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.”

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.