autumn

Perfume Chat Room, November 1
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Perfume Chat Room, November 1

Rabbit rabbit! 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 1, All Saints Day, and we’re still having the kind of weather I associate with what used to be called “ Indian summer” in New England. Cool nights, warm sunny days, clear skies with little humidity. My roses are blossoming again for the fall, with the cooling temperatures, and they’re so pretty (fragrant, too). To coordinate, I’ve been wearing some autumnal rose scents, including Mizensir’s Rose Exaltante and some Aerin samples I got a while ago at Nordstrom’s.

Munstead Wood rose and friends

Last night was Halloween and we had quite a few cute goblins visit. My favorites are the toddlers who have to be coached on how to say “trick or treat”. Our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween; we block off a couple of streets to cars, and it’s a very safe locale, so families from other parts of the city often come to walk around and ring doorbells.

We’ll be setting our clocks back an hour in the US tomorrow night, which is always a bit of a jolt. Now that Halloween is over, everything everywhere all at once seems to be covered in Christmas decor. Are we skipping Thanksgiving? We’ve now officially begun the annual forced march through the holidays, from Halloween to New Year’s Day. I do love the holiday season, but it’s a lot of work!

My husband and I are planning another trip in late February and we’re thinking about Munich and Salzburg. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Happy November, everyone!

Perfume Chat Room, October 6
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Perfume Chat Room, October 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, October 6, and Portia and I both forgot to post “Notes on Notes” on Monday! October 1 just crept up on us, so we’ll post our thoughts on notes next Monday, October 8. So sorry! The notes in question will be nuts, in honor of the fall season and all the nut-gathering that is going on in the Northern Hemisphere, including in my garden. We have both grey squirrels and chipmunks in our back yard; in fact, I think we have a whole chipmunk city under one retaining wall. I actually like the chipmunks, I think they’re very cute and we had them in our back yard when I was growing up in Connecticut. I don’t like squirrels much, mostly because they constantly raid the birdfeeders and hog all the seed.

Photo by Skyler Ewing on Pexels.com

So, since we’re a week off in “Notes on Notes”, please share in the comments below any particular nuts you’d like one or both of us to discuss!

What fragrance(s) are you wearing these days? I’m on a kick with my Jardin collection; earlier in the week I was enjoying Un Jardin en Méditerrannée and yesterday, I wore Un Jardin Sur Le Toit and my husband liked it very much, so I’ll wear it again this week!

Photo by Marina Leonova on Pexels.com
Perfume Chat Room, September 22
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Perfume Chat Room, September 22

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, September 22, and I have SCORED! Last Christmas, our oldest daughter (27) fell in love with the scent of Jo Malone’s Ginger Biscuit from a mini I had, but I didn’t have a bottle to give her and it had been a limited edition. I looked online and the prices were astronomic. I looked for similar scents but none seemed quite right. Then last weekend — tada! Someone in a Facebook fragrance lovers’ group posted that it was being reissued for this year’s holidays and it was available on Saks.com! But by the time I saw this post, it had vanished from the website and other comments said it was sold out.

However, there is a Saks not far from here, so on Monday, I went there and asked if they might have it. The lovely sales associate showed me the tester they had (!) and looked in her computer system, then said it was slated for a “soft launch” for the holidays in October but would most likely show up at the start of November. She said she would hold a bottle for me when it arrived, so I left my name and phone number. Well, just two days later I got a phone call from her, saying that a couple of bottles had just come in and she had one for me! I told her I’d like to come get it on Friday, which she said was fine. So I went this morning and picked it up! There was a brief moment of panic when the bottle was not where she had left it, then a colleague said he had moved it and she found it. Hurray! It is now safely wrapped and ready for gift-giving, either for our daughter’s November birthday or this Christmas. I can’t wait to surprise her with it! FYI, Nordstrom says it also expects to get it for the holidays, if that’s easier for any of you to reach than Saks.

This past Monday, I posted another “CounterPoint” collaboration by me and Portia Turbo; we discussed Caron’s Infini, a late 20th century classic. If you haven’t read the post yet, please do, and share your thoughts in the comments! We’ve mapped out the rest of our posts for 2023, and we’ve got some great ideas, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow is the official first day of fall. Our hot weather has finally broken and we are having cool mornings with comfortably warm, sunny days. The best is yet to come — around here, October weather is usually even better (the first half of September can still be very humid and hot). My husband has just recovered from COVID and is off tomorrow on another work trip, back to Las Vegas this time. Since I couldn’t go with him to London, he kindly brought me back a bottle of Hermès’ latest “Jardin” fragrance, Un Jardin à Cythère. It is really lovely, and I’m so happy to add it to my collection!

I haven’t been buying much fragrance for myself lately, since I have so many bottles and my collection will outlast me long before I use them up. I do still have a monthly decant subscription, which I enjoy since it adds variety and access to some very expensive fragrances I wouldn’t otherwise try (the cost for a decant doesn’t vary). What’s on your mind, fragrance-wise or other?

The intended recipient of Ginger Biscuit, in earlier days.
Perfume Chat Room, November 5
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Perfume Chat Room, November 5

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 5, and I am remembering that it is Guy Fawkes Day in the UK! That only occurred to me because I was making sure I had today’s date right, and “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November” popped into my head. I’ve written here before that my late mother was English, so my childhood had an odd mixture of American and English books, stories, and traditions. Most American children probably never hear of Guy Fawkes Day! We never celebrated it, though.

This week also marked the launch of “Scent Semantics”, a fun collaboration between me and five other bloggers, organized by Portia (of Australian Perfume Junkies and A Bottled Rose). It’s a word game! I love word games.

This weekend, we in the US will set our clocks back an hour for the annual end of daylight savings time (“fall back, spring forward”). I don’t actually mind, because it was so dark this morning at 7:30 that I will prefer having that occur earlier, at 6:30. The weather has gotten downright chilly at night, quite suddenly, so it really feels like fall now. We’ve now entered the period that I used to call “the forced march” between Halloween and New Year’s Day, which was such an incredibly busy time when my children were small. From all the holidays beloved of children, to two family birthdays (one in November, one in December), to the end-of-semester work crunch, it all got a bit overwhelming at times. We simplified matters years ago when I decided we wouldn’t travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas, dragging three kids through crowded airports, especially since there were years when I was working right up to December 23.

Last year was so strange, though, even just celebrating at home as we always do — on top of the pandemic isolation, we had the plumbing disaster that damaged much of our living room, so it was off limits for celebrations of any kind. All three of our kids were living back at home, and one was recovering from COVID (she’s 100% fine now). There were unexpected outbursts of emotions on a regular basis, and the conflicts to be expected when five adults are living together in close quarters with limited outlets for interaction. Whew!

So I’m actually quite looking forward to this holiday season, with our house now almost fully restored to lovely order — repaired, replastered, repainted, refurbished. The young adults have been able to move out and relaunch, which makes them very happy. They live nearby, which makes ME very happy. My husband had a knee replacement almost three weeks ago, and he’s recovering very well, so he should be in great shape by Thanksgiving and thereafter.

He very sweetly suggested that I should pick out a really special perfume gift I’d like to have this Christmas, as a thank-you for all the care-giving and household tasks I’ve been handling since his surgery. Any ideas, perfume friends? What’s on your wishlist?

Guy Fawkes holiday, costume, gunpowder
Guy Fawkes Day; image from http://www.csmonitor.com
Perfume Chat Room, October 8
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Perfume Chat Room, October 8

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, October 8, and we are enjoying a stretch of perfect fall weather. Cool, clear mornings; sunny, breezy days with no humidity; clear evenings when we can see planets and stars emerging from dark skies. Heavenly! I have been enjoying the fragrance of the last flush of roses. One in particular has a strong spicy smell, with notes of cinnamon.

The big news in our almost-done house restoration is that half of our hardwood floors, that were damaged by last fall’s plumbing disaster, have been refurbished and they look great! The floors are original to the house, so they are more than 100 years old, which means we did not have them sanded; they’re too worn to withstand that, and it wasn’t necessary to do it to renew them. Our William Morris carpets come back from cleaning next week, and then the furniture moving begins as we finally put our house back to rights. It’s also an opportunity to re-think what goes back where, and what we do or don’t keep.

Speaking of cinnamon, have you been inundated yet with what retailers think are seasonal scents? I will confess to disliking the artificial apple-cinnamon candles that seem to appear overnight, though I enjoy real apples and real cinnamon.

Perfume Chat Room, September 24
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Perfume Chat Room, September 24

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, September 24, and it is officially fall in my part of the world! I do love the fall season, but not for the reasons some autumn-lovers give. I don’t particularly care for cinnamon, pumpkin, harvest themes, etc., though I don’t dislike them. What I do love about fall is the often sudden improvement in the weather, from hot, muggy and buggy, to cool, clear and dry. My garden often goes out of control in August, when the attacks of mosquitoes drive me indoors after doing the bare minimum of weeding and watering. In the fall, I can venture out again; and in the Southeastern United States where I live, fall is a whole new gardening season unto itself, with cool weather vegetables and flowers that will produce all winter. The autumn air just smells good to me: crisper, but with undertones of earth and leaves. And I adore Japanese maples, so I always look forward to their color changes in my garden.

I’ve been enjoying comments here and on other blogs about the different fragrances people are wearing in the fall. I treated myself for my birthday to a bottle of Jean Louis Scherrer, a chypre with plenty of floral and green notes which some of you have mentioned before. I really like chypre fragrances, and I think they work very well in this transitional fall weather, so I’m enjoying it very much!

Fall also feels to me like a time of renewal, probably due to its long association in my mind with the start of each school year, and I find myself more motivated to reorganize things. We are in the last stage of restoring our house to order after last winter’s plumbing disaster and the moves in and out of our young adult children. We’re waiting for a couple of new rugs, and the return of three rugs from the cleaner, so we can rearrange furniture and bedrooms; then the hardwood floors on the main level will be refurbished so we can put back the rugs and furniture in the living room and dining room. I will also reorganize my perfume collection (gulp!). Do you have any reorganization plans afoot? What fall fragrances did you wear this week?

Featured image from www.amycampion.com.

Scent Sample Sunday: Automne
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Scent Sample Sunday: Automne

I said in Friday’s Perfume Chat Room that I would write today about Van Cleef & Arpels’ Automne, and then I realized I already had, a few years back!

Fragrance Friday: Les Saisons Automne.

What special fragrances return again and again to your seasonal rotations?

Perfume Chat Room, September 25
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Perfume Chat Room, September 25

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, September 25, and the weather has suddenly become more like fall, at least where I live. That seems to be the case in other parts of this hemisphere too, because I’ve been seeing a lot of blog posts and comments elsewhere about people putting away their more summery fragrances and taking out fragrances they enjoy in autumn.

One of mine is the aptly named Automne, by Van Cleef & Arpels. Fragrantica calls it a “floral-woody-musk.” One thing I like about it is that the dominant notes are lily and sandalwood. I’ll write more about it for “Scent Sample Sunday” this weekend!

Are you having autumnal weather where you are? Or some other change of season with the equinox? What fragrances do you prefer in autumn?

Featured image by Jessica Potila.

Scent Sample Sunday: SJP Covet
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Scent Sample Sunday: SJP Covet

I find that the fragrances I choose to wear are highly influenced by the season and the weather. This year, in my part of the US, September and even the start of October felt more like late August. Temperatures were still in the 90s almost daily, and the humidity was high in spite of near-drought conditions and lack of rain. Finally, in the past week, fall arrived. Leaves are changing color and night temperatures are in the 40s. We even turned on the heat this week, though we don’t need it during the day, when the sun still warms the air into the balmy 70s. We haven’t had the weather we usually enjoy here in October, which resembles the “Indian summer” one sees in September in the Northeast, but it is pleasant. And we finally got lots of rain, which the trees desperately needed.

What fragrances work with this oddball weather and transitional season? One could do worse than Sarah Jessica Parker’s Covet, an oddball fragrance that combines apparently disparate notes like lemon, lavender, and chocolate. Wearable by both women and men, it combines a summery freshness with aromatic lavender, over a hum of dark cocoa.

On first application, Covet displays its lemon opening notes very clearly. Some commenters dislike the opening, comparing it to lemon floor cleaner and other functional sprays. I do see what they mean, though it doesn’t hit my nose as sharply as it seems to hit theirs. Luckily, the cocoa quickly starts making itself felt, and lavender arrives shortly after that. The lemon is persistent, but it does fade into the background after about 45 minutes or so on my skin. In the middle phase, to my nose the most prominent note is lavender. I can’t say that I sense any of the listed floral notes (honeysuckle, magnolia, and lily of the valley), which would have matched it more closely to my perceptions of spring. The cocoa is still faintly present and warms up the lavender. In the dry down, moving into base notes, Covet becomes more herbal and its warmth is woody rather than chocolatey, with an undertone of musk. Longevity is good but not extraordinary.

Covet was launched in 2007, after the huge success of Lovely, the first SJP fragrance. It has been discontinued as far as I can tell, though it is still widely available at bargain prices online. In line with its odd composition, the ad campaign for it is truly weird, portraying Sarah Jessica Parker in a ball gown, kicking in a plate glass window at night to get to a bottle of the fragrance and being taken away in handcuffs by Parisian gendarmes. “I had to have it”, she declares to the camera, with a somewhat demented expression on her face.

I find Covet to be a unisex fragrance, leaning neither traditionally feminine or masculine. Do I “have to have it”? No, but I’m glad to have a small bottle, because the fragrance is interesting. It’s a transition between the mainstream prettiness of Lovely (which is indeed lovely, though not groundbreaking) and the much more daring SJP Stash. Covet is much more quirky than Lovely, but Stash is in a category of its own among celebrity scents. As many commenters have noted, if Stash came with a niche label and price tag, it would hold its own among today’s niche fragrances.

Covet turns out to be a good fit with the transitional season and weather we’re having now. Soon enough, I will want more traditional fall fragrance notes, like amber, vanilla, spices. What are your favorite fall fragrances and notes? Have you tried Covet?

Scent Sample Sunday: Aramis Calligraphy Rose
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Scent Sample Sunday: Aramis Calligraphy Rose

Several of the perfume blogs I follow are featuring lists and questions about favorite autumn fragrances, and I’ve found myself mentioning, more than once, Aramis’ Calligraphy Rose, which I like to wear in the fall and winter as a “floriental” — still floral, which is probably my most favored category of fragrance, with added oriental fragrance aspects like spices, myrrh, frankincense, etc. Per Fragrantica, its top notes are oregano, saffron and honeysuckle; middle notes are turkish rose, myrrh, styrax and lavender; base notes are labdanum, musk, ambergris and olibanum (frankincense).

Calligraphy Rose was one of a trio of Aramis eaux de parfum launched from 2012-2014: Calligraphy (2012), Calligraphy Rose (2013) and Calligraphy Saffron (2014). It was created by perfumer Trudi Loren, who is listed with Maurice Roucel as co-creator of 2006’s Missoni, awarded five stars by Luca Turin in his original “Perfumes: The A-Z Guide.” It has been discontinued but is still widely available online for reasonable prices.

To my nose, Calligraphy Rose starts out green and sweet, which makes sense given the top notes listed. The oregano I smell is the green, growing plant, not the dried herb. The sweetness must come from the honeysuckle note, which Gail Gross wrote about in a wonderful review of Calligraphy Rose last January at CaFleureBon. For her, the honeysuckle was very dominant. It is less so for me, though its underlying sweetness never leaves. On my skin, the rose note emerges quickly and strongly, and it persists for a long time, which I love. I have layered Calligraphy Rose with other rose scents such as Taif Roses by Abdul Samad Al Qurashi, a powerful rose attar, on occasions like Christmas Eve, with happy results; any lasting rose fragrance will have the same effect of amplifying the already-strong rose note. I bet it would layer beautifully with Viktor&Rolf’s Flowerbomb Rose Twist, a perfume layering oil, or with Tauerville’s Rose Flash, with its 20% concentration. One could emphasize other notes in a similar fashion, such as adding a lavender or frankincense layer, pushing it in any direction one prefers. Calligraphy Rose is a bit of a chameleon.

As it dries down, Calligraphy Rose on its own becomes less floral and more balsamic, like a lovely balsamic glaze. This “glaze” was made with honey, and includes herbs. Having started out quite green, it becomes warmer, thanks to those warm base notes. In fact, its progression is not unlike the progression of autumn itself, from the lingering green of still-living plants, to the late flushes of rose blooms, to the warmth and spice of winter dishes. P.S. It lasts for hours and hours! One spray on my wrist is still wafting faintly off my skin almost 24 hours later as a warm, sweet skin scent. Use with a light hand, but you’ll smell marvelous for a long time.

Calligraphy Rose is a truly unisex fragrance. Launched under Estee Lauder’s men’s brand of Aramis, it suits both men and women. It is less gourmand than Montale’s Intense Cafe, more herbal. I love it!