Go on, go on and talk...

First, dear reader, let me say that this author has been touched beyond belief with the calls, emails, Facebook messages, tweets, and, in one case, an actual visit to my house in response to my last post.  

 I love you, dear reader, and it is startling to know that you, within the confines of the various forms and functions love allows, love me, too. You make every day worthwhile. 

Okay, having been accused of "blerghing" rather than blogging last week, let's move past the mushy stuff, shall we? FN1.

It's getting cooler in Portland, which means we are approaching my favorite time of year: Fall. I love everything about fall. The holidays. The cool weather. The fall leaves that paper the streets, slick with rain. The moody cloud cover. The foods. The smell of fireplaces and wet pines and musty wool. School spirit and new beginnings and Friday night football games. FN2. FN3.

Last week I woke up and the rain and wind were knocking yellow leaves from the trees along my drive in to the office, when only the day before those leaves had been green. Fall isn't here precisely, but it will be soon.

The winter ships come and go
despite the Columbia fog...

What does Fall mean to you, dear reader? For me, it means a change in scent wardrobe, thought that likely won't occur until I come back from Nashville next week. FN4. FN5. But I've been thinking about it a lot. What will inevitably rotate to the back of the scent collection and what will come to the fore. Since I'm skipping my annual September trip to the Olympic Peninsula in lieu of Nashville and won't likely get up there now until it is full on winter, you will all have to cope with tales of broody Portland fall this year. FN6.

Since it was cool and wet yesterday morning, I dug out my bottle of Bvlgari Black. If you've never tried Bvlgari Black, you really should. It's beautiful, edgy yet feminine, and you can always find it at a reasonable price.


To get to Bvlgari Black, I had to reach past Tauer Perfumes L'Air du desert marocain, a long standing favorite, and Pentachord Auburn, which I bought after wearing it out of The Perfume House and then thinking about it for the next two months. Both of these are nice for fall.

Last week, I whipped out Lorenzo Villoresi Alamut, which is indelibly sweater linked in my head. I also recently found a place for my Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay on my Lazy Susan which holds my seasonal choices. (I rotate things in and our of drawers on the Lazy Susan, which I can spin at leisure in the morning.)

What else smells like fall to me? As someone who associates fall with it beginning to rain again, I can't ever smell those wet leaves without thinking of CB I Hate Perfume Black March, which I love layering with the easy, soapy, beauty of Jo Malone Red Roses.

Another happy Fall scent for me is slumberhouse Rume, which I once referred to as "the fall evening aromas of humidifier mist." It is a spicy, wintry, vaguely medicinal fruitcake liqueur of a scent, and every time it gets cooler, I reach into the cabinet for a healthy spray of it.

For something more toward the foodie end of things, may I recommend Annick Goutal Vanille Exquise for fall? This vanilla plays toward the burnt sugar and salted caramel end of things for me. When I saw the salted caramel mochas were back on the seasonal menu at Starbucks, I knew it was the right time to dig this one of the the drawer. Vanille Exquise always reminds me of pie walks and homemade carnival treats at elementary school carnivals. I think I only got to go to one at my own school when I was very little, but it remains one of my favorite childhood memories. If anyone has a recipe for really good popcorn balls, I'll take it.

For my final Fall-scented thought for this moment of transition, when every breath carries with it the death of the old in favor of a long coming new beginning, I'll add one of those scents that, if money were no object, I'd buy a giant bottle of so that I would never run out: By Kilian Back to Black. Tobacco and sugar are at their best here, intermingled together with a laudanum undertone that makes it a perennial hit in my book.


So there you have it, dear reader. Ten forward thinking Fall scents for the coming season. I know these are all scents I've reviewed before, and I promise, new reviews are on the horizon. But I realized this week that I haven't really sat down and spent quality time with my current collection in a long while…too long, really. I need to take some time to reflect on what I have and what I want and what I am missing. I suspect this will also result in a round of "What I can give away," so be prepared for that to come, too, dear reader.

The time has come to reassess and clean a little house. So mixes and scent packages will be forthcoming, as well as some long overdue gifts I owe.

Until next time, when I hope to write you from the land of barbecue, boots, and bourbon, I'll be thinking of you.

Pier 39, Astoria, Oregon.

You know this isn’t right, 
can’t we just have a fair fight?
So you need to hide to get through the day.
Stop being nice. 
Say it to my face:
am I Jezebel or am I Gargamel today?
You know it makes me laugh out loud.
You can’t hurt me now.
Go on, go on and talk
You can say whatever you want
Call me a homewrecker; call me a monster.
Give me what you’ve got!
~ "Give Me What You've Got," The Shondes

______
FN1. I'm looking at you, knife boy.
FN2. Okay, technically Lewis & Clark plays on Saturday afternoons, which is weird, but whatever. I'm from Texas, and in my head, it's all about the Friday Night Lights.
FN3. And here's why:

There is no quit in those boys. NO QUIT. And as my beloved brother was once a teenage Texas football player, a lingering intense pride remains.
FN4. Oh? Did I fail to mention I am currently in Nashville for a week to hang with my very own The Kate? Yep.
FN5. I am buying my first pair of cowgirl boots in over a decade while I am there. I am very excited. There will a fancy new shoes post to come soon for those of you into that sort of thing.
Wait.
That came out wrong.
FN6. Though I also have a trip to Chicago in October and a trip to Seattle in November, so there will be multi-state perfume plotting.

I've been lying too long; I was right when you were wrong.

Spring Time Reflections, Some Perfumey and Some Not

View from the Oregon City elevator

In an  "everybody else is doing it so why can't we?" mindframe, I’m was going to do my top ten scents for Spring 2011, for my own since of personal scent development archiving and because I can. But I already did a pretty hefty Spring scent list over here already. So instead, I’m just gonna record, for your entertainment and mine, some random thoughts for Spring, perfumey and not.  Also, some random pictures from a recent adventure I took following brown signs to historical sites around Oregon City, Oregon.

Bands/Artists I can't get enough of: The Watson Twins, Neko Case, Rilo Kiley, The Decemberists, Fitz and the Tantrums, Fleetwood Mac, Muddy Waters.

Surprise go to Scent this Spring: DSH Perfumes Lush Honey, bought unsniffed and so loving that I will buy another bottle while I still can, before it is discontinued.

Houses I need to try more of: Dior, Hermes, Annick Goutal

Best scents I bought for under $15: A tie between Coty Stetson and Worth Je Reviens EdT.

On the "soon to be purchased" short list: Miller et Bertaux no. 3: Green, green, green and green (finally), Tauer  L'Air du Desert Marocain (also finally),  vintage Evening in Paris (go, go ebay bidding skillz), CB I Hate Perfume At The Beach 1966.

If I had a million dollars: A huge bottle of Roxana Illuminated Perfume GreenWitch, which is so amazing I can barely stand it.  At $175 for only 7.5ml, is just sadly well beyond my price range, as my ideal would be to have twice that much at least. Carefully hugs her tiny 1gram $30 sample vial. Truly one of the most beautiful green scents I've ever smelled, and deserving of a lengthy review as soon as I can get to it.

End of the Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center closed in 2010.

Happiest stumbled upon scent love of Spring: Hermes Un Jardin En Mediterranee. Who knew I liked figs? I certainly didn’t. Want to try more figs now.

Best newly discovered indie perfumer: I am so glad I found Ellen at Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes. Not only is she a really nice person, she makes great perfume and is doing us PNW perfumistas proud

Notes I’m weirdly over right now: vanilla, sweet florals, roses. I think I burned myself out.

Notes I can’t get enough of: weird fruits, anything green or herbal, moss, civet, cedar. If you’ve got recommendations in this area, please provide them.

Spring, in general and as part of college life: My least favorite season. Maybe it’s a time of adventure and renewal for everyone else, but for those of us who live on a college campus, it’s an ending time. This year is particularly difficult because, thanks to an early retirement program, forty-five life-long members of my beloved campus community are retiring. Yes, you read that right. Forty-five. So much for institutional memory. It really reinforces my feeling of not belonging here anymore; it’s strange to feel like a relic of someone else’s adventure in your own life.

Among those retiring is one of my favorite people in the entire universe, Stephen Dow Beckham. If there is a person in the world who inspires me to never give up or think something is out of my reach, to push myself harder and always believe I can do anything, it is this man who has done everything and still keeps on trucking. He is the first person in my collegiate career who ever implied my work was valuable, that my ideas were worthwhile and my voice, worth hearing. I had a lovely advisor before Dr. Beckham, who was a great and special man who believed in me, but Dr. Beckham is the one who took everything I did in stride as a matter of course and demanded more because he knew I was capable.

I’ll never forget the day after I did my radio interview as spokeswoman for a statewide campaign against parental notification for abortion. FN1. I ran into Dr. Beckham on my law school campus; he was there to interview dean candidates for the law school. He stopped me, and I felt this terror swirl though my stomach. Here was this educated, established, well-off white man who I loved and admired and wanted to think well of me, but whose politics I had never been all that sure of. “I heard you on the radio,” he said. I nodded, and said something perfunctory about the interviewer having ties to my alma mater. “ I heard your voice, and I thought, ‘I know who that is’” he replied, his eyes twinkling. He didn’t come out and say he was proud of me, but I could tell he was. Dr. Beckham knew one of the things I was most ashamed of in my life, and he was proud of me for standing up for what I believed in. That was the moment I knew doing the campaign was the right thing, and I felt, for the first time, we might win.

It was a huge moment for me personally, and I think it says evverything about how much a teacher can shape your life, helping you long after you've left them to know you're on the right path.  I pity all the students who won’t get to have him as their teacher. He’s the kind that can change your life.

What about you, dear reader. How is your Spring going?

"I can't hear this anymore.
It's time to leave.
I've closed the door.
Did you ever believe in me?
In you and me?"
"U-N-Me," The Watson Twins
_____________________
FN1. Yes, I had an abortion. No, I don’t regret it. No, I don’t feel the need to justify that to you. Yes, I did radio(NPR)/television (all three networks; yes, even Fox)/newspaper interviews where I talked about my experience, which included a photo of me on the front page of the widest circulating paper in the state. Yes, people said things to me, good and bad. Ultimately, we won, thus keeping Oregon the state with the least regulation on choice. I know anecdotally that at least some votes were changed because of my story. I’m glad I did the campaign and would do it again.

Let me also say, that as a woman who had an abortion in Texas, I am appalled by the recent news that the Texas Legislature has passed a bill requiring a sonogram before an abortion can be preformed.  This will not stop a woman who wants to have an abortion; it just adds unnecessary time and expense.  Society spends a large part of its energy policing women's behavior through shaming, particularly around issues of sex.  Well, guess what?  You've already made your feelings clear about our choices.  But they are our choices.  And you won't stop us.  You never have.

Must be the Season of the Witch

Favorites for Fall 2009

When I look out my window,
many sights to see.
And when I look in my window,
so many different people to be
that it's strange, so strange....
- "Season of the Witch," Donovan

Readjusting to living in Portland means walking into a Fall season in full swing. This is akin to walking face first into a door, weather-wise, and it has taken me a week or so to adjust. In addition, I'm just barely overcoming a moderate chest infection, which made the old sniffer go a little haywire.


If you've seen even the posters or ads for the Twilight movie, then you know that the film is shot with a kind of bluish filter that makes everything look tinted in the light. In the book, the effect is described by the narrator as "alien." But when you live here, the grey light makes the lovely fall colors higher contrast, making the whole world seem more richly colored. I've done fall in New England, and it's beautiful in its own right, but nothing touches the singular beauty of the PNW in fall. Except maybe the PNW in Spring.

But I digress...

When I think about Fall in Portland, I tend toward scents that fall into a handful of categories. Big white flowers just don't cut it in the white and wild green and grey. Gourmands, on the other hand, reflect the cozy feelings I ascribe to fall in Oregon. Yes, it's windy and wet and wild in that way that Nature is, but that also invokes smells of wet cashmere and wood burning stoves and savory stews and homemade pies with handmade crusts. So for me, foodie scents are very in for fall, as well as the smell of burning leaves and wood, incenses, and the smells of warm beverages, like coffee and tea and cider and liquor.

When it comes to nature in Oregon, CB I Hate Perfume Wild Hunt is just so very fall to me. It's wet dirt and sweet decay, exactly what I think of when I think fall. I actually found myself walking to lunch the other day and thought I'd smelled Wild Hunt, but it was just a momentary wafting up of the grounds as I passed. It's perfect for Oregon in Fall.

To that end, let me give you my favorites for fall of 2009. When it comes to coffee, Bond No. 9 New Haarlem cannot be beat. As vaillas go, Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille is a great foodie vanilla and Il Profumo Vanille Bourbon strikes a lovely balance between foodie and boozy.

In terms of tea scents, for fall I like CB I Hate Perfume Lavender Tea, which is a lovely feminine scent that also feels warm and cozy. The other tea scent I like for Fall (though I think it also works for Spring) is L'Artisan Tea for Two.

My fall spicy, incense-y choices are Costume National 21, Tauer Perfumes L'Air du desert marocain, and my perennial favorite, L'Artisan Dzing! These are great, strong scents that can overcome the wet world outside that clings to you along with all those other world smells. When you peel off all the cold weather layers, these are scents that will still be there, hanging around you in a sophisticated and lovely way.

Lastly, I think it's always nice to have a rose for every season, and the dirty skanky patchouli bits in Juliette Has a Gun Lady Vengeance are spot on for fall. I also think Agent Provocateur EDP would also work, but I personally prefer Lady Vengeance, so that's my choice.

I hope you are all having a lovely fall. I know I am. As much as I wish I were employed, I am so, so happy to be home. It took me thirty-one years, but I finally have a home. I hope you all feel as lucky as I do.

And with that, have a Happy Halloween.

More top 10 lists for Fall 2009 from Grain de Musc, Erin at Now Smell This!, Bois de Jasmin, Perfume-Smellin' Things, and the whole Perfume Posse gang.

Images courtesy of Twilight and the Seattle Examiner.

The warmth of your love is like the warmth of the sun...

So! Work has been having me for lunch. Between my full class load and my 25-30 hours a week (that is really only supposed to be 20) at the D.A.'s office, I am, in a word, overwhelmed. Plus there has been an intense amount of family drama lately, which does not help my stress levels. Plus there's the election...the economy...my pending exams... It just never seems to end.

I've been sampling, though, and while these deserve full length reviews, I just want to say Kai = good, Tauer Perfumes L'air du Desert Marocain = WOW!, and I apparently won the drawing for the Perfume Posse Top 25 of 2008, which is about the only thing good to happen to me in a couple of weeks. Which is truly awesome. Really and truly. And I promise to get on top of my reviews again, as soon as my ethics midterm is out of the way next Tuesday.

While I'm here, though, I just wanted to say that living in the PNW, there is a fragrance I have latched onto for fall I never expected: CB I Hate Perfume's Black March.

Black March, from Christopher Brosius's collection, was inspired by a poem by Stevie Smith of the same name. CB says the following of Black March:

A fresh clean scent composed of Rain Drops, Leaf Buds, Wet Twigs, Tree Sap, Bark, Mossy Earth and the faintest hint of Spring Flower Bulbs as pretty and bright as rain drops on black twigs in March.

The description is pretty dead on. It's wet and wild and earthy, like the PNW in fall and winter.  There is a great green wildness to Black March, which I find so oddly comforting, like someone bottled the Green Man himself. At a time when I expected to be reaching for intense incenses and orientals, here I am reveling in this rich dirty-ness. The only thing that I don't get as much is the "spring flower bulbs," which I smell more in CB's Wild Hunt than in Black March. Instead I just get this subtle sweetness in the dry down, which reminds me more of a sweet sweat smell than a flower. Like the sweet smell of a baby, mingling with the sweet smell of earth in bloom after rain. This scent, which so uniquely captures life, has turned out to be a welcome counterpart to the natural cycle of death and decay around me. So compelling...so hopeful.

And with the economy in a shambles and dire news all around, both personal and external, maybe hope is exactly what we need right now. 4 of 5 nods.

And I won't forget the way you held me up
when I was down
And I won't forget the way you said,
"Darling, I love you,"
You gave me faith to go on.

The warmth of your love
is like the warmth of the sun.
And this could be our year;
took a long time to come.

~The Zombies

To buy Black March for its very reasonable price of $75 for 100ml, you can get it straight from CB or from Lucky Scent. For additional reviews, see Perfume-Smellin' Things' review.