find a signature fragrance

I’m gonna go ahead and cross this off the list, as I couldn’t be happier with Je Reviens and don’t imagine I’ll have the money/inclination to look around in the near future. Long-term, there are still a lot of fragrances I’d like to experiment with and I’d like to know more about perfumery in general, but that’s not on my radar now at all.

Anyway, I love it enough to say this is the one; I’m sitting here now after an abortive attempt at an exciting/stressful endeavor and breathing it in: it is calming, lovely, reassuring. If the phone rings right this second for a renewed attempt at said endeavor, I’ll be very much in the mindset to handle it, and that’s more than one’s money’s worth from a perfume. :)

Wow, that came a lot faster than I expected! You can imagine with what kid-on-Christmas-morning excitement I tore into my package, then gingerly removed my first little glass bottle with the signature turquoise top, still ice-cold from sitting on my front porch. Does temperature matter in application? I couldn’t have waited for anything. I took my first spritz…

I don’t have the language yet to talk about perfume, not in the heavy jargon the real aficionados use on the fragrance blogs I’ve become rather fascinated by. I can only say the first blast was a knockout, and I wasn’t entirely sure in a good way. I don’t know what I expected: apart from incidental scents I’m sure I’ve picked up on other people, I’ve never really smelled perfume before, and certainly not fine perfume, not such a classic. I read it was a blend of “green florals, orange flower, lemon, rose and violet,” and while certainly I know what all those things smell like individually, what could I expect from a compound in alcohol? Anyway, it took me by surprise. In the jargon, you hear people talking about the phases of a scent, how good ones change dynamically until the final dry down, and I recognized it even if I can’t describe it… It’s a strange thing, but it’s such a complex fragrance: one whiff brought its spiciness to my nose, the next the florals, another something powdery and clean.

It’s been a couple hours now and on just one spritz of the EDT it’s still there, light and present. I am, frankly, intoxicated by it. It puts me in this lovely calm mood—I suppose I’d get over it if I did wear it often, but tonight intoxicated is absolutely the word. It’s premature of course to call this the one, and though I don’t really see myself becoming a real aficionado, there are a few more I read about I’d love to try: a lot of the Carons especially, above all the French Can-Can which I totally would have went for first had it not turned out to be awfully expensive and hard to find. It will also take some living with, because so much of a fragrance depends on personal chemistry and how it sits on an individual’s skin, which I love. In a way, then, one’s signature fragrance is all one’s own.

This is what I wanted: not too sweet at all, quite light, but still wonderfully feminine, and it does suggest the 1930s somehow. I was concerned because it was being recommended for ‘romantic’ or ‘evening’ wear, and that may be true of the EDP, but I find this is light enough for everyday use.

We’ll see how this goes, but I’m very happy so far. :)

Uhhhhhh… note to self, when next looking to frivolously blow a whole paycheck:

http://beautycafe.com/bond_no_9.htm
http://www.acquadiparma.com/acquadiparma.aspx?s=2
http://www.parfumsraffy.com/women/joy.html

and

"The 1930's saw the arrival of the leather 
family of fragrances, and florals also became 
quite popular with the emergence of Worth's 
Je Reviens (1932), Caron's Fleurs de Rocaille 
(1933) and Jean Patou's Joy (1935)."

This is something I’m NEVER going to do (the ridiculously $$fabulous options), but I enjoy the fantasy once in a while. Yes, I’m now looking for fragrances that existed (and were popular within a certain milieu) in the 1930s; I’m sad, I wish I were a fictional character from another place and time, yes, I know it, and embrace it!

Yes, I fixate on things. So I’ve done nothing but research perfumes generally and vintage perfumes specifically; I know my toilettes from my parfums now, and the concept of dry down, and the procession from top note to base note… Now, two hours does not a perfume expert or lover make, but I’m more than intrigued and think I know just about all I can without actually getting to smell some of the stuff.

Basenotes.net is an excellent site with a wealth of information, but in my case it was extremely useful in allowing me to search for a perfume launched in the ‘30s and currently in production, narrowing my options down to some 44. After considering both scents and reviews on most my first instinct is Worth’s Je Reviens may be one for me…

And the EDT is quite cheap so I think I may give it a shot! I hope it suggests the ‘real thing’ well enough for me to judge whether I could love and commit to it… but as it is it sounds lovely and light and decidedly of another age. For a slim investment and as the first nice thing I’ve done for myself (purchase-wise) in a few months, it’s worth it. I’m excited!!!

I know it’s not possible to bottle ‘me,’ but my natural musk isn’t any better and I’d sort of like to have a scent I love and that people identify with me.

I’ve rejected perfumes most of my life because just about every one I had been exposed to was too strong and somehow… metallic is the only word I can think to express it. That, or awfully sweet and flowery. I haven’t bothered with fragrance at all since I went off Bath & Bodyworks sometime in high school.

This is a long-term goal, one I don’t really have the time or money for now. But it’s more or less part of the person I want to be, on the surface level at any rate. I’m looking for something light and not too floral and… well, I’ll know it when I smell it. It may take a lot of trial & error.

First step: next time I buy deodorant find one that has no scent whatsoever. That’s probably what I was going for when I bought my current Dove “Original Clean,” but it’s actually strongly fragrant. Nice, but definitely deodoranty.