In the United States, we’re at the gateway of the season of Way Too Much Food and Booze. I’m not going to suggest you lay off the pumpkin pie or look the other way when the office manager waves the company credit card and suggests you all go out for a holiday drink. That’s your business. But if you decide you need a break, yet still want to smell like a party, here are five boozy scents to consider, paired with the outings at which you might wear them…
Displayed on the wall of the store where I work are majestic African tribal robes, Indonesian necklaces as big as breastplates, elaborate Japanese altars, and heavy strings of shells from Papua New Guinea. I love the necklaces, especially, and the other day I finally tried one on. It was grand and angular and cold on my skin, and I felt queenly. Then I saw myself in a mirror. I looked like a mouse in a crown. As much as I loved it, it overwhelmed me.
This is how I’ve felt about Tauer Perfumes L’Air du Désert Marocain. I adore the fragrance’s heady, helicopter-over-the-Grand-Canyon feel, but ultimately it’s too hard for pallid me to pull off, and I swapped away my bottle. This year, Tauer released Au Coeur du Désert, an Extrait interpretation of L’Air du Désert Marocain. I may have found my tribal robe at last…
To be precise, this Etat Libre d’Orange fragrance isn’t just called Hermann. It’s Hermann à mes côtés me paraissait une ombre, a line from a poem by Victor Hugo. Translated, that means “by my side, Hermann seemed to me like a shadow.” Here, we’ll stick simply to Hermann.1
“Perfume as shadow” is a beautiful way to describe the feel of a dark, cool, sheer fragrance. To me, Hermann fills the bill. It also leans masculine and is almost infuriatingly persistent…
The week before last, I quit my office day job. I’m transitioning into a new life that’s part-time writer and part-time shop girl supplemented by whatever freelance assignments I can scare up. Even in this short time, my habits have changed: I’m going to bed later and getting up later; I’m outside more and feeling good moving my body instead of trapped catatonic in my office; I’m getting a lot more writing done. And, I’m wearing perfume differently.
First, I’m loving being able to wear whatever fragrance I want. I realized that I’ve been unconsciously limiting my perfume choices so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. Now I’m like a starving kid with full access to the candy store, and I’m pulling out the big guns…
The fortune in the cookie with tonight’s take-out ginger beef reads, “An interesting sports opportunity is in your future.” And yet, tonight’s post-ginger beef activity is to review two La Parfumerie Moderne fragrances, one of which is called No Sport. I’ll go with the perfume for now and hope that my near future doesn’t come with athletic gear.
Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, the nose behind Parfum d’Empire, developed both No Sport and Cuir X. No Sport was named for Winston Churchill’s supposed reply when asked the secret of a long life. “No sports,” he said, “just whisky and cigars…”