I'm trying to remember what inspired this magnificent new obsession, but it's lost in sea of late night blog exploration. I do know that the first scent to have recaptured my imagination was at a Chanel boutique just before Christmas, when I discovered Les Exclusives, and sampled 28 La Pausa before seeing a movie. I spent the screening with my wrist under my nose, fascinated by this changing (and notoriously fleeting) scent.Before this fragrance renaissance of mine, I was an average perfume user. Any single bottle would last years. Annick Goutal's L'eau D'Hadrien was my basic "go-to" - a relatively straight forward citrus scent that added a fresh zing to the start of my day, and disappeared quickly. On our honeymoon in New York, I experienced Prada's Infusion D'Iris (the same note Chanel also uses to great effect in La Pausa), and for the first time as an adult I was swept away by a scent, and found myself feeling exotic and emboldened wearing it. To me it literally smelled like money, and my association with the excitement and glamour of my first visit to New York is now inextricable.
I love how fragrance can tell stories, transporting us from the mundane to the highest of imaginary realms. The right scent for the moment is an invisible familiar, able to bring out notes in the personality of the wearer. Romantic, exotic, intellectual, creative; whatever you like. A scent can be as comforting as a cashmere wrap, or as risky as you like. The world of 'noses' is a codified and intriguing one, with polite soliflores (straightforward single note florals) often gently elbowed out for the edgier and changing "storied" scents.
Fragrances can be multilayered , with different notes presenting at different stages . Fecal undertones are not unheard of, with 'dangerous' constituents such as civet (from a wild cats' backside) and cumin (dirty/sweaty-carnal edge). In accordance with my favourite French saying; "le petit quelque chose qui fout tout par terre" (explained in this post about Christian Louboutin) , I thought I'd go all out and get Kurdjian's Absolue Pour Le Soir fragrance for New Year's Eve. I believe it contains civet, musk and loads of cumin, so not surprisingly it worked some serious voodoo on the night , but in the cold light of day is a little too much animal skank black magic*, so back to my fabulous friends at Mecca it went. I replaced it with the much more wearable Pour Le Matin.
I'm so inspired by this this beautiful new realm that I will write another post soon, to share some of the magic language that is part of the fragrance worlds siren song.
*skank is a concept some very elegant perfumistas hold dear. It's said that Americans like their perfumes "clean and fruity" and that the French like to smell dirty. It's funny; just do some google searching. There's also an intriguing post about Absolue Pour le Soir on the wonderful perfume blog Grain de Musc .
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3 comments:
I may pop into Mecca and have a sniff of that animal skank, sounds intriguing.
I really like this post about Fragrances and found it very very interesting. Having been born as an anosmiac (someone lacking a sense of smell), I can't even imagine what you write about, it seems so strange and unbelievable. Sometimes I feel like everyone is just playing a trick on me and scent isn't even really all that big of a thing.... and then I read a post like yours and wonder about all I'm missing out on. I just look at the bottle, the packaging, read the description and think, "Do I want to smell like that? Sounds good, This one!"
Next time I go shopping I'll need to take a perfume aficionado with me to keep me smelling nice, and not like wet cats :-P
Thanks Monika. More than half of it is imagination anyway, so reading about it is a lot of the fun. The scent just reminds you . You'll have to let us take you out and choose your signature scent ( and dosage :-)
..and Ms Brown Mouse ; be interesting to see if Mr Mouse runs shrieking or brings out his inner tiger . Tweet us his reaction :-)
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