My derring-do allows me to dance the rigadoon around you.

Perfume Challenge Week 35: Monday, 9/12/11, to Friday, 9/16/11

This week's challenge brought
to you by Papaya Kitteh!

A strange and interesting mix of scents this week, which made for some interesting testing, some much better received by my partner and friends than others. Without further ado...

Monday: Tauer Perfumes Vetiver Dance - A twirling dance, notes revolving joyfully around vetiver. Exploring the dark, raw and almost damp earthiness of vetiver oil you may discover hidden gems; delicate lines of green leaves, clear spices and soft flower petals.Notes: Head - A crisp grapefruit, black pepper seed and clary sage set a green spicy accent. Heart - Bulgarian rose with a hint of clean lily of the valley plays with a rich vetiver. Body - Woody ambergris and cedar wood, with soft Tonka beans and a touch of cistus.

I have a love/hate relationship with vetiver. Sometimes it really lands for me (Dana English Leather) and sometimes it does not (Jo Malone Black Vetiver Café). Here, I am in cedar/vetiver looooooooove. It's so...assertive, but without being harsh. If there's one critique I have English Leather is that sometimes it is so strong an fresh it practically sears the nostrils; Vitver Dance has a softness to it that cleans up those rough edges and makes everything about the scent plush and indulgent and wow. Just completely wow. I find this scent to be a complete turn on! It's so sexy and confident, with a playful hint of sweetness that dares you to come in a little closer. 5 of 5 nods once again for the brilliant Andy Tauer.

Papaya says "The Daily Show"
is  serious business.

Tuesday: slumberhouse Rume - Pralined fur laced in dark red spice. Inspired by a room - the explorer's hideaway. A burgundry/silver cologne with animalic pulse paired alongside a warm hush of clay, cola, filbert, and hay. Rume is an idea, communicated through fragrance, of the desire to constantly seek out, experience, and explore; an idea that contentedness is a poison and regret is the aftermath. Notes: bay, myrrh, labdanum.

Chocolate and spices and rum and...fruitcake? Holy hell this is one confusing but decidedly cool weather scent. It really does smell like a fruitcake liqueur someone distilled down into a gel and then smeared it onto the chest of a chest of a person with a terrible cough trying to sleep. Does it sound disgusting? It isn't. It's awesome. It's the Christmas of vapor rubs. The fall evening aromas of humidifier mist. I am freaking in love with this weirdo scent. 5 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: I did my review of EnVoyage Perfumes L’Emblem Rouge. Don't forget to enter the drawing, which ends this 12:01AM, Friday, September 23, 2011 Pacific Standard Time.

Papaya makes love to the camera!

Thursday: Annick Goutal Encens Flamboyant - Captivated by the Orient and its mysteries, Camille Goutal and Isabelle Doyen wanted to go back to the very source of scents. At the time when incense was lit and burned to perfume clothes with its smoke. When the bark of desert trees was stripped to extract drops of resin. When scents were enigmatic, sensual and assertive. Notes: Fresh, Woody, Spicy (Essence of frankincense, pepper and roseberry - Frankincense resin, cardamom, sage and nutmeg, "Old church" frankincense, lentisque absolute and balsam fir).

Created in 2007, and part of the "Orientalists" Collection, which is tagged by Annick Goutal as a unisex collection. In so far as it is meant for anyone, I suppose it is a unisex scent. The opening is a nose full of black pepper and gunpowder. If there's incense in here, and there is a little, it isn't a church incense. It's more of a pagan ritual room kind of incense. It's....weird. I keep wanting to layer it with something, something gourmand or floral or... something. But maybe that's where I fail the scent, and not the other way around. It's muscular, assertive, and not at all me. Give it a try and see if it is you, though. It's well done for its concept; I just don't like the concept. 2 of 5 nods.

Friday: Lubin Gin Fizz - In 1955, a star captivated the crowds: appearing in films by Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, playing alongside James Stewart and Cary Grant, Grace Kelly embodied the very elegance of America. Her mysterious charm even captured the heart of a Prince. It was in honour of her extraordinary beauty that Henri Giboulet created a perfume for Lubin which marked the decade, a very chic perfume, sparkling and fresh, evoking the cocktail in fashion that year in the ‘American bars’ of Paris, Gin Fizz. Notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin, juniper berry, iris, galbanum, orange blossom, rose absolute, jasmine, lily, benzoin, vetiver, oak moss and white musk

Papaya says, reviewing perfume?
Exhausting.

Well, I can't exactly say it smells like a gin fizz tastes, but it is a delightful little scent. Gin Fizz is playfully floral, with a sparkle that is reminiscent of carbonated bubbles fizzing in your nose. I get the impression from the overall sweetness they went with an olfactory cocktail that followed the traditional Old Tom Gin recipe, which is nice. I wish I'd tried this earlier, when the temperature was still in the 80s and almost uncomfortably warm. I'll make a note to retry next summer, since those hot summer nights have passed us, I'd wager. I think I can make it work with a little dress and strappy shoes to great advantage on date night with my gin-loving partner. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week: I'm giving it to Tauer Perfumes Vetiver Dance, though I think I'm more likely to buy slumberhouse Rume. Or both...eventually.

"Please forgive me for my distance.
The pain is the evident in my existence.
Please forgive me for my distance.
The shame is manifest in my resistance
to your love, to your love, to your love..."
~ "To Your Love," Fiona Apple

What's a man now? What's a man mean?

2011 Perfume Challenge Week 16: Monday, 4/25/11, to Saturday, 4/30/11

This week’s theme is a strange one, I’ll admit. What you have to understand is that I find the idea of policing gender through scent so fascinating. Why would we do this? What purpose does it serve? Are these scents actually connected to biological maleness in any way? Or is it simply that the areas of the world long dominated exclusively by men to maintain power structures (i.e. the “public” sphere) are typically decorated and occupied by items that carry these scents, such that we come to think of them as “masculine” scents when really we mean “scents associated with the trappings of power and influence in the public sphere”? FN1. And if that is the case, shouldn’t every feminist in the world be eschewing gourmands and florals while running straight for vetivers and tobaccos? FN2.

So this week, I’m trying out six stereotypical masculines to see which ones I find wearable because I like them as scents, trappings be damned. And the best part of this little experiment – at least 10ml of each one can be had for less than $20, and in some cases even an entire bottle is available for less.