What Went Well: Thankful
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What Went Well: Thankful

It has been a while since I posted my weekly “three blessings” on What Went Well Wednesday, but I feel the need to do so in light of the tragedy in Orlando last weekend. It is so easy to feel overwhelmed by the evil and anger that prompt such an act. But it is better to remember to light one’s candles in the dark. My three blessings this week:

  1. I go to an amazing church that rallied quickly to hold a beautiful service of remembrance on Monday night, to mourn and honor the victims in Orlando. And it was straight clergy who did that, understanding that our LGBT congregants were so grief-stricken that they needed our community’s love and support.
  2. At that service, our extraordinary Bishop spoke eloquently, lovingly, passionately, inclusively, about how evil is real but God is much, much more real.
  3. I have been reaching out to students and getting very appreciative responses, which reminds me of what I enjoy about my work.

Do you have “three blessings” to ponder in this week of sadness?

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Love, Loss and Perfume

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35, and Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37, were also reported dead on Monday. The Orlando Sentinel wrote that the couple fell in love when Perez charmed Wilson-Leon into buying perfume at the store where he worked.— Reuters provides some personal details about the Orlando shooting victims; read more at Victim’s Last Snapchat…

via Found love at the perfume counter — Now Smell This

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Fragrance Friday: “As temperatures rise, flowers emit less scent”

The diverse and delicious fragrances of flowers brighten our days and inspire poetry. The more practical reason that flowers produce scent is to attract pollinating insects to the flowers’ reproductive organs, thereby ensuring the continued existence of plant species. New research has now indicated that increases in ambient temperature also lead to a decrease in the production of floral scents.

Source: As temperatures rise, flowers emit less scent

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Fragrance Foundation Awards ~ 2016 winners — Now Smell This

The Fragrance Foundation has announced the winners for the 2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards (formerly the Fifi Awards), known as the “Oscars of the fragrance industry”. And the winners are… Read the rest of this article »

via Fragrance Foundation Awards ~ 2016 winners — Now Smell This

Fragrance Friday: June and Roses
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Fragrance Friday: June and Roses

June is National Rose Month and, just in time, the New York Times has published this: In Fragrance, Rose is the New Unisex. I love roses — flowers and fragrance — almost as much as I love lilies of the valley. More, in some ways, as the flowers of roses are so varied, much more than lilies of the valley.

David Austin of England, pictured above meeting HRH Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Chelsea flower show (where he won another gold medal at the age of 90), is a giant in the world of roses. He began his ambitious rose hybridization program decades ago, to bring back to modern roses the strong fragrances and softer shapes he knew from the roses of prior centuries. David Austin English Roses are the happy result — and they do make me happy! I can only grow a couple in my mostly shady, hot and humid Southern garden but they live up to their reputations as highly fragrant, beautiful roses. The one that does best for me is “Teasing Georgia”, a soft yellow rose I grow on a metal obelisk structure.

Yellow climbing English rose Teasing Georgia, by David Austin Roses, grown on a pillar.

“Teasing Georgia” rose; photo from David Austin Roses.

Mine isn’t quite as glamorous as this but it comes close! It has a strong tea rose fragrance.

There is one perfume house that specializes in rose-based perfumes: Les Parfums de Rosine. From the website: Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: Diorissimo
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May Muguet Marathon: Diorissimo

Today is the last day of May, so it’s time to address the most legendary muguet fragrance of all: Diorissimo. So many words have been published trying to describe Diorissimo in its many forms and reformulations! CaFleureBon has a wonderful short article by perfumer Michel Roudnitska, son of the legendary perfumer Edmond Roudnitska who created Diorissimo for Christian Dior. It includes his memory of the large patch of lilies of the valley his father planted in order to study and capture their fragrance.

There are many discussions of Diorissimo on various notable perfume blogs and websites, listed here: Now Smell This, Bois de Jasmin, The Black Narcissus, The Perfume Expert, Perfume-Smellin’ Things, The Candy Perfume Boy, The Perfumed Dandy, The Non-Blonde , Undina’s Looking Glass, Australian Perfume Junkies, and even perfumer Ayala Moriel at Smelly Blog. These people are very knowledgeable, so please read their insights!

I own a few versions of it: a vintage eau de cologne in the tall, ribbed bottle; a mini flask of eau de toilette from a “Dior Voyage” set that includes Tendre Poison, so it must date after 1994 but before Tendre Poison was discontinued by 2010; a 2013 bottle of the eau de toilette; and a 7.5 ml flask of the parfum from December 2010. (For dating fragrances or cosmetics, try CheckCosmetic.net if you have the batch number; for dating Dior perfumes, read this helpful post by Raiders of the Lost Scent, and for dating Diorissimo by bottle, go to Perfume Shrine; these are all really helpful if you decide to try to buy a vintage bottle). Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: Guerlain Muguet 2016
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May Muguet Marathon: Guerlain Muguet 2016

Deep breath. I am not an experienced perfumista and I’m not sure I can do justice to this new Guerlain, but I will do my best. The new Guerlain Muguet 2016 is an entirely new eau de toilette by Guerlain’s in-house perfumer, Thierry Wasser. It builds on the tradition, begun in 2006, of Guerlain releasing its 1998 formulation of Guerlain Muguet every year in a different limited edition bottle on May 1, the day when traditionally the French present bunches of lilies of the valley to friends and loved ones as a “porte-bonheur”, a good luck token or “bringer of happiness.” So to start, I defer to “Monsieur Guerlain”, the longtime blogger and Guerlain aficonado, to describe Guerlain’s tradition: Muguet.

As you can see, the limited edition bottles are all beautiful, including this most recent one, which is a crystal bottle encased in silver-plated filigree, designed by the Parisian jewelers Ambre & Louise and influenced by the Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha. I saw the actual bottle at Neiman Marcus on May 1 this year, which I visited for the express purpose of trying this new Muguet. Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: Demeter Lily of the Valley
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May Muguet Marathon: Demeter Lily of the Valley

And now for something completely (okay, not COMPLETELY) different. From the heights of expensive perfumery and Muguet Porcelaine, to the more prosaic and affordable Demeter Fragrance Library’s Lily of the Valley. I love the whole idea of Demeter Fragrance Library: that they try to capture individual fragrances of everyday objects, places or even weather, and you can combine those into whatever blend you like. From the company’s website: “Demeter was conceived in the East Village of New York City in 1996: a unique point of view about fragrance, a perspective that still remains unique, but that continues to expand. The original mission was to capture the beautiful smells of the garden and nature in wearable form. Consistent with that mission we took the Demeter name, inspired by the Greek Goddess of Agriculture.” Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: Muguet Porcelaine
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May Muguet Marathon: Muguet Porcelaine

Thank goodness. I have been eagerly anticipating the release of the new (and last) Hermessence by Jean-Claude Ellena, Muguet Porcelaine. I love his Jardin series very much; the transparency of his fragrances appeals to me although some other perfume lovers do not like it. And I truly love lily of the valley scents, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that Muguet Porcelaine would not disappoint. And it doesn’t.

Before I got my own sample, I read some comments that used words like “cucumber”, “melon”, “watermelon” and even “bubble gum”! No, no, no, I thought, surely Ellena would not play such a cruel joke on perfume lovers who look forward to his new works, or on the lovely lily of the valley flower that has so inspired great perfumers like Edmond Roudnitska, whom Ellena holds in high regard.

He did not. Continue reading →

May Muguet Marathon: Muguet Fleuri
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May Muguet Marathon: Muguet Fleuri

My oh my, muguet! Oriza  L. Legrand’s Muguet Fleuri opens with a decisive, spicy greenness that comes from top notes of green leaves, grass and lily-of-the-valley, per Fragrantica. The middle notes are galbanum, angelica, violet leaf and lily-of-the-valley; base notes are lily-of-the-valley, oakmoss and lily. Kafkaesque attributes the spiciness of the opening to the violet leaves, but I wonder if it doesn’t also come from the angelica. The firmness of the green top notes reminds me of the leaves of lily of the valley, which are very beautiful in their own right and offer just the right contrast to the delicate silver-white bells of the flowers on their long, slender stalks. The leaves are sculptural in their form, larger than the flowers and sometimes even hiding them. They are smooth and firm like the leaves of hostas, and reach to the sky in pairs like hands lifted in prayer.

Lily of the Valley leaves

Lily of the Valley leaves; photo from Verdure

I love the opening of this fragrance. It just happens that I am staying this week at my sister’s house, where she has an old, well-established patch of lilies of the valley, so I am able to compare the perfume and the flower directly while I type this. Continue reading →