Assembled / Disassembled, or, Another Equinox

Not a post about IKEA or RTA furniture.

A post half about perfume, half about perspective.

All on a day of balance.  Happy Equinox.

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I purchased this bottle of Liz Zorn's "My Promise" a few years ago.  As I recall, the purchase was "P.S.", which is to say "Pre-SOIVOHLE." *  Don't go looking for it.  It was a one-off, created as a tribute/benefit to/for a young person with a form of cancer, again, if I recall correctly.  Liz offered the perfume for sale at a benefit, then continued to offer bottles through her website (with profits going to the cause) until they were gone.

Yes, I fell prey to a cause.  I didn't even know what the notes were, and if I based my decision to purchase on how it would fit me according to the copy offered at the time -- something about light, fresh, young? -- I would have passed.

But I was all new to perfume, had "discovered" Liz and was all about exploring her creations, and thought a flyer for a good cause was nothing I would regret.  I could always gift it to someone.

So, for three, four, however many years, this bottle has lived in a cool, dry, dark closet, inside its packaging.  Two to three times a year, I would take it out, spritz once, and ponder.  The ruminations always led to the same conclusion.

I don't not like it.  I don't do like it.  

There is something in there that should bother me that doesn't.

There is some kind of odd pairing in there.

This is pretty but not.

Gee, this is a peculiar something.

And then I would carefully wrap it back up, and put it away, never able to answer the question of "should it stay or should it go?," because I never knew if just around the corner laid the answer.  The answers, actually.

Decisions in the balance.

It could be this, it could be that.  At the moment, it is both and all of it all at once.

Equipoise.

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This week, apropos of nothing, I took the purple box out of the closet.  Time for another dance.

And I had one of those sensory equivalents of having the right word, the answer, right on the tip of my tongue.  "HEY, that's...that's...augh!"  And I neither lost it, nor pulled it into full light where it could be recognized and named.  I caved.  I tried an internet search.

And lo and behold, that one night, not repeatable as I compose this entry, a hit.  A website in German, either offering or having once offered this for sale.  (I do not speak German, though I've a pretty good short list of the German names for exotic animals in my head thanks to an orange hardcover book I got at a garage sale as a kid, Dis Ist Der Zoo.)  A notes pyramid.  A very simple notes pyramid, maybe six or seven listed on all three levels.  But two loomed into my eyes like the classic zoom in/blur out all other detail shot in a movie when the detective sees the name in the hotel register that puts all the pieces in place.

Mint.

Lily of the valley.

Tumble tumble tumble tumble tumble.

Lily of the valley was both the white flower that didn't overwhelm me that was slightly spikey, and the something that should be bothering me.  

Mint answered spoke to both the something peculiar and the odd pairing, being up against LOTV and all.

Hunh.

And now I saw it from the inside out.  Like walking up to a Van Gogh or a Monet, and seeing those brush strokes, individually, with texture and hair paths in them.  The pieces of them.

I thought about the pieces on and off the rest of the night.  Intellectually, of course, in terms of "hey, forget that Geranium Pour Monsieur, that new Byredo, look at what Liz was doing a few years back," and "hey, do you think Erin/the folks at Now Smell This would notice if I went back and added a comment to that post about mint in perfume a while back?"  But especially just in terms of the elements themselves.  What it felt like to smell it now with names, how it suddenly so easily fractured into individual pieces every time I sniffed it.  Whether or not I would take it in whole cloth again.

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My mother used to complain about going to see movies with her father.  My grandfather, you see, was a carpenter.  When he looked at a house, where you would see "cottage" or "saltbox," or maybe "dormer" or "eyehole window," he would see coping and joinery and ash or maple.  

Combine that with his healthy skepticism, and it was impossible to sit through a scene with a ship going down without him pointing out where they had used a model, or see King Kong crashing through the jungle without him indicating the stop motion.  

My mother, of course, was indignant about somebody snapping her willful suspension of disbelief in two.

Suddenly, in retrospect, I felt sorry for my grandfather, caught in the fractures, in the details, unable to take his eye off the hair mark in the brush stroke and see the sunlight on the hay.

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I'm still in the midst of figuring out if I'll again see this My Promise in gestalt, in full assembly, in big picture, in concept.  With a little distance in time, perhaps, I'll regain distance in viewing length.

This is not something I worry about.  I've of course stepped close and been able to step back again with other perfumes, other somethings.  And I am fascinated by how clear, how instructive, how simple this particular walking through the steps was.  I think it helps that this is a simple perfume.  Citrus-y mint for a perky nearly bracing open, which makes an interesting framework for then receiving the LOTV.  Something innocuous and gently cozy at the bottom to couch it on the other side.  A gentle musk?  I seem to remember "wood" being in that German pyramid, on the bottom.

Ah, well.  Not all came into sharp focus.

Alles gut, of course.  To be honest, in the end, I prefer seeing the sunlight on the hay.  I dig having the brushstrokes revealed, but my pleasure comes from wrapping it back into my overall image.  

I don't enjoy pointing out the model rods, as my grandfather did.  I only want to see them, in fact, only want to look for them, in my own time.

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Happy day of equipoise.  Whether your daylight is about to lengthen or darken, may this turn be smooth.

And maybe offer a few surprises.

*yes, I was inconsistent with the quotation mark enclosures there.  I didn't like the way it looked on "P.S."  I mean, check it out:  "P.S.," -- kinda makes it look like the comma is part of the abbreviation, no?  Which bothered me.  So I am instituting the first vagary in the NFTL Stylebook:  do not encase the comma within the quote when indicating specific names that end with a punctuation mark, for that confuses thine editor.

photo by author

Indigenous Scents, or, Love the One You're With

Outside my bathroom window, pressing against the partially opened casement glass, generously wafting throughout that level of the house, is a Miss Kim lilac.  So full of blooms, and so distracting, when I try to come up with adjectives for how smothered and ponderous with panicles it is, my mind keeps on half-attending and only comes up with words like "abundant" and "smothered."  (As if "ponderous with panicles" isn't trite AND awkward.)  Yeah, sure it's got all the benefits of being nature's air freshener and all that.  But there is so much more...it could be any window...it is the idea of this, this *offering,* being made again this year as every year, that distracts me and fills my brain with thoughts of each of those little tiny flowerlets with their mole-nose like openings and walking the alleys to find overgrown shrub-trees hanging over fences so I could gather a few and looking for them while walking home from school as a kids and thinking about how those were grandparent flowers because they talked about smelling them when they were kids and imagining my great-grandparents burying their noses in lilacs in the Great Plains and the North Woods and the Ozarks and oh, it's heady but it won't last long.

So why don't I think of it as "serious" for perfume?

Here am I, cheering on any yard I see harboring an old-fashioned lilac.  Holding all sorts of powerful emotional memories tied to their presence and triggered by their smell.  But it took me three years to build the courage...and find the right space...for an old style (full height, loose looking most of the year) lilac.  Even with that, I picked one with white flowers.  I was, and am, grateful for the Miss Kim, which blooms later than the traditional lilacs, but which holds to a more modest height and looks more like a shrub than scrub the rest of the year.

It seems that I treat the stalwart old-fashioned like the stereotypical well-heeled person would a trusted member of the staff...appreciate it, will sing its praises in the right company, but want it to stay out of sight unless I need it.

Funny, when I see a bottle of perfume marked "lilac," my first reaction is to think of my Nana's scented talc, and move on.

When I see a listing for Patou "Vacances," I get all moony, and linger on the write-up for something I'll never have.

One way or the other, dismissed or beatified, lilac is...beyond reach.

Perhaps this is why one of the few lilac scents I love is En Passant?  It is both messed up lilac (I mean, seriously, do you rise your bread dough in your lilac bush?), and fleeting (so I can only "hold" it for a limited time).  Like the name says, it is an impression in passing.

But what of this other element that haunts me, this attribute of being..."common"?  Does this spell doom for garden flower scents?  That is, flowers from MY garden?  After all, jasmine and champaca might be outright weedy in other climates...like, say, orange blossom in Arizona or Southern California, or bougainvilla in San Francisco...

Uh-oh, I just complicated my train of thought.  Do we have tiers of privilege at work here?  Those tropical flowers are "special" (oooh, exotic...), the edgy climate ones "worthy," but the workhorses of the midwest?

Let us review.

Lilac.  Iris.  (Which is to say iris FLOWER, not root.)  Apple blossom.  Peony.  Lily of the valley.  Mock orange.  Tartarian honeysuckle.  

Rose could be tossed in there, but I think that's a side issue that deserves a discussion unto itself.

Iris, we toss outright.  Nobody has done that.  Why, I don't know.  I'm going to turn that into a separate discussion, too...is it just too darn hard?  Did nobody pay attention to the fact that the flowers smell so blasted good they are practically narcotic?  Is it because you can only smell them if you chance to catch their "throw" (and can identify what is the source), or if you stick your nose right inside the petals...and let's face it, that's kind of like sticking your schnozz into a Georgia O'Keefe painting?

And we know what *that* means.  (And sorry, skanky fans, but that is NOT what the inside of an iris smells like.)

But discussions of iris are moot, because there is no flower based perfume.  Harumph.  Of course, given the variations I smell in the irises I grow, you'd first have to pick a "baseline" iris.  (Just among the beardeds, there is what I would call "traditional" iris smell, a grapey smelling one, a clearly lemon smelling one, and a softened "lemon chiffon" smelling one.  Of those that smell.  That are bearded.)

Let's pick a trio.  Lilac, Apple Blossom, Honeysuckle.  What's your first thought?  Raise your hand if you thought "good perfume for a girl who wants perfume but is really too young to wear perfume."  Hands down.  Raise your hand if you thought "something my grandma would be comfortable wearing." Hands down.  (And take a moment to think about the conflicting ways grandma gets hit with "unh-uh" reaction when it comes to perfume...too aldehyde-y...too mossy...too garden flower-y...really??)  How about a show of hands for anybody who thinks "Avon"?  Okay, anybody not raise a hand yet?  Please take a moment to comment RIGHT NOW if your first thoughts for any one of those is "serious perfume."  Seriously.  And, to keep the game challenging, tell me what apple blossom or honeysuckle perfume you find "serious."  If you insist on lilac, go anywhere but Vacances or En Passant.  

Maybe I'm pursuing a dead end.  But seriously...doesn't something smack of privileging the exotic over the backyard here?  I don't mean to invoke evil Colonialism, either; I just mean...maybe...the grass is greener over the fence?  You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?  Something along those lines.

To be fair, there are some small perfumers who use their backyard.  Roxana Villa champions her local oaks in her politics, and features their essence in some of her perfumes, notably "Q." Liz Zorn has teased Facebook followers with images of mock orange blossoms she is currently putting through enfleurage, and will some day end up in one of her bottled creations.  

But what is on my mind, right now, is the idea that there's plenty to be found in the realm of tropical white flowers, or the root of a florentine iris.  (I'm going with the belief that "florentine" refers to Florence, Italy, not Florence, Alabama.  Orris root.  There is, incidentally, a Louisiana or swamp iris, but I haven't smelled that one.  I digress.)  Nothing of the iris I find inside the flowers in my garden.  Nothing of the apple tree I fell asleep under as a child.  Nothing from the flowers that not only smelled good as you rode past, but also tasted flowery sweet if you plucked them and sucked out their backsides.  

I'm going to go outside and find one of the spots where the irises are currently throwing their scent.  Happy invisible pockets that stop me in my tracks and make me remember that I am here, right now, this year, inside this moment, which is incredible.  

But will pass.

And, if fate allows, will come again.

A mole nose is shaped like a star.  Learned that a while back, thanks to some reading or other with the kids.  When they were short.  And would wander the garden with me, going on a "scent hunt."


ADDENDUM:  Sonofagun.  Zeitgeist.  I leave, go to check some of my favorite blogs...and it seems that granny in the guise of "old lady" was on Helg's mind today.  See her discussion of "Old Lady vs. Older Woman."

Love Speaks Primeval. True. Drat.

“Primeval.”  Doesn’t just mean a period of history.  It means based on raw instinct, “raw and elementary.”  The label on this little vial says Love Speaks Primeval.  Hmmm.

I received a Liz Zorn order the other day.  Lovely skin.  (More on “skin” soon.)  Included was a sample of Love Speaks Primeval.  I was excited...and a little scared.  You see, when Liz Zorn graciously brought herself along with a generous selection of samples to Chicago for a gathering of perfume enthusiasts a couple of falls ago, she brought along a little something extra.  A small sample of a perfume she had created using...civet.

Oh, I’ll gird myself up and give this a whiff.  It’ll be good for me...educational.  There’s plenty of food back out there, or seltzer, if I start to get queasy.  If I can handle eating meat, I can handle this.

The first hit is something wrong, something that you think you might recoil from, but you find your nose sinking in deeper.  It develops into something smooth, rich, almost a gourmand dessert.  A gourmand dessert along with a tender delicious cut of meat.  And it occurs to you that this new stage, this delicious something, maybe hasn’t changed entirely.  It is still permeated by the first primeval something, woven throughout, now part of the bigger picture.

I am not going to go into the controversy over civet here.  Suffice to say, I have in general avoided it, and been grateful that in general I have not been attracted to perfumes that lean on the civet.  

What I will get into is a confession:  A number of years ago, a friend recited her delicious sounding menu for Thanksgiving.  Then she paused, and said they would be starting it all with champagne and foie gras.  I must have recoiled over the phone.  I covered, but we gently yanked each other’s chains--she, suggesting that maybe it was time to sophisticate my palate; I, saying perhaps it was time to stop justifying oneself under cover of sophistication. She asked if I had ever actually tried it.  My answer was no.  And has remained so.

Until last summer.  I approached gingerly, semi-wantonly.  I was just going to have a smidge, so that I could say I knew what it tasted like.  It was time for me to face it down.  I would survive.  And I would never come back.

So, while I was, well, fearful as the bit of morsel approached my mouth, I took comfort in knowing that it would soon be over.

What I had not thought of was that rainy day in a sideroom in Chicago, when I applied Liz’ civet concoction to my wrist.  And nearly melted.

Mmmmmmmmmmm....

In the case of the foie gras, my companion was my spouse.  Our eyes met across the table.  If one can recognize one’s own opinion expressed in someone else’s face, it is with a spouse with whom you have noted many anniversaries.  And in his face, I saw my thoughts:  “Ahhhhhyes.  Oh, crap.  Oh, this is good.  Oh, I’m in trouble.”

Across the table at the perfume gathering, my eyes met with another perfumista.  In retrospect, our expressions were probably much the same as mine & my spouse’s at that anniversary dinner last summer.

Spouse and I finished the foie gras.  Perfume friend and I threw caution to the wind and gave up the rest of our skin sampling space to the incredible scent in the bottle.  I did not think I’d have an opportunity for either again.

LSP is rich, like an Amouage.  I love the follow through this kind of experience offers, whether taste or olfactory; there is a period of discovery before you get to the incredible moment, and it does not let you down for as long as it is with you.  Transcendent delicious is the kind of yummy that demands your attention, settles you into a fabulous flavor, and then echoes with happiness.

I am not proud of the eating of the foie gras.  And now I have to confess...I had it again.  One more time.  To see if that first time was a fluke.  It was not.  I like it.  I am going to have to make a decision to not.  Yes, to not.  I love it.  But I can't have it in my life.  It doesn't even make sense that I like it, dang it!  I hate liver.  Seriously.  As a kid, I had permission to leave the house on the rare occasion my mother cooked it, because the mere smell of it made me nauseous.  I am an animal rights person.  I like to get gifts from Heifer, International.  I am an occasional meat eater who consciously searches for responsibly raised meat.  My son is a vegetarian.  My pets are shelter rescues.  Some of my best friends are animals!!!

>Sigh.<  I hate cognitive dissonance.

Liz Zorn’s blog, October 13, 2009:  I also (this morning) made up a few samples of the new natural chypre parfum: Love Speaks Primeval. I have a little on the back of my hand and can’t help notice how much the apple note has come to the front in the mid-heart. Maybe it is a hormone thing with me, but I do not remember it being so dominant in my earlier trials, and I tested it a lot. Curious to see how it works for others. I will write more about it later. It is coming out in November and will wrap up the new Soivohle’ releases until next spring.

Love Speaks Primeval speaks to me just like those unnamed "historicals" Liz conjured.  I'm hoping that the vocabulary, the ingredients, uses something different than civet.  But you'll notice I haven't asked.  Yet.  I'm hoping I just got scared by the word "primeval."  *

I’ll tell you how I feel about LSP.  It’s decadent.  It inspires sustained extended snorfles.  I think I might get some to wear instead of eating foie gras.  

*update:  please take a moment to look through the comments...Liz Zorn stopped by and talks about what goes into LSP and her own thoughts on "primeval."


The magic ingredient in Love Speaks Primeval, the animalic element I was responding to, is called Africa Stone, which is a euphemism for hyrax droppings.  Fossilized hyrax droppings.  See the africa stone entry at Enfleurage, or natural perfumer and teacher Ayala Moriel's description here.  Now, if only my own dog's soakings and droppings in the backyard were so useful...

Violets & Rainwater, revisted

An open letter to Musette:

Dear Musette,

I so respect your thoughts on scent, whenever you go ga-ga for something, I automatically activate search->sniff->prepare to purchase neurons.  (Unless it's going your preferred skank path, which I continue to leave free and clear for you.  I've got my issues, as you know.  ;)  )  So, when you started waxing beautiful about Liz Zorn's Violets & Rainwater, I knew I'd better get sniffing.

Which I did, and found a lovely--beautiful in a quiet way--little true violet scent.  I tried it a couple of times over the winter, even bought a share, feeling that perhaps I would eventually use it to replace my decant of Norma Kamali Violette and use it for layering opportunities.  Simple.  Light.  

I was wrong.

I tried it on this morning, and BLAM, greenery!  And then, not very long until this creamy element enters the dry down.  Oh, my goodness.  I think that this is what some people find/love in the Guerlain violets, this nuanced but sweet violet.  (Vanillic sweet, not the mouse sex of Caron.)  And because I entered through the happy green door, I don't resent it for being some sort of pastille.  I'm still early on, and will be happy if the green returns head on, or if it continues down this creamy violet path.  I have my memory of the green...

Is this what happens with you?  You had mentioned dirt in the past, which I never got until today.  Just in the 5-10 minute opening, mind you, but there.

That's a whole other bottle in that cute but stylish canister on my shelf.  Not the watery violet I experienced in the winter.  Who knows--I've certainly been finding a lot of shift in my sniffer as spring entered this year.  Could be seasonal; could be evolutionary; could be I was just daft.  All I know is, I'm suddenly feeling VERY clever for shadowing you.

Your friend in scent,

SS

P.S. I know that shadowing can lead to big disappointments; I won't hold any bum lemmings against you.  (OTOH, I'll be sure to hang on to them for a while, in case what was bum becomes ba-dum!)

Liz Zorn Grand Canyon

Yesterday was another travel day, hit the road home so would have time to attend to things back at the homestead before the workweek began again.

Had stashed a few samples in my bag, and decided I'd be okay with Liz Zorn Grand Canyon for the ride, even though I hadn't tried it before.  Mind you, this was a rather momentous decision, as scent AND car travel are potential headache triggers for me.  Guess I was both trusting and impetuous.  Who knows; maybe I was swayed by the idea of travel implied by the name.

Things worked out fine.  Grand Canyon wears close enough to the skin that I didn't impinge upon any other rider's experience, and wears pleasantly enough that it enhanced mine.  

Opens with a syrupy-resiny amber that made me have a natural perfume epiphany:  so many of the natural perfumer offerings I have tried hearken back to my days spent blending essential oils.  Potentially, a bad thing, because I realized that each time I smell a perfume that opens with that association, I cringe a little bit.  History with essential oil blending teaches me to be ready for a long ride on whatever note(s) hit me out of the bottle, because that note would be first, middle, and last on the skin.  Natural = WYSIWYG.  If you are already in doubt at the start, you are probably going to end up scrubbing.

Not so of Grand Canyon.  Thank goodness.  

Because, after all, what I search for now is a perfume experience, which should involve theatrical acts or musical movements, or at least a sense of shifting into position before settling in for the night.  Grand Canyon offers that, and it is where it finally settles that brings me pleasure in this one.  I can see why March over at Perfume Posse mentioned GC in a post about scents she wears to bed:  the sweet opening can focus you with a direct message about happy places, and then the more intriguing smoky spicy elements floating about the vaguely citrusy amber base when it settles down can help waft you away to sleepy land. 

I liked Grand Canyon just fine once it settled in.  I am still wrestling with its behavior, however; I guess it offers the best of both worlds when it comes to true natural perfumes vs. traditional perfumes.  I'll have to get over my own stereotypes when it comes to the opening, and embrace the fact that this makes a fine daytime scent.*  Anything that travels well for me & my surrounding company AND can still strike me as both settling and interesting...albeit quietly so...is a good thing to have in the arsenal.

*or, obviously, night time for some  :)