hortus conclusus

I don’t know about all y’all, but I really love getting my mail, and I especially like getting packages. Especially when those packages are from other countries. Especially when those packages are from really cool bloggers from really cool other countries. Especially when you get another really awesome package, on top of the exotic first one, and that is from another really cool blogger from an equally cool, non-northern locale. especially when….Ok, you probably get my drift! (I love looking at foreign stamps. These were beautiful) Today, I was blessed with two (2!) awesome packages filled with goodies for me, only MEEEE! The first, from the lovely, thoughtful Ines of the blog All I am-a Redhead , who not only gave me a sample of the rare, unique Puredistance, but also a cute chocolate and the beautiful Tam Dao , and the equally transcendent parfum sacre . So thanks, Ines, I feel very lucky!   And if that weren’t awesome enough, I got a package containing two jasm...

I’ll let this incredible excerpt from Christopher Smart’s  (1722-1771) Jubliate Agno (see full text at pseudopodium.com ) speak for its own crazy, fabulous, hallucinatory self. He wrote this weird, sprawling, obsessive religious poem at least partly while in an insane asylum, locked up for his supposed religious mania. I think he must have written this part in there, in a wistful remembrance of the beauty of the natural world outside his confinement. Here’s to flowers, in the bottle and out of it! FROM JUBILATE AGNO: For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent. For the flowers are great blessings. For the Lord made a Nosegay in the meadow with his disciples and preached upon the lily. For the angels of God took it out of his hand and carried it to the Height. For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence. For there is no Height in which there are not flowers. For flowers have great virtues for all the senses. For the...

ADVENTURES IN SINAESTHESIA When the generous and enormously talented perfumer Andy Tauer was kind enough to send me samples of all his fragrances—and an adorable sample set to give away (details soon)—I was thrilled. I was especially thrilled to find a sample of his Vetiver Dance within one of the adorable embossed tins, for as you may know, I adore vetiver, and any fragrance with vetiver in the name is pretty exciting for me.   SO, I did what any self-respecting perfume-loving bon vivant would on a sunny Memorial Day weekend. I spritzed on Vetiver Dance and went on a picnic, prophesying that a vetiver fragrance would go well with a sunny day down by the river. I was right! Vetiver Dance opens up with a bouquet of pepper, rose, and citrus—Grapefruit, yes, I can detect that..and stays fruity for quite a while. This makes it go very well with the gin and tonics my beloved had the foresight to pack in our picnic basket! In fact, this fragrance played very well with all the food we...

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...

First, a reminder to enter your name in my drawing for a book and some fragrance samples here . I have been staying with my brother and sister-in-law (who is Brazilian) for the past few days, and last day we had a traditional Brazilian meal. I have adored Brazilian cuisine ever since we went down for a month for my brother’s wedding, and was thrilled to be part of the cooking process. In Brazil, the cook made all the food for the household or we ate out, so I never got to see it in process, so to speak. The three of us put this meal together in a little over an hour, and it tasted SOO good, I had to share it with you all. the meal pictured at left doesn’t look so great, but let me promise you, it tasted wonderful (I’m just not the best photographer.) Here are the recipes: collard greens: couve 1 bunch collard greens, cut lengthwise into small strips 1 onion, cut in small strips garlic smashed to a paste in a pestle. Cook onions on stove until soft. ...

A drawing for samples of a brand new scent is going on at the Oh True Apothecary blog. Go check it out . And don’t forget my giveaway , if you haven’t entered your name yet. CREDITS: King Charles II, receiving gift of a pineapple from the Royal Gardener, John Rose. Painting, 1675, attributed to Hendrick Danckerts. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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...

Time for my monthly musing on the full moon—I can’t help it, I’m made different by its light shining in my window, inescapable, in ways comforting and maternal, yet also strange, disturbing. All my senses come alive; I am my self, amplified, for better or worse. Over these six years of marriage I have infected my husband, who now suffers the same sea change as I every time that celestial body climbs up in the heaven, redundant, resounding. We huddle together in our bed, listening to each other’s breathing, wondering when, if, how, we will ever achieve sleep. We hearken to the wild night noises outside our windows, the sounds of creatures somehow bigger, invasive. as if they roam the corners of our silver room, lurking and hunting, shrieking and munching.     I smell my skin, scented with the unnatural, or perhaps supe r-natural, human amplifications of flowers, roots, woods, and unnamable sensations with only a pale chemical for a name, the product of alche...

Before I start, a quick reminder that my book and fragrance drawing and giveaway is still in full swing. don’t forget to enter your name here if you are interested!   First, a brief reminder that my book and perfume sample giveaway draw is still open . Every year, at the medieval conference in Kalamazoo, I a ttend a very civilized dinner at the home of a professor emeritus. He and his wife have spent over 50 years perfecting this home, and I think I can say it is one of the best curated, most beautiful homes I have ever had the pleasure to see. Unfortunately, this professor’s wife died suddenly a few years back, and every year since, I have feared  that these polite, delicious dinners, filled with wonderful food and urbane conversation, will come to an end. SO this yea r, I documented my favorite parts of the house by taking snapshots. This is not in any way a fragrance post, but it certainly has a lot to do with the art of living an aesthetically full life. ...