I'm getting used to my new home. To giant billboards to Hezbollah and Hardee's burgers, to neighbourhood cosmetic treatment clinics, to labyrinthine streets, to complicated community divisions. Over the Easter break I walked for miles through the city. Street names being meaningless, I tried navigate by landmarks - some visible, some existing only in the social memory, as in "Yanni, you know, where X used to be, before it moved / went out of business / changed names / was torn down..."
You can watch Beirut growing and changing like a form in a petri dish. The skyline seethes with cranes, and construction crews populate nearly every city block, building up, up, up, as if to overcome the atmosphere of uncertainty. Unrest is so close here. People say, nothing is certain; there is no alternative but to live in the moment.
It's been a long time since I've lived anywhere where hair, lips, heels, sunglasses, handbags, jewels, and perfume are taken so seriously. This is, after all, the land of Mika and Elie Saab. Beirut's reputation for highly manicured party-goers is no joke. I can't say I aspire join the ranks (it looks like a LOT of work), but I do enjoy the cultural celebration of perfume. In the past week I've encountered rose attar after Easter Mass, Paco Rabanne from a passing a taxi, Roberto Cavalli's big floral on a man in a department store, Tuscan Leather in the street, and Alien in the office. The ethos seems to be, "spray bravely" and if everyone's doing it, well... This weekend I wore a generous helping of Red Cattleya to a cabaret and it really was le parfum juste!
Newly courageous, the next day I let an SA spray me with Habanita (EDT and extrait). She and the rest of the friendly staff exclaimed helpfully about how it "spread out" as I moved. Indeed it did, like a sonic boom - first of astringent bitterness, then dry, dusty, sweet powder. I hated it, and worried about scent-torturing the taxi driver who drove me home. It was so overwhelming that I had to take a bath and a day-long vacation from perfume.
For fun, here's Mika doing what he does...what perfume does this song make you think of??
You can watch Beirut growing and changing like a form in a petri dish. The skyline seethes with cranes, and construction crews populate nearly every city block, building up, up, up, as if to overcome the atmosphere of uncertainty. Unrest is so close here. People say, nothing is certain; there is no alternative but to live in the moment.
It's been a long time since I've lived anywhere where hair, lips, heels, sunglasses, handbags, jewels, and perfume are taken so seriously. This is, after all, the land of Mika and Elie Saab. Beirut's reputation for highly manicured party-goers is no joke. I can't say I aspire join the ranks (it looks like a LOT of work), but I do enjoy the cultural celebration of perfume. In the past week I've encountered rose attar after Easter Mass, Paco Rabanne from a passing a taxi, Roberto Cavalli's big floral on a man in a department store, Tuscan Leather in the street, and Alien in the office. The ethos seems to be, "spray bravely" and if everyone's doing it, well... This weekend I wore a generous helping of Red Cattleya to a cabaret and it really was le parfum juste!
Newly courageous, the next day I let an SA spray me with Habanita (EDT and extrait). She and the rest of the friendly staff exclaimed helpfully about how it "spread out" as I moved. Indeed it did, like a sonic boom - first of astringent bitterness, then dry, dusty, sweet powder. I hated it, and worried about scent-torturing the taxi driver who drove me home. It was so overwhelming that I had to take a bath and a day-long vacation from perfume.
For fun, here's Mika doing what he does...what perfume does this song make you think of??
