S o t D Thursday 23 July  

Good morning Tang and everyone else!

Today I'm testing Rosine Un Zeste de Rose.

Good morning all,

I'm being haunted (well, not in a bad way) by images of an_oud_girl happily skipping through Nordstoms, holding a sample in front of her like a child would hold a teddy and leaving a scared SA with a twitching eye behind. If you have no idea what I'm talking about have a look at yesterday's SotD thread and search for her post (easy to find - it's the last post).
an_oud_girl, I loved that post. I think I'll keep that image close to me all through the day to keep my mood up.

Oh and Brielle: Lovely house. May I come and visist if you buy it? May I? May I? (forgive me, I'm still in child modus from reading an_oud_girl's post).

Btw, my SotD is Mugler Cologne (again...).

Have a great day, everyone!

I'm wearing a drop of vintage Derby, which I am sampling thanks to a transatlantic enabler whose package is on the way as I write!

It's scents like this that separate the sheep from the goats. It's just beautiful, splendid, stately, beyond time. The sort of scent that makes you shake your head in respect. It's not about whether it's 'nice' or not, it's just 'excellent'.

Would love to wear this more (thanks Tao!)

Apres L'Ondee

My SOTD is Parfums DelRae Eau Illuminee.

Top Notes: Bergamot, Basil
Middle Notes: Lavender, Wild Aromatic Herbs
Base Notes: Vanilla, Tonka Bean, Orris

Brielle, good luck with the house hunting. Don't worry the right house will let you know that it wants you to be its owner once you step inside.
an_oud_Girl I also loved yesterday's SotD post it has made me start my morning with a big grin.
Chaya here's hoping this morning finds you migraine-free.

I've finally gotten off the beach and wanted something with heft and so I find myself in a haze of roses.

Les Parfums de Rosine Rose Kashmirie

Marie-Helene Rogeon is the founder of Les Parfums de Rosine and their raison de etre seems to be to see how many different types of rose centered scents a House can make. With that kind of a mission that probably means there is a rose in there for every nose. I am a big fan of Les Parfums de Rosine Rose D'Homme. I also love the mix of rose and saffron I get from both Diptyque's Opone and Czech & Speake's Dark Rose. The 2007 creation, by longtime nose for Les Parfums de Rosine Francois Robert, Rose Kashmirie promised me rose and saffron in an oriental and I was looking forward to it. One of the things I like about Rose D'Homme is the arid dusty rose in that scent, Rose Kashmirie couldn't be more different as this starts with a full-throated roar of rose as lush and full-figured as rose gets on me. The rose is quickly joined by a touch of bergamot and then the saffron shows up and this is what Rose Kashmirie is all about as the smooth saffron takes the top to an enchanting olfactory space. As this develops the rose becomes deeper and slightly sweeter and then a hint of resin adds a slight bit of incense-like sweeteness to the scent. The base takes a turn towards vanilla and a light woody musk. The vanilla is the dominant note and that seems appropriate because the theme of Rose Kashmirie seems to be sweet rose and the vanilla allows that sweetness to develop all the way to the end. For all that this is an intense rose it does not carry a lot of sillage and is mostly close-wearing on me and I like an intense scent that only feels the need to fill up my nose and not the room. The longevity is excellent as have been all of Les Parfums de Rosine that I have tried to date. Once again I have taken a walk in Mme. Rogeon's garden of perfume roses and found a new one to add to my lapel.

Have a Tripendicular Thursday everyone.

Today I wore Miss Dior Cherie, this one always seems to get noticed! I also love this because it was a gift from my mum, who loves to fuel my perfume addicition.

I really love this fragrance, although I wish I got more of the 'caramel popcorn' note - it doesn't smell very caramel to me.

Terre d'Hermes today. Flint and Steel to face the madding crowd

Serge Lutens Fleurs de Citronnier

I'm wearing what Roberto wore yesterday: l'Eau d'Hadrien edt, except that mine has a bottle like this...

There is never a time when this fragrance is not perfect. It's perfectly balanced between tart and sweet - I mean perfectly! And the woodsy base is cool.

I hope everyone is well. Enjoy the day!

Kiton Men for me today.

Terrific Thursday to all of you!

Sharing the house with Coconut,

Serge Lutens Chergui
Best to all!

Un Jardin apres la Monsoon (or whatever): another summer favourite

Best of luck with the house-hunt, Brielle! And don't worry, if you fall in love with a place (or two or three...) and it doesn't work out, you WILL still find the right house. It doesn't become a "home" until you are actually in it, infusing it with your presence (and scents!).

An_oud_girl, GO YOU!!! I'm smiling too...

Today for me, Guerlain Chamade, from a sweet little bee bottle!

Chamade notes: Turkish rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, lilac, blackcurrant buds, lily of the valley, galbanum, sandalwood, vetiver, musk, amber, iris, and tonka bean.

I'm still trying to figure out how to follow ScentSon's directive to have a "Tripendicular Thursday" - Maybe some flow yoga at the end of the day? AgentProvacateur, what do you say?

AL's Sweet Patchouli for me today. It is interesting that I regard amber as a winter scent, but patchouli and sandalwood speak summer to me. It must be all those sweaty summer nights in the 1960s!

Hey all!

This AM's SOTD is the new Cristalle flanker, eau Verte. I just preordered a FB of this from BG, but it won't ship til mid-Aug. Very nice, seems to be a transparent crisp citrus.

OT: Kbe, your "madding crowd" comment reminded me of a very under-appreciated actor, Terence Stamp, who played the soldier in "Far from the Madding Crowd", one of my very favorite 60's period movies, which starred Julie Christie. He also was fantabulous in "Pricilla, Queen of the Desert", which stands next to Rocky Horror as my favorite camp movie. Just saw him in Tom Cruise's "Valkyrie", netflixed last weekend. Great actor with an unbelievable range.

Great day to ya'll

Happy Thursday, everyone!
Enjoying Acqua di Parma Colonia Intensa and some beautiful west coast weather.

Testing FOUR different samples of Bvlgari pour Femme....

Two are off
One is lovely
One is different, also nice, but possibly something else that has been mislabelled.

Will retest the two pleasant ones over the course of the day, and take a view.

Waking up this AM with a couple spritzes of the vibrant I AM ME by Danica Aromatics. I get alot of bright apple notes in this one, which never fails to open the old eyeballs!

Another Etra day for me.
I'm waiting for my Montale samples :bounce: and lots of other goodies.

LOL at an Oud girl! Good luck with the house-hunting, Brielle. VM - your dedication knows no bounds.

I started out in Daisy, it lasted for about 20minutes before I decided that life was too short, washed it off and swapped for Lipstick Rose. Which is a much much better choice on me.

Bois 1920 Real Patchouly today. I may layer it with the Creed Rose from yesterday and see how that wears.

Geez, I really should have finished reading YESTERDAY's SOTD before I posted today:

Veuve Amoit: Cucumbers and PB is a new one. Hey, I'm willing to try anything once!
Rogalal: Pickles actually sounds pretty doable. Similar to cucumbers, after all.

Nuka, one I forgot to add yesterday: PB and honey. This is good on any kind of bread. Personally, I think whole grain breads do best with this combo. My dad has always slathered whole bananas with PB and eats them in all of their glory, as is. Just don't dip them in the jar, or they'll most likely break off and make a home there.
Another: PB and apple slices (Jonathan-type or Granny Smith are best) alone or on bread, either way works.

Brielle: gorgeous house!!!!!

Wearing Daisy this morning.

I had to go back and read Brielle's and an_aoud_girl's posts....LOL at the shopping/Tom Ford experience. This is when I realize how lovely it is that people like "us" have a common place to share! I could feel your joy at finding something you've been dying to try!

Brielle, as a realtor, I wish I was house shopping with you! The way you described the attic- the height, the smell of the old wood! I love love love working with buyers (more than listings) it's so exciting and basically, shopping for a house!

Hm, a breezy super muggy day here. Eau de Camille for me....if this came in parfum I would swoon, as I know I will have to re-spritz or, pick a new scent by mid afternoon

Bond No. 9 H.O.T. Always

Courtesy of a generous BN member. Thanks!

A couple of sprays of the original Poison before my shower. This is one perfume I draw the line at wearing at the gym ! Morning all !

I'm off to my Rheumatologist's office this morning and I'm wearing Dior Addict.

Have a great day, everyone!

Ditto for me. I bought a new bottle of Dior Poison but I dislike the violet hand-grenade bottle! LOL!

I also have my EDT bottle with the stopper from way-back-when.

Ava Luxe Rose de la Luz

Casmir

L'Artisan Passage d'Enfer

Vetiver Pour Elle by Guerlain (first time from a sample)



As wonderful as I expected it to be. Just like the vintage Eau de Cologne, but with this dark, spring-like floral tiptoeing atop. And isn't that bottle just adorable?

Calycanthus - Acca Kappa

L'Heure Bleue.

Serge Lutens again - Daim Blond

an_oud_girl, love that vision of you skipping through the mall with your sample - priceless!
coincidentally...
Scentless this morning, awaiting a lunchtime appointment at a Tom Ford Beauty trunk show. Our local Saks is trying to bring in the Private Blends (or it's the other way around). I know I'm sounding pretty negative here, and of course I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the population of this little community will not be enough to support it. I dunno, that's just my opinion. Those marketing pros or whoever decides these things must know what they're doing...
Anyway, I will douse myself, a la an_oud_girl , and report back after lunch!

Yay, flu!
Had been feeling peaky for days, and now the truth comes out. Blegh. Shivering under a fleece blankie while it's 25 degrees out and sunny! It had better not be swine flu.
On the plus side: I got to read in bed all day, boss everyone around and write rambling blog posts.

I did wear scent: Ligea La Sirena. And then for comparison purposes Oyédo on one arm and Profvmvm Dulcis in Fundo on the other. And basically made myself nauseous while sill having tremendous fun at it.
Also sent one of my minions to collect Amouage DÃ*a and Reflection in sample form, neither of which enchanted me.Was that my wallet breathing a sigh of relief? Nah, I'd never buy anything so outraeously expensive, no matter how great it were. I think. Right?

From the venerable French jeweler Van Cleef and Arpels: Birmane.

Birmane is a fruity Oriental with a ponderous white-musk base that smells to me not so much Continental as it does cumbersomely New England-ish and perhaps even dowdy as a pudding. Perhaps I bring out musk to a vulgar (or at least an inelegant) degree, but whatever woods notes are said to exist in Birmane are lost on me.

I don't know what I expect from a jeweler (First makes more sense, with its glinting, careening florals), but Birmane is not it. The top contains a pineapple-type note, something I see as daring since it can go so terribly wrong. This note is something like the pineapple in Caron's Acaciosa, where it isn't truly evident as pineapple and is incident only by way of obscuring a bland assortment of smallish flowers (muguet/freesia/budding rose). While Birmane sounds as if it might be sweet, the workmanlike musk lends it a sour edge, as if trying to rein in its Orientalism in favor of rectitude. One of these is evidently healthier than the other. Birmane isn't an "exotic" Oriental and it lacks the leitmotif of voluptuousness most Orientals carry about, some of them shamelessly. I'm not even sure why Birmane exists in this category. It has no spice notation and the demure florals seem more at home in a dainty, traditional scent like Diorissimo. There may be a hint of greenery, some small stem or leaf carefully snipped and pruned and added as hyphen to the arrangement (which one would expect from a precision jeweler, this minute and considered punctuation). Then, the musk--and there is no other word for this--suffocates the whole of it. I suppose there is some sandalwood adding a raw edge to the musk, but if so this simply supports the muskiness and does nothing to add interest.

So now I have complained of a dour perfume and have written a dour review of it. I suppose I thought it might be exuberant, and not at the stuffy remove it is. For something that I imagine was supposed to smell "classy" (a cheap but apt descriptor used, it seems, to glorify the gauche and obvious) it smells instead its opposite--steam and industry.

Hello all

Oud-Girl- You are just so damned cute! I think that is the height of our passion for fragrance, When we go skipping, or bouncing (as I sometimes do), with a lovely sample just as we did when we were children with a new toy. You make me smile.

Veuve, do feel better and try not to oversniff, let the olfactory rest up too.

Once we have a house, I am looking at two more this weekend of the same style, I will have a big old fashioned; weekend at my country-house style get-together. Of course you will all be invited, Potiron, I hope the air-fare will not be too expensive, but I would love to have you. We could make it a huge fragrant get together and I will make my Mousse au chocolat, so ComDiva, Chaya and families will be there I know, SMM will of course be there and hopefully everyone else could carpool across the country. I do love a wonderful gathering.
Oh an I am listening intently to what the house will tell me, the one I saw said "You're too damned tall for the bedroom chambers!!! But, I would love to have you spend much time reading in the attic by those two big windows." If I could only have just spent all time in the attic...

Chaya, lovey, I do hope the migraine is gone by now. you need to be well.

Today I started off with a spritz of Jacomo Parfum Rare, which is glorious, then went back to sleep. Upon re-rising I applied Clandestine by Guy La Roche, which is also heavenly.

Hope you all have a glorious day, will feel better, skip like a happy child and overall be deliciously smelling bunnies

Love and hugs

ps As the house hunt progresses, I may start an off-topic thread, so I can share more pics and have more feedback from all my lovies.

Finally off to the gym in DSH French Vanilla essence oil . But... the Poison is still there after my shower !

Orion,

I have never smelt Birmane, but I savoured every clause of your beautifully crafted review. So struck was I by it, that I have sent it to an English teacher who once bought a bottle of this scent, because it was going for less than £10 on the bargain table of our local department store. I have already regaled this friend (a No 5 recidivist despite my best efforts to steer her in new directions) with your "non-specific gnarled lumps of things steeped in prune juice" (I am paraphrasing furiously here), so she will be excited to read something more extensive, and not mangled in the re-telling.

This afternoon - Patchoulissime by Keiko Mecheri

SMN Iris

Mini-review:

This is a very worthy entry into the 'iris' category -- it's earthy/rooty but not to the point that Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist takes it. Quite enjoyable, with discreet sillage but good staying power. It's linear but that's what I came to expect from iris/orris fragrances. I do not detect many other notes, iris/orris definitely dominates. Recommended for the iris lovers, along with Chanel La Pausa, Le Labo Iris or Heeley Iris de Nuit.

My SotA is Pure White Linen by Estee Lauder. It suits me to a T.

p.s. Adding: Veuve Amiot - I hope you feel better soon! Flu in summer sounds awful!

...back from the Tom Ford Beauty trunk show, spritzed rather than doused - I had to be polite and not grab every bottle I wanted to.

I'm wearing/sampling, in order of preference, Japon Noir, Neroli Portofino, and Arabian Wood.
Japon Noir may be a full-bottle-wish-list-contender, but must give it more wearings... it's spicy and smoky and only slightly floral... it's reminding me of something else right now but I just can't think of what... I'm really enjoying this...
Neroli Portofino. Yeah, of course love it - I love everything that says "neroli" on it because I love neroli. Yet, I don't have a single fragrance that says "neroli" on it, perhaps because there are many out there and I want to keep trying the next one before committing. And so it goes... This one is high on the list though - just a very nice balance of citrus and white flower, and an ever so faint creaminess. mmmm, yeah.
Arabian Wood was absolutely fabulous right out of the bottle and still is on paper, but it's not fabulous on my skin, which took the life right out of it. On my skin at least, it now just smells like woody soap.

Oh my turqoisewater, you sure smell...EXPENSIVE!
I don't care what anyone says, frags smell different on skin!
Tang ~ why did the chicken cross the road?

VM--Whee! Listen, that lump of a "review" won't pass muster anywhere but here, where people understand how fragrance can render one not just at a loss for words, but can render them blathering pissed-off idiots all because some jeweler upended a vat of musk into a scent supposed to somehow convey the idea of rubies, elephants, and India.

Anyway, I have once again discovered that the only way to get rid of an offender is to offset it with something else applied to the back of the hands. Champs Elysees worked a treat here and I can barely smell that Birmane now.

Today while out for my walk I passed a mimosa tree in full bloom... the air was scented all around it.

Now I'm wearing Mimosa Pour Moi (which, however much I like it, doesn't smell much like the blossoms, IMO.)

The mimosa I sniffed was this one:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...%3D42%26um%3D1

That's bottle is incredible! I love the designs in the glass, so sweet

Peachy, plummy, tutti frutti Il Bacio for today. This fragrance is uplifting for me and so much fun to wear. I know there are florals mixed in there too but it's really the jammy fruits which register with me.

So I broke the blue seal of my vintage Shalimar extrait bottle this evening! It's glorious and deep Shalimar.Today the central valley with it's 100 ++ degree weather may just pass as a bit of heaven because of Shalimar !

Yes! That is what we always called a mimosa in Mississippi (I inserted another pic of it). We have those around here in Virginia, too, growing wild by the highways. But that is not the mimosa that is used in perfumery. The perfumery mimosa is a yellow blossomed tree like this... The pink one that we call "mimosa" is actually an acacia (and is also called silk tree to further confuse things), and if you smell a fragrance that has acacia in (e.g., DK Gold) you will recognize those honeyed pink blossoms. I think they are all acacias, actually.

I'm so glad everyone enjoyed yesterday's post. When we got to the car, I said to DH, "I can't wait to tell everyone on Basenotes I found the Tom Fords!" I knew you all would understand!

Brielle, I flew out here a couple of times before moving to help future-DH house hunt, but we didn't find anything during those trips. His realtor showed him this house (which was owned by a prominent realtor) and he snatched it right up. It's a pretty good house, but not one I would have chosen. Not the architectural style, the floor plan, the neighborhood. It seemed okay in the email photos, and the housing market was so crazy back then that snatching it up like he did was the right thing to do. One house that we loved and would have bought on the spot had sold before they held the open house (which was a very busy event). Our realtor told the other realtor and owners, "You guys just left $100,000 on the table." So when I flew out again to help future-DH move in, I was a little so-so about it. Although I've done my best to put my stamp on this place, I'm still frustrated by the floor plan (too many walls and small rooms; I'm used to the more open Florida style). However, we have better neighbors now than back then, and most of all-- we have our cats. All our cats were originally strays. I say, "They came with the house." Some were here before we were. They are a joy and comfort to me, almost like children, and I can only think how terrible it might have been for them if we hadn't ended up here where they could find me and enjoy a safe and very loving home. They are now 9 to 11 years old, and the statistics say strays normally don't live beyond five years, tough years to be sure. Anyway, Brielle, I'd love it if you start an Off Topic thread about house hunting. Then we can all go shopping with you!

I can wrap my head around peanut butter and cucumbers, but peanut butter and pickles?! I dunno about that one, rogalal! I can, however, second Lessa's PB and honey on whole grain bread. I grew up in the south on white Wonder bread, but toasted whole grain is the best for PB and honey. It's a very filling, energizing, mid-afternoon snack.

I'm jealous that Silverbullet is in Moss Breches. That's the one scent NM didn't have a tester of last night. I'll betcha they open up a box and make a new one when I go back this weekend!


Bwah, ha ha! If you say so, veuve. If you say so! I hope you feel better soon.

turquoisewater, I tried Neroli Portofino only on paper. DH liked it quite a lot, but I found a slight soapiness in it. Still very beautiful though, I agree.

Like veuve, I'm also sampling Amouage Dia today. I was about to say I prefer it to 25, but now I'm wearing them side by side and I can't choose. I also seem to love 25 much more today than yesterday. They are both very beautiful, and I think I'll just be grateful for the lovely little vials that I have.