Over the lilies there that wave and weep above a nameless grave!

Esscentual Alchemy Moon Valley

Dear reader:

Happy All Hallow's Eve! Today is the day that all things spooky, scary, eerie, unsettling, and otherworldly come out and have a heyday. And while we're celebrating the unexplained mysteries of the world, let's talk some more about about primordial scents, particularly those that celebrate the mystery of the unseen, shall we?

Today we reach Day Four of Six in our exploration of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents. As befits our holiday, I bring you a dark and lovely perfume for this, the Day of the Dead. Esscentual Alchemy Moon Valley, created by Amanda Feeley, is a natural perfume that...

...opens with a hint of the dew that falls at night. Following with a fresh heirloom muskmelon scent, and exotic herbs. Mouthwateringly enticing. Next comes the smell of well-travelled luggage, that has seen alluring, glamourous, and out of the way ports of call, and has stood the test of time, and the rigors of the journey. Ends with a spicy dry down 

Perfume Ingredients: Vetiver, Antique Oakmoss, Hyrax, Orris, Jasmine Grandiflorum, Lilac, Tuberose, Carnation, Peach Accord, Virginia Cedar, Heliotrope Accord

The first time I tried Moon Valley, it reminded me of standing on my front porch on the first real night of winter, wisps of cold night air bringing me the mixed scents of fireplace and woodstove fires inside homes all over the neighborhood, people burning up the night to warm themselves. The smoke snap freezes in tiny crystals that float, unseen, toward me, each one a tiny orb carrying a view into the lives of others, like the floating bubbles of dreams in Jim Henson's '80s classic Labyrinth. FN1.  That smell is one of my favorite winter smells, and it is always best the first night of every season.

The second time I tried Moon Valley, I thought of death. Specifically, I thought of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Valley of Unrest."

Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

The third and final try before I ran out of perfume because I liked it so much, what I thought of constantly was the smell of cracking a fresh package of bleached white lined paper, taking out a sheet, and writing on it in a rich, thick, black blue ink with a fountain pen. Heavy words flow from that pen, words of sorrow or ending or resolution.

Overall, this scent is air meets darkness. It is a kind of liquid night, dry and bitter. Is it wrong to say this is, for me, the perfect perfume for a winter funeral? It is. It is rich and lovely and foreboding. I'd recommend it for Halloween, but this scent lacks the candied fun of children trick or treating. This is the real stuff of spirits, mean and serious, not in the modern torture-porn horror way, but in the way the classic Mexican surrealist film The Exterminating Angel is deeply unsettling without any of the gore that seems to be required today. FN1.

Musically speaking? I can think of no better music than this:


The scent reminds me most closely of INeKE's Evening Edged in Gold, but less fruity or sweet. This is darker, earthier, and more, well, primordial. Less pretty, more...guttural. It comes from a place somewhere in the core of the self. Fundamental. The Quintessence, if you will.

Moon Valley is available direct from the perfumer. You can buy samples for $5, 5ml EdP for $22, and the perfume in 1oz spray for $115, 1/3oz gift presentation for $150.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try: Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic; John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

_____________________________

FN1. The film is available for watch for free on Hulu and I recommend it highly to any of my readers who like art films.  Directed by Luis Buñue, it is considered one of the top twenty films in all of Mexican cinema. Without going too much away, I think is a deeply interesting exploration of group psychology and human beings ability to create hell here on earth that likely exceeds anything we'd have to fear is a traditional hell.

FN2.  P.S. How GREAT is this cover of "As The World Falls Down"? Allow me to answer for you. Really f-ing great.


All photos taken by me, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

When Your Circumstance is Movie-Sized: The Smell of Air

Six Days with the Primordial Scent Project: Air Set

When I was fourteen, I fell in love with a song by Liz Phair called "Stratford-on-Guy." I discovered it on a late night alternative rock show on MTV called 120 Minutes. I was sitting in my dad's room, watching videos while I waited for him to leave for work, and this video came on. I immediately set about trying to find the album, which back then was a lot harder as it required you to have the artist's name and the name of the song (though album was better), then make a physical pilgrimage to a record store or, in my case, music store full of cassette tapes in the local mall, to try to track it down. I had Exile in Guyville pretty much right as it came out thanks to this single, and I played the cassette over and over.

The song isn't particularly profound. It's about the experience of being on a plane. Not like, "here I am separated from my love or going to war and this plane is a metaphor for my loss," but about the visceral experience of being on an actual plane: the stillness of the people, the way the world looks from above, the loud quietness of the space itself, the sense of being connected and disconnected, or moving and not moving, of doing something menial (sitting and reading a magazine, drinking a coke and eating peanuts) and simultaneously extraordinary (flying). The description of the experience got to the heart of me in some deep and fundamental way, like a poem I keep returning to and finding new colors in the words.

At that point in my life, it would be another two years before I flew on a plane for the first time. When I finally did it, I was terrified. I was entranced. It still seems impossible that you don't fall right out of the sky. Impossible that you become surrounded by clouds so that every window in all directions is filled with nothing but whiteness. Above you, below you, left and right, whiteness. It's as if you've entered a strange kind of otherworld, where childhood images of heaven, or the unknown great hereafter, is nothing but pearly clouds and angelic figures.

Even today, every time I fly, there comes a moment when the earth disappears and space disappears and there is only a small room surrounded by whiteness, all manner of whiteness, and the thrum of the engines is barely noticeable on your skin and in your ears and the space has a strange kind of stale coolness. In that moment, I wonder if this is what those first few moments after dying will be like for me. It won't be a tunnel of light or a large foreboding gate or a set of scales with my soul on one side and a blackbird's feather on the other. It will be me, going somewhere unseen and unknown at an impossible speed, not alone but still profoundly singular in the experience, not quite here or there yet, in progress.

After all, isn't that the space we all really live in? Hurtling toward the future at an impossible speed, yet not quite free of the past behind us? If you died there, in that space, would you even know it? Or would you just ask for more peanuts?

That's a lot to get out of a 120 Minutes video. Twenty years later, and I still listen to the album a couple of times a year. When "Stratford-on-Guy" comes on, I feel that profound sense of being outside and yet somehow in the moment, every time.

The thing that makes me tell you about this experience, dear reader, is that we have reached another week of the Primordial Scent Project. For the next six days our focus is the primordial element of Air. I knew I was getting the Air set before it arrived, and the concept intrigued me. Water? Fire? Those are scents I feel like I have a relationship with. Whenever I thought about how to capture Air as an element in scent, I kept thinking of "Stratford-on-Guy" and the liminal experience of air travel.

It took an hour, maybe a day,
but when I really listened, the noise just went away.

What does it mean to make a fragrance that captures the essence of air? Is it a sort of nothing, an almost absence of scent? Is it a particular scent, a moment captured on the wind? Is it a mishmash of all the things one loves best, a kind of everything scent? Or is it somewhere in between?

That's the question we're going to explore this week with the Primordial Scent Project.

Our first Air scent is Michael Storer's Djin. The Posh Peasant describes the scent as follows:

A powerful djin is what Aladdin brought forth when he rubbed his famous lamp.A spectral and prismatic interplay of olfactory sensations is what you’ll set free with just a few sprays of Djin parfum. Djin’s notes range through all the chakras from the base of the spine with very male Aldrone, leathery castoreum, civet, musk, tonka bean and teakwood, to a middle of sweeter woods tempering the bitterness of grapefruit oil, blackcurrant absolute, clary sage, just a hint of vanilla and iris. This all carries on through the upper spine right to the forehead with an aura of ozonic and marine notes, rose and topped with mind-opening spices including cardamom seed and floral aldehydes. This is all we will reveal. You’ll just have to rub the magic lamp yourself to experience all the full-bodied power of Djin.

The immediate opening is green, sweet, and woody, a fresh light scent that would be easily interpreted as either masculine or feminine. The middle section of Djin is a lovely ozone and marine mixture that reminds of me the prettiest aspects of the smell of the kind of recycled air on a plane, but without the stale unpleasant points. It reminds me what my grandmother used to call "store bought air," with a hefty emphasis on a kind of green dewiness.

I tried Djin a couple of times, and there was always something about the scent I couldn't quite put my finger on. When I couldn't place it easily, couldn't find the right words, I kept going back to that concept of liminal space. An in-between scent for the not quite here or there moment, both in travel and in life. It lives in the quiet beyond the busy-ness of our daily lives, that place where we are forced to sit and wait for our external selves to begin again. In that moment of not-quite-here-or-there-ness, we find a strange kind of peace.

Now what could be more magical than that?

Djin is a light, pretty scent lingers over the skin for hours. The sillage is low but the longevity is good, lasting on me about eight hours.

You can buy Djin for $75 from the Posh Peasant. You can also buy by contacting the perfumer directly.

You can buy the entire Primordial Scent Project: Air Set for $28.00 here.

For more reviews of the Primordial Scent Project: Air Scents, try:  Perfume-Smellin' Things; The Perfume Critic;  John Reasinger, writing for Perfume Pharmer; Indieperfumes; Donna Hathaway, writing for Perfumer Pharmer.

The earth looked like it was lit from within
like a poorly assembled electrical ball.
As we moved out of the farmlands into the grid
the plan of a city was all that you saw.
And all of these people sitting totally still
as the ground raced beneath them, thirty-thousand feet down...
~ "Stratford-On-Guy," Liz Phair

________________________________
Photo of scents taken by me; other photos from Creative Commons: Airplane in sky and Clouds from airplane. All rights reserved.

Blackberry winter in a little white church...

Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay

You know what I love, dear reader?

A fancy 'do. I don't mean a fancy hairdo (though those are nice, too), I mean a fancy schmancy party. Doubly nice? Perfume release parties. Seriously. They are the height of indulgence. Nice food and drinks, nice smells, nice people -- the best of all.

Now I know that a lot of people have middling feelings about Jo Malone scents, particularly among the those who are run perfume blogs. I personally find their scent line to have a lot of scents that hit a pleasing note that isn't aggressive or hard to deal with, just pretty and fun and easy in a thoughtless way, which frankly, has been kind of nice given my stress levels of late. I have quite a few of their scents and I know my local reps at the downtown Nordstrom by name, so when they have events, I tend to get invited. I finally managed to make it to the release party for their newest fragrance, Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay. Say what you will about the fine people of Jo Malone, but know this: they do throw a pretty lovely perfume release party.

The event started with the group of attendees being provided blackberry lemonade for sipping and personal blackberry tarts in to-go boxes  and little jars of blackberry jam for us to enjoy at our leisure. We sat in a small group, talking about early remembrances of scent and our experience of the line under the coordinated prompting of the regional training specialist. We were given different scents in the line to try along with a brief description of Jo Malone's history as a company. When they finally came around to producing the scent we were there to meet, they started by passing out fresh blackberries to the crowd along with fresh bay leaves. We were asked to crush the berries on our tongue and describe the way the fruit tasted, then to tear the bay leaf, and after a few sniffs, do the same.

Then out came Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay, which Jo Malone describes the scent as follows:

Vibrant. Verdant. New Blackberry & Bay. Inspired by childhood memories of blackberry picking. A burst of deep, tart blackberry juice, blending with the freshness of just-gathered bay and brambly woods. A scent of innocence. An irresistible collection to savour.

The immediate opening of Blackberry & Bay is more bay leaf than blackberry. The immediate berry aspects coming through is the tart aspects of the berry crushed immediately on the tongue. This part of the scent is interesting. it's fresh without being too light or overly fruity like so many more mainstream scent takes would be on a similar perfume effort. Unfortunately, it doesn't stay in this tart, fresh place as long as I'd like it to. Like the real fruit, it bursts into sweet fruit, and while still slightly tart and green thanks to the bay leaf note, those aspects become side players in the scent, the kind of character actors you wish would come back to steal the story from the supposed stars.

Now don't let me undersell you on the fruity part, because it is very nice. I just wish the tart and green bits were stronger. My biggest beef with the middle to end of the scent is the musky base. It is a little distracting, like the sound of a low radio from another room. Which is too bad, because the fruit part is lovely. As fruity scents go, I can attest that it is surprisingly realistic. The scent is realistic, robust, dare I even say, supple? Go back a moment to the experiment from the experiment from the scent release event -- berry crushed on tongue while torn bay leaves waves under the nose. Honestly? Thanks to the immediate fruit-in-mouth to scent-on-arm comparison, I can tell you they did a pretty good job.

On the whole? I really like Blackberry & Bay. But more than that, I needed it. Fall is late coming here in Oregon. It's been hot, dry, and sunny for far too long for my tastes. I was out watering the lawn today, trying to keep my plants alive, and could not believe it was already October. October! It is the time of leaf peeping and corn mazes and caramel apples and carving pumpkins. It should not feel like summer as the leaves begin to change, but it does. The last golden light of summer. And while I crave a scent that says "Fall," it needs to be a whisper. It needs to evoke Fall without invoking cashmere sweaters or very hot drinks or crackling fireplaces. I needed something that said Fall in the same way that Dar Williams "End of Summer" is about both endings and transitions into something new.

So if you, like me dear reader, think the best time of year for rebirth is the season of 'death,' the moment that gold goes down to grey, then I submit Blackberry & Bay as a terrific scent for this liminal moment of transition. Me? I bought a bottle.

My frequently mentioned partner in crime, the Kate, decided on a whim to come with me to the event, and it was nice to have someone there who wasn't a 'perfume' person because it provided me some additional perspective on these events. I asked Kate to give me a little feedback on how she found the event as someone largely unfamiliar with perfume and with Jo Malone as a line. Her general response?

OMG. I'm eating a pastry that I smell like. I may not be a perfumista, but I endorse this lifestyle.

And as for you, dear reader, I have not forgotten you. I did not tell you this story of fancy food and drink and perfume to show you all I have that you cannot. Nope. I believe that good things should be shared. And while I can't make the delicious lemonade and berry tart appear at your home, I can provide a sample of Blackberry & Bay and a CD for you to enjoy.

She remembers the nights he’d come calling,
his yellow silk tie.
In love, she saw him falling for her in the fire of July.
Then one day as the nights grew longer,
blackberry winter in a little white church
stood a young pretty bride...
~ "Forever Changed," Carrie Underwood

So! Leave a comment to enter, any comment at all, and I will pick TWO WINNERS! That's right, two winners. Twice as nice.

Winners will receive a copy of my Fall 2012 Mix CD and a sample of Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay (and probably a couple of other scents). Comment by Monday, October 8, 2011, 11:59 PM PST! Open to U.S. and International readers.

He fell in love with an Indian maid over in the antique store...

A Review of Olivier Durbano Citrine EdP

First off, picking a winner for the A Lab on Fire's Super Sweet What We Do In Paris Is Secret and 1950s/60s girlie group mix.

And the winner is:

TaffyJ!

Congrats to Taffy. Email me at feminine (dot) things @ gmail (dot) com with an address I can ship your goodies to. You package will also include a sample of A Lab on Fire's Sweet Dreams 2003, which I've obtained.

I had a big weekend of writing planned, but other things got in the way, hence my extreme delay in posting a winner.  I did, however, consume an inhuman quantity of Gossip Girl, which was only slightly less fun than seeing the look on David's face as I intermittently explained the plot twists to him. Bafflement, doubt, and incredulity is all there is to describe it. Of course, it was the same look he just gave me while I explained the changes to the college football bowl/play-off system, so there you go.  I speak many popular American tongues with which my California-born, perpetually unshod, lifelong-pescatarian Jewish husband is unfamiliar, and they range from faux bitchery on the Upper East Side to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.  And him? He's better at foreign policy, Victorian history, gaming strategy, international relations, and getting people to like him.  It all works out in the end. I did manage to give myself a manicure and got all my grocerying for the last two weeks done in one late night Target run with the Kate, so the weekend wasn't a total wash.

One way the D&D symbiosis works out is that David is often willing to indulge me (a wonderful trait in a partner, IMO).  Tonight he helped me make up for lost weekend time by taking me out for a proper date, complete with sushi dinner, stop at the Sweet Factory for fancy candy (David likes to go crazy in one big bag, whilst I like to divide into multiple smaller bags that include chocolate in one and a mix of cherry and strawberry sour ropes in another), then to see Moonrise Kingdom, which was delightful. David declared it the "least depressing Wes Anderson film ever." So charming, so sweet, great soundtrack with a heavy reliance on Hank Williams tunes.  I loved it.

You know what else I love?  You, dear reader.  Thanks for being there.  Sometimes I think...no, I know, I'd be lost without you.

And with that: on to the perfume! I chose today's scent because it reminded me of the color palette for Moonrise Kingdom, which in turn reminded me that Wes Anderson is always worth experiencing on a screen large enough to immerse yourself in the full sensory experience of his world.

Citrine EdP is the seventh and final scent in a series by Olivier Durbano is his "Stone Poem Jems" line based on semi precious gem stones known for their healing powers. Citrine is an "amber wooded spicy" and is described as follows: 

The scent unfolds and reveals materials reflecting the color of the sun: bright Sicilian lemon introducing a citrus blast; sweet mimosa buds clustering on branches doused with pure sunlight; and warm amber solidifying solar energy. Notes of ginger and pink pepper further invigorate the golden notes with zest. Traces of precious woods and the finest Japanese incense complete the scent journey from inner flame to celestial light. 

Notes: Sicilian Lemon, Wild Orange, Elemi Incense, Ginger, Pink Pepper, Carrot seeds, Mimosa, Rosewood, Gaiac wood, Musk, Myrrh, Grey Amber, Beeswax

 Citrine's citrus opening is strong without being acidic like cleaner or overpowering, and quickly sl-l-l-i-des into an amber so smooth it's surprising after the sharp opening. The scent reminds me most of a good tea with lots of honey and lemon.  It's beautiful, strong but also soothing; Arthur described it as having a glow, and I think that's dead on.  Not terribly unlike the gem from whence it takes it's name, come to think of it.  It grows more toward the incense and wood about an hour in, but remains surprisingly light.

Citrine wears very close to the skin.  On me, the sillage is so low I feel like I'd need to double spray to get enough.  Longevity is middling, about six hours, most of which is more about slightly sweet woods and not so much about citrus, so if you want to try a citrus that isn't really -- a kind of gateway citrus, if you will -- this might do nicely.

Unfortunately, for the price point?  The scent is too soft for my tastes.  But then, I like aggressive perfumes.  If you don't, this might make a great addition to your collection.

Olivier Durbano Citrine EdP is available in 100ml for $190, but you can buy samples from LuckyScent.

And with that, I'll leave you with this classic gem which features prominently in Moonrise Kingdom, which I have loved since I was a little girl:

   

  Want more? Try...
~ a review from EauMG
~ a review from Doll Eyes
~ a review from A Nose is a Nose is a Nose
~ a review from CaFleureBon
~ a review from Kevin at Now Smell This!

So tonight I'm gonna party like its...

A Review of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Miskatonic University

So El Hubs and I are heading out of town this weekend to watch a dear friend graduate college (Go Audrey!), visit his parents, and celebrate his birthday.  I think the image to the right accurately reflects our respective attitudes toward travel in general.  I would be the Sheldon in the scenario, and for David, Penny equals our cats.  It usually takes less than twenty-four hours before he starts verbally speculating about how they are and what they are doing, which usually means he is missing them before we even manage to leave the house. We are going up to one of my favorite areas in the world, the top of the Olympic Peninsula.  My plans include eating at Bella Italia in Port Angeles (shut up, Twi-haters, I love that damned ravioli), jewelry shopping at Lila Drake in Port Towsend before a quick stop at the old-fashioned soda fountain, and if it's nice, a long walk down Rialto Beach.

Did I mention it was his birthday? Yeah. This is what happens when I ask what he wants to do and he says, "Whatever."

And now, for the sleeping.

While I'm mentioning exciting things, I'll throw out there that this past weekend I finished my first draft of the sequel to Spooked, the YA supernatural noir I am currently trying to find an agent for. I wrote for thirteen hours straight to finish it because there is a point I get to near the end of these things that it is literally pouring out of me and I won't be able to focus on anything else until it is done.  On the whole, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. There is something really satisfying about finally getting around to telling the end of a story when you've known it for a long time.  Now my lovely betas are hard at work reading, trying to ignore my egregious typing errors and grammar discombobulation. I have nothing but hearts and sparkles for my peeps, who keep me encouraged when I want to lay on the couch like a beached whale slathered in ice cream remnants moaning about how untalented I am and how it is never going to happen for me.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, gifs have come to Feminine Things because apparently I have now caught up with internet technology circa 1999. FN1.

I was up super late writing, so now I am so in need of coffee I decided my best bet is to smell like coffee.  To that end I bring you Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Miskatonic University, part of their Picnic in Arkham series.

A venerable New England university, whose vast library holds many rare, diabolical and obscure arcane works, including one of the few surviving legitimate copies of the Necronomicon. Home to innumerable scholars of the esoteric and the occult, and the notorious Dr. Herbert West. 

Notes: The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls. 

The initial impression is coffee, hazelnut, and bubblegum?  I have no idea why I get bubblegum.  I think it's the attempt at the Irish part of the Irish coffee.  Over time the bubble-gummy note dissipates (thank goodness) and becomes a mixture of hazelnut coffee, dust, and dry hard wood.   For me, it's worth waiting out the bubble gum for the weird delights of smelling like you've fallen asleep while reading old books in a library with your head resting next to a still warm cup of good sweetened coffee. If you are worried about sweetness; don't.  It get so dry and woody within the first hour that I'd say it more hints at gourmand than actually acts like one. In fact the wood is so strong at the in its almost resin-y.

Let's get this birthday road
trip started! Who has the snacks?

Four hours later, the wood (which took on that ripe young new wood smell) and coffee melded weirdly so that I kept hitting a hint of fig. Nose to pulse point, the notes were still distinctive, but at arm to head length, it was straaaaangely fig fruity. This may just be on me, but that's what I got.  You try it and be the judge. The sillage is relatively low, but the longevity is pretty good. I could smell light wafts eight to ten hours later (though if you read regularly, you know scents tend to last a long time on me.)

This is a classic three-ish nodder for me.  I like it, mostly, but also feel like someone else would like it more, it would fit them better, or I'd like it more if it were only X, Y, or Z.  That said, if you like a little sugar with your wood (dirty!) , this might be a good scent for you. For me, it's sort of meh.  I think I'll shelve it for a few months, try it again in the fall, and if I still can't get into it, make it a gift to someone who can. Could that be you?  Perhaps, dear reader.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

If this sounds interesting to you, stay tuned.  I'll probably give away a BPAL sample set in the next week or two and I'll make sure to include a sample of Miskatonic University.  But first, I have to steal, I mean celebrate, my husband's birthday.

Until then, yours in writing-induced exhaustion,

Diana

______________________________

FN1. And that's how we are supposed to party, amIright? 

Summer, Sun, Fun! - slumberhouse reviews & Drawing Winner!

Perfume Challenge Week 24: Monday, 6/27/11, to Friday, 7/1/11

"As long as I get to pee on a stick and eat my delicious jerky, I'm in." - Katherine Heigl, "Killers"

Surprisingly entertaining film if you haven't seen it and are into spy stuff (which I am), even if the premise is silly and the plot twist is transparent. Anyhoo, I'm posting this from my OlympicPeninsula/Canadian adventure by the time you are reading this. It's my first time out of the U.S., which I am absurbly excited about despite the fact that it's a very short trip to a very close place. What can I say? I've been all over the U.S. I only need 10 states to make my "50 before 40" goal. But leaving and going somewhere, anywhere, else, it's a first step to a bigger life.Who wouldn't be excited about that?

Also, a little housekeeping - Congrats to flavourfanatic, who won the drawing for a copy ofPerfumes: The Guide. Please email me at feminine(dot)things @ gmail.com.

If you didn't win this time, take heart. More drawing plans are underway, and they are going to be really good, if I do say so myself. And now...

More slumberhouse perfumes!

Monday: slumberhouse Miel - Rich honey and leather. Includes notes of: leather, honey, rose, cigarette accord, ambergris, black tea absolute, castoreum musk, saffron. A very imaginative and complex fragrance comprising 54 separate components diluted at 40%.

Very like new thick stiff leather, conjuring in my mind a pair of pristine new saddle shoes. Honey is the note I don't get until very late (2 hours in?), but yes, a lot of saffron and musk right from the beginning. On the whole Miel is a rich industrial scent or the high-fashion, super urban varity that is so gritty and urban, I can't decide which of these two outfits it seems to fit more: very structured black dress with wide belt, sleek-lined military in style or this intense pseudo-regal stiff collared dress that screams "Victorian Space Royalty" to me. Not a scent I see fitting with my current style, but very nice for the edgey, fashion forward type. 3 of 5 nods.

Tuesday: slumberhouse Grev - The interpretation of the dapperest embodiments of a true gentleman. A deep, spicy, earthy, rooty fragrance with an elegant kick of herbs tinted through shades of orris, clove, birch and fir. A completely post-modern version of an elegant masculine cologne, grev is a very intriguing fragrance - truly nothing like it. Notes: Copaiba, fir balsams, clove, birch, orris, cedar

Fir and cloves and cedar make for a smooth, polished scent. It has a littl menthol aspect at the beginning, but the middle is more like a strongly clove and menthol tea. I think it's a very modern scent, but still elegant and classic, reminiscent of those moments when big fashion houses seize on and attempt to reinvent fashion staples, like the little black dress or the the taupe trench coat.

Walking over to me, mi marido said, "I don't know what it is you smell like, but it's nice." Since he rarely makes such comments - he's not that into scent, tragically - I always make a note when he actually notices enough to say he likes the way I smell. You should take that as a recommendation, because I'm over here spray and dabbing and rollering all the live long day and it rarely evokes commentary. Grev is a great scent and I would not restrict it to just men. 4.5 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: slumberhouse Vikt - Dark balsamic woods slowly oozing sweet metallic oils - motions of soft smokey black agar woods through syrupy bronze resins. Incredibly deep & well rounded fragrance with a mellow darkness at its heart. Notes: Oud, styrax, ravensara.

Balsamic woods is a good assessment of the opening of the scent, which smells a bit like a campfire made of scavenged antiques in some post-Zombie apocalyptic future. I agree with mellow and dark, woody and sweet; it's well-made and might work well as a deep dark coffee/licorice liqueur. It's like sucking on hard coffee-flavored candy, like dark polished wood colored painted nails. Classy, smooth, subtle and at the same time unexpected, unorthodox. 3 of 5 nods.

Thursday: slumberhouse Jeke - The concept for this started in autumn 2008 with a batch of smokey cade oil and the idea of a night time stroll with burning autumn woods in the distance - something fiery and burnt yet chillingly desolate, November illusory, breath of fog, ablaze. Into this design I sought to embed a defined masculinity - something well-worn yet intellectual, a refinement streamlined with rustic attributes - warmth of cigars in humidors, old leather shoes & odd buckles, traces of a fragmented sweet spice, the mysterious atmosphere that adorns the well traveled. Notes: Cade, tobacco absolute, patchouli, labdanum, benzoin

Tobacco and labdanum, but with what seems like a strongly citrus edge. It reminds me of a richly fantastic like a fistful of fresh tobacco leaves macerated in an orange/lemon/lime puree on a bed of patchouli leaves.

You know what else it reminds me of? My friend Ashley spent a year studying in Africa, and when she came back she brought some 'beer' back from my ale aficionado husband. This beer? Basically hooch by any other name. It was made with banana leaves (hubby also loves banana) in a hole in the ground with some other materials and left to...cultivate, while in a second hole nearby a fire was set to warm the ground and aid in the fermenting process. The result -- quite frankly will knock you on your ass. How Ashley even got it back into the states remains a mystery to me. (Though she is, generally speaking, a woman of mystery so that's not really surprising).

Long story longer? This scent reminds me of the mysterious, primal, earthy 'banana beer' she brought us. I'm loving it. 4 of 5 nods.

Thursday:slumberhouse Ore-An affection for Carmex lip balm, so Slumberhouse did something about it. Imagine an intensely bastardized version, thickened with sweet scotch and bitter cocoa, made slightly mean with a splash of pure black peppercorn and smeared in a creamy lactonic backdrop. One hell of a dark and sexy beast[.]Notes:Guaiac wood, peru balsam, black pepper, cocoa absolute, palmarosa, clary sage.

Carmex lip balm and chocolate. Yeah, I can actually see that here, because on me the opening was a combination I described to my travel companion as "chocolate-lemon-pine." In the immortal words of the late Johnny Carson, "weird wild stuff." Twenty minutes in the dry cocoa aspect is still there, but the lemon has backed off, and the whole spice aspect has muddled together in a curry sort of way. I even get a civet-like note happening. An hour in it changes drastically again, and I smell blood/warm copper, sage, sugared lemon rind, and celery salt. One of the weirdest scents I've ever tried. I can't say that I really enjoyed the opening, but the middle was decent and the end really nice. Definitely one of those scents you have to see through, though, and not going to be for everyone. 3 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week : Grev edges out Jeke. All of the scents above are available at Indiescent, bottles and samples.

Also, I want to say a word about slumberhouse while I have your attention. I have been surprised, honestly, by the mixed commentary I've been encountering about the line. Personally, I think their work speaks for itself and certainly doesn't need me to defend it. That said, I think slumberhouse is more of the most unique and complicated lines I've tried in the three years I've been doing this. Many of their perfumes are pretty, even beautiful, but that doesn't seem to be the goal. If you accept the premise that scent is an art, like visual art or auditory art, meant to be experienced and impact the person having the experience or to convey a feeling or thought on behalf the creator, then I think slumberhouse is more toward that end of the spectrum. It isn't ultra-realism, like CB I Hate Perfume. It isn't classic like Chanel. It isn't an epic mastery of a particular collective goal, creating some sense of Aristotlean form of that aspect of beauty. It speaks for itself and that either reaches you or it doesn't. That's not a judgement on you, as the sniffa, but it also isn't a judgement on the scent itself. But in the great mental museum of olfactory art, there has to be a po-mo/contemporary wing, and this work slumberhouse is doing would belong there.

A girl I know was participating in a performance art piece on behalf of the art department at the college for theinaugurationof our new college president. As she and the other students were getting ready to begin their piece, one particular art professor came by and hissed, "Remember: what you're doing isn't art. It's decoration." The professor did not believe, given the context of the piece and circumstances surrounding it, that their collective performance piece could really be art. Instead, it was there to be looked at and to entertain, but not to speak for itself as art. When I see critiques of slumberhouse, I'm often reminded of this story. I think too many times people come to perfume looking for decoration, for something that will enhance the wearer. I believe there's a legitimate place for that. But I also hope there is room for us to experience some weird, wild stuff and be moved by it, be challenged by it, and through it, to find aspects of being ourselves as people and being experienced as ourselves in relation to the scent by the world and those around us in new ways, ways we might have missed otherwise.

Because that is art, and adventure, and risk, and reward. In the face of an often routine and stolid world, isn't that something worth appreciating?

I like to think so.

Consider the lilies -- they don’t toil nor spin.

Scent Spotlight:  DSH Perfumes Kenya Lily

Consider the lilies -- they don’t toil nor spin,
and there’s not a king with more splendor than them.
Consider the sparrows -- they don’t plant or sow
but they’re fed by the Master who watches them grow...

I did not expect to do a scent spotlight this weekend, but sometimes pefume moves you. This is one of those times. DSH describes this perfume oil simply as follows: "A strong, bright, and intensely floral lily note."

Wow. It smells like lilies. That probably sounds so dumb and obvious, but so often we say a floral smells like a particular flower, when what we really mean is that is smells the way we expect the flower to smell when it's a perfume, not the way we expect the flower to smell when we put our face to a bouquet. And this really does smell like lilies. It smells like, well, Easter, in my mind. It smells like the resurrection and the life and the promise of unconditional love that we broken humans search for desperately every day of our lives.

I am about to take this to a totally unexpected and unfiltered place,  I guess.

You got your demons. You got desires. Well, I got a few of my own.

Scent Spotlight: By Kilian Incense Oud

As I have mentioned before, I am new to the world of oud. The only one I’ve tried so far is L'Artisan Al Oudh. I welcome any and all oud challengers, because, frankly, new is also awesome for me when it comes to scents. So when I was offered the chance to review By Kilian’s scent, Incense Oud created by Sidonie Lancesseur I jumped at the opportunity. This 2011 contribution is the third contribution to Arabian Nights Collection, after Pure Oud and Rose Oud. I have not tried either of those, so you’ll have to take this review from the Oud-newb context from which it comes.
The notes are as follows:

Oud is an extremely rare and precious oil found in Agarwood, the resinous heartwood of the Aquilaria tree from southeast Asia. The oil itself is dark in coloration and has a complex scent, being warm and woody, yet strongly animalistic at the same time. In many Middle Eastern countries, Oud is believed to be worth more than its weight in gold. To echo this belief, the Kilian bottle has a gold plaque engraved with the name of the perfume and the box is decorated with a gold plaque on the top. 

Notes: Guatemala cardamom, pink pepper, Turkish rose, Egyptian geranium, methyl pamplemousse, Virginia cedarwood, Indonesian patchouli, Indian papyrus, Somalia incense (oil and absolute), sandalwood, Macedonian oakmoss, Spanish cistus labdanum, musks.

The rose is very apparent in this for me. In fact, it reminded me, in my mind’s eye, of Tauer Incense Rosé. So I threw them on together for a side by side. Incense Oud is more soft and sandalwood in comparison to the Tauer. Where Incense Rosé and Insense Oud diverge is around the twenty minute mark, at which point you’d hardly believed they began at a similar place when the ending is different enough to be the differing ends of Frost’s divergent road not taken.

 It’s a very gentle scent that lacks any of the medicinal qualities I get from Al Oudh. I get very little labdanum. I do get the musk, but only gently. The sandalwood/moss/cedarwood makes for a nice balanced scent. It is a soft touch scent, like cool smooth fabric against the skin. The rose seems to have disappeared by the fifteen minute mark, but that’s okay. I enjoy what I find in its wake.

Incense Oud would work well on a man or a woman. It has low to moderate sillage and good lasting power (4-6 hours on me).  I also think it is the rare incense scent that would work very nice in hot weather, so it makes for a great summer oud scent. A respectable 3.5 of 5 nods.

You can buy Incense Oud direct from the perfumer, at Luckyscent, or even Amazon, so if you want it, you can find it. Be forewarned, though: it's pricey.

"One of these nights,
one of these crazy old nights,
we're gonna find out, pretty mama,
What turns on your lights.
The full moon is calling.
The fever is high,
and the wicked wind whispers and moans...
I've been searching for the daughter of the devil himself.
I've been searching for an angel in white.
I've been waiting for a woman
who's a little of both,
and I can feel her
but she's nowhere in sight."
- "One of These Nights," The Eagles

Want more? Try...
~ a review from Perfume-Smellin' Things
~ a review from The Smell of Bliss
~ a review from Perfume Shrine
~ a review from Ca Fleure Bon
~ a review from The Scented Salamander
~ a review from scentsate

In the interest of full disclosure, By Kilian Incense Oud was provided to me by the perfumer for review.

Love sticks, sweat drips.

Monday, 3/21/11, to Friday, 3/25/11

Sorry I'm late this week. It's been a writing heavy weekend. While I was chained to my writer's desk I noticed an email from Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (DSH) Perfumes. DSH is going through a website redesign and a Spring Cleaning, eliminating surplus stock and pairing down some of its lines. There is nothing I like less than figuring out I love a scent after it is no longer available, so this sort of sale scares the bejesus out of me. Thus, in honor of this talented perfumer, and never one to miss a sale, I dug through my sample box and pulled all the DSH scents I had but had yet to review. It was exactly five. Hence I welcome you to Challenge Week 12, a DSH Spring Cleaning week of reviews.

Monday: DSH Perfumes Acqua de Venezia (Italian Journey No. 1) - Top notes: Bergamot, Blood Orange (Israel), Galbanum, Lemon, Petitgrain; Middle notes: Red Fruits, Syringa; Base notes: Ambergris, Musk. Has a clean bitter edge to it. If you could suck on the pith of an orange and instead of citrus you got an essence of green that was also covered in pepper, you'd have something similar to this. I love it conceptually, but I just don't think I'd reach for it very often. A fond farewell item. 2 of 5 nods.

Tuesday: DSH Perfumes The sur l’Herbe (Tea No. 2) - Top notes: Bergamot, Lavender Flower, Lemon; Middle notes: Tarragon (Estragon), Green Tea, Verbena; Base notes: Brazilian Vetiver, Sandalwood Very lemon and verbena to start. The tarragon and tea, which on me reads kind of pepperminty, adds a weird sweet/sour thing, which is supported by the vetiver. I get basically no sandalwood, but as green herbal tea masculines go, its lovely. A fond farewell item. 3 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: DSH Perfumes The´ du Monde (Tea No. 3) - Top notes: Bergamot, Cassis Bud, Fig; Middle notes: Black Tea, Green Tea, White Tea; Base notes: Brazilian Vetiver, Sandalwood, Treemoss The open is a sweet liquoredresembled treat that made me run for the liquor cabinet, trying to place it. After several well-placed sniff, I determined that it most a mixture of Don Eduardo Anejo, a top shelf tequila that is aged in whiskey barrels, mixed with a tea spoon of honey and served warm. It gets a little of a green herbal quality in the drydown, but never loses it's hot, sticky, sweet and sexy charm. So much so that I am crushed it is a fond farewell item. A great option for warmer weather, get it while you can. 4 of 5 nods.

Thursday: DSH Perfumes Giardini Segreti (Italian Journey No. 3) - Top notes: Bergamot, Bitter Orange, Honeysuckle, Italian Neroli; Middle notes: Egyptian Rose Geranium, Gardenia, Grandiflorum Jasmine, Mimosa, Orris, Tuberose Absolute; Base notes: Amber, Ambergris, Galbanum, Musk Wow. If you like florals, particularly gardenia, you must try this. I've tried a lot of nice gardenia, but the amber and tuberose in this make it truly spectacular. Also a really nice summer option. 3.5 of 5.

Friday: DSH Perfumes Il Bacio di Firenze (Italian Journey No. 2) - Notes: iris, narcissus, jasmine, bergamot, musk, and hillside herbs This scent, the "Kiss of Florence," may not even be available anymore, which is too bad because it's very pretty. It's a green floral mixture, like flowers blooming out of a moss covered garden. I hope it gets resurrected, but but given that two Italian Journey scents are in the fond farewell category (No. 1 and No. 6) and No. 7 is also already disappeared, I have my doubts. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week: Another great week, but for me the winner is DSH Perfumes The´ du Monde (Tea No. 3), which I must run off to purchase immediately.

DSH Perfumes La Rose Fleurette (Rose No. 2), which I reviewed here, is also on the fond farewell list, so grab it now while you can. I already did.

You hit me once.
I hit you back.
You gave a kick.
I gave a slap.
You smashed a plate over my head.
Then I set fire to our bed.
~ "Kiss with a Fist," Florence + the Machine

You got a reaction, didn't you?

Monday, 3/14/11 - Friday, 3/18/11

As someone who loves the PNW, I'm always excited to discovery anything perfumey up here round these parts. Olympic Orchids is a new line of handcrafted artisan fragrance products, first inspired by the incredible variety of scents produced by orchid flowers and created by Ellen Covey, owner of Olympic Orchids orchid nursery in the Pacific Northwest. I don't have a lot of experience with orchids, so I decided to give the five orchids from this perfumer a try this week.

Golden Cattleya - The scent of this orchid is pure gold - narcissus, daffodil, orange fruit, orange blossoms, honey, pollen, and cream soda combine with amber-tinged resins and musks to create a warm and long-lasting aura like late afternoon sunshine. This is not your usual sweet flowery orchid scent!

Sweet, warm, sort of citrusy -- this is a huge hit for summer. The opening has a bit of a creamsicle going on, it turns into a lovely orchid, but it ha all this high-potency sweetness to it, like an orchid dipped in honey and dusted with amber. It gets supersweet after about half an hour, but still is a desserty sort of orchid. 4 of 5 nods.

Red Cattleya - You’ve just walked into a Victorian hothouse packed with the most exotic orchid species, brought back by explorers from jungles all over the world. The scent of the blooming cattleyas envelops you, a soft, sumptuous fruity-floral blend with notes of citrus, peach, apricot, melon, hyacinth, gardenia, violets and lilac. At its base is a dark current of musk, exotic woods and vanilla.

Cherry kool-aid, violets, and peaches. It sounds sickly sweet and childish, but it isn't. The musk is there, adding a dry, earthy element to the experience. Definitely fruity-floral, in a plums cherries way on me (thought the melon gets strong on the drydown), but fruity nonetheless. 3 of 5 nods.

Javanica - Walk into a hothouse full of colorful moth orchids with their perfect round flowers and their succulent green leaves. Suddenly you’re captivated by a sweet, heady scent that seems to be coming from an invisible flower. It’s Phalaenopsis javanica, whose tiny red-striped flowers hide underneath the huge, shiny, umbrella-like leaves and produce a seductive spicy flowery scent. Javanica, a perfume inspired by this orchid has citrus, bergamot and fruity top notes, with mid and base notes of nutmeg, frankincense, lily-of-the-valley, rosewood, and vanilla. This mellow spicy floral scent typifies fragrant moth orchids.

This one is in the other direction. It is medicinal and resinous at first, but turns oily and nutty. Even though vanilla is one of the notes, it is barely present here, as a mild undercurrent. Unique: not quite foodie, not quite floral, and hard to pin down. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Little Stars - Imagine a hot, steamy night in the jungle. Insects chirping, unseen creatures moving in the leaves and branches, and the heavenly scent of a flower that must be the orchid queen of the night. A rich blend of citrus, neroli, ylang-ylang, clove bud and jasmine on a base of exotic woods, oud, black agar and atlas cedarwood. An unmistakable spicy floral scent that epitomizes white, night-fragrant orchids and the woody branches that they grow on.

Well hello oud! You're being all dirty oily dark fabulousness on my arm. There is almost sweet or floral about this opening. It's the most masculine thing I've ever smelled with the word "orchid" attached. It gets very clove-y in the middle. It also seems to have a black tea aspect to it. I think I'd like it, but what I'd really love is to smell it on my husband. I think it would be a great masculine. 4 of 5 nods.

Luzonica - "There is a bizarre orchid of the Philippine jungle called Bulbophyllum macranthum. It is relatively rare in cultivation, and not easy to grow unless you have a greenhouse. Its flowers are fleshy and spotted, and look and smell a little like sliced fruits - as well as other things. This orchid has inspired Luzonica, a scent that combines oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines, coriander, pineapple, mango, guava, banana and tropical flowers, along with amber, exotic musks, resins and Tahitian vanilla. An extravagant and unique fragrance."

Definitely an attempt at tropical flowers and fruit, it strikes me as kind of banana flavored candy and pineapple juice scent. It's bubblegummy and incredibly youthful. It's so hard to do tropical fruits well, in a way that does come off as fake, and thhis one tries, really hard. But it's just too much for me -- too sweet, too candied, too "all the tropical fruits at once." My least favorite of the group. But if you like tropical, try it. I didn't want to wear it so much as drink it. 2 of 5 nods.


If you like orchids, give this house a try. They have a variety of different sampling options. I haven't tried the traveling scents yet, but I'm excited to.

Winner of the Week: Toss-up between Javanica, Golden Cattleya, and Little Stars. I wouldn't mind owning any of them.

"You took a white orchid.
You took a white orchid, turned it blue.
Something better than nothing.
Something better than nothing; it's giving up.
We all need to do something.
Try to keep the truth from showing up."
~ "Blue Orchid," White Stripes

Oh, what can you do with a sentimental heart?

Scent Spotlight: L'Artisan Bois Farine EdT

As promised, this year as I sprint through five scents a week, I promised to pause on occasion to sing high praises for the occasional show stopper.  The first of these is inspired by that most commerical of lover's holiday -- Valentine's Day.

Here's what L'Artisan has to say about Bois Farine, a 2003 release:

Created by Jean-Claude Ellena, perfume composer of great talent and international fame, Bois Farine (Wood Flour) is the product of his encounter with a magic tree in the Reunion Islands. Here, in a forest known as the coloured wood forest, surrounded by evocatively named trees , red wood, yellow wood, iron wood and milk wood, he unexpectedly discovered the fragrant white tree - a rare and nowadays protected species, reputed to have magical powers. This tree is specific to Reunion Island and its red flower smells like flour.

Bois Farine is a single and unique fragrance, a magical union between witch wood and flower powder … As rich and fresh as flour rain.

Notes: white cedar, gaiacwood and sandalwood, white iris, farine flower, fennel seed

A ton of reviewers comment on an initial encounter with what they describe as a "peanut butter" note. My pretties, I am getting none of that, and I like peanut butter enough that you could probably still list a well-made  PB and J among my favorite foods, so I admit it was weirdly disappointing.

Instead I was bombarding my a fleeting litany of imagery I can only describe as Valentine-esque. I was so stunned by  the experience I actually set Bois Farine aside expressly for a very special February spotlight.  I'm on try four now, just to confirm my prior impressions, and if I were going to say that any scent seemed stereotypically Valentine's Day like to me, this would be it.  Here's what I get:

Slide 1: A little girl, light brown curls and cupid's bow lips, cutting a string of paper hearts from cheap red construction paper so faded it actually looks kind of sickly
Slide 2: A thin, almost severe looking woman with black hair tied into a bun in a black satin night gown before a large oval mirror on a dressing table, looking at her hollowed cheeks with an air of discerning judgement, then hitting herself smack in the face with a huge and overloaded powder puff
Slide 3: Tiny hands very carefully gluing, with WAY TOO MUCH glue, hearts cut from paper doilies onto purple paper with "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY" printed very carefully across the top
Slide 4: A young woman exclaiming in cartoonesque excitment over flower delivery of completely silk flowers straight from the factory
Slide 5: a pre-teen flopping down on a bed, giant "Princess Leia" esque headphone on as she carefully writes out the tracks on the inside lines of a casette tape in smearing pastel glitter pens
Slide 6: A shower of red hots falling onto a glass bowl sitting on a well-floured surface, then pink frosted cupcakes being pressed, frosting down, into them until they are coated with red hots

I could go on.  My initial notes, which are really my immediate, unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness impressions read as follows:

Baby powder and lipstick, silk flowers and red hots.  If I were going to say that any scent seemed stereotypically Valentine's Day , this would be it.

Here I am three weeks and several tries later and I stand by it.  It's woody, but not in a pencil shaving way or an incense-y way like so many others.  It's sweet, but not overly so. I don't think of it as foodie, even though the immediate thought I have every time is red-laquered nails digging in a bin of  waxy holiday candy.  I think I keep getting red hots because it's cinnamon-flavored candies I keep thinking I'm smelling, and I don't think I've ever thought I smelled that in a scent before.  It's not precisely floral, either, but it still has a vaguely sweet floral scent.

So the big question: do I like it?  Bois Farine is a controversial scent when you look through other reviews. People either love it or hate it or cannot decide enough to say, which says a lot for its not smelling like anything else, and that alone is no mean feat.  Bois Farine was the first in the Far Away Travels line, and I have to appreciate the strange pace it set for what followed.  when it comes to the "Far Away Travels" series, which I personally either psychotically love (Timbuktu, Dzongkha) or find really disappointing (Havana Vanille). FN1  This one I'm putting tentatively  into the love category, which surprises me.  I do really like it, though, perhaps because of, instead of in spite of, its weirdness.  It's definitely a "try before you buy" scent; hell, you should probably try it twice.  Like Robin, I wish I could get it in a 15ml sprayer.  I think I'd wear it, but not often enough to merit 50ml.  15ml would be about perfect.  That, or I need to find another Bois Farine loving weirdo to do a split with me.

You can buy Bois Farine direct from the perfumer, as well as at Luckyscent, Beauty Encounter, Beauty Habit and I'm sure a ton of other places. The price? 50 ml for $95 and 100ml for $135, which let me tell you is a downright reasonable price point if this melts your butter.

"O-o-old habits die hard when you got,
when you got a sentimental heart .
Piece of the puzzle, you're my missing part.
Oh, what can you do with a sentimental heart?"
"Sentimental Heart," She & Him

Want more? Try...
~ a rare reconsideration from Robin at Now Smell This!
~ a review from Bois de Jasmine
~ a review from Aromascope
~ a review from Pere de Pierre
~ a review from Olfactoria's Travels, who looks like she started back in October and has a pretty good thing going

________________________
FN1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you all love it.  You seriously question my taste if I don't. Etc. Etc. Let the stoning begin.

Photo, and all attendant rights related to it: kristelyoneda.

A little grin, a little groan, oh baby...

Etat Libre d'Orange Antihéros

So it's one week until All Hallow's Eve.  Is everyone else as excited as I am?  I doubt it.  I have a good costume this year, which I promise to post you pix of next week, and I am going to a party this year, so I actually have somewhere to where it other than the 24-hour pie house I always seem to end up at on Halloween.  It's weird, but true  Every freaking year.

But we're here to talk about perfume...

Etat Libre d'Orange describes Antihéros as follows:

Take me as I am » seems to say this fake Mr Everybody. An anti-hero never lies about who he is, hence the seeming simplicity of this hedonistic and sun-drenched creation, entirely centered on lavender flower. This hero of everyday life fights very ordinary battles at work, when driving, at home without every taking anything too seriously. His innate modesty is extremely appealing and he knows it. He cultivates his imperfections with wit and with natural unconventional elegance. With his tousled hair and look, this somewhat unexpected superman catches the eye and still cannot believe it – that’s why we adore him.

Composition: lavender, musk, wood...

The lavender and wood combines for a clean smell, so the initial impression is a light, almost lemon or lime wood scent, after a few minutes, though, it arms up as it sweetens and deepens.  The lavender is really dominate at this point, and reminds me of the lavender cupcakes my friend Jill made for my friend Tiff's birthday.  The wood feels less like a base thank a kind of side note afterthought  The musk is almost no where to be found, leaving the combination with a sort of tea like feeling over all.

The words "innate modesty" are, I think, a fitting way to describe it.  It feels like a masculine to me in a Chuck Bass sort of way, but it also makes for a nicely cozy winter scent.  Personally, I prefer L'Artisan's Tea for Two, but if that's to spicy for you and you'd like a scent that is a little more toward the floral tea side, you might really like this one.

You can buy Antihéros in 50ml and 100ml bottles, as well as get samples, from LuckyScent or direct from the perfumer.


"If I could just turn back the clock and hear you hum along again
I'd give up all this tea I bought hoping you'd stop by.
At least a case of Orange Spice. 
Now tea is something I don't like.
I like coffee. I like it dark.
It's not for wimps.
You're not a wimp, but you're a Buddist.
That's like..voodoo.
Tea tastes like doodoo.
But for you I'd buy tea
just to have you hum along."
- "Just to Have You Hum Along," Betty Elders


Want more?  try....
~ a review from Fragantica
~ a review from A Minx by Any Other Name
~ a review from Aromascope
~ a review from One Thousand Scents
~ a review from Antihéros

Do our gay ballet on ice, bluebirds on our shoulders...

Etat Libre d'Orange Don't Get Me Wrong Baby, I Don't Swallow

I'm back from my anniversary trip. We had a lovely weekend that went by, in my opinion, far too quickly. Since the 5th anniversary is "wood" and David, very sweetly, always buys me something along the anniversary theme, he bought me a very nice wooden box, a wooden book mark, two wooden magnets, and even a card made of wood from my favorite stationery store in town, oblations papers.

 Not just any wooden box, though. He got it for me specifically to hold perfume! That's right, perfumistas. It is exactly the right height to hold all of my decants, which were falling out of the sides of the wire basket I had them in previously. See the picture (to your right)?  They fit so perfectly!  And the box also fits great inside my cabinet. So now my unboxed scents are in the basket and the decants are in the box, and he even offered to buy me more boxes for my 1 and 1.5 ml want samples if it would help me store them properly.

I swear to you, if I weren't already in love, that would have won me over right there.

But enough gushing. Let's get back to perfume reviews, shall we?

First up for review this week is Etat Libre d'Orange's Don't Get Me Wrong Baby, I Don't Swallow.

It all starts with a hand on the nape of a neck. The hand of a man familiar with the practice of attracting young women, accustomed to crumpling their sleek hair and to getting the better of their well-behaved manners. This is the story of a man in a car at night, of a manly hand that draws a perfectly fresh face towards him - expressed at the start by a bouquet of white flowers: lily of the valley, jasmine and orange blossom –, and who anticipates the chocolaty taste and tenderness of a mouth. It is also the story of a woman who at first resists and finally goes down on him. The art of the “American kiss” unfurls on accords of ambre solaire, almond, sugar cane and marsh mallow. The man will discover everything there is to know about her: the warm roughness of her tongue, the rousing sensation of her back and forth. All there is to know and no more than that! The appetizer ends in a whisper: “Don’t get me wrong baby, I don’t swallow”.

Notes: jasmine, aldehydes, lily of the valley, orange blossom, solar amberey accord, patchouli, cacao, musk, and guimauve.

Don't Swallow, as I internally think of it, is so sweet and innocent it's hard for me to reconcile the naughty name with what's going on under my nose. I get the cacao and amber a bit right up front, which combine with the jasmine and lily of the valley to create a sort of bubblegummy sweetness. It's strangely delicate, though, and pretty soon just devolves into a light floral. It's a strange juxtaposition against the name, which I would expect to have a harder, edgier scent that was defiantly sexual. But maybe its just the shock value that makes me read it wrong. Maybe I'm supposed to encounter it as the gentle tease it reads as, like what one imagines occuring after they cut away from passionate bedroom embraces in films from the 1950s. It's a nice enough scent, which gets a bit musky and warm on its way through the dry down, but it reminds me of L'Artisan Mûre et Musc because I just find it too nice to wear.

I'm never gonna be a white lace dress with wrist-length gloves and a lavender satin ribbon around my waist. At my wedding I wore a dress with red bordering the bottom and corseting down my back and ending in a long blood red trailing bow. I wore nail polish called "I'm Not Really A Waitress" and bright red lipstick. Plus, I got married in the attic of a historic power station house on an old poor farm that has been converted to a pub and hotel with a bar two floors below me. I'm not really a sweetly demure, eye lash fluttering, bubblegum pink type. In musical theatre terms, I am not and have never been Sandy; I'm Rizzo, right down to the bad reputation.

That said, if you like the idea of flirting in too tight sweaters and pencil skirts while wearing thigh highs with seams up the back like a character from Mad Men, you might just love this scent. I can think of at least one friend I'd spray it on before we went out to bar hop, me in ballet flats, chucky jewelry, and heavy eye make up and her in tea length dresses and pearls. If that sounds like you, or at least someone you like to be on the weekends, check this one out.

You can get samples of Don't Get Me Wrong Baby, I Don't Swallow from direct from the perfumer.

"Stay out super late tonight
picking apples, making pies.
Put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us.
We're half awake in a fake empire."
- "Fake Empire," The National

Want more? Try...
~ a review from Perfume-Smellin' Things
~ a review from The Scented Salamder
~ a review of the line from Bois de Jasmin