Cabaret

Perfume Chat Room, August 11
by

Perfume Chat Room, August 11

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, August 11, and we’re having one thunderstorm after another. Part of the day will be sunny, hot, and humid, and part will include torrential downpours, lightning, and thunder. Our dog Lucy isn’t happy about it, but we think the calming measures we’ve provided are helping her. We have a pheromone-based diffuser near her crate, and I give her “calming oil” in her food when we expect thunder. My SOTD for summer thunderstorm weather is Hermès’ Un Jardin Après La Mousson, a longtime favorite. It’s very refreshing!

Un Jardin Après La Mousson by Hermes; image from Hermes

I’m getting lots of work done around the house and garden, with my newly free time; we just got several vintage bathroom fixtures reglazed, and they look spectacular! Two bathtubs and two sinks, original to our 1906 house. So (fingers crossed), I think we’re finally done with bathroom renovations, which started with a plumbing disaster in the fall of 2020 at the height of COVID lockdown. I was motivated to get the fixtures reglazed this summer because some longtime, cherished friends are coming to visit in two weeks. Now everything will work AND look nice!

Our youngest moved back to campus this week for his last year of college. We miss him already! We’re very spoiled because he goes to college about a 15-minute drive away, and has lived at home every summer since he started college. In former workplace news, more senior staff have announced this week that they are leaving. I’m quite relieved to be gone myself, as those kinds of departures always impose more work on the staff who remain. My other news is that a ten-minute play I wrote will get a staged reading tomorrow at a local theater! I’m very excited. I’ve had a couple of staged readings before, but I hope to commit more time and attention to playwriting now.

In honor of theater, I think my SOTD for tomorrow will be Cabaret, by Parfums Grès. It isn’t nearly as well known as its sibling and predecessor Cabochard, but I like it very much, and I seem to be on a Grès kick lately because of the recent exhibit of Madame Grès’ beautiful couture designs I saw, and the “CounterPoint” post Portia and I did recently about Cabochard.

Do you have any fragrances that you associate with the theater? Or thunderstorms?

Thunderclouds and lightning over fields
Thunder and lightning; image from earth.com.
Fragrance Friday: Cabaret, Cirque du Soleil
by

Fragrance Friday: Cabaret, Cirque du Soleil

I love reading other people’s comments on perfumes. Some are full-length reviews by known “perfumistas”, others are anonymous comments on sites like Fragrantica.com.  Many are very clever and evocative. For instance, this comment about the eau de parfum Cabaret, by Gres:

It is a rose chypre, somewhat melancholy in feeling but still alive. Like a ghost…. Cabaret is a great name…it also reminds me of my theatre background. Fresh soft florals, mostly rose at the top, and the base is a very dry clay smell. It is cool and elegant with a transparent, almost dusty smell. I think of the atmosphere backstage at every show I have been involved in. Antique wood counters in the dressing room, waxy makeup and powder strewn across them. Vases and vases of roses and lilies. That musky smell of fresh sweat from dancers just coming off stage.

The image that immediately came to my mind was a Cirque du Soleil show I saw this year, called “Zarkana.” It is described as being set in an abandoned theatre that mysteriously comes back to life for an evening, starting with the appearance of ghostly white figures of performers like ballerinas and acrobats with white-powdered hair and stage make up. At the start, the huge stage is lusciously draped with great swags of crimson velvet. The pale figures emerge from the darkness after the curtain swirls upward. And at the very end of the show, the cinematic backdrop turns into a rippling cascade of deep red roses, while the same ghostly performers and other more colorful characters come out to take their final bows.  Maybe this perfume should be renamed Zarkana. Or at least Cirque.

Finale, Zarkana, Cirque du Soleil.

Photo: Cirque du Soleil.