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Tarocco might have usurped L'Eau de l'Eau as my frequent-wear favorite, but I think L'Eau de l'Eau is the more interesting as a fragrance. It's also more obviously in the eau de cologne tradition, while I suppose the 'neo' spin on that genre is due in part to the addition of potpourri spices. Not too devastatingly new, however, since those spices trace to the original 1968 L'Eau, still in production and still insanely strong.
The 2008 L'Eau de l'Eau might be said to be a 'watering' of that. A distillation of the citrus-spice-herb essence of L'Eau, which is then mercifully given a watering-down. L'Eau... americano'd? That perhaps is more fundamentally the 'neo' of it, actually.
I guess some things could be said about l'année 1968 vs. the year 2008.
As for the scent, it is a very straightforward but light rendition of its listed heavy-hitter notes. Opens with what seems like equal parts bergamot/citrus, clove, and slightly soapy orange blossom, with a little lavender to 'ground' things, and this citrus-spice-herb essence stays fairly constant for me throughout, although it does sweeten a bit on the skin. Excellent longevity.
But though eau de cologne is not perhaps the most complex of perfume genres, the essence of L'Eau de l'Eau strikes me as complex enough. It's at once citrusy, sweet, dusty, spicy, soapy, floral, herbal, tonic, soft, fresh, warm--and all of it in beautiful balance. A true 'universal' fragrance, suitable any season, any occasion. In other words, very much in the spirit of an eau de cologne. And in my opinion very deserving of a Grand Prix du Parfum (in its class).
Notes: clove, cinnamon, ginger, pink peppercorn, orange blossom, geranium, lavender, benzoin, tonka bean, patchouli.
I have to close my eyes to eat blood oranges. The flesh, all peeled and sectioned, really do resemble skinned muscle tissue--I can't help but think of a still-pumping live heart ripped out of the body, and the darker the pulp, the more I think slow-oozing blackening blood.
L'Eau de Tarocco, though, is nowhere near gore--though visceral in its own way. It's very authentically orange fruit: how it smells, just as it being peeled. Bright, juicy, sweet and tart and a tiny bit pithy-bitter. And grows sweeter as it progresses into the mild spices and rose, which form for me a kind of unobtrusive background haze, like a soft, vague, warm dust cloud of saffron and very mild cinnamon and even milder rose. And in this dust cloud is also some generalized woodiness, sheer, dry, not aggressively woody, and I think the incense must add to that general effect, as I cannot really pick it out alone. A nicely blended dust cloud.
It doesn't obscure the orange but neither does it contrast against it, exactly--at least not in a way that renders the orange blinking strange. L'Eau de Tarocco isn't strange at all. Not tremendously ground-breaking (though on the whole I do rather like Diptyque's entries for this recent trend of neo-colognes/eaux fraîches) but something that will get frequent use by me this summer. Refreshing but not harsh. Simple but interesting-ish. A bit like orange peel crushed on sun-warmed skin.
Plus, I find myself totally falling for the (confused) romance of it all. The romance of the 'exotic travels' copy Diptyque is always on about, the tarocco oranges, the palm trees, the spice camels loping in single file in a desert oasis landscape. I'm right there inside the label, like an A-ha video. OK. My only excuse is that the notes read to me like Moroccan cuisine, but even that is not particularly specific and half-written in by my own guilty exoticism about the place. Anyway. My favorite of the Diptyque cologne series.
Notes: blood orange, grapefruit, saffron, cinnamon, curcuma, rose, orange blossom, cedar, incense, white musk.
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 :)
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.
images from mariinskiy.com
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.
Tarocco might have usurped L'Eau de l'Eau as my frequent-wear favorite, but I think L'Eau de l'Eau is the more interesting as a fragrance. It's also more obviously in the eau de cologne tradition, while I suppose the 'neo' spin on that genre is due in part to the addition of potpourri spices. Not too devastatingly new, however, since those spices trace to the original 1968 L'Eau, still in production and still insanely strong.
