hortus conclusus

. Krh'ssai nu' pot? w?^d? e?mmele'ws po'dessin w?rxeu^nt? a?pa'lois a?mf? epo'enta Bw^mon po'as te'pen a?'nðos ma'lakon ma'teisai. Thus sometimes, the Cretan women, tender footed, dance in measure round the fair altar , crushing the fine bloom of the grass. Grassy scents for your consideration: Balmain Vent Vert Tommy Hilfiger T Girl CB I hate perfumes To See a Flower Nasomatto Hindu Grass Tauer Vetiver Dance Demeter Firefly Weil Bambou and antilope Gap Grass (I haven’t tried this) Annick Goutal Petite Cherie And a grass scent that ‘de-stresses’ here Marc Jacobs Grass Other ideas? CREDITS: Claude Lorraine painting and 3 dancing nymphs relief from Wikimedia Commons, Sappho poem and translation at Sacredtexts.com

This isn’t a real post today, just a link to the most amazing toiletries carrying case I have ever seen! (Made by Hermes in the 30’s, of course—who else, I ask you?) In a perfect life, this is what I travel with, and all my favorite juices are tucked snugly into their respective compartments. This has to be seen in its entirety to be believed. Go check out the full set of photos from Habitually Chic. This blew my groggy little mind this morning. How do you all travel with your fragrance? I only bring samples I haven’t tried yet to test, one for every other day, and usually buy  a bottle along the way …. Yours, La Bonne Vivante p.s. Don’t forget to enter my Tauer Perfume giveaway here ! CREDITS: pic at left from Habitually Chic.blogspot.com.  The beautiful image of leather luggage borrowed with permission from my friend THE TRAVELER

My dear friend Jessica, who has been a sweetheart and followed this blog from the very beginning, through some synchronicity always leaving encouraging comments  when I’m about to give up this foolhardy project, is a brilliant art historian who works on medieval Islamic art—cool right? She divides her time between Upstate NY, Minnesota, Morocco, and Spain. Her husband is a dashing young Moroccan man—I so envy her glamorous life. SO, as she’s been following this blog, she has noted, with a specialist’s eye, how often Morocco seems to come up in modern perfumers’ portfolios. I’ll quote her response to my giveaway of Tauer perfumes (you should enter! Go here ): “Seems like the man has a thing for Morocco, no? If I win I can't wait to see how much I think this really smells like the Morocco I know.” I doubt it would smell like the Morocco Jessica knows, the real Morocco—or at least her real Morocco, (since how do you make a smell that represents a whole country? I shudder t...

First, a reminder to enter for a chance to win my Tauer perfume giveaway here as you dear readers may know, I am an old fan of the great English domestic novel , but I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon; as I grow older, I begin identifying less with the sweet young 15 year old heroines, and more with their mothers and aunts with all their peccadilloes of character and odd obsessions. Do they ever grow tired of watching, aiding, and abetting the young females as they perform their elaborate mating dances, flirting and giggling till the wee hours of the morning at country dances while they, the older women, gossip and play cards? Do they ever tire of living vicariously through them, when their blood is pulsing just as quickly—or even more so--through their own veins? Do they  ever wish their stolid, unimaginative, dependable husbands would shape up and be more attentive? As they sit in their boudoir among their pots of cream and scent, do they fantasize about a new romanc...

First, a reminder to enter for a chance to win my Tauer perfume giveaway here You know I love Persia. Here in the classic erotic handbook The Perfumed Garden , find a fragrant cure for impotence. I imagine drinking such perfume might make anyone feel in the mood, provided he doesn’t get a bellyache… “Undoing of Aiguillettes (Impotence for a Time ) Know, O Vizir (God be good to you!), that impotence arises from three causes: Firstly, from the tying of aiguillettes. Secondly, from a feeble and relaxed constitution. And thirdly, from too premature ejaculation. To cure the tying of aiguillettes you must take galanga, cinnamon from Mecca, cloves, Indian cachou, nutmeg, Indian cubebs, sparrowwort, cinnamon, Persian pepper, Indian thistle, cardamoms, pyrether, laurel seed, and gilly flowers. All these ingredients must be pounded together carefully, and one drinks of it as much as one can, morning and night, in broth, particularly in pigeon broth; fowl broth may, ...

Sometimes the world is too much with us. Like when our oceans are pouring black blood , and uncomprehending animals are caught in a dark tide that ends their world, not with a bang but a whimper. we feel we can do nothing but suffer with them, as the gorge rises in our throats like that black bile coming from the hellish belly of the earth. NO human effort seems worthwhile in such an atmosphere of despair. Certainly no aesthetic enjoyment should be contemplated. Who are we to laugh, to smile, to think even, when we have perpetrated such horrors? But yet, there is still love, and maybe there is hope, though I doubt it very much….. On days like these, when the wind blows and the rain falls, as if sympathetic to our bootless despair, there is nothing to do but cry for a lost world. But yet , there is still George Harrison, singing his heartbreakingly lovely “I Live For you,” the most melancholy yet gorgeous love song of all time. But yet , there is the enormously...

  First, a reminder to enter in the drawing for a Tauer Perfumes Discovery set HERE Enjoying a G & T on our pack patio last nig ht while my husband barbecued, I saw a hilarious thing. This little chipmunk was sitting, as still as can be, on my terracotta statuette of St. Francis of Assisi. Now, as you all probably know, St Francis is the patron saint of animals. The first real Western environmentalist, so to speak. So I thought it was pretty funny that this little creature chose to perch on the saint’s head as sanctuary from my cat Oliver, who was regarding the little chipmunk with, shall we say, an interested eye. Saint Francis must have been doing his job, for no great bloody drama ensued. I have been enjoying my little garden lately. It’s nothing special, but it’s mine, and things have been blooming like the dickens lately. The herbs—lavender, thyme, oregano, chives, tarragon, basil, dill, smell fabulous, as do the geranium leaves, the little roses, and the dirt i...

First, a reminder to enter my Tauer perfume set giveaway HERE ! Well, Fathers Da y is nearly upon, us, and my mind turns to men's’ scents…coincidence, maybe. Today, I’m think ing about Ralph Lauren’s ubiquitous Polo line. I have to start this series of reviews of the entire of polo colognes by conceding that it does boast some of the most gorgeous ad copy in the universe. Especially now that the beautiful Nacho Figueras, the player for the Black Watch polo team, is the poster boy. Now if that doesn’t make you want to wear all RL, I don’t know what will… That, and the fact that the RL franchise is one of the most adept at presenting a coherent narrative of images and impressions that somehow convey that most elusive of things, ‘the good life.’ Be they explorers, cowboys, New England Ivy League types, or African snow queens, the lovely creatures that populate the Ralph Lauren universe all seem to possess something, some life, some ease, that the rest of us earth...

  The generous and talented Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer was kind enough to send me samples of all his fragrances to review over the coming week or so—and an adorable sample set to give away to YOU ! Yay!  I am very excited to announce this new giveaway drawing! Tauer got his PhD in chemistry, and went on to start a small perfumery, which has gone on to win many awards and even more praise. For more about Andy, and to get  a real sense of what a cool dude he is, I highly recommend this fragrantica article. Details about my giveaway below : What is it? A very sweet glide-cover metal tin, embossed with the Tauer logo, with 5 1.5. ml samples of Tauer fragrances inside. when will the winner be announced ? There’s no fixed end date; when I have written something about all ten of the fragrances, the winning name will be drawn. how do I enter? post a comment expressing interest below, then keep checking in at Hortus Conclusus ;-) I will post links ...

“A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.”— Clive Bell , Since Cezanne , p. 32. Strange and wonderful is the perfumer’s art. I am thankful for it every day, since it brightens my life and gives me great joy. Like any other high art form, it can be cheapened, or made obtusely complex just for the sake of obfuscation. Not so with Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer’s Une rose chyprée , which is just as artistic as it needs to be, just as complex, as unique, as it should be, nothing more, nothing less. A real work of artistic maturity, in my opinion. Tauer’s Une Rose Chyprée boasts an intriguing  cinnamon nose-tingle, peachy depths, soft ambergris, salty shimmer, green labdanum, and a large dose of quality rose that doesn’t behave like a rose at all. The base is, as the official notes describe it –as ‘dark and resinous...

Just another glossy irritation today. I got my copy of American Elle in the mail yesterday, and while browsing it today, I came across another one of those irritating anti-perfume mini perfume articles . You know, the kind of little blurb that starts out looking like it is pro scent, but then just panders to all the scent-haters out there. This one really rubbed me wrong.   I took a pic of the page (136) on the right, but in case   you can’t read it, it says a recent study discovered that the smell of peppermint reduces anxiety (well, that seems pretty obvious to anyone who thinks aromatherapy even kind of works) but then goes on to tell the ‘fragrance-phobic’ that they needn’t worry, since just smelling the mint for a moment had the same effect as sensing it in the air for an extended period of time. (at least I think that’s what the fairly unclear blurb is saying. It could be saying the subjects were detecting trace amounts of peppermint in the air subliminally, so ...

The time has come to declare the winner of the book and fragrance giveaway! I wrote down all your names, cut them into strips, put them in a bowl, went over and bothered my husband, who was busy composing, and a good sport, but obviously slightly irritated at being bothered, had him blindfolded and made him draw out one strip… SO…. The winner is:    Congratulations Gypsy! Email me your address, and I’ll send out the goods posthaste!