Scentzilla!

Gigi: My favorite gardenia pefume. Gigi lights up on the skin like a stick of incense. Smokey sweetness billows forth, eventually burning down to reveal a sensual floral perfume. The scent is predominately gardenia on me, lilted by an accent of ylang ylang. Dripping into the flowers is a juiciness that smells like a mix of underripe green pear skin and vanilla pear liqueur. It’s not sugary, though. I find the pear and rich vanilla are tempered by a note that calls to mind stem greens, paired alongside a vegetal musk note. (The musk is suggestive of the same skin-like one I get from Helmut Lang parfum.) This green note and the quiet musk pin the gardenia down onto my skin. It’s not until 4 or 5 hours into the wear that I actively notice the dry sandalwood at the bottom of Gigi’s composition. And I may be crazy here, but I perceive the faint whiff of french vanilla buried way down in there, too. The staying power is great on me - it takes 7 to 8 hours before I feel like I need to refresh it a little. Overall, this is a sweet but tender perfume that charms me anew everytime I wear it. However, Gigi is not a fragrance you wear to impress others. It is one you choose for your own sake, when being luscious sounds like an end in itself.

The woman pictured above is Loie Fuller, an American dancer who found fame (or infamy, depending on your view) as the Butterfly Girl, and was known most widely for her Serpentine Dance. Why I think of Loie Fuller when I wear this perfume is a mystery to me. I just do. The first I’d ever heard of her was after a trip to the Maryhill Museum. She was a great friend of Sam Hill, who began the museum, and Queen Marie of Romania, to whom Hill dedicated the museum. Maryhill is located in Goldendale, WA along the Columbia River, which is approximately in the middle of nowhere. Via Loie Fuller’s friendship with Auguste Rodin, Sam Hill acquired a surprising collection of Rodin’s sculptures. The sheer volume of his work housed in the gallery is amazing, and it really drives home the fact that Rodin did in fact perseverate on hands. There are hands everywhere. In fact, you musn’t spend too long in the Rodin gallery, or it all starts to seem downright creepy with all those disembodied appendages. Before too long, you’ll feel like you’re in an episode of CSI: Rodin. I’ll talk just a wee bit more on what other surprises are contained within this quirky little museum on Friday.