Scentzilla!

I’ve long demurred from reviewing Thierry Mugler’s Angel, not because of its quality, but due to its ubiquity. Mugler’s extreme fragrance succeeds to the extreme.

As a consequence, rare is the perfume enthusiast unfamiliar with it. Angel cannot be avoided by those seeking to learn about perfumes any more than is the unavoidable figure of Bismarck when seeking to understand modern Western history.

“Angel” sounds in name like it ought to be another tiresome light fruity floral affair. The Dolemite strut of the juice itself is anything but. Angel will not suit wallflowers. It cannot be worn, nor does it wear you: Angel becomes you.

Much could be made of Angel’s use of ethyl maltol, a sweet candy dispenser of an aromachemical that perversely gives the rest of this dense composition its kick in the crotch. However, I’ll leave discussion of aromachemicals up to the more technically-minded folks, since “kick in the crotch” is not likely to enter the official lexicon of perfumery. Angel begins with a layer of virtual floral tones that eschew the weight of tangible and real petals. This airy layer spins off into the composition’s infamous chocolate, buried berried treasure, and of course, the pungent funk of patchouli intermingling with burnt sugar confections in the base. It’s the anguish of this candied sweetness in the base that I think causes Angel’s detractors more pain than the chewy notes of chocolate and patchouli; Conversely, it is also what delights its devotees.

Catching the sillage off an Angel wearer is an unmistakable experience. You know it right off, and despite Angel’s many progenies it can be mistaken it for none other. Where many of the the homages to it focus more on explicitly gourmand aspects, Angel doesn’t sway from its essential character as a perfume. It evokes hungry thoughts, but does not immedietly evoke food.

It’s a fantastic trick to pull off.

Sniff Missioni’s effort, and one looks around for an unwrapped Terry’s Chocolate Orange. (Although, ugh. I actually hate those things, and would rather lick the inside of a gym sneaker… but I digress.) Catch a whiff of Serendipitous, and you want a mug of hot chocolate. Sniff Flowerbomb, and you wish you had a wee nibble of cake, please. But upon inhaling Angel, you long after a general and undefined more, whatever that is, greedy for sensual pleasures that can’t be written on recipe cards. It is a fragrance that reveals the wearer as both ravenous and ravishing at once.

When I visualize what a mental snapshot of Angel looks like, I picture a stiletto heel crushing out a brownie like a cigarette. Sex and food transliterated as attitude. And fabulously so. It’s what Eddie Izzard might call a “fuck off” perfume.

None of this is to say that one can actually escape its gourmandise delights. Chocolate, oh divine chocolate…

After reading an excellent expose on the Noka Chocolate line last month at the Dallas Food blog, (warning: while it is a great piece, one has to accept the author’s “gotcha” tone throughout the series.) I was craving chocolate like a crazy woman.

Sure, I could have picked up some Green & Black (Or not. Skip their “Dark 70%,” because, ewwww. It gives a weirdly beany off-taste to me, like bad canned limas or poorly prepared edamame. No lie. If you’re stuck with grocery store options, try the Ghiradelli baking bar, which is cheap but tastes surprisingly nice. Or Green & Black’s own baking bar, which I think tastes better than their “regular” bar, funnily enough.) Or for that matter, I could have bought Dagoba, Valrhona, Endangered Species (fine brands all) or any of those other brands available at the local brick and mortar shops, but… honestly? I wanted something different, off the beaten path.

Upon the recommendation of the Dallas Food blog, I headed over to Chocosphere.com. (And I will second his recommendation: I couldn’t have been happier with their service. A fun range, competitive pricing, great shipping options. Moreover, they’re based just over the river in Tualitin, OR, and it feels nice to still be patronizing an area business even if it’s over the web-o-nets.) Please note, while I purchased everything listed through Chocosphere, I’m hyperlinking to official sites, and their specific item pages when possible for the sake of non-US readers.

My favorite selection was easily Michel Cluizel’s whimsical Mushrooms. Chewy caramel fills the stem, and crunchy crispy almondine makes up the mushroom’s cap. They are enrobed in a blanket of white and dark chocolates… and enshrouded in deliciousness. If you try them and don’t find yourself addicted, then… I don’t know what to say to you. They make my mouth weep with happiness. (Which is super-secret code to avoid saying “drool.”)

My boys’ favorite bar, and one I enjoyed deeply as well, was Domori’s Dark Chocolate and Green Jasmine Tea, from their Ethnics line. The flavor of the tea doesn’t make itself completely apparent until the aftertaste, which surprised me since generally chocolatiers in the U.S. tend to make secondary flavors quite explicit. The texture felt like silken velveteen, with the tea leaves providing a subtle stray crunch or two in each square.

However, the dark chocolate I gravitated most towards was Amedei’s Chuao. The flavor of it popped like a champagne cork on my tongue, its bitterness coming on with a rush of smooth plummy connotations. It’s a very rounded flavor, but definitely not flat, and perhaps a wonderful bar to try if you fear dark chocolate.

I also tried Bonnat’s Puerto Cabello, a wonderfully berry-inflected chocolate, though I found the texture wanting, for it felt a bit too waxy for my taste and a little granular. I’d actually love to make brownies with this, to take advantage of the flavor while losing the texture inside a chewy mass of flour and sugar. Also tried were Domori’s Porcelena (soft but rich, with cherry pipe tobacco and creamy bread pudding like undertones) and their Cru Rio Caribe (complex, bright, but loud, disjointed, and strangely unappealing compared to the much more suble and enjoyable berry tones of the Bonnat I tried.) I also picked up a box of Galler’s funny little Cat Tongues for the boys, but alas, they take after their mother more then their father taste-wise, and were less than compelled by milk chocolate. They like M&Ms, so I thought maybe? But no. Give ‘em the straight stuff or don’t bother. Anyhow, my husband enjoyed them, though he too has fallen completely under the spell of those delighful Cluizel mushrooms.

So… uh, got any good chocolate? Because while I intended for this splurge to last, it doesn’t appear it will. Which is kind of sad. Okay, very sad. So spill the cocoa beans: Which chocolates are on your favorites list? What’s your worst choco-addiction? Lay it on me.

(For the record, I’m picky, but I’m not a snob. I lurve Violet Crumble candy bars, embarrassing as that is. It’s not embarrassing because of the taste, they’re scrummy, it’s just that the honeycomb gets stuck in the back corners of my mouth, which has the unfortunate effect of making me look A LOT LIKE MR. ED the entire time I’m eating one. I avoid public Violet Crumble consumption whenever possible.)

If you’re wanting a little inspiration for something new, too, try reading the reviews at seventypercent.com. I know everyone likes to make comparisons between perfume nuts and wine snobs, but I swear, those marvelous chocophiles are truly kindred spirits.

Image top is a screencapture from flash demo at thierrymugler.com. Second image from chocosphere.com.

Confidential to angry swarm of Shania Twain fans: I saw fragrance sets of Shania on clearance endcaps at Fred Meyer’s (Kroger) which I say not to be snide, but because discounts are awesome.

“Is jasmin, then, the mystical Meru - the centre, the Delphi, the Omphalos of the Floral World? Is it the point of departure - the one unapproachable and indivisible unit of fragrance? Is jasmin the Isis of flowers, with veiled face and covered feet, to be loved of all, yet discovered by none? Beautiful jasmin! If it be so, the rose ought to be dethroned, and the inimitable enthroned queen in her stead. Revolutions and abdications are exciting sports; suppose we create a civil war among the gardens, and crown the jasmin empress and queen of all.”

Charles Dickens in Household Words, 3 July 1857¹

Guerlain’s discontinued Jasmin, introduced in 1928, is a stunning example of what a soliflor can be. You can peruse shelves nowadays and find any numer of waters and toiletries labeled “jasmine,” but most disappoint the flower itself. They smell cheap, thin, and resemble the jasmine blossom about as much as a drag Bugs Bunny resembles a woman: only the naif Fudd is fooled by the ruse.

Jacques Guerlain acknowledged jasmine as delicate and substantial in his ode. Tender green leaves curl open; Fresh wild blooms litter the green spray with budding dots of color. Within seconds the whole composition is transformed into a yellow carpet of fragrance. The aroma bears a distinct creaminess that funnily calls to mind the texture of homemade pudding. (Cait, in her review of it at Legerdenez, aptly referred to a banana-like aroma to it.) Indolic and animalic tones spring gently from this fragrance. These tones smell of skin on skin, though Jasmin doesn’t smell skanky: She’s not a whore. (Or for that matter a wascally twansvestite wabbit.) Guerlain’s Jasmin is like Dickens’ beautiful garden goddess, a mysterious beauty seperated from others.

Alas, I must admit that I become a bit anosmic to parts of the scent quickly, unless I constantly “refresh” my nose. But that is only a word of warning when sniffing, not a warning against hunting the ol’ gal down for yourself. (The eBay seller, Dragonfly Scent Me is selling samples of the EdT, by the way.)

My thanks to March, who’s own take on this Guerlain classic can be read over at Perfume Posse.

¹Source: ‘A Romance of Perfume Lands, or, the Search for Capt. Jacob Cole”, by F.S. Clifford, 1880, p. 218

Images: Top photo taken by and uploaded to Flickr under a Creative Commons license by Laurence Shan. Filmstrip images compiled from the Looney Tunes classic, Rabbit of Seville, with Elmer Fudd’s scalp of red flowers replaced with yellow

Firstly, I have to share my excitement about the Valentine’s Day present I picked out for my husband. I wanted to get him something different, something new: a gift he’d never received before. He is in for the surprise of his life this year.

On February 14th, I’m going to give him The Clap!

However, if gonorrhea isn’t really your cup of tea but you’d still like to surprise that someone special in your life, nothing would bring a bigger smile to your Valentine’s face than discovering you shared a little syphilis with them. It’s so cuddly!

You give it with the confident knowledge that from now on, whenever they think of syphilis they’ll think of you…

… and Valentine’s Day. Or, as I like to call it,

V-D.

Moving along, then.

Snow, glorious snow. It’s both wonderful and disturbing in its quantity this year. The most recent rash of snowstorms dumped enough for us to really have some fun it it.

Not Fred, though. Oh no.

When he was younger, you couldn’t keep him out of the stuff. The last time we got great fluffy piles of it like this, he was only about 1 1/2 years old. He romped and frolicked in it with gleeful abandon. It took me, my parents, my sister and a neighbor kid to finally corral and contain him, and jerk him back indoors. (Yes, five of us. That’s one human to every 2 pounds of renegade dachshund.)

Now he’s old and cranky, and he was mightily pissed off at me for letting his yard become a crystalized wasteland. He did some of his, uh, business outside (and snorting indignantly about it the whole time) then ran mere inches back inside the door to piddle on the carpet. Bladder of RAGE!

It’s said* that Hell hath no furry like a wiener dog scorned.

He immedietly padded over to the cupboard for a cookie since he knew he deservered one. For his tribulations, you understand. A dog will forgive a great many things, but never, under any circumstance, should you be absolved of the sin for making him cold and wet. Chop off his balls, and he’ll gratefully curl into your lap on the way home from the vet. But cold plus wet? Forget about it. He’ll hate you until the spring thaw.
Onto actual perfume topics. Finally, right?

In this unusual cold, I’ve been wearing L’Instant Eau de Noel Iris Millesime for the past couple days.

The last time I tried L’Instant Noel was during more temperate temperatures, and it didn’t really work as well on me then. The base, specifically the vanillic element, encroached too deeply into the balance in the warmer weather. I liked it, just not enough to commit to a full bottle. Now that it’s this freaking cold, I can see why folks snapped it up like so many imaginary hotcakes.

The cool earthy tones of orris (iris) seem to reflect against the white winter chill well. Orbiting the featured orris are satellites of white floral notes that include jasmine, ylang, and magnolia. The base acts rather like a jewelry setting: It’s lovely and decorative, but ultimately shows off the sparkle of the showcase notes. Ambery wood and vanilla provide a steady static background for these notes to best shimmer and glow.

L’Instant smells of secret invisible winter blooms. The spring appears less distant; One only needs a spritz to figuratively coax hibernating iris bulbs to break through the frozen earth and remind oneself that the trees are only napping.

The staying power is ridiculously good on my skin. I share a single spritz between wrists and it lasts pretty much all day. However, most fragrances with a tangible vanilla note tend to stick like glue on me, so if anyone’s experience is otherwise, do share please.

(My other standby snow perfume, apparently, is Comme des Garcon Man 2, which positively sings more and more brilliantly the colder it gets. What an underrated, unusual gem it is on the “masculine” side of the fragrance counter.)

I have also been trying Jacques Fath’s Chasuble off and on for the past couple months. Or so. It took over six months to work up the nerve to crack open the still sealed bottle I found. Why would anyone have such goofy pangs of anxiety over than? Well, I’d been longing to try it for ages, and once I finally had it I was intimidated. What if I never find another bottle again? What if it was ruined? What if it was brilliant?

I’m both thrilled and sad to say that it is not ruined, and it is indeed brilliant.

I kept finding new little turns to it to appreciate, and can’t figure out what to say about it that will fully explain it. So, I’ll do what I always do, and empty out the cluttered junk drawer that is my brain. (There’s a lot of stuff in a junk drawer, but 99% of it isn’t really needed for anything in particular.)

I peg Chasuble as a wonderfully rich incense fragrance. On the top is a brief aromatic balsamic flash of mentholic pine that only slowly dims as the heat of skin warms the composition. The incense at its very core displays as unlit resin turned liquid over the middle period of wear. A peachy thread also runs through the heart, though it doesn’t disturb the incense. Rather, it filters in a brightly colored light across it. The peachy allusions quietly stream down as it dries, until it’s transmogrified into a different fruit altogether, reminding me of a cedar-plank baked yellow apple. The fruity element here is delicately laced into the other notes. On the drydown, rich woody and ambery vanillic notes emerge, and the incense finally feels lit, taking a slightly smokey turn. Chasuble wears as if in deliberate and meaningful ceremony.

It is a heady, swoon-worthy oriental fragrance. And it is as close to a personal Holy Grail perfume as I’ve ever gotten thus far. Which seems fitting. A chasuble, of course, is the vestament a priest or holy man wears during religious services. Being a rather irreligious person myself, Chasuble strikes me as a perfume nut’s ideal substitution for sanctity, when worshipping at the alter of fragrant revelation.

*I said it. Just now. Therefore, it is said, right?

One of the things that rarely fail to crack me up is the constant message from beauty magazines that fragrances only have a shelf life of a couple years before they go bad.

I’m sure this advice has nothing to do with the constant marketing drive to get consumers to buy! buy more! and buy again!

I own any number of fragrances that are older than I am (30) which I frequently wear and enjoy. Just glancing at the shelves in my closet, one I spot right away is a cute little art deco style bottle of Coty’s L’Aimant that dates back approximately 70 years or so. It still smells fantastic, and in fact, much fuller and more complex than the newer (and reformulated) versions of it that are being sold. Why on earth would I ever buy a new bottle of L’Aimant when it’s not half as good as my old one? Thank god the previous owner never received such crazy advice to throw this lovely flacon out years before I was even born.

But there’s a partial truth to the message. Perfumes DO turn, depending on their ingredients, and how they’ve been stored.

Bottles kept in the bathroom are doomed to ruin relatively quickly compared to those stored elsewhere. Generally, it is the humid heat of the bathroom which is the hardest on any fragrance kept within. Those frequent and steamy temperature fluxes can be very trying to the juice inside the bottle.

If you’re a fan of keeping your collection on top of a bedroom vanity or a dresser, be aware that the sunlight that streams through transparent bottles can cause fragrance to prematurely age and break down. If you spot little “floaties” in a vintage bottle you’re considering buying, be cautious and sniff carefully before plunking down the cash. Floaties are the most visually noticable symptom of sun exposure or decay in my experience. Not all fragrances with floaties are ruined ones, however, so you don’t necessarily need to panic if you spot them in a bottle you own.

I do happen to keep some bottles out on the dresser, but nothing I truly adore. Keep the ones you like looking at that have little collectible value or are easily replaced on the dresser, but store those that are dear to you away from the light in a cool, dark location.

Check the color of the liquid, as well. Some fragrances are naturally very dark, especially many older ones, but not all. If you feel unsure what it’s “supposed” to look like, you can check it against any number of books for bottle collectors, or against any available online galleries from perfume museums (or old advertisements!) to see if the fragrance inside is approximatly the correct color. For instance, if evaporation has occured over time because air is getting into the bottle, what’s left behind will have slowly changed color as it condensed. (Condensed is not quite the right word, I think, but for lack of a better one…)

A sniff test is, of course, the best test. When aged, some fragrances do lose the intial first phase of aromatic bloom. Those first notes you smell are called top notes, and they are usually the most volatile molecules in the composition. Some vintage fragrances will retain a bit of the top, some will not. But the overall fragrance should still smell “right” to you, since the heart notes and base notes are generally not as volatile.

Many times this is a function of the composition, but I’ve noticed it also has a lot to do with the bottle’s storage history. If it had been kept in an attic in the middle of the Midwest, for example, it has been exposed to the extremes of sweltering summer heat and below-freezing winter cold; No matter how stable the notes are, those swinging extremes are more likely than not to cause unfortunate spoilages over fragrances’ lifetimes.

You CAN keep fragrances in your refrigerator if desired. It’s certainly not unheard of, and the cold helps preserve them while not reaching chilly enough temperatures that might destroy your stuff. I don’t go for that, but only because A.) My collection is large enough that I would never be able to keep food there, and B.) Something about reaching around the ketchup and leftover lasagne to get a quick spritz seems terribly un-beautiful. I also would not wear certain fragrances directly from the fridge. It’s like certain wines or beers - you miss some elements when they are not at room temperatue I feel. But this method of storage seems like an option worth mentioning. Don’t stick any of your fragrances in the freezer, however, because… well, duh. Vetiver Frozen, indeed!

If you’re not a mad collector, you likely have a limited number of fragrances you own and rotate constant use between them. Should you be worried that you bought that bottle of say, Estée Lauder Beautiful, five years ago and are now wondering if you should throw it out and buy it again? To put it bluntly: not really. If it has really gone bad, YOU, whether you feel like an “expert nose” or not, will be able to tell. It will smell funny or off; Maybe it bears a fleeting trace of rancidness when you wear it; Or maybe it suddenly smells a little flat or dull to you after time. Try finding a tester at a fragrance counter. How does it smell compared to your old one? If you can’t smell a difference, then does it matter how long you’ve had your bottle? I’d say no.

We often choose fragrance for our own pleasure, much more than for the sake of others, and if you still find it enjoyable, there’s no need to waste your money. Fragrances can be expensive, and not everyone is as inclined as perfume addicts to shell out hundreds of dollars a year for such fripperies. If you’ve stored it safely, in the cool and dark, you’ve got much less to worry about than all those beauty magazines lead you to believe. And even if you haven’t… your nose will know better than some conveniently advertiser-friendly advice. If Cadbury chocolates from the Boer War can still be edible, I think a little “old” perfume is not such a big deal.

Note: Comments are still not displaying properly in IE7, and you have my sincere apologies for that. If you still have IE6 on your computer, they will appear correctly. However, all other browsers (Firefox, Safari, etc.) seem to work fine. Please drop me a note if this is not the case for you, with info on which browser version you are using.

Laurent’s reply to me about the review for the lastest round of fragrance mods has now been posted. You can read it by clicking here.

It rarely snows here in the general Portland-metro area, so when it does, it’s cause for celebration. It’s perfect Comme des Garcons 2 Man wearing weather, and I smell right fine while playing with the boys in the snow this evening. Hope the weather is kinder than they say it might be to our lovely neighboring Seattle-ites.

Back to playing with Zeke and Henry in the snowy dark!

Sephora.com has listed some items at sale price, though it’s kind of unoffficial since there’s no actual sale page yet. Most of the discounted fragrances are out of stock already, but they’ve still got Escada Pour Homme at a great price! $12! I bought two! (Hoarding, always hoarding. If only Chaucer had known a perfume addict: his tales might have been framed a little differently.)

Escada Pour Homme is a sweet woody fragrance, with a boozy aftertaste. It opens with a dry, slightly musky and woody aroma that feels rather boxy, or rigid, in construct. The brief flash of citrus at the top especially lends to this feeling. But the opening gives way to appealingly herbal lilts, with a warm masculine drydown that leaves the mouth watering and begging for a snifter raised to the lips. The heart and base notes also smell woody, even a tad spicy, while the cognac intonatations splash them into a cozy, cocktail sipping buzz.

I rarely suggest any fragrance should be worn exclusively by one gender, but I’m inclined to do so in this instance. The one time I wore it on myself in public, I kept looking around for the sexy guy wearing that delicious fragrance. Oh crap. The sexy guy was me every time. Eeeek.

At least I can definitively testify to its great sillage.

Escada Pour Homme would make a fun birthday gift for loved menfolk, though I specifically would recommend it to my male readers who think they’d enjoy wearing a little vanilla-laced aged cognac. And, sexy little Escada Pour Homme does pair up nicely with a Cognac Coupling cocktail in the evening if you decide you’re sick of only smelling tasty.

I believe Escada Pour Homme may have been discontinued? Although I’m not entirely sure about it, Pour Homme’s clearance price at Sephora seems to indicate that it may well be a goner, indeed.

UPDATE: Nobi has closed the contest… the earlier hyperlink to the page wih entry information now lists the answers, if you’re curious.

Shioya Nobi, who some of you may remember is the grand emcee behind the Made by Blog project I am participating in, has opened up a contest to ring in 2007 in style. A winner who correctly answers either A or B of this quiz style contest will win S-Perfume fragrances. A winner who correctly answers both questions will additionally receive the INEFFABLE Alberto Absolu. Alberto Absolu quite frankly, is a prize worthy of anyone’s attention, but especially my fellow perfume nuts. (In addition to my own review, you can also read Chandler Burr’s take on it.) The contest closes on January 7th, so don’t dilly-dally! Besides, your answers have got to be better than mine:

• Giorgio Armani (fashion designer, Italian)
• Chandler Burr (writer, American)
• Tom Ford (fashion designer, American)
• Francis Kurkdjian (perfumer, Armenian)
• Christophe Laudamiel (perfumer, French)
• Issey Miyake (fashion designer, Japanese)
• Alberto Morillas (perfumer, Spanish)
• Thierry Wasser (perfumer, Swiss)

Quiz:

(A) Besides having something to say about perfume, there is one thing all the above men are good at. What is it?

Soap Box Derby racing?

(B) One person in the above list is (utterly) different from the rest. Who is it?

All the above wear suits to work, except for Chandler Burr, who prefers the breezy, unfettered joy of a kilt?

I am sure you guys can come up with more accurate information. Good luck!

I am writing this now, in 2006, but scheduled it to post at midnight, so it will no longer be “now” by the time you read this. Hello there, 2007.

It’s interwebby TIME-TRAVEL!

Thus, I bring you greetings from the past… or would that be the future, since I’m scheduling this to post at a time which does not yet exist now?

I’ve just confused myself.

Likely there’s a logical way out of this riddle, but I DON’T CARE!! I’m off to drink glasses of good champagne!

Which will likely be followed by lots more of mostly cheap champagne!

Which will be followed by a rueful headache and my annual New Year’s Eve regret!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Good luck with the hangovers: I recommend an egg breakfast.