hortus conclusus

As those of you who have been keeping an eye on this blog over time may know, this is a relatively new blog. I have been obsessed with fragrance for many years now, and keeping notes for myself, but it has only been a few months since I began making my thoughts and feelings on the subject public in this forum. I thank you for staying with me as my husband and I tweaked the format of the blog pages, and tried to get all the feeds, searches, etc. running properly. I am still feeling my way around the blogosphere, learning what works and what doesn’t and trying to figure out exactly how to tailor my own blog.   There are a LOT of really great fragrance blogs out there, and I follow and admire the work of many writers who know way more about the fragrance industry and the art of perfumery that I do. I admire them and am not trying to complete with their expertise and knowledge. I simply add another voice to the chorus of fragrance enthusiasts, and offer a focus on integrating fra...

In Salman Rushdie’s Moor’s Last Sigh , a spice heiress and a manager succumb to their passion for one another and make love on sacks of pepper. This scene won Rushdie the award for bad sex writing . I guess the line that seems to especially offend people’s sensitivities is the admittedly very stupid-sounding: “For ever they sweated pepper n’ spice sweat.” Ok, fair enough, that sounds pretty mojo-killing. But I remember the first time I read this novel (when it came out. I admit to being a Rushdie fan), and I remember that I thought this scene was pretty hot. not the terrible n’,  but the scene in general. Reader, what do you think: link to this page of the The Moor’s Last Sigh I found myself thinking of it again, dear readers, when I spritzed on The Different Company’s Rose Poivrée —after the inevitable sneeze, I thought, what a sexy scent, with its pepper, civet, rose, cumin, and coriander, and then all these images of sexy Indian heiresses and their str...