We'll Never Be Royals.

Internalized Criticism and My Perfume Collection

So one of the things I've been noticing lately is that I've been a little embarrassed about the way my perfume collection is settling out. I've stood in front of my perfume wardrobe, trying to decide what to write about, and I find a judgey little voice in my head criticizing my perfume choices. “Wow, you have a lot of this house, which isn't very well respected. Don't you think you should have more of that house instead?” I get dressed in the morning, and as I reach for something, this same voice slithers in. “Really? You're going to wear that, again? Isn't that a bit...pedestrian?”

Some days you'll only
accept the fanciest
of salads...

Yes, dear reader. I have a little perfume hater living inside me, and she is a critical little snipe who does not think my perfume collection is sophisticated enough, that I wear too many accessible and mainstream scents, and that I am not living up to my full perfumista potential. This same hater wants to know why I haven't gotten into collecting vintage scents more, why I haven't started studying French so I can really understand perfumery as an art and industry, and why I spent so much time running around the U.S. when I could just as easily be saving my pennies for a trip to Grasse.

Frankly, I'm kind of getting tired of the little hater. Sometimes I think she stands between me and my enjoyment of things I really like, no matter how widely accepted they are or how many supposed connoisseurs would turn up their perfectly trained noses at my collection. It's the same voice that makes me hide my affection for Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey from my coworkers, to hide my Twilight fascination from my roommates, and to feel a certain reticence about telling people I write Young Adult novels.

 Frankly, I like those things about myself. I enjoy and admire Taylor Swift as a song writer, even if she is young and her work, right now, reflects that. I think Lana Del Rey has talent despite a bad early album. FN1. I find the entire Twilight fandom interesting and entertaining and I love YA literature. I love writing YA. I want nothing more than to be published. And I'm tired of feeling judged by others and worse, prejudged by some internalized version of them, for not being cool enough. You know what? I'm not cool. I have never been cool. And in terms of perfume, I just need to accept that I'm probably not going to be cool there, either. And that's just going to have to be okay with me.

...but most days you just want
carbs with nutella and
 bananas smeared on them.

This week I had a wonderful moment of olfactory delight when several people told me I smelled good. I spend a lot of time thinking about the way I smell and how I want to present myself from a scent perspective, so it's nice when people notice. Part of the winning combination this week is the addition of a new layer in my olfactory repertoire.

A few weeks ago, I broke down and bought myself two of the Jo Malone bath oils. I like them because, when mixed with water, the oils turn milky and don't leave a greasy sheen on the skin. I bought them in the two scents I tend to layer the most among the Jo Malone collection – Red Roses and Orange Blossom. My reasoning was that if these scents were layered underneath my perfume, even faintly, that it would be a nice combining experiment, and if I did not want to mix them, I could just skip the bath oil.

Three different people at work stopped me to tell me how good I smelled the day I layered Red Roses bath oil with a healthy dose of DSH Perfumes Hemlock. The result was strangely earthy and green, and yet also fresh, floral, and feminine. It walked the line between Red Roses primness and Hemlock's less traditionally feminine aspects. One of my coworkers, smiled, asked me if I was wearing something with roses in it, and then went on to tell me how his very first girlfriend had a rose body wash or scent and how he always associated the smell with first love. I love that. I love that he told me the story and I loved the slightly goofy grin he got on his face at the memory.

The truth is, I am a pretty simple person, scent wise. I have always loved the smell of roses. I am a sucker for a good vanilla. I generally enjoy sweet, foodie scents. Tobacco notes always remind me of my grandfather which I cannot get enough of, and I have a disproportionately high number of “beach-y” scents because I love the ocean so much that sometimes it's pull is like a siren's call I can't deny. In other words, I like a lot of scents traditionally marketed for women. I don't yearn for the difficult scents. I enjoy smelling them occasionally, and I appreciate their beauty, but honestly? I wear a lot of Jo Malone. I own a huge amount of L'Artisan, a disproportional amount really. I am very into ultra-realism, so I love CB I Hate Perfume and I have a scary amount of Demeter Fragrances which are an impulse shopping habit of mine. I am not embarrassed to own Stetson for Men, which I like wearing. I have favorite indie perfumes, and I tend to stick with them because I like what they do.

Someday, maybe I'll like Guerlain Mitsouko enough to own it. I do think it's a gorgeous scent. It took me a long time to like it, and then to love it.  And I do.  It's a difficult but beautiful scent.  I just can't imagine reaching for it often enough to justify buying it. But life is long. Perhaps my Mitsouko days are still ahead of me. And if they aren't? I still smell pretty damned good, even if my tastes aren't as sophisticated as other perfumistas.

And that little voice in my head? Well, it can kiss my massive bottle collection.

And we'll never be royals.
It don't run in our blood.
That kind of luxe just ain't for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler.
You can call me queen bee.
And baby I'll rule.
I'll rule. I'll rule. I'll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.
~ “Royals,” Lorde
________

FN1. It's not like she's the first artist to have a bad early EP/album while she was figuring out her musical and personal identity. Y Can't Tori Read was no winner, and I'll never stop loving Tori Amos.

Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn...

On moving, the Aurora, Colorado shooting, and DSH Perfumes Vanille Botanique

Dear reader:

This is a three-part post. It is long. (What can I say? I missed you!)  Feel free to skip ahead to the perfume if you want. Everyone else, hang on, and remember: keep your arms and legs inside the car at all time. <g>

Part One: On Moving.

That's great! It starts with an earth quake, birds and snakes and airplanes. Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
~ "It's The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," R.E.M.

My old original LC mail box!
Goodbye forever!

Rejoice and glad tidings, for I have a place to live! For those of you who know nothing about the Portland real estate market, let me tell you a harrowing tale of a town where young people come to retire, no one wants to buy, and the rental market is a brutal, awful place. Luckily, David and I found a lovely house with a week to spare. We have to be off campus on August 1, so we are in the midst of a massive move. Like everything else in the new economy, we found the house through friends, and we are living with friends because (1) he's starting school so we could use the rental discount, and (2) after being in a fishbowl, we would probably die if suddenly we were locked in a room with just each other day in, day out after a decade of constant visits from friends. We need some transition time.

We are moving into a lovely one and a half story. We have a deck. We have fruit trees (green apple, plum). We have a fireplace, dishwasher, and a clothes washer/dryer of our own. There are flowerbeds for me to plant and walls for me to decorate and at the holidays, I can actually put up decorations people can see. I will finally be able to get a welcome mat.

Moving is tiring...

Group house or not, I feel awfully grown-up all the sudden. FN1. It's not quite how I imagined my life as a kid. I mean, I remember my parents when they were my age, and I am still a lot less 'grown-up' than they were at the time. But I'm a lot happier and my life is full of good friends and laughter and love, so as far as I'm concerned, I ended up in a much better place than the place I thought I wanted to be.

Hmmmm. I believe there's an Amanda Palmer song in there somewhere. FN2. That's appropriate, since I saw her last weekend. It was a small venue show to raise money Literacy Bridge, an organization that provides a "talking book" to help spread educational programming in Africa (best practices for pre/post-natal care, subsistence farming, etc.). The whole thing was terrific, especially the cause involved. The tickets were a belated birthday present from El Hubs, and it was a great night/gift and our local friends, The Doubleclicks, were the opener.

Part Two: On The Aurora, Colorado shooting.

"Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing. I'm very scared for this world."
~ "You are Everything," R.E.M.

Before I get to the perfume in this post (and yes, I'll eventually get there), I wanted to say a few words about the Aurora, Colorado shootings. I bring this up in part because Amanda talked about it a lot at the show, and also because I'd be thinking about it regardless.

Depending on how you count, this is the fifth, sixth, or hundred and twelfth mass shooting since Columbine. FN3. FN4. I know we spend a lot of time on the "why?," but if we are trying to figure out what makes someone crazy and destructive, while that question is worth exploring, it is probably besides the point. There have always been and will always be crazy people, destructive people, people who are not satisfied with killing themselves and want to take others with them. Why would they hurt others and/or hurt themselves? There are socio-cultural debates about the state of mental health care, hopelessness and disconnection in the digital millennium, and the fetishization of violence that we could talk about for hours. Me? I just keep hearing, "I Don't Like Mondays" in my head. Stupid, but true.

Ukuleles save lives!

We keep asking these questions because we all want answers. We want a solution, something that makes us feel safer and helps the world make a little more sense. We want to feel like there is something we can do, actively do, that gives us back our power over the insanity of the world. I get that, too. I feel it as much as the next person.

The question is: what concrete thing can you and I do to make a difference?

When you sit and ask yourself, "Why is this happening so much now? Why is the impact so much larger now than when people went crazy in the past?", I think we all have to own the fact that the proliferation of guns, specifically automatic and semi-automatic guns, is 80% of the answer. I'm not saying someone can't do a lot of damage without one six round revolver, but if you want to know why the number of injured and dead keeps going up and up, I think we all see this is a huge part of the problem.

Now, I am not anti-gun. Yes, you read that right. Not against personal gun ownership. Given my general leftie swerve, this probably surprises many of you. Part of it is my upbringing, as I was raised in a world where every man I knew was a cop, or in the military or a sport hunter or a combination thereof. In my mind, it felt like gun ownership was something that came with adulthood, like getting a driver's license or drinking alcohol. Grown-ups had guns. All of them. FN5. My house came replete with a plethora of guns, including an AR-15, one other guns we know was used in Aurora.

This assault rifle, which had *no business* in my suburban home for a lot of reasons, was used throughout most of my life to prop up a fan next to my parents bed so the fan blew directly on my father while he slept. "Be careful getting out of bed on that side," they'd tell John and I, "there's a gun over there." John and I were raised with what I believe was a healthy if somewhat non-specific fear of guns, taught to think of them with the same kind of fear one treats a poisonous snake; it lives over there, stay away and don't even come close to it, it could kill you if you touch it.

The result of this upbringing is: I know how to shoot a gun. I do not own or carry one, but if I felt compelled to, I'd be fine with it. David doesn't have a gun, but it would not have been a barrier to our relationship if he had. Having a gun in a home doesn't scare me or worry me; I just don't really see the reason to have one. I don't need it for work, like most of the people I grew up with, and I'm not interested in sport hunting, like the rest of the people I grew up with, because I have other hobbies. In my mind, a gun is a tool for a specific purpose, and since my life does not contain such a purpose, it doesn't contain a gun. If that were to change, I'd be fine with it.

So when I tell you that the solution is the complete ban on the sale of some weapons to the general population, I need you to understand that it has nothing to do with me hating guns or wanting to take your guns. When I tell you that background checks and gun control laws and waiting periods are the key to a better world, it is not because I am some knee-jerk reactionary hater when it comes to guns. I just generally believe that it should not be easier for me to go buy a gun than it is to buy Sudafed. I believe those who have a documentable propensity toward violence or mental instability do not need 24/7 immediate access to fast-firing, high volume weaponry.

This doesn't seem like a political issue to me. It seems like common sense. It has become a political issue because gun manufacturers have a lot of money and they know how and where to spend it. We have ways to fight them, though. It's our vote. Politicians don't like being laid off any more than the next person. If you believe in gun control, tell you elected representatives that this issue matters to you and will be an issue you follow when it comes to their donations and voting record. You can find out who your reps are here (Fed and State), and check their voting records on any issue here (Fed) and get their record as it relates to gun control (and any other issue) through their organization report cards here. Your voice does matter, and let's face it: all the money in the world can't save a politician we choose not to vote for.

Though I don't think Jim Morrison meant it quite this way, I am reminded in this moment: "They've got the guns but we've got the numbers." Or, to put it another way, "I believe in peace, bitch." Thanks, Tori Amos. You always know how to say what I'm feeling with a twisted flair.

We need more gun control. More guns will not result in less violence. And for anyone who thinks armed civilians in the theatre could have stopped this incident, I will only note the following: 1. the theater had a sign up telling gun owners to leave their weapons in their cars, so any law abiding citizen would have been unarmed anyway; (2) two members of the military were shot and killed in the incident. All the training in the world, including how to avoid live fire, isn't going to save you in a crowded, smokey stampede; (3) even the best trained people will struggle with a surprise attack requiring a response that includes accurate shooting in a moving crowd in a smoke filled room. More guns would have meant more people shot. Again, we're not talking about rocket science. This isn't a movie; it's real life. Common sense says more shooters, no matter how well trained, experienced, and/or armed they were, would have meant more wounded, more dead.

The answer isn't more guns. It's fewer guns.

Well, that was decidedly non-perfumey, wasn't it? So let's talk about what I'm wearing right now.

Part Three: A Review of DSH Perfumes Vanille Botanique, aka "Dear gods in the ether, where have you been all my life?"

The world is collapsing around our ears. I turned up the radio but I can't hear it..."
~ "Radio Song," R.E.M.

As we make our move today, I am currently sporting Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's Vanille Botanique, a 100% botanical designed for Indiescents. DSH Perfumes describes it as:

Vanille Botanique is a luscious, balsamic vanilla in the classical style. A soft jasmine heart and bergamot top note balance and round out the bouquet. Such deliciousness! 

Top notes: Bergamot, Lemon, Rosewood (bois de rose)
Middle notes: Bulgarian Rose Absolute, French Beeswax, Grandiflorum Jasmine
Base notes: Australian Sandalwood, Buddahwood, Civet, Labdanum, Peru Balsam, Siam Benzoin, Tahitian Vanilla, Tolu Balsam, Vanilla Absolute

Indiescents' description adds the following: "Rich, decadent vintage style vanilla perfume; all botanical. Subtle citrus in the top, warm, sensuous florals mixed with rich gourmand notes in the heart and luxurious base of balsams, resins and of course vanilla."

So now we have the perfumer's description, some notes, and some ad copy, let's talk vanilla perfume for a second, shall we? Lots of houses make vanilla perfume. It's, ummmmm, how do I say this....abundant almost to the point of being unwieldy. People love the way baked goods and old books and sweet cocktails smell, and every tom, dick, and bath and body place in the mall will tell you that this or that vanilla is a well-paced selling standard for them. I think most fragrance and flavor companies would bear me out when I tell you that vanilla/vanillin, real or synthetic, is a primary note available in abundance.

Because of that, it's a crowded field out there -- good, bad, and ugly. So I'll tell you right now that are already a number of good vanillas to be had. My personal favs are, in no particular order: Annick Goutal Vanille Exquise, Atelier Cologne Vanille Incenseé, Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille, L'Artisan Vanilia. I am happy to report Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has once again found a way to seperate me from my hard earned dough with Vanille Botanique, which will round out my All-Time, Top Five Des(se)rt Island vanilla scents. Releasing at Number Five, with a bullet.

Why am I so quick to proclaims its supremacy? In keeping with the theme, here are my top five reasons.

1. Vanille Botanique is so warm! Vanille Botanique is almost a hot scent on my skin. It works the way I'd expect a hot pepper taste to translate into perfume. It rises in smexy wafts from my arm in a way that is decidedly unfoodie. I bet it's the civet in the base that's making me feel all ha-cha-cha about it, but about a half hour in -- wow, do I want to have sex wearing this perfume. (There, I said it). It smells the way I'd write a scene with people licking vanilla frosting off each other. I know, I know. You're taken aback by my frank dirtiness, but there it is. What can I say? I learned it by reading you, Chandler Burr.

Spray sample from Indiescents.
GET ONE TODAY!

2. Vanille Botanique is strong. I mean this in a good way. Not like, "Hi, I'm here to knock you down with my perfume," but more, "Who was that masked woman leaving a terrific scent wake behind her!?!" When it comes to Vanille Botanique, a little dab (or spray) will do you; the scent keeps blooming. Vanille Botanique is a scent that will love you for a long time (seriously, why am I being so dirty!?!), and for me that makes the price point totally worth it. I'll buy a bottle and it will last me forever. FN6.

3. In no way does Vanille Botanique smell fake. There are so many vanillas out there that smell like cleaner, or bathroom spray, or cheap candle, or floor wax. This is definitively not one of them. It smells beautifully natural, and if you were trying to sell me on the differences/purposes/superiority of pure botanicals, this would be a good scent to point to.

4. Vanille  Botanique is vanilla, yes, but so much more. It's not foodie. I can't believe it is so strongly vanilla and I do not get food at all. No candy, no cocktail, no baked goods. It's -- dare I say it? -- floral, but without being very green, like L'Artisan Vanilia is. The opening is lemons and roses and vanilla bean pod skins, not something to put into food and drink. It is more something I'd expect to get from a beautiful floral centerpiece. The middle is dry and light, without being angular and open like Vanille Incenseé. Some aspects as almost...I don't want to say soapy because it has potentially negative connotations, but yes, soapy. This is not the vanilla of your local bakery or your mom's kitchen, and even if you think it is, I challenge you to smell deeper, because there is simply something more about Vanille Botanique.

5. Vanille Botanique is the vanilla you've been searching for. If you're one of those people who always tries a vanilla, especially ones that get continually high praise, and think, "This is close to what I want, but not exactly what I was looking for," I bet this is your huckleberry. It is just so damned beautiful that I keep thinking, "How did I not know I wanted this?" But that's the truth. As someone who loves vanillas and tries them at all price points and in lots of forms, I didn't even know vanilla could smell like this -- dirty and hot and sexy, of earth and sweat and skin and very much alive. Perfume is amazing that way, isn't it?  You think you know what there is to know about a thing and then, bam! A whole new world opens up.

Bottom line? Get some DSH Perfumes Vanille Botanique. It's terrific.

Five Nods. No question.

Vanille Botanique sells from Indiescents at 30ml for $130.00. You can also get samples there. You can also go straight to DSH Perfumes, where the scent is available as a body wash, shea butter body cream, body lotion, massage oil, a water-based spray concentrate, and in a couple of EdP sizes.

Want more? Try....
~ a review from Perfume Pharmer
~ a review from *jen at This Blog Really Stinks!
~ a review from CaFleureBon
~ a review from Victoria at EauMG
~ a review from Trish Vawter in The Perfume Magazine

______________________
F1. Also all our roommates are 26 or older, so this isn't your typical college-aged group house.

FN2. Video of said song...





FN3. I seriously do not understand how people can remember Columbine, Virgina Tech, Congresswoman Giffords, and Batman, but somehow forget that time a woman-hating lunatic used three guns to shoot up an LA Fitness in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I think it is because only three people died and nine were wounded, because otherwise it was an equally terrifying attack on a benign public location where people generally do not expect to be attacked and believe they are safe. Also, the shooter killed himself, so there was no meal of a trial for the 24-hour news cycle to feed on. But seriously? Dude killed several women and would have killed several more because 1. he was crazy, and 2. he couldn't get laid. (No, really. That's the reason. He said so in videos and letters.) In my mind, this is also a huge tragedy.

FN4. The cynical feminist in me requires I also tell you that part of me believes the reason no one cares about this shooting was because it was a clear example of misogyny, and no one in America cares about that, because our society is perfectly fine with hatred and violence against women, even when it costs women their lives. She needs to say that, just for the record.

FN5. Don't ask me how it escaped my attention that few women I knew had guns. They all knew how to shoot them and had access to them in their homes, so I guess I always felt like they 'had guns' in the same way that two people sharing a car both 'have a car.'

FN6. Incidentally, I will say that I find this almost universally true with my DSH perfumes. They have great longevity and good sillage and I have never regretted a single purchase, which is impressive since I went nuts during the site redesign sale and now have about 12 different scents in roller form.

All photos were taken by me. The video belongs to Amanda Palmer.

Is there room for more perfume writing?

Blogging: A Mission Statement

Pat at OlfactaRama had a great post about the general rumbling among fragrance bloggers regarding the 'glut' of new perfumer reviewers/writers/bloggers. I've seen this rumbling around for a bit now, most recently in sort of warning piece/guest post by Vanessa Musson of Bonkers for Perfume, at Now Smell This! entitled "5 things to think about before you start a perfume blog," and then a follow-up post, "The Sequel: 5 Things I Have Learnt From Perfume Blogging."

A mission statement?
You know that's right!

Now I don't want to pick on Vanessa. She is not the first, nor will she be the last, to talk about perfume bloggers or the number thereof or what makes a good/bad blog. Also, I think she had some interesting and useful things to say. FN1. But I do want to talk about this whole "why are you blogging/should you be blogging" thing because I've been wanting to comment on it for a while, and I didn't want to write a thousand word manifesto in someone else's comments section.

Okay, maybe not a manifesto.  It's more like...

A mission statement.

That's right people. I'm about to go all Jerry Maguire up in here. FN2. In fact, let's run with that as a theme, shall we? FN3.

I hated myself... no, I hated my place in the world.

Let me tell you why I started Feminine Things. I was in law school. I was miserable. I had leveraged my future to the hilt to earn my degree, only to find out that I hated my classmates/future colleagues and my industry. FN4. I hadn't written anything fun or interesting in a while. I felt as though my logic-driven studies was literally sucking the creativity out of me through my pores.

At the same time, I met Angela from Now Smell This! through our respective jobs. I told her I was thinking of buying myself a bottle of perfume for my thirtieth birthday. She brought me some samples.

So that's what oakmoss
looks like...

I summarily lost my mind and began buying tens of samples. FN5. I kept trying to keep straight what I'd tried and hadn't, what I liked best, why I liked one thing more than another. I didn't know anything about perfume.

 I had never heard the word "chypre." I couldn't tell a gardenia from a jasmine, a leather rose from a powder rose. I couldn't pronounce most of the perfume house names. I didn't even know what the big houses were.

But I had some free time. And I needed to keep track of what I was smelling. And I needed a writing prompt to help me begin writing again. I figured, "What could be harder than writing about the way something smelled for people who couldn't actually be present to smell it?

So I started this blog.

If this [points to heart] is empty, this [points to head] doesn't matter.

Let me tell you how little I had to go on. I didn't own any non-Body Shop/Bath & Body Works perfume when I started. No one linked to me. No one. My friends didn't even read my blog. You know how much I cared? Not even a little.

Those sunglasses are to hide
my tear-filled eyes.

I didn't start the blog to get readers. I needed a place to think and reflect and write. I needed, some days, a place to scream.  I needed a place for me.

Perfume inspired me. It was overwhelming at first.  I would put something on, and BAM! The perfume I was smelling made me feel...everything.

I would smell a scent and it would remind me of my deceased grandfather, and I wept. Another would remind me of the smell of gardenias in my grandmother's backyard...and I blubbered for an hour. A scent reminiscent of my old high school boy friend? More tears.

Basically, I cried a lot.

But I also wrote a lot. I remembered how much I liked words, liked the texture and feel of them in my mouth as I read my writing back to myself. I loved the vivid images perfumes evoked, the random pop cultural connections that would spring into my head when I sniffed at my hand, and just how damned happy I was. My perfume made me so happy. Still does.

First class, that's what's wrong. It used to be a better meal, now it's a better life.

They get free samples in first class?

Even over a year later, I didn't have anyone sending me samples. FN6.   I didn't have any awards. I didn't have any invites to be part of special blogging events. I still didn't have any links to other bloggers. I didn't even have someone to swap with because Angela and I had both left our positions and, sadly, didn't see much of one another.

 I was spending all my disposable income and then some on samples, but there was no way I could keep up with blogs like Now Smell This! or Perfume Posse. So I didn't bother trying. I bought sample sets from The Perfumed Court so I could learn the difference between a candied violet and a soapy violet, if anyone could make a decent orange scent, what constituted a boozy scent, whether I'd ever like anything other than a rose. New releases - who cared? I hadn't even tried Patou Joy or Guerlain Mitsouko yet.

I read a few books about perfume, but mostly? I just smelled, and then I wrote about it. Then I'd smell some more, and write about it. I'm not promoting blogging with blind ignorance.  I'm just saying, everybody has to start somewhere, and you should never be so afraid of looking stupid you miss an opportunity to learn. As I blogged, I trusted my instincts and my own impressions of the scents. You know why? Perfumes smell different to and on different people. They evoke different memories. They elicit different connections. What smells like a funeral to me may smell like heaven to you.  I think both reviews are probably correct.

Was I writing what my esteemed colleagues were? Nope. As far as I could tell, everyone else had a lot more knowledge of the industry and a lot fewer pop references, no one else was using song lyrics for titles, and I didn't see anyone else occasionally freaking out about feminist politics. Did I have "a new perspective to offer"? Ha! Who cared? I was writing again. It felt terrific.

This April 15 will mark four full years of blogging about perfume. I haven't stopped yet, and I have no intention of doing so.

The key to this business is personal relationships.

One thing that keeps coming up in posts about the 'crowded field' of perfume blogging is the idea of "lost readership" and " fluctuating traffic" and "shouting into the void."

Largely these things seem like nonsensical concerns to me. I admit to being flattered by readership. Who isn't? I admit I like comments. But mostly, I write this blog for me. Maybe it's the writer in me that thinks it's a good idea, but I prefer to give credit to the historian.

When I was in college, I read A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 for a class. This work by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is one of the best books you can read about American life in the period in large part because it reflects the thoughts and feelings of the daily life of a real person as they were living it. This is history gold, people! It doesn't get more primary source than that.

 Do I think I deserve to be the speaker for our times? No, I do not. But I suspect Martha Ballard didn't think she would be either. Part of the reason I write this blog,  and part of why I write and document my life to (quite frankly) an absurd degree (you really should see my scrap books of movie tickets stubs - not even joking), is because part of me thinks, "What if I end up the Martha Ballard of the early 21st Century?" You never know who the Angel of History's eye will fall upon in the rubble. If it's me? I'd like there to be plenty of material for that intrepid historical scholar to work from.

And to that end, I try to document the work I've enjoyed reading around the internet here, and on twitter, FB, G+, and the like. I like to share things with people, to talk about them and read them. And I like to give inspirational credit where credit is due, even if the inspiration is to blog at length about how I disagree, whether that be related to perfume or not. Discourse is intensely valuable and immeasurably rewarding, particularly when it challenges us to (re)consider our own assumed postures. I am grateful to those who prompt me to bring pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.

Plus, being nice? Kind of the golden rule.

Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded.

This isn't my first blog. I started a livejournal back in the late 1990s, then I had an independent blog I designed myself that was hosted on a friend's server for a few years. Before that, I wrote in spiral bound notebooks. FN7.

Can I be your ambassador
of perfume kwan?

I'm not really in the beauty industry, and I doubt I ever will be. I still don't know as much about perfume as a lot of other bloggers. You know what I learned on Castle two weeks ago? How to properly say the name of a perfume I actually own. FN8.

I keep going anyway, learning and trying and collecting. Will I keep writing Feminine Things for a while? I like to think so. I see no reason for stopping. And even though I do have all those things now - awards and event invites, links and followers and commenters and even, yes, the occasional free samples to review - I would still keep writing here if I didn't.

Most flattering to me, though, is that you keep reading, and others find my work valuable.  This blog ended up on a couple of Women's Studies syllabi in courses on feminism and the beauty industry in the last couple of years.  I actually got to send a message to one of the classes that used my blog.  As someone who has made a life of studying sex and gender in popular culture, it touches me to think I might help someone else learn and grow.

Truthfully? I never track my traffic. I didn't even know about this wikio/Ebuzzing thing until I read Vanessa's follow-up piece. Google ranks sites? News to me. I like it when people post on my drawings, because I like to give pretty things away. Other than that? I might as well be writing letters to myself.

When I went back to look at my very short initial post today, there was a comment on it, one I never even replied to. How great is that? Three days in and I had a reader. One reader. Perhaps it's her I'm still writing to.

When I write the words, dear reader, I am literally imagining you out there, reader, and I hope you will hear me when I say the following:

Words are tools; writing, a learned skill. The more you use them, the better you get at writing. Whatever inspires you to write, write about that. If it's wine? Start a w(h)ine blog. If it's shoes, go with that fetish. If it's making up funny, misspelled statements to apply on photos of cats, I hear there's a market for that. It's a big old internet out there, and I am not in any way afraid of losing my reader to you. I can't. They live here, in my head.

You complete me, dear reader!

So if you've got something to say about perfume, I want to hear it! If you've started a scent blog you don't see listed in my sidebar of bloggers, tell me. Provided you aren't a spamming troll, I'll be happy to add you. I can't promise I will always have time to read everything you write and comment on it, but if you inspire me to think or talk or write, I will give you the internet love you deserve. And I truly hope you do it better than I do, even if you start your very first post tomorrow.

Who knows - I might even learn something.

Leave a comment to be added to the blogroll.  Or just to say you love/hate/indifferent me, sweet reader.  For deep down in the spidery corners of my ventricular chambers, I feel the same about you.

But I love my wife husband. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.
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FN1. For instance, I, too, regret not going with Wordpress. Though if I move now, I'm probably going to Drupal Gardens. Because this Bitch? She hearts the cutting edge technologies. (Given that, I still don't know why I ended up on Blogger. I think because I was broke and it was free. Thanks for asking.)

FN2. Dorothy: "I loved your memo, by the way."
Jerry: "Thanks... actually, it was just a Mission Statement."

Bonkers!

FN3. Also, if you all don't like this post, please don't golf clap me off stage left with my sad little fish in hand. Plus, Tom Cruise is actually bonkers, so I think it works thematically. Also, I love Cameron Crowe, so you can all suck it.

Wait -- am I not supposed to be telling readers to suck it? Damn, I'm bad at this.

FN4. Loved my coursework and my profs, though. Holla to my Lewis & Clark faculty, what? What! Seriously, though. I really should have just gotten a Ph.D. in Legal History or Legal Philosophy.


FN5. Yes, tens, not hundreds. I was broke, remember?

FN6. I actually don't mind paying for samples.  I appreciate that materials are expensive and most of the perfumers I buy from are independent small business owners who need to recoup/cover their costs.  I'm just happy they let me have the samples, instead of selling by full bottle only.  I couldn't afford to try much perfume if I had to buy full bottles just to try them.

FN7. I still write long hand in notebooks.

FN8. Seriously. It isn't fracas? As in "to cause a"? I am terrrrible with French. Ah well. I might sound like a stupid culturally-illiterate American, but at least I don't smell like one.

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.

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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. :)

The Reeking Stench of Bitterness (aka Scents for When I am All Bad Moody)

Get that AWAY FROM ME!

There are some days when I wake up, get dressed, trundle over to my perfume cabinet and shudder in horror at the thought of wearing some of my truly beloved scents.

Why?

I overslept, my hair is wet, I don't have a stitch of make-up on, and my general attitude is that the world at large should just be glad I got out of bed and participated today. In other words, I am feeling, if you'll pardon the expression, like hammered shit, and there is no way I feel bold and sassy enough for a dose of Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Chypre, or beautiful enough for my tiny vial of Robert Piguet Fracas parfum, or thin enough for a hit of vintage Caron Tabac Blond, or sexy enough for my roller of DSH Perfumes Erotica.

Everything I pick up is like that quote from High Fidelity: "The thing I really learned from the Charlie Debacle is that you gotta punch your weight. Charlie was out of my class: too pretty, too smart, too witty, too much." There are days when a lot of my favorite scents are, quite frankly, too pretty, too bold, too sexy, too classy -- too much. I can't face them. I want to go back to bed and only strength of will and a desire not to get canned in the worst economy in a century make me do otherwise.

On these days, it can be very hard to find a fragrance and you definitely do not want to be testing anything, because the anxiety of trying something beautiful in an awful mood and hating it is deeply depressing in its own right. To that end, here are some thoughts on scenting your way through the dark down days.

~ Don't be afraid to be a coward. ~

A lot of people will tell you try new scents, look for inspiration, challenge yourself to rise above it and find the invigorating meat of life that will help you turn your mood around. To these folks I say, SHUT IT. In the immortal words of Winona Ryder in Heathers, "If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn't be a person. You'd be a game show host." You're not doing yourself or any hard working perfumer a favor if the stream of cursing running through your mind as you spritz on a new scent is filth of the order most frequently uttered by eight-year-old boys who have just acquired a naughty vocab and are out of their parents' earshot. Run, don't walk, from challenging material. Be a coward today; it's cool. We all do it sometimes.

In bad moods people tend to: eat their favorite foods, wear their snuggly pajamas, watch their favorite movies. We seek, in a word, comfort. The unknown is not comforting. Because I'm not talking about ennui here; that's a different problem. FN1. I'm talking about a black mood, Sally, and not one born of the cumulative circumstances in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which might be overcome by a good ending a beautiful scent might provide because you're open to such a possibility. I'm talking about waking up on the wrong side of the bed and knowing the day will suck because you are in the mood to refuse any argument to the contrary.

On such a day, wear something you have absolutely no complaint about. If you have always and will ever after, Amen, loved Guerlain Shalimar or can’t get enough of Channel No. 5 EDT, bust that baby out. If you're ready to bite the heads off everyone, don't let a challenging scent get in the way.

This is my FIGHT FACE!

~ Wear a scent you already unconditionally love even if it is common, bad, or otherwise embarrassing. ~ 

Yes! Embrace the known, the overworn, the possibly common and mundane. If you have a big bottle of Estee Lauder White Linen or Ceasar Woman lurking in the back of the closet because you like them and don't care if other people think they are overworn or smell cheap or just all around suck in general, bring it out into the light. Have a brief, torrid, public love affair with banality! Love your bottle of GAP So Pink! with all your heart. You were already in the mood to tell the world “Screw You!” for the sake of it; you might as well wear a scent that might give you the opportunity.

~ Wear a scent that others find boring. ~

Yep. You've all got one. I know you do. You've got a scent you love but other people think smells like a dryer sheet, or you think smells like winter and noses in the knowes think of as white noise. Normally your friends notice and comment on the olfactory beauty in your wake, or hug you and say, "You smell wonderful, (sigh) as always," and then grill you on your recent scent choices. Perhaps on another day you might not want to admit that next to that $300 bottle of LE L'Artisan lurks a bottle of Paris Hilton Fairy Dust, but I say now is the hour of your reckoning! Get down with that reject scent; you're already feeling rejected and full of bile. Spray it all over and then if someone frowns at you, wave your arms wildly, spreading your averageness around like an obscuring cloud of scent underachievement.

~ Wear a scent that flies a little under the radar. ~

I have some very lovely scents that wear close to the skin and, unless you actually get closer than eight inches to me, you would never know they were there. FN2. These are the scents I am most likely to turn to when my mood is more rotten than a crab apple full of worms. Not because there is anything shameful or embarrassing or boring or wrong with them. Simply because the only statement I am hoping to make today is one to myself, a small reminder that despite the general bitterness eating at me these long hours, tomorrow will be better.

Must remember:
Not a workplace
appropriate response!

In these moods, I really like green scents. I like to use DSH Perfumes Hemlock or a little Miller et Bertaux No. 3 Green, Green, Green, Green to help assuage my ill temperament, though the latter is almost too large sillage-wise for this mood. Big sillage means attracting attention, and in this mood, I want no such thing. I know on these days I can be hard to deal with; no need to inflict that on anyone but myself. FN3. I need to purchase JoAnne Bassett's Night Queen, not because it isn't beautiful or glorious on me, but because I think I would find it equally silver-lining inspiring.

Another scent I find really comforting is Demeter Fragrance Library Salt Air, which has a harsh edge to it and isn't super low sillage, but doesn't necessarily smell perfumey, and therefore is unnoticed by everyone but me. There is something about being able to put my headphones on with the volume cranked and close my eyes and give my wrist a little sniff and pretend for a few minutes I am not trapped at work but instead barreling down the highway along the coast with the windows down that makes me feel a tiny bit better.

You know what else is comforting? Foodie scents. L'Artisan Bois Farine, aka the infamous "bread hologram" is really comforting and moderate to low sillage in smallish doses. Another scent that makes me feel better on a bad day is Olympic Orchids Carolina, which smells like banana bread and is similar to Washington Tremlett Royal Heroes 1805, but better smelling and better priced.

And last, but not least, I always feel it's best to smell like a cocktail when I really, really want one. To that end, I have the terrific Memoire Liquide Champagne et Mure #900 and Frapin 1270 EDP to make me feel boozy, but without the drunken rambling over-truthfulness I’m prone to in my tipsy moments.

What about you dear reader? What do you wear when you have a black day? Tell me below to enter a monthly mix drawing , this one my much overdue August 2011 draw. August 2011 Mix CD, which is a mix mostly of which what I was listening to in August, some new, some old, all awesome. Winner will also recieve a $15 gift certificate to their choice of Demeter Fragrance Library or The Perfumed Court, a few decants, and possibly a post card and other goodies.

Comment by Friday October 28, 2011 12:01AM PST to enter!

At least one more draw this week, so stay tuned.
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FN1. See video here for explanation.
FN2. Too close, you fool! I'm in the mood to ax-murder a body! NEVER GET THAT CLOSE IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES! I could snap your poor self in half with nothing more than my jaws of viciousness on such an occasion.
FN3. And my lovely and long-suffering husband, who gets the backwash of my bad moody days by virtue of living with me, sadly.

Honey, you're so fine...

Challenge Week 28: Monday, 7/25/11, to Friday, 7/29/11
Scent Spotlight on DSH Perfumes Lush Honey

Life. Sometimes it gets in the way.

No, seriously. Often times I'd rather be here. I'd rather be sniffing new perfumes and talking to you about all the ways scent can pop me out of a dark day and reset my mood because it reminds me to appreciate the magic and beauty of the world I live in.

I was supposed to do a week of reviews, but instead I'm just going to review one scent I have worn in excess of five days easily since I got it.

But before I do, let me give you a little unsolicited, friendly advice. I rarely ever talk about my job, because honestly? I love this. I love writing. In my head, I’m not a lawyer. I’m a writer. Even at work, I write, all day long. Because writing is what I love and do best and feel proud of. Being a lawyer? Not high on that list.

That said, let’s just say that I work in law and in the insurance industry. Being in insurance, I am always thinking about the worst possible scenario. In my world, one of the things that means is the idea of something happening to my home, like an earthquake or a fire. I worry about how I would evacuate my cats, should I keep a go bag with copies of critical records and cherished items, do I have enough renter insurance.

It’s this last one that bothers me most. I have ordered a copy of my renter’s policy, but I feel pretty sure it won’t cover perishables like my perfume collection. I did a little loose math last week. If I had to replace my collection, without any consideration for time and effort, it would take a lot. It wasn’t until I was moving it all for the second time this summer, carefully wrapping it and boxing it and unwrapping it, devising new storage, etc. that it dawned on me. In four years, I’ve amassed a large collection that is monetarily worth as much or more than my car. I don’t even know how or when it happened, but my perfume collection has taken on a large place in my life, larger than I had realized. How the hell can I protect it?

I’ve reached out to some specialty collectors and insurers, companies and individuals who are collectors or ensure collections of things like antique dolls and stamps. I’m looking to find out if my perishable but beloved collection is insurable, if an appraising methodology exists and what it might be, and how much it might cost. If I find out, I’ll let you know. But I thought I’d tell you about my dilemma and my progress, because some of you are just as protective of your collections as I am.

And speaking of perfume…

On to DSH Perfumes Lush Honey. I have been wearing Lush Honey at least part of a day a couple of times a week since I bought it back in April. Sometimes I put it on in the morning when I’m having a bad day. Sometimes I dab some on just before bed and drift off to sleep with it scenting my sweetest dreams. It’s been like a secret love affair, Lush Honey and I. I have no idea why I didn’t write this review earlier except to say that I can’t remember I was so crazy for a particular scent. Usually when I like something I wear it for a few months maybe twice a month. By comparison, this has been hot, heavy, passionate, obsessive. So let’s talk about my amor secreto.

Lush Honey is described as follows:

Luscious and seductive honey with a light, sweet, floral top note and a super sexy, musky-gourmand dry down. Va Va Voom! Notes: Bitter Almond, Muguet (Lily of the Valley), Violet, Hazelnut, Honey, Honey Beeswax, Ambergris, French Vanilla, Heliotrope, Musk, Tonka Bean.

This scent is by far the sweetest thing I own. Sweeter than Il Profumo Vanille Bourbon, sweeter than Guerlain Shalimar or Guerlain Spirituese Double Vanille, sweeter even than By Kilian Love. In other words, so sticky-heavy-sweet it could choke you if you wore enough, and since it is a perfume oil it packs quite a wallop.

Giant cinnamon roll!

I’d tell you it smelled, you know, like honey, but that seems completely inadequate. FN1. It is edibly sweet and spicy. Name every sweet bakery scent you can – maple syrup, cinnamon, honey, frosting, brown sugar, hazelnut coffee syrup, baking vanilla. You’re likely to use any of these to describe the scent if you try it yourself. Personally, I think it smells like the famous dinner plate-sized cinnamon rolls they serve out at Camp 18 on Highway 26 between here and the Oregon coast if they covered it in honey.

 It would be overwhelming if it weren’t so snuggly, cozy, fantastic. I mean, I want to lick my own arm; I assume in a close moment it couldn’t hurt the mood. Take note though: this is not a scent for the edible faint of heart. If you don’t like smelling like a bakery, run, don’t walk, in the other direction. For me? It’s heavenly.

Sadly, Lush Honey is discontinued. In fact, that's why I bought it in the first place. It was a unsniffed purchase, bought in a mad rush of DSH rollers I grabbed at the beginning of the spring and summer during her sale. I loved almost everything I bought, but this? A-mazing. It's a shame it is discontinued because it is the ultimate tribute to over-the-top gourmand decadence. I loved it so much I actually bought a second 10ml roller almost immediately. I hope it comes back. Everyone who loves sweet and gourmand scents should have the chance to try it.

"I wanna be with you all of the time.
I couldn't tell you just how much I loved you,
but now that you're mine I'll tell you all the time.
Honey, you're so sweet.
I wanna be with you every week..."
~ "Honey," Best Coast

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FN1. Anyone who knows anything about honey knows the taste is significantly impacted by the kind of flowers the bees who make the honey are feeding from. Clover honey is the most common in the U.S. Alfalfa honey is also very popular. If you’re into gourmet foods like flavored salts and varies of flavored oils, though, you know honey comes in all kinds of varieties and blends. Personally I’m a big fan of sag honey and fireweed honey.

Hold me until all the prayers that go to heaven get an answer.

Perfume Challenge Week 20: Monday, 5/30/11, to Friday, 6/3/11

Dear reader -- I am currently enraged by this WSJ piece criticizing current Young Adult novels. I am enraged for many, many reasons, but for now I will focus on this one.

My brother had severe hearing problems as a child, and as a result had slower reading development than average. This always made him feel stupid and academically inadequate.

My parents did not help in this, constantly reinforcing my voracious reading habits and academic prowess, while telling my brother his strengths lay in his athletic accomplishments and social acumen.

In the 8th grade, his English teacher assigned his class S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders."

It was the first book my brother ever truly read, and he identified with many of the characters and themes. It became a favorite. It inspired him to read "Rumblefish" then "Tex" and to branch out to other authors. He learned about poetry, because the book used Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

He's 31 years old now. He has three sons. He reads to them all the time when he's not gone on deployment. In just this last year he's read Kerouac's "On the Road" and Homer's "The Odyssey" -- for pleasure.

"The Outsiders" changed my brother's life.

Shame on anyone who would have denied him that opportunity because they felt they had the right to determine what was appropriate for him to read. Growing up as children in a home caught in the grip of domestic violence and alcoholism, I assure you that these books were far less dark than parts of our every day lives. Instead, they made us feel less alone.

Okay. Rage...abated, temporarily. On to the perfume.

This week I bring you five scents from the lovely house of By Kilian. Founded by "the heir to a long line of cognac-makers that were pioneers in luxury, the grandson of the founder of The LVMH Group" this line is a fantastic,luxurious scents. The line is, generally speaking, heavy on sillage and foodie aspects, though some of the scents occasionally surprise.

Monday: By Kilian Love - neroli, iris, jasmine, rose, musk, vanilla. Supposedly inspired by the smell of marshmallow  this is one very gourmand scent. I do get marshmellow fluff, but really it reminds me most of the these creamy glazed bundt cakes they sell in grocery stores across the southlands from whence I spring. (Sadly, I cannot find there here, but they generally looked like the photo to the right.) Super sweet, even as it turns towards its more floral face toward you as about forty-fve minutes in. If you don't like sweet, run away from this. If, however, you love sweet like I do, it's pretty good. 3 of 5 nods.

Tuesday: By Kilian Liaisons Dangereuses - plum, pelargonium, cinnamon, musk, sandalwood. A sophisticated rose with an obvious fruit aspect, in a realistic way that makes me feel like I'm biting into a fresh plum. It's also got a nice coconut aspect, more like the fresh flesh of a coconut than the sweetened and sugared flake. I also definitely plum in it, which I surprising and lovely. It reminds me most of Jo Malone Red Roses, but less soapy. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: By Kilian Cruel Intentions - Notes: calabrian bergamot rose, papyrus, tahitian vetiver, guaiac wood, amber, coconut and styrax. Hello oriential. Cruel Intentions is woodier than your classic big orientals, like CK Obsession, though you can tell they are in the same family. Lots of powdery amber here, but I get a decent wallop of the vetiver which makes it feel less like a big-haired model straight out of Xanadu or Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" video (see left). Very nice, as orientials go. The vetiver is what really sets this apart, giving it a dry smooth quality like a good leather. A well-made oriential, so if you roll that way, try it. 3.5 of 5 nods.

Thursday: By Kilian Back to Black - Notes: bergamot, saffron, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander, raspberry, chamomile, olibanum, honey, cedar, oak, tobacco, patchouli, almond, vanilla and labdanum. According to Fragantica, Back to Black is loved by those who enjoy L'Artisan Tea for Two, Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille, L'Artisan Timbuktu, Tauer Perfumes L'Air du desert marocain, all of which I love. So here I am, getting all googlied eyed at another tobacco scent. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever meet one I don't like, or if my intense love and adoration for my grandpa and his pipe smoking during my formative years is going to result in an army of tobacco scented bottles in my perfume armory. Back to Black comes off at first as a weirdly spicy tobacco; I definitely get some of the various spicy top notes, particularly the cardamon. During the dry down, I'd think there was coconut oil in here from the beach-y note I keep hitting half an hour in, but I suspect that's a combination of the vanilla and labdanum base notes bleeding through. This does not seem particularly foodie, thought it is sweet, more sweet than a lot of other tabacco scents. I'd love to smell this on a man; I think the sugary edge to it would be dead sexy with an open collar and light summer suit. 4 of 5 nods.

Friday: By Kilian Straight to Heaven - Nutmeg, patchouli, rum, cedar. The opening is whack in the face of rum. It's like taking a shot of rum and just as the initial taste on the tongue fades, taking another. It then grows increasingly nutty, and not all that sweet, which after this week of scents, was really welcome, especially in our close to 80 degree weather. Also, in a house where so many scents are knock-me-down strong, this is surprisingly subtle. I really like it.

I tried it next to Olympic Orchids Bay Rum, which is more medicinal and earthy, where Straight to Heaven remains polished, sleek, and smooth. The difference feels like the difference between drinking hooch our of a barrel with the Bay Rum, as opposed to sipping from elegantly cut crystal tumblers with Straight to Haven. If you're into boozy scents, this is going to thrill you to your toes. 4 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week: You know, on Thursday I thought I'd be saying Back to Black, but I think I have to go with Straight to Heaven.  On the whole, though, I really enjoy the various offerings of the house in general, and I would be pleased to own any of these scents.

"You are absurd.
You say the cutest things I've ever heard.
I don't think that I could take another word,
or my head might explode
and I might have to go to heaven
Love me..."
~ "Go To Heaven," The Pierces

Scent samples generously provided for review by the perfumer.

If you want another kind of love, I'll wear a mask for you.

Monday, 2/28/11 - Friday, 3/4/11

14 kinds of chow-dah!

Last weekend I went to the 5th Annual New England Chowder Challenge at Fifth Quadrant.  My friend Kate, one of the two Yankee transplants in my life, came along.  Together we both blind picked the winning candidate of fourteen entrants an listen to some very good live music.  Of all the gifts this perfume obsession has given me, a more discerning palette is one of the best.

Monday: Miller et Bertraux Shanti Shanti - Starts off with a big burst of rose it turns and becomes gentle and creamy. It is a snuggly kind of rose, one you want to curl up with an sniff on a dark and stormy afternoon under a blanket by a fire with a good book. I agree with other reviewers who referred to it as "calming." Some people get spicy with this one apparently, but I didn't. On me it's a gentle rose, not overly aggressive, like fuzzy bunny slippers. Unfortunately, I prefer my roses on the 6 inch spike kitten heels or wrapped in miles of velour variety so I can't imagine I'd wear it very often. But if you like your roses on the not too strong side, and you'd prefer to skip the skany rose trend afoot of late, this might be a nice one for you. I'd like to say its more than just good, but the rose field is a crowded one, which makes it difficult to stand out. These days it feels like if you aren't Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Chypree or DSH Perumes Beach Roses, I've kind of smelled you before. 3 of 5 nods.

Tuesday: Weil Zibeline - A floral aldehyde from 1928, I have is a vintage sample from the 1940s-50. Zibeline, or "sable," is part of a line inspired by and meant to be worn with fur. To learn more about the history of the scent and the line, I recommend this great piece from The Scented Salamander. I can see the 'fur' homage here.  The opening reminds me of something -- Chanel No. 5, but less floral, or Guerlain Mitsouko, but without so much peach.  It's lovely and sweet and warm like a fuzzy sweater.Very nice, and probably worth getting your hands on if you're into warmly sweet floral aldehydes.  4 of 5 nods.

Wednesday: Tauer Perfumes Incense Rosé - Okay, here's a tip. Never sample a Tauer perfume in a non-scent friendly environment. The sillage will blow you right down, and piss off the scent haters around you. Personally, I think the big sillage is one of the things that make Tauer Perfumes so consistently beautiful. The incense portion is similar to Une rose chyprée (the scent so nice I reviewed it twice), but the opening has a citrus rose opening I really enjoy, and that aspect, though receding, is still an ongoing part of the scent.  Love it, just like basically everything else I've tried from Tauer Perfumes. Someday I'll have a bottle of each.  5 of 5 nods.

Leonard Cohen, live Dec. 2010

Thursday: Jean Desprez Bala Versailles parfum - Fizzy like a soda pop kind of like a scent Dr. Pepper at first, it becomes rough, animalic, and almost rubbery.  And yet, still vaguely sweet like cocoa powder is sweet.  In other words, awwwwesome.  So incredibly sexy! I admit that if you're not into perfume, this one is going to be a challenge for you, but it's really worth it. Would work for either a man or a woman, and be hot either way. If there were a scent version of Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man," this is probably it. 5 of 5 nods.

Friday:  L'Artisan Mure et Musc Extreme - Remember when I reviewed L'Artisan Mure et Musc over two years ago and found it to nice to like?  Well I decided to break down and try the extreme version.  I wouldn't describe it as too nice.  The open as a medicinal green kick, it's not overly sweet or fruity, but instead hot and sticky, like berries too long in the sun, bodies pressed and rolling among the brambles, too lost in love and lust and rebellion to notice the scraping thorns.  Beautiful and lush and lusty, this is the Mure et Musc I could have worn as a teen.  If you think Ava Luxe Wild Blackberry Musk is too fruity sweet, try this. 4 of 5 nods.

Winner of the Week:  In a week of amazing scent, I'm giving it to Jean Desprez Bala Versailles for its singular filthiness!

"I've been runnin' through these promises to you
that I made and I could not keep.
Ah, but a man never got a woman back
not by beggin' on his knees,
or I'd crawl to you baby and I'd fall at your feet
and I'd howl at your beauty like a dog in heat
and I'd claw at your heart and I'd tear at your sheet.
I'd say please.
I'm your man."

~ "I'm Your Man," Leonard Cohen