Happy Tuesday! Hope the day is going well so far. If you have a free minute or two, do tell us what fragrance you're wearing.
I am wearing Diptyque's fantastic L'Eau de L'Eau.
Reminder: this Friday, 2/27, is Spicy Friday. How spicy can you go?
And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2015, where I'll try to always have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.
No idea what I’m going to wear on Friday. Do I even own a spicy fragrance? Gotta get on that.
Considering my Ormonde Jayne discovery set options….any votes? Maybe I should try to fall for one of these florals?
Went for Tiare. We’ll see how this goes.
I’m too late to vote, but Ta’if! And you’ll find some spices in the set, too…
Ta’if is definitely my favorite, and I’ve used up so much of my sample that another one may not be far off. But I feel like I’ve neglected the rest, so I’m trying to give these others some love. And you’re right – maybe my Friday spice is in this set!
Ta’if!!!
Haha – that’s the only one I ever seem to want to wear though! I’m trying my best to give the others some love…not really succeeding, but I am trying.
SOTD: Hedonist.
Makes me happy when I wear this 🙂
But I seem to be getting a little “Viva La Juicy”-vibe towards the dry-down…wonder if anyone else feels the same?
Friday..hm..hard one!
Really, no spices at all?
I do have my Cinnabar but it’s been worn recently. Was hoping to find some other candidates :/
Still got 3 more days!
Tea for Two today. Seems like I’ve been somewhat spice themed so far this week, so I think I’ll try to keep that going.
I’m doing spice week too 🙂
Scent twins! Love this one!!
So Robin, does that mean your tastes have changed since your initial try–would you wear this one just for fun?
I liked it when I tried it though! But true I like it better now.
Twenty below zero this morning and I sprayed on Un Jardin Sur Le Toit in keeping with my boycott of winter by wearing spring/summer scents….this one smells exactly like Pacifica’s Lotus Garden before re-formulation….I love it and it puts me in a much better mood b/c I really don’t like being cold!
Twenty below!! Ugh.
I know…it’s brutal which is why I am having a tough time thinking about spicy scents because all I want to reach for are the ones that mentally take me to summer 🙂 !!!
Gosh, under the circumstances I’d go with the mental summer.
SOTD is Chergui (Serge Lutens). Very bright sunny cold day today.
I almost wore that today… you smell lovely!
Twins! I went BIG with this one – equivalent of 4 healthy sprays and basically basically gassed myself in a very good way 🙂
It is very cold today and it is perfect!
SOTD is ELdO Like This. I’ll make this a spicy week 😉
Perfect for it!
Great idea! That will be my Friday spice scent. I’ve not worn this in ages.. kind of turned off by the maple/immortelle note.
Luckily the maple syrup stays really close to the skin – at least on me, I only notice that when I go nose to wrist.
Parfumerie Generale Felanilla today–I wanted something both tropical but not super sweet. If PG sold sets of 10 ml travel spays in a pick and choose like Hermes, I would be poorer.
I love this one!
Taking Fareb for a test drive today…
Hypnotic Poison. So wrong for the hothouse day we are having, but I’m loving it anyway.
This Friday I’ll be wearing the same thing I wore for last Friday’s community project (although I could not comment here because there is no internet in my new house yet): the original Karl Lagerfeld perfume. Such a delicious spicy scent, I wish our dear uncle Karl would revisit it!
Is it KL that you’re referring to from the early 1980’s? It doesn’t get much spicier than that one! It’s become my traditional Thanksgiving Day scent, just the tiniest spray seems to go with all the spices I cook with that day.
That’s the one, I ignored my mini for many years, and now I’m so glad that I did it!
I finally got my sample of Debaser, which I frankly ordered for the name and didn’t expect to love. I adore fig as an ambient scent but most of the perfumes are just too dry on my skin. Long, long ago, when Diptyque had a large array of room sprays, I would wear Figuier and Miel together and enjoy it very much. The Figuier ambient scent has remained my favorite fig perfume until, possibly, now.
I had read the scent description of Debaser and only registered the fig, coconut, and blond woods, expecting a pretty standard dry-ish fig and wasn’t expecting the lovely green bergamot blast at all. for some reason, it conjured the thought of eating a fresh summer salad on the patio rather than a tropical drink. Like arugula (although the scent isn’t bitter, the arugula mouthfeel reminds me of rough fig leaves) with fresh shredded coconut and a lime squeezed over the top. It’s quite wonderful and I expect it will be FBW.
So excited to try this, and admittedly yes, it’s almost entirely because of the name, but I’m happy to hear a good review.
I’ve been wondering about this one, too, because of my love of all things fig. Thanks for posting your impressions!
how cocoanutty is this? does it remind you of suntan lotion?
Nope. I don’t get that much coconut-suntan but YMMV.
Cuir Fetiche, the softest and most floral of leathers… nothing like its name.
I agree! To me it’s almost like Cuir de Lancome Intense
Crazzy perfume day for me… Started rather nicely with Onda, after a few hours I got over it and went into a shop to spray L’Orpheline by SL, I still cannot decide whether I want a full bottle or not… but the story goes on, after an hour of yoga my SL was all gone and I went browsing to another shop and got into Silver Iris by AC, now it feels like I need a full bottle of it even though it is not usually my thing this soft unpronounceable sweetness, but after yoga it seems strangely fitting to my state of mind
Onda!
I’m wearing Coco edp today, a long time love that smells so good on a coooold day like this one. Every day brings us closer to spring, right?
Scent twins! 😀
Oh that is what I should have chosen today…. maybe when this incense bomb on me calms down….
You both smell wonderful! I was enjoying my Coco application well into the evening yesterday. It only gets better as it goes along.
I am assuming that everyone is talking about the current formulation of Coco? I wore Coco when it first came out (many, many years ago) and loved it but haven’t tried the current rendition which I am told is reformulated….would it be worth giving it a try (and Coco Noir as well?) or will I just be disappointed? I am on the lookout for fragrances that are more easily accessible and that I can sample …in other words those that sell at local dept stores and my local Sephora…..and I know that Coco is there!
IMHO, there’s no “before” Coco Noir and I do ‘t consider it a flanker of anything. I would say go for it! The parfum is great as well. The Scented Hound just did a review – I would have linked to it but I don’t know how to do it from my iPhone.
I am using older Coco. I have three open bottles – one edp, one edt, and one extrait, all from 4 – 10 years old. I’ve not smelled the most current Coco. I see comments on the blogs that it is changed only a little and some that its changed a lot. I don’t know, and I should go run a tester from Macy’s to see what my nose smells. Since Chanel is tampering with all their legacy fragrances, I am sure they’ve tampered with Coco. ;-(
I have a stash of older Cocos that will last me a good long while, so I don’t worry about changes to Coco, except to be generally disappointed that Chanel is letting their outstanding legacy fragrances slide so badly.
And, just for the record, I also have some really vintage Coco – more than 15 or 20 years old. The vintage Cocos I have do have troubles with the top and even some middle notes getting burned much more that I’d expect compared to other vintage orientals I also have that remain in reasonably good shape for the same age. Much older bottles of Coco tend to go to the clove, which must intensify over time. The drydown will still be good, but the excellent top and middle notes are compromised.
As far as Coco Noir – it’s a totally different fragrance. I did not like the CN edp which smelled like grape juice and patchouli to me, but I’ve not smelled the Coco Noir extrait, which I really would like to. I’ve heard it’s different and smells much better than the edp. Good luck.
Ann S, thanks for your long explanation. It was helpful. I’m at work, eating at my desk. It’s good to have a mental break focussed on perfume!
Wow! Thanks for all the info! The Coco that I had was an EDT spray in a black/gold plastic rectangular bottle and I guess it was close to 30 years ago that I drained it….I still have the empty bottle but i can’t get the spray to function to get a whiff of scented air! I have heard about the re-formulations so maybe I will stick with seeking out new fragrances so as not to be disappointed….I recently tried no 22 and it seemed so different from the edt no 22 that I wore 35 years ago (in the white/gold plastic rectangular bottle) way before it became an exclusive…has that one been re-formulated as well? I am so behind on all of this info! I often wonder if my sense of smell and scent memory has been altered or if my vintage loves really have been changed …….
Bardot, I hardly recognize No. 22. I also wore it decades ago and recently got a sample of it. Maybe there’s an extrait version of it that smells the way I remember it.
Thanks, Suzy! Glad to know that my nose isn’t completely off 🙂 !!
I used to have one of those solid black bottles too. I remember so well kind of being stumped at the refill part. Geeze I am getting old – that was in the early 90s. I’ve been wearing Coco for a loooonng time! I got my first bottle in 1989 or 1990? I’d be happy if the newest version is reasonably good. I’ll have to hunt some down too just to find out. You may still enjoy it even if it has changed. Never say never!
I have bougth the Coco in the extrait recently and I love it so much, more than the edp, I am hearing all these about reformulations and I am wondering if they also changed the perfume.
If you like it, you like it, right? It’s hard to say what they changed or tweaked. I’d have to have the chance to smell a current extrait sample to know if it was different from what I already have. I read somewhere that it’s only the opening that has flattened out a bit, which may not be the case for the extrait. (I can say the same for the newest incarnation of the No 5 eau Premiere too.)
Totally agree with Ann! Sometimes ignorance is bliss! Wear it if you like it!
I have a current formulation of Coco EDP, which I got at Sephora probably less than a year ago. I really enjoy it, but I haven’t smelled the vintage version to have a frame of reference for what it was originally like.
I consider Coco Noir a flanker to Coco Mademoiselle, rather than the original. That’s about the only way it make sense as a “Noir” version of anything.
From what I remember from the archives of my scent memory Coco was rich, spicy and slightly sweet…….somehow the vintage versions seem more complex and less watered down (I noticed the same as well when I recently sampled Clinique’s Calyx…while still lovely it is not as potent as when I wore it in 86 and it was Prescriptives fragrance….)
I can’t imagine Coco being richer and more spicy than it already is! Well, my bottle is about 5 years old… In recent years I find it a little too dressy, in spirit. Don’t know why, cos when I first got it I wore it all the time!
I would agree about the flanker to Coco Mademoiselle. If you think of the floral-juicy-sweet part juxtaposed with deep patchouli of Coco Noir being an update for Coco Mademoiselle, that makes more sense. I see the update there.
Yes, I agree – Coco Noir is far more like a flanker to Coco Mlle in my opinion.
Definitely (!) not a fan of the original Coco, which (of course) was far far too oriental and Youth-Dew/Opiumesque to suit my taste… but even *I* can tell that it’s been messed with.
Shame on Chanel for letting their legacy frags go downhill. I used to think regardless of the other crappy current frags that were being released or the shameful output of current Dior and YSL “classics” that Chanel was still holding the line. Anyone could still march into a regular old department store and get a quality classic Chanel fragrance. But now, I don’t know. I am not dissing the entire Les Exclusifs line, but they are really trying to pump those up at the expense of their legacy frags, when most of the newer LEs are kind of meh – not bad, just meh. Are they iconic? Will people wax poetic over Beige or Jersey or 1932 in 40 or 50 years? I don’t think so. But here sit poor No 5, No 19, Coco, Cristalle, Pour Monsieur, Egoiste, et. al., and they are being slowly starved to death, when they were/are? better than most of the newer frags Chanel develops. I know there is all that IFRA crap, but Boo! Chanel. If they don’t watch it, soon they’ll make clowns out of their beauties!
Ann, I completely agree! I began boycotting Chanel a few years ago when no 22 (which could be bought at a local dept store for such an affordable price) was turned into an “exclusive” and only available in a ridiculously large bottle…..then they messed with Cristalle and the current version is nothing like the one from the 70s….
I’ve got tons of spicy options and could easily do this all week. Today I’m wearing Eau Noire, another one for the licorice article.
LOVE Eau Noire!
Spicy WEek!
I love Eau Noire, too!! Very warming in the winter.
I was wondering if they are going to re-release Terracotta perfume this summer? Anybody know?
I am not sure if I should wear Journey or Ubar today -hmm..
I went commando yesterday (I was working from home and was extraordinarily lazy), but I might try to do spicy the rest of the week. I’m wearing Coco EDP, which felt right since it was in the 30s this morning.
I am wearing Coco Noir on this very cold day again. It has been very cold for more than a month now and I really want to go for a vacation , dreaming of the beach and the sun.
Been thinking “spicy” and looking at my bottles… Today I decided to go for Bang. Plenty of pepper in there!
I need to learn how to layer Bang with something else. I really like all this pepper.
Maybe with rose, for a peppery rose?
Something with vanilla? I was thinking about layering CdG Black with SL Un Bois Vanille. Black on its own is too much pepper on me – I think my skin amplifies pepper.
Working on my samples again, I put on Swan Princess by The Vagabond Prince. I like it well enough, but I would never pay the price for a full bottle. Thanks to Fragrantica for the sample.
I felt the same – liked it, didn’t want to pay for it. (But then, there are whole slews of scents I have the same attitude toward.)
The best thing about this scent is its lasting power. I still smell it. The sillage isn’t great, but I put it on just before 9 a.m. and its still going strong. This is great, considering it was a sample, not a spray.
SOTD is Miss Balmain. The vintage mini came in the mail yesterday and so far I quite like it. I can’t yet decide if it will share an equal place in my heart as Jolie Madame.
This is one of the few my partner disapproves. His exact words were “no, that’s strong…like old lady strong”
Luckily I have the place to myself today : )
We probably should do a “My partner (or someone else) disapproves” Friday. Don’t tell him or her that hanusuuri suggested it 😉
I am savoring your chocolates!
That is a great idea! I’d be curious to know how many different fragrances cause the ‘other half’ displeasure.
I’m happy to hear you enjoy them! I am of course still savoring all the fragrant goodness you’ve given me : )
Ha! ha! I could come up with a list that is a mile long!
Me too 😮
Feeling very spicy in Caron Parfum Sacre EDP, and I keep sniffing my wrists because it is so beautiful.
Oh my gosh – I almost wore this today too! I picked it up… but then chose Parfums DelRae Amoureuse for something spicy and green. But Parfum Sacre had been on my mind all during my shower. You smell gorgeous! I do want to get to PS sometime during this spicy week.
Ha! I have an embarrassment of riches this week, as I love spicy scents. I actually made a little list yesterday and will try to get to some of those that are seldom worn. (But Parfum Sacre doesn’t fall into that category!)
Are you wearing vintage or current formulation?
I only have the current formulation, so if the vintage is much better, at least I don’t know what I’m missing! 🙂
Almost wore this one today too!
Im also in Diptyque- L’Ombre Dans L’Eau edp.
I cant go as spicy as my collection would allow this Friday. I do have some hot-weather friendly spicys, but not as many as all my beloved autumn/winter ones. I suspect these Friday themes are chosen by someone in the northern hemisphere.. 😉
Oh you smell lovely today!!
How do you find the EDP compared to the EDT? I tried the EDT and liked it but am eager to try the EDP and compare before I lay down any cash. My regional Queensland locale is messing with the plan though. No stockists anywhere nearby. I tried the online decanters but no luck (at least last time I checked).
Wearing SSS’s Incense Pure, because it is thick as the billowing smoke from a thurible…. and our “rat” saga continues… more on that below. But for those whom it is TMI, do not read 🙂 Anyway, I wanted to wear something strong and purifying!
My problem with Incense Pure is that it has many of the facets of Champagne de Bois, but then it has (even for me) just too much…to much incense, too much wood, too much sillage….. (and I like the powerful sillage of Champagne de Bois)… Have any of you tried them both? Please let me know your thoughts on how they compare.
Okay. TMI: Good news is that we did NOT have a rat in our air ducts. (yea.) But increasingly I felt the smell was coming from the refrigerator. I keep a spotlessly clean fridge so I was very confused. But I took everything out, reinspected all the shelves….clean as new…but the smell, Aaargh! So last night we pulled the fridge out from the wall, and the smell became almost unbearable. But there was nothing there. On a crazy whim, I asked my husband to remove the steel plate in the back of the fridge that protects the motor, and is not generally supposed to be removed. With the fridge unplugged, we gingerly pulled back the plate. Nothing, except the horrible, no good, totally revolting smell…. So I lay down on the floor with a flash light and peeked into the motor. Behind the fridge fan, behind a steel enforcement wall, was a plastic drip tray. And, if you shone light just right, you could make out the soupy black mass of small mouse that had rotted to liquid and then become dessicated by the fan system… How did we clean THAT out? Well, let’s just say the least of it was yours truly scraping up the wee fellow with a pointy chop stick and a long screw driver…..the rest is not fit for this blog. Thank you all who have lived through the GP (giant pong) over the last week with me!!!
May your world smell lovely all day!
Eew. Ok. Glad that’s settled for you.
On another note: I have a touchy relationship with incense b/c it always smells CATHOLIC CHURCH to me. I don’t want to smell like CATHOLIC CHURCH or FUNERALS when I go out in the world, so I only like a tiny bit of incense in my frags, or whatever are the other types of incenses that are not used by the CATHOLIC CHURCH.
I own a bottle of CdB, I truly enjoy wearing it, but it is about as incensey and woodsy as I can get before it’s too much. It is really the only frag in this style that I own, and it totally fits that bill for me when I want something very deep. (I actually get compliments from strangers when I wear this!) I can only wear a small dab and sometimes I layer it with something light and fluffy like Drole de Rose or Traversee du Bosphore to lighten things up a bit (and also cut the sweetness in those other two). I mostly credit CdB for helping me appreciate the shimmering warm beauty of Chanel’s Bois des Iles, and for that I am ever grateful. If you have a hard time with the depth and strength of Incense Pure, I may suggest that you swap it along since it’s not for you. Wear CdB if you enjoy it more! We all have frags we love and don’t love or that are too much. Or our tastes do change, etc. as time goes by…. Cheers!
I think it is the pine I’m getting in Insense Pure… which I suppose is why it seems purifying… but I’ll stick to CdB as you suggested! (An incense I love, but it is probably waaay to wimples and thuribles for you, is Bois d’ Ascese.. It is a very dry incense…elegantly so…no pine 🙂 )
My typing is all over the place today… apologies for all misspellings and typos!
OMG! That’s just traumatic- for you and the mouse!
I missed portions of this epic tale in the past week, but here’s a big, sympathetic EEEEEEEEEW for you and I’m so glad you’re free of the smell! Yiiiiiikes.
Disgusting but still probably better than rat-juice soaked insulation and drywall and a hole in your wall. Glad you found the source and got it cleaned up.
I love Incense Pure but still remember circling it warily for several days prior to trying on skin. My sample had leaked a tiny bit and I could smell it in the hallway from the bathroom cupboard after cleaning the vial with alcohol. It is pretty powerful stuff and requires the right mood but I love the peppery frankincense.
Wow, what an ending to your story! May your home be a much better smelling place from now on!
Haha, of course I read that while I was eating! My own fault 😉
Agh. Sorry!
(But who else will care about a bad smell I am suffering through than my NST friends!)
Eh, I’ve had a similar experience. My roommate and I were determined to find the smell – no liquified mouse but there it was there long enough for maggots 😯
I’m glad that your stink situation is now over. I hate to think of all the details. Even though I am a doctor I’m quite a coward when it comes to rotting corpses, be they small or rather large.
I last sniffed CdB and Incense Pure five years ago (and my drained FB of CdB was pre-reformulation) so I am basing my impressions on memory alone. Yes, CdB was a sillage monster, so much so that I could not wear it around certain individuals who complained about it…to my nose it was lots of aldehydes, amber and apricot notes (don’t know why I smelled apricots but I did!). The first time I sniffed Incense Pure it put me in a meditative trance….it wasn’t an overwhelming scent to me as long as I applied it sparingly (no spraying, just dabbing on the wrist). B/c of Incense Pure I fell in love with the scent of frankincense (which I now use as a mature skin moisturizer every night on my face diluted in argan oil). I think I also loved IP because it contained oakmoss and that note alone sends me into a state of elation…..(unfortunately oakmoss absolute is really sticky, thick and stains your skin when applied neat …otherwise I would wear it straight up as a perfume!). I think the SSS fragrances that work the best for me are Jour E (which also has oakmoss) and Winter Woods but I do really like them all (and believe me I have tried them all!)
Holy cow, that’s a story.
Oh dear. My sympathies. I know that smell 🙁 Many years ago when I was at uni i lived with my then-bf and another couple, and the crappy electric oven kept shorting out, along with rotting rodent smell.. I arrived home one day just in time to see that industrious bf had pulled the oven from the wall and was beginning to remove the 4 mice in various states of decomposition from the components at the back of the oven. Your story makes me glad there was no water involved too- takes it to a whole new level of gag-worthiness! Lol.
I am so glad you found the source of the nasty smell. It’s amazing how rodents can squeeze themselves into the most improbable places, isn’t it?
Glad you got rid of the varmint, finally. We’re out in the sticks so frequently get field mice and deer mice (think field mice at 3x the size) who sometimes expire in the basement… iggg
Not sure I have anything coherent to say about Incense Pure except oooooooo. It’s the only SSS FB I have. Not having a Catholic background, incense is just incense to me, and one of my favorite things.
I’m still edging around Champagne de Bois. It’s a bit spiky for me, but I’ll definitely be trying it a few more times before I can make up my mind yay or nay.
IP is very strong, needs to be applied sparingly, but I love it. CdB was a bit too much spiky wood for my taste. I am happy to hear Amber Incense is nearly ready.
Stay tuned for Laurie’s newest scent, Amber/Incense. It’s a natural and to my nose is IP lite. She should be finished with it very soon now. I think you’ll like it if IP can be too much for you.
Finally! have been waiting almost two years for that one! have you sampled it yet?
I need IP lite!
Oh dear, well I’m glad you got to the bottom of your mystery smell. I will say a prayer for the little liquified one.
Well, I’m with you in spirit (today I’m strapped to an icepack that smells like stale freezer)
OMG, how awful for everyone! Those mice get into the worst spaces…I have utter sympathy.
Once years ago, I returned home from dental surgery to find a mummified half-mouse under my stove (don’t even ask). It was terrible.
I just had dental surgery!!! Hmmmmmmm…. Some serious wires are getting crossed!
As mentioned above – I’m wearing Parfums DelRae Amoureuse. I’ve never worn this in freezing cold weather. The cardamom really, really pops out after the lily exits the stage. I get the cardamom stronger than I’ve ever smelled before. Normally in warm weather it goes right to the honey and jasmine. Very interesting. It reads very edgy- there’s a big green whip hiding in the demure florals for sure!
Easily my favourite Delrae, and one of my favourite florals. We never have freezing cold weather here anymore, and I love Amoureuse in summer, but it’s interesting that it is so different.
By and large I prefer the Lutenses in summer as I tend to find them too dense in winter, especially Chergui.
I’ve never smelled chergui – there’s a lot of SL I’ve never smelled yet. It’s funny how temperature can make some frags smell different. I have a few of my darker roses – Magie Noir and La Maroc pour Elle that I think smell better in really hot weather.
Yes, Le Maroc is another one that smells glorious in warm weather.
How is the weather in you area? Still lots of snow?
Yep. And it will be here until about April 25! We just set a new low temp record this morning – MINUS 16 F. That is not the wind-chill either. Grrr. Brrr!
Huh. I might have to try this one in winter as well. Love Amoureuse, love that black-locust blossom, love the green and the cardamom… wonder what I’d pull out of it in this weather?
It was a real surprise. I was thinking what warm green floral haven’t I worn yet (for dealing with winter blahs). It just kind of jumped into my hand. I got that swooning spicy wet lily opening, and then CARDAMOM!!! Bam! I’m just going with it. Amoureuse has a lot going on. Now I’m in the super wonderful dry down. Aaah…..
I love her Bois de Paradis in the winter but I’ve forgotten to wear it! I will pull out the decant and wear it tomorrow. To me it’s an icy floral. Rather than being a warm blanket-type comfort scent, it reinforces the cold outside. There’s something intriguing about a floral that will do that.
I’m wearing a couple dabs of Seville a l’aube. I *thought* was getting some soap, but now I’m not sure…
Hadn’t realized Friday is Spicy Friday. Gotta think about this one.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a whiff or two of soap from it – lavender soap was one of the components that was in the brief for it. I was actually a little worried about trying it since very often orange blossom scents go soapy on my skin, but this is one of the few that don’t.
I need a warm hug today so I raided my sample/swap stash for a hefty spritz of FM Dans Tes Bras.
Interesting opening and soft, comforting drydown now an hour or two later.
Those travel sprays…;)
Deva, Dans Tes Bras is an all time favorite of mine as well. Unique and comforting.
Sending you hugs and warmth, I hope you have a beautiful day.
Sending a warm hug your way, Deva, and a thank for so very often making me smile.
Ditto to this Deva! Here’s a hug for you and thanks for all the smiles and chuckles!
DTB is a great scent! Perfect choice for a perfumed hug.
Guerlain Idylle for me today. Cold and grey here today, I needed a pick me up.
Idylle and a cup of Winter Spice tea did the trick 🙂
Wearing Bal a Versailles pdt today. I keep looking around trying to find a reasonably priced bottle but no dice. Minis seem to be priced okay. I just love the skank of the pdt.
Dawn – I have a massive 4 oz splash bottle of vintage BaV edc, which smells divine. Let me know if you want to swap a decant. I have more than I’ll ever use. anneroosie at hotmail dot com
SOTD = Tauer Noontide Petals.
Supposed to get down to -9 at my house tonight.
I have noticed I am gravitating toward dense snuggly perfumes, Noontide Petals, Marrion-Nous, Vanilla Bourbon Intense, Seville a l’Aube, Scent of Hope, when it is so cold. Some of the ones I have liked in warmer weather just don’t do it for me in the cold. Black Flower Mexican Vanilla, Wisteria Hysteria, Live in Love, even Bois d’Iris is too light for this frigid weather. I have seen others here making the distinction between cold weather and hot weather scents, but I see now what they have been experiencing!
Yup. Weather matters a lot to my choice (and mood. and the day’s agenda.) with regards to scent.
Squee, I just received my bottle of Noontide Petals in the post today, looking forward to wearing it tomorrow!
At the office, afraid I’m wearing too much Ormonde Jayne Woman for others.
For what it’s worth, I wish that I worked with someone who wears liberal doses of Ormonde Jayne Woman! Great perfume.
No kidding! The Acqua di Gio always overpowered everything else at my office!
Ditto that!
Oh that one does have some projection. But it’s GORGEOUS projection, nothing to apologize about!
No your co-workers are just in real need of perfume education and you have been put there to give it to them
I was supposed to do an all spicy week but was in a bit of a muddle early this morning and ended up putting on the first bottle I found in my fridge ( where some of my collection spends it’s days). Result a glorious day in Un matin d’orage. Which I always call Un jardin après l’orage in my head.
That’s a pretty one.
It so is, and I always seem to forget to wear it.
I need to escape winter today, so I’m taking myself on an imaginery trip to Italy. The sun-warmed bricks of the ancient piazza and the gentle burbling of the fountain in the square welcome me as I sip my coffee in an outdoor cafe. My scrubbed, well-worn cedar table hosts a lovely bouquet of fresh-picked roses at its center. As the steam rises from my cup, it mingles with the fragrance of the roses and both soothes and stimulates my soul. I inhale deeply. La vita é bella.
I have never been to Italy, but I know my special place exists. And I will find it there one day.
SOTD: L’Or de Torrente. Coffee/rose and gold. Elegant scent, exquisite bottle, everything beautiful that is Italian. One of my very favorites.
Can I join you 🙂 ??
Yes, most definitely. there are 2 chairs at my little round table and one is unoccupied . . .
ELdO Bendelirious today. I’m sick of winter so I wanted to wear a “cute” perfume today. There is something cartoony about this one, if that makes any sense. The individual notes really stand out. Like big bold lines and shapes instead of blurry painterly edges. Cherry, champagne, iris, leather, tonka bean, all in capital letters.
It’s a Mondrian then? 😉
The new release by Narciso Rodriguez, from a STC sample. Top notes are sweet marshmallow musk. Is a like, although i might need to experiment with dosage a bit more. Hoping my morning application purrs along gently once i am in enclosed office space.
My burning question is: where is this available in the US? So confusing, the only place I’ve seen is amazon, and when i all after it at department stores I am told it was “probably limited edition.” Anyone seen this perfume in the wild?
The one in the white bottle? I’ve seen it at Bloomingdale’s. Their website says it’s a “Bloomingdale’s Exclusive.”
Yup – white bottle one. This makes sense, thanks!
Ugh, turning into a meh for me. Too sweet. Certain scents get this burned vitamin sugar mix, and this is leaning hard in that direction.
(Marni, Ellen Tracey Bronze,and Bottega Veneta all go burned vitamin on my skin, for context)
So interesting regarding burned vit sugar. I absolutely love Marni until the very end dry down when it gets a little sour.
That’s a shame. Ever since my failure with NR For Her last week, I’ve been contemplating re-sampling this one. I have enough sweet scents, though. Oh well. On the plus side, you just saved me some time and money.
Oh good! All ina days work 😉
Iris Ukiyoe today… such an uplifting spring fragrance, perfect for a cold, windy, blue sky day.
You smell great too!
Guerlain Mayotte today. I was expecting a melange of white and yellow flowers, but it’s almost entirely sweet vanilla on me. So odd.
Trying Amouage Memoir Woman today (thanks, AnnS!) Lotsa cloves, definitely fits the spicy theme.
I love clove – I’ll put that on my sample sometime list…
Memoir Woman is awesome and your are welcome!
Mem is great:).
Cold here today, around 15F, and I’m in La Myrrhe. Which I LOVE, and which I try not to wear too often, lest the magic wear off.
I probably should have made this a Spicy Week since I’ve got such wonderful things to choose from (Smell Bent One, DK Black Cashmere, a decant of Caron Poivre, CSP L’eau du Gouverneur, Parfum Sacre, Prince Matchabelli Potpourri… probably others if I tried thinking about it!).
That’s such a wonderful perfume! I only have a decant, so I don’t wear it often either. Also love Bois de Violette, which is very similar, but violet.
Creed Spring Flower – because I am wishing for any season other than the sweltering heat in Durban (South Africa). Been lurking, but SO enjoying the discussions here – a welcome distraction from a BIG MOVE (from Kenya to South Africa after 8 years away from home), WITH 2 cats and a dog, enduring goods’ shipping, clearing agents, customs procedures, dog quarantine, new working conditions, and a move back into my my house which had been under tenants’ destruction for the past 8 years – and which is now a very disorganized building construction site. Needles to say, there are days when I want to travel several months into the future when things are settled – but hey, I guess I could see it as Project New Beginnings! I am missing easy access to my bottles and samples ….
Hello and welcome! You certainly have a lot to deal with but, hopefully, a lot to look forward to once all that’s settled. Hope you can find a brief respite and escape here. And those of us in the frozen north at the end of a winter that just won’t quit may have a difficult time grasping the concept of ‘sweltering heat!’
Welcome home! I visited Durban and Margate many years ago, lovely place. Hope you get settled in quickly.
Byredo 1996, again. My 5 ml decant is almost gone.
My big sister gave me her Loves Baby Soft parfum the other day and it is my SOTD. She got it in 1975 and stashed it away never used. I did not know it came in parfum dab version. It is suprisingly complex. Anyone smell this?
do you watch The Americans, by any chance? Absolutely cringe-inducing ad for Love’s Baby Soft (on the tv character Philip was watching). Would be curious to try the parfum, though!
I will check it out. Thanks!
I love The Americans, and I saw that ad too. That ad was cringe-inducing, for sure!
Oh gosh I will be dating myself but I did indeed go through several bottles of this at the time it came out! (along with Love’s Lemon Scent, Love’s Rain Scent and Love’s Wind Scent). IT never ceases to amaze me how very old drugstore perfumes can be so complex that by today’s standards can be marketed as niche….does anyone remember Cotys Sand and Sable…sold for a steal at your local drugstore and I loved it in the summer….recently sampled Replica’s Beach Walk (might actually wear that one tomorrow) and my first reaction was “wow…Sand and Sable reinvented” ….except Beach Walk is ten times the money!
I have Sand and Sable! I got four large bottles for dirt cheap at a local old drugstore. I love tuberose and gardenia. It is a great scent.
Yes, I have Sand & Sable,too. Even though I’m not fond of tuberose, once in awhile I enjoy S&S in the summer.
And for those of us who remember (and wore) the original HeavenSent by Helena Rubenstein, well, that’s another one that was quite complex and not so innocent as portrayed. I still have some vintage and it’s wonderful.
Loved HeavenScent! I propose we have a drugstore fragrance Friday!
Sand & Sable, yes. BOY was that stuff addictive back in the day. Like everything else, it’s thinner and the jasmine in it is that industrial-clean synthetic stuff, which powers through like an electric drill to me. There used to be a bit of a warm coconutty stuff down in the base, if I remember it right, and it’s not there now.
My daughter has my recent-ish drugstore bottle of S&S – she took it when I told her I couldn’t take the spiky jasmine partial. She likes to spray it on bedsheets.
I didn’t know that they still sell Sand and Sable…..Mals, I remember it as you do with that warm coconut beachy vibe….
This week I decided to re-sample a perfume I detested when I first smelled it years ago, and now I can’t stop wearing it: FM Noir Epices. Where once I considered it an assault on my senses, now I find it at least an interesting, kinda lovely assault. 🙂
Fitting for spice week, methinks.
OOH! I think I still have my sample of NE somewhere. I’ll add it to the Spicy Week list.
Gorgeous pick, I wore it yesterday
My low back is giving me hell today so I had to cancel all my clients. I’ve been taking 222’s and walking around with a stinky ice pack strapped to my lumbar region. The bright side is that I was ok enough to paint today.
This morning I discovered that my tiny bottle of vintage 19 perfume had tipped over in the box o random bottles I keep it in. Thank goodness they made those stopper bottles so well because nary a molecule was spilled. Out of relief and deference, I dabbed some on my wrists. Why oh why don’t I wear that stuff more often? It is exquisite. I think I went through a period where I thought 19 was somehow too fancy for me, but that seems to have changed.
Last night I put on vintage Bandit parfum. To me it smells like a re-animated Iron age bog person who has been shovelling hay and manure all day in the horse barn…but in a good way! Husband smelled my wrist and his face lit up. He really liked it!
Sorry about your back, Sajini! So nice that your husband likes Bandit. I tried the Edp in a shop recently and then put my wrist to my BF’s nose. He backed away rather fast…
Heehee, it is a bit like the smell equivalent of a cat o nine tails. My husband really liked it (hmm, first I will show him the whip….) but later complained that his face and head were itchy. We think he was reacting to an allergen in the perfume. Old formulation, so goodness knows what kind of oakmoss gonads are in it.
Perhaps your husband could teach my boyfriend a thing or two about appreciating vintage beauties ; )
Well I guess he did marry me when I was 46 🙂
Oh no, hope your back gets better! I was in Thermawraps for a good week earlier this month.
Thanks Robin. Sorry to hear you had back problems too. It’s definitely not fun, especially trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep at night. I’ve been treating an old guy on a low bed twice a week for about three years and I think the stooping and twisting while applying massage pressure has hurt my back.
Oh, that is tough! I’ve mostly done something to my hip, probably in yoga, and ignored it for ages until it started to affect other areas. Have started physical therapy (which I should have done to begin with) and hope I will get it taken care of. Sounds like WE both need some serious massage pressure, LOL…
Today I discovered vintage Estée Lauder’s can be ruined by spending almost an entire summer in Southeast Virginia in a car glovebox! They can be killed! I am referring to an older and clearly abused bottle of Cinnebar that a co-worker gave to me. I had to put on at least 10 squirts( if it was still good, you should have been able to smell me several states away)before I could detect any balsam and spice goodness and these squirts initially smelled of hairspray so I know the top notes have been cooked(literally). I am happy to report that several hours later this scent did finally open up and I am now enjoying orange pekoe tea whiffs and lots of balsam, so perhaps some of the base survived. It is still pretty good sprayed on a scarf so I shall have to be on the lookout for a more gently handled vintage bottle.
Yes. Temperature extremes and light = perfume death…
Luckily the vintage Lauders seem to show up regularly and at reasonable prices on ebay. 🙂
My husband used to keep some ghastly men’s fragrance (I think it was by Nautica) in his glove compartment. Ugh.
No scent for me today – I’ve come down with a cold. I have been huffing some Olbas oil on a tissue in a (mostly) futile attempt to clear the nasal passages. For those that haven’t used it before, it’s a mix of essential oils used like Vicks – bottle says it is an “aromatic inhalant.” Mix of Peppermint, Eucalyptus, Cajeput (had to look that one up), Wintergreen, Juniper, and Clove, you can find it at health food stores. Even if it doesn’t work, it certainly is stimulating!
and cajeput is tea tree, since I did look it up!
Feel better!
I sort of like that kind of medicinal smell. One of my favorite smells from when I was a kid was Porter’s Liniment Salve, this sticky yellow stuff that is just CHOCK FULL of things like cajeput, clove oil, sassafras, myrrh, and camphor. To me, that’s the smell of Having My Ouchies Taken Care Of, and I love it.
Yuck, get better!
Haven’t smelled Olbas for ages! Must get some 🙂
I finally got to try Guerlain Vetiver today. I was shortcutting through my local Hudson Bay’s beauty floor (same store where a salesperson told me that Vetiver was for old men) when I spotted the green label and rectangular bottle out of the corner of my eye. I literally span towards it with an excited gasp. I headed over and sprayed my wrists liberally. It’s just as good as I expected.
Glad you got to try the one in a rectangular bottle. I much prefer it to the one in the frosted ribbed bottle!
Oh, I want to try this!
Bit of an official day so went with Tom Ford Violet Blonde, soft but full of character.
SOTD was the everybody-hates-it-but-me Dahlia Noir. Maybe the cold weather is making me anti-social?…
No SotD because I’m inhaling the fragrance from a bowl of freshly-picked pink jasmine blossoms. They take my breath away.
When I put my nose close to the flowers, the scent feels “cold” as I inhale, almost the way menthol is cold, but the fragrance is so far away from mentholated. It’s the scent of cloyingly sweet white flowers with vanilla, banana, a hint of green, and a bit of decay. I love it. I wish I could find a perfume to match it.
I have slowly realized over the past year that sometimes I think I want jasmine in a perfume, but I what I really want is a ylang-ylang scent. Ylang gives me some of the cool-creamy-floral-banana that I love in fresh pink jasmine flowers.
Now I’m really wanting some pink jasmine blossoms to stick my face into… What a description!
🙂 Thanks.
Started off in De Profundis, that disappeared quickly so I put on some Oeillet Bengale at my desk, and that too disappeared. Now I am at home in Tauer Incense Extreme…ahh, finally found satisfaction.
Looking forward to spice Friday – that would be a good time to wear Egoïste, which I tend to forget about. My early perfume favs tended to be spicy: EL Youth Dew, Secret of Venus Zibeline, and Corday Toujours Moi. It seems like there used to be more spicy perfumes than there are today.