Lucy

Perfume Chat Room, January 10
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Perfume Chat Room, January 10

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 10, and it snowed here this morning! Since I live in the Southeastern US, this is a rare and exciting event, to be cherished as long as the power stays on and my friends and family are safely ensconced in their homes. We knew the snow was coming, so when I woke up very early this morning, I just stayed awake so I could see it. Our elderly dog Lucy was not so excited. I let her out at about 6 am, just as the snow was beginning; she went out very briefly then rushed back inside. When she went to the door a while later, I opened it for her, she stuck her nose out, and she retreated back into the warm house and her even warmer bed. Color Lucy not impressed.

Lucy, not impressed by snow

As of this afternoon, we’re getting the dreaded “wintry mix” of icy rain and sleet, which means some of the snow is melting but it will soon freeze over again when the temps drop below 32F. That’s one reason why snow and ice are actually quite hazardous here — we might get less than three inches of snow, but then it turns into two inches of ice. And because it’s a rare occurrence, most folks here don’t know how to drive safely in these conditions and the local governments don’t have a lot of equipment to clear the roads. Best to stay inside!

I’ve been enjoying some cozy fragrances, including Jo Malone’s small holiday set of Orange Bitters and Ginger Biscuit. They’re not so Christmasy that I feel out of sync, given that the twelve days of Christmas ended last weekend. We even took down our tree, though I haven’t yet packed away all the ornaments. Maybe today, while I’m indoors and can’t be out in the garden! This is the season we jokingly refer to as “second winter”, coming as it does after “false spring”, when we get a burst of warm days that fool many bulbs into peeking above ground. Luckily, the sudden return of the cold doesn’t harm them. Bengale Rouge will probably make it into my rotation this weekend; it’s a lovely warm fragrance that doesn’t scream “Christmas!”. Perfect for “second winter.”

I’ve also enjoyed wearing the Guerlain fragrance that was a Christmas gift, Après l’Ondèe. I think I’ll be putting it aside until we reach the “spring of deception”, when we’ll get another thaw and unseasonably warm(er) temperatures. It really is more of a spring/summer scent, I feel. What about you? Have you been wearing any holidayish fragrances, gifts or not?

Snowy day
Perfume Chat Room, July 21
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Perfume Chat Room, July 21

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 21, and it is HOT! We did get some rain last night for the first time in several days, which will help my garden survive the next heat wave. I’ve been watering daily like a fanatic, but so far, everything is doing well, including the tomatoes that I swear every year I won’t plant again, and then I do.

Update on the Lucy saga: we seem to have conquered the pee smell, yay! And she hasn’t repeated her accidents, so we think some of the calming resources we’re using for her during thundery weather may be helping. Who’s a good girl?

If you haven’t yet read Portia’s and my latest “Counterpoint“, check it out! We’re having a lot of fun with these monthly collaborations (the other being “Notes on Notes“).

Are you sweltering in hot weather? How do you cool off? I am mostly staying inside, also due to poor air quality from the Canadian forest fires (!), venturing outside in the morning to do garden tasks, then retreating inside either at my office or house. I’ll go outside again around 6, when things start to cool down a bit, mostly to check on plants.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Perfume Chat Room, July 7
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Perfume Chat Room, July 7

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 7, and I made sure to post on time today! What’s on my mind this week is fragrance of a different sort — our 11 year-old dog Lucy had not one, but two accidents in the house this week. We think it’s because of several recent thunderstorms, which made her reluctant to go outside. Usually she’s very good about sitting at the back door to ask to go out, but she’s scared of thunder and 1) didn’t want to go out; and 2) couldn’t hold it in. (That’s my theory, anyway. If it happens again soon, without thunder, we’ll take her to the vet). So here’s the fragrance issue: once a dog has peed somewhere, the odor will lead them to pee there again. Given that Lucy peed on our most expensive rug and on our son’s bed (!), it was imperative to get all traces of the pee out, even after cleaning enough that we couldn’t see or smell it any more. Dogs can.

Enzymes to the rescue! There are many rug cleaning products that use enzymes to break down urine molecules that are undetectable to us, but not to dogs. I used those thoroughly on everything I couldn’t launder, and they worked! How do I know? I bought a small flashlight-type device that emits black light, which shows dried pee stains as glowing spots in a dark room. No more glow spots on the rug or bedding! And now we come to the more pleasant fragrance issue: we’ve succeeded in the past helping Lucy through thunderstorms by putting a snug doggie sweater on her, but since dogs can sense thunder long before we can, we haven’t always been able to do that in time. So I’ve bought a diffuser that emits a vet-recommended synthetic pheromone; it mimics the scent of a mother dog and is supposed to calm adult dogs as well as puppies. To humans, it is odorless. We’ve just put it by her crate and I hope it helps. I hope it also helps retrain her to stay in her crate overnight without fussing — she had been doing that for years until 2020, when our kids all moved home and started letting her sleep on their beds.

Speaking of pheromones, I remember loving Marilyn Miglin’s fragrance of that name in the 1980s, and wearing it often. It was a green floral chypre (turns out I am very consistent over time in the kinds of fragrance I like). Apparently the current version isn’t nearly as good, not surprising given that the original was loaded with oakmoss at 1978 levels.

Do you have any thoughts on pheromones generally, or on that fragrance? Any words of wisdom for us in helping Lucy?

Lucy on a daughter’s bed