emily just got back from NYC!

with a bag full of samples! you are going to lose your mind and I'm not even joking!!

I was messing around on the internet and I found this:

That's me! rolling around! getting painted with blue spray paint perfumes! so sexual! ooo, just my neck? where else am I gonna get painted? where?


WANT! NEED! MUST HAVE! I don't care if it's a gimmick! I don't even care if it sucks! I just want to own it! own it, own it! I will graffiti you with my fabulous avant-garde perfumes! (even though, I know. graffiti is kinda over. oh well.)






(whole thing here stealsted from luckyscent! don't be mad, bitches!)

Wode (Scent)
Eau de Parfum - contains No Paint
by Boudicca

the scoop
Wode opens with spices and green – coriander, cardamom, clary sage and juniper berries. There is clean earth and a hint of flowers and ocean and it all seems quite brisk and pleasant, until the black hemlock kicks in, bitter and unsettling and hopelessly attractive. A stroll in the woods becomes a trek through a primeval forest with a few glowing yellow eyes peering at you from the shadows. A dark and ethereal swirl of resins and animalic notes dances around a heart of leather and musk and there is an intriguing undercurrent of something raw and untamed, softened by a soft whisper of sweetly narcotic tuberose. The overall impression is not heavy – but airy and elemental, like the landscape after a fierce and cleansing storm. Iconoclast perfumer Geza Schoen (of Escentric Molecules fame) has taken his inspiration from the scent of raw opium and, to be frank, we don’t have a lot of experience with that, but we do find this unique blend appropriately addictive. It reminds us of wet stone, and the way rain unlocks mysterious scents from the earth -- imagine dancing around Stonehenge while thunder rolls through the sky. The inspiration is ancient, but the scent itself is very modern–unusual, intriguing, and subtle enough to make it easy to wear, for both men and women.

Wode (Paint) - Eau de Toilette
This is the lighter version of the Wode (Scent) and it’s a true collectible. Paint comes packaged in the manner of modern war paint – a spray can, a nod to guerrilla street artists, with a sterling silver label tied with black silk. In the can is the magical juice that is bright cobalt blue when it is first applied and then…vanishes. Magical, mystical and fierce. Whether you are having a Braveheart moment, or just need to add a little wonder to your day – Wode (Paint) is just the thing.

Wode (Scent) - Eau de Parfum
As fabulous as the whole blue thing is, the most wonderful thing about Wode is the scent itself, with its play of dark and light - soft musk and dry spice and brooding black hemlock. The EDP is the more intense version of the Wode fragrance with a higher concentration of rare oils-- and of course, formulated without any blue paint.


Wode (Scent) notes
Juniper, Cardamon, Nutmeg, Clary Sage, Corriander, Angelica Root, Saffron, Tonka Bean, Styrax, Amber, Treemoss, Musk, Leather


(look at these notes here! are you kidding me? these are all my favorites, right? leather? clary sage? juniper? tonka bean? killing! magical? mystical? fierce? I am all of that! OMG!)

everybody loves everybody all the time

I bought some new samples last week because I'm a wreckless bohemian.

1. kai perfume oil,(kai). sweeet jebus. I smell like a flirty teenage pisces. and I like it.

2. velvet aoud, (montale). I don't know. I haven't really tried it yet. the sniff I took from the sampule reminded me of this perfume oil I got in a craft kit in 1978, so...

3. tabacco, (odori). honey and vanilla and smoke. kindof dying. want.

4. tar, (comme de garcons). totally synthetic, the kick in bulgari black. mmm. wear it to the roadhouse.

5. sel de vetiver, (the different company). yum. the salt from eau des mervailles, plus some iris. (I don't know, I'm just saying.) good stuff.

6. geranium bourbon, (miller harris). at first I loved bright geranium, then it went all powdery and I stopped loving.

7. 2 (comme de garcons). sortof amazing. I have no idea what it smells like in words. outer space.

that's all. hey was that 26 bucks 'cause I'm not rich and famous? yes. do I care? no. why? because I smell delicious fragrances.

love,
mp

on saturday

Emily and I popped in to that Apothica store/laser surgery spa in the gateway. it's ok. we only had about a thousand perfumgasms each. why? because we found these perfumes we didn't even think anyone had in utah.

namely: not one, but six (ish) Annick Goutal perfumes including Eau D'Hadrian and Petit Cherie. I've smelled them both in Arizona, but Emily hadn't yet. so whatever.

I was obsessed with these Suzanne Lang perfumes, especially the red ginger and cashmere



dreamy!

also on the lucky scent website I found this:



because I need to pretend that I'm a perfumer again.

also! they had 3 miller harris scents which were nice, except I think they have a play dough thing going on, but if you're into that... you know.

bedroom smells

the problem is that i'm almost as cheap as my mom about some things, so instead of buying my own bed, i hauled one of her disgusting twin beds up here and stuck it in my room. in the late summer i was bringing tuberoses home every week from the farmers' market and buying up new perfumes like nobody's business, spraying them on scarves that hung on the back of the door, so the room was smelling pretty good.

tuberoses are gone now, and this room is pretty close quarters as it turns out, and that bed is starting to assert itself olfactively, let's say. that's a hideous thing for a person writing a perfume blog to admit. but i'm cheap in that way; there's a bed that is available to me, it's fairly comfortable, i'm not going to waste money on a new one.

i'm going to waste money on incense!

esteban incense

my favorite is the pivoine imperiale--peony. it smells like reading old books in a secret garden in a dry late-fall.

oh, and a delightful tjmaxx fragrance experience: i bought bal a versailles for $7.99, for pete's sake! ohh, that's a good one. old-school musk, ambery and assy. honeyed. my sister likes to say that honey smells like a bee's butt. probably only wear this if you're actually going to a ball at versailles, or maybe to an art-house film or to the roller derby.

and then there was a box of one called benghal by lancome. i had never, ever heard of it; it was obviously a new one, some special line. it's the collection voyage. i had a cartful of stuff and i was feeling guilty, so i was trying to winnow my haul. i had decided to cast this fragrance aside. after all, i hadn't even opened this fragrance, had no idea what it was about; just the box which said "benghal is the new destination of the collection voyage by lancome fragrances. this floral fruity fragrance [warning! warning!] evokes the gardens of an indian palace where notes of jasmine [hmm], apricot [oh yeah?] and ginger [mm-hmm] blend together."

so i thought i'd just slide the plastic off and sniff it before casting it aside. i sprayed it on my wrist; yeah, it's a fruity floral. i put it down. almonds; apricot; saffron?? holy crap. i had to have it. anyway, it was only $19.99. my male roommate, who is very olfactively wired, practically made out with my wrist. it's a good one. snap it up if you see it and want to smell delicious and acceptable to all and sundry.

tokyo milk!

oh man. it is the month of magazines outing me. bitches! this month's bazaar has a little blurb about that new company tokyo milk which is available at anthropologie and also is awesome.

they have about 12 or 20 scents and the price is around 30 bucks so you could probably afford it even if you are a teacher or a social worker or some bullcrap like that.

my favorite is called, "ex libris" it has fig leaf, magnolia, bronzed musk (how?), and cardamom (really?). it smells green and delicious and a bit like a library. I don't know how they do these things. probably with chemicals...

my second favorite is called, "waltz" which is linden (my favorite tree! my favorite smell!), rose, wisteria, and white musk. oh freshy heaven.

I really want to smell "poe's tobacco" because I'm obsessed with tobacco perfumes, but I don't think they have it at the anthro. also I like when you read the title really fast and you might think it says, "poo's tobacco" just for a minute.

mmm. so I figure most girls will really go for those super sweet smells they do like, "I want candy" and "french kiss" which is fine if you want to smell like a hooker. after all, who am I to judge?

love!
mp

outed

fuh! this month's elle has a little perfume article and they talk about ormonde woman. those bitches.

walking through the mall, went into macy's, bought the michael kors brown suede high-heeled oxfords (i'm banking on that trend not dying out for at least another year; nobody in utah is wearing them anyway), walking past the fragrance department. horrible. it's all mariah and paris and five flavors of j.lo and also daisy. how many different amariges can there be? they had notorious, which i sprayed on and which made me want to be wearing coco. then i sprayed shalimar on the inside of my left wrist and gaultier's new one, maDame or whatever, on the top of that arm. they smelled identical.

drydown: shalimar has the watery, limpid guerlain heart, and maDame is so gross. so gross. bad bathroom deodorizer, like those solid jelly ones they had in the late 70s. notorious got so boring.

ormonde woman update

the other day I made my girl, K.P. smell my deliciousness of ormonde woman and she said, "oh yeah, turpentine. you like it because it smells like the studio."
that girl is a genius.


(f.y.i. I use distilled english turpentine when I paint and it is an intoxicating smell, prolly the main reason for me becoming a painter.)

dear emily,

hello! we are still our only readers...

so i was at the mall and they had the new lancome, magnifique, and i thought i'd try it. it smells like a beautiful woman walking through some ancient piazza. smells like a huge structure made of damp, dusty precious stone with a beautiful 35-year-old woman somewhere in it. i like it.

the other one i tried at the lancome counter was o de lancome, and i was really, really liking it and then i realized why: it smells like all the juicy parts of white linen with the angles rubbed off, and also it smells like clorox cleaning wipes. i love those wipes, just the regular scented ones, not the lemony ones. i never actually buy them but i love their smell. it's in the cologne genre, citrusy and green with a soapy heart. 'twould be easy to wear. (the o de lancome, not the wipes.)

i love lancome fragrances. poeme is an all-time fave because it's so heavy and dewy and cloying. and tresor is a grojsman one--did i spell her name right? whatever. and my precious fave that they discontinued is mille et une roses. sooooooo good. it's a patchouli rose but i like it more than stella mccartney.

dipped into my huge sample hoard and came up with the different company's jasmin de nuit and i'm in love. it might be sweeping aside all the child and dkny and sisley plans i had. it's sophisticated like marsha's ormonde jayne woman or whatever. SMELLS!

dear tam

you were our reader for a minute, but it looks like we lost you due to our general laziness concerning questions... and answering them.

I'm not a fan of super food-y perfumes. I like almond tea and almond bath oil from l'occitane, but otherwise... avoid.

at any rate I did some research and came up with some perfumes with almond notes I think you could try.

1.starting with the most abstract, Frederic Malle L'Eau d'Hiver I realize that it doesn't say "almond" in the notes, but I think you could stretch it for this, it has that quality of warmth.

the rest of these I just got from the fragrantica website, they have a thing that will search by notes, then give you a little description. I randomly picked ones I thought would be good. you can go to the perfumed court and get little samples of most of these for a small fee. and obviously some of the more common ones you can get free samples at nordstrom.

2. Hypnotic Poison - Dior

3. Lolita Lempicka - Lolita Lempicka

4. Burberry Brit - Burberry

5. Sensi - Giorgio Armani

6. Summer by Kenzo - Kenzo

7. Innocent - Thierry Mugler

8. Touch for Women - Burberry

9. Flower by Kenzo Le Parfum - Kenzo

10. Cinema Gold - Yves Saint Laurent

11. Cruise Collection - Escale a Portofino - Dior

12. Jasmin Noir - Bvlgari

13. Poudre - Jovoy Paris

14. Aqua Allegoria Orange Magnifica - Guerlain

15. Vanille Amande - Comptoir Sud Pacifique

16. Les Belles de Ricci Amour d`Amandier - Nina Ricci

17. Datura Noir - Serge Lutens

18. Celine Oriental Summer - Celine

19. Louve - Serge Lutens

20. Cologne Blanche - Dior

21. Premier Figuier - L Artisan Parfumeur

Ormonda Jayne-- Tolu

Luca Turin gave it 4 stars (****) (out of 5).

mmm-k. it's an oriental, probably super well made... for a grandma. older than that even, a great-grandma.

for my lover, for my lover

just kidding.


mmm. so I have this little sample package that Michelle gave me for my b-day this year... I've been biding my time on really testing these things out. I'm like that sometimes. thank you, Michelle, for this little treasure that enabled me to write this post.

Ormonde Jayne is a niche perfumery out of London. I can't remember where I heard about it first, but Luca Turin talks them up in his book. Michelle bought the sampaquita and was disappointed with it. there are a few really good perfumes they've done, Ormonde Woman is my favorite and I think Ta'if is really nice. a lot of times their perfumes remind me of other older perfumes which kindof makes me cranky. but my nose is FAR from perfect or even really educated so I could be getting cranky for no reason.

Ta'if for example is a big dusty rose, it smells hot pink to me, but not the hot pink of walmart and teenage bedrooms. this is a womanly, dangerous hot pink, a bloody hot pink, if such a thing is imaginable. there may be inappropriate touching involved. that said, it does remind me of this nicole miller perfume I was insane about it '95. I wore it every day for all occasions. maybe a little bit nuts...

right now, I'm wearing Ormonda Jayne's frangipani

it starts with that sharp and green, spicy floral you might associate with frangipani. the bright, almost citric freshness of it felt really joyful on my way to work. about 20 minutes in, it fades into a nice version of the old Lauren/Chloe, so a bit of a floriental. it's really nice and wearable. if you're earning your money in pounds, you should go for it. if not, there are other american perfumes that are just as good. or buy Chanel #5 and tell everyone to suck it.


no matter what denomination you're earning your money in I would recommend Ormonda Jayne's Ormonde Woman. Oh my jebus. this is one of my favorite perfumes ever. it starts pine-y and cool and develops into this wonderful wet/rooty thing. to me, it's warm and cool at the same time. really sophisticated, but unplaceable. that said... I don't really want you to buy it. why? duh. I want to be the only girl wearing it in the states. I want to be the only girl who knows about it and I don't want to read about it in lucky next month thank you very much. so just forget I ever said anything about it, won't you?

today i bought myself an entire bottle of miller harris l'air de rien. to paraphrase luca turin's review of it: "it smells like the 60s--boozy kisses and tobacco and unwashed panties. i love it."

it was a splurge. here's my to-buy list, although i should probably wait a while before i buy anything more. although, why?

-en passant body cream
-child perfume oil
-donna karan black cashmere
-white linen
-bandit
-cuir de russie
-some light cologne; not sure which one
-more mille et une roses

i haven't been wearing perfume lately. my nose is kind of all dried up, and i haven't been doing much grooming so i figure the smells will get lost. and what do i want to smell like in the summer? salt water. or lake water. maybe i'll try the different company's sel de vetiver or whatever it's called.

should i spend $75 on samples from the perfumed court? or $85 on black cashmere, bandit, and sisley's eau du soir soap?

anywhere you wish to be kissed

a few weeks ago a perfume neophyte asked me where she should wear perfume once she got it. I gave her the usual answer, chest, back, neck, wrists, knees. I left out the fact that I usually spray my armpits and my cooch. cause I'm like that. also when we were talking I was thinking of this old quote. I can't remember where I read it or who said it, but their answer was, "anywhere you wish to be kissed."

that would be too corny to actually say out loud... but seriously.

so I started wearing perfume on my butt.

love,
mp

I'm wearing dzing!

I put it on when I got to work. sometimes I do that and it helps me get through the night...

it smells like leather and vanilla powder to me, in fact, it smells a lot like bulgari black... cut with cuir de russie. it's yummy, but not something I would expect the "A" crowd to appreciate.

i sprayed on a couple of perfumes at the mall that are riffs on other perfumes; one of them i think is better than its predecessor, the other isn't. the new estee lauder sensuous has that black jammy think that tom ford black orchid has. overripe, dusty fruit. i didn't like it too much from tom ford, but his was undeniable and great in a disgusting way. meaty. it's what i imagine one of those insect eating flowers would smell like. but this one doesn't have any of the woodiness of the other one. too sweet. enough of this sweet bullshit!

rumeur by lanvin i like. it smells like sjp lovely drydown--that dry, warm, scalpy smell--but with some lily of the valley blended in. more buttery. oooohhh, it's good.

the power of scent

no really. fuck perfume. I'm gonna start doing this.

right now

I'm wearing SJP Lovely lotion topped with Hermessence Poivre Samarcande. I know this is an outrage for purists everywhere, but I am not a purist. What happened was at first the white florals of SJPL combined with the pepper of HPS to create a funky carnation, and I kinda dug it. but now that damn musk bullshit of SJPL is raging all over my skin like some kind of oily greek with herpes. I hate SJPL from now on, just for the record. I love HPS. Maybe I will wear the hell out of this non-stop until I run out even if it's too warm for it. I don't care. I don't. I have this idea of wearing seasonally inappropriate perfumes just to cause trouble. Sinus trouble.

Next up YSL's nu. The word means "nude" my friends. it's an oriental (floriental) incense thing. one of the perfume reviews I read called it churchy due to the incense which made me laugh because it's supposedly based on the incense used in old french whorehouses. (how did Tom Ford know, I wonder?) I guess there's always been that weird relationship between the church (the big one, the catholic one) and you know... sex. but whatever. It should be fun at the next barbecue.

Kim Kelly! I hope your are reading this right now!

ha ha to everyone who got here because they are big freaks and geeks fans. ha ha to you suckas.

anywho, Kim, re: our conversation occurring Fri. 6/20 at the art opening... so I looked up gucci rush in the perfumes guide and it was defined as "lactonic chypre". so lactonic would refer to the milkiness and chypre kinda fresh but only just kinda because the term "chypre" actually refers to a genre of scent if you will.

allow me to go off on this idea for a sec... I found a great definition on wikipedia:

"Chypre is a name used to describe a family (or concept) of perfumes, usually with a top note of citrus and woody base notes derived from oak moss and ambergris."

so you've got sort of a warm thing with sort of a woody/fresh thing. ok. but also it's gucci from the era of tom ford king of all things erotic, so it's also a bit loud, young, and sexy... and the fact that you weren't just going to buy a new bottle of g.r. makes me think maybe you would like some other things not just chypres... so here are my suggestions:



1. hermessence, osmanthus yunnan unfuckingbelievably good. I'm wearing it right now just to keep my spirits up.



2. chanel, 31 rue cambon
this is another modern chypre... it's supposed to represent her private apartment, something something, and the orientalism of the screens they show in this video





3. rochas, rochas femme
this is out on a limb because it's a bit older and it has this cumin top note that some people hate, cause cumin smells like sweat. personally I like it. It makes me want to bite myself.



4. dior, diorella
a chypre from 1972... classic classic scent, I love the hell out of this perfume, but it is a bit lady lady.



5. hermes, eau des mervailles
this actually does smell exactly like salty oranges (if you can imagine salty oranges that smell really really good), you can't wear it in the summer but it keeps you warmer than cashmere in the winter.

ok that's it for the "elegant lady" fragrances... for the younger, hipper things that are great scents, but maybe not in the same genre I would say;



1. dior, miss dior cherie
the perfume guide calls it "strawberry patchouli" but it's not a hippie patchouli at all, it's more like champagne. fresh with a dreamy femme-y dry down. and the bottle is hella cute on your dresser.



2. dolce & gabbana, light blue
a lot of people like this because it's super fresh and clean, chandler burr says it smells like "the freshest lemon cake. ever." ooo and look at you! you're sexy in a boat!



3. juicy couture, eau de parfum
this is a modern tuberose. tuberose is a polarizing scent, you either love it or you hate it. the scent is very floral, but the meatiness of the tuberose saves it from being too sweet. this is an elegant perfume with a girlish sensibility that's neither too lady-like or too vulgar.



4. diesel, fuel for life
their website says, "A secret elixir of sexy blackcurrant, precious jasmine and antique patchouli for her." but of course! what else but a sexy elixir would do? smells like...fruity robot. I love it. definitely has that modern-cool-girl thing you have, would be a good match for you.

well, whatever. I hope that helps and that you get a new perfume that you el-oh-vee-ee love.

xo,
mp

NOT JOKING!

I am literally about to pee my pants waiting for DZING! I am that shit ass crazy excited to smell it! especially on me on me on me! yay! it's like I'm a little girl again and the circus is coming to town and I get to ride the man tiger and he is giving me funny feelings "down there"! yay!

out in the perfume hinterland of utah we don't get to smell l'artisan parfumeur stuff very often, but i scored some samples so i thought i'd tell you about them.

mure et musc extreme: i don't know about this; it's so sweet and assy. the original is supposed to have more toppy notes, lemon and bergamot and stuff. i'd like to smell that one, because this is so so musky. but it's a really smooth musk; a smooth ass with a veil of berry floating over it. if i wanted to go to a basement cabaret poetry reading wearing a corset and thigh-high boots this is the perfume i'd put on. its heart is just like le parfum de therese; remind me to find out what that is. animalic chypre and so forth.

bois farine: this is more like it, but also way too sweet for my taste. it gets sweeter as it wears. very warm wood with that floury smell, but it doesn't smell like baked goods. the wood rises up just when things are about to get too sweet (that's what she said). david likes this one and says it smells like peanuts.

i got a couple of others that i'll try tomorrow, and i got dzing! for marsha. i have a feeling it's going to be the best one, because marsha has a way of knowing what the best things are.

I'm wearing No.5

right now and I smell delicious.

I went to a party the other night and these people were all like, "you wear No.5? it just does not work on me, blah blah blah."

that is like saying a brancusi sculpture does not work on you. and you are dumb.

it is art.

this girl, the one who said No.5 did not work on her kept saying how she could smell hanae mori (gag) and how great it was (gag). earlier someone hugged me and all I could smell was a sortof flowerbomb smell.
then someone passed around her bottle of bulgari (bvlgari) omnia. and everyone oooed and ahhhed. and girl said, "oh that's it that's what I smelled."

then I realized she didn't really know what she smelled, why? because they all smell alike, all these smells. how this one girl at my work kept wearing chanel's chance and I kept thinking she was wearing angel, but no because you can smell that chanel smell underneath. that back of the throat scratchy thing like in coco mademoiselle.

anywho. then I realized that all of these new fragrances are like this: BAAAAAAAAaaaaa, loud same smell for a long time.

whereas, No.5 is like this: WHAAOhhhhhoooooooooo or maybe this: OOHHHMMMmmmmmmm.

lt

yesterday i had a job interview and for a poor girl treat after i went to anthropologie. [sidebar: is anybody else getting so sick of anthropologie? i mean you always know that it's all market-researched to death and kitchy and it always has been, but it nevertheless always managed to make me drool. it used to be a nice parody/antidote, but now it's the disease.] everything was boring and overpriced, but then i saw a copy of perfumes: the guide so i sat myself down on a salvaged and recovered settee with screen-printed burlap cushions (so witty, these cushions) and read it. i had read his original one but hadn't gotten around to this new edition yet because i'm cheap.

so only luca turin writes the five star reviews pretty much, which is good because he's the only one you want to read anyway. what a compelling writer. i loved his review of l'air de rien where he talks about jane birkin being a persistent airhead and how the fragrance smells like the 60s: used joss sticks, boozy kisses, and soiled underpants, and he loves it. i was also gratified that he gave my new love white linen five stars.

i wonder if the music and art references come to his mind as fluently as they seem to. he's such a know-it-all it makes me jealous. i had a blinding headache though and a hideous, but i mean hideous fragrance oil from anthropologie on my wrist that was making me dizzy, and one of those pumpkin-sized candles that smells alternately of jellybeans and a dried-up bouquet of carnations was festering on the coffee table in front of me, so i had to leave the book and the store. they played a really good english beat song while i was there so they get one point for that, but stupid, boring, not very well-made clothes and they got rid of the oilily perfumes and just have a ton of the mor ones, so ew. i'll go back if they get some anna sui dresses and if i get a job i'll buy one.

bandit

for when you want to make out. (like a bandit).

today I decided to get things done! put my life on project status! accomplish! so I wore bandit, because it makes me feel like getting things done! doing! etc.!

so I walked to the groce. (uncomfortable because bandit can be a bit strong in the heat). and bought some spinach and bread to make this delicious egg thing that michelle taught me how to make. (bread! spinach! garlic! egg!) then I came home and painted my office which has only been about 3 different colors for over a year now. it is gorgeous.

my favorite part of bandit (after the garbage peppers part - which is a very good part, I am not knocking it, every time my garbage smells like peppers I am happy) no my favorite part is the dry down when bandit smells soft and relaxed and a little grandma-y but in a good way. like a grandma that spent her youth traveling around the world with her essentials in a leather bag.

ahh. accomplished.

stetson for men

so in luca turin's book, there's this review by tania sanchez (I think) where she compares stetson for men to chanel 22. um, yep. I tried it today and it did smell like a classic chanel perfume, for 14 bucks. not a bad deal. if you want to smell like a classic chanel perfume.

I also smelled up on shalimar for the first time and I have to say... maybe I need it. it smells so ladylike.

I can't wrap my nose around angel. it makes me sick. and I'm already sick so I don't need more things in my life doing that to me.

heart,
mp

I went back to my old gucci II for summer

mmm. it's smells so crispy and fresh. like a juicy juicy mango grass.

today i tried white linen from estee lauder and i think i really like it. it's very fruity and clean; i think those fruity notes (melons and peaches) are what they kind of took out for the pure white linen, which i like but is drier. it's a sweet smell, in many senses of the word. i was really liking it, it was seeming like a prototype for all the fruity-sweet fragrances from lately, and then suddenly my brain made the connection of where i'd smelled it before: on preppy white ladies in the late 70s and early 80s. but that's a good association. it smells like someone who is well taken care of, all tanned and nourished and wearing immaculately laundered clothes, either a caftan or tennis whites.

what i have on my other arm is chanel cristalle, and wow it's good. it reminds me of this lancome aroma tonic body oil that i've had forever and that smells green and like rain, vegetal, only this is so sophisticated. what is it that makes chanel perfumes so sophisticated, marsha? aldehydes? it's so balanced. there's always a bitterness at the bottom of a chanel fragrance that i love. and this one has a nice mineral tang. but while i was smelling it there kept being this honey note kind of rising up every once in a while. different facets of a crystal.

here is a complaint: salespeople at nordstrom! just leave me alone! yes, i have smelled hanae mori. geez. who hasn't. and i want to just take my time with the climat and the sikkim and i don't need to smell hypnose again and you don't even know about peut-etre and you're only 18 and just leave me alone! grr. there's one guy at the fragrance counter who i think kind of knows some things. it's not like i'm luca turin or even chandler burr, but give me a little credit.

perfumeries in france are so amazing because the women who work in them actually know what they're talking about. that's probably too much to ask for in provo, utah.

fragrance wars!

I would love a movie called fragrance wars where perfumers were fighting it out to come up with the best most amazing perfume that ever lived! It would include romantic interludes and fight scenes (lab techs smashing bottles of expensive perfumery materials in each others faces) and explosions! lots of explosions! each scene would be accompanied by the appropriate scents pumped through the ventilation system at the theatre! everyone would leave with a massive headache! and no one could eat for a week!

c'mon! that's never gonna happen.

but a perfume war that does happen every day is one that happens in my mind. it is the war between the signature scent faction and the perfume wardrobe faction.

this war started a few weeks ago when I was just thinking about it like I normally do (think think think) and then K-tron was all like, "I want to find a signature scent." which initially pissed me off. I'm sorry! but that was my response! I don't even like the idea of a signature scent because to me it expects too much of one fragrance. this magic formula fragrance is supposed to be all things to all people at all times? it's supposed to smell just as good at the gun range as during a romantic interlude? and do you really want your beau to associate the gun range with your romantic interludes? I think not.

personally I prefer a range of scents. a wardrobe of concoctions to add romance and glamour to my work-a-day existence. but then I thought... that is me. it is like shoes... some people would like a range of shoe options to choose from, some for painting the house, some for gardening, some for show-going, some for expensive rendezvous. what have you. other people would prefer to wear their chuck taylor's to each and every one of these events. and they would feel perfectly comfortable doing just that. not my way, but maybe it is yours. I don't know.

I think at least have a winter and summer option for your signature scent. give the people something to wonder about. that is my thought.

if I were to have a signature scent for summer it would be diorella, all crisp and sunshiny. if I were to have a signature scent for winter it would be bulgari black, sweet and warm and a little tough.

I hope that helps.

just some stuff in perfumes this week

1. I wore my bulgari black again yesterday and was so happy.

2. I wanted Diorella so bad!

3. my lustful longing for Eau des Mervailles is getting slightly less.

4. I want Dzing! before they discontinue it.

5. finally got perfumes the guide by luca turin and tania sanchez.

6. been reading up on my perfumes.

7. went to anthropologie and sprayed the stinkiest thing ever on me, (it smelled like hot wet stripper in a cocoon of candyfloss). Was asking the jake-inator which ones he liked and he said, "I don't really care what a person smells like," (eyebrow raise from me) "as long as they don't stink." I thought about this for a long time and decided he got the wrong end of the stick as far as perfumes go. not asking what he's attracted to, asking what he liked. whole different ball game.

8. been wearing the lovely sjp body lotion every day and in love with that scent again. (I found a huge bottle at T.J. Maxx for $12, thanks Erin!) I just can't wear the little bottle due to fragrance.net being such hideous a-holes.9. my good is comin' to me!

10. money comes to me easily and I get to have all the dreamy perfumes I want now!

guess what's happening now...

with the paprika brasil: the flower is back and it's iris! this stuff is so good i want to bite my own arm and swear. thanks marsha!!!

i only love spicy perfumes

marsha is a doll and she brought me a couple of hermes samples from her hawaiian vacash. it's saturday night and since i don't go out anymore and i'm in for the night i think i'll try them out and see what happens. here is the procedure: i apply the perfume and write my response--in real time! hold onto your hats.

i'm still learning about perfume, but i would guess that these would both be classified as gourmand fragrances, because they smell like food.

brin de reglisse: this is so dry and lavender at first, but almost immediately it becomes earthy and full of fennel, like i dipped my arm in a salad. the name means strand of licorice. there's only a tiny bit of sweet in it so it's way more fennel or caraway than licorice candy. you can really only whiff it from very close. it's starting to turn into something sweeter and mellower now. it's rounding way out, man. maybe i'll check in on it in a while.

paprika brasil: wow, this one is hot. like it burned the inside of my nose. good hurt. sandalwood and cedar! some flower i don't know enough to identify! (marsha would know it) maybe gardenia? chunks of sandalwood and whole gardenias floating in a red spicy sauce. spicy floral, thy name is paprika brasil. i will wear this if i ever go salsa dancing (which i can't imagine ever doing) or if i become a nun (somewhat more likely), because there's incense in there. i'm sister magdala, working in the refectory all day and taking spicy stews to the street children. ok, the flower is gone now. now it's just me and the precious woods and the spices. this is right up my alley.

the reglisse is candy now, 15 minutes later. i'm not sure i can use that. i wish it had stayed with the salad smell--digging up the tulips your husband's first wife planted and throwing them in the compost heap on top of some old lettuce. now it's very, very warm. amber?

marsha, here's an interesting thing: put these two together and there's something like rochas femme. warm skin scent with spice and cumin folded in.

p.s. i can only smell out of my right nostril right now!

p.p.s. this paprika--yesssssssssssss. a man should wear this. in his armpits.

I'm a huge nerd

and here is the reason why... I have been lust lusting for bulgari black for a couple of months now. It's literally been all that I think about. then I finally got it and wore it for about a week and it really was exactly what I always wanted and satisfying and I walked around in a dreamy cloud of perfume fragrances for that long. then one day...

I picked up my little sample of Eau des Merveilles by Hermes. which I got two years ago in London when I bought my scarf and I hated it. hated. it. but something in me was like, "let's give it a try".

I have not stopped wearing it since. at first I couldn't get enough of it, it was warm, it was woody, it was a little bit masculine, but just feminine enough. lesbians luuuv it. (yikes!) people complimented me on it right and left. just a whiff made my day bearable. I was very liberal with it. then I noticed I was running out... without ways or means to acquire a new bottle. or even a new sample... omg!! it's literally again all I've been thinking about. I'm now to the point that I dole out a tiny drop on each wrist every night and maybe one on the back of my neck but that is it. I'm actually afraid to try an American sample because I've noticed lately that the perfumes I get in Europe actually smell quite different from their American counterparts and what if I can't get any more of this juice for another 10 years, what then?

the thing about Eau des Merveilles is that it sneaks up on you. almost all of the other fragrance reviews that I've read say the same thing... at first they didn't like it, then suddenly they could barely live without it. In response to Emily's query below... I think maybe it's a scent that was a little before it's time... or maybe just timeless enough. I think it could really be an undiscovered classic.

so here's my question: are there fragrances that are older and maybe dated but that still work? marsha and i were talking earlier today about americans' tastes in fragrance and their fragrance habits, and i think it boils down to fads, not fashions, here and wanting to smell clean and freshly scrubbed. disinfected, and maybe a little fruit or flower on top. no hint of the smell of a living organism.

so what happens is that certain fragrances become so ubiquitous because they come to signal "clean" and "just-showered" and "up on the trends." we can all think of a host of these: clinique happy is sort of the ultimate, but there was ckone, that hideous bath and body works pear glace (or was that victoria's secret? it doesn't matter), maybe obsession for a while in the 80s.

come to think of it, here's another question: why can't i really come up with more of these zeitgeist fragrances going back before happy? is it because i was too young to be aware of perfume? only knew about perfumes marketed to girls? or is it because we approach perfume differently in the post-ckone world? is the heavily marketed and boring perfume a new invention?

it's probably some combination of those things. but there was charlie, after all, and jean nate, before there was happy. and there was benetton and love's baby soft. and chloe. and anais-anais. ok, never mind.

my point: mass-marketed, dated perfumes that nonetheless are good and can still be worn. this kind of grows out of the old lady smell thing, because i was wondering if there are smells that our granddaughters will smell on us and just think are the odor of decrepitude. are future generations going to associate pear glace with nursing homes? or are there smells that are pleasing to all and sundry? that haven't lost their goodness, even if they've lost their popularity, because they were pretty good to begin with? and what perfumes smell just so 80s that you can't really like them at all? do you have perfumes from your youth that were just it at the time but that now you can tell are not good?

marc jacobs was sort of thinking this kind of thing with his body splashes, kind of a return to jean nate. if i were a really dedicated perfume blogger i would answer these questions for myself, go through my collection and see what's up. maybe in a later post.

ormande jayne

osmanthus- I had really high hopes for this one because I love the hermes osmathus yunnan, but this started out kindof soapy, got a little bit citrusy, then faded. meh.

I'm wearing

"vetiver tonka" hermessence right now. I smell like a rich hippie. screw it! I'm going to Ibiza.

best birthday ever!!!

entire sample kit of delicious perfumes from ormonde jayne! thanks, Michelle!

the perfume smells of frederick malle

you know everybody has been talking about those editions de perfumes frederick malle or whatever for a while now... Emily even went so far as to fill out their little questionnaire and get some free samples (woot!) then Michelle did the same thing. then I was like, "heck. this is a stick I should get on, right?" so I got on that stick. only I answered the questions like my real self, "what is your favorite brand of clothing? gap, old navy." instead of like my fantasy self, "hermes scarves, chanel jackets, 501 jeans, hogan bags, roberto cavalli oscar gowns, etc." which might explain why the two perfumes they sent me, eau d'hiver and en passant make me go, "eh". I should have skewed toward lipstick rose.

perfume review!
1. eau d'hiver- made my skin hot and itchy. I think I am allergic to "coumin" if that what it's called. and it was so weird! not like a perfume at all... more like a piece of hot metal. It bothered me and it wouldn't leave me alone. and I'm thinking about it now like maybe when I go home I should put it on.

2. en passant- seriously, eh. is that lily of the valley? it's making me feel icky. I only like it about 4 hours after I put it on. that's when it's mostly gone.

old lady smells

i've been really interested lately in learning about wonderful old perfumes, because something tells me that it's probably all been done already and anyway i want to sort of learn about the bach cantatas of fragrance, you know? lay down a base. note.

so i bought some mitsouko for christmas and here's what happened (this was for my own blog, so i'm republishing it here because it's perfume-related):

so my package of perfumes finally arrived last night. i was sooooo excited! i opened up my new treasure, mitsouko, and on my first sniff i recognized it immediately: old lady. not funky old lady; funky old lady. nursing home old lady. i always thought that smell was the result of some combination of medications or ointments; turns out it's a smell that was fashionable or sexy at some point. old ladies want to smell that way, apparently. they take that smell and spray it on themselves, deliberately.

so i don't know, maybe it's a good smell. well composed or something. but i don't think i can get past the old lady association. and it doesn't develop into anything strange or mysterious or soft; it develops into more layers of old lady, hidden rooms in the back of the nursing home where they keep more old ladies.

oh well. i hope the one i got for mom is good. yikes.

right before I went to hawaii

I read both of Chandler Burr's books, you know the ones I mean, right? I was a little compulsive for a while there.

so. Emily and I went with our girlfriend's on a girl's day which started with the (just plain bad casting of Eric Bana as Henry VIII) movie of "the other bolyn girl". and ended with a trip to the mall. (all girl's days should end at the mall.)

first we went to nordstrom's cause I thought they might have some perfumes I haven't smelled yet, but they didn't and I was depressed.

then we saw this little janky perfume store off in the corner of the mall and we were like, "it is so janky, it will probably be a total bust, but let's try it anyway." off we went like good little perfume soldiers and lo! we entered a veritable wonderland, an ali baba's cave of delicious perfume frangrances that we wanted to smell all our lives, but were too lame to seek out.

it was delightful and we both had about 10 orgasms each, but left without spending any money... told you. lame.

um. but I came away with a formidable lust for the following:

1. Rochas Femme
2. Rochas Tocade
3. Bulgari Black

that's all.
love,
mp

In which they start a perfume blog

Emily and Marsha are verrry interested in perfumes. they like to smell them. they like to think about them (like this, "think,think,think"). they like to spray them on the unsuspecting. it's sort of like graffiti, but with scent. it's a guerrilla thing... don't worry about it, they're not in your neighborhood anyway.

recently they decided they might have something interesting to say about perfumes. then Marsha read Luca Turin's blog and got all discouraged. then she got couraged again by saying the magic words, "F*** it!"

they have some plans and things in mind, but the way it is around here is they just make plans and plans, then do what they want anyway!