Green, of course

I'd complain about what they do to fresh water around these parts on Saint Patrick's Day, but pouring a bunch of green dye in the river ain't the half of this particular waterway's story.  I mean, it's been a dumping canal for the stockyards, and they managed to make it flow backwards, among other things.

I won't even start carping about that Asian fish.  Given the holiday, I suppose I could start *harping,* but as I wouldn't be using a lyre, and likelihood of being lyrical is low, I'll skirt that harangue.

If I'm lucky, tomorrow I'll skirt around the hungover as well.  So many "honorary Irish," so many green gills.

***
Yesterday, I took some batting practice for the wearin' o' the green.  I put on Gap Grass lotion, then generously spritzed (two times! one arm!!) some Martin Mariegla Untitled.  Guess what?  Very nice.

That Martin Mariegla is an interesting creature; it manages to infuse galbanum--good old dry cool wind, hint of cigarette ash tray galbanum--with a vaguely resin-y sweetness that immediately said "add me to your green galbanum line-up, oh she who loves it so."  And the pairing of it with Gap Grass made a sort of complimentary harmony, seeing as Gap Grass manages to sweeten up green grass without needing to cut it down and turn it into hay.

Yup, it was a very "nice" green.  In the same way the "Irish Holiday" has been mangled into something that hyperfocuses on one story from an often turbulent a complex island, one story which has evolved into a vague tale of a sort of benevolent skinny Santa Claus who lifted his rood and walked all the snakes to the shore where they magically forever went away.

But--and here I raise my hand against the force of fierce edgy perfumistas--I do find that pleasantries are often, well, pleasant.  Sometimes we need to sidle up to a challenge like galbanum, serve our dark brew with a dab of honey, put caramelized onions on the cooked bitter greens, whatever, to help adjust to the taste.  I'm okay with that.  I'd say that Untitled makes a good gateway galbanum drug.

And a fitting way to wear the green, happy cleaned up American style.  You know, kind of like Saint Patrick used a shamrock to get across the idea of the holy trinity.




image of the Chicago River from Chicagoland Real Estate Forum

Vol de Nuit Isn't

Subtitled:  A Failed Narrative but a Great Perfume  (A Review)

Prequel

No matter how you approach perfume, completely naive, or studiously researched, it would be hard to come upon Vol de Nuit and not immediately conjure a back story.  Even if you don't speak French.  Because--and, fine, I will speak for the American audience here, hoping one of you Brits speaks up regarding your school experience--most American school children are exposed to "The Little Prince."  Lay Payteet Prahnce, perhaps your teacher added.  Or, perhaps, if you moved fairly frequently, you were exposed to other helpful pronunciations of the "original" title; Luh Pehteet Prince being among my favorite clarifications.  Mind you, I didn't know a speck of French as a child, but even I was able to ken onto the fact that Peter Sellers could have done better at awful.  I could READ, for heavens sake, I just wasn't French-knowledgeable.

The petit point?  Said teachers would generally then offer up, another title by the same author, should we wish to consider reading further:  Vol de Nuit.  Night Flight.  Which sounded romantic, but made me wonder if it was a sequel or prequel that would help me figure out the plight of the lonely guy and his flower, kind of like one wonders what became of Scarlett after Rhett left not giving a damn.  (After I started writing this, it occurred to me that there is now a generation of students who might get a malevolent association with the sounds of Vol de Nuit, being similar to Vol de mort and all.  Which might serve them better when thinking about the perfume.  But that is another story.)

In addition to the teacher voices in your head, there is the "official story," and if you at all poke your nose into Guerlain's business, you are pointed toward Antoine de Saint-Expury and how the fragrance was created in his honor / drama of aviation / a pilot / blah blah blah.

So, in my head, I have:  Vol de Nuit = Night Flight.  Vol de Nuit = perfume.  Vol de Nuit ≈ smells like a night flight.  Vol de Nuit ± solves/addresses the problems of the little prince.  Vol de Nuit ≅ will transport me so I don't worry about existential conundrums.

(For further cognitive miasma, see Kevin's lovely review of Vol de Nuit as a night flight, wherein he constructs his own narrative.  Or Helg's review, where she acknowledges the narrative and locates where she finds Vol de Nuit among a pantheon of galbanum scents.)

There it is.  Identified, labelled, sorted, catalogued, told.  If you are me, you try Vol de Nuit many times, starting with early in your fall down the rabbit hole.  It strikes you as difficult, as bitter, as old, as a potential scrubber, as interesting but probably not you, worth coming back to for academic purposes but not for pleasure.  It's no night flight.  But you go back, repeatedly, looking for nocturnal, or at least crepuscular, lift off.

And then, thank goodness, you have the good fortune to one day out of the blue decide to spray in the bright light of mid morning, and spray generously, and just let things be, immediately forgetting what you have done.  So that this waft springs up from your wrist, and you say "wow," and you spend hours upon hours with it.

And find you are happy.  And decide to relocate yourself vis-à-vis Vol de Nuit.


The Review Part

What Vol de Nuit isn't:  blackblue and murky hard to see with the only clearness being the stars above you and the whole experience gravity defiant, transporting you through the air.  Vol de Nuit is not a night flight.

What Vol de Nuit is:  greenherbybitter powder mashed in such a way that earthy bits (perhaps the daffodil, certainly the oakmoss) ground you and yet eartly lifts (sparkly citrus bits or invigorating herbal sniffs with florals interwoven just enough to keep it from being a total Druid potion) keeping things from being all around your ankles.  Vol de Nuit is a tree growing in the forest, knowing which way to reach for sunlight, aware of all it touches from root to leaf.

Vol de Nuit is more "Tree of Life" than "Flight of Night."

In less fanciful terms, it is a green plant-focused woody with plenty of powder.  The notes mention flowers, but I don't get much (read "any?") of that.

In mathematical expressions, Vol de Nuit ≠ transportation, literal or existential.  However, Vol de Nuit = an interesting perfume that I will sometimes want to wear.

Coda


My long day into night with Vol de Nuit was interesting.  Repeated pleasure from huffing, frequent wrist to nose and/or putting nose to the waft like a dog might kind of day.  It was a totally different experience of exactly the same thing...unlike those times when you have an "a-ha!" of something different, some new note or aspect striking you, this was one of those times when you know full well you are experiencing the very same input you did last time, but it's coming in differently.  Like...the first time you think in a different language.  Or when you see the vase and not the human faces in that picture.  Or when you have been spending your time playing jazz copying other solos and/or carefully constructing a line based on the key and the tempo and the meter but then WHOOPS! you are just playing the thought without worrying about the parts behind the expression.

Or like when you shift your angle slightly, and instead of seeing the reflections in the plate glass window, you see the display inside.

It's always been the same information available to you.  Were the earlier reads "correct" also?  Were they your own?

Here's what I know:  I've been spending years assiduously checking out fragrances whose notes or explanatory copy mention "forest" or "green woods" or "druidic potion."  (Okay, haven't come across that last one, really.)  Little did I know that adding a healthy dose of powder, and accepting the sentence constructions of a writer from the PREVIOUS turn of the century, rather than the one I lived through, would best express the thought.  Herbalgreenbitterwoodyhintsofsmoothdefinitelypowderystuff that smacks of/with my beloved galbanum but doesn't bite hard, I'll be back.


What I was sniffing:

Vol de Nuit, parfum concentration.  That iconic Guerlain purse sprayer holds a refill of VdN parfum.  I sprayed the day of the revelation.  I've dabbed for my return while writing.  The sample vial is for size reference; early in my perfume explorations, I was surprised by how small those expensive extraits were.  Chalk it up to a supersize culture plus an edt life?  Plus, I suspect, there is something about how large things loom in our imagination.  Those Lutens bell jars are not cookie jar size, for example.  You could hold one between your thumb and finger, thumb under the bottom, finger on the top.  Not that you'd want to.  Just saying.  So, there's my Vol de Nuit, purchased as a gently used item, quadrilobe stopper already undone.  Purse sprayer new old stock.  Have since smelled samples from other vintage and new bottles, am satisfied the partial bottle was not altered.  (I may not be so good at identifying notes, but I can do pretty well at recognizing watered down side by sides, thank you {cough cough} Chanel Coco NOT.)


Um, that'd be your disclosure statement for the day.


The image is the author's own.  As usual, play fair if you wish to use it.

One review, one Who Knew?

REVIEW
actually, just an impression
I was driving down the road last week, grooving on music, the scenery, and my first round with Parfumerie Generale's Papyrus de Cyane.  And while there's more going on in this one then I am about to suggest, I have to admit I got fixated on a particular idea hiding in one of my scent impressions.  I had to drive a few miles to put my finger on it...it reminded me of...AH!

Impregnate one

with a weaving of

(galbanum).


Ever played with a new pinky ball?  It's got a smell somewhere between rubber and leather.  I totally imagined a pinky ball with many, many veins of galbanum at the surface and underneath.

Cool.

****

WHO KNEW?
About a year ago, one of my side and small addictions was a game on The Evil Empire Social Network called "ChainRxn."  Colorful little bubbles slowly bouncing around in a box.  If one hits a second, you get 2x points, if ball two hits a third, 3x, if the third hits a fourth, 4x, etc.  Sure, I tried to top my high score.  Numerous times.  But what really drew me in was the pleasant semi-chime sound each colored circle made, different tones which I recall as corresponding to color (but might not have).  The more "connections" were happening at once, the more tones at once.

Imagine my surprise when I finally tried out an iPod app I downloaded a few months ago, called "Bloom."  What I knew was it was going to display some sort of color show on the screen.  I thought it would be correlated to music I was playing.  Not.

The app creates its own sound, whether per its choosing, or your direction.  Guess how you "select" the tones?  Through a menu palette which has choices that include "neroli," "labdanum," "orris," "benzoin," and "tolu."  Whaaaa???  I go back to the beginning.  Look at the credits.  Surprise! and yet, it makes perfect sense:  Brian Eno is one of the co-creators.  Brian Eno, of popular music fame (his own and as an engineer), interesting thinker, and longtime fan of fragrance and perfume.

Sheesh.  Right under my nose, and I didn't know.

And there it sits, as I write this, soothing me.  Silly thing.  (Listens...) I'm back.  Oh, yeah, right; I liked ChainRxn for the same reason in the end.  I liked the show, the pictures + sound, in a kind of not-complicated way.

I'm in orris mode at the moment, should you be wondering.

Have a great weekend.

images both lifted from the interwebs; gazoodles of the same Pinky Ball image on various websites; the galbanum plant is from Sophy.