A heaven, a gateway, a hope: A Review of Jo Malone's Sugar and Spice Collection

Yes, dear reader, I know what you're thinking: where you been, fool?

The answer is everywhere and nowhere, dear reader.  In my heart...in my head....I've been to world that only exist in my own dreams.  In reality? Mostly in Oregon, but also in Washington for a few weekends.

Either way, I obviously have not been here enough.  I hear you, reader.  You love me, but you'd also love a little consistency in posting.  This is a more than fair critique.

So, here's a promise from me to you.  Starting now, my goal is to be here at least once a week, every week, for the rest of 2013.  It's not as much as I'd like, but I wanted to keep my goals and commitments realistic.  And that's my commitment to you and this space.  Once a week. Be here or be square.

 Jo Malone's English Limited Edition Sugar and Spice Collection

Here's something I've enjoying lately -- the sugary sweet fruity food concoctions that make up this season's limited edition Jo Malone offerings, also known as the Sugar and Spice collection.  Christine Nagel of Mane is responsible for these five British dessert inspired delights.  She did the tea line from last season that I felt sort of meh about, but she also made Wild Bluebell and English Pear & Freesia, which I like, so I had hopes for the line.  I love a well made gourmand, and have absolutely no objection to smelling like food. So when they called and invited me to the formal presentation of the collection at Nordstrom's here in Portland, I decided I would find a way to make it work with my ridiculously busy schedule.

I went to their fancy food and presentation 'do, complete with the presence of a delightful British man also known as a national trainer for Jo Malone.  As he laid the thick and delicious patter of a man with a product to sell on us, all I wanted was to get to the juice.  That said, there was something a little delightful about drinking carefully concocted theme drinks and getting to eat the dessert the scent is based on while smelling the scents simultaneously.  And yes, they gave us delightful hand massages and a set of collection-inspired recipe cards, so it as an excellent afternoon of pampering. But let's not make the mistake here that they did there, shall we?  Let's get to the perfume.

The Sugar and Spice Collection contains the following five scents:

Lemon Tart - The mouth-watering tang of lemon tart. Sparkling with citrus fruits and verbena, contrasted with swirls of meringue and lemon thyme. Refreshing. 

Redcurrant & Cream - A summer pudding. Sharp-scarlet juices of redcurrants, lush strawberries and raspberries, rippling through creamy musk. Vivacious and enticing. 

Elderflower & Gooseberry - A voluptuous gooseberry fool. Crushed, summer-green gooseberries, juicy with lychee, enfolded into the soft delicacy of elderflower. Tender and feminine. 

Ginger Biscuit - Just-baked biscuit. Spiced with ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon, melting into caramel. Butter-crumbly with roasted hazelnuts. Warmed by tonka bean and vanilla. Irresistible. 

Bitter Orange & Chocolate - The bite of bitter orange, layered with dark chocolate.  Orange peel counterpoised with warm, powdery cocoa, milky coconut and coumarin.  Sumptuous and addictive.

Based solely on the descriptions, I went into the event thinking I was most likely to walk out with the Lemon Tart or the Elderflower & Gooseberry.  I enjoy a good lemon tart, and I was hoping the sugary aspect of the line would keep it away from the astringent/cleaner end of the citrus scent market.  As for the Elderflower & Gooseberry, I like drinking St. Germain as much as the next girl, so I thought there was promise to be held there.

Lemon Tart was foodie, but it was far too light for my taste.  It felt like it was a barely there scent.  I think part of the issue was that the focus of the scent seemed to be on the crust, and much like a tart with too much crust and not enough filling, it left something to be desired.  Nice, but not for a lemon lover like me.

Elderflower & Gooseberry on the other hand was a strange synthetic mess on me!  I was really sad about it, too.  It opened with the olfactory equivalent of white noise, fruits mash of indeterminate origin,  and something sharp, like alcohol. If you'd asked me before the event, I'd have told you this certain to be my favorite of the group.  Worse still, lots of the attendants seemed to really like it so I have to believe this one was mostly bouncing off my body chemistry. Others found bliss, so you might, too.  For me, though? Nope.  A complete nonstarter.

Next up? Ginger Biscuit. Now we were getting somewhere.  Ginger-in all its various forms-is the favored flavor and scent of El Hubs, so much so that I wore a relatively inexpensive and now defunct ginger scent, Origins Ginger with a Twist, on my wedding day because he liked it and back then I didn't know jack about perfume.  So here is this sweet, foodie delight with a legitimately realistic ginger happening in the opening. David eats candied ginger by the pound, and this is like that first burst when one bites past the sugary outside and into the stinging tartness in the middle.   After about twenty minutes, it slides into a delicious buttery cookie with crystallized ginger topping.  The vanilla and tonka make up the cookie dough, anchoring all that ginger decidedly in the dessert world. This one was a win for me, and I knew it would be a win for David.  Into the basket to purchase it went.

Redcurrant & Cream is a delightful berry in the opening, but that disappears quite quickly. Then it's all about musk and cream, smooth across the palette with a bitter edge, like the berries underneath are sharp and green and not quite ripe.  Foodie? On me, it is decidedly less dessert-y than the rest of the collection. But it did feel like the buzz of stumble drunk bees buzzing in the open u-pick berry fields ones finds around Oregon and Washington in the warm, bright days of summer.  I knew I would want to wear the Ginger Biscuit on those bright warm days, and this was a light, full, colorful berry blend that I could see myself reaching for when late June and July rolled around.  After some lengthy internal debate, it went into the To Be Bought pile as well.

Last up, Bitter Orange & Chocolate.  If I had been laying bets before I smelled the collection, I'd have told you this one was destined to be the great loser of the bunch.  Good orange scents are surprisingly hard to find.  Good chocolate scents? Even harder.  To try to make a realistic blend of both that even remotely resembled one of my favorite holiday treats-the perennial chocolate orange-seemed a feat, frankly, beyond Jo Malone, and I say that as a fan of the line, generally speaking.

Boy, was I wrong.  This smells just like the shiny foil wrapped chocolate orange of my holiday dreams! Orange dominates in the opening, and while not all that reminiscent of the smell or taste of a real orange, it is pitch perfect for the orange that I know from the classic dessert. The chocolate is dry and a little powdery, but terrific. In my opinion, this is the it of this collection.  The trainer announced they had only four bottles of it left in Washington or Oregon, which tells me that my tastes must align with the 'fumies in my area, because I snatched a bottle up immediately.

There it is, my friends.  In the end I bought three bottles, and not one of them was one of the two I expected when I walked in the door.  Proof that try before you buy holds true for all noses. Am I sucker? For dessert scents, apparently I am.  But I've been living with these bottles for about a month now and I don't regret it at all.  I also got a ton of samples from the Cologne Intense collection I hadn't tried and a gift with purchase of 10ml of both Grapefruit, which I find useful for layering but not as a stand alone, and Orange Blossom, which is one of my favorites. Frankly? I feel like I made out like a bandit.

I checked online today, and the entire collection is still available online. All of the scents are available in the 50ml bottle for $60, but I advise you pop by your local Jo Malone counter and give them all a sniff before you commit.

Overwhelm, destroying so sweetly...

A review of A Lab on Fire's What We Do In Paris Is Secret and a Drawing!

Snacks! (I'm like a horse, really.)

Dear reader:

So here's a little thing all ten of you out there should know about me. FN1. I have what could be considered a super human tolerance for sweet scents. Seriously. One of my favorites of all time? By Kilian's homage to the marshmallow, Love. Stuff that sets other people's teeth on edge - say Sud Pacifique Vanille Abricot (which, let's be honest, most people think smells like an insane carnival snack) or Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille (boozy and tons of vanilla, but you need a serious sweet tooth to love) - sets my proverbial hair on fire. FN2. So when I tell you that I have found a scent so sweet it might actually be almost too sweet for me?

You should take that statement seriously.

15ml?
You know that's right.

A Lab on Fire, according to nose in the know Robin at NST!, is a sub- or sister-brand of S-Perfume, makers of the much adored (by me) chocolate rose scent, 100% Love. FN3. So when I managed to get my grubby hands on a 15ml bottle of Dominique Ropion's creation, What We Do In Paris Is Secret, I was psyched! FN4. Would I love it? How much would I love it? Let me count the (imagined while it was still in the mail) ways!

Though it isn't much, here's what A Lab on Fire says about What We Do In Paris Is Secret:

Rue des Petits Champs ou rue Montorgueil. Place des Vosges ou St. Germain. Eau de Parfum What We Do In Paris Is Secret captures every part of the city. The glamorous as well as the edgy. Dominique Ropion, one of the most technically advanced perfumers in the world, has created a scent that shows his virtuosic skill and his ability to discover something new. The chic, au courant sensuality of What We Do In Paris Is Secret makes the magical real and Paris's secret palpable.

Notes - Top: Bergamot, honey, lychee; Mid: Turkish rose essence; Dry: tonka bean, vanilla, heliotrope, tolu, sandalwood, ambergris, musks.

Well kids, I'm here to let you in on the secret. In Paris, apparently the secret is sugar.

Froooooosting...

Oh holy crap, is it a lot of sugar! You know how sometimes a thing is so sweet it kind of sears your tongue and you get a twinge at the back of your jaw? This is the olfactory equivalent. I saw some reviews that got playdoh (I didn't) and a lot of almond (only a pinch over here.) Like Robin, I get a fleeting whiff of citrus and rose immediately, but it gets shoved aside almost instantly in favor of massive tonka and heliotrope. I know the notes say musk, but to me the base is more like a bowl of butter cream frosting mixed with the sweetest tobacco you could imagine. Some people say they get sweet floral, but I only get sweets and sweet smoke.

What We Do In Paris... will definitely be too sweet for ninety percent of the people who smell it. FN5. For example, my very own bestie, The Kate? She would run in the opposite direction. It's pretty much everything she hates in a perfume. FN6. My friend Amye, who likes to sniff scents then give them descriptions like "A beachy disaster - sunscreen and sand in your crotch!" or "It's as if a cosmo threw up all over you," would, I'm sure, have some choice words for this. FN7.

 Me? I'm all about the hearts and sparkles here, and in this case, the hearts are sugar cookies and the sparkles are made out of glittery crystallized sugar. While What We Do In Paris Is Secret is decidedly not for the perfumey faint of heart, I got good feedback on it from a girl a work today, and in a world of poseurs, this thing is the real gourmand deal.  I feel very lucky to have some, even if I am going to wear it sparingly for special occasions.  Honestly? It feels special occasion-y to me.  Like a very delicate, very fine, very expensive treat. If you ate it every day, you'd get a tummy ache, but every once in a while? Heaven.

Be forewarned: this sillage will run away from you (or make others run away from you), so give yourself a wide berth or go knowingly into the world cloaked in a confidence made out of candy glass armor. In terms of longevity, I put on the tiniest squirt this morning and twelve hours later I could still easily smell it, though it had lightened considerably. Definitely NSFW if you are in a fragrance limited/fragrance free environment. (Oops?)

You can buy What We Do In Paris Is Secret from Luckyscent in a 60ml for $110. They will also sell you a sample for $4.

But why wait? If you comment below, you can get a sample of What We Do In Paris Is Secret from yours truly, along with a few other of my current favs and a mix CD of music I'm listening to while writing. If you enjoy music from the Brill Building and the teeth gnashing and hair pulling of lost girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s, then between the super sweet scent and the super sweet music, you'll be all set.

Post here by 12:01 AM PST Wednesday, June 13, 2012 to enter. Open to anyone. I'll ship anywhere.

Want more? Try...
~ a review from Robin at NST!
~ a review from Smelly Thoughts.
~ a review from For The Love of Perfume.
~ a review from Legerdenez.
~ a review from 1000 Fragrances.

"Eyes, burning a way through me.
Overwhelm, destroying so sweetly.
Now, there is a fire within me.
A fire that burns...

This fire is out of control.
I'm going to burn this city,
burn this city..."
~ "This Fire," Franz Ferdinand
_______________________
FN1. I kid, of course. There are clearly at least twelve of you.

FN2. Not literally. That would smell waaaaay different. Though I'm deep enough into perfume mania at this point to think, "But I bet there's a decent perfume to be had in there somewhere."

FN3. If I'd had 100% Love when I got married, I give it 70/30 odds it would have been my wedding scent.

FN4. Full disclosure - I won it in a draw on Now Smell This, because Robin is both wise and generous.

FN5. Okay, one minor complaint - could this name be any longer? It's like that band -- "...And you will know us by the fact that our name is ridiculous and longer than necessary."  They're just asking for a bad acyronym.

The perfumers, I mean.  The band already has one.

FN6. The Kate because in a world full of Kates, she is the Kate. The one, the only. Also/formerly known as cKate, until she usurped all other Kates, as was her due.

FN7. These are actual quotes from when we went a-sniffing one afternoon, because Amye is hilarious. And according to this Forbes piece, she's also too busy to date you, so no, you can't have her number.

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

_______________________________
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.