You Know You're a Perfume Addict When...

Inspired by a hilariously funny post on Perfume of Life forum ~

You use the phrase “to my nose” on a daily basis

You know the difference between, edp, edt, extrait, elixir, pure parfum, etc.

You can easily convert ml to oz, drams to ml and back again. In fact, these conversion sites are bookmarked.

Your emails and forum posts are peppered with: SL, FM, CdG, L’A, EL, POTL, AG, KM, YSL, AL, DSH, FBW, HG, LS, BH, etc.

You know a scrubber is a very bad thing

Decant, swap and split are words you use nearly daily

You understand these acronyms and think it’s completely normal: SOTM, SOTD and SOTE

You know Unsniffed purchasing is dangerous territory but you do it anyway and try not to admit it

The names Ellena, Roudnitska, Grojsman, Lutens, Sheldrake, Ropion, Goutal hold every bit as much meaning (if not more) than Obama, McCain or Palin

You purchase back up bottles of perfumes you fear will be discontinued (dc)

You have an unusually friendly and first-name-basis relationship with your mail carrier and clerks at local post office

You know the latest fragrance releases, even before sales associates do, and you know so much more than the SA’s, yet you try to be polite and listen with patience

Friends and family members hide when you come at them with your wrist saying “smell this”

You buy perfumes you don't even like or would never actually wear because they are "classics" or "you might want to have as a point of reference"

You sniff your wrists or the crook of your arm countless times each day, others might think you have an unfortunate tick.

You always apply a few quick spritzes before bed. If you forget, you bounce right back up and get your fix.

As soon as you find out a friend is going overseas, you begin the list

You’re wary of trying limited editions in case you fall in love

The Me Newsletter, aka "Why I'm So Important and Everything I Say Is Something You Should Hear" Volume 12, Issue 3

Dearest Reader,

Well, well, well--and what a busy week it's been.

Several days ago, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez did an interview with the Guardian, during which--hold on to your hats--Mr. Turin slammed yours truly--AND whippets, for (I guess) good measure. Being the proud owner of a poor, defenseless whippet, and knowing, as I do, that these animals are closer to humans than most of the people you will be subjected to on a daily basis, this offended me deeply. I looked at my little whippet, Mimi Layla Beauregard III, and felt as if she'd been molested somehow, as if all the little Mimi Layla's out there had been held down and taken advantage of, right out in the open, for the whole world to see.

Naturally, it's my duty to get my feelings about this out of the way, right off the bat, before I move on to other, more pressing issues. I knew you would be waiting to hear from me on this, so I have dilly-dallied not. Naturally, I find Mr. Turin's insensitivity appalling--but this wasn't his only offense. He also called my favorite fragrance ever, my signature scent, "slutty". So, I take it, I am a whore--and Mimi Layla Beauregard III, a shivering pansy. Perhaps we are both whores and live in sin, shivering in our sluttish perfume. I don't think it's right to run around calling other people sluts. Certainly not Mimi Layla, who was neutered at six months, may God forgive me.

I think Mr. Turin should think before he speaks. I think he should spend an afternoon in Mimi Layla Beauregard III's shoes before he goes around making blanket statements about one of nature's loveliest, most precious blessings. Clearly, he likes to push buttons. Clearly, he has never known the joy of waking to the angelic face, sleek and still--not shivering, no--of the whippet. If ever a whippet does shiver I can assure you it's due to some cruel, vicious, careless, tossed-off slander such as this. I assure you, Mr. Turin is not the first to denigrate this lovely creature's good name. I can also tell you I won't be the first slut to stop buying his books.

Speaking of sluts, I urge you to join me in boycotting Estee Lauder. Have you noticed that the models in their Sensuous ads seem to be naked under those large white shirts--and whose shirts are they, after all? I'm appalled at Estee Lauder, for stooping to this. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, so pure and blonde, has joined in, stripping off her pants and underthings to shill this perfume. Like you, I have standards, reader. I don't go around flashing people willy nilly. I don't sleep in just any man's bed and if I did I certainly wouldn't borrow his shirt in the morning. I'm a liberated woman, thank you. I have my own shirts. I am not some sensuous slut, despite what some seem to think. My mother taught me better than that, and I expect yours did too. I'm ashamed and embarrassed for Blythe Danner, Gwyneth's mother, who seems so sweet and caring. I'm ashamed for any woman with a mother. To be so defenseless, walking in to the mall, confronted immediately with a bevy of panty-less marauders. I very nearly collided with a rack of costume jewelry. I rushed right home to tell you all about it.

That reminds me. Next month, I will be inaugurating a new feature. I will choose a topic I suspect people would most like to hear me hold forth on, and I will hold forth on it at length. One burning issue I sense people would like me to address is: what do I, your faithful memoirist, tend to think about most. Another: the carelessness of others when it comes to wearing perfume in public. I, like you, believe people should be seen, not smelled. Why should I be reminded constantly of their presence? I have a lot going on. I have a lot to think about. And when I'm done thinking, I'm dedicated to reporting back to you. From this, I will not be distracted.

Not everyone feels this way, as you know. Not everyone is considerate or thoughtful or thinks of the rest of the world when applying her perfume in the morning or before an evening out--though I don't go out, myself, because Mimi Layla Beauregard wishes to be read to at night from her favorite book, Good Thoughts and The People Who Think Them: My Story, In My Own Words, As I Lived It, Told by Me, and I am not one to fall short on my commitments.

Some women douse themselves, is what I'm getting to. Some women think about nothing but themselves. Pathologically incapable of considering the thoughts and feelings of others, they virtually bathe in perfume, and by perfume I don't mean the kind you and I wear. I mean the kind of perfume the average whore out on the street would wear, so that men driving by at modest speeds might be lured in their direction and encouraged to commit lascivious acts involving broom handles and phone books and cell phones and I shiver to think what else. I'm talking about the kind of perfume that speaks in capital letters, drawing attention to itself.

For weeks I've dwelt on this issue, because I know how important it is to you, dear reader, that I think of you constantly and consider at all times what you would want me to discuss. I can tell you, I won't hold back when it comes to this topic. If women insist on wearing that kind of perfume, and wearing it that loudly, then I will spare them nothing. I will make my feelings known. I know you would want me to, and I don't blame you. I understand just how you feel. Something should be said or done to these women so they will know how offensive it is to have to smell them. Perfume should be discreet. It shouldn't smell so much.

I am writing a letter to Mr. Turin's publishers in hopes of getting his book pulled off the shelves. People should know the filth running through this so-called gentleman's mind. I think if they knew how much it upsets someone like me they would yank every last copy of Perfume: The Guide out off circulation. And I will be writing Estee Lauder's corporate headquarters as well. No more women in oversized shirts. No more pandering. After all, who is the buyer for this perfume--men, or women? Perhaps Mr. Turin is the ideal buyer. Perhaps Mr. Turin is the slut. If so, Estee Lauder should know this.

I will send these letters out first thing tomorrow, you can be sure, and of course I will keep you posted. Until then, your friend in perfume and as ever committed to keeping you posted on my thoughts and feelings as they come to me...

Beatrice
Hear Me Out Club, aka I Know You Are But What Am I?
Southern Chapter President

I Want My Hymen Back

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could return to the days when four fragrant lovers satisfied me and made me complete. I recall the good ole days with a particular fascination and innocence. Back then, I would wear a perfume every day for an entire season. I’d romance that perfume day and night, never switching during the course of a day. I was seasonally monogamous with each perfume love. I’d only switch to a different perfume love when the seasons changed and it was unquestionably the right moment to move along to my next perfume love. It wasn’t a sad parting, because I knew we’d be back together the next season. I’d switch scented partners four times per year. I miss those days, when I was a perfume virgin.

Perfume virginity allowed me to fully cherish and romance one single fragrance for approximately four straight months. As a perfume virgin, my clothing, my car, my house, my bed linens would smell recognizably like “me.” Because even though I switched my scented loves each season, I cherished each fragrance long enough for them to be recognized as my signature scents, for them to become me.

These days I’m a whore. A slut. A trollop. I probably have over 350 bottles of perfume. I like all of them, but I don’t love and cherish and fully know each and every one. I slut around, giving about 2-4 perfumes a spin each day. Sometimes I’m so quick with a particular fragrance it’s nearly a ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ experience. I’m so eager for my next perfume fix that the scent of the previous one still lingers on my skin and I have to shower it off so the next perfume won’t know just how recently I was with another. I’m constantly on the prowl, looking for the next gorgeous composition, the newest trophy, or the vintage old classic I somehow missed.

I miss the contentment of perfume virginity. I wish I could go back in time but I can’t. I’m too far gone now. Perhaps I could join David Duchovny at the rehabilation center where he being treated for sex addiction. Damn, I bet he smells good. How would I pack for the rehab? I wonder how many bottles I could fit in my suitcase.

Chanel Beige: A Review

Chanel has never been my perfume house of choice. I understand why so many love Chanel No 5 but it’s never been a fragrance I could wear. I love Chanel No 22, but I don't wear it often. Chanel No 19 is decidedly not my thing, to me it smells cold and mean, and I imagine a woman such as Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada to smell like Chanel No 19.

Nevertheless, there was something about the description of Chanel Beige, perhaps it was simply the name itself, Beige, that seemed approachable and potentially a friendlier Chanel to me. I ordered it unsniffed (yes, I bought that huge Les Exclusifs Collection 200 ml bottle!). Chanel Beige arrived yesterday and I wore it last night and I’m wearing it today.

I love it. It’s definitely Chanel. It’s a real old-fashioned classy sort of perfume – and by that I mean it’s an abstract floral, seamlessly well-blended without any specific notes seeking attention over others. It is a smell that will never remind you of a particular flower or thing – it’s a ‘perfumey’ perfume – a complex aldehydic bouquet – but a subdued and soft aldehydic bouquet. Beige does not call attention to itself, in the way that I would say Chanel No 5 does. I’d classify Beige as an understated fragrance.

I was surprised by Beige for the first hour because it smells like a fruity-floral. The initial application doesn’t smell like a Chanel to me, it smells nice, I should say, like a well-done fruity-floral, but it’s undoubtedly fruity and floral and very sweet. However, once Beige dries down, the fruity quality disappears and it becomes unabashedly Chanel. It’s a soft abstract white floral. It’s pretty yet grown-up pretty. It’s something I would wear when I want to be taken seriously, when I want to smell sophisticated and ladylike. Beige does not make me conjure up images of New York society women with large clunky jewelry, perfectly coiffed nor a cold, bitchy woman like Meryl Streep’s character from The Devil Wears Prada. I wouldn’t classify this as a cold scent – it smells and feels rather warm on me. You might wonder about the similarity with Chanel’s Gardenia, and while Beige is also a white floral, I find it less heady and sweet, and more soft and subdued than Gardenia. I much prefer Beige to Chanel’s Gardenia myself.

Just for the record, my favorite Chanel’s are Coromandel and Bois des Iles. I consider these warmer and easier for me to pull off. Coromandel, Bois des Iles and Beige are not similar in any way, aside from each carrying off that distinctive Chanel-esque theme, but it gives the reader an idea of my style/preference, and since all perfume reviews are entirely subjective, I figured listing my other Chanel favorites might be helpful. I also don’t typically go for white florals, but Beige is a beautifully soft, abstract and classic white floral bouquet that is grounded in a dry ambery base (amber is not among the listed notes) leaving it not too sweet or heady in the least.

Apparently there was a Chanel fragrance called Le Beige now long discontinued that was introduced in 1931. I have never smelled this fragrance so I cannot attest to whether it’s similar or if the new Beige is a re-introduction of sorts or a completely new fragrance altogether.

From Chanel’s press release…on Beige:
"I take refuge in beige because it's natural," said Mademoiselle Chanel. Sandy beige, honey beige, clay beige, whitish beige… She loved all shades of this colour, which evokes natural elegance and grace. An elusive colour with infinite variations, beige may seem quite ordinary. And yet, behind this apparent simplicity, it hides a discreet sensuality that builds slowly before revealing itself fully. This sensual outburst is interpreted by Jacques Polge through a bouquet of hawthorn, freesia and frangipani, with shimmering hints of honey. A stunning blend of white petals and yellow gold...in other words, a breath of Beige.”

Chanel Beige is available in the U.S. at Saks
$190.00 for a 200 ml bottle

UPDATE: 10/20/08 The more I wear Beige the more I like it. Beige has lovely freesia & sweet honey notes that have become more obvious over time.

The quote and bottle image are taken from Chanel’s press release.

Newsflash: Perfume, The Guide is openly opinionated.

Now Smell This has posted an excerpt from an interview with Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez which was published in the Guardian. The interview interests and irks me in equal measure, for various reasons. The pull quote reads:

But if the title lacks poetic fun, the book most certainly does not. Although the language occasionally dips into the kind of hyperbolic floweriness one perhaps must expect from enthusiastic connoisseurs, on the whole it is written with pleasing plainness and, most of all, a sense of humour. Guerlain's Mouchoir de Monsieur is lauded with an adulatory four-star review and readers are advised that "if you can wear it without thinking of Rupert Everett playing Beau Brummell, do so by all means", while something called Montana Mood Sexy is dismissed with one star and a curt "not tonight".

I'll be the first to tell you that I disagree with Turin and Sanchez on various reviews. Last night, for instance, I picked up a bottle of Spellbound, thinking, "Nice, cloves and flowers, mmm, oh yes, here we go," whereas they find it a stink bomb with a merciless range of detonation only instinct and God can protect you from. Abigail and I both, I believe, would gladly tape ourselves shut, as Turin suggests, in a room with Amarige, though unlike him we wouldn't hesitate to tape others in with us. I'm not sold on Beyond Paradise, which the authors rate spectacularly. I don't see the sunset from a Concorde window, nor receive inner calm from its sillage. But I don't agree with Abigail all the time either, nor she with me, and reading Perfume: The Guide is hardly about consensus.

The other day I compared Sanchez and Turin to Pauline Kael. Kael, of course, was famously opinionated. Her Spellbound was Woody Allen. Others, including me, loved his work in the late seventies and eighties. I remember being shocked, when I discovered Kael's writing and sought out her New Yorker archive in the school library, that she didn't love Manhattan, was left cold by Stardust Memories, was hostile to Interiors and Broadway Danny Rose. I was petulant for about twenty minutes, then I got over it. Andrew Sarris and others might have loved Allen's movies, but they wrote like a college course on biophysics. I wanted someone who shared my irrational obsession with film--and wasn't too above it to fess up.

Reading the above quote from an otherwise favorable paragraph and a friendly interview overall, I bristle at what I take to be a typically lazy British priggishness. Call me picky. The whole project of the Guide, it seems to me, is to create new territory for the very concept of such a book. Any best of list is highly personal, and to the extent it seeks to conceal that subjectivity, a sham. Here's a book which, like Kael's criticism, collapses the format, exposing that inevitable bias with candor and wit. The bias is embraced, and rather than speak to you as an authority garbed in a velvet smoking jacket, with a dry air of superiority and a bogus assertion of the definitive, it speaks to you as a fan, with enthusiasm, passion, and drive. It wrings its hands and gets right in the room with you. Doing so, it engages you in a dialog. The sensibility of Sanchez and Turin is refreshingly interactive rather than smugly self-enclosed. They strip the critical format of its silly supposed-to's, challenging you to meet their strong opinions with opinions of your own. They ask you to think and converse, rather than receive and regurgitate. And they aren't afraid to make enemies by taking on the big boys.

Of course the title lacks poetic fun. Um...duh. In quotes. In light of the book's project, which is at least in part about parodying the concept of a definitive guide, it exists on a higher level of word play than the writer of the Guardian piece is apparently able to apprehend. I call it a Bible in a similar spirit of good humor. It doesn't try to conceal its lack of journalistic objectivity. To the contrary, Turin and Sanchez laugh at the notion such a thing exists, as well as open up the debate about who makes or what constitutes a canon. Can journalistic objectivity be counted on to tell you what you should own or smell? Hardly, at a time when taste is clearly marketed and formulations change, unannounced, from day to day.

Yes, to be sure, Turin and Sanchez insist that the nose recognizes a good smell, and instinctively suffers from a foul one, and every nose essentially "knows" the difference. They make no apologies about their snobbery. Snobbery is part of the project. Yours as well as theirs. But if their book is a guide to anything, it's a guide to their passions and engagement, and like Kael they hope to be disagreed with, if only to keep evolving the discourse. They would likely scoff at my attraction to Spellbound, but doing so makes me define my position more articulately. Knowing what they like, and how personal their tastes are, encourages you to get to know yourself as well. As John Waters recently said about the state of modern movie-going, and I paraphrase: People leave a blockbuster these days and it doesn't occur to them to really detail for themselves just how bad it was and why, and how different their reaction is from what they've been told it will be or is supposed to be.

The "language occasionally dips into the kind of hyperbolic floweriness one perhaps must expect from enthusiastic connoisseurs"? She makes that sound like a bad thing, as if yet another newspaper article's objective report on the doings of one of its advertisers would be preferable.

I'm just saying.

The Return of Perfume, the Guide (online)

Lucca Turin and Tania Sanchez have decided to publish quarterly installments of their Bible, Perfume: The Guide, which is a relief to those of us who've been wondering what they think of Calvin Klein Euphoria, Acqua di Gio, Allure Homme Edition Blanche, Estee Lauder Sensuous, Giorgio, et al. Some of these were omitted from the original publication. Some have since been released. Others had fallen outside the authors' radar, which is hard to believe but there you go.

In case you're wondering, Giorgio gets four stars. "It is considered polite to deplore the excesses of the eighties (and to trot out Opium, Poison, and Giorgio as exhibits)," writes Turin. Consider Turin impolite. Those eighties mainstays might have OVERstayed their welcome at the time, but you can hardly blame the salt someone used to rub into your wound. And to deprive yourself of salt forever after doesn't make much sense, unless you simply want to punish yourself.

The authors are champions of the forgotten, the neglected, and the wrongfully maligned. Conversely, they remain the best bullshit detectors in the field when it comes to the overrated and the ridiculously hyped. Serge Lutens' Five O'Clock au Gingembre is commended for its "pleasantly salty, meaty note" but ultimately "settles for the smoky vanillic smell of plain benzoin."

The writing is so literate you sometimes wonder if in fact you're reading about perfume. Sanchez and Turin are to perfume what Pauline Kael was to film. They are just as wonderfully opinionated, as passionate, informed, and insightful. Like Kael they manage to write poetry disguised as criticism, and one of their chief accomplishments, to my mind, is an ability to break things down without lobotomizing them. They elevate perfume and the people who love it in the process.

This writer much appreciates the entries on Heeley in particular. If you haven't smelled them and can somehow, get to it. Cuir Pleine Fleur is as wonderful as Turin tells you it is, and then some. "CPF should serve as an object lesson to all, from Hermes to Cartier," he writes, "who hanker after a new type of beauty in masculine perfumes." What that new type is? Wondrously strange, hay and leather, the smell of the stall and the flower beds beyond it. CPF lasts and lasts, and of all the fragrances I own, it elicits the most interesting, exclamatory reactions, often from strangers. It's that lovely.

The first installment of the online addendum to the Guide can be downloaded on the book's website. What are you waiting for?

Dandy of the Day: Count Alfred D'Orsay

Count Alfred D'Orsay was one of the most celebrated Dandy's of his day (1801-1852). During Count D’Orsay’s time, a particular kind of gentleman, such as Beau Brummel, aroused admiration among the upper crust through their witty remarks and outlandish clothing. They were eager to be noticed and imposed a certain life and dress style in this bored bourgeois society.

Alfred D'Orsay was one of the most famous Dandies of his era. Count D’Orsay was talented in the arts as well as being a witty conversationalist and extravagant dresser.

Count D’Orsay’s more exceptional talent, however, turned out to be that of creating perfumes. His interest was sparked when his mistress Lady Blessington could not find a fragrance she enjoyed. In England, the fashion of the day was intensely musky perfumes, which did not suit Lady Blessington.

And so began the life long ambition of the Chevalier. Alchemist of luxury and love, D'Orsay rapidly developed a growing passion for perfumery. It’s said that in each of his homes he dedicated a room to the creation of fragrances. He continued to dabble in perfumery for the rest of his life.

Parfums D’Orsay was established after his death and named in his honor. Count D'Orsay's original "Eau de Bouquet" was reportedly "reworked" into the line's Etiquette Bleue fragrance.

I recently fell in love with D’Orsay Tilleul, which is the most gorgeous linden fragrance I’ve ever smelled.

Parfums D’Orsay website (click)

Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur: A Review

Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur (henceforth FM MR) launched in 2000 and was created by Maurice Roucel. Maurice Roucel has created several of my favorite fragrances (Bond No 9 Broadway Nite, Bond No 9 New Haarlem, Gucci Envy, Hermes 24 Faubourg, Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist) so this coupled with MR coming from Frederic Malle nearly guaranteed I would love it.

And love it, I do. Here’s the thing, I don’t like dirty-body-odor-animalic-musky perfumes like Serge Lutens Musc Koublai Khan. I really don’t like musk-dominant perfumes at all. In a nutshell, FM MR is a musk perfume for those who don’t like musk. First of all, FM MR is rather sweet and safe for a musk. If FM MR were a person, she’d be a classy, prep school educated, pink twin-set and pearls girl, with a pair of fishnets and stilettos hidden away in her weekend bag.

FM MR opens with a lavender citrus blast that hits the back of my throat and makes me cough. Within 5-10 minutes the opening disappears and it begins a beautiful journey to the ultimate woodsy, musky, vanilla, and spice dry down. The longevity is unbelievable. I mean really unbelievable. A few sprays will last you all day and easily through the night. I’m a stickler for lasting power so I’m incredibly impressed by the potency (2-3 sprays will do you!) and lasting power which makes the price tag seem just about reasonable.

I think FM MR is casual and soothing as well as sexy. It’s a sweet skin scent in its very own league. Stunning.

Maurice Roucel’s next fragrance for Frederic Malle, Dans tes Bras, arrives at Barney’s next month. It’s described as a woody violet and I can hardly wait.

Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur’s listed notes:
Top: Lavender, bergamot
Middle: Clove, cinnamon
Base: Gaiac wood, cedar, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka, musk

Available at Barney’s (click for website)

Binge Dieting: Secret Obsession, Magnifique, Sensuous and Other Anorexic Simulations

What is it with the latest batch of commercial releases? What aroma-chemical or marketing approach lends them all the baffling sense of sameness? Pick up Lancome Magnifique, Estee Lauder Sensuous, and Calvin Klein Secret Obsession to name several. The dry downs of the latter two seem virtually identical: politely discreet, vaguely woody, a half-assed, half-finished accord akin to someone with stale breath turning his face away so as not to offend you, inadvertently insuring you won't be able to hear what he's saying any more than you can tell what his sentence smells like. Magnifique shares with these a thinned-out sweetness in the top notes, as if someone diluted the overall composition with water and vodka and anything else she had at hand, just to see how far she could extend it before its aroma reached that barely-there threshold.

What do these fragrances and this apparent trend have to say about the buying public's desires or our cultural sensibility as a whole? Many fragrances targeted specifically to the Asian market take into account the Asian buyer's partiality to perfume so pristine it ceases to smell like perfume, creating fragrances which bow their heads and avert their eyes in deference to all who approach. Americans, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with fruity florals, or someone thinks they are and relentlessly produces them. Add to fruity florals the obscenely, obsessive-compulsively clean. Aqua di Gio continues to be a bestseller in the masculine market, even as masculines inch ever more toward the floral. Meanwhile, Dolce and Gabbana's Light Blue is a top-seller with women and smells like something a man would spray to hide the B.O. his girlfriend finds offensive or the lingering odor of a particularly torrid indiscretion.

The Reds and Giogios and Poisons and Paris' of the eighties seemed in keeping with a culture-wide disregard for the feelings or circumstances of others, a fashion for big-shouldered, high-haired silhouettes, and an imposition of one's self onto one's environment, as if the latter weren't complete or noteworthy until the arrival on the scene of the former. Trends change but always reflect cultural values to some extent. So what's with all the anemic fragrances flooding the department store counters? Are we wishy-washy, non-committal, or simply afraid of our own shadows?

It's interesting to compare the reviews of Chandler Burr and the intellectual team of Lucca Turin and Tania Sanchez. While all three revere the great creations of perfumers past, Burr advances the idea that the practical application of these creations in the contemporary social environment is non-existent at this point, while Turin and Sanchez hold to the idea that perfumes are timeless and relevant; they no more go out of fashion than a Dior cut from 1940 or the Declaration of Independence. It's all about attitude and character, and homage without context is worthless. Change is great, but at what cost?

Burr often gives high marks to compositions which recall those vintage perfumes the way postmodern writing begs, borrows, and steals from the classics of literature, tossing all its constituent attributes into a hybrid which recalls without specifying exactly what or when. His unqualified appreciation of Sisley's Eau du Soir is a good example:

"It is an expert pastiche of the traditional French “animalic”—i.e., the smell of animal (a classic trope of French perfumery)—but in a version for the 21st century. This take on animalic is not redolent of an armpit but rather of a mink coat, which is to say it is the smell of real leather plus real hot fur. This is a visceral luxury, and Mongin builds the perfume’s top by welding it to a greenish, sleekly modern floral."

Turin's dismissal of the fragrance as insipid, empty-headed knock-off is equally indicative of his own values. The perfume doesn't even rate a review in Perfume: The Guide; rather, he knocks it in passing, in the course of another fragrance's review, as if throwing a passenger out of the car without stopping to let her out. To Turin, Eau de Soir is a perfume which recalls the classic green chypres, to be sure--the way a town in Disney's Small World attraction recalls its real time source. You can't expect to understand Japan from the little pivoting automatons in kimonos.

Don't get the idea Turin and Sanchez are living in the past. Witness Turin on Chanel No 5 Eau Premiere: "This is abstract, classical perfumery at its best," he writes, "revisited by people who do not see modernization as an excuse for screwing up." Turin will be the first to slam Guerlain for altering its classics, unless or until he feels the job is being well done. Progress is great: hurray for the future. Turin just happens to be the strongest critical voice in his field speaking out for the recognition of perfumery as art, the relevance of art to cultural history, and the importance of history to culture at large. That isn't to say Burr dismisses the past or perfume's artistry. Of Germaine Cellier, the nose behind Fracas, Bandit, and Vent Vert, he said: "an artist working in the olfactory medium." It's simply to say that Burr and Team Turin-Sanchez are necessary polar points in the modern dialog about perfume, presenting its complicated, panoramic picture to date. That Burr presents the picture using photo-realism and Sanchez-Turin represent it with the kinetic brush strokes of cubism illustrates how much room there is for interpretation.

What would these three say about the relative sameness of modern commercial perfumery offered at the local mall; specifically, about Secret Obsession, Magnifique, and Senuous? This is the face of perfumery the average consumer digests and perhaps demands in some way. How can someone like Calice Becker go from the pungent glory of Tommy Girl and J'Adore to the milquetoast timidity of Secret Obsession within such a relatively short amount of time? Turin, at least, has sounded off regarding Sensuous, remarking, "...up close the fragrance disintegrates over the first hour into a bare array of disconnected things failing to cohere: white floral, synthetic wood, praline-like amber. All told, thin and lacking mystery."

Perhaps the modern fragrance reflects the contemporary obsession with diet and self-abnegation and a concomitant nation-wide phenomenon of obesity. Are these fragrances our way of punishing ourselves for our indulgent excesses? If we're going to gorge ourselves on the fruity gourmands and decadent pleasures of heady floral bouquets, we must, we might feel, at some point fast. At least we have the wit and erudition of writers like Sanchez, Turin, and Burr, who elevate the conversation to an ideological plane which feels as rich as chocolate and feeds the mind without indulging its apparent need to eventually deny itself pleasure.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: Belle en Rykiel, Lancome La Collection, Bijan V.I.P.

I really scored the other day at Marshalls. Every once in a while, one does, though happening upon something unusual requires frequent visits and a persistent trek through a sea of Elizabeth Taylor fragrances. In this context, even Ralph Lauren Hot would have to be considered a real find. This time, however, I was truly surprised.

On the same day, I found Demeter’s Patchouli, Belle en Rykiel, and a boxed set of four half-ounce Lancome La Collection re-issues which included Magie, Mille et une Rose, Climat, and Sikkim, all eau de parfum. The first was seven bucks. The Sonia Rykiel was 20. The real bargain was Lancome, at 25 dollars. I couldn’t wait to get it all home.

I expected to like the La Collection, and I did like them—every last one. The Belle en Rykiel was more of a curiosity to me, and cheap enough I didn’t mind shelling out for it. Osmoz classifies it as an aromatic oriental. I won’t argue, though the apparently forceful lavender is news to my untrained nose. I don’t get that astringency, nor even much of a floral note. The composition smells to me of coffee and amber, very bright up top, winding down to a smooth, addictive, ambery patchouli; “feminine, but with a nod to the masculine,” its marketers proclaim. No one else, smelling this on a man’s or a woman’s skin, would make such tiresome classifications. According to basenotes.net, Belle en Rykiel was created by Jean-Pierre Bethouart, the nose behind Caron’s Parfum Sacre, in 2006.

I’d smelled Climat and Mille et une Roses at Saks several months ago, when I was in LA. A saleswoman accosted me, refusing to cease and desist until I told her what I was looking for. I spat out Cuir by Lancome, knowing they wouldn’t have it but hoping otherwise, and off she whisked me. The surgically enhanced blonde Lancome rep, whose fake fingernails looked more natural than the expression permanently etched upon her face, had never heard of Cuir, and hearing me pronounce it got a look in her eyes which might, I imagined, have been revulsion, had she been able to move her features properly.

She offered La Collection instead. I wasn’t enthused by the bait and switch but couldn’t hide my instant attraction to Climat. A rich, classic fragrance, its floral core is made nearly vibratory by a rich vetiver base. I liked it, but not as much as I imagined I would like the phantom Cuir. Mille et une Rose, I was informed, is a bestseller. I left without smelling the other two. Like most perfume shoppers, I prefer to be left alone with my addiction.

Someone had obviously opened the Lancome box, though I didn’t see this until I got it home. Someone else had taped it shut. The bottles are small glass decants with cut crystal stoppers, and I imagine various shoppers had used the perfume freely or even spilled it by the time the staff got to it. A little of the Climat and the Mille et une Rose were missing. That bothered me less than I thought it should, as the untouched Sikkim and Magie turned out to be my favorites anyway.

Like Belle en Rykiel, Sikkim and Magie are ambiguous, indeterminately gendered, Sikkim more straightforwardly so. Sikkim is an impressively rich oriental chypre which opens with a strong thrust of galbanum. There are spices, vague hints of incense and, as with Miss Dior, an ultimate descent into rich leathery territory. According to Marlen from perfumecritic.com, who reviewed the fragrance for nowsmellthis in 2006, the remaining notes include: aldehydes, ylang ylang, bergamot, gardenia, thujone, carnation, jasmine, narcissus, orris, rose, amber, castoreum, moss, patchouli and vetiver.

Sikkim was originally released in 1971. Magie, created by Armand Petitjean in 1950, is a more conventionally attractive perfume, with notes of jasmine, violet, musk, and amber. Magie is one of those vintage floral slash animalic compositions which are now virtually extinct, and because the fruity, clean floral scents on the shelves of Sephora now equate with femininity, the masculine is by default…almost anything else. Petitjean created many fragrances for Lancome throughout the thirties, forties, and fifties, among them the elusive Cuir, which I’ve yet to smell.

Other treks to the counter included a few stops at Perfumania, where, intending to pick up a bottle of Kouros, I instead bought V.I.P. by Bijan and Burberry London. I can’t find anything about V.I.P. on the internet—not on basenotes, nor osmoz, nor have I found it reviewed anywhere. I’m no good at picking out notes which don’t happen to be galbanum, rose, violet or patchouli, but if pressed I might identify angelica in V.I.P. It has something in common with many of the woody aromatics I’ve smelled and owned-- Fendi Uomo, Azzaro Now, French Lover—yet when you compare them it holds its own with unique touches.

London is one of those fragrances I buy when I can’t get my hands on anything that excites me more. I bought quite a lot last week, probably at least partly due to the anonymous email I received last Friday from nicecritic.com, which said: “Brian, your cologne/perfume is very strong on a regular basis. My feelings were hurt and I wanted to know who the culprit was. Do I really spray that much on? I’ve always sprayed less than I want to, and try not to wear some of the more aggressive fragrances out in confined spaces, like the office or, say, the post office. Receiving this kind of email made me want to douse myself in Poison or Paris. I wanted to wash my hair in Miel de Bois or Broadway Nite. Use Alliage for mouthwash. It made me lonely in my obsession for perfume, and a late-night call from Abigail, fellow aficionado, really lifted my spirits.

When I discovered from nowsmellthis that Fresh was re-releasing Tobacco Caramel and Patchouli Pure, I called Sephora immediately to see whether they have it. At this point I don’t know why I bother. The girl on the other line had never heard of patchouli and thought I was saying something I’D never heard of. To aggravate me further, I suppose, she made no effort to put me on hold and walk three or four feet over to the Fresh section for a more thorough investigation. Sephora is the only shop I know that will tell you what they have in stock based on guess work. Perhaps she might have used her headset, had she not removed it to answer my call. Shopping online has been so nice lately, compared to this idiocy.