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