Continuing with my love of Bruno Fazzolari scents, I picked up Ummagumma (30 ml). I was expecting it to smell sort of like Cadavre Exquis, but no. It is sweet but not that sweet.
It does have chocolate, but the tobacco and leather kind of cut it. To be honest, I've never been much of a Pink Floyd fan, so that part doesn't really resonate with me (reminds me of my troubled teens). I did get the poster as well!
I finally got a bottle of Comme des Garçons Jaisalmer (50 ml). I was not expecting to like it much and it is actually quite a beautiful incense.
It's really weird but the staff at Barneys always seems to steer me away from Comme des Garçons, so I ordered it online.
I got a travel size of Frédéric Malle Monsieur. (10 ml). It kind of reminds me of Comme des Garçons Luxe: Patchouli, although not quite as interesting. I guess extra added levels of patchouli don't make that much of a difference. 10 ml will last me quite a while.
I did get another but I want to devote more space to it, so I'll have another post.
Okay, so the bag event. I bought a bell jar of Muscs Koublaï Khän, which i have been meaning to buy for a while. I do still have MKK in the spray bottle, but I feel it belongs in a bell jar. Likewise, Bornéo 1834, which I will no doubt get the next bag event.
I also got L'Incendiaire (50ml). Yes, I know I know, I just got Veilleurs de Nuit so TWO Section d'Or bottles in a month or so. I did have over $100 in Barneys gift cards, so the damage wasn't quite so bad.
I won't be able to confess any of this on Now Smell This's quarterly confession.
I was, if it's any consolation, showered with both men's and women's bags and extras.
I've actually got a lot of things on order. Barneys had their fall bag event, so got some things at that time which haven't been delivered yet. They did have Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle in the export bottles for sale online, so I ordered one of those directly off the web site. Observant readers will notice that I already have this in a bell jar.
After dancing around it for years, I also got a bottle of Parfum d'Empire Wazamba. It definitely works better in cooler weather (and it's been really hot here lately). I'm looking forward to wearing it later in the year.
My purple card eventually did show up, so today I decided to go to Barneys. Fortunately, Patty was there.
I had every intention of getting Comme des Garçons Luxe: Patchouli but, would't you know, they had none in stock, although it was displayed.
The big news is, though, that Barneys New York in Chicago has started carrying the Serge Lutens bell jars. I had noticed that Aedes de Venustas started carrying then and, since Barneys in New York and Beverly Hills both carry them, I was really wondering why Chicago wouldn't have them as well! Well, now they do!
(Recent news also has that a Serge boutique will be opening in Moscow.)
Anyway, after some deliberation, I decided to get yet another bell jar, this time, Fourreau Noir. This is my third fourth bell jar this year.
Of course, I don't have this particular bell jar.
Just now, I got a call from the building office that a package had arrived: Pascal Morabito Or Black! Weirdly, I had found this on Amazon.com for something like $43! And it was from a store in fancy France! Anyway, it was supposed to be delivered between December 14 and January 4... so it came very early!! I am impressed. I am not sure if this is the old version or the reformulation (I'm assuming the latter), so I'll have to compare my mini with this.
This is the bottle I have.
Fourreau Noir photo from The Non-Blonde. Or Black photo from Basenotes.
Trillian (sp?), an SA at Barneys, organized an event for last night involving wine-drinking and how it enhances the whole scent experience. I'm not sure that the objective was met, but it was a whole lot of fun, led by L'Artisan people Amy and Karen from the New York headquarters.
I'm not much of a wine drinker, truth be told, but Trillian did a good job selecting wines, I thought. The perfumes they chose to focus on were: Rose Privée, Mandarine, Ambre Extrême, and Amour Nocturne. Three out of the four I do not own, which I was glad for, as it made the event more interesting for me. I was able to appreciate Mandarine and Rose Privée much more than I had originally and might reconsider purchase at some date. I still don't like the amber, but it made me realize why I liked Amour Nocturne in the first place. The Explosions d'Émotions have not gone over too well, at least critically, from what I can tell. Paired with a dessert wine, it really shone among the night's offerings.
In addition to not really knowing much about wine, I haven't had a drink in ages. Consequently, I was rather tipsy by evening's end (we had four full glasses of wine within an hour and a half, with some nibbling on cheese and bread). Hopefully, I wasn't too giggly.
Five attended (among 17 or so who RSVP'ed, so there were a lot of leftovers). L'Artisan was extremely generous to attendees. With a L'Artisan purchase, we received a bag which included: La Chasse aux Papillons shower gel, a 175 g Tilleuls au Vent candle, a small bottle of La Provence room spray (which they don't actually sell -- it probably smells of the new Boules de Provence), and a 50 ml bottle of either Timbuktu or Nuit de Tubéreuse -- I chose the latter, as I'm not much of a fan of Timbuktu. Anyway, this was completely unexpected. I was thinking we would get a 15 ml of something and leave it at that. Very nice. Probably over $200 in giveaways!
I ended getting a bottle of Caligna as my purchase, which I had planned on. I probably should have gotten the Mandarine or Rose Privée, as I would probably get more use of those than of Caligna. Or maybe backup bottles of Tea for Two or Dzing! Well, it just adds to my collection.
Anyway, it's nice to see me getting out and about. I've tended to be a hermit lately outside of work.
My usual sales assistant at Barneys, Andy, has left and is now working at Neiman Marcus. I went to Barneys on Wednesday to see what they had of interest. A bunch of other sales assistants swarmed all over me trying to help. I must be a pretty lucrative customer to get so much attention. The sales assistant I used prior to Andy, Patty, was there, and I would like her to get the commissions if she could. She got sidetracked while the other people were all over me, so I decided to leave without getting anything. I told Patty I would come back later in the week. She said she would not be there Friday (today), so....
Yesterday, I stopped into Saks. I wanted to try the Dior Collection Priveé. I was able to do this, but he SA there kept trying to second guess what I liked, so I left, annoyed. I also wanted to try the Cartier Les Heures de Parfum, since they were advertised on the Saks website and there were many I have not yet smelled. Sadly, there were none of Les Heures on site. I suppose I could have just walked a few blocks to the Cartier store. At the Saks Cartier counter, some lady sprayed me with Pasha, or some flanker of Pasha. Whatever it was, it was a hateful woody amber, and pretty much ruined my whole day for trying anything else!
I went again to Barneys. Well, Patty was not there. Again, the SAs were all over me. In loyalty to Patty, I figured I would get something that was not so expensive and save that for whenever Patty was there. So, I got Comme des Garçons 2 Man, which I always figured I would get.
In the mad flurry to get my sale, the various SAs showered me with various samples, including Helmut Lang Cuiron, which I had been interested in trying. I got an enormous (maybe 3 ml) sample of Serge Lutens L'Incendiaire, the new $600 for 50 ml Serge. Very nice, but not $600 worth of nice. At least not at this second. In its defense, it is extraît. Fortunately, the sample should last me six months or more!
Well, today is Hallowe'en. Looks crappy out. It was snowing a bit earlier, but has stopped. I was thinking of going to Neiman's to check on Andy. I was told he is working the Creed counter. I'm not a super Creed fan, so do not foresee Andy getting much of my business. Who knows? Maybe I'll find some Creed I like. I almost never voluntarily walk into Neiman's, though, and will only do so to see Andy.
Barneys had their semiannual bag event, which ended yesterday I met Sara for lunch, and she brought her friend Shannon again... so the three of us headed over to Barneys.
Sara bought makeup... I got Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena.
A few weeks ago, I got these shoes. I've been kind of embarrassed about getting them. They were super expensive, although what I paid was $600 less than their selling price. I'm also not sure about when I would have the chance of wearing them. Well, here they are:
I guess Alexander McQueen put out a bunch of things with this motif for last fall. I like the suits with the stained glass. I'm not sure about wearing a whole outfit with the design, though. For me, just the shoes are good.. I wouldn't want to overdo it. The women's dresses and purses, though look nice. A scarf might work, too, for either men or women. But I am happy with the shoes.
When I first saw the shoes, I kept thinking of a scene in the movie, Performance, towards the beginning, when James Fox, as a gangster, is trying to rent a room in reclusive rock star Mick Jagger's house to escape police and other gangsters. Mick Jagger is saying he doesn't want any tenants. James Fox is smoking a cigarette, and an ash falls to the floor, atop an oriental rug. Mick tells Fox, that rug is 200 years old. Fox just says, "Valuable antique, is it?" Anyway, when I saw the shoes, the image from the film of the ashes falling to the rug kept coming to my head.
Today, I went to Barneys. They were having yet another bag event. Ashley had called me Thursday to ask me to come to a L'Artisan thing that was also going on today. The last time there was a L'Artisan thing at Barneys, I was on my way to Japan, and couldn't make it.
Anyway, the L'Aritisan event coincided with the release of their Explosions d'Émotions trio, Amour Nocturne, Déliria, and Skin on Skin.
For some reason these come in 125 ml bottles, and kind-o-deluxe packaging.
Don't know about you, but whenever I hear Explosions d'Émotions, this song goes running through my head.... where it has been stuck all day. Maybe I'm showing my age.
Anyway, I liked all three of these. Déliria is the weirdest scent L'Artisan has come out with in a while. I'm not sure how to describe it. Delirious kind of fits. On another customer at Barneys, it was very sweet. On me, not so much, thank you. Skin on Skin is a nice leather -- non-sweet for all you who were wondering. The closest I can think of is Tom Ford Tuscan Leather. I'll have to compare.
The woman from L'Artisan was lovely. I was kind of confused at one point, because all press I have read lists gunpowder as a note in Amour Nocturne. The woman from L'Artisan said, no, it is in Skin on Skin. Smelling the latter, I do smell it there, and not in Amour Nocturne. So I don't know what to think about this. Even the L'Artisan site says gunpowder is in Amour Nocturne.
I ended up going home with a bottle of Déliria, along with an atomizer full of Skin on Skin. If I wanted to shell out all the money, I could have gone home with all three full bottles, which would have been signed by Bertrand Duchaufour. Well, now. Other perks include a 15 ml bottle of La Chasse aux Papillons, which, you know, is not me! I'll probably give it to Janet. Continuing with my free-association trend today, whenever I hear La Chasse aux Papillons, I think of being chased by a pack of these things:
In the 1960s, Mattel had a line of their Liddle Kiddle dolls called Kiddle Kolognes, with scented dolls in perfume bottles. To me La Chasse aux Papillons smells exactly like the doll Janet had when we were kids, Honeysuckle Kiddle.
No wonder we grew up so twisted!
I had a selection of the minis to choose from, and I had the other ones already, or didn't like. (I think they were Mûre et Musc Extrême [which I hate, actually] or Premier Figuier.)
The bag from the bag event actually was very nice, with more that I can use than usual. I think Andy gave me double on certain items since I am such a good customer/easy mark. I'll talk more about some of what I got in a later post.
Déliria photo from L'Artisan Parfumeur. Papillon photo from thedogtrainingsecret.com Kiddle Kologne photo from etsy.com.
I had some kind o training session for work downtown yesterday so figured I would drop in Barneys on the way home, since I hadn't been there in months. Neither Andy nor Ashley were there so I should have just left. I ended up talking with this young'un named Ricky who I have never met before, and this woman who for some reason I can't remember her name. She kept trying to get me to buy Byredo's 1996 or whatever it's called. I kept insisting the picture of the baby was important and she wouldn't believe me. She finally looked it up online and found out what that was all about. Anyway, I had fun. Ricky was fun to talk with.
They had Comme des Garçons Stephen Jones which I had never seen there before, and that is what I ended up walking out of there with.
I had also ordered a pair of Havaianas espadrilles, which were on sale for $19. I figured I could have a fresh pair for next year.
While I was at it I got the Laundress/Le Labo Rose 31 laundry detergent. I thought I would give it a go. I'll fill you in once I try it. $45 for a teeny bottle of detergent is kind of ridiculous, though. We'll see how long it lasts.
Stephen Jones photo from Amazon.com Havaianas and The Laundress/Le Labo photos from Barneys New York
