hortus conclusus

  Happy Sunday all, and happy riddle day! Here, just flown in, an enigmatic flacon of perfume awaits your sharp brains and swift typing fingers…Who will be the first to guess which bottle wraps her real name in a veil of mystery? I’m on a fairy tale kick right now, so bear with me! A merry young maid lived in a dark wood, (with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no…) She lived with dwarves; she made them food. (with a higglety-piggelty pomme-kin) She was so fair and bright and good, (With a ….etc.) she never suffered a petulant mood. (with a higglety-pigglety etc….) Only one weakness had she; ‘twas that she loved to eat sweet fruit low in fat. A pear and a cherry, an apricot too; blackcurrants, redcurrants, blueberries blue. These she loved even more than her life, and these were her downfall--caused the strife that rent their little woodland home, for when this maid was all alone-- the dwarves in the mines--  an old woman...

Time to get a present for Dad, and if yours is anything like mine, that is a serious challenge. Most dads don’t want anything you can afford to get them (cars, computers, trips to exotic locales) so you usually flake out and go for the easy options (ties, food, drink, fragrance, books, gift certificates, etc.) Well, this is a fragrance blog, so I can help you with one of those categories. Here are my top ten picks for smells for Dad for this year. Some are pricey, some are cheap, some are in the middle. These are not only some of my favorite masculines, they are also all a little more unique than the ubiquitous Ralph Lauren Polo or Hugo Boss. You can also check out my guidelines for picking out perfumes for mom , but sometimes dads are a little harder to read, and give you less to work with. These are in no particularly significant order, by the way. These are not necessarily my favorite masculines of all time; they are just ones I think most men would not push away in disgust, and ...

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...

NO perfume can capture the absolute delight of strawberries and cream, and that is a great pity. Today I enjoyed my first bowl of fresh cut strawberries floating in whole milk and sugar, and I have to say that few things delight me more. I love the tangy, acidic muskiness of the strawberries in contrast with the smooth creaminess of the milk, and the way the fruity juice from the strawberries slowly turns the milk pink and imparts the most beautiful flavor.  I was racking my brain for a scent that emulates the unique joy of this culinary combination, but all I could think of were failed attempts ( Miss Dior Cherie , Victoria’s Secret Strawberries and Champagne ). I have not tried Fragonard’s Juste un Baiser , which supposedly has notes of strawberry and vanilla, but I would be surprised if it were successful. I remember trying a Voluspa fragrance a long time ago th at seemed like a very tart, floral, wild strawberry, but alas, I have forgotten its name…. Another I must try is N...

Well it is certainly much better than Miss Dior Chérie, which was a truly atrocious fruit and caramel explosion, girly in all the wrong ways. This has an almost herbaceous nature, a sort of accord between florals, citrus, and woods, and is certainly greener and more natural smelling than its predecessor, which are all plusses in my book. The problem is, as with most modern perfumes, it takes absolutely no chances. I doubt I would recognize this scent again if I smelled it on someone, It smells generic, and too watery. A safe bet, but nothing special.

This is girly, sugary, and not unpleasant, but nothing I would buy for myself or anyone else. The sugary fruitiness does pull away fairly quickly, leaving a decent patchouli base lingering on its lonesome. But there's the rub; who needs another fruity, sugary, patchouli scent? Nobody. But because it's Dior, it is bought by hordes of young things, or people who want to smell like sugar-coated young things, although for the life of me I can't imagine why. One of the delights of growing older is being able to grow into more interesting perfumes than concoctions such as these. Too expensive to be worth it. I'd prefer D & G La Lune any day.