Avon Timeless: Is it Soup Yet?

When I was at the Smithsonian seminar on the history of perfume last fall see post, Luca Turin interjected a point about perfumes that pretty much put a lot of elements into a perfume without them ever coming together as a whole, and/or cram in so many parts that it just goes over the top.  He said he refers to such perfumes as "soup."

The Avon Timeless recipe, per Basenotes:

Aldehyde, Lemon, Bergamot, Gardenia

Cedarwood, Patchouli, Rose, Orris

Olibanum, Opopanax, Amber, Musk, Vanilla, Tonka

Yes.  Those are there.  In the same way you can put flour and butter and eggs and vanilla and milk into a bowl and not have a cake, but have have the smells of flour and butter and eggs and vanilla and milk, all of those elements are there.

Actually, push down on the stuff a little bit.  There are times when some blend, at least in short bits.

Remember, I am a scent amplifier, and tend to run things in slow motion.  Even so, to see/hear/smell nearly every one of these notes pop out was both kind a Dick and Jane reader whose theme was "see perfume run" and Chinese water torture.  The worst part of the slow drip of the water torture was that there were times when I wanted to like it, and thought maybe it was going somewhere.  (Which never happened.)  And times when, a full day later, I caught a whiff of something that smelled good, and went in to huff with the eager hope that magic had happened.  (It didn't.)

I'm sorry.  I love cheap thrills.  I won't back off of admitting my fondness for things that aren't cool.   This one has its fans; you can find thrilled happy people partaking of the Timeless on Makeup Alley.  I've even met a few.

But initial runs tell me that, on me at least, it's not soup yet.

For opoponax soup that works, see March's review of Memo Manoa. That one also packed it in, but somehow pulls it off.  Also, for fellow opoponax fiends, I remind you of the cheap thrill Olfacta once shared:  L'Aromarine Opoponax.  I enjoy both, though the second in very light doses.  Manoa has gelled into a worthy soup.  The L'Aromarine is not a fully rounded something; it's more like cake batter, but the kind you like to eat off the spoon.

photo author's own. 

What's worse than a discontinued favorite?

Perhaps a discontinued cheap favorite?

About a year ago, I found a deal on Jose Eisenberg J'ose for Women.  No, not Jai Ose by Guy Laroche; J'ose, by Jose Eisenberg.  It seems there was an eponymous scent for men, and one for women.  I got my women's J'ose from a California eBay vendor.  Around $25, 100ml.  $25 which got you a big slug of daytime-suitable comforting amber with a hint of gourmand (which I can generally only take a hint of), and a something I couldn't quite nail.

I liked it enough that I thought I might gift it.  So I waited through a few more auctions of it, wondering if I could finagle a better deal, realized the price was pretty stable, and got a second bottle for $2 more.

Then I worried if I had gone off the deep end.  I was early into perfume, I realized that even then, and wondered if perhaps I might regret this cheap scent purchase--which wasn't going to be so cheap if I didn't end up liking it.

Turns out I was right.  And I was wrong.  I have discovered many other scents I like; a couple of handfuls of ones I love.  My fear of cheap and/or gourmand fatigue has not quite played out, though...I still rather like it, though I rarely reach for it.  I pulled it out today because yesterday, during one of my regular internet search forays, I discovered notes for J'ose.

• Head notes: lemon, armoise, mine ("fresh and aromatic"
• Heart notes: lavender, coffee, mocha ("floral")
• Base notes: patchouli, cedar, musk, hay, amber ("woody amber")

Okay, now I get why there is what seemed to my early nose to be a hint of men's cologne.  "Fresh and aromatic."  I also get why I thought of it as gourmand-y; that which they call floral is total confection, isn't it?  Of course, the "mocha" means sweetish vanilla is part of the concoction.   And I absolutely recognize the source of comfort; hay and amber, hint of wood hanging out there.

This is not an expertly mixed concoction, with a carefully conducted drydown.  It doesn't take long for all the players to start making noise, in relatively consistent proportion.  But it does fine as "you smell good."

Unfortunately, it is nowhere to be found.  

So, rather than being able to offer you a "psssssst...hey, bud..." and open up my trench coat to reveal a link to an online vendor, all I can do is offer you the Jose Eisenberg website, which still seems to let you put a (full price) bottle in your shopping cart.

Or, you can get Eisenberg comfort hose on eBay.

Play it like a harmonica...

Not layering exactly--rather, in series.

Lay down a couple of swatches next to each other, then run nose from one to the other.  Kind of like you play the notes on a harmonica.

For example, today:  Yves Rocher Voile d'Ambre next to Penhaglion's Elixir. Run your sniffer over the two in that order. Yummy spicy nice.  Fun for surprise snow.