Scent Diary, April 23-29, 2012

Monday, Apr: 23: More rain. Plus wind and chilly temperatures. April really is the cruelest month, isn’t it? Bookworm, who’s exhausted from several weeks of not enough sleep and too much homework, went to Governor’s School today and then came home at 10 am to drink Russian tea, nurse her cold, and do more homework. She even missed drum major practice today. The GS experience has been hard on her, but the upside is that she is earning both college credit and an ability to keep multiple balls up in the air. At this rate, college should turn out to be a breeze for her. I did laundry. SOTD: Soivohle Rosa sur Reuse.

Did the grocery shopping today and got home at 3:55, just in time to pick up Taz walking home from the bus stop and put away the cold food. Then The CEO pulled into the driveway at 4:10 this afternoon with Eddie Van full of his honors class students, back from their field trip. He had to dash off to a school board meeting, so I was delegated to drive the van back to Virginia Tech to drop off the guys. Poor Eddie… he’s usually not difficult to drive, despite his large size, but today he steered like a boat, with six people inside and all their luggage.

SOBedtime: Kilian Sweet Redemption. Yum.

Tuesday, Apr. 24: Am completely annoyed at the reformulation of Le Temps d’une Fete. I had ordered a backup bottle from Parfum1, which often has closeouts, and I’d hoped for a bottle of old stock – but no. It’s new. I’m going to send it back. SOTD: Amouage Memoir Woman, delightfully way too much of it, but I’m not planning on going anywhere today. Continue reading →

News flash! The 2012-13 PCHS marching band drum majors are…

PETBoy and Bookworm! I’m so proud of both of them, and I’m sure they will do a great job.

Perfume Review: Penhaligon’s Malabah

The name “Malabah” appears to be a variant of “Malabar,” which is the name of a region in India, the northern districts of Kerala state. It’s also the name of the horse in “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” D.H. Lawrence’s eerie little story about a fashionable family in debt, and a son that rides his rocking horse until he’s sure which horse to bet on in the big races. I have a manufacturer’s sample vial in packaging of hot-pink paisley and gold filigree, and I gather that the whole thing is meant to evoke India. Malabah was released in 2003, one of the few feminine-aimed Orientals in the floral-heavy Penhaligon’s line.

The scent opens with a big hit of citrus and tea, not quite the green-tea note I had expected but more a smoky black tea. This is followed by spices (cardamom, ginger) of the sprightlier sort, not the warmth of clove and cinnamon. A lovely rose note joins in quite quickly, and the ginger/tea/rose accord continues for some time before it’s buoyed up by a warm sandalwood and amber. The official notes list includes citruses, tea, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, rose, orris root, amber, musk, and sandalwood.

I can’t say whether Malabah really smells like India – probably not! – but it does fit my limited idea of India, with its tea and spices, rose and sandalwood. I had been classifying Malabah as a “lightweight Oriental,” of which there are fairly few, but I think perhaps the term “tea Oriental” might be more accurate. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

I frequently read the same Young Adult books that Bookworm does, partly because I like to know what sort of stuff she’s putting into her head on a voluntary basis, and partly because, to be frank, a lot of YA fiction can be more emotionally significant than adult fiction. There has been a sort of explosion of the genre over the past fifteen years or so, and I tend to think it’s a good thing: when I was a teenager, the things that were being written for young adults ranged from the truly wonderful novels by Katharine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved) to cotton-candy fluff things like the Sweet Valley High series. But the Paterson books tend to skew younger, and while they touch on serious topics like friendship, death, and discovering one’s true self, the books are rarely edge-of-your-seat exciting.

The more recent crop of YA novels tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they are present-day stories of love and friendship, but with a supernatural sort of twist (the Twilight series, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series), or they are stories of ordinary teenagers in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic or dystopian society. In either case, the “trappings” – the sparkly vampires or magical jeans, or the world in which love is defined as a disease and all “family units”are arranged by the government according to personality compatibility (Delirium, by Lauren Oliver) – serve only as a frame or backdrop for the real story, which is often very simple. The reasoning behind it, I judge, is so that the books don’t read like moral tales. Teens have typically had enough of getting told what to do and how to do it, but they get sucked in by the unusual created-world in the novel, and then (hopefully) learn something about themselves and the choices they’ll need to make. Setting the action in a different arena can highlight what is universal about being human. Sci-fi and fantasy writers have always known this truth, but I think I first noticed this tack for YA with the Harry Potter novels; the story of a teenager who lays down his life for his friends and his world is, in itself, very simple. It is the treatment of the story – the flavor, if you will – that makes the story memorable or not.

If what you’ve heard about The Hunger Games is only that teenagers are forced to kill one another in a grisly televised battle to the death in which there can be one victor, and you’ve recoiled in horror, here’s what you need to know: it’s true. That is indeed the framework. Teenagers do die in the Hunger Games arena in dreadful ways – poisoned by berries, stabbed with knives or spears or swords, necks broken, hit with rocks, stung repeatedly by wasps, eaten by scary genetically-created beasts. It’s horrifying. Even more horrifying is the knowledge that people are watching this all on TV, some of them with relish. But we are seeing these deaths through the eyes of Katniss, our protagonist, who’s forced to participate in the Games and is desperate to survive them. She’s sickened, she’s horrified, she’s frightened, and yet the Games is in essence only a more intense version of her life at home in District 12, where miners routinely die in explosions or cave-ins, and where nearly everyone is susceptible to starvation and disease. People die easily and all the time, she knows that all too well.

Her challenge is not only to survive the Games, but to do so in a manner that will allow her to retain her selfhood. Continue reading →

Scent Diary, April 16-22, 2012 (with Bookworm/PETBoy Prom Pics!)

Monday, Apr: 16: Beautiful day! I drove our visiting Eisenhower Fellow, Pascal, to the airport in the morning. I had planned to drop by the mall for sniffies, but since I’m pretty congested, I decided the mall trip would be a waste of time. I can only smell around the edges of things.

There was an event this afternoon honoring a former school principal of The CEO’s, a lovely gentle man who’s been retired for several years, and The CEO spoke at this event, talking about lessons he learned from Dr. Pound. I did not go, since I had to leave home early for our final chorus concert, but I heard from multiple people this evening that The CEO did an excellent job. He does speak well in public, I know.

The “Creation” concert went well. My solo was slightly better tonight than it was at yesterday’s concert, but overall tempos were a little strange and twice we nearly went “off the rails” (I blame the basses). We managed to pull it together. SOTD: Un Bois Vanille. The Perfume-Averse Soprano, who has in the past complained that her throat closes up when she smells perfume, even sat next to me before the concert and did not notice. Or, at least, chose not to say anything.

Tuesday, Apr. 17: Testing several Soivohle scents today, one of which I think is wonderful and three of which are very good but not me. Laundry. Boring.

Wednesday, Apr. 18: Heavy-duty ironing sort of day. SOTD: Cuir de Lancome. Seems like I’m not interested in testing a lot of new things lately, but maybe that’s because I’m busy the past few weeks?

Bookworm’s track meet went well. I think the girls’ team won – thanks mostly to a couple of really outstanding athletes we’re lucky to have (congrats to Sydney, Brittney, and Tamara!). Bookworm herself got her 3200 meter time close to her average, which is wonderful since she is still coming back from injury.

Thursday, Apr. 19: Another gorgeous day. Cleaned up some, wrote a bit, did about six errands including a bank deposit for donations from the chorus concerts, the post office, grocery store for milk, and dropping off Goodwill donations at the kiosk. SOTD: Soivohle Rosa sur Reuse.

Gaze’s middle school track team won their meet – both the boys’ and girls’ teams, I’m told. He came in 5^th in his 800 meter race, with a new personal record of 2:32. His time for the 1600m dropped as well, but he came in ninth of about fourteen kids. He may be more of a middle-distance runner than Bookworm, but I suppose we’ll see.

Friday, Apr. 20: An almost-disaster this morning. Last night I asked The CEO if he needed me to do anything in preparation for his weekend field trip with his honors class (this year the bunch is all male, isn’t that weird?). He said no, the big fibber… I had already made him some scrambled eggs and left them in the refrigerator for him, but he hopped up at 5:30 and showered and then started packing, which for him is usually a matter of throwing jeans and shirts and undies in the suitcase, but then he couldn’t find enough socks so he was tearing around the house looking for them (they were in the basket by the dryer, of course). And then he told me that he would need the van, and was it ready to go, with gas tank full, and tires and oil checked, and all trash/other items removed? Well, no! No, because he hadn’t told me he needed it. It did have gas, but needed oil, and it had some extraneous items in it – bags that I use to bring groceries home in, and umbrellas and a stadium seat and that sort of thing, as well as some paper trash. So of course I had to get up too and participate in the early-morning rush-to-leave. GRRRRR. If he’d just bothered to tell me…

SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete. I ordered a new bottle of this favorite recently and was distressed to hear after ordering that it wasn’t actually in stock, that the seller was waiting for a new shipment from France. Since several other sellers I had checked with were also awaiting new shipments, my Reformulation Radar Alarm went off. And it appears that my fears had foundation: it has been messed with. It still smells like itself, mind you – wonderful, that is – but it’s much lighter. The original formula was labeled EdT but always felt like EdP to me in terms of sillage and lasting power, so that I only used three spritzes maximum. The new one is, as I say, recognizably LTdF, but I used all of six spritzes and didn’t feel overwhelmed in the least. Some of the woody-mossy-patchouli-opoponax base is missing, where the green/narcissus floral portion seems the same. Staying power is about three hours rather than five for me. I’m sad.

Saturday, Apr. 21: Housecleaning. Bookworm headed off in the morning for a track meet and the rest of us cleaned up. Her 4 x 800m relay went well, and the girls came in second. I went to the meet, held at a nearby high school, so I could see her do her 3200m – she’s only run that twice this spring, since coming back from the foot injury and getting her orthotics, and her times have been close to her PR. However, the noon rain that stopped me finishing the mowing job returned with lightning, and the meet was postponed long enough that she had to leave without running the 3200, so that she could get ready for prom. My SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete again.

The hairstyle turned out so pretty!

We got home at 4:15, and she was completely ready by 6:15, if you can believe that – showered, nails done, tiny bit of makeup on, hair dressed, perfumed with Hanae Mori Butterfly parfum, and wearing her dress and shoulder wrap. The CEO’s mom came over to see, and we drove her down the road just a bit to the tiny airport near our house to meet PETBoy, who was driving his mother’s Mustang convertible and had been strictly forbidden to drive it up our gravel road to the house. She looked so beautiful, and PETBoy was handsome in his tux. All the work and the frustration with that STUPID ZIPPER – well, it was worth it, when I saw her wearing her dress.

Sunday, Apr. 22: More rain, chilly temperatures. Bookworm got in at about 2:30 am, all excited and wanting to chat, and I wanted to listen but kept getting sleepy. She said they’d had a great time, and she saw some pretty dresses at prom but nothing she liked better than her own (she may have just been complimenting me, but I’ll let her). I let her stay in bed while we went to church. She’s snowed under with homework, poor baby.

SOTD: Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur. I love VdF, such a comfortable white floral – it radiates, but not with the killer sillage of, say, Fracas. We did laundry in the afternoon, and the boys built “forts” in the family room with couch cushions and every pillow they could find, so that they could hide behind them and shoot Nerf bullets at each other. SOTBedtime: vintage Emeraude pdt, which I adore. SO beautiful, and Coty has completely ruined it. Grrr.

More prom pics (sadly, taken with the crappy camera, because The CEO took the good one with him, and also sadly, including the awful-looking ancient storage building at the airport:

(See? ugly building. I just didn't notice it in the background because the two of them looked so happy.)

Spring: An Embarrassment of Riches

My scent wardrobe is, like the climate in which I live, very seasonal. We have weather distinct from one season to the next, and it can range from below 0F in winter, with snow and wind and hail, to 98F in summer, hot and practically humid enough to grow mushrooms on your skin. The most comfortable seasons in this area tend to be spring and fall, with moderate temperatures and cool breezes and sunshine, though we certainly get plenty of rain (the average annual rainfall in my county is approximately 38 inches).

There are certain fragrances I wear at just about any time of the year, perennial go-tos. There are other fragrances I associate with certain seasons or weathers, and I never think of wearing them at other times. I love changing my fragrance with the season – I bring them out of the perfume cabinet and place them in the decorative hatbox on my dresser for easy access, and tenderly stow away the out-of-season back in the cabinet. I try to wear my seasonal fragrances when they are in season, appreciating each one like a beautiful day, though choosing among them is often a challenge.

Winter is easy: Alahine. Ubar, Lyric, Memoir. Tiny dribble of Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant, if the weather is cold and damp. Carnal Flower or La Myrrhe, if the air is so cold it turns to crystal. Dolce Vita parfum. Parfum Sacre. Vanille Tonka.

Autumn is easier: Tabac Aurea, always. Champagne de Bois, Organza Indecence. Shalimar Light. Vintage Magie Noire, if the weather is just right: cold, rainy, windy. Smell Bent One.

Summer is easiest, with the fewest season-devoted scents: Fleur de Matin, Hanae Mori Haute Couture. Ines de la Fressange first edition. Moschino Funny!, Rose d’Ete.

But spring? Spring is hard. I hate choosing in spring. Green scents? Violets? Lily of the valley? Green florals, floral chypres, straight-up florals? There are so many, and I love them all, and they all say “spring” to me in some way.

What to choose? And how to make sure nothing gets left out? I still don’t know. I have no real plan, I just get up and pick something to delight in. Some favorites for spring:

Crown Perfumery Crown Bouquet – “the greenest of all flower gardens.” A big green juicy smack of galbanum and marigold gives way to very, very tender white flowers, from a wisp of tuberose to a hint of lily of the valley.

Parfums de Nicolai Le Temps d’une Fete – a shifting green-and-gold symphony like sunlight dripping through green leaves. Galbanum, green notes, narcissus, hyacinth, patchouli, moss and woods combine to create the essence of happiness for me.

Deneuve by Catherine Deneuve - this long-discontinued, much-coveted floral chypre gem gleams like good pearls. Very elegant yet gentle, with a powdery softness due to aldehydes and oakmoss, it is a reserved and quiet pleasure.

Jacomo Silences – cool, silver-green perfection. Contemplative, streamlined, nothing extraneous at all. Satin ribbons of galbanum, iris, rose, oakmoss.

Penhaligon’s Violetta – simplicity itself: green leaves, purple flowers, a whisper of sandalwood. Shy but lovely.

DSH Perfumes White Lilac – the true delight of lilac sweetness, garnished only with a handful of leaves and a sprinkling of spice. A joyful scent.

Guerlain Chamade – the essence of romance, it slowly blooms from chilly green opening to the budding jasmine-ylang-rose heart and on to the full-blown warmth of mimosa and vanilla in the drydown. A perfume for surrender.

Balmain Jolie Madame, in vintage parfum – a gorgeous juxtaposition of green notes, violet and gardenia against smooth leather. Bittersweet in the best sense.

Chanel No. 19 – the Seven-League Boots of pure beauty and empowerment. Galbanum, iris, oakmoss, and a whiff of leather, elegance with a riding crop.

Parfums DelRae Amoureuse – Languorous and vibrant all at once, with green notes, richly sensuous white florals, spicy notes, and honey set against a slightly-mossy sandalwood background.

Christian Dior Diorissimo – the essence of spring, in the form of lilies of the valley. That is all. And it is spectacular.

What’s on your spring list?

Tuesday Roundup on Wednesday

(Okay, I really have to stop kicking the poor Tuesday Roundup all over the week. Sorryaboutthat.) This week’s roundup is a collection of Liz Zorn Perfumes/Soivohle fragrances I sampled recently.

The first thing I have to say about Soivohle fragrances is that honestly, Liz comes up with some seriously great scent names. Daybreak Violin? Love Speaks Primeval? Writing Lyrical Poetry? Bottleneck Blues, Violets and Rainwater, Tobacco and Tulle, Harbinger? All wonderful, surprising, evocative, completely fabulous names. I love them. Best. Names. Ever in the perfume world.

Lilas et Narcissus – Why this is not called ‘Lilas et Narcisse’ I do not know. I get a little disconcerted by mixed-language names, to be honest, and I’m not sure whether this is a deliberate mixing of French and English or something clever that I’m missing the point of. The other lilac scents I’ve tried from Soivohle were called Lilacs and Heliotrope and Lilacs and Roses (the latter unavailable at this point), so the reason for this one not being Lilacs and Narcissus escapes me.

So on to the scent: it’s a pretty lilac scent with some green notes and the sweet haylike aspect of narcissus. I love me some narcissus, but this scent doesn’t have enough of it to make a big impact. It’s not air-freshener, and it is a very pretty floral, but it didn’t move me.

Rosa sur Reuse – again, one with a name that confused me. “Sur” means “above” or “on top of” in French, but what does “reuse” mean in French? Nothing, that’s what. I finally made the connection that would have been apparent to me if there had been an apostrophe in front of the Reuse: it’s rose atop tubereuse, rose on ‘reuse, geddit? Clearly apparent from the notes, by the way, which include raspberry, rose, tuberose, violet, spicy notes and “light Oriental base.”

If you’re looking at that list of notes and thinking, “meh, fruity floral,” you’re dead wrong. Yes, there are fruit (an intensely jammy, rich berry note) and florals (deep rose and tuberose), but this thing is really, to my nose, a spicy, cinnamony Oriental decorated with a drizzle of raspberry coulis and a sprinkling of petals. You know me and spicy Orientals: I kinda really hate ‘em. Opium, Cinnabar, Obsession, Youth Dew? GAH. Just Kill Me Now.

But this? This, I like. It’s rich and fuzzy and warm without all that muddiness, that tar-and-moldy-tarpaulin thing you get in those other orientals I mentioned. Rosa sur Reuse is all… hmm. If you saw the film “Chicago,” it’s Queen Latifah as Mama Morton, all dressed up to sing in the nightclub, complete with ostrich-feather fan and satin-framed cleavage: sassy, flirty, bigger than life, intentionally sexy. Yum. For another take on Rosa sur Reuse, here’s a review courtesy of the Divine Miss Musette at Perfume Posse (with a side of Man Candy, if you like that sort of thing.)

Harbinger – I didn’t even look at the notes list for this when I ordered a sample, I loved the name so much. At the beginning, it seems to be a green-citrusy chypre, which is not really my thing, and then it goes really, um, dirty. Cumin and orchid? Gettin’ hot in here, gals. The longer it’s on skin, the riper it gets, to the point of I-need-a-shower-NOW. Whoa. I mean, it’s beautiful. And really, really filthy. And beautiful. Liz calls it a “lovely contradiction,” and that’s probably a good if enigmatic description.

Wild Ginger Chai – For once, a straightforwardly descriptive name. The scent? It’s nice, a spicy gourmand. It would probably really excite me in the fall, with all those lovely spicy notes, and it’s light enough that it doesn’t feel too heavy for warmer weather, but it didn’t seize me.

If you have a favorite Soivohle scent, please share. I’ve tried several and found them intriguing, quirky, charming, but so far the only one I really adore is Centennial (Historical Chypre). I could probably come to love Rosa sur Reuse, too.

Scent Diary, April 9-15, 2012

Monday, Apr: 9: I really must finish Bookworm’s prom dress this week. We will have another Eisenhower Fellow visiting us at the weekend and staying in the sewing/guest room, so all the sewing stuff will have to be packed away by then. Aaargh. I predict an extremely boring Scent Diary week… however, it is beautiful outside, spring all over the place. SOTD: Bond #9 Fire Island.

Tuesday, Apr. 10: Madly sewing. SOTD: By Kilian Asian Tales Collection Bamboo Harmony, Water Calligraphy.

Wednesday, Apr. 11: Sewing. No SOTD. Bizzybizzybizzy.

Thursday, Apr. 12: More sewing – and I think I’m almost finished! I still have to steam out some wrinkles after I tack down the edges of the zipper seam allowance, but the dress is mostly done. No SOTD until evening, when I headed out for our last chorus rehearsal of the season – Kenzo Parfum d’Ete, the old one with green notes and lots of lily of the valley. The soprano that claims to be bothered by perfume said she could smell it. Grr.

Friday, Apr. 13: Disaster: when Bookworm tried on her dress again, the zipper broke. I’ve tried several times to get the teeth to engage properly, but they simply won’t. It is unaccountably chilly, too. SOTD: Cuir de Lancome.

Saturday, Apr. 14: Housecleaning. SOTD: Penhaligon’s Eau Sans Pareil. The CEO went to Charlottesville to pick up our Eisenhower Fellow visitor, Pascal, who’s an attorney and financial guy based in Paris, and a member of a Thomas Jefferson club. They toured the University of Virginia, which was founded by Jefferson (The CEO made sure to wear his Virginia Tech baseball cap), and then since Pascal had recently visited Monticello, headed for Poplar Forest. It was too late for a tour when they got there, so they went to a minor league baseball game instead, where I’m sure The CEO enjoyed explaining the game to Pascal. We had beautiful weather today, and I just know that UVa was covered in blooms at this time of year.

My parents stopped by briefly for a visit, and my mother agrees that the zipper on the prom dress is busted and I’ll need to just replace it. (GRRR.)

Sunday, Apr. 15: After breakfast, The CEO and Pascal and the boys headed off for an adventure. They went to visit Thomas Jefferson’s other house, Poplar Forest, and the D-Day Memorial located in Bedford, VA; Pascal is originally from Normandy. After that, they visited the Natural Bridge, which was surveyed by George Washington and was once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Meanwhile, Bookworm and I went to church and then came home for lunch. She did homework all afternoon while I went to perform in our community chorus presentation of Haydn’s The Creation. SOTD, applied lightly at about 8:30 am, was Le Temps d’une Fete, and the Perfume-Complaining Soprano did not, in fact, complain although temperatures were in the 80s, with no windows open in the church where we were singing. It went well.

Posting delay

It’s been a busy weekend, and today is busy as well. I’ll be back with Scent Diary Tuesday morning, so I’ll leave you with a few springtime snapshots that Gaze took and I’ll see you all tomorrow.

Honesty plant (Lunaria annua) growing wild on roadside

Apple blossoms

The Pond Field

Tuesday Roundup Reviews on Friday (plus some random stuff)

Okay, so it’s Friday and I haven’t posted anything of substance this week. I have been horribly busy: the prom dress is done, save for some hand-sewing (look for pictures next week), and we’re having another international visitor this weekend so I’m cleaning the house. Eisenhower Fellowships is sending us a French financial guy named Pascal, and he’s a big Thomas Jefferson fan, so The CEO will be taking him around the University of Virginia and Monticello on Saturday. Don’t know what we’ll do on Sunday – I have a community chorus concert presenting Haydn’s “The Creation” Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, and I have a solo recitative (it’s the one that leads into The Heavens Are Telling, if you’re familiar), and The CEO has apparently given me his sniffles, so pray I don’t get any sicker between now and Sunday.

I’d love to write a review of The Hunger Games, both the book series and the movie (oooh, that Josh Hutcherson, such a cutie) but it will have to wait until I have time.

Taz spent his Christmas money on a new Nerf gun the other day – an N-Strike Longshot – and then Gaze spent his on a fully-automatic one called the N-Strike Stampede, which takes six D cells… I foresee that their cousin Curiosity may be in for an ambush the next time he visits. (Check out the Nerf website pictures here – these guys take their toy guns very, very seriously!

On to the mini-reviews:

Bond #9 Fire Island – this is the scent that was meant to smell of the classic French suntan lotion Ambre Solaire, and it does smell appropriately beachy. Jasmine, tuberose, that “solar musk,” and perhaps a bit of coconut. It doesn’t smell particularly perfumey, and I can see a certain type of customer really falling hard for this concoction. Really, what this reminds me of is Jennifer Aniston’s (in)famously not-perfumey perfume, except with a better grade of raw materials, and if you remember, I thought that was overpriced, so you better bet I think the Bond #9 is completely ridiculous on the price scale. I might like it better if I were more of a beach person, but I’m just not.

By Kilian Asian Tales collection: The other day, I received a lovely package from France with somebody else’s name above my address, and it seems that those lovely people at By Kilian have sent out preview samples of the latest releases (yay!) but somebody screwed up the mailing list (boo). Anyway, I was glad to see this nice little sample presentation explaining the idea behind each of these new scents.

By Kilian Bamboo Harmony – the description of this scent is “the olfactive impression of a subtle sip of white tea taken in the heart of a bamboo… a moment of spirituality.” I’m a little nonplussed at the idea of tea being spiritual, but hey, I’m not Japanese. One look at the notes list (bergamot, bigarade, neroli, white tea leaf, mimosa, spices, maté essence, fig leaf and oakmoss) and I knew that this one would just not suit me. I don’t really care for these pale green atmospheric unisex woody things, and I tend to hate fig leaf anyway. As far as these pale green atmospheric unisex woody things go, Bamboo Harmony isn’t bad. It smells nice. But like Hermes Jardin sur le Nil and Maison Martin Margiela Untitled, it bores me silly, and I suspect that I just don’t have the patience to smell Zen-like.

By Kilian Water Calligraphy – the packaging states, “Water Calligraphy is an olfactive impression of an aquatic flower sitting next to a pond of water lilies… a moment of delicacy.” I expected this one would be slightly more to my liking given its more floral character (grapefruit zest, reseda blossom, water lily, jasmine sambac, magnolia, cardamom, vetiver). I do like it. It smells nice. It is aquatic, but not in that heavily Calone-y way that we all seem to be sick of (and, really, what does that mean, an aquatic blossom next to water lilies?? water lilies are aquatic blossoms). But I also feel that I’ve smelled this, or something like it, many times before. Again, the raw materials smell somewhat natural, so it’s like the high-end version of something else.

Members of a Facebook perfume group were commenting the other day about these two that they are quite pleasant and also quite derivative. One person said they were “Kilian does Hermessences,” and someone else said they were “Kilian does Aqua Allegorias,” and my personal feeling is that they’re “Kilian does Jo Malones.” These are both very light, very spare and delicate, which is in keeping with the Asian Tales sensibility. But I find them uncompelling, and I’d like a little more character in my fragrances.

Photos from Fragrantica, except photo of the adorable Josh as Peeta Mellark from Yahoo Movies.

The Muse in Wooden Shoes

Exploring a Scented Life: a blog about perfume, cooking, literature, family