do you ever have a craving to smell something? or, like, a smell mirage? right now i really want to smell white flowers--gardenia and tuberose. i was wanting to smell them so much i could almost smell exactly what i wanted to smell...

i'll be in new york for thanksgiving, and i'm going to need to spend a little time with perfumes. i think the frederic malle store is going to be a must. anyone have any other advice? last year i went to aedes de venustas, which was a'ight. it was too jumbly. i crave something more well edited. i need, like, the library of congress rather than harold bloom's study. bergdorf? barneys? bendel? saks? or just frederic malle and that's it?

check it out

confession:

i have a hard time remembering what perfumes smell like when they're not right under my nose. most of the time.

there is a guerlain shop here in toronto, so you'd better believe i went there the other day to close some serious and embarrassing gaps in my perfume knowledge. tried these: jicky, l'heure bleue, and chant d'aromes. the jicky dry-down was soooo surprising and modern; it is exactly like something you'd see coming out of some crazy plastic bottle marketed to tweens, only obviously genius and perfect. it's absolutely sweet, woody vanilla in the dry-down--it's bulgari black with no rubber. i love it.

my favorite smell right now is the apple sauce simmering on my stove. hmm... apple notes in perfume? time for some research...

today

today I wore chanel no.5. it's my "go-to" perfume these days for some reason. I love the way it smells right after the aldehydes all burn out... it's so soft. for Christmas, I think I'm going to buy myself the real parfum. yay!

um, the sephoras in jcpenney's have the fracas parfum on sale for 20 bucks. you should run to the store and buy it. it is amazing and the parfum is much more wearable than you might expect. floral and meaty. yum.


xo-
mp

p.s. the boy loves bandit. what could be better? I ask you.

please comment, readers

people use fragrance for different purposes, or encounter fragrance in different ways. here are a few ways of using fragrance i could think of:

-to be perceived in a certain way (sexy, clean, trendy, innocent, edgy, scary, intimidating, fashionable, a hippie)
-to perceive oneself in a certain way (see above)
-to trigger or express an emotion or physical sensation, in oneself or in others (comfort, calm, vigor, all the aromatherapy cliches you can think of)
-to express an idea or maybe an era ("the 50s" or "aldehydes", "the ubiquity of technology and manufactured objects", "riding", "fashion has replaced religion", "commercial fragrance is disgusting")

we get a lot of information from smells, and we try very hard to communicate things with fragrance. we're more or less successful.

a woman in my church congregation growing up used to probably dip herself in buckets of eternity. she could literally be smelled entering the chapel. this was a powerful message: "i am here, i am important, you all notice me. the room is mine. it doesn't matter what you think of me; we'll worry about that later. but my presence registers with each person in this large room."

so, if anyone is reading this, please answer this question (triggered by marcilyn's comment):

what do you want fragrance to do for you? why do you wear fragrance? please add to my tiny list of reasons people wear fragrance.

i have a new place of residence in which i occupy a single room. in this room is a gigantic ikea expedit bookcase that creates a tiny bed area and then a less tiny living area. this is great because it creates cubbies that can each be devoted to different purposes, like bedside reading, school reading, guilty pleasure reading (i.e. magazines).

the best cubby is this one:



perfume collection! the incense collection is in the box beside it. it makes the whole room smell good.

right now, living in an entirely new apartment, city, country, familiar smells are crucial. the esteban pivoine incense is burning pretty much all day, the prada eau de parfum is worn all day. happy, autumnal smells.

i'm in toronto, finally a big city, and there are perfumes to be smelled here that were not found in utah. a few i've liked:

-one of the juliette has a gun ones, but i can't remember which. the submissive one, not the dominant one. they're roses, which should mean i like them, but i don't know. lancome mille et une roses is definitive for me.
-the tom ford purple patchouli is delicious and luscious; the cyprus one, not what i wanted it to be. i wanted it to be the fragrance i smelled on the hairy hipster sitting next to me at sundance in 2008, but this wasn't it.