Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, November 10, and tomorrow is Armistice/Veterans Day. As the granddaughter, daughter, and wife of veterans (both British and American), I honor their service.

Earlier this week, Portia of Australian Perfume Junkies and I published our monthly “Notes on Notes”, this time on oud (or oudh). Please add your thoughts in the comments, on those posts or here!

My retired life has become something of a social whirl this month, starting with the family christening that just took place last weekend. It was such fun, the baby was perfect (of course!), and I loved spending the weekend with both of my sisters (the baby’s grandmother is my older sister). I stayed with my other sister, who sings in three (3!) rock bands, and she took me to see the Taylor Swift concert movie on Saturday. It was SO MUCH FUN! She and I and her friend were among the few adults there, surrounded by a sea of little girls aged about 8-11, and a handful of saintly mothers who had shepherded groups of children there. Some of them were even game enough to wear sequined tops, which is apparently a thing. My sister and I wore sequined scarves, just for the spirit of the thing. Honestly, the movie was great fun, even if you’re not a Swiftie (which I’m not). The stagecraft alone was spectacular to see, and I was surprised at how many of her songs I actually knew from the radio. My favorite video of that song, though, is the YouTube video of a Dover, Delaware patrol officer lip-syncing to it:

Cracks me up every time!

What fragrance did I wear to the concert movie? Diptyque’s Eau Rose! Going all in on pink. I really enjoy that fragrance.

NST’s Community Project this week is to mark author Neil Gaiman’s birthday today by wearing a fragrance that refers to one of his books or characters, or evokes other fantasy fiction. So my SOTD is the new eau de parfum release of Fath’s L’Iris de Fath, since it is a fragrance unicorn and a unicorn is featured in his book “Stardust” (later made into a delightful movie). I had the joy of trying the extrait de parfum a few years ago, at Jovoy Paris‘ boutique in London, so I was eager to try the eau de parfum, which is more affordable (not actually affordable, I hasten to say). I was able to buy a decant in the recent NST splitmeet, and it arrived about a week ago. I’ve finally worn it — if you like iris fragrances, this is a stunner! Perfumer Patrice Revillard discusses his creation here:

Do you have any favorite fragrances that include iris as a note?