Frankincense, Myrrh, DSH, and other scented Christmas gifts

Have you ever heard it said that the gifts given by the three wisemen are representative of perfume? Or is it only perfume people who start making connections like that?
Frankincense and myrrh are both heavily fragranced incenses, and the third gift was the gift of gold (given by Caliban? I have no idea), signifying the flacon, or the vessel for the perfume.

I am very much not a Christ child, but scented gifts do tend to figure prominently in my Christmas wish list.
I haven’t tried any of the following, but here’s an inventory of what I received (you’ll be happy to hear that it involves a lot of DSH and Zoologist, two brands that I’ve been meaning to explore and have a tendency to go on about).

From DSH:

• Tsukimi, Foxy, Au Lait, Musc al Madina, Indus, La Belle Saison, Reveries de Paris, April, Poppy, Peony, Habibi (I want to name my next pet Habibi or Rasputin), Chinchilla, L‘Etole de vison, Chataignes du bois, Arabesque, Rendezvous, Une Robe de Zibeline, and Mirabella.
• As well as a few exciting extras, Dawn is super generous with samples!

From Annick Goutal:

• Ce Soir Ou Jamais

Zoologist:

• A mini bottle of Hummingbird ( ❤ ), having drained my previous decant
• Camel, Elephant, Civet, Dragonfly, Nightingale

Everything is a sample size unless otherwise stated. So excited to play with these ^.^

Links from the USA

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I arrived home yesterday afternoon and am super jet lagged and being treated to a very New England ice storm.

It’s excellent.  We’re going to see The Last Jedi tonight and I think my excitement will be such that I will stay awake.  I’ve heard lots of interesting things about it but have so far avoided any spoilers.

I have a healthy (and scented!) collection of links this week!

• Quentin Bisch on “a journey to dreams and emotions” and what it means to be a Givaudan-trained perfumer.
• Why perfume descriptions are never about smell (hint- it involves the close link between fragrance and memory)
• The Cult of Le Labo Santal 33. I think it smells like cucumber.
• Zoologist has some new releases– I think Camel sounds very appealing.

The year-end photo compendiums are coming in, here are two favorites…

• The Most 2017 Photos Ever
• The Most Hilarious Wildlife Photos of 2017

On the fashion front:

• What did happen to jeans in 2017? Honestly, whatever it was, I kind of liked it.
• An Instagram account I’ve started following, which gorgeously marries art and fashion/cosmetics.
• Finding one’s sense of style really is a personal journey. I don’t think I could truly define my style beyond ‘things that make me happy and that I like wearing’.

And the more miscellaneous:

• What did you learn this year? I loved reading the comments.
• The Ocean’s 8 trailer has me excited.
• Pantone’s Spring 2018 color trend forecast.
• Some great gift ideas for francophiles (ahem, me) via My Little Paris.
• Excited to see Swing Time on this list of the world’s coolest playgrounds. It inspired me to search for Imagination Station and discover that it was in fact a thing and not just a figment of my childhood imagination. Now that was a playground.
• This clip of the original Fantasia just blew my mind.
• Keeping the NYC Vogue scene alive.
• How to wrap a cat.

Last Night/This Morning and Samples (of Perfume)

I think yesterday may actually have been my first all-nighter? To the extent that I have been awake since 8 am yesterday morning (it’s now three minutes after 4 pm, today). And I spent the night hanging around outside in Paris, so I don’t think you can really ask for a better first nuit blanche (all-nighter in French). Interestingly, this also coincided with Paris’ Nuit Blanche music and light festival, so there was lots to see and do. And the Marais is always pretty active on Saturday nights.

I have many more things to say about French Tinder (Did I already mention that there are SO MANY PEOPLE NAMED QUENTIN?) like I now know how to say mind games. These are the important life skills.

But in the meantime I just want to talk about perfume.

As in if I could magically have the samples that I want most (that aren’t on m decant wish list) what would I pick? (Also I bought Rose de Nuit by Serge Lutens on eBay recently and I’m super excited! I have been wanting that perfume for quite literally 6 years.

Also did you know there are more Dior Private Collection scents in the stores in Paris that aren’t available in the US? I have to say I didn’t find any of them particularly enrapturing, but they were fun to visit. My favorite would have to be Jasmin des Anges, which was much more a tart blackberry than a jasmine. But it was a pretty nice blackberry.

Okay, back to the topic at hand.

• Ce Soir ou Jamais- Annick Goutal: A super nice and musky overblown rose that I haven’t yet had the chance to try in any meaningful quality. I think I might love it.
• Rose Trocadero- Jardin Retrouve: I seem to be in a rose mood. I want this to be the fresh green garden rose of which I have been dreaming.
• Kingston Osmanthus- Eric Buterbaugh: Too bad 10 mLs costs three weeks of groceries.
• Equestrian- Sonoma Scent Studio: Obviously I can’t leave alone anything doing with horses.
• Miyako-Auphorie: This one got a whole lot of buzz not too long ago and I still haven’t tried it. But I’m here for fruity suede osmanthus vibes.
• Onyx- Sage Machado: Musky coconut? Neat. I want to try.
• Noir Exquis-L’Artisan Parfumeur: I tried a bit of this in store and one point and think I may be very much a fan. SO cozy!
• A bunch from Zoologist. But if I had to pick it would be Nightingale or Civet. Followed by Dragonfly, Panda 2017, and Elephant.
• Suede de Suede and Dojima- Mona di Orio: There are two new Mona di Orios and I haven’t smelled them yet. Shame.
• Mardi Gras- Olympic Orchids: Speaking of Civet.
• Acqua Celestia- Maison Francis Kurkdjian: I keep smelling this in stores and wishing for a bit of my own.
• Joyeuse Tubereuse- Guerlain: Only if I can’t find my sample. I have the sneaking suspicion it’s still in the USA.
• Tabacca-Costamor/Frank 3-Frank: You know you need to smell it when you’ve been waiting so long the brand and scent name changes.
• Tabac Tabou- Parfums d’Empire: Tobacco, honey, narcissus. Give me.

By the way also all of these from DSH 😛

A Handful of Spring Perfumes Sneaking Into My Icy Winter Heart

I’m generally feel most myself in thick and wintery fragrances- scents that wrap you up in a musky blanket or a whirl of fireplace smoke.  But we always miss out when we try to play exactly to type- and most often delightful things come to surprise you from unexpected directions…

That’s probably why my collection of bottles is neither here nor there- it covers a lot of bases, with little overlap in genre or category- no easily articulated cohesion beyond that indefinable something that makes them feel like me and like mine.
And that has a certain logic to it, but when you trust to fragrance love and the vicissitudes of perfume fate your collection comes together a little spuriously.  You end with more of some type of fragrance, a few of another, and none of a third. The classical spring fragrance- the fresh floral- has historically been poorly represented in my cabinet.
(Which is not entirely fair: A bottle of vintage Diorissimo holds the ‘fresh spring floral’ banner; beautiful, proud, and tragically alone. She could use a little company).

But I don’t sample much anymore, even if I do keep up a massive list (classic) of fragrances I’d like to try.  My acquisitive feelings about perfume have subsided and I feel very content with my collection as it is. But I’m lucky enough to have a few friends who look out for me and send things over, and when I travel I do try to stop by local fragrance shops: in sort, samples do somehow find their way to me.

A few of them have sort of caught me unawares, winnowed their way into my affections, particularly during this particularly cold-snappy March, when I’m most in need of a hint of spring.  So maybe I was a bit vulnerable, but isn’t so much of love finding the right thing at the right time?

That was a long-winded way of introducing these four- four underrated and little discussed fragrances this side of quirky and that side of beautiful, and sure to please you whether it’s the snows or cherry blossoms falling.