It's Memorial Day weekend — summer at last! — and we're celebrating the holiday with our standard open thread poll.
Talk about anything you like — the fragrance you’re wearing today, the fragrance you're thinking will be your most-worn this coming summer (or winter), whatever.
Or, ask a question about fragrance, then see if anyone else has asked a question that you can answer…
(And two quick PSAs...the splitmeet will close on Sunday night, or when I remember to close it on Monday. Also on Monday, we'll mark Memorial Day proper.)
Note: top image is Chelsea Flower Show 2014 [cropped] by Mark at flickr; some rights reserved.
Good morning, all, and a happy weekend to you. ☀️ Plus, a happy
l-o-n-g weekend to all in the US!
The first order of today is a PSA ❗️20% off full bottles at indigoperfumery.com with code MEMDAY20OFF2023
May 27-29, 2023 only. Some brands excluded. (No affiliation, etc.)
Second order of today – order a new bottle of perfume! 😆
I’m getting a bottle of Dusita La Rhapsodie Noire, of which I drained a sample and decant in record time. This one is so unusual; I kept sniffing my wrists at various points in its progression, and it was gone before I really got a handle on it, so I must continue the experiment.
By the way, I am squeaking in to add it to the splitmeet. 😉
Third order of today – get outside! It’s going to be a beauty.
Oh no, so tempted by that code! This is gonna be a long no-buy. ☠️
There will always be another code. You can do it!
Oh, no! Sorry to be such a shameless enabler when you’re on a no-buy. 😬
I am on a No Buy as well. Hang in there!
We will be heading out to a Maifest at a local, pretty town on Lake Michigan. I’m hoping my husband is willing to hang out to hear some of the polka music. I love watching people dance to polka. Just makes me smile.
Then hoping to head down to an arts fair farther south, Will maybe go hear music tonight at the local resort on the water. Music is free, but can’t bring in food/ drink, which is a reasonable policy.
Since it’s warm and sunny, I’m wearing SSS Jour Ensolleille. My happy scent.
I’m so envious, since a weekend at Lake Michigan or at least a picnic there was a childhood tradition for my family. Of course we were across the water on the Michigan side. I’ve never been anywhere on the Wisconsin side but want to go sometime, as I’ve heard that Door County is quite beautiful. (My sister-in-law is from northern Wisconsin).
I can testify it’s quite lovely since that’s where I live. 😉 The Maifest was fun, the art fair disappointing. I have to say, growing up in CA and then living on the east coast, I had no idea how beautiful the Great Lakes area is. One of my best friends had a place directly across from us in MI and she talked about it for years.
Yes, the Michigan west coast is gorgeous, and you’re right, people on the other coasts don’t have a clue about it.
How nice! We are driving up to St Joseph MI tomorrow to enjoy the park above Silver Beach. The weather has been so perfect.
And you smell lovely!
Have a great time!
Yesterday was dreary and miserable and cold, but today it’s going up to 24°C, and 30° tomorrow, so I guess that’s our entrée into summer. (Cool again on Monday, but by then I’ll probably be sick of the warmth and sunshine anyway. I have a very low threshold of tolerance for summer weather.) Today I’m in the underrated Jacques Fath Pour l’Homme, a fascinatingly complex amber.
I just discovered this morning that Anne Klein II, my gateway amber back in the eighties, is still in production! It was in a Shoppers Drug Mart alongside the other $19.99 fragrances (all the Canadians will know what I’m talking about), which I see have been jacked up to $21.99. No doubt it’s been ferociously reformulated but I was very tempted to buy it just to see what they’ve done with it, because it used to be so good, a languid pool of warmth, very stylish.
Just issuing a warning, with love. Several years ago I broke down and bought a bottle of Tatiana, a perfume I wore as a tween and loved. It was HORRIBLE. And now I can no longer conjure up the scent of the original. 🥹
How awful! I’ve been burned before like that. I got some Poison in I think the early 2000s and it was not the same as it had been in the eighties: this was how I learned, the hard way, about reformulation. (Luckily, I still have a tiny amount of the vintage Esprit de Parfum as a reference.) Every modern version I’ve ever smelled of scents I loved in the eighties and nineties has been at best a mild disappointment and more often a catastrophe, but I live in hope…
…because I own a bottle of the rare example of a scent that was actively improved by reformulation, SL Serge Noire, which upon launch was bafflingly uninteresting and un-Lutens, but which five or so years later had been rejiggered and rebalanced, with a leathery aspect that hadn’t been there before.
I probably won’t buy the Anne Klein II, but if I do and it’s not all that, I can always demote it to a bathroom spray. I mean, twenty bucks.
I loved Tatiana. I mean LOVED as in I have no idea how many sprays were applied. I can’t remember what it smelled like, but wow I remember the LOVE.
I had and loved the original- it was incredible❣️
True story: I found $20 sitting in the laundry room of the apartment building I lived in. I put up a sign, but no one ever claimed it. (In 1977, $20 was a lot!) Bought my bottle with it. Happy ending!
My sister used to have Tatiana which I believe was the original. One tiny spray (I know, right?) and whoa, you are PRESENT. I thought I was pulling the wool over my mom when I used to sneak-spray it …
really I guess a lot of people kept their distance while I was going back and forth on the Staten Island Ferry.
I’m a fellow lover of Anne Klein II, from back in the 1980s, and the reissue is quite good! I encourage you to go ahead with it. It doesn’t have all the depth and warmth of the original, but it has all the vanilla ambery goodness. Let us know what you think, if you do get it!
And I am following AnnE’s lead above by purchasing Eris Mx. at Indigo Perfumery this weekend with the 20% off code and adding it to the splitmeet. If you’re interested, please check the splitmeet (it will be there shortly) or just email me (you can find my email in my gravatar above). It’s not a particularly summery fragrance, rather it’s subtly spicy, earthy, comfortable and wonderful.
Otherwise, I’m commando to go kayaking and then visit the new grandbaby today. 😀
What a fun day, enjoy.
Thanks, it was super nice.
Enjoy your grandbaby snuggles!
Thanks, they were lovely.
Enjoy that new baby smell, mmmmm. My sisters’ oldest grandbaby is turning 16 in two weeks. How did that happen?
I can’t even believe my youngest is old enough to be a dad. How did *that* happen?!
why am I 70? how’d that happen?
I know! I’m in the same boat.
And now wearing Shiseido Inoui and enjoying the sunny day.
Inoui is gorgeous!
Sounds like you had an awesome day yesterday.
No perfume yet and this weekend will be spent mostly packing boxes. We are relocating abroad for the next academic year and there is just so much to do. So stressful to think about everything we must do over the next month.
I’m also really stressing about my beloved pooch. My in laws were supposed to take him for the year but because of new health issues that’s no longer an option. Taking him with us would be really not good for him given the weather (hot!) and environment (urban with no green spaces). We need to figure this out obviously, and any ideas are welcome!
I predict my most worn sent this summer will be Mango Thai Lime. Refreshing!
First, how exciting. Second, really sorry about your pup worries. Are the health issues his or your in-laws?
My in-laws. But yes it is exciting especially as I would be returning home to my own family. I miss home so much but it’s not a good place for a dog unfortunately, let alone a heat sensitive one
I know that stress. We had to pack our entire lives into nine suitcases to move abroad on the last sabbatical, and I’m already starting to plan for the next, which should start next year at this time. We’ve got to figure out what to do with our kitty, as well.
Any chance you’re renting your home out while you’re away, or having pet sitters? We used Sabbatical Homes to rent our house out during the last sabbatical, and I’m kind of hoping that we might be able to do that again, and include the cat as part of the deal. If not, we might do House Sitters Canada again (as I think we’re only going for 6 months); we found pet sitters there who moved in and took care of our cat and garden while we were away last summer. I don’t know if there’s a similar service where you are? (Of course, pet setting is an exchange so you don’t get paid rent…)
Anyway, I do hope you’re able to find a good solution for your pup!
We are leading parallel lives! I was just thinking I need to go buy 4 more suitcases so that we check in a total of 8 for the year…
We are listing on Sabbatical Homes and yes a good idea to add pet care incentive again a rent subsidy or something. I told Mr Yasmina maybe we should post on Nextdoor and see if a neighbor might be interested in hosting a very cuddly pet for the year but he is worried we will be “judged.”
I wish you an awesome experience while totally understanding the stress involved. I hope you resolve the pet situation quickly and then you can just concentrate on packing up. Mango Thai Lime sounds pretty great!
Thank you Springpansy ❤️
I do hope you can figure something out that works for your family and your dog.
Bah. In the hospital cafeteria. Absolutely everything is fine! Routine brain/spine MRI for my son, but it’s w contrast so I’m here for a couple more hours. I’m hungry, but the stupid cafeteria wants to charge me $3.50 for a wafer-thin protein bar. Going from hungry to hangry 😬
I’m in Jersey cuz it is inoffensive—safe for a visit to the hospital I think.
I might have to cough up the $3.50 . . .
Jersey is pretty, too. Hope you get something to eat soon, it’s shocking how high prices are, for everything!
It makes me crazy that a community hospital gouges families on meals. There is a reason I lost 30 pounds when my son was hospitalized for a period (okay, a few reasons). I see extended families with their rice cookers and hot pots in the cafeteria doling out their own cooked meals, taking up extra tables and space, but I don’t blame them at all. If you have a sick child (this is at a children’s hospital) you may be in for the long haul and there is always, 24-7, a family member who must be with the child. Families come from all over and need a place to stay and to eat in the very expensive Bay Area. Drives me nuts that a family may be stressed about getting the next meal as well as about their sick child. So, while I can afford the stooopidly expensive protein bar, I really hate to legitimize the cafeteria situation by buying it. (Okay, stepping down from soap box.🙂)
Glad everything is okay! Hope you brought a great book!
Hope you are home now and with a full stomach.
I held out (cue “We are the champions”) until we made it to a local spot and then ate everything on the menu 😂🫣
Based on the scents I was drawn to when shopping last weekend, I predict a lot of mint in my summer. Between the bottle of Nomenclature Minted and the Otherland Extra Hour candle, I’ve got mint covered.
Once I get moving today, I’ll likely be in Un Jardin sur le Nil, which was another in line for the CP this week — I didn’t know when there was a 30 ml bottle until I flew to Germany.
Have you tried IA Saint Julep? It’s a sweet mint and really fun.
I haven’t — I’ll look for it!
I’ve been exploring mineralic scents after falling for (and buying the travel spray of) Profumum Acqua di Sale, and blind-buying the small-sized bottle of Ganymede. Wore Ganymede at bedtime last night and found it fascinating in a weird, sort of petroleum-y way. One spritz to the wrists lasted through the night, and the lingering traces this morning were more leather and less auto mechanic, so more experimentation will be required and should be fun. This morning, though, I’m in several sprays of AdS and am loving it more and more.
What fun to find a new “family” to experiment with!
I got an order from Luckyscent yesterday with the four most recent, or at least recent, fragrances that I had not tried yet: Tiger, Harvest Mouse, Northern Cardinal, and Cockatiel. Last night I tried Tiger and was quite underwhelmed. It was all right but struck me as kind of like a watered down T Rex and not tiger-ish at all. I never got the kumquat which is supposedly a top note. I will try it again, of course. Today I’m trying Harvest Mouse and I really love it! It’s sweet and a bit caramel-y which I suppose might be the beer note, but with other things in there that make it interesting. Someone commented on Fragrantica it’s like butterscotch, and that seems right too. I haven’t had it on long and am going to watch how it develops. Haven’t tried the other two yet but am especially intrigued to try the Cardinal. Harvest Mouse is definitely one of the more wearable ones of the line–if you can take the sweetness. Not sure I’ll buy a bottle though.
I got a sample of Harvest Mouse a while back and it grew and grew on me. I found myself thinking about it when I was wearing something else and that never happens to me. I get more hay/cereal than caramel or butterscotch. Sweet, but not too sweet on me.
I am noticing more hay as it goes along but also clove. I get, so far, zero vanilla or orange blossom, though I can smell the rose. It definitely changes as it develops.
I really like Harvest Mouse, I have used up my sample. A travel bottle would be nice to have next fall. I recall liking Cardinal but not any details. Sorry to hear about Tiger! I had high hopes.
Still haven’t tried the Zoologist line! Been thinking of driving up to Dallas to smell them soon.
You should! Who has them up there?
Scent Room. 🤠
You should! Who has them up there?
Just ONE spot left in the Zoologist travel size split at the Splitmeet!
There are so many Memorial Day perfume sales! I am tempted to blind buy Perris Monte Carlo Cedro di Diamante–summer is coming and notes of citrus, ginger, cardamom, pepper, oakmoss, iris, and musk are calling to me. But my blind buy success rate is terrible, so I should get a sample first. I wish a retailer near me carried the line. Today I’m wearing Zoologist Snowy Owl.
Where can you find that Perris Monte Carlo on sale? I don’t especially want that one but there’s another one I would love to have.
I thought that FRmoda.com had great prices, even with $28 shipping to the US.
Hey, thanks! Just checking them out and they also have smaller 50 ml sizes of the Perris Monte Carlo scents (some of them, at least.)
I was disappointed when our Neiman’s quite carrying PMC! I wasn’t at all done testing the line. Oh well, money most definitely saved.
Same here! I was really falling for the JCE ones, especially that Jasmine!
Love that Jasmine!
Boo!
In Guerlain’s Vetiver today and in a nice surprise, it seems this iteration (square bottle, black cap) is remarkably close to the 90s version I was so fond of. All things considered, I am not sure how they accomplished this feat (it’s suffered through a few less-than-ideal reformulations – and repackagings since the 90s) but their classic is back in fine form.
Wearing it today is like saying hello to an old friend!
So nice to hear that since my bottle will eventually run dry.
SOTD is Ingenious Ginger. I think I have found my summer love. Along with the Chanel Eauxs and some Fenty for rotation.
The Fenty perfume is lovely
I’m in TF Fleur de Chine, from an ancient sample. The only thing that saved it, I’m sure, is that it was in a tiny glass jar. I was inspired by lillyjo’s post about it last week! 👋🏻
I transferred it to an atomizer, so I’m committed to thunking this one now. I actually found a mother lode of tiny glass TF jars…guess I was good at begging… 😂
You smell fantastic of course!
Why thank you ma’am!☺️
Enjoy your newly uncovered TF sample stash!
Thanks! It’s been a few years since I’ve used them, so I’m hoping my nose is a bit more mature these days.
It’s a warm, dry Saturday, the first one in 6 weeks! Very pleasant under the maple tree.
Because it’s the start of summer, I’m wearing L’Artisan Seville l’Aube for the first time this year. It smells so familiar and beautiful, like someone else said, like greeting a dear friend.
You smell absolutely lovely! Enjoy your sunny day, ringthing. 🌞
Thanks, Nancy 🌷
What a modern classic! Fabulous.
I think we will be in a sunny holding pattern for a while now🌞
That one says summer to me! It’s coming up in rotation soon. 😉
A beautiful spring day but spent mostly housekeeping but it had to get done.
I wore Prada Infusion de Mandarine for the first time this season and I had forgotten how juicy it is with a great drydown and such good longevity, it’s still detectable on my wrists, it will get used a lot in the coming months. Tonight I went with two sprays of SL Un Bois Vanille, very coconutty I had forgotten that aspect.
Well gosh Aurora you just sold me on the Prada. Lol. Off to see if I can find a deal..
Hope you can find a great deal for it Lillyjo, it’s simple but so nice and very important, no ambroxan in it, my bottle is quite recent, 3 or 4 years so I don’t think it can have been reformulated, I found all the infusions well done but this one is special.
Me, too!
😀
Hello NST! It’s been a hot minute or so…I had some health stuff going on for the duration of 2022, but that all seems to be OK, and I’m slowly coming out of my shell again. Good to see you all here!
I have a question today–I will be going to France in mid-June! Are there any perfumes (other than Vanille 44) that I can only get while I’m there? Paris and Burgundy. Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you!
Hi, it’s nice to see you! I’m so sorry about the health issues, that’s a lost year. No Paris recommendations, just wanted to say hi.
So good to see you! I have thought of you many times since your absence. I don’t have any Paris recommendations but I am excited for your trip!
Welcome back and enjoy your trip. Report back!
Hi missionista, welcome back!
I’m going to piggy back on your question since I will be in Paris the first week in July and will most certainly be doing some perfume shopping😊
Nice to see you! I think it’s easier to get the whole range of Pierre Guillaume fragrances there if you have any you are interested in. Have an incredibly wonderful time – esp after your 2022.
I’ve recently learned that quite a few of the Chanels are no longer exported from France to certain countries. For instance, Canada no longer has traditional retail access to Cristalle (edt and edp) and Cristalle Eau Verte, but those scents are readily available here in Parisian stores. Not sure if the reasons are regulatory or sales related.
If you want to see fantastic brands that you might not see everywhere, I’d suggest Dover Street Perfume Market (11 bis rue Elzevir), the store Nose (20 rue Bachaumont), and the newish perfume floor of Printemps on Boulevard Haussmann.
Happy sniffing!
Thank you for the tips!
I’m glad your health issues have stabilized! No advice about Paris (I haven’t been there since the 80s), but I hope you have a great trip.
Welcome back! Good to hear that your health issues have calmed down to a stable state. No advice about Paris/France here, alas.
Nice to see you here
I would recommend a visit to Guerlain, they have some exclusives that you can only find in Europe. I also wanted to visit BienAime perfumes in Paris.
Did my grocery run and bathroom scrubbing and now cleaned up to go out to dinner. I am wearing Silky Wood, a 2023 buy that I like more and more. I seem to be getting into dry vanillas and this is not a good thing for my bottle purchase limits. But Silky Wood is getting a lot of use.
Hope everyone has a safe weekend.
Enjoy your dinner out!
I will be in Corsica Furiosa as soon as I get moving. Just finished breakfast and I’m watching doggo watch the world go by.
She likes to lay on the bed (on a pillow no less) and keep an eye on hood, no matter what hood were in. Only very rarely will she offer an unsolicited opinion about the happenings with a very toned down “woof.” Most of the time she’ll get my attention with a pat pat pat of her paw, look out the window and then look back at me with a confounded and judgmental look on her face is if to say “Did you SEE what that doggo go was wearing?! Really, completely out of bounds!” But whenever she sees a human, it’s all kinds of joy, smiles, and tail wags because “Here comes a treat machine!” My god, she just kills me! 😂🤣 🐶
Happy holiday weekend to all in the US!
I don’t know her but from what you share she is my favorite dog.
She’s mine too, but of course I’m biased. Thanks for your kind comment. She’s a huge lover of bipedals, even if they’re not sporting treatos. 🐶
I love her from a distance. 🐾❤️
She loves you right back! 🐶
She sounds adorable. What an amazing companion!
She’s the bomb! Funniest dog I ever had, and very catlike in her disdain for just about everything other than people and food. She’s the Master of side eye and the Queen of run on sotto voce commentary of the world at large. And she likes perfume! 🙃
Sounds like you have the best roomie ever.
Hello all!
Having a bit of a lazy day in. Wish I could say I was cleaning or doing classwork but so far I’ve just managed to cut my hair and make my meals.
I’m in Onda Voile de Parfum from our last split meet. Inky vetiver heaven, though I will say I think it’s my bottom interpretation. I like the alien bitterness of the EdP a bit more.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Smelling fab and lazy days are the best. Enjoy it. Housework will wait for you…🫧🧽🧼🧹
In Hiris from a very generous NSTer💕
Shameless Splitmeet Plug:
La Boticá Flor de Selva (EDP)
– Dominican orange, resin, pimenta, cypress, nutmeg, and white cedarwood
Deep, resinous orange with spice and woods – strong sillage and longevity.
I was introduced to the La Boticá NYC line at Fumerie in Portland, where Tracy, the owner, said that they are excited to bring La Boticá to a wider audience.
She said that the perfumer, Dawn Marie West, draws inspiration from her Afro-Dominican culture and sources indigenous ingredients from South America to make her perfumes, incense, etc. and uses small-scale manufacturing by making products in lower volumes at her studio in Long Island City.
Last spot! Zoologist travel sizes available at the Splitmeet!
Today I’m wearing Meo Fusciuni Luce and planning a trip to Japan. I think I want to take a food tour. I haven’t been to Japan before so I am looking forward to it. Does Japan have niche perfumers, I wonder?
Japan food trip–wow! Sorry I have not been there and don’t know about niche perfumery there, but I bet there is.
Just wanted to add that Harvest Mouse lasted a long long time on me yesterday, at least 13 hours clear up til when I went to bed, at which point it smelled incredibly good.
Today I am trying Cockatiel, the raspberry-rhubarb-mimosa-powdery one, and I’m afraid it’s going to be a scrubber, though I’m trying to wait out this first sharp and unpleasant phase to see if it gets any better.
Cockatiel was a scrubber for me, and Cazaubon sent her bottle back. Harvest Mouse 🙂
I’m trying Cardinal today, after scrubbing Cockatiel, and while I do like it more than that one, it’s not going on my to-buy list anytime soon. It’s got green notes and I thought I smelled cedar. They’re very pungent and were quite unpleasant at first. Also they’re so dominant I couldn’t smell anything else. It’s gotten calmer and more interesting by now but nothing I really want. I also don’t find it at all evocative of its namesake. It reminds me quite a bit of Elephant due to the green notes, but I did come to like that one a lot, and don’t think this one would ever win me over. It’s too bad others are also disliking cockatiel, it seemed to offer possibilities.
Everything about Japan seems niche to me- the food, the clothes, the cartoons, the tea ceremony…They must have niche perfumery, although my acquaintance only extends as fair as the original Shisheido Zen, which probably isn’t really Japanese… not much help!
Veering wildly, sort of, does anyone use shampoo bars? I am trying to figure out ways to simplify traveling, and not hauling around leaky bottles seems a point to investigate. My hair is fine and fragile but there is quite a bit of it, and I often used clips or braids to control it, but bangs get sweaty and then look like I have soaked them in olive oil… any experiences with Lush or any of the myriad brands a Google search brings up great fully accepted.
Happy weekend. Pollen allergies in full force today so I feel like someone squirted play dough into my sinuses…
I have used Lush shampoo bars. They seemed to leave my hair (thick and wavy) a little dry. Lush will give generous samples of their shampoo bars if you ask, and I suggest trying them out before buying a big one. As far as traveling with shampoo, lotion, etc, it seems to me that even the cheapest places to stay are now supplying those amenities.
Pollen is bad here, too. My eyes have been itchy for about two weeks now.
I know Parfums Satori is in Japan but you do have to make an appointment for their store. I haven’t been but the range is much bigger than we have here. I have a few on my wishlist but it would be fabulous to smell them all. I hope you have the most fun!
I’ve heard more about Japanese incense than I have perfume. Enjoy your trip, it sounds wonderful!
FYI — kind of old post but perhaps still useful.
https://kafkaesqueblog.com/2017/08/13/parfum-satori-hana-hiraku-satori-iris-homme-wasabon/#more-22585
Today is the last day of my vacation and have to back to work tomorrow but it’s holiday pay. Yesterday I went to a Civil War reenactment and then out for ice cream. Wearing Memoir right now because it seems more appropriate than Nuda.
Today I’m wearing Yesterday Haze and trying to ignore the perfume sales. I’d forgotten how much I love this scent on a cool day.
My no-buy is going well, and my project to wear all of my fragrances is also progressing. I only have 11 more full bottles to wear before I’ve worn each one at least once.
It’s funny how many are still “yeah, this is awesome!”. There are one or two that I probably should have sampled a few more times before buying a bottle, but I guess that’s a lesson everyone learns.
I love it when no buy years go well! I try to be on one every other year. This year isn’t one but i feel like I’ve earned it
We’ve had perfect weather the last several days. Once or twice it got a bit too warm for me but generally it’s in the mid 60’s to low 70’s with blue, blue skies. The breeze is cool and refreshing. You just can’t beat it. Even in the camper, it’s supremely comfortable day and night. Love it!
I’m in Assam of India today which it straight up soap. Weird. 🤷🏻♀️
Yay for perfect weather, but no thanks for soapy perfume!
Hey all!
I’ll check the posts later, but wanted to let you know I will be adding Lush Vanillary and Lush Lord of Misrule to the splitmeet!
Wow off to check
Hey all! Happy long weekend to those in the US. I had to work, but I’m off today and tomorrow at least. I finished out last week’s CP with Mistral Patchouli, Vent Vert, and l’Air du Temps. Fun theme!
I’m commando so far, enjoying being lazy with my tea, but will head over to the community garden soon to plant my tomato starts and some other stuff. I’m trying tatsoi this year too–I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it’s similar to bok choi. I started some seeds in April I think, and they really need to be planted now so they have more room. I’m also doing beans, cucumbers, lettuce, and we’ll see what else I have room for!