The CEO and I just bought annuals for lining the front walk, as we do every year.  We’re partial to blue salvia, enormous marigolds, and zinnias.  But this time I also bought two heliotrope plants because their smell enchanted me.

I know that they’ve long been known as “cherry pie” plants, particularly in the UK.  And they do smell great: fruity, sweet, almost yeasty under their floral topnote.  In fact, they smell to me not so much like cherry pie as they do like jam-filled doughnuts. 

Seriously.   Not the jellylike pie filling/fruit-flavored goop you get at the grocery store, but real jam.  In real doughnuts.  Homemade ones. Yum.

I like heliotrope, but often find it a little… chalky? flat?… in fragrance.  It occurs to me just now that I don’t think I own any heliotrope-featuring fragrances at the moment.  I divested myself of L’Heure Bleue and Aimez-Moi, and even of my small bottle of Soivohle Lilacs & Heliotrope.  The only thing I still have that has noticeable heliotrope presence is a decant of pre-refo Apres l’Ondee.  I think I have a sample of Etro Heliotrope somewhere, too, but that one was flat, without the charm and sparkle of real heliotrope flowers.  I have an idea that I liked the heliotrope angle of Serge Lutens Datura Noir, and I still have that sample around somewhere too.  What have I missed?

Anybody else ever grow heliotrope?  (Please tell me they’re easy.)  And I’d love to hear whether heliotrope is a favorite note of yours or not.  If you love a heliotrope-centric fragrance, please share!

As I mentioned before, I like to try to read what my teenage daughter’s reading, so I can keep up with her thoughts. I thought the the original novel was well worth reading, and was eager to continue with the rest of the series.  Review of The Hunger Games here.

I’ve realized that what I’m doing here with these Hunger Games book reviews is not so much reviewing them as analyzing them. I shoulda been an editor. I shoulda gone into publishing… I shoulda told my dad that no matter if he refused to pay for a useless bachelor’s degree in English, I’d get a loan and pay for it myself. I didn’t. (Oldest children tend to want to please their parents. I blame Dad a little, but I suppose at this point I blame myself more for not being willing to suffer for what I wanted, to the point of making him unhappy.)

Synopsis (Warning, contains spoilers. I don’t think this is a big deal, given that the book was released in 2009, but if you go ahead and read anything in blue and find out things you didn’t want to know before reading the book yourself, it’s your own fault.):

Catching Fire picks up approximately six months after the end of The Hunger Games, just as Katniss and Peeta are about to start their “Victory Tour” of Panem, where they visit and are feted in each district, ending in the Capitol. Katniss is not adjusting well to life as a Victor – she’s bored and somewhat lonely, because she and Peeta are avoiding each other and Gale only hunts with her on Sundays.

President Snow visits her house the day the Victory Tour begins, and tells her that her rash actions with the poisonous berries at the end of the Hunger Games seemed rebellious and defiant to many people in the districts. He mentions that there have been uprisings. He says that her behavior on the Tour should convince people that her desperate love for Peeta was the only reason she would have considered suicide, rather than defiance of the Capitol’s rules. He adds that if she is unconvincing, the people she loves will suffer and perhaps die in consequence.

Afraid for them, she determines to behave like a girl crazy in love. She explains the situation to Haymitch on the Tour train, and is shocked when her mentor agrees that she’s going to have to knuckle under, no matter what she wants, and eventually marry Peeta. She’s been confused about her feelings for both Peeta and Gale, but she’s angry at the idea that she won’t be able to choose. Shortly after this, Peeta asks if they can be friends even if her feelings for him are not romantic, and Katniss gladly agrees.

Their visit to District 11 prompts a minor show of rebellion among the citizens there, which is immediately choked off with at least one execution witnessed by both Katniss and Peeta. Katniss explains President Snow’s threats, and the two spend the rest of the tour pretending that they’re madly in love. They find that their nightmares are greatly reduced if they sleep chastely together, and they develop a close relationship. The Tour culminates in a visit to the Capitol, where Peeta proposes to Katniss as a furtherance of their “star-crossed lovers” status the Capitol residents enjoyed so much, and she accepts, during a television interview. President Snow, however, indicates to her that he’s not convinced by their display of love, and her fears are renewed.

Back home, there are changes for the worse. The old Head Peacekeeper, known for slack discipline, disappears and is replaced by a new one willing to dispense punishment. Gale, caught hunting, is immediately whipped in the public square; the citizens are able to stop the lashing before it becomes fatal by insisting that protocol be followed, but then retreat to their homes in fear. The mine hours are suddenly cut, leading to widespread hunger in the District, then extended so that miners are working dangerous hours in dangerous areas of the mine. Minor infractions are severely punished. The fence surrounding the district, which Gale and Katniss had been able to slip under before in order to hunt and gather food, is now electrified 24/7, and she barely escapes punishment for eluding it. Food is even scarcer than before. The building in which the black market was thriving is burned. People are afraid.

Katniss considers running away. Gale’s first thrilled by the idea since he thinks she means that he and she would run away together, but when she insists on bringing their families, plus Haymitch and Peeta, he sneers. Turns out he’s more thrilled by the idea that there are uprisings all over Panem. Haymitch does his best to stamp out the concept of starting one in Twelve; he reminds them that they’re a small group of people, not well-organized, and that it would come to nothing.

The 75^th Hunger Games will be a “Quarter Quell,” in which the normal rules are tweaked. This announcement is made a few months before the scheduled Reaping. (For example, in the 50^th Games, which Haymitch had won, each district was required to send four tributes instead of two.) This time, the tributes are to be selected from the pool of existing Victors. Which means that Katniss, District Twelve’s only surviving female Victor, must return to the Games as Twelve’s female tribute, and either Peeta or Haymitch as the male tribute.

Peeta insists that the three Twelve Victors train for the Games diligently. At the Reaping, he volunteers as tribute so that he can protect Katniss during the Games. Each of them has secretly made a pact with Haymitch to try to ensure that the other is the Victor in this Games.

Upon reaching the Capitol, the two get to know several of the other tributes, as their own relationship deepens in trust and affection. At the usual interviews, several of the tributes make comments suggesting that this Quarter Quell rule is not in the best interest of the Capitol. Katniss, required by President Snow to appear in the wedding gown her stylist Cinna has created for the wedding that will not now take place, is cheered wildly by the audience. As she twirls to show off her dress, it burns away, leaving her clad in a dress that resembles a mockingjay bird, the symbol on her district token which has also become the secret symbol used by people trying to organize a rebellion. Peeta announces that he and Katniss are already secretly married, and that Katniss is pregnant. This is untrue, but Peeta’s adept at identifying and pitching an appeal to people’s emotions. There is a minor riot in the Capitol the night before the Games begin, by citizens unhappy with the situation.

Just before she enters the arena, Katniss witnesses Cinna being brutally beaten in punishment for his daring to create her mockingjay dress. She had negated Haymitch’s insistence that the pair select allies for the Quell Games, but after the Games begin, she finds herself allied with Finnick from District 4, Johanna from 7, Beetee and Wiress from 3.

This arena is full of hazards, from repeated lightning to a rain of blood to a flood to deadly attack monkeys, as well as the threat posed by other tributes. On the first day, Peeta runs into the force field surrounding the arena, and his heart stops. Finnick revives him, but Katniss is shocked by the depth of her emotional reaction. Both Finnick’s and Johanna’s district mates perish quickly, as well as Wiress, and the little band of allies sticks together against the remaining tributes. It appears, to Katniss’ bemusement, that her allies are attempting to protect herself and particularly Peeta, at the risk of their own lives. The group is planning a detailed attack on the other tributes, when Katniss and Peeta are separated and Johanna appears to have attacked Katniss, leaving her wounded and stunned.

Katniss, desperate to find Peeta, gets up and staggers back to the place where Beetee lies injured and incoherent, but Katniss thinks she sees what he meant to do, to throw the wire into the force field surrounding the arena, at the time of the lightning strike. She’s not sure why, but she ties the wire to her arrow and shoots it at the force field. The force field is destroyed, and Katniss passes out from loss of blood as she is lifted from the arena via hovercraft.

Waking on board the hovercraft, she finds Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee, a gravely wounded Beetee, Finnick, and Haymitch, who explains to her that for months now the underground rebellion has planned to break several of the victors out of the arena and launch military attacks on the Capitol. The rebellion, joined by citizens from most districts as well as from the Capitol itself, is now supported by the military capability of District Thirteen, which was not destroyed as the Capitol had insisted. That’s where they’re headed in the hovercraft.

Katniss, confused and angry that she’d been told none of this, has only one concern: where is Peeta? She panics when Haymitch confesses that the rebellion’s hovercraft was unable to retrieve all the tributes, and that the Capitol has picked up both Johanna and Peeta, as well as Finnick’s girlfriend Annie. In her distress and worry and her anger at Haymitch, she throws a fit and has to be sedated.

When she wakes up, Gale comes to see her, to explain to her that shortly after she knocked out the force field, the Capitol sent hovercraft to firebomb District Twelve. Although her mother and sister, among about 800 other people, are safe, the rest have perished. “There is no District Twelve,” Gale tells her.

On Catching Fire as part of a trilogy:

Yep. It’s the middle part of the arc, and we’re shifting from the intolerable status quo of the first novel to the chaos that opens a path for a new reality. Things will be shaken out into a new order by the end of the third book, but for now we have the gut-wrenching jolt that propels our characters onto shaky ground.

Middle parts of trilogies are often the least able to stand on their own, because of their structure as bridges. Nobody puts a bridge in the middle of nowhere; you build a bridge because you want to get from Here to There. Duh. And while you can often appreciate the architecture and beauty of the bridge, the bridge is almost never a destination by itself.

Reading Catching Fire, I am often reminded of the long period of gradually worsening conditions in the late 1930s in Germany and then in Europe itself, before the situation exploded into multi-national war. The plot does drag in the first half of the book, with conditions in District Twelve gradually worsening. Our heroine, Katniss, just wants things to continue along mostly the way they had before the Games, and she’s unwilling to realize that her world has irrevocably changed.

At this point, Katniss makes me think a lot about Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back.” (I have to be honest here, I’ve never been a big Luke fan. When we first meet him in “Star Wars,” he’s eager, he’s brainless, he’s cocky. He just wants to fight, to do something exciting. Gah. He’s a teenage boy. Spare me.) By the second movie, he’s still headstrong and impulsive – characteristics he shares with Katniss – but when he goes off to learn something from Jedi master Yoda, he whines. A lot. In fact, he whines pretty much constantly. And Katniss spends a good amount of time whining in the first half of Catching Fire, which I will hereafter refer to as CF.

(Don’t believe me about the whining in “TESB”? Go here to catch the Youtube clip of Luke sounding like a toddler (clip about 3 minutes, line at approximately 1:28). I mean, sure, he makes the right moral choice. “I’ll never join you!” flung at his evil caricature of a dad, when the alternative is almost certain death, is a great line. I just hate the way Luke delivers it, as if he’s having to choose between eating the carrots on his plate or going to bed early, and he’s about three millimeters from stomping his feet and sticking out his tongue. Gah.)

In terms of structure:

CF suffers, to some degree, from the use of first person POV. This was the obvious and correct choice of narrator/viewpoint for the first novel, and it still works in this book, but the limitations become clear as CF progresses.

For one thing, the novel picks up about six months after the last one ended. There are a number of important conversations or developments that we don’t get to see first-hand; instead, Katniss relates them to us. The reader gets told, not shown. While on some level this style demonstrates a character trait, that Katniss’ general modus operandi is to concentrate on the tangibles and necessities of life and trying to convince herself that the intangibles of relationships shouldn’t matter so much, reading this stuff is just annoying.

For another reason, a number of important plot developments take place in the latter half of the novel, and we hear about almost every one of them in the space of two paragraphs in Haymitch’s explanation to Katniss.

Another structural issue is the almost split feeling of the narrative. The first half of the novel is very different in feel and focus than the second. In the first half of CF, Katniss spends a fair amount of time whining about the way her life has changed. Her friendships aren’t the same, home doesn’t feel the same, and she’s both lonely and bored. Instead of new things being available to her as a result of her easier life as a Victor, her options seem to narrow more every day. She’s not even talking to Peeta, because that brings up all kinds of feelings she just does not want to deal with. And when President Snow shows up in her house and makes threats toward her family and Gale if she doesn’t do what Snow wants, she’s first frightened and afterwards, you guessed it, whiny. I don’t know that we can really expect a sixteen-year-old to display more maturity than that, especially when her focus has always been mere survival. That there is a larger picture has not occurred to her.

Katniss’ world begins to expand, slowly and painfully, beyond herself and District Twelve and the handful of people important to her, into other districts as she sees how the rule of the Capitol affects other citizens of Panem. Just as she’s beginning to have ideas about trying to oust the current government instead of trying to just evade it, it’s announced that she and either her fellow Victor or her mentor will be returning to the Hunger Games arena, and she’s immediately distracted by that horrible reality.

At this point, we’re about halfway through and the pace picks up considerably. I’ve read some complaints that the author is revisiting the Games arena too obviously and too repetitively, but I’d disagree. We’re again treated to the high-stakes high action of a Games arena, but this arena is inventively deadly in itself, and this time the feeling is quite different. Katniss has allies from the start, and despite the all-too-real terrors of the arena, the action doesn’t seem nearly as desperate as it did in her first Hunger Games. She begins to suspect that Something Else Is Going On, but what? She has no clue. It’s here that I begin to wish for a chapter or two in someone else’s point of view interspersed with Katniss’ voice. It’s just too much happening all at once, and after the slow pace of the first portion, it’s too sudden a development.

I do understand that in terms of plot, the people behind the radical change in this set of Games haven’t told her anything for fear of her capture. I understand that she’s too young, and too emotionally distressed by returning to the arena, to have picked up on most of the clues. But as a reader, it’s really frustrating to get a whole pile of exposition dumped on me in about two paragraphs in the last few pages of the book. Grrrr.

This novel does end with something of a cliffhanger, as well. Now, I’ve never minded book chapters or TV show episodes ending with a cliffhanger, but a whole book? I hate that. Sure, Katniss is out of her second Hunger Games arena, but her world’s been semi-exploded, and too much is up in the air at this point for me to be really comfortable with the way this book ends.

On character:

Katniss: Well, I already mentioned how whiny Katniss is through a good chunk of the book. She’s a little like my cat, who desperately wants to go outside but will complain vociferously that she didn’t want it to be raining. (“I want to go out, but I want it to be dry!”) Like I said, it may be too much to expect her to be accepting of the new, frightening reality. And she hates being told what to do, so it’s tough for her to accept reasonable advice. At the same time, she does make a self-sacrificing decision that marks a change in her relationship with Peeta, whom she’s been resisting getting closer to. (As if that’s gonna work. I told you in my review of The Hunger Games, I believe she already loves him but just doesn’t want to admit it.)

Peeta: If Katniss is still a teenage girl, Peeta’s still a teenage boy as well. He’s not thinking clearly all the time, and we get to see a few displays of temper, but as usual his moral choices – including the choice to lie about a pregnancy in order to increase Katniss’ chances of surviving this second Games – are exactly right. He’s still gentle, unselfish, forgiving, clever, sensitive and brave, and he often has a good handle on how Katniss feels even when she doesn’t know herself. Clearly the reason that his heart stops beating at one point is because it is pure gold.

Gale: We met Katniss’ friend and hunting partner in the first book, but only briefly. What we knew about him then was that he’s clearly the Alpha Male in her life, now that her dad’s dead. He’s got great protective and providing capabilities, as well as a strong sense of responsibility and a way of encouraging Katniss’ strengths, not to mention that he has no love for the Capitol and a fiery, rebellious spirit very much like Katniss’. What we learn about him in this book is that he’s got an enormous sense of pride, also like Katniss’, and that he doesn’t like sharing her with anybody else. He’s bright, capable, possessive – and very good-looking.

Primrose: Prim’s always been the delightful little sister who believes in big sis, who trusts her and turns to her for comfort. She’s chiefly familiar to us as the person Katniss loves best. Now we begin to see that she is an interesting person in her own right; she loves animals, people, and beauty in all guises (flowers, the pretty dresses Katniss wears for her Tour, the beautifully-iced cakes in the bakery). She’s becoming an accomplished healer, which requires a certain attitude set of compassion blended with ruthlessness, as well as inductive reasoning and practical skills.

Haymitch: The biting sarcasm and irresponsible drunkenness continues, but we get a better look at the horrible brutality of the Quarter Quell Games that he won 25 years previously, and at how tormented he is by his past. We also get to see that (when sober) he’s got a subtle mind not limited by rules, and capable of manipulating situations handily. If Peeta’s a convincing liar, Haymitch still has him beat hands down. We also begin to realize that Haymitch has developed a fondness for both his charges, which is unprecedented for him.

On the “love triangle” aspect that drew so many Twilight fans to the Hunger Games series:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we have two guys in love with the same girl, and she will need to choose between them. Both choices have serious negative consequences, in that if Katniss picks Peeta, she’ll probably have to give up a number of things, including Gale’s friendship as well as her plan of remaining unmarried and childless so that no offspring of hers will ever have to face the Hunger Games. Public opinion on hers and Peeta’s celebrity will demand that they marry and have children. If Katniss picks Gale, her family is in grave danger from President Snow, and she loses the relationship she has with Peeta.

Both choices are viable, in that she’s attracted to each of them for different reasons. She trusts Gale because they have similar backgrounds and, by now, similar experiences. They have hunted together for years and developed an good working relationship in which they understand each other very well. He’s as close as family. She enjoyed that one kiss they shared, but she was eager to put it behind her and regain the old partnership, rather than move into a romantic liaison. Katniss trusts Peeta due to the relationship they’ve built after being tossed into the Hunger Games together and learned to rely on each other. She’s seen his self-sacrificing, gentle nature, and when Haymitch tells her, “You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve that boy,” she knows how right Haymitch is. She knows Peeta will make decisions based on what’s best for her, or for the two of them, rather than on what’s best for him. She’s begun to feel that she needs him even more than she ever needed Gale. And when he kisses her, she feels a hunger she can’t name.

However, this book series is a good deal more complicated and meaningful than the story of vampires, whether good or evil, and werewolves. This story is about a nation challenging a cruel political system, and the ravages of war… it just happens to have a love triangle in it. Without the love triangle and the confusion of its heroine, it might have been handicapped by its love story and the nuances of personal choice lost.

So what’s Katniss’ appeal to Gale and Peeta? She’s no drop-dead beauty, though she is moderately attractive. She doesn’t possess a friendly, winning attitude. What is it about her? Gale doesn’t come out and say so, but from what we know about him, I’m guessing that the essential elements for him are trust, shared companionship, and shared personality traits. She’s a fighter, and he respects that. They understand each other very well. They’re a lot alike.

And for Peeta? We know that he noticed her the first day of school and has watched her walk home every day since then. He’s crazy about her, but before the first Games he’d never spoken one word to her at all! As I said in my review of THG, I think he’s made some assumptions, which may or may not be true, as to what she’s really like. So why her? Well, for starters, she doesn’t make friends easily. She has the lure of the unattainable. I’m going out on a psychological limb here, I know, but since we know that Peeta’s mother is difficult to deal with, I’m going to postulate that he’s sort of primed to seek love from someone who doesn’t make it too easy. (In the first book, Mrs. Mellark hits Peeta when he burns the bread, and then as he’s heading off to the Capitol as a tribute for the first time, instead of comforting him or encouraging him, she says she thinks Katniss will win because Katniss is a survivor. OW. That’s what passes for Mother Love around the Mellark house.) Another thing we know about Katniss through Peeta’s eyes is that she isn’t some silly brainless giggler, and since he’s something of a philosopher himself (check his speech on the roof before the first Games begin, when he says that he doesn’t want the Capitol to change him into something he’s not), that’s appealing. He does say to Haymitch, “She has no idea of the effect she can have,” and although we don’t get to see exactly what he means, because Katniss doesn’t know what he means, she must have some sort of charisma, a way of drawing attention and inspiring loyalty. Mostly, though, I think he just decided at the age of five that she was his girl, and because he’s loyal, that’s just that.

Incidentally, though I was on Team Jacob when reading the Twilight books (which are engaging but not as sophisticated or as well written as these Hunger Games novels – basically, they’re readable candy bars), I am firmly, firmly on Team Peeta here. Katniss needs to get her head out of her behind on this issue, and grab Peeta with both hands… 

Tuesday, May 8: Rain. Running around trying to get estimates on getting the car fixed. Looks like it’s going to be (ouch) somewhere between $1500 and $2000 out of pocket, since we’d dropped collision insurance on both vehicles last year. SOTD: Hilde Soliani Il Tuo Tulipano, since I rediscovered this little decant and reviewed it last week. Nice. It’s cheerful, which I needed. Wore Shalimar Light to sleep in.

Wednesday, May 9: Our 20^th anniversary. We’ve made it this far!

Rain, off and on all day. The CEO has finally gotten around to replacing the leaky faucet (we bought a replacement one sometime in… March, I think?), and found that stuff that shouldn’t be rusted together is rusted together, and he had to take the entire sink out so that he could remove the leaky faucet. Everything seems fine now, after lots of his hard work. SOTD: Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur.

Dinner out at the Mexican restaurant, followed by a viewing of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” I like LeCarre novels but The CEO loves them; this was a decent boiling-down of an incredibly complex plot to a two-hour movie. John Hurt is perfect as Control in this. Set and lighting is interesting – it’s a very moody gray drab England where this film is set, and rooms are painted in such dark dreary colors. Everything, but everything, is ominous.

Thursday, May 10: Beautiful but chilly day. The CEO bought me some flowers to put in my hanging baskets for the porch, and I got a couple of the baskets filled. SOTD: Penhaligon’s Eau Sans Pareil.

You can't see, but Bookworm is standing one step higher than Gaze so she can look taller than he is.

Attended Gaze’s middle school spring band concert this evening. They did a great job! We managed to drag Bookworm out to go with us (she took her homework, poor kid), and she’s excited at the prospect of getting some new percussion kids in the marching band next year since the high school is losing so many senior drummers. I had planned to wear Chanel No. 19, but since Bookworm was with us I went with Cuir de Lancome instead. She hates galbanum.

Friday, May 11: Another pretty, sunny, chilly day. Finished putting my geraniums and vinca into the hanging baskets. SOTD: Ferre 20, nice aldehydic floral musky thing with a sprinkling of cheerful (but not frooty) fruit. I like aldehydes.

Saturday, May 12: Housecleaning. Bookworm to track meet, CEO to Virginia Tech’s graduation, Gaze to football practice. Mowed lawn. Showered, got Mother’s Day presents together, got everybody in the van to drive to meet my parents, The CEO’s mother, and my aunt for a nice restaurant dinner. SOTE: Mary Greenwell Plum.

Sunday, May 13: The offspring provided a delicious Mother’s Day breakfast (coffee, chocolate chip muffins, mixed berries, bacon and sausage) and set the table, as well as cutting and arranging some lovely peonies. I got handmade cards, too, and some roses from The CEO. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum again, as requested by The CEO and Bookworm.

Bookworm has read my review/analysis of Catching Fire (to be posted on Tuesday), and wishes it to be known that a) I am way off base in suggesting that Peeta’s willingness to put up with all kinds of neglect and unfriendly behavior from his Hot Crush, Katniss, is due at least in part to his mother’s cold nature, and b) her mother(me) is a totally geeky geek of utter geekdom, except of the literary sort instead of the band-and-science geek that she is.

PETBoy (clearly suffering from a distinct Lack of Bookworm over the past few weeks) came over for a movie and dinner at our house – it was nice to see him. Poor Bookworm has been suffering from a distinct Lack of PETBoy as well as a near-crippling and more serious Lack of Sleep, and I know she was happy to see him as well.

In any case, I have to turn elsewhere for fragrances that simply make me happy.  Instant, Happy-Pill, spray-on, for-the-better mood alteration in a bottle? For me, there are only a handful:

Parfums de Nicolai Vanille Tonka   (Squee!  Just typing the name made me smile.  Giddy fun.)

Frederic Malle Carnal Flower  (On me, not so much carnality – just pure beauty.)

Mary Greenwell Plum  (So, so, so, so, SO pretty.  Girly as a full-skirted print dress, with a skirt that twirls.)

Got any fragrances you can count on to lift your mood?  Anything that makes you feel like this delightful little Mongolian girl and her camel buddy? Please share!

Congrats, and please contact me at malsnano86 at gmail dot com with your mailing address.

Oh, and by the way? Today, May 9, 2012, marks the twentieth anniversary of the day I married The CEO. Congrats to us, with my sincere wish that the second twenty years be better than the first. We’re for the long haul.

Today I’m reviewing three Spadaro fragrances which the company’s PR rep was so kind as to offer to send me. I promised honest reviews, not automatic raves, and PR was happy with that, so that’s a win-win all around, I think. It speaks well of a company when they’re willing to let the quality of their products show itself.

I had heard of these when they were released in late 2011, but didn’t have any way to sample and wasn’t familiar with founder Kate Spadaro. From the brochure accompanying these nicely-sized spray samples:

“My mother’s free spirit led us to explore all forms of creativity, from concocting facial masks using ingredients found in the garden to customizing our perfumes with fragrant oils… this led to my career in aromatherapy and home design, where I transform environments through scent, lighting and music. The fragrances I create are inspired by my travels to far away destinations and the people I meet along the way. Each is infused with soul, love and passion.”

Photo courtesy Now Smell This

Sole Nero (Black Sun) was first up. I thought I might be least moved by this one, because I am just Not A Citrus Person. (I’m just not. Honestly, it seems like I’m forever having to confess that I don’t care much for traditional colognes, not even the Chanel one that everybody loves. Why? Citrus. I like to eat it. I like to cook with it. I like to smell it. Wear it, not-so-much.* Don’t know why. Let’s move on.) The notes include grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime, musk, sandalwood and precious spices, and the scent was inspired by a visit to Sicily with family.

Guess what? I like this. I do. It strikes me as being much in the same line as Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely – which I can’t wear because of that blasted patchouli overdose – or Estee Lauder Sensuous – which I can’t wear because of whatever that is in the Lauder base that makes me feel nauseated, even though the fragrances smell just fine. It is primarily a soft, cozy musk fragrance with a touch of citrus up top, a hint of florals (I think I’m getting rose and possibly jasmine), some pepper, and a very pleasant creamy sandalwood. It’s not the Real Deal Mysore stuff, but pretty much nobody’s getting any of THAT out of India these days, so I’m not whining.

Sole Nero doesn’t smell much like my admittedly-brief visit to the Mediterranean, but that’s okay. It’s very, very attractive and pleasant. The musk is what I usually refer to as “skin” musk, all soft and warm and huggable, as opposed to white “laundry” musk, which I generally find a little industrial in its overtones of Hotel Towels. And the woody notes keep it sweet and cozy. Nice. I’d wear it. I think it would wear just fine on a man, too.

(*Okay, fine, fine, I do love Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune, but I say that one’s as much about the pink florals as it is about that gorgeous freshly-squeezed grapefruit.)

Noche del Fuego (Night of Fire) was next on my test schedule. I love the description of the inspiration for this scent, which involves dancers, drummers and fire throwers – apparently, good-looking bronzed Spanish men, and who couldn’t use more of that? – on Majorca. The notes list includes bergamot, patchouli, sandalwood, and black pepper. Also, I’d heard from some perfumista friends that this one was good.

It opens up with a very, very bright bergamot and something that makes me think of lemon verbena, quite sparkly. The pepper makes a brief appearance – honestly, I think I noticed more pepper in Sole Nero – and then some woody notes. I could swear that I smell some amber flattening the whole thing out. In fact, I’m also getting an almost play-doh accord in here, and that usually indicates a hint of heliotrope although it could just be the amber. I’m not a big patchouli fan, being pretty sensitive to it, and although this patchouli seems to be the aged stuff that I get along better with, it’s still just a little too much patch for my personal taste. Noche del Fuego eventually pulls up something that might be a leather note, and once out of that flat amber, it becomes more interesting again.

I like the way the citrus sparkles over the darker qualities of the basenotes, and in that way, the scent is a pretty good interpretation of its name and inspiration. It’s not very “me,” and I think it would wear better on a man or on someone who likes woody scents. (Come to think of it, the particular perfumista friends who recommended this happen to be my Almost Evil Scent Twins. Silly of me to have not noticed.)

Doux Amour (Sweet Love) I tested last because I thought it was most closely aligned with my usual tastes, and this turned out to be so. It’s a floriental inspired by an “Arabian fantasy” of a hotel in Marrakech, with cedar and fig in the halls, and citrus and flowers in the garden, and mint tea and Moroccan wines on the tables. The notes list highlights ylang-ylang, Casablanca lily, jasmine, patchouli, amber, sandalwood and vanilla.

Now, I lurve me some ylang and Casablanca lily. This is a floral extravaganza sitting atop a very rich, sweet oriental base. I seem to be picking up a little bit of rose in this as well, which fits in just fine with the floriental aspect. The vanilla comes through pretty strongly, and so does the amber and sandalwood. Doux Amour reminds me fairly strongly of Samsara, which I like but often find too sweet, and also of the long-discontinued Revlon Xia Xi’ang (rose-jasmine-sandalwood), which I wore my senior year of college and associate pretty strongly with our college choir’s singing tour through Poland, Czechoslovakia as it was called at the time, and Austria. In fact, upon first spray I had an immediate flashback to the little hotel just outside Vienna that our group stayed in for three days.

(Wait, here’s a pic from the tour! This is across the street from the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria, in May of 1990, and that’s me on the right, in my Sun-In days… ah, sweet youth. Thanks for posting this one on Facebook, Brent!)

Sharon, Mike, Karen, Jerry and me

Doux Amour is insistently feminine – just the way I like my fragrances! – and quite attractive. It does eventually lose its beautiful floral accent and fall into sweet vanilla-amber territory, with a clean musk, but for at least a couple of hours, it’s just the kind of thing I love.

All three scents are eau de parfum and have good lasting power – about 5 to 8 hours on me. They’re available at the Spadaro website and Nordstrom, at $135 per 100ml bottle. (At the Spadaro website, there’s a coupon for $20 off, MOM003, and I’m assuming that runs through this Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day in the US.) And speaking of the bottles – those are gorgeous things, aren’t they? I love the etched look. They’re reminding me of the lovely limited-edition Grossmith and Serge Lutens bottles, but at much lower prices than those. Noche Del Fuego might be the most unusual of the three, and although I like the other two better, they are similar enough to some other fragrances that I’m wondering if I might better just haunt ebay for some Xia Xi’ang, and haul out my Jovan Musk for Women more often. I hardly ever jump at that price point, though I would probably consider a much smaller bottle at a comparable unit price – such as 15ml for, say, $25.

Tuesday, May 1: May Day! I started out with a little spritz of Diorissimo and then moved on to Carillon pour un Ange, of which I only have small samples but which I think is genius, all those jangly ginggongy floral bells over the smish of dirt and roots and grass. (What is this, Onomotopoeia Day? Ginggongy and smish in the same sentence?? Oy.)

SOTE: Le Temps d’une Fete (new). We had a thunderstorm this afternoon but never got any rain, or at least not right here. Weird.

Wednesday, May 2: Another day, another thunderstorm. The dog hates these. She cowers. SOTD: Crown Bouquet.. Watched part of “The Matrix” with Bookworm (well, she was sort of watching it and sort of doing chemistry homework – we’ll hope the chemistry got most of her attention). Lawrence Fishburne is awesome. And you probably remember I think Keanu Reeves is just drop-dead gorgeous, in a “Keanus should be seen and not heard” sort of way.

We DVR’ed it and showed part of it to the boys. Of course, by the next day they were saying to each other, “We’re going to need guns. LOTS of guns.”

Thursday, May 3: Beautiful, warm sunny day followed by late-afternoon thunderstorms and rain. Worked on writing. SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete. Again. I seem to be craving it.

Friday, May 4: SOTMorning: Shalimar Light. Rain in the evening, after I got as far as I could go with the borrowed lawnmower (its back tires are pretty much shot, and after the fourth time I refilled them with air, I gave up). SOTE: Ubar (refo, not vintage). Gorgeous stuff. A little civetty, maybe, but all that lemony-rosy-lily of the valley goodness is worth the skank. Or maybe the hint of skank highlights how simply pretty the rest of it is.

Saturday, May 5: Housecleaning. Bookworm took the SAT, and then The CEO chauffeured her to a track meet which she had missed the beginning of. She pulled a hamstring in the two-mile but managed to finish.

I picked up Gaze from football conditioning practice at the middle school, and got to see him in his jersey. (The blue letters on the white jersey match his eyes, which is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a mother to say… so cute! And heart-clutching, too. I remember when he was BORN, and he was tiny and so serious and so perfect, and we counted all his fingers and toes twice to make sure he was as perfect as he looked. Now he’s going to go running out onto a field and maybe get crunched by boys four times his size. Aargh. I have to let him play, though. Can’t take all his hits for him.)

The CEO’s sister E was visiting for the weekend, and the boys got to see Curiosity and Primrose. As expected, Gaze, Taz and Curiosity went straight into the Nerf Gun Wars, Part XVI. Or maybe it’s XXVI, who can keep track? Primrose (voluntarily) served as the UN, which just cracks me up. Those kids. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum.

Sunday, May 6: Beautiful day. Four spritzes of Amoureuse for church, and then a wonderful Breakfast for Lunch, for which I went all out: sausage, bacon, chocolate-chip pancakes with syrup, and a medley of raspberries and sweet cherries. I honestly think white florals sink in on my skin, because nobody could smell me from more than four feet away. At least, nobody would admit to it.

After lunch, The CEO and I went to watch Bookworm be inducted into the high school’s National Honor Society. CEO was wearing Gres Cabaret, and Bookworm was wearing Infusion d’Iris, and the combination was only slightly weird. Actually, the slightly weird bit was probably my Amoureuse – Cabaret and Id’I smell great together. And there was a woman sitting in front of us wearing Pleasures, I think (and way too much of it). So it was a scented afternoon.

We came home to find that our electricity had gone off shortly after we left, and it stayed off until about 6:30 pm, just in time for me to heat up leftovers for dinner and for us to play the DVR recording of “Aliens.” (Is Ripley not the most amazing female character in a sci-fi flick? I’ll answer that: yes. Yes, she is. She could kick Sarah Connor’s butt without blinking. She could probably kick Captain Kirk’s, too… even Young Hot Cocky Kirk… and would not put up with his womanizing crap. Could she take on the Terminator himself? If Newt was at stake, she’d probably try. Because Ripley. is. Awesome.)

This is from the TI AMO series, in which each scent is focused on a flower that begins with the letters in the phrase.  T is for Tulip, and Ms Soliani has commented that this fragrance reminds her of her father’s voice and his warmth. Tulips, of course, have very little smell, but this take on them does smell very vibrant and cheerful.  Il Tuo Tulipano was released in 2009.

My favorite part of this scent, which I’ll refer to as “Tulipano,” is the opening, because it’s one of the most delightful, cheery, sparkling fruity florals I’ve ever smelled.  I know these days “fruity floral” is a despised phrase among many perfume fans, and I’ve been known to wrinkle my own nose at much if not most of the ubiquitous genre, but there are a number of fruity florals I like.  The criteria? It has to smell like real fruit, not froot flavor, and the florals have to smell pretty close to real flowers.  Should be simple to do, right?  Fact is, due to their bare-bones budgets, most fruity florals are highly synthetic and do smell like functional products: soap, shampoo, “spring fresh” bleach, that sort of thing.

Tulipano starts out smelling something like rhubarb, which by the way I don’t like much and try to avoid eating. It’s got a weird sour whang that grates on my nerves (yeah, yeah, so sue me: I don’t like mango either).  And there’s no rhubarb in the notes.  I’m guessing that lime and blackcurrant are combining to say “rhubarb” to me.  But the tangy, fruity bit plays against the soft, powdery base of woods and musk, and the juxtaposition is very pretty.   Tulipano is quite fruity; the list of topnotes includes bergamot, blackcurrant, lime, peach, kiwi and passionfruit.  (If you just shuddered, you’re probably going to hate this, so do yourself a favor and don’t even try it.)  It stays fruity for quite a long time, but the fruit becomes tempered by other notes.

The heart notes are freesia, lily of the valley, and jasmine, and I honestly don’t get much of any of them.  The freesia is the  only note that registers much to me, but it’s so nuanced by the Technicolor fruit basket that I don’t notice much floral.  What does stand out is this creamy, musky base.  The official notes list according to Fragrantica says “woods, oakmoss and musk,” and LuckyScent clarifies this with “vetiver and sandalwood,” but what I’m getting out of this is mostly musk and sandalwood, with a powdery aspect that might be the oakmoss but which seems to me to be more about iris, and a creamy one that suggests both the sandalwood and maybe some tonka bean. Fragrantica calls Tulipano a Floral Woody Musk, but I think the focus is on a creamy fruit salad thing that is, however weird it sounds, really enjoyably wearable.

Il Tuo Tulipano (“Your Tulip”) is eau de parfum strength, and has average lasting power (4-6 hours on me), with moderate sillage.  Since it was dedicated to Ms Soliani’s father, I’d expected it to be more unisex, but this one seems straight-up femme to me.  I don’t know any guys who might want to smell like creamy fruit, which is not to say that they don’t exist, of course.  If you liked Justin Bieber Someday or Taylor Swift Wonderstruck and were looking for something that smelled more like real fruit, with a cheerful, sprightly jaunt to its walk and a speaking relationship with actual flowers and woods, check out Tulipano for a thrill.  Lovely stuff.

Another review to check out:  Marina at Perfume-Smellin’ Things.  Nobody is talking about this scent much lately, and that’s a shame.  It’s delightful.

NOW.  On to the giveaway:  I’m going to be passing along some of the samples I reviewed for the Top 20 Bestselling series as well as a few other mainstream offerings.  If you’re like me and your local mall doesn’t carry all of them, or you’ve somehow missed smelling these and would like to, here’s your chance!

To enter the drawing, please mention which of the Top 20 Bestselling fragrances you enjoy or have worn in the past.  Or you can talk about which one of them you hate most, or whether you plan to test any of the Top 20 soon – in any case, talk about the Top 20 to get your name tossed into the hat.

Burberry Body

Chanel Coco Mademoiselle

Chanel Chance

Clinique Happy

Estee Lauder Sensuous Nude

Fan di Fendi

Prada Candy

Taylor Swift Wonderstruck

Thierry Mugler Angel

Most samples have been used; most are spray vials but a few are dabber.  Most are carded manufacturer samples, some are handmade samples.  The Burberry Body sample is one of those wet-wipe things (sealed).   I am having terrible luck sending things overseas, so unfortunately I will limit the drawing to US residents.   It will remain open until Monday, May 7, at midnight Eastern Standard Time.  Good luck!

DRAWING IS NOW CLOSED.

Check back tomorrow for a review of some sort (either Suzanne Collins’  Catching Fire or a fragrance review, whichever gets done first!) and a giveaway.

Chloe L’Eau de Chloe

This 2012 release, composed by Michel Almairac and  packaged in a soft celery green, is a muted modern chypre, soft and pretty and elegant. Let me be perfectly honest here: I hated Chloe eau de parfum with a passion, and not just because of its bathroom-cleaner industrial product vibe. I hated it especially because I wore the original Chloe, a rich white floral concoction on a base of woods and moss, for a decade, and I still consider that the new version is a total travesty. (Yes. I have been known to whine.)

I fully expected to hate this one too. But this L’eau is very much in the line of, say, Idylle eau de toilette, with citrus, rosewater and just a hint of muguet, some clean patchouli and pale woods in the drydown, and I’d swear there’s a ghost of iris in there too, because it is a satiny-powdery thing. Pale, of course, but who says there’s no need for a pale chypre eau, especially in summer? I say there is. I say this is pretty. It smells the same pretty celery green as the color of its liquid, and I’m quite fond of that shade.  I’m not going to buy it myself, but at least I won’t whine if I should encounter it in elevators.

Penhaligon’s Eau Sans Pareil, 2011 reorchestration

Apparently the original Eau Sans Pareil, first released in 1976, was a real chypre with some backbone. People who were familiar with it immediately began thundering that the new one is NOT A CHYPRE. I don’t remember the old one – Penhaligon’s not being a company with widespread US distribution, or at least not in the 70s – but I like the new quite well, and it has enough chypre DNA in it that I’m not disturbed in the least by the description. The reorchestration was done by Bertrand Duchaufour, whose work I generally admire rather than love.

There is some citrus up top, followed by a powdery iris and some pretty, pale florals (jasmine and rose, I think), undergirded with a tiny bit of moss and vetiver which eventually is joined by a smooth benzoin note.  There’s a bit of sweetness to the scent, something I can’t pin down but which reminds me of (unfrooty) fruit. Peach? Yellow plum? I’m not sure. This is another pale chypre eau like L’eau de Chloe, albeit more delicately done and in watercolor pastels rather than all pale green. It lasts for about five hours on me, getting prettier the longer it’s on, and it reminds me a lot of something my Aunt Cindy, the chemist, used to wear when I was a kid. 

The list of notes (which I went and fetched from Fragrantica after writing this), is surprisingly long and includes: aldehydes, neroli, mandarin, bergamot, kumquat, raspberry, pineapple (aha! that’s it), cypress, pink pepper, tagetes, jasmine, damascus rose, muguet, orris,  ylang, orange blossom, licorice, clove, patchouli, vetiver, cedarwood, oakmoss, musk, vanilla, cistus-labdanum, benzoin, amber crystals.

It smells to me like a classic 70s ladies’ scent, reinterpreted for more modern tastes. I honestly don’t expect it to sell well, since the people who remember this kind of ladylike chypre fragrance want it to smell the way they remember, and the people who don’t remember ladylike chypres with any fondness wouldn’t touch this thing with a twenty-foot pole, lest they be labeled old-fashioned.

I like it – a lot.  I think it’s even prettier than L’Eau de Chloe. But I’ve discovered that I do like reinterpretations of classic ladylike chypres, because some of the angularity, the basilisk stare of green chypres, is smoothed out. I can understand that if you truly love the Fierce Greenies, you’d be ticked off by this sort of thing.

This is the old packaging. The new label is smaller, without gold borders, and the lettering is black. I'll try to take and post a picture of the new bottle for comparison.

Reformulated Parfums de Nicolai Le Temps d’une Fete

Now this one I was extremely ticked off about. At first, anyway. Regular readers will recognize that LTdF is one of my Top Three EVER, of ALL TIME, True Loves. And, yes, it’s been messed with. Which we could have predicted, right? There’s moss in there, and oakmoss usage is now restricted by IFRA.  (Click here for my review of the older stuff, compared to Guerlain Chamade.)

The first thing I noticed about my new bottle is that the packaging is slightly different. The label is smaller, and the typefont, strangely, even more cheesy than my original bottle. PdN has never been known for its art direction, but instead of improving the look of the packaging, the company seems to have gone the other direction, farther into “amateur” and away from “professional.” Which is a shame, because I like quite a number of PdN fragrances and think the company is doing itself a disservice by not giving the packaging a makeover. People do, in many cases, “smell with their eyes,” and if they love a bottle, they might give the liquid inside it more of a chance to impress them.

So how does the new stuff smell? Well, breathe just a little bit: it smells like itself. It is completely recognizable. The casual enjoyer might not notice a whole lot of difference, unless deliberately trying the two versions side by side. The galbanum, the green notes, the hyacinth and narcissus – all are present and correct. The woody notes, opoponax, patchouli and moss – these are also there, but the base has been adjusted. It seems to me that the basenotes are consistent in proportion to each other, but the proportion of top and heartnotes has been increased.

Old LTdF was weighted toward the base, in my opinion; it was one of the few fragrances in my possession that was less tilted toward straight-up floral. The new is definitively more floral, and lighter. I used to wear two or three spritzes of the old stuff, and that would last for six to seven hours with light sillage; I always thought that it wore more like an eau de parfum than an eau de toilette. The newer version behaves in a way more consistent with eau de toilette – I can wear five to six spritzes of it without being overwhelmed, as five spritzes of the older version would probably have done. It lasts less long, which I’d expect with a more top-heavy version. I get about four hours of wear.

The other thing I notice is that the older version was more “perfumey,” for lack of a better word, perhaps because of the moss.  Despite its green-and-yellow, outdoorsy, polleny goodness, it was a more formal smell. Now, me, I love “perfumey” and “formal.” But not everyone does, and I’m hoping that the new formula might appeal to even more people, so that it stays in production for ever’n everamen.

After having worn my new Le Temps d’une Fete several times, I’m less upset about the change. I still love the old stuff best, and I do in principle decry the move away from mossy, perfumey, solidly composed fragrances. I’ll be treasuring the remaining amount in my 30ml old-formula bottle. But I’ll also be using the new version with abandon and enjoying its more lighthearted, less formal character.

All images via Fragrantica.