07 Sunday Apr 2019
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Portrait of Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, N.Y., ca. June 1946, William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress)
April 7th is Billie Holiday’s birthday! “Lady Day” was born on this day in 1915 (and died in 1959, far too young).
I’ve been listening to her music since my early twenties but I never thought to wonder, until today: what was her favorite perfume?
20 Wednesday Mar 2019
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Jason and Donkey Doug, via NBC
In a recent episode of “The Good Place” titled “The Ballad of Donkey Doug” (Season 3, Episode 6), we got re-acquainted with Jason Mendoza’s best friend Pillboi and learned more about his other friend, Donkey Doug.
Jason, Michael, and Tahani pay a call to Donkey Doug’s apartment in Florida and end up sitting through a conversation about Doug’s latest get-rich-quick scheme. He and Pillboi have come up with a ground-breaking (?) idea for a combination body spray and energy beverage — imagine the love-child of AXE and 5-Hour Energy, or BOD Man and Monster Energy Drink.
14 Thursday Mar 2019
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Sometimes those pesky algorithms on retail websites actually serve their purpose. I was visiting the Barneys site to price a perfume that was on my mind, and the page made some further suggestions to me — including the “New” and “Exclusive to Barneys” Femme de Poppy lipsticks.
Barneys has no way of knowing that I’ve been a follower of Poppy King’s creative output since the 1990s (when she launched her original line of Poppy lipsticks: matte shades! colors named after the 7 Deadly Sins! art-inspired packaging!) through 2007, when she founded the Lipstick Queen brand, and beyond.
However, it apparently remembers that I’ve shopped for Lipstick Queen products, so it kindly (ha!) shared this news with me.
I clicked, and read a product description, and clicked again, and read a Barneys blog post about Femme de Poppy, and I smiled…
17 Monday Dec 2018
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Were scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers popular when you were in grade school?
They were certainly a craze at my school for a year or two, and I owned a small album where I carefully arranged my own collection of colorful aromatic decals. If these “Extravagant Moodies” had been available, I would have loved them…
04 Tuesday Dec 2018
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I haven’t tried anything from the Homesick Candles collection yet, but this Hanukkah-themed candle caught my eye today. It’s currently on sale for $29.95 at the Homesick Candles website.
29 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Perfume Reviews, Uncategorized
Maybe I’m just in a nostalgic mood these days—then again, when am I NOT in a nostalgic mood? A few weeks ago I wrote a short post about Brideshead Revisited and its wine-tasting scene. Now I’m thinking about the film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun.
Christie’s murdery-mystery novel Evil Under the Sun was published in 1941 and this film was released in 1981. It was directed by Guy Hamilton, with a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote two other Christie screen adaptations, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). Peter Ustinov played Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who (as always) cracks the case.
12 Monday Nov 2018
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U.S. Sailors and Marines from the USS Iowa on shore leave shop for perfume in Bermuda, circa 1943. (Photo by Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
03 Wednesday Oct 2018
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I’m still distressed by the news that Henri Bendel will be shut down in January 2019 by its owner, L Brands, due to low profits. Last week I took a look back at The Gilded Cage, Henri Bendel’s shop-within-a-shop for perfumes and cosmetics. Today I’ll share five memories of Bendel from my own scented timeline.
25 Tuesday Sep 2018
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Henri Bendel on West 57th Steet, via Geraldine Stutz Fellowship/Parsons School of Design
I’m still saddened by last week’s news that Henri Bendel—the flagship store on Fifth Avenue and its various satellites in other cities—will soon cease to exist. L Brands, Bendel’s corporate owner since 1985 (and the force behind Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, et al.) is closing down the brand due to its lack of profitability.
I could ramble incoherently for thousands of words about the ways that L Brands gradually dragged Bendel down into tacky irrelevance and ruined it for those of us who were lifelong shoppers (and I mean, lifelong—I probably visited the original Henri Bendel location in utero). Instead, I’ll share this gem of an article that The New York Times ran in 1960.
