"A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future."-Coco Chanel

 

 

Fragrance. Perfume. Scent. Whatever you want to call it, I’m all in. To me, perfume is the icing on the cake. A little surprise. You know when you are decorating a room, everything is finished and then you put those two decorative pillows on the sofa and it makes the whole room come alive? That’s how I think perfume acts. A subtle brilliant gesture.

My most cherished, most beloved perfume is always Serge Lutens. First, if you are interested, read this little biography on M.Lutens HERE. To me, I like the whole back story of a perfume and M. Lutens definitely delivers a rich history. My favorite scent of his is Koublai Khan. A chypre scent, Koublai Khan has a description not for the fainthearted. “Valuable furs were spread for the Emperor of China to tread on, muddy boots and all. Ultra-animalic musks and all kinds of tanned hides make a sensational debut in this fragrance. Pay no attention to their aggressiveness: once on the skin, they retract their claws in favor of padded paws.” The notes consist of civet, castoreum, cistus labdanum, ambergris, Morrocan rose, cumin, ambrette seed (musk mallow), costus root and patchouli. This is definitely not your starter perfume. You need to be pretty bold to wear this. This is the scent I use when I need to be brave.

  

The only place that I buy this perfume is in the confidential shop in the Palais Royal. It is one of the most beautiful shops in all of Paris. Lavender, black, gold, demure, dark, brooding, slightly mysterious. If you are a diehard fan like myself, you will learn that these beautiful glass bottles can be personalized. For a little extra time and euros, the shop will customize the bottle for you with your monogram. Seriously, does it get better than that? I think not.

 

My second favorite perfume comes from Le Labo. I use the Rose 31 scent. It’s not a regular rose. It’s a dirty rose. A musky rose. I am definitely a fan of starting with a rose base and then muddling it up a bit. Le Labo uses the following description to define Rose 31... “The perfume’s aim is clear: to transform the famous Grasse Rose, a symbol of voluptuousness and unqualified femininity, into an assertively virile fragrance that can be worn by both men and women... The result is a model of its kind: alternating feminine/masculine with the disturbing ambiguity of the Centifolia rose, quickly picked up by a chorus of warm, spicy and woodsy notes such as cumin, olibanum, cedar and a touch of amber... In the background, the declared sensuality of Gaïac wood and cistus highlighted by a distinctly physical animal note, give this perfume a disconcerting sense of mystery. “

 

It is rare that I like nearly every scent from a particular perfume house but I do with Le Labo. You also know that I love that they put your name on the bottle! For the jet setter, they also have great travel perfume balm and I heard that they are coming out with solid perfume in November!

Every year for my daughter Grace’s birthday, I gift her with perfume. I started her with the basics. Chanel, course. I’m sure, as she has reminded me, that she would have preferred something else but she will thank me later. There is a fabulous video from Lonny Magazine on the charming French village of Grasse where Chanel perfume is born. You can watch it HERE

 

 

 My favorite Chanel perfume is definitely Cormandel. “A spirited oriental fragrance that reveals itself by interrupted its amber vibrato with dry notes and finally settles into a long, restrained, voluptuous accord. Could there be any more beautiful homage to the exquisite Chinese lacquer screens that lined Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartments and made her almost “faint with happiness?”

My other favorites are the following…

Here’s what I don’t like… Any celebrity perfume, anything citrusy or fruity, oceanic, overly floral, green, anything sweet that smells like dessert, and anything Jo Malone because it smells like room spray. When I die, as we all are, my plan is to come back as a landscape architect and a perfumer. Yes, I want to be known as “Eleanor O. Decret-The Nose.” For you mere mortals, there are two schools…ISIPCA (Institut superieur international du parfum, de la cosmetique et de l’aromatique alimentaire) and the Grasse Institute of Perfumery (G.I.P.).

A toute!

*Something you don’t know about me? My favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and Shel Silverstein.

Hug O' War

 

I will not play at tug o' war

I'd rather play at hug o' war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses

And everyone grins

And everyone cuddles

 

And everyone wins.

 

 

Oud? Oui!

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.” – Patrick Suskind

Anyone who knows me rather well knows my obsession for perfumes. So, when I came across an article today in Town & Country magazine titled In the Mood for Oud regarding this mysterious fragrance ingredient called oud, I was fully intrigued and wanted to get on the first flight to Abu Dhabi to “find me some oud!” The article was beautifully written by Lawrence Osborne exposing the secrets of oud. You can read it HERE.

 I don’t do anything normal. I don’t have a normal husband. I don’t have a normal child. I don’t have a normal cat. I don’t have a normal life and I don’t even have a normal disease so why on earth would I have a normal perfume. Not going to happen for God’s sake. I don’t do “florals.” I’d rather die. I like musky, dark, heavy intriguing perfumes that usually offend everyone. So, this oud scent is right up my alley.

The article explains that pure oud is nearly impossible to obtain. Oud is also one of the most expensive natural raw materials in the world. So Western perfumers make a diluted mixed blend. Fine, I’ll take it. Here are a few of the best…

 

 Le Labo Oud 27

 

 Kilian Pure Oud

 

 

L'Artisan Parfumeur Al Oudh

I did do a little research and found that there are a few nonwestern oud perfumes that are worth tracking down...

 

Ensar Oud Oud Yusuf

Ensar Oud Qi Nam Khmer

 

For those of you who like to read, there is a very special book out there called Perfume that is not for the weak hearted. It’s one of my favorite books in the world. Here’s a brief description:

 

"Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity."-Amazon

 

What are your favorite perfumes/fragrances? Let me know… Hopefully they don’t have the name Britney Spears or Elizabeth Taylor in the label.

 A tout á l’heure!