Covet

Perfume Chat Room, January 15
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Perfume Chat Room, January 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, January 15, and I can’t believe we are halfway through January already! I live in the Southeastern United States, and we can already sense the advent of spring. The days are getting longer, the sun is rising earlier, and some brave flowers are emerging. I have hellebores in bloom, and some hardy daffodils are poking their green shoots up out of the earth, though it will be a while before any bloom. I’m not yet ready to break out the full-on spring floral and green scents I love, I’m still wearing my “warmer” fragrances like L’Ambre des Merveilles, which I finally bought in 2020. This week, I’ve been enjoying Covet by Sarah Jessica Parker, which is between “warm” and “floral”. It is a true bargain beauty, widely available for less than $25 for 100 ml. I found a bottle recently at T.J.Maxx on clearance for $18.

Speaking of T.J. Maxx, where I was delighted to discover a bargain reissue of my beloved Anne Klein II , last week I found a bottle of that same reissue there at my local store, labeled with a price of $49.99. No, no, no! I’ve bought a few backup bottles there and not one cost more than $14.99. The reissue is great, and another bargain beauty, but the vintage original goes for ridiculous prices online. If you’re tempted, make sure you don’t pay vintage-zone prices for the new version; look on the box and the small print will say Made In China and distributed by Palm Beach Beaute LLC.

I read and participate regularly in the comments on a favorite blog, “Now Smell This”, which always has a weekly Friday “community project” in which readers wear a fragrance they have which fits a shared theme. This week’s theme (so creative!) is to wear a fragrance that reminds you of this year’s Pantone “Colors of the Year”, which are currently “Ultimate Gray” and “Illuminating” (a bright yellow). So today, I will wear another bargain beauty, Elizabeth & James’ discontinued Nirvana French Grey. It and its sibling, Nirvana Amethyst, are all over the bargain brick-and-mortar stores for under $20 for 50 ml, and well worth that price. All the Nirvana fragrances have been discontinued, so if you like them and you find them for a great price, stock up!

What’s new in your world, fragrance or otherwise? How is 2021 looking for you so far?

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?