i was making up the bed earlier and i realized that i never, ever wear TBS White Musk on my body. i only ever use it to scent the sheets when i'm putting on new ones. L'Occitane Honey Gentle Water is only for the dog and her bedding; Côté Bastide Péche de Vigne is only for putting in the handwash water.
i don't know why i isolate these scents as i do. White Musk would make a marvelous room spray, and Honey Gentle Water would smell delicious in the handwash water. yet i've become accustomed to doing these things and thus the TBS remains unsprayed except when i'm changing the sheets, and the Péche stands in its interesting bottle until the bathroom sink is stoppered.
there are also fragrances i will only wear at certain times, to fill a particular emotional need. while i love Passage D'Enfer with a singular passion (it was my first L'Artisan and remains one of my favorite fragrances), i will only wear it when i need 'help' with my day. i also only wear elizabeth W's Hyacinth when i'm feeling wonderful, which means i don't wear it much despite it being the most gorgeous and perfect hyacinth soliflore i've ever smelled in my life.
by the same token, i won't wear POTL Luctor et Emergo when i'm feeling too insecure. i'm not sure why. i get the most compliments when i wear this perfume, and one of my exes thinks it is the sexiest perfume on me ever. so one would think i'd reach for it whenever insecurity loomed, right? but no. it is as though i can't wear it because i feel i cannot carry it off. Serge Luten's Iris Silver Mist is the opposite - i must feel melancholy enough to wear it, or it doesn't work for me.
i'm sure there are other, more subtle decision processes that occur for other scents, but they're not as clearly delineated so it's tough to put them into simple words. regardless, it points me towards a clearer understanding of how interdependent scent appreciation is with personality, mood, habit, and style. i wonder how the people of the 1400s would have assessed the scents we enjoy now, and what we'd think of the scents that will be popular in the 2600s...
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
July Meditation - Bond No.9's Chinatown
In honor of a lovely and fruitful meeting with Laurice from Bond No. 9, today I'll talk about Chinatown. Initially I was a touch afraid of this scent, since some folks mention a bergamot note in there and I am so nervous about The Burning. I try bergamot-laden scents with the attitude of a squeamish older lady dipping a toe into frigid water... and that attitude has certainly served me well in the past!
However, this perfume didn't deserve such treatment. What a lovely creation this is! Chinatown is, without question, a well-done oriental/incense. It starts off with an initial note of warm peaches, but within 10 minutes that loveliness is gone and a stunning floral incense takes over. The light tuberose and more present peony lend themselves particularly well to this composition, rendering a set of dusty wood notes into a lush and complex work. The wood-and-white-floral phase is long-lasting and steady, running throughout the heart notes - the cardamom doesn't come into play until a half hour into the drydown. While in some perfumes cardamom turns a perfume into a gourmand scent, in Chinatown the cardamom adds depth and an eastern-tinged spirituality to the scent. It is a May church wedding sort of scent, or, if you manage to smell the peach in it, a meditation on the nature of July. Without question there's a spiritual overlay to this, balanced by the weight of the florals, with an innate joyous quality that is impossible to ignore. Definitely a scent worth trying. The beauty of the packaging helps as well. ;)
However, this perfume didn't deserve such treatment. What a lovely creation this is! Chinatown is, without question, a well-done oriental/incense. It starts off with an initial note of warm peaches, but within 10 minutes that loveliness is gone and a stunning floral incense takes over. The light tuberose and more present peony lend themselves particularly well to this composition, rendering a set of dusty wood notes into a lush and complex work. The wood-and-white-floral phase is long-lasting and steady, running throughout the heart notes - the cardamom doesn't come into play until a half hour into the drydown. While in some perfumes cardamom turns a perfume into a gourmand scent, in Chinatown the cardamom adds depth and an eastern-tinged spirituality to the scent. It is a May church wedding sort of scent, or, if you manage to smell the peach in it, a meditation on the nature of July. Without question there's a spiritual overlay to this, balanced by the weight of the florals, with an innate joyous quality that is impossible to ignore. Definitely a scent worth trying. The beauty of the packaging helps as well. ;)
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
the taste of perfume-love
originally posted in lachendwolf on Wednesday, January 18, 2006.
i've been extra-clutzy today, to the point that i spilled an entire section of spoons in Pax just trying to get one spoon into my bag. classic, i tell ya. but the best clutzmonger thing i did today? i sprayed perfume in my face. not just any perfume, either. oh no... i specifically wasted my Andy Tauer l'air du desert marocain sample. the fact that i still adore this fragrance after inadvertently forcing myself to taste it is a testimony to how incredible it is... an archly dry rose rests over coriander and vetiver in such a way as to render the spiciness of desert sands into a remarkable and lush romantic landscape. it is the beauty of Bedouin patterns on cloth tents; an incense that is so much part of the soul of the desert that you cannot extract it from that place. the lightest peppery wood; the warmth of a bonfire fire under distant cold austere stars, with nothing living around you for miles.
i think i'm in love with this scent. this might be one of those years where i find a lot of excellent scents in a short period of time. between this and Idole i'm probably good for another few years. ;)
i've been extra-clutzy today, to the point that i spilled an entire section of spoons in Pax just trying to get one spoon into my bag. classic, i tell ya. but the best clutzmonger thing i did today? i sprayed perfume in my face. not just any perfume, either. oh no... i specifically wasted my Andy Tauer l'air du desert marocain sample. the fact that i still adore this fragrance after inadvertently forcing myself to taste it is a testimony to how incredible it is... an archly dry rose rests over coriander and vetiver in such a way as to render the spiciness of desert sands into a remarkable and lush romantic landscape. it is the beauty of Bedouin patterns on cloth tents; an incense that is so much part of the soul of the desert that you cannot extract it from that place. the lightest peppery wood; the warmth of a bonfire fire under distant cold austere stars, with nothing living around you for miles.
i think i'm in love with this scent. this might be one of those years where i find a lot of excellent scents in a short period of time. between this and Idole i'm probably good for another few years. ;)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
have to believe we are magic
how many of you believe in some sort of magic or magical thinking? the occult, tarot, totems, religious miracles - they all fit under the concepts of magic. i believe that human beings are all capable of great things that are not (yet) explainable or measurable through science, and i really want a fragrance that makes someone feel truly magical. i don't want it to be witchy or faerie-ish; there are a great number of "gothic" scents out there which are done beautifully and i don't want to be another one of those. i want something that can be truly, universally magic. the only two oils/accords i know for sure i want to use are ones that smell like frankincense and nutmeg. anyone have any other suggestions?
Monday, September 10, 2007
MKK and Fifi - sounds like a bad 70's band...
Muscs Koublai Khan
"...As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover..."
--from Kubla Khan, by Coleridge
the original description of Muscs Koublai Khan on the Salons Shiseido site called it "a vegetal musk, animalistic, luminous and pedigreed..." yadda yadda, but even with the new and more circumspect description it still gives no notes whatsoever. i'm wondering if that's deliberate, as there's a note in MKK that just doesn't smell like anything i've smelled in a fragrance before. on me, that note is most definitely unpleasant.
i've been wearing the fragrance on and off for a few days, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it's my stage in monthly chemistry. but sadly, no. MKK is a very sweet musk as far as they go, but it's also very strongly physical. you can smell the male pheromones in there, and depending on your personal chemistry you can get anything from deep musk to manure out of that note. on me it smells like a friend of mine's body odor after he's worked out or done a lot of physical exertion - not nasty bacterial BO, but honest scent. it still makes me feel like someone will ask me to take a shower any minute.
the sweet note is very ambery, and there's a touch of leather and incense in it. however, it's a tease of a note, coming and going as time passes on your wrist. the smell waxes and wanes but never manages to overcome the deep physical scent to it. as it dries down there's a soapier note in there - it's the traditional drydown of many egyptian musk accords and i found that somewhat disappointing in a Serge composition. however, the "working man" smell stayed with me throughout the drydown, becoming more or less intense depending on where the amber note was in its moon-like phase changes.
i wouldn't wear MKK in public - this is the kind of perfume that can cause perfume bans in offices or in whole cities or, given enough time on my chemistry, start a civil war. i'm packing away the battle-axe and making sure this warrior stays at home.
Fifi Chachnil
to say that i'm shocked at the love the fragrance gets on MUA is a serious understatement. Fifi Chachnil is described as being "both insolent...and tender" and i suppose in a way that's true - it reminds me of the smell of nursing homes. there's a bleachy note somewhere in there that overwhelms the rose and amber altogether, and the tobacco note is just far too "old cheap cigar" rather than the warm type of pipe-tobacco scent you get in a fragrance like Fumerie Turque. finally, the lily of the valley is not the lovely whitesweet smell of the flower but the more strident smell of early synthetic muguets from the 60s.
other people have fallen deeply in love with this fragrance - why couldn't i?
sadly i couldn't even wait longer than an hour for the drydown; it smelled so awful on me as it dried down that i simply had to shower. i'm truly lucky i'm not a big pink lover - i'm enough of a bottle and glassware freak that i might have bought this for the adorable atomizer alone.
"...As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover..."
--from Kubla Khan, by Coleridge
the original description of Muscs Koublai Khan on the Salons Shiseido site called it "a vegetal musk, animalistic, luminous and pedigreed..." yadda yadda, but even with the new and more circumspect description it still gives no notes whatsoever. i'm wondering if that's deliberate, as there's a note in MKK that just doesn't smell like anything i've smelled in a fragrance before. on me, that note is most definitely unpleasant.
i've been wearing the fragrance on and off for a few days, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it's my stage in monthly chemistry. but sadly, no. MKK is a very sweet musk as far as they go, but it's also very strongly physical. you can smell the male pheromones in there, and depending on your personal chemistry you can get anything from deep musk to manure out of that note. on me it smells like a friend of mine's body odor after he's worked out or done a lot of physical exertion - not nasty bacterial BO, but honest scent. it still makes me feel like someone will ask me to take a shower any minute.
the sweet note is very ambery, and there's a touch of leather and incense in it. however, it's a tease of a note, coming and going as time passes on your wrist. the smell waxes and wanes but never manages to overcome the deep physical scent to it. as it dries down there's a soapier note in there - it's the traditional drydown of many egyptian musk accords and i found that somewhat disappointing in a Serge composition. however, the "working man" smell stayed with me throughout the drydown, becoming more or less intense depending on where the amber note was in its moon-like phase changes.
i wouldn't wear MKK in public - this is the kind of perfume that can cause perfume bans in offices or in whole cities or, given enough time on my chemistry, start a civil war. i'm packing away the battle-axe and making sure this warrior stays at home.
Fifi Chachnil
to say that i'm shocked at the love the fragrance gets on MUA is a serious understatement. Fifi Chachnil is described as being "both insolent...and tender" and i suppose in a way that's true - it reminds me of the smell of nursing homes. there's a bleachy note somewhere in there that overwhelms the rose and amber altogether, and the tobacco note is just far too "old cheap cigar" rather than the warm type of pipe-tobacco scent you get in a fragrance like Fumerie Turque. finally, the lily of the valley is not the lovely whitesweet smell of the flower but the more strident smell of early synthetic muguets from the 60s.
other people have fallen deeply in love with this fragrance - why couldn't i?
sadly i couldn't even wait longer than an hour for the drydown; it smelled so awful on me as it dried down that i simply had to shower. i'm truly lucky i'm not a big pink lover - i'm enough of a bottle and glassware freak that i might have bought this for the adorable atomizer alone.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The Pinnacle of The Burning
In a previous post I'd set a reminder to myself to talk about one of my many bergamot disasters - Frederick Malle's Musc Ravageur, to be specific. I'm going to preface this review with a statement, for those who haven't been following me: my chemistry despises most kinds of bergamot. There are rarities that do end up working well on me, but for the most part I have to avoid it. Perfect example: Pink Sugar ended up smelling like burning wormwood and cigarettes on my skin. Absinthe poured into a smoldering ashtray... ick!
That said, I went into the experience of Musc Ravageur with anticipation. I was recommended it by the Frederic Malle survey (click on 'choose your own perfume'), and was sent the cute little mini in the mail ...along with Lipstick Rose, which was an odd combo. I had heard raves about it, and I'm a fairly intense fan of musks, so I sprayed it on lightly and raised my arm to sniff...
Actually, I can't do any better than my review on Makeup Alley. I'll quote it here:
That said, I went into the experience of Musc Ravageur with anticipation. I was recommended it by the Frederic Malle survey (click on 'choose your own perfume'), and was sent the cute little mini in the mail ...along with Lipstick Rose, which was an odd combo. I had heard raves about it, and I'm a fairly intense fan of musks, so I sprayed it on lightly and raised my arm to sniff...
Actually, I can't do any better than my review on Makeup Alley. I'll quote it here:
ye gods! like someone left a very chemical-ish cheap grapefruit and tropical punch soda out during a particularly warm week, then slathered it on my skin, and THEN covered me with baby powder, and THEN decided to pelt me with rotting persimmons. I was not yet through with my torture, though. Within minutes a smell of burning came through - the signature of the Evil Bergamot come to claim my soul. The sad thing was that The Burning smelled like someone had set fire to a vat of highly carbonated chlorine! I'm still waiting for this horrid scent to fade, after several scrubs and many layers of deodorant. Please try sparingly!My chemistry is talented, indeed. I wasn't able to get that smell off me for another few hours. There's no other note I've come across - not even aldehydes - that manages to smell as consistently dreadful on me as that one. Guerlain's bergamots seem to work most consistently, and even then only half of them. I was so sad at Mitsouko's smell on me... however, knowing what I know now about my Guerlain mania, I suppose I should be grateful!
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