Happy Friday! It's also the 10th day of Christmas (lords a-leaping), plus National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day. Birthdays: Lucretia Mott and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Our community project for today: wear a fragrance to match Mocha Mousse, Pantone's color of the year for 2025: "For 2025, the Pantone Color Institute selects PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort. // Underpinned by our desire for every day pleasures, PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse expresses a level of thoughtful indulgence. Sophisticated and lush, yet at the same time an unpretentious classic, PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse extends our perceptions of the browns from being humble and grounded to embrace aspirational and luxe."
What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.
I'm in Bvlgari Omnia (hat tip to SheriG yesterday), which ticks several boxes for Mocha Mousse: brown color on bottle, chocolate note, "thoughtful indulgence", "unpretentious".
Reminder: on 1/10, we're off to Denmark! Wear a perfume that is named for a place in Denmark, or that reminds you of a (real or imaginary) trip to Denmark, or that features a local ingredient, or ?
And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2025, where I'll try (but usually fail) to have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.
ok, I believe I’m CP compliant in Goutal’s Folie d’un Soir. The bottle is a pretty colours brown, and so is its attached fluffy pompom, and coco is one of its notes. I tried this last year at Christmas and then got some bad news so I packed this away for another time. I think it’s really pretty. It’s different from the rest of the line, and perhaps a bit sweeter than the fragrances I normally wear. Change is good 🙂
That is the one I never tried…but do love those pompoms, they are perfect.
I’m glad you are able to enjoy it more now. And I’m not a huge fan of change either but I’m inspired by your fragrant risk taking!
Thank you very much for the replies on Wednesday. I hope 2025 brings something good for all of us.
The last few days have been rather exhausting due to work, and I still have a lot to translate before Saturday morning. Well, hopefully, I will have a chance to get more sleep tomorrow. 😫🥱
My take on the theme is very straightforward – Legendary Fragrances Barista, with its notes of coffee and chocolate. ☕🍫
Gosh I hope so too! Fingers crossed, and hope you get a good rest over the weekend.
Thank you, Robin. The bigger file (2k words) is done, one more (800 words) to go. I can do it!
Yes you can!
You will definitely deserve a relaxing weekend after this work week!
Hello and tgif!
Sotd is my newest chocolate addition – Aerin Rose Cocoa. The bottle is so cute with the fuzzy bow. Scent though I could use more cocoa. It’s more rose forward than gourmand.
Lush is having a sale so I might go to the mall and hunt.
Aerin should do a cocoa cream, I heard good things about the rose cream. And in general EL knows how to do a good scented body cream.
I’m in Old Spice, since I found my bottle under my bed. My cat has a habit of knocking things off my night stand. He does it deliberately, because he’s a wily old cat, and knows my weaknesses.
We used to call that dresser hockey. They do seem to love that game!
I’m wearing some splashes (from a manufacturer’s sample) of Goutal Eau de Charlotte over a couple sprays of L de Lolita Lempicka. I layered these accidentally a couple days ago by wearing Eau de Charlotte over the remnants of the previous day’s L and enjoyed the result so much I decided to try to duplicate it today. In nature news, day before yesterday when I stepped outside with the little brown hound dog (hereafter referenced as TLBHD) a red-tailed hawk and I mutually startled one another. It dropped its dead black squirrel as it flew off our roof and I said “Yikes!” (or maybe “Holy sh*t!!”). It is a very large bird. TLBHD was oblivious. It flew to a nearby tree and waited until it felt safe to come back, then returned to eat its prize. It didn’t finish it by nightfall and I was sure I was going to have a clean-up job the next day, but while I was at my mammography appointment in the morning it retrieved the remnants and retreated to a tree to polish off the rest. All that’s left on the lawn is a sad little pile of black fur. I feel bad for the squirrel, but hawks have to eat too.
I hope the hawk doesn’t decide that TLBHD would make a nice snack. 😳
TLBHD is too large at 55 lbs for the hawk to consider. She is little only in her own mind (she believes herself to be a lapdog) and as compared to her predecessors who were 80-90 lbs, so the hawk is more likely to regard her as a threat than as dinner. But she and I appreciate your concern!
That’s a beautiful looking hawk. How cool to see one so close up, in your garden
Red tailed hawks are quite big up close and personal!
Are you near Princeton? That’s the only place I ever saw black squirrels.
No, I’m in Michigan. Though the black coloration is relatively new to our particular suburb I’ve seen them forever in various other parts of the state. We also have the “standard” fox squirrels and a few grey squirrels, which are particularly charming with their frosted fur and white backs to their ears. They all love raiding my bird feeders though!
I have seen them in several states.
Both of you, thanks for the info! I did not know there was a significant population of black squirrels in the Midwest.
Ummagumma today!
You smell amazing, of course!
I’m also in Bulgari Omnia! It’s not that it smells like mocha mousse, nor even that the bottle is the right shade (although I think that’s what gave me my inspiration): it’s that for some reason I can’t pinpoint, the smell reminds me of a dessert I had in a café in Tokyo, a Mont Blanc, which is made of chestnuts, and topped with a marron glacé, which seems like a good match for the colour.
An hour ago we got our second Shingrix shots and also Prevnor (to prevent pneumococcal pneumonia), so we’re expecting the next couple of days to be slightly unpleasant, but it’s the weekend so it’ll be fine, we don’t even have to go out, and we figure we’re as inoculated as we possibly can be. Fingers crossed.
Love Omnia! I almost wore it today too. You smell great and I hope your vaccine reactions are mild and brief.
As usual I am very late, but hey twin!
And good luck with those shots. I am done with shingles but need to do the pneumonia.
I one wrist black opium the other pure poison for the CP
Missing chai ☕️
Oh I love Pure Poison!
It’s nice! My first time trying. What are your thoughts?
I really like the clean jasmin smell. It reminds me of spring.
Scent siblings with you on the Black Opium side!
I’m CP compliant in Imaginary Authors Dipped in Chocolate.
It’s beautiful outside here today. On and off lake effect snow so that one minute you’re in a snow globe and can’t see down the street, and then it stops and the sun might shine a bit, then it’s the snow globe again. Very nice to sit on my warm porch and watch. Larry the cat gets wound up when it’s snows, he can’t figure out what all the movement is about and he zooms from window to window.
Inside is the best place to view a snow globe! Are you going to be getting the upcoming storm? It looks like it will miss me.
It will miss me, too. I’m fine with that!
That’s so funny your Larry kitteh gets excited when it snows. Teflon couldn’t care less. But she is definitely NOT a fan of cold weather.
I really am going to have to try Bulgaria Omnia one of these days. But for today’s CP I chose Dior Homme — its cacao and leather notes suit that mocha color very well. Have a lovely Friday everyone!
Good choice.
I’m surprised that more fragrances don’t have a chocolate & leather combination.
It’s a really cold, snowy day today. Just put away my grocery order. Since I have the rare Friday off, I can participate in the CP a little more. Wearing Serge Lutens Arabie today. Arabie was my first Serge Lutens and my bottle is from the very beginnings of my perfume journey.
Glad you could participate in the CP! I haven’t smelled Arabie but I’m sure you smell divine.
There are quite a few lavender farms close to where I’m staying, all in full bloom. The actor Sam Neill lives nearby and has a vineyard and a couple of hectares of lavender, and produces oil, so I might go and check it out later. I wondered about Santal Majuscule for the CP but have fallen back on yesterday’s nice combination Kiel’s Musk with Devotion added. I can tell that Devotion is one of those perfumes I will wear often for a month and then “ go off” for the rest of the year. Funny how some perfumes are binge wears. Usually the simpler , gourmand ones in my case
I watched Sam Neil on Graham Norton a couple of years ago, he even redid a scene from Jurassic Park with Miranda Hart and talked about his animals. It was a fun interview.
Real lavender to me is a scent of pure happiness, I hope you are enjoying yourself!
No chocolate or coffee so went with Coco Noir for the patchouli. Plus, I love the smell of it!
Loving your SOTD beats CP compliance anytime!
Yes it does!
You smell wonderful! I love all things Coco and Coco adjacent😊
Thanks Allo!
Have the Lampe Berger on this morning with the faintly chocolatey scent. No chocolate perfumes that I can think of…
Good enough, right? Hope it was a good day AnnieA.
Wearing just a dab of a very chocolatey (and intense) “Patchouly” from Profumum Roma. Man, this stuff is potent, even for a fella who likes big perfumes.
Happy Friday, all!
That’s a heavy hitter and you smell fantastic!
Yeah, a little goes a long, long way!
I went with an old favorite for the CP, Laura Mercier Nuits Enchantees. It smells rich and decadent, sweet and spices. The patchouli, coffee, vanilla, spices, and woods all blend into a smooth concoction. It’s always a pleasure to wear and so cozy for a rainy day like today.
That whole line by LM was good.
Yes, it was. I used to have an extra bottles of NE and one of the flanker, Minuit Enchantees, but I swapped or sold them due to too much perfume. My current bottle is still almost full so I think I made the right decision. 😉
Wearing Ambre Sultan for the CP. This is soooo gooood!
We’ll see how far I get but I am trying to wear at least a spritz of each of my fragrances in alphabetical order this year. It started on January 1 when I asked Mr. allo for a letter (an occasional game where I see if I can find a perfume that starts with the letter) and I chose DelRae Amoureuse. I’m out of order with Ambre Sultan but in the ballpark.
Hey twin–love that Ambre Sultan
Hey Twin! We smell good!!
I don’t have any chocolate or coffee scents here, so I went with the closest “brown” scent I could find: Guerlain Tobacco Honey. I smell very nice.
I read Robin’s article about the “Most popular perfumes of 2024” and I have never, ever heard of Sol de Janeiro. Anybody here smelled it? What’s it like?
They have a million and one scents. They’re available at Ulta and many other places I guess. Originally I think the brand started out as a body cream and body spray line.
I think the 2 most popular are #62 and #71. They are very gourmand. Sweet caramel and sugar. I think #68 is supposed to smell like BR540. It has noticeable ambroxan. They do a summer limited edition line every year which are usually tropical smelling. The body creams are very moisturizing. The sprays are overpriced imo.
Ambroxan😬
Thanks! I don’t go in Ulta or Sephora much anymore, but should I wander by I’ll try to remember to take a look.
I personally like and use #62 Bum Bum cream. It is very moisturizing and for some reason I like it with Indochine. Maybe a weird combination but it works for me.
The body butters are much better than the sprays IMO. I have small containers of the Bum Bum Cream and Delicia Drench Cream. They work wonders in cold dry winter weather.
Haircut later so just one spray of something Chanel unless another bottle tempts me first.
Hope the cut came out well apsara!
I’m in 4160 Tuesdays Over the Chocolate Shop.
good choice
Happy New Year! House She-ra caught the flu but we are all on the mend now. Mini She-ra was patient zero then it moved to me, Brother She-ra then Mr. She-ra. FYI there are all-in-one OTC flu A, B and Covid tests now…think the FDA approved them in Oct?…not sure why there was no push years ago for in home flu tests but most happy to have these now.
I am doing the 4160 Tuesdays January Joy Box and wearing A Little Less Conversation today. It’s great and reminds me of Wicked Good…tonka, vanilla and pipe tobacco to my nose.
Wishing House She-ra good health for the rest of 2025!
Thank you, Laila…good health in 2025 to you! ♥️
Glad to hear that your family is on the mend! And thanks for the PSA about the all-in-one tests, I had no idea such a thing existed.
Thanks, tulipani…yes, the new test was perfecting timing for us. 🙂
Glad you are on the mend at your household.
Thanks, Kris! ♥️
Ooooooooooof, rough start to 2025 for House She-ra! Hope everyone is well on the road to feeling better now.
Thanks, Jalapeno! ♥️
I’ve also got a hair appointment today, and I think I’ll wear The Hope from Thameen. It has lots of cinnamon, which makes me think of a soft brown, so I’ll be CP adjacent 🙂 .
I can still smell last night’s perfume on my clothes, that was Guerlain’s Iris Ganache with white chocolate.
For tonight, I’m thinking of Velvet Rouge from Arte Profumi, which has coffee and cocoa pod.
A triple play!
Happy New Year to all NST’ers 🥳! May it bring you good health, happiness, and success in all your endeavors.
I like the color Mocha Mousse, although it says more ‘fall’ (in terms of warm, woody scents as well as colors I wear then) than ‘winter,’ which appears to have finally arrived here now that it’s January. But ‘chocolate’ and ‘coffee,’ oh, yes!, both in terms of what I eat/drink and fragrance notes I enjoy in winter. So for today’s cp, I’ve layered the long d/c Trussardi Inside with its creamy, warm, ambery, woodsy prominent coffee note over Dame Perfumery’s Chocolate Oil. Wow, first time I’ve done this and it’s so comforting and cozy, like an all-day self-hug.❤️
I’m enjoying the cold weather that’s arrived because it’s accompanied by 🌞☀️, something that’s been sorely missed by me for what seems like forever. Looks like ❄️ is headed our way, too.
We started the New Year with the Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, which I highly recommend. Awesome film, and Timothée Chalamet was spectacular! 👍
Sending ☮️ and 💗 to all!🤗
Happy New Year Laila!
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year Laila!
I had planned to wear Iris Torrefie today, but felt too lazy to grab it so instead I’m in Scents of Wood Vanilla in Bourbon. It feels very brown to me, being a boozy and woody vanilla.
That works!
SOTD is Anima Dulcis, a perfume I love and forget to wear. I’m CP compliant thanks to AD’s cocoa note and a brown(ish) hue. Comfort in a bottle, for sure.
Happy weekend everyone!
I tried this when it was fairly new, it’s a spicy chocolaty scent I think?
Hi Austenfan and a Happy New Year to you!
Yes, spicy and chocolaty/vanillic, you remembered well. Not sweet or cloying at all. Very comforting, to me.
Happy weekend to you!
I slept in again today. We are under an advisory but it’s just some light snow for now. I’m just puttering around the house.
I decided to wear Shalimar MJ for the cp. It’s so smooth like mousse. I like the pantone color. I think a pair of boots would look nice in mocha mousse.
Hope the snow remains light. I like brown boots too.
You smell fabulous!
Mocha Mousse suede boots would be rather pretty.
i failed today, it is merely golden, not brown. i went with L Air de Rien, because a dont have a chocolaty scent…
i am sitting the neighbours tiny kitttens for a few days, so i can have a relaxing playtime every day. saldy the bf is allergic, so i cant keep them in my flat.
Kittens are adorable but so mischievous! It’s amazing the trouble they can get into.
What fun! I would not mind babysitting kitties.
SOTD–Ambre Sultan and smelling fine. It’s cold here (snow coming) but 2025 will be heating up for me soon. Will be selling my house in the coming months (January will be all about downsizing and packing) and moving to a senior community in a neighboring state (still close to family and friends)…..looking forward to it and dreading the process all at the same time! Will try to stay positive and smell good!!
Good luck with the project.
Selling a house is quite an endeavor. Good luck with selling and moving!
And you smell great!
Best of luck with downsizing, packing and moving! That’s a huge undertaking.
I went with So Pretty by Cartier for no particular reason except that it does smell pretty and tonight for the CP it’s Brécourt Farah, well dates are brown.
Such a shame that Cartier’s So Pretty disappeared in the blink of an eye. It was aptly named.
Yes, it is a really worthwhile perfume. Mathilde Laurent at Cartier toys with the idea of re-releasing it.
I’m not remotely cp compliant, but greatly enjoying la Rose de Rosine.
You really aren’t, but enjoying it is more important 🙂
I am CP-compliant in Régime des Fleurs Fleur Éclair. Buttercream, cocoa powder, cardamom, orange blossom and rosewater…sweet but not heavy! Definitely mousse-like in feeling.
SOTD = 4160 Tuesdays A Little Less Conversation EDP
… another winner! Woody vanilla chocolate, not really gourmand so it’s more gourmand adjacent. Close enough to Mocha Mousse!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYN-_CxabC/?igsh=ZzJhd29taGN4enQw
In an uplifting read, here’s an article on 3 “units” that made things work out:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/business/starting-coffee-shop-business.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mU4.khNB.sxbd6sa_pZQs&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
very adorable owlet 💗 and your scent sounds delicious! 😋
You know what? It is delicious!
So would you call your SOTD a wood pudding type perfume?
Wood pudding came to mind but I would not use it to describe the perfume.
Gotcha.
sotd = Shalimar spray cologne
from a sample shared by a generous NSTer. 😊
This version of Shalimar smells a little luxe to me, and feels brown-ish beige-ish when I imagine the color it smells like, so there’s my go at the CP.
Happy FriYAY, fragrant friends. Hope you’re smelling great.
That works too!
I’m wearing Tom Ford Myrrhe Mystère for the CP because, well, at least the bottle is brown. I’m surprised that it seems so potent at first but does not appear to have great staying power.
The news about the New Orleans killer has made me sad. It’s partly because he’s from Houston, and also how random and awful it was, and those poor innocent people. Also I’ve been to New Orleans a few times in recent years and stayed right there on Canal Street so I can visualize exactly where it happened. New Orelans is at the same time really trashy and really charming. I’m sorry for those horrible associations people there will have now.
Hugs, Calypso…I got nothing else to offer I’m afraid.
I don’t care much for the Pantone color, but I do have a suitable SOTD: Angel Muse! I don’t wear that very often but it works for Mocha Mousse, since it has an accord of hazelnut cocoa spread. I’m not much for brown as a featured color in décor, though I was happily persuaded to use a wonderful, dark, rich Benjamin Moore brown paint (Rural Earth) on the narrow spaces between the windows in our sunroom. It’s perfect, and I would never have thought to use it.
Very nice perfume pick for the CP!
I’ve never smelled Angel Muse but a hazelnut cocoa spread sounds delicious! 😋
There’s a change in the weather here today. Denver International Airport was under a ground stop for heavy fog until around noon. Very unusual; I don’t remember a lot of fog in Colorado from my previous time living here. Rumor has it I might actually see some snow tomorrow. I am skeptical.
SOTD = Black Opium Neon, for the coffee note and the CP. I actually got the floral topnotes wearing it today. They were very absent the last time I wore it.
Now that I think about it, the perfect scent for this CP would probably have been Dame Perfumery Chocolate + Rose, for the milk chocolate note. Looks like they have several chocolatey body butters on the website now.
I have samples of all the Dame chocolate scents and enjoy them all, but I think the original Chocolate Man is my favorite. The Chocolate oil and hair oil are really nice. My February fragrance theme is chocolate and roses, so I’ll be wearing Dame’s Chocolate + Rose next month! I’m not familiar with the Black Opium Neon but I have and love Black Opium and will be wearing that one in the next few days.
Black Opium Neon is a little lighter bodied than the OG, and has some white floral topnotes that sadly fly away rather quickly. I wish they’d stick around longer.
I think for us the snow, for the most part, is going to be little to nothing.
The last forecast I saw earlier this evening called for about an inch. Big whoop.
I think I’ve tried Neon but whatever I recall of it, you must smell good!
Thank you! I’m still trying to find the best weather for Black Opium Neon. It was not quite happy yesterday in Winter’s chill.
The Pantone color reminds me of chocolate cake batter.
I don’t know if I have anything with a chocolate note but I am wearing a sample of MP Encens Suave which has a coffee note. I am curious about incense perfumes with a sweet or gourmand aspect and I like Encens Suave but also wondering about others in this genre.
Gosh, there’s a fragrance right on the tip of my tongue but I just can’t think of it.
Aedes Cierge de Lune ought to be a gourmand vanilla incense but I don’t notice the incense much.
Hope someone else will chime in, or this might be a good question for a weekend poll…
Vanille Insensée?
I don’t remember it being gourmand, but it has vanilla and incense.
Not the one I was thinking of, but good call!
A couple I thought of are Memo Tiger’s Nest, which is sweet, rich, amber, aldehydes, and incense, and Fzotic Ummagumma, chocolate and incense.
Agree about Tiger’s Nest. Sweet rich amber incense.