As I was walking down the rue one day...

No, no homme came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch.  I did, however, reach an Accord.

Promenade left at a circle (they happen here, regularly), and after progressing past the Prada, I did a double take.  What was that?  That quiet facade, that charming door, that lettering in gold on the white paint...

"Caron."

Yes it was.  We had business nearby, and as you know I had put off serious thoughts of serious perfume investigation until next (now this) week.  But there it was, yes indeed, Caron, confirmed without a doubt when I opened the door and beheld in front of my eyes The Urns.  Themselves.

(Why doesn't Donatella Versace have a wall of these herself?  Does she?)

It's amazing how quickly embarrassment at terrible language skills will melt in the face of so much juice, so prettily displayed.  I walked up to them, and slowly walked from one to the other and back again, first taking it in, then taking note.  Sure, there was Or et Noir, in a volume that would question the very existence of my hoarded vial at home.  Yes, there was Pois de Senteur.  Parfum Sacre.  And.  And.  Tabac Blond.  And.  And.  And.

And what's this, tucked up in the left corner of the collection of urns to the right of the doorway?  L'Accord?  I rifle through my brain, and come up with nothing.  I cannot remember hearing anything, reading anything.  Curiosity wins, and it becomes the final strip sprayed.  Mmmm...oh, dear, this seems to be a dark fruity-ish floral-ish but don't call it fruity-floral something.  Texture is viscous.  It doesn't take me long to decide.  Though known loves lined up with knowing smiles, thinking they would be the ones asked to dance, it was L'Accord -- a creature unlike any of the others -- that was invited to my wrist.

A wrist I huffed and I huffed up and down the Elysses.

Oh, suprisingly happy opening.  You may well (all too well, perhaps) know that I am not bent toward fruit nor floral nor the combination thereof.  But there are certain roses...and every now and then a special blackberry...that will cause me to sniff again.  And then there was this thing on my wrist, which was warm without being sickly sweet, which threatened to be to thick for a summer day on the pavement on Paris, but which was always just...pretty bending toward beautiful.  Dense flower.  Some chocolate (which my brain keeps telling me could be patch) weaving in and out.  A trace of something medicinal.  Perhaps one could call it a dessert with hints of savory, anchored in bread.  That's it, more bread pudding than pastry.  But staying there is not fair, because it is more grown up somehow.  Yet it doesn't cheat by simply being a liqueur version of something with mass.

What was this thing?

It dried down beautifully, and was tenacious.  Became somewhat drier, in a leathery not woodsy way. And I start wondering just what flower it is I'm smelling, whether it was just suggestion that said it was a rose?  It's not now, not really...it's less sweet, and other stuff, dried greenery made liquid, is hinted at.

Oh, I think I have to do this again.

(I thought.)

And so I have.

***

L'Accord (Code 119).  I came here thinking I might let something vault the walls of resistance...Bois des Iles in extrait?  A non-export Serge?  Something from Patricia de Nicolai?  Instead, from a shop I hadn't determined as a "must visit," a fragrance that was a complete surprise.

As of two days later, so totally purchased.

**
I desperately tried to hunt down information on this perfume, in an attempt to be "thoughtful" and sensible about a purchase.  All I got was Octavian...and given how much I respect his thoughts, all he spelled was doom for my pocketbook in his brief look at L'Accord here.  I probably would have gotten it anyway, but not so freely.

Incidentally, I asked the salesperson about the "mystery of number 119."  She laughed and replied that it was a reference to the address where it was created, initially put on the perfume because the company was interested in seeing how customers would respond.


*
I hesitated to write anything about this one...yet...the voodoo, you know.  Seemed like it, and I, should be home safe and sound first.  But there was also the bad karma of holding back...so, here you go.

I am wearing it now.  Patch/choc has not made the appearance it did that day on the Champs d'Elysses, but it is cooler, and I'm not on the pavement at the moment.  The sounds of a flute rehearsing across the courtyard have stopped, and now a soprano and a tenor are running through a duet.  Somewhere, my brain is thinking this is appropriate and related.