A Promising Development: Atelier Cologne

Presentation means a lot, don't you think?

When looking through my samples haul from Sniffapalooza, the one package that caught my eye most came from the French company Atelier Cologne. Wrapped up in glassine and tied with a purple satin ribbon was a series of five post cards, in individual envelopes, each containing a generous sample. 

Most of the time, samples are given with a little card, if that, and not much else. A list of “notes” doesn’t mean much, as they are often couched in overblown phraseology like “gentle white woods in the rain” or “a rainy spring day in Monet's garden."

Whatever. 

These are different. Each postcard is a scenario, a desk or tabletop. A collection of objects, designed to evoke a time and place, and to give information about the scent. There are five of these colognes, and the cards convey a the idea of a journey. Brevity allows me to show just one of the cards here: “Oolang Infinity” (image above).

Here we see an antique typewriter, on which someone has been writing a script or play in an old-fashioned serif font. A leather-bound notebook and horn-rimmed reading glasses. A glass of whiskey, with ice. Fountain pens. Bowls of potpourri, or possibly tea. A passport wallet, tarnished silver objects, a blue light bulb. Folios, cards, paper. And -- almost as an afterthought -- a bottle of cologne, just one of the objects, a supporting player, not the star. A writer’s desk from another time. 

The fragrance itself is an exploration of, as the name says, Oolang tea. It’s strong, laced generously with bergamot and neroli, but not musky like Earl Grey. This is a cup of tea meant to wake you up, get the juices going, as they say, to be used as a writer uses tea or coffee. Very Anglo, manly, colonial: Rudyard Kipling’s desk. (Not sure what the blue light bulb is about, though -- any guesses?)

Each of the five fragrances has, as its calling card, one of these scenarios. For “Orange Sanguine,” which opens with perfect replication of a jug of fresh orange juice, it’s a breakfast table at an Italian seaside villa -- shells, starfish, coral, driftwood -- and a yo-yo, another odd object to guess about. Tea, again; a postcard with a scene of an Italian fishing village. For “Bois Blonds,” we see an antique movie camera, a compass, very old binoculars, a map, dice: an explorer’s belongings. The scent is of sweet tropical woods, a bit of incense, orange flower and vetiver. For “Grand Neroli,” the most feminine of the scents, a bohemian woman’s vanity table: an antique mirror with rococo frame, flowers, shells, silver-topped powder jar, whimsical ceramic Siamese cat. The scent is a mix of citrus, orange blossom and a little amber, reminiscent to me of a morning in Redondo Beach, the water still placid but the sun already strong. “Tréfle Pur” is shown to us with a tabletop, an antique photo, sprays of ivy, a silver hurricane lamp, pressed fern frond in a frame, stuffed tropical bird, old books; the scent (“trèfle” is French for “clover”) a bracing green tonic. It’s violet leaves, new-mown grass, bitter orange, spices, moss and musk.

I love these postcards, and the scents. They’re as refreshing as the visual concept. They’re obviously made with fine, some natural, ingredients -- the website says “Grasse-sourced” -- and, for colognes, long-lasting, even on my skin. 

I wish all perfumes were presented this way. I’m really tired -- and I bet you are, too -- of perfume advertising consisting of silly posed supermodels and pouting, staring celebs. Spare me! This is the art of fragrance, presented as, well, art. Beautiful objects painting a portrait, not just of a smell, but of an imaginary wearer, a touch on a shoulder, not a hammer to the skull. I hope we’ll see more ideas like this.

The details:

The postcards were conceived and assembled by Nathalie Cassegrain, a set designer, and photographed by David Meredith.

These “cologne absolues” are prepared in 12 to 20% concentration, quite high for cologne, yet the prices are reasonable: between $145 - $175 for 200 mls. (That's right: 200.) All are unisex. 

Notes include:

For “Oolang Infiniti”: bergamot, oolang tea, tobacco, jasmine, guaic wood, “blond leather,” vetiver. Perfumer: Jerome Epinette (Byredo’s “Bal d’Afrique” and “Gypsy Water.”)

For “Trèful Pur”: violet leaf, freshly cut grass, clover, bitter orange, cardamom, neroli, “Patchouli Moss,” basil. Perfumer: Jerome Epinette.

“Bois Blond”: “unique and precious woods,” incense, orange flower, vetiver, neroli, pink pepper, musk. Perfumer: Jerome Epinette.

“Grand Neroli”: orange blossom, musks, petitgrain, bergamot, galbanum, vanilla, neroli, birch leaf, “white amber.” Perfumer: Cecile Krakower (Mane Yu, and, er, Paris Hilton “Fairy Dust.”)

“Orange Sanguine”: orange, orange peel, geranium, jasmine, “amber woods,” tonka bean, sandalwood. Perfumer: Ralf Schwerger (Malle’s “Lipstick Rose,” Hermes “eau de Merveilles” (with Nathalie Feisthauer) and the currently controversial "M Mink," for Byredo.

Disclosure: I got this package at Sniffapalooza Fall Ball 2010.

The Sleeper Series: "Oro" by Roberto Cavalli

Last week, one of my PPP’s (Perfume Pen Pals), a fellow blogger, sent me some samples. One of the sprayers leaked just a  bit, as happens sometimes. The names written on the sprayers had been rinsed off, so I had myself a little blind sniff-fest. 

One of the unknowns gave me that experience we crave -- let’s call it the ohmygodwhatisthis! reaction. Well, I thought, well, whatever it is, it’s gotta be rare and/or expensive and, since I’m saving my nickels dollars American Express card for Sniffapalooza, maybe I’d be better off not knowing. But curiosity got the best of me. I e-mailed my PPP and she told me it was “Oro,” by Roberto Cavalli, and that the perfumer was Maurice Roucel, and that everybody to whom she’d sent samples had had similar reactions to mine, and that it was a mystery that this scent hadn’t done better and oh by the way the discounters have it.

That last one did it.

I decided to open the “Sleeper Series” with Oro because a.) I lurve it and b.) it’s got vanilla, the ultimate comfort note and c.) it’s a “sleeper,” all right and d.) it’s inexpensive enough to spray all over yourself before bed, if you’re so inclined. 

I save the little vials and decants I get for wearing during the day or when I go out. For me, a fragrance has to have the following requirements to attain Sleeper status: I need to own at least 8 mls of it, because bedtime is my favorite time to overapply. I like it to be lush -- the orientals are my favorite sleepers, followed by kick-butt florals, then ambers and woods. Mr. Olfacta has to like it -- he can always be counted on to tell me what he really thinks of any scent. The sleepers make the bedroom smell wonderful. I drift off each night in a state of olfactory euphoria.

“Oro” came out in 2004. It’s so obscure now that I couldn’t find a single comprehensive review. It appears that the Roberto Cavalli fragrance line has been or is about to be sold to Coty, which may be why so many discounters have it this version. Alright already, what does it smell like?

Lush and gorgeous. 

The funny thing is that the notes I found listed include some I usually don’t care for, like magnolia. The “official” notes include magnolia, as well as coriander, orris and pepper. (Mr. Olfacta said it smelled “powdery,” but I don’t smell that.) It also contains patchouli and cedar, the latter of which usually blows up on me to hamster-cage levels, but not from this. 

“Oro,” which means gold in a few languages, is sometimes classified as a “spicy oriental” and sometimes as a “fruity oriental.” I think it’s more fruity than spicy. I could swear there’s mandarin, but it’s not listed. Cinnamon is, although it’s faint. Here’s what I smell: a series of liqueur-soaked and peppered exotic fruits and ambers and a big vanillic drydown, which lasts all night. But it’s so well-mixed that I’m at a loss as to identifying many of the “notes.” No matter, really.

I guess that fragrance marketing is similar to other forms of marketing. Classifiability is key. I cannot fit this fragrance into a little neatly-labeled category. (Actually, I could barely fit the bottle into my cabinet, as it’s about a foot tall and a couple of inches wide at the ends, like a stretched-out hourglass, with a little gold plastic snake coiled around the sprayer at the top.) Could it have been the bottle, perhaps, that did it? It’s a masterpiece of ironic tack; maybe it was a joke nobody got.

But odd bottles don’t bother me, since I can’t see them anyway. I keep perfume bottled in clear glass inside a closed cabinet. And I really wouldn’t care what kind of bottle this one comes in. It’s a keeper.

This is what I love most about my little hobby. Finding something like this, that I adore, at the recommendation of someone whose taste I trust. And then discovering that it’s discounted. Deeply. I mean, I expect a $300 bottle of Amouge to send me. It had better! I expect the grand masters of perfumery to concoct memorable scents, worth their high prices. But this, from one of those grand masters, Roucel, can be had for the price of a nice lunch with a glass or two of wine. 

Want to try some? Leave a comment. Do you sleep perfumed, and if so, in what?  I’ll do a random drawing for a generous sample, and announce the winner after the deadline, which will be Tuesday, October 12, at 9:00 a.m. US Eastern Daylight time.

Maurice Roucel, winner of the Prix François Coty in 2002, is the perfumer behind Musk Ravageur for Frederic Malle, Iris Silver Mist for Serge Lutens and Tocade, for Rochas, and many others.

“Notes” for Oro (from Fragrantica) include magnolia, coriander, orris, pepper, apple and bergamot; middle notes are apricot, patchouli, cinnamon, freesia and cedar; base notes are sandalwood, amber, musk, vanilla and guaiac wood.

Image from Google Images, original source diva-passionata.blogspot.com.

Full disclosure time: I bought my bottle from an online discount site.

The Day

 

The light begins to bend differently around mid-August here. It’s still hot, with bugs and humidity, but I’ll be driving somewhere and will suddenly notice that the trees look different. The sun’s position has changed (okay, to be perfectly accurate, the earth’s has). There is more refraction, longer rays of light bending toward the yellow end of the color spectrum, and so the leaves reflect a warmer green.

 “The Day” is what I call that first breath of autumn, an afternoon when I realize that the humidity is gone and won’t be back for awhile, when the winds stop blowing moisture up from the Gulf and start blowing cool air down from Canada. Not much is certain these days, but this is. 

Not too long ago, a commenter here mentioned seeing a lot of “ennui” on the perfume blogs and forums. It is true that there haven’t been many great releases lately, and the new Bleu de Chanel has disappointed several reviewers I follow, with its apparent pandering to the men’s mass-market (can you say dihydromercanol? No? Me neither.) I wonder what similar delights are coming next. Times like this send me back to the back of my cabinet. I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one. I’m seeing lots of classics and forgotten treasures on the other perfume blogs. It’s a welcome development, I believe. There is so much out there that deserves attention, and certainly isn’t getting any from the popular press.

Exploring the glimmers deep inside my own perfume cabinet, I found three scents that seem perfect for this time of year. Two are fairly obscure and one is really obscure. 

Opium Fleur de Shanghai: This one is discontinued, which is good news. I love discontinued. I know it’s going to be an older, or maybe even the original, formula; no chance that I’ll encounter another disappointing reformulation. This is a 2005 “special release,” designed for warmer weather, full of magnolia, a bit of star jasmine (which is subtle) and mandarin, which gives it a slight fruit note. The Opium base -- carnation/clove, myrrh and patchouli -- is there, but it’s a whisper. I’ve heard that Opium EDT -- the real thing, not the new one -- can be a good summer fragrance, but I can’t imagine wearing it in our July humidity. In this fragrance, though, the florals and earthy base balance each other perfectly. Not too sweet, not too heavy, comes in a big bottle, designed to spray lavishly: the perfect September fragrance. Best of all, there seems to be plenty to go around. I bought my 100 ml bottle for less than $40, on fleabay. I have not been able to find out who the perfumer was, but the house is Yves St. Laurent.

Rose d’Homme: OK, so it’s a men’s fragrance. And? Perhaps there will come a day when American guys feel secure enough in the ol’ masculinity department to wear a rose-based scent. In the meantime, I’ll continue to hijack this one. It’s one of those that thrill me when I smell it. Lots of bergamot up front, and the notes from Rosine’s website mention vetiver, a “lavender base,” tangerine, herbals and leather. I get a woody, patchouli-laced rose, and it is divine. It’s a perfect late fall scent, more November than September. Not for patchouli-averse though; I’d say that, in the drydown, patch is the dominant note. The perfumers are the Rosine team of Marie-Helene Rogeon and Francois Robert. Not discontinued, but certainly not commonplace. Not exactly a bargain, but I’ve seen 50 mls for less than $75 online. I bought my bottle from LuckyScent, last year. From Les Parfums de Rosine.

Halston Couture: This is a very obscure and challenging fragrance. Of all the perfumes I’ve ever tried, it is by far the driest, the boniest, the mossiest. Do you like galbanum, that cracked-green-leaves essence? It’s here, along with a ton of oakmoss. There’s musk, too (not much), and bergamot, and, although the notes list jasmine, I don’t smell any. I do smell the marigold and carnation, though. This is a take-no-prisoners spicy, bitter green chypre. The closest relative I know of would be Jacomo’s bitter green “Silences.”  This is Silences on steroids.

I’ve started experimenting with this fragrance, using it as a base for oils that might just be a little too cloying, or florals that are too sweet, to construct a chypre with floral notes. I think it would be a great man’s scent, too -- although, for all I know it might have been one. Perfumer? Who knows? Released in 1987 or 88 (indexes vary) It comes in the Halston bottle -- the off-kilter, Elsa Peretti one -- except that the glass is frosted and the top is silver, which tarnishes, so we know it’s real. Discontinued of course -- this much oakmoss would make the entire IFRA faint -- but widely available on fleabay, usually for less than $30, which is how I got mine. Perfect for early fall, when it’s often still hot. Strong. Lasts. Not for the timid. 

A few other transitional scents that seem “right” to me in fall: Eau de Rochas, with its unlikely mix of citrus and patchouli; Nuits de Hadrien (Annick Goutal) with its peppery ginger opening, and Anya’s Garden “Kewdra,” with its spice and warmth. What are yours?

I’m curious: do you layer and mix a lot? It seems that the transition seasons bring out the tinkerer in me. A little of this, a little of that; sometimes mixed, sometimes just applied on different places; do summer scents layered with winter ones equal autumn? What do you think? Let me know in a comment. I’ll pick a winner at random and announce the results in two weeks, on Tuesday, Sept. 14th,  for a generous sample of each of these fragrances.

Photo: © Miklav | Dreamstime.com

From The Archives: Three from the Mass Market, at random

I'm taking a couple of weeks off to work on another project. In the meantime, here's another post from Year One. Back with an original, next week!



Today I went to the dentist, where I was told that I'll need several root canals soon, oh, joy. So I decided to go to a nearby Ulta  for some perfume therapy, and to check out the scents of the mass-market world.


I'm no niche snob, at least not yet. I think most perfumes, when you get right down to it, smell pretty good. (I mean, what’s not to like?) But now, I'm a budding perfuminista. I've wondered lately how my own attitudes toward all these focus-grouped, product-managed, M.B.A.-analyzed fragrances might have changed.


So I walked up and down the aisle, picking up bottles, spraying and labeling those handy little strips. (I wanted to collect some samples, too, for skin testing later on. But even though I had the vials with me, the lone SA acted as though I had asked to leave a vial of, oh, anthrax, with her.) So no go on that, missy! ) These scents were tested, as is the modern custom, on paper.


Came home, threw the dozen or so strips like the I Ching (see picture,) closed my eyes and picked up three of them. The lucky winners were:



L’Eau de Issey by Issey Miyake. Nice. Floral. Safe, wouldn’t offend anybody. Hmmm, tuberose and…is that freesia? Or gardenia? Maybe violet?


So off I go to the blogs and discount sites, only to find the most maddening array of sound-alike shelf-space taker-uppers…ever. I mean there’s Summer and L’Eau Bleue d’Issey Eau Fraiche (andpour Homme) and L’Eau de Issey Pour Homme, and, ok, now I’m confused. I guess they do this because, if you like one of them, you’ll simply have to have them all…and also for your spouse or partner or whatever? And there won’t be room on the shelf for anybody else’s product? Yeah, that could be it.


“L'Eau d'Issey for Women has notes of green leaves, rose water, freesia, neroli, blackcurrant, lily of the valley, peony, tuberose, and parma violet.” – Now Smell This. 


White Linen by Estee Lauder. I’ve heard this described as “clean sheets and money.” It’s got that perfume-y Estee Lauder quality, for sure. Certainly, it’s the most challenging of the three. Lots of aldehydes, and I can smell a little rose and some greens and violets, but it reminds me, more than anything else, of a really first-rate laundry detergent. Well-named.


The notes include: Bulgarian rose, jasmine, mugnet, violet, orris, vetiver, and moss.


Voile de Jasmin by Bulgari. By the time I got this home, it was gone. (And we are talking maybe one hour.) I remember a bit of an undertone characteristic of the other Bulgari scents I have. WTF?

Well, I’m pretty sure it had some jasmine in it anyway. Notes (from Now Smell This) include: “living jasmine sambac, bergamot, orange blossom, rosewood, ylang ylang, living mimosa and living rose.” (Italics mine.)

Hunh? What’s this mean, “living” jasmine sambac, rose, mimosa? More marketing? I give up.

Conclusion: all the ranting and raving about the way perfumes are marketed in the U.S. now is perfectly illustrated in this one twenty-minute stop I made. Think I’ll stick with online for now.

And you know what? Yatagan’s not so bad.

Scents of the Mediterranean, The World Over - A Group Blog

Leave a comment -- you'll be eligible to win a generous sample of "Agent Provocateur" (see last post for details)

The Mediterranean, you say? The Mediterranean region is where the rest of the western world was born.

Greece, Italy, the coast of France; the coast of Spain (as far as Gibraltar, technically) -- North Africa, too. What unites all these regions besides their proximity to the Mediterranean Sea? The sun. All of them bake in unrelenting sun and the arid air it produces. That dry air concentrates aroma and flavor in just about everything. The heat forces you to slow down and notice.

I haven’t been to Greece or Italy in a long time, but spent many months traveling around the Mediterranean area as a student. I felt instantly comfortable there, much more so than in the damp Northern countries, and remember the foods most of all -- feta cheese, soft fat olives and their green oil, crimson blood oranges -- that we would buy at the street markets, as we didn’t have enough money for restaurants. I realize now that we were fortunate, going from one stall to another selecting culinary jewels. Just-baked breads, a hundred cheeses from which to choose, perfectly cured meats -- this taught me, an American raised on white bread, how to eat. How to love inky local wine and coffee you could stand a spoon in. I do it to this day, shunning supermarkets for farmers’ markets.

The smells I experienced in those travels were those of the streets -- not always pleasant but certainly memorable. Old sewers, diesel exhaust and dust in the cities; wild herbs and aromatic plants while walking in the hills in Greece. I realize now that these herbs and resins form a basis of modern perfumery; labdanum, opopanax, lavender, thyme. Serge Lutens “Ambre Sultan” reminds me of those walks, as it combines the resins with the herbs and is sweet but a little sharp, too, like thorns. I’m also a fan of are “Labdanum 18,” from Le Labo, and Anyas Garden’s “Pan,” a natural perfume of unsweetened resins, tincture of goat hair -- the original labdanum gathering method was by combing the hair of billy goats to obtain the sticky resin -- patchouli, and lavender from Seville.

A.k.a. Sevilla. (Spain is the one Mediterranean country I know well. My parents lived there for a long time, and I would go and live with them, and have been back since then.) You might think, Seville, oranges, but not just those. One of my favorite foods there was the traditional “Espinacas con Garbanzos,” served as a tapa or a ración (larger than a tapa, smaller than dinner) in the tascas, the cafe-bars. Like perfume, it contains much history. It’s spinach (my guess is that the earliest versions used bitter wild greens) combined with fried chickpeas, originally from North Africa, along with a paste made of toasted bread crumbs, garlic, vinegar and salt -- straight from the Romans. Vinegar, crushed bread, garlic and almonds formed the first gazpachos, too. (Tomatoes, a new world vegetable, came later.) You can still get almond-based white gazpacho at a few places in southern Spain.

 Spain has it’s Myurgia, but what I remember most about daily life scents was simply known as “limón.” In the sweltering Madrid summers, it was everywhere. The subway reeked of limón and old sweat. Limón was sweeter and cheaper than 4711, which I still use to cool off. My current favorite citrus, O de Lancome, adds herbs and clean musk. (My favorite after-dinner digestif, by the way, is the Italian cure-all, Limoncello, the bottle kept in the freezer for warm summer nights. It’s like drinking citrus cologne.)

“Femme,” especially the current version, reminds me of Oloroso sherry. That’s the sweetest, darkest kind, drunk after dinner. It’s most definitely not the fortified “Cream Sherry” Spain exports by the ton. It’s hard to find sometimes, but the good ones have a plum/prune note, like Femme, as though they share some kind of history. 

As for saffron, that’s a whole other post. I have some saffron attar, which I plan to write about. Even mixed 10:1 with Jojoba oil, it’s hugely strong and, well, not all that pleasant; mix it with jasmine, or rose, though, and it blooms. Rosine’s “Rose Kashmire” expresses that idea in a high register, “Agent Provocateur” in a lower one, Donna Karan’s “Black Cashmere” in an even lower one.

Food, too. Paella, really, is no big deal. In Spain, it’s what you eat at the beach. Here is my paella base: 1 red bell pepper, 1 sweet onion, chopped and sauteed in (lots of) olive oil; chicken broth and rice (3 cups broth to one and a half cups rice) and ground saffron threads, about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon. Add the uncooked dry rice to the vegetable and oil mixture after the vegetables have softened; saute until it is browning and smells nutty. Add the saffton to the broth, and pour over it and stir. Then you can put in whatever meats or seafoods (add those at the end) make you happy. Or nothing -- this is good as a special side dish.

Finally, opopanax. Many of the amber based fragrances feature this tree resin, also known as sweet myrrh. Diptyque makes a room spray called  -- you guessed it -- “Opopanax.” It comes in a great big relatively inexpensive bottle and, sure, you can use it to scent a room, but also to scent your clothing, bed linens and you. (Thank you Elena!) 

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of Mediterranean scents. Maybe a 50-volume encyclopedia? Yeah. That might do it.

Good thing all these other fine bloggers are involved!

Thanks to Ines and Elena for putting this together. Be sure to visit the other participating blogs, which are:

Bonkers About Perfume

I Smell Therefore I Am

Notes From the Ledge

Perfume Journal

The Non-Blonde

Waft by Carol

Hortus Conclusus

A Rose Beyond the Thames

Smelly Blog

Katie Puckrik Smells

Sonoma Scent


Illuminated Perfume Journal

Scent Hive

Perfume Shrine


All I Am - a Redhead

Under The Cupola

Cheap

A reminder: the drawing for the "Breath of God" sample ends Wednesday, May 6th, US midnight EDT. Commenters will be automatically entered, so get your comments in now!


Am I cheap?

Been shopping lately. (Perhaps this should be posed in the form of a question.) Been shopping lately?

Since the whole IFRA thing -- relax, no more rants, we’ve done what we can do -- I’ve been thinking that I really should make sure I have all the old chypres and florals and so on that I’ve meant to buy one of these days, because who knows for how long I’ll be able to get them. So, off to fleabay and the discounters. Last week I bought -- roughly -- five or six full bottles. They were: vintage Woodhue, a drugstore classic my mother wore in the daytime. EL’s Knowing, a floral chypre that I can’t help but love even though I don’t even like most Lauder scents. Halston Couture, on a recommendation from a perfume buddy. It’s vintage by default, as it’s not made anymore. Patou 1000 EDP, also vintage. Madame Rochas (modern) an aldehydic floral, office-appropriate and pleasant. Vintage Intimate, another chypre; I wore this in high school, before I knew what a “chypre” was. A vintage tester of “First,” by Van Cleef & Arpels, Jean-Claude Ellena’s first professional product, as far as I know.The cost of all these added together would still be less -- a lot less -- than one 50 ml bottle of a Lutens or Luxe or, God forbid, Amourage. But Ubar does sound so interesting, doesn’t it?

I’m pretty happy with most of these. The Woodhue, of course, brings up old, old associations and I guess I’ve finally reached the point where I’m happy to have them. And you know what? It’s a nice fragrance! Earthy, vanilla-orange-spice-wood and I can swear I smell some real nitro-style musk in there somewhere. The first spray of the Halston Couture reminded me of nothing so much as opening a bottle of celery seed, but that appears to be gone now; it’s dark and rich, but the jury’s still out on this one. The Intimate is powdery and sweet like I was in high school (hah)! The First is an elegant French perfume with some early Ellena strangeness in there (the DH hated it’s opening, always a promising sign); the Patou is high and dry. And the Knowing will, like all Lauders, last forever. In fact, I’m quite sure that this bottle will outlive me.

Still...except for the First and the Patou, these aren’t exactly scents for the cognoscenti. Which makes me feel a little weird in the company I now keep here in PerfumistaLand.

My household isn’t loaded, but we’re comfortable. It’s not a lack of cash that makes me reluctant to spend seriously on the niche and the high-end, because I can cut other things, like clothes, shoes and food. It’s your basic all-American bourgeois guilt. And, I’m thinking, as are many of you I’m sure: it’s time to put the money where the mouth is, to support the niche and the indie perfumers by getting those full bottles instead of just a decant, especially if it’s something I love. And so many of them are.

But I have put myself on a budget, wise in these times, I think. And my budget would allow maybe one 50 ml niche purchase a month, as long as it’s not an Amourage; in that case, maybe one every two months.

One bottle purchase a month?

I know, I know, bottle splits, swapping, MUA, decants, annoying trips to TJ Maxx. It’s just that sometimes you want that big bottle. Big enough to spray with abandon. Big enough to scent the whole house if that’s what you want to do.

Time to make the inevitable confession: I get off on buying perfume. Don’t you? Don’t you love it when the UPS van stops in front of your house? When that box hits the front porch? When you open the mailbox and there’s a package in there?

Niche, specialty and indie perfumers would do well to consider bottling in smaller sizes, perhaps; 25 mls or even large samples of 10 mls. Because it would help us early-adopters/fragrance fans/let’s-face-it-we’re-addicts feed our, um habits, and we do want to support the brave, the groundbreaking, the little guy giving Goliath the finger.

So am I cheap? I guess that would depend on the difference between “cheap perfume” and perfume that I got cheap but isn’t really, er, cheap perfume, it’s just, well...good stuff and I got it for a bargain price.

In other words, I got it cheap.



Perfumers: This information is hard to find! I hope this is accurate:

Nothing on Woodhue except the name “Elida Gibbs,” an Irish company that had something -- what is not clear -- to do with the 1949 version. Elida Gibbs eventually became part of Lever Faberge and then was gobbled up by other corporations. “Halston Couture” -- none of the perfumers who worked for Halston Fragrances list this one; anybody know? “Madame Rochas” -- the original was done by Guy Robert in 1960, the 1989 reformulator is unclear. “Knowing” -- Elie Rober. “Intimate” -- original by Jean Philippe; reformulated somewhat by Revlon in the 60’s. “First” -- Jean-Claude Ellena. “!000” -- Jean Kerleo, who was the house nose for Patou.


photo of Courtney Love by...I can’t find the photographer’s name but it’s a great picture isn’t it? So sue me.