Christian Dior - Eau Sauvage and Diorella (both edt)

Both are utterly fantastic, so if you don't own these already, you know where your Christmas present money is going.
All renditions of various bedside filth -
Eau Sauvage is a man you want to know (Biblically) -
Diorella smells like a well-used bidet. Squishy, fecal aspects of jasmine cranked up to 11 on cloudy, scum-grey bathtub water. On the edge of the tub there's a half-melted cake of citrus soap sitting in a chipped white ceramic dish with a single pubic hair on the rim. Oh lord, now it's developing the waxy, greasy hair cheesecurdiness of Dior-Dior that makes you envision the word "spermaceti."
Diorella  = celery-green. 
Eau Sauvage = warm, slightly acrid breath and oily skin.
I'm going to put on "Histoire de Melody Nelson" now.

Hurray!

Friday at work, wearing Coeur de Vetiver Sacre by L'Artisan Parfumeur -

WOMAN-FRIEND: Oh, it's you that smells that way. Let me be straight up with you. I do not like that fragrance.
Me: (thinking) Success!

On the agenda: Diorella, Bandit, Dzongkha, Secretions M., . . . any other suggestions for ugly perfume week?

I Profumi di Firenze - Talco Delicato +

Once you get past the new nappies beginning, it is what it it says. Layers well with Claus Porto's Almond Milk soap.

Olo - Foret
Densely compacted cedar, like being in a woodchipper. Overgrown, branches catching. Maybe I'll use it for scenting drawers (cupboards not knickers) (unless you want to attract Otesanek).

Robert Piguet - Bandit (vintage)
Smells much like new (five years ago) Bandit to me. A bit more inky and soot-black, but the current version still conveys the sharpness and unfriendliness of the original.

Penhaligon's - Eau Sans Pareil

Eau nonpareil more like - hellaciously sweet opening, berries, SweetTarts, purple powder. Knowing that this is a "chypre," I grit my teeth and wait for this nonsense to subside.
Later - Purple Euphoria glitter. If this is a chypre, I am Voltaire. Sparkle, glitter.

Rochas: Battle Madame Rochas (new edt) vs. Madame Rochas (vintage edc)

MRNEDT - zzzz
MRVEDC - Why does this smell like Chinese takeaway?
MRNEDT - zzzzz
MRVEDC - I smell . . . cooked.
MRNEDT - zzzzzz

Okay, this was honestly too boring to write properly about. New version smells like the colour ashes-of-roses, old version was turned a little, both after 3 hours creamy staid floral, both nothing I'd want to put on again.
As was to be expected, it was no mudwrestling barbed wire brutefest. You can go home now, money refunded at the door.

fakeries +

Dear "Jean Patou" "Sublime" "parfum," I hate you. You are a factice without having any outward sign that you are a factice. You are supposed to have a sticker saying "dummy" on the bottom, but you are awful. You look so lotuslike and blooming with your saffon-coloured nametag and gold thread, BUT YOU ARE A FAKE. You smell like Elmer's glue and rubbing alcohol. YOU are nothing. Stupid twatty little bottle, I want my sixteen dollars back, and then I will kick you off a cliff. "Jean Patou" "Sublime" "parfum," I hate you. Notice the lack of quotation marks in the last part of that sentence? My hate is real.  
*******************************************************************
Action of the last few days:

Caron - Infini parfum (vintage)
Ungaro - Diva
Nina Ricci - L'Air du Temps edt
Revillon - Detchema (vintage)
Lucien Lelong - Passionnement (vintage)
Christian Dior - Diorella edt
Robert Piguet - Bandit (vintage)
Jean-Louis Scherrer edt
some weird little bottle with a P. Robertet, Inc. label reading: "4/25/1969. Ref. 1284/1(?). PERFUME. 18% Rhapsody MG - 7094. For manufacturing purposes or professional use only." SCARY SCARY WARNING LABEL QUICK CALL THE IF . . . (collapses in anaphylactic fit due to external contact)

Lush (Gorilla Perfumes) - The Smell of Weather Turning

Time-lapse photography.
Peppermint frost rapidly melting off window vivid green tendrils vines climbing up succulents withering snapping back rust-grey-colour WVLNT last glimpse = curls of burnt leaf smoked glass iris out.

Guerlain - Shalimar (vintage parfum)

I bow humbly to the Queen.

damage done

Christian Dior - Eau Sauvage mini edt (vintage)
Houbigant - Flatterie mini (vintage), Quelques Fleurs mini edt (vintage - but I can't open the thing!)
Rochas - Madame Rochas edc (vintage), Tocade mini edt
Balenciaga - Michelle mini parfum (vintage)
Pascal Morabito - Or Noir mini
Annick Goutal - Petite Cherie edt

Boy-crazy Candy

Prada - Candy edp

(This entry should be read while listening to Meryn Cadell's "The Sweater.")

Before enduring another months-long parting in our long-distance relationship, I would steal one of my not-yet-husband's sweaters, of which I pulled a Napoleon and asked him to wear repeatedly.
It would have a sunny, bready smell, like spiced stollen with lemon zest. It is fitting that my sweet would smell like sweet. I would sleep in it once, then keep it tightly stowed away in my cabinet. I didn't want to lose a single bit of its marvellous warm scent. Photos letters phone and instant messaging capped by a weekly burying of my face into the patisserie-at-8-AM-redolent soft fabric - until I felt like crying, at which point I would put it away because I didn't want my tears to taint the traces of him him him.
Now I have my love to smell all the time! Fantastical scents, cedar and lavender. This week resting my head on his shoulder I smelled cream with a delicious salty edge, like the crackle of digging into a vanilla-laden creme brulee. It smelled familiar, and I rolled it around on my tongue until it flashed: it was the salted caramel heart of Prada's Candy!

I had only smelled Candy on paper before, and was intrigued. I dug out the adorable sample box (it really does have the most striking campaign in ages - Lea Seydoux is as sweet as a pastry swan) and gave it a go, hoping I would be struck with lyrebird boy beauty.

Husband: ∞
Candy: -3

Candy is hypersweet and sticky, and one of the few perfumes that made me think twice upon application: "Will people smell this on me in passing? Did I put too much on? Why do I smell like I belong in S Club 7? Will people think less of me since I am wearing the equivalent of a Betsey Johnson prom dress?" (Evidently they did, since we were served raw chicken and tepid polenta at brunch. I blame it on Candy.) The incredible salty-crunch aspect that I loved on paper is buried under a disco igloo's worth of neon pink sugarcubes (that made no sense, but fuck it, it's staying) (you can also put in disco confiserie), sugarbabies, lipgloss from Claire's, pages ripped from Teen Vogue.
But I win, because I have my very own darl-doll to supply me with the real Quimper deal.
Love you!

Balmain - Miss Balmain spray mist (vintage)

Five minutes in and my eyes are rolling back in my head like I'm in Un Chien Andalou.

More to come once I'm done rubbing my thighs frantically together, this is a proper mindmelt.

plum-wonderful

I do not normally screech about body care products, but: . . .

Dr. Hauschka's Regenerating Body Moisturizer smells exactly like Chan Pui Mui.
If you have ever wanted to smell like Chinese childhood, Popo or a handful of assorted preserved plum products, run and bulldoze over everyone in your path to get this. This is the greatest body lotion ever.

Caron - Tabac Blond (late 70s/early 80s)

This is a perfume that carries such expectations that you need a good, Hoovering influence to put you on level ground again.

HUSBAND: It smells like a bridge club.

HUSBAND: It smells like a bunch of bluehairs playing canasta.

HUSBAND: It smells like old women playing pinochle.

HUSBAND: It smells like Febreeze on a casino carpet.

What I say: This is a monstrously uncompromising fragrance. For me, the girl-on-whom-any-oriental-turns-to-smoke, this throttled me to the ground, rolled me into an open grave, and bashed me on the head with a spade. Repeatedly. I had flashbacks of Berdoues' Tabac - roaring, hellish, spot-on cigarette smoke sealing up all the cracks in the apartment while I cower and cry.

Perfect example of fragrance wearing me.

Perfect example of hag-ridden kelpy casualty.

Bitter, black black, claw-marks.

Amber filth.

This is the most unwholesome thing I have ever smelled. All aspects bodily are magnified.

I would like an oxygen mask and a six-hour-long bath, please.

These are my first immediate thoughts.

****************************************************

EDIT: Husband: You smell like a loose lush.
Me: Oh, do I smell like I have had many men without washing in between?
Husband: No, you just smell like cigarettes and booze.
Me: Well then, this fragrance has SUCCEEDED!

*confetti falls from ceiling upon an unleashed horde of 20s garconnes rubbing shoulders with men in raccoon coats and brilliantine*

I love my children.

Okay, my poor neglected PRPP, I shan't let you get fallow ever again. Sometimes accumulation leads to fatigue, but my love has been replenished by finding Caron's Tabac Blond for the stupidest price of all time. I was hopping up and down and looking like I had to seriously use the bathroom when asking the shop-lady. I couldn't help it. IT WAS A FIND THAT ALTERED MY PHYSICAL STATE. I nearly transmogrified. Maybe I metamorphosed into a vapour for two seconds, then switched back into human form. I wanted to eat the bottle whole. I love you, bottle-of-late-70s/early-80s-extraction-in-the-last-throes-pre-Fraysse-1988-re-orchestration.

Question: Do you say hello! to your perfume collection in the morning?
Do you kiss and hug them goodnight?
Do you think of them fondly during the day?

Possible answers: Yes
                           No
                         you insane woman

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Tea For Two

As in the words of my fellow: "Ginger Cake's holiday bread." Or was it "Ginger cakes, holiday bread"? Indefinite qualities of the spoken word, etc.

squawks

Tokyomilk Dark - Excess No. 28
Dandruff shampoo, or a training wheels little boy's cologne.
Five hours later if you squinch your nose a bit, it could be a wan interpretation of ELdO's Vraie Blonde.

Bois 1920 - Sandalo e The
Something of the fluorescence of Euphoria, very bright, glaring.

Creed - Love In Black
What is with these blinding assaults on my senses? Obliterating violet, the feeling of soaking in theatrical greasepaint under hot floodlamps. Everything is neon and screaming. I just want peace and quiet. WHY DOES EVERYTHING TORMENT ME? I JUST WANT SLEEP! I just want sleep

Houbigant - Quelques Fleurs L'Original
Dreary, granny's-soap thing. Sunday school teacher. This is antithetical to my personality. I feel like I'm wearing a shroud.

Pirouette Handmade Essentials - Moss Garden
This provided a harmonious backdrop to a morning of hiking (ignore me direly in need of poles for balance, running into my husband and stumbling back like an intoxicated ibex). It really is like petting a moss-heavy log, peering into a terrarium, or pulling a Lady of Shalott. The ultimate outdoor recreation fragrance (notice how I am avoiding the s-word, it smells nothing like s-word fragrances). It is light and vivacious, cheap enough to spritz generously (even though Givenchy III is gorgeous, you probably don't want to use it for a hike!), and in these oakmoss-endangered times, it is a very very very good reference to have when you are disoriented by a sea of fruit-syrup chypre-pretenders. Stockpile.

Boucheron - B
"Son of Generic Video."

Unwanted Vintage Perfume Buying Advice (from a world authority)

1) Eff the internet. Get to know the (hopefully rural) towns around you and explore everywhere within a 2-hour radius. Discover exotic scenery (mine: dairies, alien land strewn with gigantic wind turbines, mountains), pack all kinds of Cocteau Twins CDs and candy in the car, and make a day of it.
2) It helps to have an extra pair of eyes. I am a shrimpy fillette with rubbish eyesight, but my darling (tall) boy-friend-oh aids me immensely by getting to shelves where I can't, can spot round Guerlain bottles with laser-precision and can separate the wheat from the chaff like a CHAMP. (examples: "I found something that said Guerlain, but it was a factice," etc)
3) SET YOURSELF LIMITS. Bring $20 cash and make that your allowance for the day. For mini-bottles, no more than $5 - large bottles that are half-empty, $10 - and for full bottles, $15. For my purposes, the mini is king - I can try more things, and it always helps to have a reality check (Do you really need 300ml of Eau de Givenchy? Do you really?)
4) Just because some bigwig says a scent is important, doesn't mean you have to have it. Books like Fabulous Fragrances I and II by Jan Moran and Perfumes by Jean-Yves Gaborit have lovely tables in the back that help sort out what kinds you like. According to Countess Moran, I am a chypre-floral-animalic girl! Rowr! I tend to zoom in on those first, because I know that certain fragrances will give me more pleasure than a frenzy of indisriminate greed.
EXAMPLE SITUATION: few weeks ago - saw Shalimar EdT, 1826 by Histoires des Parfums, L'Air du Temps EdP, Miss Dior EdT, Givenchy III parfum, and Chanel No. 19 EdT - I walked out with the latter three, happy and content in my green reverie.
5) Don't cry over empty bottles - take a breath, and let the memories of Inoui, Gardenia by Chanel, and Diorama go. All together now.
6) Don't double-buy. You have one bottle of L'Heure Bleue. Be honest - you will never finish it, let alone another. Save space and money for a rare bird.

BUYING REPORT SEPTEMBER 17, 2011:
Miss Balmain spray mist - $3
Bernard Lalande - Irise parfum (who is this person??), $2.95
Shalimar - $7. Did I break one of my own rules?

bargain bonanza

OH, who got fabulous 1/2-full bottles of Un Lys and Fleurs De Citronnier by Serge Lutens for $3 each?
Oh me oh me oh my!

Melvita - Cologne aux 8 essences

If Limacol is harsh enough to induce fears of spontaneous combustion upon application, and Christian Dior's Eau Fraiche is swooning in swandown, Melvita's Cologne aux 8 essences is exactly in the middle: a Meret Oppenheim'd cheesegrater, a fur-covered mandoline.

It is inexpensive, practical, and you can use it all in a month or two. Orange, lemon, bergamot, litsea cubeba, lavender, rosemary, petitgrain.

"Of course they visited the parfumeries and indulged in all manner of mingled fragrances, cunning fards, and rare oils. Some of the scents were made from real flowers, others from mysterious unnatural blossoms, whose odours were full of the intoxications of desire. There was Jasmine, full of intangible charm, refined and delicate as a Schubert melody; Geranium, curiously reminiscent of withered loves; unblended Ambergris, that had the power to excite the most anaemic virgins; Civet; Saffron; Benzoin; Stephanotis; Kiss-me-quick; Frangipanni; Cul-me-to-you; Bouquet des Amours; Peau d'Espagne; Fleur d'Amour; Jicky; Bouquet Largillerie; Jardin de mon Curé; and Bosom-Caresser."

from Count Fanny's Nuptials by Simon Arrow, 1907, via Bizarre ed. Barry Humphries.

Aroma M - Geisha Noire

This smells like Shalimar.

The end.

Rochas - Femme vs. Femme

1) Old Femme (OF, parfum) - cedar, woods, the smell of Max Klinger, a soft female hand sliding into a chamois glove, buttons up the forearm.
2) New Femme (NF, presumably eau de parfum) - cumin, a vinegary, high-pitched top note (olfactory acidulant)
3) Switch to OF and the velvet drapes fall - a cocooning plum skin, downy, meditative dusky silence - light in Georges de la Tour paintings
4) NF and the curtain's yoinked up and too many damn things are going on, like finishing a Tetris level: men in big boots leaping to balalaikas, bears snapping at their bonds, pixellated onion dome, disjointed reedy cumin and pickling brine
5) OF - clove studded pomanders, beeswax, port wine, dark purplish lipstain.
6) NF - armpit; something like morning sex on a summer's day.
7) OF - glowing coals, clove-cedar-plum lit up and deliquescing.
8) NF - this smells like someone's face post-giving-cunnilingus. I know, because this happened yesterday.
9) OF - the aforementioned clove-cedar-plum configuration being rent apart by Michael Snow's Breakfast (Table Top Dolly)
10) NF - approaching softness.
11) OF - warm skin.
12) NF - softer, honeying.
13) OF - pensiveness.
14) NF - Essentially, this is a sweaty glow after a good run. It needs a good bath (the cumin doesn't let up), has hair matted to its face, but is flushed and in good spirits.
15) OF, on the other hand, has perfect composure, and smells at home on the neckline of a formal gown, deep in the billows of a four-postered bed, or a monastic cell (the clove is very prominent on me).

(Exeunt NF, leaving drips of beeswax)

OF - entering two-hour mark, intensifies - thick stone-fruit compote, headier than it's ever been.
End - Sinking into furs, chypre sleep.

Notes: For bonkers clove richness (and perhaps not going out in public), smell Fendi's Asja.
For cedar and plum, Shiseido's Feminite du Bois.

I Profumi di Firenze - Limone di Sicilia

Fruittella!

CB I Hate Perfume - Winter 1972

Sweetmeat of beet,
Petite beet.
A beet discreet,
This beet's a treat!

Honore des Pres - Vamp a NY

Phase 1: unsettling rubbery tuberose, like The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago meets BodyWorlds

Phase 2:



If ambrosia was made with cherries jubilee instead of oranges - dessert bowl striped red and white with whipped cream, coconut, and heaps of enticingly dyed fruit

Phase 3: Cherry clafoutis with vanilla bean flecks. In the background hot metal, wax, and rubber moulds (undusts 22-year-old memories of my father's jewelry workshop, Exacto knives, the Chinese food tins he used to store material - egg biscuits, teas)

cooking liquid

A little trek through ragdoll areas, I put these in my wicker basket (pompoms and ribbands) on SATURDAY:

Guerlain Nahema (vintage parfum) - This was literally cooking under a cupboard lamp, the Fisher-scone warm bottle had been baking for god knows how many years, but smelled serviceable - like a neon light-tube, rosy radon. This was neighbours with (perhaps, I hope, better have been) empty bottles of Silences and L'Arte di Gucci - opaque black plastic and infrared oven temperatures are not my friends

Robert Piguet Fracas (vintage parfum) - YES I BRAVED THE WITCH WOMAN. I braved her, and bested her! Trying to tighten the cap, she screeched away, but eventually gave it to me for one dollar because she just wanted it the hell out of her store. I've decided that perfume allergies are delicious things. Do you want scented items out of your home? You may contact me at . . .

A labeless something I have 98% identified as Le Galion's Le Jasmin, judging from the wave and swelter emanating from the little bottle, as well as the (surprise) galleon on the cap

Estee Lauder - Private Collection (vintage parfum)

MINI REVIEW OF REVLON'S CHARLIE, ON SOMEONE ELSE IN PASSING

In a work environment, this smells monklike and austere. It is heavenly after a lather of cheap coconut hand lotion in the bathroom, 3PM spritzes of Dolce and Gabbana, and Clorox sanitising wipes. It is sharp, stemmy, anti-sugar anti-sweet, and has a definite no-nonsense aura to it - because of that, I feel like affixing my teeth and anteater snout to the neck of its wearer in gratitude.

L'Artisan Parfumeur - L'Eau de Jatamansi

(I've held off on reviewing this because I was always sure that my ovaries were tampering with perception of this fragrance. Is it really that short-lived? Oh, I'm just menstruating, my hormones are off! Is it really that short-lived? Oh, I'm just about to menstruate, my hormones are off! Is it really that short-lived? Oh, I just finished . . . etc)
Two things I can say with certainty: a) it smells like cardamom-scented writing paper and b) it has the lifespan of a fruit fly.

BITES

(short bursts written with a ganked-up arm and the nose-muff of springtide allergy)

Pirouette Handmade Essentials - Jasmine Musk
Will I get swarmed if I wear this outside? I feel like Daphne-not-Daphne-not-with-laurel. My arms are turning to branches of jasmine, petite Otik-ova! I can feel insects alight on my wrists, to nibble at this dark jasmine-amber confection. At $26-$28, Pirouette True Perfumes are some of best buys of the century.

L'Artisan Parfumeur - Traversée du Bosphore
Me: Good?
Husband (nodding, glazey-eyed): Mmm, marshmallows.
Me: Bottleworthy?
Husband: (nodding, speechless, nodding)
Me: Well, that's that. (writes cheque for $115)

Etro - Sandalo
UOMO! (L'uomo?) I feel rubbed-up against. 5-7 with a frotteur!

Andy Tauer - Lonestar Memories

Honore des Pres - I Love Les Carottes (eau de parfum)

This is playing my head like a game of Go. It's raw carrot! Raw carrot with creaminess from orris butter, and the humble-exorbitant hippie-luxe seesaw is making me feel tipsy. Perhaps culinary anachronisms like French angel-hair jam and the drink my mother makes of carrot juice, condensed milk, and nutmeg make sense in this world, the world of Olivia Giacobetti. I'm actually really confused. No, the rootiness of it all makes sense. No, yes. This is strange like my beloved Shu Uemura Fleur de . . . series, and I want to buy a bottle and mess some brains up. This will probably have a later addendum, I'm too confused. ehhehhehhh

Morricone Aromatico

While trolling the local Value Village for old Trivial Pursuit card decks and the Solid Gold game, in the $1.99 CD section I found a marvelous 2CD set entitled Morricone Aromatico. The liner notes of this complete jewel state that it "brings together the best of two worlds: the peerless music of Ennio Morricone and delicious natural aromas." !!!! Let's-fall-in-love-now alert! (personal information time: yes, let's DO fall in love, because my husband did indeed seduce me with a bottle of Borneo 1834 and Morricone CDs . . .!) Every song has a little description of the aromas that spring to mind while playing. Unfortunately it seems that the set didn't come with ooh, 41 different essences, but that's alright because "most of these scents [are] already well-known to everyone" (thank you for not throwing frisbees like "Papua New Guinea," "Casu marzu," and "yak meat" out, benevolent and equitable liner-note-writer!). Intrigued yet? I hope you are! Let's explore some of these:



"L'assoluto naturale" - Linden - "A modest and soft balance among woody, floral and waxy tones."



"Piume di cristallo" - Violet, "Female, fragile"



"Non rimane piu nessuno" - White grape, "Light, crystalline, having a fruity sweetness" (Er, forget the backdrop of the creepy giallo knife)

Is there any other music that encourages synaesthesia?

yeah yeah yeah

Christian Dior – Eau de cologne fraiche

The most soignée eau de cologne in the world – half Lisa Fonssagrives, half Juliette Greco. It’s extraordinary how a touch of oakmoss - velvety, shadowy, and sinuous – can transform what I thought to be a simple necessity into one of the most marvelous, refined, luxurious citrus fragrances. Beautiful women do not really come to mind when I think of perfumes – rather, nature, plants, foods, textures, but with Eau de cologne fraiche I picture pages out of Vogue, 1954.

GETTING AROUND WORK

I have FINALLY discovered a solution to my workplace fragrance conundrum. Don't choose overt florals, marine things, aldehydic things. Instead, let gourmands, or complete nonsensical noncategory fitting weirdoids be your friends! Examples: L'Artisan Parfumeur's Coeur de Vetiver Sacre has treated me very well - the smell of wiping my forearms with damp black teabags? Tea ≠ flowers ≠ perfume. Therefore, I cannot be wearing perfume! Dzing!, also from those same wonderful people? Tire tread + antiquarian bookstore + vanilla funk ≠ flowers ≠ perfume. Therefore, I am free to douse myself daily! I have worn these two beauties and sat in verrrrrry close proximity to jokers who were "allergic to perfume" and not received a complaint at all! Perhaps another tip is say no to sprays, and hug your sample vials (esp. with wands) close. In the morning, two good swipes on each arm, and I'm good to go. So! I'm so happy I'm overdosing on exclamation marks. I'm delighted because I'm working through my FREAKINNN' TERMITE MOUND HUGE bags-o'-sample too. Yay!

Etat Libre d'Orange - Secretions Magnifiques

Dead fish eye. A limpet. Sea-scum.