Don't Stand So Close to Me

Well, thanks to the fabulous Leopoldo, I have finally been able to sample Serge Lutens La Myrrhe. It arrives last week and seems great in the vial, so I spray it on, hold my forearm to my nose and - ack! After an initial pleasant blast of mandarin, it smells on me like the men's bathroom: cold white tile, hand soap, urinal cakes, "floral" ammoniac disinfectant, and, well... licorice all-sorts and candied nuts (okay, so those don't really fit). The sweet but sharply acidic citrus of the top notes battles against the soapy, waxy basic quality of the aldehydes, and in the heart, the myrrh's airy licorice facets collide with the inedible desiccated resinous side. Underneath is a musky honey base that smells at close range like stale pee in a subway tunnel. I had heard La Myrrhe described as "boring" or a knock-off of Chanel No. 5. All I can say is: not on me.

Luckily, I resisted the urge to scrub. Half an hour after application, I found myself walking around in a very nice little cloud. Something smelled refreshing yet sweet, both well-scrubbed and appetizing. I sniffed my wrist suspiciously. Urinal cakes. I sniffed the cloud. Milked-bathed virgin drinking a pastis and soda. Wrist: urinal cakes. Hmm, I could have sworn the cloud was emanating from me. Was it an olfactory hallucination? (I have auditory hallucinations in the shower all the time. I leap out dripping, absolutely certain I heard the baby crying, the phone ringing, my husband whistling or the Good Humor ice cream truck. The day will soon come when I hear voices in there whispering that I must eliminate my eBay rival for vintage minis.) Searching for the cloud, I extended my arm. From about two feet, my wrist smelled very nice. La Myrrhe has lovely sillage - it's just the close-up ain't pretty.

For the average person, it is just dandy to attract others with a wonderful wake of scent. A perfume fanatic, however, is not the average person; like all obsessions, a preoccupation with perfume is self-centered. The scent is for me - nobody else could possibly care so much.

Now then, there's also Caron. A while ago, I purchased a bottle of Parfum Sacre EdP, online and unsniffed (gasp!). I had nursed a number of Caron extrait samples to completion with tiny sparing little dabs and thoroughly enjoyed a number of them, smelling no sign of the dreaded, dated, moldy Caron base some people mention. I excitedly opened my Parfum Sacre, sprayed with abandon, and smelled... well, mildew. Not mildew exactly, but spores - that strange combination of black pepper and burnt dust that accompanies damp rot. The perfume was marvelous otherwise, but the note was there, lurking in the middle stages. Then I got Bellodgia EdP in a swap and it was fabulous, no fungi at all, a powdery and yet rich, almost boozy scent which beautifully evokes the bright beauty of the old world (Bellagio). I had heard it had been reformulated, but there was certainly still a vintage quality to it - just no fustiness.

The luminosity of Bellodgia got me thinking longingly about my extrait samples, so I purchased a Farnesiana bottle split from Patty at Perfume Posse. It arrived and... spores! In the miniscule amounts I had applied to myself previously they were undetectable, but now they were clearly there. I went to bed to cry myself to sleep and suddenly got a little waft of a pure golden light. When I was little, my mother often made a fine trifle out of rich homemade custard, toasted almonds and cherries . This trifle was to the little waft of Farnesiana as that dessert made of canned mandarin oranges and shredded coconut is to the mythical ambrosia (sorry Mom!) - an earthly imitation. The projected scent was just heartbreaking, so heartbreaking I quickly got over my addiction to sniffing my wrist and just bathed in the golden air of my sillage.