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?

Tom Ford Violet Blonde

Earlier this week, in anticipation of Tom Ford Violet Blonde’s arrival at my house, I was familiarizing myself with my violet collection.  Among the other violets I already enjoy I came away professing my love for Norma Kamali Violette, which is something you should try if you’ve been looking for a nice violet floral.  

But now Violet Blonde is here and I’ve been sniffing it all day.  I've read many other reviews and find my impression to be pretty much in the same vein as everyone else.  I do find there to be a formality to Violet Blonde.  It’s hard to explain why a fragrance smells formal as opposed to casual but I’ll try by telling you that Violet Blonde seems restrained and subtle and I think this is mostly due to the iris note.  I imagine it could have been far less restrained, and more overtly sexy or daring such as Tom Ford’s other darling; Black Orchid.  Instead, Violet Blonde follows in the stylized footsteps of White Patchouli for me.

Violet Blonde (VB) seems at first to be all about violets but once it dries down I think it becomes an iris-jasmine fragrance.  The iris-jasmine combination is still confined to an overall violet-prominent fragrance but these notes are what keep Violet Blonde cool, not-very-sweet, and adult (by adult I mean refined and formal).   Many violet fragrances have a somewhat childish quality, something you might find appropriate for a 13 year old flower girl at a wedding.  Tom Ford’s Violet Blonde is a fragrance for a chic and elegant adult.

Others have considered Violet Blonde to be a potent fragrance.  I find it just about right, if not a wee bit too subtle.  There’s a cool streak in Violet Blonde, a slightly twangy metallic vibe that runs throughout.  This slightly reminds me of Balenciaga L’Essence for a moment or two.  Then in the very far dry down VB exhibits a warmer suede aspect, not dissimilar from Serge Lutens Daim Blond or the suede quality to Bottega Veneta.

I was very excited for Violet Blonde’s arrival.  In sum, I like it very much, but I’m just not sure yet that I love it.  I’m breaking one of my rules which is to wear a fragrance 2-3 full days before reviewing; maybe this is why I’m not sure if I love it yet.  Violet Blonde is certainly a wonderful violet fragrance for someone who doesn’t normally like the available violet scents; and especially for someone who finds most other violet scents to be overly sweet, cloying, powdery and plastic-y.  Violet Blonde is only slightly powdery and I think this depends on how you interpret the iris note.  On me, the iris note is cool and metallic, on others the iris might come off powdery.

Official noes: Italian mandarin, pink pepper, violet leaf, Iris absolute, orris concrete, jasmine sambac, Vetiver, musk, Virginia cedar, benzoin, suede accord

My question: would it have been a crime to put Violet Blonde in a purple bottle (a la Sensuous Noir)?  The above photo makes the bottle look purple but that's only because it's against purple flowers.  It is actually a clear bottle with yellow/gold juice.

PS: I keep typing Violent  Blonde and spell check doesn't pick this up as "violent" is, of course, a word!

Norma Kamali Violette: A true violet floral

Violets have been on my mind the past few months.  This summer when I couldn’t wear much of anything due to the heat and humidity, I turned to Annick Goutal La Violette quite a bit.  It was either the weather or the simple fact that I love Goutal’s La Violette so much. The Goutal Violette is perfectly powdery, but not plasticky, and it smells like true violets with a hint of green and a dash of anise.  I’ve had a long struggle with violet fragrances over the years.  I still haven’t found one, aside from the Goutal Violette, that I really think is The One.  The new Tom Ford Violet Blonde is one its way to me, tracking number says it should arrive by the end of this week, so I’m revisiting all my violet scents in an effort to make comparisons once the Tom Ford arrives.  While sniffing around my ‘violet cabinet’ I found Norma Kamali Violette and I can’t imagine what my problem has been all this time, because the Kamali Violette is really great and I should have written about it, or at least been wearing it more often.

Norma Kamali Violette opens purple.  It smells like purple floral syrup.  It starts off heavier than it ends; I’d classify NK Violette as a light-medium weight fragrance by the time it dries down.   I think what I have been looking for all this time is a violet that smells of violet flowers most prominently, with less green than say Penhaligon’s Violetta, and much less powder than say Guerlain Meteorites and a bit more oomph, less delicacy than Goutal’s Violette.  It sounds like I’m describing Guerlain’s Insolence in edp, but that one, while extremely violet-y, ends up a bold fruity floral and not so much a violet soliflore on me (I do love Insolence edp, though). NK Violette is strongly about violet florals with less green and less powder than most other violet scents.    NK Violette is also much less candied and doesn’t remind me of violet flavored candy treats.  NK Violette dries down to a more subtle scent than the big purple syrup opening.  Once it settles in, it becomes a cool, dry violet; a complete violet floral, with hardly any green or earthiness.   This is all about the flower.  And it’s very well done; it stays true to the scent all the way to dry down and many hours thereafter.

TWRT 10.7.11

This Week’s Random Thoughts~

I am a total loser because I’m really excited about all the new fall shows and, of course, the returning shows I love.

Fragrance, this week, was all about Canturi and Alahine.  The weather is now becoming “fall like” but fall in The South is a totally new experience.  Daytime temps under 80 and nighttime temps in the 60s are what makes a nice autumn day here.  It’s quite nice actually but takes some getting used to.  

Honeycrisp apples are out of this world delicious.

Congratulations to Brian and Andy Tauer for the launch of Miriam at Lucky Scent this week!

I’ve started tweeting.  It’s only been a few weeks but I think so far I like Twitter more than Facebook (FB, truth be told, I really can’t stand).  I’m @AbigailLevin on Twitter.  I don’t tweet anything particularly insightful…I just check in a few times per day to see what the world is up to.

I am obsessed with Downton Abbey.  

For 3 days I thought I adored Cartier Baiser Vole.  Then, on the fourth day I had the Octavian experience, where the scent just falls apart after two hours and becomes a musky clean hygiene product.  The day it fell apart really bummed me out, because I had been enjoying it so much.  It might have something to do with wearing it on clothing/fabric as opposed to skin.  At first I was only wearing it on skin and it was wondrous but very short lived.  I switched to spraying it on my clothing because it lasts much longer that way.  But…alas…on fabric it breaks down into a really generic synthetic musk.  The lily fragrance, either way, is still beautiful for the first hour.

Food item of the week:  Deviled Eggs.  Tabasco sauce, pepper and garlic salt are key.

I am forcing myself to not feel shame over this, but I love Estee Lauder Sensuous Nude.  I know both Brian and I have said you can’t have too few skin scents.  I still feel this way.  But if I’m going to have at least one skin scent let it be Estee Lauder Sensuous Nude.  I’m in love with this stuff.  Sensuous Nude is a slightly powdery, musky, softly fruity scent with a touch of Bronze Goddess and a hint of salt.  I like Nude better than original Sensuous and Sensuous Noir.

I cannot wait to receive Love, Chloe Eau Intense.  I’m also optimistically awaiting Tom Ford Violet Blonde.  I have sampled Violet Blonde and it might be a good violet for me.  I am always looking for The One violet that’s just perfect.  I do enjoy Annick Goutal La Violette (love it, but it’s usually a bit too subtle) and I also love Guerlain Insolence edp (but this can be a bit too much) so I’m hoping that the Tom Ford will be just right.

I saw the movie 50/50 last weekend and it was surprisingly good.  I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (especially enjoyed him in Hesher) but I don’t usually like Seth Rogen.  

Oh, and I saw Drive a few weeks back and feel like the only person who hated it.  I thought it was incredibly boring.  Yes, Ryan Gosling is easy on the eyes, but that doesn’t get me through an entire movie when what I would have preferred do was pull out a pen and write a to do list instead of watch it.

October always makes me miss Boston.

Canturi eau de parfum

I listed Canturi eau de parfum as one of my favorite releases in 2010 then I didn’t write much of anything about it.  Now that fall weather has finally arrived in my geographic region I’ve been able to pull out some of my old friends again. I can’t even tell you how thrilling it’s been reuniting with Canturi.  My dear readers, you must understand, I’ve been living in 95+ degree weather (olfactory hell) for the past three months which means I’ve hardly worn perfume at all and if I was able to muster the strength to spray something it was more along the lines of a refreshing tonic than anything resembling real perfume.  We broke records this year in my state; this was the first time since 1945 that we experienced 90 consecutive days of 95+ degree heat.  Seriously.  Records were broken the year I arrived.  Joy.

Canturi is an Australian jeweler, known for bold geometric designs.  Canturi eau de parfum was created by Kevin Verspoor and presented as a modern interpretation of classic oriental and chypre perfumes.  For once I think this fragrance gets pretty close to its description as a “modern oriental and chypre perfume.”  It’s a woody oriental for sure, with a wonderfully classic structure similar to Opium or Coco but without all the old fashioned attributes that make those scents unwearable for me in 2011. Well, maybe I could wear Coco these days, but if I were in the mood to wear Coco I’d rather wear Canturi.

Canturi is dry.  It’s dry, spicy and incense-y yet remains reserved and subtle, not a powerhouse.  Canturi is only a little more potent than Chanel 31 Rue Cambon and shares a seat at the table of dry, multi-layered oriental/chypres.  I’m always reminded of plum sake when I first spritz Canturi.  The plum wine fades into a gauzy, soft-focus oriental without any of the specific floral notes sticking out.  I’d go so far as to say I don’t even smell anything identifiably floral here, it’s all airy spices. I love this lack of density, the way it billows around me, detectable with some sillage but far from heavy or sweet.   

If you like classic orientals and chypres, but prefer them reserved, then Canturi is worth trying.  It’s my favorite modern oriental, second only to Alahine.   And if you like the scent, the bottle will be icing on the cake.

Canturi’s notes are listed as:  Calabrian bergamot, mandarin leaf, neroli, Damask rose, night blooming jasmine, Florentine iris, lily of the valley, patchouli, amber, musk, vetiver, Tahitian vanilla, red cedar and oak moss  (and it really does smell like there's oakmoss in here)

Another review of Caturi: Eiderdown Press

Agent Provocateur Strip

Brian surprised me with AP Strip as a gift.  I had never heard of it and had no idea what the notes were or how it was described in the ad copy.  I love blind smells like this.

Strip launched in 2007 as a limited edition.  The limited edition part is what is so unfortunate.  Many consider the original Agent Provocateur to be their best fragrance but I think Strip is easily the best from this brand.  After I read the notes list I started to smell Strip quite differently.  See how marketing shapes our impressions…how that little notes list makes you smell things you never might have smelled before?  Anyway, the listed notes are Ylang Ylang, Iris Bud, Geranium Bourbon, with Amber, Vetiver, Exotic Woods and Musks.  It’s so interesting, how clearly I smell geranium…and ylang ylang at the start after knowing the notes list.  But now that I’ve been smelling Strip so closely, it’s become a real kaleidoscope of a scent for me.  Now I smell a boozy not-especially-sweet vanilla atop fresh loose tobacco.  What I originally thought was a nice and likeable powdery amber has become a fascinating floral amber tobacco.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been having difficulty with all my ambery orientals lately.  I have a ton of ambers and suddenly they all smell so awfuly musty I can’t wear them.  Histoires de Parfums Ambre 114 is musty.  Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Ambre Precieux is musty.  Annick Goutal Ambre Fetiche is musty.  Dior Ambre Nuit is musty, musty, musty.  This is driving me crazy and I’m hoping it’s a phase which will pass quickly!  But, thankfully, Agent Provocateur Strip isn’t musty and I’ve been able to wear it, with pleasure.

Agent Provocateur Strip has a decent amount of sillage and its longevity is good, about 6 hours on me.  Since I never saw the ad copy from Agent Provocateur I’ve made up my own image of what this scent is all about.  Strip isn’t some sleazy, overly sweet stripper body spray.  In its first 20 minutes Strip unfolds with citrusy geranium, ylang ylang and boozy vanillic rum.  Once Strip dries down a fresh tobacco accord emerges atop a non-musty and dry woody amber base.  Strip has a wonderful quality of being a bit boozy and a touch sweet yet stays an overall dry fragrance.  Strip is really wonderful.  Sometimes, mostly when I’m smelling it from afar or the next day on my clothes, I smell the powdery amber-patchouli scent I smelled the very first day I opened it from the box.   But most of the time, when it’s freshly applied or when I’m sniffing it up close I smell a dry boozy tobacco-wood-amber scent that is just fantastic.  Agent Provocateur Strip is both cozy and interesting.  Brian done good.

Coming clean with myself

I realized yesterday that I dislike Bond No. 9 Chinatown.  This is after years of thinking I loved it and that it was among Bond’s best offerings.  Oddly, I still think it’s a neat perfume on others, and I still think it’s among Bond’s bests, but on me it reeks of waxy crayons.  I picture red and purple crayons.  Melted.

This got me thinking about all the other perfumes I've professed my love for when in fact I’ve finally admitted to myself I dislike.  The “admittance to myself” is the key point.  I haven’t gone around pretending to like these perfumes for anyone elses' sake but my own.  I talked myself into liking them.  Many for years.  I’m unsure why.  I’m not the type of person who routinely pretends to enjoy perfumes she doesn’t.   I don’t think I’ve ever pretended I like Chanel No. 5 or Apres L’Ondee; because I’ve known from the start I would never wear either.  I also don’t think this is a case of my taste changing over time.  My taste has changed over time.  I’m experiencing a period right now where I dislike almost all of my ambery perfumes; everything ambery smells musty to me.  But this is a sudden change, and I think (hope) it’s temporary.  There are plenty of fragrances I’ve disliked over the years, but these aren’t the ones I forced myself to like, thinking that I truly liked them.

In addition to Chinatown, here are a few more I’m finally admitting I just don’t like:

Guerlain Shalimar.  Oh, I’m sure I’ve said I love Shalimar a hundred times.  I even wrote a post about how great it is on this blog.  But you know what?  I think it smells like vomit.  On me at least.  And I don’t like it. 

Histoires de Parfums Tubereuse 3 L’Animale: is another one I think smells waxy and also fatty.  I hate it.  This is beginning to feel cathartic.

Hermes Caleche:  Caleche’s sharp aldehydes shriek at such a high pitch on me it almost always gives me a headache.   I’ve worn an entire bottle in my lifetime.  No more.

Serge Lutens Chergui:  another one I’ve worn an entire bottle’s worth and sung its praises.  It’s been awhile now since I’ve worn it and there’s a reason for that; it makes me nauseous.  It’s too sweet and contains that honey note I don’t enjoy. 

So there, I’ve done it, I’ve listed five perfumes I’ve forced myself to like for a long time.  But I don’t like them, and I won’t wear them ever again.   Do you have any fragrances which you’ve openly said you liked, perhaps favorably reviewed or worn many times, only to finally admit to yourself that you just don’t like the stuff?

Red Flag

Colors de Benetton 1987

It's probably unfair to review this one, as the liquid currently sold under the name doesn't much remind me of the original version, a bottle of which I was lucky enough to find at a discount store.  But the old Colors is such a great fragrance, especially for autumn, and so curiously forgotten, that I can't resist.

At one point, Benetton was, along with Esprit, an interesting anomaly at the mall.  The windows of the store popped with primary color in an otherwise boring beige granite landscape, and the ads, early on, were an energetic antidote to the unconscious xenophobia of my midwestern upbringing.  Say what you will about those ads - eventually, they were a logical point of contention for many: they were virtually the only thing in Vogue, short of Naomi Campbell, pointing toward a more diverse cultural color palette.

The clothes never thrilled me much.  I was shopping at thrift stores - looking for that perfect hue of sixties ochre or pea green - diametrical opposites of the bright greens and yellows at Benetton.  And until I found this bottle of Colors recently, I'd forgotten the fragrance myself.  Yet, smelling it now, all kinds of memories come back.  I was surprised it was so familiar, and it occurred to me that many girls I knew back in high school must have worn it, though it had a lot of competition.

That competition, in my neck of the woods, was roughly as follows:  Loulou, Anne Klein, Bijan, Calyx, Camp Beverly Hills, Coco, Beautiful, Creation, Joop, Obsession, Poison, Sung, and Ysatis.

Many of these are still in production, and continue to move the units at breakneck speed, and it could be argued that they've survived so centrally in the marketplace because they were more memorable to begin with.  I don't have the data to support or dispute that, aside from pointing out that Calvin Klein and Givenchy have a bit more corporate muscle than a pint-sized Italian upstart, however daring its approach.  I could also argue that few fragrances could have survived the onslaught, the following year, of the cultural behemoth known as Eternity, which seemed to shift everything - the way women wanted to smell, the way they wanted to come across, the way they wanted to live, etc.   In short, they wanted to live in a fantasy world that looked like the Eternity ad campaign.

But for me Colors has something none of its competition did.  One of the earlier forays into fruity floral, it was piquant in a way you didn't typically find at the fragrance counter.  Those early fruity floral touches were nothing like their modern spawn.  They didn't feel like bubblegum disguised as a fragrance, and they integrated their fruity elements more judiciously - in a way which felt more in keeping with the classical fragrances you were used to.

Colors is a curious medley of these fruitier notes (pineapple, peach), herbal touches, well blended florals (the notes list tuberose and jasmine but I wouldn't have been able to name them without looking), and oriental mainstays (patchouli, civet, oakmoss, opoponax).  You notice the peach and pineapple first, but rather than the syrupy compote you get in the modern fruity floral, Colors presents them more delicately, augmented with sage, vanilla, and the slightest hint of civet.  It's hard to imagine a fruity floral of today with civet, or patchouli which isn't scrubbed clean of anything making it recognizable as such.  A tricky combination, but Colors shows how well it used to be pulled off.  That peachy softness lasts for quite a while before the fragrance descends into its heart of muted vanilla and orange blossom.

Colors is a strong, long lasting fragrance, but a mellow wear.  It's classified as an oriental, not a fruity floral, in fact, and the use of vanilla and orange blossom (both of which I smell right down to the bottom) give it an overall creaminess which comes closer to LouLou and Ysatis than any of its other competitors.  It feels younger than the latter; a little older maybe than the former.  It's miles away from the powerhouses of its time - Poison being a good example - and I wouldn't say it's as strong as many of the louder fragrances currently front and center at the mall.

It was created by Bernard Ellena, who did another little one-time sleeper for Benetton called Tribu.

Chanel 31 Rue Cambon

Chanel calls 31 Rue Cambon a chypre - sans oakmoss - and for a while I couldn't really see it.  The fragrance is rich and gorgeous, for sure, and somewhat old school in character, but it lacks that earthy, vaguely animalic bitterness I associate with the chypre accord.  Many "modern chypres" lack that, leaving me to wonder what exactly a word is worth if, eventually, it can be used to mean practically anything.  I understand that oakmoss is now restricted, but many of the so called chypres on the market these days don't seem to capture the essence of what a chypre is meant to be, oakmoss or no.  31 Rue Cambon seemed much zingier to me than any chypre that came to mind, and while not exactly as far removed from the term as a fragrance like the strawberry-saturated Miss Dior Cherie, it seemed closer to something like Allure (oriental - floral) than, say, Cabochard or Knowing.

Until today.  Recently, a friend found a vintage bottle of Mitsouko in a local antique store.  The Baccarat bottle is the nicest I've ever seen - blockish and curvy in all the right places - and the juice (I believe it's eau de toilette concentration) is a lot deeper than the present formulation, but it dries down to essentially the same thing, and because I've been smelling it a lot lately, and happened to revisit 31 Rue Cambon in the meantime, I saw similarities I hadn't before.

For me, 31 Rue Cambon sits somewhere between the floral vanilla of Allure and the deep golden hues of Mitsouko.  It's a bright fragrance, so shimmering at first, and really for a while, that it was hard for me to classify in any useful way.  Where Mitsouko is somewhat like sunshine through a pane of amber glass, 31 Rue Cambon is like sunlight hitting the beige upholstery of a sublimely cosy couch.  It's well blended, and more than anything it simply smells like "Chanel" to me.  That's part of its draw for me - its ability to evoke a world and a sensibility you can see and feel but can't pin on any one thing in that universe.  I don't get specific florals, or woods, or the bergamot I'm sure must be there.  I get "Chanel" - and unfortunately I can't tell you exactly what that is.  Pyramids are useful where words fail, I guess, and I could tell you what is said to be in 31 Rue Cambon - pepper, floral notes, chypre accords, iris - but the fragrance is more about associations to me.

It's as if the brief for 31 Rue Cambon were simply "Elegance".  I love many Chanel fragrances - particularly Cuir de Russie, No. 19, No. 22, Coco, and Coromandel - but none, not even the house's most iconic scent, No. 5, really seems to conjure the spirit of the woman behind the house and all the legends and details that coalesce in her biographies in any comprehensive way.  It's fitting that 31 Rue Cambon is named after Coco Chanel's famous address, at which were constellated her apartment, her design studio, her workshops, and the line's haute couture salon and boutique.  All the other Chanel fragrances pinpoint for me one or two aspects of the Chanel persona and mythology, but 31 Rue Cambon seems to take in the whole legend, playing out on the skin like a greatest hits anthology.

Which isn't to say it lacks focus.  31 is in fact an incredible distillation of a pretty complicated series of impressions about Chanel, the house and the woman, apocryphal and otherwise, and it might be best to think of it like one of the iconic photos depicting Chanel sitting in one of the address's rooms, her stare and her surroundings inviting projections about luxury, beauty, and the past.  31 lasts reasonably well, though it drifts sooner than later into a soft, powdery, floral melange, and rides things out from there, fading like a memory.

The photo above was taken on the set of the film made by Karl Lagerfeld in Chanel's former apartment at 31 Rue Cambon, and feels to me like the fragrance, a reconstruction based on iconic motifs, shapes, colors and silhouettes.