Dawn Spencer Hurwitz The' Verte

The weather is warm and I’m having a tea phase. My glass is always full of iced tea and I’m wearing tea scents. I love the tea notes in L’Artisan The Pour Un Ete, Parfums d’Empire Osmanthus Interdite and all three of the Bulgari tea trio.

We carry Dawn Spencer Hurwitz The’ Verte at The Posh Peasant so I wore it several times this week. DSH The’ Verte is a very true green tea fragrance. The’ Verte is chilled green tea on a light chypre base. It’s calming, soothing, cooling and reminds me of a weekend at Ten Thousand Waves spa in Santa Fe.

I don’t drink green tea. I think it tastes like dirt. But as a fragrance, green tea is especially interesting. The’ Verte has a lovely dry green leafy quality and a soft hay-like aroma. There is also a subtle minty sensation and herbal bergamot (think Early Grey tea) note draped over the light mossy base.

DSH The’ Verte is minimalist. It’s zen. It’s yoga class, meditation, a room of one’s own, in a bottle. Don your Eileen Fisher linen ensemble, put your hair up in a pony, pull out your artisan handcrafted earrings from etsy and spritz yourself with The’ Verte. It’s a good day. It’s your day. Enjoy.

Notes –
Top: bergamot, lemon
Middle: green tea
Base: moss, sandalwood

TWRT 5.29.09

This Week's Random Thoughts ~

Annick Goutal Hadrien Absolu is worth it.

I’ve been living under a rock. I purchased Molinard Nirmala because Chayaruchama said it’s a fab fruity scent. It arrived today and (it’s great) all I could think of was Angel. I emailed Brian to say “omg, Nirmala is the Mother of Angel!” And he wrote back to tell me everyone knows this and it’s been discussed at length. Well, at least I had this perspective without any preconceived notions.

I’m having an affair with tea scents this week.

I already wanted Diptyque L’Eau de Tarocco, but after Chandler Burr’s review it seems like a need instead of a want. Did you notice Burr was a little less unruly in his review of L’Eau de Tarocco – he actually stayed on subject?

I was home alone last night so I spritzed Carnal Flower with abandon. I went to bed in a cloud of green tuberose. I woke up in the same cloud. I swear I could still smell it after this morning’s shower. I <3 Ropion.

I’ve been watching the TV series called Breaking Bad this week. It’s all about misery but it’s so good. I highly recommend it.

Beverage of the week: White Grape Peach juice diluted with spring water (about ½ juice, ½ water) with ice and a lemon wedge.

Don’t forget about Caron Farnesiana – it’s good stuff.

When I read the interview with Ropion on Osmoz it bothered me that his favorite flower/scent note is gardenia. I guess I like gardenia but it’s never something I seek. It’s usually so heavy and cloying. It can smell like cheese ;-/

I’m sure you’ve heard the Napolean/Josephine tale where he tells her he’s coming home soon (from battle) so he asks that she “not bathe” (for ~3 weeks). I can’t even imagine how different our culture is today. We shower daily, use deodorant, brush teeth – we essentially do everything possible to remove our own human odor. Can you imagine not bathing for 3 weeks? And loving this smell on another person? I’m not judging, just amazed.

A new show starring Edie Falco starts on Showtime in a week or so. It’s called Nurse Jackie and I’ll definitely give it a try.

Why was Sleeper Cell canceled? (this was years ago). It was such a good series. And yet, Lost, and Prison Break and 24 go on and on into complete implausibility (apologies to the fans).

Sandwich of the week: Fresh chicken breast (from leftover roast chicken, not deli meat), on wheat bread (sans crust) with wasabi mayo, arugula and garlic salt.

What would I do with myself if I had one signature scent and didn’t think about perfume all the time? Would I better myself?

Why are Houbigant Quelques Violettes and Quelques Fleurs L’Original in my shopping cart at BeautyEncounter? I keep putting them there and then closing the page. I haven’t sniffed either of these btw.

In which I admit to loving Cabotine de Gres

I think about perfume altogether too much. In one of my most recent ruminations, I decided that it’s somewhat uncool to admire certain perfumes created between 1985 and the present unless they’re from infamous houses like Guerlain or Chanel or unless they’re niche.

There are lots of great mainstream fragrances created between 1985 and today that just don’t get much respect. Take for instance, a perfume launched in 1989; this was 20 years ago, its too recent to be considered classic yet far enough in the past to seem dated, and it potentially reminds us of high school or of some other person or time in our lives. There are so many fragrances that I feel slightly ashamed of adoring that were created during this time period. For instance, Amarige (shame), Byblos (shame), Diva (shame), Poison (shame), Rochas Byzance (shame), Cristobal by Balenciaga (shame) Dior Dune (shame)...you get the picture.

Cabotine de Gres, 1990, is one of these shameful perfumes for me. But I’m coming out and admitting that I love Cabotine. Even in the face of LT’s review in The Guide, which gives it 1 star and a 2 word sum-up of “nasty floral.”

Cabotine de Gres actually reminds me of LouLou. No, it doesn’t smell anything like LouLou, but it has that “LouLou style,” a certain unmistakeably potent and dramatic femininity. Cabotine is a bright, green, fresh, gingery floral. I’ve read that Cabotine is and ode to ginger lily, though I have never smelled an actual ginger lily flower and an online search confused me more than anything as to exactly what a ginger lily looks and smells like.

According to basenotes, Cabotine's listed notes are the following:
Top – peach, plum, cassie, tagete, green notes, coriander
Middle – ylang-ylang, rose, tuberose, jasmine, heliotrope, orris, carnation
Base – cedar, vetiver, musk, tonka bean, amber, vanilla, civet

After reading this list of notes, I don’t find Cabotine particularly sweet or fruity, nor do I think it smells like a sum of it’s parts. Cabotine is a synthetic (as opposed to realistic & natural) perfumey aroma – it hits you like a wall of Cabotine. To me, it’s a green floral with a slight ginger and carnation-spice quality. Cabotine is abstract and linear, it starts off exactly the way it ends up, 18 hours later or at the point of your next shower. Cabotine was created by Jean-Claude Delville and as I scan his list of work I think Cabotine is probably his best. Delville also created Clinique’s Happy (surely a best-seller) and Paris Hiltons’ Can Can (sigh). Admittedly, Cabotine does have an element of “fabric softener clean,” but I love it nonetheless. It’s still a unique fragrance even if there’s a hint of fabric softener.

So, there you have it – I love Cabotine. It’s fresh, it’s green, it’s unique, and it’s cheap. I even have 3 tubes of the shower gel, which makes for a zesty shower, and the body lotion.

And the bottle is fantastic, which is, apparently, a green afro-head of flowers.

Sit down, have a spot of tea. Bulgari tea, that is.

In warm weather I drink a lot of iced tea and I enjoy perfumes with tea notes. I especially love Bulgari’s trio of teas, which includes Au The Verte, Au The Blanc and Au The Rouge.

All three, let’s call them Verte, Blanc and Rouge for short, start off beautifully, develop nicely and then largely disappear within 3 hours (Verte and Blanc are the most fleeting, Rouge sticks around the longest). If you apply lavishly as I do you might find the scents lingering on your clothes and hair for much longer.

A very brief description of each: Verte is the most hesperedic/citrus and green, Blanc is the sweetest and most floral, and Rouge is the most strongly tea-like, tangy, sweet, figgy and spicy.

Many reviews I’ve read suggest that Rouge doesn’t even smell like tea, or rooibos (red tea), as it’s meant to evoke. For me, it starts off exactly like Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger tea, which my Mom drank when I was a kid. My Mom is a tea aficionado so I’ve definitely tasted and smelled my share of weirdly exotic loose leaf teas. I suppose some might say Bulgari Rouge smells like rotting leaves or vegetation, which is probably true, if you don’t really know what tea smells like. I prefer Rouge, out of the three, because it’s the most zesty and strange.

Rouge begins like dead-on rooibos tea, with all it’s tart tangy tannic qualities and a mound of dry hay baking in the late summer sun. I’m amazed at how exactly they’ve captured tea in the top notes of Rouge – if I have the bottle nearby I love re-applying it to get the strong tea-like rush over and over again. Once you move into the heart notes, Rouge exhibits a creamy fig note with dashes of sandalwood and pepper. The creaminess makes sense to me, because the traditional way to serve rooibos tea in South Africa, where it’s most popular, is with milk and sugar. Once Rouge dries down, it becomes reminiscent of sweet, woody hay with spicy figs and the memory of tea.

Rouge is rounder, richer and stranger than the other two Bulgari tea scents. If you’re looking for something different, with a striking tea note, that can be worn in the summer heat, give this a shot.

I wish Bulgari would package these three tea scents as a set, maybe 15 ml bottles of each. This might be the one perfume gift that my Mom would actually like.

Bulgari Au The Rouge was created by Olivier Polge in 2005.
The notes are listed as: bergamot, orange, pink pepper, fig pulp, Roiboos red tea, Yunnan red tea, walnut and musk

We Love Fruity Florals

I especially enjoy Angela’s reviews over at Now Smell This. Recently she wrote a piece on Keiko Mecheri Passiflora, which spawned many comments on how fruity florals can be wonderful and how we shouldn’t unilaterally pan this category due to it’s (clears throat) sheer abundance. There are, indeed, many wonderful fruity florals and I’ve been thinking about this over the past month every time someone writes a disparaging comment about fruity florals on the various blogs and fora.

I realize fruity floral scents tend to multiply in spades, but even so, there are so many great one's.

Here are some of my favorites:

Badgley Mischka ~ BIG, gorgeous fruity extravaganza. Still a very real and serious perfume.

Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese ~ effervescent basil, lemon, melon and peach on a bed of oakmoss. Gorgeous.

Teo Cabanel Julia ~ Tart fruity floral. Alahine (ambery oriental) and Oha (dark rose) are the two most discussed from Teo Cabanel but Julia is lovely for the summertime. Julia has a nice blackcurrant & rhubarb scent that I love.

Yves Saint Laurent Yvresse ~ Fruit champagne (Yvresse was originally named Champagne).

Parfums de Nicolaï Balkis ~ Tart roses, blackberries and cream.

Ava Luxe Johri ~ Johri is really interesting and nice. It’s mostly green and hesperedic; with figs and creamy coconut milk. Johri strikes me as joyous and great for the summer.

Jean Patou Colony ~ Green, leathery, animalic pineapple – what’s not to love?

Histoires de Parfum 1804 ~ technically 1804 is a floral oriental but there are strong fruity notes. Because pineapple is such a rare note in perfumery I tend to think of this as an homage to JP’s Colony. 1804 is a gorgeous scent with notes of pineapple, peach, gardenia, jasmine and cloves; on a bed of sandalwood, musk, vanilla and pathouli.

Annick Goutal Eau de Charlotte ~ Starts off like sticky fruit syrup but dries down to a lovely, cozy scent with blackcurrant, mimosa, chocolate and vanilla.

Keiko Mecheri Ume ~ Not sure if this counts as a fruity floral because it’s actually a woody plum. Ume is a dry fragrance, focused on Japanese plum, with a base of woods.

Keiko Mecheri Peau de Peche ~ with notes of white peach, orris, sandalwood and amber, Peau de Peche is a beautiful velvety fragrance meant to mimic the scent of peach skin. Peau de Peche is dry and woody, not fruity and juicy, and not especially sweet. This one is great.


What are your favorite fruity florals?

Parfums MDCI Rose de Siwa

I had no idea I was longing for a sweet pink rose scent, so dewy and innocent. All this time I’ve avoided the YSL Paris and Drole de Rose variety of rose fragrances and then I try Rose de Siwa and I have to sit down lest I fall and hit my head in mid-swoon.

Rose de Siwa quenches my thirst. It envelopes me in moist rose kisses. It is so delicately girly and beautiful. It is a caress on the cheek from a velvety pink rose petal.

This can’t be me writing this. I must be having a nervous breakdown. I’m the gal who likes Frederic Malle Une Rose, Diptyque L’Ombre dans L’Eau and Ungaro Diva.

Rose de Siwa would be categorized in the same fruity floral rose-violet-peony category of scents as Bond No. 9 Chelsea Flowers, Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose, Creed Spring Flowers, Vera Wang Truly Pink and Les Parfums Rosine Roseberry. I do not wear any of these fragrances, I’m over the age of 22, it’s just not my thing.

But, Rose de Siwa is breathtaking. It easily surpasses all of these other fruity rose scents. Rose de Siwa is the purest, fairest rose I’ve ever smelled. Francis Kurkdjian is the cause of all this. And I read that he doesn’t even like working with rose scents. I think this makes me like Rose de Siwa even more, like it’s an unwanted child, left on my doorstep in a basket, that I’ll gladly take in and care for. I’ll put pink ribbons in her hair, and dress her up in the cutest pink gingham outfits, oh we’ll have so much fun me and little Rosie de Siwa.

Yes, it’s definitely a nervous breakdown or some sort of midlife crisis. But nevertheless, Rose de Siwa is stunning. It contains lychee! And I still love it.

Rose de Siwa is the truest sweet pink rose in fragrance form. There’s nothing soapy or powdery – all you need to do is bend down, feel the heft of the petals in your hand and inhale deeply.

Sometimes a pink rose, and only a pink rose, is all that's necessary.

Notes: Lychee, peony, hawthorn, Turkish and Moroccan roses, violet, cedar, musk, vetiver

A weekend voyage through violets

It was barely 16 months ago when I listed violet as one of the notes I disliked. I met Brian in a chat room and now I have at least a dozen violet fragrances. I started with L’Heure Bleue, and while I grew to tolerate it, it never became a love of mine. This should give you a glimpse of the type of violet fragrances I like, since I don’t like L’Heure Bleue, or anything candy sweet, powdery and old school.

Last year I wrote that the Indies saved violet for me, and this is still very much the case. It’s the dirty, dark, edgy and also fresh, woody and green violet perfumes that draw me in. It doesn't seem to have received the most positive feedback, but Brian and I both loved the brutally assertive violet/tar of Creed Love in Black. Comme des Garcons + Stephen Jones is another fun violet fragrance, mixing the usually innocent violet note with the scent of meteorites. Since I’ve been doing so much violet research, I’ve noticed that I’m now enjoying the violet soliflore variety much more. Penhaligon’s Violetta, in particular, is a beautifully refreshing violet scent. Without further adieux, here are some brief reviews of six violet fragrances I’ve been wearing and evaluating lately.

(alphabetical order)

Borsari Violetta di Parma. Oh, the box and bottle are so pretty and this is violet perfection for so many, but for me, this is violets in melted plastic.

Caron Violette Preceiuse. Caron’s violet is surprisingly good. This is a dark, sweet, spicy violet. It has excellent longevity and brings to mind a chaise lounge made of deep purple crushed velvet. It’s not girly but elegant and full of depth and intrigue.

Histoires de Parfum Blanc Violette. I had such high hopes for Blanc Violette, because I’ve found many excellent fragrances from Histoires. Perhaps I’m anosmic to several musks because I couldn’t smell anything from Annick Goutal Musc Nomade or Hermes Gentiane Blanche – these were like water on my skin. Blanc Violette is a brief moment of a pale powdery violet that vanishes into thin air on me.

L’Artisan Verte Violette. L’Artisan’s violet is what I had hoped Borsari’s would be. Verte Violette is not green so the name is misleading. L’Artisan’s VV is somehow “chewy” and seems to have a physical texture as if I’ve been enveloped in a cloud of swirling violets. I believe the aspect I enjoy so much is heliotrope, which gives L’Artisan VV a delicious slightly sweet, yet creamy quality. Verte Violette, like most L’Artisan fragrances, is fleeting so that’s a major disappointment. I apply about 15 sprays and can usually smell it until lunch.

Penhaligon’s Violetta. I don’t have any other loves from Penhaligon but their Violetta is great. It’s an assertively fresh, green and woody take on violet that leans toward the masculine. This isn’t one of those old school candy-sweet-powder violets but instead an almost bracing violet. I love this stuff. This is the bottle I dropped on the floor that smashed to bits. I bought another one straight away. That’s sayin’ something.

Sonoma Scent Studio Voile de Violette. Somehow an alphabetical list still managed to save the best for last. SSS Voile de Violette makes me swoon. This isn’t even my usual favorite kind of violet, it’s not dark or edgy but it’s so luscious, ripe and beautiful I can’t help myself. Voile de Violette is fruity, like plum jam blended with larger than life violets. Voile de Violette makes me feel simply joyous when I wear it. Voile de Violette has base notes of cedar, musk and vetiver which I’m guessing manage to perfectly anchor the fragrance and give it depth and interest. It’s sweet but just the right amount, not candy sweet and the longevity is excellent.

Looks like the Indies are still saving violet fragrances for me. My favorites remain Liz Zorn’s Domino Viole’, Ava Luxe Midnight Violet, Neil Morris Spectral Violet and now I can add Sonoma Scent Studio Voile de Violette to the list. Not indie but excellent are Penhaligon’s, Caron and L’Artisan.

Photo artist: Ann Garrett

TWRT 5.22.09

This Week's Random Thoughts ~

Not only am I a Trekkie geek but I love American Idol. I’ve been watching AI since Season 3. I was shocked Adam Lambert didn’t win. Kris Allen?? If not Adam, then I would have picked Alison or Danny. I’m not as upset by Adam not winning as I was the year Bo Bice didn’t win, though.

I had some drama this week with Parfums de Nicolaï Mimosaique. There were a few days when I was devastated because I’d been told it was discontinued. I called their main boutique in Paris and ordered a few bottles in a frenzy. I had already called Beauty Habit and Luckyscent who both told me the scent was dc’ed. Then I heard that due to popular demand Luckyscent will be restocking Mimosaique again. ((Relief)). I’m in a much better place now.

I really don’t think of myself as a perfume snob. When I write several reviews in a row of very expensive perfumes it makes me feel bad. I promise to review something inexpensive this weekend. Because I believe, down to my very core, that the price of a perfume has nothing to do with how good it is.

This week my dogs wore Demeter Honey and it smelled great on them.

I finally got a sample of Amouage Ubar. It’s not what I expected. I haven’t decided what I think of it yet.

I read on POL that L’Artisan is having financial troubles. I often criticize L’Artisan fragrances for their lack of decent longevity and sillage. At the sudden prospect of L’Artisan not existing or drastically reducing their offerings I suddenly realized that I really like several of their perfumes. I don’t think I’m in the minority but I think if they used a better fixative, one that made their fragrances last like Estee Lauder (cannot even scrub EL off!) more people would buy L’Artisan perfumes. It’s the fleeting nature that causes me to balk at their prices. The perfumes themselves are beautiful.

Salad of the week: Cobb

Guerlain Cologne du 68 is the most practical scent I’ve ever smelled. It’s the closest thing to a skin scent that I like.

Diptyque Oyedo is an amazingly bracing and fresh grapefruit scent. Don’t forget about this one in the heat. It’s grapefruit + minty green herbal zest.

I absolutely love the shape of gingko leaves and want a tree in my yard.

Perhaps it’s obvious but Jean Claude Ellena is not among my favorite perfumers. JCE is a minimalist and I’m crazy about “maximalist” fragrances.

I no longer read Booker Prize winning novels. I’ve come to find that Booker Prize winning novels are essentially incoherent and I have to force myself to finish reading them. Books like The English Patient, The God of Small Things, and Amsterdam were pretty dreadful for me. I did, however, enjoy Life of Pi and Disgrace very much. Also, Fingersmith, written by Sarah Waters was a darn good yarn and this was nominated for a Booker but didn’t win. Ok, maybe I won’t entirely write-off Booker Prize winners, but I’ll hesitate before reading.

Have a fragrant weekend everyone!

Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai

Parfums MDCI is a perfume house for fragrance fanatics. They are making brilliantly beautiful, classically styled perfumes that smell as if they’re using the highest quality ingredients. Parfums MDCI may be expensive, but rest assured, if you fall for one of their gems, you’ll probably overcome the sticker shock. Plus, you can always choose the less expensive bottle, the refill without the bisque stopper. I purchased one of their sampler sets (directly from Parfums MDCI in France, an amazingly good deal) and am working my way through all of their scents. I fell really hard for Un Coeur en Mai, one of their newest creations, composed by Patricia Nicolaï. It’s simply breathtaking, in a beautiful, flawlessly executed manner.

Un Coeur en Mai is strongly reminiscent of Guerlain’s Chamade. I’m actually surprised LT didn’t point this out in Perfumes: The Guide, suggesting that Chamade has already been done, and done better, so why bother with Un Coeur en Mai? Un Coeur en Mai is a greenish floral, also a bit similar to Patricia Nicolaï’s Le Temps d’une Fete, from Parfums de Nicolaï. Yes, its obvious Un Coeur en Mai has some predecessors, so it’s not groundbreaking or unusual, but boy, oh, boy is it gorgeous. For the past three days I’ve been wearing three perfumes; Un Coeur en Mai, Chamade and Le Temps d’une Fete (on separate spots to compare). Hopefully these three fragrances are similar enough to those around me so they don’t think I smell like a fragrance disaster.

My take is this: Un Coeur en Mai is essentially a modern flanker to Chamade. It’s like Eau Premier or Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus, both well done modern versions of their original fragrances. I realize Un Coeur en Mai is from the house of Parfums MDCI so it cannot be considered a flanker to Chamade, but it most certainly is an homage or tribute to the classic Chamade. As far as similarity between Un Coeur en Mai and Le Temps d’une Fete, while I do love Le Temps, I’m now finding Le Temps unkempt and rustic (while more appealing for some) in comparison to the flawlessly beautiful Un Coeur en Mai.

For the record, I like the beginning of Chamade better than Un Coeur en Mai. The initial aldehydic-galbanum blast of Chamade can’t be beat. But, like the story of the tortoise and the hare, Un Coeur en Mai is the tortoise, slowly winning me over, and especially by the end (the dry down) Un Coeur wins.

Un Coeur is a sweeter and gentler Chamade. The start is rather fruity floral and full of hyacinth and lily of the valley. Beyond this, I don’t find the specific notes detectable, aside from being able to label Un Coeur a fresh, green, slightly sweetly white floral. It is not too sweet by any means, and also don’t be afraid of the lily of the valley note, it’s not sickening or pungent or too innocent, as some lily of the valley scents can be. There may be some among us who don’t find Un Coeur interesting enough or may call it “boring.” I definitely have days when I crave an interesting fragrance, something edgy and unusual, but I also have just as many days when I want to wear something simply gorgeous, and Un Coeur en Mai is just that, flawlessly perfect, especially for spring and summer.

I’m enjoying every moment of Un Coeur en Mai and am now having a heck of a time deciding being purchasing a full bottle of it or Enlevement au Serail...or others from MDCI as I work my way through their fragrances.

Notes: Hyacinth, lily of the valley, petitgrain, bergamot, Bulgarian rose, galbanum, black currant, melon, Moroccan mimosa, Bourbon geranium, black pepper, coriander, musk, precious woods

On Coffee and Booze: A*Men, Pure Malt (Cafe Noir, Michael for Men, and 1740)

I've never been much of a whiskey fan. Actually, I can't stand the stuff. I'm just not the patched elbow sort, nor do my fantasies revolve around leather armchairs, dark paneled libraries, chauffeured limos, smoking jackets, or prince nez, so I was a little disappointed when I heard that the latest seasonal flanker to Thierry Mugler's A*Men would venture into this infinitely stuffy territory, especially after the letdown, this time last year, of Pure Coffee.

Pure Malt, according to the company's ad copy, is "an innovation in perfumery," honoring "the tradition of Scotland's peaty whiskeys with its smoky and sensual woody accents. The result is a surprising fragrance of elegance and sophistication in which several malts collide." There's also talk of truly noble and refined masculinity, whatever that means. None of it sounded very thrilling to me, and yet, I kept returning to the Macy's counter over the last several weeks to see if the shipment had arrived.

I'd adjusted my expectations to "diminished", but was excited despite myself, and when I finally smelled Pure Malt I was a little...bored by it. I suppose I wanted it to upset my cynicism with some shocking quality I couldn't have expected to expect. Turns out, Pure Malt is just a great men's fragrance, but it took me a week of wearing it to remind me that in a world of marine scents and faux woody yawn-prompts, decent is hardly chopped liver. Spending time with Pure Malt, I remembered my first reactions to the original A*Men and, after it, B*Men. Both failed to thrill me upon initial application. Now I love them, and wouldn't want to be out of stock.

People's reactions to A*Men still surprise me. This tends to happen a lot with perfumes I love. They seem so unquestionably fantastic to me that the idea anyone might be less than floored by them seems inconceivable. The most frequent complaint against A*Men is its patchouli/chocolate/coffee cocktail. For those who hate this trifecta, the addition of caramel can't help. Me, I adore the combination. Something about the addition of lavender takes the fragrance to unexpected places, away from food into fresh, adding depth and tension. A*Men has great (correction: killer) longevity, which might be part of the problem. Patchouli haters aren't typically excited about a patchouli note which sticks it out to the bitter end, straight into the morning after.

Interestingly, Pure Coffee had many fans. The perception seems to be that it improved upon the overzealous mistakes of A*Men original, as if the people who had suffered through A*Men deserved an apology, but I found it to be a pale variation, too similar by far to merit a purchase. It smelled like coffee for all of four minutes, after which it smelled like A*Men lite. I much prefer the infinitely more tenacious Cafe Noir by Ava Luxe, which is a more streamlined, bare boned impression of coffee and lavender making nice, more long-lasting than Pure Coffee, drier and brisker than A*Men original, making them both bottle-worthy, rather than interchangeable.

Pure Malt is smooth, and long-lasting--and who knew malt would be such a nice compliment to the caramel undertones of A*Men? As for the woods, not so much, unless I'm just immune to what people consider woodsy at this point, having been pummeled over the head with it so often. Pure Malt reminds me a lot of Michael by Michael Kors. Michael is a cruder iteration of Pure Malt's agenda, but I'm a sucker for what Tania Sanchez calls a cheap and cheerful fragrance, and Michael has always fit the bill. Malt isn't listed in the notes but Michael gives off a rich, boozy vibe, mixing tobacco, patchouli, incense, and dried fruits with the herbal inluence of coriander, cardamom, tarragon, and thyme. Like A*Men original, Michael lasts for days, drying down into a deep, complex patchouli-dominated accord, but it has its own distinct character, much of which I suspect is due to the weird combination of shriveled prune and frankincense.

Pure Malt is subtle and smooth, and primarily a skin scent. Typically, skin scents are a pass for me. But I'm reaching for Pure Malt a lot, and I think this has to do with the fact that, though subtle, it projects in a curious way, wafting up as a glass of whiskey might from the tabletop. You can't beat the price. 70 bucks for 3.4 ounces is some kind of miracle for a new fragrance these days, even at Victoria's Secret. I'm not sure I would have spent more on Pure Malt, but I'm happy with it. The smell puts a smile on my face. It smells like a classic men's cologne but, like Histoires de Parfums' sublime 1740, it manages to transcend the category without trashing it. Far removed from the library, Pure Malt calls to mind a good pint of lager, fireside at the pub, the very faint smell of cigar in the background, a smoked aroma coming off the nearby grill, and not altogether unpleasant trace odors of the dog someone left tied to the tree outside. That's a fantasy I can wrap my mind around.