Sorting Out the Meat in my Lily

I had heard the talk for years.  "That lush tropical flower smells like meat [often ham, or rotten]."  I always thought of it as a concept, as gestalt of smell that when looked at from one angle, was reminiscent of meat, or meatish.  Perhaps meat-y, or meatish and meaty.

Not...meat.

Then this opened among the supermarket bouquet sitting on the kitchen counter.  Oink, oink, people.  Not as an idea, or an association, or something seen on the other side of a transparency.

I could have sworn the langorous sow on the flyer for my preferred porcine purveyor was looking longingly toward the counter.

Or was that fright on her face?

***
Over the weekend, Victoria at Bois de Jasmin asked about changes in perfume taste.  I was so already there.  You see, on Friday, I had an arranged date with Musc Ravageur, goosed on by a friend who thought it was a crime against perfamity that I had given my sample away to another perfume person.  The decant arrived unannounced earlier in the week, with a lovely note, saying "For Pete's sake, you need some Musc Ravageur."  How to tell her that thing had been a beast on me and in my nose whenever I smelled it on someone else?  And by beast, I mean half-skank animal.  Not in a good way.  Just...beast.

I waited until the next day.  Then, out of a sense of duty and perhaps morbid curiosity, I sprayed.  There was the animal...but also something warm and spicy.  And the drydown?  Be still my heart.  Which is to say, my heart slowed down.  In a purr of comfort.  Sure, the animal was still there, but now it was in a pen with things spicy (cinnamon?) and things warm (musk, the non-dirty veer).  Other things bouncing around, but unidentified.  Maybe even vanilla?  In a way, it did not matter, because it wasn't all about the beast.

The animalic perfume Grinch's heart grew two sizes that day.

Meanwhile, a stargazer lily became Roast Beast.

**
So, with not one, but two exemplary anecdotes about changes in smell, I started to formulate this post.  Not the first time I'd dealt with situations in which I'd changed my mind about a perfume, but the first time I had crossed the zone into enjoying bedding down with a beast.  It was time, I thought, to bring out Psych 101:  the "I Like You THIS MUCH" chart. A little foursquare that has been in my head since I first laid eyes on my "good heavens, are they all going to cost this much???" textbook by Philip K. Zimbardo.  Anyway, the idea I could never get out of my head never forgot was something like this:

• When you meet someone, you make an initial decision about whether you like them or dislike them.  You get to know them.  You come to a conclusion, a sort of game show Final Answer about how you feel about them.  The interesting observation made by the study?  Of those people the subjects ended up liking, or deeming "friends," they felt the most strongly about those whom they had initially disliked.

I have passed a lot of life through the foursquare illustration I can still see in my mind's eye (left page, toward the bottom), checking off examples that fit nicely into the chart.  Perfumes are the latest something.  I'm still thinking about it...

...but this thing with Musc Ravageur is going to be interesting.  Because suddenly, after years of avoiding it, I want more.  I had to work HARD to find a way to like this one.  In fact, it was probably a little birdie in my ear, a friend who I trusted who said "really, I find value in this person perfume," that encouraged me to give it another try. But I did.  And would not predicted the thought I heard pass my brain.

"Nom."

Are we fickle?  Do our noses/tastes/sensibilities learn, and therefore adapt, and therefore change their minds?  Or do we need to consider another principle in the equation, one I learned in cognitive psych --humans have very powerful mechanisms to justify their choices and/or actions in the face of dissonance.

Meanwhile, the Roast Beast was wafting.  Trying to trap me inside, I think.  Swoop my right past those powdery anthers into the heart of the beast.  Meanwhile, yet another voice joined the chorus: "do you ever change your mind about perfume?"

A ha ha ha ha ha.....

*
Sure, I do.  Witness Chanel No. 19, which was a welt-raising slap of galbanum the first time I tried it.  But I really hate when people call things that seem "cold" "heartless," which was what I kept reading from others.  I lucked into a 1/5 full bottle of vintage edp.  "Heartless"?  Silly people.  It keeps a cool exterior for the get to know you period, because it is so heartbreakingly beautiful on the dry down.  Score another point for that "you love best that which is first difficult" idea.

Witness also Apres L'Ondee, which when I first tried it seemed like a wan flower, and not much more.  Mind you, I am a fan of quiet, in people and in perfume; this one just didn't seem to have much...depth.  Interest.  And was offering a note I wasn't particularly fond of.  WAIT!! No need to scream "heretic!" I tried some parfum.  Vintage.  And saw into its depths, and found its development, and saw just how beautiful that one main something was.  Changed my mind again.

But let us consider the other corner on the "I've gotten to know you" side of the foursquare.  Bois des Isles, I have always loved you.  Poeme, I'll never tell anyone publicly, but I'll never trade you away.  Bulgari Au The Vert?  Prada Infusion d'Iris?  Hermes Hiris?  All loves at first sight.  And I still feel it whenever I spray.

Consider also something that falls outside the chart, or better put, beyond the left edge of the chart, items whose entry point is not yet decided:  people foods perfumes I have no idea what to make of at first, so I make sure to have multiple meetings, in various contexts, until I can sort out just what IS my initial feeling.  Generally, with these, there is something new enough, or jarring enough, or puzzling enough, that I just can't get my balance at first.  Eventually, usually, I'll get my land legs, then be able to move forward through the experience.  Right now I'm getting to know a vintage Houbigant, Apercu, and there was an amount of learning a foreign language involved.  I'm liking it.  But I wouldn't call it a dislike turned into a like; more a "what kind of creature what planet are you from what language can we communicate with" into a "aha let's talk and see if we can be friends or simply coexist in this universe."

So, let's see, on the positive integration side, there's "I have always loved you" and "I learned to love you," plus the nether zone known as To Be Determined.  On the negative outcome side, as yet unconsidered, is "I loved you at first but now I don't" and "I have always disliked you."

Yeah, I've got ones for those categories, too.

Oh, and there's the far right, the side beyond conclusions.  The part I call "changed my mind," even after making conclusions.  Yes, Victoria, there is a changed my mind clause.

Meanwhile, the Roast Beast continues to blast its meaty call.  Another bud is threatening to open.  There is something obscene about this flower, about this ostentatious display in the kitchen.  Not the ridiculous juxtaposition of ordinary brown freckles against exotic deep pink petals--which is pretty showy--but this horrible intense food smell coming from not fauna but flora.  Double ridiculous is that it seems wrong in the kitchen, but equally wrong in the living room.  Or the bedroom.  Or the bathroom.  Whether I should separate it from the more decorous flowers in the bunch.  I can't figure out what to do with it.

(Maybe it belongs in a vase next to my Love Speaks Primeval.  A visual and olfactory pairing of voluptuous ham and seductive foie gras.)

When it comes to what I now get out of that flower, we've got a strong case of "Take Me to Your Leader."  As in, the alien has landed, right there on my kitchen counter, next to the sink.

While our drama unfolds, the lunchmeat languishes in the refrigerator.

And musk, civet, and castoreum whisper from the drawer and closet upstairs.

mug shot of the carnal perpetrator in floral clothing is author's own

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...