hortus conclusus

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 have just discovered this very sexy scent. This is a bedroom scent for the sexually explorative new millennium. It is, to my nose, a gourmand floriental, but it is also a skin scent; it enhances the smells we make naturally after a night of...enthusiastic sex. It opens up with a subtly indolic floral accord, but the cumin is there under the surface, and one's the wheels of the imagination start whirring, to say the least. All--and I mean all--the human secretions are alluded to here in this perfume, but just made more intense in generally good ways. It is nasty, yet not too dirty, and very suggestive. The drydown is lovely, and the cumin really shines in conjunction with the musk/patchouli/cedar. Clean yet sweaty and, yes, a bit dirty. Brilliant art, though definitely not for everyone. And as strong as an EDP it is not, despite its name.

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 ...

I ordered a sample of one of Guerlain's new Voyages Olfactifs, Tokyo, and I must say I am a little disappointed with the resulting green fragrance. It seems awfully one-dimensional for this house, and lacks much excitement. It seems pretty linear, and, dare I say it, rather generic. Tea notes plus cedar plus violet plus orange blossom= meh for me. If this were in the more reasonable price range, I might appreciate it more. Like, Vera Wang should be producing this for the boring mass market. Not Guerlain. This is simply not up to snuff, and I find it tragic that the great perfume house known for baroque elegance is trying to enter the uninspiring modern perfume market in such a way. This is sellout thinking, and I don't like to see it in Guerlain. People should come to this house once their noses have been educated and they are ready for a real fragrance--or they should use Guerlain to educate themselves. Guerlain should not come to them. Grr! Plus, why those trashy bottles? Oh ...

This is a gorgeous violet; it immediately conjures the most delicate mindspaces--Italian forest floors in spring, when the little violets peep out from the leaf mold, delicate mountain streams you come upon just knowing that you surprised a bathing nymph, since a delicate, haunting odor pervades the air. A tin of violet pastilles, floral, musky, and with that core of violet/anise. E.M. Forster's A Room With a View . Diana in a diaphanous linen gown, arrows and bow at her side. The color violet. Sweet breath. It smells old-fashioned, yes. And that is wonderful. It is nostalgic for a time of delicate love letters, prolonged courtship, and refined table manners. A time when spring really meant the airing out of one's house and one's life, walks in the countryside, and the delicate surprise of a perfect, scented little flower.     Candied Violets: Tasting the fragrance of Spring

Hermes bel ami is a gorgeous surprise! The citrus at the top is perfectly calibrated with the spice and the woods below it, and smells so refined. I get a little dirt topsoil note too-probably vetiver, that grounds this and makes it spread out. It reminds me--in the best way-- of sweat, bitter and salty, and I can imagine being very turned on by a man who wore this. What blows me away about this is that it smells so complete, so perfect in its way, both craggy and rounded. A contradiction in its very nature. I guess that is what leather is; something that is smooth yet durable and edgy at the same time. I love the idea of a perfume paradox.

I just tried a tester of this straight musky scent and am impressed with it. I then checked online reviews, and was somewhat surprised to see so many people put this down, saying pretty much the same thing, every one of them--an unexciting, well-behaved musk. Suspicious, I checked my copy of Tanya Sanchez and Luca Turin's Perfumes, the Guide , and sure enough, he gave it two stars, and, you guessed it, said it was an unexciting, well-behaved musk. this just goes to show how much of the perfume-connoisseur business is, like other things like wine tasting and art appreciation, an Emperor's New Clothes deal. If one of the big players says something, God forbid someone thinks otherwise!

Today is another grey day, complete with rain, so I decided to wear something powerful today that will stimulate my imagination. Acqua di Parma's Quercia Marina seems to be the ticket. I love the salty masculinity of this juice. It is powerful, yet well-constructed. I smell cedar, of course, lots of it, and a bunch of bitter herbs, violet, and maybe some vetiver. I bet my dad would love this one. I love it too. I intend to get a full bottle (soon, because it's apparently discontinued) and wear it on days I want to be powerful and send masculine signals. Definitely a contender for the 'job interview' category. I wonder why this was discontinued. I guess it smells too natural for the power-hungry business dudes this is probably supposed to appeal to. They are probably wearing Hugo Boss! I love how Italian this smells too. I am starting to identify a specifically Italian aesthetic in perfumery--a tendency towards more tonic, herbal smells, less sexy than the ...

My dear sister came out for a surprise visit this Thursday, so I didn't have much time for musing! It was a fabulous blur of food, drinks, laughter, and sightseeing. She just turned 21, so my husband and I had a great time turning her on to all our favorite boozes. WE went to a wine tasting (Italian) had Spanish tapas, went on a wine tour, had indian, thai, laotian, and dim sum, drank st. Germain cocktails, local french-style cider and Framboise, and went on a picnic. We stayed up late into the night just chatting and philosophizing and having fun being together. I must say, it feels a little lonely here now! I gave my sister (not a real girly girl in some ways--she never wear any jewelry I give her or any kind of scent) a set of Pacifica solids for Christmas, and it appears she's been using them, to my surprise! I put on her bergamot rose and layered D & G La Lun e on top. It was actually pretty fabulous. It lasted for hours. We all sat around and smelled Beyonce's ne...

Today I am wearing 1000, be caus e I need something sophisticated for my tour of the Finger Lakes wineries, most of which sell bottles of wine slightly less complex that Carlo Rossi, so I need something to add a little mystery to my day. I love the gloomy, wet nostalgia of this fragrance. I wish I could obtain a bottle, but Las, my budget keeps me on samples of this one! It smells so real; like each exotic flower were squeezed by hand into a gorgeous crystal bottle. I adore the deep sexy depth of this! Chypre, violet, and mysore sandalwood. Back from the wine tour; Patou did wonderfully, keeping me feeling elegant and composed even though the day turned out to be super hot, and the wine, as usual, not so great. But my husband and I had a great time with my dear sister! Above, you can see how the vines are just beginning to bud. Below, our lovely picnic in an herb garden.

Last night I had to go directly from a yoga class at my local YMCA to a dinner with my thesis adviser and my husband, so I dabbed on a few drops of my favorite dinner perfume, Samsara , that love-it-or-hate it child of the eighties. It was only when I was sweating my way through my seventh sun salutation that I realized that the samsara was radiating off my body in waves because my body temperature had gone up. I was a little embarrassed. Although I love Samsara , many don’t, and the peace-loving essential oils or bust crowd assembled in that room probably was not appreciating my parfum de choix. I was perfectly happy, of course. The sandalwood and vanilla was going nuts, and I was enjoying my little fantasy journey beyond the confines of the utilitarian gym space filled with grumpy yuppies. Then the irony of the whole thing struck me; here we were, a bunch of overworked white professionals, trying to snag a moment in our days to seek enlightenment, and here I was, brin...

I have to sit in a graduate seminar on Chaucer and Gower today, and it’s a tight space; I’ll need to wear something that is super close to the skin and unoffensive; most of my colleagues are of the modern perfume-haters school. I guess I will choose one of the least offensive—and least interesting—frags on my shelf. Bvlgari’s Thé Blanc will fit the bill. It is pleasant yet not far-reaching, wears well, and doesn’t smell anything like white tea (LOL). At times I enjoy its nondescript, expensive soapiness—it smells less like perfume and more like a good shower. And it certainly won’t distract me from my profound cogitations on Middle English poetry ; ). There; I put it on. I will report back later to let you know whether I am still pleased with my nondescript self when I get back from the university today. Back now: no one noticed. ; )

I have been thinking about two of my favorite teas, and wondering if an analysis of their properties might not get me closer to understanding my own fragrance preferences. They are as different as night and day, but equally wonderful in my mind. The first, Russian Caravan , is a deep, extremely smoky, black tea. It smells like tea and smoke in the most fabulously romantic way in the pot, and has a deep blackish brown color. There is, in my opinion, no other tea that goes as well with as many savory foods. Its smokiness makes it perfect for brunches with meat and eggs—it tastes absolutely lovely with sausage, bacon, and all that, for its depth of flavor matches or even exceeds the foodstuffs, and it complements the meaty, creamy flavors of breakfast so well. I love it with a bit of milk with some fat content, for it rounds out and enhances the smokiness of the tea and eliminates any potential bitterness. The other tea is very different from Russian Caravan, but no less exotic. Chi...

-Guerlain Vetiver -Chanel Bois des Iles -Estee Lauder sensuous -Cade -Tea Rose -Burt's Bees Bay rum -L'occitan Pour Homme -Zents Earth -Guerlain Samsara -Pacifica Waikiki Pikake (March 31, 2010)

Today is another grey day. It’s cold and brisk, and I sense rain looming. Might as well continue my run of woods and incenses. Today I am wearing Caron’s Parfum Sacre , a fragrance I find extremely linear and straightforward; it’s candied incense in a bottle. Not my favorite—I love incense, but I don’t like the way perfumers tend to smear a bunch of flowery sugar over the top of what should be a deep, dry, haunting smell. That said, wearing Parfum Sacre is a joy, because it never goes away, and I get to smell it throughout the day because my nose never becomes immune to it. It certainly kept my spirits up when I had to give up the dreamy freedom of spring break and go back to teaching again today. Somehow, seeing the blanks faces of the rows of tired young college kids wasn’t as disheartening as usual, since something was with me.

Well, I've come through one long, rainy day on a night of a full moon with no major attitude problems; there's no way to prove it, but it could very well be the calming, misty, divine influence of the Bois Des Iles. My husband also seemed quite attracted to me today, although he claimed not to smell anything special on my skin. Perhaps it was just me knowing how special I smelled to myself.... Now all I have to do is get to sleep--I wonder if a spritz or two of L'Occitane's discontinued Lavande would send me off to The Land of Nod.

I love true citrus fragrances, and this Hermes always hits the spot for me. It has a very classic profile, and is extremely well-mannered. It opens with a lovely, extremely true, sour citrus, then quickly dries down to a lovely, gentlemanly bergamot/oakmoss. Although I love my large sample of this, I will never invest in a bottle simply because I have found it to have almost no staying power. If it were a 30 dollar bottle, this wouldn't be a problem, but at this price point, its better just to keep a little sample around to sniff from time to time.   That is the problem with citrus in general. Like Guerlain's Eau de Fleurs de Cedrat with its evanescent lemons, or Pacifica's Tuscan Blood Orange, it doesn't seem to hang around too long. It took me a long time to figure this out in my journey towards loving fragrance. I used to find--and still do most of the time-- the synthetic-smelling citrus topnotes in mass-marketed perfumes completely repulsive, proba...

My friend Jane, a born business executive (it's only a matter of time before she scales to the highest ranks of the company that is lucky enough to retain her for good) LOVES all things Burberry. She is singlemindedly dedicated to its aesthetic, and longs for the day she has the resources available to obtain all the Burberry goods she can possibly imagine. I hope she likes the new fragrance release, Spor t , available in formulations for men and women. I got a whiff of the masculine version, and was intrigued, although I have been burned by Burberry in the past; they nearly always seem to almost get there with their fragrances, but then take a wrong turn and end up with something unpalatable or banal. This one seems to explore the idea of ginger in intriguing ways. It reminds me--appropriately--of a bottle of liqueur that Jane and her husband Zach prefer, the niche-y, gingery Canton, produced by the same folks who brought us my favorite, St. Germain: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/0...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/fashion/29bazaar.html Sometimes I wonder if the incredibly high-profile ad campaign (4 A-lister Spokeswomen!!!) might have killed the positive critical reception of what I think is one of the best mid-market fragrances released in a long while.

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...

Well. I ended up wearing Creed Spring Flowers to the baby shower, and I’m glad I chose that because the shower was full of baby talk and baby paraphernalia, but it was a gorgeous, powerfully bright early spring day. If I had worn something more powdery, I might have risked feeling overwhelmed by the atmosphere of almost suffocating maternal energy and babyish juvenilia. The Spring flowers kept me centered, reminding me that it was finally Spring and that this was all part of a vast phase of rebirth that all the people in the Northern Hemisphere were sharing right now. Spring Flowers isn’t my favorite white floral, but its elegant simplicity was a perfect choice for the luncheon, and its joyous and unapologetically feminine bouquet made me feel just as feminine as the other guests, but just in a different way.

So, if you are a girl, and are anything like me, you have a passion for anything 19th c. novel-ly. Scott, Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, and of course the immortal Miss Austen have been your friends and playmates since you were but a wee slip of a girl. You long for an age of refinement and courtship--or at least enjoy fantasizing about it. You buy tickets in the first week for anything period, and keep up with the BBC's output of historical dramas and classics. But you have tired of the clichéd girls' movie night fare of Pride and Prejudice--even though you, like every other red-blooded female in the Western world, do enjoy mooning over Colin Firth from time to time, and have lapped up even the most silly riffs on the Georgian Romance Theme, like the BBC's ridiculous but pleasurable Lost in Austen . Luckily, there exists a solution to this quandary of movie ennui: you can satisfy your desire to slip into another time, immerse yourself in the minutia of domestic life, and i...

The smell of black earth being turned over in a moist spring, complete with earthworms and rotten leaves. An incredibly evocative fragrance, and perfect for me today; I have been dying to garden, to get my hands in the dark earth, but alas, we live in a condo now, and gone are the glorious days of gardening for hours and hours while avoiding my teaching responsibilities and my dissertation. I wonder what my mother would think of this perfume. I must save up and buy her a bottle. She grew up on a wheat farm, and she tells me that one of her favorite things to do as a little girl was to fill up an empty glass Coke bottle with dirt and then drink it. She laughs about it now, joking that she must have had some sort of vitamin deficiency that was righted by consuming that rich farm dirt, but I know it is because she just deeply and truly loves dirt. SHe loves its smell, appearance, and even its taste. I am glad I have inherited my mother's palate. I too love the bitter, earthy, ...

Vanillic, incredible enveloping warmth, powdery softness, heady danger, just the faintest hint of smoke...but take care. Too much may kill you and those around you--only the smallest amount of this EDP on the skin can tantalize, draw others in like a faintly shimmering tiny diamond on a necklace at the throat's hollow, but too much can be scary and gaudy. I don't get the bergamot note at all here. All I smell is vanilla, powder and smoke--and the sweet myrrh note, which gives it the slightest twinge of herbiness. The other thing to say is that this fragrance is supremely artfully balanced, a composition that weighs the elements agains one another playfully yet creatively. Later on in the drydown, you get almost the sense of a shimmering, milky veil of stars floating around you that is quite heavenly. It is dry yet creamy, and certainly dreamy. Like being haunted by a vision of a past lover. And I guess that's the point, since this perfume...

Yes, This is the kind of voluptuousness we are all looking for in a nice musky floral oriental. Something that smells like that silk looks, that would cling to the gauzy whitness of her stockings and dress. That would blend with the smooth warmth and softness of her skin. That would smell feminine, yet masculine, Eastern, yet Western too. That is the essence of Orientalism, in its most exotic, aesthetic form. That feels familiar and maternal, yet dangerous too. That feels rich and creamy and woody and floral all at once.

I have just been rereading Chaucer’s obscure work The Legend of Good Women , and I discovered this delightful ode to a daisy in it. Chaucer’s devotion to the daisy seems earnest and intense: Now have I than swich a condicioun, That, of alle the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun. To hem have I so great affeccioun, As I seyde erst, whan comen is the May, That in my bed ther daweth me no day That I nam up, and walking in the mede To seen this flour agein the sonne sprede, Whan hit upryseth erly by the morwe; 50 That blisful sighte softneth al my sorwe, So glad am I whan that I have presence Of hit, to doon al maner reverence, As she, that is of alle floures flour, Fulfilled of al vertu and honour, And ever y-lyke fair, and fresh of hewe; And I love hit, and ever y-lyke newe, And...

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.

Generally I like eating flowers. I love violet pastilles, rose-flavored baklava and rice pudding, and jasmine tea. I love the idea of consuming fragrance. But I hate eating lavender. Maybe it is the deep association with soap--even on the level of semantics, lavender means washing-- or just the sharp herbal edge, but eating or drinking lavender has always repelled me somehow. I love the smell of lavender; it has to be in the top ten of my favorite fragrances, but I can't bear the idea of eating it. For example, once, years ago, a dear friend of mine made some tea cookies for a party I was throwing. So far, so good--I love the powdery, nutty crunchiness of tea cookies. But unfortunately, she spiked them with lavender, which may seem like a good idea to some, but resulted in a cookie which--to my palate at least-- was reminiscent of lavender talcum powder. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but there it is. The one exception I have found is something beyond tolerable. It i...