Opus Oils

Best of the Best 2011 – Worn and Adored

Being the true confessions of a dedicated perfumoholic

The problem with being a perfume blogger – apart from the fact that most of your surroundings think you’re certifiable –  is that you by necessity wear a lot – I do mean a LOT – of perfume that you sometimes may love and sometimes…may not. It will inevitably happen that you encounter your own brand of philistinism when you introduce your skin to a highly touted house and your chemistry flips you the bird as this much-marketed brand turns into either a hydra on your skin – sprouting another head of awful the more you scrub – or else…that you’re falling in love with juice that will entail selling off your seven-year-old to pay for it.

The things, the monsters, the hydras I have endured…I rarely wrote about. It just didn’t seem the polite thing to do. But surely, some day I should write about that infamous rite of passage for any hardcore perfumista…sitting out the duration of three whole dabs of Etat Libre d’Orange’s ‘Secretions Magnifiques’ on my skin without scrubbing. It was a bit like Anthony Bourdain drinking venomous snake blood in Vietnam because he wanted to be that guy who could brag about it with impunity…Well, I wanted to be that gal, and if Katie Puckrick had the ovaries to do it, then by Golly, so did I!

I did. I also turned green, then purple, then blue from holding my breath among other things. I dare say Anthony of NKDMan now owes me a bathtub sized drink…;)

On the other hand are the ones I simply…loved. Loved for their beauty, their peerless construction, the heart-rending drydowns and mood-enhancers and sex-me-uppers and just. Plain. Loved.

Aftelier

Cepes and Tuberose was my gateway into all things Aftelier. So compelling, so stunning, so simultaneously earthy and divine, spicy and sweet, it’s now become one of my Great Immortals, and on most days, there will be a tiny dab of it on my person somewhere. My Goddess Freya ‘fume. Sophia, another goddess in my novel Quantum Demonology, would surely love Fig. Something about jasmine sambac gets me. When it gets with fir and turns to fig, I’m done for. I’ve loved it – that much! I take Tango and Candide with me wherever I go just to breathe in their wonder. Whether it’s the completely seamless opulent bouquet of heaven that opens it or the perfectly balanced animal drydown of yes! Civet! Yes! Castoreum!…my little vial of Secret Garden is going fast. My ex hates it, which makes it a classic right there!

Atelier Cologne

Call me a philistine, but I have yet to meet an Atelier Cologne I haven’t loved, worn and killed off completely. I want one of each in those big, glorious 200 ml bottles. But for now, I’ll settle for a small bottle of Trefle Pur. Because it’s lucky! I just know…

Amouage

Ah, the many perils of Amouage. I first fell in love with Ubar – fatally and forever – and next with Epic Woman, although that took a while longer, but it crept up on me. Then, I met Memoir Woman. That took five tries and I was…toast. An instant love was the outrageousness of  Opus V – a slam dunk for this iris lover which will soon be reviewed – and then, Suzanne sent me a sample of Jubilation 25. “If this isn’t you…” she wrote ominously. I’m terrified it is…me! The good news, from my perspective, is that Lyric Woman is gorgeous …and hates my skin. I now eye that sample vial of Gold somewhat askance…and I don’t want to hear anything about Memoir Woman in extrait. I’ll wait until the day I show up in Knightsbridge, smoking plastic in tow, and they can tell me anything they like, so long as they tell me they take Amex as I take one of everything!

Aroma M

I’ve drained my sample set of Aroma M d-r-y. Geisha Blue (a verdant sanity saver for total stress-out days), Green, which is my other favorite absinthe, Violet, a deliciously subversive chocolate violet, Rouge, the spice fest to spice up anything at all, or the newest, Amber Rouge…Aroma M perfume oils are stunning, beautifully packaged in their Yuzen paper wrappings and they last and last and last. So will our love affair, I just know it!

Balmain

When I need a break from p-e-r-f-u-m-e, when all I want is to get on with my day and not worry about what I wear, when I get hit by acute indecision in the morning, Balmain’s Ivoire is what I reach for. A seamless, perfect dream of a green floral chypre that does everything a perfume is supposed to do – make me feel beautiful. It always does.

Caron

SuperMario Jr’s favorite perfume on his mother is Caron’s Bellodgia, one of the greatest carnations ever made. I make a point of wearing it when he’s sick to cheer him up. (His own, to his mother’s horror, is Amouage Memoir Man. He has sometimes insisted on wearing it to school…) Maman, meanwhile, has become addicted to the bad-gal leather of Tabac Blond extrait, thanks again to Suzanne. Yes, it’s the current formulation. I’m sure it was better before. But this is now and this is it and Tabac Blond is surely one of the sexiest scents I’ve worn this year? Wear wisely. I never did hear back from the guy I was with last I wore it to such stunning effect!

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

Ah, Dawn…she breaks my heart. First, there was…Vert pour Madame, and I have maybe three drops left, it’s such a perfect throwback to those Great Green Chypres we loved and adored. Then, I received a tiny vial of 1000 Lilies, and lilies don’t get any better, no matter what they say. Next, I discovered Sampsuchinon, which really puts the sass to my spice, and finally, she slayed me with Pandora and Paradise Lost. I love all of them when I can. Which is nowhere often enough for my liking.

Etat Libre d’Orange

Yes, I know. I know. But Etat Libre also gave us Like This…and I did indeed, like that, so much it’s all gone…as is Rossy di Palma, a thorny, spiky, green rose I also dearly loved.

Guerlain

In my year of revelations, two Guerlains – both from the L’Art et La Matière line – have converted me into a huge fan of Thierry Wasser. I haven’t yet tried Shalimar Parfum Initial – although I would like to – but Spiritueuse Double Vanille and Iris Ganache have made it into my regular rotation, and I’m so not a gourmand gal. I blame Carrie of EyelinerOnACat. That’s right. My nose had nothing to say in the matter at all!

Histoires de Parfums

There is no justice in this world if I don’t get my grubby hands on at least a decant of HdP 1740 – Marquis de Sade. Should be classified as a drug of a most lethal kind, so naturally, I’ve gotta have it!

ODIN NYC

I’ve only ever tried ODIN NY-04 Petrana (although I’ve heard so many great things about the others!), but for an iris lover, it doesn’t get any better, or classier, or chewier, or cooler. Then, I had the inspired idea – no such thing as too much iris! – to layer it with Iris Ganache. Petrana cuts some of the white chocolate overload of IG, and they dance in such beautiful tandem all day and well into evening…

Opus Oils

SInce I was done in by a dangerous bloom, my Flapper perfume oil from the Les Bohemes collection has seen a lot of action in my neighborhood, and never fails to land me compliments. So does Giggle Water. And Absinthia, my other favorite absinthe. Does this mean I’m dangerous? No. It means you must run, not walk, straight to Opus Oils and try them for yourself! You know you want to!

Ormonde Jayne

Linda Pilkington, how do I love thy genius? Let me count the ways…Tolu, a golden, glorious wreath of resinous perfection, Orris Noir, the world’s richest, warmest, thickest, sex-me-up iris got me into a flirt…five hours after I’d applied it and it was still going strong! Taïf, a dark, rich, red desert rose…Frangipani, Osmanthus and Champaca when life’s a bowl of cherries on a flawless summer’s day…oh, yes! Genius!

Penhaligon’s

Once upon a time, I received a Penhaligon’s Scent Library..and then proceeded to murder Malabah and Blenheim Bouquet. That’s love! Amaranthine’s utter strangeness and so-wrong-it’s-right-ness was stolen by a colleague. That’s purloined love!

Puredistance

There is no right way to say this, but say this I must – yet again. If you have the kind of skin that cozies up to green, then you must surely adore Puredistance Antonia. It is a masterpiece of a perfume – at once a reference to all those Great Greens of old and yet totally modern, too. It makes me happy and grateful beyond belief to know that Anne Bezantian felt as I do – and created what is – or what should be – a Classic with a capital C. Sigh. A forever love!

Robert Piguet

I never expected to conjure up the ovaries to fall for Fracas this year, but I did. With a vengeance. But there’s more intrigue from Piguet…since back in my Badass Days (when I was a good deal younger), I wore Bandit extrait…So I ordered a sample of the EdP from First in Fragrance, so I’d have something to complain about, only to find it was only slightly softer and not too changed these days, and that thrilled me no end. Bandit is another of my Great Immortals. Next I knew, I ordered a decant from TPC, because I’m still that kind of badass…and then, things got a little…weird. For this Bandit was not MY Bandit, with its bitter leather-violet-galbanum vibe and ashtray undertone (which is precisely why I love it, something only perfumistas can understand), but rather a fluffed-down, muskier version. Not even the color of the juice was the same. Came to find out that the US version is markedly different – why, I don’t know – and also, that I want that Euro ashtray version, so bad, I can taste it! On the other side of February 1st, I foresee an order…My sample is almost gone. I will cry my bitter isobutyl quinoline tears.

Serge Lutens

It gives me an evil amount of pleasure to state that I have managed to turn four of my friends and acquaintances into diehard Lutensoholics. Now, there are five of us where I live. I lured them in with Fleurs d’Oranger (best orange blossom ever created!), hooked them with Boxeuses, and wiped them up with Ambre Sultan. The Arabie is m-i-n-e. (and Suzanne’s! Cumin lovers, unite!) The Vitriol d’Oeillet I can share. If L’Eau Froide is half as good as I hope, this town is toast. Meanwhile, I have an inexplicable craving for the glories of Encens et Lavande…and want to try De Profundiis very badly. Cèdre I’ve loved for a quite a while, and thanks to JoanElaine, it can love me right back!

Skye Botanicals

The boy of the household – whatever Hairy Krishna, the ginger fiend thinks to the contrary – is a bit blasé about the amount of sample vials in different locations around our apartment. “Argh, Mom…why do you always smell of something?” he asked me yesterday. Nevertheless, he’s being indoctrinated by proximity. A seven-year-old who wears tiny dabs of Memoir Man to school has, I foresee, a very bright future. But one he loves beyond all reason is the one I spray on his pillow every night – Skye Botanicals Fuzzy Blue Blanket. It has replaced the lavender/neroli blend I used to use to get him to sleep. It works! He sleeps, if usually a half hour later than his mother would like…

Mainstream hits and misses

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t like very much of what came out this year at my local shops…Chanel no. 19 Poudré was such a massive disappointment for me, Prada Candy hated me with a fury. These two words should never occur in the same sentence: Caramel and hairspray. Gah! Bottega Veneta made my best of list. There are a few Guerlains I need to investigate properly – Insolence among them, and yes, you may shoot me! But the closest thing to a mainstream find – and I can’t even find it here – that I loved was a flanker to one I do like: Mugler’s Alien. I said it – I’m a sucker for intergalactic jasmine sambac. When Aromi of IlMondodiOdore sent me a sample of Alien Liqueur de Parfum, it took me no time at all to decide I. Just. Have. To. Have. It. It’s Alien but better, smoother, richer, with a smoky, satinwood, resinous amber drydown to die for.

Ah, we perfume bloggers have it rough. So many ‘fumes, so little time. The ones we had to wear to review, the ones we wanted to love but couldn’t, the ones we loved so much, we couldn’t review them, and the ones we love so much, we wear them even on the days we claim we’re wearing nothing at all! These were mine in 2011. What were yours?

Image: The Queen’s Crown, made for Queen Sophie Magdalene by court jeweler Frederik Fabritius, 1731. Royal Danish Collections, Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen.

Mount Rushmore in twill on a beach

– a review of Tiger Powers’ ‘Starfucker’

Once upon a time, it took merit to become famous. To become famous, you needed either the merit of a happy genetic accident, the merit of talent and accomplishment, or else just the undeniable merits of a perfectly matched pair of 34DDs.

These days of course, it takes nothing at all. These days really is the infamous age Andy Warhol (pretty celebrity-obsessed himself) foretold, of fifteen famous minutes for everyone for absolutely nothing at all, although it usually helps to be good-looking, whether or not you’re able to back that up with some other…talent.

Don’t believe me? Two words: reality and TV. Feel free to insert your own horror stories here. I rest my case.

And yet. And then. And then again, there’s Tiger Powers, Hollywood fetish model, musician and face of Opus Oils, and who is one of only two exemplars of the masculine gender whose mere image is enough to completely distract me from whatever it is I happen to be doing at the time, despite being neither short, balding, over the hill or from New Jersey.

I first encountered the chameleon charms of Tiger during a fit of serious indigestion indecision of a kind unique to fumeheads and perfume bloggers – when I browsed Opus Oils’ website looking for samples to order. Mind you, this was well before I even sniffed Kedra Hart’s marvelous creations, and as if indigestion indecision weren’t enough, suddenly I had to open my windows, because either my geriatric PowerBook was overheating or I was.

Certainly I was by the time I reviewed ‘Dirty Sexy Wilde’ and as if the perfume weren’t quite indecent incandescent enough, Tiger channeling a devilishly delicious version of Oscar Wilde was no help. At all.

So I next really put my laptop in it when I concocted the idea of a perfume story for the lovelies known as ‘Les Bohemes’ and made Tiger the star attraction and instigator of a time-travelling night and Hollywood party to remember. In not one, but two installments!

Some time later, I received a garish envelope from Tiger containing his new, signature release…and lo and behold, it’s named…Starfucker. Not only does this new scent have about the coolest name ever (because I’m that kind of post-punk arrested development imp), it brings with it absolutely no associations of any kind of night that starts with free champagne, access with a VIP and a limo ride and ends with a brutal early morning reality check in the far reaches of condo hell in Marina Del Rey.

Tiger Powers, let’s not forget, is so much classier than that and would surely never do such a thing. Call me a dreamer, but I know I’m right!

This little sample vial is instead Essence de Tiger, down to and including – so the press release states – samples of Tiger’s DNA…blood, sweat and tears. Fancy that – a Tiger you can clone!

So how is it? Is it rock’n’roll and sin and perdition? Deviously devastating? Is it outrageously good-looking, packed with illegal quantities of feline charm and urban jungle camouflage stripes under the Klieg lights? A weapon of mass seduction?

The short version: no, yes, yes and absoeffinglutely! Arrange them as you please!

The long version is a long, drawn-out sigh of…oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! If you have fond memories of the former glories of such immortal classics as Dior’s Eau Sauvage, which was a summer staple for me (too) long ago, or Acqua di Parma, which my late beloved stepfather wore and I will forever associate with class, wit, and all arts manly, then Starfucker is so easy to love, it’s ridiculous, precisely for not being what you might expect from an icon like Tiger Powers.

Instead, it sashays out of the bottle on a California sunbeam of effervescent fragrant fireworks, the kind that smiles a mile wide and shines down upon you as you bask in that summery glow…well hello how are you, it seems to say, and suddenly, your heart skips a beat and you really, truly do believe – in spite of all your lifelong cynicism has taught you otherwise –that anything at all can happen, and whatever happens, it will always, but always be good, even if you have other ideas.

Should you have other ideas, they’re not too far behind, either, when that swellegant lavender, jasmine and sandalwood make their star appearance and turn in the spotlight, and by the time some long hours later when life’s a beach and that’s all you need, that’s precisely where you’ll be, dipping your toes in the sunset Pacific wrapped in the beachiest, sexiest kind of happy drydown. You, yes, you too can devastate the diehards and slay the unsuspecting with Starfucker and they’ll never have a chance to do anything at all but surrender to your charm.

C’mon Tiger, ‘fess up. You did that on purpose, right? 😉

Meanwhile, as I frantically reassemble my neurons into something resembling a brain and a readable review, I’m, well, sold. Sold on the idea of wearing this with a vengeance, like so many other of Kedra Hart’s fragrant fabulosities, sold on the teenaged thrill of telling people what I’m wearing since I haven’t evolved that much past the age of tongue-in-cheek, and utterly sold on the vicarious thrill – truth? Fiction? – of wearing someone else’s DNA…so long as it’s DNA worth wearing. I won’t do that for just any ol’ Joe Schmo…

So long as I try not to think of that PR photo that makes me think…

Mount Rushmore in twill on a California beach.

I can dream. Oh, can I…

Notes for ‘Starfucker’: Lime, green mandarin, lemon essence, Italian bergamot, orange flower water absolute, Seville lavender, jasmine, sandalwood, Iso-E Super, Amber, Vetiver, Black agarwood and oakmoss.

Tiger Powers’ ‘Starfucker’ is available as Eau de cologne, bath and body oil, body lotion, body butter and bath salts from the Tiger Powers website. At mind-blowing reasonable prices for something so good!

Image courtesy of Tiger Powers, used with permission.

Did We Evuh!


– Part Two of the story of Opus Oils’ ‘Les Bohemes’ collection – and a swell party…

Behind me stood a dark-haired man wearing a tux and a large, lupine grin on his face. Not tall, not young but nothing old, he had the look of someone who lived carefully but well. Italian ancestry was in the mix somewhere, if his nose were anything to judge by. A pair of flirting brown eyes seemed to be saying “Dessert. Definitely. Something with…chocolate.”

“My dance card is empty, I’m afraid.” What made me say that?

“I don’t take no for an answer.” Before I could blink, he swept me out on the floor, among the dancers and into a corte, holding me tight in the Argentine style, and I followed in perfect time and perfect step, no small achievement for someone who back in the twenty-first century had five left feet with one inch left over.

“Countess Giulietta Moovonova, was it?”

“Let me guess,” I flirted right back as he steered a self-assured course among the crowd on the dance floor, one hand on my back. “You must be Romeo.”

“I’m your host.” We turned, dipped, swirled back among the dancers. “Why is your dance card empty?”

“Well, usually, I prefer to simply sway in a dark corner.”

“ My favorite kind of corner. I prefer to do other things there, though,” he laughed back.

“Such as dally with dubious countesses?” Goodness, where did this come from, and how could I have learned to tango so perfectly from riding in a Duesenberg?

One black eyebrow lifted. Whether it was my conversation or the fact that I had just hooked him with a gancho, we both stopped on a dime. “Only when duchesses aren’t available. I have standards.” That lupine grin again, that warm hand on my back, burning through the silk.

A couple across the floor, the woman in a sunset-orange dress, gave us a look. Hers was quite approving. I took that as a good omen.

“’Quel dommage,” I sighed. “So do I.” He was so close. Two glasses of champagne made me feel more than a little reckless. “I’m sorry I’m not a duchess.”

Smooth as silk, we began to float over the tiles again, melody and harmony in motion and a music all our own, and as we turned and dipped and rose, he said after a while, “I’m not.”

Only in Hollywood could moments be so magical and tangos so perfect. I never wanted this one to end.

A long while, more champagne, many tangos and a whoopee-making dark corner later, I located a powder room where those glorious gals from the Packard breezer congregated in front of the mirrors, fixing bobs, reapplying makeup, adjusting stockings. None of them paid me any mind as I walked in.

“So who is that Sheba dancing with our host? The, ya know, Countess something?” asked the yellow dressed blonde as she spat into her mascara. “He must think she’s the cat’s pajamas. Those Europeans. Us American Janes can’t compete with all that. And she’s wearing a Vionnet, the minx. Saw it in Vogue last month.”

“Jealous, Gold Digger?” laughed the redhead. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Shouldn’t think he’d be your type.”

“He’s not.” Gold Digger replied, leaving narcissus and likely a lot of havoc in her wake, dug for a lipstick in her bag. It bore the name ‘Tangee’ in bold red lettering on the side of the tube. “Too demanding, I hear. And twisted with it, too. I like my sugar daddies grateful, ya know? A gal’s gotta look after herself, after all. Right, Jazz?” She turned to the girl in green who had hauled Tiger off to the garden. She emanated jasmine and a lot of promises she might or might not keep.

Jazz removed a bit of lipstick from her teeth. “Oh, I dunno…that fella, Count Vlad, he’s been looking after me all night in high style. I want to know where he found that champagne. That stuff is something else.”

“The bee’s knees,” agreed the beautiful brunette in white and tuberose and a suggestion of coconut. She sat down on a settee, unearthed a cigarette from a case in her purse, arranged it in a tortoiseshell holder, lit up and exhaled in a long, grateful sigh. “What a dancer sheik he is!”

“Li’l Nico, you would say that.” The violet-scented stunner in the beaded dress twirled up errant strands of black hair and readjusted the jeweled combs. “You jump on any swain you find!”

“She should talk, and you shouldn’t neither, Dapper…I saw you on the dance floor, all right.” The brunette in purple velvet had a distinct Southern drawl. “I don’t know what was in that bottle Bootleg found in that drawing room, but it was…” she swayed ever so slightly on her feet… “somethin’ else…”

“Speakeasy…” The orange blossom blonde sighed. “Have you been at the hooch again? Look at her! She’s absolutely spifflicated!”

“Heck, yes!” The redhead in the gold dress smoothed out an eyebrow and turned around. “She’s been at Bootleg too, can’t you tell?”

“Baloney! You should talk, Sugar, you carrying on that Charleston on the pool with High Hat.” Jazz bent down and straightened her stocking seams.

Orange Blossom pulled at the neckline of her dress. It seemed to have slipped a little lower since her arrival.

“Put a lid on it, ladies. Don’t be such bluenoses, would ya? Just because this is the swankiest party we’ve been to this week is nothing to get goofy about.” As she turned away from the mirror and toward the door, I walked all the way into the room and over to the mirror. The conversation came to a screaming halt.

Orange Blossom – already, I’d determined she was the leader of the pack – sashayed over and gave me her hand. “Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Giggle Water, and this is…” her arm swept out to the other girls, “is Dapper, Sugar, Li’l Nico, Jazz and Gold Digger. That sauced brunette over there is Speakeasy. Obviously, she’s been doing a bit more than speakin’ easy with Bootleg all night!”

“Hello. I’m …Giulietta.” I turned toward the mirror. My lipstick was all gone, and no wonder. Those dark corners were dangerous. So were short, Italianate Big Cheeses.

“Is it true you’re from Europe?” asked Li’l Nico. “You and that swell Vlad fella?”

“Yes…” I repinned my hair, straightened my stockings.

“Ladies…” I heard a voice I knew at the door. It was Tiger. He sounded like he had intimate knowledge of quite a few bubbles in that enameled bottle. “Are you going to be in there all night?”

Eight women turned in perfect synchronicity to the mirrors and checked themselves one last time. Stocking seams straight? Necklines adjusted? Lipstick, mascara? Hair?

I pinned a rose in my chignon just a little tighter. One slightly spifflicated Sheba. Golly, that was a whole Breathalyzer in itself, I thought. The perfect time to misbehave!

In the foyer, Tiger pulled me away from the gals with a big smile and a slightly breathless “Later, girls!” In no time, I was parked on a sofa in one of the drawing rooms and there was champagne instead of air in my glass. Outside, the jazz band had kicked it up a notch. I could hear whoops and what sounded like Jazz and Speakeasy showing off their Charleston skills to the party crowd. “Where have you been, woman?”

“Misbehaving in a dark corner with the host,” I said and downed a bit more champagne. There wasn’t a lot left in the bottle by now. Soon, I gathered, our Duesenberg would turn into a Dodge. “I hear you made quite the impression on those gals outside, Count Vlad.”

He laughed. “I still have no idea why I picked those names.”

“Don’t tell me. It was the champagne.”

“That’s it! How could you guess?”

“Experience, darling. It’s such a witch.”

Meanwhile, Speakeasy had located eighteen feet of gleaming mahogany in the dining room next door, French doors open to the night outside. Faster than we could blink, Bootleg jumped up on the table and Speakeasy with him, and in no time, another crowd poured into the room like so much free hooch to admire their Charleston skills, up and down the length of the dining table like galvanized, jazzified tarantulas, all flashy silk and flashing eyes, while their audience clapped in time to the syncopated jazz beat. Right as Bootleg slid on his knees from one end to the other to stop adoring by Speakeasy’s feet, we heard a woman scream.

The entire party came to a halt in a heartbeat. Somehow, Tiger and I followed the direction that scream into the library, where a roaring poker game had been happening all night with a very full pot, and in a sofa at the other end of the room was the explanation for the scream. “But I did nothin’!” protested Gold Digger as the unflappable butler hauled an older, florid gentleman off her. “I’m on the level here, right guys?” She threw that statement at the poker players in the corner. “We were just kanoodlin’ on the sofa, see, and suddenly, he just goes all limp on me, see, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I…”

I never knew who it came from. It had to be one of the poker players. “Well, high time that bastard dropped dead. He owed me forty grand!”

It soon transpired that not only was the gentleman a rather important movie producer in big trouble, he was also utterly dead.

The way the butler acted, he was no stranger to dead bodies. He laid out the deceased on the Chesterfield and went in search of his master.
“Sic transit…” mumbled Tiger and poured more champagne. There wasn’t more than a glass total left in the bottle.

While we stood around wondering how to kickstart the party back, the host materialized out of nowhere.

“I’m so sorry, but we’ll have to continue some other time. The ambulance and the police are on their way now.”

In an instant, the poker pot, the chips and all the players evaporated from the room. Soon, a river of partygoers, those dazzling girls included poured out of the front doors and on to their waiting cars. Speakeasy and Bootleg staggered out to the Packard.

“Of course I’ll drive!” I heard Dapper say. “I’m the only one of you sauced bozos who can!”

Looking through the open front door, I was amazed to see the pink clouds of sunrise. Time did fly when you had fun!

“Count Vlad…” Romeo shook his hand. “Thank you for coming tonight. Some other time. Without fatalities, I hope.”

“Of course.” Tiger glanced down the hill, where the Packard disappeared in a cloud of dust and a roar of engine. Who knew what trouble those girls could get themselves into?

“Countess.” Romeo snapped me out of my reverie. It was past five AM, after all. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“It has,” I concurred. I tried not to think too hard about those brown eyes broadcasting right into my own. “Chocolate. Lots. Of. Chocolate.”

“Until the next time!” he reached out and kissed the palm of my hand. Before I could blush as pink as the dawn, Tiger hauled me off to our waiting Duesenberg, and before I could protest, we were heading down the hills toward Hollywood Boulevard and the Jitterbug Perfume Parlor.

“What a night!” Tiger split the last champagne between us. “Did we have fun? Did your wish come true?”

“Did we evuh!” I sighed happily. They would never believe me back home. Who cared? This was Hollywood. Where anything could happen, and last night just did.

A thick blanket of fog rolled down over the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific as we ate up the boulevard, so thick, the driver had to slow down as he went. All too soon, the Duesenberg came to a halt outside a building we could recognize, but the sign over the door said ‘Madame Movonova. Fortunes told, card readings. Satisfaction guaranteed.’

It was so strange. One moment, we stepped outside on the street in all our party finery, the next, I woke up on that chaise to Kedra peering down on me. A very empty bottle of Belle Epoque stood on the table. “You two…” she sighed.

Tiger stirred next to me. “Did we have fun last night?” he mumbled and sat up, looking slightly the worse for wear.

“Did we evuh!” I sang to my own surprise. My head throbbed in agreement.

We gave each other a look, a look Kedra couldn’t quite figure out. The instant before we both sang out in unison:

“What a swell party that was!”

The soliflore collection of Les Bohemes is available at Opus Oils, in Dapper (violet), Heavy Sugar (amber), Giggle Water (orange blossom), Li’l Nico (tuberose), High Hat (green tea), Speakeasy (wisteria), Jazz (jasmine), Gold Digger (narcissus) and Bootleg (vetiver). Guaranteed to kickstart any party. Take my word for that!

With thanks to all the inspirations…Kedra Hart, Tiger Powers, a Cole Porter song, a Duesenberg and a Madeleine Vionnet dress.

Image: From the 1928 MGM movie ‘Our Dancing Daughters’ starring Joan Crawford and Anita Page, taken from mothgirlwings.

A Swell Party


– Part One of a story of Opus Oils’ ‘Les Bohemes’, starring Tiger Powers and a certain bottle of champagne..

It was late at the Jitterbug Perfume Parlor on Hollywood Boulevard after yet another roaring launch, and the only ones left at this hour were Tiger Powers and yours truly, parked upon a chaise with our feet up on the table.

“We should do something,” said Tiger. “You’ll be going home soon, and we do want to make sure you don’t forget us in a hurry.”

“I could never do that,” I answered. “Haven’t had such a blast in years.” True story. Whatever occurred could never be too bad. I was in Hollywood. Where anything could happen and all too often did.

“Fun! How could I forget?” he exclaimed. “It so happens I have just the thing…” He walked off toward the back and returned a few minutes later brandishing a very distinctive champagne bottle by the neck as jauntily as any Stratocaster.

“Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque!” I was floored he remembered. “My favorite champagne! How sweet.”

“Not at all!” His grin was as wide as Sunset Boulevard. “This was sold to me by a gypsy on Sunset who claimed it was magic and should be saved for something really special. Or someone. You. Let’s open it, I say.”

“Such a flatterer you are,” I sighed happily. Did I tell you the man was devastating?

He was certainly devastating the foil on that champagne bottle. “Flattery gets you everywhere in this town, sweet!” The cork popped off with a small, expensive sigh. Out of nowhere, two champagne flutes materialized. He poured. “Now.” He pulled me to my feet and turned me around to face the mirror. I saw the Parlor with its velvet, fringe and flocked wallpaper, and right in front of me, the reflections of our Friday night Hollywood selves. “Before you drink, I want you to make a wish. Think of what you would like to happen – anything at all.”

“Should I click my heels together three times first?”

“Wrong movie, sweetheart. You’re not in Kansas any more.” He bent down and whispered in my ear. “Close your eyes. Make a wish.”

“Bottoms up?” I winked at his reflection in the mirror.

“Absoeffinglutely!” He laughed back at me.

I could think of a lot of things to wish for, but finally, I made a wish, drank down that glass of delicious bubbles and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was utterly amazed to see that Tiger was now wearing a tux, and I was wearing a 20s dress of rose devoré silk with a tulle neckline and sleeves, cut on the bias so I felt about eight inches taller and at least sixteen times more fabulous than before. My hair, usually loose over my shoulders, was now elegantly twisted into a marcelled, loose chignon accented with roses at the nape in the same sunrise shade as the dress. Even my makeup had that same 1920s look, with a shade of dark red lipstick I hadn’t worn since my Gothadelic glory days.

“Fess up, Tiger. What did you put in that champagne?” He winked at me in the mirror. That man could wear anything and make it his own.

“Bubbles, sweetheart! Nothing but bubbles and all my most dishonorable intentions!”

“My kind of guy!” I breathed into the mirror. A shimmer of light near the floor made me look down, and I saw the distinctive flash of sunrise pink Mary Janes and, ohmygawd, silk stockings! This could not be happening, but it was. Roll with it, I thought, just for one night. Roll with it!

Perfume! How could I forget! I had been wearing Absinthia all night. I reached for another spray with the words “Et in Absinthia ego.”

“Et in absentia ego,” he quipped back. “Come on, Cinderella. Your pumpkin awaits outside!” And he whirled me around and away, through the room and out the door.

On the street, nothing was the same. It wasn’t even night any longer, but a long, slow burn of a sunset over the Pacific in the distance. I saw orange groves towards Santa Monica, and I saw…a dark green Duesenberg parked right outside, a uniformed driver standing to attention by the back door. A Duesenberg. I turned to Tiger, but he was already whispering something in the driver’s ear.

“Whatever you do,” he murmured as I slid across a few acres of glove soft leather in the backseat, “just remember a few things. One, so long as there’s still champagne in this bottle, tonight will never end. Two…you’re not in Kansas any more.” He refilled my glass. “We’ve fallen down a rabbit hole! And three…” he lowered his voice and looked me right in the eyes as the Duesenberg slithered in all its awesome glory up Hollywood Boulevard toward the Hollywood Hills to the east, “whatever else you do, don’t call me dude! Got that?”

“And champagne, even!” I lifted my glass. “So where are we going?” So long as I had champagne, everything could happen. And perfume. Et in Absinthia ego. I drank those bubbles down.

“A party of course. Invitation only. You’ll see.” He winked again, and as I sat back and wondered. What kind of night would it be? What misadventures could happen? With Tiger, who the hell knew?

Twenty minutes later, the Duesenberg rolled though the gates of a long driveway on a steep, wooded street and finally came to a stop just as a valet jumped forward and opened the door. Tiger jumped out first, and took great care not a drop of champagne was spilt in his glass or his bottle, and I hastily grabbed a velvet wrap and beaded evening bag I found on the seat beside me. He kissed my hand and winked again as I got out. “Leave the introductions to me,” he whispered.

What had I got myself into? “Whyever not?” I took a deep, deep breath, a breath full of all my hopes and dreams and all the fun I had yet to have. Might as well start it here.

“Who may I announce has arrived?” asked a very grand, very chilly British butler at the top of the steps of an opulent Mediterranean-style house at least the size of my ambitions.

Tiger rose to his full and very imposing height and stated grandly, “Count Vlad Izmir and Countess Giulietta Moovonova.”

After two glasses of champagne and that build up, it was all I could do to keep a straight face. I glared at the butler. Haughtily, I could hope.

At that precise moment, a Packard convertible roadster came roaring up the graveled driveway and to a screeching halt a few inches behind our Duesenberg. Seven lovelies and two dashing youngbloods with slicked-back hair in white tie and tails poured out of the car like nine sparkling champagne bubbles.

“Darlings!” exclaimed a vivacious, saucy blonde all in white with an orange blossom corsage. “Have you missed us, since the last time?” She ran up the stairs as if she had done it a thousand times before. “Well, come on you slowpokes! The party won’t start without us!” She giggled, an infectious, musical laugh that made everyone laugh with her, even me.

In they went, these bright young things all in a laughing conga line, a dark, devastating beauty in a beaded violet dress, a sultry redhead in gold, another brunette all in white, an exotic beauty in purple velvet, a glorious girl all in green, a blonde in yellow who seemed to redefine the very word, and the two young men, one a prototype California blond who cleaned up very well, the other a dead ringer for Valentino, with those same smoldering eyes.

Inside was a grand, tiled foyer full of potted palms and party people in party clothes, draped over the stairs in conversations, milling in and out of the rooms opening off the foyer with glasses in their hands. There must have been quite a crowd at this party. Off on our left was a ballroom with a dance floor and a tango orchestra, up ahead was another room, and beyond, a glimpse of a garden with a boarded over area and yet another orchestra playing jazz tunes. Already, couples were jitterbugging in the twilight outside, glimpses of silk and satin flashing under the lights strung up in the trees around it. On my right was a library, where a roaring game of poker must have been in progress, because I heard a voice that could only come from Brooklyn exclaiming “Whaddaya mean, the pot has a limit of five hundred dollars? That’s pocket money where I come from!”

“So, mister,” Tiger turned around and saw the girl in green beside him, a breath of jasmine in her wake, “did you bring your big sister with you or what?”

“Certainly not!” I heard myself saying. “He’s with me to ensure I get into the maximum amount of trouble…”

“With the minimum amount of fuss…” Tiger continued. “So I heard you were a count…” She grabbed his arm and hauled him off in a cloud of heady tuberose toward the dance floor in the garden to show off his jitterbug skills. “So what are you counting?” They walked off and away.

“Where’s Flapper?” I heard a voice say behind me as the giggly blonde took her own glass of champagne from a passing waiter. She drank it down, reached for another, and gave a contagious giggle. “Can you believe it?” she exclaimed, “Flapper had a date tonight at the Roosevelt, some producer fella who said she should be in movies…Wonder if he’ll survive the night?”

The admiring throng that surrounded this orange blossom special roared their approval and carried her away.

I walked into the ballroom, where a whole florists’ bouquet of couples were tangoing across the tiles. The room was so large and so beautifully appointed, it had the feel of a movie set, with a crowd of dress extras showing off how well they could dance the night away to the latest Buenos Aires Pugliese tunes. There was that devastating girl in violet with a sultry swing in her hips as she followed a beau around the other dancers, I caught glimpses of the redhead and the California blond on the floor, and on my right the blonde in yellow chatted up an older man who seemed quite taken with her charms. Right when I was about to move through the crush to look for Tiger and that third glass of Belle Epoque that would really get me in trouble, I heard a voice behind me.

“Care to dance?” it said.

(To be continued…)

Image: We Know What You Did Last Night

With profound thanks to Kedra Hart and a certain Twitter conversation that planted the seed of this idea…

Fleur Fatale


– a review of Opus Oils’ ‘Flapper’

In a side street behind the Plaza and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico lies the location of one of my biggest fragrant epiphanies – the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Here, in a small courtyard beyond a gallery, something stopped me cold in an instant. It was a faint scent trail of something so haunting, so evocative, so unlike anything I had ever encountered before, all thoughts of art appreciation went right out of my head. I sniffed. It wasn’t the overall ambient scent of New Mexico, with its dusty heated smell of sagebrush and broom, ponderosa, mesquite and cottonwoods or roasting chiles.

I remember that I stood, held up my hand to stop a conversation and sniffed the air like a bloodhound on a scent. Which was when I found the source.

Off in the furthest corner was a small clump of otherwise unremarkable weeds to my untrained Northern European eye, unremarkable if not for rather showy, white, trumpet-shaped flowers I instantly recognized from so many paintings. It was such a galvanizing shock to my senses – that coming together of artistic vision I knew from so many favorite paintings and a living reality blooming unheeded in an adobe courtyard – with the unreal, ghostly perfume of the humble jimsonweed, datura stramonium, quite literally fragrant like nothing at all else on Earth.

For the rest of my years in New Mexico, I would follow that trail when I found it, as I so often did…in overgrown lots and empty arroyos, nestling in the sunlight in hidden canyons in the Jemez Mountains, and always in the twilight hours when it bloomed…that visceral olfactory punch of datura.

Every part of the datura plant is poisonous. Datura brings delirium and madness, bizarre behavior, amnesia and even death. Every year, livestock die and humans too from datura poisoning. Legend has it that breathing the very scent of it will bring visions, dreams, intoxication – and obsession. I’ve been obsessed with datura ever since that first encounter in a Santa Fe museum courtyard, I’ve even met a few perfumes that attempted to recreate that fragrant flowered swoon… and all of them disappointed. Beautiful, yes, complex and heady, yes, but a rendering of Georgia’s beloved jimsonweed? No. So it was…

Until I discovered Opus Oils, Kedra Hart, her soliflore ‘Les Bohemes’ collection…and her ode to datura…’Flapper’.

Flapper, as Kedra says, is the Belle of the Les Bohemes ball…and what a belle she is! Sweetly disturbing, a little fruity, a little wild, her initial innocent aura is dangerously deceiving. I inhale her luscious perfume, and think nothing more edifying than ‘heavenly’, but Flapper hasn’t finished singing just yet.

She Charlestons fully into the room in her flashing satin heels with her flirty dancing eyes, and right when you summon up the courage to look her beauty full in the face, right about when that datura really begins to bloom beneath the moonlight, that heady, seamless bouquet that all equals ‘datura’ winks…rustles those velvety ghostly petals and you are so entranced, so bewitched, it’s all you can do to simply breathe the visions in that follow.

You have now been spancelled, you are under her spell, and now, she will never, ever let you go, and you will never, ever want her to! As she blooms, as the night grows older and the moon ever bolder, as she opens that white, haunting trumpet wider, she grows cooler and lusher, fading to a satin soft whisper of tobacco and tonka bean, white musk and vanilla, as gossamer as the moonbeams that slowly fade away with the dawn, the cool of the air closing up her petals, keeping all her narcotic, alluring secrets until night descends again.

She is called Flapper, but I would give her another name that suits her equally well, a name that for me encapsulates all she is and all she does…

Fleur Fatale.

So fatale, she and I suit each other very, very well. You see, we have a history, she and I…from a Santa Fe courtyard and into a memory of carefree, of happy, of dancing though the moonbeams together to entrance and ensnare all who catch a haunting trail they will never forget!

Opus Oils ‘Flapper’ is in the ‘Les Bohemes’ collection, available as an alcohol-based perfume and as a perfume oil in a fractionated coconut oil base from the Opus Oils website.

Notes: Sweet lemon blossom, clementine, tangerine, pink peppercorn, perillla leaf, mango absolute, ginger lily, datura, gardenia, jasmine, vanilla, white musk, blond tobacco, tonka bean.