Scentzilla!

Last week I received an email from someone seeking some citrus fragrance choices. I’m afraid citrus isn’t particularly my favorite genre, and could come up with only weak suggestions for the writer who otherwise gravitates towards slightly darker scents. I picked vintage Lanvin Vetyver, Helmut Lang’s eponymous scent, and Creed’s Cuir de Russie for it’s lime zestiness. I KNOW there’s better suggestions to be made!

So please take a moment if you will, and list some of your own personal favorite citrus scents. The emailer will most certainly be glad to learn them.

I’m looking for something new to wear. When I looked at your favs,
the first listed was Indecence. Which I often wear myself, so I
thought I’d drop a line. I wear Commes des Garcons incense as well
as, in the past, L’artisan Dzing!. Otherwise my collection is
pretty limited. I wanted to strike out in some different direction.
I’m not particularly fond of florals and thought I may try to go
citrus for a minute. Any thoughts? Thanks!

-Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?

On another topic, I found this fun little trip through time to the 1960s on perfume from A/V Geeks. There’s some great footage of flower harvesting in Grasse, advice on choosing a perfume that seems almost quaint but rather sensible nowadays in our “rush, rush, buy, buy” culture, and nifty insight into the societal midset of the times. The film runs roughly 13 minutes in length.

Carolina Herrera’s Chic for men and women has been discontinued very recently, so if you are a fan of either version (or both) you will want to stock up now while it can still be found. This news comes from Perfume of Life board member Jeffery, who’s been a dedicated Chic wearer for years. You can read the whole story how he found out, and the considerate company response to his letter by reading his story on the relevant POL thread.

I’m not personally enamored of Chic. I’ve only tried the women’s version, and it wears so *wrong* on me. 212 Men however is delightful, very nice to wear. I actually had tried this one based soley upon the above POL member’s enthusiasm for it.

Let’s visit these fragrances in limerick!

Chic (women)
Citrus and rose make room
For freesia in full candied bloom
That’s all fine and well
But who in the hell
Put all this pee in my ‘fume?!

212 Men
Vetiver gives grassy good grace
To the ginger that’s running apace
But the clincher for me
Is the soft incensey
And leathery musk at the base

So I know I’ve been slow in finally posting my perceptions of the first couple of mods Laurent created for me at Made by Blog. I was trying real hard to be deliberate, since he did a truly outstanding job with both the “B” and the “C” mods for my Auxeos. As it is, both mods smell fantastic, and I could see folks wearing them quite happily.

You can see my reviews and letter to Laurent by clicking here.

Don’t forget to take a chance to glance at Alberto Morillas’ nearly impossibly tidy desk in New York, too. Pretty neat.

Sales of all the mods from Round 1 will be available for sale shortly, and will be sold on a first come, first served basis.

How was everyone’s Fourth? Or, for my non-US readers, how was your Tuesday? Mine was filled with explosions. One neighbor threw a big ol’ barbeque, which was reasonably boozy and terribly meaty (which pleased my carniverous husband to no end.) Another used to work as a pyrotechnic engineer, and he put on a great display for the whole neighborhood (see picture at left.) And unfortunately, my Fourth was also marked by exploding pipes. There’s currently giant holes in the bedroom wall where the repairs had to be made, and we need to let it air out before we can replace the drywall. I know this is a perfume site, but I need to take a moment to recommend that EVERYONE who purchases a new house get the seller to buy you a 1 year home warranty as part of the sales agreement. We got prompt service the very next morning, and it cost us only a $50 deductible. I really recommend it. I need to apologize to y’all that I was unable to post anything yesterday - we had the whole bedroom (where we keep the computer desk) in messy pieces, and getting to the computer was last on the list of priorities, unfortunately.

An idea that someone had floated past me in email a while back to write about was organizing one’s perfume collection. I thought I’d share some photos of what I’ve done with mine. I’ve got mine in a closet, though my husband likes to josh that it’s the world’s smallest perfume shop.

As you can see at right, I’ve got one set of drawers; Many of the bottles I lack boxes for are crowding the top. This is where I keep the stuff most prone to getting messy and going everywhere.

At left are pics of the two drawers devoted to samples. Notice I’ve yet to make any headway at all on somehow doing anything with those other than flinging them into a drawer. Yeah. I’m only pretending I’m organized. Even the samples friends and internet buddies sent to me are, for the most part, still in the plastic bags and wrappings. GAH!

The middle drawer is filled mostly with vintage perfumes. I wanted them contained in something that wasn’t open or high up, in case of earthquake. That’s how I think. Have I got my bookcases screwed to a wall stud yet, to prevent them from tipping over and crushing us to death? Oh no. But the perfumes, yes, they need to be secure.

Then I used what is supposed to be shoe and/or sweater shelving for many of the bottles. Though as you can see off to the side, not quite everything is fitting just yet. (Need to re-jigger the layout I guess.)

None of these photos include two mystery boxes. The mystery lies not in what’s in them, but rather, I have no idea where they are right now. Somewhere, oh somewhere, in the garage? Or at my mother’s house? Where are you, you boxes of mystery, you!?

Nor have I unpacked my decant bottles of various sizes. I don’t know what to do with them. How do I keep them easy to reach, but not so crowded that I can’t see what I’m reaching for? I have no idea, so instead they’ve stayed packed up, which is even less handy than if I just let my quasi-organization go to the dogs.

How do YOU organize your own collections of various things? Where do you keep it? All hints, suggestions, and possible clues as to the whereabouts of the mystery boxes will be most appreciated.

Due to the holiday, I will not be publishing reviews on Monday or Tuesday. But I wanted to wish you all a safe and fun Fourth of July, and share a little combined perfume/Independance Day humor.

I present to you Ma Griffe by John Hancock:

If you want to see the original Carven Ma Griffe ad, I’ve also posted that to my Flickr account here, as well as a large cleaned up version without the age lines for desktop backgrounds located here