The Second Chance Aftelier Haute Claire Giveaway!


Ladies, gentlemen and fellow perfumoholics!

Recently, in connection with my review of the truly stupendous Aftelier ‘Haute Claire’, I held a draw on SLS for a 5 ml sample sent directly from Aftelier, so one lucky reader could experience for him or herself the amount of detail and love Mandy Aftel puts into her perfumes as well as her packaging.

The winner, however, never responded and as that winner also commented anonymously, I had no way to contact this person through email.

Therefore, I’ll happily hold a SECOND DRAW…which is to say:

One of you can still win and try the wonder that is Haute Claire for yourself!

So people, leave a comment on your favorite green…perfume, tree, plant, flower…by midnight, Saturday August 6th CET for your chance to win! The winner will be determined by random.org by Saturday morning CET and announced later that day. And please, if you can, don’t be anonymous! We don’t bite…much! 😉

Image of Sword-billed hummingbird: thefeaturedcreature.

Cleo Through The Cataracts


– a review of Parfums des Beaux Arts’ ‘Susinon – 1000 Lilies’

As an ancient history nutcase – I originally planned out my life as a Bronze Age archaeologist and Minoan fresco conservator – I sometimes think the strangest things. Such as…

Two thousand years ago, what must it have been like to be considered the embodiment of a god? Not just God’s representative of a nation – as was the case until fairly recently in European history, but an actual living, breathing, walking god or goddess?

These days we have supermodels and movie stars, but we also have paparazzi to tear that illusion down.

Not so in Cleopatra’s day. To the people of Egypt, she was the living Isis, the great Mother Goddess of all Egypt, and such a role meant she had certain obligations to fulfill – such as…provide the spectacle her people expected of her.

We may laugh when we watch – as I recently did – the 1963 extravaganza ‘Cleopatra’, and her unforgettable entrance into Rome – the dancing girls tossing flower petals, the slaves, and that mind-boggling gilded sphinx Elizabeth Taylor perched on surrounded by thousands of extras, but one thing the movie got right – the spectacle. This was not the sole survivor of a murderous Greek royal dynasty, this was not a mere client-Queen of Rome, this was…Isis herself, descended to Earth to gobsmack the Romans in a way they never quite forgot.

Two thousand years later, the phenomenal Dawn Spencer Hurwitz recreated several ancient Egyptian perfumes in a collaboration with the Denver Art Museum entitled ‘Secrets of Egypt’. This ancient history nutcase was so intrigued by that idea, I wished for one of them for my birthday unsniffed, and that was ‘Susinon – 1000 Lilies’, which was used to perfume the sails of Cleopatra’s barge as she sailed down the Nile, as well as many Greeks and Egyptians, too. I thought that if it were suitable for Cleopatra’s sails, it would be good enough for me.

The problem with being a lily perfume lover is that so many of them are not about lily at all, but lily-of-the-valley. Nothing against lily-of-the-valley. Lilies – big, opulent, ostentatious, super-fragrant Madonna or Easter lilies, are my most favorite flowers. At certain times of the year, the tip of my nose is always stained yellow-gold, I love them so much.

Unfortunately, Easter lily soliflores can be very hard to find. Penhaligon’s gave us the supremely elegant, utterly lovely ‘Lily and Spice’. Serge Lutens gave us ‘Un Lys’, but whether it was my sample or my nose, it smells like stargazer lily to me, and lovely as it is, it’s no Easter lily. Donna Karan’s ‘Gold’ is one of the best things to ever happen to Casablanca lilies, just not my lilies.

1000 Lilies is, I am ecstatic to say, all about Easter lily, Easter lilies of the best, most opulent, spiciest kind, the kind I’ve been looking for all these years. It starts out with a soft, spicy kick to the senses, cardamom, cinnamon and what Dawn lists as ‘fragrant wine accord’ in a nod to the original Egyptian recipe of soaking the spices and gums in wine before adding the ‘1000 lilies’. You will not walk about wafting eau-de-Bordeaux, this I can promise you. Not more than a few minutes after that initial spicy spark, the merest whisper of galbanum and the peekaboo ylang ylang, ‘the beautiful one comes’…the lily, the epitome of lily, the lily I so wanted all those other blooms to be yet somehow never were.

This lily sings with a clarion call as clear and as vivid as the trumpets of its flowers, even with the many seamless notes that all add up to lily, with that hint of saffron and the rose otto, and the gossamer, honeyed drydown of sandalwood, myrrh and sweet flag.

1000 Lilies is, in several words, the perfect Easter lily. It has that same fragrant kick you get when you bury your nose in a flowery trumpet and luckily none of the pollen that is so hard to wash off. It is a natural perfume, so it will wear close to the skin, but lasts surprisingly well all the same. I’ve sprayed it on my hair in the morning and caught lily tangles by bedtime.

So I sit, not for the first time and I dearly hope not the last, and thank the goddess Bast, who ruled the making of perfumes in Egypt, that we have Dawn Spencer Hurwitz.

She gave all of us green chypre fan guys and gals the verdant wonders of Vert pour Madame, and now, she gave this lily lover the lily I’ve been missing all these years, and what is more – caught my imagination in a Cleopatra moment of my own.

I can sniff and dream myself away now, dream of a time over two thousand years ago and imagine I’m Cleopatra as I sail down the Nile with my dashing older Roman general, and show him the wonders that are Egypt. I can wave one languorous hand towards the shore, lined with my people who wave as we sail on towards the cataracts, warned by the scent of my sails that always precedes me, wafting Goddess-like fumes across the river that gleams molten gold in the westering afternoon sun.

Suddenly, there is a shout from the shore, and in my perfumed daydream, I can hear the language that was ancient as time when Rome was still a village full of warriors, and in one of those moments that happen only in Egypt, time stands still and I hear the words…

‘The beautiful one comes!’

I blink, and I’m back in a heartbeat in the whirling, swirling 21st century, and I am no Cleopatra, but only myself, wrapped in the perfumed clarion trumpet call of 1000 Lilies, sailing towards the cataracts of my life…

Notes
Top: Cardamom seed, cinnamon bark, fragrant wine accord, galbanum
Heart: Kenya lily, narcissus absolute, orris root, pink lotus, saffron absolute, Turkish rose otto, ylang ylang
Base: Australian sandalwood, honey, myrrh gum, sweet flag

‘Susinon – 1000 Lilies is available from Parfums des Beaux Arts.

Image: watchmojo.com, from the 1963 20th Century Fox production of ‘Cleopatra’.

Happy Blogoversary, Scent Less Sensibilities!


– or the things I’ve learned in a year…

It was…not a dark and stormy night, but the witching hour between midnight and 1 AM on a quiet, warm and otherwise unremarkable Saturday night. I sat twirling my hair in front of my laptop, working my way through half a bottle of Pinot Gris while I wondered what to do. Writing was obviously out of the question, since after the second glass of wine I had reached that state of being where the world is tinted ever-so-slightly rose. But there was something in the air that midnight hour, a certain restless vibe, some idea on the verge of being born, and all I had to do was to sit still long enough for it to find me.

I know, I thought that night. I can create another blog. At the time, I was wrestling with the last chapters of Quantum Demonology, and I needed a break away from rock’n’roll, the end of Heaven and Hell, heartbreak and the Devil, I needed something…other, a different kind of writing challenge. I had MoltenMetalMama for my anarcho-feminist and musical musings.

Why not create a perfume blog? I loved perfume, had loved it since childhood, loved and adored it since that day my mother took her 14-year-old maladjusted Geek Girl to Guerlain, Caron and Dior in Paris…and ruined me for life, which was probably her intention.

So that’s what I did that night – created SLS, went to bed and thought no more of it.

This is right about where I wish I could say…famous last words. One year later, there are about 80,000 more of them, all about perfume, the better part of a paperback novel right there!

Last year was also the year I gave myself a present for completing QD – my first ever Serge Lutens bell jar of Fleurs d’Oranger. I saved up for it by foregoing hair dye for nine long months. It makes me deliriously happy to this day.

I began as the poor of purse but rich in intention often do, by reviewing the contents of my own perfume cabinet. All six of them. It happened on two occasions that I slithered into my local perfume shop and sampled something I then would go home and review, since buying anything was out of the question.

When I had reached the point of wondering whether I should just give up the whole idea, something incredible happened.

I won a draw on Doc Elly’s blog and received a lot of samples some time later. Now, I had more to write about, so I did – and in the process, I began to write about perfume in earnest. I realized there was passion as well as artistry in those tiny bottles, and did my best to reflect that in my reviews. Some weren’t ‘me’ precisely, some were purloined by my then husband (Doc Elly, your Olympic Rainforest, Bay Rum and Arizona all have one ardent fan in DK!), but all of them surprised me in the best possible way. If any one perfumer made me a perfume blogger, it would be Doc Elly. For that and several other reasons, Doc Elly and her perfumes have a very special place in my Perfume Pantheon.

Maybe there was hope for perfumery after all, if Doc Elly’s perfumes were any indication?

Next, I invested a fair chunk of change in samples from First in Fragrance, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history…

Lessons I learned along the way:

★ Perfumistas are the most generous beings on the face of the planet. Copenhagen may have one department store and a (very) small handful of boutiques that sell a few niche perfumes, but where I live in the boonies, LVMH rules supreme, and so do fruitchoulis. As well as the credit card I can’t afford yet. If not for the perfumista community’s generosity of spirit, not to mention walloping doses of encouragement from other bloggers and even a creative director, I don’t know how I could have lasted so long. I’ve had a chance to try things I would otherwise never know or could afford to seek out. And most important of all, I’ve made friends along the way. Really, how awesome is that?
★ Joining Twitter is quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever done for blog-promotion purposes. And oh, the fun I’ve had…
★ The astonishing world of indie perfumers has completely blown my mind, and none more so than Mandy Aftel. I haven’t been bribed to be her press agent, honest. She’s just that good! As is Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. These two and their breathtaking perfumes also hold a very special place in my Perfume Pantheon.
★ Never say never. Never rule out a perfume family and never say you hate something when you haven’t tried it – in fact, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it! There is one exception to this rule. It’s made by Etat Libre d’Orange, and it’s named Secretions Magnifiques. Just take my word for that.
★ When the words for a perfume have eluded me, it usually means the genie in the bottle and I aren’t speaking the same language. Instead, I step away from the computer, reapply and start in longhand in my notebook. This works for other writing, too.
★ If $100 is the new free in the world of niche perfumes, then Serge Lutens and his eponymous creations are the very least of my worries.

The Big Epiphanies

★ Aftelier. Some of the most amazing perfumes I’ve ever come across, and there have been a few by now. And Mandy Aftel’s Cepes and Tuberose. On any given day, regardless of whatever else I’m wearing, you will find a tiny dab of C&T somewhere on my person, if I don’t just dab it all over and call it a good day. It has simply become that…important. My perfume mojo goes where I do.
★ Amouage. You know it’s good when perfume makes you cry. Three Amouage creations have made me bawl with their beauty. The evening I wrote ‘Silver and Black’, I went through an entire pack of pocket Kleenex. Amouage inspires narratives rather than reviews, and the stories they inspire stay with me every time I wear them. When my carefully doled-out samples and teeny decants wear out, I may consider a career change. Bank robbery, for instance. Or writing pulp fiction potboilers that sell in the millions.
★ Andy Tauer. I’d like to parade him down Fifth Avenue in a sedan chair with the crowd throwing rose petals, but he’ll probably turn them all into Une Rose Vermeillé by the time we get to East 59th Street. Stampedes may ensue.
★ Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. For no other reason than ‘Vert Pour Madame’, but then I was gifted with ‘1000 Lilies’, and before I knew it, I had a tidy little collection of DSH samples. Why doesn’t Europe know about her? They will soon enough if I have anything to do with it!
★ Atelier Cologne. Not a bad one in the bunch. Not one I can’t wear. Not one I can’t love. Not one I don’t want to own. Preferably in liter bottles if possible. But I’ll settle for a Petit Cologne or two…
★ Ormonde Jayne. Some kinda gorgeous in every bottle, even the (very) few I can’t wear.
★ No substitutes for the classics…I discovered the wonders of Caron’s Tabac Blond, Piguet’s Fracas and rediscovered Bandit. Now, if I could only track down a few precious drops of vintage Vent Vert…
★ Puredistance Antonia. Such a flawless green throwback, it breaks my heart…
★ Serge Lutens still rules…just when I get comfortable with my 11 (!) bottle wishlist, the fatal duo of Lutens and Sheldrake do me in again with Vitriol d’Oeillet. Don’t get me started on De Profundiis…
★ Etat Libre d’Orange may have unleashed Secretions Magnifiques upon the world, but they also gave us Like This, Rossy de Palma, Jasmin et Cigarette, Vraie Blonde, Tom of Finland…
★ Penhaligon’s Amaranthine. Surely the sexiest kind of strange I’ve ever met.

Discoveries ahead:
★ All the lines I have yet to try…Histoires des Parfums, Parfums d’Empire, Parfumerie Generale, Roja Dove, Patricia de Nicolaï, Keiko Mecheri, Ayala Moriel, Lord’s Jester, Dupetit, Esscentual Alchemy, Roxana Villa, JoAnne Bassett, much more of EnVoyage, Anya’s Garden, Knize, Profumum, Santa Maria Novella, Jovoy…
★ All the classics I need to revisit since I have yet to write about them…L’Heure Bleue, Après L’Ondée, Shalimar, Jicky, Vol de Nuit, Sous le Vent…and that’s just the Guerlains.
★ What I’m excited about…Chanel no. 19 Poudré. Due any day now, even in the boonies. And Serge Lutens’ De Profundiis. Still wondering how I might get to sample it…

Since I began writing about perfume in earnest, my life has changed completely, not just in the perfumes I wear or even love, but in all other aspects, too. I’ve made true-blue friends, I’ve sniffed and worn some spectacular perfumes, and I’ve gained a level of esthetic and sensory appreciation that spills over into other areas, too. I’ve made connections with people I never thought I’d know, never mind actually talk to! I’ve done things I thought I would never do, written reviews I thought I could never write, been bolder than I ever have. All good things in my life this past year have come through perfume – and the fun isn’t anywhere over…yet!

It could never have happened without… Doc Elly, Mandy Aftel, Carrie, JoanElaine, Olfactoria, Dee, Suzanne, Lucy, Ines, Undina, Persolaise, Frida, Carol, CandyPerfumeboy and even Helg of PerfumeShrine, my longtime idol. Anthony of NKDMan gave me a great opportunity and I’m very grateful, and there are not enough words to say how much I adore Christopher Chong for his encouragement and sincere appreciation of my ‘alternative’ approach to perfume reviewing.

It could never have happened without YOU! I had not one reader when I started. Now, I have forty one. Thank YOU…for reading, for commenting, for…appreciating that despite not reviewing like any other bloggers, I still might have something unique to say about a singular passion we all share – perfume!

So what do you say, dear reader? Should we try to see where this takes us in another year?

I’m game! Are you?

Image: A cake in the shape of a perfume bottle. It was the only one that fit!

Emerald Luck


– a review of Atelier Cologne’s ‘Trèfle Pur’ Cologne Absolute.
Most artists and certainly writers are a superstitious bunch. There are omens that must be in place before you can write, certain objects, rituals, things to drink, chew on, do to distract yourself from what you’re actually doing – which is to conjure word rabbits out of thin air where no rabbits were before…

I’m no exception. I have, as you know, the Holey Cardigan of Alexandria – a moot point in July – the ancient band T-shirt that states ‘This Blood’s For You’, the beatified iPod playlist that shuts up that part of my brain that would much rather procrastinate on YouTube …you get the idea. Since I usually write late at night, peppermint iced tea is very important. So are my two notebooks…one large blue journal/notebook/idea book that goes where I go and is used for all my writing projects, and one small brocade notebook I use for my perfume related stuff, where I only write in pencil. The pencils I also bite on while I write.

This past spring, another kind of superstition/omen arrived that has since become an indispensible part of Things That Must Be There So The Writer Can Write. I was, well, lucky enough to receive a sample package from Atelier Cologne, containing samples of five of their colognes along with the postcards used to illustrate them. Four of them arrived intact and were infinitely appreciated this past spring. The postcards were framed and hung on my wall.

The fifth – Trèfle Pur – arrived in a few dozen glass shards in the envelope, and had soaked into the postcard that illustrated it. When I realized from the copy that this was a clover-based cologne, I wondered whether that was supposed to be a bad omen?

What I did realize was this: Trèfle Pur was such a perfect, joyous, happy green I was heartbroken that it had shattered in the mail.

The Green – and green-eyed – Monster, that would be me. Say that magic word – my favorite color, my favorite perfume family – and this Ferdinande the Cow wants nothing more than to sit quietly under the cork oak tree and …smell the green…Green is my instant happy, whether we’re talking plants, clothes or perfumes.

All hope was not lost. I still had that saturated postcard. I never knew why, but I took that still damp postcard and promptly placed it in my journal/notebook and closed it shut before the luck ran out!

Since then, that postcard has remained in the notebook, still fragrant these three months later, perfuming my notebook and anything that went into it. It permeated another postcard that went on to other places, hopefully with a little bit of me and that four-leaf clover luck attached to it.

And every time I have an idea that needs to be written down, the beginning of a review, a musing, a to-do list, poetry I write in cafés while waiting for friends, rewrites of passages from my novel, quotes and poems from other books, dreams, doodles and aspirations…all of them carry that aura…of Trèfle Pur.

I tell myself that it’s lucky, you see. So far, I have yet to see any evidence it may be anything else.

I’ve always been on the prowl for the perfect, the flawless, the epitome of emerald green in a perfume. Not green-floral, not green-chypre, not green-woody, green-oriental, not vetiver nor oakmoss…but just plain, simple, peerless green. In my quest, I’ve come across any number of surpassing perfumed treasures and pleasures. I’ve loved many, and I still do.

Yet none of those green loves were quite so viridian, so fresh, so happy as this one. Technically, Trèfle Pur is a fougère, but this fougère has none of the barber-shop vibe of so many fougères, there are no definite masculine overtones or indeed any overtones at all.

Trefle Pur is verdantly perfect, and perfectly enough. The combination of bitter orange and violet leaves – not a whisper of floral to be detected anywhere – swirl off the skin so softly and sweetly, it’s all I can do to just sit for a Ferdinande moment and…smell the green. The combination of clover absolute with a hint of cardamom and more than a hint of basil, the bouncy, happy, warm drydown of neroli, patchouli and musk all sing their chorus around that luckiest of leaves – clover.

If you could bottle your anticipation and rainbow-tinted hopes for every spring, if you could somehow roll all the rain-soaked meadows and fresh-mowed lawns that steam in the sunshine following a summer thunderstorm into one, if you could capture the joy of nothing more nor less than being alive in the moment, just this moment…it would, in my mind at least, smell like Trèfle Pur. It never cloys and never bores me, and it never fails to make me happy in the moment, whatever that moment happens to throw my way. I can’t think of anything better for a spring day or a hot summer day, and it lasts beautifully for a cologne – I’ve detected it over four hours later, but really, I just needed another excuse to reapply for that one breathing, laughing moment life was just…perfect, I sat still for an instant and…smelled… the emerald green of lucky!

So why did I put that Trefle Pur-soaked postcard in my journal? To paraphrase from the ad copy…

“She had a good feeling about it. That’s the thing about luck, you feel it or you don’t. That moment, she felt it.”

So I did!

The postcard is still in my journal. All I have to do is open it, see the image below – and smell the green, the emerald green of…luck!

Notes: Bitter orange, cardamom, basil, clover absolute, violet leaves, Tunisian neroli, patchouli, moss, musk.

Image of Trèfle Pur postcard from the Atelier Cologne website.
Disclosure: Sample was provided by Atelier for review, but alas, it broke in the mail! Luckily, the lovely Undina saved the day and sent me a small sample!

Atelier Cologne Absolute Trefle Pur is available from the Atelier Cologne website, Aedes, Neiman Marcus, Luckyscent and First in Fragrance.

Black Satin Bloom


– a review of Ormonde Jayne’s ‘Orris Noir’

With all the flowers used in perfumery and aromatherapy, there is one flower I truly worship and adore.

Not orange blossom for its instant-happy vibe, not the endlessly elegant lily with all its fragrant glories, not tuberose for its come-hither siren song, not jasmine sambac or grandiflorum, beautiful as they are, not rose in all its infinite variety, nor even violet, although I love violet, too.

Of all the blooms I love, there’s something about…iris. Some element of mystery, some near-indefinable cool I can never quite grasp and find eternally fascinating, and I own not a few irises. Chanel no. 19 in EdT and EdP, Dior Homme and Homme Intense, Guerlain’s Iris Ganache, Serge Lutens’ Iris Silver Mist, Odin NY 04-Petrana, Miller Harris Terre d’Iris…oh, yes, I love iris!

Orris butter, which gives us that haunting scent, tends to add elegance as well as a touch of restrained, chill aloofness, never more beautifully than in Chanel no. 19 and Iris Silver Mist. The point is – both of these immortal irises are cool, distant, even a touch intimidating.

Still another iris has made it into my iris-centric Hall of Fame, an iris – or should I say, an orris – neither cool nor intimidating, and yet…it has to be one of the most sublime iris perfumes I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.

May I introduce you to Orris Noir by Ormonde Jayne.

The first time I tried it, it was indeed swoon-worthy, so I did. I was not completely discombobulated until a few days later, when I was about to wash what I dub the Holey Cardigan of Alexandria – an ancient, gray wool cardigan that has been part of my lucky/superstitious writing uniform since I began to write in earnest. As I was about to toss it in the washing machine, I noticed a trace of scent so utterly haunting, it stopped me, well, cold. That chilly finger of perfumed epiphany raced down my spine and made me shiver in my laundry room, trailing goose bumps of a kind dedicated perfumoholics will know.

Orris Noir is that rarest of rhizomes – a warm, decadent, sensuous, come-closer kind of iris. It starts out spicy, warm with davana, coriander, pink pepper and a bright burst of bergamot that keeps everything suspended in air, before it settles down in to the main attraction, an iris so sumptuous and opulent with the added touch of jasmine sambac, pimento berries and bay, so plush it might as well be olfactory silk velvet in a singular hue somewhere between purple and black. The heart of this orris continues to sing well into its dark, smoky drydown of incense, myrrh, patchouli, Chinese cedar and gaiac wood, and if those notes read like a recipe for the very best kind of trouble, you would be right.

It takes a certain level of confidence and experience to wear Orris Noir, or I could easily see it wearing you. This is not a perfume for shrinking violets or demure demoiselles. It’s a purple-black velvet aura, or if you prefer, a thick, voluptuous swathe of midnight-black satin that glows on your skin like a hint of anticipation, a spicy suggestion of promises you might want to keep. Orris Noir will most emphatically get you noticed, but what you do with it is up to you! No other iris I’ve encountered is so warm, so inviting and so all-out seductive, not just to your surroundings, but to you as well. Wear it to make an impression, wear it for a special night out, wear it when you need just that little bit of extra oomph, wear it when you want to feel…fabulous, warm, spicy and above all else, when you want to feel feminine with a capital F, or woman with a capital W!

On a big night out a few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to road test Orris Noir. How well would it hold up under the harrowing, sardine conditions of a very hot, humid rock concert with about eight hundred metalheads, rockabillies and Gothaholics? Would it last long enough to make any impression if I did manage to make it backstage?

I applied half a sample vial, just to make sure. I wore Orris Noir in my hair, my pulse points, a few more I invented just for the occasion and my clothes. My companion mumbled something about not being responsible for the consequences if I got too close, which could explain why he spent most of the show at least nine feet away. But last it did and beautifully so, through the opening act and the headliner and through eighty loud, glorious minutes, blooming all the way on to a tour bus with four flirting testosterone bombs who definitely noticed the perfume a certain blonde in red and black was wearing. A woman knows how to tell. The blonde meanwhile – that would be me – felt audacious enough, sexy enough, even confident enough to flirt right back.

Thanks to Orris Noir, which forever after will have associations of a night to remember. If that’s not the right kind of association to have with such a haunting, seductive perfume, then, pray tell, what is?

Notes:
Top: Davana, pink pepper, coriander seed, bergamot
Heart: Iris, sambac absolute, pimento berries (allspice), bay
Base: Incense, myrrh, patchouli, Chinese cedar, gaiac

Orris Noir is available from the Ormonde Jayne website.

Disclosure: Sample provided by Ormonde Jayne for review.

Image: Black Iris Publishing