Autumn heart in a bottle: Bois Blond

You know, people can get gloomy in the fall. Shortening of the days, plants going underground, chill in the air, blah blah blah.

I love it. I love every season when it comes, to be honest. But now it's autumn's turn to get the love.

There is something powerful about the sun at this time of year; it is sweet and warm in character as well as color and temperature, if shorter in duration. The earth gets warmed just enough to have a good loamy smell before settling into a cool uncomposted leafy something. There is a gentle urgency to the chores in the garden, the knowledge that they must be done now, even as a few moments of basking are allowed.

That pause between urgency and lounging...the overlay of one on top of the other...put into relief both the beauty of sunny warmth and greyish brownish chill.

Bois Blond is all about the foreshortened sunny warmth of a fully lived season. It's the hay after a full day of sun, cooked ambery, still sweet with greenish vegetation. It's an embrace on a bright autumn day. It opens all about the tobacco and the hay, and ends up with both cooked in the sun, part of a moldering compost heap that has hints of the sweet Guillame-ade. "I heart BB," says the text to my BFF. It's so wonderful on a sunny autumn day. It's all joy that understands melancholy--it might even have been there before, but isn't going to go back...yet.

one scent ... or many?

The Holy Grail, versus a wardrobe.

The One, or a scent library.

I don't know if I'll ever return to a search for a "signature scent," my holy grail of perfume.  I do know that when I first started falling down the rabbit hole of scent, I was determined to find a scent that was clearly "me."  And I did find three that came close, any one of which would be a good candidate for the just one scent I was allowed if there were such restrictions in the universe.  They are:

• L'Artisan Fleur d'Narcisse
• Parfumerie Generale Bois Blond
• Tauer Reverie au Jardin

Each is rather distinctive, which is something that would seem to fit "signature" scent by definition.  (Though upon writing that it seems perfectly fair to argue that a person's signature scent could be all about just "smelling good" to the maximum amount of people, or blending in, or what have you.)  Each also has a clear vegetal element, hay, narcissus, lavender, galbanum.  That has proven to be a common "me" element through my descent, even as I learn more notes and my general attractions open up and shift.

But I don't know if any would be on a Top 5, or even Top 10, list for recommendations for a scent wardrobe.  None are scents that appear in the current version of my regular rotation.  And for a fragrance wardrobe, which (for me, at least) needs to incorporate woody, oriental, fresh, classic, and comfort among its elements--see, already five down--I would go elsewhere. Perhaps, following those elemental guidelines:

• DKNY Black Cashmere (or YSL Nu)
• Guerlain Shalimar
• Guerlain Eau de Imperiale  (or Annick Goutal Mandragore, or Prada Infusion d'Iris)
• Chanel Bois des Iles  (or maybe Lanvin Arpege, or Jolie Madame)*
• Givenchy Organza Indecence  (or Guerlain Bois de Armenie, or Parfumerie Generale  L'Ombre Fauve, or Serge Lutens Chergui, or...there are many, many in this category)

I haven't even touched earth or galbanum yet, which I absolutely, positively must have, and could perhaps satisfy with a bottle of Jacomo Silences.  So, I guess, cut the classics, because while I like to have them around, maybe I don't absolutely, positively have to have them.

But then what do I do with Bois des Isles, which is both "me" and "classic" and not ever going to leave my real life options?  Go ahead, bring on your hired guns; you'll have trouble prying it out of my cold, dead hands.  (Oh, dear; apparently too much Mafia Wars and cowboy references this week.)

And what of the rites of spring?  Diorissimo, the ritual dabbing of which from a vintage bottle is already an untouchable ceremony.  Or CB-IHP Black March, which gets used layered and alone for a few weeks just before I can huff the real stuff in my garden?  Or dismiss the gimmicks, and stick with the pained pleasure of En Passant, or Apres L'Ondee?  But if I dismiss the "gimmicks," I'll drop an important element of the rites of fall, too, when Burning Leaves and other smokes enjoy a few weeks of ritual transition.  

Uh-oh, that reminds me of another favorite category:  amber.  Should I pick a sweet one, or something more in the spice range?  Or perhaps a mix?  Or is that going to limit its use to the dead of winter???

Oh, yeah, picking out amber reminds me of another category which deserves a bottle of its own:  green.  And there are so many, which version would I pick?  Diorella?  Bel Respiro?  

I'm doomed for a five bottle wardrobe.  Let's go back to ten.  Then Bois des Isles can be its own category.  I think that's eight categories, leaving me room to pick more than one for one or two categories.  If I don't open up the categories to include florals...or bring back the "gimmicks"...

Dear heavens, I forgot leather.  I absolutely love leather.  

This exercise falls under the category "brain bending futile fun."  If I write it next week, different scents will show up.  If you came to this post hoping for an answer, I don't have one. Is it possible to have a signature scent?  Sure.  Is a fragrance wardrobe a reasonable approach? Absolutely.  

No answers, but I do know is I feel incredibly fortunate that my sniffer works and brings me such silly guilty pleasure.  And that I have discovered an incredibly enthusiastic, sharing perfume crowd who are more than happy to open my eyes (and nose) to new things.  If you are trolling the blogs as part of a regular habit, you know what I mean.  If you are just starting out...well...whatever contours your path takes, it's going to be a fun adventure, and there really is no "right" way to do it.**

*hey, notice how things that are "classic" can also veer widely from each other; and here I haven't tried to include a modern "classic"

**well...except that you should use decants and swaps.  Lots of pain, heartbreak, and cash can be saved that way.

***I am footnoting like crazy today...somebody is responsible...you know who....

****okay, it's not like crazy, and now I'm pushing the convention intentions, but what the heck...maybe one day soon I will go footnote hog wild....

Renewed Romance: Bois Blond

Here's one indication spring finally has opened the door:  I'm in love with Bois Blond.  Again.

Bois Blond is one of my original triumverate of "me" scents.  But it was set aside for other explorations, and for fear that I would run out and never, ever have it again.  Time passed. Then I tried Bois Blond a couple of times in the depths of winter.  It was just not the same. Which made me sad, because I had loved it so profoundly, and it made me scared, because I had loved it so much I invested in back-up.  (A full bottle of anything is rare for me, let alone a spare bottle, for which I do not have a temperature perfect hermetically sealed time travelling capsule.)  I could only console myself with the knowledge that as a "limited edition," I might someday have the heart to sell the back-up bottle and invest in other loves.

Enter today.

Here it is, returned, in all of its hay dappled in sweet with hints of tobacco glory.  Hooray!!  *This* is the power of perfume for me; the ability to capture my thinking fancy while putting me into a strong emotional zone.  For me, that zone from Bois Blond is deeply happy calm.  Not placid calm, but centered calm.  As in, there can be plenty floating (bouncing? banging?) around in my head, but it won't bother me or even sound like noise if I have this on me.

Marina reviews it here; Aromascope posts a guest review from BB fan Elena Singh here; Sakecat and her fascinating perfume project get something entirely different from it than I do.  Mind you, Elena picks up on the galbanum, which I tend to gravitate toward but do not find in this.  I guess my feelings are closest to Marina's, who mentions damp hay; I'd agree, but put it squarely out in the sun and sprinkle honey over top.  And the warmth of the sun goading out wafts of tobacco.  Then again, Nathan Branch gets a similar vibe.

All I know is, I'm glad to have it, glad I tried again, and delighted to have it on.  Some loves are best in specific contexts, I guess.  It probably will take quite a few dates, in quite a few venues, over all the seasons, to decide if ultimately this is romance can be a marriage.

Guess I've found a place in my life where there's room for big love...

****

UPDATE...6 hours later

Just would like to point out that I am STILL feeling the love, with plenty of reward when nose goes to wrist.  Thank you, lasting power.  This is like my LZ Journeyman (or Cuir de Lancome...or Chergui), only for the other side of the global year spin.

Which has really gotten me to thinking...perfumes that are "through the looking glass"?  More anon....

Event Scent vs. How I Want to Smell

I'm exploring the idea of categorizing perfumes in one of two columns:  In column A, Event Scent.  In Column B, Me Scent.

Event scents are the ones whose mere presence is an event.  They are performers.  They make you pay attention.  Not because they slap you across the face (or smother it...can you hear me, beautiful but room only for you Fracas?), but because either through their development, or the way they transport you through memory and time, you find yourself paying attention to them instead of your environment.

I mentioned SIP Black Rosette the other day as one of those perfumes.  That's one in the development category; you find yourself ignoring everything else so you can follow its development.  Then there's En Passant, on my wrist as I write, transporting me to beautiful spring, gone now, on a day when I know fall will soon be gone, too.  There's Arpege, which not only has a development event, it goads my musician self into seeing if I can identify intervals.  And there's any number of I Hate Perfume iterations, but I'll refer to Black March, because it gobsmacks me into the middle of one of my pots when I'm out with the terracota, dirt, and flats of plants on a spring day.  (I know other people get earth dirt, but I get potting soil, all the way.  Love it.)  

Opposite the Event Scent is how I want to smell.  Not simply an amplification of my own "au naturel," as it were, but a scent that extends me.  What was that line about "making me more than I am?"  There's Parfumerie Generale L'Ombre Fauve.  I could disappear into that one myself, a delicious creamy musk that is ever so slightly sweet on me.  Leather you lick.  Also from PG, Bois Blond.  That makes me feel like I'm wearing a little bit of my favorite patch of forest.  I know, not a direct association.  It's not a Christopher Brosius creepily on target re-creation.  It is an impression, and I like the way it smells, and the way it smells on me.  And then there's L'Artisan Fleur de Narcisse, which never lets you settle into thinking it's "pretty," but is a beautiful trip through a true narcissus, and hay, and what not.  Compositions, these are, in every sense of the word.

Unfortunately, this event scent/my smell duality leaves me with a few knots.  What, for example, to do with my Chanel loves?  Bois des Iles.  (Sighs.)  This is gorgeous, but I both get caught up in smelling it as wanting to smell of it.  Those aldehydes draw attention.  They're a bit showy.  They live on their own.  This means it is not a "what I want to smell like" perfume, but a "what I want you to smell on me" perfume.  There are others:  Bel Respiro.  Amarige.  (Actually, I think you could put white florals in general in this category, as far as I am concerned.)  And bridging the gap between:  Lancome Magie Noire.

Shalimar?  I love to smell it, and love to smell it on me, but I harbor no illusions that it is a part of me.  Event Scent.  Musc Samarkind?  Gently sweet, but a hint of animal that rides close to my skin and makes me double check every time I sniff.  Me Scent.  

Pondering....