Before we get started with today’s subject, Patricia, I wanted to mention that this is the last Monday Mail post until September — the Monday Mail likes to take a summer vacation every year. We have cleared through the waiting list, but anyone who is interested in getting on the list for September, do check out the instructions.

Patricia, who occasionally comments here under the name farouche, wants to find an everyday (office?) scent for the cooler months. She has been wearing Gucci II but it is beginning to bore her. Her perfect scent will be perceptible and have some complexity, but it won’t overpower. Patricia says she is pretty familiar with the classics and would appreciate suggestions for newer fragrances and niche fragrances, and especially scents that push her outside of her floriental comfort zone. She can spend up to $200, and is also open to suggestions for perfume stores in the Boston area. Here is what we know about Patricia:

She’s a youthful 60, and married with two grown children, a dog, and a horse…

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Today we’re helping Tiana. She wants to find a new everyday fragrance, and another for evening or cool weather wear. Tiana lives in inland Southern California, where it can get very hot and humid in the summer. She says she gravitates toward green, watery scents but would not mind expanding her horizons a bit. She can spend up to $150 for a bottle, but is also happy to buy decants. Here is what we know about Tiana:

She’s in her early 30s and is the mom of 2 toddlers. She’s also a makeup artist and singer.

While her professions are artistically bohemian and breezy, at home she is a typical type A personality — but she tries not to take herself too seriously.

Her main interests are reading, singing, researching, and listening to musical theater and opera, classic rock, makeup and fragrance, her daughters, wine, mixology, and needlepoint.

Tiana likes greenish watery scents, lotus, green fig, black tea, some green tea, sea salt, wet dirt, herbs, cedar, cypress, calamus, moss…

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Today we’re helping Poppie, who has just retired and wants to update her fragrance wardrobe — she feels like she’s been in a rut and is due for big changes. She’d like to find a special occasion perfume, plus a few everyday scents that will survive sports and hopefully not attract mosquitoes. She wants her new fragrances to be generally happy, uplifting, fresh, warm and friendly, and to have good lasting power — she’s not looking for anything “femme fatale” or “grand dame matriarch”. Here is what we know about Poppie:

She’s in her early 60s and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

She says she is fair and thin skinned with freckles, green eyes, peachy cheeks, a few wrinkles and dark brown hair with some grey. She uses minimal makeup and bright coral lipstick.

She’s mostly worked in finance/accounting, where close, non-confrontational scents are the norm.

She says she is a visual, analytic type of person, quiet most of the time with occasional bursts of activity. She loves camping, hiking, cross country skiing, Siberian husky dogs, and horses.

Poppie’s previous “standby” fragrances now seem too bland and lightweight to her…

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Today we’re helping Kelly, who comments on Now Smell This as MerrilyRow. She’d recently divorced and starting to date again, and wants to find a fragrance to accompany this new phase in her life. She generally wears one fragrance for day and another for evening, but would like her new scent to bridge the two. She wants it to be sexy and alluring as well, but she doesn’t want anything that seems like it is wearing her: she wants “I love the way you smell” not “What perfume is that?” Here is what we know about Kelly:

She’s in her 40s, and is fair & blue-eyed with long curly blonde hair. She was born & raised in the San Francisco area, and has lived in Los Angeles most of her adult life.

She has a 10 year old boy who is a “super-taster” with an excellent sense of smell and strong opinions about her fragrances.

She works from home in the arts & media, but also has many client meetings, meals out, events, etc. She also does charitable work in education and the arts.

She loves the outdoors, literature, cooking, nature and travel.

She wears black, white, blue and gold, and her closet has everything from 25 year old black cowboy boots to platform Louboutins, with the boots a bit closer to her heart.

Kelly likes incense, orientals, citrus, warm skin scents, aldehydes and chypres…

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