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

Le Labo - Santal 33

I've had some very busy days lately. The main reason for this is that earlier this summer me and my husband found the house of our dreams - literary. We have been looking for a house for years but never found the right one, until we stumbled onto this one. The night after going there I dreamt about how wonderful my life would be in this house. And not just that, I kept having nightmares about when buying other houses, we'd find that the floor was rotting and we'd sink through it or just feel suffocated by bad vibes in general. I CRAVED that house but of course there was a catch for us getting it - it was way out of our price range.

But the days went by and we saw that the house was still out for sale, with a lower price tag now. "That would be the perfect house for us", we thought, but it was still too expensive. But later, again, it was out for sale for an even lower price. It was still nowhere near cheap but we just couldn't pass it up again, so we bought it. Now the only catch was that we really really needed to get a decent price for our apartment or else we'd be in big trouble money wise. And anyone who has read this far will understand that the real estate market here is not very hot at the moment... So we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and staged and staged and staged. By this time I was so tense I had a permanent headache from unconsciously grinding my teeth and clenching my jaws, I only ever do this when I'm VERY stressed out.

As I see it, there are two ways to use perfume as therapy. You can spray on the scents that you associate with whatever feeling it is that you want, but unfortunately is missing. Or you can just go with what you got, support your mindset by scent, live it and hopefully get over it in the end. I went for option 2. I wanted something that felt focused, assertive, energetic, absolutely no frills, a "there is only one way and that's forward"-type of scent and I reached out for Santal 33.

Santal 33 is woody and leathery. I get tiny whiffs of the same smoke as in Patchouli 24, but it's nowhere as dominating. This is the only Labo that I've tried that I've loved from the first sniff and I've been wondering why that is. I usually get annoyed with scents that have this degree of woodiness but there is something in this one that makes it just right for me. When I read the official notes I realized that it's probably the flowery softness of the violet note listed that balances everything else. This is now my "getting things done and cut the crap, we can smell the flowers tomorrow"-scent.

So, did we sell the apartment? No, not then. We had an agonizing week of people making way to low offers or wanting the apartment but not getting a loan from the bank. But in the end our real estate agent showed it again and than this lovely gay couple from heaven showed up. They seemed to mentally move in at first sight, talking about how they were going to rebuild the kitchen and where to put what furniture. The day after, papers were signed, they bought the thing and now everyone is happy :)


Official notes: sandalwood, virginia cedar, cardamom, violet, papyrus, spices, leather, musk and amber.

Shiso by Aftelier Perfumes

"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."  -Morpheus

That was what come to my mind when I thing about Aftelier Perfumes Shiso - my little red pill. It's really that different, that unique and interesting. A whole new universe of how a scent can be opened up for me. And luckily, I ended up in a truly beautyful rabbit hole indeed.

But, it's not just the scent of Shiso that is unique, it also seems to wear differently on me than other scents. As far as I'm aware of perfumes wear in 2 ways; there is the classic top->heart->base note thing and there is the simpler linear wear, also called WYSIWYG, the way a perfume smells at first sniff is how it will continue to smell, it will only grow weaker over time.

In Shiso I found one single note standing out the whole time, from beginning to end while the supporting notes changed over time. If I was to compare it to Tango, Tango wears like an orchestra playing a symphony. The notes work like the different instruments, sometimes you can discern them one and one, sometimes they all support a bigger theme. Shiso wears like there is one soloist note, playing a concerto with a symphonic orchestra as  support. I'm very interested in hearing if this is just on me or if others are having the same experience.

And what is that note? Well, here I have a dilemma. I don't know. I suspect it might be shiso, the Japanese herb bearing the same name as the perfume, paired with clove and cassia. But I don't know what shiso smells like so I can't say for sure.

One think I know though, and that is that I have ań active mind that happily makes up for whatever gaps there seems to be in my knowledge, Shiso is no exception. Now, my scent markers tend to go into 2 categories, one for wine related scents and the other is for scents of stuff I felt passionate about as a child - which seems to be mostly candy. That note I feel so strongly in Shiso is very similar to a Swedish candy named "Sura Cola Nappar" (Sour Coca-Cola Pacifiers), I'll call them SCNs hereafter. SCNs are made of gelatine, flavoured by something slightly resembling the taste of Coca Cola and dredged in citric acid, making them extremely sour on the outside with a sweet core.

Sura colanappar

And the supporting notes, what are they? Well, that's the cool thing. It seems like everything goes with SCNs. A first I make out exquisite sandalwood. At times I get resin. There is leather and notes similar of the stable notes found in mature red wines. Toward the end Shiso goes a little sweeter and lighter, I get tart green citrus and I also get a little mellower yuzu. According to the official notes there are green peppers and geranium in there. I wouldn't ave thought of them if I hadn't read up, but they are there, adding structure and a hint of sharpness.

Now, SCNs aren't the most exclusive of foodstuffs (even calling them foodstuff is stretching things), but don't let that scare you off. If they are not available where you live, your mind will probably latch onto something else. Trying Shiso was a grand perfume experience for me. It made me realise that all the perfumes I've previously known just take up a small fraction of the infinite universe of smell. Thank God there are perfumers ready to explore what more is out there, and that there are fumeheads, like me, who just love to get to go on those trips!

Le Maroc Pour Elle by Tauer Perfumes

Wearing "Le Maroc Pour Elle" has been a bit of a challenge for me. I'm sure that for at least 10 times or so, I've sniffed my wrist and thought, "Oh no, that's a note I don't like". Then, when leaning in to take a closer whiff, ready to condemn it forever, I realised "Hey, this is so not me, but I like it". The scent has been tip toe dancing on that thin line of wearability but every time so far it has landed on the ok side. 

In a way "Le Maroc Pour Elle" makes me think of Degas, a French painter that lived 1834 to 1917. He is famous for (among other things) his paintings and drawings of ballet dancers. When taking a first look at his drawings you sometimes think, "Oh, that can't be right, that girl is all wrong looking" and then you look closer and realise that he's been drawing his model correctly, all right, he just caught her in a very odd angle or in a middle of a movement, out of equilibrium. "Le Maroc Pour Elle" is just like that, I keep thinking "The guy who made this, what was he thinking?" and then then I sniff a bit more and go "Hmmmm, interesting...". And I'll choose interesting over perfect any day.

So, what does "Le Maroc Pour Elle" smell like? In the top note there is orange blossoms, sawdust, bad breath and tooth decay. To be honest, it's nasty. But fortunately this only lasts a couple of minutes. Things soon settle into a jammy rose, jasmine and cedar accord. I'm also getting vanilla. At this time "Le Maroc Pour Elle" reminds me a lot of SL "Cuir Mauresque" and I've been trying them wrist by wrist to compare. They both pack a similar rose and jasmine but "Le Maroc Pour Elle" is rougher and has a much more powdery vanilla feel to it. Cuir Mauresque is fruitier, tighter, and leaning more towards leather and cinnamon.

During drydown "Le Maroc Pour Elle" turns into a different beast altogether. The flowers go away and the wooden notes, cedar and sandalwood, get more prominent. At times I feel cedar with a hint of orange and rose jam. At times I'm getting rice pudding, spiked with vanilla, covered with dark chocolate shavings.

Another interesting thing about Degas is that he never really completed his paintings. When looking closely there tend to be some areas that are perfect and other areas that are just sort of smudged over as he didn't bother about them. I find this rather endearing, since I'm just the same, the fun stuff gets done and other things I tend to forget about. I feel that "Le Maroc Pour Elle" also is a little bit like this. The notes dance around, at times they come together perfectly, at times something is sticking out a little bit to far but mostly everything just comes across as charming and fun.

I'm rating it 4 out of 5. This has been a character building experience for me that has broaden my views on what I like to wear and I always take an extra liking to scents that broaden my horizons.

All pictures are made by Degas.

Santal de Mysore by Serge Lutens

Go ahead, press the play button on the YouTube clip above. This blog post has a soundtrack.

I've been wearing "Santal de Mysore" for a couple of days now, and the best way to describe it  is like a Bach concerto, firmly built around a central theme that is indefinitely varied but never gets old.

The theme is, of course, sandalwood and the infinite variations are the way the other notes seamlessly intertwine, playing one off the other, managing to render the sandalwood in different lightings again and again. There is "woody sandalwood" flanked by oak chips and wine barrels. There is "spicy sandalwood", flanked by cumin and Indian curry spices. There is "gourmet sandalwood", flanked by liquorice, vanilla and good quality dark chocolate.

The wine barrel note I find especially interesting. My first impression of "Santal de Mysore" was, my god, this smells just like an Australian Chardonnay. They sometimes carry some pretty aggressive oak notes as they are not only aged in oak barrels but some producers have been known to throw in oak chips for that extra little oooomh (nothing you see on bottle labels though, this is a trade secret). As the perfume dries down the wine barrel note goes softer and after a few hours I've caught notes of softly oaked young Cabernet Sauvignon.
It's funny that the oak notes are so prominent for me in "Santal de Mysore", that is not officially supposed to carry oak, but I didn't catch any oak in Chene, that is supposed to be all about oak, just generic wood.

So, how do I feel about this one? It's not a classical "woody" fragrance to me, it's a sweet, dark and seductive fragrance. I find it  pleasant, but I think it will be even better in winter. I'm rating this a 4 out of 5 for now, but I might very well up that at Christmas.

Music: J.S. Bach Double Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, 1st movement. Solemn and a bit stiff arsed at fist listenings but once you start hearing how the two violins sometimes support each others, sometimes tease, a whole new landscape (soundscape?) opens up. Very much like the process I've had with "Mysore de Santal".