Wednesday 23 January 2019

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz versus Domestic Short Hair: Truffle, the feline felon, finally finds a furry Foxy fragrance!

Foxy detail from my new office chair
Okay, so that was a lot of alliteration, sorry. The 'f' words provide quite rich pickings in that regard. Now it so happens that almost eight years ago to the week, I wrote this highly silly post, exploring the potential crossover between perfume house names and other, more banal acronyms. I was inspired to pursue this whimsical line of inquiry by the sudden connection I made when looking at my late cat Charlie Bonkers' vet record card, which described her as 'DSH', short for 'Domestic Short Hair'. We perfumistas are really big on abbreviations, which often have an additional received hierarchy of upper and lower case letters - PoaL (Portrait of a Lady) springs to mind - and I immediately thought of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz. And Dawn Spencer Hurwitz led in the 2010 post to Strange Invisible Perfumes (Self Invested Pension), Parfumerie Generale (Parental Guidance), and much more nonsense in similar acronymic vein.


Fast forward to 2018 (or a recent year, certainly, as my sense of time is a little sketchy these days), when I fell hard for the furry animalic amber beauty that is DSH Foxy. Dawn sent me a selection of samples of her newest releases, all in dinky little roller ball pots, and that was my standout favourite, closely followed by Zibeline. These tiny pots are a perfect sample size, but also quite easy to lose, as it turned out...I should know better than to leave small, easily battable objects on my desk. For I have a cat - a different cat now, also a Domestic Short Hair, you know the one - though I note on a veterinary site from which I ordered a flea treatment at the weekend that to avoid confusion, the DSH option has been renamed 'Regular Moggy'. I can't see my vet changing his record cards to something quite so colloquial any time soon...

So yes, you can guess what is coming next...at some point, not long after receipt of the sample of Foxy, the cat knocked the pot-ette from my desk and promptly made off with it. I do occasionally clean the house, but in the intervening months it never came to light again. Till the other night, when Truffle picked up a pencil in her mouth from under my nose and started 'hunting it' on the floor, as she does.



I knew exactly where this story would end up...the pencil would roll under the wardrobe or the bookcase, and Truffle would reach under each piece of furniture in turn with her paw, but fail to get purchase. The hidden recesses of my office have become something of a graveyard for pencils, but frankly I have enough overall to allow for half a dozen or more to go awol. It was purely the annoying scrabbling noise that Truffle made in her efforts to retrieve this latest pencil that made me lie down beside her and start reaching my own arm blindly under the wardrobe to see what I could feel.

The first object I retrieved was a petrified apple core, sympathetically juxtaposed with a William Morris print.



The next object was the little roller ball pot of DSH Foxy! Oh how happy I was to clap eyes on that again - there are probably three more wears in there.

I never did find the pencil...


Full view of foxy chair


Does your cat routinely steal and secrete small objects? If so, what?

And have you ever lost a beloved perfume sample, only to have it turn up unexpectedly months or even years later?


My as yet unhunted pencil stash

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Foxy sounds great and I'm glad you recovered it - with truffles help. My cat steals cosmetic accessories - claws cotton wool pads, crunches cotton buds and really loves batting beauty blenders under the bed.

Vanessa said...

Hi Bejoux Noir,

Interesting and funny to hear that your cat has a penchant for beauty accessories. ;) I think Truffle would quite fancy batting my make up brushes around if she ever found the little pot with them in.

Anonymous said...

Our late lamented Caspie was an underwear thief. And although he couldn't hide it, my velvet dressing-gown was his favourite item and he would drag this upstairs and downstairs regularly. Blankets, towels and cushions would also be found in various rooms ....

I love that foxy material - may we see the whole chair?

Jillie

Tara said...

Yay for Foxy turning up in such an expected way! I greatly admired it even if amber is not my thing.
I regret shoo-ing away my black cat visitor now.

Vanessa said...

Hi Jillie,

Underwear thief, eh? How very naughty, and potentially embarrassing. Sounds like he also had a penchant for 'home textiles' and clothing more widely, despite the weight involved in some of the items. Truffle definitely goes for miniature things, though she tried to knock a lump of rose quartz off the desk yesterday!

Your wish is my command re the whole chair. The whole of the back is similarly foxy.

Vanessa said...

Hi Tara,

I didn't realise amber is not your thing - or had forgotten, probably. You did love Zibeline though, right?

I am glad you regret shooing away your feline interloper. A beautiful new relationship nipped in the bud. I hope he comes back regardless of being rebuffed, Tootsie-style!

Anonymous said...

Your chair is a thing of beauty.

I once showed a workman upstairs only to find a trail of my husband's underpants along the landing, leading from the dressing room to the bedroom. I explained it was the cat .....
J

Undina said...

That title!!! The mother of all alliterations :)

Can you take a look at your found sample - is it parfum or EdP? I consider getting a sample of it to wear (since I smelled it the last time it keeps intriguing me, so I should probably try to wear it), but I'm not sure if I should do the EdP or one of the other 2 concentrations.

Rusty constantly does that trick disappearing things he plays with. I suspect most of those paper pieces, cat toys and other small things he gets his paws on end up either under the stove or the fridge - two large items that never move.

crikey said...

Last time I swept in all the corners--admittedly this is a relatively rare event--I recovered 19 scrunched up bus tickets and foil balls from under sofa and book cases. But mostly, Atkins has a passion for socks. Her special treasures are two pairs of fuzzy bed socks that she carries around the place while singing *very* loudly, but she is not above pulling normal socks out of a not-quite-closed drawer if she requires more. Otherwise, it's hair ties and random small round things that get swiped, played with, and then hoarded--the plastic seal rings from tubes of fizzy vitamins are prized above dreamies.

Vanessa said...

Haha, J, the only possible explanation under the circs!

Vanessa said...

Hi Undina,

Haha, that title wrote itself, honest!

Well I never, my sample is VdP - Voile de Parfum? I never even noticed before. I am not even sure I know quite what that is, hehe. I did appreciate your ordering and 'muling' a replacement sample to me once I lost this one - I may get a larger size next time and insist you let me pay. ;)

Rusty and Truffle seem to be typical cats in this object hiding regard. It would be interesting to see what he has collected if you ever acquire a new fridge or stove, hehe.

Vanessa said...

Hi crikey,

Firstly I feel much better for knowing that sweeping in corners is also not a regular reflex for you. 19 scrunched up bus tickets and foil balls is an impressive haul. I am not sure I would ever take that many buses, but I might if I lived where you do, with its excellent network of public transport.

A passion for socks, eh? There's an odd one. I like the added touch of singing too. And I think Truffle would LOVE plastic seal rings, but I am definitely not going to introduce her to them. Her other small object fetish is grape stalks! Not grapes themselves, just the stalks. She will hunt them till the cows come home. ;)

crikey said...

Grape stalks! Yes, I forgot those. Cherries, too, will be lifted from a bowl and dragged around. Again, I think for the stalk rather than the fruit.

Herschel mostly likes plastic, and will break into things for bubble wrap.

Vanessa said...

Stalking stalks seems to be a definite sport! I don't think I have ever tried Truffle on cherries, but it might be amusing to see if she goes for them. And I note that Atkins and Herschel have some plastic crossover.