Friday, finally! Our community project this week is about literary connections...name a favorite novel, and wear a perfume that fits the novel or a character in the novel. (The summer reading poll follows tomorrow.)
As always, do tell us your fragrance of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
I picked The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty, and spent hours looking for my sample of Tea Olive (osmanthus) from the New Orleans perfume house Hové. I finally found it, and it's not perfect but it has aged better than I would have expected.
Reminder: next Friday, 6/19, wear a fragrance from perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour.
And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2015, where I'll try to always have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.
SOTD: Eau Parfumee au The Rouge (Bvlgari). No literary association with it for me today! 🙂
Well you smell good anyway, of course!
Hmmm.. this was a challenge. I read a lot, but not a lot of fiction. I thought on and discarded many a combination.
Then I started to run out of time, so I chose the book of poetry by Tagore that I keep on my bedside table. Beautiful work. I chose Jungle L’Elephant for the sensual Indian spices and heart-warming-ness, although Im sure if the weather were warmer I would have chosen something a little more serene.
What a lovely choice! We should do another poll just for poetry, although don’t know how many takers we would get.
In honor of Beatrix Potter I am wearing I Love Carottes.
I love this choice!
Hey, great picks!! And you smell wonderful.
Brilliant choice!
Burberry Brit Rhythm Woman. I’m thinking Brontes Jayne Eyre, a discreet but intelligent lavender scent for a governess dressed in gray…
Oooooo, good one!
Sel de Vetiver for a favorite character of mine 🙂 Menolly in Anne Mcaffreys Dragonriders of Pern series. She grows up by the sea and has to fight for her right to make music and become a harper. The other one I was thinking about was Emily of New Moon and Passage d’Enfer. But I have a cold and the vetiver seemed easier to wear.
Nice 🙂
Thanks!
I love the Pern series and really need to re-read them. Great choice.
Thanks! just cracked open the first one to re-read 🙂 Robinton and Sebell are favorites too.
Menolly’s a favorite character of mine. Good job.
Thanks! 🙂
I just put the first book of this series in my online bookstore…Dragonriders sound great and I like good fantasy. Just thought of the many Gavriel Kay’s I devoured over the years.
Those sound good! I’m putting it on my list.
I had a hard time with this, but finally settled on Hercule Poirot’s cool, calm and collected secretary, Miss Lemon. She would never dare to smell “sweet” in the presence of M. Poirot’s redoubtable olfactory ability, so her signature scent is Hermes Jour d’Hermes because it is crisp and elegant (and also French – just a tiny rebellion against her employer’s insistent Belgian-ness).
Love, love, love Miss Lemon.
Ditto!
Love!
Very well thought out choice. I’m a Poirot fan as well, and love the Suchet adaptation.
+1 – Suchet is Poirot is Suchet is Poirot.
Yes!
Suchet is absolutely Poirot incarnate. nebbe summed it up brilliantly.
Thank you 🙂
Love it.
I am wearing BV Knot as I was thinking about a book I recently read – Beautiful Day by Erin Hilderbrand. It is about a wedding and I happen to be going to a wedding this afternoon of a coworker and good friend of mine. The perfume should work great!
Hope it is a lovely wedding!
I’m wearing Chanel No 22 for Blanche DuBois (A Streetcar Named Desire is not a novel, of course, but I hope it counts). I was inspired by what Blanche says about Stanley to Stella: “Oh, I guess he’s just not the type that goes for jasmine perfume, but maybe he’s what we need to mix with our blood now that we’ve lost Belle Reve.” So jasmine was my starting point, but I thought No 22 would suit her better than a pure jasmine like A la Nuit. No 5 seemed too obvious, too ordinary. In any case, it would be something classic and French.
I actually ran away from work to the Chanel boutique, to spray some No 22 on me: my decant is finished and I don’t own a bottle. No 22 is in fact the only Exclusif that I find difficult, but I’m getting there. I hope I’ll get some bonus points for dedication. I also told the lovely SA that I live on Rue Cambon, while in fact it’s Rue van Campenhout. Alas.
Close enough!!!
Try the extrait, it’s much softer on the aldehydes!
Extra points for the self-sacrifice, and for fibbing to the SA! (Although, they don’t seem to mind fibbing to us!)
Haven’t smelled this yet but now I have to 🙂 love that you went to the store for a spray!
I am sampling Brown Sugar from Fresh because I’ve been browsing cookbooks a lot since I moved and now have a workable kitchen (and I am thinking about a butterscotch rice pudding recipe I saw in Cooking Up a Storm)
Ooh, butterscotch rice pudding! I’d love to hear how it turns out.
Brown Sugar is one of my favorites! And I find it more lemony than Fresh Lemon Sugar.
Drooling just thinking about it!
Right now I am reading “The Book of Joan” so it’s my favorite book of the moment. I would match “Christopher Street” with Joan because she was a New Yorker.
hmm.. This is a hard one for me. I haven’t read much novels these days. No time
Today I am commando. It’s hot and everything seems to give me a headache
4711? I don’t really like cologne much, but 4711 is almost medicinal.
A lemony or citrus-herbal eau de cologne might work. I agree with Mals. I do like cold 4711 a lot! Also, try not to spray near your face – the bottom of the arms and around the ankles is a good place to spray an EDC when you are “suffocating”. There are so many EDCs. But maybe you need some cold lavender water to spray around you? When I am super hot, nothing cools me down like sticking my feet into very cold running water in the tub. Drink some ice cubes and lemon juice in water and that will perk you up!
sticking my feet in cold water and iced lemon water sounds divine right about now!
Around a month ago I bought a bottle of Tabu at a beauty supply store (blind buy!). Then the weather warmed up and based on what I’d read about this fragrance I figured it wouldn’t go down well with sweltering hot weather.
So, today is a sweltering hot day BUT I’m working from home in the comfort of my AC and dared to put on one spray of this nuclear-bomb strength stuff. Holy. Crap. Considering this scent – for as cheap as it is – puts every other perfume I have to shame in the smell-me-before-you-see-me-for-a-mile category I’m glad I read up enough to ONLY put on one spray. I can’t even imagine how wonderful the original must’ve smelled, but geez this is amazing for such a cheapie. It totally KO’ed every Amouage I’ve tried in terms of power.
Back to the reason why I dared myself to wear this today: I thought of the character Lara from Doctor Zhivago. I think this is something she would’ve worn to feel glamorous. ( I know Tabu was made past her time, but still… alternate universe thinking here…) That small luxury in a time where luxury itself was totally beyond reach and even being alive was a luxury in itself.
I’m really curious as to how I’ll react to Tabu later this afternoon after a run on my new treadmill.
I have told this story too many times, but as part of a Franken-fume challenge for Halloween at PP a few years ago, I wore Tabu, The Party in Manhattan, vintage Opium, Secretions Magnifique, and Mitsy, I think ( might have been Youth Dew or Poison though)
It wasn’t even close.
Tabu put them ALL in the corner.
I couldn’t even smell any of them except TPIM and it was neutered down to some unidentifiable funked up mess that I recognized only because I knew where I had sprayed it.
All Hail the Queen.
Hahaha, that’s awesome. I was just writing up a review for Tabu and I’m convinced after a nuclear war there will only be cockroaches and the scent of Tabu remaining.
Tabu-scented mutant cockroaches……..I think there’s defense (or offense) potential there. Pentagon, are you listening?
LOL!
Of course we are. I mean, that’s classified.
No doubt!!!
My mom wore old school Tabu in winter- JUST A DROP, she would say- and it stayed ALL DAY LONG. Delicious, delicious stuff, just few drops would perfume her clothing and even edge into her hair!
The vintage stuff is awesome. My earliest memories are suffused with it…..that and White Shoulders.
I think of Lara as earthy, strong and stubborn. ( I was thinking of Doctor Jivago for today too!) Maybe a nice rooty vetiver – Chanel Sycomore or SL Vetiver Oriental.
Isn’t it wonderful to find some old drugstore goodies that are better than high end niche and don’t cost half of your monthly mortgage?
Today I am wearing Ormande Jayne’s Frangipani.
I need to try this. I love frangipani.
Lots of fun to read everyone’s choices. Thank you all!
If it were less hot here today, and if I wasn’t still battling the flue I would have worn Ambre Fetiche, in honor of one of my favourite characters: the Jinni, out of the Golem and the Jinni (Helene Wecker). The Jinni is a desert creature, stranded in New York. He is fierce and unpredictable, but in the end he is a soft and warm companion.
But…I am wearing no 19, in honor of the formidable Alma Whittaker, principal character in The Signature of all Things. She is a female botanist (who loves moss), born in 1800 in Philadelphia, as daughter of a Dutch woman, and an English crook who became very rich, . She is clear-minded, adventurous, strong, solitary and she stole my heart.
You have made me want to The Signature of All Things.
Oh do Annikky, it is such a treat! With many surprises, happy and sad, and a little like the Winterqueen, not demanding but very satisfying, the category of books I am most often in need of.
I want to read that now.
I always felt a bit repelled, maybe unjustly so, by Gilbert’s other book. But this is such an epic story, and 500 pages, maybe good to get your mind of your son’s and your upcoming difficult period.
I bought this, then didn’t finish it. Thanks for the nudge.
I don’t know where you got stuck, but there is a lot in store!
It took me awhile, but its a great book!
Alma Whittaker! I loved the book and still feel like I like might run into her on the street somewhere…her and Tomorrow Morning. Pretty sure I need to run into him somwhere…this book was strange, really, but engrossing in it’s strangeness…
My most-reread book is “Alice In Wonderland” (and I can’t recommend Martin Gardner’s annotated edition highly enough: it explains literally everything about both books plus the lost chapter). I’m putting the Mad Hatter, at his Mad Tea Party, in Michael for Men by Michael Kors (the 2001 version): tree resin and herbs for the garden, dried fruit for the scones, suede for his hat, patchouli because it was all the rage in Victorian England. No tea, but you can’t have everything.
This was the first patchouli-heavy scent I ever loved: I bought it at first sniff at its launch and have been wearing it ever since.
Thanks for the rec. I love analysis of everyday things (though I fail miserably at perfume).
I just finished re-reading the Corinna Chapman books by Kerry Greenwood. Corinna is a baker, so I could have worn a gourmand scent, but it’s too hot right now. In the end I just decided to give Tocade another try. Try as I might, I cannot like this. The problem is that on my skin the vanilla is so prominent. If the rose was more obvious, I could put up with it, but it’s not, so for me this is a scrubber. I’m going to have to find some samples or minis in my desk that I can apply.
I scrubbed as well as I could in my bathroom, and applied Yves Rocher Quelque Notes d’Amour. Cheap thrills all the way.
I’d have been happy if it smelled mostly like vanilla; on me it was all burning plastic.
One of my favorite books is Crime and Punishment – I’m actually rereading it now. I chose CdG Zagorsk – the cold woods and incense fits with the location and religious imagery in the novel … Sort of an obvious choice but I like it 🙂
A great match, although I’m not a huge fan of the book (I was probably also too young when I read it).
Yes, very good match! Love Zagorsk (not so much the book, but like Annikky I probably read it too young).
Wow, I am the THIRD to have read this too young! I have much better impressions from The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot, both of which I read about 12 years later…
Does anyone know of alternatives to the Constance Garnett translations?
There is a version with Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky (his wife I believe), and while I’m certainly not an expert on Russian translations, this couple has gotten very high marks and excellent reviews on their War and Peace translation.
Thanks, I will look into theirs. My concern is that the Toldtoy I have read is written in the same style as the Dostoevski. Apparently that is because Constance Garnett apparently had quite a distinct style that predominates in all her translations.
*Tolstoy*
I really preferred the Garnett translations to these. Maybe just more familiar…
So there are mixed views – always good to know!
I read it in Estonian, so I’m not much help here…
I’ll pass up on the Estonian version, for obvious reasons!
(i.e. my own language limitations 🙂 )
Someone mentioned The Lord of the Rings yesterday in the comments, can’t remember who. I happened to be wearing Santal Massoia and immediately thought of Gandalf. SM smells sort of ancient, gnarled, and steadfast to me, which is how I see Gandalf.
I love reading about everyone’s choices. This was a hard one for me to decide. In the end, I went with the character Merlin/Myrddin from Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave. I imagine he’d be wearing Union’s Holy Thistle, so that’s what I’ve got on today.
I’m being reminded of lots of old favorites (books) today. 🙂
I picked the character Ruth from the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I am wearing Gucci Glamourous Magnolia layered over Bath and Body works French Lavender and Honey.
Oh that’s so cute – and great choices!
If I was to go all Malle on those characters — Ruth would be Eau de Magnolia, and Idgy would be Vetiver Extraordinaire.
Thank you. I tried to come up with something for Idgy, but I have nothing in my small collection that is suitable.
I did not read the book, but it is one of my favourite movies.
Same here, adore the movie!
Ditto!
When I was a child, my mother read The Little Prince to me, and I’ve reread it a few times, along with attempting it in French and Spanish when I was taking lessons. It’s a simple read, but has been one of my favorites for years. Thinking of the rose character, I’m wearing Une Rose.
I love Le Petit Prince, and his dedication to his rose.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
So very true.
And the Little Prince’s rose is the ultimate prima donna!
I (finally ) finished The Dovekeepers, historical fiction based on the ancient fortress Masada in Judea and focuses on the lives of 4 women. So many fragrant references in this story! I’m going with Bois Farine for Revka, who was a baker’s wife and they frequently describe the aromas of baking bread.
You need something with rock-rose/cistus.
I am singing a lunchtime chorus concert, music set to Shakespeare sonnets and other pieces, and there is a lot of moonlight in the lyrics, so I picked Strange Invisible Perfumes Epic Gardenia – applied lightly, don’t want to mess with other singers’ attention and breathing – and then will top it off with Hiram Green Moon Bloom in the evening. It all makes sense in my head. Plus, gardenia and tuberose seem appropriate for the current swampy weather in DC.
It makes perfect sense. What is the Epic Gardenia like? I’ve been thinking about it, as I’m a huge gardenia (and tuberose) fan.
It is an interesting mix, with something like verbena/myrtle and slight citrus tinge to it, and possibly some sandalwood. It dries down to lovely skin scent, but is scarily heady at first. When I first got a full bottle and sprayed it on, I literally recoiled from the blast and thought it was going to be a scrubber; I actually thought of giving that bottle away.. Now I really enjoy it, especially in summertime. All it is to say: for this one, sampling is a must!
Thank you! “Scarily heady” sounds very much like my thing 🙂 I wanted to order their sample “minibar”, but it’s out of stock at the moment.
SIgh. White flowers and choral music. Wish I could be there.
Dropped out of the challenge this week… Although I do read quite a lot of novel, I guess I never make olfactive associations for characters because I couldn’t think of anything this morning. SOTD is Matin d’Orage. Maybe some of you have an literary association for it?
Maybe Karen Blixen, as she is sitting in the still cool early African mornings in the garden close to her coffee plantation, Gardenia in bloom, but there is storm brewing..?
Nice! I love Out of Africa. I often think of her struggles and how her life must have been. It was something I though of often the past few years as I struggled with our new library construction and all the highs and lows of that endeavor. ” I had a library in Pennsylvania…”
🙂
Her “shauries”! That word has always stuck in my head.
Oh yes, definitely Out of Africa. 🙂 my favourite movie ever!
I haven’t been keeping up with the challenges, but I re-readLlittle Women for the umpteenth last night, and in honor of my beloved Jo, I think I’ll slap on some Grey Flannel.
You just know she’d have loved a good men’s fragrance and violet is old-fashioned enough to have been worn in her era.
Apropos of nothing, I have been re-reading this book for 40 years and I still cry when Beth dies.
And I still cannot stand Amy.
Not even in Little Men or Jo’s Boys, where Ms Alcott clearly thinks she has redeemed her.
Nope, still don’t like her.
I didn’t like Amy, either. Laurie deserved better!
He did! I can accept that he didn’t marry Jo, but he deserved far better than Amy.
Yes! To everything here.
🙂
The first time I read this, when I got to the part of Laurie marrying Amy, I was so angry I threw the book down and refused to finish it. I eventually did read it all the way through, but I couldn’t accept the way it turned out.
Exactly!
Hhm Amy was not a favorite, but the proposal scene was so romantic to me when I was a teenager! I was more annoyed about Rose and Mac. I of course was Team Charlie 🙂
It was rather romantic, them pulling together across the lake. Way too good for her!
And heaven’s yes, #TeamCharlieForever!
But I wasn’t mad about dear old Mac. Even as a child, I had read enough Alcott to know she always set her heroines up with the…I don’t want to say betas, but she chose character over charm, that’s for sure! And on the rare occasion when she did let the handsome, charming lad get the girl, she generally paupered him first. (Tom and Polly come to mind)
Oh, now, I was a Mac fan.
I was a Mac fan, too, and he was surely a better husband. She chose well.
But she and Charlie had better chemistry, to me.
Great choice! Jo was always my favorite in one of my favorite books.
Ditto and ditto.
Wearing Havana Vanille, which feels like some 19C character could wear – a little vague, I know…
I didn’t choose a favourite character as I couldn’t make up my mind between Lord Peter Wimsey and Elizabeth Bennet. Besides, I wanted to wear La Promesse de l’Aube which is the title of a wonderful semi-autobiographical novel by Romain Gary. The only author to win the Prix Goncourt twice. So there’s my literary association.
I think Lord Peter Wimsey could wear Boutonniere No 7.
I suppose he could but I guess he would wear something more conservative. Caron Pour un Homme or Chanel Pour Monsieur. He has to deal with Bunter as well of course.
Ditto! Or maybe Creed Green Irish Tweed. I am sure Bunter has a grasp on his lordship’s scented waters!!!
Probably, but a girl can dream 🙂 And to me, he is not a traditionally masculine hero, there is quite a bit of the eccentric (and a dash of dandy) in him.
I would agree, but don’t forget how very English he is. And there is Bunter of course. I also considered choosing a Harriet Vane fragrance. I thought of Rien, bold and uncompromising. But the weather is too hot for Rien.
Tagging onto your comment to say that I wore Folle de Joie by Joie (received a sample in my birch box spring 2014) in honor of Lizzie Bennet.
This one is a woodsy floral with a soft hint of citrus. Reminds me of the scene where she walks miles to be by Jane’ s side when Jane takes ill. A long walk in the fresh air, surrounded by woods and blooms. Dry down is a ladylike cologne.
I am wearing Givenchy Amarige Mimosa Harvest 2009, which to me smells like sunshine in a bottle, in honor of Mrs. Hudson, landlady to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who remained cheerful despite having her tenants shoot holes in her walls and a stream of dubious characters visiting 221B at all hours of the day and night.
Great choice! I love the Holmes stories! Imagine all the tobacco smoke as well.
Oh, interesting choice, I pictured Mrs Hudson in something brisk and no-nonsense like Eau d’Hadrien, but mimosa’s indeed cheerful!
Anne of Green Gables loved flowers. She loved to pick apple blossoms and lilacs and buttercups and roses. She especially liked to pick violets in the valley and loved ‘purple sparkly’ things. When she stole the amethyst brooch, she said, “Amethysts are better than diamonds. I think they must be the souls of violets.”
SOTD is AG La Violette, springtime fresh and pure as our childhood heroine gathering her beloved blossoms.
Oh yes. La Violette for Anne and her “souls of good violets.”
I haven’t ever read it but I love that quote!
For Anne fans:
https://freebox.it.com/2008/08/07/lazy-thursday-poll-what-would-anne-with-an-e-wear/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Thanks, Robin, I don’t think I’d ever read that post, so many interesting scent suggestions and how differently we each remember Anne and her companions. And I’d almost forgotten about “Violet Vale–a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr. Andrew Bell’s big woods.“ Even more reason for La Violette, for its ‘greenness.’
Much later I read Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journals and it totally changed my outlook on the Anne books. (and I probably said that in that poll, so sorry if I’m repeating myself)
Perfect!
Forgot about that, but Anne was another big favorite and loved, loved the miniseries!
T. Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume paired with a jasmine perfume oil by Veritas Inlustrat Perfumes….an all natural essential oil blend of bergamot, spearmint, peppermint, Indian Jasmine, Egyptian jasmine, jasmine sambac and patchouli… it is just divine….
This was my first thought when I heard about the challenge, but I don’t have any big jasmine perfumes!
Jitterbug Perfume is a phenomenal book and I really wanted to pair it with a perfume. As I am not a big fan of jasmine centered perfumes I really don’t have any, but this all natural perfume oil is so lovely. It sits close to the skin and is not an overbearing jasmine. I have several from this line and must say I prefer them to some of the very expensive all naturals that I have tried which just did not agree with me. And for twenty five dollars for 5mi you can’t go wrong!
I’m a huge fan of A.A. Milne and have been reading the When We Were Very Young books to my daughter each evening (we get through approximately one page each day; she’s 1 1/2).
I chose a scent Pooh himself would love, one verdant and charming, and where you can imagine bees (and honey) nearby.
AG Le Chevrefeuille
Ah, nice!
Love Chevrefeuille! And Pooh. My husband started reading Pooh to our girls who are almost 2, and got through a book or 2 before they were big enough to want to flip pages and look at the books they want to look at! We don’t get through much now other than looking at pictures of animals or Sesame Street characters at storytime!
Ha how could Pooh have anything else 🙂 I wonder what would suit Eeyore?
Black March of course. 😉
Good one! 🙂
Adore Pooh-bear and you have chosen perfectly!
I am currently reading – and implementing – The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. It is a gentle, sweet and elegant book, and I have started implementing the steps in the books- well all except my perfume/cologne stash!
Combined with the fact that it significantly cooler today, I am wearing a ‘clean and modern’ fragrance: DKNY. It so very clean, almost muted, almost like the DKNY clothing I feel I should be wearing with it. But instead I am wearing a long silk tunic and crisp white close fit pants and sandals.
I love Kondo’s ritual of bowing to giveaway items and thanking them for their service before letting them go – I’m going to try that!
I liked that too!
It sounds like I need to read this book! My live is overwhelmed with it’s parts and all their extras.
Many of Kondo’s ideas have been popular for a long time. For a less philosophical, no-nonsense, folksy (but her system works!), try Flylady. Been doing it for years.
The sink, right?
Yes! But I’m not a purist, I never wear lace up shoes. 🙂
So… I forgot about the challenge when I applied perfume… In any case, I am wearing Chamarre, by Mona di Orio and I think it would go well with anything written by Anais Nin. Musky, intimate, elegant, femme and very strong.
Ooh – sounds interesting! I’ve not smelled this.
The shop here only stocks about 4 of her scents and I found the other 3 to be way too dirty on my skin. This one, with lavender, aldehydes and violet, has also quite a skanky feel, but it’s not as pronounced!
This is my favourit MdO scent. So subtle and beautiful.
Its interesting, because its rated very highly on various forums (fragrantica/parfumo etc) but I seldom hear it mentioned in discussion.
I absolutely adore Anais Nin, so I must try this fragrance.
Wearing Memoirs of a Trespasser and recalling “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks, in honor of adventurers everywhere.
The book describes the surfacing and subsequent restoration of a centuries-old commissioned Jewish prayer book. Via items and stains found in the book, analysts hypothesize where it travelled and who might have rescued it from destruction during various political and military turmoil.
BTW, her previous book, March, won a literary Pulitzer. It supposes correspondence between the father in Little Women and his wife while he is away at war (as a chaplain, as I recall), and the affect the choices they make as to what to tell each other, or not, of their day to day affairs and emotions has on their relationship long term. I was never a Little Women fan (sorry), but if you are it’s a possibility.
(Brooks was a journalist covering the middle east, and I believe her husband still is.)
Ooh I read and reread all of Alcotts books. Must check this one out, the others sound fantastic too!
No literary matchup for me today – I’ve been rereading Dennis Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone. (What fragrance says “kidnapped child, unconventional PIs, dirty cops, and bad parenting in the parts of Boston you can’t see from Fenway Park”?)
And had to take Gaze to the hospital for more tests related to his upcoming surgery. So: Cuir de Lancome, my default Medical Professionals Intimidate Me perfume.
Your book is challenging! Maybe you should pick a frag that is only around for about 5 min?
Good luck with Gaze.
I can imagine the woman private eye wearing Aqua Di Parma Iris Nobile
I’m wearing Bois Farine because it blends well with the KMR I’m covered in and I have a terrible knotted muscle under my shoulder blade that is giving me a headache.
I had planned to wear Eau Sauvage today in honor of Hilary Tamar from Sarah Caudwell’s fabulous books. I always feel it is such a unisex scent that it too gives no hint of gender, and it’s subtle enough for the Lincoln’s Inn crowd. So sad that she wrote so few of these ridiculous books before she passed away.
I wanted to thank you for introducing Maisie Dobbs!
I don’t know if that was me but I do love Maisie Dobbs. 🙂
Because the weather up here is so hot, humid and summery (yeah!), I wanted to wear an EDC today. So I went thematic: My choice is EM Forster A Passage to India, and in honor of this book, I am layering Dior’s Escale a Pondichery with Creed’s Fleur de The Rose Bulgare. A fish out of water: a tradition bound English rose in tradition bound India. I must say these two frags work remarkably well together – the citrus parts in FdTRB that sometimes get too powerful for the rose IMHO really accentuate the citrus and tea in Pondichery. These frags work better than the poor protagonists of A Passage to India!
I remember reading A Passage to India, brilliant novel and very enigmatic.
I’ve never read the book, but did see the movie a long time ago. I will have to put it on my to be read list.
Your layering must smell wonderful!
The film is quite good, I especially enjoyed Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Sir Alec Guinnes in it, but the book is outstanding.
I was too lazy to try and firs thing of a character and then think of a perfume that would actually be something I have, but still am slightly on topic. I’m wearing smellbent One, which is a nice dry spicy vanilla with a hint of old book smell.
That sounds nice!
Love One.
I’m wearing Intense Tiare today and am still in the banana popsicle stage — if I had to backfit this to a character, maybe Lolita?!
My all time favorite childhood book was “Miss Happiness and Miss Flower” by Rumer Godden about two little Japanese dolls. So in their honor SOTD is Oyedo by Diptyque.
That one I never read, but I was very very fond of “Little Plum,” which I think might have been a sequel. As a kid, I was somewhere between Belinda the tomboy and Nona the book lover.
I thought about this challenge last night, and like other dedicated readers, found it challenging.
Sarah Crewe (A Little Princess) and Margaret, from a Wrinkle of Time were from the days when school girls did not wear perfumes. The Austen women were usually on tight budgets (though the Father in Persusion would have worn Rojas and then not paid his bill).
Would Edgar Linton foolishly bought his wife Cathy Amber Oud, which only would have reminded her of her childhood passions for the moors and Heathcliff. Yes, Edgar would have been so foolish, but I don’t think that there would have been a niche perfume shop in the area of Wuthering Heights.
Most recently, I have been re-reading Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark). However, his most famous thieves, the brutal Parker and his comic dopleganger Dortmunder, both would know that wearing a scent would be contrary to their efforts to be imperceptible. Neither would have a “signature scent.”
But wait, I see Dortmunder, in a most un chic outfit, by the escalator at the Beauty floor in Bergdorfs. He is in fact casing the joint and calculating whether there is a loading dock behind hidden doors. As a cover for his standing around, he buys a bottle from the nearest counter, which is Amouge. Unfortunately, since he is trying not to look like a criminal he can not pay for it with a stolen credit card. When he learns the price, he wonders who is committing highway robbery. That evening Dortmunder gives the bottle to May, his long time not-quite wife.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Dortmunder’s side kick, Kelp wishes he had any kind of scent to protect him from the literally odious presence of Arnie, the worst smelling fence in New York. Arnie sells Kelp a dozen “almost authentic” Birken bags for almost the price of the Amouge.
The next day is Thanksgiving. May is now the best smelling check out grocery cashier in Queens as she helps procastinating customers buy precooked Turkeys. She takes a few for herself.
Dortmunder, Kelp in the gang load the “Birkens”into a truck to put their fail proof plan to break into Bergdorf after it has stocked up for Black Friday. Under the plan, they will pose as window decorators working on a Birken Bag Xmass window, and thereby break into Bergdorfs, while all the cops recover from Parade duty.
The fail proof plan of course fails. Who could have predicted that there would be a seven foot blizzard on Thanksgiving in NYC leading to the cancellation of the Parade and an order to clear all streets.
Just as the gang is up to its knees in snow, Mrs. Murch comes to the rescue with a stolen snow plow. They climb with the “Almost authentic Birkens” into the truck and go to have a sad Thanksgiving feast of the Turkeys May has stolen from her grocery job and Kelp’s girl friend Anne Marie has cooked.
But Anne Marie was not a Senator’s daugher for nothing. She knows a fake (pretty much her father and every politician buddy he took home) from the real thing. She realizes that Arnie has sold Andy fake, fake Birkens, i.e. real Hermes bags, which can be sold on line. So the gang makes a profit after all.
I am wearing Woman, just like May in the above fake Westlake story.
If it has failed to amuse, check a real Westlake Dortmunder tale.
Well done!
Brilliant!
Great fun, thanks.
I’m wearing Chanel No. 5 today in honor of the second Mrs. de Winter from Rebecca. I can see her wearing this because she was not worldly but wanted to be so, to please Max. Chanel No. 5 would go with her rather plain, but serviceable clothing, as well as her black dress and pearls she imagines herself wearing.
Good choice for the second Mrs. DeWinter, but my sympathies have always gone out to Rebecca, the first Mrs. DeWinter.
She’s a Jicky woman.
Oh, Rebecca would definitely be a Jicky woman — very sophisticated
I know I can’t be the only Georgette Heyer fan here…. what did Venetia and Sophy wear?
I think Venetia was probably all roses and honeysuckle, but surely she pinched a little of Damerel’s Eau Savage now and then?
What fun we’d have scenting the entire lot.
Completely late to the party as usual, but I’m wearing Ormonde Jayne Woman for Jane Eyre, both book and character. The delicate violet contrasting with the wildness of the black hemlock; something wild under something proper. A not quite civilized perfume – there’s something witchy about it, as there is about that book.
Now I want to smell the one again, and read the other again!
I’ve got Avignon on one arm and Kyoto on the other inspired by Shusaku Endo’s historical novel Silence.
It’s a bit on the nose, but I’m reading Dune right now, so I wore the fragrance of the same name. They probably don’t actually have anything to do with each other (though that would be pretty cool), but I thought of the scene in the book where the Duke sees the sunrise on Arrakis and sees the dew-gatherers harvesting dew from the flowers that spring up in the desert before withering in the sun.
Love Dune the novel series, and have positive thoughts regarding the fragrance (which I’ve never worn myself, as it was for several years the signature scent of both my sister and my sister-in-law).
I’m so sorry, this is such a fun idea, but it’s too hot. I’m wearing Abano, a vintage bath’ oil from Prince Matchabelli, rumored to be one of the first ‘spa scents.’ It’s intriguing and probably fits a character somewhere to a tee, but maybe not leathermountain.
I’ve really been enjoying reading about your vintage scents. I just had to look this one up, fragrance was launched in 1931, with notes of orange, lavender, patchouli, herbs and grasses and oak moss, under the slogan “Abandon your cares with Abano”. It sounds wonderful, do tell us about it.
I’ve sampled two versions. The first was a sample gift in a spritzer, and the second is a bath oil that I just bought. They’re rather different.
From what I can remember of the spritzer sample, it wore a bit like a vintage oriental, fairly rich but not at all foodie, so maybe I was mostly smelling some very well-aged patchouli. 🙂 I missed the orange but got a lovely herbs-into-hay progression, with a tiny growl at the hay end. Oak moss an inky background presence.
I liked it and hoped to find a specimen with orange notes, perhaps a clearer lavender, and/or a pine note that someone else had mentioned. Hence the bath oil, whose consistency is not oily, and which is an opaque very dark brown like some other great-smelling bath oils I’ve seen. Don’t know what to make of that.
I don’t think I’d identify this as the same perfume. Still no definite orange, but a rather sharply herbal lavender, greened up if you will. The oak moss is clearer and now the patchouli feels like background texture. I also got some whiffs of something tarry, more like a contemporary statement note (or like a partially-turned vintage note, of course.)
Based on these experiences, I’m pretty sure I’d love any fresh specimen of this fragrance, but those I have are not quite doing it for me. Still, I’m grumpy about the weather today and will certainly try my bath oil under more auspicious circumstances.
Many thanks! Mmmm, orange/lavender/oakmoss/patchouli, a very appealing combo.. I’d not heard of Abano prior to your post so I appreciate your thoughts. And good luck in finding a fresh specimen with that missing orange note!
SOTD is Hermes Eau des Merveilles, which is a fragrance I can absolutely imagine Lady Brett Ashley (from The Sun Also Rises) wearing. A sexy, salty summertime scent perfect for those hot Pamplona nights.
^Also quite fitting with Brett’s modern, androgynous style.
I was going to wear Iris Silver Mist to scent Lieutenant Eve Dallas of the “In Death” series by J. D, Robb (aka Nora Roberts) but when it was already hot and muggy this morning when I took out the garbage in my PJs, that idea was immediately scrapped.
I eventually went with Atelier Cologne Sous le toit de Paris and my literary reference is not a character but the setting of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Probably a more apt scent association would be the movie Hugo. Partial credit?
I’m pretty sure Hugo was also a book, or at least a graphic novel.
You are correct, Laurels. I believe it’s a children’s book…but the move is what brings Sous le toit de Paris to light 🙂
No literary credit for me – I just wanted to wear Tauer Noontide Petals.
I’ve wracked my brains all day to find a cute literary allusion to Lily of the Valley, and came up with none. So, I am wearing generaous dabs of Miguet Fleuri topped off with a spray of my newish Diorissimo EDT and I still smell fine…
I bet you do! Our lovely yukiej gave me some Muguet Fleuri in the last Freebiemeet (thank you, yuki!) and as much as I liked it, I felt compelled to pass it on to a friend who has a much deeper history with LOTV scents. As it happens we met up with that friend today, and she wore her Muguet Fleuri, smelling fantastic. (And I thought that despite all my weather-induced grumpery.)
I am happy to hear another story about this! My newish Diorissimo bottle is almost gone, and I have been vacillating between more Dior or get some of this new Oriza…
Perhaps Lorrillee of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
I went with Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, a book that made me laugh out loud when I first read it years and years ago, and Oriza L. Legrand Relique d’Amour. I thought about Etro Messe de Minuit, but a) the little bit of my sample that was left has dried up, and b) it would really be more appropriate for Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho which inspired N.A. Relique d’Amour has some of the “old church” qualities that you’d expect, with some unexpected sweetness and a bit of greenness that help suggest the character of Catherine Morland. If it were a bit less light and fleeting. I’d be coveting a FB.
I may have to read everyone else’s choices tomorrow, as I have a board meeting for a non-profit group I volunteer for first thing in the morning. (Getting ready for the meeting was partly why I’m posting so late. Must. Stop. Procrastinating.) It will be fascinating reading, I’m sure, and I feel as though I finally have smelled enough things to play along. Happy weekend, everyone!
Northanger is such a lighthearted book, clearly one of her earlier works. I enjoyed reading it very much. I think I might put Catherine in Eau de Camille. Now to think of something ghastly to scent Isabel Thorpe with….