Category Archives: Perfume

Fire Obsession

3787507

Bitten by the perfume bug, scent now an obsession, I ‘ve experienced odd things in the past year.   Here’s the latest.  In 1982 the Sultan of Oman set out to restore the Arabian art of perfumery.  He hired the great French perfumer, Guy Robert, who did a fabulous job, as have the other perfumers who since collaborated with Amouage (I think it means wave or ground swell).  I happened to obtain a decant (sample) of one of their attars, called Tribute. It’s a smoky, woody, spicy, rose and jasmine dream. Unfortunately, it’s no longer produced, but luckily there’s a huge market in vintage and discontinued perfumes.  I searched and found an extremely rare bottle of the original formulation on sale in Dubai for $815.

However, my obsession is not that serious.

Still, I mourned the loss, now and then opening and sniffing my meager 1 ml decant.  Then I had an inspiration.  I went to the perfume site parfumo.net, looked up Tribute’s notes and typed them into the search engine.  Perhaps  an affordable smell-alike existed!  Sure enough, Mary Greenwell, a London perfumer, had a perfume called Fire, just out this year.  It contained all but one of Tribute’s notes (ingredients)!

I searched for a decant.  None available.  I searched for an FB (full bottle).  Turns out Harrod’s (London department store) sells Fire for a price I might pay for a blind buy.  Then tragedy.  As I tried to add Fire to my basket, I saw the dread sign:  “UK delivery only.”  Frantic, I searched Amazon, searched ebay, searched every outlet I could think of.  No Fire anywhere.

I imagine I’ll survive.  After all, this is better than my hypersensitive nose’s previous occupation: human canary for all things toxic in the air.  I do own other perfumes.  My nose can smell them at will.  There’s no reason for it to upset the rest of me like this.

I’m sure Mary Greenwell’s Fire will eventually show up somewhere.  Searching . . . searching.

 

 

TO WRITE, OR SNIFF PERFUME?

This is today’s question.

About a year ago, something happened to me I can’t explain.  Out of nowhere, I developed an interest in perfume that swiftly became an obsession. Not logical, said my electrical engineer’s mind. My nose overrode and swiftly built a kit to teach me perfumery notes (see pic). In the process, I accumulated more than 687 perfume samples, most free from perfume houses or counters to encourage us to buy an FB (full bottle).

Perfume Samples

Some so delighted my enraptured nose that  it raided my alarmed pocketbook to do just that.  This happened more than once.

I learned my favorite notes are Jasmine, Rose, Bergamot, Neroli, Amber, Sandalwood and Musk.  The next time I make soap, I’m going to use that combo for scent. (Tip: homemade soap doesn’t have its glycerin spun out to make lotion for softening dry skin the altered soap creates!)

I learned perfumes can take us faraway and write stories in our minds.  However, I’m a novelist now.  I’m supposed to write stories in actual books. Logically, I had no time to linger over any other obsession. Sometimes I wonder, though. Did  my body conspire to give me the time by making me too sick to write? (See Not Afraid of Ebola posts)

Now I am well, though!  Nothing prevents my return to The Enemy Apostle, final thriller in The Jesus Thief series.  It’s a third draft — i.e., readable, but not yet what it can become.  In sum, a young boy named Peter gets in an incredible mess in Milan, Paris and New York, trying to educate himself about life. Beautiful vistas, a moment of bliss followed by heartbreak, danger, a betrayal, love that willingly risks its life all await draft four.

“All right, I’m coming!” I promise the characters, distracted, “but what perfume will I wear?”  One sits suggestively amid my desktop’s menagerie. Named after the twilight period when the sun, just below the horizon, gives off a blue hue, L’Heure Bleue is my newest arrival. When I first smelled a sample, I couldn’t believe anything could be this beautiful.  I spray it on  and once again am lost.

IMG_0652

Hmmm. Morning twilight is usually when I start my writing day. It’s past that now. “Hang on, Peter,” I say.  “In l’heure bleue tomorrow I’ll be back.”

If you have a signature scent or favorite notes–if you’re a perfume addict, too, and it’s threatening to take over your life–do tell us about it.