It’s not hard, not far to reach; we can hitch a ride to rockaway beach.

A Review of Creed Virgin Island Water

Most of the time, my perfume collection is a blessing to me. I'm having a bad day, I feel lost or sad or angry or let down, and I spend a little time with my perfume and I feel a little better. But lately, I've been frustrated. Disappointed. I get up, I get dressed, I got to my perfume cabinet, and then I just....

….stand there.

And I stare.

 And then I stare some more.

Everything seems wrong, somehow. Too floral. Too foodie. Too sweet, far too sweet, even my spicier scents. The one thing I keep wanting, Demeter Salt Air, which is basically nothing but a light aquatic, salt explosion, I can't find. This has never happened to me, dear reader, not in my almost six years of collecting. I want to write to you, and tell of you the wonderful scents out there, but in truth?

I have olfactory ennui.

I didn't even know such an unholy malediction was possible! I mean, of course I've seen other people blog about boredom or frustration or how everything seems to smell the same, but this seems...different, somehow. This is more of a spiritual scent emptiness, a vast chasm of faith momentarily lost that has shaken me.

My hope is that it will change soon. The weather is changing; that usually helps. It's getting hot here, almost oppressively hot. Too soon to be so hot. But I digress...

In honor of this hot weather, and my general state of perfume unhappy, I am taking the olfactory fast forward and jumping into the summer wardrobe with Creed Virgin Island Water.

According to the Creed website:

Virgin Island Water was awarded four out of five stars in a review by The New York Times.

Classification: Citrus / Fresh

Characteristics: Virgin Island Water captures the tropical splendor of scents carried in the trade winds of Sir Francis Drake Channel near Ginger Island in the Caribbean.

Top Note: Essence of copra (the white inner portion of the coconut); lime of the Antilles; white bergamot and mandarin orange from Sicily.
Middle Note: Hibiscus, ginger, ylang-ylang and Indian jasmine.
Bottom Note: Sugar cane and white rum of the Antilles, musk from Tonkin.

Virgin Island Water shows up on a lot of “best of” lists for summer scents and beachy scents. I can see why. On me the overall scent tilts toward the powdery flowers, Tonkin musk, and coconut milk. A little liquor sweetness and lime are in there for the few few minutes, but afterwards the fade into the background, as a hint of something that has past but might yet come round again. For something relatively floral and sweet, Virgin Island Water is very light on me. I can imagine keeping this one in a fridge to spray on before bed or after a cooling shower and feeling like I was scented without the scent wearing me. The sillage is moderate to low, and the staying power peters out around the four hour mark, which is on the short side. Normally I'd complain, but in the summer putting something on early in the day that disappears before the relentless heat descends can be a blessing.

Virgin Island Water is different from a lot of beach scents I've tried. It's less aggressively floral than Annick Goutal Songes. It's decidedly and delightfully more complex than Salt Air. It is less traditionally American beach fun than say, CB I Hate Perfume At the Beach 1966, or even Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess. The group of scents it mentally reminds me of most is the Un Jardin collection from Hermès. I can see it fitting right alongside Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and Un Jardin En Mediterranee. Delicate, sophisticate, and downright pretty, I highly recommend trying this one as you consider summer scent purchases.

The prices for Creed Virgin Island Water vary wildly; I saw 2.5oz for only $100. Retail is a bit higher, so shopping around on the internet for this one is worth the time if you want it. I got my sample from The Perfumed Court, but you should also check your local Nordstrom, as some stores are now carrying Creed.

Til next week, my lovelies!

Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble gum.
The sun is out and I want some.
It’s not hard, not far to reach.
We can hitch a ride
to rockaway beach.
~ "Rockaway Beach," The Ramones

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. :)

I was told I was beautiful but what does that mean to you?

Perfume Challenge Week 17: Monday, 5/9/11, to Friday, 5/13/11

As I driving home yesterday afternoon along a long ribboning road with an obscured view of snow capped mountains way off in the distance, a fire truck rolled out, light and sirens blaring. It was followed soon thereafter by an ambulance. In both cases, all traffic on both sides of this six lane, two-way highway stopped. Those traveling in the opposite direction pulled to the right to allow the vehicles to pass, but even traffic in my direction stopped, just froze right where it was, in case the emergency vehicles needed to cut over to our side and weave between us to get where they needed to be. In that frozen moment I had a few thoughts:

1. I love that I live in a place, and that it still exists on earth, where even a million people crowded together and in the middle of the busy commute home on a Friday afternoon, will all simply stop in unison, even when not all of us needed to, so that someone in need can be reached by those trying to help them. I like to believe it's asign of compassion seeping through cracks in our hard and cyncial shells.

2. If the rapture actually does come, it will look just like this -- the world frozen in place, cars stopped dead in the middle of the road, people just taken bodily from wherever they are. For some reason, it reminds me of the Ray Bradbury story "There Will come Soft Rains", where the family simply isn't there anymore but the technology lives on in fits and starts for a while. It's strange to think we have the capacity to do that, simply vaporize other people en masse, that we ever wanted it. Just because you can do a thing doesn't always mean you should. Humanity isn't always so good at grasping that concept.

Well, that's enough deep thoughts for the day, I'd wager.

Monday: Sage Onyx - Notes: Black Coconut, Tobacco, Oakmoss, Vanilla, Amber, Musk. Very coconut and vanilla up top, for a super sweet scent that reminds me of eating a white chocolate dipped macaroon. It's even a little mildly salty on me, though I don't get any tobacco (a shame -- I like tobacco). Onyx is a snuggly, warm sweet tropical scent thanks to the oakmoss and musk. It is a night time of tropical fun, as though created from the smell floating through a window into a hotel room after quite a bit of noctural fun has been had. A little bit naughty, a lot nice on its own merits, but when I've already got bottles of Coty Sand and Sable, CB I Hate Perfume At the Beach 1966, Creed Virgin Island Water, and Annick Goutal Songes, it's safe to say that my tropical/beachy dance card is quite full. 3 of 5 nods.

Tuesday: By Kilian A Taste of Heaven EdP - Notes: Calabria bergamot oil, geranium bourbon oil, orange flower absolute, Turkish rose absolute, green absinthe oil, lavender barreme oil, lavandin abrialis oil, lavandin green absolute, lavandin green, concrete, Indonesian patchouli oil, oak moss extract, costus oil, ambrarome absolute, vanilla bean absolute, tonka beans. Described as an "absinthe verte," menthol goes honey sweet with a bit of cinnamon and coppery penny scent. Thirty minutes in I get with a wallop of patchoui that takes the sweetness down a step in a way a really enjoy. Nice, and definitely on the drier side of sweet for me, this might make an excellent gourmand light for those who cannot stand the super saccharine affairs that dominate the field. 4 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: Les Nereides Musc de Java - Notes: light musk, berries, blackcurrant, violet leaves, sage, fresh cut hay. Violets and too new green berries become sage become hay with just a hint of blackcurrant. If you like L'Artisan Mure et Musc, or even if you hate it, give this a try. It's greener and less sweet than the aforementioned L'Artisan offering, which I prefer. The berries became stronger on me for the two to six hour period but the green is still there. Nice longevity, it's making the "when I get around to it I'd like to have this" list. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Thursday: L'Atelier Boheme Immortelle EdP - Notes: Brazilian tangerine, Italian bergamot, light florals, pomegranate, amber, immortelle.

Holy mother of baby powder! If you want to be slapped in the face with a fierce amount of amber and immortelle, this is a great scent for you. I'm gonna be straight with you, it's hard for me to get anything else right now other than dry, hay-like, carmeled powdery sweetness. It's really remarkable in the sense that the opening is like someone taking Loves Baby Soft (but way, way better) and powered it up by a factor of a thousand.

Two years ago, I would have flung the vial as far from me as possible because I didn't like it. Now, I'm not sure if I like it, but I think it's an incredible feat someone managed to make a scent this strongly aspected. I'm trying really hard to imagine a circumstance where I'd want to smell like someone just hit me in the face with a comet-sized powder puff, but all I can think is pink, pink, pink! I think I'd need to be in the mood to do it up Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette style, and I have never once sported a bouffant hair so I can't imagine wearing it. FN1.

And yet, I weirdly want it, just like I want this crazy Marie Antoniette Barbie. Yes, it's absurd and limiting and whatever, but damn -- it's so pretty. And sometimes a body wants pretty. FN2. FN3. Really wanting to try Annick Goutal Sables now, so I can have some other immortelle to compare to. 4 of 5 nods.

Friday: Bond No. 9 Scent of Peace - Notes: Grapefruit, black currant, lily of the valley, musk. Scent of Peace was created by Bond as "our post-9/11 conviction that peace is a beautiful, beautiful thing." The opening of the scent itself is a light, soapy and clean floral with gentle fruity highlights. This part is well-made, but not particularly unique. On me it starts out green, and I get a moderate serving on lily of the valley, but pretty soon it becomes the strangest scent on me. It smells like the taste of really cold, clean water, or maybe the taste of snowflakes on the tongue. I don't know if I find that peaceful; maybe I do. I certainly find it remarkable. One of my favorite things about perfume is that I never stop being surprised. Even when I think I know what will happen next when I put it on, I don't always. I love that. 5 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week: Wow, really hard to choose this week. I think I'm giving it to Bond No. 9 Scent of Peace, for its unique, quiet, and wow, yeah, actually peaceful qualities. Rarely is it an obliquely named bottle contains what it advertises.  PDXers, I recently found out that Bond No. 9 is coming to the downtown Nordstrom, so keep that in mind when you're planning your summer scent purchases!

"You can buy your hair if it won't grow.
You can fix your nose if he says so.
You can buy all the make up
that M.A.C. can make,
but if you can't look inside you
find out who am I too
be in the position to make me feel so damned unpretty..."
~ "Unpretty," TLC

Photos: 
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FN1. Okay, not on purpose. I am a native Texan after all. Big hair just comes as a genetic gift. Just this morning I was blowing out my hair and found myself pleased because I had managed to make my already thick head of hair look fuller rather than sleeker. I actually had to stop myself, and ask the mirror "Where the hell did that come from?" I'm going to blame the resurgence of 80's styled cuts, which currently has me sporting a longer version of Joan Jett's hair circa 1985, but with swoopy side bangs and red instead of black, of course.

F2. I have a sick fascination with Barbies. I look at them, and I see the distorted body image and the perfect, smooth, plastic skin and realize it's part of what makes me hate my own body, and yet I cannot stop loving her. Sometimes I think that's the most amazingly insidious aspect of mysogany -- I love and admire the thing I will never be, and therefore hate and admire her in equal measure. And we wonder why women stuggle to have relationships with one another...

FN3. Speaking of which -- did everyone see the Glee "If Feel Pretty/Unpretty" mash-up from a couple of weeks ago? Sometimes the show does a number that really hits on something really. It gives me hope Glee! gets back to the original awesomeness it had. If any of the writers are reading this, I have suggestions.