20 Monday Jan 2020
Posted in Film/TV and Scent
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My husband and I recently watched Season 1 of The Mandalorian (highly recommended!) and we enjoyed Amy Sedaris’s guest appearance as Peli Motto, a spacecraft mechanic who ends up temporarily caring for “Baby Yoda.”
Watching Amy just for a few minutes, and remembering how much I like her work, made me wonder what her taste in perfume might be…
09 Monday Dec 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
I recently received an unexpected text from a friend, the kind of message that makes you stop and shut your eyes just for a second and then read it again more slowly, hoping you misunderstood it at first glance. But no…it was the very saddest kind of news. Our friend Gaia had passed away very suddenly, at the age of 49.
27 Sunday Oct 2019
Posted in Books and Scent
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Sylvia Plath on the Yorkshire Moors, September 1956, via Smith College
Earlier today I started noticing Sylvia Plath’s name appearing repeatedly in my Twitter feed. Then I realized that today’s Google Doodle is also a tribute to Plath. It’s the anniversary of her birthdate — October 27, 1932.
I started reading Plath’s writing when I was sixteen or seventeen and she remains one of my favorite poets. Today, then, seems like a fitting date to share a few lines from Plath’s journals, as published in The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000).
16 Monday Sep 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
When you wander through the 4th-floor section of “The World of Anna Sui” at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), you may notice a sweet hint of scent in the air. This floor of the exhibition is fragranced — a concealed diffuser releases a faint aura of Anna Sui Fantasia (released in 2017), adding a subtle olfactory dimension to this fashion retrospective.
I had a chance to chat briefly with Anna Sui at the exhibition’s preview on September 10 and to ask about her own taste in perfumes and her fragrance collection. Here are a few things I learned…
30 Friday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
It’s the unofficial end of summer! Are you headed anywhere for a last-chance weekend vacation?
This fragrance, Eau des Vacances from Fragonard (2015), would be a perfect accompaniment to an end-of-the-season beach visit…
28 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in Film/TV and Scent
I’m not a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work, but it’s hard not be aware that he’s just released a new film titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Apparently this movie mixes fictional Tinseltown characters with real-life ones — most notably, doomed model and actress Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie.
22 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
This week brought a new perfume launch from the niche house of Régime des Fleurs: Little Flower, a collaboration with actor and style icon Chloë Sevigny. The fragrance is inspired by the rose, Chloë’s favorite flower.
I’ve admired Chloë’s work — and her taste in fashion, design, and fragrance — since the 90s, and I’m a rose-perfume-lover, so I didn’t want to miss the launch event at Dover Street Market’s Manhattan location.
Here are a few of my photos from the event…
19 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
Tags
blackbird perfumes, cartier, cherries, dawn spencer hurwitz, hilde soliani, lolita lempicka, perfume, tom ford
Once in a while someone asks me my opinion about Tom Ford fragrances. Let me try to summarize: I think some of them are excellent. I think some of them are boring. I think all of them are overpriced. And I won’t buy (or review) any of them anyway, because I choose to reject Tom Ford’s branding and marketing.
I’ve heard that Tom Ford Lost Cherry is worth trying, and I’ll get around to smelling it eventually, just for reference. In the meantime, I’d like to mention a few other cherry-inspired perfumes that are worth seeking out.
15 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Books and Scent
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I’m currently rereading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (in order to fix it in my mind before the movie adaptation is released next month), and I just stopped to savor this sentence.
The novel’s narrator and protagonist, Theodore Decker, is learning about furniture restoration from a passionate expert in his workshop:
“After school, amidst the drowsy tick of the tall-case clocks, [Hobie] taught me the pore and luster of different woods, their colors, the ripple and gloss of tiger maple and the frothed grain of burled walnut, their weights in my hand and even their different scents — ‘sometimes, when you’re not sure what you have, it’s easiest just to take a sniff’ — spicy mahogany, dusty-smelling oak, black cherry with its characteristic tang and the flowery, amber-resin smell of rosewood.”
Donna Tartt is a secret (or not-so-secret?) scent-obsessive…
