Any of my Facebook friends could tell you that I love perfume. It will pop up in a status at least 2-3 times a month, depending if I've discovered a new scented gem recently. It's been that way for a long time now, and I am not afraid to let my Freaky-Fragrance-Flag fly!
Some of my earliest memories are of being at my Grandma Rachel's house, playing dress-up with her clothes and clip-on earrings. She always had a bottle of Avon Charisma, along with samples of others. I can't remember how it smelled, not precisely. A quick Internet search will yield a list of notes: top notes of aldehydes, bergamot, coriander, heart notes of carnation, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang and a base of sandalwood, amber, civet, musk, tonka bean and styrax. If we were to be able to smell this now, the typical reaction would be "Uck! Old-lady perfume!" I certainly would have had that reaction a few years ago, my nose having been trained to love CLEAN! fragrances, fruity-florals, and big gourmands (think cupcakes). We'll come back to Charisma a bit later. For now, step forward to the late nineties.
Green tea perfumes were big. Calvin Klein's One was the big unisex scent, and it was a breath of fresh air after the 80s Poison, Opium and Obsession. If memory serves, Cool Water also debuted during the nineties, but I could be off there. I was sixteen and just getting into makeup when I received a sample of Clinique Happy from somewhere. If you haven't worn it or smelled it, I can tell you it's a bright citrusy-floral fragrance, perfect for spring and summer since it has no "dark" notes to it whatsoever. I still have a bottle today, half-used, and it still reminds me of being a teenager back before the Internet got big. I also loved Tommy Girl, another fruity floral that also had a nice spicy tea note to it. Those were my go-tos for many years.
"But where is the Cat-Piss I was promised, O Great and Powerful Blog-Mistress?" I'm getting to it, Hypothetical Readers. To get there, we have to enter the world of Niche Fragrance. You can only rarely find Niche perfume at department stores, so not many people even know it exists. It's not just expensive perfume, many of the lower-costing niche perfumes are comparable to what you'd pay at the drugstore or department store. Anyway, I discovered it when I was trying to find perfume reviews online for Charisma. I was missing my grandmother and trying to figure out if I could snag a bottle of it somewhere still. Sadly, it's discontinued, but what I did find was reviews of fragrances I had never even heard of, along with links to online stores that I could buy samples of them from. Now we are talking!
Two full bottles I purchased right away were l'Heure Bleue and Mitsouko, both very old-fashioned perfumes by Guerlain. To give you an idea just how old, lHB was first released in 1912, Mitsouko in 1919. Neither one of them smell "old lady" to me in the least. I loved Mitsouko right away: on me it opens up with a nice spicy blast of cinnamon, pepper & some anise (think black licorice) and goes on to luscious ripe peaches. If I had to wear one perfume only for the rest of my life--wait, hold on, that's just crazy talk. Not happening. But I can say that it is an awesome go-anywhere perfume.
l'Heure Bleue was much more difficult. It also opens up with a spicy note, but it is much more medicinal, sometimes reminding me of Vicks. There's orange blossoms, iris, jasmine and vanilla along the way, but the opening just about does me in. It's much better to wear in very cold weather, that way I don't feel suffocated.
Now we come to the Cat Piss--er, Musc Ravageur by Frederic Malle. If you google this one don't blame me for the sticker shock, I didn't price it. This was among the samples I ordered, and it is a dark little piece of animalic notes. The opening is bergamot and cinnamon and I swear they snuck cat piss in it too. The drydown is a lovely growl of dark vanilla, musk and amber, but that opening! I couldn't deal with it when I first tried it, plus the price tag for a full bottle put me off, so I told myself I'd be happy with Vanilla Musk (Yes, that's the drugstore fragrance by Coty that you can get for under $20. See, I can be economical).
The perfume that sent me over the edge, though, was Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange. Think musty old lady perfume with all the florals stripped out and there you have Rien. Spicy, mossy, leathery, it is a cheerfully insane challenge to every bubblegum celebrity fragrance out there. It refuses to play nice. I love it and so does Wook-Wook. Unfortunately, whatever it did to my nose means I now love the expensive Cat Piss perfume as well! Did it hit the reset button or something? I would really rather not pay $250 for a bottle of perfume, no matter how insane I get about it.
Anyway, I need to wrap this one up (that's what he said). It started out as a journey of remembering my grandmother, and while I haven't found a bottle of Charisma at a thrift store yet, I did come across a perfume I swear smells like what I remember it to be. Another vintage, discontinued fragrance, Intimate by Revlon, it opens up with coriander-spiked white florals with a nice mossy-murky drydown. I wear it and remember Grandma Rachel puttering around in the kitchen, playing ragtime piano on her spinet, or walking around her small-town neighborhood.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
One Year Later
I keep tripping myself up, trying to get this entry written. I've tried to get it all down before, but the words twist away from me, and the meaning is never as plain as what I see in my head. It's gotten to the point that the title should actually be "One Year & Two Months Later", but I'm not one for splitting hairs. So I decided to just type until I think I'm done.
In July 2012, my most recent attempt at a relationship had fizzled out. The last couple of times this had happened, I had turned into a pathetic puddle of tears and spiraled deeper into depression ( a post for another day, trust me). I lost weight and sleep and withdrew further into myself till I was sure no one would ever be able to coax me out. Then someone would come along, dangling more empty words, only seeing me as a body or pretty face, and I would be naive enough to fall for it.
This last time? It may have taken 28 years, but I finally had some steel in my soul. The closest I got to crying over him--let's call him Slimey McDoucheFace--was when I took myself to Olive Garden for a birthday lunch. I'm bad at keeping friends, so it was lunch alone. I ordered wine, so the waitress carded me. When she saw my birthdate, she immediately said, "Oh wow! It's my son's birthday today too!" She brought out a mini dessert for free after I was done with my pasta, and I just really appreciated that she was nice to me, because I was a bit miserable despite my inner monologue stating "Fine, then, if that's how it's going to be, f*ck every last one of you mother's sons!" and my heart agreeing rather than wanting to weep. After that, I felt like a kite with its strings cut, and rather than crashing back to Earth, I was realizing I could fly on my own the whole time.
Next:
SCENE CHANGE: BASEMENT OF LEGEND COMICS AND COFFEE. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. DnD ENCOUNTERS
Enter the Wook-Wook. I first met him at Krypton when he showed up for Encounters one day, playing as a halfling named Kibbles n Bits. About my height, dark hair and eyes, epic beard. I had invited several Facebook friends out for birthday drinks the previous Saturday since my birthday was on a Tuesday. He hadn't shown up and I didn't think anything of it. He walked up to me after the game and asked if I wanted to grab a drink at the Library. He claims I immediately turned bright red and I have no photographic proof to say otherwise. I stuttered out a "Yes" while the DM smirked and one of the other players chanted "DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!" Thanks guys.
Nothing stands out to me too much about that drink. It was a milk stout, probably Moojoos. We made somewhat awkward small talk since I have a -3 to my Charisma. The one thing that stood out, which I've mentioned before, was that he didn't laugh at my major.
After that, a few weeks went by. I'm bad at being able to tell if a guy is interested in me, so I didn't think anything was really going to come of that drink. According to Wook-Wook, the reason he didn't ask me out right away was because I kept running out of the basement at DnD while he was preparing the chloroformed rag.
Once he did though, that was pretty much it. We'd go to either my house or his on weekends to have Joss Whedon marathons, getting through Firefly (still can't take the sky from me), Dollhouse (WTF was up with the series finale?!?) and Angel (nothing to say other than still perfection). We'd discuss all the most recent Cracked.com articles and get each other to read old archived ones we liked. He got me to go try hole-in-the-wall restaurants I would have probably overlooked, and I introduced him to Darren Aronofsky films.
Anyway, one year and a couple of months later, that's it. Nothing very romantic and fluffy to it aside from afternoon cuddles, no roses or poetry. Lasting love isn't all about swooning and sparkles (I'm looking at you, Twilight). The thing about fireworks is that they burn out, leaving the night just as dark as if they were never there at all. Sometimes after a long walk out in the cold alone, all you want is someone you can trust to be at home to warm you up after.
In July 2012, my most recent attempt at a relationship had fizzled out. The last couple of times this had happened, I had turned into a pathetic puddle of tears and spiraled deeper into depression ( a post for another day, trust me). I lost weight and sleep and withdrew further into myself till I was sure no one would ever be able to coax me out. Then someone would come along, dangling more empty words, only seeing me as a body or pretty face, and I would be naive enough to fall for it.
This last time? It may have taken 28 years, but I finally had some steel in my soul. The closest I got to crying over him--let's call him Slimey McDoucheFace--was when I took myself to Olive Garden for a birthday lunch. I'm bad at keeping friends, so it was lunch alone. I ordered wine, so the waitress carded me. When she saw my birthdate, she immediately said, "Oh wow! It's my son's birthday today too!" She brought out a mini dessert for free after I was done with my pasta, and I just really appreciated that she was nice to me, because I was a bit miserable despite my inner monologue stating "Fine, then, if that's how it's going to be, f*ck every last one of you mother's sons!" and my heart agreeing rather than wanting to weep. After that, I felt like a kite with its strings cut, and rather than crashing back to Earth, I was realizing I could fly on my own the whole time.
Next:
SCENE CHANGE: BASEMENT OF LEGEND COMICS AND COFFEE. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. DnD ENCOUNTERS
Enter the Wook-Wook. I first met him at Krypton when he showed up for Encounters one day, playing as a halfling named Kibbles n Bits. About my height, dark hair and eyes, epic beard. I had invited several Facebook friends out for birthday drinks the previous Saturday since my birthday was on a Tuesday. He hadn't shown up and I didn't think anything of it. He walked up to me after the game and asked if I wanted to grab a drink at the Library. He claims I immediately turned bright red and I have no photographic proof to say otherwise. I stuttered out a "Yes" while the DM smirked and one of the other players chanted "DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!" Thanks guys.
Nothing stands out to me too much about that drink. It was a milk stout, probably Moojoos. We made somewhat awkward small talk since I have a -3 to my Charisma. The one thing that stood out, which I've mentioned before, was that he didn't laugh at my major.
After that, a few weeks went by. I'm bad at being able to tell if a guy is interested in me, so I didn't think anything was really going to come of that drink. According to Wook-Wook, the reason he didn't ask me out right away was because I kept running out of the basement at DnD while he was preparing the chloroformed rag.
Once he did though, that was pretty much it. We'd go to either my house or his on weekends to have Joss Whedon marathons, getting through Firefly (still can't take the sky from me), Dollhouse (WTF was up with the series finale?!?) and Angel (nothing to say other than still perfection). We'd discuss all the most recent Cracked.com articles and get each other to read old archived ones we liked. He got me to go try hole-in-the-wall restaurants I would have probably overlooked, and I introduced him to Darren Aronofsky films.
Anyway, one year and a couple of months later, that's it. Nothing very romantic and fluffy to it aside from afternoon cuddles, no roses or poetry. Lasting love isn't all about swooning and sparkles (I'm looking at you, Twilight). The thing about fireworks is that they burn out, leaving the night just as dark as if they were never there at all. Sometimes after a long walk out in the cold alone, all you want is someone you can trust to be at home to warm you up after.
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