Food for Thought: Flowers, Chocolates, and Super Sweet Scents for Valentine's Day

Dear reader:

I should be in bed right now. I am so tired. My new job is good, but kind of exhausting. So why am I writing you? A lot of reasons I guess. Despite being bone tired, I'm feeling restless. I don't know what it is, exactly. Something under my skin. A weird kind of itching.

So while the wickedness within refuses to give me peace, let's talk about that cheesy commercial holiday bearing down on us. The men I work with are surprisingly on top of their game, Valentine's Day speaking. They have reservations. They have gifts. These guys got game.

It's probably why they're all happily married.

I'm surprised by how happy they are about participating in V-day. I never dated anyone who embraced Valentine's Day. I was sort of under the impression most people tolerated Valentine's Day. I'm not used to it being whole-heartedly embraced.

So you know what, reader? Let us try to get a little into the hearts and sparkles spirit, shall we? After all, Beautiful Creatures comes out next week, and we all know that I have fangirlish feelings for Ethan and Lena and their trials and tribulations. Plus, I do get go see two of my closest friends next weekend. So let's embrace the love a little, shall we? After all, the Greeks had as many words for loves as there are kinds of love to be had. So let's talk love, romance, music, and—of course—perfume.

First up on my list of V-Day scent selections for 2013? By Kilian Good Girl Gone Bad. Released as part of the In the Garden of Good and Evil collection, Good Girl Gone Bad is described as follows on Luckyscent:

GOOD GIRL GONE BAD typifies a special sort of woman. A perfume that represents a kind of voluptuousness beloved by Kilian : sensual and unrestrained. A woman who is game for anything in the world of love, of desire, of naughtiness.

GOOD GIRL GONE BAD is a composition of fruits and flowers, a perfume as bewitching as bursts of laughter, a barrier moved beyond, a forgotten prohibition.

The perfume opens on the fresh innocence of the petals of Jasmin Sambac and the apricot sweetness of Chinese Osmanthus. But that feminine ideal does not continue to fool anyone for long. Letting go of their demure appearances, the flowers toss off their inhibitions and reveal the other, decadent side of themselves. The Rose of May gives off its honeyed heat. The Indian Tuberose nakedly exhibits its milky roundness, while the narcotic sensuality of Egyptian Narcissus surges forth, uncontrollable and deliciously haunting. Notes of Virginia Cedar and Amber open up and try to assert their dominant character In order to contain that outpouring of opulence, but they never succeed in taming it completely. The tension is palpable; the addiction exacerbated; the pleasure consummated.

GOOD GIRL GONE BAD, when the woman become a temptress, a sinner - when she dares and when she proves her audacity.

Notes: Jasmin Sambac, osmanthus, rose, tuberose, narcissus, violet accord, plum accord, cedar wood, amber, patchouli, vetiver, musk.

Okay -- overbearing ad copy aside, this is a pretty, well-made scent that would make a nice Valentine's Day choice.

Good Girl Gone Bad is feminine but with an edge. This scent starts out floral but quickly becomes a little dirtier thanks to the base notes.  For me, though, Good Girl Gone Bad is less about dirty florals than it is about the sticky sweet floral. I don't get nearly as much patchouli as I get hefty sweetness.  Good Girl Gone Bad is heavy on the amber note for me, as well as the sugar heavy edge of the florals ( the sweetest part of rose, narcissus, violet) mixed with the jammyest of plums.  On the whole, I like it.  It make my sweet tooth ache in the best way.

Any list of sweet scents that could be romantical would also have to include A Lab on Fire What We Do In Paris is Secret, particularly for the perfume lover with a wicked sweet tooth. Another super sweet favorite? By Kilian Love.

Not into super sweet? How about chocolate! First of all, Aftelier Perfumes Chocolate and Saffron Body Oil & Hair Elixir is described thusly:

This romantic and sensual body oil leaves your skin of smelling of chocolate and flowers. Featured on the blog, Brainy Beauty for Product Junkies: "I put this on my arm & now I want to eat my arm... it is such a delicious smell."

Chocolate and Saffron is sweet without being aggressively so. It leans toward the foodie side of chocolate, but the saffron balances it nicely so it isn't overly edible. Instead the chocolate is counterbalanced against the slightly floral spice of saffron so it just feels simultaneously fresh and light. Pretty, polite, and subtle, Chocolate and Saffron is sexy without being provocative, and at 105 ml for $50, the price point is perfect for a lovely holiday gift that will last a long time.

Other chocolaty scents I recommend? Try the spicy chocolate of Il Profumo Chocolat EDP or one of my absolutely favorites, the light and airy chocolate rose of S-Perfumes 100% Love.

You know who else makes a great chocolate and rose scent? Ayala Moriel Natural Perfumes! Roses et Chocolat, originally created as a Valentine's scent, is now available year round, which is lucky for all of us. That means any time of year you can have...

...three pleasures in one elegant flacon: a bouquet of red roses, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate truffles, and, of course - a perfume! The most sensual and sumptuous way to declaration of love. Kisses not included. Notes: Allspice (Pimento Berry), Amber, Benzoin Siamese Cocoa Absolute, Mace, Nutmeg Pink Pepper Absolute, Rose de Mai, Rose Maroc Rose Otto (Turkey)

If 100% Love is the barest brush of a feather, then is is chocolate and roses as a full-bodied seduction. Strong chocolate notes balance against a rose with a tangy bite like the taste of rose petals. It is a dark rose with a bit of...is that pepper? Talk about your spunky Valentine! Long lasting and elegant, like a heavy china plate with a 14 carat gold rim. You can have it as an EdP or a parfum extrait, or even as a real chocolate bar! How awesome is that? And if I had the money, I'd buy the whole Ayala Moriel Natural Perfumes Broken Hearts - Valentine Coffret 2013! A truly luxurious gift for the scent addict in your life.

And if you are going to talk about sweets and chocolates, we might as well talk about flowers, reader. Since I couldn't have the Broken Hearts Coffret, I will have to console myself with DSH Perfumes Les Rouges Collection Box.

PASSION, POWER, LUST, RAGE, ECSTASY… such are our associations with RED; our wildest emotions and greatest HEAT are bound to this primal color. Inspired by the radiance and intensity of RED, my Les Rouges Collection Box contains a miniature (5ml) bottle of all four of the exquisite members of this collection.

The Les Rouges Collection includes Fleurs d’Oranger (Orange Blossom); Oeillets Rouges (Red Carnations); Poivre; Piment et Chocolat – four lovely scents that cover a range of florals and a chocolate to boot! I feel pretty confident that I, for one, will be pleased by own Valentineal thoughtfulness.

So that's it for me this year. Some more traditional Valentine's recommendations this year. While I'm here, I'll also direct your attention to my Valentine's post from last year, where apparently I also talked about BC, and then wrote about a lot of really great perfumes that I still whole-heartedly endorse, including a list of less conventional recommendations.

Love is not love until love's vulnerable.

Love.

It is the worst good thing that ever happens to a body. You don't have to take my word for it. Literature is riff with examples. Shakespeare said it best: "For never was a story of more woe than this..." Or, to put it in a more modern way: "To love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be destroyed." Thanks Cassandra Clare.

Then there's poetry. T.S. Eliot: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me." Or Auden: "I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong." Or John Donne: "My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, but after one such love, can love no more."

Oh! I forgot the movies... Lloyd Dobler said it beautifully: "Maybe I want to get hurt!"

And then there's the music. I could go on and on about the music, but you get the point. Being in love means being vulnerable. It means being to willing to get hurt. And even when it goes well, trust me when I tell you it still sometimes hurts.

What makes me say these things in this holy sanctified Hallmark season of Love? Well for one, I finished reading Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's third book in the caster chronicles series, Beautiful Chaos, where upon I bawled my eyes out.

Also, David and I usually don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We usually celebrate Not-Valentine's, picking some other less commerically busy and more personally happy day to say, "I love you." But because lots of people do celebrate Valentine's Day, I thought I'd provide some shopping-related thoughts.

Envoyage Perfumes Carmel Bohême is a lovely Valentine's option. Inspired by the French novelist and poet Henri Murger: “Bohemia is a display of exuberance set against dark, silent edges; a glass house of exotic orchids”, this amber floral has notes of "Sweet Orange, Plum, Muguet, Enfleurages of Gardenia and Tuberose, French Jasmine, Honey, Patchouli, Frankincense, Labdanum, Amber, Sandalwood." It is described as "colorful, unpredictable, original, outrageous, edgy, tumultuous."

Personally, I find Carmel Bohême full of wildly delicious white flowers, a warm, lush, lovely scent. It is a wonderful blend of gardenias and tuberoses and jasmine, sweet and soapy and a little tart. Sure, you could buy your loved one a bouquet of real white florals, but trust me when I tell you this is just as beautiful and will last long after the buds are moldering in the bin. It has great longevity, and after four hours, it turns into a honey/amber/sandalwood sweetness that rides close to the skin. Truly lovely, and worth checking out even if you aren't in the market for a Valentine's scent.

Not super excited about white floral bouquets? No problem. Jo Malone is happy to supply you, not only with a bottle of beautiful Red Roses, but with a whole Red Roses Fragrance Chronicle for V-Day. You get a bottle of Red Roses, plus three accords to layer with it: "Sweet Lemon brings tantalising transparency; Scarlet Velvet Rose adds richness; and Honeycomb, a nectar-like warmth." I like the Jo Malone layering system, which in this case allows me to make seven different roses, plus several other scents that don't include the Red Roses center piece. In addition, there are always bonus gifts when it comes to Jo Malone, so when I ordered my set, I got a free 9ml of Grapefruit, which I don't own, to boot. That's a gift that stays beautiful for much longer than thorny reality of the flowers themselves. The collection is a limited edition offering, so if you like Red Roses, you may have to pretend some Valentine-y love to get it.

Not into flowers? Then go with food!  Ayala Moriel Natural Perfumes makes one of the all time best foodie scents in Immortelle l'Amour. Chocolate, vanilla, liquor, maple syrup, waffles all in one, it is a top grade, incredibly lickable scent that can bring happiness even to a wounded heart. She also makes teas and truffles, so it's a one-stop, deliciously aromatic shop to make all your edible love-themed purchases. Prefer jewelry?  You can get solids in compacts and poison rings, so your gift will be both visually and olfactorially beautiful.

Can't stand anything too edibly sweet? Well, here's a scent that you can love even when love itself turns sour. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's (The Maglignant Dreams of) Cthulhu in Love is "an amorphous mixture of incense, sea weed, sea salt, sticky dark ocean plants and chocolate." Dry chocolate and sweet dry herbs, it is a surprisingly love and high quality scent for the BPAL price point. It was a random-no-special-occasion-just-because-he-loved-me gift from David, and appears, now that I write this, to be sadly discontinued. Just like slumberhouse Ore which I also have a tiny, precious vial of. Chocolate scents are lovely, but apparently not all that long for this scented world...much like real chocolate is in my house. If you can find Cthulhu in Love, give is a whirl. It's delightful.


Speaking slumberhouse, I'll add Grev  to the mix, though I am probably the only person who will ever put this on a Valentine's list. But then, I'm not like anyone else in most other respects, so here it is. Grev is made of "copaiba, fir balsams, clove, birch, orris, and cedar" and is meant to be a marketed as a masculine, but I think it is a warm, sexy scent for a woman. It's unique, it's unusual, and it is decidedly unexpected. If you're the sort of person who gets married in a dress with blood red corset back and trim at a historic poor farm turned local brewery, then this might be your idea of sexy, too. It reminds me of waking up next with someone you love on one side and on the other, open windows of streaming sunshine and the wet, green smell of fir trees. It's a smell I associate with falling in love.

Which brings me around to my last thematic recommendation: take the ultra-realistic approach. If your love is associated with the smell of new fallen snow, try CB I Hate Perfume Walking in the Air. Working together in a garden? How about CB I Hate Perfume In the Summer Kitchen or Memory of Kindness? Find you love in a library? CB I Hate Perfume In the Library.

Alternately, you could go the Demeter Fragrance Library route, and buy a handful of large minis to create a unique perfume bouquet that hits the high notes of your romance: Vanilla Cake Batter for the birthday cake he made you, White Russian for the drink you shared on your first date, Beeswax for the homemade honey you bought on your first weekend away or the smell of the wax seal on the back of a handwritten love letter, Mistletoe for your first drunken kiss at the company Christmas party. Whatever your memory is, one of these companies probably has a scent that could represent it and give you a way to show that you remember, in a visceral way, the moment you knew you were in love.

And if all else fails, you could always go with the classic, old school approach: say it with love. S-Perfumes 100% Love or Creed Love in Black or Creed Love in White, or any of the By Kilian l'amour-themed scents (Love, Beyond Love, Taste of Heaven, Straight to Heaven, or for those of a more cynical, Amy Winehouse-bent, Back to Black and Love and Tears) are all beautiful scents, and nothing says love like L-O-V-E.

Yes, it's also a CD case!

What about you, dear reader?  Have I told you lately that I love you? Well, if you feel I haven't, then let me make it up to you with this awesome V-Day drawing. Included for one lucky winner will be the fabulously tacky fuzzy pink CD holder with a couple differently themed, love-related mix CDs made and decorated by your truly, PLUS some candy and some lovely samples that will include, but are not limited to S-Perfumes 100% Love, By Kilian Straight to Heaven, Cthulhu in Love, slumberhouse Grev and some other things not listed above.  But yes! At least five samples! Plus music! Candy! A giant pink fuzzy heart CD case! (Don't lie, you know you want its garish wonderfulness.)


POST A COMMENT BELOW talking about perfume!, love, romance, the death thereof, music, movies, perfume!, poetry, books, perfume!, whathaveyou on or before 11:59pm PST on Monday, February 13, 2012.  Will ship internationally. Winner to be announced on V-day.

So come on then: who wants to be my Valentine?

Like a wet log, I sang within a flame.
In that last while, eternity's confine,
I came to love, I came into my own.
~Theodore Roethke, from The Dream

Too Much Love Will Kill You.

Is there such a thing as “too much of a good thing”?

Sure there is. I myself have eaten that last sushi roll or that last inch of sour patch rope, and thought, “I chose…poorly.” I’ve decided to stay in bed those last few minutes that move you from “barely on time” to “definitely late for work.” I’ve stayed in the shower those extra ten minutes, running the hot water just enough that you run out at the last minute and are freezing and tense instead of relaxed when you cut the water off and get out. I’ve taken on too many good opportunities at once until I didn’t have the time and energy for any of them. I’ve gone for that final third round on Space Mountain that moves your slightly tipsy disco ball delight to oh-lord-why-did-I-have-that-fourth-tequila-shot?

In short, I’ve done excess and known the regret of it. And that is what I think of, every time I see someone posting about “pairing down their collection” or “giving up all but their favorites” or “cleaning out their perfume cabinet.”

Have I got too much perfume? Have I gone too far? Do I really appreciate the perfume I have? Do I really want or need more? FN1. Would some of it be better off in someone else’s hands, someone else’s home, where it might be better appreciated? That is the sentiment that stayed my hand Saturday night when I looked at my bank account, looked at my computer, and then thought, “Okay, let’s go shopping!” As I began looking through my options – limited editions here, sales over there, decants verses bottles, samples verses either, the list of things I thought I wanted, the list of things I’ve got – I was haunted by the thought that maybe I had enough already.

Tonight in the car Rafaela, who has never been subjected to a stroll through Diana’s perfume collection, asked me how many bottles I had. I don’t know, I responded immediately. But you must have some idea, she pressed. You were just telling me that you redid your inventory spreadsheet today.

Truthfully, though, I didn’t know. I hadn’t bothered to look. Hell, I hadn’t even finished updating my excel file. I’d only made it through bottles, not decants or minis, and certainly not through samples, which remains untackled. Somewhere, somehow, I genuinely lost count of my perfume.

So tonight, I counted.

85 bottles. EIGHTY-FIVE. And this is genuine “this is not our sample size, you are buying some larger quantity of this perfume” bottles, which does not even include Demeters. Minis and decants? Another seventy-four. Samples? Back in September it was over 500, and I know that number is a measurable quantity larger now, but my recatalogue is not yet complete. This doesn’t count the two bottles or handful of samples I did finally order Saturday night, or the samples headed my way for review, or the bottle I gave away to LillieMae just because she liked it and I had more than enough. FN2.

Yet, I feel like I’ve only dipped a toe into the wide world of beautiful perfumes out there to smell. For example, I haven’t ever smelled Chanel No. 19. I think I’ve tried maybe three Le Labos, and none of them were the location restricted ones. My familiarity with Creed and Serge Lutens is (in my opinion) wafer thin. For every Caron or Goutal or Worth or Guerlain I have tried, there are four or five I haven’t. I haven’t tried nearly enough from Aftelier Perfumes or Frederic Malle or so many others I can’t think of right now.

But looking at my collection, I couldn’t deny it. I have a ton of perfume, and yet, I feel I owe it to myself to keep trying all the beautiful scents out there to try. But I knew I crossed a certain perfumey line when LillieMae was loving a particular perfume and, without hesitating, I gave her the bottle. I remembered the day Angela from Now Smell This! did the same things for me, handing off a bottle of S-Perfume %100 Love without batting an eyelash. She knew I’d get more out of it, and I did. I have almost finished the bottle. So maybe this is also the beginning of a new phase, a phase where I not only continue to explore perfume, but start to focus my collection, creating something that isn’t just a bunch of random perfume, but a beautiful wardrobe and art collection, so that I better appreciate what I have and some lovely perfume gets a more appreciative home.

So welcome to our season of spring discernment at Feminine Things, both perfume related and more broadly. I feel strangely excited about it. I hope you do, too.

___________________________
FN1. Okay, I always want more. Instead it’s a question of whether I should buy more and do I already have more than I know what to do with.

FN2. Because I know you people: I bought samples from DSH Perfumes and JoAnne Bassett. I would have bought some from Ayala Moriel Natural Perfumes but the site order system wasn’t cooperating; I bought a bottle of L’Artisan Dzongkha from the sale; and slumberhouse Mur from IndieScents because I am apparently probably their biggest fan, and I bought it in anticipation of warmer days ahead.

Editor's note: I got the loveliest follow-up email from Ayala herself, apologizing about the web difficulties and welcoming me back.  Not only was it the sweetest thing, it also completely underestimated my willingness to walk through fire for perfume as good as hers. :)

You know, I've come too far to wind up right back where I started.

Ayala Moriel Parfums Immortelle L'Amour 

'You’ll find it hard to resist licking this perfume, but it will prove to be a true friend for a love-injured heart.' – says Ayala.

Dear reader! How I've missed you!  It's been a busy week here in Puddletown, and I have been flittering around out in the world.  Oh the things I've seen that I want to talk to you about!  The things I've heard!

Let's start with my wonderful mail package I got this week.  I recently won a 4ml bottle of Ayala Moriel Parfums Immortelle L'Amour from her incredibly lovely blog, Smellyblog. This was a truly awesome win, and receiving the package was the brightest spot in my week.

Created in 2007, according to Ayala Moriel Parfums site,

Love immortal encompassed in the unfolding petals of the immortal flower… A love etched deeply in a bleeding heart aching with pain. The lovers’ walk interrupted by the ghostly winds and misty sea spray. Hearts warming to the dancing flames in the fireplace, their longing for a kiss freezes on the snow like Tire sur la Neiges… The maple-like nuances of immortelle absolute are used here along with sweet orange, cinnamon, wheat and three different kinds of vanilla (co2, absolute and infusion of vanilla bean), creating a perfume that truly captures the aroma of cinnamon-pancakes and Tire d’Erable (“taffee on the snow”), an inseparable part of the Quebec heritage in the Maple Harvest Festivals. You’ll find it hard to resist licking this perfume, but it will prove to be a true friend for a love-injured heart. Immortelle l'Amour is also offered as a 100% certified organic Perfumed Tea.

Famlies: Gourmand

Notes: Benzoin Siamese, Broom (Genet), Cinnamon Immortelle, Rooibos (Red Tea), Sweet Orange Vanilla Absolute, Vanilla CO2, Vanilla Extract Wheat Absolute

 Immediately upon application, Immortelle l'Amour is a delicious gourmandy delight!  It reminds me of a chocolatini made with Grey Goose L'Orange, or a wonderful alcoholic chocolate sauce.  It's not just vanilla extract -- it's more than that.  It's a fancy cocktail smell, of the dessert variety.  My friend Jill works part time at a Willamette Valley vineyard, and her roommate and my BFF Kate, upon smelling Immortelle l'Amour, said is smelled the way the vineyard's Pinot Noir Chocolate Sauce tastes.   After about ten minutes I get a lot of the wheat and broom, so it gets a textured smell.  It's like a chocolate bar with dried herbs in it.

This alone would be fantastic.  It would be one of the more unique gourmands I've tried, and I tend to enjoy foodie scents so I've tried a bunch of them. But when I put it on to try it the other day and went out with some friends, I was half way through a movie and suddenly felt like my hands were sticky.  I thought, "Why are my hand's sticky?  Oh, must be those waffles I ate this morning."  Then I remembered it wasn't the weekend (I forgot without a job what day it is), and therefore there had not been weekend brunch waffles.  "Why am I thinking of waffles?  Because I smell like maple syrup.  Why do I smell like maple syrup if I didn't have waffles!?!"  Then I realized it was Immortelle l'Amour, hours later. It smelled like my Vermont honeymoon, so delightfully and deliciously maple syrupy I not only thought I'd eaten waffles and still had syrup on me, but I psychosomatically thought I had sticky syrup hands.  That's how seriously good this is. It's so real....so...true. And I do, in fact, find it hard not to lick this perfume, just as Ayala promised.

I was telling my friend Becca about the experience at lunch today, and she said, "Yeah but who wants to smell like waffles?"  I replied, "Who DOESN'T want to smell like waffles!?!"  In all seriousness though, the fragrances I tend to get the most compliments on are gourmands.  People like food.  They like dessert.  And when you smell like dessert, people tend to associate you with thoughts and feelings of indulgence, special treats, and deliciousness.  In my opinion, that is never a bad thing. (Though I wouldn't wear a gourmand to a 'just before lunch' job interview, as your interviewer make focus more on their rumbling tummy than the wonderful things coming out of your mouth.)

You can buy a 1ml sample is $10, as well as Immortelle l'Amour Tea, Mini Parfum, Parfum Extrait Travel Size Roll On, and an awesome tea and 9ml flacon of perfume set.

"And if I had the choice I'd take the voice I got 'cause it was hard to find.
You know I've come too far to wind up right back where I started.
And they tell me who I should be.
I'll never let the monkeys make a mess of me.
I give all I can and it's all I can do, but I'm true.
And then they talk you up and then they talk you down, 
and you begin to doubt.
Sometimes the reasons seem so very far away.
Ahh but I'll stop breathing that day,
'cause if I can't walk proud, I'd rather walk away.
I do all I am and it's all I can do.
Oh, I'm true."
- "True," Concrete Blonde (You can listen to the song here)

Want more reviews? Try...
~ a review from Notes From the Ledge
~ a mention from Perfume Shrine
~ a review from The Scented Salamander
~ a review from Savvy Thinker
~ a review from Of the Rain
~ a review from Fragrantica