Le Labo Labdanum 18, and when perfumes go out with a whimper, not a bang

I am sorry my posts have been a bit sporadic of late, or more sporadic than usual, say(!), for which there is a litany of reasons I shan't trouble you with, or not now. So I thought I would squeeze a quick one in while the going is good, namely a musing on the varied ways in which that very real hazard faced by those of us in a SABLE situation (Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy © Hazel) ie perfumes gone rogue, can occur. If you had asked me what a turned perfume was like, I would have said: 'Oooh, it is hard to describe, but a nasty alcohol-y-crossed-with-dead-flower-water kind of vibe.' Always in the top notes, and when the scent has really gone, permeating the whole juice. Though even that image isn't right. I am not sure I have the descriptive powers to do justice to the rank smell of a scent that has properly gone off. Vintage ones seem to be the most offensive - you know, those fierce chypres of yore. Or an old fashioned animalic oriental. A turned one of either of those can be truly repellent.

But what I have discovered of late is that there is another kind of 'offness' - where the perfume has undergone a sufficiently marked metamorphosis to not be remotely classifiable as itself anymore, while not necessarily smelling disgusting. A mild example of this phenomenon was my bottle of Diptyque Eau Duelle that I sold through a Facebook group only to have the buyer promptly ask for their money back. This was because the fragrance - like small children who will only eat pudding - had completely lost its top notes and gone straight to the base, which I would characterise as an 'Om-like', vestigial vanilla hum. Can you tell I do yoga now? ;) Albeit not the kind with chanting. This latest incarnation of Eau Duelle isn't unpleasant, but there is no light and shade and no development, that's for sure. It is indistinct and vague, like the olfactory equivalent of a smudged watercolour, and reminds me of the 'comfy jogging bottoms' stage of Penhaligon's Tralala (© Tara). So my Eau Duelle no longer qualifies as itself, but to my mind it has a pretty strong kinship with how it should be, as in being its own drydown at least.

So there was that, and then I encountered the very strange beast that is Le Labo's Labdanum 18, some 7 years after my bottle was first compounded - just for me! - not long after this event, which I wrote up in my then guest blogging capacity for Cafleurebon. Eyeballing that label, I see that the Best Before date (which is what I take 'Fresh until' to mean), was only a year after I got it. A year? The very how very dare they idea! Do they imagine I will bathe in it, like asses' milk? I have no idea when exactly Labdanum 18 went all funny on me, but I swear it can only have been in the last couple of years, so in hindsight the 'Fresh until' warning was breathtakingly conservative.

So feeble and thin now that it has taken to bed

And how does Labdanum 18 smell now? Hmm, well the opening is a thin, reedy and resinous vanilla spiked with anise, and as the scent wears on, it cycles through every nuance of liquorice in a box of Eponymous Allsorts. A note to which I am far from partial, so I was most taken aback by this unexpected mutation. The scent is not horrible by any means, and I have liberally anointed myself with it out of sheer astonishment quite a few times in the past week, but this version is a far cry from the rich, warm and enveloping barnyard vanilla of Labdanum 18 in its prime.

I would therefore have to concede that my Le Labo has well and truly turned, but NOT in our horrible alcohol-y way mentioned at the top of the post. This is almost a different perfume entirely, though I can detect the wan connection with balsamic vanilla. So in summary it has definitely gone, but gone out with a peculiar whimper, not a whiffy bang. Howver, it is so weak and so 'other' that I may have to subtract a few digits off it though, and recast it as Labdanum 6.25. They haven't got one of those in the line, I don't think.


Have you had any perfumes turn in ways that surprised you?

New Year, old perfume, musings on (all kinds of!) ageing, and other random retrospective stuff

Source: bookmanlibrary.com

New Year's Day - a time for Solpadeine and regret, and if and when the hangover eases, quiet introspection. Maybe a spot of knitting. Maybe more Solpadeine. I blame my friend Gillie, who egged me on to have a second glass of Malbec, on top of the first one - and the glass of Sauvignon Blanc I had earlier. She got as far as a fourth glass, though in fairness some of glass No 2 went over my dress during an exuberant pointing episode - but I think I managed to pass it off as another red accessory (see below).

New Year is also when you finally start to have tantalising glimpses of the back of the fridge. And when you fashion oddball fusion dishes from faintly fermenting leftovers, because you would rather play Russian roulette with salmonella and listeria than accept that you went a bit mad with the big Christmas shop.

That said, I did get into the habit lately of sniffing my food before consumption, as well as scrutinising it for obvious signs of mould - and thus it was that some fizzy and oddly sweet-smelling parsnips with mushy middles got the chop smartish. As in didn't get the chop and go in the soup I was making!

"Sprouts are not just for Christmas."

Then New Year makes you realise your friends' eyesight is ageing at the same rapid pace as yours, as their festive messages - while warm and uplifting - are full of typos and predictive text gibberish.

It is also a time for writing appointments in new diaries in exceptionally neat handwriting, while knowing full well that your painstaking script will turn to complete rats**t as the year progresses.

New Year's Resolutions

And let's not forget those New Year's resolutions. This was a popular topic of conversation at the party I attended last night, and it amused me that in answer to the question: "What do you wish for in 2017?" one friend said "World peace" while I said "Teeming neurons", an oblique reference to the beneficial effect of aerobic exercise on hippocampus tissue. I did at least go for a long hike the other day with two friends, each of whom had two dogs. On the way round we met so many other people out with their dogs that it got mighty confusing, and in the ensuing furry melees I felt sure that people must just have been glad to go home with the same number of dogs that they set out with.

The lady in red is wearing a cashmere scarf I knitted!

I do have other resolutions, mind - all equally selfish it must be said: to read more books, and knit more, and sell a load of old clothes on eBay. And ideally eat less sugar, having recently scared myself witless about the deleterious effects of refined carbohydrates with this Long Read. It really is long, I must warn you. As I said on Facebook, where I posted the link, I think I could romp through 'Girl on a Train' quicker. It even made me eye up my four pack of Double Deckers with a newfound suspicion. That particular New Year's resolution isn't going at all well, however, as the very first thing I ate today as I walked home from the party was half a cranberry muffin, distributed free to departing revellers by our host. It was quite delicious, and on balance I think I will carry on eating my favourite confectionery and biscuits, and the devil and the dentist and the doctor take the hindmost.

Patchouli paws

Because it was the holidays, I relaxed my usual rules and allowed Truffle to sleep on the bed with me - but only in the mornings, if I was having a lie in. I associate this time with the rich scent of patchouli, for often her paws would have traces of earth on them from night manoeuvres on the allotments.

Diptyque Eau Duelle: the boomerang bottle with a duo of botched sales

So yes, now  that I am in my late 50s and things are starting to fail on multiple fronts, health issues are very much on my mind. Not helped by the slew of celebrity deaths this year, some of them younger than me. Though one or two had rather caned it in their time, one way and another. But maybe that is ultimately okay, for it is not about how long you live, but how fully, and how alive you felt while you were at it. (See muffin mention above.) I sense a discussion on the pros and cons of living in the fast lane / a rock 'n' roll lifestyle - or even one with occasional treats, haha - could warrant a whole other post sometime, albeit not about perfume, I know.

But on to the health of my fragrance collection, and specifically the unfortunate effects of ageing on my 70% full 100ml bottle of Diptyque Eau Duelle. I have owned it since 2009 or 2010 at a guess?, so quite a few years it must be said, and recently tried selling it on that UK Fragrance Sale/Swap/Split site. I put it up for a reduced price of £25, which was intended to reflect the bottle's age in a non-specific way. The first person to buy it messaged me shortly afterwards to say that she had compared my Eau Duelle with a recently acquired sample and found my bottle to be all about the vanilla, and missing "some of the more smoky woodsy notes".

I wrote back, most apologetic, and explaining that I had sort of "grown old" with my bottle, as it were, and had not noticed how it might have morphed over that time. However, I quite understood that she was in a position to check on the difference that ageing had brought about, and promptly refunded her money.

A little while later, another would-be purchaser came through, offering to buy my 'boomerang bottle' of Eau Duelle - so I had now received dual offers, you could say! I told him what had happened with the previous buyer, and this chap replied that he only wanted to use the scent as a room atomiser, and wasn't too worried about all the nuances of the notes being detectable. So the bottle was duly despatched before Christmas, with an even more reduced price of £19. Though this time I suggested to the buyer that he only pay me if he was happy with the perfume. And now it is sadly on its way back again... ;) In a message I learnt the reason for his not wishing to keep the bottle:

"Although I like the smell I think it has lost a lot of its strength. I tried it on the aroma diffuser but it was very weak and I could not really smell it."

I have to say that Eau Duelle is quite strong when applied as a perfume, even in its EDT concentration, but for his particular purpose it was clearly not fit, so no money changed hands and it seems this bottle is destined to stay put!

These incidents have brought it home to me that it is very difficult to sell a bottle of perfume you have had knocking around for a while, because the buyer expects it to be just as it was when it was new. And this got me thinking about the notion of ageing in broad terms, and how women too are expected to look as they did when they were young, or at least to give the arresting of the effects of ageing their very best shot! And that is a shame - the fact that something or someone is only acceptable if they are as they once were, even though the changes may not necessarily be all bad - just different. My Eau Duelle doesn't smell off; it still smells as pleasantly vanilla-y as many a vanilla-forward scent such as Annick Goutal's Vanille Exquise, or L'Artisan's Vanilia. But like me, I accept that it is missing some of its faculties - I mean facets!

Miscellaneous retrospective stuff

On the world stage, it goes without saying that 2016 was a pretty diabolical year, with spiralling levels of conflict and political turmoil. Frankly I am not too hopeful that 2017 is going to be much of an improvement. Or rather that things may get worse before they get better...

In a much more minor way, 2016 was a bit of a bummer for me personally in that I developed eyelid eczema in the spring, which still flares up from time to time, though I am more aware of the triggers now. I plan to do a separate post on how I have got on with various skincare products, now that I have been using them all for a while - some of them recommended by readers!

Highlights of the year on the social front included the great gathering of the clans in January for Portia's PLL talk, and subsequently knitting beanies for her ;) - I will get onto the next commission in good time for your winter! - along with Pia and Nick's highly enjoyable Smelly Cakey Perfume Meet Up in October. Then in May I spent a birthday to remember when I visited Liz Moores again, this time with Tara. My trip to France in August to visit my friend L was also one of my happiest times this year - a life changing one, no less, in that it planted the seed that I might one day retire over there, while the recent band tour in Germany was the usual rumbustious and 'sleep when I'm dead' fun.

Portia, me and Angela

Favourite perfumes of 2016

Of all the years I have been blogging, this is going to be my sketchiest selection, as I have tried so few of the new releases! With that caveat here is my little list - I have fellow bloggers to thanks for introducing me to quite a few of these - Val is responsible for three,and Undina two! As Undina found in her own recent round up of the best of 2016, my list quite fortuitously runs to ten...;)

Jo Malone Mimosa & Cardamom

Armani Privé Myrrhe Impériale

Aroma M Vanilla Hinoki

Aroma M Geisha Noire (my new favourite furry animalic amber)

By Kilian Amber Oud (as above, but sweeter, and less hoochy)

Ruth Mastenbroek Oxford

Puredistance SHEIDUNA

Chanel No 5 L'Eau (briefly tried on skin in store, but I liked what I remember)

Hermès Doblis (I have no words! The ne plus ultra ambrosia of leather scents. Okay, I had a few.)

Le Jardin Retrouvé Citrus Boboli (review to follow)

Source: aroma M perfumes

What I would really like to try!

Aftelier Perfumes Vanilla Smoke
Afterlier Perfumes Amber Tapestry
Hiram Green Arbolé Arbolé
Galop d'Hermès
Sarah Jessica Parker Stash

Fellow bloggers have massively piqued my curiosity about these.

Losing the plot?

On a housekeeping note, I noticed that in 2016 my page views went up quite markedly to nearly 40,000 a month, while the comments on my blog fell. I am not sure what is behind that dual(!) phenomenon, though if I had to guess I'd say that some of the new traffic is probably a fluke-y spike. As for the reduction in comments, it may be that I am now too much on the margins of the perfume scene to be regarded as a bona fide - or even a particularly enthusiastic! - voice on developments within it, compounded by my possibly annoying propensity to go off with alarming regularity on tangents (travel posts, skincare posts, and manifestations of off-topic silliness of every stripe). But I may never know the reason, as those readers may now have stopped reading as well as commenting! And it may not be that the lack of interaction by readers is a protest vote at all, but is due to something else entirely. I have no way of knowing though - that is the conundrum - so as a blogger it is natural to question the merits of what you are doing first. (Especially when you factor in middle-aged paranoia, haha.) But seriously, I would be glad to know what people think of the topic mix, and whether I should stick to perfume on here, and create a separate blog for the other topics. Or even drop the perfume side and just focus on travel periodically - I don't know. I do wonder whether Bonkers might have become a bit of an unholy mishmash now, and people are just too polite to say so. ;)

I can assure you though that I will be reviewing some more perfumes soon. Also, the bathroom renovation really does deserve a post of its own - for the comedy value of the whole sorry palaver alone! - though I realise that would be another digression. For yes, as you may have noticed, I am rather Bonkers about Bathrooms - and sanitary- and brassware in particular. Yet in this picture I took last night (several sheets to the wind it must be said) I completely failed to get the all-important taps in!

And finally, I would like to wish everyone out there - regular readers, occasional readers, or those who have landed here by mistake! - a very Happy New Year, or as happy a one as we can collectively contrive in this mad, mad world...

Ooh look, I have managed to get back to Sunday posting after a bit of a 'temporal drift' of late.

Miller Harris L'Air de Rien: Not Nothing, But Nothing To Be Scared Of

The other day, Bloody Frida received a swap parcel from me, prompting her to conduct a preppy fragrance throwdown between the teeny remnants of vintage Lauren I sent her and the modern variety. She illustrated the post with a photograph showing the eclectic set of items I had put in the package, including a "comedy haberdashery decoy" of some ceramic buttons, designed to bamboozle our respective draconian postal authorities.

Then yesterday, I received Bloody Frida's parcel to me. She entrusted her other half, known on these boards as MOTH, with the delicate and dangerous task of posting my package. Before being despatched to the post office, MOTH was briefed to deploy a similar haberdashery decoy strategy, and to mark the contents as "wool". In the event, MOTH was so conscientious in the execution of his fraught mission that he went one better, and wrote "knitted hat" on the customs label.

So as I say, yesterday the knitted hat arrived, along with the trio of fine fragrances that were the real and covert focus of the swap. To be fair, the knitted hat is a bit of a work-in-progress still - not totally off the drawing board you could say - but it is a veritable vision of woolly wonder, fashioned in exactly my preferred shades of sludgy blue and brown.

As for the perfumes, Bloody Frida enclosed the two we had discussed, Tauer's Carillon pour un Ange and Miller Harris L'Air de Rien, and thoughtfully added a decant of Agent Provocateur, which was on my MUA wish list! Now I haven't got round to retesting the Tauer - I wasn't too struck on it at (the) Scent Bar in December, but felt it merited a retrial. However, I wore the Miller Harris all day yesterday...

Of the two, this was the one I was most fearful of trying again. It is the scent created by Lyn Harris (whom I always have to remember to spell with one "n") for Jane Birkin, sixties boho wild child, singer / muse of Serge Gainsbourg, and face of the eponymous Hermes bag. Prior to the development of L'Air de Rien, Jane Birkin had rejected all fragrant materials except potpourri, associating perfume properly speaking with blowsy florals worn by "heady, dark-haired women".

She goes on to explain in an interview with UK Vogue that notes "like hyacinth, tuberose and lily-of-the-valley made me vomit when they were enclosed in a bottle". Okay, I hear what she is saying, but potpourri? In my experience potpourri can be very hit or miss, and much of it is overpowering in a stifling Yankee candle kind of way. JM Pomegranate Noir I am looking at you... So I would like to know where JB got her particular blend and what was in it. I did try googling "Jane Birkin potpourri", but came up instead with a video of her singing in France last year.

Be that as it may, what Jane Birkin did want L'Air de Rien to smell of - which she reckoned would be "much more me" - was "a little of my brother's hair, my father's pipe, floor polish, empty chest of drawers, old forgotten houses." Now interestingly, her brother Andrew Birkin wrote the screenplay for the film of the book "Perfume", so it is to be hoped that his hair didn't smell of any of the ghoulish scents featured in that movie. Glancing at these notes from Lucky Scent, mercifully it would appear not - I see no dead girls listed here.

Notes: French oak moss, Tunisian neroli, sweet musk, amber and vanilla

That said, musk is down as one of the notes, and some reviewers, notably Angela of Now Smell This, have interpreted this animalistic odour in L'Air de Rien specifically as civet. Civet, as some readers may know, is my Room 101 of perfumery notes. I found it ironic that a scent reported to contain my most loathed fragrance ingredient could have the effrontery to call itself: "The appearance of nothing". For not for nothing am I known on Basenotes as "VM I hate civet". But always in the back of my mind is the niggling fact that I smelt L'Air de Rien on Danielle Osborne, aka Mrs Basenotes, back in the summer of 2009 at a Basenotes sniffing event, and it was really something on her. Not in the least offensive. A quiet animalic blur, perfectly blended with her skin. So I knew that one day I would have to square up to a rematch, and yesterday was the day.

Well, to my immense surprise I liked it immediately I sprayed it on. It had a granular texture like Eau Duelle, Habit Rouge EDT and the grandma of grit, Guerlain Sous Le Vent, but not excessively so. It was vaguely animalic, but nowhere near the levels of Jicky, where the unhappy marriage of civet with lavender reminds me unpleasantly of lavatory freshener. There was a whisper of moss and/or patchouli, which was probably as close as I got to "old forgotten houses" and their furniture. It had the warm vanillic quality I love so much in Eau Duelle, though in a much quieter register. It was like unwashed skin, but I'd like to think it actually smelt no worse than I do on those far too frequent occasions when I sit at the computer all day in my dressing gown, and come 6 o'clock decide that it is hardly worth getting washed or dressed anymore - or not on that day, at least.

Okay, maybe there was the merest suggestion of carnal filth, but not at antisocial levels. Musc Ravageur is more of a filth foghorn in that regard. A sweet filth foghorn. And I do like Musc Rav, but I don't think I would wear it outside the home, whereas I am actively planning to wear L'Air de Rien to imminent social events. If anyone asks me what I am wearing (and they never do) I can always say: "Oh, it is one of those 'barely there' scents", which I could go on to justify with the translation of the name.

Moreover, L'Air de Rien is, all things considered, not exactly like anything I have ever smelt. Which I guess the name also hints at - it has the "air of nothing" I have encountered before. I may also have to consider changing my Basenotes name from "VM I hate civet" to "VM I used to hate civet with a vengeance, but now I am prepared evaluate each case on its own merits". That's assuming there IS civet in there, which is by no means certain.

Now I hope I am not being overly optimistic about L'Air de Rien's social acceptability here, for it didn't go down too well with Mr Bonkers. He did his asking me to leave the room trick again, and described it as an "eye-stinger". If you remember, the only perfume I own which received a favourable reception from him was SJP Lovely, so I was probably always going to be on a "hiding to nothing" with something containing even suspected civet in trace amounts that don't appear to bother my hyperosmic nasal receptors. I told Mr Bonkers how the scent conjured up unwashed body parts and explained the link with Jane Birkin, and all he said was: "Who's he?" My follow up reference to 1970s school discos and the way they always played "Je T'Aime" as the smoochy number at the end of the night also fell on uncomprehending ears.

This response has definitely confirmed me in my intention to wear L'Air de Rien exclusively outside the home. I am used to Mr Bonkers ridiculing and stonewalling me over my perfume choices, and his attitude, like the scent itself, is - to quote Adam Ant - "nothing to be scared of".

Oh, look at that sweater Jane Birkin is wearing in the picture below! I know Bloody Frida said the wool she sent me was only sock gauge, but I wonder....






Photo of L'Air de Rien from Lucky Scent website, photo of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg from frogsmoke.com, photo of monolith of writhing bodies from picasaweb.google.com, photo of Je t'aime record from vasiliska.com, photo of Jane Birkin nowadays from Wikimedia Commons, other photos my own.

We Three Kings: Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh - Frankincense

Three Kings Icon ©2010 Megan Ruisch

FRANKINCENSE: Diptyque – Eau Duelle (“ebony and ivory”)

Notes: bergamot, cardamom, pink pepper, elemi, juniper, saffron, calamus, frankincense, cypriol, black tea, vanilla, musk, amber

I love the word “frankincense”. It rolls off the tongue in the same satisfyingly clunky manner as the name “Blenkinsop”. I may in fact love “frankincense” as much as my other favourite words: “gutta percha”, “tangerine”, “susurration” and “kibble”. That said, I had to trawl pretty widely to find a perfume featuring frankincense with which I had a particular rapport. I was initially going to choose Flower by Kenzo Oriental, but on checking the notes found that the incense in that one is “Chinese”, which, like that country's livelier styles of fireworks, is something else altogether. A blend of agarwood and sandalwood I believe, whereas frankincense (and myrrh) are of course both fragrant resins.

Then I remembered my newest fragrant squeeze, Eau Duelle by Diptyque, which I am quietly confident of Sibling Claus giving me for Christmas this year. Classed as a woody oriental and created by Fabrice Pellegrin, it has a number of my favourite notes in it, notably saffron, but also pepper, which was in the Kenzo that failed on the incense technicality. And while Eau Duelle is primarily a soft, cosseting scent featuring not one but two types of vanilla – the lighter firnat and the darker bourbon – its beguiling appeal is also due to the smoky tendrils of frankincense in the base.

The duality of Eau Duelle works on a number of levels: the internal light and shade of the vanillas themselves, and of the vanillas versus the incense, all echoed by the contrasting monochrome livery of the Diptyque brand. And beyond the frankincense connection, there are other tie-ins with the Christmas theme: Eau Duelle is both comforting and mysterious, like so many aspects of Jesus's life, if that is not too crass a comparison. And as the Son of God, Jesus embodied the duality of the divine in human form – “by flesh embound”, indeed.

Moreover, the wise men are traditionally depicted as being both black and white – well, one or the other, I mean, not both colours in the same Magus. That would give a very different spin to the term “Bah! Humbug”...

Then I guess there is the uneasy duality of Christmas itself, for somewhere buried underneath the groaning mountains of food and presents there is a religious festival struggling to get out, though every year it slides a little further into secular oblivion. Which brings me to that other, politically correct, duality of “Christmas” versus “the holidays”, a phrase I heard countless times during my recent trip in the States - it is standard usage over there but still sounds strange to British ears. There are holiday cards, holiday trees, holiday pies, holiday feasts, holiday wines, holiday gifts, holiday traffic and (presumably) “holiday holidays” - as distinct from “holiday holidays” - which as their name suggests are at a completely different time of year. Intriguingly, I heard on the news the other day that President Obama is planning to take a “holiday vacation”.

So yes, Eau Duelle would have been a good choice for the baby Jesus all ways round. Perhaps, in the next edition of the Good News Bible - or whichever one is the latest update of the original King James version – we will read that the wise men brought gifts of shares in an Emerging Markets Technology Fund and a £10 mobile phone top up, a bottle of Eau Duelle and....er....some myrrh.

But then again, nothing has quite the ring of frankincense. And a word that is at once a perfume and an object lesson in the beauty of the English language – why, that is a very precious gift indeed.

The other participating blogs are listed below - we have all chosen different scents, so every post will be a different interpretation of this theme!

Redolent of Spices

Scent of the Day

EauMG

Parfumieren

All I Am - A Redhead

Chicken Freak's Obsession

Notes from Josephine

The Perfume Chronicles

My Perfume Life


Photo of Eau Duelle from the Diptyque website, photo of the Magi from Wikimedia Commons

Speed Sniffing In Bath - Beyond Crescent Row...

On Friday Mr Bonkers and I took his mother to Bath for the day, as she had not visited it before. Mr Bonkers himself has been to Bath numerous times for gigs, but like all musicians can never remember any specifics of where he has been - however exotic and attractive the location - other than whether the "get in" was problematic, and whether the caterers remembered to segregate the vegetarian options in the finger buffet.

As for me, I used to live in Wiltshire - and before that I lived in Buckinghamshire and dated someone who lived in Wiltshire - and though I realise that Bath is actually in Somerset, relatively speaking it used to be down the road. And my father is from Bath originally, and lived there from just before the First World War till he left home sometime in the 1930s. (And yes, he was quite old when he had me, in case you are wondering...)

So the first stop on our itinerary (after a quick drive through Royal Crescent, which we figured was too far to walk to, but too iconic and familiar a backdrop in period dramas to omit from our itinerary) was the street where my father lived. We had a house name to go on but not a number, and cruised up and down in a low gear peering at gateposts to no avail. My cousin has since told me that the house is still there, but no longer known by the same name. So it looks as though we were stuffed from the start.

Next stop, after parking up at a Travelodge just outside the city centre for a bargain fiver, was Debenhams for me and Mrs Bonkers Senior, while Mr Bonkers scurried across to an Apple shop to look at laptops. Mrs Bonkers Senior made a beeline for hats, scarves and gloves, where the over 70s usually have no trouble whiling away a few minutes, while I hi-tailed it to the perfume aisle and set about scanning the fixtures at breakneck speed for any new launches.

The first display to catch my eye was the one for Benefit's newish fragrance range, Crescent Row. Inspired by Bath's Royal Crescent from which we had just come!, the scents all bear the name of a fictitious resident, each with her own personality - not unlike the ladies of Wisteria Lane - but in scent form only, and housed in brightly coloured cocktail shakers. I have never felt any curiosity to try this line, as the vibe of the Benefit brand is a bit too cutesy and retro for me. The whimsical names of the set are very much in keeping with their girlish image: Laugh with Me LeeLee, Something about Sofia, My Place or Yours Gina...and the most recent additions: So Hooked on Carmella, Garden of Good & Eva(!) and Lookin' to Rock Rita.

To be fair, the dolls house display stand and the intricate packaging concept - each bottle comes in its own miniature house! - is very well done. I can only assume that Benefit is targeting a much younger demographic - the one to whom the Harajuku Lovers scents appeal perhaps? So I didn't stop to try any of these, though I gather from reviews on beauty blogs that they are youthful, pleasant and not particularly groundbreaking.

I continued on my search for something new in Debenhams and found Marc Jacobs Bang. The tester had run dry, so I asked the SAs if they could start a new one. This request caused a little consternation, but to my advantage as it turned out, for they pressed three carded samples into my hand instead. I decided to try Bang at leisure over the weekend and it was much as I imagined, a rather intensely woody/spicy number that I would classify as falling just the wrong side of the gender divide. I have heard it dubbed "Niche for the masses" and read comparisons with Comme des Garcons (I think with CdG 2?), with which I would agree. It is more intense than Kenzo Power, for example (which I would wear), but less so than CdG 2. Indeed, if I had to rank them in order of potency, I would say Bang is Bang, CdG 2 is Big Bang, and Power is a Whimper. And as anyone who read my CK Beauty review the other day will know, "whimper" is by no means a bad thing in my book...

Still in Debenhams I spied a most unexpected fragrance release: Orla Kiely edp from the edgy textile designer of that name. I used to have a yellow and brown leaf mug of hers, which I recently smashed, and keep meaning to replace. For I am a big fan of her bold, retro, floral patterns, but her stuff is on the pricey side, so a mug was about the limit of my buy-in to the brand. If I had to design a signature scent for Orla Kiely (pronounced "Kylie", which was a surprise to me), it would have to be something offbeat and quirky, along similar lines to Tilda Swinton's Like This perhaps, or anything by Humiecki & Graef. A lower case, typewriter-style of font would definitely be involved...

The notes I could find for this scent are:

Rose, geranium, bergamot, fig, chocolate

The packaging has the naive simplicity of the original Daisy bottle, with a stylised orange flower top. Sadly, the scent itself was disappointing. It came across as a heavyish fruity floral to my nose - I think the chocolate and fig may have weighed the composition down. I felt quite crestfallen to be honest, for the combination of Orla Kiely's Irish roots and artistic flair could have resulted in something much more original and interesting.

By this time, Mrs Bonkers Senior had exhausted the browsing potential of the millinery department, and we decided to go for lunch in a Georgian tea room just opposite the Roman Baths, where we marvelled at the high ceilings, dainty sprigged wallpaper and imposing chandeliers. I had predicted to Mr Bonkers that there would be two types of cafe in Bath: oldfashioned tea rooms and alternative, wholefoody-type places with names like "The Jumping Bean" or "The Funky Satsuma". I wasn't far off it as it turned out, because we later came across the "Juice Moose Cafe" and an eaterie just called "Wild", which had a turquoise blue bicyle parked outside, propping up a board with the day's specials.

After a sustaining lunch of jacket potatoes, I inquired about ticket prices for The Roman Baths, but at £30 odd for the three of us, we swiftly decided against it. I had been once myself, many years ago - and Bath is such a uniformly beautiful city anyway that you don't really need to "do the sights" as such to see some remarkable things. The architecture, the characterful shops, the street entertainers, and even the well dressed residents going about their business are an endless source of fascination.

As we ambled through the town centre, not batting an eyelid at the sight of a man playing a violin while walking a tightrope, it wasn't long before I spied a branch of Space NK and headed inside, while Mr B loitered outside watching a busker and Mrs B Senior eyed up the cruets in Lakeland.

My request to photograph the fragrance fixture was turned down - for "intellectual property" reasons. This meant I got off on a slightly awkward foot with the two SAs, though I tried to shrug it off by inquiring brightly after Diptyque's two new fragrances, Eau Duelle and Vetyverio. Unfortunately, the Eau Duelle tester was running very low and the SA was careful to spray only the tiniest amount on my knuckle. Which is a shame, as that was the standout highlight of the day. I didn't get the citrus notes I had read about, just a burst of cold spices in the opening, which soon segued into the most amazingly creamy and slightly "dirty", smoky vanilla base - containing two types of vanilla, as I now know - one lighter (Firnat Vanilla), and one richer (Bourbon Vanilla).

The notes are as follows:

Firnat vanilla, Bourbon vanilla, bergamot, cardamom, pink pepper, elemi, juniper, saffron, calamus, frankincense, cypriol, black tea, musk and amber.

Created by Fabrice Pellegrin of Firmenich, the inspiration for the scent is the spice route, as he explains:

"Eau Duelle is based on two contrasting scents - smoky frankincense, dark and animalistic, and fresh white vanilla, sweet and light." The result? "An
interplay of shadow and light that is a weapon of seduction for both men and women alike." It occurred to me that the striking monochrome livery of the Diptyque brand perfectly echoes this dark/light counterpoint...

The scent itself reminded me very much of PG L'Ombre Fauve (with notes of amber, musk, woods, incense and patchouli), but with less of a barnyard feel and none of the painful medicinal opening. It is a nicely cleaned up version, which still retains a hint of danger. The other perfume with a similar drydown is Les Parfums de Soleils Soir de Marrakech, which includes notes of vanilla, amber, musk and patchouli - see my review here.

I also tested Vetyverio, which I dimly remember as being freshly green and rosy, but it was eclipsed by Eau Duelle, as were the scents from the Tocca and Honore des Pres range that I also tried on card (Colette and Sexy Angelic). And I doubt I was in Space NK for more than 5-10 mins when Mr Bonkers and his mother came in to retrieve me, and we carried on with our leisurely potter, popping into any shops that took our fancy: Jigsaw, Brora, Sweaty Betty, Coast, Habitat, various vintage and "stuff" shops - it is all a bit of a contented blur now.

The final perfume I tested that day was prominently displayed in the window of Jollys, Bath's original department store (now part of the House of Fraser group). This was Plum by Mary Greenwell, makeup artist to the stars, who created it in collaboration with François Robert, the distinguished perfumer behind most of the Les Parfums de Rosine line.

Plum is in fact exclusive to the House of Fraser, and I would characterise it as a classic and very feminine fruity chypre. It smells luxurious and expensive like Fracas or Joy or Roja Dove Scandal, or - given the fruity aspect - like an updated Mauboussin for the "Twenty-Tens".

Top notes: peach, blackcurrant, plum, bergamot and lemon.
Heart notes: gardenia, tuberose absolute, orange flower absolute, rose absolute and jasmine absolute.
Base notes: precious woods, sandalwood, oakmoss, patchouli, amber and white musk.

Plum is definitely a "big frock" fragrance for special occasions, a bit too "perfumey" and full-on for my taste, though I thought it very well made. I would try it again if I came across it, and will recommend it to the Scandal-loving friend who tipped me off about CK Beauty.

Then by the time I emerged from Jollys the shops were closing, so we meandered back to the car, past a late opening hairdresser's where the clients were sipping white wine and reading magazines as their highlights marinated on their heads, past cosily lit restaurants and pubs welcoming early doors drinkers, past a venue where Mr Bonkers suddenly remembered having played, and past the rushing waters of the weir at Pulteney Bridge, dramatically uplit against an ink blue sky.

On the banks of the river we paused for a moment to consult a map of the area, and were amused by the event-filled biography of the city's legendary founder, Prince Bladud. Banished from the royal court after he contracted leprosy, he lived as a swineherd until a chance roll in the pigs' mud brought about a miraculous cure.

Bladud returned to court, was welcomed by his mother, and went on to rule as king for twenty years, and found the city of Bath somewhere along the way. Tragically, he met an untimely end making the first recorded attempt at human flight using homemade wings, and crashed to his death near New Troy. Read more about the story here. Bladud should have quit while he was ahead, if you ask me. Founding Bath counts as a pretty decent legacy on its own...


Photo of Royal Crescent is from Wikimedia Commons, picture of Marc Jacobs Bang is from apetogentleman.com, picture of Eau Duelle is from the Diptyque website, the photo of PG L'Ombre Fauve is from Luckyscent and the pig photo is from bluedogjewellery.typepad.com. Other photos are my own.