hortus conclusus

  Radioactive violet/orris topnotes with an incense base that reminds me (unsurprisingly) of Comme des Gar ç ons’ incense line—a resinous smoky frankincense with a ground of patchouli. There’s a greenness too that rides the middle of the scent, a grassy powdery vetiver. This is harmonious, sophisticated, and olfactorily challenging perfumery; indeed, it’s what one would expect from this house. As it dries down, a peppery woody accord emerges from the violet smoke. This is one of those fragrances that evokes a color, or even a color palette, in my mind. I see green, violet, of course, and a shimmering, opalescent gray! It strikes me as very French, very fin de siècle. It is the color of Nancy, the home of French Art Nouveau. The glasswork of that town was famous for its emulation of nature, and I’d say the kind of nature that decays, and subsides into the earth. Consider this vase, for example. And this bed: The bed is a gorgeous memento mori: the moth is born and flies into the...

  I find it very interesting that Mary Magdalene is the patron saint of perfume. Her legend is so multifaceted, so sensory, and so deeply complex that I have to concede that she makes a perfect object of contemplation for the perfumer (and the lover of perfume, of course!). Her status (erroneously attributed to her in the sixth century by the ubiquitous  Legenda Aurea     or  The Golden Legend i n English) as a reformed prostitute landed her squarely in the world of the sensual, and her ritualistic, emotive actions subsequent to her conversion only enhanced this reputation. For example, Mary Magdalene was believed to have washed Jesus’ feet with her penitent tears and a whole box of spikenard; perfuming them, if you will, with the liquid of new-found holiness. The passage is so super-sensual I’ll include it here: Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was fille...

This post marks the first in a series of meditations on celebrity perfumes. I am a bit strapped for spending money at the moment, but feeling the perfume ache. My solution: find the cheap gems and write and think about them for awhile! Celebrity perfumes are justifiably poo-pooed my many perfume lovers for the obvious reasons; they are crassly commercial, often built by a committee, and are part of an assembly line of products meant to help the top 1% of artists and famous-for-being-famous people (and their handlers) reach even higher levels of wealth.  All this is true. But sometimes, someone on the celebrity team thinks to retain a great perfume artist, and even better, let her do her work. Then the rare but wonderful happens--the world is blessed with a cheap, beautiful, high-concept (because attached to the ineffable but fundamental qualities of some celebrity) fragrance.  SO now for the first celeb offering on my shelf: My Life for Mary J Blige. Gorgeous, steamy gardenia....