so nice? I didn't. The packaging is so similar to Bulgari Blue Notte that I'm not sure I even realized these were two separate fragrances. Blu gets knocked a lot on the blogs and boards, I discovered. Soapy, too much ginger, yuk, gross, etc. I think it's a far superior ginger scent to the latest Ellena Hermes, by so far a margin that to compare them in any other way would be exceedingly misleading. Blu is milkier, for one, in stark contrast to the Jardin's ozonic properties. It's a richer, more pungent ginger, with a creamy floral influence. I like it a lot and will wear it frequently (as frequently as someone with as many fragrances as I own can).

Let me just close by saying that being sick with a cold sucks for anyone. For a perfume lover, it's truly utter hell. For the last two days I've been unable to smell a thing. What torture it was last night, inviting my friend Bard over for dinner, begging him to describe for me the smell of Parfum D'Habit and Ambre Precieux, especially when his descriptions are so typically off the wall. Please, I begged him, try to describe them, just this once, using typical perfume descriptors, rather than items one finds in a thrift shop, as "stuffy vinyl suitcase with strawberry juice stain" will mean next to nothing to me. It didn't help that my efforts to reconcile his impressions with the reviews on makeupalley and basenotes proved futile. Without fail, eight out of ten reviewers described Habit's opening as compost or fecal or Kouros with even more urine. Bard's bewildering verdict was "no such thing." The consensus seems to be good longevity and sillage, whereas Bard says both Precieux and Habit remain skin scents, barely there. Any thoughts from readers who have smelled these and can describe them realistically, as opposed to romantically? Your input would be more than welcome, and I promise I'll return the favor in your time of need.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: The Perfume House, Portland, Oregon

I have a soft spot for this little off-the-beaten path place, so I was excited, a few months ago, when I found out I'd be able to make a trip back to Portland this month. Around this time last year, I visited and, on the hunt for perfume, was directed to Hawthorne Street, where the Perfume House sits just back enough off the road that you might miss it if you drove by too fast. I drove slowly. The store is aptly named; situated in an old house, the first floor is almost entirely taken up by fragrance. Last year I had a crash course on Lutens and L'Artisan. I obsessed over all the Comme des Garçons. I wasn't so interested in Patou's Ma Collection; I only learned later that they'd all been discontinued and many are hard to find. I would have paid a lot more attention, had I known back then. The Perfume House has an extensive selection of Caron, and I got a primer on those. I smelled the Montales, Etro, Amouage, D'Orsay, Carthusia.

I was overwhelmed and excited during my initial visits to the Perfume House, so this trip was a welcome opportunity to get a little more specific, spending more time on things I'd either missed in the shuffle or overlooked out of general beginner's ignorance. I've learned a lot in the space of a year, too, and was able to focus on rarer items, like a single bottle of Molto Missoni (tarry, smoky, floral: me likey) and Elsha, a cheapo but lovely leather toilette with a modest but committed following of admirers. I found a few things I'd been looking for all year, like Balenciaga's Quadrille; this one is very nice, subtle but rich, my favorite of all the old Balenciagas I've smelled (Le Dix, Prelude, Portos, Ho Hang). I revisited the Ma Collection, snatching up bottles of Divine Folie (wondrous carnation!), Adieu Sagesse, and L'Heure Attendue. I passed on Amour Amour and Chaldee, which were pretty but didn't arouse must have psychosis. L'Heure Attendue is spicy wood on the dry down: sandalwood and patchouli, according to Jan Moran. There's also geranium, lilac, rose, ylang ylang. Adieu Sagesse is the final entry in Patou's love trilogy and makes wonderful use of carnation, a floral note present in many of the Ma Collection fragrances. The focus seems to be on gardenia but I'll have to spend more time with it. Adieu wears like a skin scent, floral musk and a bit green.

There are no more bottles of Vacances in stock, but they had a tester in the back and brought it out so I could at least get a whiff. Turns out Vacances is one of my all time top five favorite fragrances. It must be as popular with others. Of all the Ma Collection testers, it was the only practically empty bottle. In fact, there was barely enough left to spritz out onto a cotton ball. Over at Bois de Jasmin, Vacances is characterized as "intense verdancy", "a perfect juxtaposition of delicate peppery and green sap notes folding into honeyed sweetness." Intense about gets it. Vacances is leafy green and lilac, and totally out of this world lovely. It also gets my vote for best use of galbanum. In addition to Vacances I smelled Cocktail and, finally, Pascal Morabito's Or Black. There was none of the latter in stock (you can only get Or Black in France now) and I could see why Turin raves about it and others want to get their hands on some.

Perfume House, like other older perfume shops (Parfumerie Nasreen, in Seattle, for instance), does have rarities like Molto Missoni in stock. There are early Parfums de Nicolaï, Safraniere and other discontinued Comptoir Sud Pacifique selections, Zut by Schiaparelli, even various Crown fragrances. I picked up Sandringham, Crown Fougere, and Crown Park Royal, all very nice. Sandringham is my favorite of these period pieces, all three distinctly bygone-era masculines. All three last amazingly well, too, and have a base which seems characteristic of the line, rich in moss and sweetened woods. Sandringham is distinguished by a well-blended muguet note. Crown Park Royal uses galbanum in a way which places it close to contempoary fragrances like Romeo Gigli's Sud Est and patchouli in a way which places it squarely on top of Michael by Michael Kors. Park Royal exceeds both in terms of subtelty, managing to use some very heady materials without being taken hostage by them.

After several days at Perfume House I finally did the math. I'd been spending so much on fragrances I liked, when for the same amount I could get one I truly love. Amouage Jubilation XXV is to my mind a Bertrand Duchaufour masterpiece. Timbuktu is swell but poof and it's gone. Likewise Dzongkha, Mechant Loop, Sienne D'Hiver and his entries in Comme des Garcons' Red Series. I like them all but on me they're little more than skin scents. Not so Jubilation XXV. Months ago I'd been given a sample, most of which I wore out on the town in LA one night. Jubilation really commands the space around you in a way I love, its fruits and spices burnished with just the right amount of frankincense. It projects and attracts. Wearing it, I felt electric, and thought if I ever had that kind of money for a bottle of perfume, this would be it. Of course, once you've purchased three or four bottles of perfume, you've spent that kind of money. Realizing this, I took my unopened "like" buys back to Perfume House to trade in for a "love".

The best part of the place is the staff: the best I've encountered in any fragrance retail environment. As I remembered, they were friendly and helpful without being obtrusive or overly chatty. Tracy, in particular, is always great to shop with.

This Week at the Perfume Counter

I haven't been reporting from the perfume counter much lately because almost all of my purchases were made online.  I got sick of the hassle--and it is a hassle, the retail environment, even under the best of circumstances (friendly, informed staff, accessible testers, et al).  Ultimately I don't want anyone, even someone I like, hovering around me when I look for perfume.  I'm self conscious and need time to myself.

Then I wanted Fendi Asja, because it was made by Jean Guichard (Eden, Loulou, La Nuit) and I'd read about it somewhere, and I remembered seeing it at the local Korean discount perfume shop, and why bother sending off for it when I could drive across town and within a half hour have it in my sweaty little paws?

This prompted further ventures into the perfume marketplace.  I hadn't been to the Russian Kiosk in months, after the woman who works there seemed to have been insinuating, last time, that I'd somehow swindled them by trading my bottles of Gucci Nobile, Le Feu D'Issey, La Nuit, and other rarities for their moderately priced, widely available perfumes, when I'd only paid between 25 and 35 dollars a pop.  This greatly offended me, as I knew what I was selling them was valuable and rare (unlike some of the stuff they've tried to tell me is no longer possible to find, even when I know otherwise, having seen it upstairs at Perfumania and been born further back than yesterday) and because my selling them something at mark-up was no different than them doing the same to me, and what I was selling them was actually quite valuable and will make them quite a little chunk of cheese, whereas there are only so many people I can pawn off a bottle of Gucci Rush on as if it's a hard to find elixir.  Still with me?  I'm sure, if you spend any amount of time shopping retail for perfume, the tone of this rant is a familiar one to you.

There was a new guy behind the counter.  Where do all these Russians come from?  He was just as pushy and wanted to tell me what I wanted.  I very quickly disobliged him of the idea he would be able to piss on my leg and tell me it was raining.  I was happy I braved the annoyance of a drop-in, though, because they had Paloma Picasso's Tentations, created by Sophia Grosjman.  Two bottles.  I did that thing where I panicked for a small moment, thinking I should buy them both, because what if these were the last bottles on Earth?  Then I got over it and moved on.

I returned to the Korean store the following week, buying another Guichard perfume, Cartier's So Pretty.  If you haven't tried it you might consider it.  I love it.  It's a fruity floral, to be sure, but rich and decadent.  I think Tania Sanchez was spot on when she called it a Mitousko with Creme de Cassis.  It feels like an older perfume.  It isn't shot through with that "radiance" which gives so many modern fruity florals no legs to stand on.  To my nose, that radiance usually involves an anemic transparency.  Not so with So Pretty, which is like falling into plush upholstery.  It's a deep, dark smell with a lightning bright touch of fruit.

I also got Grosjman's Kashaya, done for Kenzo.  When I first started collecting perfume I never thought I'd eventually own as many Kenzo perfumes as I do.  Ca Sent Beau, Jungle Homme, Jungle Elephant, Flower, Amour.  I own and like them all, and Kashaya is yet another surprise.  Someone on basenotes.net felt very smart for revealing the true identity of Kashaya: it's Sun Moon Stars, by Lagerfeld, thinly disguised.  Having spent time with both, I fail to see this supposedly striking similarity.  Kashaya is unmistakably Grosjman, but I'm unaware of anything in her oeuvre that smells quite like it.  Initial application indicates more floral than oriental, but the heart and the dry down are resolutely the latter, with what seems like the perfumer's trademark carnation augmented with sandalwood, amber, vanilla, and musk.  It wears beautifully and comes, if you can find it, in a carnival glass, leaf-patterned bottle.

The Korean store had Valentino Vendetta by Edouard Flechier, Rykiel Homme, and Sander for Men by Jacques Cavallier, all of which I nabbed.  Vendetta is a spicy masculine, with lavender and clove.  I'd heard it doesn't last long, but it lasts well on me.  Rykiel Homme is an unusual thing, fruity and candied and woodsy all at once, and so well balanced that you can't accuse it of erring on the side of any of those things.  I find it pretty addictive and I'm eager to try Rykiel Grey (also Flechier).  Sander is said by Luca Turin to be slightly cold, merciless.  I'm impressed by it myself.  Don't expect a break with tradition.  Sander smells decidedly conventional, yet better than most of the stock at Sephora.

At Ike's, a little discount drugstore here, I've found many good things (Kingdom, Cinema, Opium EDP), and a few months ago they put everything they had on sale, fifty percent off.  You can imagine the damage this did to my pocketbook.  I'd always wanted Polo but not enough to splurge fifty bucks.  25, no problem.  And so on.  As far as I knew there were two Ike's in town and I'd cleaned both out.  Imagine my elation when, yesterday, driving off the beaten path, I saw another location.  It was as if a window in time had opened up, revealing entirely unknown territory.  I bought the following: very rare original formula Montana Perfume at 10 dollars, and Laura Biagiotti Venezia, at 22.  Venezia is an unusual floriental, not resinous at all like Opium and Cinnabar and Coco.  At some point I might write about it, once I spend more time with it.  It wears like a dream and I can see why people still look for it.

In a few weeks I go to Portland, for a return visit to the Perfume House.  I already called to see if they have the hard to find, discontinued Ferre de Ferre.  They do, one bottle, and are holding it for me.  Ferre is what I consider a violet aldehyde, with influences of incense and spice and other faint florals.  The top notes aren't so distinguished but the whole thing mellows into the most intoxicating, distinctive blend.  It will be nice to revisit the Perfume House, having learned so much since the first time.

Thessaloniki, Part Two

I'd been advised by Perfume Shrine and Fragrance Bouquet that, when it comes to perfume shopping, Thessaloniki leaves a little to be desired, and while they do have a point, I was pretty happy to find several things I don't come across in the states. The Sephora on Tsimiskis Street was the biggest I'd ever seen, and stocked Jungle Kenzo Homme, Kenzo Jungle Femme Elephant, Kenzo Ca Sent Beau, Cacharel L'Homme, Dior Escala Portifino, Kenzo Air and Air Intense, Dior Homme Intense, the new Guerlain Insolence EDP, and others. The Hondos Department Store on Alexandros had Monsieur Balmain, Moschino Glamour, a series of four or five variations on Missoni (rose, giallo, etc.), Eau de Hermes EDT, Rocobar, Carven Vetiver, all the Dali's, Shiseido Feminite du Bois and Vocalize, many of the Van Cleef and Arpels, M7 and M7 Fresh, Chanel Pour Monsieur and Chanel No. 19 EDP, Krizia Time and Eau de Krizia, all of the Laliques (including the newest, Lalique White for Men, as well as old timers Equus and Faune), Dolce Vita, Lacroix Bazaar, Dior Forever and Ever, and too many others to enumerate.

Comparing it to the original, Luca Turin describes M7 Fresh as an entirely different fragrance. It smells very much along the same lines to me, albeit much lighter, with a medley of herbs standing in for the concentrated aoud of M7. It's an interesting contrast, demonstrating how variable the same basic elements can be when used in slightly different proportions with a few strategic addditions and subtractions. I only wish it wasn't so fleeting, and it seems interesting to me that people find this more accessible than its predecessor, when both are challenging in their own ways. I'm not sure a poultry rub is any more wearable than ancient sap.

Jungle Homme was one of the real finds of my trip. I was surprised to see how mixed the reactions to this 1998 Olivier Cresp fragrance have been. In some ways, it seems as radical a reformulation of the standard masculine as Cresp's Dior Homme was. Nutmeg and Mate make for an interesting, herbaceous green accord, and the underlying milky tones of Jungle give it a strange, compelling depth. It lasts all day, one of the most persistent, diffusive masculines I've smelled.

Lalique White seemed a fairly average specimen to me: some citrus, some spices, an overall impression of tangy cardamom. Note to perfumers: Cardamom is swell. A tire is handy too, but doesn't make much sense without a car. Can we move on now?

I folded at Fena Fresh department store, finally slapping down the dough for Comme des Garçons Luxe Patchouli. I waited over a year to buy it, telling myself it was too expensive, though I loved it more each time I smelled it and in the meantime spent its price many times over on various other perfumes I liked much less. Why I waited to spend Eurodollars on this is anyone's guess. Maybe the presence of fenugreek was decisive for me and seemed, in the context, apropo. Maybe having less to choose from did the trick, providing some clarity.

Whatever the reason, I love Luxe Patchouli, and people, this stuff lasts all day. Ask anyone on the Lufthansa flight I came in on from Munich. Three hours to go and I discovered the bottle had leaked in its plastic bag. The man sitting next to me coughed all the way home. The woman in front of me turned arund several times to make sure I knew her eyes were watering. I threw out the zip-lock, wrapping the bottle in paper towels. I washed my hands repeatedly. No matter. Luxe Pathcouli outlasted any attempt to eradicate its aroma.


The real discovery in Greece was the food. It's rare, I was told, to order for, let alone dine by, yourself. Dinner is an event which lasts at least an hour--sometimes as many as three or four. Wine is dispensed. Sometimes Ouzo. Plates are laid all up and down the table. In Greece, food is perfume for the mouth. I can't tell you how good some of this stuff tasted. And that's only covering the restaurants. The pastry shops alone could easily have kept me entertained all day. One pastry was a huge, stuffed, frosted croissant filled with a dry ground cocoa, sugar and nut medley. Many were drenched in syrup. There were spinach pastries, prosciutto, ham and cheese. One night at dinner there were stuffed breads, hot feta pates, fries, meats, a battered tomato and vegetable pakora-like dish. All of it circled by cigarette smoke and the hearty banter of Greek conversation. These events start around ten in the evening, and God help you if your hotel room is located above a restaurant patio.

In all of Thessaloniki I noticed next to no perfume in public. I smelled it only on one man hurrying down the Alexandros and considered following him just to bask in the pleasure of someone else's fragrance. Two girls exited the Hondos Department Store smelling each others' wrists excitedly. I was in town for a film festival and none of the films I went to, save for the last, smelled of anything but smoke and indeterminate theater odors. My final night in Thessaloniki I attended a screening with a critic from Romania. Half way into the film I smelled something familiar. Was it Belle en Rykiel? It certainly smelled like it. Was it her or the woman on the other side of me? Was it perfume or cosmetics? After the screening I forgot all about it, until at dinner the Romanian said whatever I had on (Jaisalmer) smelled remarkable. I remembered then to ask her what she was wearing. The latest Balmain, she answered. Ambre Gris, I asked, excited. Yes, it was, she said, and after dinner I brought her to the room to give her the decants I'd made for the trip: Mitsouko EDP (her favorite but very costly in Romania), Jaisalmer, Chanel Cuir de Russie, Cedre Sandaraque. I also showed her Perfume: The Guide, which came as something of a revelation to her. As a critic, she appreciated it even more.

On the way home I bought Eau de Galliano at the duty free, after dismissing it on the way into the country. It seemed like something I should get to know a little better, even if only to dislike it with more clarity. Woody, violet, powdery, and openly synthetic, it isn't at all what I'd expect from Galliano, which makes me wonder if my mind will change over time, after some amount of adjustment.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Chicago

Traveling to film festivals is fun, mainly because I get to do a lot of perfume shopping. Here in Chicago, I'm sharing a room with my cameraman, who scoffs at what he must consider an addiction. He made it very clear, as we drove into town, that he had no intention of accompanying me on my desperate search for a fix.

That was last night. This morning, he seemed disappointed when I informed him I'd be going ahead as planned with my mission: Barneys, Saks, Nordstrom, possibly Bloomingdales. He might tag along, he said, but only for coffee. Suit yourself, I said. Happy to have you. As we sat at Starbucks feeding another kind of addiction, he announced that he would be joining me for the duration, after all. I made it very clear I had no intention of being rushed or allowing anyone to make me feel stinky. This seemed reasonable to him, and off we went.

It's unreasonably cold in Chicago. I brought t-shirts and jeans and light jacket. I was far more concerned, as I prepared for the trip, with figuring out where all the stores were. Did Saks have Dioressence? I tried to find out. Was it true there might be a L'Artisan studio or something? I did my research, but couldn't get an answer to that. I passed several Urban Outfitters and thought perhaps I should slip in and pick up some cheap gloves, maybe a light sweater, but that would mean at least fifty bucks off my perfume budget. Ladies and gentlemen, I froze for fragrance.

Saks was congested, packed to the rafters with furs and high hairdos. Some of the fur came from little lap dogs. Why do people--often men--bring these creatures shopping with them? It seems to say, "I'm rich! I bring my dog everywhere!" I suppose that's impressive, until they soil the impression of their tidily coiffed appearances with a nice wallop of doo doo on the white marble tile of the store. Maybe rich dogs don't doo doo, which is part of their charm. I wouldn't know.

I smelled the new Annick Goutal trio: Myrrhe Ardente, Encens Flamboyant, and Ambre Fetiche. Encens interested me, mostly in contrast to what Goutal normally produces. It seemed an interesting departure, though a touch bloodless for my taste. The other two did nothing to capture my attention, though I was distracted by said cameraman, who'd started taking pictures, even after I advised against it.

The friendly salesman pointed the cameraman in the direction of Clive Christian Number 1, which sent him into paroxysms of pleasure. Get a room, I whispered, though the salesman seemed to enjoy the show, I suppose because of the price tag and the commission such a sale would involve. Cynical me? I proferred "X" instead, which is a good 500 dollars less; comparatively, a bargain, at 300. Diroessence smelled nice, like I remembered, though I don't remember getting such a strong sense of Galbanum. It isn't even listed in the pyramid, so maybe it's the geranium I'm smelling. Interestingly, the Miss Dior smells very different from the one I purchased at the Russian-run perfume kiosk back home, so maybe I have an older formulation after all. I can see why everyone's made a fuss over the newer version.

The salesman let me smell from a bottle of Amber Absolute, one of those outrageously priced Tom Ford fragrances. Someone who'd bought it in New York returned it in Chicago, so they happened to have one. It smelled perfectly lovely, though I'd rather have five heart-stopping perfumes than one over-priced novelty, however unatrocious it might turn out to be. It didn't last long on my skin, by the way. I'm sure that won't surprise you. Before we left my companion sprayed buckets of Clive Christian X on his neck and chest. He was convinced, as we walked down the street, that women were reacting to him differently, though I didn't notice anyone throwing herself at his feet. He seemed hurt when I told him I couldn't smell it a few feet away.

Barneys was wonderful. The specialists there make me feel I'm shopping for perfume with Abigail. They know what they're talking about, have their favorites, will tell you what does and doesn't have staying power, and seem as happy as you are to be talking to someone with at least a basic knowledge of perfume. My specialist was bottle blond with great shimmery, shocking peacock eyeshadow. I took to her instantly. Even the cameraman got excited. He'd never been around someone so informative in a store, someone who didn't talk like she was reciting from a pamphlet within earshot of upper management. He smelled Comme des Garçons' Jaisalmer and decided he couldn't live without it.

Until I introduced him to Malle and Bois D'Orage and he nearly disintegrated in astonishment right before my eyes. The Malle rep, a fantastically snobby Frenchwoman, took one look at his Jaisalmer and subtly rolled her eyes (you missed it if you blinked), informing him that the Comme scents are all synthetic. They smell wonderful, I said, just to see whether she'd backpedal. Instead, she simply said that yes, some of them were; she was simply stating a fact, she said. Neither of us needed to talk up my perfume convert on Pierre Bourdon's magnificent fragrance. The male Malle rep assured him that women love it so much they wear it themselves. Quickly, realizing how this might have come across, he corrected himself; they don't wear it because it's girly, he said, but because they have to smell it, even if no man they know has the common sense to wear it. Sold: one bottle of Bois d'Orage, for 130 dollars.

I checked out the Rosines, trying to remember which ones Abigail says she loves. I responded favorably to Un Folie de Roses, Rosa Flamenca, and Poussierre, which I had trouble pronouncing with a straight face. Folie reminded me of Dioressence and seemed a better buy. The staying power proved very impressive. Hours later, I can still smell it on my wrist. Still, I wasn't sure. Did I really need another rose fragrance? Less than two weeks ago I bought Malle's Une Rose. I passed, opting instead for Serge Lutens' Chene, an impressive woodsmoke evocation. I also bought the Diptyque Galliano room spray. In LA, a saleswoman suggested I buy it and spray it on my clothes. I couldn't see doing this. Would it really last? Today I sprayed some on my coat. Again, I can still smell it. And what better thing to spray on your coat? It's as if you just came in from a bonfire. I smelled Galliano several years ago, when it first came out, I think. I'm not sure why I've waited this long to get such a sure bet. My third purchase was Diptyque's L'ombre Dans L'eau, which I won't bother trying to describe right now, except to say that it makes MY eyes subtly roll--back into my head.

Postscript: Later, I returned with the Chene and exchanged it for a Rosine. I loved the Folie but thought it smelled too similar to too many things I own. I loved the Poussiere but would I really wear something with so much amber in it? I purchased Flamenca. Now, hours later, I wonder. The other two persisted. Flamenca died something of a quick death on my skin. That could be due to the fact that the other two were under my coat, protected from the elements, whereas I'd sprayed Flamenca on my hand.

I'd be grateful to anyone for sharing her/his thoughts on the Rosines.

This Week at The Perfume Counter: Seattle

I missed my first flight to Seattle last Saturday. Supposedly, the alarm didn't go off. That's what my boyfriend tells me, though I suspect this is like the time my bottle of Port disappeared and he looked at me with a wide-eyed face swearing innocence. Luckily, I was able to book a flight for a few hours later.

This put me into Seattle at 4, rather than 11:30, as originally scheduled. I was going for a film festival, but my main priority was finding out where Nordstrom and Barney's were in relation to my hotel. The festival programmer who picked me up assured me they were nearby. I dumped my bags in the room and raced over to Nordstrom, not expecting much. I'd looked online the night before and hadn't seen anything I was too desperate to smell. I remembered the disappointment of Nordstrom in Portland months before. The only surprise that trip had been Declaration Essence, which knocked my socks off.

As it turned out, Seattle Nordstrom had many things I've been curious to get my hands on: many of the Guerlains, for instance, in all concentrations. They had pure parfum testers in spray bottles, meaning I could cover my whole hand in Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue. If you haven't smelled these in anything other than EDT you might want to. Mitsouko in particular smells phenomenal. It stayed on my skin for the rest of the day. Best of all, the store stocked Vol de Nuit. Perfume House in Portland once sent me a sample of the EDP but it was very old and smelled nothing like the fragrance I smelled at Nordstrom. Nothing I'd read had led me to expect the bold gust of galbanum at the the top of Vol de Nuit. Osmoz categorizes the fragrance as oriental-vanilla. I get the oriental, and even the vanilla to some degree, but the galbanum puts it in an entirely different place for me, somewhere closer to Miss Dior.

The informed expertise of the woman who helped me made her ubiquitous presence more bearable. At least she knew what she was talking about, I guess. My biggest complaint when a clerk follows me so closely is not being able to concentrate. Smells speak slowly to me a lot of the time. It takes me a while to figure out what they're saying. The pervasive background of mindless chatter at the mall never helps, and a clerk complimenting my good taste as she pimps the latest Boss on me can make me downright homicidal. The best I can hope for is intelligence and the ability to carry on a relatively enlightened conversation.

I was able to smell many of the Carons I hadn't spent much time on before, of which Parfum Sacre and Aimez-moi were my favorites by far. Aimez-moi might be the best violet I've ever smelled, finding just the right combination of contrasts. The addition of cardamom and anise takes the fragrance right to the edge of violet. Magnolia and jasmine soften things up. Vanilla gives the already tasty quality of violet a nearly edible doughiness. Parfum Sacre is a rose with incense undertones, due to the counterpoint of pepper, mace, myrrh and cardomom. It wears lightly but with persistence, and smells by turns incredibly simple and impressively complex, like the heady air in a cathedral during mass.

Abigail has written about Tom Ford's White Patchouli elsewhere, not so favorably. I was more impressed, attracted by the medicinal quality she found abhorrent. The fragrance strikes me as a favorable alternative to Lovely and Narciso Her, both of which wear so lightly on me I cease to detect them after a few minutes. Both have left me feeling on the outside of an in joke. White Patchouli has their musk-driven foundation, but locks things in with a healthy quotient of patchouli, incense, and coriander.

I also smelled Private Collection Gardenia and Amber Ylang, the latter of which I liked more than the former, reversing my expectations. David Yurman was pretty enough. The new Shiseido Zen is a pleasant, even somewhat compelling patchouli bomb. Another surprise was the presence of the Chanel Exclusif line at Nordstrom: Coromonadel smells, to me, remarkably similar to Prada. 28 La Pausa is a boozy iris on the rocks. No. 22 is a gorgeous alternative to numbers 5 and 19.

Barneys was the true disappointment. I'd expected Baghari, the comme des garcon incense series, the Rosines; in short, the selection I'd encountered in LA. Instead, there were Lutens and Malle, and very selective offerings from other lines. I did eventually get Malle's Une Rose during my stay, after spraying it on one morning out of curiosity and spending the rest of the day under its aromatic thrall. I've heard the arguments against Une Rose's bid as best rose ever. I've heard how it isn't supposedly anything truly exceptional. A rose is a rose, etc. I've heard all that and expected very little. The truth is, it's fantastic in every way. And if this is all a rose perfume can hope to do, then the stakes are very high. I've yet to smell a rose that compares more than favorably.

The best part of Seattle was Perfumerie Nasreen, located off the lobby of the Alexis Hotel. This downtown shop has many scents you won't find elsewhere. It's uncomfortably small and precariously arranged, and feels as though you've stepped into someone's perfume cabinet. The testers are perched atop their boxes, which is fine until you get to odd-ball bottles like Kenzo Flower. For the most part, it's help yourself in there, though there are places you have to ask for assistance. The owner knows a lot about perfume, but don't ask her about Turin and Sanchez, whose names she hasn't bothered to commit to memory. She refers to Perfume: The Guide as "that book" and dislikes it immensely for being so opionated. She is very opinionated herself, and proceeded to tell me precisely which perfumes to love and which to despise. When I pointed out to her that most people, writers and admirers alike, feel very strongly about perfumes, for and against, and that Turin and Sanchez ("those people") were simply giving voice to that passion, she rolled her eyes insolently. Her seasoned disdain seemed silly to me, given how many new customers the book must be bringing her. I wouldn't have bothered to seek her out if all I knew to look for was Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

She's a shrewd businesswoman. During Christmas she delivers five pounds of chocolate to the perfume counters of each Nordstrom location, expressing her thanks for customers they have "referred to her". Methinks she owes "those people" and "that book" some chocolate too. It was a fun place to shop, despite or even because of her bossy flourishes. When I arrived with my friend and we began spraying testers, she demanded the door be opened. I get a headache, she explained, which did seem a problem for someone running a perfume shop. She seemed impatient with our exhaustive curiosity, though I'd been there several days before, when someone else was behind the counter, and spent three hundred bucks before leaving. Surely a perfume migraine is preferable to "I can't pay the rent" aches and pains. She also fibbed, which was only unusual because both my friend and I made it perfectly clear within minutes of our arrival that we knew more than a little about perfume, if only by the ones we requested to smell. When I asked if her cap-less bottles of Guerlain Parure were testers she denied it emphatically, curtly assuring me that this was how the bottles had arrived from Paris. Similarly, I was born at night, but not last night.