Scents of New York City in April

In all these years, I had never visited New York city.   I kept setting it aside, as a treat, to be savoured at just the right time.  That time arrived this spring, when some of my art-enthusiast cousins proposed a trip.  So here we are, sharing a little flat in Brooklyn, learning the subway-and-bus system, exploring neighbourhoods, people-watching, and losing ourselves for hours in stupendous, glorious art.

I have, of course, wandered off-course a few times, into the bowels of Bergdorf Goodman and the main hall of Sak's.  My goodness, the sales staff in the Bergdorf beauty hall are assertive...I respect their resolve, as well as their willingness to share samples with me.  The sales manager at By Kilian was charmingly dramatic, making me a sample of Straight to Heaven with such a flourish that he doused me and himself with almost as much juice as went into the vial.  Fortunately, I love its warm, dry, lazy-creamy booziness, and spent the rest of the day in a happy swirl of scent.  Straight to Heaven reminds me of a lion basking in the sun - seductive, beautiful, and so sexy you want to rub against it...until you notice its lethal price tag.

My full bottle treat on this trip: Chanel Beige.  After sniffing it in Ottawa, then London, and now here, I simply gave in...the honey-frangipani-hawthorne combination is, to me, just right.

Other fragrant treats?  The tea and spice stand at Grand Central Market, and the pleasure of exploring C.O. Bigelow Pharmacy.  What a lovely place.  I may have to sneak back there for some I Profumi di Firenze Vaniglia del Madagascar...  And this evening, the mixed fragrance of flowers at Brooklyn Botanical Garden: narcissus, cherry, daffodil and magnolia.  Lovely.

Perfume section at C.O. Bigelow 

Photo by Axum.

Traveling with perfume part 2: what to take and how much?

I never get packing completely right.  The guiding principles are simple: pack lightly; choose multi-purpose items; opt for a colour theme.  How to do this when you love eclectic clothes, shoes, jewelry, and perfume, and when you're traveling through places and situations that are radically different from each other?  When in one context, it's difficult to imagine yourself in the next, particularly if you've never been there before.  So there's always something in the suitcase turns out to be unusable - something maddeningly bulky, yet too valuable to shed.

On my last work trip (London and Delhi), I took decants of Aqua Allegoria Mandarin Basilic, l'Occitane Labdanum de Seville (a staple winter scent), and Montale Aoud Red Flowers (one of my perfume loves).

In the end, I only wore Mandarin Basilic.  It helped to combat the rain in London and the burnt dung scent of Delhi.  The other decants stayed in their Ziploc and returned home mournfully, the passed-over debutantes.  At least they didn't take up as much space as the unworn high-heeled boots...what was I thinking?

Mandarin Basilic is certainly versatile; but it was too simple to be entirely satisfying.   It just wasn't grand enough to support an unexpected (and unexpectedly grand) garden party in New Delhi...and really, it is in just such a situation - finding yourself in front of grand hosts and a Maharajah - that perfume should prove its worth.  I could have done with some all-out-bases-loaded Amouage  just then, to make me that smidgen taller, an enigma rather than a plain ol' gatecrasher.

Lessons learned: pack for all climates, and for all occasions, from the humdrum to the once-in-a-lifetime!  

How do you choose what fragrances to travel with?

Photo credits
1 - www.track4-info.de
2 - www.namdar.net

Traveling with Perfume Part 1: travel sprays

Since early last year, my belongings have been stashed in a shipping container.  Occasionally someone asks me, "Where is your stuff?"  Last I saw it,  the container was in a warehouse in Beirut.  Maybe it's still there.  Or maybe it's on a freighter, bound for...  Honestly, I'm not sure.  I should follow up.

Of that shipment, what I miss most is the perfume.  As the seasons change, I yearn for certain bottles.  Like...Egoiste!  D'oh...it's in the shipment.  Or Eau des Merveilles!  Um...  What about Parfum d'Ete?  Sigh.

In some respects living without one's things is liberating.  I don't feel as tempted to acquire more stuff, and when I do, I have to shed something of equivalent size.  It's good discipline.

But perfume continues to be a weakness.  At least I have a place to store bottles and decants.  The challenge is figure out out what to take on trips: which fragrances, and how much?

I had intended to answer this question by reporting on my last adventure, a road trip from Southern Arizona northwards.  Unfortunately, all I am able to report is: GRRR, THE TRAVEL SPRAYS LEAKED!

[Counting slowly to 10...]

OK!

Ok...

ok.

So - I'm splitting this post in two.  Let me gripe first about how (not) to pack perfume for travel.

I respect the art of packing.  It all starts with having the right gear.  George Clooney's character in Up in the Air was absolutely right about lightweight, 4-wheeled suitcases.   If he'd been a perfumista (is he?), he would have had something to say about travel sprays.

The travel sprays I used on this last trip were from Sephora.  This is the second model I've bought from them that has leaked, so I should have known better.   A reeking suitcase is not fun and ruins one's appreciation of the decanted perfume for a long, loooong time.

I'm not entirely sold on Travalos either, but will go back to using them, half-filled and double-sealed in Ziploc bags.   If anyone has a good travel spray bottle to suggest, please let me know.  I find roller-ball bottles pretty good, though not the refillable kind.

Meanwhile, here's an entirely gratuitous road trip photo...

 Somewhere in deepest darkest Nevada

Eau de Airport (or, remembering Routes at LAX)

www.flickr.com

I'm waiting in one of the more provincial terminals of LAX today.  The lone duty free selling perfume emits chemical patchouli sherbet, which plays off smoggy ozone, silkscreen ink from a Harley Davidson outlet, overused washrooms, junk food and espresso grounds.  Eau de Airport.  Sigh.

I wonder how, as students, we ever got excited about airport lounges as field sites for a 'new' anthropology of travel.  Twenty years on, it seems so dated.  This is a placeless place, and it's simply dreary.  Those who have them are focused on their phones and iPads, those who don't are dozing or knitting or eating.  We're all in stasis.  Beam me outta here.

Perfume in the News: Everything

I'm a bit behind with reading...just came upon this NYT article from a few weeks ago, about a conceptual art project commenting on the volume of mainstream perfume releases.  Artists Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug have created a self-explanatory compilation perfume, "Everything."