Scentzilla!

In the twenties, Vigny Paris presented Golliwog parfum to the world. The name and bottle was inspired by a popular series of books by Florence Upton, which themselves were inspired by the racist fun of minstrelsy.

Le Golliwog is highly valued by bottle collectors, who frequently seem to denote its whimsy.

Here’s Blue Q’s latest product line, Miso Pretty.

One could argue it’s whimsical, too. One could suggest that Japonaiserie isn’t new, and has been around for over a hundred years.

My view is not so benign. Miso Pretty capitalizes on xenophobic audio-lingual attitudes in name, and its manner of Japonaiserie has only but little to do with cultural appreciation.

One rub for me is that the packaging really is brightly colorful and cute, and moreover, the scent descriptors sound inviting. Yet I’ve never bought - held back by my serious reservations.

March sweetly sent me a sample of their body mist, knowing I would like it. And I do! Gentle peony petals, creamy and soft, wear beautifully. The spray also bears a touch of sweet green, subtle fruitiness, and laundry musk. It’s spring a’bloom personified. While it might make a great bargain for a casual fragrance, I still won’t be buying.

One of the arguments white folk use against other white folk when they object to racist details is, “I don’t see that personally, maybe you’re the one who’s being racist for even thinking it.” That pernicious line of reasoning can sometimes trip a person up and give them pause. The line’s twisted logic works because it deflects the racism back to the accuser, who may well be prone to self-examination. However… being aware and sensitive to racism issues is not the same thing as racism itself. Being racist is what is being racist.

Often an accuser is advised to “lighten up, have a sense of humor,” thus implying we’re all supposed to take this hackneyed stale humor on the chin with a shrug and a good-natured grin. Good jokes contain the element of surprise, and should catch the audience unaware. Relying upon decades- or even centuries-old stereotypes neither surprises nor provokes with novelty. That sort of humor is at best ignorant, and at worst isn’t humor at all.

Whimsy and racism: two great tastes that taste great together? I don’t think so, but of course we all must make that call for ourselves. I am going to leave comments open, because I think this ought to provide some interesting introspection and a great discussion since there will be a wide range of agreements and disagreements. However - commenters who flame, name call, or use racial/ethnic slurs, will find their comments deleted and will be banned from making future comments.

Top image of Vigny Golliwog from trocodero.com. Miso Pretty images from ulta.com

My husband rarely comments on the perfumes I wear unless it’s one he already knows and loves. Imagine my surprise when unbidden, he asked about Bond No. 9’s Eau de New York. And then the conversation unraveled.

“That smell… what is that… is that your perfume?”

“Yeah, kind of smells like, uh, Pez at the top?”

“Sort of, but more like a martini.”

“A Pez martini?”

“Okay then. I guess I can see that. Smells like Pez martini, then.”

“But dry cleaning, too.”

“Maybe, but if it is, it’s dry cleaning in a new car.”

“New car?”

“I don’t know, don’t ask me. I smell a clean car, okay?”

“Ahhhhhh, now I’m getting grapefruit. Don’t you smell ruby red grapefruit, too? It’s strong, really fresh, really pulpy.”

“If you say so, I guess… sure. But definitely martini, yup. Yup.”

“Interesting… So you like it?”

“I like martinis. Wish I had me one.”

“… ? …”

“It’s not bad, I like it.”

“Huh. All right, then.”

“Wish you were testing out martini recipes instead. You should change your blog to Boozilla. I think I’d like that even better.”

“… ! …”

“I’m just sayin’. I’d totally be your guinea pig whenever you want then. You can test all your drinks out on me!”

“That sounds a lot more like it’d be Winozilla, hon. And? No.”

“Fine, but I think we’re missing out if you’re only going to smell Pez martinis.”

One of the most ubiquitously collected things in the twentieth century by American middle class folks has to be the humble Avon bottle. I’d wager a guess that certain generations of us* all remember our mother’s dressers or shelves filled with their often whimsical bottles. I am amongst them. Across the years and over multiple moves, my own mother has lost or broken most of hers. However, there was one in particular that was my favorite to steal away with and play with when I was little, and she recently gave it to me.

Meet the “Emerald Prince.” His eyes don’t shine so blue anymore, and his body is emptied of elixir. But to a little girl with a storytelling imagination some many odd years ago, he was magic. I’d play with him and Barbie. But we were too poor for me to have more than the one Barbie, and in fact my doll was actually a gift from my mom’s friend. We certainly couldn’t afford a Ken to play with, so Barbie would kiss the frog… and he’d remain a frog. But he was a magic frog nonetheless, even if he couldn’t transmute into a human prince.

My mother has retained only two of her old perfume bottles, neither of which are Avon. I believe the pink one used to hold Anais Anais, which my father gifted to her. He bought it in the mid-eighties, right around the time my mom was having my sister because he wanted to get her something special. An atomizer bottle sure seemed fancy! Heh.

The other is not technically hers. It was a gift she got for her mother, thinking that a glass lamp-shaped bottle with a plastic shade painted silver on top was perfect. Who knows what sort of juice it held inside. Ma can’t remember, except that she swears up and down that when she got older she realized it was one of the worst things she’s ever smelled in her life. But at the time she was all of eleven years old, and she wanted to get the most special thing she could afford for her mom. The old price tag is still stuck to the bottom, even after forty-ish years… Thirty-eight cents at Woolworth’s. Thirty-eight cents worth of frivolity probably seemed like glamor in the mind of a earnest kid who was raised without many luxuries. My mom grew up not wearing shoes in the summer frequently, not just because it was hot and children like running barefoot. My grandparents were hard up and couldn’t afford more than one pair of shoes for the kids. She grew up using an outhouse for part of her childhood, despite the prevalance of indoor plumbing, because they simply had to make due with the housing they could get. That lamp perfume was a souvenir of love and a comfortable life she wanted for her mom that the family couldn’t quite reach yet.

I have largely eschewed the Avon bottle collecting myself. I’ve never really had the interest in it. And then I saw this and made the leap:

An old “Dachshund” bottle containing their Somewhere cologne.

But who the hell cares WHAT fragrance is in it: I’ve finally found a way to tie together two of my disparate obsessions, perfume and wiener dogs. Now I wouldn’t want to smell like my own dachshund. Fred is always smelling of stinky cheese, his feet tend to take on an air of Fritos corn chips, and there’s this weird spot on the back of his neck that reminds of fudge brownies. All together it’s… well, it’s an interesting aroma, and he’s welcome to keep it. However, a bottle in his likeness makes me weirdly happy. Maybe my boys will end up inheriting their mother’s Avon bottle someday… who knows?

*Hyper link above directs you to a page on Wes Clark’s Avocado Memories, a site I love and revisit every so often to see if he’s got anything new up. If you get bored or have some time to kill, I highly recommend visiting his site. It’s just a hoot!

Coutorture, the online fashion community of which I am a member, is offering some really fun drawings. Enter below to win!

Good lord, it was as hot as balls this weekend! Triple digits, too: 109F at my in-laws’ house Friday, 104F at my house on Saturday and Sunday. It’s flipping too hot to think, and I’ve been leery of spending to much time on the computer, since the poor laptop kept overheating with the temperatures.It’s almost enough to make a gal reconsider her anti-air conditioning stance. Almost.

So, what do you wear when it’s hot as balls out? I thought on Friday I’d pick Floris’ Malmaison Carnation. And if you said, “hey, it’s too hot for Malmaison,” you’d be…….. right. GAH! Damn you and your rightyness! It lasted all of fifteen minutes on me. I chose it because powdery scents tend to fare better on my skin in hot weather, and I was craving something with a gentle kick. Under more temperate circumstances Malmaison evokes the spicy clove chill of the carnation bloom, with a touch of powder not unlike Dreft baby detergent. In hundred degree weather, it smells more ethereal, softer yet spicier. But again, alas it’s so short lived that wearing it is a waste. Best to save it for the cooler months when it doesn’t fly right off the skin.

Saturday I wore nothing. Or rather, I wore nothing scented, though literally wearing nothing would have been nice, too.

Sunday I revisited E. Coudray’s Jacinthe et Rose, a fragrance that has never quite worked for me in the past. I figured I had nothing to lose, since the odds were good it’d be gone within several minutes. You know, it finally revealed its charm to me. The top notes of hyacinth, ylang ylang, and peach burned off super fast, and allowed me to enjoy its suprisingly enjoyable middle and drydown. In previous attempts with Jacinthe et Rose, the top has always worn just a bit too sour for my taste. The top would stick so well that it soured the rest of the development. But in the hot weather, the top buggers off, and lets me get to the part of Jacinthe et Rose I like best. The middle period is marked by vanillic peony, which evaporates into a nice ambery rose with musk and sandalwood at the bottom. The drydown lingered well for 104F, at around an hour. That sounds short, but it honestly ain’t shabby all things considered. And in the heat the fragrance wore as tart rather than sour. Lovely. I still don’t think this fragrance is a masterpiece by any means, but definitely worth a look-see if you prefer florals and want somethng that is going to be summer appropriate.

After this weekend, today’s ninety some odd degree weather is feeling like a relief. The only inferno I approve of is a disco one, and those are in abysmally short supply these days. So it’s best to make due and handle the blazing heat as best can be done. Today I’ve splashed on Pecksniff’s Naughty body cologne, trying to get my spice back on again. It’s failed me in the colder months, but the dark cedar and cumin are doing okay today, and its lavender note is not disappearing into the folds of those two notes for once. There’s no real complexity to the scent, but I think that’s okay - it’s working just fine for me.

Image from retro postcard at allposters.com

Please visit this month’s sponsor DRH Fine Gifts. DRH Fine Gifts carries a wide selection of great brands, including Creed, Prada, Givenchy, Versace, Comptoir Sud Pacifique, Chanel, Annick Goutal, and lots more. There’s an especially good bargain right now on 1 oz. bottles of Versace’s The Dreamer, which is one of my summer picks for genius fragrances. To sweeten the deals, DRH Fine Gifts is offering a discount for 5% off any order of $40 for Scenzilla readers, using coupon code “scentzilla.” The coupon expires on 7/31/06, so don’t tarry!

A good while back, I was strongly urged to try Coty’s Sand & Sable by Flora and March in the comments about inexpensive fragrances at Target. March decided to make sure I got a bottle, because she is a fairy godmother of perfumes that make me irrationally happy. Sand & Sable is just as delightful as both she and Flora promised.

Sand & Sable is not a fully functional fragrance. By that I mean it smells like someone chopped off the ends of an imaginary perfume bandwidth on it. There’s not a top per se, nor is there a real steady and strong base. It’s mostly heart notes, but the heart is big and full, simple as it is. Wildly bright gardenia, waxy tuberose, and distict sensations of tanning lotion are the notes I smell. The effect is creamy and rich, despite the lack of development that you ordinarily get from more expensive fragrances. Once you take into account that it’s going to be a big block of scent, Sand & Sable is as enjoyable and as fun as many of the big house and niche/boutique releases.

Coty first released the fragrance in 1983, but it smells older to me. Retro kitschy, actually - but in a good way. When I spray it, I imagine chic young things wearing some of the early bikinis in the 1950s, happy and without a care in the world as long as they’re lounging on the beach.

I’m not sure it’s exactly a good fit for me, but I do love to sniff it in the air. So for now (and please don’t be offended, March!) I am using it as a home fragrance. My living room smells awesome, and I get to enjoy the scent without having to worry I’m not wearing it well.

I finally did spot a bottle of it locally a couple weeks ago, hidden way to the back corner behind big displays for Celine Dion and J-Lo fragrances at a Fred Meyer store for ten bucks.

Image from a March 18th, 1950 issue of Paris Match. The article in question was titled “Corinne Calvet, 1er prix du ‘french appeal’,” and pictured above is the accompanying full page photo of Corinne Calvet, whom the article labled “la Rita Hayworth francaise.”

Mitsouko parfum is one the best things I have ever smelled. There’s just something about it that melds intrinsically to my skin, and it is hard to tell where I begin and Mitsouko’s sensual chypre ends.

The notes are blended so superbly that it is a hard fragrance to pick apart bit by bit. A pyramid breakdown, as per Basenotes, includes bergamot, rose, jasmine, spices, peach, oakmoss, and woody notes.

As it wears, the tart top of bergamot and florals melts, rather than disappears, into a grassy green and spiced fruity heart. Mitsouko’s peach does not smell precisely like peach at all, but instead blows in a humid breeze from orchard trees hanging heavy with allusion. Drying down, the woody accord at the base continues the spicy chypre theme with a tiny note I’d describe as smokey vanillic. However, I also find a distinct animalic ping to the fragrance. I wouldn’t describe it as musky, since I find the animalic ping more at dog that rolled in something bad. Which sounds awful doesn’t it? It’s not. That naughty and very dirty dog magically lends Mitsouko an air of authority. And no, I don’t know why that is. I can only shrug up and say it just does.

All that formality would seem to make the fragrance a special occasion choice. However, Mitsouko is in such good taste that it is a whenever the hell you feel like it choice. You can smell opera gloves and elegance. But you can also smell a picnic barbeque in it - the sunshine, the grill in action, and paper plates with hot dogs and potato chips. Mitsouko fits in everywhere.

Image: Peach Blossoms - Villiers-le-Bel by Childe Hassam

Happy Bastille Day to all my French friends!

The power went down in the area where my host is located, and while they do seem to have got things up and running again (or else I could’t be writing this) do be patient if Scentzilla seems to disappear again. They are on the job.

Now then, onto a dramaticized review of Nuits de Noho:

Have a great weekend everyone!

1 year ago, Andy Tauer began to write his charming blog, detailing both his poetic observations of life and the interesting way his mind works when developing perfumes. It was not too long after he started that I began reading it, and I bookmarked it instantly. Since he first began, it’s only gotten better. In celebration of this 1 year mark, he has moved his blog to a new location on his own server, at http://www.tauerperfumes.com/blog/. To kick the party off in style, he is sharing a small number of samples of his new orris scent with readers. There is a very limited number left, and you can find much more information about it by reading the celebratory post and clicking here to read the post at his new blogging digs.

Congrats on all your success Andy, and may there be even more of it in the future.