hortus conclusus

Love perfume and want to start a collection of well-composed scents but get sticker shock when you look at the niche prices? Never fear, I am here to provide you with a list of really beautiful fragrances you can find for under 15 dollars a bottle. You can build your collection and still stay within budget. Geoffrey Beene Grey Flannel —one of the weirdest men’s fougeres out there. Bitter, harsh, and gorgeous. anything by Pacifica —I love this company, and think almost all of their fragrances are well-done, if a bit short-lived at times, The solid perfumes (usually $8-9 a pop) are great for a base layer to make a sprayed fragrance stick around a bit longer. Priscilla Presley roses and more --   a much more delicate rosy-floral. Ultrafeminine.   jovan musk-- If you like musk, this is for you. A straightforward musk. G reat for layering experiments as well   The Perfumer’s Workshop Tea Rose —I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now. One o...

For our next adventure in sinaesthesia, I bring you something a little less cheerful and a lot more romantic. Here is the first version of Keats' famous poem of enchantment and perdition, La Belle Dame Sans Merci: Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her ...

I am sure it's not just me; one of my favorite smells in the world is the smell of a sweaty man. To me it is a rich, fragrant experience, which means happiness and safety. I got this way when I was very little. Two of my most important male figures in my family--my uncle and my best friend's dad--were both very fragrant men, and I loved being near them because I loved them. My own father didn't smell sweaty in this way--his was more subtle, a scent that would linger on his pillowcases and bathrobes, but you couldn't smell on his person. I associated the comfort of his presence with the smell of whiskey and Borkum Riff pipe tobacco. As I write this, I think, no wonder I like all those woody, darker scents. It's all regression, at the end of the day, or at least Herr Doktor Freud would say so! As I got older, I--strangely enough--tended to date men who had little personal fragrance at all. My first serious longtime boyfriend did not smell unless he had been...