28 La Pausa - Chanel Les Exclusifs

This winter I've been trying out the scents of the Chanel prestige line, Chanel les Exclusifs and I can't help myself but thinking of them as different archetypes in the life of a make believe upper class family from the 1920:s. There is Chanel 22, a beautiful but spoilt blonde. Always gets a little bit too tipsy at the family dinners. And Bois de Iles - the annual holiday to the Carrabean that the exentric patriarch forces everyone to go on.

In 28 La Pausa, I find a shy young girl (or boy!) that doesn't fit in with the rest of the family and their extravagances. Someone who's at her happiest staying alone in the library, maybe writing in her diary, reading books or just dreaming while everyone else is out playing crocket or trying to talk one of the servants into a little private rendez-vouz behind the stables. She's an introvert - and that's just fine with her!

28 La Pausa (named after Coco Chanel’s house in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera) starts with a burst of bergamot. The citrus lasts for about an hour on my skin, after that it's all in iris. It's dreamy, softly woody, I get blue ink from ballpoint pens, fresh air wafting in through an open window. This scent is faint but very well composed, nothing out of place. It has an elegant and high class air about itself. A scent for someone with good taste and no need to prove anything to anyone.


Pic: http://augustus-hare.tripod.com

Bijou Romantique by Etat Libre d'Orange

A while ago I stopped by at the Etat Libre d'Oranges website and saw that their 2 new scents, "Bijou Romantique" and "Fils de Dieu du riz et des agrumes" are now available for ordering. Of course I couldn't resist and now I've had the chance to try them out.

Now, Etat Libre d'Orange are known for their, eeeh,  vivid, so to say, sales texts but there is nothing explicit in their description of Bijou Romantique:

"This is the portrait of a lady. She can be seen in the feminine cameo, in the soft, delicate profile, in the dreamy image of an incandescent beauty. What once was shell has been carved in relief by a devoted artisan, to emerge as an idealized woman. Jewels, too..."

I think this is a spot on description, Bijou Romantique does indeed come across as a cameo, only ELdO forgot to mention that it's a 15 foot tall cameo, made of  cream and powder, fixed on a slab of granite.

Bijout Romantique starts as a big cloud of pastry cream. There is white chocolate, vanilla, a hint of strawberry milkshake and lots of fluffy whipping  cream, fresh from the farm. There is a powdery cosmetics note in there as well, getting along just fine with the cream. Even though it's full of sweet confectionery notes, BR never gets cloying or overly sweet, its very well balanced. As the scent wears the sweetness evaporates. Steely iris is revealed and the powder moves towards chalk dust, blue ink, faint pencil shavings and cold stone. At the extreme drydown, after a good nights sleep, there is a beautiful vanilla and tobacco accord lingering. A very nice transition!

I keep keep having these associations to how a womans life in the 19th century might have been. As the scent starts out she's a young girl, sweet, all smiles and eager to see what life has in store for her. Maybe she marries that handsome captain. He sails his ship on the seven seas, she sits at home, waiting for him, doing needlepoint, raising children, everything appropriate for a decent woman of her standards. But deep down inside she wonders, is this all? I have everything a woman can wish for but I'm still not happy? Lets see if we can tight up that whalebone corset one inch more, that might push those silly thoughts right out of my head!

The children grow up, time goes on. Her husband always had a bit of a drinking problem and after he's killed in a brawl she realizes there was a gambling problem as well. He has gambled away everything they had and then some more, leaving her dirt poor. She takes up a position as a governess in order to pay back the debts and gets pneumoconiosis from all the chalk dust she breathes in, trying to teach those dumb, despicable kids to read from the blackboard. By now, there are no smiles to be seen. Life has hardened her. Her hair is gray and the children call her a witch when they think she cannot hear. Unfortunately she dies before it is discovered that she's the rightful heiress to a grand fortune. One that had allowed her to pay back all debts and then live in luxury for the rest of her life.

So, what is my verdict of Bijou Romantique? Well it is a big time "lady"-scent indeed. I'm sure fans of powdery cosmetic type of scents will love it, it does remind me of a tamer, but more sophisticated, version of Labdanum 18. I might be the wrong person to review it as I still haven't "got" the powder thing but who knows, a few more wears of BR and maybe "powder" will show up on my list of acquired tastes for spring 2012?


Official notes: Bergamot & Italian lemon, pink berries essence, ylang-ylang, sage, iris of Tuscany, evee, coconut JE, vetiver from Haiti, benzoin, vanilla...

Pic:  Fuckyeahcameos (where else?) and Wikipedia

Recap Winter 2012

Finally we've had a few days of non-freezing temperature. It's not yet spring but still a step in the right direction. This has made me reach for a whole new sets of perfumes, colognes, light florals and even some fruity ones. So, lets do a recap of Winter 2012, before we forget all about it. 

My top 3 most used for perfumes during the winter of 2012:

Ormonde Woman by Ormonde Jayne - Conjures an image  of dark green fir trees covered in snow. Cool, delicate and severe at the same time. The scent of an elf queen during winter.

Santal de Mysore, Serge Lutens - It took me some time to "get" this one, the first few tries I could only smell wine barrels. Now it's a cornucopia of gourmet notes like chocolate and mint, spice notes like curry and cumin and above all, divine Mysore sandalwood. Funny thing is, when I made my husband try it, it mostly smelled like coconut!

28 La Pausa, Chanel les Exclusifs - Very hard to describe, it feels like adding an (much needed) aura of exclusivity and refinement whenever I wear it. If there ever was such a thing as class in a bottle, 28 La Pausa would be it.

Top trends:

Evergreens - not your regular "green" scents at all, but somehow with a dark,  green, near teal, feel to them. I do mentally place Ormonde Woman in this category along with Mandy Afteliers sweet and heart warming Fir and Chanels, cooler,  Sycomore.

Orientals - they're soft, warm and spicy, in other words, the best thing to battle winter with. Some much used favorites have been Serge Lutens Chergui and Chanel Bois des Iles.

Cool Iris - if fighting the cold does not seem like an option, join it. Some great options here are (the already mentioned) 28 la Pausa, Serge Lutesns Iris Silver Mist (interesting how I got more damp soil, roots and blood during summer, in winter is all about etheral metallic cold) and the soft and super feminine L'Eau d'Hiver by Frederic Malle.

New acquired tastes:

And, yes, one of the most fun things with having perfumes as a hobby is you think you know it all, "I love this, I hate that, yada yada" and then comes along a fragrance that proves you utterly wrong. For me, two notes that I didn't use to like but now have started to crave RE aldehydic cleanness and pepper. Aldehydic cleanness (I'm lacking a proper name here) is that sharp, scrubbed, slightly chemical clean note that make your eyes widen and at least I think "Should I really be inhaling this?". It's present in the top note of Frederic Malles Iris Poudre and it's in Aldehyde 44 by Le Labo.

Another new friend of mine is pepper. I used to think it was a bit to much, to sharp and not something I liked to smell in a perfume. No more. I now love how it adds character to the top notes of most of the Ormonde Jayne scents and how it's used to create contrast over time in Le Labos Poivre 23.



Image: Free-desktop-backgrounds.net

Iris Silver Mist by Serge Lutens

Scents inspire me like nothing else. When I try on a scent I get all full of ideas, I see pictures in my head, I think of music, sounds, food, stories, you name it. Iris Silver Mist is a Serge Lutens cult classic. It has been reviewed many times by people who know a lot more about perfume than I do. It's also the scent I get the strongest feelings/pictures about. I've been working this review for a while as wanted to find the right words. I'm realising I probably never will, so here goes my take on Iris Silver Mist.

Imagine you were alive some hundred years ago. Maybe you were a young man, forced to go out to fight in a war that's now long forgotten. Nobody bothered to give you any training and proper equipment. Before you knew it you were lying face down on the battlefield, bones broken, life bleeding out of you. Or maybe you were a young girl living at the same time, one day strange armed men showed up at your house, took you away into the forest, they mutilated and raped you just for the fun of it and left you do die alone in the woods.

After spending hours, maybe days, in utter agony there comes a time when the pain starts to fade. The soul is finally slipping away from the body. Death is reaching out her mighty hands towards you and you're only relieved to see her, happy to return her embrace.

That very moment, when still feeling Mother Earth against your body, breathing in the scent of her soil and roots, mud and grass, fertilized with your own blood. You can also smell what is about to come, there is airy incense with a hint of spices. At that very moment of transition, that is the smell of Iris Silver Mist.

This is a masterpiece of a perfume. It manages to be earthy and ethereal at the same time. It's very sad but also hopeful. It's the best scent I know of to wear when I'm feeling sad. It grounds me, comforts me and at the same time promises that things are going to be better. I love it and I'm rating this at least 5 out of 5.

Artwork by Robert M. Place

Pouring my heart out (negativity warning)

I've had a lousy week here, lots of family issues; grandfather is very ill, I have plane tickets to go see him in a couple of weeks, but he might not hang on for that long. My parents are going through a divorce, which means lots of old dirt is coming up to the surface, so to say. All of this is affecting me a lot, bringing me down. And always, when I don't feel good, I tend to make the worst decisions in all aspects of my life, perfume included.

Two days ago I wanted something that would pick me up so I tried Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneos Bergamotto di Calabria. It's lemons and bergamot on a bed of ginger, vetivier and cedar. It did not work. Those lemony notes felt like they were just grating and grating and grating on my brain all day. Unfortunately the scent was pretty weak so I managed to wash it off.

Yesterday I tried Ormonde Jaynes Sampaquita. I thought it would be an undemanding generic floral bouquet type of thing. Maybe not that special, but if nothing else, a nice smelling little thing to wear throughout the day. I felt as wearing a hedgehog inside my clothes. An unlikely scenario, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

But one thing I managed to get right and that was randomly putting on a jacket that was smelling enough of Pradas Infusion d' Iris to block out most of the Sampaquita residues. I didn't know I was craving iris myself but it perfectly hit the spot. Iris is a note I find very difficult to describe. You either know what it smells like or you don't. There is no generic "rooty" term for notes coming from roots (or from synthetics pretending to be roots) like there is "floral" or "fruity".

Iris also happens to be my daughters middle name. I didn't name her primarily after a perfume note, it is a girls name in most of Europe (and in other English speaking countries), isn't it? We have a silly little tradition in my family, starting with me, that girls middle names are flowers. My middle name is Soley, which means buttercup in Icelandic, and my daugther got Iris.

Anyway, today, I'm not taking any chances with how I smell. Scent of the day is SL Iris Silver Mist and things are already feeling a little better.