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 

The Mind Moves in Mitzterious Ways

I knew this day would come.

I knew it from the first.  I felt it, I recognized the direction, if not all the contours, of the path, and that eventually, I would get to the destination, even though from the first, I felt no need to go there.

In fact, it felt like I did not WANT to go there.

Yet, here I am.  Mitsouko, I found my way to you.

I WAS A HATER
Should any of you run into me on the trails of the interwebs, or if you have been a regular visitor to me here, you will know this:  about two years ago, I decided life was too short to hide certain truths.  I outed myself.  I do not like Mitsouko, I said.  The more I said it, the louder I got.  It is screechy.  It has fangs and claws, and I do not mean that in a good way.  The peach kills me.  This one is a mean spirit with tough skin.  Yes, I said those kinds of things.  And more.

Though sometimes I would just raise my hand, meekly, and say "me...over here...I, erm, haven't found the love."  Because part of me is Sally Field, afraid that you might not really like me.  And while I refused to drink the KoolAid, I knew there were those out there who said "if you don't love Mitsouko, then you really aren't into perfume."  Perfumista card revocation, all that stuff and nonsense.

I don't buy it for a minute.  But you can feel the attitude, even when not expressed.  "How in the world can you not LOVE it?" your super attenuated ears hear thought, but not spoken.

I'll tell you how.  A headache THIS BIG how.

But that was then.  This is now.

THE REVEAL

Meet Ms. Right, Mitsouko edc, in the watch bottle with the gold plastic cap.  According to a fantastic website with pictures and everything that I must have found on a day not available in my browser history and I didn't bookmark and I will search and find and replace this italics with eventually, that means it was manufactured sometime in the 1970's.  Which probably has a lot to do with what I am about to describe, given that oakmoss was still wantonly harvested and stuffed into a variety of perfumes.

Oakmoss.  I hate that it is endangered.  I appreciate that it is protected.  It is, unfortunately, a common thread among many of my favorite perfumes--in fact, given that I am a chypre fan in general, it is nearly unavoidable.

Well, it WAS unavoidable.  Until overharvesting and allergies and IFRA came along.  Shoot.  Actually, shoot me twice; another favorite note?  Sandalwood.  Mysore, cruelly overharvested sandalwood.  Gotta love the universe's cruel twists on the grown up who started life as a passionate fan of Ranger Rick and has in general followed a predictable trajectory on things involving flora and fauna.  

But I digress.  Here's the real story, the story of how patience, and a bottle of naproxen sodium, helped me find my way.

THE WAY IN

I've always known that I would *likely* find a door into Mitsouko.  I mean, if it is so bleeping iconic to a range of noses, then, well, something must be going on.  But I felt no need to push the issue, not hard.  There were so many other things to discover and to love that Ms. Mitz could just sit over there with her fawning dance partners and I could stay on my side of the hall and we'd twirl around each other as circumstance allowed.

Because I am patient, and somewhat stubborn, I collected a little of this and that of the Mitz along the way.  An edp, relative modern vintage.  A vial of vintage parfum.  A decant of a vintage parfum de toilette.  Hell...I'll go ahead and 'fess up now...I even have a full size edp of the next to last formulation, because I got it for less than $30 and knew full well I could place it in a foster home if I eventually decided to cease all hope.  But nothing did it.  Screeeeeeech.  BONK.  Thwackomp.  Nasty old lady.  Every blasted time.

I started creating iambic feet for "cursed persicol"; I lambasted the supersaturation of what was probably a worthy chypre with something that didn't toll my end, didn't chime it, but rang it in with a triangle and a gong.  It was my first and generally only example of a raspy perfume that did not please, of something that presented as a low alto but had the effect of an off-key soprano.  The powerful, belty kind, not the warbly Jeannette MacDonald kind.

Am I clear about how Mitsouko and I have gotten along?

Okay, good.  Now dig this.  I ordered a full bottle (that's right, now going to be my second full volume of something that, no matter what the iteration, has not played nice with me) of Eau de Cologne.  Why?  I played the odds.  The package suggested vintage, and I called the vendor and confirmed the pictured item reflected the something I was ordering.  I knew that at the price I was getting it for, I could turn around and re-sell it to one of those fawning fans for the same price, and we'd both be happy.  And because...well...I realized I had never owned one of those iconic Guerlain watch bottles.  Fine, I admit it.  It was a purchase that could easily be covered, egged on by a little bit of collector syndrome, and very little logic when it comes to love for what was inside.

Respect, though.  It had my respect.

What I didn't know it had was smooth.  That's right.  Smoooooooth.  I opened this bottle a week ago, put some on my skin, and...sonofagun.  No screech.  No nasty raspy bits.  Just smooth, moderately amplified green.  With that peach, but this time the fruit didn't have a billy club.  In fact, the fruit felt a little more diffuse, even while behaving a tad more citrusy.  It was a layer that didn't clog the pores of the rest of the composition; it rested somewhere on top and gently meshed with but not behaved like a loudmouth.  Nor, in fact, did any of it.

Ms. Mitz had become a very cozy blanket.  Unh-hunh.  I said cozy.  I said blanket.  As in something I wore, but didn't wear me.  As in a something that might be a particular type of blanket (this one more on the wool side, but not itchy), but chosen by me, and which then becomes a part of my ensemble.  A Woolrich cloak, or a serape.

My friends, I found the secret door.

LABYRINTHS

Sometimes I think of a perfume I can't wrap my head around as something I just have not discovered my own key to.  I allow myself the possibility that I still might not like it in the end, but I might understand it.  And respect it.

With notes, I have the same approach, but have the advantage of a little more flexibility.  Because notes can be presented in different ways, in terms of emphasis and co-notes and the hand of the perfumer, so there I am finding my way into a labyrinth.  Which opening is it going to be that lets me walk around and enjoy myself?  Vetiver was like that.  Struck me as medicinal and/or "useful" but not attractive in a perfume.  But I knew that I should take time and play with various presentations.  I had to go slowly, seeing as I actually had a bit of a distaste for it at first.  But one day, in one fell swoop, I found it.  I set myself up with a variety of vetiver containing scents, and let myself "feel" how each one worked.  First, the "trick" one let me in, then another one; perfumes that enrobed or wove vetiver with equally strong notes.  Now, I kind of appreciate vetiver straight up, but it took that kind of experience to get there.

I recounted those experiences here and here.

With a specific perfume--especially a big honking monolith like Mitsouko--it's a little different.  I mean, there it is.  It's more about approaching it from different angles, approaching it in different moods, trying again after finding your way in to other scents, because it's not like there are a slew of presentations (sweet vs dry, up front vs hidden, etc.) to play mind games with.  

Except...except the history of Mitsouko *does* allow for some variations on theme.  Nearly ninety years old, its main formula has been offered in various concentrations, and like any perfume covering that span, certain adjustments have been made in the formula.  PLUS, there is the issue of the oakmoss, real versus synthetic.  So, unlike with certain things that came in one "batch" only (because perhaps they only existed for a brief period of time), there is potential for nuance here.  The kind of nuance that says "here, this one; when it is this weight, and this emphasis on the notes, this one will work for you."

I pretty much hang my hat on that reason right there, when it comes to my truce with Mitsouko.  It's this batch, the one that comes in this bottle.  But I don't doubt the power of iconography, and it could be that other factors came together as well.  Remember that Aliage I wore as a winter hints of spring scent?  The citrus so sharply against the leather?  A memory of that passed through my head as I pondered my ability to live with this Mitz.  In fact, it passed through just as I was realizing that piercing peach note was still there, had never gone away, really--I was just able to see other things first this time.  So maybe me wrapping my arms around Aliage conditioned them somewhat for the contours of Mitsouko.

Maybe its the oakmoss.

Maybe I just changed my tastes a little bit.  (Okay, fine; a big, whomping, earth fissure of a bit.)

LESSON LEARNED

As has happened before, and will happen again, I find myself eating my words.  Hence the "changed my mind" tag; been there, done that.  Sheesh, I think I was just charping on (that's a harsh chirping, btw) on Victoria's blog about how I just couldn't get Mitsouko.  

The full truth is not so simple, though.  Because the fact of the matter is, I got brave while I was writing this.  Put on a couple of my other iterations, to mark my progress with them.  FAIL.  Same response.  Claws, headache.  So, for now, the magic is only in the big round bottle.  {chuckles} The one with the dunce cap on top.

My take away is the same as it is with certain people I have met and learned to enjoy limited quantities of time with.  The pleasure is there to be found.  You may need to be patient.  Very patient.  And it pleasurable company may only manifest itself under the right conditions.

But it's there.  Makes you glad you remembered to respect it.  But you don't have to love it, by the way.  Other people already do.

I think I'm going to go hug my Chamade.

ADDENDUM 7 March 2011:  There are many fine reviews of Mitsouko out there.  Helg's over at Perfume Shrine is one, and I bother to add it here because I found that she posted the same week (cue Twilight Zone music), and while she talks about all sorts of interesting historical details and does some wonderful cultural readings, she also notes the different effects of various vintages, concentrations, etc.  So I self-servingly note a post that supports one of my own observations, and which tickled my fancy. Besides, if per chance you haven't been there yet, chances are you should.  I think you'd like it. 

photo author's own

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

Quote me

I don't like castor bean plant.  You can quote me on that.

I should.  I should appreciate its height, its architectual interest, its bold presence, the opportunity to splash some red into the garden by choosing certain varieties, etc.  I should welcome the opportunity for something that combines all of these elements, plus flowers and interesting seedpods, in one tall plant.

I don't.

But please take a moment to put quote marks around "don't like."  Because yes, its true...but I don't harbor bad feelings in my heart toward it, or badmouth it to fellow gardeners, or even wish it didn't appear in my neighbor's landscape.

I just don't want it in my immediate scope.

Which is just how I used to feel about hosta.  Silly pointless rather ugly green elements that form ubiquitous rings around trees and which often were recommended with the caveat that you cut off the flowers and just use them for their leaves.  Sure, I got their advantage in that they grew in shade.  But why grow something ugly just because it will grow there?

Guess what occupies certain nooks and crannies of my yard now, and happily so in my eyes' opinion?

Hosta "June," and not just because that is my birth month.  Love the variegated leaves with an odd bluish green.  Giant hosta...yes, giant, weirdly prehistorical almost, kinda like that castor bean.  Garden variety (nyuk, nyuk wink wink) unnamed cultivar with delightful smelling flowers, which might have been called "August lily" by our grandparents.  Ones that spread with runners.  Functional ones.  Specimen ones.

Of course, I don't cut the flowers off a single one.  Silly advice books.

So there they are, these things which made me go "blergh."  These things about which I once said "I don't like them," and was rather vociferous in doing so.

Fortunately, I knew enough then to never say "never."  So my turnaround didn't exactly bite me on the hindquarters when it came.  A fine lesson for life and it's subcompartments, not only gardening, but parenting.  And home decorating.  And reading preferences.  And perfume.

I've talked about it before, but I took a new route home today, and saw a big planting of castor bean.

I didn't like it.

Quote me.

picture from the blog "Danger Garden"

Vamp à NY, redux: The bubblegum cometh

Well, shoot.

I sprayed Vamp on my wrist yesterday morning, just for yucks, because someone had offered to bring a bit more into my life.  And I said no, thinking I was being appropriate, given my first two experiences.  But, knowing that things can change--not often, and especially not after such definitive first and second times, but still, there is room for learning--I spritzed.

A bit more generously than intended, I should perhaps say.

And somewhere between the mist and my nose, I immediately caught...bubblegum.  Sonofagun, THAT's what some of those commenters were talking about.  So I went in for the snorfle.  And sure enough, I find bubblegum...along with a very pretty flower, vaguely raspy, hint of that thing that sometimes gets called rubber, but altogether enjoyable.

Crud.

Huff again.  Yup, it's something that is sweet without being that way from sugar, it's pleasant, it's...okay, I'll say it:  it's girly.  YES, this can be worn by anyone.  I am just saying, when I smell it, it makes me think *girl *some make-up *being aware of how you laugh *effortlessly remembering your posture.  In other words, generally not me.  But I like it.

Crud.

So, I try to kill the experience.  Me, my unshowered self, some gardening.  Let's go.  Into the somewhat hot, somewhat humid day.  Work, work.  Brace for insta-headache, and...huff.  And...I like.  Sonofagun again!!  Weed, weed, sniff.  Like.  Water, stroke, examine.  Huff.  Like.  Go to mailbox.  Huff.  Like.  Wave to neighbor.  Huff.  Like.  Huff.  Like.

Go back to air conditioning.  Distract self from wrist with tea.  Huff.

Well, pooh.  It's just a really nice something today.  I could see having a split of this.  It's not me, I probably won't be able to wear it mindlessly (will have to make sure head and weather and situation all suit), but yeah, I could have this.  It's actually more cheerful than Songes, which opens my chest with a full range of moods, including from the melancholy range.

Here I thought that white florals only challenged my head in terms of inducing headaches.  These white floral experiments are sorely testing my sanity.

Oh, yeah...and as for root beer?  I caught that in the opening.  In the bubbles, more than on my wrist.  It's not a true root beer...not so earthy rooty...no, I don't know if sasparilla is more appropriate...but definitely something from that branch of the soda tree.  Interestink.

Eating my hat: Tuberose Criminelle

And here I was, just telling Grain de Musc "no how, no way."  Too much camphor.  Bad joke.  A theme I've sounded many times over the past couple of years.

Today, something happened.  I need to take notes on the context, just in case this is the only situation in which this one will fly:  ❏ A late in the day shower.  (Some days are like that.  Other things get in the way.  Advantage is, anything that gets tossed onto a wrist on a whim in the a.m. because I feel ready to give it a short whirl ends up getting a full ride.  TC was NOT one of those...it was a Mariella Burani duo...more on that another time.)  ❏ Temps in the 60's, high-ish but not outlandish for April in these parts.  ❏ Huge trench being dug in my yard.  Must consider the potential effect of watching one's planting handiwork nearly get decimated.  Nearly.  Surely extra hormones of some sort were flying.  Might have been a factor.  Will decidedly avoid trying to recreate that particular contextual element.

Anyway, I showered and, because it had somehow ended up in my drawer of tried & true "specials," I took out the SL Tuberose Criminelle.  Yup, there was that opening...but it didn't make me yank my head back and look around for the Candid Camera.  Hmm.  Another sniff...yeah, that's the note...but it's not...all consuming....

I am totally digging this tube today.  Feels like it catches the heady exotic aspects of the flower, while messing it up with other aspects of its reality.  The "camphor" settles into just a sharp something, just like what lingers in the air around a number of tropical whites.  Every other time, this one has been a viscous lipid with mothballs floating on top.  A practical joke, if you will.  Today, the joke is on me.  Today, it is a joy.

I'll take it.

Maybe this will just be a solitary glimpse, like that one good time I had with Kingdom.  But I'm glad to have had it, and wonder if perhaps this is what some of my 'fumey friends who love it live with every time they apply.

It's good to be reminded that patience can be rewarded.  Sometimes.

But no way am I going to dig a 9' hole in the yard just to try to get beyond the joke.  If the magic is gone, I'll live with the memory.  To adjust what Rick said to Ilsa, "We'll always have April 13th."

Toes, or all in?

For those of you who have only swum in oceans or swimming pools, a few notes on lake swimming:

"Inland" lakes (aren't they all? but no, trust me, there are the big lakes, the Great Lakes, which I have come to realize need emphasized are really, really big--those of you who think of the middle as "flyover" would do well to think about a body of water that takes much time to cross on a boat, and remember it takes even your jet some time to cross over) are smaller lakes of various sizes, which generally fall within state boundaries, and can be seen across and traversed easily by boat, sometimes even rowboat.

Point being, the swimming is different. Not only do you float differently, but there can be ginormous temperature differentials on the inland lakes: water temperature varies according to season, according to depth, and even sometimes according to weather conditions. On the big lakes, the water is, generally, cold. The question for any lake is: do you go carefully, trying to discover and/or acclimate yourself to the temperature, or do you just charge?

No matter what your approach, your experience in the same pocket of water may be different one day to the next, one visit to the next, one year to the next.

And so it is with Kingdom. What I am about to say is not "I was wrong." My experience has been, almost every time, panties. But today I was decanting a generous sample for a friend--a friend who has enjoyed this, and so I was happy to share--and a generous splot of McQueen's controversial juice ended up on my hand.

Surprise! Today the cumin was nearly woodsy, and clearly just a layer among the package. I was getting a quick impression of something that was interesting both as quoting some vintage references, and also quite of the times. Cumin, woody spice, something floral...it was all there, and it was interesting. Not "beautiful," as some receive it, but really, really interesting, in a pleasant way. Meanwhile, I had just decanted DK Gold (following a tasting principle of increasing intensities), and THAT was also different than any of my previous experiences. In this cool/cold weather, Gold edp was almost creamy, with jasmine clearly coming through as much as the lily, and much less sharp green. (That green is sharper, and more metallic, in the EDP.)

So, today, I liked Kingdom. No promises for tomorrow. And honestly, I'll probably be more likely to reach for the Gold on an overall percentage basis. But I had to come clean about the experience, considering how adamant I am about the nasty element I usually get.

BTW, you already not to trust when somebody says "come on in, the water's fine," right? One swimmer's tepid is another's chilled. In the lake, or out of the bottle, your mileage may vary.

*****

UPDATE 11/23/08:  Kingdom is back in the chatterstream.  See the gents over at PeredePierre for their take on it, and hear Denyse at Grain de Musc place it according to her sensibilities within the comments section of her lovely review of Schiaparelli Shocking.  Yup, that's me, asking her opinion--I love to learn from better noses than mine.  But despite my bowing to Denyse's more experienced nose, I have to say that, for now, for me, Kingdom's "gousset" is still sewn into panties and not a blouse.  Never a better example of Your Mileage May Vary than an individual's experience of cumin in Kingdom.