TWRT 1.28.11

This Week's Random Thoughts ~

It’s been a long time since I’ve TWRTed (sounds like one of those icky bodily function words like Snart) but I have a few spare moments today so I figured I’d bless ya’ll with my random musings :-)

Losing Religion: When You Stop Smelling Jesus and Start Smelling a Rat

Reading reviews on selections from the Cartier Les Heures de Parfum line this morning over at Bois de Jasmin really got me thinking. In case you didn't read it, the post began:

"The deterioration of perfume's luxury status has resulted in some new marketing strategies on the part of high-end brands. The most obvious one has been to create niche lines within the main range that are distinguished from their commercial offerings both by the elaborate nature of packaging and the impressive prices."

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

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

Vent Vert Bottle Winner

Tally is the proud winner of a one ounce bottle of Vent Vert. She just has to claim it. Tally, please get in touch with us by email.

From "The Last Days of Brittany Murphy": The Hollywood Reporter, January 19, 2011

"Simon joked that his wife's bathroom was 'her comfort zone.' He called it the 'Brittany-sized room,' reflecting her diminutive 5-foot-2 stature, and recalled how she spent hours sampling the cosmetics and perfumes that crowded every inch of counter space, critically studying her body image, sometimes singing to herself or writing bits of poetry in a journal, listening to music or paging through magazines from which she would tear out pages with clothes she just had to have."

(the picture above is from a 2009 cheapchicdaily.blogspot.com feature on celebrities and collecting, in which Murphy said she grew up "flea-marketing" and had been collecting vintage perfume bottles over the years. )

Skank You Very Much: Francis Kurkdjian's Absolue Pour le Soir

I wasn't a major fan of the earliest offerings from Maison Kurkdjian. I liked them. I didn't love them with a 175 dollar passion. I didn't love them as much as the big-bosomed SA at Saks, who seemed to have taken some manager's admonition to sell "racks" a little too literally. Even her effervescent, busty personality couldn't persuade me to shell out for the scented bubbles Kurkdjian had on display. Like many people, I think bubbles are a nifty idea. I've blown my share of them. Some of the novelty wears off when you price them as luxury items.

I've been waiting for a Kurkdjian I can really get behind. I knew it would show up eventually. Absolue Pour le Soir is one of those fragrances I'm a total sucker for.

Going Out Without Your Underwear On: A Conversation with Nancy

I've known Nancy for about twenty years, I suppose. We lived in New York at the same time. We lived in the same apartment for a while, as well. She's very tight with another friend, D, which is how I met her in the first place.

It's only in the last year or two I discovered Nancy likes fragrance as much as I do. Nancy is a fantastic artist. She has a unique sense of style and a strongly individual way of looking out at things. I remember her entrances, because she typically brought a new energy into the room. Her arrival always introduced an element of the unexpected. She never says what you would expect her to. She's not coming at the thing from that angle. It's not an affectation with her. It's not as if she's trying to be "interesting". She's simply looking for what's interesting in any given thing, and so she lifts it and scrutinizes it where no one else is scrutinizing.

Nancy is what I think of as a Great Beauty. Not all attractive women or even very attractive women fall into that category. For me, a Great Beauty implies style, usually unusual, meaning the person in question is not just stylish but somewhat stylized. Someone who puts thought into presentation. Self, image, as an art. Capucine was a Great Beauty. Greta Garbo. Alida Vali (remember her?) Marlene Dietrich was a Great Beauty. Grace Kelly was not. Nor is, to use a more contemporary example, Nicole Kidman. There's something otherworldly about ladies like this. They're like no one else, so they seem to come from another period.

For a Great Beauty, perfume is part of the picture. It advances the style. The clothes, the manner, the "look": these all express and coalesce the style as well, but they don't manifest it in the air the way fragrance alone can. Very few people talk about perfume as style, but when I think of Nancy and her use of perfume I imagine it as something like a fantastically dressed--inimitably dressed--woman. I've been curious to chat with her about perfume, just to see what she's wearing lately and what she thinks when she scrutinizes the stuff.

A Dab Will Do Ya

Marilyn Monroe applies perfume:

Balmain Vent Vert: Thoughts and Older Version Bottle Giveaway

Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum

Watching youtube videos last week really stumped me.

There are what seem like thousands of tween girls reviewing their favorite perfumes online, if not their entire perfume collections. I'm in love with all of them--and addicted to watching them. It made me think about recent comments made by more seasoned bloggers alluding to the idea that there are way too many people blogging about perfume. It's just too noisy, they seem to be saying. It's just too messy. Obviously, these bloggers haven't sullied themselves by visiting youtube much in recent years. Bloggers don't stand a chance in that thicket.

It's amazing to see how many people out there love perfume, and want to share it with you. I appreciate what they do--how earnestly they approach the subject. Some of these girls have made me a fan. They bring you right into their rooms and break it all down for you--whether it's Britney Spears Curious or Donna Karan Signature. Far from making me feel threatened, their enthusiasm and ubiquity have paralyzed me with admiration. You don't hear much talk from them about the perfumers behind the perfumes they love. You don't hear much about their pyramids, provenance, the fragrance industry, sales figures, or ad campaigns. Typically, these aren't technically reviews. On a basic level, they're purely personal--this is what I like and why--so personal that you realize nothing else ultimately counts for much. These girls state the case so effortlessly, some of them, with so little guile or fuss, and so much personality, and here I am, plugging away at this post about...

Oh yes: Paloma Picasso.