Rereading Robin’s recent reviews of carnation fragrances, I was inspired finally to open the bar of Roger & Gallet Carnation soap that has been resting on my bathroom shelf for a while. Carnation is one of my favorite notes in perfumes, second only to rose, and I have just started to explore carnation-scented body products to accompany some of my fragrances.
The Roger & Gallet website is full of information about the company and its products, including a history of the company (which dates back to the Napoleonic era) and a lively feature on its perfumed soaps. In 1879, Roger & Gallet released a lavender-scented soap in an innovative round shape: until then, they claim, commercial soaps had only been produced in squares and rectangles. These circular luxuries became trademark products for Roger & Gallet, and the company still takes pride in the quality of its soap. According to the website, the soap’s vegetal base is manufactured by a “traditional cauldron method” and is “core-fragranced” with essential oils. Each finished soap looks like a gift, wrapped in pleated paper and sealed with a decorative paper ring bearing the company seal, which almost seems a shame to open…
Black currant is one of my favorite notes: I adore the way it shyly peers behind a sheer veil of powder in Guerlain’s Chamade, how its sweetness tempers the sultry boldness of 
I used to pay almost no attention to my nails. I’d occasionally trim and file them, but going beyond that to apply nail polish seemed like way too much hassle. It’s not that I didn’t love adding a little color to my tips, I just hated the application process: the chemical smell of the polish, the even worse smell of polish remover (and its incredibly irritating habit of drying out my skin) and the enormous amount of patience it seemed to take for everything to fully dry.