hortus conclusus

I am a very lucky girl, I remind myself almost every day, especially when the annoyances of slogging though a busy graduate life seem especially irritating. I have a family who loves me and I love them. I have many interesting and intelligent friend s, who enrich my life daily. I have an interesting job, and I work on something that inspires me. I get paid to go to school and get a doctorate. I have many hobbies that keep me from getting bored. And I have a wonderful husband who loves me and spoils me rotten. I have nothing to complain ab out. Our 5 year wedding anniversary is on Friday, and as my husband came home from a three week business trip yesterday, we found ourselves exchanging gifts early, impatient to see the smiles of delight on each others’ faces. Granted, my present to him was not hideable—where, I ask you, does one hide a leather armchair in a small condominium? My husband’s presents to me were very sweet and thoughtful. First, a pair of Montana sapphire stud earr...

Asteres me'n a?mfi ka'lan sela'nnan a?^ips a?pykru'ptoisi fa'ennon ei?^dos, o?'ppota plh'ðoisa ma'lista la'mphs a?rguria ga^n. The gleaming stars all about the shining moon Hide their bright faces, when full-orbed and splendid In the sky she floats, flooding the shadowed earth with clear silver light. (Sappho, quoted by Eustathius of Thessalonica in the twelfth century.) Tonight, I, the moon, and Bois des Isles sit silently together, looking out over an illuminated landscape.  Perfect contentm ent and absolute restlessness vie with one another within my mortal frame. Just another sleepless night on the full moon. My husband took a bunch of really cool photos of the full moon from my dissertation advisor’s country home in Danby, New York. As I sit alone, awake, tonight, I think it is quite a nice series. But then, I’m partial. Sleep well, all.     Don’t let the bedbugs bite….. Credits: text from http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sa...

I am introducing a new feature here on Hortus Conclusus , in which a perfume bottle sings a little riddle, and it’s up to you, dear readers, to guess which bottle of perfume is riddling. To start us out on the best possible foot, My first poem has an easy solution! Which of you will be the first to guess, I wonder: I’m not a pentangle. I live in a square I bubble like golden champagne filled with air, My obscure beginnings are shrouded in mystery But that won’t stop people from telling my history. I fly through the air, I swim with the fishes. Scientists say I reside in all ditches. I go everywhere, and all know my fame therefore I know that you have guessed my name. I will never die; you keep me alive. By now you have guessed, I’m ________! Image of Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.  

“A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.”— Clive Bell , Since Cezanne , p. 32. Strange and wonderful is the perfumer’s art. I am thankful for it every day, since it brightens my life and gives me great joy. Like any other high art form, it can be cheapened, or made obtusely complex just for the sake of obfuscation. Not so with Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer’s Une rose chyprée , which is just as artistic as it needs to be, just as complex, as unique, as it should be, nothing more, nothing less. A real work of artistic maturity, in my opinion. Tauer’s Une Rose Chyprée boasts an intriguing  cinnamon nose-tingle, peachy depths, soft ambergris, salty shimmer, green labdanum, and a large dose of quality rose that doesn’t behave like a rose at all. The base is, as the official notes describe it –as ‘dark and resinous...

One of my favorite moment moments in modern fragrance history is the great Spicy Oriental boom of the Eighties. These fragrances were awesome, in my opinion; Opium, Cinnabar, Shalimar, Poison, Coco —these ladies didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of them. They were huge, domineering, impossible to mistake for another, and were so powerful that they launched the biggest backlash ever—the ultimate domination of ‘quiet’, ‘linear’ fragrances like CK One and Bulgari’s Thé Vert . What nobody seemed to realize, or at least care about,  at the time is that these fragrances were singing the swan song of the great operatic fragrance a la big perfume house. Since then, most new releases—even from the great houses of Chanel and Guerlain—have been nice at times, but never as complex, dense, and intriguingly impossible to completely understand as these powerful creatures of their time. Of course, niche perfumers still create grand fragrances  with lots going on all the time, b...

As I have been preparing rose-related posts in honor of my Rose decant giveaway ,  I keep meaning to review the great quantity of fruity roses that I have in my sample collection, but something keeps stopping me. I guess I just can’t get enthusiastic enough about them—or disgusted enough with them, to write anything at all. So I thought I would write about something that inspires me, and has done the same for many others, since its creation in 1930— Joy by Jean Patou. I’m talking about the EDT in this case, since I think it is more rosy than the super-jasmine edp. I don’t think you can find a classic floral more sublime than this very often. The top-quality bulgarian rose and jasmine sit on top of a sparkling—but not overwhelming—aldehyde cocktail, which is much more delicate and less pronounced than other classic aldehyde-riddled fragrances like Chanel no. 5 .  It is a rich floral accord, neither jasmine nor rose, but like the best of both blended into  a superflowe...

A lot of people take Chanel’s masterpiece (well, one of them) Cuir de Russie very seriously, rightly admiring its near-perfect combo of cigar, barnyard, and leather, overlaid with a sparkling aldehyde and floral mist. I love cuir de russie, but something about it also tickles my funnybone. I find it incredibly ‘historical’-feeling—which is a silly way of saying it fits—in my mind—into a very specific time and place. It really pushes my imagination towards the post-war years of the English aristocracy, and in particular, towards a certain type of girl, parodied hilariously by the ever pitch-perfect P.G. Wodehouse . This kind of girl—I am thinking of a character named Honoria Glossop in particular--possessed of a Teutonic hardiness, is never far from her horse or the golf and tennis courts, loves outdoor activities, is as strong as an ox, and always manages to get herself engaged to some insipid young upper-class gent. As Bertie, one of the insipid upper class gents lampooned in Wode...

I am getting ready for another round of academic interviews for professorships and have been plotting my fragrance strategy, and I figured other people would be interested in my quandary: what does a woman wear to an important job interview? She needs to feel empowered, subtly womanly, and happy, but she should obviously wear nothing that could put people off (so out goes one of my favorites, Samsara , which isn’t everyone’s), but what other criteria should she use to judge which fragrance would be best? Here is a list of criteria I came up with, but I’d be thrilled to get your input! the scent should be classic—nothing too unusual, exotic, or oddball, i.e. Chanel’s Cuir de Russie , not Thierry Mugler’s Angel.  the scent should skew masculine. Consider wearing a classic men’s cologne, like Guerlain Vetiver , Geo F. Trumper’s Royal Fern, or Caron Pour Homme. Although it is wrong that we still live in a sexist world, you might as well play the game an...

Does anyone else feel the way I do about Whistler's Peacock room? This room, an orientalist fantasy dressed up to the nines, is absolutely gorgeous, and I think if I could have any living space in the world to occupy for the rest of my life, I would choose this one if it were only possible. See the exhibition pictures here . It is like living in a perfume bottle. I love the way the gilding looks on the teal walls, and the built in golden shelving. I also love the fact that Whistler just totally ignored the owner's wishes and went all out decorating the room while he was away. The question is, what perfume ought one to wear in such a room as this? My bet is Bois des Iles , or maybe Mitsouko , but I'd love to hear other opinions! It needs to be decadent, over-the-top, but oh so perfect....

What a revolutionary perfume Cuir de Russie must have been in its day! It is so masculine, so gender-bending, that I imagine it even would make a huge splash today--and ruffle some feathers. This is classy, classy, classy woman-as-man scent, and it has a certain theatricality to it, a sort of "I'm pushing the limits" cigarry, almost urinous, edginess, but then the florals swoop in, and it says, 'I'm only kidding; I'm just a woman, after all.' Like all classic Chanels, for better (Bois des Iles) or worse (No. 5), this is a super complex thing; it tells a very upper-class story. I imagine one of those virago femme fatales that populate Wodehouse novels wearing this; brassy, horsey, masculine, yet deeply feminine, with hidden urges towards female role-playing that need only the right situation to bring them out. A tour de force, truly, something that both sweeps one's imagination into the past and fits in perfectly into our own postmodern world.

I am deeply in love with Samsara . I have decided, upon reflection, to like the name, even, since the deeply seductive nature of this perfume would certainly derail anybody on the path to enlightenment. (see the great article on Samsara’s name and history here at Perfume Shrine ) I have yet to try the newer formulations, but in my opinion, the treatment of sandalwood here is exceptional--as good as, dare I say it, Chanel's Bois des Iles. I don't care if some find it an inferior Guerlain. They are just letting crap ad copy get in their way, I believe. On my dry skin, the sandalwood lasts and lasts, and the jasmine functions as a sort of shimmering infusion. In the EDT, the opening is slightly unpleasant--green, hyperfloral, and slightly cloying, but wait ten minutes, and you'll find yourself on a boat to a dreamspace full of warm sheets, aromatic woods, and beautiful dark-eyed women. This is actually a skin scent on me; you have to get close to me to detect it, and ...

Well, it's a rainy, moist, somewhat gloomy day here in my town--typical spring, I guess. Luckily, I have just the remedy for the sluggish malaise that can creep up on me on days like these. Chanel's Bois des Îles interacts with the wet, muddy, rainy smell in the most miraculous way, making even the most mundane walk to the library seem like a mystical event of deep significance. The reainy smell makes the sandalwood go nuts, and it becomes like a prayer to divinity, offered up on my skin. I feel cloaked in an aura of otherworldliness, an untouchable magical splendor. (I must wear this to my job interviews next year). The bitter nutty notes add just the slightest edge to the warmth of the gingerbread. This is a masterwork, and every time I don it I feel like I am wearing a work of art of the highest order. And that is the best thing about perfume. It offers a forum for the individual to interact with art in a deeply personal way, beyond even...

I chatted with my friend José last night about scent; His seven year old daughter, he says, spends hours and hours in the bathroom, ‘making perfume’. I told him the next time they came over for dinner we could smell perfume together and talk about their compostion. He says she is very interested in chemistry; the parents are both extremely talented scientists—maybe she could become a parfumier ; ) Then Jose and I got to talking about his memories with cologne. He says Shalimar and Tribú remind him of old lovers. Chanel no. 5 is his mother. His father, a wealthy and powerful Mexican artist and politician, is YSL . He himself wears Lacoste . His wife wears nothing. My dear friend Julie, 7 ½ months pregnant, wandered around the party smelling amazingly exotic, yet intensely familiar; It took me awhile to figure out that she was wearing Sensuous , one of my very favorites. It smelled fabulous on her, and it was a very cool experience to smell it on someone else besides me—I’ve almos...