Fragrance du jour, recent sniffs, random notes.
Carnation smoke and green kid gloves, with retro tailoring.
Fills the room with sharp with incense-y labdanum and chrysanthemum florals out of the bottle, then settles to a bright spicy clove. 1970’s Estee Lauder moss soon creeps in over 80’s Drakkar Noir leather, but manages to stay delicate, the whole day long.
There’s a nice witchy “cool aunt” vintage vibe to it.
Sweeter on clothes than on the skin.
*
This B-side came out in 1980, and layers strung out funk with a bit of new age synth.
Pez powder fruit salad, for the soprano who is too modest for Deci Dela.
There’s something sharp and high-pitched about it, yet sweet–the aria where the ingenue laments in white while holding a dagger.
Loud in personal space with spicy pomegranate and sour cherry dust, and good in the afternoon with a glass of rosé, (which, like Quel Amour! and opera, gives a headache if over indulged.)
*
Cool pandemic art. (Annie Lennox is not shrill.)
It does! New muslin and patterns!
Cue fitting deadline anxiety in 3…2…1…oh, fuck.
Edit – 2/22/23
I bought this ages ago in a fit of collector’s mania, and then put of trying it for years, because I was too close to the inspirational source material.
I’ve worked with vintage paper sewing patterns for ermty decades, and they have a very specific smell–and I was so afraid this wouldn’t hold up to the real thing.
Paper & Cotton lists Coriander, White Sage, Birch Wood, Tundra Moss, and manages to make a very good representation of the title.
Opens with aqvavit spiked with herbs, and laundry soap for ten minutes, then softens to sweet woods, and there it is–that delicate ecru cross between newsprint and the sheerest parchment stamped with ink, that almost smells like root beer–and hot ironing starch on plant fibers.
Dry but not powdery, long lasting, and even after 5 years years since my last show, still manages to bring on surges of dread and creativity.
*
Gorgeous song.
(I too have made a dress from a table cloth.)
This one is gorgeous: beeswax comb filled with vanilla and flower nectar and a bit of tonka that manages to come across as animalic, and so incredibly sweet you expect it to be sticky on the skin. The heliotrope–which I’ve not been a fan of lately–gives nice structure to the benzoin, and a lovely powder dryness to the honey-syrup.
There’s a brilliant smudge of labdanum on the bottom, a perfect hint of beekeeper’s smoke. Fills the room like a summer swarm and lasts forever.
I loved it passionately until the guy said it reminds him of that scented toilet paper from the ’70’s and now that’s all I smell and I’m so sad about it.
*
This one is as sweet as the perfume–
Merry merry to me!
This came in a cardboard box with very 50s Golden Age ivory scroll packaging–Fragonard first released Xmas E in 1929, possibly to compete with Caron’s Nuit de Noel–though this label font and plastic lid seem more recent.
(The eau is in good shape, though quite dark, and stains the skin like iodine.)
I wish I could find more info on it. A brief note at perfumeintelligence.co.uk, says this was rebranded as “Orchidée,” but I haven’t seen any other reference to that.
Opens with boozy spiced plums and some aldehyde fizz, which I’m guessing might actually be ylang-ylang, roses and sandalwood with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
The florals are balanced out with oaky woods on the bottom. I bet it was marketed to men, too, when it was first made.
Very festive in a mulled wine way–I think it’s cool that our ideas of what smells like Christmas hasn’t changed in almost a hundred years.
*
Listening to this one tonight.
Merry merry, all.
This relaunch came out in 2008–a complete break from the original Lagerfeld tuberose potion— now a sheer tea rose.
New Chloé opens with sweet soapy peonies and a soft fruity hit of lychee. The rose blooms quickly, so squeaky shower clean it’s almost transparent, and lasts inside personal space until soaked off again in a hot bath.
Floral, feminine and pristine.
I’m way too messy to pull it off.
*
Here are some feminine roses and other flowers, from the album Petals for Armor.
I’m so confused by this scent!
Scrumptious tuberose vanilla ice cream… tripping on ‘shrooms?
Is it the pink pepper at the top that gives it the earthy spore note? Or the patchouli and chestnut funk at the bottom?
And what is it with Tom Ford and fungus?
*
Some trippy orchids–
Sour roses–the whole plant, in a pot with fresh dirt and peat moss–but soft at the opening, velvety petal smooth and alluring.
There’s a whole messy greenhouse vibe going on, horticulture herbalist smart-sexy, a bit disheveled with stained green thumbs. I’d love it on a guy, too–the mad biologist type in coveralls.
Drifts down to sheer woods on the skin in a few hours, a bit sharp at the end, the sawtooth edge of rose leaves giving it bite.
(And why is my cat so nosy about the Balenciaga botanicals?)
*
I love this Leonard Cohen cover by HAIM.
L’chaim.
Seductive blackberry patch and dark chocolate ‘chouli.
The icon of the past quarter-century, Angel defines gourmand, with a fashionable nod to environmental consciousness in its earthy caramel amber base and refillable bottles.
The candy fluff on top leaves an immediate impression, with the hit of every of flavor of fruit Life Savers, artificially sweet, batting-fake-lashes adorable.
The tart berries in the middle slowly drown in vanilla honey, but they die happy, and the patchouli cocoa at the end is heaven eternal.
As in forever.
The stuff is like embalming fluid, it lasts so long.
And memorable, too.
You’ll always recognize the trail she’s left behind–on the elevator an hour ago, in the bar restroom where he swore she wasn’t last night, on his shirt in the bottom of the laundry basket.
She’s no angel, even if she smells like it.
*
Orange VitaminWater with baby aspirin.
It actually works, in a marvelously flippant summery way.
(In the winter it can stick in the throat a bit.)
Sugary woods on the skin at the bottom. Doesn’t last long, so get the big bottle.
I Love Love is the most popular in Moschino’s Cheap & Chic line.
I love love the marketing–plastic fashion, quirky and affordable, color and creativity taking the place of money. A bit of a middle finger flick to the haute couture and niche houses that set the often inaccessible standards for quality.
*
Some more Italian love-
kira a. gold 