Perfume Chat Room, April 27

Perfume Chat Room, April 27

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 Saturday, April 27, and we’re almost at the start of May! I won’t be doing a blog May Marathon this year because we’ll be out of the country for the second half of the month, and before that we have our youngest child’s college graduation. So I’ll be running a different kind of marathon getting ready for all that! However, as most of you know, I just love lily of the valley, or muguet — both the flowers and the scent. The first of May in France is traditionally a day when the French give or wear sprigs of muguet, and French perfumers in particular have created some wonderful muguet fragrances, the most famous being Christian Dior’s Diorissimo.

Maison Dior, Paris

Guerlain also issues a muguet fragrance every May in a limited edition flacon.

Bottle of Guerlain Muguet 2016 fragrance
Guerlain Muguet 2016

So you can imagine how excited I was when I read two weeks ago on “Now Smell This” that Patricia de Nicolai was releasing her own limited edition muguet fragrance, to be sold only in their boutiques, called Une Fleur en Mai. I began immediately to plot how I might get a bottle, since our trip in May will be to France. Alas! according to the company website, it is already sold out! Maybe we’ll get lucky and the firm will add it to their regular line.

I know that muguet is polarizing to many perfumistas — some love it, like me, and others loathe it. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

Fashion model Sasha Pivovarova with lilies of the valley; Vogue magazine.
Sasha Pivovarova with lilies of the valley; Vogue magazine.
Perfume Chat Room, April 23

Perfume Chat Room, April 23

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, April 23, and I have a new, fragrant tree to plant! It is called a “buckwheat tree”, it is native to the Southeast, and this particular variety has pink flowers. They’re very fragrant, and I’m having fun deciding where to plant it so we can enjoy its fragrance. Luckily, it doesn’t get very large, so I have options.

I’ve been on a bit of a vintage kick lately; I just got a small bottle of Paco Rabanne’s Metal, which I quite like. It’s a green chypre floral that launched in 1979. Fragrantica lists its notes as follows: top notes are Hyacinth, Aldehydes, Green Notes, Basil and Lemon; middle notes are Lily-of-the-Valley, iris, Jasmine, Cyclamen, Rose, Ylang-Ylang and Tuberose; base notes are Oakmoss, Vetiver, Musk, Amber and Sandalwood.

I have some new green fragrances to review and also a couple of new LOTV/muguet fragrances, so my “May Marathon” will probably be a melange. Maybe that’s what I’ll call it: “May Melange Marathon”! What do you think?

Featured image: Paco Rabanne dress, 1967, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.