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...

Calvin Klein Beauty: Because Blandness Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

The other week the friend to whom I introduced Roja Dove Scandal was on holiday in New York. One day she popped into Saks, randomly sprayed Calvin Klein's latest release, Beauty, and instantly decided that I would like it. When she told me this I was chuffed that my budding perfume protégée had thought fit to divert some valuable sightseeing time away from the Empire State Building, Staten Island Ferry and Ground Zero to perfume testing in a department store, especially with a friend in tow who was not "of the faith".

Beauty was already on my radar, although I hadn't tried it at that point, and my friend's recommendation spurred me on to acquire a couple of samples on Ebay. I had read the rather sparse note description on Osmoz, which only lists ambrette seed, jasmine and cedar, but I like those well enough. According to the press release, the overall effect is meant to be that of a "neo-Calla lily", and I like lilies well enough too, real or illusory.

The problem with the CK scents I have tried to date is that they are either harshly synthetic citrus, or overly gourmand OR spicy OR fruity (respectively CKIN2U, Euphoria, Obsession and Escape).

So the sketchy notes for Beauty looked encouraging. And the positioning of the fragrance to women over 40 also appealed to me. This is another reason why I have passed over CK fragrances until now - they all seem to be targeted at attractive, 20-something "his and her" clones, who are invariably pictured semi-naked and entwined in one another's arms. Some of them could even pass for twins, but you prefer to think they just met on set that day.

Which is not to say that I can relate to the specific sort of over-40s beauty which Diane Kruger represents in the adverts - even if she weren't only 34, haha! Yes, actual age aside, Diane's hair is way too blonde, her skin too fresh and luminous, and her white evening gown much too elegant for me to feel anything other than a stunted, grubby troll in her shadow. This is an impeccably groomed "ice queen" style of beauty, as typified by Betty in Mad Men, and is one to which it would be frankly hopeless for me to aspire. I would have to start exfoliating and stop biting my nails before I even got off the starting blocks, and to achieve that exact shade of "Light Natural Blonde" would take at least a dozen packets of Garnier Nutrisse, and a ton of Pre-Lightener Creme, and I still might end up looking like Courtney Love after a night on the tiles. Well, not the lips, obviously.

But none of this reality check stopped me from wanting to try Beauty, and I have worn it now about four times. It is much as I imagined, and just as Octavian describes it on 1000 Fragrances:

"Beauty is uncomplicated, easy to understand and universally known."

Yes, Beauty is familiar and relentlessly pleasant, and in my view none the worse for that. I get a lemony burst in the opening, then the only flower I can pick out is jasmine in that rather indistinct floral accord typical of so many modern scents, before it mutes down to a woody musky base, in which I think I may also detect vanilla. This fragrance strikes me a little bit like a mainstream take on Promesse de L'Aube, and given the shocking price of the Parfums MDCI range, even the palest of imitations are to be welcomed.

Beauty also reminds me of Chance (not the hyacinth note, but the musk and the amorphous structure), J'Adore L'Eau Cologne Florale (the lemony aspect and the magnolia notes, though J'Adore is fruitier and more watery, where Beauty is more musky), and Acqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile (like J'Adore, but more soapy and a tad plasticky). But if you merged the profiles of all those scents in one big olfactory computer e-fit, you would be in roughly the right territory. Beauty is a "luminous, lemony, woody musky floral" and if it turned up in my Christmas stocking, I wouldn't be sorry. I wouldn't have a clue where to put it, but I wouldn't be sorry.

Robin of Now Smell This, who - out of all the "proper reviewers" - has the most congruent taste with my own, sums up Beauty as follows:

"There is nothing really distinctive or interesting about it: it’s just adequately pretty and wearable, and my sentiments are firmly with the reviewer on MakeupAlley who noted that 'elegant and sophisticated shouldn’t mean dull'”.

They are right of course - ideally, elegance shouldn't be boring. CK Beauty is "pretty and wearable", and more sophisticated than any other scent in the line - and a bit bland. But why I am so taken with this new release - and why I chose to write about it even though there are better noses and brains on the case already - is precisely because, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, for Beauty to be understated and elegant is pretty good going for a Calvin Klein scent and worthy of comment. Put another way, it is easy for Beauty to shine versus the other fragrances in the line. Not unlike the old adage about banging your head against a brick wall - it is so nice when you stop.

Added to that is the fact that out of all the perfume bloggers I know, I am the one most likely to be satisfied with a scent that is merely "pretty and wearable". On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is a preference for accessible, inoffensive scents and 10 is a liking for scents that are rampantly weird, my taste probably sits at around a 4. Some days even a 3. If Beauty was a perfect representation of leaves falling on reindeer fur that has been rubbing against lichen, bark and petrol-doused tyres, frankly, you wouldn't endear it to me any more.

CK Beauty isn't really a beauty, but it is certainly "personable". Or as my mother used to observe (somewhat cryptically): "Handsome is as handsome does." And Beauty comes in a simple, sleekly stylish bottle. Who knows, it could even turn out to be a "go to" scent. And I never thought the day would come when I would ever be IN2 A CK...


Photos of CK Beauty and Diane Kruger from moodiereport.com, photo of Calla lily from Wikimedia Commons, photo of Promesse de L'Aube from Luckyscent, photo of J'Adore L'Eau Cologne Florale from ideal.az

Gorilla Perfume B Scent - A Youthful Rose To Turn Back Time...

I have been feeling rather old lately. Or if not old exactly, decidedly middle aged and raggedy round the edges. I seem to be acquiring ailments and sundry symptoms of decrepitude at a worrying rate - between the "blogger's back pain", the dodgy thyroid, the bingo wings, thighs and drumsticks, the Gordon Ramsay forehead (niftily concealed under a youthful fringe), the nasolabial lines (they were just bound to have a proper name...), the memory lapses, failing short AND long sight, fungal toes, proliferating moles, thin, crepey skin etc. On reflection, that should possibly be "among", the list is so long.

Yes, the phrase "grow old gracefully" is starting to sound hollow in today's image-conscious society. I am dimly aware of the surge of interest in treatments such as Botox and Restylane, Titan and Microdermabrasion, and I fear it may only be a question of time before having "work done" is as much a social imperative as using deodorant or flossing.

This simmering pressure to look the "best self one can be" - as opposed to the distinctly ropier version that nature intended (aided and abetted in my own case by years of reckless sun-worshipping and general self-abuse) - troubles me from time to time. Consequently, I have taken a little corrective action in the last couple of days, by signing up for some Pilates classes and starting to moisturise an area greater than just the bit around my eyes and above my top lip.

And then yesterday I managed to dab on a cheery scent that brightened my mood considerably: Gorilla Perfume B Scent. One of the original B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful fragrances, B Scent was resurrected as part of the recent launch of Lush's new Gorilla range, and is the one Lush founder Mark Constantine considered as BNTBTBB's "house scent".

Nukapai, fellow blogger and trainee perfumer from Lush, kindly sent me a brown paper "horse's nose bag" of samples, into which I have been intermittently dipping. There are 20 perfumes in all - the former BNTBTBB lines plus a handful of new releases - but as most of them are new to me I don't really make that distinction. At 20% concentration, Gorilla perfumes are at parfum strength and comprise mainly natural ingredients. I attended a talk last year by Mark and Simon Constantine (his son and fellow perfumer) in their subterranean Covent Garden store, in which they regaled us with stories of sandalwood sourcing skullduggery, and emphasised their own commitment to quality and sustainability.

I haven't bottomed out this large collection yet, and of the ones I have tried so far, they didn't all work for me. As with Ajne and other ranges, my response to natural scents tends to be polarised. They remind me of "the little girl with the little curl" in Longfellow's poem:

"When she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid."

This may have a lot to do with the fact that natural perfumes are particularly pungent on my skin, at least initially. So Ladyboy and Lush were no-nos, for example, while Exhale and 1000 Kisses hit the spot.

And B Scent was another immediate hit, and I note that it contains more than a few of my favourite things...ylang-ylang, jasmine and sandalwood, for starters.

Notes: lemon, bergamot, fennel, lavender, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, musk

The citrus opening is effervescent in a sherbety boiled sweet kind of way, which soon segues into a rose floral accord. This never strays into cloyingly sweet territory thanks to the judicious addition of fennel and lavender, which Mark Constantine was inspired to add while eating a bowl of fennel-flavoured soup during the development process! Now I don't care for either of those notes in principle, but they tone down the heady florals perfectly and are barely detectable individually to my nose. Yes, you cannot help but feel happy - and younger - while wearing B Scent. So it came as no surprise to read this description of it on the Lush/Gorilla website:

"A stylish and utterly feminine combination of rose tempered with crisp citrus. This is Mark’s daydream of what young French girls smell like."

I have been wearing B Scent for two days now, reapplying it frequently to experience the zingy opening again. Tania Sanchez called it a "joyful rose" and awarded it four stars. The only other perfume I can think of which has pulled off such a happy combination of citrus and rose is IUNX Eau Frappée, which smells of citron pressé or lemon sorbet ice cream mixed with yellow rose petals.

The interesting thing about B Scent is that it isn't too girlish on me. This is not a case of mouton spritzed as agneau. And I am pleased to report that Mr Bonkers doesn't think so either. Last night he said I smelt of onions and tonight he said: "When it has worn off it is quite good actually - like Imperial Leather". A perfume can earn no greater accolade from Mr B than to be compared to soap, however erroneously, so in this household that counts as a result.

So, I feel cleaner(!) and younger, and the world somehow seems a better place through these rose and lemon-scented glasses. Maybe B Scent is the new non-surgical face lift. It's too late for Cher, but there may yet be a cheaper, more fragrant way to hold back the years...

Photo of B Scent logo and map of India from the Lush/Gorilla website/blog, photo of face lift subject from skininstitute.co.nz, photo of gorilla from lifeinthefastlane.ca