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 15, and it is Good Friday in my own faith tradition, as well as the start of Passover in Judaism. April 15 is also usually the deadline for filing tax returns, but because it falls right before Saturday this year, the deadline is extended to Monday, April 18. I’m such a procrastinator that there was one year (many years ago) when I actually had to go to the main Post Office in Manhattan, which stayed open until midnight, to mail my return and have it postmarked by April 15. To be honest, it was kind of a festive atmosphere, like a convention of procrastinators, complete with news crews filming and broadcasting our disgrace. My wonderful husband has handled our taxes since we got married, with help from an accountant, which makes sense since he has an MBA. My eyes glaze over when I have to look at too many numbers, lol!
I have so many fragrant flowers in bloom right now! Dwarf lilacs, lilies of the valley, and the first rose blossoms are filling the air with perfume, and I am eagerly waiting for my Easter lilies to bloom (I love Easter). I have a new David Austin English Rose called “Lady of the Lake”; it is just lovely. Pale pink with a yellow eye, and very fragrant (as all his roses are). It’s making me want to break out my rose fragrances, of which I have many, but it’s too soon for another “Roses de Mai Marathon.” What fragrances are calling your name these days?
Lady of the Lake rose by David Austin; image from davidaustinroses.com
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 8, and we’ve gone from one weather extreme to another here. The week started out as gorgeous springtime, sunny and blooming. It was “Scent Semantics” Monday, and I got to choose the word this month, which was “vernal.” Then we had two days of violent storms, including a couple with extremely loud thunder and lots of lightning, accompanied by a 20-degree drop in temperatures. Our dog Lucy was NOT happy!
Lucy, not happy
Yesterday and today dawned bright and sunny again, and Lucy’s tail is wagging. She loves to lie in the sun outside in our garden (which is totally fenced, with a secured gate). We celebrated our wedding anniversary this week, which brought to mind the strange mix of weather we had on our wedding day: April snow, April showers, brilliant sunshine amid April flowers.
Le Jardin de Old Herbaceous
This weekend is Palm Sunday, soon to be followed by Easter. I love Easter, maybe even more than Christmas because it is so vernal (see what I did there?). I adore the many Easter flowers on display indoors and out. I love Easter food (we always have a traditional roast leg of lamb), and I love having our kids home for the holiday. I love the Easter music and services at our church
April this year is filled with important holidays: Passover, Ramadan, Easter. I enjoy learning about all the different traditions. I wish I’d had more opportunities to learn about them when I was in school, as my children have had, but better late than never.
I think my Easter fragrance will be vintage Dior Lily. It’s a lovely combination of spring florals, mostly Muguet and white lilies. As many of you know, though, I have SO many muguet fragrances that I won’t lack for choices!
Do you have any upcoming celebrations or favorite fragrances to match with holidays?
Welcome to this next installment of Scent Semantics! This month’s word, supplied by yours truly, is “vernal”, which means “in, of, or appropriate to spring.” Happy April!
As regular readers know, I love to garden and grow flowers, so spring is a marvelous season for me. I also love Easter, and my husband and I were married many Aprils ago, so I have plenty of happy associations with it. For my “vernal” fragrance post, I have chosen Jo Loves’ No. 42 The Flower Shop.
What a happy fragrance it is! At first spray, it positively bursts with zingy green notes, behind which lurks a fruity sweetness and light spring florals. Those would be the top notes of green leaves, mandarin orange, and peony. As it develops, the floral notes get stronger and take center stage: lily-of-the-valley, freesia, narcissus, and jasmine. It really does smell like an actual florist’s shop, with the afore-mentioned flowers waiting in buckets of water to be chosen and gathered into bouquets. If I did as some perfumistas do, and put my fragrance into a refrigerator to chill, No. 42 The Flower Shop would smell even more exactly like the walk-in fridges professional florists fill with their wares.
I especially enjoy the combination of green leaves and lily-of-the valley (muguet), one of my favorite flowers (the other two being daffodils and roses). The green notes and citrus accord balance the muguet beautifully. Most of the time when I wear No. 42, it is muguet that dominates, but sometimes the freesia comes forward more strongly. The name, No. 42 The Flower Shop, refers to the actual flower shop on Elizabeth Street where the young Jo Malone worked as a teenager:
“As a sixteen-year-old, I worked as a florist in Elizabeth Street and loved the moment when early each morning the scent of fresh flowers filled the room. This fragrance celebrates that magical memory.”
Jo Loves’ London boutique is actually located at No. 42 Elizabeth Street, and I have visited it, which I highly recommend. Elizabeth Street itself is absolutely charming, with many lovely shops and flowers bursting out everywhere (especially during the Chelsea Flower Show, when the stores compete to display the most lavish floral decorations). The Jo Loves boutique is a peaceful haven of white with touches of the same bright red that graces its packaging.
The photo below shows its Chelsea Flower Show decorations in 2019, when I last visited.
Jo Loves boutique, Elizabeth Street, London, May 2019.
Jo Loves boutique
As the fragrance No. 42 dries down, it becomes slightly warmer and softer, but the green notes persist throughout, and one of the base notes is iris, which I usually think of as a “cool” scent. The other base notes are white musk, moss, and patchouli. I can barely smell the patchouli, which is fine; I think it adds a suitable earthiness to the drydown of No. 42, but I prefer that it not dominate a fragrance.
This is the perfect month for wearing it, because my own garden is positively bursting with flowers! In bloom right now: lilies of the valley; pink camellias; weeping peach trees; a weeping cherry tree; purple redbuds; white dogwoods; Lenten roses (hellebores) of all hues of white, pink, and purple; daffodils; evergreen clematis; forsythia; Lady Banks rose; pansies; rosemary; spring starflowers; summer snowflakes; wild trilliums; and above all else, pink azaleas. We have dozens of them, planted over decades by longtime former owners who were also enthusiastic gardeners. Soon to come: iris, dwarf lilacs, David Austin roses, white foxgloves, daisies, white phlox, magnolias. Later in the summer, we will enjoy crape myrtles and hydrangeas, and, one hopes, vegetables and herbs from my raised beds. Lest it sound as if we have acres of gardens, I should note that several of these plants grow in pots and other containers; our lot is one third of an acre and it also holds a house!
Le Jardin de Old Herbaceous
What do you think of when you read the word “vernal”? Many people are most familiar with the word when it is used in conjunction with the spring, or vernal, equinox. The equinox is one of two moments in the year when the sun is exactly above the equator, and day and night are of equal length. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it takes place in March and marks the start of astronomical spring. For others like Portia, in the Southern Hemisphere, the March equinox marks the start of autumn and is the opposite of “vernal.”
Now that I’ve turned ourselves thoroughly topsy-turvy, please make sure to read the other Scent Semantics bloggers’ thoughts on “vernal.” The link to all of them is in the caption below! And do share your own thoughts in the comments, here and on their blogs.
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 1 — Happy April Fools’ Day! I couldn’t think of an appropriate April Fools post for a fragrance blog, though my personal Facebook feed is blowing up with silly posts from friends. Also, “rabbit rabbit” for good luck this month, and don’t miss the April Scent Semantics posts from six bloggers next Monday! I got to choose the word for April, which is fun for me. But it’s a secret until Monday, so please check back!
This week, I had to attend a neighborhood meeting to discuss a proposal for designating our neighborhood as an official historic district, which would protect us from encroaching development, roadways, and demolitions of old houses. It has become a flashpoint of controversy, and a number of homeowners who don’t want additional restrictions on what they can do to their houses — if the houses were built before the 1960s — have become very angry, threatening to sue the neighborhood volunteers who lead our civic association. I didn’t want to go to the meeting, but went to support the beleaguered volunteers and to voice support for the historic designation. Whew! Glad the meeting is over, though the controversy continues! And yes, I wore Chanel No. 19 which is my fragrance armor.
Liv Tyler as Arwen, in The Fellowship of the Ring movie; New Line Cinema.
Victoria at “Bois de Jasmin” has written very knowledgeably (as always) about Chanel No. 19. She discussed its reformulations, adding this historical insight:
A side note on galbanum, fragrance and politics. When Chanel No 19 was created in 1971, it was formulated with a superb grade of Iranian galbanum oil, which was sourced especially for it. However, when the Iranian Revolution broke out in 1979, the oil became unavailable. No 19 had to be reformulated, which was accomplished with much difficulty, because the original galbanum oil was of a particularly fine, rare caliber.
History. Always fascinating, sometimes enraging.
Do you have any thoughts on what fragrance to wear for April Fools’ Day? Or for “rabbit rabbit”? Or any fragrance-related history? Do share!
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, March 25, and it is Spring with a capital S! Below is one of my most happy places, which my husband I visited last weekend:
Daffodils at Gibbs Gardens
Full disclosure: I didn’t take this photo last weekend, I think it is from last year and I didn’t take it. But this is what it looked like! Hillsides of daffodils in bloom — 20+ million of them. Yes, I did wear Ostara, again.
Today I’m wearing 4160 Tuesdays’ Scenthusiasm, another favorite fragrance with an oddball name. Do you have any favorite fragrances with names that may be a bit weird? Do you have any special spring happy places? Or, what fragrance(s) are you wearing for this transitional season?
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, March 18, and I’ve been wearing green fragrances all week! This makes me very happy, as I love and own many green fragrances.
Truly, this has been a week for the “wearin’ o’ the green“! Today I’ll be wearing Papillon’s Dryad; earlier this week, I wore Cristalle, Chamade, Silences, and of course Chanel No. 19. Other options I could have chosen (and I may wear some this weekend, just to keep it going) are Envy, Decou-Vert, Vent Vert, Manifesto, Azurée, Aromatics Elixir, one of the Tom Ford Vert series, Le Jardin de Monsieur McGregor, too many others to list.
Yes, I am wallowing in green this week. Do you like green fragrances? Any particular favorites?
Welcome back 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, March 11, and it is the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s announcement that COVID-19 had become officially a pandemic. Reading those words today and their warning is sobering, given how many mistakes were made and how many millions have died. I feel like Neil at The Black Narcissus, who was recently wondering why he writes (and we read) about perfume when the war in Ukraine — that started two weeks ago today — is so appalling. I think the answers in the comments to his post respond quite well to his question — if we have done what little we can to address human needs, we need respite from the unrelenting tide of awfulness; we need to pause and remember how much beauty there is in the world, and how lucky we are to be able to enjoy it. Victoria at “Bois de Jasmin”, who is Ukrainian, is trying to achieve that balance by posting about aid resources, her family home in Ukraine, and her friends (to put faces on the crisis).
The Friday community project at “Now Smell This” is to wear a fragrance that somehow captures for you the official anniversary of the pandemic. I’ve been struggling with this all week, but last night, the right choice for me popped into my head. It is Gardener’s Glove, from artisan perfumer Diane St. Clair of St. Clair Scents. When my family went into lockdown by the end of March 2020 (it took my workplace until the end of the month to send most employees home), I decided to start a vegetable garden. It was both a distraction and a way to make sure my family could have fresh vegetables, given uncertainty about supply chains. Gardener’s Glove and First Cut, also by St. Clair Scents, reminded me of my late father’s vegetable garden.
And sometimes, as Voltaire once wrote, our individual response to the world’s disasters, war, and cruelty must be to “cultivate one’s garden.” Writers have argued for centuries about his intended meaning. Is it cynical advice to turn away from the world’s suffering and sorrow, and isolate oneself in a comfortable retreat? Or is it a call to create and nurture beauty and fruitfulness within one’s limited control?
I choose the latter. Candide has witnessed the world’s suffering and has not forgotten it. We too can bear witness, and respond as best we can, and also continue to create and nurture. So I will give to Ukrainian relief, and follow the news, and appreciate my many blessings, which include fragrance, and cultivate my garden. If creators cease creating, the war-mongers have won, and the world will become even more grim.
Old Herbaceous’ vegetable garden, Winter 2021-22
Are you marking today’s anniversary in any way? Do you associate any particular fragrance with the last two years? Or, how do you cultivate your own “garden”?
Welcome back 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, March 4, and I am officially on spring break! The coming week is when the university where I work will not hold classes; most students and faculty will leave town; so I’m at liberty to take a week-long vacation. Hurray! To be honest, I feel the need for it quite acutely this year. Spring break was the week when everything changed in 2020 due to the pandemic. It’s hard to believe that two years have elapsed since then. I feel so lucky, though, that our family remained safe and healthy.
The war in Ukraine continues. As this is a fragrance blog, I’ve tried to learn more about perfumery in Ukraine. I found this article; and this perfumer, Oleksandr Perevertaylo, listed on Fragrantica with his house Partisan Perfumes. One of his creations, Coven, was very favorably reviewed and awarded three starts by Luca Turin in “Perfumes: The Guide 2018.”
There is always joy in discovering new talent, and Aleksandr [sic] Perevertaylo is definitely one, possessed with the perfumery equivalent of that elusive things writers hanker after, a voice. He composes perfumes in Dnipro, recently renamed (for only the eighth time since its foundation) from Dnepropetrovsk. Coven is his most classical fragrance, and a very solid piece of work it is, in a buttery-floral manner that puts me in mind of a denser version of Molyneux’s Vivre, long discontinued.
M. Turin also praised M. Perevertaylo’s Porto de Rosa, putting it alongside Tocade and Galop as “a rose that makes you reconsider set ideas about that supposedly familiar flower.” Silky Way and Sugar Daddy also earned three stars, and Silly Love earned four stars and the praise that it was “brilliant work.” I haven’t had the opportunity to try any of these, or the 2021 release Partisan, but I hope to do so one day. Victoria at Bois de Jasmin has also written about a favorite niche perfumery in Kyiv, Le Flacon; I hope its owners and staff are safe.
Do you have any experience with, or insights into, perfume in Ukraine or Russia? Or do you have any favorite books about perfume, whether fact or fiction or reviews?
Mimosa in bloom; in honor of International Women’s Day, March 8
Welcome back 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, February 25, and it is a somber day in Eastern Europe. Russian forces have invaded Ukraine. Thousands of anti-war protesters in Russia and other former Soviet countries have taken to the streets. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians are fleeing west. Whatever one thinks of the geopolitics involved, one can surely feel for the residents of Ukraine whose lives have been turned upside-down. My heart goes out to them.
Some of you probably also read the wonderful blog Bois de Jasmin, written by Victoria Frolova. Although Victoria lives in Brussels, Belgium (where I spent part of my childhood), she is Ukrainian by birth, and she traces much of her love of fragrance back to her years of visiting family in Poltava. She has been my own little window into a part of the world I don’t know well; I pray that her family, friends, and their hometown remain unharmed.
Today is ex-Beatle George Harrison’s birthday, and in honor of that, the “community project” at Now Smell This is to pair a fragrance with a song by George Harrison or the Beatles. Robin thinks that was my idea at some point; I don’t remember suggesting it, but I’m happy to take credit! The clear choice for my SOTD is my beloved Ostara, the very fragrance of yellow daffodils, paired with one of my favorite songs by George Harrison, “Here Comes The Sun.”
Gibbs Gardens daffodils; song by the Beatles; copyright and credits here.
I recently watched the documentary “Get Back”, about the Beatles’ work on their album “Let It Be”, and it shows very clearly some of the tension among the Fab Four, but also the joy and fun they often had while working together. Sadly, it really does show how George was sometimes brushed aside as a songwriter and wrote many of his songs on his own, unlike the formidable Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership. Watching the documentary was like watching a marriage break up in slow motion. There was still so much love and affection, and many moments of laughter, but it seemed to me that John Lennon was clearly pulling away, Paul McCartney was like the partner who sees this long relationship ending, against his wishes, George was like the child whose needs are being overlooked because of the marital drama, and Ringo Starr was like the kid who’s just trying to make everyone happy by putting his head down and doing his job. At some point in this era, though not on film, Lennon apparently referred to his desire to leave the group as “wanting a divorce.”
“Here Comes The Sun”, released on the album “Abbey Road,” was written by George after a day spent in the sunny garden of his friend Eric Clapton. I have read that it is the most streamed Beatles song on Spotify, which is remarkable given their legendary output. I also have fond memories of it because it was my youngest child’s very favorite song of any when he was a little boy, which matched his sunny, happy disposition. Happy birthday, George, and thank you for helping to create the most memorable songs I recall from my childhood and beyond!
Welcome back 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, February 18, and I am the happy recipient of a full bottle of Maison Lancome’s Peut-Etre, a Valentine’s “gift” from my lovely husband. I put “gift” in quotation marks because, like many of us, I chose and ordered the fragrance so HE could give it to ME. He is a patient, lovely man! He also surprised me with a beautiful orchid plant; I made him a fancy dinner that included filet mignon and an excellent bottle of red wine. This may be the first Valentine’s Day we’ve had alone together since becoming parents. In 2020, we still had one child living at home; and in 2021, we had all three children living at home due to the pandemic!
Today, though, I’m wearing Maison Christian Dior’s Jasmin des Anges, from a decant that came in my monthly scent subscription. It’s really pretty! I’m a bit cautious around white flower scents, but this one is light and lovely. It has notes of peach, apricot, and osmanthus with the jasmine, which keep it fresh and airy. It reminds me a bit of a light white wine, even prosecco, but more floral.
The name of the fragrance reminded me that there is a lovely tropical jasmine called “Angel Wings jasmine”, or Jasminum nitidum, which then reminded me of this wonderful art project called the Global Angel Wings Project, by Colette Miller. She started it in Los Angeles, the “City of Angels”, with a street mural of painted angel wings, where passers-by could pose in front as if they themselves had sprouted wings. She has now painted angel wings all around the globe.
Angel wings, by artist Colette Miller, for her Global Angel Wings Project.
How do you react to jasmine fragrances? Do you have any favorites?
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 