RAJDULARI GOES TO BOLLYWOOD ~ Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations

They chose her for her small ankles and her lovely movement. It had been a long way to come to win the role of Princess Beloved in the new musical film “Bombay Bling” But for little Rajdulari it had been well worth the effort.

Back home in the jungle of the south everyone had laughed at her when she said she wanted to go north to Mumbai to be in the movies.

“Oh little silly,” her mother said when they were washing down at the river. “You can not be a movie star. You are too little and you have rough skin. They do not like girls like you from the country in Bollywood. For goodness sake!” Her aunts who were close by giggled and stamped in unison.

Her brothers were much meaner to her. “Bollywood, Ha!” Gourab trumpeted.  “You are ugly and you can not sing or dance like the pretty girls in the movies.”

“I can too sing! And I can learn to dance.”  Rajdulari protested.

“Maybe you can learn dance like a monkey. But what about that nose?  Not long enough, and your eyes! Ha, they are too far apart. And those tiny ankles will not support you for long.” Said the eldest of the brother’s Chandramohan. “No stop day dreaming stupid girl.”

“They have make-up in the movies. They can paint you pretty.”

The brother’s laughed so hard the ground shook.

“Stop this at once!” The sound of his voice was enough to send the birds above them who were watching from the jungle canopy aloft in fluttering feathered terror. From behind a Jacaranda tree Gajendra appeared in all his great splendor.

The brothers lowered their heads as they always did when their grandfather approached. He glowered at them. Then with one swift movement plucked a fragrant purple blossom from the Jacaranda tree and gently placed it behind Rajdulari’s ear.

 r

   “You are beautiful little princess. The others are too blind to see.”

Rajdulari looked up into his brown eyes and smiled. “I know they are blind!”

Gajendra laughed. “We will go to Mumbai together and show them all.

Now months later on the first day of shooting her very first movie little Rajdulari stood very still while the dressers bedecked her with garlands of flowers and the makeup man painted her pretty.

“You have perfect skin and the most beautiful eyes.” The makeup man said. “Wide set eyes photograph best you know.”

When Rajdulari stepped on to the set for “Bombay Bling” her grandfather was watching from the sidelines. He saw at once that she was the most beautiful Elephant in all of India.

*********************

 

Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations is bright and young and full of glittering pizzazz.  It has a personality that is big, charismatic and cinematic. It is all about being in the joy of the moment. One glorious over the top musical number after another rolls out from the bottle as you spay it on. It is a big bold Bollywood star of a perfume.

 

The opening is frenetic and brightly colored blending of Labdanum, succulent Mango, cardamom, litchi, caraway seeds and black currant. Sweet is the theme here and the litchi and mango mixed with the black current create an effect that verges on the pink spun sugar of cotton candy. Not my favorite scent at all but thankfully short lived.

With the fireworks out of the way we now enter the heart of the perfume. The garden of unearthly delights in fact for here we have a beautiful Jasmine full of dark twilight richness blooming on a warm night in Mumbai. Not to be outdone by this favorite white of the perfume world the air is enriched by a stunning gardenia with support from tuberose, ylang-ylang, a rocking rose and saffron like silky frangipani. Yes it is stunning, the kind of exquisiteness you find in women who grew into great swan like beauty from a pond of full of ducks.

The dry down carried echoes of the jasmine and gardenia as more earthbound notes of woods, patchouli, tobacco and cedar move up the keep them company.  Here the scent is becomes one with the skin and lingers in lovely wafts of memory and light.  Sandalwood and vanilla flicker in and out like shadows on a wall on a late afternoon in the tropics.

I was very impressed with Bombay Bling for the very fact that it is a sweet perfume that manages to move past the sugar and find its heart in the most beautiful arrangements of floral notes. It sings and entices us to explore the wonders of the gorgeous complex music and stunning intricate dance that lives in the heart of India.

BOMBAY BLING ~ FIVE GOLD STARS *****

VISIT NEELA VERMEIR CREATIONS! http://www.neelavermeire.com//

FOOTSTEPS ON THE CEILING ~ Ambre Nuit La Collection Privée by Christian Dior

“Whoever said Paris is for lovers is a liar!”  Barbara thought as she stomped into the Place des Vosges. She dodged a smartly dressed woman who was walking her impeccably groomed poodle.  Blindly, blurrily she stepped into the crosswalk only to stumble into the little park in the center of the Marais. This particular tourist was completely unaware that the beautiful woman with the tiny dog was really an elegant man in drag or for that matter she was unimpressed by the particularly Parisian beauty of the setting that surrounded her. She had been crying for the last three blocks. Nino was gone. Back to Rome and his wife, the wife he had just admitted to having only thirty minutes ago when he got into the cab for the airport. It was a sudden and brutal goodbye that left her reeling between anger and astonished shock. Now, this very afternoon, here she was in the Palace des Vosges with her vacation ruined by romance in the city of love. She had three days left in Paris before she would have to board United flight 991 back to San Francisco.

 

    Suddenly surrounded by greenery and flowers her pace drained to a crawl. Meandering in her morose maroon mood she paid no attention to the handsome old men playing checkers under the Horse-Chestnut trees. She would have taken a photograph of the scene an hour ago. But now her camera filled with photos of Nino was burred under tearstained Kleenex at the bottom her Dior tote bag. The bag  he helped her pick out the day she met him in the Place Vendome, seven and a half days ago when the whole affair began. Well that camera would stay buried there forever for all she cared. She felt the warning sting of fresh hot tears welling up. She looked up and in front of her was a huge statue of Louis XIII on his horse looking impressive in his wig. (Not as impressive as the drag queen with the poodle but a close second.) There was a place to sit, or in her case collapse on a green double sided bench. She crumbled on the spot and gave over to fresh sobs.

 

   People passed her by, as did the shadows of the overhanging branches tracing the sun’s passage west over Paris. She saw none of it. Only the widescreen memories of her last week with Nino ran over and over on the loop in her brain. That wonderful first night at Maxim’s where she tasted her first Amber Moon with a grapefruit twist.  The boat ride on the Seine in the rain that made them laugh, the Eiffel tower and the May roses in the gardens beyond it. Perfumes sniffed at Guerlain, Chanel, and Dior, endless wandering hand in hand heart in throat though the Rive Gauche. Only yesterday the little spice shop where she had smelled fresh peeper for the first time, the tour of Versailles where he kissed her in the hall of mirrors and snatched her heart away from her under the chandeliers like an Italian highwayman. Had it been real or a romance made from slight of hand and pretty lies?  Now that she understood it. What it was, that she had been Nino’s Parisian fling it seemed tawdry and dirty. At forty eight that was not who she wanted to be, that middle-aged woman who goes to Paris for one last chance at romance. Nothing in her future but footsteps on the ceiling.  She studied her scuffed Chanel shoes and tried to pull something of herself together. The sun was  now at three o’clock and she didn’t want to move.

“Bonjour Madame!”  She looked up into the cerulean eyes of an eight year old boy. He was dressed in his school uniform and held out his manicured hand to be shaken. Despite it all she shook his hand in bewilderment. A second boy stepped up and a third, “Bonjour Madame” from each boy as he passed. The thirteenth boy, the last handed her a rosebud. He didn’t shake her hand but kissed her wet cheek. He smelled of citrus, pepper and the rose. His teacher behind him nodded as she passed. It was a smile of recognition and kindness.

 

Barbara smiled back at the woman and wiped away the last tears of her broken heart. Her smile deepened and she looked around her and saw where she was. She knew now that Paris was filled with love, love of every kind.

*********************************

Ambre Nuit from La Collection Privée by Christian Dior is blended with memories of love and its loss. It is a sweet remembrance of things that may never have been real but were none the less as tangible as a kiss in the rain, a look from a passing stranger who has the answer to unanswered prayers. It is a dream wrapped in smoky images and misty forms that make one never want to awaken to the dawn.

This is Dior’s Amber star. It is from beginning to end a lush romantic embrace of the most lustrous amber of the very best quality. Rich and full bodied like a great golden cognac.  Even more so it is musical and holds this note as a beautiful deep tone from a great old cello played by a master. It is not the whole orchestra booming majestically but a beautiful solo in Amber.

There is in the opening spray a sparkle of bergamot and a twist of grapefruit that shimmers like champagne for a few minutes. Pink pepper is the pop of the champagne cork. The Amber is the goblet these citrus and pepper are pored into. As they settle down but never quite abandon the mix a gorgeous Turkish rose is added to the perfume. Like petals tossed in lazy abandoned onto a midnight pool this rose swirls in the center of the perfume to give it an oriental resonance of such splendor the senses are left reeling.

It opens boldly but never goes wild; it has restraint and an elegant dignity that never flags. It is beautiful on a man of great personal charisma and just as beautiful on a woman of magisterial mystery. As with all the perfumes in La Collection Privée, Ambre Nuit is outstanding in its unique signature. Nothing else smells like it in the line.  It lasts for a good eight to ten hours on my skin. The projection is very good and never fails to get a complement or two.

Ambre Nuit is a sensuous silken experience that most certainly is for those with an understanding of and a desire for something rich but not overpowering. Of old world elegance and sophistication, it is a supper at ten and a ball that begins at midnight and ends in a barefoot walk along the Seine at sunrise.

 

AMBRE NUIT FIVE GOLD STARS *****

CREDITS FOR FOOTSTEPS ON THE CEILING BY LANE TIBBS

MUSIC BY VICTOR YOUNG

FLIRTING WITH SPRING ~ CALIGNA by L’Artisan Parfumeur Launch Barney’s San Francisco

Pink winked at me this morning. In the east the sky was that very flirty shade you get on a clear spring morning. At least that’s how it looked to me when I peeked from under my duvet ready for my perfumed Saturday adventure to begin.

Spring has landed in Hayes Valley with the trees along Octavia Boulevard busting out with over-sized soft pink pompoms blooms so heavy they pull the branches downward. Warm at 6:30 in the morning is a rarity here.  At 65 degrees and climbing what passes for “summer” in foggy San Francisco comes twice a year, at spring and again in the early fall. When summer bakes the rest of California we are usually socked in with icy fog, our second winter.  So, early this unusually warm morning as I readied myself attend the launch of L’Artisan Parfumeur’s newest spring perfume, Caligna I felt the spirit of Maggie Prescott move me to “Think Pink”!

 

   Dressed for this spectacular spring morning I ascended from the Muni subway onto Market and Stockton decked out in beige slacks, canvas Converse sneakers and a think pink shirt. It was a glorious morning on Market just before 10 a.m. and still relatively quite for downtown. Market is magical in the morning, with the Ferry Building standing at attention at the Eastern foot of the street and Twin Peaks watching over the city from the west, the last great hills before the Pacific. With its newly leafed Kelly green Sycamore trees marching up one side and down the other the main artery to the heart of San Francisco was breathtakingly gorgeous. The beauty of it always knocks me out each time I come up out of the subway.

    No time to dally on the sidewalk this morning, on I forged to Barney’s just a short block up Stockton. I arrived at 10 just as the doors were opening. This launch of Caligna was to consist of a personal one on one presentation of the perfume by the Sales and Marketing Director, North America of L’Artisan Parfumeur, Brian Kurtz to a select group of Barney’s clients. I owe my spot to my perfume pal Mary Eddington who couldn’t be there and offered me her 10:30 spot. She is off in Paris and most likely at this very moment is in the flagship store of L’Artisan Parfumeur having a ball. Thanks to Mary I was about to have a ball myself.  Having arrived a tad bit early and not sure of just what was going to happen I went into Barney’s fragrance salon to wander around until my appointed time arrived.

I saw Hilary across the gleaming perfume counters talking to a tall handsome young man. I popped over to say hello and let them know that I would be back at 10:30. I apologized for being early but that was not a problem it turned out. Hilary introduced me to Brian and he kindly began my introduction to Caligna.

 

Brian Kurtz and Hilary Rayvis Randal

   Brian was completely charming and warm as he told me the story of Caligna. This new perfume for spring 2013 is a part of the new Grasse Collection along with two equally new scented candles, Le Printemps and L’Eté. (L’Eté, “summer”, was my favorite!) The inspiration for Caligna was to capture the essence, indeed the feelings and smells of the beautiful countryside around the village of Grasse, the very birthplace of French perfume. The name comes from the provincial dialect of the area and means to “court” or “flirt”.

As Brian told me about the perfumer behind the fragrance, Dora Baghriche-Arnaud he opened small vials of essential oils and let me sample the individual notes that go into the fragrance. Dora Baghriche-Arnaud who grew up in the south of France over the course of a year meticulously selected scents that evoke the feeling of a warms spring morning in the Mediterranean climate of Grasse.

The Nose, Dora Baghriche-Arnaud

The fist ingredient he presented was Fig. The rich lush and flesh sensuous note was earthy and so delicious in its fruity fullness. Thus the stage was set by this quintessential Mediterranean fruit for the next notes that Mademoiselle Baghriche-Arnaud added into the elixir. The signature fragrance of the south of France and Italy was presented to my nose by Brian with an expectant smile, Clary Sage. This bright warm aromatic fragrance was somewhat familiar to me having grown up in Southern California where sage is everywhere. Not the elegant bright Clary Sage which is new to me but a sage none the less.  This note was sunny and wonderful. I didn’t want to go on to the next note but rather just stand there engrossed in the lovely pictures of southern France the Clary Sage brought to mind. Brian presented the next note on a blotter and explained that this was Jasmine, not your ordinary Jasmine but Jasmine Marmalade. It was brilliant and just the right note to add to the Clary sage and Fig. It smelled like the most amazing jam made of pure sweet luscious Jasmine flowers. I asked him how Dora had made it, what was in it to make it so magnificent. “Every Perfumer has his or her secrets that we will never know.” He said. I laughed “But of course.” I told Brian if they could only make a real marmalade of this I would eat it every morning on hot buttered French bread with a steaming bowl of coffee. Then the resin olibanum like Lentisk was presented bringing with it the olfactory equivalent of cool morning earth heated by a rising sun. This was enhanced by a lush full honey like Oak that rounded it out nicely.  Pine needles are part of the perfume as well but we had to skip that blotter since Brian forgot to bring along the vile. It was no effort for me to bring up my own scents memory of pine needles.

 

The Elegant Presentation of Caligna

At this point I would wait no longer and asked if I could test the perfume. Caligna to my nose is light and soft on my skin and the notes blended into a pure tingling effervescent pop of spring. Lovely and bright, luminous in fact, Caligna is really the perfect uni-sex perfume for springtime or even in the cold months to recall the joys of May in bloom in the south of France. Breakfast in early spring on a terrace in Provence sprang to mind and we all agreed that airline tickets to Grasse were in order.

 

L’Artisan Parfumeur Perfumes, Candles, Amber Ball and much more!

Brian, Hilary and I talked about the beauty of the perfume and the history of the entire line. So many wonderful perfumes are in L’Artisan Parfumeur’s line-up. If you haven’t tired their perfumes do yourself a favor, get thee to Barney’s pronto or the nearest store in your area that carries the line and try a bit of French magic.  Brian and Hilary share a great passion for perfume and it was a joy to visit with them and share my passion for perfume with them as well. When fume heads get together it is always a party! My half hour visit with the brilliant and fun Brian and the ever lovely Hilary stretched into a full hour, how lucky was I? There were more guest due at eleven so with many thanks and a little sadness that my magic time was over, I bid my hosts goodbye.  I was so honored and lucky to have had this opportunity to discover in a very special way this new and exciting perfume Caligna. I hope you get a chance to try it and all of the other incredible fragrances from L’Artisan Parfumeur.

As I headed off down Stockton Street I was whistling and feeling quite in the pink!

 

WINTER MEETING ~ Grey Flannel by Geoffrey Beene

It was more than I could bear the thought of being in Manhattan and not doing it.  So with very little planning or thought I was up an hour before the sun and out of the Park Central Hotel on 7^th avenue. My pajamas were cleverly covered with wool slacks and my feeble California winter jacket, a small bath towel was standing in for a muffler all in an effort to stay warm on my trek. Still the shock of the February freeze was paralyzing and the wind that came with it took the top layer skin of my cheeks off as quick as powdered sugar flies off a donut in a hurricane. It was the coldest I had ever been. But it didn’t stop me. In few brisk blocks and I would be warmed up I was sure of it.

 

   I was struck as I headed north on 7^th toward Central Park at how deserted the streets were. Not a cab or bus, not a person, pigeon, rat or cat. I was as alone in The City as Harry Belafonte was in “The World, The Flesh and The Devil”. Only there had been no atom bomb to leave me alone on the streets. It was just a Saturday morning in the dead of winter.  I loved the feeling. For the time being New York belonged only to me.  I trudged past Carnegie Hall as a blast of steam from a manhole engulfed me and carried Judy’s ghost within its comforting fog. “We’ll sing em all and we’ll stay all night! ”  The wind grabbed the memory of her and whisked it away down 57^th street toward the East River and on to the morning star.

I pushed on up the Avenue. The street lights along Central Park South winked in the icy mist that swirled around them.  There ahead where West Drive cut into the park I saw a man crossing heading east on Central Park South. We would meet at the corner to head east together if indeed he was going to continue east. There was something familiar about his walk, his shape, his aura, just before he stepped up on the curb I smiled in my recognition. As I turned and we fell into step beside each other I nodded.

“Good Morning.”

“Good morning” He smiled. He was dressed like a proper New Yorker for winter. And very stylishly too.

For the next long block we said nothing but kept time with our feet. I could hear music in the air sharp with the threat of snow. Music I had heard since childhood. I was comfortable walking and not talking to him, both of us pretending that I didn’t know who he was.

Just before the Plaza Hotel the man nodded. “Have a nice day kid.”  He disappeared into a glowing golden foyer before he could hear my response.

“You too sir…”

Walking in the predawn darkness with Tony Bennett and not a soul around added magic to my mission.

 

When I reached the Plaza I knew I couldn’t go another block without getting warmed up. I scooted in the side door as quickly as Cary Grant heading for a cocktail and his date with destiny in “North by Northwest”.  As I warmed up a bit along the walk past the Oak Room to the main lobby I remembered that Grant had lived here, also a little girl by the name of Heloise. “Psst! Hey Mister want to have an Elevator race?” Her real name was Liza Minnelli and she had inspired Kay Thomson to tell her tale to the world.

 

Sweeping out the doors of the Plaza like I too belonged there and down the red carpeted stairs onto Grand Army Plaza I pushed into the wind and nearly ran to the shelter of good old Bergdorf Goodman and its glamorous glittering imperious widows. My face was instantly numb nullifying my visit to the Plaza. There was nothing to do but cover my lower face with the bath towel like Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago and solder on down 5^th Avenue. At 57^th on the sidewalk next to Van Cleef and Arpels was salvation, a little silver coffee wagon, more like a small mobile home steaming and gleaming with the promise of hot coffee and Danish.

 

   The East Indian man served me pronto and then slammed the little window in my face against the winds hands that threatened to slap him hard across the face. Mitten-less I cupped my java and turned to behold my objective.

“When I get the mean reds the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and head straight to Tiffany’s!” I barley whispered the line.

There it stood in the very grey blue light at 5:56 a.m., Tiffany’s. I wasn’t cold anymore. I walked to the corner and crossed the empty intersection against the light on the diagonal from the northwest corner of 57^th to the southeast corner. I sipped my coffee and looked down 5^th… 

A cab was coming along at a good clip, an old one from the early 1960’s. It bounce gracefully twice on the dips along the street and pulled up in front of me and stopped. The back door opened and a black satin evening pump extended to touch the street. In a blink of time it was gone. I turned back to look in the window. Just the setting for the jewels was there, the jewels themselves were locked away. I nibbled on my Danish and walked to the next window see what wasn’t there and imagine what might be.

“Here’s to you Truman, and to you Holly and most of all to you Audrey.”  The wind kicked hard against my back and grabbed my empty Danish bag out of my frozen hand sending up against the building and around the corner to disappear down 57^th. My breakfast at Tiffany’s was over.

 

**********************************

Grey Flannel by Geoffrey Beene is a classic from 1975 created by Andre Fromentin. This Woody Oriental has been a part of my perfume life almost since it hit the market back in the first years of the rise of Disco and a new age in men’s fashion and style, along with the ascent of the GQ man and the death of the hippie as fashion god.  It is a classic that to me embodies New York and the sartorial glamour of that city as few other American fragrances can.

It opens with a stylish warm citrus blast of Neroli, bergamot and lemon which are made unusually sophisticated by the addition of a very bitter rich green galbanum and a woody citrus petitgrain. This opening is bright and sharp and swiftly over to be followed by what I think is the showstopper surprise.

Here we move into a floral perfume for men that is stunning in its complexity and daring by today’s standards and ideas for a masculine fragrance.  Spring is in full bloom along 5^th avenue atop the gardened terraces of the deco apartment buildings that face Central Park; it is all here in the middle notes. A sensuous blend of bold Violet, irreverent Iris, rose over flowing the planters, golden Mimose, green heady Narcissus, are tethered to a grounding desert sage, and dirty earthy geranium.  This Sage and the geranium keep the notes all low like a humming baritone cello and pull the chorus of soprano florals into a beautiful masculine tone. It is Tony Bennett singing “Maybe September”, smooth, sophisticated and a little melancholy.

The base notes are a strong foundation of the old standards of Oakmoss, Tonka bean, Cedar and a sharp very green vetiver. This is spiked with a bit of almond that gives the perfume a woody nutty warmth in the dry down.  There is a bit of a soapy feeling too but not detergent or cheap bar soap, but rather a very superior rich soap reminiscent of some of Roger e Gallet’s fine soap scents.

As for longevity it is a real long distance runner. Well paced for the long haul and comes in a winner every time. People always comment in the positive when I wear Grey Flannel. The sillage is out there as is the norm of these old classics from the 70’s so it is something to use with discretion. After 8 hours it moves in close and stays there.

This fine woody oriental fragrance is something for a man of taste and a well developed nose. Often younger noses find Grey Flannel to be a bit more than challenging.  I believe that is from the over glut of the Cool Water’s and Aqua Di Gio’s of the last twenty five years. Not to mention the supper sweets of A-Men and sickly bubble gum 1Millions. The watering down of the public tasted in perfume. Mainstream perfumers have moved away from complex and challenging creations to meet the demands of the buying public that only want to smell “clean and fresh” One only hopes that time will bring style and originality back into the mainstream.

GREY FLANNEL BY GEOFFREY BEENE FIVE GOLD STARS *****

(MAYBE SEPTEMBER ~ TONY BENNETT)

CARNIVAL OF HORRORS ~ 1 Million by Paco Rabanne

Low late autumn clouds pushed the neon glow back down toward the earth. From across the lake the carnival lights danced on the water under the glow of those clouds and it all looked so beautiful. Not even when he reached the entrance, the earth beneath his feet strewn with straw and candy wrappers did the beauty of the traveling show diminish. To Theo’s immature brain this was supper exciting and super duper cool.

 

    The carnies that could haunt the nightmares of most had their good faces pasted on to greet Theo and the others who followed him into the sweetly honeyed money trap. Theo stopped at the ring toss booth. There he dropped his pretty pennies which he had started saving months ago when he first heard the carnival was coming to Los Perros. He was never good at games like that, not like the other boys so the chance of winning a gold fish in a bowl that would die in a week went down the drain with his copper Lincoln coins.

A not very young lady with over-painted Cleopatra eyes sold him a huge cloud of cotton candy that was just a little pinker than her bee hived hair. He washed that down with a sixteen ounce Royal Crown Cola. He rode the Ferris wheel. As his swinging seat went over the top he tried to spit on the two snotty girls from his sixth grade class in the bucket seat below. He missed.

Theo looked at the octopus ride and decided it was not a good idea since the last time he rode it when he was six he nearly pooped his pants on the scary drop. He opted instead for the Zippy Mouse Roller Coaster. No big drops that made his tummy squeamish, just high and fast with lots of fun jerky turns. He laughed as he got off when he heard some old man say to the pretty lady he was with as he patted her bottom. “Never again, that thing nearly broke my back.”   She took his hand and said “That’s okay Daddy lets go to the fun house. It’s really dark and scary in there.”  Why did she call him “Daddy”? Grown-up were just plain weird.

He stopped by Cleopatra’s cotton candy concession to buy his third sugar poof on a stick and noticed for the first time that it was right next to the port-a-potties.  “Eww!” Theo whispered to himself as he gave ten cents to the lady.

“Carful kid” Cleo said popping her bubble gum as she handed him the saccharine delight. “Too many of these and you might get sick.”

“That’s okay lady I have an iron stomach.”

 

  With a mouthful of melting sweet delight he turned around and saw it. The din of the carnival faded and the calliope coming from the marry go round sounded like music from heaven. There seemed to be a magical spotlight on the thing. Theo dropped his cotton candy in the mud and floated toward it. The Galaxy Tilt-A-Whirl! It was red and blue with shooting stars on the shell shaped back of each of the cars. Cars that road a hilly track and spun around a central axis faster than an astronaut centrifuge at Cape Canaveral. He gave the operator the ten cents admission and found a car with no one in it. Perfect!

 

As the ride started and the car crested the first rise he threw himself against the right side of the car. The machine took off faster than a speeding bullet and he was blasting off in giddy spin into space in his very own Apollo rocket. He could hear the others on the ride scream and laugh in delight. All he could do was smile. When it was over too soon he threw back the flimsy safety bar and ran down to the entrance to give the operator a dime. When he got back in the car he checked his change. He had exactly one dollar left.

“If I only had one million dollars I could ride this ride forever!” He thought.

For the next half hour Theo was in heaven. Only when his money ran out and he couldn’t get back on The Galaxy Tilt-A-Whirl did he notice that he was dizzy and that he couldn’t walk straight. He stumbled toward the exit bouncing off the hips and thighs of strangers.

“Careful Kid…too many of these and you might …..”  Cotton Candy Cleo’s voice echoed in his tilt-a-whirling brain.

Just beyond the gate to the carnival behind the port-a-potties Theo got very very sick.

 *******************************************

 Auric Goldfinger

1 Million by Paco Rabanne is an adolescent’s dream of what it is to be rich and cool and very sexy. Starting with the bottle you know you are in for a cheap thrill ride. Designed to look like gold bullion from Fort Knox that only Auric Goldfinger would find appealing as a perfume bottle you are hit in the face with pure commercial genius. The designers know just who they are aiming at with this design, boys who aspire to be cool. I say boys because it has a toy quality to the bottle design. To be honest it is kind of tacky fun. I can just hear Dr. Evil with his pinky to the corner of his pursed lips. “One Million Dollars in gold!”

That is the glitz, the shill to get you into the carnival of horrors that is 1 Million. It opens like a forth of July cherry bomb going off in a cardboard box with grapefruit, mint and blood mandarin. Well at least that is supposed to be there but what I get right off the bat is pure cotton candy and bubble gum. POP! It chews frantically at that bubble gum as the cotton candy machine works overtime pumping out an over sugared cinnamon, meshed in with rose and spices. In these mid notes you are somewhere between a migraine and food poisoning. But hold on, this ride is not over, not by a long shot even though you may be screaming way before the dry down “Stop Stop I want to get off!”  The greasy carnie running this ride is swathed in way too much cheap leather and patchouli.  He thinks he is so cool that the girls will be dropping their panties at the mere sight of him in his dry down get up. He is not paying any attention to you as he ramps up the machine with more cinnamon with a barf inducing amber undertone.

The sillage is killer huge which the fan boys of 1 Million love. Let’s put it this way, if you are in Mid-Town Manhattan and someone wearing 1 Million just crossed the George  Washington Bridge from New Jersey, you would certainly know he was in town. As for longevity it is the Rip Van Winkle of fragrances, I really think it would stay on the skin for twenty years. You could put it on and traces of it will linger on well into the next day.

In the end it smells like a teenager stepped in some bubble gum at a carnival and tripped while hopping around on one foot trying to get if off and fell head first into a cotton candy machine. The bottle screams “Hey look at me I have a gold bullion! Ain’t I cool?” It is the height of bad taste by the way of the lowest denominator in teenage appeal. But if you like 1 Million, then you just go to town with your bad self.

DO YOU WANT TO BE THIS GUY?

1 MILLION ~ NO STARS

MEETING MIK ~ MIKMOI perfume

It was supposed to be just a casual meeting. At three thirty this morning I woke up after only three and a half hours sleep knowing I had to write about him.

I met Michael Coyle who goes by Mik for coffee in Patricia Green after work yesterday. We had been talking about a meeting to discuss perfume and his new perfume line Mikmoi since we had met a few weeks ago at the Artisan Fragrance Salon. On my way to our meeting there were a few texts from Mik that I missed since my phone was turned off. But something told me to check. “I am on my way but Muni underground is backed up.”

I walked on through the little needle park that is Patricia Green at the terminus of interstate 80 that we call Octavia Boulevard.  Young mothers watched their children playing on the jungle gym. Hipsters were meeting at the pop up beer garden; dogs off their leases were having a field day casing pigeons. Sunny but not warm it was a lovely beginning of a spring weekend in San Francisco.

I looked up and down the park as I walked. There was no sign of Mik. I checked my phone. “Missed Call”. I dialed the number that had to be Mik’s.

“Where are you?”

“I am at Ritual Coffee.”

 

My favorite Coffee Popup, Ritual Coffee

We both turned around at the same time and were facing each other. With a simultaneous laugh we met.

Our conversation began as we ordered our coffee. Mik is a fascinating urbane charming man. He is a self described “Glass half full” kind of man and so am I. Therefore our conversation over the next hour and a half over flowed.  He told me about his life and how he came to become a perfumer. Since it was just a casual meeting I didn’t take notes and we agreed on a formal interview at a later date.

Mik is all about diversity and inclusion not only in his day job but in his life and ultimately his perfume. His roots are in upstate New York but early on he heard the call of a much wider and more exciting Technicolor world of adventure and travel.

 

Mik of Mikmoi (photo from Mikmoi website)

He has lived in London, the French Alps, Hong Kong and Bangkok just to mention a few stops along the way. And he has been until now an unmet neighbor of mine for many years. His international life has been an ongoing education for him to an ever widening understanding of other cultures and customs.  Mik has opened himself to new ideas of exploration in human diversity and the rejection of stereotypes. During our visit I discovered that he has a passion for language as well as perfume and all things Japanese. I asked him if Mikmoi was a Japanese word. He explained that it is not Japanese but an amalgam of Mik and Moi the French for Me. Mikmoi, I am Mik.

He told me more about his website and how he came to become a perfumer. His studies with Mandy Aftel in natural perfumery and with Yosh Han have been invaluable in his journey into his new olfactory passion.  Before our visit came to an end Mik invited me for a visit to his studio. So perfume has again worked it’s magic in my life and brought a new friend to me. I look forward to many more meetings with Mik and a chance to have a proper sit-down interview to share with you. For any of you who are in the Seattle area Mik will be at the Seattle Artisan Fragrance Salon in Seattle next weekend.

A wonderful video of the launch of Mikmoi at Artisan Fragrance Salon.

MIKMOI website: http://www.mikmoi.com/

RITA HAS A PINK MARTINI ~ Amado Mio

Something to entertain you and hold you until my next review. Enjoy! (This one is for the lady in the San Gabriel Valley.) 

HEDDY HOOPER’S HOLLYWOOD! ~ Lanier at Scent Bar

Darlings! This is Heddy Hooper from Hollywood bringing you all the latest steaming hot dish on the stars and tinsel town. Big news from Rome darlings, Imperium International star Audrey Taylor who is filming “Incoerente!” (“Incoherent!”) for Italian director Enrico Felluci just announced that she and hubby of seven years Richard Bourbon are heading for a split. I for one am completely shocked at the news.

It seems only yesterday that the much, much married Taylor who snatched Bourbon from his then wife Cecily on the set of the troubled “Pompiea” proclaimed, “Richard and I are forever lovely in love.” Felluci whose film is about a mad woman, who flies to Rome to try to seduce the Pope, is keeping a lid on things at Cinecittà with a closed set. As for the battling Bourbons they have gone from incoherent to incognito. Neither one could be reached for a comment.

Now darlings for some really exciting news! Perfumeista Lanier Smith and an unidentified perfume Pal were spotted all over Hollywood last week. I was determined to get an interview with the elusive Mr. Lanier, or at least a statement. My sources kept me posted with up dates of his whereabouts.

 

 “He is at the Hollywood Reservoir with Vickie Lester”  “He is in Los Feliz lunching at Little Dom’s.” “He’s at the Getty; he’s at The Cinerama Dome; the Griffith Park Observatory, Venice Beach! He is eating lunch with Mickey Mouse at the Blue Bayou at Disneyland!!”

Darlings, all those calls were always a little too late and I kept missing the man! Finally one snoop got me my scoop.

“Heddy he is heading east from Beverly Hills on Beverly Boulevard in a silver Honda. I think he is going to Scent Bar.

I had my driver Parker bring around the motorcycle with the sidecar. I put some extra pins in my hat and off we sped to intercept Lanier and get my interview.

Scent Bar is THE place to buy your perfume in Los Angeles. Forget Nieman’s, Barney’s, Macy’s, or any boutique on Rodeo Drive, as far as the stars are concerned it is all about Scent Bar. Don’t believe me? Just ask Katie Puckrik!

As luck would have it I nearly missed Mr. Smith. I just managed to catch up with him just as he was leaving the perfume palace to the stars. The usually shy guy must have been high on floral fumes from his visit to Scent Bar because he was actually happy to see a member of the third estate and agreed to an impromptu sidewalk interview as long as there were not photos. (The ever present Paparazzi was lurking and got one anyway that cost me a pretty penny!)

 

“So Lanier, my I call you Lanier? What brings you to Scent Bar?”

“Perfume Heddy, what ever else could it be? I am on a very short trip to Los Angles and no trip to this city would be complete for anyone with a nose and good taste with out a visit to the premiere fragrance shop in all of Southern California.”

 

“How was it? Fun I bet?”

Lanier was all grins. “Fun is not the word. Exciting isn’t even a good description. For someone like me who has been reading about the place and watching Katie Puckrik do her videos from Scent Bar, well,  it is like going to church!”

“Church, my goodness, tell me more.”

“I have purchased a perfume from Scent Bar’s online shop Lucky Scent and I found it to be a great experience. I even mentioned to Laura Johnson who helped me today what a great online shopping experience I had with them. They even include a lovely array of samples with a purchase. And by the way I have to tell you that the beautiful and very gracious Laura was so much fun to meet, she is movie star pretty and so knowledgeable about perfume. Bright, fun and helpful, Laura is a real asset to Scent Bar.

 

The very lovely Laura at Scent Bar

  Look, when we first walked in I was a little overwhelmed by what I saw. The walls are lined with the most exquisite array of niche perfumes. I did see some mainstream perfumes like Midnight In Paris for example, but for the most part it is all about the very special and unique in the scent world. Laura was helping a handsome man at the counter but found the time to welcome Lane and me when we came in and invited us to explore.

All the bottles are divided and labeled under olfactory groups, Incense, Spice, Sweet, Gourmand, leather, etc. So right off the bat if you know what you like smell wise then you can narrow your search to what you gravitate towards. As for me, yes I of course have my group favorites but I just have to smell everything.

When Laura finished with her client she introduced herself and showed us around the store. I asked her if she had any of the Frank Los Angeles in stock since No.2 had been my online purchase and I wanted to explore the line further. She told me that the line is out of stock at the moment because it is being redesigned. She inquired about our particular tastes and was happy to show us some really interesting choices. Lane’s signature scent is Sycamore by Chanel so Laura showed him a great selection of perfumes that were right up his alley. I tested so many but found that my favorite on this too short of a visit was Padparadscha by Satellite. Satellite is a fabulous jewelry house in Paris, and Padparadscha which is the exact color of a Padparadscha sapphire is a spicy wonderful perfume with a great red chili pepper note that spoke to me on the spot. So I bought a bottle.”

 

Lanier offered his wrist for me to smell and I have to agree that Padparadscha is a fabulous perfume darlings!

“Oh yummy! And how are the prices?” I asked.

 

“Great Heddy, there is something at Scent Bar to fit every budget from the modest to mega-star.” I have to tell you and all your readers that Scent Bar is a real winner. Before we left Laura offered to make up some takeaway samples of any perfume we liked. Isn’t that fabulous? So both Lane and I have plenty to test and explore when we get home. Anyone who loves perfume must stop in when they are in L.A.. I was so impressed and will make sure to visit every time I come to Los Angles.”

Lanier kissed the air near my cheek and without a word was off in the silver Honda for points unknown in the land of the Lotus Eaters before he heads back north to Bagdad by the Bay.

Until next time, this is Heddy Hooper signing off.  And remember darlings, if the dirt is flying in Hollywood, I’ll be there with my catcher’s mitt.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           SCENT BAR

7405 Beverly Blvd .

Los Angeles CA 90036

Phone: 323 782 8300

Hours
Mon-Sat 11-7
Sun 12-5

website: Lucky Scent ~ http://www.luckyscent.com/

UNCONQUERED BEAUTY ~ Mohur by Neela Vermeire

From the roof of the world Alexander descended through the Hindu Kush into fabled mysterious unconquerable India. This Greek who was worshiped as a god from Egypt to Bactria thought that surely this valley of the Indus was at last the edge of the Earth. When, not if, he took India, the world would be his.

 

   India was unlike anyplace the Greeks had ever seen. The heat, the light, the jungles, the aromas of her splendors were seductive, not to mention the colors that streaked across the sky at dawn when her thousand gods turned as one to behold the land. India intrigued Alexander as no woman or man ever could and in the end would break his heart.

In the valley of the Indus River the true beauty of India unfurled before Alexander. There in the markets he tasted rare pepper, cardamom and coriander. In a Punjab palace garden the air was redolent with roses and jasmine iris violet and exotic patchouli more beautiful than those of the hanging gardens of Babylon or the fragrant pools of Karnack.

Babylon

After the battle of the Hydaspes River Alexander feasted in the high chambers of King Porus under a roof of sandalwood and drank the wine of the defeated King.  Porus whom he had spared sat next to him upon a great leather couch surrounded by his court and slaves and watched with the steely eyes of the Greeks.

“How would you like to be treated?” Alexander said to the monarch.

Porus resplendent in silk and laden with precious stones nodded to the Greek, “As a king my lord.”

 

“And so you shall be.”  He said with a smile that could ensnare the heart of Eros.

Late that evening as Alexander was bathed by his favorite Bagoas, he pondered the mystery that was India. The Persian rubbed aromatic elemi and benzoin into the golden battle scared flesh of his beloved conqueror scenting his body before sleep. Suddenly Alexander covered Bagoas’ hand with his own and halted the ritual. He turned and leveled his eyes on the courtier as he would a city he was about to take.

“Bagoas, I cannot understand it.”

“Understand what my lord?”

“This land, this India, it is so different. Greece is mind and beauty, Egypt is birth and death, Persia is a great bull god. But India, it eludes me. Why is it that I cannot understand this place?”

Bagoas smiled. “India my Iskander is vapor, it is a perfume. It fills the senses but can never be truly yours. It is not to be understood it is to be felt in the soul.”

And so it was that India conquered Alexander the Great.

*****************************

The wonderful Mohur by Neela Vermeire is like the India that eluded Alexander. It is soulful in its beauty.  The nose behind it is the very prolific Bertrand Dachaufour. He has blended a lovely perfume for Neela that is subtle, elegant and simply grand.

This is not a perfume that will overwhelm, not one that takes command of the wearer but one that becomes the one who wears it. It opens in a spice market of sweet cardamom, sharp pepper and coriander with a touch of carrot seed and musky ambrette.  There is a hint of elemi that adds a bit of aromatic lift to the opening.  This spicy mix shimmers like a shooting star that falls into a midnight garden of flowers

The heart notes here in this garden are dominated by the rose and jasmine. This combination is lush and romantic and finds support from just a hint of dark leather. There is moist earthiness of iris in the mix that adds to the fullness of the perfume.

The dry down is a sublime oriental creation of sandalwood, amber, benzoin, a touch of oud that is smoothed out by vanilla and Tonka bean. This is all wrapped in a nice layer of patchouli. In the ending it is a really gorgeous skin scent. This is where I fell in love with Mohur. It trails about the skin with oriental tendrils of smoky fascination.

This jewel of a perfume is multi-facetted that sparkles and ignites the imagination to dreams. Soft in its splendor it lasts about 6 hours on my skin and has a moderate projection. Mohur is not a conquering goddess but rather a wise beauty who wins her battles with a seductive allure.

MOHUR FIVE GOLD STARS *****

1932 ~ Les Exclusives de Chanel 1932 (Along With Guest Review by The Perfumed Dandy!)

The Perfumed Dandy approached me with the wonderful idea of both of us reviewing 1932 at the same time and posting both reviews on each other’s blogs. Without letting on what we each thought of the perfume we dove right in and had a ball doing it. So here they are. 1932 times two.

DIAMONDS AND RHINESTONES ~ Les Exclusifs de Chanel 1932 

The rest of the world is broke and going to hell but here in this town, well baby were in the money.  From all over the country they come every day, young hopeful ex-homecoming rodeo queens and the not so young but just as hopeful. From the dust bowl and impossible impoverishment, from Mobile and Milwaukee and points further east they blow into town with cardboard suitcases filled with celluloid dreams. On that first walk down the Boulevard they wear a smile they can’t hide and stick out to the initiated as fresh meat for the glamour grinder. Mecca of the movies calls to them in the form of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. They always end up there that first day to kneel and press there hands into the cement prints of someone who had all the right breaks. This is where the prayers begin. Welcome to Hollywoodland.

At Warner Brothers someone new to town with soon to be gone platinum hair and eyes one could sing about is carving her place in the system. She is all seriousness as she stands on the porch of a cabin in the cotton conferring with the director. She would love to kiss you but Miss Bette Davis has just washed her hair.

 

At Paramount a blonde Venus is surrounded by as much smoke and mirrors as she is by hair and makeup people. Waiting to board the Shanghai Express she knows already from somewhere in her gut and the slight change of temperature on her face that the lighting is not quite right. Marlene Dietrich looks up above the false walls erected around her and sees that her key light has burnt out.

Too the south miles from Hollywood on a stage at RKO she stands at the top of the stairs all angles and Bryn Mawr bearing looking down upon the great Barrymore. Her big break has happened on Broadway and she is about to make it even bigger in the movies.  George Cukor calls for “action”, Katherine Hepburn’s star is about to be born.

To the West on Washington Blvd. more stars have fallen from heaven to walk among the mortals at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer than any other studio in town. A shop girl is trying to make good as a secretary in the lobby of a grand hotel; she has made herself over and will again and again. It has been a long road from Lucille Fay LeSueur to Joan Crawford and she made her own breaks to get here.  There is still a long way to go.

 

Across the sound stage in a portable dressing room sits the Swede, the hated high heels kicked off she is waiting for her call to “action”. Perhaps she is the luckiest of all who came here to the edge of America. Greta Garbo doesn’t seem to care about being a star and thus shines the brightest of them all because of it. If she really does care she is not letting on. All she will say is, she doesn’t want to be alone, just left alone.

On stage 18 sitting in a rain barrel as if she is going to wash off the red dust of a rubber plantation, Jean Harlow laughs and jokes with Clark Gable. She is loved by the crew as just one of the boys.  She rocks back and forth in the barrel sloshing water on Gable and the boys in the rafters look down from above and smile. This girl is a platinum bombshell of a shooting star made for the movies. She will leave the limelight much too soon.

 

On the western edge of Beverly Hills at Fox the biggest break of all for the tiniest star in Hollywood is about to happen. She will be a symbol of hope to a nation and save the studio from going under singing of lollypops and good ships. But now, on this day in 1932 she is working on a one reeler spoof of “What Price Glory” called War Babies. Just a baby herself Shirley Temple is about to steal the show.

They all would be in their time the diamonds of the golden age of Hollywood, the ones who got the breaks and made it big in this town that eats people alive in order to make flickering dreams for the masses. No rhinestones for these women. These ladies are the real jewels of 1932.

When the police found Peg Entwistle lying smeared with blood and dust at the bottom of the big H at the foot of Hollwoodland sign she was wearing her fake diamond earrings.  As broken and dead as her futile movie career she was a never was star that failed to ignite above the town she, like countless others had come to conquer. No big break ever came her way. It ended with her swan dive off the sign in the Hollywood hills that brought a merciful end to the belly flop that was her career and sad life. As Peg’s body was loaded into the back of an ambulance the morning sun ricocheted through the fractured facets of the rhinestone earrings. They still gave off a flicker of glitter as the doors to the ambulance closed.

 

Peg Entwistle

And the busses and the trains still came loaded with the dreamers that day in 1932. They never stopped and they never will. Welcome to Hollywoodland.

********************************

1932 by Chanel was released in the Exclusifs line as homage to the year that Coco Chanel debut her diamond jewelry collection. Not a zircon or rhinestone was to be seen in that magnificent presentation of stones which Mademoiselle gave to the world in the worst year of the Great Depression.  But we are not so lucky with the premiere of this new perfume.

1932 is not a star shimmering in diamonds from the silver screen. This is only paste in a beautiful setting, faux beauty made of mirrored glass and presented as glamour only to be outshone by the real stars that have come before from this house. No.5, Cristalle, No.19, Sycomore, Coromandel, Cuir de Russie are but a few of the stars of Chanel.  1932 is something brought in from Central Casting, a day player, an extra that fades quickly into the scenery. At her very best she is a stand in for a star like No.19, a pale refection of the real thing.

This Floral Woody Musk has all the right notes that have created great stars before. Aldehydes, bergamot, and Neroli open fast and then are gone. The have cleared the sound stage for the arrival of Jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, lilac and carnation. This mid note arrangement is really dominated by the Jasmine, the ever familiar studio style of Chanel. Somehow none of these notes have the ability to present themselves in a mature manner. Then in the base it goes all wrong and too sweet with the notes of sandalwood, orris root, opopanax, iris, violet, incense and a heavy vanilla.  Too much is going on!  It is slathered with a strong vanilla that buries the vetiver and musk that might have helped to keep this from going to the prom instead of the red carpet premiere. 1932 is immature, a teenaged powdery sweet fragrance that may find admirers in girls under the age of 21. At Les Exclusifs prices they are going to have to be teens with their own sit-coms filming on the Fox lot.

1932 is depressed and failing to deliver the dreams its publicity department promised. Not even a feature length presentation comes from this effort, like Shirley Temple’s early films, it is a short subject. In an hour it is gone and like so many never were stars 1932 ends up for me to be just another broken heart in the shadow of the great stars of Chanel.

TWO SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL  STARS **

************************************************************************************

************************************************************************************

THE REUNION 

Who was she?

No one it turned out had thought of her for years. Everyone remembered her, but no one remembered a thing about her. Not one of them could even recall her name.

And yet there she was in nearly every photograph, almost hidden, somewhere towards the back, elegant, understated, almost, but not quite beautiful. Never looking directly at the camera, never, it seemed, talking or laughing or even, he realized now, even smiling. But then everyone said that no one had looked at those pictures for years. In his case it was true, very nearly exactly twenty years. Graduation shots, something to be taken, registered and filed away with a degree diploma and never looked at again.

Not until the day they thought of a reunion.

Of course they didn’t need a reunion for themselves, as thick as thieves those four from the class of 1992, lunch or dinner at least once a week, holidays together, married around the same time, parallel career paths. Settled.

It was at lunch: a hotel restaurant, in a conservatory, perhaps it was meant to be an orangery? Somewhere near the river? He was certain it was at lunch, over one glass too many of champagne, a birthday, a business deal? Yes, It was definitely at lunch that one of them suggested getting ‘everyone’ back together. The ones who weren’t in touch, the so and so’s who went to work abroad, or into teaching, who married and divorced young, who fell out of favour. Yes, it was time for a stock take, they would all be forty soon.

So he, with his forensic mind, was called upon to track them all down, all the missing so and so’s, all the loose ends and the dead ends and bring them back together again. And it was easy you know, a few feelers on facebook, half a dozen mutual friends, the notice in the alumni magazine and that was it, everyone accounted for. Dead or alive, willing or indifferent or opposed to the idea of a meeting. Everyone except for her.

And no one knew her name. The others said it didn’t  matter. Who was she anyway? But he would not be put off. He was determined that she would not be the only thing to elude him. The University wouldn’t help, couldn’t help, data protection they said. The protection fell away after a donation just large enough to the correct charity. Of course he would be welcome to have a look at the registry archives on the afternoon after he presented the cheque to the capital development fund.

No one had told the archive assistant, fine boned, grey haired, though only in her forties he guessed, somehow too done up: smelling of expensive make up, all powder lilacs and buttermilk irises, no one had told her to make him welcome. She thought it all very irregular and made no bones about telling him so as she led him to the files and back through the years: 2007, 2002, 1997, 1992.

Proper paper files he thought, though not for much longer: she assured him that all this would be hard disk within weeks. She seemed satisfied. Happy to be free of the smell he imagined: the slightly bleached smoke and wax of the copy paper, the incense-like dust collecting on files. No more paper chases he reflected.

She handed him one of those files and he noticed her hands: they were young hands, in fact, despite that grey hair he could see now that she was no older than him, younger perhaps. He started to look through the dossier, every student, their names, their applications, their academic records, exam results and all – so that’s what they had really got – and photographs on enrolment day.

Arranged alphabetically, he went from A to Z without seeing her face. Then, at the end, a file under separate cover. There she was, staring out blankly at him, that memorably unmemorable face. At that moment he realized that it wasn’t her face at all, not her face that he or anyone else remembered.

What they all remembered was her necklace: a striking piece of costume jewellery they had all supposed, a falling star set with crystals and a jeweled train behind it. There it was, sparkling at him through time, wrapped around her shoulders.

He looked down to where her name should be. Nothing.

No name or address, no test results or school references. Nothing.

Just a candidate number for her finals:

One. Nine. Three. Two.

He shook the file in anger more than hope. How was this possible? How could she, of all people, escape him? A piece of card fell to the floor and he grabbed at it, an invitation, in French, to an exhibition at 29, Faubourg St Honore, Paris. And in neat, flawless hand on the back:

“I am going away, I may be some time. I may return, perhaps not.”

No name or address, no signature or date, except that of the exhibition:

7 au 19 Novembre, 1932.

********************************************************************************

For Chanel, 1932 is most remembered as the year in which the house unveiled its first mesmerizing collection of jewellery. The scent that bears the same name is unlikely to do anything to change that fact. This is a peerless example of a perfume with perfect poise, little personality and no apparent passion.

A practised opening of adroit aledhydes with sharp bergamot and neroli feels disconcertingly level headed, almost flat. The transformation into powder and wax floral heart is as seamless as it is soulless. Both the iris and a less latent than had been expected lilac are exemplary in their execution, but somehow fail to engender excitement.

The drydown is to a feint and faintly elegant smoke and sandalwood, with elements of the heart persisting. With a wave of jasmine and an undercurrent of wild grass, there is more depth to the conclusion that some may have you believe. In fact the formal structure is more than adequate but it is also simply unmoving.

For all the evident quality of the ingredients and the considerable consideration that has clearly gone into its composition, this aroma never catches alight. It might possibly have been a very slow burner, but to achieve this status the longevity must be massively improved. It is like something really quite good by a so so scent maker. It doesn’t feel like a Chanel. But it is.

Chanel 1932 is a beautifully made perfume, but it is not a beautiful perfume.

********************************************

The perfumes in the ironically named ‘Exclusifs’ range to which 1932 belongs are the least exclusively male or female of any of those made by Chanel.

Whilst this might not be the most obviously ready to wear for men, if the cut fits, why not?

There are better reasons than gender alone to give this fragrance a miss.

(You can visit The Perfumed Dandy here: http://theperfumeddandy.com/ )