Autumn heart in a bottle: Bois Blond

You know, people can get gloomy in the fall. Shortening of the days, plants going underground, chill in the air, blah blah blah.

I love it. I love every season when it comes, to be honest. But now it's autumn's turn to get the love.

There is something powerful about the sun at this time of year; it is sweet and warm in character as well as color and temperature, if shorter in duration. The earth gets warmed just enough to have a good loamy smell before settling into a cool uncomposted leafy something. There is a gentle urgency to the chores in the garden, the knowledge that they must be done now, even as a few moments of basking are allowed.

That pause between urgency and lounging...the overlay of one on top of the other...put into relief both the beauty of sunny warmth and greyish brownish chill.

Bois Blond is all about the foreshortened sunny warmth of a fully lived season. It's the hay after a full day of sun, cooked ambery, still sweet with greenish vegetation. It's an embrace on a bright autumn day. It opens all about the tobacco and the hay, and ends up with both cooked in the sun, part of a moldering compost heap that has hints of the sweet Guillame-ade. "I heart BB," says the text to my BFF. It's so wonderful on a sunny autumn day. It's all joy that understands melancholy--it might even have been there before, but isn't going to go back...yet.

Gap Grass!

A brief alert: Gap Grass is back. It says "the original scent" on the in store posters, and by gum, I think they're right.

I've got an aluminum mini (15ml?), which I've hoarded from back in the day, so I've kept in touch with the original, and it seems right. And by back in the day, I mean when I wasn't into perfume. Which strictly means pre 2008, but that is misleading. I seriously wasn't into perfume, or body scent products. Two things caught my attention around this time: Gap Grass, and something called "Sage & Thyme Body Mist" by Bloom. (Do we see the groundwork being laid for my continuing adoration for grass and hay notes?) But I digress...the important news is...

Grass is back.

Happy Monday!

I'm very confused...

...and I know it's the weather.

I have a wedding to attend, and had planned out my scent choices months ago. After all, October in the midwest...pretty clear we can jump into autumn fragrances, right? And, good fortune, my friend the bride also has a fondness for grass & hay. (In her case, her preference is for the real life version, since she spent part of her childhood on a farm. She's not into perfume.) So, I was all thinking GREEN (Manuel Canovas Ballade Verte or HAY Fleur de Narcisse, or, if the weather got cold enough, Chergui.

Now, I've got hours to go, it's sunny and over 70 degrees, I'll not be wearing any sleeves after all, I want interest and mystery but not to overwhelm my fellow guests. We'll all be in the same room for the entire evening--ceremony and dinner/reception are in the same space. ZOIKS! I don't want Chanel (Bois des Iles, for example), because that seems a bit too...I don't know. It's not hitting me right. Gourmandy vanilla-y scents are out; I'm not part of the buffet. Challenging skank-o's are not generally on my list, anyway, but I've got nothing to prove.

I want warm grass and dry hay with a hint of earth and a touch of...not musk...what????? It might end up being Bois Blonde.....

UPDATE:
Vini, Scenti, Good Timini.... I solved my dilemma as follows: Ballade Verte went on the arms & neck after all. That was the perfume that started my grass/hay/green exploration last spring, and my first thought at the first spritz was that it would be good for my friend's wedding. Plus, she's also a dancer...Ballade...Verte.... Signs pointed to "wear."

But, for a little fun, I put a smidge of L'Ombre Fauve on the back of my hands. Bare arms and hands, but "gloved" with perfume...ah, a perfume geek's in-joke. Anyway, it worked well for me, and the ceremony was of course as fabulous and unique as the friends who got married.