Berdoues - Tabac

Whomping tobacco-vanilla-musk thing that I can feel throbbing in my gut. It opened with a tremendous aw(e inspiring)ful roasted green, vegetal note that was like rainforests (bulbous trunks, palm sap) being burnt down and slashed open with machetes (beetle husks). I feel kind of ill. I nearly wrote "kill" instead of "ill." That's true too. This shit probably causes tumours in lab rats. I probably have 72 IFRA-restricted materials on my wrist. Is there such a thing as a slapping machine? It would be a 1930s sham weight-loss contraption consisting of wire egg beaters and rubber mallets attached to wide elastic bands that would buffet your body. Smelling this feels physically exhausting. It's like a mutant Queen Kong Habanita if she were into financial humiliation and screaming at you to give up your bank card while threatening to singe you with cheap fags. Oh god, I'm so tired. How am I supposed to live life (make dinner? go to the marche? live life?) while I have this fucking reverse IV-drip on my arm? I want to cry.
Orientals: I can't do them.
This possibly smells like the scene in Hisayasu Sato's Naked Blood where the girl starts to tempura-fry her own limbs, but I'm too busy dry-heaving to make sure.

Carven - Ma Griffe (vintage)

Judging from the name, Ma Griffe should be a roaring, clawed monstrix emanating force-fields of toxicity from a single spray of She-Ra platinum arm-cuffs. Instead it is nice, a tad prim, along the lines of Y.

On a semi-related note, my chypres of choice are Parure by Guerlain and Balmain's Jolie Madame. More to come about them soon!

recent acquisitions

Eau de Rochas - Rochas
Tabac - Berdoues. I've never really encountered a fragrance with "Tabac" in the name, so I'm very excited. Certainly smells strange in the bottle!
Styx - Coty
? - Coty.

Yes, the bottle indeed has a question mark on it and I can find no record of it, either. Is it really called Mystere? Quoi? Qui? Quand? Point d'interrogation? ???? INDEED. If you know anything about the elusive "? DE COTY" please let me know!

Sinfonia di Note - Saveur d'Artichaut

Pleasant mild green, soapier than most, verging on Irish Spring territory. What I was actually wishing for was the savour of Cynar, my favorite spirit of all time - cola-coloured artichoke liqueur with a bittersweet chinotto taste, I only get to have it once a year. It has the flavour of old Italy, I imagine it streaming from goblets in Florentine palazzos, while dulcet d'Annunzio-esque lines are declaimed. But I am getting carried away, this does NOT smell like Cynar nor picturesque ruins nor Venetian belladonna braids being undone before bed, Saveur d'Artichaut smells like squeaky-clean SOAP, well-scrubbed like an Ingalls sister.

EDIT: Now it smells like artichokes being sweated in a pan.

Escada - Marine Groove

Malibu Musk.

Aroma M - Geisha Marron

If something has the word "marron" in its name, it should conjure up images of chestnuts, smoke, THE COLOUR BROWN, nuts, hell, any kind of nut, I'd even take peanuts and soynuts and hemp seeds, anything earthy and dirty and remotely nature-related.
So why do I smell like Clairol and hand sanitizer?
I need a little dancing GIF of an angry face.
Maybe they mean "marrant," like HA HA HA HEE HEE HEE THIS DOESN'T SMELL LIKE CHESTNUTS WE'RE TAKING YOUR MONEY HO HO HO.

Dana - Tabu eau de cologne

I've had previous bad encounters with Tabu (staining my arm ochre, a rash) but today it smells fantastic - it began with a POP! like root beer and ended up the most comfortable, well-worn powdery vanillic oriental. I have a fraught relationship with orientals - from Coromandel to Shalimar, they invariably turn to an asphyxiating, brownish cloud of cigarette fumes on me (does benzoin not work with my chemistry? I dare not try Opium). But Tabu feels like slipping on a faded cotton t-shirt - it's wearable, doesn't growl, and ironically, makes me feel fresher, cleaner, and happier than most purported FRESH! CLEAN! SHEER! things that smell like smashed lightbulbs. And it's a cheapo-bargain to boot! Yeah, everyone's happy.

fotos

Hello! Do you like glamorous and artistic photographs of old perfume bottles, shot with a true photographer's eye? Beautiful bottles set against blue damask backdrops, antique china plates with happy weavers' daughters on them, and crystal vases of lilacs? Or hairdresser dummies draped with pearls or ladies' gloves or 50s costume jewelry brooches or Tiffany lamps or hydrangea sprays?
Well, that's too bad. Welcome to the shoddy world of prpp, where I can't be arsed to vacuum, move said vacuum tubes and plugs, or find a clean board to set objects upon. Yeah!



L-R: L'Origan by Coty; another beautiful deco-ey design for L'Origan; Paris by Coty; Parure by Guerlain; Bellodgia by Caron; Cabochard by Gres.



L-R: Shocking by Schiaparelli; Audace by Rochas; Magie by Lancome; Sikkim by Lancome; Baghari by Robert Piguet; Vivara by Emilio Pucci; Jolie Madame by Balmain.



Back row: Les Pois de Senteur by Caron. Front row L-R: Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent; Le Dix by Balenciaga; Cialenga by Balenciaga; Madame by Carven; Ma Griffe by Carven; Antilope by Weil.



L-R: Veritable Eau de Cologne Imperiale Extra-Dry by Guerlain; Dioressence; Dior-Dior; Diorissimo, all by Christian Dior.

That's all.

Guerlain - Veritable Eau de Cologne Imperiale Extra-Dry

The extra-dry is right. Unsweetened lime tonic. This makes me thirsty.

mmmm, the sweet smell of poverty

Guerlain - Ode eau de cologne
Guerlain - Veritable Eau de Cologne Imperiale
Caron - Les Pois de Senteur eau de cologne
Balenciaga - Cialenga
Carven - Ma Griffe

Today got TEN STARS.

Le Labo - Patchouli 24

Punishing one-note smoky tea that depressed my normally vibrant libido and appetite for food.