Book chat
Saturday, February 26
Hope to "see" you there!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Mixed Fruit News
Yesterday Cafleurebon reported that Caron's L'Accord (Code 119) would be released in the U.S. this summer. This is good news, to me at least, as my love for L'Accord has not diminished since I wrote about it last summer and spent time basking in my waft.
The bad news is that they are calling it a fruity floral. Which is too bad, because to me that conjures sweet dreck celebuscents for the young. This one is not cloying, it is not too sweet, the flowers (rose and what??) are imbued in a gently raspy chord of patch and musk with herbal elements that emerge as you wear it.
I've enjoyed it in Paris heat and Chicago blizzard. If the report is true, I'll be one happy camper, knowing I don't have to get my passport stamped in order the replace my bottle. That's some expensive ink, after all.
EDIT TO ADD: Marina has done some sleuthing, and cloak and dagger operations reveal that the stateside release will happen in March. Which isn't so far away, after all....
The bad news is that they are calling it a fruity floral. Which is too bad, because to me that conjures sweet dreck celebuscents for the young. This one is not cloying, it is not too sweet, the flowers (rose and what??) are imbued in a gently raspy chord of patch and musk with herbal elements that emerge as you wear it.
I've enjoyed it in Paris heat and Chicago blizzard. If the report is true, I'll be one happy camper, knowing I don't have to get my passport stamped in order the replace my bottle. That's some expensive ink, after all.
EDIT TO ADD: Marina has done some sleuthing, and cloak and dagger operations reveal that the stateside release will happen in March. Which isn't so far away, after all....
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Figs, wanted and unwanted
Another post reviewing the oddities of scent and mind.
There is an outfit by the name of Upper Canada soap company, and I am about to write about one and only one product of theirs, and I am not going to be happy about it. Not because it did not perform as it should--it certainly did--nor because it did not smell as advertised. That it did, too.
It's just that nobody warned me dish soap could smell like perfume. That's right, folks; we're going on an inverse to the usual trope you'll find in perfume chat. My issue was not that a perfume smelled like soap. My issue was that a (dish) soap smelled like perfume.
Aldehydic perfume.
Perhaps you've not been here often, or perhaps I've somehow gently phrased and backed into my thoughts on aldehydes enough that it my come as some surprise to you that this should be an issue for me. But trust me, I rarely like bubbles in my nose unless they are gen-you-wine bubbles from a semi-dry sparkling wine or in a perfectly drawn bath. If I find the smell of perfume accosting me in my dish pan, tormenting me with every scrub of a pot, every swish of a dish, well...I am Not Happy.
Add in to that my vein of frugality that says "this stuff is working perfectly well and clearly does the job you asked it to do and nobody is really going to say thank you to a gift of used dish soap so you'd better suck it up and use the resource" and you end up with a rather displeased dishwasher.
Did I mention that the dish soap also performed so well the generous sized bottle lasted and lasted? Thank you, Upper Canada, for manufacturing such an efficacious product.
(Thank you, wonderfully robust English language, for offering me an honest word of praise that allows me to say something so close to "effing" at the same time. ALDEHYDES, I tell you!!!)
My bottle is finally, FINALLY, gone.
I have now moved on to Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day dish soap, Basil scent. Riddle me this, Batman: Why would a candy version of basil, something that I might find cloying in a perfume, please me so much in my kitchen sink? Does it benefit from being held against the aldehydic terror perfumey fig that was the Upper Canada offering?
Am I okay with candy in the kitchen, but not perfume? It is true; I never like to spray perfume in the kitchen, not even when I have my hot mitts (as in my eager hands, not my protective gear) on a fresh package from the mail that I know contains the latest something....
Sorry, Upper Canada. I promise I will try another offering. After all, I can see that on a value per penny basis, yours is a good choice. I also see that no online source offers the fig scent, so maybe there's a reason I found my bottle at the closeout store.
Wash on.
***
Don't feel too sorry for me. There is such a thing as a happy fig.
As it turns out, it's not a perfume, either.
There is an outfit by the name of Upper Canada soap company, and I am about to write about one and only one product of theirs, and I am not going to be happy about it. Not because it did not perform as it should--it certainly did--nor because it did not smell as advertised. That it did, too.
It's just that nobody warned me dish soap could smell like perfume. That's right, folks; we're going on an inverse to the usual trope you'll find in perfume chat. My issue was not that a perfume smelled like soap. My issue was that a (dish) soap smelled like perfume.
Aldehydic perfume.
Perhaps you've not been here often, or perhaps I've somehow gently phrased and backed into my thoughts on aldehydes enough that it my come as some surprise to you that this should be an issue for me. But trust me, I rarely like bubbles in my nose unless they are gen-you-wine bubbles from a semi-dry sparkling wine or in a perfectly drawn bath. If I find the smell of perfume accosting me in my dish pan, tormenting me with every scrub of a pot, every swish of a dish, well...I am Not Happy.
Add in to that my vein of frugality that says "this stuff is working perfectly well and clearly does the job you asked it to do and nobody is really going to say thank you to a gift of used dish soap so you'd better suck it up and use the resource" and you end up with a rather displeased dishwasher.
Did I mention that the dish soap also performed so well the generous sized bottle lasted and lasted? Thank you, Upper Canada, for manufacturing such an efficacious product.
(Thank you, wonderfully robust English language, for offering me an honest word of praise that allows me to say something so close to "effing" at the same time. ALDEHYDES, I tell you!!!)
My bottle is finally, FINALLY, gone.
Am I okay with candy in the kitchen, but not perfume? It is true; I never like to spray perfume in the kitchen, not even when I have my hot mitts (as in my eager hands, not my protective gear) on a fresh package from the mail that I know contains the latest something....
Sorry, Upper Canada. I promise I will try another offering. After all, I can see that on a value per penny basis, yours is a good choice. I also see that no online source offers the fig scent, so maybe there's a reason I found my bottle at the closeout store.
Wash on.
***
Don't feel too sorry for me. There is such a thing as a happy fig.
As it turns out, it's not a perfume, either.
images, including bite mark, author's own
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Mica dust / L'Ombre Fauve
One thing that never ceases to fascinate me is sparklies upon the water. In the summer, sunlight glints on the water, making sparklies that hover just above the water's surface, sometimes seeming to lie on it, but not a part of it.
In the winter, snow, frozen water, offers its own special sparklies. Bits that remind me of mica chips I used to love to find in rocks. Tangible, now lying on but also embedded in the surface. Unlike the glints on the lake, these you know you can touch. They add a beautiful texture to the surface of the snow.
If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. And you can see some sparklies. Sorry I can't offer you a handful to actually touch.
***
I reached for L'Ombre Fauve this morning with eagerness and trepidation. I love this fragrance, this rough on the surface deep pile beauty. It's a scratchy dark amber that ends up all animal cozy. The scratchiness is in the same way I've talked about before in Chamade, and the same way there's a rough powder in Habit Rouge. I think I've said here a variation on the idea that it's like wrapping in an animal skin inside a wool blanket and laying down in a gentleman farmer's barn?
I've been so busy with other scents this fall/winter--testing or lolling about in a given for a while--that I missed wearing this during my traditional L'Ombre Fauve happy time, cool and cold fall into early winter, when the air is snappy but the sun still has a shot at warming you up. Once the holidays came, then my foray into counter-season scents in January, I had lost my window of opportunity. It was either wear it now, and take my chances, or wait until fall equinox 2011.
Why be afraid? Because I was pretty sure the deep, deep cold (still single digits here, Farenheit, and covered in this just blizzarded two feet of snow) would render L'Ombre Fauve cruel. That the depth would disappear (no sun to warm it up), and the sharp edges would have time to actually cut.
On the opening, I was afraid I was right.
But given a little time, it is behaving like the big cat I hoped it would. Threat of danger, but ends up purring under my layers. I'm glad I dared.
photo author's own
In the winter, snow, frozen water, offers its own special sparklies. Bits that remind me of mica chips I used to love to find in rocks. Tangible, now lying on but also embedded in the surface. Unlike the glints on the lake, these you know you can touch. They add a beautiful texture to the surface of the snow.
If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. And you can see some sparklies. Sorry I can't offer you a handful to actually touch.
***
I reached for L'Ombre Fauve this morning with eagerness and trepidation. I love this fragrance, this rough on the surface deep pile beauty. It's a scratchy dark amber that ends up all animal cozy. The scratchiness is in the same way I've talked about before in Chamade, and the same way there's a rough powder in Habit Rouge. I think I've said here a variation on the idea that it's like wrapping in an animal skin inside a wool blanket and laying down in a gentleman farmer's barn?
I've been so busy with other scents this fall/winter--testing or lolling about in a given for a while--that I missed wearing this during my traditional L'Ombre Fauve happy time, cool and cold fall into early winter, when the air is snappy but the sun still has a shot at warming you up. Once the holidays came, then my foray into counter-season scents in January, I had lost my window of opportunity. It was either wear it now, and take my chances, or wait until fall equinox 2011.
Why be afraid? Because I was pretty sure the deep, deep cold (still single digits here, Farenheit, and covered in this just blizzarded two feet of snow) would render L'Ombre Fauve cruel. That the depth would disappear (no sun to warm it up), and the sharp edges would have time to actually cut.
On the opening, I was afraid I was right.
But given a little time, it is behaving like the big cat I hoped it would. Threat of danger, but ends up purring under my layers. I'm glad I dared.
photo author's own
Monday, January 31, 2011
Announcing...
The winner of "The Secret of Chanel No. 5" is horror movie fan Nancy H. You can find my e-mail via the Information page.
Miss World 2010, Alexandra Mills, from TT Owonubi.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Offskin, aka The Space Between Us
One of the worst professors I ever had said two of the most memorable lines from my undergraduate life.
The first was part and parcel of satire: {cue gravelly voiced, tired, tousled, deigning, gray haired presence at front of room, with what might appear to be the somewhat older denizens of Fast Times at Ridgemont High filling seats in a classroom furnished more like a high school than a college} "The mind, class, is like a sieve..." {Various reactions make clear that this is a refrain as familiar, and perhaps as frequently punctuated, as "...take one down and pass it around..."}
But the other, the one that I have revisited many times: "It was not the icon itself, but the space between the icon and the viewer, that was worshipped."
Score one for Byzantine history, the Orthodox church, and the professor. This one has not fallen through the sieve, and will not, ever.
•••••
Recently, I have worn two scents that have struck me as beautiful, but never when snarfed/huffed. Only when experienced as that which floats above the skin. It wouldn't be fair to say their "sillage," for in my mind the idea of "sillage" is a nearly visible vapor trail that is left in a wearer's wake. No, this was the air above my wrist, discovered as I leaned over to pick up a paper, or reached up to open a cupboard. If I tried to put nose to skin to discover the source, I got something different. It was only as I pulled back that I got a hint of how to find the source.
It was a space above my skin, waiting to be discovered. It would not be left behind as or after I left the room, but hovered there, somewhere above me, but not exactly part of me. It took a combination of perfume on skin, plus a "viewer" searching the area above, to discover it.
•••••
"Many people make the mistake of thinking that these images were created as idol worship. That is wrong. They were an image of an idol, or perhaps more accurately, a concept, something to be reminded of. The purpose of the image, which you will notice is rather two-dimensional, was to allow for an interaction between the viewer and the representation. The act of reflecting, of contemplation, caused the space in between to be sacred. That space was only "alive" or sacred during the act of contemplation.
Thus, it was not idol worship, but idol contemplation, if you will; but do not confuse reverence for object deification. Or, indeed, deification of a person. It was as if the idol allowed for, in combination with a reverential viewer, a sacred space. It was the space that mattered, and it only mattered during the act."
•••••
Vintage Houbigant Aperçu and Nina Ricci Filles de Eve are two examples of perfumes that I find are better experienced off skin than on it. Filles de Eve in particular; when I go in for the close up, it falls apart. It's all old lady perfume, and not particularly complex. I persisted in trying it, because I had smelled it on a friend in perfume, and remembered it as beautiful.
The trick of memory was to adjust the preposition. I hadn't smelled it on a friend; I had smelled it off a friend.
Sure enough, I've caught the cloud a couple of times now. Much better. I am still sussing Filles de Eve out, and not sure if I love it, or I am just having fun visiting. In fact, I may decide I have fun visiting, but don't like it at all. Aperçu is actually more likely to be my bag, though I am still not sure why. For one thing, it has more layers to it, at least as it plays out in my nose. The thing is, taking time to think about exactly what is playing out in my nose is distracting me from that space, that beautiful space just off of my skin.
•••••
I'll be spending time in the future sorting out whether or not I find this phenomenon more prevalent in older style perfumes than newer ones. As it happens, I am wearing Andy Tauer's Reverie au Jardin as I write this, and this is one that I love discovering offskin. But, and perhaps and important "but" to consider as I try to sort this out, Reverie au Jardin is pretty faithful in the huff. What you catch in the cloud is what you find on your skin. Not that I'm complaining. Just saying.
Today, I am all about offskin. This space between us. Present, perhaps, only when someone stops to contemplate it.
image of Saint Stephen icon from greek-icons.org
The first was part and parcel of satire: {cue gravelly voiced, tired, tousled, deigning, gray haired presence at front of room, with what might appear to be the somewhat older denizens of Fast Times at Ridgemont High filling seats in a classroom furnished more like a high school than a college} "The mind, class, is like a sieve..." {Various reactions make clear that this is a refrain as familiar, and perhaps as frequently punctuated, as "...take one down and pass it around..."}
But the other, the one that I have revisited many times: "It was not the icon itself, but the space between the icon and the viewer, that was worshipped."
Score one for Byzantine history, the Orthodox church, and the professor. This one has not fallen through the sieve, and will not, ever.
•••••
Recently, I have worn two scents that have struck me as beautiful, but never when snarfed/huffed. Only when experienced as that which floats above the skin. It wouldn't be fair to say their "sillage," for in my mind the idea of "sillage" is a nearly visible vapor trail that is left in a wearer's wake. No, this was the air above my wrist, discovered as I leaned over to pick up a paper, or reached up to open a cupboard. If I tried to put nose to skin to discover the source, I got something different. It was only as I pulled back that I got a hint of how to find the source.
It was a space above my skin, waiting to be discovered. It would not be left behind as or after I left the room, but hovered there, somewhere above me, but not exactly part of me. It took a combination of perfume on skin, plus a "viewer" searching the area above, to discover it.
•••••
Thus, it was not idol worship, but idol contemplation, if you will; but do not confuse reverence for object deification. Or, indeed, deification of a person. It was as if the idol allowed for, in combination with a reverential viewer, a sacred space. It was the space that mattered, and it only mattered during the act."
•••••
Vintage Houbigant Aperçu and Nina Ricci Filles de Eve are two examples of perfumes that I find are better experienced off skin than on it. Filles de Eve in particular; when I go in for the close up, it falls apart. It's all old lady perfume, and not particularly complex. I persisted in trying it, because I had smelled it on a friend in perfume, and remembered it as beautiful.
The trick of memory was to adjust the preposition. I hadn't smelled it on a friend; I had smelled it off a friend.
Sure enough, I've caught the cloud a couple of times now. Much better. I am still sussing Filles de Eve out, and not sure if I love it, or I am just having fun visiting. In fact, I may decide I have fun visiting, but don't like it at all. Aperçu is actually more likely to be my bag, though I am still not sure why. For one thing, it has more layers to it, at least as it plays out in my nose. The thing is, taking time to think about exactly what is playing out in my nose is distracting me from that space, that beautiful space just off of my skin.
•••••
I'll be spending time in the future sorting out whether or not I find this phenomenon more prevalent in older style perfumes than newer ones. As it happens, I am wearing Andy Tauer's Reverie au Jardin as I write this, and this is one that I love discovering offskin. But, and perhaps and important "but" to consider as I try to sort this out, Reverie au Jardin is pretty faithful in the huff. What you catch in the cloud is what you find on your skin. Not that I'm complaining. Just saying.
Today, I am all about offskin. This space between us. Present, perhaps, only when someone stops to contemplate it.
image of Saint Stephen icon from greek-icons.org
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Bulb bumps progressing
Slaying dragons beyond the blog, but am here to remind you that I will draw names for the free copy of "The Secret of Chanel No. 5" tomorrow. Late tomorrow. Go comment on Saturday's post if you are interested.
Posting a picture of the hyacinth bulb progress. Am continuing to turn a blind ear (yes, blind ear) to yearnings for spring. Winter has what it has.
I love the way the roots know to reach out for water that is just beyond. Soon enough, they'll have engulfed the marbles, and I'll have detangling to do when all is said and done. Things change.
Posting a picture of the hyacinth bulb progress. Am continuing to turn a blind ear (yes, blind ear) to yearnings for spring. Winter has what it has.
I love the way the roots know to reach out for water that is just beyond. Soon enough, they'll have engulfed the marbles, and I'll have detangling to do when all is said and done. Things change.
Monday, January 24, 2011
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.
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:
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.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Weekend Book Club / Chanel No. 5
I'm reading Tilar Mazzeo's The Secret of Chanel No. 5. Never a fan of spoiling a reveal, I am going to say nothing about it.
Yet.
But when I do, I'd like you to join me. Let's turn this book review thing around, and make it a book chat. I'm looking at the February calendar, and thinking either the third (19th) or the fourth (26th) weekend. At that time, I'll post my thoughts, and invite you to put your thoughts and/or questions in the comments. This should give you time to find the book at a bookstore or library.
Or, get a free copy from me. Register your interest below. If you take the time to be clever, I'll enter you twice. Will draw a name next Thursday, at which time I will be ready to pop it into the mail to you as soon as you (that would be You, the drawn name/winner) tell me your address. All I ask is that if you win a copy, you join the conversation.
Listen to Mazzeo on NPR.
Reader copy of The Secret of Chanel No. 5 provided by Harper Collins
Yet.
But when I do, I'd like you to join me. Let's turn this book review thing around, and make it a book chat. I'm looking at the February calendar, and thinking either the third (19th) or the fourth (26th) weekend. At that time, I'll post my thoughts, and invite you to put your thoughts and/or questions in the comments. This should give you time to find the book at a bookstore or library.
Or, get a free copy from me. Register your interest below. If you take the time to be clever, I'll enter you twice. Will draw a name next Thursday, at which time I will be ready to pop it into the mail to you as soon as you (that would be You, the drawn name/winner) tell me your address. All I ask is that if you win a copy, you join the conversation.
Listen to Mazzeo on NPR.
Reader copy of The Secret of Chanel No. 5 provided by Harper Collins
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Forcing bulbs
While vulnerable when out of the ground, in the ground, a bulb is capable of pushing aside compacted soil that would make a Bobcat cry in frustration.
It is a power that can and should be used for good.
∞∞∞∞
Many people like to have forced bulbs around their home as part of the winter holiday decorations/atmosphere, but me, I'm not so keen on that. I know that winter is going to drag on, and often doesn't even start hitting full force until after the new year has begun. It's inevitable; around here, there's something about the middle of January. You look around you, you are no longer all Winter Wonderland sleigh bells jingling in your ears holiday festive; you look around you, and you see frozen tundra, hopefully covered by at least some snow, because turf is bleak right around now.
You look around you, and you know. Winter settled in around you, and it set up shop while you relaxed your standards and padded up on holiday goodies. Winter was like a cat, coming in and getting onto your lap perhaps without you even realizing it, but suddenly you realize you have reached out to pet the creature, who has entirely molded themselves to your contours.
Winter is all about you. And it will leave when it is good and ready.
∞∞∞
I alternately chuckle and get peevish when I hear folks talk about "signs of spring" right now. You have got to be out of your cotton-pickin' mind. In fact, only cotton picking minds could even conceive of such a thing...sure, maybe where you are, a wayward jonquil is poking its green tips through your soil. But up here they're daffodils, dude, and unless your dryer vent played a dirty trick on a small patch, or Mother Nature sent up a warm spell in December that fooled 'em, daffodils won't be poking up for a couple months yet.
NOW is an excellent time to start bringing a little spring green into the house. From scratch. To remind yourself of all the effort it takes to move out from under winter's blanket.
∞∞
"Forcing" a bulb is a beautiful experience with a horrible name. Whenever I read or hear it, I imagine People for the Ethical Treatment of Bulbs joining forces with Amnesty International to protest the inhuman (inbulban? infoliate? malfloral?) flogging of innocent life form storehouses. It even makes me wince a little bit when I set up my river rocks and pebbles and little glass marbles in pottery here and there, as if I am setting up some sort of bear trap. Forcing. Against their will. Ouch.
Nonetheless, I get over it.
And I play with water, and pebbles, and bulbs, and enjoy the slightest smell of dirt, the faintest smell of water. (Yes, your water smells. It might smell like chlorine, it might smell vaguely rusty, or air passing over it might simply smell "ozonic"--but it smells. I'm guessing you knew that.) I prop the bulbs pointy side up, I make sure their bottoms are hovering just above water, and I even put them in light, even though I know they don't need light until the green spears start poking up. Because I enjoy checking on them, to see what is...dare I say this without seeming too sappy?...a tiny wonder.
 |
| hyacinth (click. enlarge, see root bumps) |
Roots start appearing underneath the bulb, trusting they will find the water they somehow know is there. (I mean, how cool is that? They sat in a bag or a box for months, and didn't bust a single move, and suddenly...tentacular reaching....) Then, voila! a green tip is suddenly at the tip. And then all starts growing, and the green tip becomes a shoot that seems impossibly long in proportion to the height of the bulb, and yet it manages to hold itself up...and then, if you have forced a paperwhite narcissus, the start of a flower that announces its arrival before it even fully unfurls. A fragrance so powerful, it forces some grown men to leave the room. All from that bulb you were afraid of destroying just a short time before.
But make no mistake. Yes, miracle of life inside your house, pumping out green and scent on your tabletop...but outside, still winter.
This is okay. Because, despite my flagrant disregard for the potentially abusive treatment of bulbs, I am no fan of forcing seasons to come. I can wait. I use the bulbs not to fool my mind, or even fool my eye. I see full well what is beyond the window that brings light to the bulbs.
I like the contrast. I like the reminder that some things just take time. I like also remembering that certain pleasures can only come in this season, whether they are the smell of woodsmoke when you walk the dog, the chance to actually use the cross country skis, the squealing happinesses of a snowman being built on the neighbor's lawn. Or even the act of nothing, the drape of snow that insulates all the potential growth underneath it, keeping it warm for now, letting it rest.
Fallow times can actually be quite good for what lies beneath.
∞
So, keep your signs of spring to yourself. There isn't even a witchhazel showing its fake bloom around here yet. We're USDA Zone 5A and above, thank you very much. We are frozen in and just now settling into the routine that is winter. Weeks and weeks before we bust out of our skins.
A trick which, if we take the time to reflect, we recognize is a miracle worth waiting for.
It may be Fleur d'Narcisse for me today. Not to push a season, but to think of it. I'll wear it, and think. Maybe I'll do busy winter things. Maybe I'll cozy up with a blanket. And find myself with a cat on my lap.
images author's own
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The wintery texture of Heure Exquise
It is winter.
This may or may not be clear to you, or even true for you. But here, where I sit, the temperature on the other side of the window is below freezing, a blanket of snow covers the ground, it in turn covered by a crust of partially thawed then certainly refrozen ice. There is still enough of the powder to make it pretty, but the ratio of ice makes it the kind of environment you step into gingerly, testing the traction, making sure you can get your footage.
As it turns out, there was just enough thaw yesterday to soften it up, so that the sheen is indeed slippery, but has some give. You still need to be alert, but you can relax a bit. Enjoy the walk. See the landscape as beautiful, because there's a little bit of cush under that crust.
This is the texture of Heure Exquise.
Drop the temperature a few degrees, and there's no hint of plush. That is the texture of Iris Bleu Gris.
**
Have you ever had a perfectly made shortbread, where the crumble was right even as it veered dangerously close to too dry? Where the amount of butter used was enough to let those fatty molecules hover around your tongue without obscuring all other flavors, letting the slightest hints of sugar caramelized by the heat of the oven come through?
Have you ever heard of a flavoring called Fiori di Sicilia? An extract you can use in baking, a la vanilla or orange, which some call a citrus vanilla but which really rings of a field of flowers? Try to conjure it even if you haven't; if you have smelled it, remember it. Got it? Now, a hint of that in the shortbread.
And shoot the whole thing through with orris root. Or maybe wash the shortbread down with orris tea, should such a thing exist.
This is a dream shortbread, and is the flavor of Heure Exquise.
*
I love wearing perfumes in winter. I love listening to them in the same way you hear sounds across a snowy landscape: overall input is attenuated, but specific qualities or registers carry further than ever. There is both a hush, and an amplification; if nature were an auditorium, the outdoors in winter is full of both sound absorbing baffles and chutes that channel input straight to your ears.
A light wind through a few tenacious leaves on an otherwise bare tree across the way. Laughter on the other side of the park. A train in the distance. You can hear it all, and still feel ensconced in a cocoon that makes you feel like you just might be all, entirely, wholly alone.
Perfect for listening to your feet in the snow and gauging the temperature based on amount and quality of crunch and smoosh.
Also wonderful for listening to the smell of things. Even inside, the quality of smell "acoustics" is different in winter.
While I now know I am going to love Heure Exquise any time of year, and that I am NOT going to become impatient and assume it is on its dying away drydown two hours in, because four hours in a surprise powdery beauty will emerge...while I now know that in the middle I will be rewarded with a green smooth floral something that will feel lovely in the heat...while I now know I will find this beauty any time of year, I may not have fallen in love unless I played with it in winter. When it sounded different, and I could pay attention differently.
###
photo by Matheson Beaumont, available for purchase here
I have gotten Fiori di Sicilia from King Arthur Flour
This may or may not be clear to you, or even true for you. But here, where I sit, the temperature on the other side of the window is below freezing, a blanket of snow covers the ground, it in turn covered by a crust of partially thawed then certainly refrozen ice. There is still enough of the powder to make it pretty, but the ratio of ice makes it the kind of environment you step into gingerly, testing the traction, making sure you can get your footage.
As it turns out, there was just enough thaw yesterday to soften it up, so that the sheen is indeed slippery, but has some give. You still need to be alert, but you can relax a bit. Enjoy the walk. See the landscape as beautiful, because there's a little bit of cush under that crust.
This is the texture of Heure Exquise.
Drop the temperature a few degrees, and there's no hint of plush. That is the texture of Iris Bleu Gris.
**
Have you ever had a perfectly made shortbread, where the crumble was right even as it veered dangerously close to too dry? Where the amount of butter used was enough to let those fatty molecules hover around your tongue without obscuring all other flavors, letting the slightest hints of sugar caramelized by the heat of the oven come through?
Have you ever heard of a flavoring called Fiori di Sicilia? An extract you can use in baking, a la vanilla or orange, which some call a citrus vanilla but which really rings of a field of flowers? Try to conjure it even if you haven't; if you have smelled it, remember it. Got it? Now, a hint of that in the shortbread.
And shoot the whole thing through with orris root. Or maybe wash the shortbread down with orris tea, should such a thing exist.
This is a dream shortbread, and is the flavor of Heure Exquise.
*
I love wearing perfumes in winter. I love listening to them in the same way you hear sounds across a snowy landscape: overall input is attenuated, but specific qualities or registers carry further than ever. There is both a hush, and an amplification; if nature were an auditorium, the outdoors in winter is full of both sound absorbing baffles and chutes that channel input straight to your ears.
A light wind through a few tenacious leaves on an otherwise bare tree across the way. Laughter on the other side of the park. A train in the distance. You can hear it all, and still feel ensconced in a cocoon that makes you feel like you just might be all, entirely, wholly alone.Perfect for listening to your feet in the snow and gauging the temperature based on amount and quality of crunch and smoosh.
Also wonderful for listening to the smell of things. Even inside, the quality of smell "acoustics" is different in winter.
While I now know I am going to love Heure Exquise any time of year, and that I am NOT going to become impatient and assume it is on its dying away drydown two hours in, because four hours in a surprise powdery beauty will emerge...while I now know that in the middle I will be rewarded with a green smooth floral something that will feel lovely in the heat...while I now know I will find this beauty any time of year, I may not have fallen in love unless I played with it in winter. When it sounded different, and I could pay attention differently.
###
photo by Matheson Beaumont, available for purchase here
I have gotten Fiori di Sicilia from King Arthur Flour
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