Review: PROFUMUM Vanitas

I am all for irony. Usually. Only, the execution of it is tricky. Too much subtlety and it fails to register. Not enough and it's clunky -- which tends to defeat the purpose of irony. Or turn it into contradiction.

So, which is it, to name a sweet vanilla perfume 'Vanitas'? I really don't know.

As a scent, it is a half-half of sweets and flowers. It reads to me as soft cotton candy, light caramel, and powdered vanilla on one side; and lily and orange blossom on the other. The white florals are non-indolic and mild, creamy but not buttery, and grow stronger on my skin until they are balanced equally against the gourmands, with a drop of the amber-myrrh-sandalwood Profumumade under it all. And much, much later, that drop turns into a soft, luminous glow. Maybe this is the 'sunset' that the copy [NB this link to Profumum's website contains audio] mentions. I think I like this part best but it's very faint and on me Vanitas is about the candy-and-flowers.

If I enjoyed floral vanillas more, I think I would really really like this, but even for me, it's quite likable and wearable. Reminds me a bit of a sweeter Serge Lutens Un Lys. Sweet without the toothache; floral without the headache. Pretty, sun-warmed, uncomplicated, loquacious, flips her hair a lot. Though, Candy says, more nice than jailbait -- it's not that interesting.

Also, it's not a stunner. Vanitas is no step toward an undiscover'd country, but rather, a competent (if not very ambitious) re-tread of the genre, with characteristic slimline-chic. But then, I don't think Profumum is interested in stunners anyway. They seem pretty committed to derivation and restraint.

Speaking of which... As a scent, Vanitas seems so statement-less, normal, and unforeboding, with nary a wilting petal, let alone the stench of decay, that I admit I found myself puzzling over whether the name might mean something other than the vanitas. Yet it can't simply mean 'vanity' (or any other thing) with absolutely no consciousness of vanitas -- that would be either incredibly naive or willful, neither of which seems especially Profumum. So, to credit them with too much or too little subtlety?

That is the question.


And now for some Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians!

No online videos/audios of the Element of Light album seem to be available and no idea how to post a clip from my copy. Which is too bad -- Hitchcock's deadpan is inimitable and renders this ballad characteristically droll. But at least here are the lyrics.



LADY WATERS AND THE HOODED ONE
Robyn Hitchcock

"Will you dance with me, Lady Waters?"
And a bony hand plucked her gown.
"Will you dance with me?" said the Hooded One.
"For the plague has reached this town."

"No, I'll never dance," says Lady Waters,
"For I see that your name is Death."
And beneath her mask she was sweating
At the Hooded One's fetid breath.

"Will you dance with me, Lady Waters?
For the fire dies in your grate.
And your guests have gone and your lord's asleep.
And the plague has reached your estate."

"Then I'll dance with you," says Lady Waters,
"For the stars grow pale in the dawn.
But I must first get my tiara,
For I left it out on the lawn."

"Oh and if you get your tiara,"
And his eyes like coals, they did burn.
"You must give me all and taste my breath
On the moment that you return."

"Very well," she said from behind her mask,
"You must take from me what is mine.
I'll return to you and submit to you."
And the Hooded One, he said, "Fine."

She came back to him and took off her mask.
And the Hooded One, he recoiled.
What he thought was sweat on her face and hands,
It turned out to be boils.

"You must take from me all I have," she said.
"You must take it all with good grace.
For I have the plague on my body
And I have the plague on my face."

Oh the Hooded One took her house and her lands.
He took every fork, every knife.
And he took the plague and he left her there,
Without anything but her life.


Happy New Year :)

scenting gloves: PARFUMERIE GENERALE Cuir d'Iris

I'm sure it's antiquated and pretentious and everything, but I got some nice gloves and I think I'm going to scent them. Well, I already did -- with Parfumerie Générale Cuir d'Iris.

It is the exact smell-replica of my gloves! There are more notes to Cuir d'Iris than 'perfect leather accord' but they get more or less lost to me, in its note-perfect reproduction of soft, supple, compulsively strokable leather. Cold sniff of it is light, clean, and medicinal, and on my gloves, it is a little brighter and fruity-sweetish, but on my skin, it turns into a more animalic leather, though not too aggressive and not at all acrid, with a too-brief early-exit cameo by a dry iris, some smokiness from incense, and much later, a barely traceable residual chocolatey-ambery afterglow -- but these are mostly offstage and the main show, clearly, is the cuir. It isn't something I would frequently wear myself (though it is not difficult to wear), not being very good with leathers this neat or predominant, but it is just the thing to intensify the 'natural' scent of my gloves so that I can admire them all the more.

The official list of notes also includes cardamom, vetiver, woods, and Rhizophora tannin, besides the aforementioned elements. I wouldn't know. All I know is that it is the most perfect leather, realistic enough for a hint of mortality but soft enough not to be a beast. I can quite see why gloves might be a fetishistic item.

And now, I think I'll go add a drop of Coup de Fouet to the inside wrist on them...
















top left image: Strawbridge & Clothier Quarterly, Winter 1885-6; view entire issue at digitalchangeling.com.
above image (repeated) from shootingstarhistory.com.
left image: Prestige Hong Kong, cover June 2007. Check out Zhang's gloves. Damn.

Odette-Odile

images from mariinskiy.com

Black ice on the roads today. It is definitely winter. Time for Swan Lake.

And I so love Uliana Lopatkina. Here she is in an impossibly beautiful and otherworldly interpretation of the Odette/White Swan Pas de Deux [YouTube video] adagio. People often mention her arms and height but I think her head movement and hands are uncanny.

And here is Adam Cooper in the notorious Michael Bourne version, start at 4:10 [YouTube video]. For all of the brash camp and fun in this production, this is a surprisingly human moment whose 'carrying' motif gets echoed throughout and in the final apotheosis. The Swan, as a character, here is made stronger and more nurturing than the classic mournful Odette and in an interesting (and very welcome) reversal, it is the Prince who is in need of saving.

I really like that. But I must admit I still prefer the remote, creaturely Odette by Lopatkina. She's alien and exquisite, and despite her distressed-damsel passivity, she has a certain brittleness and control in her lyricism that makes her believable as inspiring double love suicide and she would have given that (original) tragic finale its massive devastation. And with a style that is as ephemeral and brilliant as ice. For once, the upstaging black swan has got nothing on the white. Odile and her fouettés can't compare (obviously, the Prince is a dolt) and the Bourne-Cooper Stranger is a thug in comparison. Lopatkina is mythic and, finally, Odette becomes a proper heroine for a dark winter's tale. No sugar plum fairies.

concept & design: KENZO Flower

images from kenzo.com


Not being too interested in Kenzo perfumes, I'm not sure what I was doing on the website. But I ran across these new repackaging designs for the FlowerbyKenzo fragrance. Very striking.

The concept of it is also very striking. In fact I think it is an instance of the idea being far more interesting than the actual manifestation. 'FlowerbyKenzo' is about construction and abstraction, rather than representation. It is the scent of a flower, not a flower of nature, but rather the imagination -- of Kenzo's, that is. Which means, transplanted to an urban environment and vaguely (it pains me) Japanese. The shock of red on a white expanse, in particular. Ideas of purity, fragility, sexuality, and femininity abound.

At this point, I am between aversion and fascination. And I am reminded of the recursivity of Pygmalion-type tropes in these constructions of femininity. The red flower here is the poppy, which is clearly selected advisedly, the poppy having no natural scent of her own. Instead, it provides the blank canvas for his olfactory work of art -- the scent of the flower, of the woman. As Kenzo announces: he has created it.

That made me laugh. But seriously, this polite, prim, powdery little nondescript-nothing of a fragrance has quite the semiotic nerve.

A nightmare

Orpheus Song

It's Halloween, night of migration,
a holiday for all of the hungry sightless beings,
these discontent traversers
or trespassers
from the next world into this,
from one face to another.
Formless and seeking shape, a structure,
some peace of place. Where do we come from,
what are we, where are we going?

It's a maze, I fear,
in this crowd of mysteries, the secrets which the world
does not give up. I'm sitting here,
in this impersonal semi-public domain
which is indifferent to all that may come.
All welcomed, none called.
Holograms like brushstrokes flit across
the window and again on the walls, the floors,
the expressions of people as they pass by.
Everything a surface for reflection.

I watch them and my own face,
the moving of light and dark. But I see
no law to it
though I shuffle
through the smoke and theater,
the license of one after another.
Here today, gone tomorrow. Borrowed,
returned.

In a nightmare, I chase death incarnate.
Through hallway and corridor, lost
in a ruin of internality. Then
death stops.
She stops and turns. Her face
shimmers half-masked with peacock and raven.
But her teeth -- her teeth shock tiny, white, and even.
Death's baby teeth smile at me babysweet.
Give me a lullaby, I want to say. To lull
panic's red tooth and claw
as it races through night and song.
To swaddle this confusion
into nomos, chapter and verse. Anything but --
free.

Review: PROFUMUM Alba & Olibanum

ALBA was a significant step for this confirmed hater of baby powder. The smell of baby powder literally provokes an anger response in me. Blood rushes to my face and I set my teeth. I hate intense sweetness and intense sweetness and powderiness together even more and still even more when under the threat of milk-fed sour vomitous diaperous horrible inescapable all-encompassing suffocation. Probably a motherload of speculative babble in that. Anyway, I hate it. But I like Alba.

It isn't exactly baby powder -- but it does have a good dusting of something like it. But its saving grace for me is the family resemblance to Chanel No. 5 -- though, confusingly, I also take No. 5 to be at least in part an abstraction of freshly-bathed-and-powdered (the grownup version). I find Alba most similar to the 'Sensual Collection,' sharing aldehydes, a rose-jasmine core similar to the Bath Milk (but with more orange blossom), and a soft vanillic sandalwood base similar to the Body Cream and Sensual Elixir, but sweeter, more ambery, and nuttier than any of those.

But the mention of only woods, apart from amber, in the official perfume note listing for Alba is odd and misleading to me. Why no mention of (what I register as) the heliotrope, the orange blossom, the rose-jasmine? Or at least some florals, without which I think it would smell very different... they are present enough and lilting enough, despite the underlying Matin Câlin-ness, and the overall composition pale enough, to not set me off in a rage.

The name is quite pretty, too, and I choose to understand it as a white dawn, misted over soft and gauzy.

OLIBANUM, on the opposite side of the scale (though for Profumum the scope is not that wide), is my other favorite. And I like it more than Alba. Darker, but still lightish and uncluttered in keeping with what seems to be its general house rule. Rather a cool floral incense on cold sniff, but on the skin, it really warms up from the sandalwood and myrrh -- I think my skin tends to intensify sweets (unfortunately). There is no mention of orris/iris but I smell something like it, too, rooty and slightly earthy, which (fortunately) dries the composition and prevents it from going too sweet, and also something slightly peppery -- that part reminds me a little of Santa Maria Novella Città di Kyoto.

Olibanum is also like it in its being a treatment of incense that is sheer and very wearable, lightened by the addition of florals -- in particular, orange blossom. But the effect on the incense is not as sharp and clear as Passage d'Enfer; nor as green and twiggy as Comme des Garçons Kyoto. Most like SMN CdK, softened with a drop of the warm sandalwood base present in Alba. As mentioned, the distance between Alba and Olibanum is not totally uncrossable...

Even part from the similar base (also featured in Antico Caruso and Soavissima), they share a certain 'safe' stylishness, nothing too pointed or challenging, nothing too glorious or effusive, neither too nor under sexed, neither cold nor hot, nor overwhelming. Sort of an exercise in eminent moderation -- which also could be read as bland. Which is perhaps why Alba does not offend the delicate little sensibilities of my profound, essential, forevermore Baby Powder Hatred.

I suppose Profumums are a little bland. I like bland. Better than angry, anyway.

Review: L'ARTISAN PARFUMEUR Fleur de Liane

The origin story for L'Artisan Parfumeur Fleur de Liane is very enticing. Perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour travels to Bahia Honda and conjures up the perfume essence of an imagined leafy green vine flower that could be native only to that precise corner of verdant jungle floor.

Good heavens. Echoes of Rima... all the way to Panama.

The reality is hardly as dramatic, though. On the contrary, rather pale and limpid -- as perhaps it was meant to be, given the aquatic notes and inspiration from tropical forest rains. But watery intentions or no, Fleur de Liane is somewhat of a disappointment to the promise in its description: it isn't particularly unique. Or specific.

In fact, it is quite a lot like Diptyque Eau de Lierre (the drydown). This perhaps should not be hugely surprising, since both are renditions of vine plants -- lierre is ivy and liane is creeper plant. But that a tropical flower from the twining depths of Duchaufour's imagination and drawn from travels should end up smelling so very much like ivy running up a French bastide (the origin story for Eau de Lierre) is somehow a little depressing.

Maybe it will grow on me. But as of now, it strikes me as fresh, pleasant, innocuous, and very, very generic. A scent for a shampoo. A bit of melon and some mild floral sweetness laid over nearly that same 'vine' drydown as the Diptyque -- and that, furthermore, being slightly peppered and more idiosyncratically, sharply 'green' is the more interesting fragrance (though itself not tremendously interesting)! Alas.




image of the cover of Green Mansions from doverpublications.com

Review: NASOMATTO Absinth

I would love a dryish absinthe fragrance. Something that muffles the sweetness of anise and fennel while emphasizing the herbal bitters. Nasomatto Absinth is not that. In accord with standard absinthe representations, this one is also quite sweet. Very nice, though.

Honeyed and warm, with a sweet sandalwood-patchouli, maybe oak, anise, some sort of floral and juicy nectar, maybe cassis, a touch of nutty amber, plenty of earthy vetiver, and a wormwood-like general herbal-ness under it all. Saved from being too cloying by the woods and vetiver, though still very sweet and ambrosial, Absinth is nicely-blended and with a definite presence. Excellent longevity on the skin for me, starting as a fruity woody-oriental and ending hours later with the herbal aromatic dregs.

But once again, no official scent notes and in lieu of them an ad copy that talks about 'evok[ing] degrees of hysteria' which invites some ridicule. Degrees? Presumably not too many to hysteria. For such minimalism-leaning looks, Nasomatto really has got a perplexing lot of self-proclaimed crazy on its nose. (And sundry drugs to go up it.)

Review: NASOMATTO China White

I wish I could get all terribly, terribly frothy about the name 'China White' being an allusion to heroin but I can't. And the crackled porcelain cap reminds me of a toilet bowl... which, however, is not totally out of mis-en-scène for heroin. And which in fact is helped by a whiff of something like sharp urinal cake or subway tunnel wind in this green-powdery composition. But I do find the 'strength of fragility' copy Nasomatto gives it more interesting -- though, admittedly, more intriguing in its obscurity than comprehensible. At least, I am not sure what it is meant to mean and Nasomatto does not seem particularly forthcoming about it.

Neither are they about 'notes': no official perfume/scent notes for China White. Inconvenient, but I can't seem to get frothy about that, either. Maybe I am merely determined to be unexcitable. But I do like this. It is a rather thin green floral on cold sniff but on the skin, after the citron-ish citrus and lily-like vague flowery opening, in comes some interest -- a good dose of smoke and vetiver, dry grass, orris, something mildly rosy like centifolia, something leathery, and civet. Most prominent for me are the vetiver and the civet, but the rest of it make for a very pleasant background dry powderiness, light but persistent, against the green-sharp.

I quite like these herbal-powdery contrasts, in general. Unusual and underused, I think. Lorenzo Villoresi Yerbamate is another that comes to mind, but that is brighter, sweeter, and rather breezy, whereas China White has a slight edge to it, like Piguet Bandit very much emaciated. A little bitter, a hint of dark.

A very sleeper of a hit.

Avant, la haine

One magical day, Guerlain Attrape-Coeur started to love me. Before, it was all scat, toothache, and hate -- as is nearly everything Guerlain for me. But one afternoon, just before watching Christophe Honoré's Dans Paris, I happened to dab on a bit from a random sample vial... and my heart was captured.

Ambushed. I don't know what happened. It was very sudden. I became obsessed with its romantic luscious peachy violet over vanillic woods and slight undertone of something intriguingly dirty and Jickyish.

I'm reminded of it today, because I've finally gotten around to trying the tea blend I had made to approximate that Attrape-Coeur / Dans Paris moment. Apricot and vanilla flavored black teas, Earl Grey for the bergamot, gingerbread spices, dried lavender buds, and candied dried violets... not bad but nothing close.

But the perfume-movie pairing turned out to be serendipitous, because L'Attrape-Coeurs happens to be the French title of The Catcher in the Rye (I didn't know this at the time) and Dans Paris is heavy in its Salinger allusions.

However, I have to say, I wasn't overwhelmed with love for the movie. It seems to me a little too self-conscious, or maybe not self-conscious enough, to be particularly standout amid the crowd of homages to La Nouvelle Vague (though Garrel has to have the most perfect delightfully squirmy charm); and I think it works better as an intimate family/relationship piece with Duris' Paul in the center, brooding about the apartment, and his father, brother, and ex as satellites. As that, there are some touching moments. And I think it's that that Attrape-Coeur seemed to me to suit, that close, warm, melancholic atmosphere of sepia-tones and jazzy, muted score and the end of a love affair -- but not of love.

'Avant la haine' by Alex Beaupain, performed by Romain Duris and Joana Preiss:


English translation:
(Please note: This is my translation, not transliteration, nor from the movie subtitles.)

RD: You know, my lovely,
that the brightest loves tarnish
the dirty sun of the day, the day
they are subjected to scrutiny?
I have an irrefutable idea
for avoiding the unbearable:
Before the hate, before the blows,
the hisses or the lashes,
before the pain and the disgust --
Please, let's end it there.

JP: But I kiss you and it passes.
You see,
you can't brush me off like that.
You thought to get yourself out of it
by leaving me like
some great love that must die.
But, you see, I prefer
the tempests of the inevitable
to your stupid little idea.
Before the hate, before the blows,
the hisses or the lashes,
before the pain and the disgust --
End it there, you say?

RD: But you kiss me and it passes.
I know, you can't be brushed off like that.

RD: I could avoid for you the worst.
JP: But the best is yet to come.

RD&JP: Before the hate, before the blows,
the hisses or the lashes,
before the pain and the disgust --
RD: Please, let's end it there.
JP: But I kiss you and it passes. You see?
(Repeat)

RD: You kiss me and it passes.
I know, you can't be brushed off like that.
JP: You can't brush me off like that.

Review: IN FIORE Bois d'Eté

Even if this weren't named 'Summer Wood,' I think it would still make me think of one. The first time I tried Bois d'Eté Parfum Solide, it very strongly reminded me of the bamboo grove behind my childhood summer farmhouse. The grove was perpetually shady and slightly damp from the little dribbling creek that ran along beside the house, and smelled like sap and cool, loamy earth.

In Fiore Bois d'Eté is like that. Stem-y, green, bitter, and very distinctly galbanum. In fact I don't think I've encountered a fragrance as strong on it as this. Bergamot, neroli, petitgrain, and vetiver are detectable, as well, and nicely support the principal. A simple but forceful herbal blend, I find it stimulating in a palate-cleansing sort of way and also a little zen.

In Fiore perfumes come in solid form, and as such, it's hard to overdo it and overwhelm one's neighbor -- a good thing in this case, as I think otherwise the raw green of it would be too aggressive. In any case, for myself, I rather like perfume solids, precisely for their discreet range, and because this compact is so attractive, I really enjoy toting it around and taking it out of its velvet pouch to dab some on every now and then as a little pick-me-up salve.


The body balms and face oils and serums are exquisite and worth some obsession, too, despite In Fiore's somewhat laughable and relentless puritanically-organic yet gilded-lily vibe.

images from infiore.net

Review: SHISEIDO Koto 琴

Extraordinary kotoist Sawai Kazue performs Midare Rinzetsu 乱 ('Disorder').

A 40-minute practice/discussion session:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shhCLCBb6mw
Her first piece is the famous classic Rokudan no Shirabe 六段の調 ('Six Levels Melody/Etude') by 17th C. composer Yatsuhashi.

SHISEIDO KOTO falls into the perfume subcategory of the floral green chypre -- a favorite of mine and Koto is my favorite representative of it. And this is no small feat, as its nearest relations are the more well-known Vent Vert (though reformulated) and Ivoire, which are lovely in their own right and which also happen to be from one of my favorite perfume houses, Balmain. Also in the company of Yves Saint Laurent Y, Chanel Cristalle (edt), Paco Rabanne Calandre, Shiseido Murasaki, etc. Yet Koto manages to best them all -- and with a lot of grace.

Altogether airy and elegant, Koto is a subtle grafting of misty white florals onto a sheered-out chypre base. Lily of the valley, though sometimes troublesomely high-pitched for me, is here muted by the sweetness of an oldschool but light gardenia, which is then dried out by clean, soapy, very slightly bitterish transparent woods. For me, it is the perfect balance of floral + green chypre elements. Understated, cool, level, and eminently wearable.

As for its relation to the musical instrument... I have to say the name annoyed the hell out of me at first. In a certain way, the choice of the koto (which is the national instrument of Japan) might be seen as a perpetuation of that really really really tiresome image of 'spare elegance' that seems fetishistically to constitute 'Japanese-ness' in the Western imagination, only worse in this case, since it is Shiseido itself that is doing it, and further complicated by the fragrance being a version of the rather non-Japanese genre of the chypre. But I've sort of come to a resigned peace about it. Shiseido Koto is like the koto in some respects -- it has a clear resonance and is discursively melodic but still structured -- like Midare.

But, at least in the 'Pure Mist' eau de cologne concentration, it mostly makes me think of a zephyr breathing flowers and cool rain.

Review: CHIDORIYA Hinoki Balm

Happy accident: I've just recovered this balm from under some shelves/drawers in my closet, where it somehow had lost itself, probably some two or three years ago. Passing over what that says about the state of my closet and speaking to product longevity -- still in perfect condition! Shouldn't be too surprising, I guess, given camellia oil (the main ingredient in the base) has an extraordinarily long shelf-life and hinoki (Japanese cypress) fungicidal properties.

Chidoriya's Hinoki is a simple and authentic hinoki essential oil scent -- none of the ozonic flinty opening of Comme des Garçons Monocle Series Hinoki fragrance.









images from chidoriyaworld.com

The Suit on the Stair

Tan jacket, Prince Albert tie: I passed
you in the library
last Saturday 1:57.
I was the one in black.
The Mishima? Well, no,
it isn't my usual fare.
It fell into my hands, somehow.
As if it knew
it was coming,
that little lift of eyebrow and lip --
you supercilious shit. Anyhow,
should you judge
a book by its cover -- isn't that
the irony of his life? Beauty,
a fierce whip to the unlovely; and
no less
by your offhand grip.

[I would like
to hand you off to a court of the blind,
to petition where
the might of beauty enjoys no right;
no natural nobility, or divinity -- merely
the same vanitas that is everywhere
the same sentence.
A suitable vengeance
to dress you in. Let me tie
for you such coils -- though
what do I know
of what arcana roiling under your skin?]


OK, he might have been wearing the ordinary Four-in-Hand, but it looked to me like the Prince Albert and as that is my favorite knot, I took some liberty. I like the Prince Albert because it makes a fairly compact knot but balances against the tongue better than the F-in-H, and I think narrower heads in general just much more flattering than the broad, squat-triangles of the Windsors. Actually, I prefer almost anything to the full Windsor, which, especially with heavy fabrics, always looks caricaturish to me and seems normal only in morning dress (or on a thick neck). The Prince Albert is a lot less obvious and stentorian and very easy to dress down.

A mini tutorial on the Prince Albert:
image from bensilver.com

Review: ORTIGIA Fico d'India

Transliteration of the Italian fico d'India may be Indian fig, but it is really neither fig nor from (the real) India. Less glorified, it is a type of very garden-variety cactus -- the prickly pear.

It grows in almost every continent, and is common in the Mediterranean and North Africa, besides Mexico and the Americas. The green succulent pads have a mild vegetable taste when cooked, sort of like a cross between green beans, okra, and artichoke; and the bright magenta fruit has a sweet, watermelon-apple-kiwi flavor.

However, that said, Ortigia Fico d'India (an acqua di colonia), confoundingly, smells rather more like a fig/figuier fragrance than a prickly pear one -- certainly not the fruit, anyway. Very grassy and vegetal and somewhat like Profumum Ichnusa, i.e. fig leaf with an undertone of something vaguely milky.

Ortigia's copy calls Fico d'India a 'dry, almost velvety scent, which mirrors the plant: dusky pale green with explosions of remarkable orange flowers.' Well, it doesn't seem to me at all velvety or particularly dry, though green and fresh like aloe -- and not too interesting. But pleasant for the Bath & Shower Gel, which, enhanced with olive oil and collagen, is wonderfully moisturizing. Its bottle looks quite nice, too... but I think they've transformed Dionysus into a woman! Or hermaphrodite.


ortigia product images from ortigia-srl.com
cactus image from wikipedia.com
detail of floor tile mosaic in Pella, Greece, of Dionysus on leopard, also from wikipedia.com

random find: ortoPilot

I happened onto this on youtube today: acoustic cover of Crowded House's classic 'Fall at Your Feet,' made even more affecting and vulnerable by some skinny geeky quite adorable young guy who, I gather, heads a group out of Manchester called ortoPilot. Really talented.

Review: ORTIGIA Melograno

More on pomegranates (and Ortigia)! My favorite perfume representation of it so far is Ortigia Melograno. Santa Maria Novella Melograno, I think I prefer as a fragrance, but as a representation of the fruit, Ortigia's is comparatively the truer. However, pomegranate doesn't seem to get translated into scent very faithfully, and even Ortigia's isn't exactly literal, either. But unlike the more common resolutions of it into grenadine, here, the whole of the fruit is captured -- from the dry, bark-like tough peel, to the acidic sweet of the pulp, and the bitterness of the seed and pith. And in Ortigia Melograno, it makes for a somewhat difficult but rather addictive complex of tart yet syrupy yet bitter.

Cold sniff of it is amazingly like the smell of the energy drink Bacchus-D, which is a strange piercing contrast of ginseng and fruit, a little like the intense bitter/sweet contrast of cough syrup. On the skin, the first few moments are somewhat like citrus paint thinner, but that mellows into a general herbal-ish bitterness, and then, a fruity cherry-like tobacco-ish sweetness emerges over the dry, somewhat leathery woods; the final drydown sort of reminds me of the dusty sweetness of the insides of an antique chest of drawers. No idea of its official notes, but it seems to me primarily: pomegranate, dry patchouli, and a touch of labdanum.

It isn't perhaps immediately appealing. And, I think, requires a dark mood. Neither of which is likely to win it legions of fans, but both which of which seem quite appropriate to the pomegranate fruit.

winter fruit: pomegranate

I always look forward to pomegranate season. It's my favorite winter fruit, besides persimmon, and such a strange one at that, with a lot of evocative lore. But it surprises me that there seems so little reference to its resemblance to the heart -- ventricled chambers, arils like briolettes of blood, and the calyx a little like artery stems.

It's even more surprising, in view of the native mythic-religious possibilities in the heart or blood. Life, death, regeneration, sacrifice, passion, wine, etc. All of which are manifest in the story of Persephone, as well as the cult of Dionysus, and in striking transcription (along with even the pomegranate itself!) in Christianity.






above images from: spectrum-health.org and quamut.com.
painting detail from Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranates.


Eleusis

Destroyer,
kyria eleison! Descend,
to the heart of December. Winter
comes. To the heart,
a hard fruit, but swollen with a thousand
drops of blood, rubies, pave-set and
glittering with the rage
of life. Descend,
to stillness and earth. To rest,
unmoved; yet moving unseen,
under the royal calyx,
swallowed in a secret of sleep, gestation:
to ascend
to agony
to love in vain spring. Exultet.

Review: ORTIGIA Zagara

Hard to resist something that looks like this.

By way of some probably dubious associative alchemy, this stylized tableau of palm, orange tree, and leopard manages to conjure up in me vaguely 'moorish' images of dry, hot sun, startling jewel-like oasis flora in dust and scorched rock, and lattice-shaded, tile-lined baths. The romance of that is suspect, as is any exoticization in my view, and I suppose the iconography is pretty heavy-handed, but clearly, Ortigia uses it all with good effect, indexing the North African influence on the eponymous island and on Sicily, generally, with Tunisia just a stone's throw away. Though it seems to me, as far as this toiletries/perfume line is concerned, the influence is more about historical imagination than fact -- which is probably why it is so seductive.

So, basically, even before I tried anything Ortigia, they had me in the bag. Luckily the scents and the products themselves happen to be really nice, too.

Zagara is a dry, aromatic rendering of orange blossom, more herbal than floral, and in fact more like neroli than orange blossom*. Neroli usually gives me a headache from its aggressive sharpness and orange blossom, especially as a featured note, sometimes makes me gag from its indoles, but not here. Nothing indolic and nothing too pointy, and weighted by a good dose of woody petitgrain that dries out the entire composition, giving it a very pleasant bitterness over the citrusy floral notes. Fairly linear as a fragrance but nice to wear as a light, casual scent -- I'm surprised how much I like it, really. And I think even more as a scent for bath toiletries. Feels both rejuvenating and calming to sit in a Zagara-scented bath.

The bath oil is especially nice. A little viscous but disperses completely in water, foaming slightly; lightly moisturizing; and scented enough to linger a bit on the skin after-bath, though the salts seem a little stronger. Overall, lovely products and worth giving in to.

And I really capitulated: the first time I used this bath oil, I put on The English Patient soundtrack. Even more questionable association-magick... but a measure of Ortigia's success.




*'Neroli' refers to steam-distilled extract of bitter orange; 'orange blossom absolute' refers to solvent-extracted bitter orange.

Review: FLORIS White Rose

Champagne and roses. There is a little scene in Colette's Chéri, in which Chéri is asked what he will drink, now that he is married, maybe chamomile, but he answers, 'Pommery' -- but the memory of another champagne, rose-scented, sparkling, vintage 1889, intrudes upon him. It was what his lover Léa had always reserved for him alone.

I don't know why that, out of the entire book (and its sequel), should have struck me so much and stayed with me for all of these years, acting as sort of a Proustian madeleine -- and for Chéri, too, as he affects nonchalance in front of his dinner partner and the rest of the restaurant while privately brooding over the loss of Léa, which is an irrevocable loss, not merely the end of an affair with an aging demimonde but the loss of what she was, now that she, much older than him, self-consciously, with clear-sighted realism, has put herself out to pasture and him out of her life. That old-fashioned rose champagne Chéri remembers perfectly captured for me the entirety of all of that. The hard brilliance of chandeliers, the cheerful noisy indifference of the restaurant, and the sad jealous memory of something relinquished, a little démodé and comforting and close, of Léa's powdered, wrinkled, beautiful skin.

Floris White Rose is that champagne. It's a burst of crisp, dry brut, sparkling and citrusy, infused with a cold, sharp, almost shrill, rose and a violet that recalls old-fashioned talcs and lipsticks. In fact Floris calls White Rose a 'compliment to the early days' of the house and unsurprisingly so, to me, anyway, as Floris as a perfume house always seemed to me be stuck in some gilded, vaguely Belle Epoque time. And it's nostalgic in another way, too -- it also reminds me of dolls' heads. That sweet, slightly plasticky, artificial scent of toys. White Rose leaves a ghost of that, after the aldehydes and champagne have burnt off and the fragrance settles into its sharply green but sweet and lightly powdery violety-rose. There is for me something a little sickening in it, but even that itself is somehow kind of nostalgic. And so totally appropriate to Chéri, coddled, dandied, selfish, and haunted by a fantasy of his perpetual boyhood with Léa.

Slow Burn

Sky darkening. Listening to Sigur Ros Untitled 03. Some day I want to see the Northern Lights.





To NT.

Vestigia, I dreamt of you this morning.
The worst mawkish letters all begin like that.
And yet I had meant
the words to be branded into you new
as when the kinds of this world
were first named.

In my dream you were
an electrician -- and flammable -- so unlike
you. You
looked like you, though,
even if your face was watery (well,
seven years can do that).
But still the same chromatic bronzes
of skin, hair, eyes.
I think I can still play the scales.
You were testing for live wires
in a dead house,
not mine (but only too obviously,
interpreted, mine). Oppressive symbolism
is apparently what I have got left
to say.
Though
when
I did less meaning,
I never thought to sing of you or to you or for you --
but this morning, I dreamt of you.

A V V F

Review: CHANEL No. 22

It's interesting, how tastes change. In the 60s, Chanel No. 22 was advertised as the 'Perfume of Romance,' and the romance here seems rather more innocent than fatal, with images of young women as brides or otherwise tra-la-la-ing in spring.

I must admit, I did not appreciate No. 22 upon first acquaintance. That was about ten years ago but I very distinctly remember recoiling in disgust. Could there be a more aggressively powdery, virulent, and, well, perfumey perfume? At the time I knew nothing of the Perfume of Romance campaign but I'm sure I would have been nonplussed by its virginal vibe, despite the wedding-day association that white florals tend to have.

Even now, it does not strike me as particularly youthful or naive or, um, unspoiled -- nor do I think it would strike many people so these days. In fact, it seems to me definitely with-knowledge. There is a slight but sustained thread of incense [warmer in the current parfum; cooler in the current Les Exclusifs eau de toilette] that runs all the way from the bright, nose-tingling hit of citric/mandarin opening aldehydes, through the glorious profusion of flowers [most prominent in the pre-Les Exclusifs eau de toilette], the classic rose-jasmine-ylang Chanel melange also present in No. 5 and added to it a soft, non-indolic orange blossom, tuberose, and a mass of beautiful white roses, and finally into the softly sweet, dusty, vaguely vanillic, and vetiver-tinged powdery finish. And this undercurrent of dark in a composition purportedly about 'purity' is genius.

When, finally, I recognized that for what it is (or what it seems to me), No. 22 changed my tastes. Year Zero. It is Rose White, quite grown up, and who underneath her white-suited impeccable tastefulness has a backbone and an impure thought.

Rose White, sub rosa

To BR.

I am the dark of this dream
and you its white rose,
dazzling as the tunneled beam
to which each shade goes.
You come in silent aspect,
prophet in repose,
and your reproach I expect
before the cock crows.

Wake me on the other side,
I won't know your face.
You, no longer the white bride;
myself, I erase.
But from here before the tide,

.............I look at these cliffs

of Dover; I remember
the cliffs
of your shoulder.


I've always loved white roses. In fact, most white things: snow, clouds, paper, wolves, foxes, steamed buns, even larvae hold a certain alien attraction, but I don't know when the color graduated to something of a cipher to me. Possibly, when my name was changed. Itself a pretty traumatic event.

But even before then, I remembering being strangely, guiltily, attracted to the Brothers Grimm story Rose White and Rose Red. In it, just under the skin of the clear-faced moral, there was something vaguely profane that fascinated. Insofar as the 'profanity' is growing up, of maturation and loss of innocence etc, itself, I suppose this must be the case for instructional fairytales generally, and now, I find it all a bit evilly insidious. But of course I wasn't conscious of it then; only that I felt somehow a little secretive about liking the story; and then, somewhat later, I found it too embarrassing to admit to liking anything premised on such totally unkosher ideals of femininity (unless it was some revisionary projection of reclamation), since it was the wintered-occlusive, quiet, and restrained Rose White that I liked and not her more outgoing sister with clearly the more grrl-power potential. So, these things fester. I fester. Etc. Evolution of a personal cipher.

And the Motherwell is called 'Signs on White.' But none of this is absolutely necessary to the poem, or necessary period.