Happy Almost-Friday and happy Juneteenth! Birthdays: Blaise Pascal, Lou Gehrig, Pauline Kael, Salman Rushdie, Ann Wilson. What fragrance are you wearing?
Today I'm trying to pair the 1966 song Good Vibrations, which Wikipedia tells us was "the costliest and longest-to-record pop single at the time" and "one of the most influential pop recordings in history". Every perfume I thought of seemed inadequate to the soaring vocal harmonies so I decided to concentrate on the lyric "a blossom world we find", and I'm in the lovely blossom world of Neela Vermeire Créations Pichola.
Reminder: 6/20 is Brian Wilson's birthday (and the summer solstice). Scent a Beach Boys song, or honor Brian Wilson with your fragrance in any other way you see fit. (For lillyjo, who asked for another music cp.)
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.
Note: top image shows Brian Wilson in 1965; photo shoot for the album cover for Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!!) via The Beach Boys.
Bonus listen: The isolated vocals on Good Vibrations. (You can find the official Beach Boys video for Good Vibrations here, and footage from the recording studio here.)
Bonus unrelated cover: Los Lobos doing Sail On, Sailor, from their 2021 covers album Native Sons.
Hello.
Sotd is another beachy staple Bronze Goddess. I layered it over the shimmer oil. I will be glam doing house chores.
Bought 2 trays of peaches 2 days ago and they are ripening very nicely and releasing the most fragrant aroma. I now find myself walking to the kitchen frequently just to sniff the air, lol.
😀
Happy888cat, that makes me think of J’Adore, which always has a sunny peachy rosy vibe to me.
Yes I agree. They share the same ripe nectar-y quality.
Beachy scent twins with you today!
I almost went with Good Vibrations too, but then chose God Only Knows, paired with Jo Malone Wood Sage & Sea Salt (soft, seaside, romantic).
I’ll do Good Vibrations tomorrow.
(Robin, psst – you wrote “Williams” instead of “Wilson”. Both in this post and in the CP list.)
HA, thank you…how could nobody tell me until Thursday??
Because we only read what we expect to be there! 🙃
So true!
We are switching off, I am doing God Only Knows tomorrow 🙂
I planned to do Good Vibrations today and God only knows tomorrow and changed my mind at the last moment!
Good catch Glannys!
I started my day by applying yet another Masque Milano creation: Ray-Flection which is supposed to be “a vibrant blend of mandarine essence, sparkling aldehydes and cardamom leading to a heart of mimosa, violet leaves and solar rays accord…”
I didn’t get any of that, unfortunately.
I have since moved on to Manoumalia which smells of tropical decay in the best way possible.
How many MM samples are you trying?
Too many! 😂
25, actually, I just want make sure I am not missing any hidden gems.
25! That is dedication.
Or sheer stubbornness.
I got two sample sets and they gifted me three other individual samples.
That sounds a bit disappointing re. Ray -Flection. Hope you have better luck soon.
I plan to wear a beachy scent tomorrow, no Masque Milano to celebrate the Beach Boys.
It actually amuses me to doggedly work my way through these sample sets that I just do not seem to be enjoying that much.
It used to amuse me to do that too! No longer does, so I no longer do 😉
Had a nasty thunderstorm rip through my area last night. I was surprised that we only lost electricity twice but came on a minute later. We usually lose electricity for a day or two. We are supposed to get more storms this afternoon so we still might lose electricity. It looks like my mom isn’t coming home this afternoon. She said that she doesn’t feel quite ready with her new medicine. After my shower, I will wear either Lyric or Nasomatto Nuda today.
Good luck keeping power, Dawn, and hope your mom makes it home tomorrow.
Still going with summer, but not golden sunshine: I got a wonderful swap box from an NSTer and one of the things in it was Ô de Lancôme, which I wore the heck out of in the eighties but haven’t smelled since. And it is still spectacular! A bright-green citrus cologne, fresh and lively, perfect for this humid summer day (though it isn’t even summer for two more days). I am gonna wear this SO much!
Oh good! I do wonder about those 3 new O flankers.
Me too! I was on the Lancôme website and saw them, and thought, “Hmmm… they’re only $80 each….” I don’t expect I will, especially unsniffed, but they’re so reasonably priced that one or two aren’t out of the question. (And I saw that Ô is only $100 CAD for a 125-mL bottle, which surprised me immensely — Chanel wants $280 for 75 mL of their Eau de Cologne, sorry Chanel lovers but that is highway robbery.)
Chanel has to raise their prices to keep up with the (luxury) Joneses…agree it is highway robbery.
Pyramus, you get an Enabler’s Pin for Demeter! I picked up Thunderstorm.
My Beachboys song choice is In my room as it is a dull, rainy day here today.
My perfume is For her by Narisco Rodriguez for that moody, musky scent.
Hi and welcome, and I like your pairing!
Thanks. I do love the For Her scent.
We are song twins today 😊
👯
Greetings and welcome!
https://youtu.be/t17REWFipdM?feature=shared
Seeing how today is Ann Wilson birthday, I am doing a song match for her today. She is my favorite female rock singer. I am matching this song with vintage Poison.
I’m working late tonight, but first I have to go and renew my license plate tags.
Oh, I love her too, but my favorite is “Magic Man”!
So many good songs to choose from!
Wonderful! And you smell like a rock star yourself, lillyjo.
🤘😀
“Barracuda” would have been my pick to go with vintage Poison. That bass line just kills it!
Hope your trip to the DMV was no big deal.
I almost went with Heartless. Lol.
That would have been a good one too!
I love them too, excellent flashback and Poison is perfect for that.
Since I had to go to the dentist this morning I went with Chanel 5 L’Eau. About what I figured would happen, did. I now need two crowns replaced. It’s expensive but I will be happy to get rid of these old gold things.
Oh no, sorry Kris!
Sorry about the cost but glad you are getting it taken care of.
Thanks. It needs to be done.
Yikes! Glad that you are getting those crowns taken care of, though.
Yes, they are bugging me so it’s time.
Bleurgh. I hate that feeling. Got some old fillings that are going to need replacing sometime in the future.
Happy Juneteenth, everyone.
Vetiver week continues… Today I’m in Vetiver Royal Bourbon from Oriza L. Legrand, thanks to a sample provided by our own AnnE. It’s gorgeous – herbal, woody, and mossy, with a wonderfully cooling minty note at the start. I think I need a full bottle of this one.😊
And you are making me want a bottle too, Daniel! Happy Juneteenth, all.
So many good vetivers, so little time!
I am not keeping track, have you tried the MPG Route du Vetiver yet?
Ooh, no, I haven’t! I live pretty close to Scent Bar, (Luckyscent’s brick and mortar,) so I’ll definitely sample it.
If I were to “live pretty close to Scent Bar,” my family would be ruined. Talk about temptation! DTLA or the other one? Before our visits got so complicated in SoCal, my husband and I would always make an afternoon of it with Scent Bar and lunch at Angelini Osteria.
I used to live in DTLA, but now I’m in the Valley so the Beverly Blvd location is a bit easier.🙂
Oriza L. Legrand has some wonderful incense perfumes as well. Have you tried any of those?
I’m new to the brand – I’ll have to check them out!
Excellent!
I started The Frozen River book last night and so far so good…
We are also finishing up 1923 tv series and I am wondering if anyone else is in love with Spencer? lol
So far I have shower with Salt and Stone body wash and now closing the curtains to block the sun from all the heat we have today…
I finally went and looked up your book, that looks good…have added to my kindle list.
So many have recommended- on this blog, family and friends
It’s a great book Robin. You need to read it.
Thanks! I will, eventually…
It’s the last day of sun before rainy weather moves in for a couple of days. We need the moisture, my lawn is already showing brown patches. I’m wearing Prada Infusion d’Ylang this morning. I put a lot on, it seems very light.
It’s gonna be hot 🥵 where I am next week and I am worried about my plants 🪴
sotd = Jour d’Hermes esp
because I have a huge bottle I’ll never use up 😂 and Jour always makes me smile. 🥰
Cuing off Robin’s search for something to match “Good Vibrations”,
I do like to think of smells and perfumes as having a “pitch” or “vibration” that is unique.
For me Jour is in the good vibes neighborhood for sure, but not quite there as a match for the gorgeousness of the song. 🤔
I have to smell your sotd again
I grew up in SoCal going to the beach each summer weekend and beach parties on hot summer nights. (For which my skin has paid ever since). When I think of the Beachboys music which played like a soundtrack through that time of my life, I think of the simple pleasure of ‘laying out’ on the hot sand, watching the surfers do their balletic wave dance, the fear and elation of of diving beneath roaring breakers and feeling nature’s power, and then showering away all that suntan oil and sand and stepping into some pastel summer dress that showed off my tan and heading out to a backyard barbeque near the ocean. But even as a teen, I could see that there was also a dark side to beach culture (drugs, alcoholism, girls too young to know they were being used) that Brian Wilson captured so well. It haunted me as a writer so much that I wrote a novel about it. Anyway, all of those feels are encapsulated for me in 1970s Jovan Musk Oil (now quite vintage), which is both simple and innocent and carnal and knowing. So that’s my SOTD.
Denise H, I loved this post 🙂 you describe it so vividly. Sounds slightly idyllic, but then there are the more sinister aspects. I like your style of writing 🙂
I second what carole said.
What carole said. You wrote that so well I could almost feel the hot sand.
Very atmospheric post today, DeniseH.
Thursdays are the heavy lifting days (literally). So I went with hermes Scarlet Ecarlart, body wash and fragrance. It is a scent with tenacity. My father loves this one, too.
Last ride I did my small bike ride on the Trans Canada Trail. There are benches at rest stops and…..they’ve added hammocks lol. So you can stop and swing and enjoy the view. I saw a cormorant on a rock, and either dolphins or blackfish-I couldn’t quite tell. My guess is dolphins from the way they were playing but could easily be small black fish. It was a good ride 🙂
Sounds like a stunning ride.
I haven’t smelled your SOTD but I am sure you smell great. You are reminding me to lift weights (one day)
LTSG, pushups are an excellent bodyweight exercise that can help tone your arms and shoulders if you have proper form.
Does on my knees count? 😱
Very much so! Those are the kind I am doing right now, since I can’t do the full pushup anyone. I could do those a couple of years ago.
Some people who aren’t able to do floor pushups do them against the wall instead while standing.
If you haven’t watched it, I recommend the documentary The Wreaking Crew ( 2008) which features numerous interviews with the musicians who worked on Good Vibrations and Pet Sounds. It’s so interesting. I’m wearing Coco as it’s not a very nice day today, but it is a holiday ( Matariki) , celebrating the Maori New Year.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-wrecking-crew-2015
Loved that documentary.
(And anyone who loved it and loves music in general should also watch the Muscle Shoals movie — and there’s another that isn’t coming to me right now)
There’s also the Beach Boys biopic movie with Paul Dano
Echo in the Canyon? The Jakob Dylan Laurel Canyon movie documentary?
I liked that too, and the Beach Boys one (Love & Mercy, only remember the name from all my reading this week).
But thinking of another that is about recording studios & session musicians, OR, I’m dreaming.
And ps, should have said happy Matariki, if that is the correct thing to say!
There’s a quite good recent limited series on Stax it was on HBO I think? – “Stax: Soulsville USA.”
Thank you! That looks great, put on my list for next time I have HBO (I rotate channels).
I’m wearing Jo Malone Orange Peel from a from a limited edition release few summers ago, which had a name change to Orange Marmalade and is in their regular lineup now. I chose it for California orange groves, the home state of The Beach Boys. Also for the color orange, which with my synesthesia I guess you call it, some of their songs are orange and yellow to me, like Good Vibrations. I get Starburst candy type colors or the types of colors in a vintage Lily Pulitzer dress from their music.
Excellent, and now I have my Friday scent picked.
Oooh, JM Orange Peel! It’s a possibility for tomorrow!
SOTM is Au Delà Narcisse, and I could pair it either with Fun Fun Fun (because it is) or Good Vibrations (because that’s what it gives me).
Nice 🙂
And you smell great, great, great today!
Kind of random today. I thought maybe I’d find something Beach Boys-y in my Smell Bent samples, then didn’t, then came across some Hiram Green samples as I was putting them away, and so sprayed Arcadia. It kind of says California to me, in a northern CA, forested, masculine sort of way. Not really Beach Boys, but nearby?
It had occurred to me to wear some very loud ’80s scent for the song “Kokomo”, because in the ’80s my dad was assigned to a base near a town called Kokomo (which was not pleasant or in the Caribbean or anywhere near any natural beach). But a) I really dislike the song and did back then, too; and b) Brian Wilson had nothing to do with that song, which likely explains a lot. So…nah.
Wow, thanks for sharing that Brian Wilson had nothing to do with Kokomo! I don’t know too much about the Beach Boys but like quite a lot of their music and HATE Kokomo. I almost forgot they sang it until I saw it this week on Apple Music under their top songs. Like you said, it explains a lot, I feel better now. Lol!
Somebody must like Kokomo, but I join this club — I find it almost unbearable.
Speaking as someone who I guess *should have* liked that song because I lived close to a Kokomo, I think there is no way anyone could like that song. Apparently the song was about an invented place. The all too real place…I wasn’t a fan, have to say. I put that song in the same box as “Got My Mind Set on You”…I like George Harrison in many contexts and I like the Beach Boys in some contexts, but I like neither in those ’80s song contexts. They did not wear the ’80s well.
I adore George Harrison (he would make my top 20 artists list) and never understood why he covered that song. Thankfully I don’t hear it often.
Wearing the office appropriate, far from the beach EL Jasmine White Moss. Now I am madly curious which Beach Boys songs reflect the dark side of beach culture, since I’ve never listed too closely to their lyrics.
I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times is one.
In many ways their lives were the dark side of beach culture, really. Google Charles Manson and The Beach Boys if you want to go really dark.
In ELdO’s Roland Mouret . . . . and damn I smell good!
Question. Anyone out there familiar with Marissa Zappas perfumes? Was watching a clip of Miranda July talking about All Fours and I noticed a perfume bottle on her vanity. Researched the bottle (ummm hello google lens) and it is from a collection by Marissa Zappas. I hope that doesn’t sound too creepy!
First, not creepy at all, but related to reading book titles in shelter magazine photos. Next, never heard of Marissa Zappas, but perhaps someone can report back.
I think Marissa Zappas has a scent that is quite a hit/popular called Annabel’s Birthday Cake and someone here has worn it. Hopefully they’ll chime in! And yes, no creepy at all!
I have Annabel’s Birthday Cake and Petrichor (as bottles). I also have samples of others by MZ but definitely not All Fours. They are well-made though!
Interesting! Does the first smell like cake?
We’re out for breakfast, a nice start for our public holiday. I’ve just ordered Spiced Apple French Toast, and I’m wearing Miss Dior (original, bought about 15 years ago).
Enjoy your day, Gaynor, that French toast sounds delish.
I’m wearing Chanel No 19 edt because it is the perfume I’ve worn since 1977 and feels most like “me”. And in the 60s and 70s you could always find me…in my room, which is my BB song today.
points!
No. 19 always fits! 🤣🤣
Inspired by Daniel’s vetivers this week, I reached for Timbuktu today.
And you smelled great!
SOTD = Lush American Cream
Smells like vanilla and iris although Fragrantica does not list iris as a note. Whatever, I love it nonetheless. For what it’s worth, I have a lot in the category of I should wear it more often …
So I have been obsessed with little bits and pieces of info about Anne Burrell’s passing. Too many unanswered questions. I know at least one article mentioned cardiac arrest … I will wait for the autopsy.
Report back when they get the results.
Will do!
Never thought of it as an iris scent, but I can see (smell?) it now that you mention it.
I was shocked myself!
Song of the Day:
https://youtu.be/H0bhSGfKTs4?list=RDH0bhSGfKTs4
I remember my family’s one and only trip to California in bits and pieces now. We actually made it to a beach (don’t remember where, or which one) in SoCal. My brother and I raced across the burning hot sand to the water and got a shock at how cold it was. So we were dodging back and forth between too hot and too cold until we left.
It wasn’t until several years later that I learned about the California Current, and how it keeps the Pacific Ocean so cold even in summertime.
SOTD = Smell Bent St. Tropez Dispenser, for the smell of suntan lotion back in those long ago vacation days.
Ha, same…I think I was 11 or 12? I assumed the Pacific would be warmer than the Atlantic.
But it was a shock all over again when I moved to SoCal for graduate school.
The Pacific Ocean was my first experience, so the warmer waters of the Atlantic were quite the surprise for me. Gotta love the Gulf Stream!
Now you gotta go dip your toes into a beach in Maine…brrr.
Thanks but no thanks. I had enough cold water when I went white water rafting during spring runoff. Had to wear a wetsuit then. 🥶🥶🥶
🙂
I forgot how good that song is jalapeno. Thanks!
You’re welcome!
Smell Bent! That was the company that went out of business, I think! Regardless, you smell wonderful even though it wasn’t for me.
You are correct. I am currently enjoying the bottle that you sent me. 😎
Wish I would have gotten a bottle of Florist’s Fridge, though.