Perfume Chat Room

Perfume Chat Room, July?
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Perfume Chat Room, July?

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 NOT Friday, June 30, when I should have posted. I got distracted by an unexpectedly long eye doctor’s appointment that morning, and then some unexpected work tasks in the afternoon, and I forgot to post! We’re living through a massive heatwave here in the Southeast, so I’ve also been very busy watering my many plants, garden beds, and vegetable garden. Plants that need special attention are my David Austin roses, most of which I grow in large pots because I don’t have great locations for roses elsewhere in my garden, and because our front terrace gets the most sun plus air circulation. They flourish in the pots but they have to be watered daily during hot weather. Totally worth it, as they are so lovely and smell wonderful!

Speaking of roses, Portia Turbo and I will be posting again tomorrow in our regular collaboration “Notes on Notes”, and the note we’ve chosen is — rose. Whether you like or loathe rose fragrances, please drop by and comment (nicely) here and on Australian Perfume Junkies once we’ve posted!

PSA: Penhaligon’s USA is having its summer sale; several really nice ones are on sale, including one of my favorites, Juniper Sling, and I snagged a discovery set of eight of the “Portraits” fragrances. At least one will probably make an appearance in tomorrow’s “Notes on Notes.”

Yesterday I went to a fashion exhibit I’ve been meaning to visit for months now. It is a collection of couture by Madame Grès, of Cabochard fame, owned by the late Azzedine Alaïa in his personal collection, covering decades from the 1930s to the 1980s. The exhibit displayed about 70 dresses and other outfits — for a sometime sewist like me, they were just stupendous; the designs and workmanship were astonishing.

Four weeks from tomorrow will be my last day at work! My workplace is having a retirement reception for me, and I’m looking forward to that and then having the rest of the summer off. Usually I’ve only had two weeks of vacation each summer. TBH, I look back over the 18+ years I’ve been in that job, and I’m stunned that I persisted through so many challenges — everything from students in severe crises to vicious academic politics, without any of the job protection most faculty have (I’m staff), all while raising three children. The youngest was three years old when I started that job. I couldn’t have done it without my very supportive, loving husband, who kept me sane when the job did its best to undermine sanity.

How is your summer going? Any particular adventures had or expected?

Perfume Chat Room, June 23
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Perfume Chat Room, June 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, June 23, and I am LATE! My apologies — I was handling a couple of complex issues at work and lost track of time.

This week marked the Summer Solstice in my part of the world, and the Winter Solstice in Portia’s! Crowds gathered at Stonehenge in England to celebrate — I wonder if there is any similar gathering in Australia? With summer in full swing now, I have summer flowers and scents on my mind. My vegetable garden is flourishing (famous last words — last summer, it became an inedible jungle) and I’ve been making a new recipe that uses up lots of fresh herbs: toasted gnocchi with herb brown butter. It has been fabulous, not least because it smells so good and makes the kitchen so fragrant. I may need to pull out some of my fragrances with strong herb notes like basil and rosemary.

Do you have any beloved fragrances with those kinds of herbal notes?

Bunches of fresh herbs
Assorted fresh herbs; image from foodwastefeast.com.
Perfume Chat Room, June 16
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Perfume Chat Room, June 16

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, June 16, and we have a three-day weekend because of Juneteenth being celebrated on Monday as a holiday. Juneteenth, if you didn’t know, is a historically important date because June 19 was the date in 1865 on which the last remaining enslaved people in the United States were finally assured that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued effective January 1, 1863, and they had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln. Major General Gordon Granger, the Union officer in control of Galveston, Texas, issued an order confirming their emancipation on June 19, 1865. The date was long celebrated informally among African-American communities in Texas, then the custom spread during the Great Migration of the 20th century. It was made a federal holiday by President Biden in 2021. By the way, if you don’t know much about the Great Migration, I highly recommend the prize-winning book “The Warmth of Other Suns”, by historian and journalist Isabel Wilkerson.

I will be celebrating by spending the weekend continuing to weed, plant, and otherwise tidy my garden. My precious roses are blooming again, and one of them has decided to blossom in the middle of my Annabelle hydrangea. I love flowers! I’ve been wearing a new-to-me fragrance a lot lately; it is Miller Harris’ Coeur de Jardin, a chypre floral with several fruity notes in the opening. Very pretty! I would call it more “chypre lite” than fully chypre. Today, however, I was back in Bitter Peach by Tom Ford. What are you wearing or smelling these days?

Perfume Chat Room, June 9
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Perfume Chat Room, June 9

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, June 9, and it really feels like summer here now. I’ve been enjoying some more “summery” fragrances; today’s SOTD is Tom Ford’s Bitter Peach, from a decant. I really like it, but I won’t be needing a full bottle at the brand’s prices. Happy to have this decant, though! Earlier this week, I wore Christian Dior’s La Colle Noire, a perennial favorite (again, from a decant).

If you haven’t yet read this month’s “Notes on Notes“, on this blog and at Australian Perfume Junkies, please do, and add your thoughts about citrus in fragrances! Or feel free to comment here, about any favorite citrus notes or favorite citrus-forward fragrances, or anything citrus-related.

Orange flower blossoms on branch with orange fruit
Orange blossom and orange; image from petalrepublic.com
Perfume Chat Room, June 2
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Perfume Chat Room, June 2

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, June 2, and we have really entered summer where I live. The trees are fully leafed out, the roses are blooming (again), and gardens all over the city are bursting with flowers. The fragrance of the air has shifted from the springtime pink magnolias and spring bulbs to the scent of roses, white magnolias, and even some gardenias.

Eight weeks from Monday, I will be retired! It seems to be turning out that summer is a great time for someone like me to retire, because I have so many summer activities I enjoy and will have more time to do: primarily gardening at home, but also visiting other gardens, going to farmers’ markets, walking, etc. Talk to me again when the mosquitoes hit, though — I’ll probably be singing a different tune, lol!

I recently got a decant of Guerlain’s Chant d’Arômes and I’m really loving it. I hadn’t previously paid much attention to it, but it is a very lovely bridal bouquet that is perfect for June. I don’t know that I’ll pursue more than the decant I have, but I’m very happy to have it.

Do you have any perfumes lingering on the periphery of your awareness, that you haven’t yet tried?

Perfume Chat Room, May 26
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Perfume Chat Room, May 26

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, May 26, and it is the start of the Memorial Day weekend here in America. While we all look forward to the long weekend and enjoy the sales that are popping up in email and on social media, I hope we will also remember the underlying meaning of Memorial Day, to commemorate the deaths of those who have served in our armed forces, and pause to appreciate their service. It’s also the week of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, which takes place on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a residence and facility for military pensioners. At the flower show, you can often see them walking around in their distinctive red uniforms. Nowadays, the Chelsea Pensioners include women as well as men; below is a photo I took of a pensioner admiring flowers, on my last visit to Chelsea — wish I was there this year! As you can imagine, the whole area is filled with wonderful fragrances from the many flowers and other plants.

We have been enjoying glorious weather this week: sunny but not too hot or humid. I plan to do a lot of gardening this weekend! My roses are putting out a second flush of blooms, and they smell just as wonderful as they did the first time. This may have been my best year yet for my roses in pots, I think because we got so much rain this spring and then the weather stayed sunny but cool.

Here in the US, Memorial Day is traditionally considered the start of summer. I will look over the clutter of fragrances now on my chest of drawers and try to reorganize with more of the fragrances that seem “summery” to me. Since I love florals so much, I have plenty of options!

Do you have any particular fragrances you prefer in the summer, or that you think give off a “summery” vibe? And what would be a summery vibe to you? I often think of citruses combined with floral notes as summer fragrances. Un Jardin sur le Nil is one of my seasonal favorites.

Perfume Chat Room, May 19
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Perfume Chat Room, May 19

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, May 19, and we are back from our Bermuda holiday. Sigh. It was so beautiful and relaxing. Luckily, I had the foresight to take yesterday and today off work also, so I can ease back into regular routines and hold on to some of the vacation vibe a bit longer.

Photo by Andrea Powell on Pexels.com

Last weekend, we had a fabulous visit to The Bermuda Perfumery in St. George, home of Lili Bermuda fragrances, and we had tea with our friends in their garden. The next day, Mother’s Day, I was served a lovely breakfast by my family and was “given” the Lili Bermuda fragrance I had chosen the day before: Bermudiana. I had tried Mary Celestia, whose back story intrigued me, but the fragrance wasn’t as interesting as the story, and it didn’t seem to last on my skin.

I was able to do more reading than usual on this holiday, and I read more of Bermuda’s early history. I had known before that it was first inhabited by English sailors whose ship, the Sea Venture, on its way to re-supply the struggling English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, had been blown far off course by a hurricane and shipwrecked at Bermuda. Apparently the true story of this adventure provided Shakespeare with the inspiration for “The Tempest”. What I hadn’t fully realized before is just how desperate the conditions at Jamestown were, by contrast with the plentiful lushness, safety, and beauty of Bermuda. No wonder there were a few mutinous uprisings during the ten months that the crew and passengers of the Sea Venture were on Bermuda — many of them didn’t want to leave their newfound paradise for a settlement they already knew was in trouble — insufficient supplies, attacks from Native Americans, disease, etc.

On our way home, I picked up another Lili Bermuda fragrance in the duty-free shop: Pink. It is a very pretty floral, and I look forward to getting to know it better. I’m counting it as a supplemental Mother’s Day gift, lol! Speaking of Mother’s Day, I was very touched by the number of local people who wished me a happy Mother’s Day while just passing by on the lane that led to the beach. Bermudians are famous for their old-fashioned manners (you do NOT get on a bus or request help or information at a counter without first greeting the person with “Good morning”, or “Good afternoon”), but this was next-level courtesy.

I’m already planning some more “perfume tourism”; I will tag along with my husband on one of his work trips to London this fall, and we hope to take our family to France next summer, as a delayed graduation/anniversary trip (we were supposed to go in the summer of 2020). A new “Perfumer’s Garden” is about to open at Versailles, sponsored by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, and it looks gorgeous. Gardening AND fragrance — two of my loves, together!

Did you do anything special for Mother’s Day?

Perfume Chat Room, May 13
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Perfume Chat Room, May 13

Welcome to the 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, May 13, and we are in Bermuda! Which is why I’m a day late posting. And in case you’re wondering, Lucy is safely boarding with her vet! A friend had kindly offered to watch her, but the trauma of her recent overnight disappearance moved me to put her in more official hands.

We have the happy coincidence of our oldest friends being here in Bermuda the exact same days as us, completely unplanned. We’ve been having dinner and some beach time together, and today, we are all going to visit the Bermuda Perfumery, home of the Lili Bermuda fragrances. One of my longtime favorites, from a prior visit, is Lily. One of my daughters loves Coral. I’m excited to try Mary Celestia, a re-creation of a 19th century perfume found in a sealed bottle in a shipwreck. Their new Island Rose sounds beautiful, too. Perfume tourism!

The Bermuda Perfumery in St. George's, Bermuda, with pastel houses
The Bermuda Perfumery. Photo: http://www.foreverbermuda.com

Bermuda itself is marvelously fragrant. The cottage we are renting has a garden with jasmine, rosemary, and a shrub I think is a loquat tree, with waxy white blossoms like orange blossom, that have a similarly semi-narcotic scent. When we stroll down to the water, the air smells of the impossibly blue saltwater, which sparkles in all shades of turquoise and even purple. It is a clean, salty smell, with very little of seaweed about it.

Do you like the scent of tropical flowers, or the seaside? Any particular favorite scents that evoke them?

On Monday, Portia and I will be posting our monthly collaboration Counterpoint so,I hope you’ll come back here to read it and share your thoughts!

Lily fragrance collector gift set from Lili Bermuda
Photo: http://www.lilibermuda.com
Perfume Chat Room, May 5
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Perfume Chat Room, May 5

Welcome to the Friday 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, May 5 — happy Cinco de Mayo! We had drama a few days ago that has a happy ending. Our sweet dog Lucy slipped out of our back yard and went missing for the rest of that day and overnight. We searched the whole neighborhood and the next one over on foot and by car. Our three young adult children, several friends, and passersby joined in. Night fell, and still no sign of Lucy. She is 10 years old but in excellent health, so we worried on multiple fronts, including, has she gotten sick or injured and can’t get home; or, has she gone so far, given her good health, that she can’t safely find her way back? She has only ever gotten out of our fenced, gated, locked back garden a few times in her ten years, and has never gone further than a block or two away, at most. Once, she went to the end of our block; and once, she got to the sidewalk and then ran back up our driveway and into the back yard! We only knew she had been gone because friends of our had seen her on the sidewalk and came to our door to tell us.

So this overnight disappearance was very alarming, to say the least. Happily, our next door neighbor let us know early the next morning that he had found her, trapped in the small locked enclosure where his HVAC unit sits in their back yard. He had been away all day, didn’t see our email to neighbors until late that night, and didn’t see her until the next morning. We think she jumped down there (it’s on a slope) and then couldn’t get out. She’s not a big barker, and she wouldn’t have been able to hear us calling her with the unit’s fan running. So my husband rushed next door to get her, and the prodigal returned, safe and sound.

I need a calming scent this week! I think I’ll wear DSH’s Smudge Nebula, which isn’t, strictly speaking, a body fragrance but which works beautifully as one. We’re looking forward to our upcoming trip to Bermuda, when we’ll visit the Lili Bermuda perfumery, among other sites.

Now that it’s May, and we’ve had lots of “April showers”, do you have May flowers? Real, or perfume?

Perfume Chat Room, April 28
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Perfume Chat Room, April 28

Welcome to the Friday 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 28, and the “Now Smell This” blog community which I know many of you also enjoy, has had some sad news. On Wednesday, the blog’s founder, Robin, shared that her husband had died unexpectedly the night before. I feel so sad, although I’ve never met Robin. Robin loves teapots and often entertains us with photos of them, so in Robin’s honor, and with warm sympathy:

Teapot with tea cosy printed with robins
Tea cosy by Madeleine Floyd.

Because NST’s “community project” this week was to wear a fragrance whose name was a clever twist or a pun, I’ve been wearing a lot of 4160 Tuesdays fragrances! One, I love most of them; and two, Sarah McCartney does come up with very clever names! I especially like her “Clouds” series; and I think it’s very clever that she made one version with synthetics of the otherwise very costly naturals in the original formula, and called it Clouds’ Illusion. Then she made a version that combined the naturals and synthetics, and called it Both Sides of Clouds, just like the song lyrics. So I’ve been wearing those this week, plus another favorite, An Excess of Carelessness, referring to The Great Gatsby.

I know several of you have commented at Now Smell This to offer condolences to Robin, as have I; so let’s spare another thought for Robin and family on this last Friday of April. And take good care of yourselves, please!