roses

Perfume Chat Room, July 28
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Perfume Chat Room, July 28

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, July 28, and it’s still hot! I am consoled by the fact that my garden is now providing generous amounts of tomatoes and eggplants, as well as a second flush of rose blossoms. Also, I’ve found a new favorite recipe for eggplant parmesan: Delish’s Skillet Eggplant Parmesan. Honestly, it’s way better than normal eggplant parmesan because it’s not as bready. Normally I don’t think my husband and son would touch eggplant with the proverbial ten-foot pole, but they devour this. My second attempt was even better than my first, because I used a tomato sauce that includes truffle, porcini, and cream. Heaven!

As for the tomatoes, we are now happily in tomato sandwich season and I plan to eat that for lunch every day. Even if my own plants don’t deliver daily, our local farmer’s market sells plenty! The New York Times recently ran an article on tomato sandwiches that set off a furor in the comments, because its headline implied that tomato sandwiches are particular to the South: The Sandwich Southerners Wait for All Year. Folks from New Jersey, which is justly famous for its excellent tomatoes, were particularly incensed.

Given the current bounty of my garden, I thought it would be fun to identify fragrances with notes of both tomato or tomato leaf, and rose. And of course, what popped up but a longtime favorite: Gardener’s Glove, by St. Clair Scents! Also La Feuille, by Miller Harris. Another fave of mine, Un Jardin Sur le Nil, famously combines a tomato note with florals and other notes, but not rose.

Do you have any favorite scents with tomato or tomato leaf notes? Or a favorite tomato sandwich recipe?

Perfume Chat Room, June 16
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Perfume Chat Room, June 16

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, June 16, and we have a three-day weekend because of Juneteenth being celebrated on Monday as a holiday. Juneteenth, if you didn’t know, is a historically important date because June 19 was the date in 1865 on which the last remaining enslaved people in the United States were finally assured that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued effective January 1, 1863, and they had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln. Major General Gordon Granger, the Union officer in control of Galveston, Texas, issued an order confirming their emancipation on June 19, 1865. The date was long celebrated informally among African-American communities in Texas, then the custom spread during the Great Migration of the 20th century. It was made a federal holiday by President Biden in 2021. By the way, if you don’t know much about the Great Migration, I highly recommend the prize-winning book “The Warmth of Other Suns”, by historian and journalist Isabel Wilkerson.

I will be celebrating by spending the weekend continuing to weed, plant, and otherwise tidy my garden. My precious roses are blooming again, and one of them has decided to blossom in the middle of my Annabelle hydrangea. I love flowers! I’ve been wearing a new-to-me fragrance a lot lately; it is Miller Harris’ Coeur de Jardin, a chypre floral with several fruity notes in the opening. Very pretty! I would call it more “chypre lite” than fully chypre. Today, however, I was back in Bitter Peach by Tom Ford. What are you wearing or smelling these days?

Perfume Chat Room, March 31
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Perfume Chat Room, March 31

Welcome to the Friday 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, March 31 — is your March “going out like a lion”? I think our weather lion has already left the building, though I risk jinxing us by saying so. We had low temps of 40 degrees F earlier this week, and tomorrow it’s supposed to approach 80 degrees. My plants are so confused. I still have daffodils coming up, but my lilies of the valley and roses are also now starting to bloom. One David Austin rose in particular is so fragrant as well as beautiful! It’s called “Fighting Temeraire”, after a famous painting, and it has a strong fruity rose fragrance that carries. This is one of the reasons I love David Austin’s English Rose hybrids — not only are they beautiful, in many colors, but they were bred and selected to be highly fragrant.

David Austin English Rose "Fighting Temeraire"; image from www.gardentags.com
David Austin English Rose “Fighting Temeraire”; image from http://www.gardentags.com

Yes, this rose’s blossoms really are that big! Speaking of fragrance and spring, Portia and I will resume our collaboration on Monday, now that we’ve both returned home from travels, with “Notes On Notes” (first Monday of each month) and “Counterpoint” (third Monday of each month). I’ll give you a hint: the note we’ve chosen for April appears in many green fragrances. Please join us!

I just got in the mail a sample of Parfums Dusita’s new fragrance; she’s running another contest to name it, on the Eau My Soul Facebook page. Are any of you taking part? I haven’t even sniffed it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

Perfume Chat Room, May 13
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Perfume Chat Room, May 13

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, May 13, and my nose is full of the fragrance of rose gardens. Plus many other choice blossoms and plants such as wisteria, osmanthus, even eucalyptus. What a wonderful month May is, for garden flowers and fragrance! I have many new photos of flowers, mostly roses, which I’ll share soon on my Instagram account once I’ve tidied them up a bit.

We’ve had a sad loss since my post last Friday — a close friend of my son’s from high school died last weekend after two months of surgery and intensive care following an abdominal injury. My son and his friends have handled this pretty well, though they are very sad. They have really rallied around the bereaved family and supported them as well as each other. I’m very proud of the maturity my son has shown, but I still have concerns about how he and his friends will feel the impact of this grief. However, they all have great families and overlapping communities to help them. Most of them will be home for the summer, having returned from college, and they will be a comfort to each other as well as to the family of their friend.

I’m glad the semester is over at the university where I work, and the summer will be much quieter, so I can focus on my son, and his sisters who have been remarkable in how they have come forward to support him. I spend much of the academic year tending to the needs of other people’s young adult children, aka my students; I’ll be glad to put that aside for a while and tend to my own.

Will your summer be busy or quiet?

Bouquet of garden roses by David Austin, including Teasing Georgia, Lady of Shalott, Carding Mill, Olivia Rose Austin, Munstead Wood.
An assortment of David Austin’s English Roses, including the dark crimson “Munstead Wood.”
Perfume Chat Room, May 6
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Perfume Chat Room, May 6

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, May 6, and my roses continue to flourish and bloom! I’ve added more photos to my Instagram account, if you’d like to see some of them up close. Most are “English Roses” by the late David Austin, an amazing hybridizer of roses who brought back the old-fashioned shapes and strong fragrance of older roses, but combined those with the range of colors and repeat-blooming habit of modern ones. One of the fascinating aspects of his roses is that many of them smell slightly different. All their scents are clearly “rose”, but some are more spicy, or fruity, or lemony. As you can tell, I love them.

Some of my English Roses

If you haven’t yet read this month’s “Scent Semantics” posts by the six participating bloggers, the word for May (chosen by Portia) is “brilliance.” You’ll find all the links here: Scent Semantics.

May is full of various celebrations: May Day, Star Wars Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day. I’ve just learned that in the Netherlands, May 5 is celebrated as Liberation Day, marking the end of Nazi occupation. May is the month of the annual RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which I’ve been able to visit twice and hope to visit again, maybe next year.

Chelsea Pensioner, at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

This year, Eid al Fitr (the end of Ramadan) was celebrated in the US in May; the dates change every year. Do you celebrate anything in particular in May?

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Perfume Chat Room, April 29

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, April 29, and Monday is another “Scent Semantics” posting day! The word of the month, chosen by Portia, is a secret until then, so check back next week!

My roses are in full bloom this week and wow, do they smell gorgeous. I’ve posted some photos on my Instagram account.

Thanks to a timely post on Eau My Soul, I bought a very discounted bottle of Shalimar Philtre de Parfum from Costco, which sometimes has great deals on high-end fragrances. I’m very happy with my blind buy, which wasn’t completely blind because I had read that it was reminiscent of Shalimar Eau de Cologne, which I enjoy very much. Indeed it is, though not identical. For one thing, Philtre is an eau de parfum, and it definitely lasts longer. Below is the review of Shalimar Eau de Cologne I posted on Fragrantica some years ago, and I stand by it:

Happy happy happy! I have tried Shalimar EDP several times in department stores, and just didn’t like it. I recognized its quality and its legendary status but it was too heavy, too sweet, too strong, too old-fashioned. Every single time. Then I found Shalimar Eau de Cologne on sale for 24.99 at CVS, read the reviews here on my smartphone and thought, what the hell — let’s do this. So I did. I love it! This version is just yummy without being sweet. I get the vanilla, I get the smoke, I get the cedar, I get the leather. Shalimar EDC is luscious but light. Classic but not stuffy. I am just so pleased with this.

I would say that Philtre has more citrus, and less smoke and leather. It lasts all day (12+ hours) on my skin. I think the tolu balsam base note is a great touch; it adds depth and warmth.

At risk of setting off a torrent of verbiage, do you have a favorite version of Shalimar?

Perfume Chat Room, April 15
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Perfume Chat Room, April 15

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, April 15, and it is Good Friday in my own faith tradition, as well as the start of Passover in Judaism. April 15 is also usually the deadline for filing tax returns, but because it falls right before Saturday this year, the deadline is extended to Monday, April 18. I’m such a procrastinator that there was one year (many years ago) when I actually had to go to the main Post Office in Manhattan, which stayed open until midnight, to mail my return and have it postmarked by April 15. To be honest, it was kind of a festive atmosphere, like a convention of procrastinators, complete with news crews filming and broadcasting our disgrace. My wonderful husband has handled our taxes since we got married, with help from an accountant, which makes sense since he has an MBA. My eyes glaze over when I have to look at too many numbers, lol!

I have so many fragrant flowers in bloom right now! Dwarf lilacs, lilies of the valley, and the first rose blossoms are filling the air with perfume, and I am eagerly waiting for my Easter lilies to bloom (I love Easter). I have a new David Austin English Rose called “Lady of the Lake”; it is just lovely. Pale pink with a yellow eye, and very fragrant (as all his roses are). It’s making me want to break out my rose fragrances, of which I have many, but it’s too soon for another “Roses de Mai Marathon.” What fragrances are calling your name these days?

Pink rose Lady of the Lake, a David Austin English Rose
Lady of the Lake rose by David Austin; image from davidaustinroses.com
Perfume Chat Room, February 11
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Perfume Chat Room, February 11

Welcome back 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, February 11, and it’s almost Valentine’s Day! Since perfume and other fragrance gifts are often given for Valentine’s Day, do you expect to give or get any? Anything you are secretly hoping to receive? I don’t yearn for these chocolates myself, but I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at them! Pun intended. And don’t miss the full review of the chocolates by Nose Prose!

Box of Valentine's heart-shaped chocolates
Neuhaus “perfume” chocolates; image from Neuhaus.

Like many perfumistas, I’ve already chosen and bought the fragrance I’d like to receive from my husband, lol. I haven’t opened it yet, though!! For any new readers: I am blessed, like many of you, with a partner who indulges my hobby/obsession. He has even picked out some of my favorites completely on his own, and when we travel (at least, when we did travel, in the before times), he will go with me to perfumeries and encourage me to buy fragrances.

The perfume I chose for myself was Lancome’s Peut-Etre, which I had been eyeing for some time. When I got an email offer in January for 40% off one item on their website, plus gifts with purchase, I caved. Considering that the gifts with purchase (full sizes of several skincare and cosmetics items) were said to have a combined retail value well above $200, the perfume was perfume-math free! Or so I tell myself.

Peut-Etre is said to be a musky, powdery rose, and it was created by Nathalie Lorson, so it was definitely calling my name. Plus I love the bottles in the Maison Lancome line, they’re so pretty! I’ll let you all know what it’s like, once I open it! And if I do another “Roses de Mai Marathon“, I’ll review it there.

If you haven’t yet browsed this month’s Scent Semantics posts, please do! You’ll find links to all six blogs here. This month’s word is “taste”, and it has been so much fun to read my fellow bloggers’ thoughts!

Scent Semantics blog list
Scented Advent, December 21
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Scented Advent, December 21

On today’s winter solstice, Advent brought to me Hedonist Rose, by Viktoria Minya, a Hungarian perfumer based in Paris. Another perfume with a white wine accord!

Glass of white wine with flowers and fruit
White wine bouquet; image from Wine Enthusiast.

The notes list is (going by a published list as well as my own nose): lemon, peach, rose (top); rose, peach, white wine (heart); clove, amber, musk, vanilla (base). However, I perceive the top notes as facets of the dominant rose, since so many roses do smell of lemon and fruit together with the unmistakable floral note of “rose.” As soon as I applied it, my nose said “Rose!”, not “lemon” or “peach.” In fact, if you dislike clove in fragrance, fear not! I don’t smell a stand-alone clove at all. Just a slightly spicy rose. Similarly, the heart stage is all about rose and it begs the questions, which came first — the white wine or the rose? Because many white wines have intensely floral bouquets, as illustrated above. Not to mention the peach accord, which is also a scent note found in both roses and white wines.

This is a very summery rose, purely floral. Because of that peach note, it calls to mind the many pretty roses that come in shades of peachy-pink:

Display of peach-colored rose blossoms
Peach roses; image from fleurtyfleurs.com

As Hedonist Rose dries down, it becomes warmer and slightly less fruity, with a soft white musk at the base. I don’t pick up any vanilla or amber. All in all, this is a very appealing rose fragrance if you like rose scents, which I do; but there are others I would choose ahead of this one, both because of the fragrance and because of price. For some other suggestions, see my “Roses de Mai Marathon” posts! If I do that again next spring, maybe I’ll write about Hedonist Rose and Viktoria Minya in more detail.

Have you tried any of her line of perfumes? The original Hedonist seems to have been quite popular.

Array of peach-colored rose blossoms
Peachy roses; image from fleurtyfleurs.com
Scented Advent, December 16
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Scented Advent, December 16

Today’s Advent SOTD is Dior’s Gris Dior, created by François Demachy and originally launched in 2013 as Gris Montaigne. It is a very beautiful, modern, rose chypre, with the classic bergamot opening, floral heart of rose and jasmine, and base notes that include oakmoss and patchouli. The latter are used with a light hand, though, and are joined in the base by cedar, amber, and sandalwood.

The name Gris Dior refers to Maison Dior’s signature shade of pearl grey, which is one of my favorite colors. It is so much more than a combination of white and black; it has a soupçon of lavender and even pink. It is one of the softest, most elegant colors I can imagine; and this fragrance evokes it to perfection. The photo below, borrowed from a favorite blog, Bois de Jasmin, is of the earlier version, Gris Montaigne, but it captures the idea of the colors so perfectly (as well as the pink rose and the grey oakmoss) I wanted to share it:

Bottle of Christian Dior fragrance Gris Montaigne with pink rose, grey background
Dior’s Gris Montaigne; image from boisdejasmin.com.

Interestingly, the paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore (whose colors are exceptional, imho) sells a paint color called “Dior Grey”, but it is darker than what I think of as Dior grey, although it does align more closely with the darker accent colors on Dior’s flagship store on the Avenue Montaigne:

Facade of Dior flagship store in Paris
Dior’s flagship store, Avenue Montaigne, Paris; image from kafkaesqueblog.com.

Another favorite blog, Kafkaesque, had this review of the original Gris Montaigne, with some charming reminiscences of the actual store, which is painted in the house’s signature pearl grey. (I had a more positive view of the fragrance than Kafkaesque did; she loved the opening stages but was disappointed in the drydown). In couture, the combination of that pearl grey and pale pink was a favorite of M. Dior, dating back apparently to his childhood home, a rose-colored villa set above grey rocks. I have that combination in a favorite set of scarf and matching gloves in soft pink and grey cashmere (not Dior!); it’s such a pretty, feminine color scheme, and I’m now reminded to pull those out now that the weather is cooler. I can spray them with Gris Dior!

My experience with Gris Dior has been very satisfactory so far; I’m enjoying the drydown, as it gets warmer and cozier after the bright bergamot opening and soft floral heart. The use of oakmoss here is very clever; it evokes one of the most legendary chypre fragrances of all time, the original Miss Dior, named for M. Dior’s sister Catherine, a heroine of the French Resistance. It also lends the grey tones to the pale pink of the rose and jasmine floral accords in Gris Dior, because it is so lightly blended in that one doesn’t get the full force of what many perceive as the dark, inky influence of oakmoss in fragrance. Nevertheless, it is definitely there. Kafkaesque was troubled by the purple patchouli she smelled as dominating the base, but my nose doesn’t really pick that up. The amber and sandalwood accords in the base, undergirded by cedar, add to its warmth and soften the oakmoss.

Really, Gris Dior is a disarming and elegant fragrance that I could see wearing more often. Perfect for wearing to an office, and also lovely for a quiet, candlelit dinner out with a loved one. It is part of Dior’s “Collection Privèe”, and priced accordingly. Have you tried it, or any others from that collection?