Scentzilla!

Today I join with a few of my fellow fragrance bloggers to rhapsodize about our favorite picks to wear during the fall season. Mine are numbered, but in no particular order, really. And I realize with a little surprise that my faves have changed very little from year to year. Maybe it’s because there’s so much in the way of new releases nowadays that keeping track of anything but mostly the old favorites just seems silly. Or maybe it’s a dismal reflection upon the less than memorable quality of far too many of them. Or maybe I’m a sad little creature of habit: Given the obsessive-compulsive aspect of perfume collecting, that last excuse is the most likely of the three.

Please visit my blogging buddies over at Aromascope, Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This, Perfume Posse, and Perfume Smellin’ Things for some great lists, too!

1.) Jean Desprez - Bal a Versailles

“My favorite aspect of Bal a Versailles is its circular quality. As the fragrance develops, notes seem to fade off, only to rise again. To experience it is to open a travel brochure of smells. Roses, orange, orange blossom, and jasmine fill my nostrils with the first spray. Then warm woods with soft balsalmic spices push forward into vanilla and patchouli . Broad notations of amber and incense, musk and more musk, unfold. And then we start all over again, surreally spiraling amongst the flowers and trees, riding waves of indoles and ketones. It is sexy, but not vulgar; Rich, but not gaudy.”

2.) Jacques Fath - Fath de Fath 1993

The Fath de Fath reformulated by Haarmann and Reimer and relaunched by a revitalized Fath house in 1993 only shares but the slightest connection to its earlier 1953 incarnation. Perhaps it’s not its equal, but it’s still very, very good. Fath de Fath ‘93 smells of grand entrances down gilded opera house staircases. Berry-stained citrus top notes color a thick array of pale though never timid floral heart notes, including jasmine, orange blossom, and tuberose. The fruity-floral notes curve gracefully around a heady mix of powdery musk, woody amber, patchouli and vanillic base notes, lending the impression that grace is not achieved by lightness of step but with a deft understanding of gravity.

3.) Lanvin - Arpege

Happily, the more popular a scent was in the past the more readily bottles of it can be unearthed. Even more happily, the popularity of fragrances from the past is not necessarily a negative indication of its quality; Popular does not always have to mean middlebrow. Arpege deserved and still deserves its success. I don’t even think you have to be “rose lover” to dig into its layers of meaning. A flash of aldehydes at the quick could certainly be off-putting to those who cringe at anything that tugs at notions of “old lady perfume,” but they subside into harmonies of rose into jasmine into tuberose, which draws you down further into the satisfyingly low thump of its leathery base.

4.) Lancome - Magie Noire

“The secret to this fragrance for me is how it mutates its not unusual notes. Lichen wears as spice. Rose and galbanum become gold. Wood presents as though it were curing itself on the skin. Patchouli leaves flutter loose from the folds, hinting at trunks of woven treasures from imaginary adventures. Magie Noire is sometimes referred to as an amber oriental. This is not a cold butter amber, nor an incense amber. It’s amber that echoes some distant animal shriek. The echo bounces across the floral, green, and wood notes - never landing, never stopping, just fading off as it repeats itself.”

5.) Givenchy - Organza Indecence

This is the fragrance that makes me careen flat over in a lovestruck Tex Avery-style thud. Luckily, its benzoin pillows make for a soft landing, blanketed with cinnamon, cedar and palisander notes that pull over my head as I drift deeper into a swoon. Love may be patient, and love may be kind, but above all these, love smells a lot like Organza Indecence.

6.) Helmut Lang - Cuiron

“Helmut Lang’s Cuiron paints a portrait in monochrome. It is comprised of successive layers of leather. But not any old leather. Or rather, it IS old leather - the smell of an antique book pulled off the shelf, an old black jacket hanging off the back of a chair, a soft suede purse that’s only pulled out on special occasions, a well-worn chair that’s seen better days but is still the comfiest one in the house.”

7.) Les Nez - Let Me Play the Lion

I’ve struggled with this one for months and months, and still do. It resonates so well with me that I can’t decide if its because it just happens to hit all the right notes with me personally, or if it really is a sneaky little charmer. A list of adjectives seems a subpar way to describe it, but “dry smokey woody deliciousness” sums this fragrance up so concisely that there’s no excuse for purpling up the reason to enjoy it.

8.) Esteban - Teck and Tonka candle

“Is it ridiculously spendy for a candle? Yes, yes it is. It is worth it? Yes, hell yes. [...] This is the sort of fragrance that a sophisiticate would describe as aphrodisiacal. I’m not sophisticated: It’s humpy. And it definitely sets a mood.”

9.) Guerlain - Mitsouko

“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 [...] 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.”

10.) Lola Cosmetics - Lola perfume oil

“There’s really no polite way to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it: Lola fragrance oil is sex. Some scents are flirty, some are sensual, some are sexy. This is S-E-X. In a bottle [...] This is the smell I would have if I happened to be a nymph who’d gone for a romp in the woods with Pan. Animal-like, earthy and sweetly piquant, it doesn’t smell directly of Pan himself, but rather more that I’d been unmistakably in his prescence, raunching it up gaily.”

Mizensir is the brainchild of legend-in-his-own-time perfumer Alberto Morillas. The Geneva based company offers an intriguing range of candles and home fragrance sprays, none of which I’ve tried outside of the Heliotrope Bleue candle. (Too little time, too little money, etc.)

Heliotrope Bleue smells not of actual heliotrope, but of an idealized, hyper-real impression of it. Where many heliotrope fragrances tend to overly fetishize the bloom’s sifted powder element, Morillas takes an endearingly different tack. Aniseed fills the heart of its aroma, but smells less licorice-like than one would think, and more… nutty? Yes, nutty. Paired with a vanillic lilt, the effect is reminiscent of almond biscotti. Hovering over the biscotti allusion like a halo, the pale glow of fresh floral notes linger in the air, having been trapped forever in a perfumer’s state of grace where there is no organic decay, no death.

In some ways, this candle embraces what I wanted the Lolita Lempicka fragrance to be, but wasn’t. Which? Is largely due to an errant and most unfortunate stale gym shorts note in Lolita Lempicka, that once noticed couldn’t be shaken off upon subsequent sniffs.

The candle is slow burning, but burns cleanly, with a delicate yet wide flung throw, and evenly melting wax. Even the wick doesn’t need to be trimmed all too often, as it seems to keep pace with the wax quite well.

I’m not sure I’ll be replacing this particular candle, which has nothing to do with its quality and everything to do with a now keen curiosity about the rest of the Mizensir line. Heliotrope Bleue smells charming, elegant, and as if a paragon of the word “cozy” itself… much like a good cafe or an intimate still life painting.

Because I’ve yet to meet the dead horse I didn’t enjoy flogging, today’s review, like the two posts previous, will also be rated. However, I’ll spill my thoughts first to allow Ebert and Roeper (of At the Movies and the Chicago Sun-Times) time to prepare their thumbs for Esteban’s Teck and Tonka candle.

From back of the Teck & Tonka box:

“Souvenir of Africa, wooden houses full of spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove… just waiting to be shipped off to other continents. Teck & Tonka recreates this blend, one of the most delicious in the history of perfumes.”

That’s some big talk there. [And in a way, unfortunate, too. After reading "Africa," "ship," and "history," the gift of colonialism (it's one that keeps on giving!) accidentally cues up thought of other historical "cargo" just waiting to be shipped off to other continents. I mean, I get what they're saying, but uh, wow... semiotics, man.] The candle does smell delish, though.

Teck & Tonka reveals itself differently in the container than it does when lit. In the glass container, the smell is heavy, and seems more like a thick ambery oriental perfume than a candle fragrance. Then it burns. Mmmmmmm, it evolves into something cleaner but much more woody as the wax melts, with the spice dispersing into a gentle hum on the air. The eponymous tonka doesn’t stand out on its own as anything vanillic; rather, it adds a sweet warmth to the overall aroma.

It goes a bit further than I expected, really, because you only need to leave it lit for a wee bit to scent the room. I can burn it for just a half hour or so in the room, and three days later I’m still catching light rich whiffs. Tenacious little bugger. This candle is gonna take forever to use up.

Is it ridiculously spendy for a candle? Yes, yes it is. It is worth it? Yes, hell yes.

This is the sort of fragrance that a sophisiticate would describe as aphrodisiacal. I’m not sophisticated: It’s humpy. And it definitely sets a mood.

Roger Ebert:

Well this is a thumbs up for me. To describe this candle is to miss the nuances that make it tantalizing. The notes simply flow from the candle, as anecdotes will flow from one who has told them often and knows they work. Then we begin to understand its structure: A series of nights and dawns, descents and ascents. The aroma becomes a picaresque journey through a world where gods and goddesses still live, and across seas with vast blind fish in them. To tell you what happens along the way is pointless, especially as the journey never ends. It is a fantastical journey to a place that resembles no civilization that ever was, in heaven or on Earth. And it is a masterpiece. *

Richard Roeper:

The smell of short chunky candles in glass containers has surrounded my house. Now here’s where I’m supposed to say that I find it refreshing to see 30 hour candles. The raw truth is, I find this candle a little unsettling. If I want to see such plump candles, I’ll go to the 99 Cent Store, OK? I’ll walk down Michigan Avenue or go to Pier One. When we’re talking candles inside my living room, give me long skinny taper candles, please. If that makes me sound superficial, shallow and sexist — well yes, I’m a man. And I’ll have to point out that most of the candles that appear on billboards and in magazines and on TV commercials are just as skinny and good looking as me, TV’s Richard Roeper. Thumbs down, but not because it’s flaccid. My thumb remains a manly, erect thumb even when it’s down! And don’t forget good looking, too! **

Moving on… Statler and Waldorf review this entirely shambolic excuse for a post:

*Ebert’s review was complied and pieced together via quotes from his reviews on rogerebert.com, mostly from his Fellini reviews. I’m having some fun with him here, but in his defense, describing Fellini films without loudly cracking the metaphor whip is nigh on impossible. I only WISH I could verbalize, purple or otherwise, half so well as he. (Oh and while we’re mentioning Fellini, please watch La Strada especially, if you haven’t already. Zampanò!) See this, this, and this for pulled passages.

**For the most part, Roeper’s review satirically borrows from an editorial column he negatively wrote regarding Dove’s Real Beauty ad campaign last year. Yes, this is old news, but see above disclaimer regarding me and the dead horsies. Who knew the purpose of women’s beauty advertising was not to sell products to women at all, but to set up a pup tent in Richard Roeper’s pants? Not me, and I for one was glad to get edumacated.

Ebert and Roeper source images can be viewed here. Statler and Waldorf source sounds from here.

I love geeks. (Of course, one could argue that’s out of self-preservation, but I can only aspire to geekiness… I’m stuck over here in Dorktown.) I would think it’s universally accepted nowadays that geeks create their own kind of cool.

Meet Lothar & the Hand People. Lothar is not a human; Lothar is a theremin. This band out of Denver is not especially well known. But their techno/hippie daftness has inspired others who are well known, from the Chemical Brothers sampling their work, to giving Mike Myers a name for one of his sillier Saturday Night Live skits. Even Julian Cope apparently approves. Lothar & the Hand People are the epitome of cool geeks.

Listen to a sample of “Paul, In Love,” and remember it was released in 1968. They were eccentric, and arguably ahead of their time with this track.

Interesting side note: There is a direct and funny little connection between the theremin and fragrance. Composer Harry Revel collaborated with theremin master Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman for an album filled with songs inspired by Corday’s perfumes, called Perfume Set to Music. You can read more about it by visiting BastaMusic.com.

Demeter is the house that Christopher Brosius built, going against the tradition of beautiful smells by appreciating interesting smells. While some of the Demeters are conventionally pretty in a way, some are simply unwearable in their peculiarity. It’s the unwearable ones that find Demeter at the peak of its geeky-cool game.

Mesquite is one of their oddballs which once I knew existed, I had to have it.

It reminds more of barbeque chip flavoring than of straight mesquite, but that’s okay, too. Demeter’s Mesquite smells sweet and smokey, with a little leathery undertone that is likely providing the smoke. My highest compliment is that it makes a terrible perfume, magnificently out of place on the human body. Creating a spray to make people smell like meat marinade qualifies as a modest proposal, and the satire-lover in me enjoys how deliciously wrong it is.

However, I have finally succumbed to buying one of their pretty scents. Our new house has a bathroom with no windows, and without going into too much detail, I’ll just say something was needed to freshen up the air in there from time to time. I was surprised to see that the Wild Oats now nearest me carries a fairly decent selection of Demeter, including the home fragrance sprays. Bamboo was selected, because when testing my husband enthused, “hey, this doesn’t smell gross!” (We both object to the harsh edge of most commercial aerosol sprays.) Bamboo smells of dewy, sappy green stems, and while not exactly mimicking nature, it comes close enough for our purposes. The price doesn’t bite too hard, even at $18, since one or two pumps on the spray is all it takes to get the job done.

I admittedly have bought very few fragrances in the line. Many have a strange synthetical twang I don’t personally care for. But I simply can’t imagine what the future of smell culture might look like without Brosius’ work at Demeter and CB I Hate Perfume. And I don’t want to. His idiosyncratic choices make perfumery more interesting, and we’re all the luckier for them.

Next on the list of geeky cool Demeters I have to try? Earthworm. It’s so wrong. So gross. I can’t wait.

Image of album cover from lotherandthehandpeople.com, and Paul, In Love is from the album Presenting… Lothar & the Hand People, which is available used through Amazon sellers and new through Music Millennium.

I am a cilantro addict. Hardcore. Chew on the straight stuff. A hopeless case. When I buy cilantro, I wind up having to select two bunches: one for cooking, and one to account for how much I mindlessly munch on during preparations.

There’s a wide gulf between good cilantro and the mostly awful stuff that infests many supermarkets. You can’t always tell by appearance. Hold the herb close to your face and inhale the cilantro. High quality cilantro should smell slightly of sliced green peppers, and a little spicy, too. It will taste that way as well. The bad stuff will smell pleasant enough, but the piquant element will not be very strong, and it will smell mostly of salad greens. These lower quality herbs taste vaguely of Irish Spring soap, in my opinion.The average person needs to buy less of the good stuff than of the poorer tasting selections, because if you sprinkle it on to your food while slightly twisting and crushing the leaves between your fingers, they release a much stronger tastebud-pleasing oil. If you are going to eat it immedietly, it can be chopped for an even stronger taste. And you can use more of the stems, too, since even the stems of good cilantro taste better than the leaves of lower quality stuff. Alas, when good cilantro is unavailable, I still eat whatever I can find. I am shameless in my addiction. Clearly.

Imagine my delight to discover a cilantro-themed candle. Paddywax’s Mango Cilantro candle is an addict’s dream come true. Ooooooh, smell the pretty-pretty cilantro. This note is so true. So… yummy! Frankly, the candle is dangerous for me. It makes me painfully hungry when I am not, and I want to tear the fridge door off the hinges seeking a snacky fix. But ay, is it ever a fantastic aroma.

The cilantro-ey goodness is underpinned solely by the other eponymous note, mango. I’m not a huge mango fan (I like salty things rather than sweet) but this is drool worthy. Rick Bayless, in his cookbook Mexico One Plate at a Time (p. 340), describes his favorite mango as, “slippery, slithery, almost melt-in-your-mouth, with little of the stringiness that plagues certain varieties. [...] Imagine mango flavor enriched with ripe, ripe banana, sweet spices and egg yolks (odd as that may sound.)” This is the aroma of the mango he describes eating.

This candle’s almost enough to make me want to make a chunky mango and cilantro salsa, were I a bigger mango fan.

So along with a thumbs up for the Paddywax Mango Cilantro candle, I’m also recommending some summer reading. Pick up any of Rick Bayless’ books, though I’d especially recommend Mexico One Plate at a Time and Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant Flavors of a World-Class Cuisine. (Hyperlinks are to Powell’s Books: support independent bookstores, please!) His books read more like can’t-put-it-down non-fiction tales than they do as straight cookbooks. You will walk away from reading them feeling inspired by his passion for Mexican cuisine and culture. It’s downright impossible to not be sparked into creative thought by his words.

The Paddywax Mango Cilantro candle is available at Nooks & Niches, which is where the above photo of it was obtained.

Jimmy Belasco was the brain behind Er’go Candles, a line featuring a lovely range of fragrance choices. Er’go appears to have been discontinued in favor of his newest line, the eponymous Jimmy Belasco Soy Candles.

Both lines feature simple glass containers and uncolored wax. “I don’t want to decorate someone’s home,” Belasco says. “That’s why I’ve never added color. I don’t want to match someone’s sofa or their drapes. I really want to be what is fragrancing the home.” (via CNN article.)

Food grade soy wax is used in his hand poured candles. Reportedly, he once decided to prove this fact by eating chicken fried in the wax, and served it to his friends and family as well. Yikes. I have no reason to doubt that happened, but the idea of candle eating sends a small shiver down my spine. A couple of months ago I watched a documentary about the siege layed upon Londonderry by James II. The siege lasted 105 days, and amongst other brutalities of war suffered by the townfolk, a blockade induced starvation was so severe that they took to eating their candles. So basically, the eating of candle wax really doesn’t spell out quality to me, but rather keen desperation. And probably for you too, now that I’ve mentioned it.

Absinthe is reputedly his most popular item, and I can see why. I need say right up front that it does not at all smell of absinthe: there is not even a smidge of anise to be found. (I was hoping for one.) However, once I got over my disappointment, I found I enjoyed the delicate aroma the candle spreads through the air. Absinthe features a blend of lime peel, patchouli, amber, lavender and sandalwood, and the initial impression I always get of it is that somehow he’d managed to take half the aroma of linden blossoms and fuse it to half the aroma of bubbly lime water to make a whole. As it burns on for a several more minutes the more tenacious notes of patchouli and wood begin to appear and fill out the more tender notes.

This is one of those candles that do not fill a room until they are lit, and they do indeed burn VERY cleanly and well. After roughly 30/45 minutes I put the lid on the glass and let the flame extinguish, since that’s all it takes to really fill my living room, the hallway and the kitchen usually. The throw of scent from this candle is wonderful. Yet this fragrance is not something I’d call strong - it never overwhelms. I’d feel very comfortable giving Absinthe as a gift even for someone whose taste I might not understand too well. I’m sure it must be a bit of a crowd pleaser.

There’s a list of online retailers (but no brick and mortar yet, and I hope that list will be added soon) on the official site. I can personally vouch for Nooks and Niches. I ordered a few different candles for them, and thought the shipping charge was very reasonable considering how heavy a bunch of candles in glass jars can get. As a bonus they threw in a lovely little drawstring pouch filled with a few samples of products from some of the other lines they carry, which was a nice surprise. I should also mention that it appears they have a nice clearance discount on Er’go candles, too.

Karen Klein candles are all housed in glass containers wrapped smoothly with different fancy papers. The three I tried were Bellini; Fig, Black Currant, Fresh Grass; and Basil Pomegranate. All three candles burned very cleanly and efficiently.

Bellini was the most disappointing of the three. It has a very light scent that reminds of a peach sorbet, champagne, and a little bit of banana peel. But it has very little throw. In fact, my husband commented that he really liked this one, and in respose to my question of why, he said it was because it didn’t smell. Yeesh.

Fig, Black Currant, Fresh Grass smells when unlit like it’s going to be a bit sharp. But after burning, the air fills nicely with a rather simple fragrance of sweet grass. The fruity elements don’t stand out as foody or overpowering, but simply temper the grassiness down into something enjoyable. The throw on this one is particularly good, and it only takes a short while to fill a room with its scent.

Basil Pomegranate is my favorite of the three I tried. The basil isn’t apparent until after it’s lit, and doesn’t read to me as something spicy, but rather like the way fresh basil plants smell while they are still growing in the ground. The basil freshens the fruit, giving a clean and friendly feel. The throw of this candle is also fairly good, but the perfume is a delicate one, and doesn’t hit you over the head as quickly as some candles do. I rather liked that.

Following the hyperlink at top will take you to the official Klein site, which has a menu link to see all the various online retailers for these candles.