hortus conclusus

All the samples I ever buy are usually 1.5 ml to 2.5 ml. All because I need to be able to spray them to get a real sense of what it is, that I simply cannot get from merely dabbing. It's a divine but horribly expensive habit! Especially if I end up not liking them. (sigh............) But can I tell you about what I LOVE (yes I'm shouting in caps) I fell in desperate love with two comfort beauties this weekend, Sarah. And really I blame this wretched weather we've been having. Because all I want is for summer to kiss my face and warm my skin, but I'm inside sniffing and bemoaning the rain. And in the beginning of my perfumista journey I never liked "sweet" or comforting smells. But as it happened almost 7 yrs. ago I had my youngest daughter Olivia and lo and behold I could handle them--I craved them. She made me sweet. Aww. Ha! And that's saying something, having four daughters! I need strength in my scents but also, as it turns out, comfort. ...

I’ve been hanging out wi th my two cellist siblings a lot this summer and it has gotten me thinking about cellos. Well, cellos and people. Well, cellos, perfume and people. You see, to me the cello is the instrument that most resembles the human voice. In shape, it most resembles the human form. Its voice is mostly male, its form mostly female, and thus it is fundamentally androgynous, a quality which has done much to keep it in the collective unconscious of pop culture. Even the act  of playing the cello is intimate in a way unlike any other player’s relationship with his instrument. The female player titillatingly holds the cello between her thighs when she performs—my sister has trouble finding black clothing appropriate for performance for this very reason—and their union results in the birth of music itself. The male cellist, too, is locked in a creative embrace of his beloved. The color of the cello—as well as its tone—is the richest warmest honeyed amber, in one of the mos...

I interrupt my rose drawing week broadcast to rhapsodize briefly about one of my new favorite violet scents. I love violet smells —love the way the violet fades in and out of focus as it wears on my skin—and happily sniff any and all violet fragrances, most of which smell old-fashioned in very comforting ways. When Abigail over at I Smell Therefore I am kindly sent me a sample of  Sonoma Scent Studio’s V oile de Violette , I characteristically sprayed it all over me as quickly as possible, losing not a moment of time. This is a different kind of violet, more modern than old-fashioned and I love it. It is juicy and full, where many violets are consumptive and bone dry, reminding me of little candied dried violets , not something which drinks in the sun and has liquid running through its veins. This fragrance captures a living violet, rounding out the ever-so-delicate scent with something cherry blossom-like and something that smells a bit jammy—not in a potted fruit sort of a...