Perfume Journal

“Look at her go! She looks like a little witch,” my grandmother said to me, laughing in delight. We were standing in one of the upstairs bedrooms of my family’s farmhouse, looking out across the fields to where my youngest sister had gone skating on a stretch of ice that had formed in a depression in the wetlands of our lower cow pasture, about a half-mile away. My sister was about eight-years old at the time and my grandmother, who was visiting us during the Christmas holidays, was worried when she trudged out alone in the snow and the bone-chilling cold. “Someone should go with her,” she had said to my parents earlier, while giving me and my other sister an imploring look, but as it had gone unheeded, she was now upstairs in the bedroom keeping watch over her. Then we both were, because I had gone up to tell her not to worry—and in her usual way, my grandmother was drawing me in to observe the small things you remember some thirty-five years later.

Powdery snow flew up from the ice as my sister swept it with a broom she had taken with her, and beneath her red coat fluttered the tail of her flannel night gown that she hadn’t bothered to change out of, wearing it like a long smock-top over her jeans. Around and around the small pond she went, skating and sweeping up snow as fast as she could go, a study in movement, which, now that I think about it, is what her life has always been about. It’s a different kind of motion now, its thrust and whirl directed towards moving her daughters through all the spheres of life that will make them more fit and capable, but she has never slowed down.

Like a spin on the ice!—those are the words and feelings that come to mind as I wear Geranium Pour Monsieur (created by Dominique Ropion for Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle) in these days of late winter, no doubt spurred by recent evenings spent watching the Winter Olympics on television. With its opening whoosh of mouthwash-cold peppermint and, on the heels of that, a cool and astringent herbalness, subtle but apparent, as the scent transitions into rosier territory, Geranium Pour Monsieur possesses a wonderful sense of olfactory movement. But only in its first ten to twenty minutes of wear. After its initial bold acrobatics it settles into becoming a fresh-faced skin scent—nothing more, really, but nothing less. A serene glide of white musk, as cottony as a fresh dusting of snow, and as cool as the snow too, always accompanied by a whisper of mint or anise (I detect both).

There is an intimation (“imitation” would be too strong a word) of rose in the drydown that, along with the musk, softens the fragrance into something that can be worn just as easily by women as by the male audience it was intended for. This light rosiness is also accompanied by an equally deft touch of incense, adding a bit of sophistication. Often I wish that Geranium Pour Monsieur had a longer transition from top notes to dry down—or that its initial fierceness did not so easily succumb to quiet softness; it suffers an arrested development on account of the large dose of musk, in my opinion. That said, this is one of the few clean musk fragrances that I have ever liked. It is perhaps the only musk fragrance to ever capture sparkle—and not only to capture sparkle but to magically suspend it-- thanks to perfumer Dominique Ropion’s clever employ of the peppermint note.

When the dog days of summer that seem so far away roll around again, I have a feeling I’ll be reaching for this refreshingly minty little number often. Until then, I am equally glad to have it accompany me through these last days of winter, and to remind me of that moment, years ago, when I observed my sister whirling with the ecstasy of a dervish on the glistening ice nestled between the pale reeds of the bottom pasture.

Geranium Pour Monsieur is available from the Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle website and boutiques, as well as from Barneys.com, where it is currently priced at $140 for a 50-ml bottle or $210 for 100 ml.

Samples and decants of Geranium Pour Monsieur are also available on my website; see perfume catalog for sizes and prices.

Image of ice skater, top of page, is from JerchoValleyInn.com.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 3/8/2010.
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When you need to get his attention...

And when you need to keep it...

When you need to teach him a lesson...

And when you need to teach him how to make it up to you...

When you need to take his big-money plans into your own well-manicured hands...

And when, failing all else, you need to consider Plan B...

For any time that you need to put on your big girl perfume and deal with it?

L'ARTE DI GUCCI eau de parfum

It’s the kind of perfume that reminds me of gangster moll and Hollywood starlet Virginia Hill (played by Annette Bening in the 1991 film Bugsy): drop-dead gorgeous and demanding, but with a feline suaveness about it too. L’Arte di Gucci eau de parfum gives off an air that seems poised between two worlds: the glamorously decadent world of the nouveau riche to which it belongs most of the time, and the more quietly- sophisticated Old Money world to which it aspires at least some of the time.

The best way to describe it in straight-forward terms is to compare it to another very well-known fragrance: Clinique Aromatics Elixir. As you’ll see below, L’Arte di Gucci and Aromatics Elixir share many of the same notes, both are rose-chypres, and to my nose, they are quite similar in terms of their actual smell. There is a world of difference between them, however, in terms of their blending. My problem with Aromatics Elixir is that, while it is quite beautiful and complex in its structure, it is also aggressive and overpowering to the point of being brash. L’Arte di Gucci, on the other hand, is all about clever artfulness in employing such beauty; in other words, there is that same element of reckless showiness about L’Arte di Gucci, but its very smooth blending also imparts an air of agile cunning.

As listed on my bottle (a department store tester bottle that I consider myself lucky to have, as L’Arte di Gucci is now discontinued and, thus, heavily stalked on the online auction and perfume-discounter sites) the notes for this eau de parfum include: rose, tagete (marigold), neroli, chamomile, cassis, ylang-ylang, mimosa, patchouli, cistus labdanum, sandalwood, castoreum and musk.

(By way of comparison, the notes for Clinique Aromatics Elixir include: rose, chamomile, oakmoss, jasmine, muguet, ylang-ylang, patchouli, musk, amber and sandalwood.)

L’Arte di Gucci is a luxurious amalgam of smells: long-stemmed roses and silk stockings; expensive leather suitcases and pocketbooks; high-end cosmetics and indulgent spa-service creams. It’s the kind of scent that demands its wearer be dressed to the nines—with full make-up, hair carefully coiffed, and clothes that are as expensive as they are glamorpuss-showy. The pay-off for wearing this kind of high-maintenance scent is that it delivers a sense of high-flying confidence. True, L’Arte di Gucci is an artful one, so the message it sends might not be the whole truth when it whispers in your ear and says you can land anything you want—or that you can face anything: man troubles, money troubles, Ole Man Trouble himself. But when you are dressed up in killer clothes and catch a whiff of its gorgeous sillage wafting up from your décolletage, you will know that it is at least conspiring on your behalf.

L’Arte di Gucci by Gucci has sadly been discontinued but bottles (especially in the edt concentration) can be scared up on the online auction and perfume discounter sites. It’s thanks to the fine offices of Rei Rien that I was able to obtain my bottle (in the eau de parfum concentration)—so if you’re looking, do try there first! In fact, Rei Rien is a great site to find bottles of many fabulous perfumes.

Samples and decants of L’Arte di Gucci are also available on my website; see perfume catalog for sizes and prices.

Images of the actors Annette Bening and Warren Beatty are from the 1991 film, Bugsy, and were gathered from various sites. I decided to have a little fun and allow myself to go overboard with the photos on this post...just for something different, I guess.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 2/24/2010.