Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Eating my hat: Tuberose Criminelle

And here I was, just telling Grain de Musc "no how, no way."  Too much camphor.  Bad joke.  A theme I've sounded many times over the past couple of years.

Today, something happened.  I need to take notes on the context, just in case this is the only situation in which this one will fly:  ❏ A late in the day shower.  (Some days are like that.  Other things get in the way.  Advantage is, anything that gets tossed onto a wrist on a whim in the a.m. because I feel ready to give it a short whirl ends up getting a full ride.  TC was NOT one of those...it was a Mariella Burani duo...more on that another time.)  ❏ Temps in the 60's, high-ish but not outlandish for April in these parts.  ❏ Huge trench being dug in my yard.  Must consider the potential effect of watching one's planting handiwork nearly get decimated.  Nearly.  Surely extra hormones of some sort were flying.  Might have been a factor.  Will decidedly avoid trying to recreate that particular contextual element.

Anyway, I showered and, because it had somehow ended up in my drawer of tried & true "specials," I took out the SL Tuberose Criminelle.  Yup, there was that opening...but it didn't make me yank my head back and look around for the Candid Camera.  Hmm.  Another sniff...yeah, that's the note...but it's not...all consuming....

I am totally digging this tube today.  Feels like it catches the heady exotic aspects of the flower, while messing it up with other aspects of its reality.  The "camphor" settles into just a sharp something, just like what lingers in the air around a number of tropical whites.  Every other time, this one has been a viscous lipid with mothballs floating on top.  A practical joke, if you will.  Today, the joke is on me.  Today, it is a joy.

I'll take it.

Maybe this will just be a solitary glimpse, like that one good time I had with Kingdom.  But I'm glad to have had it, and wonder if perhaps this is what some of my 'fumey friends who love it live with every time they apply.

It's good to be reminded that patience can be rewarded.  Sometimes.

But no way am I going to dig a 9' hole in the yard just to try to get beyond the joke.  If the magic is gone, I'll live with the memory.  To adjust what Rick said to Ilsa, "We'll always have April 13th."

9 comments:

The Daily Connoisseur said...

I love Tuberose- and on a side note I love late afternoon showers! There is something so much more relaxing about a shower and a blowdry in the afternoon than in the rushed hours of the morning. Sounds like you had a good day :)

Rose said...

how interesting and how nice! you will always have April 13th but maybe you will have more days too!

ScentScelf said...

DC...there is something to be said for the late afternoon shower. It was actually quite peaceful for a day of disruptions...now THAT's something I should learn how to bottle!

ScentScelf said...

Rose, I will wait to see if TC and I shall have more days together, or if their number is one. It occurs to me I am glad it didn't happen two days later, which is our big Tax Day here in the States.

Mals86 said...

Oh, LORD... TC on Tax Day.

I didn't mind the mothballs so much, it was the "rotting raw chicken" effect that just did me in. No amount of beautiful camphoraceous Take No Prisoners tuberose could make up for that d*mn rotting meat note.

(Big hole in the yard?)

Those moments of surprising joy - how wonderful it is to catch one when you're not expecting it. It's their nature to be brief, but what a glow they leave behind when they go.

ScentScelf said...

Right! I forgot you get the rotting raw chicken note, Mals. Which is particularly onerous when I think about it...I once worked on the preliminary investigation of a chicken plant for a documentary project...ick.

Come to think of it, translating that to a fragrance sounds like a job for Etat Libre d'Orange...

Vanessa said...

Loved your attention to contextual elements! I have noticed the American habit of logging the prevailing weather when writing about scent. I may be missing a significant variable here, but then again you guys have more extremes. Am so pleased this scent flipped from "viscous lipid" to joyous. More work needed on my part, I sense - I am a bit timorous around camphor...

ScentScelf said...

FlitterS...thanks! Context has so much to do with how I experience perfume, I think it would be wrong for me to not bring it up, at least sometimes. I don't live in one of those Malle transporter tubes, after all. ;) Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Yeah, the Yanks and their weather. Don't you have a weather channel? Don't you find yourself compelled to watch? We have so many climates and variations here, a matrix has evolved to help gardeners identify which plants do well in what areas of the country. Arid desert to rainforest and everything in between.

I don't blame you for being nervous around camphor...heck, I was *mad* at the idea! Who would want to perpetrate that on someone's nose?? In the interest of fairness...and perhaps evidence of a slight masochistic bent...I had to share my experience. You might get there, too. Eventually. Maybe.

Vanessa said...

Volcanic ash cloud aside, we have very homogeneous weather as a rule, and no, we do not have a weather channel - the very idea! : - ) We do have bulletins at the end of each news broadcast, and if you blink you could miss them. That said, I was once evacuated in Miami as my hotel was sited in the "cone of uncertainty" of Hurricane Jeanne, and I ended up watching your Weather Channel for about 20 hours from my recommended viewing position of "under a sturdy object". I have written an article about experience, which references your arcane and multifarious types of Weatherspeak.