Mimosa pour toi: Etro Rajasthan, and another tale of perfumed pedal power

Photo courtesy of Clare Chick

Back in 2008, I stood at the L'Artisan Parfumeur counter in a branch of Le Bon Marche in Paris for a good fifteen minutes, poised to make my very first purchase of a niche perfume. I was agonising between L'Ete en Douce, whose (as it turned out) fleeting linden note was reeling me in, and Mimosa pour Moi, a cheery puff of lemon sherbety-ness, which reminded me of my year living on the Riviera: of Mardi Gras parades at just this time of year, of an eclectic chickpea pancake called Soca, and of clouds of pale yellow blossom of mimosa trees in full cry. Reader, I plumped for L'Ete en Douce, and lived to regret its long tail of laundry musk at my leisure. In the end, it was only fit for stealth perfuming ex-Mr Bonkers in his sleep, and I eventually managed to lose it in a swap.

So the mimosa scent that got away has haunted me ever since, and I will always investigate any new mimosa-forward perfume whose path I cross.

Enter my friend Clare (again). Clare has made a number of appearances on the blog, while her 'calendar girl' spaniel Meg was the subject of my first guest post in Cafleurebon in 2010. Over on Bonkers there was her sodden 100 mile cycle ride for rhinos, when she wore Sarah McCartney's 'Eau de Wiggo' to spur her on, a couple of posts on sessions of Cake Club, one on her perfume j***ney, and a 'through the keyhole' look at her current scent wardrobe. And a few more posts besides, but that's quite enough hyperlinks for one paragraph.

Source: Etro

Then just the other week, Clare undertook another marathon cycle ride in India. I say 'another', because she went on a similar 'holiday' (my inverted commas) to Kerala last February, to mark the occasion of her 50th birthday. Having bonded so comprehensively with the two couples up with whom(!) she had been teamed, they invited her to come back this year and do another ride with them, this time in Rajasthan, a northerly province bordering Pakistan.

On hearing the name Rajasthan, I immediately went rummaging in my collection for a sample of the Etro perfume of that name, which Undina had given me some time previously. Here is her own take on the scent, and how she finally came to own a bottle. ;)  (NB I deliberately didn't read any reviews until I had written this post.) I remembered liking Rajasthan very well on first trying it - and was also hugely drawn to images of the sumptuous Paisley-patterned bottle - but I had sort of forgotten about it meanwhile, if I am perfectly honest. My vague recall was of something soft, and comforting, yet bright and slightly spicy, maybe citrusy - and that was about it.

So I gave Clare the remains of my sample, and on 12.2 off she went...

Lake Pichola ~ Photo courtesy of Clare Chick

Clare's Facebook updates were very sparse over the course of that week, but early in their itinerary she posted a photo of Lake Pichola. Lake Pichola?! Why, I could have given her a sample of Neela Vermeire's Pichola as well had I known. There followed a hiatus of about five days, so I was delighted to see her pop up again:

"It's my birthday and I have wifi! This is us at the end of our journey, which finished with a hard, seven-hour ride today.
400 miles.
9 dead dogs
2 dead men
0 hot water
I am SHATTERED and a bit discombobulated."

To which I replied: "But not too discombobulated to spell discombobulated, which I take as a good sign."

Photo courtesy of Clare Chick

The homeward journey was extremely fraught, however, owing to public unrest, which caused severe travel disruption:

"Have just arrived at Delhi airport, 15 hours after setting off. Apparently the riots have spread and some protesters have been killed. Transport, as a result, is chaotic. The roads to the airport are lined with soldiers.

I don't want to think about the train. Or the bus. I had an enormous gentleman slumped, snoring, right on top of me, all the way from Jodhpur to Delhi. He was too big to shove.

Next year I'm going to Wales."

Silk scarf courtesy of Jennifer Denitto (drummer in this vid)

But what of Etro Rajasthan, you may be wondering? Well, here is Clare's olfactory verdict on Rajasthan the place, and the perfume:

"As I cycled through rural Rajasthan I could smell insect repellent, sun lotion, chamois cream, curry, desperation, and death on the breeze. With an undertone of sewage.

I love the perfume though, Vanessa."

Photo courtesy of Clare Chick

Now, it so happened that Undina and I were planning another exchange of perfume packages around the time of Clare's trip, and I asked her if she could possibly make Clare another sample or small decant of Rajasthan, to remind her of her Indian 'holiday' - and to wear in Barmouth next year.

Undina kindly obliged, and also sent a small sample for me too, as I had given mine away, obviously. So last week, after hardly wearing perfume at all for work-related reasons, as previously documented, I started testing a couple of the samples Undina had sent through. First up was Jo Malone's Mimosa & Cardamom, which I absolutely loved and wore for three days straight. It deserves a post of its own really, but may not get one. And then on Day 4 I turned to Rajasthan, which I also wore for three days.

Who knew that they were both mimosa-centric perfumes? Here are the notes for Rajasthan:

Top notes: pink pepper, lemon primo fiore, polygonum 
Heart notes: cassie, mimosa, rose
Base notes: amber, musk, ciste

Source: Wikimedia Commons

(Hmm, and what's 'polygonum' when it's at home? Sounds like a crack French business school, or maybe one of those oddly shaped reception areas in a futuristic office block. "I'll meet you by the water cooler in the polygonum.")

But for me, the salient aspect in Rajasthan is the mimosa. It's like a silk sari of warm lemon meringue, with a velvet amber hem. Does it capture the essence of Rajasthan, the place? Absolutely not. Will it remind Clare of an amazing trip, with more highlights than dead dogs and dead weight fellow passengers on crowded buses? I do hope so.

And thanks to Undina, between the Jo Malone and the Etro scents, this week has also been about 'mimosa pour moi', finally...