Glerbush

 I made a find yesterday at H&M. I love looking at cheapass scents and seeing if I could wear them or put something in them. So I was at the counter and smelled some lily thing--it was called something with Lily in the name--and found it intriguing.  So since it was 25kr, I bought it. I figured I could always give it to someone to give to their kid if I hated it. But the more I smelled it, the more I was like, "This is like a friendlier version of Amarige!" In the same way that that Body Shop summer Galaxolide thing was like a less bosomy version of Tresor. I think the lily thing had the salicylate/wintergreen type thing that Amarige has going on (because when I smell something with lots of salicylates I think Amarige), but it also felt a bit lighter, and perhaps with a kind of baked apple note or something. It was quite nice! And when I applied it simultaneously as that Zara thing that I added the entire kitchen to, it was rather lovely. A fresh apple vanilla dingleboppenelle with a musk base.  Oh yeah, and I added Auratouch to the bottle of Lily stuff.  That's the thing with cheap fragrances--you can tinker and it doesn't matter if you fuck it up.

In other bagooshes, I'm making this frankincense gadoogle for myself with frankincense, benzoin, musks, agarwood base, a flurboosh of Suederal and some other things, and I'm liking it.  But it's really not diffusive at all.  I don't understand that. Usually when I put something I wear on I can smell it (although I often don't connect it with myself--I'll usually think 'What's that amazing smell?' or 'Who's wearing that perfume with the great musk?' or 'Someone's wearing awesome deodorant!' before realizing it's me), but with this, nothing. I can smell it if I smell my hand, but it doesn't fly.  It's a mystery.

Blerp.

Today's Perfumed Day

So today I went to NK just to look around, but also to see if they carried original Polo, in the green bottle. That's my xmas scent, see, or at least it has been for several years. Oddly, I can't seem to find it in Stockholm, except at the Ralph Lauren boutique, where evil is born (but where they carry great candle smells). Isn't that weird? That you can find that garish "Big Pony" line everywhere and Polo Blue as well but not the best in the line? Do Swedes have no taste in perfume? (Answer: They don't have any more taste than Americans.) So today I found myself in NK. I didn't find the Polo, but I didn't look very hard. I did stop at the Byredo counter, however, which I always stop at in NK. You can't really avoid it--location, location, location, location.

And I thought what I always think when I'm at the Byredo counter: "OK, I'm gonna approach this with an open mind.  Surely there's something amazing here that I've missed. I'm going to find it." Actually, that was my second thought, when the salesperson spoke to me (and they always do). My first thought was just "I'm going to spray on the incense one and then look around," but then the salesperson makes the effort of walking 3 steps and saying something and you feel like you have to look, so I thought I'd give the brand another sniff.  

Full disclosure: I applied for some job at Byredo before I even came over here, and I put in a lot of flattery that I didn't mean. And since I wasn't really familiar with the line anyway, I'm sure it came out hollow.  So if anyone thinks while reading this, "But you said in that letter...." there you go.

So I spray on the incense one, which is OK and I peep a little at the others. You know that Byredo is a Swedish brand, right? Well, you could say that Byredo perfumes are a lot like first impressions of Swedes themselves: well put together, pretty, doesn't say much. The exception here is the M/Mink, or M/Ink--whatever it is. The name is confusing. That's quite interesting.  I'm not sure if it's wearable, but it's interesting. Further props to Byredo for actually training their staff, as the girl who told me about it noted that it had Adoxal in it.  (Note the staff is well-trained. I don't think they care about the perfumes; I think they were hired more for how they look. But I've never met anyone at a perfume counter who knew or cared much about perfume.)  But anyway, so I start gandering through the line.

There was one called Black Saffron, and I was sure it would smell like Safraleine. But it didn't. It didn't even smell like saffron to me.  I found it confusing. There was another that smelled interesting, metallic I think I perceived it. The rep told me that it had notes of plum, leather and osmanthus (there's that training again!). Kinda interesting.  Of course, it was about to be launched in Dubai, so it would only be in sthlm for a short time. You know, I would love to smell what they sell in the Middle East.  Isn't Yatagan supposed to be big there?  Do you think it's all heavy orientals and animalic smells? Maybe one day I'll find out.

So I'm then smelling the regular brand, and I pick one up that I think was called Palermo.  Something with a P. And at first sniff, I'm like, "This is IT! This is the STUFF!!" So I spray it on a tester and then walk off, thinking I'd finally discovered something from Byredo that I could LOVE. 

But it wasn't to be. (I'm really feeling paragraphy today!)

The more I smelled it, the more it seemed like a generic citrus-leaf kinda thing. I think I'd hoped it would be this amazing, zippy green blast that they made last a long time, but it wasn't. I kept thinking that I could probably make something close enough to it, maybe with a tomato leaf base and some Stemone or Z3hex.  Or maybe just dilute some Stemone in alcohol--I love that stuff.  So the verdict on Byredo remains: Competently done fragrances that you could pretty much find cheaper elsewhere, although probably without the magnetic bottle cap. Their incense is loverly, but Commes des Garcons has an incense line. I'm sure Serge Lutens has something fantastic in incense. So yeah.

So I kept on through NK, kinda wondering whether I'd reached my limit with perfumes and nothing would wow me anymore.  So I walk into Hermes.  I smell the Vetiver Tonka, and I get it now. I didn't get it before, but now I think I see why they call it that.  I get what's supposed to connote vetiver and the very general impression of tonka intended.  All in all I think it's a weak effort, and I'm not sure who the person is who is supposed to wear it.   So I go over to the regular perfumes.  Un Jardin sur la toit (forgive any name butchering, pedants): I hadn't smelled this, so I was excited. But I didn't like it.  It smelled like a rehash of a bunch of other things they've put out. That vegetal note with that rosy thing. Blah. So then I smelled Un Jardin apres la Mousson, and...

Wow.

I like this.  I really, really, really like this. My immediate thought was, "Hermes does an ozone." I don't know if that was right or not but who cares.  It's amazing. It's like someone took the ozone feel of Demeter's Thunderstorm or, to a lesser extent, Rain and made a real perfume out of it. Ozone, light flowers, green notes with a peppery feel, maybe some melon-type fruitiness(?)... And it lasts! On paper! Not sure about skin yet. But the point is that it's fantastic. Watery, natural, balanced, gentle. Sometimes it veers into these 'cool floral' notes that I'm not crazy about, maybe slightly into geranium territory, but that's fine, because the rest of it is so incredible.  I want to wear this every summer. I need a holiday to wear this. Maybe Celeditude? Maybe if they come out with an orange blossom version.

So then I smelled my old favorites, Bel Ami and Equipage, and HOLD THE PHONE!!!! Has Equipage been reformulated???? This doesn't smell like all the Equipage I've ever smelled.  Strangely enough, I like it better. Today's Equipage shimmered, practically sparkled. It's like someone took that part that I've always really liked about the scent, which reads to me as something like tonka/hay/chamomile/straw/golden, and turned it WAY up. At the first sniff, it was almost sibilant. But I was very pleased with it. It does seem like a much brighter fragrance now, which also means that it doesn't seem to have that crumpled, lived-in quality that I've seen it described with before. So it's not as soft and natural-smelling. I used to wear this to job interviews, but I'm not really sure if I could do that now.  Still, I quite like it.  I'd like to have both of them, but since I doubt I could, I'll take this new one.  If indeed it's the scent that's new and not my nose. But I know it doesn't smell like the bottle in my drawer.

As for Bel Ami, I think it smelled the same. It was hard to tell. Maybe everything smelled brighter in the store.  And then I smelled Rocabar again. I've smelled this before, but never fell head over heels in love with it like I did with Bel Ami, and then later Equipage. But I was smelling it today and realized that it smells quite like Baldessarini to me! But not as round. I don't really know if it's a conifer scent or not, but it kept making me think conifer.  So then I started wondering if maybe IT should be my new xmas scent! Or, rather, a xmas-and-general purpose-scent. And even though it presumably costs more than Baldessarini (which I do still love), I think I could probably take the risk that I wouldn't like it as much as I'd hoped, simply because it's Hermes, and I've never been dissatisfied by an Hermes scent before (not one that I've bought--I wore a sample of that one named for a bag once, and it was OK, but I wasn't like staining my shorts for it. And that Terre one--I've never gotten very much into it.), and if it's one that's been around as long as Rocabar (how long has it been around? I hope it wasn't introduced 5 years ago--that could get embarrassing), then maybe there's something to recommend it.

So that was today's perfumed day.  And just as a final aside, if anyone out there really, really LOVED that old Body Shop scent that was sort of chocolatey-themed but kinda naive and not as good as the Comptoir Sud Pacifique one but better than Dark Temptation and all the Bath and Body Works stabs at cocoa, then you're in luck. Get thee to Zara and get some of the Zara Chocolate Woman, because they're practically GIVING it away! It smells just like that Body Shop one (which always smelled like it should have been a base) and you can get the roll-on thingie for only 19 SEK (priced at 49)!! I'm probably gonna try to unscrew the top and maybe add some Isobutavan or ethyl maltol to it, or maybe Auratouch. Because I can't leave well enough alone.  And because it was only 19 SEK!!!! 19 SEK!!!! That's like $2 and change, but considering that everything here costs a fortune it's practically FREE!!! But don't expect sophistication. You can't get that for 19 SEK. Go now before they run out and all that's left are the underwhelming Blueberry and Cherry!!

Flerp!

Ed Shepp

Tonalide

I'm fascinated by Tonalide, and I've also had a couple glasses of wine, which as we all know, is the only way I can post anymore (this makes me like Courtney Love, right? Please tell me it makes me like Courtney Love! And on a related note, WOW! It's amazing how having to switch back and forth from the foreign keyboard you use at work and the American one you use at home [U!S!A! U!S!A!!!!!] will make you feel like a total RETARD!!!!!!]), so I'm posting. Umm, yeah.  So... Tonalide.  Does anyone else out there feel like it 'pushes up' a fragrance?  We all know I dabble, folks, and I prefer to dabble with pre-made scents, since it's both so hard to get perfumer's alcohol and commercial scents already have all the desirable additives.... Anyway, when I add Tonalide, it just seems to push up everything. It adds a sweet, fruity volume to everything.  And I mean VOLUME.  When I first used it, I noticed that it added a drydown very much like Downy fabric softener.  Now when I add it I realize that I can smell everything better, as if I'f turned up the volume on everything and added a fruity sweet thing underneath.  Does anyone else have this experience? If so/not, what do you find DOES 'turn up the volume' on stuff? I would hope that Cosmone would, as it's supposed to add 'cosmetic volume,' but who would know, since it's so expensive?? Velvione does not, but it adds a great, antiquated, face-powder feel. Exaltolide seems to just enhance things overall, but not really push them up. Galaxolide gives things a Tresor like feel. I can't figure out what Celestolide does. Ambrettolide seems to give a tartness, but I'm not sure what I would add it to. So what does Tonalide do? Does anyone out there find it does anything special?

Anisaldehyde, etc.

Do y'allz have those notes where you get an aromachemical and you're all like, "This is the PERFECT _____ note!!!!!" (until later, of course, when you realize that it's only PART of the note, but at the time you thought it was the Alpha and the Omega??) Well, I have them all the time.  When I get new aromachems.  For example, when I got methyl diantilis, I was like, "This is the perfect carnation!!!! This is the only thing I need! I'll just dilute this and then I'll be happy forever!" Later, of course, I got isoeugenol, and I had a similar reaction, but then it was tempered with thoughts like, 'They say this is like methyl diantilis, and it is! Only with a faint suggestion of ham!'

But today I finally got my anisaldehyde, which I feared might not get here at all, since you can make Los Drogas out of it, apparently (although my 4 milliliters couldn't possibly make much--maybe a microscopic grain of something?).  I've smelled anisyl acetate, which smells.... pink. Kinda fruity in cherry way, kinda powdery. Someone at a job once described it as smelling like a cheap perfumer for girls.  I've also smelled acetophenone (which may or may not be related, but smells very like bitter almond--strong, almondy, quick... in other words, super-awesome.  The main descriptors describe it as floral, as in hawthorn, and mimosa--I'll have to take them on their word, since I'm not really familiar with those flowers in nature. But apparently mimosa has a sweet, cherry-almond-vanilla-heliotrope type smell.  From what I can guess) and acetanisole, which I remember being disappointed in, as I expected a vanillic, hay-like, maybe spicy note that I didn't at the time perceive.

...Back to anisaldehyde.  The Good Scents Company says it smells 'anisic,' but when I first smelled it from the bottle I was like, 'This is the hay I've been looking for all my life!!!! This is the hay-tonka missing link!' Of course, 10 seconds later I realized that it could be a component, a building block, of the hay-tonka accord.  And even later I realized how cherry-almond it smells, but of course, tonka has always smelled partly almondy to me.  And since anisaldehyde supposedly lasts +40 hours, maybe it would be a good component for hay.  Coumarin + tobacco absolute + dimethyl hydroquinone + anisaldehyde? What am I missing???  Surely I'm missing something. Of course, if I actually tried (again) to make a hay thing, I'm sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ingredient list would swell to the thousands.  Such is how I do...

In my order today, the anisaldehyde was the only thing new.  The rest was: 2 salicylates (hexyl and Z3hexenyl), generic greenish ones, as opposed to generic floral ones (amyl and isoamyl); Florosa (I think I'm starting to get how it's a floralizer now); Givaudan's Lindenblossom base (is this in Curve Men??? Or is it the anisaldehyde or Florosa I'm smelling? Sometimes they get mixed up in a shipment; also, now that I smell this again, I'm really getting 'perfumery linden' from it now--before I just got *strong tangy green floral*.   I also get a little bit of a violet smell from it when a little gets on my hands); and Galaxolide 50%, which I've had enough exposure to that I can smell it when I uncap the bottle (until I start mixing; then I can only sort of recall it from memory. The best part about Galaxolide is that when you smell it, you think of Tresor, which has I think 21% Galaxolide in the formula.)

And that's the fragrance beep for today.  Flerp!

Truth or Dare

So I just zambled into Kicks over the weekend to spray something sweet 'n sparkling on, and what do I see? Truth or Dare by Madonna, right there for sale!  And for not too much money!  So I got it, more as an artifact than a fragrance.  And now I'm blogging about it.

Now, it seems from the online reviews I've read of it that, when you post your own review, you have to start out describing your relationship to Madonna.  Or, rather, that you "never really liked her much" or "never listened to her" or "don't know who she is."  It's pretty amazing how a completely ubiquitous cultural presence escapes some people!  On the other hand, I guess you could talk about how you grew up with Madonna and she was such an inspiration to you and blah blah blah blah.....  Well, here's my disclaimer:

I was in grade school in the 80s, so I loved Madonna music, especially the remixes. And I loved the whole Madonna mythology---I'm not very bright, so I bought it all, even the whole "drop me off in the middle of everything" thing when she supposedly came to Times Square after dropping out of college.  Or something. I guess I was a fan for a long time, but not an obsessive one, especially after American Life, which is the last album I remember paying attention. (Don't get me started on American Life, either. I've thought too much about an album so musically, and especially lyrically, blah.) (Or was it Beautiful Stranger? Was that after American Life? I can never keep track.) I never went to a Madonna concert, and now it feels like I missed the best chance to go by 20 years. (And I wouldn't go to a Madonna concert now unless someone bought me the ticket--I'm not made of money!) But I have done covers of Madonna songs, and I've seen the DVDs of The Girlie Show and The Virgin Tour a zillion times. (For some reason we had our own copy of a videotape of The Virgin Tour back when I was a kid. I remember wondering how it was possible that the person singing on stage was the same person as the one on the album--they sounded so different.)

So anyway, there's my Madonna connection.  Not that it makes any difference, because I'm sure anyone reading this will impose some hidden agenda on anything I have to say anyway.  So on to the perfume.

First of all, the packaging.  I like the black and white picture on the outer box, but it's pretty lame how the name of the scent is not embossed onto it.  It's "Photoshop-embossed," which isn't really the same thing.  The inner box is kinda ugly too.  The bottle: Ugh. It's really even uglier than it appears in pictures.  I just don't understand this packaging.  It looks really cheap and ugly. Maybe there is some symbolism I'm missing in the studs on the bottle. Am I missing something?  Ugh, so butt ugly.  Why so cheap?  But then you don't judge a perfume by the bottle. (Unless it's Estee Lauder's Bronze Goddess Capri, in which case you look at it and you're just like, "I want that on my shelf. Just to see it." Well, if you're me you think that.)

OK, the scent.  I don't like it. I've read that the idea is that it was mostly a tribute to her mother--to the perfume she always wore--with a bit of a Madonna twist. I guess I can see that.  Either her mother wore Fracas or White Shoulders, in that case. But this isn't as good as either of those, and White Shoulders is pretty wretch-inducing (it makes me think of an old Southern belle, stressing old--it's just too much for me, but I could see there being times when I wouldn't mind smelling it.  It also makes me think of looking at colleges in the Deep South--maybe that's really why I don't like it, but I won't elaborate on that now). What I get from the fragrance is a dry tuberose, but with opening notes that to me smell like Glade air freshener---that pink one that so many people seem to like.  Nils gets creamy vanilla and rose, but I can't get past this interpretation of tuberose. I can smell, distantly, how it's related to Fracas, but hedonically they're not the same at all. The opening notes in this are too sweet-in-an-unpleasant-cheap-floral way, and when they burn off you're just left with a dowdy, dry, not-particularly-pleasant tuberose.  It's dowdy, and some people have described it as "old lady"--a fair description, because this is kind of an old-fashioned style, at least to my nose.  I makes me think of Fracas (which I do like, but it's not my favorite scent), White Shoulders and Chloe. For tuberose, though, I prefer Michael, Fragile and even Kim Kardashian (I think my favorite would be Fragile).

I have to say that the scent surprises me, even as it disappoints. I did not expect this direction, and maybe that's because I wasn't paying attention. After all, the last time I remember Madonna and perfume being mentioned together, it was in some magazine (way back in the day) where it said she wore Youth Dew (talk about dowdy packaging!), which is something closer to what I would expect.  But this fragrance.... I dunno, maybe it's that whole Madonna-as-English-Lady thing, where she tries to be "classy." (Or, dare I say it, maybe this is just another one of those endless Madonna tributes to her mother that just doesn't work.  Think of that song on American Life for an example.) Being a perfume nut, I was always curious about the hypothetical of what a Madonna scent would smell like, and frankly I thought it would be something bolder: maybe a crazy animal or rubber accord, or something stark, designed to smell like metal. Or maybe something just trashy and fun, like a harder version of one of those Escada throwaway fruity things (which I kinda love, actually). Or maybe even something difficult.  But not a dowdy dry white flower thing.  Nils notes that the fragrance is strong, and I guess that at least stays true to the Madonna myth.  But if I would imagine Madonna doing a tuberose, I would think it would be bigger, more lushly creamier, maybe with big, syrupy berry notes or those super-sweet candy notes that I think smell like Smartees (the American ones, not the British ones). Or I would expect something dark and inky. (I just realized that I didn't mention Carnal Flower as one of my favorites. I suppose that would be my favorite tuberose fragrance, but it seldom comes to mind because I IS POOR, hos! It's like if someone asks me what my favorite kind of watch is, I'm not going to say Patek Philippe, cuz I can only afford the Canal Street copy.)

I'm not sure what I would change in the scent if the option weren't "everything." At the very least I would want the scent to smell like more money was spent on it. Beyond that, I personally would like the flower to be more fleshy and luxurious. Or it might be cool to make it extremely dry woody.  Or maybe even make it super-powdery, more so than anything out there.  I wonder what that would smell like--powdery beyond all extremes. At any rate, if the scent proves successful, and I think that Madonna's fan base predicts that it will, we can probably look forward to umpteen different variations on it or new offerings in the future.  Maybe those will be better.  One can only hope.

Isoeugenol

Is it me, or does isoeugenol have a kind of meaty undertone, like uncooked bacon maybe?  Or is the clove not making me think of ham? (even though clove and eugenol themselves never made me think of ham) Or maybe I am thinking of oriental lilies, which start to have a little hot dog (okokt korv, if you're in Sweden) undertone when the floraly smell starts to fade.  I guess only the sandman knows for sure.  Either way isoeuge is one of my favorite notes, along with methyl diantilis, to which it smells pretty similar.  Flerp!

Truth or Dare

Wow, chica came out with a perfume at last?? I didn't think it would happen. No, I haven't smelled it yet. Either it's out now in department stores here in Sweden, or we won't get it for a year, I suppose. But I had a gander at a fragrance blog about it.

So it's supposed to be a tuberose-gardenia monster with a vanillic drydown. Hmmmm.... I could see liking that, since I like Fracas, Fragile and even Michael by Michael Kors. But I could also see hating it, like I hate White Shoulders, which makes me think of looking at colleges in the Deep South way back in the day. And on the blog I looked at, there are comparisons with White Shoulders, and people who totally said the scent smelled "old lady." Love that. (Wouldn't it be awesome if the perfumer was thinking, "I'll put old fashioned White Shoulders-esque floral notes in here along with aldehydes and powdery nitromusky notes in here to make it smell oldladyish....)

So if anyone out there has it, send me a sample or something. I hope the scent isn't ghastly. ...like the bottle.

Ralph Lauren, the Yellow One

So I'm at Åhléns tonight, and I see the new Ralph Lauren garish number thingies are out for women now. In pink, yellow, purple and something else. And they have descriptions! The yellow is Radiant Floral. The purple something like Delicious Oriental (maybe luscious oriental). I don't feel like doing a whole clinical trial, so I pick one to try out, and it's the yellow. It helps that it's a "radiant floral." I don't expect much, because the ones for men were a disappointment. At least they looked better, however, with their bold colors and bottle in the same shape as the original Polo. And the sporty number thing worked better with those. But with these women's ones, the bottles are longer and the whole thing is just hideous. Just hideous. Makes me think of the word 'chav.' Anyway, here's how the yellow smelled:

Ghastly. Just ghastly.

Actually, at first sniff, it smelled pretty much just like Ralph. At subsequent sniffs, like Ralph with a grotesque peach note grafted on. To understand the peach note, you have to understand how I smell aromachemicals.

I'm not terribly organized with my smell collection or my approach to it. All the chems are sitting in a wooden box in the closet (it used to be a paper box), and a most unfortunate thing has happened in that since they've been in this small box, they all smell exactly the same straight from the bottle--like some funk made from a bunch of aromachemicals stored in a small box. So if I want to really get their character, I have to put them on paper. But that's not important. What is important is that I don't bother to dilute them to what I really should if I'm going to evaluate their odors. I just smell them 100%, which means I don't get a good idea of what they can do. Until I mix them into something. The 'toilet smell'--the ongoing perfume experiment in a bottle which we spray when the bathroom stinks--is one of those somethings. This means that Florhydral smells like something harsh and phenolic, much the same as Florosa, cyclamen aldehyde and Lyral, more or less. Dimethyl hydroquinone smells a bit leathery. And Exaltolide smells like nothing at all (until it's blended, when it does something. I can't explain it yet, but it just does something really good). And peachy lactonic things smell like dry, awful, horrible, sour, cheap peach.

This is what I smell in The Yellow Thing. That cheap, sour peachy thing. With a melon kind of nuance. And Ralph. Which kinda always smelled like a base with an apple modification. A base like Ultrazur or Dossinia, which smells kinda like every perfume smelled at a particular point in time (Ultrazur the 'seashore' things of the 90s; Dossinia those 'eau fraiches' of today and yesterday). The mixture of these notes reminds me of something horrible I once mixed up with those fre-fab fragrance oils you can usually find at some cheapish soap/potpourri/oil store. I think I mixed up a peach with a watermelon, and maybe with some geranium. Factor in that powdery smell that you get 5 minutes after putting on any of those really low-priced single-note fragrance oils (what is that? Is it the solvent?), and you get what I made for my friend Mark, who said he liked the combination of watermelon and baby powder, something I still can't get my mind around.

A bit later the peachy note is really prominent, and still unpleasant. I wonder if I'm correct in thinking it's a peach/apricot thing. A bit later it seems to have a touch of melon, but it does not improve things.

A bit later when I hold the strips right up to my nose and concentrate, there's almost a hint of those candy cigarettes that Mom dubiously bought us when we were kids. And maybe, if my nose doesn't deceive me, a faint, faint hint of a mild clove-carnation thing that I hope will get stronger. It doesn't, and I assume my nose deceived me. And while I hoped the candy cigarette smell would take over, it doesn't. I think about what a perfume composed entirely of candy cigarette smell, maybe with a bit of Smarteez mixed in (I sometimes smell this in tuberose scents). Would I like it?

EDIT: (How could I have forgotten this?) After thinking about candy cigarettes, I tried inhaling the aroma through my mouth to see if I could get another dimension from it. I saw this in a book once and have tried it multiple times. It's never been pleasant. But I figure it will help me deduce whether there is indeed some kind of candy cig thing going on here. But I try it and am gettin nothin. So I tear off a small piece of the end of the blotter and put it on my tongue, like you'd do with a quite different type of blotter. Immediately I get a taste, which is kinda bitter and metallic, but not much of a flavor. And I keep hoping that maybe flavor will come to me, that it will be like some kind of flowery fruit punch, but it doesn't. Maybe I need to adjust the technique.

Later on it just smells like the base. With watermelon. And this reminds me of that perfume Lancaster. You could put it on for free in the bathroom at the Roxy in NYC. How appropriate.

A couple hours after the initial spray it's still that thin, base-y, watermelony smell. Horrid. Too thin. Smells like it's made entirely of synthetics. Nils says it smells like watermelon, kind of like detergent. He finds it unoffensive, summery. Yes, it's summery, but you can get summery done a million times better elsewhere.

One good thing about it: Smelling the strip and then smelling my hand, on which I've sprayed That Thing I'm Always Working On now (spicy floral coumarin thing, because those are my favorite notes, with a toosh of castoreum and wood), makes what's on my hand smell rich and complex and huge, like purple velvet curtains that go on for miles and miles.

My verdict, for what it's worth: I hate this shit. I probably won't smell the others. This smells like what one of those all-pink teenage girl bedrooms in a Mcmansion in suburban Florida looks like. Avoid it. If you want to smell like hair conditioner with peaches, just get the fake Ralph that I have--it's a roll-on called Aqua that I got at Duane Reade, a drug store in NYC--and put on some of that Claire Burke peach potpourri oil. Actually, you might smell better.

Flerp!

E

Golden Delicious

What does everyone think about the Delicious line of fragrances by Donna Karan? I smelled Golden Delicious today--I've prolly smelled it before, but who can remember with all the clones on the market today?--and I have to say that I quite like it. Is it new? It smells like a 4-star hair product. (If I hadn't had that one wash that one time in that place where it felt like a magical leafy green floral hologram appeared in the air as the girl put conditioner in, I would've called GD a 5-star.) I remember that I liked the Blossom versions from the line when I first smelled them, also thinking of them as smelling like really good hair care products, but Golden is even better. The Fresh Blossom is around a 3-star hair product. Probably the green apple one too, which smells thin. I never really liked the others, because I always hoped they'd smell more appley. More literal apple. Or Jolly Rancher kind of apple. I would have loved that. And the bottles are fantastic, but they look like they would be hard to use, like they're impossible to spray after the third use. Like Bulgari Black.

But you know what? I can't think of the perfect occasion for one of those Delicious things. Maybe at the office? Is there a perfect time to smell like a great conditioner if you don't work in a salon? And if you did work in a salon, would you spray it into the air ducts? (I probably would.) Maybe it's a good scent to spray on the walls before taking a shower--but then that wouldn't really make it a perfume per se. Hmmmmmm....

All that gnork, I would love to try Golden Delicious and see if I can find the perfect occasion for it, but not for 450 Swedish crowns. If I find it in the .5 oz size (165SEK), I'll totally get it unless I'm in a different mood, but not for the full price. It's not worth it. But for the price of, say, a Gap fragrance, I would definitely buy it. This is what Gap fragrances SHOULD smell like...

...But they don't. They smell like aromachemicals. Which is redundant to say when talking about perfume, so I'll put it differently: They smell screechy, chemical, overbright and not fleshed out enough. They smell like how you would expect 100% synthetic scents on a budget to smell. (I'm sure 100% synthy budget scents can probably smell great if done well, though. And aren't most commercial scents practically 100% synthetic anyway? If done with a huge budget, they can turn out great.) And this isn't to say that they always smell very offensive, because I kinda like some Gap fragrances, but I feel like they're better suited for the kiddies.

I saw two new(ish) Gap scents today, companions for Close (do I have the name right). They've prolly been around for years in nyc, but I just noticed them today in Sweden. Not that I've been looking. One was called Near, which I got all excited when I saw because I thought it said Pear, and I love that pear note! That pear note!!!!! The other was called, um..... Hmmmmm.... Stay! That's right. Like the Madonna song. Now, I'd been smelling something or other before I came to them, so maybe I had nose fatigue, but I could barely smell Near at all. it felt like a very faint rehash of Heaven, that sharp, synthy white flower(?) thing Gap does. No improvement, though, just fainter. Maybe I have to smell it again. As for Stay, my first impression of it was that it was salty and kind of aquatic. Then I think the saltiness started to become a Calone like thing, and it was over for me. So in short, they were disappointing. I don't expect much from Gap, though. I think their scents are composed by an app.

So I'm reading the Jean-Claude Ellena book, and it's good so far. If it sells, maybe they'll get an editor AND a proofreader for the next printing. (Seriously. Maybe have another translator look at it. I'm assuming it was written originally in French, since there's a sentence that ticks off a list of things, most of which are spelled out as A of B, except one. Which is spelled A de B.) And hopefully a new design for the cover. I have to admit, Ellena doesn't come off as much a writer--the book isn't as engaging as something by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez or Chandler Burr. Maybe it's the material--sometimes it feels like he's writing something because it was in an outline someone put together, as in "let's have a chapter on the history of perfume, since this book is about perfume." Here it can get a little textbooky. But at other times you sorta get this spark that he's talking about something meaningful to him, and talking is a good word for it, because you could kind of imagine having a conversation with him over coffee about some things. I'm thinking partly of the moments where he gets unexpectedly metaphorical and sounds like how I think a Perfumer would sound. Antyganoo, I'm only about halfway through it, but overall I'm pleased. It's cool to read a book by someone like him. It's cool that a book like this is out there. I can't wait for the next book, especially since the Frederic Malle book is, what--$300 for 32 pages? I'd read it for free if we had Barnes and Noble here in the frozen North. Hint, hint, Mr. King Man.....

Flerp!

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Piconia

It's been a while since I blogged about any aromachems, and that's a damn shame, because I've prolly gone through almost 100 since the last time I posted, and I can't remember where I stopped. But I've been deep in the woods, through violet country, into the white flower vortex and across craters of green leaves. But alas, since I don't remember all my impressions of those chems (well, I can tell you linalool right now: a pared-down rosewood/coriander is what I get from it. I always thought it would be more floral, and I still don't know exactly what 'agrestic' means. But there you go. My mom thought linalool smelled woody), then I guess that ship has sailed. So I'll just report on the most recent acquisition, which is just 3, one I'm sure I mentioned before. Let's start with that one, I suppose:

Musk ketone: Goddamn, I love this chem. It's like the perfect musk (except that it's not very soluble in alcohol)--the first isolated musk I smelled was Cosmone, which I thought smelled like heaven. I think musk ketone smells like a more fleshed-out version of Cosmone. I get a powdery musk quality to it and what seems like a slight vanillic angle. I haven't blended it much because it doesn't seem to dissolve in anything (was out of DPG when I got it the first time and am out now). But I have sprinkled it a little and used it in a warmer with other stuff--in the warmer it seemed to contribute an aspect that always makes me think of my first experiences with Oscar by Oscar de la Renta. That rich, full, powdery, ambery kind of smell. Of course I don't think it's contributing an amber smell, and I doubt there's any Oscar on the shelves today with musk ketone, if there ever was, but that's what it makes me think of when I combine it with stuff. I also had musk xylene for a while, and to my nose it's much the same as the ketone, but I would say that I prefer the ketone, even if I can't articulate a reason why. Anyway, it's nice to have a li'l bit of nitro musk around, even if I don't get to start that "odor museum" that I wanted to.

Second: Piconia, aka isolongifolene ketone. This one hits my sweet spot. I'm not sure whether it's incredibly, ineffably wonderful or whether it's just been a long time since I smelled one of those dry woody with tabac and amber nuances chems. I expected it to smell kinda patchouline (I don't think that's a word, but I like the way it sounds), and it does, a bit. It smells very dry, earthy, woody with patchouli, tobacco (dry, unflavored tobacco; not that rich, sweet, heavy, almost fruity, hay tone of tobacco absolute), vetiver and amber angles. It reminds me a bit of Kephalis--its earthy, tobacco, dry quality. It also reminds me a bit in the beginning of methyl cedryl ketone. It's got a great dry woody character, but it's not hyperultramegasuperstrong like Karanal or Timberol or Okoumal (I think the latter two are considered to be 'medium' in strength; but they're strong to me--very harsh. But Okoumal has a nice quality to it that underlines its piercing woodiness). (It bears repeating: Karanal is STRONG.) I also think that it is, in some way, a wee bit like isobutyl quinoline, but not quite as rich and decidedly less strong (ISBQ is another reedonkulously strong chem, but not unpleasant at 100%. Just opening a 2mL bottle will fill a room with its scent, which I find to be woody, very earthy, leathery in a sense and pleasant). I wish I'd had this chem when I had all the other woody ones and was tinkering. I would love to try it with tobacco absolute, which is one of my favorite smells ever.

Veratraldehyde, aka vanillin methyl ether. I think I love every variation of vanillin I come across. By far my favorite is vanillyl isobutyrate (Isobutavan), which smells like a creamsicle without the orange. At 100% it has a weird glue-like tone, but if you just handle a bottle and a bit gets on your hands, your fingers smell like ice cream. After that I guess would be vanillin. Maybe this one after that. Then I suppose ethyl vanillin (is it odd that I prefer vanillin to ethyl vanillin? I will say one thing about e.v., though: sprinkle some in your shoes, and when you take them off they'll smell like Angel. Well, the vanillic part of Angel. With a touch of stink. OK, a heaping shit-ton of stink. And Angel!!!!!!!) Veratraldehyde smells creamy to me. And also a bit like a certain cereal that I can never name. It smells like a flavor used in cereal, I guess you could say. And it can be used as a flavor, at 50ppm, I think, where thegoodscentscompany's page says it tastes "sweet, creamy, vanilla-like." It also says it's a heliotropin replacer, but unfortunately I don't get any cherry-almond or Play-Doh notes from it. ...Which reminds me---I finally smelled actual heliotrope flowers (lindenflowers as well) recently, and their cherry-vanilla scent was very much what I expected. Now I wish I could smell vanilla cresol (Ultravanil), because I'd like to see how the phenolic note in it influences it, if it smells more vanilla absolutist. So Givaudan, feel free to send me some samples of that and anything else you don't mind parting with.

And that's today's aromachem report.

Flavor Is the New Fragrance

INTUITION ALERT: Flavor is the new fragrance. This is what my intuition tells me. And am I just basing this on a vague feeling that I have, with no real outside evidence? Of course. Because I've found these feelings to be purt-near always predictive, even if they hint at a trend years before it takes shape. I'm sure I could find evidence to support this opinion, because there's evidence to be found to support any point of view, and it would be disingenuous to just cherry-pick things from here and there to support any conclusion I want to come to. I'm not interested in doing that right now--I'm not a risk management consultancy.

But I'll say what I can say: The world of fragrance has gotten bloated and overexposed. Every year the companies bring out a new scent, usually some barely-retooled "summer" version of one they already have. Or another forgettable number. Take Escada, for example---how many too-similar perfumes do we need that smell of a tropical fruit bouquet? You'd think they would have stopped from shame alone after putting out a scent named "Tropical Punch." (Disclosure: I loved Tropical Punch. But I never bought it. I bought a $3 fake oil that smelled, thanks to gas chromatography, exactly like it. And the fact that I kept using the oil and bought it again recommends the scent, because often I would buy the oils to see if my initial attraction to the scent lasted--it usually didn't.) That's more down Demeter's alley, what with its scents from Jolly Rancher and all. Maybe it's no accident that candy companies account for so much of Demeter's inventory lately, and that one sponsored Mariah Carey's last perfume endeavour.

The takeaway here is: There are too many fragrances out there. Everything smells the same. The novelty is gone. Even in the big-companies-pretending-to-be-niche-ones putting out themed fragrance sets: Cartier with it's L'Heures, Dolce with its tarot nonsense, blah blah.....

This is not fragrance as art. This is fragrance as profit/loss statement. Perfumers didn't come up with these scents; marketers did, and accountants finished them off. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if perfumers didn't even work on any recent launches: if they're all designed by a computer program. Furthermore, if there ever was boldness in the industry, it's gone now. Who could put out anything interesting without it being watered down by marketing or focus groups or accounting? Who could afford to do so on hir own?

Lastly: saturation. Where is there NOT fragrance? It's been put everywhere except, possibly, the New York subway system. Hotels have fragrances; every celebrity has a fragrance; every well-thought out themed environment is (inoffensively) scented; some offices no doubt pipe into their buildings scents someone told them make people more productive. The only thing fragrance can do is contract. (And is this why The Body Shop hasn't updated its home fragrance oils since it switched to the new design? So long, Steamed Milk, Almond, and all the others. Now it's just solidly mass-appeal Jasmine-&-Whatever, Standard-Issue Linen, Vanilla-"Tonka", etc......)

So where does this leave us with flavor? Well, most obviously: room to grow.

Look at the flavors section on The Perfumers Apprentice website. It's growing well. I've ordered from it, and I love experimenting with the products.

Or look all around you. Restaurants, packaged food products, drinks.... Everywhere there's room for new sensations. Abstract flavors. Floral or earthy flavors. I've had perfumed champagne once, and it was the best champagne I've ever had--it beat the Moët.

But let's look at a specific example of where flavor is really working for a product: Pringles. Who doesn't love Pringles? If you don't love Pringles, then you're wrong. The original tasted great, but now we have all these new flavors to choose from, and flavors that are only here for a limited time and then are gone. It's exciting. Unlike in perfume, where it's become tedious. I have no interest in trying the latest variation of Liz Claiborne's Curve or even Chanel No. 5. But when I see Rosemary & Olive Oil Pringles, I buy them right away. And if I could find the blueberry Pringles someone mentioned to me, I would buy those too. There's still novelty there. Novelty and fun without the luxury price tag. And the best thing is that every flavor of Pringles still tastes like Pringles. They're Pringles, but different.

Now, that's just one example. This has actually been happening for a while--think of seasonal variations in flavor in hard candy. While not quite the same thing, Starbucks will occasionally introduce a limited flavor for a holiday, with limited (aesthetic) success. (Let's just say that there is a LOT of room for improvement in coffee syrup flavorings. Not only are they too sweet, but the flavors feel scrawny and even harsh. Why must a syrup labeled 'vanilla' taste like something you'd buy at the dollar store when there are probably hundreds of compounds that could be blended to create a fleshed-out vanilla? Why must it taste so bad when extract containing nothing but vanillin and alcohol can sometimes taste great? Is it something in coffee which needs to be masked/blended/otherwise accounted for? Does the formulation of the syrup need changing? Perhaps better syrups will come along.) I say the trend will grow, and hopefully some very interesting flavors will come around before the trend goes all corporate and is crushed by the limited minds that occupy that world.

Anyway, that's what I wanted to say, in my typical fractured style. Flavor is the new fragrance. You can count on that.

POSTSCRIPT: No, I'm not being paid by Pringles. That kind of luck doesn't happen to me. But I do love Pringles, and if anyone from the company that makes them is reading, feel free to send me several cases of the product. I've been practically living on them lately, anyway. Think of it as "supporting the arts." Or the crackpots. Or whatever you wanna think. Flerp!

Songs of Inspiration for People Who Are Hurting

Please excuse this interruption of the inertia for a plonch of self-promotion:

Are you hurting? Good. Because now the hurt is over.

Behold the new EP from saint-at-large Ed Shepp, Songs of Inspiration for People Who Are Hurting.

This revolutionary EP, this seminal moment in the history of music, exists to bring comfort, inspiration and even a smile to the masses of the world who are going through the hardcore ish that life sometimes throws our way. If you're hurting, this EP is for you.

But how do I know if I'm hurting?

Good question. 5589 out of 5590.5 psychotherapists estimate that everything that everyone ever does is because they're hurting. So if you've done something today, odds are you're hurting, and that you're not alone. In double-blind studies at medical research centres all over the globe, listening to this Ed Shepp EP led to FULL REMISSION of hurting symptoms in ~99.47631% of patients diagnosed by world-class psychologists with world-class hurting. That's 99.47632% better results than placebo, psychotherapy and throwing phones.

If you're hurting, this EP will help you deal with your ish. But don't hoard this wonderful gift for yourself, like an investment banker or Madonna. If you know someone who's hurting, play it for them too. Here are a couple examples of who this EP can help:

-- Are your neighbors having loud sex, keeping you up at night and destroying quality knitting time? If they are, it's because they're hurting. Play this the next time they're making all that noise. They'll be smiling, and you'll have spread Peace on Earth.

-- Is your coworker being a dinkus, or do you want him to think that you think that he's being a dinkus and that you're punishing him for it? He's probably hurting. Don't punish him with Celine Dion or Diamanda Galas. Relieve his hurting by playing this EP on repeat.

-- Have you been torturing political prisoners but not been able to get information? Maybe the problem is that they're hurting. Play them this EP repeatedly, and they might finally talk.

-- Is your wife constantly bitching at you to take out the trash, even though if she'd stop painting her nails for a second she could just do it herself and not spoil your communion with The Simpsons? She's hurting. Play this EP at a volume that will drown out her complaining. And feel peace.

There are many more uses for this world-changing EP. Explore the EP and find them yourself. You will most definitely be relieved of your hurting, and you will be bringing positive energy into the world.

Songs of Inspiration for People Who Are Hurting, the new EP by Ed Shepp. Spread the love.

-- Bob Dylan

Download average quality (128kbps) quality links by clicking on the track names below, or download high-quality (320kbps) mp3s by clicking the song icons beneath the track listing.

Songs of Inspiration for People Who Are Hurting

1. Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)

2. Beautiful

3. I Don't Want to Wait

4. My Heart Will Go On

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Happy New Flerp!

(Opps. I thought I was posting this in the other blog. Oh well.)

Well it's that new time of year, flerps. That time between the colander new year, Chinese new year and my birthday that seems to say: It's still OK to send out your new years greetings and put up your new years posts. Wait too much longer and you just might be a

wet

noodle.

In that spirit, I'm putting up two newish audio glerplets! For a limited time only!

First, we have duh. The new years greeting:

A Happy New Year Blorgp from Ed Shepp

The inspiration behind it: Once, when I was feeling GABAbundant, I was listening to that song I'm Yours. And I really listened to it, and I found the last verse quite moving. It metaphorically expresses something quite nice. I bet it would work well in a new years song. So I grated Auld Lang Syne onto it and made my new year's card for 2011, which like all my cards is now just a piece of audio that I post when the time is right. So there you go. Keep it arbitrary.

Second, here's a single! w00t! Well, here's the abbreviated version of the single you can get on iTunes. Click here to get the full version on iTunes. Do I have to spell it out for you?! Anyway, here's the quick 'n dirty blipversion. It's about one of the hottest trends in fear today, bedbugs.

The Bedbugs Song (quickndirty mix)

So those are the glerplets.

Beep!
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Today's Glompls

Christmas smells have come a long way. They have a long way to go, but they have made some strides. I got some wood wick candle today that's green (denoting a pine accord) and called Festive Something. It's excellent. It's right next to the Pier One piney reed diffuser. Which is equally excellent (reminds me a bit of Noel, my fave, which seems to me as if it must have some kind of aldehydic thing going on, because I smell the frankincensism, the cranberriness and the orangitude, but there's something else going on there. I wonder if it's aldehyde C12 MNA, which I only wonder because I know of this compound. It's prolly something else). That, of course, is next to a Fir Balsam candle from Yankee Candle. This last one has been discontinued in favor of Balsam & Cedar, which I think is a mistake. B&C smells much like every other mediocre pine-with-cedar; Bath & Body Works tread that accord into the ground, I'm guessing cuz it's cheap to produce. Fir Balsam smells more like a coniferous tree, because there's this sap note there, which isn't exactly 100% pleasant, but it's very true to nature. And the sap note is easily perceptible. You can still buy it in the stores--it's in the "Treasures" section, or whatever they're calling it--but you can't get the tarts or a spray. Drat.

Anyway, I noticed that all the pine smells I have (for the most part) coordinate really well. Remember when there was only one spray at the drugstore, and it sort of smelled like pine in a weird, very distant way, but mostly was vomitaceous? I do. And when you had a few options of home fragrance pine (I'm basically deploying pine to imply any coniferous smell), most didn't smell very good and some smelled very different from each other. Like a mentholic pine and a weird sort of pine and a cheap cedar. But today there are a lot of choices for a pine scent, and many are quite good. Not all are, but there are at least choices. Now if only people would go a little further in them.

And that reminds me--I can't remember if I've mentioned it, but I smelled the Annick Goutal holiday candle, and it's OK. Competently done, but there's nothing original going on. Someone willing to shell out AG prices for a scent experience deserves better than that. One of the BEST, hands-down, xmas home fragrances out there is still Crabtree & Evelyn's Noel. It's a shame that they still keep trying to put out Noel Part 2. This year it's called Windsor Forest. Capable, well-done like Noel but not as individual or interesting.

And that's it for the xmas smells. The other smell that jumped out at me today was Snuggle Fabric Softener. The white lavender/sandalwood smell. I must have smelled it before, but it felt like I hadn't. Suddenly it smelled like Fleur du Male, all chemical orange blossoms. I was like, "Wow! I have to start using this in the summer!" Their "raspberry hydrangea" is what caught my attention initially, and despite the rather sickening-sounding name, it's quite nice. Berry notes with floral musk. I would guess the fragrance was built around an aromachemical with berry and phenolic floral nuances; because it just seems strange if it started with the concept of raspberry hydrangea. Actually, it may be "black raspberry," which seems to connote a darker, drier fruit tone in consumer products. I feel like some committee was trying to come up with another flavor of Snuggle and someone said, "We could use Ed Shepp Fragrances new captive, "Berryitbitch"--it has a spectacular bright berry tone combined with tropical flower and fresh musk nuances. We could build the smell around that and use fewer ingredients."

Still in fabric softener country, I still think that Downy's Orchid thing smells like Cashmeran. But is that cheap enough for functional fragrances? I guess it is, but who knows...

I think taste might be the future of odor. Meaning, I think the next thing is flavor science. People who are interested in odors and stuff are going to start delving into flavors. Companies which have exhausted the product potential of odors will start branching into flavors. We'll see pop books on flavor come out and there will be a small DIY flavor community. Just a hunch.

But speaking somewhere in the universe of flavor, Lindor (or is it Lindt? Or Lindsor? Too lazy to check) truffles this year come out in Holiday Spice. I'm guessing this is the first time it's happened, because it's the first I've seen of it. They rule. Better than the white chocolate ones, which I like best. They're not quite as good as Godiva's pumpkin spice truffles, but they're an economical alternative to those. And it's about time there was one. For the life of me, I shall never understand why "pumpkin spice" hasn't just taken over as a flavor. Yes, you see it everywhere, and it seems like everyone has tried it, but I've seen it shelved so many times. It seems like it's finally starting to break through in a limited way, but it's astounding how little market share it has.

In another flavor note, Ste. Genevieve Pinot Grigio tastes like garbage. Literally. It's like you're having a glass of harsh wine in front of a dumpster, because there's that "dumpster note" in the finish. It's disgusting. But still better than White Zinfandel.

An d that's the glompls for today.

Book review: The Scent Trail

This "author" should be punished for releasing such insipid garbage into the world. Her book is insipid and ridiculous, as I imagine she herself must be. Anyone who doesn't believe that someone can have too much money should read this book. After all, anyone who needs to "travel the world" to learn about a few select perfume ingredients is clearly overprivileged. How she met some of the people in the book and got into some of the perfumeries she visited I will never know. She's not a perfumer. She's clearly not a writer. You would think that somewhere on the book there would appear a reason for anyone to take her seriously as an authority on fragrance, but there isn't.

Full of nonsense (e.g., her bespoke perfumer sends her to someone who "interprets her colors," or some twaddle), myth and terrible prose, this book will, sadly, delight many frivolous "perfumistas." Anyone who actually takes the ideas of fragrance or smell or perfumery seriously, however, should avoid this stale, rotten tripe.

In its way, however, this book could prove valuable--say, if you need to invent a ridiculous, queenly woman character, then you can't find one much better than Celia Lyttleton. In fact, I would go so far to say that this book is a masterpiece of trash, in the league of such drivel as Fabulous Fragrances.

Julmonster

Well, it's Christymastime again, peeps. Sort of. So I'm introducing my Christmas home fragrance for this year: Julmonster, a lush blend of fir, green leaves, clove, leather, firewood and musk.

Listen to the commercial for it here.

If you're wondering how you can get it, well, you can't. Unless you know me, in which case I may send you some with a Christmas card or something. Because yes, it does exist. It was a project of mine--something I've always wanted to do--and I got to experiment with lots of different aromachemicals making it. I thought I might sell it in the end, but its dynamics changed after the first dilution, so short version: it's absurdly strong. And yes, the notes from the audio piece are, in fact, in the oil: ambroxan, Pyralone, Javanol, Karanal..... The story from the piece is adapted from my experience testing it in a friend's apartment, and then later in more open air (but not outside, as it suggests). It might be a good "outside" scent, or possibly a fragrance to gift as "Christmas for the nearly anosmic."

Anyway, it is what it is. And at times I rather like that, in the end, it reflects some aspects of me: It's intense, overwhelming, best in small doses, complicated, evolving..... I'm sure it won't be my last attempt at a Christmas scent (because it is a bit of a "bucket list" thing, if I dare say); but it was a helluva lot of fun making it and learning about aromachems and how they interact.

And that's the Julmonster beep.

Happy Christmas!

Les Heures du Parfum

I happened into Cartier the other day on a walk down Madison Aveune, and noticed their latest perfume offering, Les Heures du Parfum. Apart from Roadster, I typically adore Cartier scents. So, in spite of the gimmicky concept that made me think of that tarot thing that D&G did, I smelled these. And wow, was I pleasantly surprised. (I woulda been a helluva lot more pleasantly surprised if I'd gotten samples, but what'reyagonnado, right?) Oh, and I seem to be missing one, so I don't remember exactly which names refer to which numbers. Alas!

L'Heure Brilliante: This is a bright citrus, olfactively similar to Eau de Cartier, but to me it felt more zesty, more citrus peel. Nicely done.

L'Heure Mysterieuse: This is ambery and has a benzoin-like quality, in which it is similar to Roadster. It's adequate.

La Treizieme Heure (I'm not bothering with accents presently): Phenolic, smoky, quite nice. Nice for layering or when you don't want to be too distinctive. For a smoky scent, I'd go for 2 Man by Comme des Garcons, but this one is nice, and I don't remember it having any of that barbecue potato chips quality that you sometimes get with smoky scents.

L'Heure Promise: Dry orris, almost like paper. This is simply wonderful. One of the Cartier people said it was his favorite, and when I asked him what he thought it smelled like, his response showed that he'd read the description of it. He got patchouli from it; all I got was a light, dry orris. Very, very nice. Subtle.

Naturally, it being a crisp autumn day, I sprayed on Promise, Treizieme and some Declaration.

Glorp!

My Confusing Encounter with the Houbigant Guy

I think we can all agree that in the current moment, with all the books and websites related to perfume exploding, that we should expect those who want to sell us perfume to know more about their product (and expect more from their consumers) than in times past. Am I wrong?

So when someone who works for a perfume house starts spouting nonsense, I get a li'l peeved. This happened to me at Bergdorf Goodman this week.

It began when I passed the display for the new Halston fragrance, which I believe is called Amber, but since I can't verify that in one second by looking at the Halston page, we'll just say it's their men's Amber. (Don't get me started on amber, by the way, since it was the source of another very irritating back-and-forth. Basically someone wrote an article on amber but didn't mention any ambergris synths. One of the things I find most confusing when I read odor organoleptics [hope I used the word right] is the term amber--does it refer to the sweet, resiny amber of, say, Ambre Sultan or the ambergris-type odor (ambroxan, Cetalox, Grisalva...) of Cool Water? I would think one would want to address the fact that the term is used for both, but I'm not getting into THAT again...) The bottle handler asked if I wanted to smell it; I smelled it on his skin--it had dried down, because it basically smelled like ambroxan--then I got a sample. I must have kept yakking, because soonenly I was talking with the person from Houbigant. I think I was asking whether Z-14 had been reformulated because of impending(?) restricutions on oakmoss. And then we got into a discussion of coumarin.

This is where it gets confusing. And if it's confusing for you, well, it was confusing for me.

Basically he starts talking about how Parquet took a "natural extract" from the tonka bean and put it in Fougere Royal. We agreed that this extract was coumarin, but I'm pretty sure it was synthesized. Then he started talking about how it was an extract of the smell of coumarin but was not carcinogenic (the carcinogenicity of coumarin in humans by cutaneous absorption is debatable, I would say, but I'm not a doctor or chemist, so don't take anything I say as license to sprinkle coumarin all over yourself every day).

OK, now wait. Is it the odor principle of tonka or the odor principle of coumarin? Because coumarin is the dominant odor principle of tonka. So Houbigant tells me that it was the odor principle of coumarin, because it wasn't carcinogenic. But it was a natural extract. ...How is this possible? Coumarin is a single molecule. You can't take an extract from a molecule. Or, rather, you might could, but you would be modifying the molecule into a different one (and not an extract, per se, because you can't predict how a molecule will smell from its shape; unless, of course, you can. But you'd have to ask Luca Turin about that.)--by definition that new molecule would be synthetic. This seemed to be the point the guy was making--that in the 1800s someone extracted a coumarinic smell from coumarin that lacked its putative hazards.

If I'm not mistaken, coumarin was one of the first perfumery materials to be synthesized. So come one--it's preposterous that someone could have very specifically modified a molecule back then. It's even more preposterous that you could call any modification a "natural extract." (I don't think anyone's calling Coumane or Bicylcononalactone natural extracts; but they're variations on the molecule; the former cyclopropyl coumarin, the latter octahydrocoumarin.) (And could you really credibly say that ambroxan is a natural extract of clary sage, which would be pushing it?) Basically, the whole thing was preposterous and impossible to follow.

The point here is that in our knowledge-rich world, fragrance companies ought to step it up and start treating their customers as if they had brains (although most of them don't, in the sense of using them to actually think about perfume, so alas......).

As for the Amber scent---eh. It seems to start with a nice clean cedar note, then maybe go into some metallic ambergreasy end. Nothing offensive; nothing particularly interesting.

One last mention of Bergdorf Goodman: Tom Ford people, I love your products, but you really ought to know that cistus labdanum is NOT rarer than oud wood, which you implied the other day. The day after I bought some labdanum absolute at Enfleurage. And it cost far, far, far less than their agarwood. Or their carnation absolute for that matter.

And that's me rant for now.

(The picture at the top of the entry is, yes, coumarin. Again, I'm not a chemist, but I suppose by taking away a ring here and adding an atom or two there you could come up with, say, benzaldehyde. Which would not qualify as a natural extract. Not of coumarin. Maybe of almond. )

Safraline, Myrrh and Tobacco

If I were a more serious writer or haven't had 2 or 10 or so glasses of Sauvignon Blanc (actually, if I'd really had 10, I should arguably doing this as an audio post. Then when people say, "why did you do that as an audio post, when you were all drunk and slurry?" I could say, "Because I'm too beautiful." And if I hit the tone right, and wasn't talking to an idiot, they could see that I had to eff up in my post so that people would feel better about the fact that I'm so beautiful. Or whatever. It's all theory in the end, gootatches. Besides, what pictures do you think history will embrace of you--the perfect-angle, retouched ones or the ones where you look like a regular person? I predict the former. So there.)...... Anyway, if I'd not done that, then I would try to "ease in" to this blog post, like when you're administering semen to some zoo animal (I imagine they do it 'gently'--then again, evolution may have preferred a more 'direct approach'--I don't fucking know! Enough of that!), but since for whatever reason I'm not going to, I'll just launch into it. Here go-eth we...

When I first smelled saffron, years, ago, I hadn't had much experience smelling things. Or, rather, smelling things with concentrated attention, and comparing them against things in my mind which I'd similarly smelled. My initial--and enduring--impression of saffron (the dried spice) was that it "smelled like myrrh." The essential oil. And so it went for several years, as I read myrrh described variously as "toffee-like amber" and "a forest floor." If you'd have asked me last year, I'd have said that myrrh oil had a faint odor of autumn leaves, crushed underfoot recently after a rain. Buy usually I just said that myrrh smelled like saffron.

Sometime later I became acquainted with Safraleine, which plays a pretty large part in the Tom of Finland scent, if you've ever smelled it. Safraleine has a very leathery profile, especially at first, where it has this sort of "chemical" leather smell, something you might expect from a vinyl article that's been replaced with a leather smell. It's not an unpleasant type of leather, it's just a very smoothed-over smell. It's not smoky, and it's not warm and ambery like the leather of Cuir de Russie. It's a modernish leather smell. And it's not enough, apparently, to carry a leather smell. I say this because I've read other peeps' experiences with it. So I presume either upon dilution or drydown it becomes less leathery. Interestingly, thegoodscentscompany.com, which really does deserve some kind of award for its exhaustive cataloguing of aromachemicals, describes it as an herbal odorant, with leather/herbal/spicy/tobacco/rose ketone facets. I've tinkered with it before, but it wasn't until I my first sort-of perfume "success" that I started to really get to know it.

The success I'm referring to: I got a coconut body spray from Bath & Body Works (I figured coconut would work least intrusively for what I was going for) and tried to make it more of a hay note (or, rather, my idea of hay). I added shit tons of coumarin and octahydrocoumarin, but it wasn't working. So I added tobacco absolute, a new mown hay base and dimethyl hydroquinone. BLAMN! Suddenly I had a great tobacco hay thing on my hands, and sometimes when I smelled it, I was like, "This smells like one of those great tonka/tabac scents that I would shell out craploads of money for IF I HAD IT (but since I don't, I don't buy the Tom Ford Tobacco Vanilla or the Hermes Vetiver Tonka, which isn't really all that great, or the Guerlain thing where they put coumarin notes against heliotrope accords.....)." So I'm pretty much there. I figured I would maybe just add some amber oil for fullness (I don't really care what's in the "amber" oils--surely some synthetic blend of benzoin, vanilla and whatever types---they create a resiny, oily type of amber smell which I like, a "hippie amber" if you will, and that's what I'm after--a prefab note that's nice and dark and oily and resiny and will sweeten the tabac, which I will probably add more of), and maybe helichrysium if it wasn't retarded expensive (I think it might be.). So I was out looking at essential oils today and smelled some myrrh and, since the price wasn't off-the-charts tardo, I got it. Now about this myrrh.....

The first thing I thought when I smelled it: This smells like Safraleine!!!!! In fact, it smelled SO MUCH like Safraleine that I kept comparing it to it in my mind to find difference. I think the myrrh oil is smokier, more herbal, obviously less strong, but overall very similar. Perhaps it's earthier in the drydown. I'll have to compare it directly to the Safraleine later, but it seems very similar. I wondered: could this myrrh, especially considering its viscosity, be adulterated with Safraleine? And then I thought how ridiculous that would be, because I think Safraleine may still be under patent, so adulterating myrrh with Safraleine (even though the retail prices of both in small quantity could possibly justify it) would seem ridiculous. But what I do conclude from this exercise is that saffron and myrrh probably do share a certain olfactory characteristic.

Oh, I should say here or at some point that when I ran into Luca Turin at Enfleurage and mentioned Safraleine, he said that it pretty closely hued to the odor of saffron absolute.

So I take it all to mean that I was right originally in comparing myrrh to saffron.

The takeaway, however, is that I'm finally getting a pinch of success in perfumemaking. In that my tabac fragrance is starting to smell lovely. And I imagine the addition of this myrrh, judiciously applied, should help it as well. I suppose time will tel.

Anyway, that's the gloop for today.

Gwank!

W

Scent Strip Redux

Well, here's a scent strip report for today. The word on scent strips: To me, they always smell better than the actual fragrances. Is there something to that? Discuss. Anyway, today's:

Gucci Guilty: I've been curious about this every since I got sucked in by the commercial for the commercial. And kudos, of course, to Chris Evans for wearing feather eyelashes for the photo. Makeup artists out there: HOW do you DO that thing where you make a guy's beard hair look all sparse, like he doesn't grow much? Is it a Photoshop thing? (Speaking of Things Photoshop, I have to think the retouchment gods for the Healing Brush. w00t w00t for my new favorite tool!) Anyway, so I smelled the scent strip. My first thought: There really is nothing new under the sun in perfumery. I thought the point of all these new molecules the companies are searching for was to give us new experiences. No? The strip calls this a "daring, oriental floral." And is says, in the same paragraph, that it's about breaking social conventions while at the same time speaking to the trendy Gucci woman. OK, whatever. It also says there's a lilac accord in the fragrance. I can actually smell the lilac. Points for at least some part of the smell matching its description. Apart from the lilac, which makes me think of mixing up perfume from oils from Garden Botanika and Bath and Body Works, the scent is a real snooze. Thanks cod for the ad campaign--I guess that's where all the originality in perfume is now.

DKNY Pure: The text implies that the perfume is all about vanilla, specifically vanilla "sourced from Africa, a drop of goodwill..." Did you see what they did there? The word "sourced" is supposed to give you that "good person" feeling that you get from "fair trade" stuff. Spray-on righteousness. Lovely. I wonder how much truth there is to that statement--what are vanillin derivatives "sourced"from nowadays? Guaicwood? Phenol? Did they use phenol ensourcified from something from Africa? Maybe there's exactly .0000000000000001 mL of African vanilla absolute in it? (Am I the only one except for Li'l Kim who likes to pronounce it "Affica"? [source: "You get your diamonds from Jacob, I ain't mad at ya; I get mine straight out the Kimberly goldmine in Affica." Yes, Li'l Kim gets her diamonds from a gold mine. I'll never tire of that one--Je vous promets.] [The French is supposed to say, "I promise you," but methinks the Goog Translate gave me an off result.]) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, scene. Now the scent: I thought it would be more overwhelminglier vanillicker. Hmmm, maybe it is vanillic to the extrême, but I don't get that right off, because when I first smelled it, I kept thinking of what it reminded me of. And then it hit me: Dolce & Gabbana for Men! Which I can't wear anymore because, well, it's D&G for Men. And it's used up by everyone and her brother wearing it. I'm sure it doesn't smell exactly like DGM, but it's close enough to make me think of walking around the Upper East Side on a cool, cloudy Sunday morgen, reeking for miles of my fake DGM oil. So it might as well be D&G for Men, because it has the exact same emotional resonance for me. Dolce & Gabbana for Men, but softer and with half the cliché! AND it's "sourced"!!!! So if this fragrance is built to wear on cool, overcast Sunday afternoons walking around the UES and Central Park, it's an unqualified success. Otherwise, it's OK. Inoffensive. And it fits with the other Donna Karan offerings. I guess if you wear lots of DK, you might like this. Oh, and the ad is nice too--all white and grey and earth tones. It looks like Aveda's branding.

Very Hollywood by Michael Kors: This strip is for the "sparkling eau de toilette." This shit I love. I loved the EdP, though, but apparently this is a sparkly, fruitier version. It says there's black current, neroili and mandarin in it, but I just smell sweet fruit floral. It's brilliant--it's like you took one of Escada's yearly fruit drink things and filled it out a bit. (Those are great, too, but they're not for everyone. I'll admit it: I totes don't mind going around smelling like a guava martini. I really don't. It's fun. And if you can't imagine a context in which it would be fun, well, it's not for you.) I love it love it love it. Methinks it's geared to a twentysomething, solidly middle class/lower middle class girl, and it succeeds. I would wear it, though, and I have--I sprayed it on at a mall in New Jersey. A mall with a Sears! But all this talk of class shouldn't imply that I'm speaking sarcastically--I really do love this scent. I will concede, however, that I have to wonder whether I simply like trashy perfumes. I mean, I love Realm for Women specifically for it's topnote accord of berry cough drops and children's aspirin (St. Joseph's, the orange kind), which I suppose you could also describe as Flinstones vitamins. If you like that in a fragrance, snap that shit up, because it was a market flop, which means you can get 3.4 oz for $20 at Loehmans (sp?). Back to VH: It's simply wonderful if you're feeling playful or trashy or whatnot.

That's the beep for now. Flerp!