Say what?

Avast ye, mateys, and hoist yer scurvy selves to a benign bit o' bloggery.

'Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrrrrrrrrrrr.

(Thanks to pirate bits like that, th' tongue can be shared across th' Seven Seas...what ye lads and lassies yell te be "intarnashn'l.")

Shiver me timbers, 'tis Anne Bonny!

P-}

(That thar be a bucko emoticon, if yer fixin' to savvy.)


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(chooppy seas)

Also today, perhaps and perhaps not, the anniversary of the creation of the emoticon.  Wired is running a "This Day in Tech" bit about the purported perpetrator of perplexing symbolage, Scott Fahlman.  However, the story of the attempt to concoct symbolry to clarify text communications gets immediately murky, for as Wired points out, typesetters have been pressing (HA!) type-based non-verbal communication upon us for many moons before that.

Oddly, I myself had a bit of an emotical dust-up with the OAITH (Other Adult in the House), when he perceived that a virtual missive I sent came with barbed tongue, rather than gentle greeting.  Why?

:)

That's right, a smiley face.

Apparently, geeks have used this archly, to convey, well, an edgyness, rather than the placid contentment I was trying to convey.

The scallywag was ready to hop aboard the Man-O-War and make sharkbait o' me.

Fortunately, all was cleared up before he blew the messenger down.  But Blimey! who knew I had stepped into a bilge-sucking morass of hempen halter code.

So, I've been thinking on these two things today, Local Talk Like a Pirate But Watch Yer Emoticons Day.

And then of course, fixed it upon myself to link it all to perfume.

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What perfumes have the potential to flub the message between perfume-lubbers?  Or even perfume lovers, for that matter?

I for one hold Chanel No. 19 aloft.  You know, Luca Turin's wire-hanger mother?  The one folks refer to as "cold" and "distance keeping"?  I mean, okay, the galbanum is bracing, but people, there is green flower in there.  I don't wear it as a "buzz off" kind of fragrance; I wear it in the same manner I might pick a pair of Italian shoe boots for the day.  They are both beautiful, have clean lines, and support me when I need to attend to business, but don't quite cross over into bee-yotch territory.

Not to me, at least.

Here, here's another one:  Serge Lutens Musc Kublai Khan.  You know what that says to me?  It says "me and my men have just been out riding on horses and camels for a few days with no shower in sight and we might have rolled in something along the way and we're just going to plonk down next to you here and if you don't like it you better run FAST because we're already enveloping you and if you don't faint you might retch."  You know what I've heard someone else say about it?  "MMMMmmmm, cozy."

Is what we have here a failure to communicate?  In this case, I don't think so; I think here it is simply different languages.  Like, say, German and Chinese.  Phonemes and graphemes.  You say potato, I say rubber stamp.  Because I think we are not even experiencing the same thing, let alone deciding what that something means.  So let me take this moment to clarify what I am trying to find in terms of examples of perfume mis-communication:  We both agree it is a smiley face.  I mean, say, a lily of the valley.  But what does lily of the valley signify?

Speaking of lily of the valley, let's hop to that gem of a note for the moment.  Have you noticed folks waxing nostalgic about, say, Diorissimo?  It is a lovely creation.  I can acknowledge that a) it smells like lily of the valley, and b) it is pretty.  But from there, you and I might diverge.  Because, truth be told (here I go into a Very Quiet Voice, so as not to offend), it is this|close to being, well...simpering.  Blow me down if one of my fiercest friends, she who dons Mitsouko like a cutlass and Femme like a come hither va-voom dress, says it makes her feel pretty.  Me?  I feel like...oh, I don't know, Nellie Olsen, stripped of sass, left with nothing but banana curls and a very clean pinafore.

Hey, speaking of Femme...let's talk cumin for a moment.  There's a note that I frequently find myself nodding along with the crowd when we determine whether or not it is present.  But then...what does it mean, to have it there?  To me, it's generally B.O. or panties, which trust me, in my world does not mean "come hither."  It means hither was reached 3-5 hours ago.  But wait, that's not how I *receive* a message, that's how I interpret what is sent.  Hmmm.

Here.  How about Big Flower Bombs, and/or Big White Florals.  Like...let's go classic here...Fracas.  What does that say to you?  Sexy bombshell coming through?  Or Tennessee Williams character who is slightly unaware of being past prime?  Undulating vixen?  Or flat footed floozy with floy, floy?

It's a problem that has been posed before:  for whom is our message in the bottle?  Sender, or receiver?  Directly connected of course to the question "do you wear perfume for yourself, or for others"?

All I know is, there are times when folks have described what message a particular scent conveys, and my head tilts to the side.  ("Are you talkin' to ME?")  But I know that unless they ARE talking to me, there's room for different translations.

However, if we are trying to talk to each other, it would probably be best if we made sure our lingua franca was all simpatico.

:)

image of Anne Bonny taken from Hanging Cup Pictures,

also found at the delightful Geography All The Way

engraving apparently by the peripatetic "anonymous"

oil painting of a message in a bottle by  Nancy Poucher at Daily Painting

Stonkin' Big Flowers

Oh, dear.

I approached writing this three times.  Rather, I started three different days since late April with the intention to write about Summersent perfume.

Three different openings, one beginning with a rumination on indigenous smells and subliminal comfort, one with an account of my time at the Chicago Botanic Garden with the person behind the perfume, and once with my big reveal announcing that I believed I had identified the "secret midwest flower" that was the inspiration for the scent.

All of those having not materialized, I determined that Today Was The Day.  I dabbed on some parfum.  I spritzed on eau de parfum.

And then I thought hey, maybe it would help to put on some Fracas.  You know, benchmark against another Great Big Flower that like Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction, will not be ignored.

And then I figured since the change in the weather meant I had more skin exposed, I'd put on some Carnal Flower.  And a hit of Lys Mediterranee.  Because, you know, I haz issues with these beasts.  So I could do some thoughtful ruminations on just why it was that my early-in-evolution nose had a strange attraction to Summersent, but Just Said No to the trio on my right limb.

Holy stonkin' flowers, Batman.  I am in a cloud of confusion.  It's like I have the vapors.  I am IN the vapors.  Dear heavens, as I type this, it occurs to me my desk space may be tainted for a week.  And I spritzed two floors away.

::catches balance::

I'm going to have to start in the middle, rather than the beginning, or working backward from the end.  Much like fighting my way out of this miasma.

Because, the first thing I have to admit, is that when I applied the Fracas to the crook of my elbow (dabbed from a mini, one of those cute little Piguet black-cube capped square numbers), I thought "Hey.  Nice.  Why am I not recoiling?"  And I smiled at was striking me as a blond zaftig beauty who I had been led to believe overapplied too loud makeup and actually, while made up, was quite presentable.

Which was probably what led me to dare to spritz Carnal Flower on my wrist.  Hey, Fracas used to make me run.  Carnal Flower slayed me.  Maybe this time I would just run.  But hey, ho...what is this?  Formerly dirty bits now just registering as a welcome (not dirty, just...rough) counterpoint to the stonk of the flower? C'mon, now.  I mean, Carnal Flower, applied as a check and balance, was suddenly yelling "buy me! you need me! what in the world have you been doing with those reserved Malles???"  Oy to the vey.  Nobody told me there was a rabbit hole inside a rabbit hole.

Sanity.  Reason.  I'd apply Lys Mediterranee, which had previously registered as an artistic attempt to be different.  By which I mean artfully rendered, but interesting to me only as an exercise.  Except no, now that sharp opening is the near side of bracing, and I am thinking "hey, ginger" instead of "whoa, ginger," and instead of it being one of those paintings I look at in the exhibit and register how talented the artist is, it becomes one of those paintings I simply enjoy looking at and falling into the contours of one line against the other, happily aware in the background of a pleasing harmony of arrangement but no longer intellectually processing it, but just being there with it, sort of in it.  Except this was a perfume, and I *was* in it.

Cr@p.  What about the Summersent?

Now that I've written all this, can I actually review that which sent me down the spiral in the spiral??


I guess I'd better try.

Since I started this inside out, how about I continue that way.  The publicity for Summersent leans heavily on the story of the creator walking in the garden and catching a whiff of a beautiful flower, a midwest flower which became the inspiration for the perfume.  When I met with Marjorie last fall, she told me the real story, which is essentially that story:  She was walking with a friend, smelled the flower, and it resonated deeply with her.  She was able to identify it, and bring it to a parfumer, who explained to her that that flower could not be distilled directly into an essence.  It would have to be re-created.

This was an opportunity for me to share with her the story of Edmond Roudnitska and lily of the valley and Diorissimo, and how it, too, is a flower that cannot be directly pressed/enfleuraged/distilled.  We talked and talked, about the process of working with a perfumer to create a fragrance, how Marjorie put her extensive PR background in fashion and beauty into play in creating a product that was perfume, what inspired her as she told the perfumer what she wanted, etcetera etcetera.

But never once did she reveal what the flower was.

A few weeks ago, the annual blooming of a certain bush outside my window.  And an A-ha! moment.

Do you know this flower?

Here, let me pull back a bit.

Viburnum carlesii, my gardener friends.  Commonly known as Korean spicebush or Korean spice.  Which would, in name, and in provenance, seem to put a bit of a twist on the midwestern angle.

Nonetheless, indeed, there it is.  Right under my nose.  I think my cultivar may not be the exact one that inspired the perfume.  On the other hand, the perfume is, by necessity, an "imagination" of the note.  And I doubt I'll get Marjorie to confirm one way or the other.  So...for now, we're going to play Clue.

I accuse Viburnum carlesii of inspiring Marjorie Midgarden in the midwest garden.

::gathers self::

Sorry, I need a moment.  I am still aswirl in a huffy puffy cloud of mega flowers.  An hour later, and I still do not have a headache, which would be a milestone with ANY of the three vamps on my right arm, let alone a gathering of them in one lineup.

That, plus the heady excitement of sleuthing my way to what I think is an unveiling...well....

::pause::
::ready to proceed::

What do I think of Summersent?

I think it is one of those pretty perfumes.  I overheardread a conversation yesterday in which somebody referred to Apres L'Ondee as a perfume that merits the overused, generally underdescriptive term "pretty."  I agreed.  I think of it as a category, one which may be a subset of "girly."  Not sure.  Will tease that out in a bit.  Wait, yes, a subset...rather, a partially attached "subset."  Because "pretty" I can do, if not often.  "Girly"...well, girly tends to irk me in its worst versions, and simply amuse me without making me want some in its best versions.

So.  Summersent is "pretty," meaning it goes in that category.

It is also clearly a thickish without being too cloying (on me) or too brackish whiteish flower perfume.  It is, apparently, popular in Europe, where it makes a large share if its sales.  (Interesting, I think.  Midwest inspired.  American made.  Over the top packaging.  Big flower.  Hmmm.)  Make no mistake; this perfume wears not as part of your skin, or a melding even.  It is a layer applied.

But hey, so is most lipstick.  And certain styles of shoe.  And particular ways of arranging your hair.  Or a cravat.

::cloud vapors::

I think I should come back once more to Summersent, on its own, to suss it out for those who might be curious.  Meanwhile, it's June.  ("June June June...June is bustin' out all over...")  And some profound change in season has happened.

Not just summer.

But the season of my Big Floral Appreciation.

images author's own
spritzes and dabs obtained via author's own collection 

Guerlain Mahora

Sheesh, what a dirty mess of tuberose.

I keep on wanting to like this, or hate it, or something, but I keep on coming back with "what the....???"  There is straight up tuberose in there, and dirt (as in earth), and then something dirty (as in skank), and then the tuberose shows up again, and then it's just all one big mess.

Part of me thinks I'm missing an in-joke, another part wonders if I'm missing out on a modern wonder.

It doesn't sqwark at me the way the tuberose Fracas does; it doesn't infuriate me in the way the dirty (skanky) mess Kingdom does.  I don't get the "concept," in the way I see the tuberose joke in Lutens Tubeureuse Criminelle (even though I don't laugh at TC, or find it profound, or compelling).  I don't know what to say about Mahora.  

Wait, here's what I'll say: don't buy it.  If you want an afternoon's distraction, let me know.  I'll send you some.  I'd like to know what you make of it.

Shout Out: "Moe's Fracas Effect"

There's exploring perfume, there's exploring life, and there's pulling the two together.

Over at Boomtown Boudoir, there is a wonderful essay that combines a compelling portrait with a twist on the search for a signature scent. Fracas was never so uniquely captured. Good reading, thoughtful essaying.