Thought for the Day: Slow down, Little Bond

I remember when you were just a wee thing. You were crazy creative and always had somebody coming in and out of the house - Maurice Roucel, Michel Almairac, Aurelien Guichard. Everybody was your buddy back then. And you put your heads together and came up with wonderful things. Mostly. I still go to H.O.T. Always and Broadway Nite and think, wow, where does something like that come from? You had a sense of humor about the past. You were pretty irreverent. Big peachy peony lipstick rose. Big fat patchouli and cinnamon, like somebody told you about Givenchy Gentleman and with the balls of youth you thought, I can do that better - and, you know, you kind of did.

Oh but that mom of yours. We'd get together and suddenly we're making noise and she'd come stomping down the stairs into the rec room and she'd threaten to call my parents, or the cops or whatever. Seriously, the cops?? She was really kind of too much. She was really kind of way too much. She had big big plans for you. I guess she wasn't content with you being just kind of fun and silly and guilelessly overblown the way people who've just arrived in NY from small towns can be. The way you looked at NYC was really fun and refreshing. It was idiosyncratic. And maybe that didn't really fit with your mom's plans. Your mom always made me nervous. She was so overly protective of you I thought, this ain't going to end well. No kid whose mom thinks he's the most brilliant thing on the planet ever turns out so great.

Sure enough, now I look at you and I'm like, where did all the fun parts go? I think that mom of yours got to you and reined you in, after all. But who knew it would happen so fast? You're barely a teen. No more fun stuff. No more peeps over to the house. She keeps you busy, cranking ideas out, only they don't seem very much like ideas - not bright ideas, anyway. I mean, okay, I like Earth Day. It's not something I dislike. I'm all for marriage equality. I like mother's day, and father's day, and Saks is okay I guess, and Andy Warhol's funny enough, but who says you need to have something to say about everything? Who says you need to be all things to all people in every corner of the party?

Oh right. Your mom.

The truth is, your ideas are really lame now. You come out with a lot of them, sure, but they're all the same idea, and you don't have the right people around you anymore so maybe you don't see that. You're in every corner of the party and you're screaming there, and everyone moves to the other side of the room, because I guess they figure, why sit next to you when it's more pleasant not to? And that's a catch 22 because then you just try harder. More ideas. More screaming. More mom. It's just you and your mom now, and of course your mom thinks everything you do is BRILLIANT, and it doesn't sound like screaming to her, what you're doing, because she's talking even louder than you are.  So it's strictly folie a deux.

Example: That amber thing? Over three hundred bucks? Who do you think you are? And all these gew gaws you're gussying your ideas up with - the big vinyl flowers and such - don't really compensate for the lack of big ideas you once had and now sorely lack. You're covering the waterfront, but you're not Christo, Bond. You just kind of go to these areas and throw up a tent and you say, look at me, I'm artistic! And everyone else looks at you and they're like, so you pitched a tent. It's New York. Get over yourself.

You're pitching tents, your mother's pitching fits, and - listen, I'm going to let you go. I realized, halfway through writing this to you, that I'm bored. The whole thing bores me. There's no talking to you, really, and you've been boring for such a stretch now, and seem so excited about your boring self, that I don't really see a lot of potential for turnaround, for epiphany. Maybe I'll wait for your mid life crisis, little guy. But - oy - that's gotta be a big mess waiting to happen, the way you're going this early on. I was your biggest advocate at one time. I was like your mom. Now I just want you to go away.

Spritz Kill: Overthinking Perfume

What is intelligent perfume writing? I've been thinking about this a little lately, after reading several bloggers argue the difference between smart talk about fragrance (meaning, I take it, good) and the rest (meaning, maybe, not good?). That conversation has been going on for well over a year now, and its chief communicators, it seems to go without saying, consider themselves part of the smart camp.

It started, as far as I can tell, this dialogue, when a few prominent fragrance bloggers (or bloggers who wished to be prominent in an ever-expanding conversation about perfume) started actively bemoaning that proliferation of voices. Said bloggers didn't really call it a proliferation. They called it a cacophony, suggesting that what was truly worth hearing couldn't be heard through the din. So many people writing about perfume, they said, when really, only certain people should be...allowed?

Not much has changed. The bloggers complaining now seem to be complaining for the same reasons, only now the conversation is about intelligence. How can we identify the intelligent writers and, I guess, give them their due: their rightful prominence? That seems to be the pressing issue. And the complaints still seem as boring to me now as they did back when I first started hearing them.

How do you mark intelligence when it comes to perfume writing? Is it a certain level of proficiency in detailing the chemical components of fragrances, those secret realities behind the velvet curtain of the fragrance industry? Does it have to do with how many perfumers you're able to secure interviews with on your blog? These forms of name dropping and fact checking have become, for some bloggers, the standard litmus for supremacy, yet for me intelligence in writing is a quirky, mercurial thing, more often about the confidence of a voice than the insecure overemphasis of statistical ephemera.

I'm gradually realizing that the only kind of intelligence that matters to me, and maybe to many other readers, has to do with style, with a distinct perspective, and that comes out in the writing no matter what you know or don't know. It's an ability to put your feelings and thoughts, however banal they might be in someone else's mouth, into sentences which are distinctly your own, which curiously results in reflecting the reader's own unique sense of things, the way a good movie seems to have been made especially for each person watching it, affirming personal experience rather than negating it. A good writer, a smart one, catalyzes something for a reader I think. Too often, the so called intelligentsia of fragrance blogging reads like an instruction manual reminding you of your ignorance about the machinery of perfume. I guess I don't want to think of perfume as a machine.

The problem I have with what seems to pass for intelligence in this argument about intelligent writing is that it's often the kind of intelligence that alienates a reader, creating a sense of exclusion and superiority. "I know something you don't; I have access to people and things you should wish you did; I see perfume, I see everything, more clearly, because I see it properly." If you're yawning, we might be on the same page.

When it comes to perfume, I always think back to my grandmothers, I guess because they were my formative introduction to fragrance. I never discussed perfume with them. I sneaked into their vanities and smelled what they owned, sharing illicitly in that "privacy". I thought my grandmothers were very smart, and the more I've learned about perfume, and learned how commercial many of their fragrance choices were, the more I appreciate them. They had personal style, and their perfumes seemed to embody that. They made these perfumes their own, so much so that I was surprised to learn they could be bought and were bought by thousands of other women. My grandmothers weren't impressed by poseurs. In fact they had remarkable bullshit detectors, and recognized pretension when they came across it or it was inflicted on them. They chose perfume not because it was explained properly to them but because they were able to see themselves clearly in it, I think.

They enjoyed a good read, and I think I inherited that from them. And I love most of the blogs I've visited. I can feel in their writing, in their voices, that same sense of awe and wonder, that same geeky love and adoration for the inexplicable nature of perfumery that I remember from my childhood.  I relate to it. So the question of intelligence seems as beside the point as privileging pomposity over simplicity.  I don't know.  Who cares?

I think about this lately because the fragrance industry has lost a lot of that original joy and wonder for me, so what's at stake in this idea of intelligence seems very minor. In the last several years, the industry has so overblown its concept of self and simultaneously so watered down the real experience of fantasy in the products it releases, that I realize now more than ever I need those personal voices, that sense of idiosyncratic style you find in a humble blogger, more than ever. And often I find myself wishing that the self importance contaminating the blogosphere would give it a rest, or crash into the arrogance of the perfume industry on some highway untraveled by less intelligent people.  The problem for me lately has been trying to figure out personally what to write about. I've taken a break from blogging because I don't feel I have much to say. I realize now that I do have a lot to say, but saying less has restored something  that had gone missing in perfume, some of that mystery I loved and want back.

Related anecdote: We were filming a movie recently, and for one scene I'd brought a lot of my perfume to the set, filling a large cabinet with it. In the scene, two women sit on the floor before the cabinet. Light from an outdoor swimming pool bounces around them on the walls as they go through the contents of the cabinets, sharing their favorites, trying to put them into words. Filming that scene made me happy. Few of the people on set really understood what it meant to me, the kind of mystery we were exploring. Mostly the crew was men. One of the actresses hadn't seen the cabinet until right before we filmed the scene, and when we walked into the room she was busy talking, until we got to the stash of perfume. Her jaw dropped and she went silent. "I can't talk to you right now," she said, stupefied.

That seemed very smart to me and I look for those moments online in other people's voices.

Wrapped in Fantasy: Andy Tauer's Loretta

When I first smelled Loretta, a little less than a year ago now, I wasn't prepared for it. Andy Tauer and I had been discussing Miriam, the first fragrance in the Tableau de Parfums line, for some time by then, and I'd had some time to get my mind around that one. Loretta was a sucker punch, and seemed to come out of left field.

Miriam, as some of you maybe know by now, was inspired by the character in a film series Andy and I have been doing together, Woman's Picture, and it speaks directly to the character of the same name played by Ann Magnuson.

Miriam, the woman, is heavily influenced by the past. Gripped by it, really. Her life is at a crisis point and she looks back to the past for comfort, maybe in a distorted way, certainly nostalgically; like a lot of us she looks back and selectively chooses to remember the good parts. She filters out the things she'd rather not carry forward with her pretty aggressively. The fragrance associated with her character is an interesting dichotomy and speaks to these conflicted feelings, paying homage to classical perfumery from a distinctly modern vantage point. Full of grand gestures, accented by sweet, bright moments, Miriam walks into an old, dim room where the past is all around, and throws open the windows to let the sunlight in.

All of the characters in Woman's Picture thus far are pretty complicated. That's a central premise of the series for us, I think: women, people, are much more complex than our impressions or accounts of them would lead us to believe. It can be difficult to see them as they are, watching so closely only for things we can handle and recognize. Loretta, played by Amy LaVere, is maybe the most perplexing woman of all in this series. Part femme fatale, part guileless child, her motivations are opaque, and reading her can be a bit bewildering. It's unclear why she does what she does. There are no concrete signals with her. Her face, and her persona, are totally inscrutable.

I couldn't imagine how Andy would translate her world into a scent. I might have been doubtful that he could - that anyone, even a talented, perceptive perfumer, could. Without giving me advance notice, Andy sent me a sample of the Loretta fragrance in progress. We were in the midst of trying to find words for Miriam, making our decisions about what that fragrance meant, how it might relate to its namesake character, how we might communicate all that. My mind was consumed by those issues and challenges, and when Loretta arrived in the mail I was in deep in Miriam's "voice".

I opened the package in my car and spritzed some on my hand, and was blown away. I'm not sure how he did it, but Andy translated all of Loretta's tricky, deceptive complications into a scent. It was the first time in a while I'd been surprised like that by a fragrance, left without words to describe what I was smelling, and yet the fragrance was so emphatic that it seemed like it couldn't have been anything else, however unexpected. Immediately I was frustrated. How would I manage to refrain from talking about it for months to come, until its release in September of 2012? Asking someone who loves perfume not to talk about something so fantastic seemed pretty unrealistic to me.



To say that Loretta is a tuberose fragrance is to me like calling Notre Dame a building. It isn't that it's a large fragrance particularly. In some ways, it's quite soft. I wouldn't say it's grand in the way, say, Miriam might be. Like Cinnabar, for instance, Loretta has a smoldering, fuzzy warmth to it. The tuberose is laid out on a bed of woods and spices, and has a dreamy, moody quality. Like Loretta the character, it's wrapped up in its own fantasies. Andy has called Loretta sensual, and it is that. I would say voluptuous. It has some of Loretta the character's sweetness and childlike qualities - a bit of fruitiness throughout. But the sensuous aspects make it feel very adult and mysterious, and the plum note feels decidedly forbidden.

I'm a fan of tuberose, but this is no Fracas or Carnal Flower. Those scents, for me, are principally bright, however creamy the former, however rich and complex the latter. Loretta is a different kind of sensuality and a different kind of tuberose, like nothing I've smelled before. It's the first tuberose I've smelled that truly takes things in the direction of dark mystery. I'm hopelessly biased when it comes to Andy, of course, but can tell you this is not only a different tuberose but a different Tauer. It's one of my top five fragrances of all time, for reasons I'm probably just as hopelessly unable to describe.

I was excited when Andy offered to make the fragrance available for our kickstarter campaign for ONLY CHILD, the second feature length film in the Woman's Picture series. We begin shooting the film in April, if we can meet out kickstarter goal by the deadline on March 29th. Excited because for those interested in smelling the fragrance a little early, it can be shared, and I might have people to talk about it with. Excited more than anything because it's one of my favorite fragrances and I think it will surprise others as much as it has me.

The fragrance won't be available to the general public until September. There are 16 days left in our campaign to get a sneak sniff. The help and support of perfume lovers is most important to us, as we make these films for you really. Your encouragement and support is invaluable to us, and we've tried to come up with incentives in the kickstarter campaign that will work hard to repay you in advance for your support of our efforts.

If you haven't visited the page lately, please check it out here.

We've added Loretta and several other fragrant items (two more soaps by Andy, as well as the opportunity to get a full bottle of any fragrance in the extended Tauer range at a discount).

Notes: ripe dark fruit, a velvet rose, spicy tuberose, orange blossom, pathcouli, woody notes, ambergris, leather, sweetened orris.

Above is a clip from Woman's Picture showing Loretta immersed in her complex fantasy world.

Dark Passage: A Limited Edition Fragrance by Andy Tauer

For the next 25 days, Dark Passage, a limited edition fragrance by Andy Tauer made exclusively for the Woman's Picture series, will be available here.

Dark Passage is a film noir fragrance, and is presented as part of a new series in the Tableau de Parfum/Woman's Picture project called "Snapshots".

Packaged in 7ml enamel atomizers and available in limited edition quanities, the Tableau Snapshots are smaller in scale, providing Tauer the opportunity to experiment with new ideas. The snapshot fragrances are hand held, and seek to preserve fleeting moments in time.

Dark Passage is being presented for only the next several weeks as part of the kickstarter campaign for ONLY CHILD, a mother/daughter noir in the tradition of Mildred Pierce and Now, Voyager starring Grace Zabriskie (Big Love, Twin Peaks) as a mother searching for her vanished daughter. ONLY CHILD is the second feature film in the Woman's Picture series. We start shooting it in April.

I was always resistant to do a kickstarter fundraising campaign in the past, but this time I wanted to do one, as long as I could do one well. When I say well I mean a campaign that includes true incentives, rather than well-intentioned "thank you's" alone. When I started looking at kickstarter campaigns before building our own for ONLY CHILD, I was surprised to see that people didn't offer more for donations. After all, you're asking people for help. If you're making a film, you're creative, nine times out of ten. Why not pull together all your creative resources and come up with something that really thanks them?

Andy and I came up with a lot of incentives for your average person who can do without perfume but loves film. But we wanted to do something extra special for people like us who love fragrance. I was so happy when I first smelled Dark Passage, because in a sea of mass marketed banality I knew it would feel special, smell special, be special, and few things feel that way anymore. We would be forever grateful if you helped us out with this film. Like Woman's Picture it deals thematically with perfume. I make these films for you. I really do. If you like them I know I did good. But in addition to our gratitude and making a good film we want to offer you something else in return.

Dark Passage contains patchouli, cacao, birch tar, and iris, among other things.

Inspiration:

Noir films are typically black and white. Dark Passage isn't quite so polarized, but it contains equally bold contrasts. The wonderfully rich, refined patchouli used by Andy in the fragrance is something to behold, at once earthy and clean shaven. Birch tar and cacao move this patchouli theme in interesting directions, evoking the open road and the small town diner, steaming cups of coffee on a formika countertop, bright sun coming in parallel lines through window blinds, crisscrossing a dim room with their highly keyed stripes. DARK PASSAGE is both femme fatale and private eye, a happy union between feminine and masculine.  It speaks in Lauren Bacall's smoky baritone and regards you with Bogart's level gaze.

Andy Tauer has made the fragrance available this one time and this one time only in an effort to help raise the kickstarter goal for ONLY CHILD and help get the film made. After the campaign, Dark Passage, like a fugitive character out of noir, will never show its face again.  Please check out the kickstarter page to see what other things are available for your donation (hint: an exclusive soap built around tuberose) and comment on the page if the mood hits you. With any donation above 15 dollars you'll get an online link to Woman's Picture, our first film.

Note: surprises are coming there in the next week or two, including a sneak peak sniff opportunity or two.

Honey, I Stunk the Kids: Byredo M/Mink

Even among the fragrances I love, there are those I put on once in a while and like a little less than I usually do, but Byredo M/Mink never fails to to satisfy. It took me about six months to a year after I first heard about it to get my hands on some, and I expected to be disappointed, or at least only mildly enthused. I wasn't prepared to admire it as much as I do, but the reaction was instantaneously favorable. M/Mink pushes all the right buttons for me.

A wonderfully strange mix of honey, incense, and aldehydes, M/Mink is one of those fragrances people on the perfume forums warn you to give time to mellow out on your skin. They complain about the top notes and advise patience, promising a more bearable result as your reward. I've never really understood this line of thought, because generally when I like a fragrance two hours later I liked it two hours before. M/Mink, especially, smells pretty linear to me. And in fact that first spritz is maybe the best part of all, if only because it never fails to give me a little shock of pleasure.

Honey I guess is a love/hate element in perfume. The most legendary use that comes to mind, or at least the most polarizing, is in Serge Lutens' now discontinued Miel de Bois, where the stuff is so overloaded you feel you've wandered into a neglected public restroom. More recently, honey was used more subtly in Aromatics Elixir Perfumer's Reserve, its acrid bitterness made plush by jasmine, rose, and orange blossom. Honey, or something like it, was a staple in a lot of the 80s fragrances I love - Ted Lapidus Creation, YSL Kouros, Rumba, and Guerlain Jardins de Bagatelle come to mind, though not all of them list it - often mixed with so much tuberose that where one begins and the other ends is anyone's guess.

M/Mink has an entirely different approach. Rather than emphasize honey's drippy, dense qualities, it shoots it through with aldehydes. Givaudin describes Adoxal, the aldehyde listed in M/Mink's published pyramid, as "fresh, marine, powerful, floral," adding that it blends well with floral notes but, more to the point here, "can also be seen as having a typical 'fresh linen' odour which makes it very useful for detergent perfumes."

I would call M/Mink minimalistic. Others have called it unfinished. But it's only unfinished to me in the way an Agnes Martin painting would be. That fresh linen quality, contrasted with honey and frankincense, registers alternately as animalic and inky, justifying the name. There's something like hot steam and iron in M/Mink. It's both balsamic and breezy, unwashed and clean. Only a minimalistic composition, a bold juxtaposition, could achieve such a strange but harmonious contrast, by turns stark and full bodied. An underlying waxiness is maybe the best part to me, because it somehow seems incompatible with the overall blend, and yet right at home.

It's harder and harder to achieve such startling, or refreshing, results in modern perfumery. Most perfumes seem trapped in the losing battle to recreate the big picture past of classic perfumery with increasingly thinned out materials meant to mimic the opulence of the things they replace. M/Mink does an about face, showing I think that the road ahead might be less, artfully judged, rather than more, artlessly combined.

(Pictured above: an untitled painting by Agnes Martin, circa 1997)

Hanging Out with the Gorillas: Several Lush Scents

You can tell Mark and Simon Constantine, the father and son perfumers behind the Lush fragrances and their offshoots, first B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful then Gorilla Perfume, are having a good time. The fragrances are touch and go but often at least interesting, and more often than not surprising. Some of them are very good.

The packaging, once pretty naff (hot glued dime store jewels! Confetti! Cheap metal pedestals!) is now avant garde utilitarian, basic black, allowing the scents to speak for themselves, unless you're venturing the wilds of the brick and mortar satellite stores, with all their ear-piercing, nose singeing, slumber party fanfare. I say visit Lush online, where no one will rush up to you with a mixing bowl and some mysterious mud they insist on slathering somewhere, because the fragrances are fun enough they don't require a rave party or a glow stick to get you revved up.

There's a bias against Lush - not just from people who are turned off by the noise- and air- and eye-pollution of these pungent, neon-saturated satellite stores - but from many perfumistas/bloggers, for whom anything short of 150 dollars and a certain kind of wan exclusivity is worthy only of meticulous disdain.

It's true, you probably won't sign a book deal writing about Lush. You won't be invited to dinner or court with Serge. There's a risk that people won't think you are discriminating, that you drink at home out of plastic cups and record episodes of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for anything other than anthropological research.

It might even be true that people will avoid you altogether if you admit to admiring Karma, thinking you must not truly appreciate the original Coty Chypre, and question your judgment: after all, why would anyone who wants to be taken seriously admit to liking something so Mitsouko-oppositional? How will you get a regular column in the New York Times if you admit to appreciating anything so base?

Alas, I can't answer these questions. I can only put my unworthy bourgeois little tail between my legs and tell you what my favorites are among these pedestrian-centric scents. I've already written about other favorites (Karma, Icon, Orange Blossom, Tuca Tuca). These are the newest additions:

DIRTY

I couldn't get behind this one at first, let alone wrap my head around it, so it seemed certain I would eventually like it a lot. Like Andy Tauer's Pentachord Verdant, Dirty has a persistent minty diffusion that you're either going to love or write long essays about, citing its foulness, its failure, its unmitigated gall. Dirty has a strange aquatic thing going on, as well, which the snob nose will shorthand, stupidly, as "synthetic".  Aquatic and minty aren't things I myself get in line for typically. Add to this the name's confusion. Dirty isn't dirty at all; neither animalic nor grungy.  Some say skank. I don't get that either. I do get herbs: the tarragon, maybe, in addition to the mint. Maybe thyme? Who knows.  Like a lot of the Gorilla scents, Dirty has a weird kind of creamy base, which works well here, bridging its contrasts. There's something simultaneously metallic and organic about the fragrance, bracing but relaxed. The listed notes are tarragon, mint, thyme, oakmoss, and sandalwood. It coasts along indefinitely, infinitely reversing your decisions about it.

DEAR JOHN

Dear John takes recognizable mainstream masculine motifs and twists them in some interesting directions. Vetiver, pine, and cedar are familiar territory, and while clove, coriander, lime and coffee aren't exactly strangers to the format, the overall combination feels just a little more interesting than the average fare. Just enough for me that you get a sense where so many of its kind go wrong. Dear John's coffee note isn't as forthcoming as in other masculines which make use of it. Neither is the clove.  The lime hops right out at you but settles down soon enough. It just wants to make sure you know it's there, and it plays nicely with the vetiver. At first you think you're smelling some country cousin of Guerlain Vetiver, all tart and woodsy. After a few minutes that comparison seems pretty suspect. The truth is I reach for Dear John far more often than I do GV, which in recent years has become so transparent that it's technically its own country cousin. The reason the comparison seems suspect, I think, is that Dear John is closer to the shock of pleasure I remember first smelling GV, years ago.

COCKTAIL

It's a brave fragrance that doesn't immediately busy itself apologizing for the rubbery, mentholated facets of Ylang Ylang.  The closest comparison I have for Cocktail is Aveda's Number 20, but even number 20 gets a little embarrassed by the direction it's taking, and back pedals about half way through, arranging itself in a more ladylike pose.  Cocktail has something in common with Tubereuse Criminelle in its boldness, and the price point confirms what Lutens works hard to deny: what makes this kind of juxtaposition so fantastic is essentially its straightforwardly crude approach. There's nothing delicate about it, and I'm not sure even Lush gets it right by calling this a fragrance for a fancy night out. Cocktail might be nocturnal, but it's heading for a speakeasy, and if pearls are part of the equation they're only an ironic means to a decidedly hedonistic end. That isn't to say Cocktail is animalic, which is usually the shorthand for a fragrance put to such uses.  Part of what makes Cocktail so wonderful to me is that it gets to the same place by entirely different strategies. It has the kind of good natured carnality no amount of civet or castoreum can match, and it's ultimately more about the fun of the hunt than the spoils anyway.

IMOGEN ROSE

Back wen I first smelled this, it was my least favorite of its bunch (Tuca Tuca and Orange Blossom, which came out right around the same time). It's grown on me. What I disliked initially about Imogen Rose I now appreciate most: the dread powder. I spend so much time defending scents which don't really smell like powder against the accusations by non-perfume lovers who see it everywhere they look that when I do smell it I tend to dismiss it out of hand. Every time I smell Imogen Rose I like it a little more, so that now, a year or so later, I like it very much. The listed notes, in addition to the obvious, are iris root, ambrette seed, tonka bean, vetiver, and bergamot. I might have gotten used to the powder, but IR seems less powdery to me than it once did. What I smell now is iris, and IR has turned out to be one of my favorite uses of it.  I first thought IR was a bit dowdy as well. I don't get that anymore either. Go figure. IR reminds me a lot of Hermes Hiris, but it satisfies every expectation that Hiris disappointed. In the past year, I've looked to many niche fragrances for this kind of pleasure and richness, and found them lacking.  All this time, it was right under my nose.

25:43

I like 1000 Kisses, a strange little medley of apricot, mandarin, and (allegedly) resins, but it's such a light kiss that I might have subtracted several zeroes. 25:43 is more my style, and could use the extra digits in its name, giving its citrusy elements more oomph with vanilla, ylang, and a laurel note I find addictive. I suppose it comes down to the difference between sweet little batting-eye pecks on the cheek and an open mouth approach. As with many Gorilla scents (too many to name) I thought I didn't like 25:43 much at first. After wearing it for an afternoon I changed my mind. Apparently, Mark Constantine created the fragrance in honor of his son's wedding day, picturing his bride walking down the aisle, with lime and tonka. It was said to "capture the moment beautifully." Later, son Simon added the rest, because as we all know, the wedding aisle leads to the bedroom.

I haven't tried some of the latest Gorilla offerings like Twilight, Silky Underwear, and Rose Jam. Thoughts from those who have?

Our Winter 2012 Top Favorites (and more): A Joint Blogging Project

This is my first winter in the southeast and goodness gracious it’s a mild one.  Not a flake of snow, hardly any rain, and most days are in the 60s.  I noticed a magnolia tree in my neighbor’s yard starting to bloom a few days ago.  I know the weather isn’t usually so warm but after the record breaking hot & humid summer we deserve a nice winter.

Even though true winter temperatures elude me, I have pulled out all my usual faves the past few months anyway (hey, it’s in the 50s & 60s which sometimes feels sort of chilly lately!).  My winter scents are all about spices, woods, patchouli, amber and near-gourmands.  A big favorite the past month has been Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant, which I only recently fell in love with after years of not getting it.  I certainly get  Jungle L’Elephant now and now that we're BFFs I'll never be without it.  After a post from The Non Blonde about a wonderful tea company called Harney & Sons, I have been pairing Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant with a seriously good tea, Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice.  This tea is life-changing.  I've actually mailed tea bags to various friends and family so they could experience the deliciousness of Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice.

I’m in a book club now so we vote each month on what we’ll read.  This month its Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and I’m still slogging through this hefty volume.  It’s OK.  The best book I’ve read in the past few months was The Sister’s Brothers by Patrick deWitt.  I have a Kindle now so it seems I can’t get through books fast enough.  There are so many I want to read and I can acquire them so quickly.  I do sometimes miss the feel and experience of real books, though.  So I pepper my book buying between purchasing real books and Kindle books.  

The after-Christmas sale at Bath & Body Works saw me buying a year’s supply of my favorite wallflowers in Sensual Amber.  This scent is really nice for the bedroom.  It smells like amber should; not foodie but almost an ambergris-amber.  I’m also still enjoying B&BWs Fresh Balsam candles (I should be still be enjoying them since I bought 12).  Fresh Balsam is an invigorating scent with excellent throw.  It does smell like Christmas but it also simply smells of a pine forest which works for me all through the winter months.

Previously a fan of Chobani and Siggi’s greek yogurt I’ve now converted to Trader Joe’s Vanilla Bean Nonfat Greek yogurt.  There are actual flecks of vanilla bean in this stuff.  It’s delicious.

Other fragrances I’ve been enjoying the past month or so are two entries from Parfums Divine: L’Inspiratrice and L’ame Soeur.  L’ame Soeur has recently been reformulated.  This latest, updated version of L’ame Soeur is less aldehydic than the original.  At first I wasn’t sure I liked it as much but now I’m gaga for it.  It’s rosier, brighter and more floral.  It’s still aldehydic and very close to the original but you can sniff the differences side-by-side.

I’ve also been enjoy the original FlowerbyKenzo.  I think folks about 10 years younger than me have always known about Kenzo Flower.  Somehow I wasn’t aware of it when it launched, or I vaguely remember trying it and not smelling much.  Lately I find it to be an easy-going powdery violet floral.  I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more often when people are looking for a nice violet entry.   It’s definitely not all about violet, but the overall feel is parma violets to me.

 For fans of SNL-type comedy you must watch Portlandia.  

Unlike last year, I haven’t enjoyed most of the films nominated for an Oscar.  I saw The Descendants last week and thought it was good; some great characters but nothing amazing.  The IMDb summary could be: rich white folks living in paradise still have some issues.

I’m going through a sun-dried tomato phase.  I buy the little dried bags at Trader Joe’s (no oil, just a bag of loose sun-dried tomatoes) and add them to everything.  You’d be surprised how sweet tomatoes can be.

Two fragrances I know I like but haven’t fallen head over heels for yet:  Mary Greenwell’s Plum and Tommi Sooni Tarantella.  Both are wonderfully classic and well-crafted offerings in a sea of mediocrity and while I like wearing them I’m just not getting verklempt about them (yet).  I would still highly recommend both to those who enjoy floral diet-chypres (Plum) and spicy, green chypres (Tarantella). 

Other favorite fragrances I've been wearing (and I feel like a broken record with these!) are Teo Cabanel Alahine, Canturi eau de parfum, Love, Chloe Eau Intense, Jo Malone Vanille & Anise and M. Micallef Gaiac.

Special Thanks to Elena of PerfumeShrine for organizing this joint project!  

Other participating blogs are as follows:

All I Am A Redhead

Waft by Carol

Katie Puckrik Smells

The Non Blonde

Under the Cupola

So, what's new with you dear reader?  What are you enjoying in perfume and many other arenas this winter? Do tell..... :)

Parfums Divine L'Inspiratrice: Perfume Review

I’ve noticed recently that several of my all-time favorite perfumes fall into a similar category as Parfums Divine L’Inspiratrice.  This category consists of fragrances which have a classical oriental structure but might initially seem boring, ordinary and definitely not groundbreaking.  Let me digress for a moment to say that I am so tired of the “groundbreaking” label. Groundbreaking is used in a manner that suggests anything which isn’t groundbreaking is derivative and not especially good.  I don’t care whether a fragrance is groundbreaking or not, I only care whether it smells amazing.  In fact, only about 2-3 of my very favorite fragrances would fit the “groundbreaking” label.

In any event, this seems a sort of defensive way to begin a review of Divine L’Inspiratrice, and perhaps I shouldn’t have begun in this manner because there are no defenses necessary in admitting just how much I love this gem from Parfums Divine.

L’Inspiratrice was created by Richard Ibanez and introduced six years ago in 2006.  A quick categorization of L’Inspiratrice would be that it’s a rose-patchouli-aldehyde scent but that would be almost a useless description of it.  When I think of rose-patchouli fragrances I imagine L’Artisan Voleur de Rose, Gucci L’Arte di Gucci, Teo Cabanel Oha, Frederic Malle Une Rose, Bond No. 9 West Side and so many others.  L’Inspiratrice isn’t nearly as rosy nor as earthy as most of the well-known perfumes in the rose-patchouli category.    Rose IS present and patchouli IS also present, especially at the start, but these two elements are not the only or most prominent members of the cast.  The most crucial part of understanding and enjoying L’Inspiratrice is to really wear it.   Spray L’Inspiratrice liberally on yourself, give it a good sniff, then come back and sniff it again in an hour.  The dry down of L’Inspiratrice is heaven.  

Angela over at Now Smell This made an interesting observation about Divine L’Inspiratrice.  Angela suggests that there really isn’t a base to L’Inspiratrice.  It’s as if the fragrance is exceedingly diffuse, hanging about me in a veil, without a grounding base.  This is something I love about the way L’Inspiratrice wears, it is the absolute definition of a veil-like scent; it’s all airy sillage, not dense, but wonderfully diffuse.  Not having a hefty base doesn’t mean it won’t stick around.  In fact, L’Inspiratrice sticks around at least 6 hours on me and the dry down is the best part.

L’Inspiratrice begins as a rose-patchouli scent but, as I’ve already mentioned, it isn’t especially rosy or heavy on earthy patchouli.  The rose is done with a light hand and it’s a warm, sweet rose.  The patchouli is also done with a light hand and this isn’t a heavy, earthy patchouli but instead an effervescent airy patchouli.  The heart of the fragrance builds into a sweeter floral-patchouli, that is recognizably a patchouli note but one I would think even patchouli-haters might enjoy.   The dry down becomes a soft musky tonka vanilla.  This is one of those fragrances where it seems downright silly trying to dissect its various notes because it is above all an abstract perfume and one which is more amazing than its list of notes could ever suggest.

Divine L’Inspiratrice is classic, refined, airy, diffuse and an outstanding patchouli creation.  

Official notes list: Rose, ylang-ylang, vanilla, tonka bean, vetiver, patchouli

Other reviews:

Perfume Smellin Things  

Fragrance Bouquet 

Savvy Thinker 

Legerdenez 

Lalique Le Parfum: A Review

 

I’ve been wearing Lalique Le Parfum occasionally for several years.  It’s interesting the way I’m noticing different facets of familiar fragrances these days.  Initially I thought Lalique Le Parfum was a beautiful, sweet vanilla-oriental, but slightly boring.  I still think of Lalique Le Parfum as a beautiful sweet vanilla-oriental but now I find it to be an unusual vanilla fragrance.  It’s a sweet vanilla scent with a striking twist which sets it apart from most other vanilla-orientals.  

The notes list is fairly helpful with this one.  I’ll post the notes here and then discuss further below

Top notes: bay leaf, bergamot and pink peppercorn
Middle notes: jasmine and heliotrope
Base notes: sandalwood, tonka bean, patchouli and vanilla

Lalique Le Parfum begins with a minty-pepper quality positioned atop a boozy whipped vanilla base.  The vanilla is so frothy and fluffy it makes me think of a down-stuffed pillow, filled with the finest white feathers but also the softest and most powdery marshmallows.  The minty and peppery top notes are slightly green and herbaceous and a wonderful contrast with the sweet fluff found beneath.  What I’ve decided after many years is that Lalique Le Parfum is unusual because it showcases a beautiful tension between two seemingly contrasting accords, the minty-pepper top over the sweet, fluffy base.  For me, the top notes stick around throughout and never leave the vanilla all by itself.   There is a touch of patchouli in the base, which I don’t think of as especially noticeable, but I know it’s there because it tempers the sweetness of the frothy vanilla and almondy heliotropin.

I normally can’t wear vanilla-centric fragrances so you know if I love this there must be something different about it.  Lalique Le Parfum is not an edible gourmand.  Even though I’ve described it as smelling like fluffy vanilla and marshmallows it’s still an abstract oriental and not a foodie creation.  Lalique Le Parfum makes me think of candy canes and powdery snow.  There’s a chilly effect and I imagine myself peering through a frosty window from the outside as a wintry wind swirls snowflakes around me as I gaze into an elegant dining room decorated in white and gold with a centerpiece made of peppermint candies. 

Dominique Ropion is the nose behind this wonderful fragrance.  It was released in 2005.  When it was first released it was expensive, but now it can be found for a fraction of it's retail price.

Other reviews of Lalique Le Parufm:

Bois de Jasmin

Perfume Smellin' Things

Kenzo Jungle L'Elephant: Perfume Review

About four years ago, Brian sent me a decant of Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant with the idea that I’d fall head over heels in love.  I tried it and I was confused.  Jungle L’Elephant wasn’t awful, but I just couldn’t understand this fragrance in the least.  This doesn’t happen to me often.  In fact, I think this is the first time I ever experienced a fragrance in an entirely new way several years later.  The first several tries (and I definitely tried this stuff at least a half dozen times) on skin I found it to be oddly fuzzy, blurry, almost hazy and wiggly.  I remember it tickled my nose and made it feel twitchy.  Jungle L’Elephant seemed a little gamey and very, very murky.  I could never get past this furry murkiness to evaluate the fragrance.  Back then, I thought this strange sensation was the sum total of the fragrance and I just didn’t get it.  I never disliked it; I just found it to be an unusual olfactory experience.  So many reviews described Jungle L’Elephant as spicy, cozy and wonderful but I just felt left out of all the fun.

Fast forward almost 4 years to Monday of this week. Orders for The Posh Peasant were being filled by my part-time helper as I walked into the room.  The air was filled with this amazing smell. I stopped in my tracks.  Normally, I can identify what has been sprayed fairly accurately.  I’m familiar with almost every fragrance we have in stock.  But this…this amazing smell…was completely new to me.  It was spicy and warm but not foodie.  The aroma lingering in the air wasn’t dense but diffuse, it was clearly an oriental with gorgeous spice notes but not one I was familiar with.  At that moment, if I had to guess I would have suggested it was something like Amouage Epic…but without certainty.  I knew this totally new-to-me perfume was something spicy and slightly sweet but very unusual.  I considered maybe it was something new that I hadn't smelled yet.  Finally I just asked what it was that had just been sprayed and was told “Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant.”  I was shocked.

So now that I had smelled Jungle L’Elephant in the air, not concentrated on my skin, I was able to smell the spicy cinnamon-clove-fruity goodness that everyone else had been enjoying all these years.  It was as if I was only able to smell the table of contents in the past and never engage with the main story.   It was amazing.  This unknown scent lingering in the air was something I had been longing for, for quite some time.  I’ve always wanted an oriental gourmand which is spicy and cozy, potent yet not headache-inducing, gourmand but not edible/foodie and most of all, Abstract.  Jungle L’Elephant has recognizable spices like cinnamon, clove, cumin and cardamom with some unrecognizable fruity sweetness (if I had to guess I’d say the fruity quality smelled slightly of raisin) all set against this very furry cashmeran-type backdrop giving it an overall abstract style instead of smelling like any of these particular notes.   

Two similar fragrances are Serge Lutens Feminite de Bois and Dior Dolce Vita.  I’ve never been a fan of Feminite de Bois, it’s always registered as stewed fruits over too-much cedar on me.  I have enjoyed Dolce Vita in the past.  A former colleague of mine wore Dolce Vita in the late 90’s and it smelled stunning on her.  The difference is that Dolce Vita has a much stronger white floral quality while Jungle L’Elephant doesn’t have anything recognizably floral to me.

The perfumer behind this abstract spicy gem called Jungle L’Elephant is Dominique Ropion.  Ropion is one of my absolute favorite perfumers since he created some of my (nostalgic) 90’s favorites, Givenchy Amarige and Ysatis as well as my favorite tuberose, Frederic Malle Carnal Flower and a mid-2000’s favorite which nobody talks about these days, Lalique Le Parfum.  Now that I’m IN LOVE with Jungle L’Elephant I’m wondering if there’s also a chance for me to love Frederic Malle Une Fleur de Cassie.  Une Fleur de Cassie is another Ropion creation I’ve never understood.  Similar to Jungle L’Elephant, Une Fleur de Cassie also has a blurry/murky/furry/fuzzy quality I just can’t get past.  Perhaps I ought to have someone spray Une Fleur de Cassie in the air so I can smell its aroma, diffusely about the room?  Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady, another Ropion creation, also has a similar furry/blurry quality…hmmm…I’m seeing a pattern here.

In sum, it took 4 years but I am smitten with Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant.  It is gorgeous and I will never be without it. Others have found Jungle L’Elephant to be overly strong.  Maybe I have fume-eating-skin but I don’t find it to be terribly strong at all.  It’s potent for the first 30 minutes but after that it mellows and doesn’t have mega-watt sillage.  I only need 2 sprays, but it ain’t no Angel on me.

Top notes: Mandarin, Cardamom, Cumin, Clove
Middle notes: Ylang-Ylang, Licorice, Mango, Heliotrope
Base notes : Patchouli, Vanilla, Amber, Cashmeran

As far as it’s having been discontinued, I can still see it on the Kenzo USA website, so all is not lost (yet).

Other reviews (here are 5, but there are many more reviews of Jungle L’Elephant):

The Non-Blonde

Perfume Posse

Brian’s review here on ISTIA

Eiderdown Press

Sorcery of Scent