Two From the Tropics

When I was six, I moved with my family to Japan.

Like most children of that age -- at least way back then -- I simply accepted this and, in fact, saw it as an adventure. (This became even more adventurous when the plane lost an engine over the Pacific and we had to bunk on Wake Island for a couple of days, but I digress.) When we finally arrived in just-before-statehood Honolulu, at the rickety old wooden terminal with ceiling fans, a smiling Hawaiian girl came up to me and hung a lei around my neck.

In all my short life, I’d never smelled, or felt, anything so delicious. The flowers, just out of refrigeration, were cold and their petals were stiff. I’d never seen anything like them. They were white, and yellow and pink, and surrounded me with a fragrance I never forgot.

I realize now that this was my first perfume experience.

My mother put the lei into the little refrigerator in our hotel room. Each day of our stay there, the petals deteriorated a little more, browning around the edges, ultimately losing the freshness of their fragrance to a note of creeping rot, and when we left for Tokyo, she threw it out. I whined like a baby.

This memory came back to me when I smelled Manoumalia (Les Nez) recently, and again when I tried Amaranthine (Penhaglion) last week.

Interesting how, as the cold gray winter descends over North America, the perfume blogs and forums are all alight with tropical florals. We go from pining, in late summer, for the heavy ambers and musks of fall, and then out of nowhere comes this. Amaranthine, which seems poised to reinvigorate the staid old house of Penhaglion, was done by Bertrand Duchaufour. I believe it is his first for them. Manoumalia, the very definition of a “niche” fragrance, was made by Sandrine Videault, who lives and works on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.

Of the two, the Manoumalia is the more interesting to me. Tropical flowers are all about taking care of business -- the business of reproduction -- quick. This is the evolutionary reason for their strong and heavy fragrances. Manoumalia opens heavier than most perfumes end; sweet, almost like chocolate, but not too sweet. Videault, who was one of Roudniska’s last students, knows what she’s doing. More olfactionary artist than commercial perfumer, she designed this scent as a sort of tribute to the Wallisian tribes that populate her area, using a common shrub flower, fragrea berteriana, along with tiare and ylang-ylang, but then took it darker with sandalwood dust, vetiver, and an amber. (Most Hawaii leis feature frangipani, also the name of Ormond Jayne’s tropical scent, which I wrote about a few posts ago; it’s gorgeous, too.)

Amaranthine, which clearly is a commercial scent (although a very fine one) comes in quite a bit lighter and a lot greener. Looking at the notes, I see green tea, cardamom, freesia and banana leaf. There’s your tropics. I love not-quite-ripe bananas, with their nearly green skin. Smelling the two side-by-side, the Amaranthine has the “throw” and longevity which marks the use of at least some synthetics; while I don’t know this for sure, I’d bet that Manmoulia is composed primarily of natural essences.

Does this make Manmoulia better? Some would say so; not me, though, because I think they’re both amazing. My scent-eating skin loves the mixture of synthetic and natural best, as the synthetics work to “set” the scent, thereby making it last more than an hour or so, which is the fate of most naturals on me -- not that I’ve tried them all. Far from it. But even now, as I write with one on one hand and one on the other, the Manmoulia is nearly gone, after an hour, while the Amaranthine is still going. (On blotters, however, the Manmoulia is still almost as strong as the Amaranthine.)

So we’re all different. Different skin. Big news? No.

I haven’t been back to Hawaii since I was a child. It seems to be such a Resort Vacation Destination now. I know that there are back roads and undiscovered places and so on, but to get there, you have to do the packed-like-sardines/tin can/bus/hideous American airport thing, and I think I’d rather remember it like it was. New Caledonia, now, that’s another story. It’s been on my list for years. The one Pacific island I’m dying to see, and now there’s this beautiful scent from there, too...and, one day, I will.

Thanks to Perfume Shrine and Now Smell This for information on these scents.

Manoumalia’s notes include Fragrea Berteriana, ylang-ylang, tiare, sandalwood dust, vetiver and amber accord.

Amaranthine’s notes include green tea, white freesia, banana leaf, coriander, cardamom absolute, rose, orange blossom, ylang-ylang, egyptian jasmine absolute, carnation, tonka absolute, musk, sandalwood and condensed milk.

Vintage Hawaiian shirt fabric image copyright Ron Chapple Studios. Used under license from Dreamstime.com.

Homebrewed

Here’s a scenario for you: it’s years hence. Fragrance as we once knew it is harder and harder to find. Supplies of the banned substances have dried up -- why produce, say, real jasmine if you’re not allowed to sell it? Some of the niche companies have survived by quietly hooking up with the big boys. Others are gone, or working under the radar. Watered-down “vintage” perfumes are sparking insane bidding wars on the auction sites. Oh, you can still get the good stuff, but it’s gone underground, as have the materials used to make it. You have to know somebody, and be prepared to pay big bucks.

Or you can go down to the perfume counter and get the screechy synthetic pinkish water with some celebrity’s picture on the box. Meanwhile, a supermodel is slithering around in the back seat of a limo in the advertising. Wear this, she purrs: you’ll look like me, smell like me, be like me, have my life.

Yeah. Right.

It’s this dim future that makes me want to hoard. I’m resisting the impulse with mixed success. I mean, c’mon, the collection I have is quite enough, thanks, to last me the rest of my life and, by perfumista standards, it’s a small one (collection, not life). But I still think...what if. What if I can't get any more of it.

So when I saw an interesting post on Perfume Shrine about making’s one own scents -- not trying to be perfumers, we know we’re not, no need to get the knickers in a wad fellas -- I thought “sounds interesting.” Because you can walk into any well-stocked natural food store and find a fine array of oils, designed for aromatherapy, and I’m sure it has occurred to you: what if I bought some of that, and some of that, and put them together? What if I added a drop or two of a favorite scent to that, and used it to scent my hair, or bath or pillow? I bet you’ve been doing it already.

Before I got into this, I owned a little cache of essential oils, and used them in a room diffuser. Upon becoming a blogger, I got an olfactionary to help me identify “notes” in commercial perfumes, so I wouldn’t show my ignorance in quite so obvious a way. Right away I had a brand-new chemistry set to replace the one I had in second grade (which contained stuff to make gunpowder, fergodsake, and guess what I’m still here; how did we ever survive our helicopter-parent-less childhoods)?

The general gist of this event, which was birthed by the new and somewhat rad ‘fume blog Under The Cupola, is that maybe we can do a decent job cooking up some homebrew. Let’s try some and do one of those name-drawings where everybody gets the name of a complete stranger and sends them a gift of same. I mean, we have a pretty good idea of what this is all about, right? None of us is expecting to make the Next Big Thing, but we could make something nice, something we would give ourselves (and probably have).

My own previous experiments turned out decently. A classic floral, a green floral, a spice souk, a dirty, leathery musk. (They don’t have much longevity, but I’m working on that.) Carried my cache of essential oils up to my studio and began, with the vials and the droppers, to concoct some more. It’s kind of fun. I’m working on a dirty floral, a violet rose and a chypre base. Some lucky recipient will get a largish vial of the best of my efforts, come December, and I’ll get one from somebody else.

We know this territory, maybe better than we think. Can’t stop what passes for progress, but we might have a little fun making something decent, and sharing it with a like-minded new pal.

For details on how to enter the fray, go here and/or here.

If you haven’t read Mandy Aftel’s classic book “Essence & Alchemy -- A Natural History of Perfume,” well, why not?! (Actually, I just recently got around to it myself, which is such a shame.) It’s a perfect guide to concocting, and a wonderful read too. It’s out in paperback, reasonably priced, and the ISBN is 10:1-58685-702-9.

Photo composite by Olfacta from photo used under license from Dreamstime.com.

America's Most Olfactory City

When driving to New Orleans, you begin to smell the base note many miles away. It’s the smell of Swamp. A millennium's worth of muck. Eons of decay.

Does this photo make you recoil? Chances are you won’t like New Orleans.

I used to say that this city wasn’t really part of America, and I still say that. Certainly it wasn’t treated as part of America -- CleanAmerica -- after Katrina, which the Gulf Coast people simply call “The Storm,” as if there hadn’t been and will never be another one like it. It was as though the Powers of the time simply cut the city loose, hoping it would drift out into the Gulf, with its polyglot population, its aura of decadence, its social problems, its reputation as a place one goes to do things one doesn’t do at home; hoping that it would simply sink from their view. But it didn’t. It’s not the same -- will never be -- but it’s still here.

I’ve always loved the place. I’ve been there many times. But it’s not for everyone. If you like tidy, cleaned-up, charming historic districts, try Charleston. Because New Orleans isn’t tidy in any way.

We only had one night and day, this time. Not long. Just long enough to walk a bit, ten blocks here, four there; dinner uptown, one night at my favorite slightly-tattered, musty old hotel -- once a hospital during the Civil War, now reputed to be haunted -- on Chartres Street.

Truth be told, many of the smells of New Orleans aren’t nice.

Old cities, old sewers; it hangs in the air, sweetish and sour, the odor of humanity. It’s always there. You smell it as soon as you get out of the car. There’s garbage, too; piles of it, waiting for the plow, and manure from the horses that pull buggies filled with tourists around the Vieux Carre.

We walked ten blocks or so down Chartres, to a place I had heard had good muffaletas (Italian bread soaked with “olive salad,” or marinated green olives, onions, peppers and garlic, then filled with sliced Italian deli meats -- salami, ham -- and provolone cheese. They’re essential here.) It was around noon. We were famished, and that walk was filled with the steamy smell of seafood boil -- spices, like white pepper, cayenne and thyme, added to cooking water -- and crabs simmering in it. That scent poured out of the restaurants and stands as the city got ready for its (long) lunch break. I could smell shrimp and oysters frying, too. That seafood smell mixes with the swamp and river and the sewers and the garbage, and it is that which is, for me, the quintessential smell of the old Quarter.

Since I began exploring the olfactory world through perfumery, odors that used to bother me don’t any more. Human body odor, for example. There’s lots of that in the Vieux Carre -- street performers, many of them shockingly young, who clearly don’t get to bathe enough, and hawkers, and frat boys on Bourbon Street benders. It’s the smell of living. Lots of that here.

For me, the first extra-spicy Bloody Mary and the first cup of gumbo makes me feel at home. Gumbo is New Orleans in a bowl. I’ve heard that many places almost never start it from scratch. They just keep adding to the pot, which never has a chance to get cold. There’s the dark roux, a paste of flour and oil which must be cooked only to a specific point, or it’ll “break” -- separate. Then comes the “trinity” of Creole cooking, onion, celery and green pepper simmered only until limp. Then stock, all kinds, seafood, chicken, fish; okra, to thicken it, and sometimes the cayenne-hot Andouille sausage. Then, the cook adds whatever makes it his, or hers -- spices, crawfish, shrimp, chicken, oysters, sausage, you name it, and it simmers for hours. The resulting brew is thick and dark as mud. And then it is finished with file powder, made from ground sassafras leaves, added only at the last moment, and only to the individual bowl, as direct heat makes it “ropy.” I smelled the file this time like I never have before. A little pine, a little citrus, a little camphor. A perfume.

There are two perfumeries in the Vieux Carre, both old and historic. (I can’t think of any place on earth where perfumes would have been more necessary than here.) They are Hove and Bourbon French, and, since it was Sunday, both were closed. I’d planned to visit them on Monday, but a storm was blowing in from the Gulf, the schools were closing, and we decided we’d better get out.

Next time.

Not to worry. There will be many next times. And the perfumeries, like New Orleans, will still be there.

Photo copyright Denidini. Used under license from Dreamstime.com

CleanAmerica and Nuit Noire

I’ve always loved what in perfumeland is euphemistically called “skank.” It’s something most Americans don’t want to think about, much less wear.

But, for many fragrance lovers, skank is great stuff. I’ve been thinking about fragrance “families” a lot, and, like most systems of classification, these can be endlessly divided and subdivided. Even “skank” is an, uh, blanket term -- there are different kinds -- the musky ones, tangy ones, earthy ones and so on. Today, I’m talking about civet, and Mona di Orio’s Nuit Noire.

Civet! OMG! The well-replicated modern recreation of the anal gland secretions of the civet cat, actually a member of the mongoose sub-classification! If there is ONE perfume ingredient in all the world that is just about guaranteed to make the modern all-American hetero male turn up his nose in horror, it’s civet. I’ve been wondering exactly why that is.

Before germ theory came along, disease was blamed on “bad air,” or miasma. Until the research of Louis Pasteur and other scientists took off in the late 19th century, it still was, and although cultures differed in their ideals of body hygiene, living spaces were filthy by modern standards. But when the populations of Britain and, even more so, North America, realized that microbes were in fact the culprits, and that they were little beasties with life cycles of their own, cleanliness became much like bad religion. Allowing these invisible enemies to thrive inside one’s home, or, godforbid one’s body, became not only a sin, but a form of gross neglect. At roughly the same time -- the decades around 1900 -- advertising began its rise to power. By the Fifties, no germ was safe, or so we thought.

Then, in the late Sixties/Seventies, “natural” became the ideal, drifting out of California like most things did then. Shining, unsprayed hair, washed every day; skin without a trace of odor, glowing tans, perfect white teeth, neutral breath: healthy. That ideal is still with us.

I bring all of this up because I received a sample of Nuit Noire in the mail yesterday. I applied it lavishly, for me, noting that, hmmm, yes, there was a certain, er, fecal quality. I was just beginning to analyze it thoroughly when my husband came home. Usually he’s pretty good about my fragrance experimentation. Not this time. “Jesus,” he said. “That stinks.”

O-kay. So this is one of those love-or-hate-it ones. The perfumer probably could have used a lighter hand with the skank, but to what end? To produce something that smells like fifty other perfumes? This stuff is brave. It’s like a dare. It’s perfumery taken to the furthest extreme I’ve yet experienced. I like that.

Those who love it seem to really love it. And those who don’t -- well, let's just say that they really, really don't.

I remember once reading about a study on the effects of skatole -- an essential molecule of the “fecal” note. A group of subjects were, um, subjected to a blast of air scented with animal excrement. None lasted more than five minutes. Physiological reactions, such as rise in blood pressure and increased sweating, and ultimately nausea, were observed.

(One has to wonder about these subjects. Don’t any of them own cats? Were they all male Oxford undergraduates who have never been near a loaded diaper? But I digress.)

Oddly enough, when you think of the classic perfumes of the germophobic mid-Twentieth century, most are 1.) French and 2.) have got at least a little civet in them.

I find this to be really interesting. Perhaps it was a vestige of our animal nature’s giving the finger to the midcentury onslaught of household and body cleaning products and the ubiquitous advertising, intended to produce guilty housewives, that promoted them. Perhaps, on some deeper level, the women who wore these perfumes knew that scrubbed-clean, while appealing, isn’t exactly alluring.

Would I wear this fragrance to the grocery store? Probably not. Would I wear it for a special evening out with hubby? Definitely not. Will I wear it when I’m alone? You bet!

Here’s what else I’m going to do with my Nuit Noire: I’m going to layer it under various other fragrances and see what happens. I’ve already tried it with the modern version of Bal a’Versilles and, yeah, there’s that...ooomph that’s been missing. I wonder what it would do for one of those stone-cold roses. Or some timid little office-appropriate floral.

Or some reformulated horror that smells like a melted Mr. Clean popsicle.

Hmmmm.

The official notes for Nuit Noire do not include civet (!) But just about every reviewer swears it’s in there, and so do I. It’s classified as a “spicy Oriental” with a top of orange flower (aha!) and cardamom; base notes include leather, amber, musk and tonka. The perfumer is Mona di Orio.

Photo copyright Ruslanchik. Used under license from Dreamstime.com.

Samples: Trick or Treat!

Like many of you, I've been amassing samples lately. Swaps, freebies, kind 'fumebuds...you know. And it's not as though I haven't wanted to try them. I mean, I have tried some of them. At night, before going to sleep...and in the morning I'm thinking, now what did that one smell like?

It's just that Olfacta has been distracted lately. Taking a course that actually requires outside reading and work. Not that anybody else actually does much, but hey, I always was the kid in school that showed up each September with a spanking new notebook and a handful of sharpened pencils. Anyway it's almost over, so.

If you do a lot of swapping, then you know that it's Basic Swap Etiquette to throw in a couple of "extras." Add that to the free-with-purchase handful you get from the niche sellers and you're talking about a very fine candy haul. So, I did a customized trick or treat. I put them all in a bag and picked five at random (no peeking, honest) and am having myself one fine little Halloween party.

Remember, though, how you'd trade the Halloween candy? For example, a peanut butter cup for your brother's miniature bar of chocolate? If I could trade one of the five, which one would it be? So here goes: my random candy.

Parfums Del Rae Amoureuse: This reminds me of Stargazer lilies, a flower I often see at Christmas, with its creamy white petals, red dots, orange stamens and heavy, hammy fragrance. Amoureuse opens a little sharp with tangerine -- a difficult note for me -- but drifts into an unusual floral mix. It's notable for the skill with which perfumer Michael Roudnitska used the divas, jasmine and tuberose, but somehow kept them from knocking the rest of the cast off the stage. The meaty note I detect must be from the ginger lily and, especially, the honey. I'd call this a honey fragrance. And, honey, it ain't shy. Not an office scent, but who cares?

Juliette Has a Gun Citizen Queen: I'm playing corporate wife at the company's holiday party. The boss's (third) wife approaches. "Ummm, you smell good," she says. "Is that Chanel?"

"No, it's Juliette Has a Gun."

Um, forget it.

The point is that unless this sample is mislabled, I don't get the brand's danger-gal imagery here, because this is appropriate for a Queen of the noble variety, or any variety. It's a lovely floral, a "modern chypre" (a term which usually reminds me only of what we've lost) with rose, and amber, a little musk, a little powder, some aldehydes, a little violet. Ok, it is not a background scent but, applied sparingly, it could be worn anywhere, by anyone. Perfumer: Romano Ricci.

Parfums de Nicolai Cologne Solange: A most serviceable, if not unique, summertime cologne, with the usual suspects: neroli, sandalwood, grapefruit, lemon verbena, Sicilian bergamot. On me, the neroli predominates, which makes it a little sweeter than, say, 4711. What's not to like? And it's relatively inexpensive. The perfumer is Patricia de Nicolai.

Miller Harris L'Air de Rien: Have you ever bought a vintage sweater and realized that, once you've worn it for a few hours, it's exuding the scent of somebody else's B.O.? Not rank old sweat, just someone else's...essence? Not necessarily bad, but not yours? The "official" notes don't tell this story (French oakmoss, Tunisian neroli, sweet musk, amber, vanilla). C'mon, MH! This is a sweet and dirty lowdown musk. It's really captivating, if you like that kind of thing, but be warned. Perfumer: Lyn Harris.

Ormonde Jayne Frangipani: OMG. This is a cool lei around your neck on a hot Hawaiian day, made of linden flowers, white frangipani, a few orchids...it's a green-tinged, just-this-side-of-plum tropical floral, but there is nothing cloying or heavy here. Other "notes" include magnolia, lime, rose, tuberose, water lily, amber, musk and cedar. Mixed with consummate skill. The perfumer is Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne.

Of all of these, I suppose I'd be most likely to trade the Cologne Solange, because, nice as it is, it's not a standout. But for someone who doesn't already have five or ten citrus-based summer scents, this just might be The One.

Full disclosure: The Ormonde Jayne Frangipani sample was part of a set I got courtesy of Ormonde Jayne after "Olfactarama" appeared on Fragrantica.

"Horror Girl" photo copyright Konstantin Sutyagin, used under license from Dreamstime.com.

Hold Your Noses!

Every so often, as I bemoan living in a red state filled with wingnuts and Jesus freaks, something happens that lifts my mood, makes me smile, quashes the “How did this happen?!” blues, and, once again, I’m filled with joy. Saturday’s Little Five Points Parade was such a moment for me.

Little Five Points is Atlanta’s bohemian neighborhood. Close to downtown, it’s filled with head shops, vintage clothing ships, offbeat clothing shops, bars, clubs, funky restaurants, derelicts, panhandlers and self-defined millennial hippies. So far, the area has done a pretty good job of resisting the gentrification that moves into such places like a rash. So far.

This was the best parade I’ve been to yet. Atlanta stalwarts The Abomnidable Feed and Seed Marching Band, leading off a twisted conga line of zombies and aging majorettes still twirling like it’s 1965! Floats full of horror-movie beauty Queens (girls too), pelting the crowd with Tootsie Rolls! Rock and roll and bluegrass bands on flatbed trucks driven by zombie aliens! And a whole troupe full of dancing, air-guitar playing, gender-bending Angus Youngs! (See photo - those of you who aren’t familiar with such things should know that Angus Young is the elder of AC/DC, still rocking in his schoolboy uniform.)

So we’re about half-way through the parade and suddenly I become aware of the foulest -- stench -- a smell hell itself could hardly produce -- you know sometimes you’ll be walking down the street in an old section of an old city on a hot day and will step over a sewer grate and there’s this...miasma? The Swamp Gas of Hades? It was like that. Only worse.

All around me people were holding their noses, eyes tearing up, choking. I see this white van coming down the street, and on the side, it says “Marty The Plumber.”

I’m thinking, oh, no. They wouldn’t.

Well, they would. The van passes us. It’s a stealth olfactory attack. People are reeling from the awful stench. Both of the van’s back doors are open, and inside is...a toilet. Not just any toilet, though. An unspeakable toilet, filled with facsimiles (I hope) of what you’d expect to find in an unspeakable toilet, overflowing, on the floor, everywhere, topped with a grinning death’s head spewing noxious vapor.

This was more than a float. It was an installation. It was Olfactory Art.

How did they do it? How did they produce that stench, in such quantity, with such strength, and such authenticity? Is Marty a chemist? Or is he simply so intimately familiar with such things that he can recreate them from common industrial gases?

People gripe about what plumbers cost. I never do. I figure that we can’t pay them enough. But to celebrate it...to mount a rolling tribute to sewer gases...oh, I was so impressed.

(I also felt sorry for the float that was behind the van -- rather a long distance behind -- but maybe the gas masks helped.)

Turns out that Marty the Plumber is one of the parade’s sponsors. Next time my plumbing backs up, I’ll know who to call.

Marty, we salute you!

I didn’t have my camera, and haven’t been able to find a photo of Marty the Plumber’s van. My guess is that no one could handle being close enough to it to take one.

Above photo of the Angus Youngs by Jamie Gumbrect for ajc.com. For more of Gumbrect’s great Little 5 Points Parade photos, go here.

Falling in Love: Scents and Treats for Fall

I’ve had the honor of being asked to participate by Perfume Shrine in a group blog about autumn; autumn scents, autumn treats. My favorite season is a sensory delight, so here are some impressions. (There are links to the other contributors posts at the end of this one.)

Autumn has left the building, and I really miss it. But they say there is no inspiration like longing, so here goes.

Here in North Georgia, we usually have beautiful falls. Our hardwood trees -- maples, hickories, dogwoods -- burn like torches in orange, red and gold. Our sky is deep cornflower blue. The air is still warm, except for the frosty mornings when dew crystallizes the grass, and it crunches underfoot. Soon, someone will have their first fire in the fireplace, and the smell of wood smoke will perfume the neighborhood and...well, dream on.

It started raining about five weeks ago and, essentially, it hasn’t stopped. Parts of Atlanta flooded. Little creeks became rivers, and roads washed out. The streets are full of pits and potholes. It hasn’t gotten cold, just soggy, and everything is covered with mildew; green stones, green tree trunks, green fences, green sidewalks.

Our beautiful autumn leaves? Going green to brown and falling off. Our warm dry sunshine? Hah. There’s so much water in the ground that, for the first time I can remember, we’re having a humid fall. Some say this is nature’s way of equalizing after years of drought; the lakes are full and the farmers’ livelihoods are saved for one more year. I guess I shouldn’t complain.

So, I’m going to remember past autumns. And cross my fingers. The sun will come out tomorrow.

Here are some things to love about autumn, and a few of the fragrances that remind me of them.

Burn piles -- oh wait. Those have been banned for years here. Too smoky or something. Take a deep sniff of CB I Hate Perfume’s “Burning Leaves.” Ahhh...now I remember.

Amber perfumes; Serge Luten’s Ambre Sultan; thyme and maple. I wonder how maple syrup would taste infused with thyme.

Ginger gold apples. An early variety of Golden Delicious, available only for a few weeks in September. Sweetness, and the slightest hint of ginger. These make the perfect apple pie.

Oh, and Cezanne's paintings of apples, too.

The porch pumpkin. Right about now you buy a pumpkin, put it out on the porch, and carve your jack-o-lantern from it when Halloween comes.

Cooking with butter, knowing you’ll work off the calories in the yard.

Braising and roasting instead of steaming and grilling.

Roasted vegetables with garlic.

Returning to extrait after the colognes and EDT's of summer. Vintage Bal a Versailles, worn on the first cool night.

Nutmeg. Grating it over vegetables.

Indian corn, affixed to the front door, from September until Christmas season, when it’s replaced with a wreath.

Candied and caramel apples at the county fair.

More fair food: sweet fried dough with powdered sugar ("funnel cakes").

The dusty smell of the furnace, the first time you turn it on.

Crispness: crisp air, crisp fruit, cold cider, crisp leaves on the ground.

The smell of dirt as you prepare garden beds for winter.

Putting on my leather jacket for the first time.

A wool scarf, scented with a heavy winter perfume. (Amouge’s Lyric for Women comes to mind.)

Regional autumn: my region anyway, the American South.

The Day -- the first day you realize that the humidity is gone; go home and break out the early fall fragrances; Nuits de Hadrien (Annick Goutal), vintage Woodhue, Vol de Nuit EDT, sprayed generously on clothing.

Mountain festivals with lots of fiddle music. I can’t help it. I love fiddle music. Listen to John Anderson’s song “Seminole Wind” for some of the best.

Sorghum syrup, made from boiling grasslike mountain cane. This was the sweetener for the Appalachian poor, for whom sugar and even honey were out of reach. Mitsouko reminds me of it, in some ways.

Livestock barns at county fairs. That warm animal smell. L'air de Rien (MPG) or Rien, from Etat Libre d’Orange: unsweetened animalics.

Fried apple pie, sold at apple farms. These are a sort of empanada, like a samosa or turnover but with apple-pie filling. Ambre Narguile.

Apple butter, sold in home-canned jars at apple farms. All about cinnamon. Serge Lutens Rousse, pure cinnamon, but it’s in many other amber perfumes.

The resinous smell of pine needles as you walk on them. Parfum d’Empire’s Wazamba, CDG’s Zgorsk. As kids we would scrape pine sap from the trees and roll it into balls -- the stickiest substance on earth, impossible to wash off, but such a wonderful smell.

The rattle of falling nuts and acorns as you walk in the woods; abundance, and survival, for the squirrels and chipmunks.

The perfect gold of hickory leaves and dark brown bark against a blue blue sky.

Big bags of South Georgia pecans for baking, local-grown and reasonable.

Maker's Mark Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey, neat: it’s own perfume.

Piles of hickory nut shells on our stone patio, where the squirrels come to crack them.

The Southern Thanksgiving: corn-bread dressing (never called "stuffing") full of celery, onion, pecans and thyme.

My sweet-potato Thanksgiving casserole with a praline crust (pecans, brown sugar and butter).

Bright red hot peppers, still on the plants.

Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon and a little heat (and maybe a little brandy, too): Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s Chocolate Pimient.

Bags of pine bark mulch to spread over garden beds to warm them in winter.

For other autumn treats take a look at these:

The Non-Blonde

Under The Cupola

Mais que perfume

Ayala Smelly Blog

Savvy Thinker

Notes from the Ledge

Ars Aromatica

Mossy Loomings

I smell therefore I am

Tea Sympathy and Perfume

Perfume Shrine

photo by Olfacta; all rights reserved.

Notes (Not)

There are quite a few fragrance bloggers out there. Many -- well, most -- of them can rattle off “notes” like the rest of the world would make a grocery list. One delicate and refined sniff and...yes, there it is...helional!

I am lousy at this.

It’s not because I haven’t tried. I have. I even have one of those kits which contains a hundred little vials of aromachemicals and natural essences and so forth. The vials are labeled, and alphabetized, and grouped by name in a ceramic chest designed for spices. I was very excited when I got this kit. Finally, I would be one of the Refined Ones, who can tell natural orris root butter from cheap snythetic “iris,” and can also sniff out real ambergris -- not that I ever have; well, maybe I have.

In my brain anyway, this appears to be a retrieval error. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m sniffing. It’s one of those tip-of-the-tongue things. Wait...don’t tell me...damn it, I know what this is, just give me a minute! (Sniffing through the left nostril helps, some. This is, after all, the more verbal side of the brain, the one that likes to go around sticking labels on everything.) Often, I’ll get it after what feels like a century but is probably more like 3 or 4 seconds. Sometimes, though, it takes much more time and sometimes I just can’t get it at all.

This causes me great consternation, because, after all, I’ve been writing this blog for nearly a year and a half and I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.

So, brought to you from the land of cognitive dissonance: (insert sound of trumpets blaring): Maybe it doesn’t matter.

A well-known smell scientist once left me a comment, the gist of which was that olfactary research now is more about the whole picture, the Gestalt if you will, of fragrance, than its deconstruction into “notes.” Well, that was a relief. (Of course, if you’re about to buy perfume, and you want to know more than that stingy little spritz onto a paper strip can tell you -- will it remain a pleasant floral or morph into an elevator-clearing monster? -- then you probably will want to have some idea of its composition; musk, civet, ambergris and tuberose is probably not going to be an office scent. )

You see the same “notes” listed over and over again in the databases. After all, there are only so many fixatives, so many citruses, and so on. It interests me that you can have two perfumes, side by side, with the same notes, and they won’t smell exactly the same. Similar, but not the same. This brings me to the artistry of perfumery. And its comparison to pigment. Ultramarine blue is ultramarine blue, right? Well, no.

It depends on where it was mined, or how it was synthesized; it depends upon the medium in which the pigment is suspended -- polymer resin is very different from oil, and the refractive properties of types of oil vary too. There are “shades” of the blue (rather like flankers in perfume; “red” shade and “green” shade, neither of which is needed -- save your money, painters)! It depends on the whiteness or other color of the background, the ratio of pigment to medium, the brand and dozens of other things. Finally, formulas are proprietary. The manufacturers aren’t going to tell you everything.

Same with fragrance, really.

Now, after all this time of study, I can say, oh, yeah, that’s a musk. This one’s an herbal leather and this one’s a floral leather. Here’s a fougere, a rose soliflore, an old-fashioned civet monster and here’s a jasmine-based floral. And then of course there’s patchouli, which I’m pretty sure I could detect in a lake.

But if someone handed me a scent strip and said “tell me what the first ten ingredients are” I couldn’t do it. Maybe in another, oh, five years or so. It took that long to learn -- really learn -- color.

Many of the memory issues associated with the aging brain are retrieval difficulties. The information is there, but surfaces only with difficulty. It may be that, for me anyway, chasing after “notes” is a waste. But, truth is, I’d rather imagine than deconstruct.

How about you?

Colors of Perfume

The other day I was reading some discussion on Perfume Posse about attributing colors to fragrances. One commenter decided that Mitsouko, for example, would be a bronzy-greenish gold. This inspired me to think some more about fragrance and imaginary links to color.

I’m studying abstract painting at the moment, and working somewhat reluctantly in acrylic, which is essentially pigment suspended in plastic. All kinds of issues come into play when painters talk about acrylic vs. oil. No one can look down their nose at acrylic like an oil painter, and yet there’s no question that acrylic is the medium of our age -- it’s fast, bright, relatively cheap, dries in minutes, and can be used with hundreds of substances, sold separately of course, to tart it up. But it doesn’t have that seductive linseed oil smell. It’s texture is, well, rather unpleasant; sticky, truth be told. It doesn’t dry with that gorgeous depth (which has something to do with the refractive properties of the oil medium.) But it’s fast. You can dash off a painting in the morning, frame it at lunch and sell it by dinner. Now, if that’s not modern I don’t know what is.

However, I digress.

If your perfumes had a color and -- oh, let’s add one more attribute -- if they were rendered in a paint medium, what would that be? I ran down a mental list of some of my favorites.

Shalimar: “Midnight” blue (Prussian blue) in oil
Bal a Versailles: Coral pink, in oil
Miss Balmain: a rosy amber/copper, in acrylic
Odalisque: Celadon, in watercolor
Amouage Lyric for Women: A deep, copper-tinged rose, in oil
Barbara Bui Le Parfum: A creamy white, in acrylic
Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille: dark brown (what else) in oil
Eau Parfumee au Te Vert: a soft, clear blue green, in watercolor
Rosine Poussiere de Rose: a cool blue-rose, in watercolor
Coty L’Aimant Eau de Toilette: a pinky rose, in oil
Chypre de Coty: dark foresty green, in oil
Chanel Coromandel: deep browny maroon, in oil
L’Air du Desert Marocain: bright golden amber, in oil

Color theory is far from simple; there are numerous color “systems” (roughly one for every painter who writes a how-to-understand-color-book). And pigments, like fragrances, tend to be based on synthetics today, with many of the same issues that fragrances have: the difficult sourcing of natural ingredients, and (not this again!) the fact that some of them can be, well, not exactly safe, like the cadmiums and cobalts. However, unlike the fragrance industry, the art supply industry hasn’t enlisted the help of a watchdog organization to do its nannying. Artists often like the natural pigments because of their working properties; opacity, transparency, tinting strength and so on. The synthetics tend to stomp all over everything else on the palette, so, if you’re using a natural like an umber, you have to use just a tiny bit of most of the synthetics in your mixes; otherwise, you won’t even be able to detect the natural pigment’s influence. So, like a perfumer, a painter not only has to understand the materials, but also the proportions at which they influence each other in varying ways.

What “color” are some of your favorite fragrances?



Image of the Munsell Color System-based color wheel from Wikimedia.

In Random Fashion

"What makes you think I'm not interested in fashion?" -- Andy Sachs in "The Devil Wears Prada"

Aging is hell, especially as regards the body. But you knew that. If you don’t already, you will.

Bought the new Vogue (and looked at the new Elle while at the dentist).

Both mags are full of encapsulated scent strips from the big companies, the scents ranging roughly from 1)awful to 2)godawful.

Why is everything so diabetes-inducing, instant-tooth-decay SWEET?
Maybe to offset the still-ever-so au courant multiple tattoos and piercings?

And how about those thigh-high hooker boots in “Vogue?” Like the vinyl ones Julia Roberts wore in “Pretty Woman” only a hundred times more expensive?

Less said the better.

Here’s what fashion mags do for me. They tell me which “vintage” (as in old) clothes that have been buried in my closet, or jewelry tangled in the bottom of the box for twenty years, are coming back again. And I kinda like the layouts.

I saw something on a chefporn show, at a too-hip NY restaurant, where the chef lights dried oak leaves, places the stems in whatever the food is, blows the flames out and delivers the dish with the leaves still smoldering to the diner.

(Better not be any oakmoss on those leaves though.)

Black is the new black: Black Afgano by Nasomatto and Back to Black by Kilian. Former is interesting in that almost-revolting way of the super-niche; the latter, on me, is marzipan-and-powder sweet, a lot like some vintage Habanita I have, but without that one's bitter edge.

Here’s the thing though: that Black Afgano smells more like, um, the oil form than the...well, never mind. Sticky umber tar, iron wood, camel dung and kif, don’t-think-about-what’s-in-it nostalgia time; hello 1972!

I have a handful of Shalimar samples, from many vintages and in many formulations, and one of these days I’m actually going to get around to comparing them.

A kindly swapper in Latvia sent me a decant of “Explosive” by Etienne Aigner. Man. Rich, deep rose and dark and dirty base; I am so there. Notes include the usual suspects (patchouli, amber, moss.) One of those “Get out of my way!” 80’s fragrances. Discontinued, of course. Here we go again.

Eureka! I have found my floral. It’s “Odalisque,” from Parfums de Nicolai. Tropical. Not too sweet. Jasmine and iris and an edgy dark green note. Lasts, too. OK, so it’s not The Latest Thing. Neither am I.

So: What makes you think I’m not interested in fashion?




photo of Anne Hathaway in "The Devil Wears Prada" from AllMoviePhoto.com.

Change

Have you ever changed your ISP? Then you know that there are around 15,000 of your outposts on the web which require sudden and meticulous attention. So please forgive me for not writing anything until, oh, probably around the end of this week. Detail occludes my creative process, so to speak.

p.s. Bye-bye Comcast!


photo copyright Ray22, used under license from Dreamstime.com.

Market Driven

Wondering why more and more mainstream fragrances keep getting worse and worse?

In this article, Chandler Burr discusses the not-so-new technology and sales survey methods that have been tailored to the fragrance industry in recent years.

Hmmmm. I have a hunch. (A “hunch” by my definition is a mysterious process by which a human mind -- one human, ideally -- will put together a vague, amorphous idea or decision, based on knowledge gleaned from different disciplines, along with specialized experience and a little time to think.) “Hunches,” aka “creativity,” are where the good stuff comes from -- or did, once.

I worked in the late, lamented music business, leaving it as it abandoned its own lifeblood: the discovery of new, the cultural catalyst, by way of the hunch. It’s now the realm of marketeers, focus groups, lawyers and bean-counters. I can’t help but see many parallels between that now-moribund business and the modern fragrance industry.

The first clang of music’s funeral bell was “Soundscan,” a Neilsen-owned ratings system whereby actual sales figures could be transmitted to subscribers from cash registers, instead of depending on verbal or written reports from stores. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s all just product, right?

Not necessarily. The reporting process bought time. It was essential to what was called “artist development,” which gave the artists some room to, well, develop; to get better, in other words. Groundbreaking talent was given time by way of a certain amount of industry hyping. Clerks had time to talk up good music and play it in the store. The ground was laid at the niche outlets, and only then was it taken to mainstream. All of this gave authentic word-of-mouth time to spread, which could take years. Now, it’s all about how many units sold last week.

Madonna is one example. Her first record was in the process of failing spectacularly, because only “urban” (read: black) radio would play it -- she sounded black on that album -- but, when they discovered she wasn’t, they backed off. “Pop” (read: white) radio wouldn’t play her because they thought she sounded too black. It was a social, and commercial, Catch-22.

The president of Madonna’s label wasn’t willing to give up on her that easily. He’d had a hunch about this snotty girl. He instructed everyone: keep trying. Don’t take “no.” Call in your favors. Buy some time while we figure out what to do. And during that time -- a few months -- the “Lucky Star” video appeared, and the nascent MTV began playing it. Within a year, Madonna was the biggest star in the world.

What would happen now?

That first record would have died. No one would know it had ever existed. It would slip into the not-urban not-pop chasm without a sound. Without impressive Soundscan figures, the corporate Suits would have forbidden any more spending. No more videos, no tour, no appearances. At the next marketing meeting -- four weeks later -- the record would have been declared a “stiff.” Next!

This dragon-swallowing-its-own-tail strategy of selling only what has already sold has been responsible, imho, for the rise of so much shoddy, market-driven music.

(If Madonna isn’t your favorite example of success based on a hunch, consider Bruce Springsteen: both of his first two records stiffed and the overheated p.r. for the third -- “Born to Run” -- caused a consumer backlash that took years to fade. Still, Springsteen’s label stuck with him, because the man who found him had time to keep the Suits at bay. Today, Bruce would be driving a truck.)

The Burr article says also that this polling research -- which includes exit polling on why-did-you-buy -- is expensive, so much so that only the big boys can afford it. The retailers, of course, want to minimize their risk; they want those sales figures and will only deal with manufacturers who can supply them. This neatly cuts out the innovative, the niche, the indie, the hunch.

Furthermore, once there is a chart, everybody wants to be on it; this company, NPD, has established a “Top 100” (sound familiar)? To get on this Top 100 list, companies will do whatever it takes, including more trade and consumer advertising, more point-of-purchase, celebrity shills, whatever; the money has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from? The cost of production, of course! The quality of the ingredients that can be used, in other words, to make the fragrance itself. Expensive, hard-to-source ingredients are doomed. Well, they were anyway; as of the reformulation deadline, January 2010, the bean-counters will have had their way, all in the name of protecting...us. It’s pretty impressive, when you think about it.

Market-driven: right into the ground.

It’s not just fragrance, or music, or movies. It’s everything.

Why did we become so afraid to take a chance?





*you may have to register with the New York Times to access the article. It’s free, and if you don’t like giving them your demographic info, hey...just make the stuff up.

Photo composite by Olfacta; all rights reserved.

Sights and Smells: Venice Beach, California

For photos illustrating this post, go here.


When I began going to Venice Beach some time in the mid-Seventies, it was struggling against the ruins of 60’s peace ‘n’ love; druggy, dirty, dangerous and filled with vagrants. Every vestibule reeked of stale urine, and was often occupied by someone living in a cardboard box. Paint peeled off the buildings in sheets and sometimes windows fell out of their casements. Trash blew along the boardwalk like tumbleweeds. Coming out of a tavern off the pier once, I saw a coyote trotting down Washington. He was retaking an old territory.

But there was a vitality and realness to it all. There were still artists’ studios on Market Street then. There was the restaurant without a name near Pacific and Windward, immortalized by the Doors song “Soul Kitchen,” where you could get really good food -- breakfast or meat & three -- for a couple of dollars. We were eating there the day I saw my first corpse. The coroner’s van pulled up in front of an old bungalow across the street, and presently they brought out the body of a fortyish man, bearded and cyanotic, not bothering to cover him. We shrugged and went on eating our eggs -- some junkie’s death -- but I never forgot it.

I didn’t actually go to the beach in those days, just hung around the boardwalk area, taking hundreds of photographs which I can’t find now, drinking coffee at the Sidewalk Cafe, or just walking around. It wasn’t until later, during the ’84 Olympics, that I actually lay on the beach with towel and sunscreen. It became The Thing to Do during those two weeks, because so many foreign women sunbathed topless, as at home, and the American girls followed suit. If the cops rousted you, you simply pretended that you didn’t speak English and didn’t understand them. Pretty soon, they gave up.

Anyway, we went down to Venice on a Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It’s been about twenty years for me.

It is, thankfully, still tattered. But it seems that the whole place has become a sort of show. I’m not sure who the target audience is, but I suspect that it might be me.

As I looked around, I realized that just about everyone promenading up and down the boardwalk was some sort of mark. The bands were playing for them; the guy who snaps a mousetrap onto his tongue was performing for them. Even the “kick me” guy was there for them, I mean...us.

It’s not as though there weren’t street performers years ago, or trinkets vendors, or freaks. It’s just that these were professional freaks. People who made their livings as freaks. And I, once a participant, had become an observer.

One thing hadn’t changed much: the smells. Clouds of incense, rolling out of stores and vans. Patchouli oil-scented skin. Pot. A group of guys walked ahead of us, smoking a blunt, right out on the street, and why not? (It’s practically legal -- there’s even a storefront doctor’s office where one can procure, or so I’m told, a pot prescription, for any number of vague ailments.) Sunscreen. Stale urine -- ah, Venice! -- and overflowing trash bins. Dreadlocked hair. B.O. in every strength and variety. County-fair food from the stalls and restaurants.

Even blind, I would have known exactly where I was.

With eyes wide open, though, I could see that they’ve extended the vending area out onto the sand, and that these new vendors have tents like at art fairs. I could see a sign advertising an apartment Jim Morrison had once lived in (step right up!) as a tourist attraction. A sign advertising the “Venice Freak Show.” Another sign that said “Venice Beach parking $20.”

Not much was the same. Some of the street performers. And the smells.

I think that we use scents as references because, in a way, we have to. The visuals change so quickly now, faster and faster. It is scent that slows down time, reminds us in that incomparably visceral way that we’re still here, that the past did exist, that it's there to be called upon, and it’s free.



Photos by KM Borow, all rights reserved.

Lax

Home from an exhausting trip (is there any other kind now?)

I've been lax lately. End-of-summer doldrums, when you're waiting. Waiting for something to wake you up.

Some of my perfumes have been giving me interesting thoughts, stream-of-consciousness and dreamlike.

Let's start with some cognitive dissonance, shall we?

Barbara Bui Le Parfum:

Now I know what lactonic means. I like it, I think. I mean, I just bought a full bottle. Of course, it was only $25. And I don't have anything like it. A big gap in my FB collection: no musky scents. It was supposed to be an Oriental though. Is it? I should know this, but I don't. I mean, I did sample before buying. But it was a recent blog entry (someone else's) that pushed me over. Hardly ever happens. Fer chrissakes it was only $25! Layering? Will soften some of those hard chypres I adore? Time to get creative. Yeah, creative: I love this.

And a fragrance-induced flashback:

Vintage My Sin:

So Mad Men. A room full of wives, circa 1960, the Officers' Club at Tachikawa Air Force Base, Tokyo, Japan. Women in brocade cocktail dresses and Mikkimoto pearls and mink stoles. I'm 8, staring up at them in wonderment. It came to me at first sniff. My Sin: a mink stole in a bottle.


Four New Loves:

Rosine Rose d'Homme:

So good I want to drink it. Earth and patch and spice and rose.


Amouage Lyric:

The magic carpet ride. How could anything on earth be this lush and decadent? Help me somebody! I had to own this. Have I reached perfume Nirvana? Will anything ever smell this good again? Where do I go from here?


Anais Anais:

A rack full of gauzy David Hamilton photographs of young girls. In vaguely sapphic poses. In a railroad station in France, circa 1975. I gave some to a friend's daughter for her birthday. She'll probably trade it for some Jessica Simpson, but anyway, I tried.

Opium (a rediscovery):

I wear it to sleep. To dream in color.

Perfume Shopping: Los Angeles

I’ve just returned from StyleeCity, where I spent my misspent youth and then some. It wasn’t what you’d call a fun trip, as we were visiting my very ill father-in-law, but I was able to make one trip to the ScentBar, one of those Meccas we all have to make the perfume pilgrimage to sooner or later, no?

I’d like to think Atlanta could support a place like this, but culturally speaking, this is a city of tradition, not innovation. There are two kinds of people here -- the natives and the Not From Heres. The natives, those who can afford good perfume, tend to be somewhat conservative, in everything; my guess is that much fragrance here is bought as gifts, which makes this very much a Chanel town.

The Not From Heres, which comprise about 60% of the population, depending on where you live, well, who cares about them? (Now, c’mon, you know I don’t mean that.) We get the Rust Belt refugees here, lots of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Detroit. Lots of Boston, an uncomfortably high percentage of whom can’t believe they ever left their beloved Beantown and proclaim that fact often. We get some New York, bicoastals who tend to eat, speak, walk, drive and leave quickly. We get many Twenties from the rest of the South, recent grads of the big state schools for whom Biloxi or Montgomery just wasn’t enough but L.A. or New York would be too much. And we get corporate transplants from all over the place, roaring through our cookie-cutter ‘burbs in their big SUV’s. They don’t make such great neighbors, by the way.

Had I walked into the ScentBar in my pre-perfume days, I might have been intimidated. First, I wouldn’t have recognized well, anything. It’s mostly niche and indie. Kind of like one of those old too-hip record stores, but prettier. It’s small, just a storefront really, with one person behind the counter. Second, I will say that the person that day could’ve been a little more friendly, but, hey, it could be that I’ve gotten used to Southern manners. Finally, there’s that thousand-watt, clear Los Angeles light, which pours into the place like water, making the bottles glow, meanwhile illuminating one’s own imperfections without mercy. (L.A. homes tend to be filled with mirrors, so the Angelenos are used to that.)

But oh, what a perfume paradise it is. There are the Serges, trays of full bottles for testing. And it’s okay to test scents on skin! There’s a tray of Kenzo, and another of Etat Libre scents. More trays and beautiful bottles everywhere. A database the SA can use to tell you what the notes of any scent are, and, best of all, she’s unobtrusive unless engaged. And they have so many scents I’ve been dying to try. Sublime Balkiss, by TDC, was a standout for me; so was Rien, from Etat Libre d’Orange, and Jasmine et Cigarette. I wish I’d had my notebook; I wish my online perfumista pal had been able to meet me there (car problems). I wish I’d been able to spend the afternoon, or week, or month or year, there.

What did I buy? Amouage Lyric for women, 50 mls, the one I’ve been saving my pennies for (many, many pennies, but you knew that). I probably could’ve gotten this elixir of the Gods cheaper somewhere else, online, but we need to support these places. And, since we have no brick’n’mortars like this in Atlanta, I chose to buy my Amouage (Happy Birthday to me, in, oh, a few months) there. And the SA got friendlier -- a lot friendlier -- after that. I asked her, what did she think the new trends would be? She thought awhile. “Natural,” she finally said. “Natural essences.”

Do we hope she’s right? Pure naturals don’t last on me. But we’ll see.

I hope this is the future of perfume retailing, that there will be enough people to keep places like this alive. It’s not exactly in a low-rent neighborhood, right down the street from the Beverly Center. They must have to sell a lot of fragrance to survive. I hope they do.



The photo is of a postcard from the ScentBar.

The ScentBar’s address is 8327 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, or online at LuckyScent.com. (No affiliation, honest!)

Amouage Lyric for Women is a beyond-sumptuous blend of dark rose, spice and frankincense, made in Oman and available at a select few fragrance retailers and online sites.


p.s.: Regarding my vintage Mitsouko drawing: in my haste to leave town, I goofed and made my deadline for hearing from the contest winner April 26 instead of August 26. I still haven’t heard from the winner, but, to be fair, I need to extend that deadline to September 9th. Winner, where are you? You have until September 9th, midnight US EDT; after that I’ll pick another winner (using my old fave random.org, of course.)