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.